Pain in the Time of Festivus - Pistols at Dawn Chapter 20

 The update for this chapter states that this entry, standing at a whopping 14,000 words, will cover the months of January and February. While I doubt that this is the case, we are not clocked in at 20 chapters and nearly 200,000 words. We still have no concrete plot. We still have zero good characterization. 200,000 is the size of a decent novel, and while fanfiction allows more creative freedom, there is always a limit to a reader's patience. I, for one, can't handle this amount of bleating without a good enough reason. So why am I here, you ask? Well, I want to see who gets to fuck the hot French Assassin and who gets to clean up the whipped cream.

The wordcount for this chapter is 190,400.

We moved to Antoine’s bedroom for the upmost privacy. It was lavished with satin, honey-colored curtains that were stamped with organic symbols, and accompanied by heavy sheets of blankets that could keep the next Winter at bay. The bedposts had hung drapery, and pilasters embellished the corners of the quarter with flowery designs that could make a garden envious. A moderate roundtable served as our seating, varnished and prepped with a linen dress over the face and hung just above its legs. Everything else was cast in shadow from this interstice spotlight we shared. The candlelight warmed the side of his ghost-like face, giving it that soft lenity of many shared, Roman nights.

 This is your daily reminder (!) to the reader that this takes place in 1791. This is when people raided houses for their finery and burned down warehouses who docked their employees’ pay. This is when people began dragging the wealthy out of their homes when they found them. If the wealthy didn’t leave for the countryside by now, they’re asking for their head on someone’s dinner table. Immortal or not, Japanese or not, vampire or not, there is no way you would be able to have such a nice house in the middle of Paris without someone raiding it. Then again, Elysia’s boyfriend Orfeo can steal grain for his café and no one bats an eye. Must be nice to use that coloured privilege, eh?

Paris was lightyears away from here, from us.

Alright, let’s walk that back: they are in the countryside. Or are they? Elysia encountered her vampire friend in a muddied alleyway in the Parisian streets; she didn’t have time to pack up and head to the countryside. So they still are in Paris. Or did they use some magical teleportation ability I haven’t heard of yet?

Cups of tea were set, and I felt the steam ripple along my top lip when I brought the rim closer. Freshly squeezed lemon, and a hint of something sharp like peppermint. It had been so long since I drank something other than coffee that I almost pouted from the ancient taste of it.

Citrus fruit is one hell of a commodity, including sugar. Les does not seem aware all of the things Elysia is enjoying was taxed heavily and subject to seizure by authorities at the port. Since Saint Domingue underwent race riots, France lost a huge sugar producer. And since a decent chunk of France’s economy was based on fragrance, flouting around such rare treats is, again, asking for a riot.

Plus, let’s not pretend citrus fruits are totally alien to Europe. You would have eaten some when times were good, Elysia. Pomegranate and the rest can be imported from Iran and Greece.

Three hundred years felt nothing but a blink of an eye to me. It disconcerted me tremendously; while my Rome family lived the rest of their lives…I didn’t. I couldn’t. A blanket of blackness that had poisoned my eyes, my mind, my body –Twilight that possessed me was absolutely to bind me in her hold. And when I finally came out of the haze, when I realized what I had done-

Am I supposed to feel pity here? Three hundred years this creature has been alive and she hasn’t learned a single thing about humans. She doesn’t know anything about the Brotherhood she is a Mentor of and she doesn’t even know about the dietary culture. She’s allergic to silver yet doesn’t know France used silver in pretty much everything during this time. It’s shoddy writing. Let us not forget what she did to Arno, what she did to James, and to those under her: until recently, when her own reputation was threatened, did she start to care. Only when it’s convenient to make this character seem important do these ‘humanizing’ traits come out. I’m not buying it one bit.

"Well...." He drew out a long breath, taking a drink of his own brew before setting it down again. The clank of the cup made me jump a bit, "We looked for you for a long while. When you disappeared.”

“….Who looked for me?” I probed fleetingly.

"Myself, Ameriggio, and Alessio, mostly.” My lips pressed. “Ezio helped initially, but he couldn't exactly leave Tuscany easily. Cecillio and Vitalia wed and left for France and they were keeping an eye out on their end."

“….Cecillio became Master of the Brotherhood in Paris,” I informed. “His statue is in the catacombs.” The place I avoided for that sole reason.

There are a few interesting revelations here. First, if this is the Amerigo that went out on ocean voyages, he had virtually no time to look for this crazy brown bitch. Second, if she is aware of a former friend being erected as a statue in a crypt, why didn’t she learn anything else about the Brotherhood? ‘The pain of him dying’ isn’t enough. Remember, she knew next to nothing about Shay Cormac or the American Brotherhood and didn’t care to learn about the history of either. You expect me to believe she refuses to go down into the crypts because of a dead friend, while going down into that same place to see James cremated?

Glad to see who has the better memory here.

“How long did you look for me?”

“I don't think any of us really stopped looking, to be honest."

That hurt.

It shouldn’t. It hurts to see the author cover for her horrible Mary Sue, though.

"You're family; it was natural for us to want to look for you.”

They don’t know how much you truly changed.

“...It feels like-“ I sighed, finding my fingers fiddling with the edge of the tablecloth, “everything is so...out of touch from me. It’s not....I don’t know if I’ve accepted it, yet. I don’t think my heart has accepted that. That I left everyone I cared about behind. Again.”

Family in the sense she’d easily let all of you die to save her own skin and then gaslight you into believing it was your fault? Sounds more like a crazy ex-wife. In terms of her heart ‘not accepting it’ and how much she has ‘truly changed’, I have seen zero proof of this in previous chapters. The problem with an author claiming something with no textual proof backing it up is evident here. If you cannot prove how your character has changed within your work, yet say they did, all I am going off is your word. If your word is dishonest, then you are tricking your audience. This is exactly what’s happening here.

I inhaled sharply, “You must have stopped looking at some point.”

