candybox | Templar AU

Ratonhnhaké:ton -- or Edward, as his European name was, so named after his long-departed grandfather -- lead a dual life. He had lived a peaceful childhood in the village, playing and exploring and learning as any child did. But when he turned ten, his father had taken over raising him, and it was from that point he taught him everything he knew. Of the Order, their ideals, how to think, how to fight, how to navigate in the world of the colonists and to understand it as they did. Edward had not wanted to be parted from his village, from his mother, but from all that Haytham taught him, it soon became apparent that the Templars had the means to protect their home more effectively than he or his mother ever could alone. The colonists were ever more hungry for land, and the power and influence of the Order could quell that, seize power, fight back.

It was a philosophy of absolute control, with no margin for uncertainty or disappointment. It appealed to Edward, although more often than not his father treated him with a certain cold distance, sending him away to instead work and learn from William Johnson. Johnson was liked and trusted by the Kanien'kehá:ka. Edward, now seventeen, had grown to respect the man, but towards the end of his instruction, he had begun to insist more and more that Edward would need to adopt Christianity, if he wished to truly become a full-fledged Templar. The result was an explosive argument between the two.

After that, Edward took his belongings and left the Mohawk Valley, making back for his father's estate in Virginia alone. Of course, when he arrived, his father was nowhere to be found, away on business elsewhere in the colonies.

Always away on business. Only there to instruct him, to give him guidance. And yet the fatherly gestures Haytham sometimes displayed -- those made Edward stay. Those, and the promise he would have the power to protect his people.

The days trickled by. He wrote to his father, to no reply as of yet. He read. He studied. He helped on the plantation and he practised his swordplay. But he was becoming restless, and one morning, when he was poring over a news article (some nonsense about a Tea Act causing unrest in the colonies), a servant barged into the room, breathless.

"Many apologies for interrupting you, Master Kenway, but there's a woman approaching the estate on horseback."

Edward looked up, eyes flashing impatiently. "Well? Who is it?"

"I don't know, sir, but I think it might be your mother."

What was she doing here? Already in a foul mood, he rose, abandoning the paper to go to meet her. He couldn't imagine why she would come all this way to see him, but he didn't doubt it would end badly.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When they reached the manor, he dismounted and the horses were lead off, and as he headed inside, his hat and sword were passed to a servant, proving that yes, it was nothing if not all for show. First impressions matter, after all.

Haytham's manor was nothing too grand or opulent -- he spent so much time travelling that it was barely necessary. Nonetheless it was an adequately handsome structure, Edward supposed, but perhaps that was some of the leftover childish awe he'd first had at being brought to a building made of stone, bigger than any of the longhouses, filled with things he'd never seen before. That felt like a lifetime ago now.

He paused in the hall, and turned to address her again, stiffly: "How long will you be staying for?"

She had nothing to give to his servants and admittedly, even felt a little uncomfortable with them. Nothing against the idea of them, but why have them if she could do things herself? Where did her son's values remain, anyway? From how he acted, it was almost as if he didn't have them. But actions could be deceiving and she wasn't foolish enough not to believe it.

Ziio trailed after him, though her pace was a bit slower and not half as rigid as Edward's. There wasn't necessarily always something new to look at, but she so infrequently visited that it might as well have been an entirely new and different world. It didn't stop her from looking, though, or being slightly curious about it. It wasn't her life, after all, and it was a lie to say it wasn't the slightest bit intriguing.

He garnered her attention immediately and when she looked back to him, she paused abruptly. "A day or two. More perhaps, unless the thought of that bothers you. It is no short trip here. I could some days to recover before I make the journey again."

"It does not bother me," he said, terse, and there was at least some truth to that. It wasn't her length of stay that bothered him so much as the purpose of it. He knew his mother did not agree with his father, that they quarreled often. And that she had come here when Haytham's back was turned to speak with him... What was the purpose in her coming, besides just to see her son? Surely she had another reason.

"How is everyone in the village?"

He said it, but she wasn't particularly convinced. And she could have pinpointed that about him if she'd wanted to. She'd thought to. Was tempted to. Somehow refrained, for one reason or another. How to even begin that conversation? If she'd spent more time with him, it would have been easier. But as it stood, Haytham probably had more time with him and who knew how much he influenced Edward's upbringing, especially with Ziio out of the picture.

"They are as they ever have been," she reassured him. "They're well. They ask me of you often. You should visit them, and me from time to time. Otherwise they'll worry." Otherwise she'd worry, which she already did, but she tried not to let that expose too much of itself in her tone.

"How is your father? It appears he's not here."

"I will visit soon enough," he said, although he didn't elaborate any further. If Johnson's plan was to come to fruition, it would need the approval of the Clan Mother and the sachems. Edward would be the go-between, the envoy in place of Sir William -- of Warraghiyagey, as the man was known as by their people.

Ziio, on the other hand, would take more convincing than most. So he would wait.

"Father is fine. Busy." As ever. And, as ever, finding more time for Charles Lee, his preferred right-hand man, than to his own son. If Edward sounded bitter, it was because he was. "I suspect he will return here once he has finished his business."

"As he ever is," Ziio spoke up without missing a beat, knowing well enough Haytham probably had his own agenda that his son hardly fit into.

And part of her wondered if she should inquire as to the Templar business, but she knew better than to put her son in that position. Did he have any allegiances to his father? Whether he did or didn't seemed less the issue and more that she didn't want to set him specifically between them.

But she found her eyebrows knitting together with some consideration, "You say you will come in short time. Of your own accord?" Because she had thought more or less he kept his distance by his own choice, so that he would come voluntarily puzzled her. Or perhaps she had misread the situation from the beginning.

Templar AU - for Mako

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