Chapter Text
"And so you have died. I told you not to touch the pedestal."
"Yeah, well. With seven billion people still around and kicking, maybe one of them will be up to kicking Juno's ass. I like those chances better than Sun burning everything off the surface of the Earth. Call me naïve, but I think people got a fair shot at it."
Minerva presses her lips together and folds her arms, but she doesn't argue. Desmond sends her a smile and shrugs his shoulders. He's not sorry. He's not even particularly sad about the dying part – that one he kind of saw coming a mile away and months ago. Getting to mostly choose the way he went out, that wasn't so bad. And hey, he saved the world from a Solar Flare. Not many dead guys could say the same.
"So," Desmond says and looks around them. Everything is sorta… grey here. Wherever here is. "What happens next?"
"Do you expect an afterlife?" Minerva asks, sounding a bit impatient.
"Honestly didn't expect anything – but here we are. And I'm pretty sure I'm dead, except," Desmond motions around them. "Here I am. So something's up, right?"
Minerva doesn't answer immediately. She seems annoyed. Probably is. It's kind of hard to say how here she is, though – is she still talking through the tens of thousands of years in between, or is she here in that AI form Juno had taken, or if this really is an afterlife and she's a ghost. She doesn't seem any more or less solid than she was as a hologram.
Neither is Desmond, really. Looking at his own hands, he's kind of… transparent.
Minerva turns away from him and sighs. "So long I have worked," she says. "Thousands of years now – you are so young in comparison. Humans age faster, but to me you are still a child," she chuckles. "I have led a child to his death."
"Nice, thanks, that's not condescending at all," Desmond comments, arching a brow at her. "I chose my way to go in the end. I could've not activated the Eye."
Minerva shakes her head. "Could you really?" she asks. "Even as I told you not to, I knew it was the only thing you would ever do. That is why I chose you, Desmond – that is how I made you. You are as I designed you – a man who will always sacrifice himself for the world. For hundreds of years I have quietly been steering your lineage towards you, from eons before the concept of Assassins was even thought up, I planted seeds of you in your ancestors. There was never another choice for you."
Desmond gives her a look. "Well dang," he says.
Minerva gives him a confused look.
"I never got to make any grandiose statements about being the Chosen One," Desmond says and snaps his fingers disappointedly. "I didn't even get an epic sword or anything. What a bummer. Well, the Prophecy was a nice touch, I guess."
"You are not mad," Minerva says, confused.
"I'm dead," Desmond points out. "I have moved Beyond such Earthly concerns."
For a moment the woman, the supposed Goddess, just stares at him, looking positively bewildered. Then, shaking her head, she smiles. "I chose well," she says and turns away. "But oh, the mistakes I made. I should have warned you, I should have taught you. Shown you what might be – I should have –"
"Designed the Eye in a way that it didn't instantly kill me, that would've been nice," Desmond says and shrugs again. "Could've, should've, would've – but did not. What I'm more interested is where we are now, especially seeing that I just died… and what happens next. What is this?" he asks and motions around them.
Minerva looks around them. "It is the Grey," she says and waves a hand. In the wake of her fingers, the surface of the space around them ripples. "It is the canvas which the universe paints upon – and where it cleans its brushes."
"Okay, that's… descriptive, but tells me nothing," Desmond says flatly.
"Your language is limited," Minerva says and thinks about it for a moment. "I told you there is a pattern to existence. This, this place, this space, is where the Calculations present themselves. This place is the process that results in the universe. From the first spark to the final withering, all of time reflects here – if you can understand the calculation, you can divine the universe from the first variables to the final result."
Desmond frowns. "This is time?"
"No – it is everything," Minerva says. "The Grey is… it is the code that runs in the background of the simulation that is the universe."
"The… universe is a simulation?" Desmond asks incredulously.
"… no," Minerva says flatly. "But there is code to it, nonetheless. Here you can read it, and if you read it well enough… you can see into the future of it."
Desmond blinks at her and then at the grey space around them. It doesn't look like… Calculation to him. Mostly it just looks like grey fog. "Yeah, I don't get it, but I'll take your word for it. Why am I here?"
Minerva doesn't answer for a moment, taking a couple of barefooted steps forward and then back. For a woman dead for seventy five thousand years, she's restless. "You are not here," she says then and looks at her own transparent hands. "No more than am I. We are observing. The Eye has opened your sight – and with the sight comes presence. You are merely viewing the Calculations, as am I. You are not here."
"Okay, where the hell am I then?" Desmond asks.
Minerva shakes her head. "You are dead."
Desmond looks at her for a moment, in all of her transparent glowing glory. "Okay, help me out here," he says. "Because this is making zero sense to me. I'm dead, but I'm here because I'm… watching this place? What the hell. Am I dead or not?"
"Yes," Minerva says.
"… I want to throw something at you so badly right now," Desmond says flatly. "Make sense, for fuck's sake. Or I am going to take my shoe off and throw it at you. Don't think I won't."
Minerva chuckles and ducks her chin slightly. "It will not make a difference – we are not here, and neither is your shoe."