He shot a look of disbelief, wine eyes protruding to me, "Elysia, we love you. Three hundred years isn't going to change that, and the possibility of us never seeing you again did not deter us. That portal you jumped through – you didn't even hesitate. That told me that it was something similar that brought you to Rome to begin with. That meant that was worth looking into."

That reminds me: where, exactly, did this immortal Japanese vampire come from? JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure? If Elysia can jump through a portal that sent her to the world of Assassin’s Creed from Zelda, and then from Renaissance Italy to Revolutionary France, where does that put Mr. Miyagi here?

And to be frank? Nobody loves Elysia aside from her author. She’s inherently unlikable and has been since her nose got jammed in his book like an immovable doorstop.

“How has France been for you?”

“A shitshow.”

"I’ve seen France in better….times." He moved along, “Why did you go back to the Creed?”

I sat still for a moment, “….That’s all I knew how to do.” That’s all Alessio taught me how to do.

Of course it has been, and you haven’t made it any better. Threatening a novice because he corrected you, stealing grain from peasants, killing a would-be Master Assassin, and not knowing a lick about the country you’re in serves your purpose of doing fuck-all. If you know it’s a shithole, why do you act as if it’s no big deal? Elysia hasn’t suffered at all here. She doesn't know what the average person goes through. If she knew most of France was living at subsistence level, how would she react? Would she still eat tea and cakes with her immortal Japanese vampire friend like a protege of Marie Antoinette?

Second, no, it’s not ‘all you know how to do’. Elysia doesn’t provide any support or logistics to her underlings. Despite working alongside Ezio, she doesn’t do any hard work herself. She doesn’t spend time in the library. She doesn’t take care to learn about the people she’s with. Add the cherry on top with her being crowned a Mentor for no explicable reason and we are where we are today.

“I understand.” The flickering of the candles indicated their diminishing lifelines, and Antoine got up, “One moment.” In leisure, human-speed did he change the closest one near us with a new candle, and I observed his long and lean fingers lighting a match to ignite it to life.

Modern matches weren’t invented until 1828. Burning glasses or fire pistons were used before then. It’s true the Chinese had them in the 1300’s but they were not widely used. Historical research is your friend!

I removed the hesitation as best as I could, “…Where is Alessio?”

"Last I heard, he was down in the Americas a hundred years ago, or two.”

A part of me didn’t want to know, “You…don’t know where he is now?” But the other…ached for the answer.

 Antoine clarified, “You remember how big our world is? It takes a long time to travel and search places. Crossing oceans takes months. Traveling the countries takes years. It's honestly a miracle that I'm here in France when I am, to not have missed you."

And why doesn’t Elysia know this? It takes months just to send a letter abroad. She’s had...what, a few decades to figure this out? This girl is slow.

And that reminds me. Was Alessio on the Mayflower, or did he have a hand in the earliest settlements? Because America wasn't settled properly by white people until the 1600's. Did he go to South America? I'd think so with the 'down in the Americas' statement.

"Ignoring things and acknowledging things are two separate actions." Antoine said in that same, gentle tone. "Have you been truly moving on?”

I sniffed, and swiped my cheek off swiftly, “Probably not the way I should be.”

"Have you already forgotten Noah's lessons on caring for yourself?"

I was already exhausted, of trying to pick through the thorns of my memories, “He would’ve given me the lecture of a lifetime if he had seen all the shit I’ve been doing for the past five years.”

This is fucking rich. Oh, where to start?

Where, oh where, has this bitch been ‘taking care of herself’? These past twenty chapters have all been centered around her. She’s helped herself at others’ expense, if that’s what you mean. She’s killed novices, saw entire swaths of the Parisian Brotherhood wiped out, and dallied on missions instead of being informed of where (and who!) Shay Cormac was.

If ‘Noah’ was around, he’d probably sugar coat his lecture because we can’t make the Magical Woman of Colour upset. She can do no wrong, after all. Interrupting her or telling her she’s wrong is worthy of a death sentence. Maybe this Noah would tell her threatening to kill Arno for telling her she fucked up is worthy of a hot iron to the face?

“.....Happy as in ‘no matter what has transpired since his absence’?”

Possibly fucking his brother?

I cringed at this.

Me too. Who knew gay brothers fucked in the Italian version of ‘Trailer Park Boys’?

He doesn’t want you anymore.

No, it couldn’t be that.

If he had wanted you, he would’ve already found you.

OK, so I am to assume that Alessio was the love interest in the previous story. This is why Elysia is getting so anal over his memory. If that’s the case, he was never mentioned beforehand and this weakness of hers didn’t seem to factor into saving James. James was going to get married and her lost love didn’t influence her decision to send James on wild goose chases. Apparently, only her loves matter.

My fingers dug along my face, and I sniffed again. Unable to hide the tears this time. Antoine waited, his hands still where they were. Letting me grieve, unaware of the dark thoughts ruminating in my mind.

Honey, you don’t know the dark thoughts ruminating through mine. This woman is straight up evil, and yet she’s being hailed as the hero. No thanks. I can read for myself.

When would I realize that immortality might apply to me, too? He would…not want that.

Quite sure you’re already aware that you are immortal. If it didn’t occur to you at all in the previous story, then someone must’ve put lead in your water for this room temperature IQ.

He wouldn’t want to be with you, forever.

Shut up.

You were destined for us.

Anybody who wants to be with this insufferable woman has my sympathies. It’s a fate worthy of Satan.

“I-I can’t keep asking myself what would’ve happened if I stayed. I c-can’t keep doing that to myself,” I cut in, frustratingly moving my bangs off my face, and taking the spare napkin I had been given with my tea. I squeezed the linen in my digits, feeling the small threads tear from my elongating nails. “And even then, I feel so guilty. I feel so horrible!”

Feeling horrible and being horrible seem to be mutually exclusive things here. Elysia feels horrible about a lost love, yet she had no issue locking lips with Orfeo and – again! - trying to kill Arno for being contradicted. There is nothing she has done that is admirable. Her employees fear her; the novices under her care have to tiptoe around her; the Mentors walk around her as if she's a lit fuse about to go off. She is, frankly, a horrible person. Yet here she is crying her eyes out at a vampire because suddenly she’s so relatable, or something? Best comparison I can come up with is the TikTok or Instagram model losing her channel and subscribers and being forced to get a real job: you based your reputation on nothing and, being confronted with the true scope of the world, throw a massive tantrum in the hopes of getting someone to care.

