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Nothing is True [Kara Kuro & Nepenthe]
The air was warm and hazy, heavy with the promise that tomorrow would be another day that was balmy and soft. It felt like all the sharp contrast in the world had been dulled with cotton wool, like a dream sequence in a movie, and Quinn Adler was for the first time in his life a thousand times grateful to Abstergo for forcing him back here, to beautiful clement Italy. He had spent the last week in a dazed state, wandering through the clinging moisture in a mess of a Sierra Leonean city called Bo.
Bo. Like they knew it was going to make you sweat and stink, and had named it accordingly. Fortunately for him, some bright spark had noticed that they were, once again, drawing an unusual amount of gunfire. They had all of them gone in expecting a certain degree of hostility, but general consensus was that if someone shot at you in Bo, you were doing something fantastically wrong… or you were an Assassin, and the Templars were on to you, very much as they had been in the last six countries you’d visited. The Assassins were being traced, unquestionably—but how? That was where Quinn came in. Well, more specifically, that was where Leonardo Da Vinci came in… but their Leonardo didn’t know who he was. Oh, it was a fine mess and sounded like the plot of a cheap self-published paperback, but it got Quinn out of Africa, where he felt the constant need to punch people until he found the person responsible for the heat, and back to Italy, where he didn’t feel the need to do anything except eat, talk with his hands, and doze in the sun. That was what he was doing now—dozing. He was, of course, acutely aware of his surroundings. He could easily have told you there were six other people in the courtyard with him, a few birds in the tree behind him, and a strange little man with a receding hairline and huge glasses watching the comings and goings from a third story window opposite him. Students passes by occasionally, chattering and laughing, and somewhere on the ground floor there were malevolent eyes watching him, making his skin prickle. They were, however, just watching for the time being… so he paid them no mind, and made a point of looking exceedingly relaxed as he waited for the rush of students that would arrive a few minutes past noon, when the majority of lectures finished. Then, he would be able to drop off the radar and find the genius supposedly teaching somewhere in the building. He hadn’t yet given any thought to how he was going to persuade the man in question to come with him; he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, he was in Italy, he wasn’t slogging through a miserable muddy slum in search of a Peice of Eden that may or may not even exist, and he was going to enjoy the peace of the next ten minutes very, very thoroughly. |
He'd been called a genius. Visionary even. He'd been called a near resurrection of the old renaissance ideals. He'd been called many things.
Apparently none of them changed the fact that he had to teach entry level classes on art appreciation. When you're young and you dream of being a respected master and lecturing to your attentive throng of young minds, inspiring them and giving their lives meaning and direction... you never seem to remember that. And the paper work, young ambitious minds never fail to forget the paperwork. After three years of teaching at the university, Florian supposed he should be used to the cell phone texting and laptops used for everything but note taking during these particular lectures. But, each and every semester, he never failed to hope that maybe this batch of freshman would be taking the class for something besides the obligatory arts and humanities credit. "Bene, bene. That's all for today." The tall, thin man clicked off the overhead projector and brought up the full house lighting over the large lecture hall. His pale blue eyes watched as students collected their various laptops or notebooks and filed them back into their bags and purses. Most of them nodded in his direction, smiling while they said their quick goodbyes before hurrying off to their next classes, lunch, meetings with boyfriends or girl friends or perhaps simply to lay in the pleasant weather in the courtyard. Florian waved back to them or smiled, replying with a quick 'Good-bye's and 'Have-a-nice-day's, more or less sincerely. They weren't bad kids, he supposed. He couldn't blame them for not sharing the same love he had. There was only so much he could express when he was expected to cover so much information in a single lecture a week. At least he had his much smaller, decidedly more dedicated class on Renaissance Architecture meeting later in the day to look forward to. But before that, there was the afore-mentioned paperwork to be dealt with. He left the lecture hall, which has sense begun to gradual start to fill up with students awaiting the next lecture, having decided that there was no reason not to enjoy the general pleasantness of the outside courtyard. He squinted slightly in the brighter light of the outdoors, pushing his square-rimmed glasses higher up onto the bridge of his noise. A few paces away from the building he'd left there was a small vacant bench situated beneath the shade of young fig tree. With a knowing sigh Florian sat himself down upon it and liberated the small stack of papers from bag and began to leaf through them. [I'm going to assume that they more or less have the same general appearance? Perhaps shorter/longer/differently styled hair etc but you see my point?] |
In his present state, on the verge of sleep, he saw people as distorted shapes in simple colours. The crowd was a heaving blue throng, but inside the building there were red blurs like streaks of blood… and nearby, approaching a bench on the opposite side of the now busy courtyard, a dazzling burst of yellow like the sun breaking through clouds.