"Right, the shoe it is," Desmond says determinedly and plops down to sit on his ass on – nothing, really – to get his shoe off. Minerva laughs at that, actually going to cover her mouth with her hand to stifle it. She's almost giggling at him.
"You are a delight, Desmond," she says. "But I mean what I say. You are dead and not – you are here and not. You are the final gasp of your mind, the final glimpse you had before your last breath. Your Eyes were opened, and you saw," she motions around them. "And you are still Seeing. And when you look away… you will be gone."
Desmond stops in the act of pulling his transparent sneaker off his transparent foot. "So I'm, what… a Schrödinger's Desmond? Alive until otherwise observed?"
Minerva chuckles. "Yes," she agrees and steps closer to him, crouching in front of him. "Time does not move here – time is not a dimension that exists here. The Grey merely is, and it is everywhere. Everything is here and nothing is here," she says and leans her chin on her palm. "You are here and you are not – I am here, and I am not. This place exists and it does not."
For a moment Desmond mulls over that thought. It still only barely makes sense to him, but he thinks he gets it. "So, as soon as this… stops, I'm going to be dead dead," he says and lets his foot drop to the not-floor under him. "Well, that sucks."
Minerva doesn't say anything, watching him sadly.
"I don't wanna die," Desmond comments.
"Neither do I," Minerva admits and looks down. "My time is coming. Yours has already come."
"Nothing we can do, huh?" Desmond asks and frowns. "Why is it that Juno got all the extra time she did? How's that fair?"
"I'm afraid the universe is not fair – it is only factual," Minerva says and then considers it for a moment. "She imprinted herself upon the Grand Temple, folding her consciousness within it. What remains of her is only her mind – her body is gone, long gone…"
"Yeah, I'm sticking with unfair," Desmond says and then frowns.
Minerva looks at him, arching her brows slightly. "What?" she asks softly.
"Our minds aren't gone," Desmond points out.
"The Grand Temple will be out of power, and she would not leave it open for use or occupation," Minerva says. "It cannot hold another mind."
"Yeah, but," Desmond frowns, looking away. "Does it have to be the Temple? Aren't there others, aren't there… isn't there a way we can…" he trails away.
Minerva considers him and then stands. "I have – thought of it," she admits, walking around him. "Time is a book I am reading, and I know I can write upon it. I already have – I wrote you into existence," she says. "I could do other things, and take place in linear time once more. But to do so would mean to lose the perspective I have – to lose this advantage."
Desmond arches his brows and then stands up, rocking on the balls of his feet. "You're going to die, though. I am already dead. And according to you I already fucked up," he points out. "What's the worst thing that could happen?"
"No one will be here when the time comes to activate the Eye," Minerva says flatly. "And the Earth will burn."
For a moment Desmond just stares at her. "But that already happened?" he then asks, uneasy.
"From your perspective, yes. Not from mine," she says. "I yet live, many eons before you. We are speaking through time, Desmond. The thousands of years between us are open."
"… okay," Desmond says, blinking. "So time travel is a thing now. Neat."
"It was always a thing," Minerva says and sighs. "But as I said, to partake in it would be to lose this perspective. To see into the Grey requires the Grand Temple at its height of power – back when I was managing it… and when you activated it," she shakes her head. "Take a step from the pedestal, and it will all be gone."
"And so will we," Desmond says. "But we're not, not yet. So we could – we could still live? Somehow?"
"In what form, in what bodies?" Minerva wonders. "Mine will be dust in the wind – yours not yet a concept."
"You have an actual time period in mind, don't you?" Desmond asks, giving her a look. "You know precisely where you would go, which time?"
Minerva gives him a look. "It is the same time period you are thinking of, Desmond," she says pointedly. "The moment when everything changed."
"Ezio's time," Desmond says.
"If things are to be changed – if Juno is to be stopped, it will begin there," she says. "With Ezio, with the Borgia, with the Templars. And with the Apple."
Desmond frowns, confused. "But – you arranged that, all of it. The Vault under the Vatican, the message – the Prophecy –"
"Yes," Minerva agrees and sighs. "My plan there worked, yes – but Juno saw them too, and she used them. The Prophet eventually went to her and was manipulated by her – and through him, you," she casts a look at Desmond. "Juno only found you because of the message I left you, because the Prophet heard your name – because I spoke to you."
"But… if you didn't, I wouldn't have known about the Solar Flare," Desmond points out.
Minerva draws breath and sighs, her hands hanging limply at her sides. "Yes," she agrees. "I perceived it to be the only way, but now I know how easily future changes. But if there is a place to cut her off, it will be there – it will be with the Prophet and the message."
Desmond eyes her quietly for a moment as she takes slow steps around him, lost in her thoughts and regrets. "Well," Desmond says. "I'm game. I mean, time travel, not dying, Renaissance Italy – I am so on board with all of it."
Minerva gives him a wry look. "You think it so simple," she comments. "You child."
"First of all, rude," Desmond says and points a finger at her. "Second of all… maybe it isn't that simple. But is it possible?"
Minerva opens her mouth and then closes it, frowning. She takes couple steps forward and then couple steps back. "Yes," she says. "It is possible. But the matter of form remains," she adds and turns to him. "You are gone and so will I be soon. We are formless, and to effect any change upon the world, we need forms. We need lives."