That is how I see Elysia. Good luck convincing me otherwise.

“About what?” Antoine questioned softly. I shook my head. “You can tell me, Elysia.”

“T-That maybe….what I shared with Alessio wasn’t-that I pushed it on him in some way. That I played out my fantasies out for the sole purpose of not wanting to be alone, because I was so scared of being alone again, Akinara! That I went out stupidly looking for something similar to what I lost before, and Augustine just happened to be there because he was. Not because he wanted to be with me.”

Well well well. Looks like the Magical Woman of Colour loves to gaslight people! Who would’ve thought? Here’s a tip, friend: when you push yourself on someone and act out your fantasies on someone who might not have reciprocated the whole way just so you don’t have to feel ‘alone’ doesn’t make you an object of pity. It makes you a manipulative bitch.

This woman is a bloody collection of problems to the point she couldn’t even be used for chumming sharks.

“No, Alessio loved you-“

“No, NO!” I slammed my hand on the table, and shook my head, and pointed to him despite lecturing an unknown ghost in my irrational mind, “A-And, even then, I wasn’t stable in my mind! I had-have issues deep inside me that I magically wish would disappear….but I know it doesn’t work like that. My depression doesn’t work like that!” The quarter was filled with my long-suppressed tears, and the agonizing sob that had chambered itself in my impuissant, exposed walls.

Alright, now we’re getting to the point where I am personally getting offended. Do you want to know why?

I despise – let me reiterate that, de-fucking-spise – people who throw around the depression card. You feeling down with the blues isn’t depression. You struggling with your rationalization of gaslighting isn’t depression. What it is is your own faults being thrown back at your face.

Like most Millennials and social media users who pin pronouns and mental illnesses to their profiles like the badges of an Applebee’s waitress, that’s not ‘raising awareness’. In my personal experience, it’s a way for people to use it as a shield to deflect criticism. People who legitimately suffer from these problems do a pretty good job hiding it from others. It is viewed as an inherent weakness, because they might find society has no use for them. It may sound petty to say this, but this is how it works.

Elysia is not depressed. There has been no indication that she has been depressed at all in this story. She’s been the exact opposite. If there is any mental illness in that brain of hers, it’s Bipolar I.

From losing Alessio. Losing them all. Losing James. Losing myself.

You are not shedding tears because you are guilty. You are shedding tears because all of those things make you look bad. You lost them because of your own incompetence. It’s on you. 

My feet found ground, and I didn’t know where I was moving with my expressive, waving arms, “It was all so stupid…it was so st-stupid of me….I’m so embarrassed. I wish I hadn’t….I wish I hadn’t done any of it if I knew I was going to live this long! If I was going to live without him….”

Man this drama is grating on me worse than fingers clawing on the top of a bus’s ceiling. I don’t believe an ounce of it.

Like I was a lost child as I had always been.

A lost child who strangles others, sets them up in would-be Church massacres, and leads others to their deaths. Oh yeah you’re a child: a manically psychotic one.

I exhaled softly, my watered eyes soaking his blouse slightly, “I’m so tired….”

So am I. Are we done yet?

“I hope he found someone; someone he didn’t have to be ashamed of saying what was on his mind, someone he didn’t have to lie to. I wish that would’ve been me…I don’t think it can be me anymore….” Antoine said nothing, but the brushing of my hair calmed me enough to move myself away a bit, and properly clean my eyes off, “I know my visit was sudden….”

This explains the whole ‘push my fantasies on him’ quote. Elysia wasn’t honest with her partner and her love interest feared her too much to be open with her. She’s upset because of a relationship she willingly blew? Cry me a river.

I walked along the cold streets of Paris, the jeers of displeased, galumphing civilians taking arms to cross the estates that barred their gates to them. How they attempted to open the closed shops doors and windows, some shattering from a thrown rock or chair that had been collected from a nearby house. I paid no mind, let the river take me east where the protected Café Manor awaited.

And they didn’t seem to notice you walking out of one, let alone see that nice pretty house all alone on the hill.

My arm shook, and I gritted my teeth. The tears built, and the image of the scarf blurred in with the horizon. The wish to make it all disappear.

To make my heart stop aching for Augustine.

To stop lusting for the life we could share if he ever found me.

To feel his hands brush my hair again and for it to mean something.

I do not feel an ounce of pity for this woman. When you craft a character like this so badly, and so vile, there’s nothing more I want to happen than this thing getting slammed by a mail truck. You know the massive fan hatred towards Abby from The Last of Us II? I’ve got those vibes here.

But you still love him, don’t you?

….Yes.

Yes, I still do.

Even if he loved another?

Even then.

Even if he never loved you the same way again?

I sniffed, “I just want to be happy.”

Silence.

You won’t be happy because you have no self love aside from that narcissistic streak. You inspire no love among others, so what traits can you use within yourself to build upon? You cannot be satisfied with yourself, so you project all of your insecurities on others and that is what makes them fear and despise you. Those aren’t traits of a leader. Those are traits that get you stabbed in a dark corner of the alley late at night.

Needless to say, James was a complicated man.

Too bad we never actually learned anything about him when he was still alive.

I must be out of my mind logging this; trailing evidence to me is not ideal, but it helps me remember when I lost my way.

The true fear that someone will find my treachery, to question my loyalty to the Creed itself despite leaving my home, my family, my wordly possessions. It is not that I do not believe in the Creed, but I know things can change for the better. And if I personally have to dismantle it for the Truth, then God forgive me.

What’s interesting to note here is that James is taking on many of in-game Arno’s traits: he’s introverted, he does his own investigations, he goes his own way. Les took everything interesting about Arno and slapped it onto her original character. Cheapskate.

The feeling is mutual now.

