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Paradisa, unknown.
Few people would understand his relationship with the Borgia youth, here in Paradisa, where timelines converge and people change on the castle's whims.
He and Cesare don't get along well even on a good day, but as sons born to nobility they've been afforded a particular kind of skill in dealing with each other. They lock words just as easily as they lock swords, and though Cesare might bow to Ezio's superior swordsmanship, their wit is more or less on par. They each win some and lose some, and every encounter leaves the next a little more tense. Cesare is much younger than he is, but old enough to be a very real threat. Ezio doesn't doubt that in a few more years, with more practice, Cesare could match him, or god forbid even best him.
Yet despite all this, they keep each other's company fairly frequently. On the surface it is about keeping Lucrezia happy, but deep below that it's more intimate, just between the two of them. Something about keeping friends close, but enemies even closer. Something about a desire to protect one's family, even if it means putting oneself within arm's reach of the enemy.
Fresh from her trip home, Lucrezia is seventeen –– young enough still that Ezio would likely have Molotov at his throat for bedding her, but old enough to safely toe the line in a castle of "modern" folk. She is still the Lucrezia that Ezio spoke to and laughed with just days before, but her face is growing more womanly and less round, and her hair is drawn up in the braids and coils more suited to an empress than the Pope's only daughter. She carries herself differently, she walks differently, and her confidence has only grown over her time away.
And, perhaps most noticeable of all, there's little innocent about her anymore.
Ezio realizes that when the three of them -- the Borgia siblings and himself -- have downed more bottles of wine than they care to remember. When Lucrezia's smile starts looking more like a smirk. When he is watching her exchange looks with her brother. When Cesare starts getting a little too racy for strictly familial bonds. When Ezio finds himself pressed between the two of them, the wine drowning out the rest of it.
A real Borgia party, he thinks, stretched out in bed the next morning. Just like he had imagined them.
"Do you think I am still innocent, da Firenze?"
Months ago, she might have said that to him with a big smile, obviously teasing, but when he looks at her now she wears no smile. Instead, she looks distant, even tired, and Ezio feels his heart growing heavy just looking at her.
"That would depend on your definition of innocence," he replies.
She shifts in his arms, laying against his chest. She watches him, searching his face for an answer, and he stares at the canopy above them. Did he have a hand in ruining her innocence, either in her world or here? He may not have started all of this, but he certainly aggravated the events in her life, somewhere down the line.
Lucrezia sighs.
"I have been thinking about that a lot these endless days," she replies. "But I have found the innocence I admire most is 'the ability to still see good in the world.' Would you agree?"
Ezio runs his hand through her hair, winding a blonde lock around his finger.
"Surely you are not so jaded about the world that you can no longer see good in it," he replies.
Lucrezia pulls away and he reluctantly lets go. He watches her sit up, hair tumbling around her shoulders, the sheet clutched to her body in some semblance of modesty but failing to obscure a great deal of her bare skin. She doesn't look at him, and she doesn't say anything for a moment.
"I share my bed with my brother and the assassin who means to kill him," she replies, finally. "There may be good in others' lives, but we're drowning in wickedness."
"I see plenty of good in you," Ezio replies, confidence unshaken, no matter how much he could agree that they were aspiring to new levels of perversion all the time. "And good in me, too."
"And Cesare?"
Her eyes drift to her brother, who has dozed off on Ezio's other side, his dark curls falling in his face and his naked body only partially under the sheets. Lucrezia and Ezio share a look, both coming to very different conclusions.
"Let's talk about fairer things," Ezio says. His head is throbbing from a hangover, and these kinds of politics are complicated enough sober. "What happened last night does not change my intentions or his, Lucrezia. No good will come from trying to justify any of it. Let's just forget."
Lucrezia closes her eyes for a moment, and Ezio lets the silence hang before sitting up, as well. He moves to dress, and though she looks at him as if she has something else to say, she lets it go. She instead arranges the covers around her brother, gazing at him with an expression Ezio just can't fathom.
A real Borgia party, Ezio thinks. Fuck.