Desmond eyes her searchingly. "So, no yanking our bodies off the timeline and dropping them where we need them, huh?"
"Would that it was possible. It is not," Minerva says. "But by using Juno's method I may transplant us into bodies not our own."
"In… bodies of other people," Desmond asks, just to make sure. He's pretty sure that's what she means anyway, it's not like Renaissance Italy has the internet for them to inhabit. "What would happen to the people we inhabit?"
"Their minds would die," Minerva says. "And only you and I would remain in their bodies."
"Huh," Desmond says.
"As an Assassin, you cannot possibly have qualms about it."
"I do, actually," Desmond says, giving her a look. "I don't want to just… kill someone and take their place. How fucked up is that?"
"Then we will die," Minerva says calmly. "And that will be the end of us."
"Oh for Christ's sake…" Desmond sighs and runs a hand over his face. Really not what he expected afterlife to be like. "Fine – but I draw a line on the blood of innocents. We're not going to take over just anyone, it has to be someone who fucking deserves it."
"Someone like a Templar?" Minerva asks coolly and lifts her hands. "I thought as much. These are our best options."
Into the air above her hands appear images – two sets of men over both palms. All of them Templars – all dead by Ezio's hands. Over one hand she has Francesco and Vieri de Pazzi – over the other she has… the Orsi brothers? Desmond just barely even remembers them, but yeah, that's who they were, Ludovico and Checco Orsi, the little shits who besieged Forli and stole Caterina's kids.
"Oh, ew," Desmond says, making a face. The idea of inhabiting the bodies of the Pazzi kinda turns his stomach.
"These men make sense – and they are quite guilty," Minerva points out. "They have usable resources and means which we can use to our advantage. Never mind close ties to the Templars, which we may exploit. The Pazzi," she lifts that hand. "Are even in place for us to prevent the deaths of the Prophet's family. This, I think, would interest you."
"I think I just threw up in my mouth a little," Desmond answers.
Minerva gives him a look. "That is impossible, you do not have a stomach."
"And yet, there's taste of bile on my tongue," Desmond says and makes a face. "Taking over the bodies of the Pazzi, seriously? Could you really live like that? Besides, these are all men – doesn't that bother you, at all?"
Minerva harrumphs. "I do not want to merely live, Desmond, I want to change the future," she says. "I care not about the sex of the body – it is inconsequential to me. It will not be my body, either way."
"Even if you will be living in it, for who knows how long?" Desmond asks pointedly.
"Even at its longest, human lifespan is nothing but a moment in the life of an Isu," Minerva says and smiles a little. "I have lived for thousands of years. Whichever of these men I will inhabit, it will not affect my sense of self one way or the other. I will live as one of them and die soon after as myself. The body will matter little."
Desmond looks at her and then at the faces floating over her hands. "That's sad," he decides. "You, living the last of your life in human body."
"I am already living the last of my life. This will prolong it," Minerva admits. "Which I am not opposed to. From my viewpoint I see some of the future – I see you, and the Prophet, and your effect upon the world. But I cannot see the things humans have built. Their cities, their homes… their lives…" she trails away. "I would like to see how you rebuild society after our destruction."
"Even though it took us literally seventy five thousand years?" Desmond asks wryly. "It'll probably not look all that impressive to you."
Minerva shrugs, obviously copying him. "It is as it is," she says and holds her hands up. "Now, choose."
Desmond looks between the Pazzi – eurgh – and the Orsi. The Orsi were… well, they were little shits, from what he remembers, but the Pazzi conspiracy killed Ezio's father and brothers… As much as he wants to change that if possible, the idea of entering the bodies of the people integral to that turns his nonexistent stomach. He does not want to live out the rest of his – whatever, existence, as a Pazzi.
But he does want to save Ezio's family if possible… and as Pazzi, he could do that.
"We can still do it as the Orsi," Minerva points out and arches her brow. "These people did exist before the Prophet met and came to know them. In truth, the further back in their timeline we go, the better."
"Yeah?" Desmond asks warily.
Minerva gives him a look. "Otherwise we would have to pretend more," she points out. "The younger these individuals are when we take them over, the better. In that, the Orsi are more fitting – they are not as far apart as the Pazzi, in age. We could come to the same moment, rather than years apart."
"... and neither of us would have to take over Francesco's marriage to Vieri's mother," Desmond adds, making a face. "I mean, if we went with them, and one of us took over Francesco, then… Vieri would have to be made…" and, yeesh, that's… Ew.
Minerva seems amused at that. "It is decided, then," she says, closing her fingers over the image of the Pazzi, extinguishing it, and lifting the image of the Orsi brothers with the other. "We shall take over the lives and bodies of Ludovico and Checco Orsi."
Desmond looks between the two brothers. Both have dark hair that reaches their collars, both are sort of pallid looking in the grey light – both look vaguely smarmy, in that aristocratic way. Neither of them look much like him, so it probably doesn't really matter, but… "Dibs on the better looking one," he says quickly anyway.
Minerva throws her head back and laughs.