Elysia is not going to be happy about this. But, she never looks like she is. Again, she had this look in her eyes. It ails her so much. I wonder what goes on in her mind. Maybe I do not help as much as I think I am. Am I causing her more trouble for the future?

The feeling wasn’t mutual. We never saw Elysia actually form bonds with James aside from the snippet after Orfeo locked lips with her. There is some indication those two were the closest yet there is little evidence in the text to support it. There was no discussion of ‘ailment’ in Elysia’s eyes because she was just a closed off, catty bitch to everyone. Les did not even bother to craft a proper relationship for them and she’s had nearly 200,000 words to do it.

If James is wondering if he was any help to Elysia, the answer is no. No, you didn’t help her, and she never saw you as help, but The Help.

 She tells me she was in love once.

          Her face almost aged when she told me that. Only then have I seen her eyes on occasion, but when her hood fell back….Elysia was unlike anyone I had ever seen. Oddly enough, she reminded me a lot of my mother, when the sunset hits her back, and it ignites her hair like flames. Elysia’s hair was flames, but a gloom curtained around her.

I wonder who this person she loved was like. They must have mattered to her so much. Perhaps, they were the one who took the fire from her eyes.

Again, we never heard or saw anything about this 20 chapters earlier. There was ample time to create this narrative, but it was never undertaken. The simple reason is that Les doesn’t want to, because that would require effort and effort is what makes things great. Considering her art teacher told her she was a ‘talented artist’, what else can be expected from this Affirmative Action hire?

'Unlike anyone I had ever seen’ are usually words reserved for a Mary Sue. More so that they aren’t actually unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

My mouth rested in my hand, gold eyes glazing across the small sentences over and over again on the ancient, sullied pieces of paper. How I recognized the crosses of his t’s, to the loops of his q’s and y’s. How his mind came back and forth for the concerns of the Creed to the hardships he endured personally. For a man who looked like he had everything together….James battled himself daily.

We didn’t learn any of this when he was alive, so why should it matter now that he’s dead? You didn’t make the audience feel for him when the intent was to make Elysia look sympathetic. If he was truly concerned for the Creed, and he trusted Elysia, why didn’t he come forward to her? Oh, that’s right: she wouldn’t have believed him, and was unapproachable to the point one of her most trusted confidants didn’t want to confide anything in her. That’s sad when you think about it.

I got a letter from my uncle. It’s the last one he’ll send, it says. Insulting my desires and goals. To stray away from the strict heritage our family has been serviced to. He doesn’t understand. He never will.

 What ‘service’ might this be? Hunting vampires like Abraham Lincoln? Resurrecting the dead? Fighting Dracula like Van Helsing? Who knows. All I know is that Andre the Great knows what Elysia truly is and that plot point will likely never be mentioned again.

   I never want to see him again. I loathe the very memory of the lines on his face. There, his true nature hides, and I’m sick of others who do not see it like I do. I remember the day I left, and the ire in his eyes. How he spat in my direction, and cursed me to the depths of the coldest lake in Eyre.

          The worst part is…he’ll never come to appreciate me at all. I will never be enough for him because I didn’t do what he demanded. What a sad life that is.

In turn, it makes my life sad too.

That’s nice. Too bad we learned none of this when he was alive. It really helps when you make a character three dimensional so, you know, we actually care when he/she/it dies? Unless James would be the only murder mystery in this vapid plot I’d be fine with it, but I know he was never meant to be the focal point. To be honest, this far in, I still have no clue where this story is going.

The next pages afterward summarized more of his internal struggles…until I reached a certain page. I straightened up in my seat, and squinted at the sentence.

 

The food shortages are increasing, as well as the taxes.

          Sugar imports are being hit right now, hardly any low-income bakery has it. I went asking around several shops, but they all give me the same answer that their intake had been cut more than half. There is one distributer in the city, but I don’t know her name. If I were to discover it, perhaps I can find some sort of lead in all this madness. I might not be able to soon, I have other pending missions Elysia wants me to take care of, and I do not wish to ever see that disapproving look of hers ever again. I bet the Devil himself shakes at the mere thought of it, imagine that.

This concerns me, because Elysia is just now realizing France’s true situation. Not only that, but she helped steal grain from merchants to feed her boyfriend’s business. She never gave it to the poor, but sold it at a profit. This has been two years since the Storming of the Bastille and the creation of the National Assembly and this woman hasn’t a clue what’s going on around her.

That isn’t mere laziness, that’s sheer neglect.

Third, why would Elysia ever be disappointed in James? She was one of his best students, and if she’s that much of a bitch to drive him away when he spoke to her the most those are not character traits you want to normalize as wholesome. That’s pure divisiveness.  

I would hate to think that I sought some sort of….fungible relationship with Orfeo. That he was some sort of substitute for his older brother; clearly, they were not the same person, much less the same personality. I had opportunities to remove myself, to leave…..

 You locked lips with the guy and you get wet at the thought of him. Who are you fooling, again?

“I believe people are capable of loving more than one person in their lifetime.”

I doubt James spoke the word “lifetime” so freely; did the principles of human love transfer to immortality standards? If…If Alessio did move on, if he sought a love life with some other human, or long-surviving being like as himself, did that allow me to move on? Could I indefinitely say that I was no longer with him despite how much it hurt to come to that realization?

 You have been alive for how many decades without your boy toy? Two, three? A hundred? In any case you should have already dealt with those inner musings already. You are immortal and he was not; you should have known he would have aged and died while you lived on. That applies to everyone around you. You live, they grow old, lose their memories and wit, and go in the ground. If they made it that long.

You’re in a new era and you happily kissed Orfeo. Alessio never entered into your thoughts and you didn’t have an ounce of hesitation, so do these internal monologues even apply? I’d say they wouldn’t.

Was it even wise to pursue….something if I held the notion that I still loved him?

Shouldn’t have kissed the guy, then.

What if…..I hurt Orfeo? He didn’t know, he hadn’t asked. If he didn’t ask, I didn’t have to tell him, did I? That was three hundred years ago….that would be the last guess on his mind. He would never suspect, and hasn’t questioned my previous encounters with men of any kind.