Few people would understand his relationship with the Borgia youth, here in Paradisa, where timelines converge and people change on the castle's whims.
He and Cesare don't get along well even on a good day, but as sons born to nobility they've been afforded a particular kind of skill in dealing with each other. They lock words just as easily as they lock swords, and though Cesare might bow to Ezio's superior swordsmanship, their wit is more or less on par. They each win some and lose some, and every encounter leaves the next a little more tense. Cesare is much younger than he is, but old enough to be a very real threat. Ezio doesn't doubt that in a few more years, with more practice, Cesare could match him, or god forbid even best him.
Yet despite all this, they keep each other's company fairly frequently. On the surface it is about keeping Lucrezia happy, but deep below that it's more intimate, just between the two of them. Something about keeping friends close, but enemies even closer. Something about a desire to protect one's family, even if it means putting oneself within arm's reach of the enemy.
Fresh from her trip home, Lucrezia is seventeen –– young enough still that Ezio would likely have Molotov at his throat for bedding her, but old enough to safely toe the line in a castle of "modern" folk. She is still the Lucrezia that Ezio spoke to and laughed with just days before, but her face is growing more womanly and less round, and her hair is drawn up in the braids and coils more suited to an empress than the Pope's only daughter. She carries herself differently, she walks differently, and her confidence has only grown over her time away.
And, perhaps most noticeable of all, there's little innocent about her anymore.
Ezio realizes that when the three of them -- the Borgia siblings and himself -- have downed more bottles of wine than they care to remember. When Lucrezia's smile starts looking more like a smirk. When he is watching her exchange looks with her brother. When Cesare starts getting a little too racy for strictly familial bonds. When Ezio finds himself pressed between the two of them, the wine drowning out the rest of it.
A real Borgia party, he thinks, stretched out in bed the next morning. Just like he had imagined them.
"Do you think I am still innocent, da Firenze?"
Months ago, she might have said that to him with a big smile, obviously teasing, but when he looks at her now she wears no smile. Instead, she looks distant, even tired, and Ezio feels his heart growing heavy just looking at her.
"That would depend on your definition of innocence," he replies.
She shifts in his arms, laying against his chest. She watches him, searching his face for an answer, and he stares at the canopy above them. Did he have a hand in ruining her innocence, either in her world or here? He may not have started all of this, but he certainly aggravated the events in her life, somewhere down the line.
Lucrezia sighs.
"I have been thinking about that a lot these endless days," she replies. "But I have found the innocence I admire most is 'the ability to still see good in the world.' Would you agree?"
Ezio runs his hand through her hair, winding a blonde lock around his finger.
"Surely you are not so jaded about the world that you can no longer see good in it," he replies.
Lucrezia pulls away and he reluctantly lets go. He watches her sit up, hair tumbling around her shoulders, the sheet clutched to her body in some semblance of modesty but failing to obscure a great deal of her bare skin. She doesn't look at him, and she doesn't say anything for a moment.
"I share my bed with my brother and the assassin who means to kill him," she replies, finally. "There may be good in others' lives, but we're drowning in wickedness."
"I see plenty of good in you," Ezio replies, confidence unshaken, no matter how much he could agree that they were aspiring to new levels of perversion all the time. "And good in me, too."
"And Cesare?"
Her eyes drift to her brother, who has dozed off on Ezio's other side, his dark curls falling in his face and his naked body only partially under the sheets. Lucrezia and Ezio share a look, both coming to very different conclusions.
"Let's talk about fairer things," Ezio says. His head is throbbing from a hangover, and these kinds of politics are complicated enough sober. "What happened last night does not change my intentions or his, Lucrezia. No good will come from trying to justify any of it. Let's just forget."
Lucrezia closes her eyes for a moment, and Ezio lets the silence hang before sitting up, as well. He moves to dress, and though she looks at him as if she has something else to say, she lets it go. She instead arranges the covers around her brother, gazing at him with an expression Ezio just can't fathom.
A real Borgia party, Ezio thinks. Fuck.