Chapter Text
Two days.
They had been unconscious for two days.
When the overwhelming blindness faded, Jennifer had come back to a horrific sight: Commander Washington and her nephew, strewn across the grass, dead to the world.
Thoughts of his aunt and the general, the campfire and the hot summer faded from his mind quickly as Ratonhnhaké:ton stood behind a woman he never thought he'd see again. His mother turned to him, eyes questioning, concerned, but with a love and trust he hadn't seen in a very long time.
‘Are you still dreaming? We came here together. Now we must go.’
She had touched him. Dragged him up from the ground. She was here. He had never known her to be shorter than him, to have lines around her eyes.
He was barely aware of the words he was mumbling out, but her voice was crystal clear, cutting through the fog in his mind.
‘I am here. I have always been here.’
He embraced her tightly, and it was hard to let go.
Lying between their outstretched hands was a fairly large glowing ball, looking eerily like the descriptions of the artefacts her father had told her of, long, long ago.
She hadn't dared touch it, not wanting to fall into whatever curse had befallen the two men. Instead, she tried to drag them into more comfortable positions and used Ratonhnhaké:ton's bow to try and push the object away.
That was two days ago. Not much had changed.
Not touching it had become harder to resist.
Ratonhnhaké:ton followed his mother away from where his grandmother sat with Teiowí:sonte and Kahionhaténion and into the longhouse, hearing her mutter about how stupid her mother was being.
She knew they had no choice but to fight. They both did.
‘I have something that will help. Something from your father.’
‘My father?’ he asked without thinking. Something from Raké:ni? So perhaps, in this world, he knew Istá was carrying him before he left for the Ottoman Empire.
‘He left it for you long ago, before he died.’
He died.
Ratonhnhaké:ton startled, staring at his mother's retreating form. Half a year ago, the announcement wouldn't have moved him in such a way, but he had spent most of the last few months with him, and damn it all, the man had grown on him, and the shock of the idea of the man he saw nought but a few days ago being dead… hurt. It hurt more than he cared to admit, even to himself.
But the way Istá said it…
That wasn't the voice of a woman remembering a brief companion from two decades ago.
That was the voice of a woman who lost someone she loved.
Did Raké:ni stay by her side? Did they bring him into this world together, for him to have left a gift specifically for his son?
Did he love him, without any pretence or guilt?
He wondered, did his father stay with her, raise this version of Ratonhnhaké:ton together beside her? What could he have given him?
A hidden blade. Kaniehtí:io removed it from where it was concealed, handing it to Ratonhnhaké:ton with a sort of reverence. It was his father's left pivot blade, he could tell — stolen straight from the last Mentor of the British Brotherhood.
‘He was part of an order. A secret brotherhood—’
Mourning, he realised with a deep twang of pain. That's what that feeling was. He had felt it often with Haytham, both in regard to what their relationship could have been and for his mother, but this was a different form of mourning.
He took the gauntlet, thumb brushing over the leather embroidery, the peaked symbol of the Brotherhood tarnished and rusted, the blade clean and sharp. ‘I know who my father was and I know what those are.’
Was he revealing too much? Oh, who cares.
In this world, his father had been there. He had loved him and his mother. Istá had known of his allegiance and stayed with him despite it. Everything Ratonhnhaké:ton had yearned for as a child. But he was dead.
The idea of his father being gone hurt Ratonhnhaké:ton more than he ever could've imagined.
She had tried to care for the horses as best she could, but that mainly consisted of “food and water”, which was the only thing she knew they needed. At least they wouldn't starve.
Humans could last three days without water, so she had been trying to force small amounts at a time into the men. She would not let anything happen to her nephew.
He had never truly considered himself an orphan before. Yes, even if his father wasn't in the picture, he was still raised by his grandmother and Kanen'tó:ton's parents, and later on, he had Faulkner and Achilles to help guide him to adulthood.
His parents were dead. His grandmother was dead. The village was dead. He overheard the bluecoats speak of a man who couldn't be anyone but Achilles, dead.
Kanen'tó:ton was here. He wasn't mad at him in this world. In fact, he was impressed with him, just as he had been when they were children.
It was a small mercy, but there were so few of them in this world.
Curiosity got the better of her.
She wasn't sure if it was just morbidity or if the orb itself was calling her.
It mattered little, she supposed, as the world drifted away from her.