I didn’t know anything about him either. Who he used to be, his previous love lives if he had any, what strained his relationship with Augustine when they argued in that room. But…that would open discussion, that would put me on the spot to ask me in return.

I wanted to know Orfeo for who he was.

But I didn’t want Orfeo to know about me.

Orfeo, if I recall correctly, is also immortal or at the very least inhuman. He’s also the older brother of Alessio if Les is being consistent here, so of course he has to know what her previous life was. He’s rather perceptive and manages to get under Elysia’s skin easily. I don’t think previous loves would affect him considering he’s in a new era and there is no one else pursuing Elysia. But the last line stands out to me: she wants to know about him, yet she doesn’t want him to know anything about her. That horse has already escaped the barn: Orfeo knows exactly what you are and he uses it to his advantage. Why else would you get so hot and bothered over a person you don’t care for? 

“The door’s open,” I advised.

Orfeo pushed it, his toned arms bare from his rolled-up sleeves. He wore a usual ascot around his neck, a dark emerald this time that hung over his opened-collar blouse.

Wearing an emerald like that in public is bound to get you robbed. Just saying.

“So, this is the cave Charlotte tells me you live in,” he rested his hands on his hips, pursing his lips in question. The way the patio doors invited the light breeze to kiss its parted curtains, and how the sun’s rays touched the golden accents in the room with a tender gleam lured his look. The random papers along the oak desk and the small table near the corner of the room that was accompanied by more papers, a red-cushioned chair and an empty plate with crumb residue.

I’d like to add Elysia is occupying the space Arno would originally be in. The Fucking White Male has been erased out of his own story and his own spaces.

“Ahh…” I tucked a curl behind my ear. Moved it back. “I’m sure it’ll…whatever it is, I’ll agree.”

"Oh? What happens if he donates one of your precious coffee grinders to my cafe?" Orfeo smirked lightly, "Can you live without one of those...?"

I gave him a patient look, the corner of my lips tugged, “I’ll let you take it with no quarrel.”

"And if I decide to take both?" he pushed.

1. The modern coffee grinder wasn’t invented until 1798. Lack of research obvious again.

2. Not a good idea to hand out valuable equipment to your boyfriend that you deny having an attraction for. You’d tank sales further and make your employees work harder for less money. Considering Elysia was willing to see them all out on the street it doesn’t surprise me one bit that she’d be so willing to give up equipment other people paid for.

“I’m going to take one back overnight,” I chipped in, crossing my arms gently. “I like you, Orfeo….but I have limits.”

Orfeo chuckled at this, "Limits that can be tested or crossed, I figure I might find out....whether it'd be the easy or hard way."

My fomented chest gripped my words, and I tightened my arms to hold in its storm, “You play a….dangerous game. Not sure if it’s wise.” His fingers traced the cup, and I had to tell myself to look away to not draw attention to it.

"Not sure either, but I'm a gambling man. It’s what I do best."

All these emotional maelstroms show me that Elysia does indeed feel for Orfeo and that no amount of her inner monologues and grieving over Alessio is going to change that. You just don’t spend this much time on people you legitimately don’t have a care for.

Also, since when did Elysia actually like Orfeo? She's had a hate boner for him since the beginning. 

“I’m sure Charlotte can accommodate you. Although, I feel like you’re slightly exaggerating Pierre’s......imagery a bit.”

Orfeo stared at me, like he's seen things that would haunt the rest of his life, "....You can see for yourself then."

Ominous, “.....Right. That’s all I wanted to know. It’s kind of important.”

"Your funeral." Orfeo rubbed his ear with a dismissive wave, "Despite what Pierre says about her, she's pretty charitable. Gives to the local museums, the guilds, churches – even to people in need out in the streets...not sure what exactly you might find on her that’s…incriminating. If that’s what you’re after.”

Museums and churches were owned by the nobility and...the Church. It wasn’t in the public’s hands at the time. Pierre’s ex wife deals in sugar and is hoarding it, yet Elysia and her boy toy don’t seem to have an issue getting all that sugar for coffee or biscuits. Clearly someone is handing it out.

"What do you think he'd accidentally find?" Orfeo leaned forward. "I'm pretty positive he worries for Charlotte more than you doing such ill activities." I caught sight of his dark eyes. They shined, maliciously interested. I swallowed lightly; my neck flamed.

“You’re going to get us both in trouble.”

"Think I'd have enough time to get you on your back on the desk? Without even trying to rile you up? That's just insensitive on my part."

This just confirms that the Alessio Depression Quest means nothing. Orfeo knows exactly what this Magical Woman of Colour wants and he’s got the means to achieve it. Maybe he has a few BDSM toolkits and a choker for her to wear?

My eyes rolled enough to make my head swivel, “Oh my god, Orfeo.” My stomach flipped, twisted in enflamed knots. The dark tendrils around his chest coiled about him, urging me closer, “Whatever time it takes for you to get me on there, he’ll triple the time to give me a lecture on business etiquette and how I’m following Charlotte’s footsteps.”

"It’s going to be a short lecture, then," he grinned broadly.

First, Elysia isn’t following Charlotte’s footsteps. At all. We’re going to go back to the first few chapters: since Arno has been effectively written out of the management of the Café and the other social clubs, Elysia gained control of them and had mangled the funds so badly her own lawyer told her they were at risk of foreclosure. She never once looked at the inventory or the tax receipts, and note that she did this while the Café was a stronghold for Assassin Intelligence. She managed it for years and it was in the gutter until Arno told her how to improve it. From her reaction, it’s clear how she handles criticism and evidence of her colossal failure - by attacking those who try to correct her. 

Yet she handles flirtation from her fellow immortal fuck buddy pretty well. Well enough to roll her eyes one minute and make sex jokes the next. 

I was in trouble, wasn’t I?

Nah. You just wrecked the entire canon of the game and wrote the protagonist out of his own story, but hey you’re good, girl!

"The bitch is at it again; she's stolen EVERYTHING NOW!" Pierre suffocated into his sturdy arm. What French tongue I had been accustomed to was diminished to an accent that reminded me much of James’ country of origin instead. "Everything I had ever owned to my name gone, STOLEN, all because of her connections with lawyers and the court officials!"

Has Elysia never heard of French regional accents? There were different dialects spoken at this time; mainstream French as we know it was normalized in the 19^th century. Strike that off the ‘good research’ list.

Never mind – Pierre is English and miraculously has not joined the emigre list. Why is a Le Goddamns having a share in a French business?

Plus - I sincerely love it when characters lampshade the entire plot. Is he talking about his ex wife or the main protagonist?

“I uuuused tooobeahh Templar-“ his voice rose steadily, and his arms threw themselves upwards that he hit the edge of the table in the motion, “and then SHE TOOK THAT TOO!” His bombast chest cracked at that, hands slapping to his face to quell his misery.

That’s nice. Elysia, a Mentor, isn’t aware that this British man who has a share in her boyfriend’s café is a Templar. No wonder Shay Cormac went unnoticed for as long as he did.

“I’m sure you know where she lives.” Surely, she could possibly give me a lead on the infamous Shay while I was there if she was a continuous member of the Order. If not -

"My old manor. By the Seine, beside the Tuileries Palace in le Louvre. A GORGEOUS ESTATE ONLY TO BE CASTED INTO SHADOW BY HER VILE PRESENCE."

It would have been seized by the government at this point anyways.

Candlelight warmed the pavements in rows, signaling the beginnings of nightfall. Orfeo and I walked along the alignment of the shops, several boarded up while the pubs remained opened for visitors.

“I have to start doing that,” Orfeo nodded to the boarded windows with slight distaste.

“I saw a couple of people staring at your shop when Jaq was outside cleaning.”

"This revolution is making anything seem like an opportunity to grab at...or worse," he dully noted.

Two years, dude. You had two years to deal with this. If the peasants knew you were hoarding grain and sugar and actually stole both they’d burn down your shop without a thought. Nobody here has situational awareness.

“How about Maduka and Oya? Is she his daughter?”

He shook his head, "She's not. He's not even related to her...he lives with her family since her father has a lame leg and can't provide."

These are the two Nigerians who live in Paris because Les doesn’t know there were only 4,000 black people in all of France at this time. Add on interracial marriage or adoption and you are up shit creek without the boat.

“What about your company? That boy of yours?" he questioned.

“Who, Arno?” was my immediate thought.

He scoffed lightly, leaning a bit, “You have more?”

“…..I have three students I overlook.” I bit my tongue at this, and Orfeo must’ve sensed the tense silence overlooking my face. “….Four, originally.”

"....Are they all like that kid?" Orfeo made a teasing moue, "He makes enough of a favorable impression."

Three, because you killed one. As for Arno, his skills and talent were replaced for this bitch’s monologue and tearful Depression Quest narrative. He should already be geared to fight Bellec by now.

“Hmmm….no. Arno is a work in progress,” I replied, quirking a smile. “Stephen is….strange, very earnest….but he’s kind and funny in his own way. Clement is quiet, though he holds his heart on his sleeve and he’ll do what he can to be there for you. And…James was……” my feet paused at this. “I was the work in progress, compared to him.” 

"Hmm..." Orfeo took a moment, moving his look to the street again to give me space, "Sounds like he influenced you greatly."

“Yeah…you could say that.”

Arno has been under your wing for two years, and all you’ve done so far is cuck him. This is originally his story, but it’s been replaced to suit the needs of this Magical Woman of Colour. He’s been mentored by TWO Master Assassins and he’s still as idiotic as he ever was.

In the case of James, obviously he couldn’t trust Elysia enough to be completely honest with her because she was too aggressive and disrespectful to believe in his investigations. Again, that’s all on her.

The saving face tactic she's doing with the 'I am the work in progress' reads more like humble bragging than genuine inflection. 

"You can be honest if you want." Orfeo regarded airily, his shoulder close enough to almost touch mine. "Maybe she really is a bitch like Pierre makes her out to be. I'm still waiting to see it."

Takes one to know one.

Orfeo inquired, digging his hands into his trousers, "Why does she interest you again? I'm pretty positive even if she was a Templar that this is a bit....specific.”

“It’s a lead my….passed student picked up, and I happened to come across it this morning,” I revealed. “Remember when I mentioned we were looking into the food shortages, when we got your bread back?”

Food shortages have JUST occurred to you, two years into a Revolution? Girl you really need to read a goddamn newspaper. They existed in this time, you know. Most of France’s population was living at subsistence level. You stealing bread in a time when most people could not afford it to enrich your boyfriend is a pretty – no, really – shitty thing to do.

Talk about stuffing your face when people starve just to put food on your goddamn table. 

“…Looks like you didn’t let it go,” he pointed out to me.

I sighed, “No, I couldn’t. He was the reason why we investigated into it; it would’ve felt insulting to ignore his concerns.”

"I see." Orfeo hummed gently, "Better late than never."

You insulted his existence and memory when he was alive, you callous cunt. You ignored his concerns because you were too antagonistic for your own students to see you as a confidante. Nothing like textual evidence on how your strong female character manages to fuck up everything and everyone around her.

“….I wish I could’ve done more,” I found myself whispering, turning onto my side against the building, facing Orfeo. My face lowered, and my fingers curled to rub at my sleeve. “He didn’t deserve that.”

 "....I'm pretty sure you're right...but I would think he'd also be relieved you continued his work for him,” he offered.

“That’s….nice of you to say.” I rubbed my cheek, “…Thank you.”

Don’t act thankful when you aren’t deserving of the act. After all, he’s dead because you weren’t there for him and didn’t think to warn him an Assassin hunter was about.

On instinct, my hands seized onto his hard shoulders, “Orfeo-“

"Sssh, or I'll make you shush," Orfeo whispered sharply, looking down to me. His face was nearly within my cowl, and my face burned from the closeness of it. I could tell his eyes were directed to the street of where Colette stood, but it was a little hard to concentrate on what was happening when I felt his breath linger along the rim of my ear. My eyes flickered-

That’s all it takes, isn’t it?

Remember half a chapter up when Elysia was crying about lost loves? Well I guess that doesn’t matter when an Immortal Pirate has pretend alleyway sex with you. How quick does this Strong Woman fold!

I gritted my teeth lightly, unable to move away from Orfeo’s pressed torso against mine. He was so warm; his heartbeat sprung beneath his ribs and echoed across mine. The smell of ash and orange blended along his neck. Why was I such a damn mess?

Because the cliché of the Strong Woman of Colour being brought to hell by a hot guy happens to be one of the most popular tropes in romance fiction. It’s popular because it happens to be a consistent female fantasy: women love being a bitch but also love a man who’ll take none of it and will give them a long, good rump in the sheets. I knew it would devolve into this and I sincerely hate being right all the time.

"Good. I expect you men to stand guard this evening at my estate. I have a potential prospect who might be in need of that sugar."

 Colette pressed a hand to her cheek, almost dramatically in a mocking tone, "Poor, delusional Marie Lévesque. If only she had sought the right aid instead of those wretched traitors flocking to Germaine. Look where she ended up! Now, the sugar is in our good fortune, gentlemen. You're dismissed."

 Colette is obviously a replacement for Marie Levesque and her Cruella de Ville persona doesn’t impress me. I take it she was one of the mysterious benefactors who emerged in the room where Shay massacred the former Templars, and will now be an Assassination target that will have as little an impact on the plot as Marie Levesque did. We even have a similar theme to Marie’s death: a big party, a ballrooo stuffed with guards, and a distraught husband locked in a room somewhere. It’s copy and paste at this point.

Colette’s property was well guarded, the stone-arch entrance under surveillance of a door man accompanied by two guards carrying lances. The exterior of the building was decorated in colorful banners and flags, and each lattice window was lit by a candlelight to ignite the incipience, occupied street of invited guests in a garish glow. It was my hope that enough movement would be enough to disguise my appearance.

Yup this is stolen right from the game. You couldn’t even come up with an original plot, could you Les? Oh, and this needs to be said: getting dressed at this time did take a while. Finding a proper fitting corset and putting on all the layers of clothes took more than twenty minutes. This should surprise no one.

"For the rest of my life, Elysia,” he corrected with a beaming smile. How the candlelight ignited the crimson speckles in his irises. I inhaled, feeling the blush seep along my cheeks.

You have to move on.

My hold on him steeled, catching his lips in my stare, “At least you’re…aware.”

But what if you can’t?

It’s pretty obvious you’re moving on. You blush every time Orfeo smiles and you are getting excited at the prospect of entering a relationship. This does not speak of someone who is hesitant or has self-doubts, but the drive of someone who wants a quick fuck.

Not too far off was Colette, laughing bombastically with a group near a food table. The area was too crowded for any sort of infiltration, much less when there were more sentries positioned in various sections of the room. Five in total; three on the floor, and two snipers on the second level of a balcony.

Reinforcements are spread pretty thin despite a rich woman throwing lavish party in the midst of a revolution. You’d think there would be at least triple the amount of sentries.

The man took a moment, “That can be arranged. Do you fancy him?”

“I’ve heard the stories, the triumphs….the falls.” 

This intrigued him, and something told me it wasn’t part of his agenda to convince her, “What have you heard? Curious, is all.”

“A legend, as my father had put it,” she commented casually, her feet guiding her to a seat somewhere farther in the room. “Such promise to the Creed…when they had him.” I heard her pick up something, and place it back down. Disinterested in it. “Sent off to retrieve of Piece of Eden in Lisbon, but failed; whatever that failure was changed him. He was not the same man who left for that voyage, or so I hear.”

The Levesque replacement knows this but Elysia doesn’t, despite being a Mentor? Wow, some crusty old lady has better sources that someone chosen to lead the Brotherhood!

“Hmmm…”

“He plucked off their heads, one by one. Like cherries,” she answered. “So much red spilled….it caked the grounds of every encampment he stepped into; no Assassins spared. A machine with a dangerous purpose.”

“Truly, you are a poet,” he replied with ease.

Truly, this poetry has no place in this ripped off plot. Most of this chapter is dialogue centric and yet nothing worthwhile has been said, done, or achieved.

“Hey, YOU!” I ducked, missing the striking sword that pierced into the frame of the door. I staggered to a stand, eying the guard that had caught me. He pulled his sword back, and suddenly his right hand gripped onto a rope-like device near the wall, and attached to a bell-

RING RING RING

So. Elysia didn’t notice an alarm bell was right next to her, and didn’t think to make sure she was alone when eavesdropping. This despite her inhuman skills, strength, speed and agility. There’s no way you can’t hear the clink of someone’s sword as they approach you when you’re in an empty wing overhearing people speak.

“Out of my way!” I grabbed onto a striking lance, kicking it in half as the first guard tumbled back before crying out; the spearhead struck into his shoulder. Another made way, and I met his flying fist with my open palm. A twist of his arm deemed it broken when the second, and how his nose broke when I struck it with my free fist. He fell like a tall tree, and the other two guards faltered.

You kicked a lance in half? Wow. You didn’t skip leg day!

Why wasn’t this kind of leg strength used to, I don’t know, kick down doors and kick over the guard she didn’t hear approaching? We may never know.

“Argh!!” one brute with an axe came charging. I met him midway, holding him at bay; I clutched the neck the axe, pushing him back as he growled angrily at my resistance.

Yeah...good luck with that. Inhuman strength or not, that is going to wreck your shoulders from stopping the force.

BANG! 

I jerked my head up to find Colette trembling, the dagger clattering out of her hand to fall at her feet. The bullet that pierced her chest had gone right through, coating the front of her dress in pure crimson.

“Y-You…damn….” her eyes crystalized, her body dropping to the ground from her fatal wound.

Huh. I was right on Colette being a cheap replacement for Marie Levesque. Now we’ll never hear about her dastardly deeds ever again! Also, 'crystallize'?

I gripped the cuff of the shoulder, and tucked it over my upper arm to lengthen the cut of the dress further. My bare shoulder gleamed red in the proper light from the upper row of windows. The cut had stitched itself back together. 

"What the fuck," was all Orfeo could say, blinking in disbelief. It was after a quick proper examination that he pulled back to study my face.

“My body does that,” I clarified, wiping the rest of the blood off with my other, untorn sleeve.

How typical. The Magical Woman of Colour can heal wounds like Wolverine and never feel pain! Well, unless you ask her to forget about her boytoy. Which she does conveniently forget.

"There you go."

I inhaled, "Already?"

"I've had experience tying women to these death traps,” he said as he tugged the end of one string mindlessly.

This is yet another sign Les did not do her research. Corsets were not death traps. They would be if they were tied too tight or improperly fitted. They are actually used today for spinal support and you can exercise in them. They are actually safer than most modern day high heels. The fact that Elysia was able to do all of her stunts without having an issue breathing or fainting in one just discredits this point.

Instead, I slid my arms out of sleeves, and the front of the dress down to expose my bound chest and bare abdomen. I caught Orfeo at the corner of my eye, slackening the threads at my waist now.

So, corsets are bad, but breast binding is fine? Regeneration or not you will have a warped rib cage and rotting breasts from it. We know from modern times breast binding is harmful – but if it’s done to validate an identity, it’s seen as ‘fine’.

You want to look.

I kept my gaze away.

You want to move on don’t you?

You just undressed in front of him no problem and flirted with him throughout the whole party. Who, exactly, are you fooling? 

I felt every breath Orfeo took, the small scraps his fingers did against the sheets. The way he smelled of smoke and salt, and how his Darkness outlined his body. It was soft. The once chill atmosphere of the chamber had evaporated to something of a blaze; I fought the urge to turn and move so much, especially when I felt the sudden urge to scratch at my arms and legs when an itchy sensation of nerves rose. I reached up to move my hair away from my neck and above my head to lower the sweat accumulating there.

Oh yeah, this is a clear sign you’re moving on. You could have given him the couch but you offered your own bed. This is intimacy.

His nitid eyes drew along the blanket fiddling in my hand. An outlandishly, straight line pended his mouth, "...I'm cursed."

“Cursed as in…being immortal?”

"Nah, nothing like...well..." He pressed his lips together, "Maybe, something along those lines. Ever met a Seer in your time?"

“You mean a being who can see the future with some unknown force? No, not that I’m aware of.”

"Well, I have, once upon a time. Said I'd be doomed to die without knowing the meaning of what I craved most in the world.”

Honey you know about Sages and Pieces of Eden in this world. Not too far to believe Seers exist when they are just Sages under another name. As for that last part, it’s obvious he’s referring to loving Elysia. She is the one he’ll crave and he’ll die without knowing her.

If I’m wrong, well. I’ll be half wrong.

“Hmm…” I rested my cheek in my hand, meeting his look, “A curse can be broken.”

"Think so?”

“Yes.”

“Not fibbing me, are you?"

“No. I’ve been cursed too. Not by a Seer, but a curse nonetheless.”

I’ll fucking say. You’re a curse on this whole damn universe, and I don’t know of a being aside from Cthulu who can fix that.

Alright, so there was a LOT of dialogue in this story. The first half was focused on Elysia’s misgivings about a boyfriend from another time and her flirtations between her and Orfeo. Any actual plot related dialogue, such as Vincent the anime villain, Colette the Marie copycat, and Shay, were in the margins. This has proved to be a consistent problem: there is dialogue but nothing is said; there is action yet nothing is done. We are at 190,000 words and we should have seen some kind of plot etched out, but we haven’t.

Action is only as interesting as its choreography, and Les cannot write either. Her action is cartoonish and bizarre, with Elysia having superhuman strength that outranks every single human there is yet she has to run from Shay Cormac. She could have easily killed him if she ran up to him and mauled him to death. Yet, we didn’t see that. We were treated to instead her mental anguish to a third Immortal, a vampire named Akinara/Antoine, who was conveniently a Templar banker she never heard of or discovered.

It’s obvious the textual evidence doesn’t confirm what the author is trying to achieve: she wants Elysia to be an influential Mentor and firebrand, yet others fear her to the point James, her best student, did not disclose any of his misgivings or thoughts to her. She wants to give all of Arno’s good deeds and traits to her, yet ends up undoing anything he would have done in her stead. The Café would be flourishing by now, but we cannot have a Fucking White Male in charge. We have to have a mediocre, uninteresting Woman of Colour replace him.

Ultimately this is a form of a rewrite as the authors promised they are keeping to canon and history. I have yet to see either here. All other characters are being replaced for uninteresting ones and Elysia’s flip flopping attitude has become incessantly grating at this point. If this is going to be a 400,000 or even 500,000 ending to a trilogy it will have scores of chapters that achieve nothing in terms of plot – and I’ve already seen that. This chapter could be summed up thus: Elysia cries for a bit, talks about James, goes to a party to kill a replacement Templar with her boyfriend, shares the same bed with her boyfriend, and has a huge monologue about how she can’t move on while she moves on.

How did this chapter end up at 14,000 words? You have three authors who beta each other. This is not an excuse. No one told these authors that stories carry as much weight as the reader is willing to take on. If nothing is happening in 14,000 words, who is tempted to read all of it? Only the masochists will such as myself who wanted to see where this would go. But generally, ordinary people aren’t going to read it. It will bore them, and those who actually like canon, characterization or history will be displeased at the bastardization of all three. The previous entry was only more popular because of the Ezio/Leonardo pairing. People see that tag and they will flock to the story, but will only stick around for the sex. If they red each chapter as I have, they will not be encouraged to stick around. It’s just an unending trail of word vomit.

If this is going to be an update that lasts a few months, it sure is one way to end on a non cliffhanger. But I expect another update in January per the schedule. There’s just too much of nothing going on and this trainwreck needs to get to its final destination quicker. Everyone will be all the better for it once this horrible all-you-can-eat heart attack grill is over.