Quinn snapped out of his doze, eyes homing in on Florian with such swiftness and surety that he earned himself a few bewildered glances from the passing students. He rose from the bench and crossed the courtyard, his stride confident and purposeful enough that people made way for him without so much as a second thought or backward glance. Had the Templars been watching they would have known immediately that Quinn had found his target; they would have watched a moment longer, and then the game would have changed and they would have opened fire. Fortunately, though, their attention was occupied by the fleeing decoys. He felt, rather than saw, the Templar presence all but melt away as he came to a halt a few yards from the professor, who had such a cheerful but disillusioned expression that Quinn couldn’t help but spare a brief, private smile. Up until that moment, his plan had been to simply jab the point of a knife into the man’s back and force him to the waiting car—not a particularly friendly approach, but quick and efficient. Now, though, with the men from Abstergo gone (so easily duped, the Templars, so quick to jump to conclusions, all throughout history!) he could take his time. He could talk. Of course, if that failed it was back to the switchblade-in-your-spine approach; he didn’t have all day. Sitting down beside Florian, he looked at him with open interest for a moment. “Florian, si?” he asked. His accent had a marked twang to it, like he was perhaps from America’s Deep South but hadn’t been there in a long time. [Yeah, I reckon so. *nod*] |
He was often told he had a tendency to get lost in his work. This was certainly true, at least from an outsiders perspective. When intent upon something Florian became so engrossed in it that he often lost all mind of the world surrounding him. A dangerous habit to be sure, but an unshakable habit none-the-less.
However at times like these, with work like this, it wasn't so much the thing itself that he lost himself within. It was everything that wandered into his mind demanding his attention as his basest of functions were occupied. Though the papers in his hands were quizzes on French Impressionists, his mind had begun to ponder an interesting bit of philosophy that he'd read in the archives more than three weeks ago, what he would prepare for dinner for himself that night, alone in his small studio apartment, perhaps he would redecorate? He could at least pick up some fresh summer flowers from the market when he purchased some bread and cheese for tomorrow's lunch. His mind reeled as his pen flicked across the quizzes, making the occasional addendum or correction and tallying points with and all-to-precise haste. Eventually his mind wandered to dream he'd had.... and continued to have for the past few weeks. Fleeting flashes of something, someone so foreign yet unmistakeably familiar. "What?" Florian jolted up from his papers in mild shock at the sound and the sudden closeness of another person. Papers slipped from his hands and splayed themselves in a disorganized array on the soft grass around his feet. "Ah. I'm sorry." He managed a smile as he moved to shuffle the papers back together rather clumsily. Looking to the young man who'd spoke, quirking a brow upwards in slight bewilderment. He was a handsome young man to be sure, with tanned skin and a muscular build that Florian promised himself he wouldn't further dwell upon. He didn't recognize him as one of his students. The professor had a good eye for faces and he doubted that he would have forgot this one regardless. Perhaps he was another student? Though Florian was quite sure that he'd never seen this young man before, the university was quite large. "Yes. I'm Proffessor Léon." |
Quinn gave a good-natured chuckle as the professor dropped all of his papers, and helped him gather them all up.
“I startled you,” he observed with an apologetic smile. Under normal circumstances he might still be fighting to suppress laughter, but he was too busy marvelling at how much this man looked like Leonardo. It wasn’t just his physical appearance, but his manner and bearing, his distractedness and the look on his face that suggested you’d interrupted some grand and complex thought process. He scrabbled for words once he realised that he was staring, trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing. Ah, yes—committing kidnap and false imprisonment, unless things went well. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and produced a few crumpled sheets of paper, copies of old Assassin weapon designs penned by Leonardo Da Vinci himself all those years ago. Nobody outside of the Assassin order had seen them, nobody would look at them and recognise them for what they were. Quinn looked at them for a moment, hit with a sense of dreamlike wonder. He remembered watching these being drawn, remembered the quality of the flickering candlelight, the smell of burning tallow, the roughness of the wool sheets against Ezio’s—against his—bare skin. “Uh,” he started uncertainly, handing the paper to Florian gracelessly. “Do these… do they mean anything to you?” That was his cover. Regardless of what Florian said, he’d claim to be researching them, ask for his help in doing so, suggest they meet later to discuss things further. Until then, he’d lurk somewhere out of sight and keep close watch for signs that Abstergo had realised they were chasing a decoy. [Sorry it took so long. I was feeling uninspired... and then I was feeling too inspired and had to edit down to a reasonable length. xD] |
He murmured a soft 'Thank you' as the other helped him collect escaped papers as he attempted to shuffle them back into some semblance of the neat stack they had once been. Looking up when the stack was manageable enough to continue his work, he didn't expect to see the younger man staring at him so intently. Florian's slightly freckled face flushed from the attention he was suddenly receiving.
The other seemed to realize he was staring and thankfully the strange moment ended as such. Florian turned from the other, his face still warmer and his breath a bit quicker than it ought to be. The way the young man had looked at him, it was as if he was looking both at him and through him at the same time. As if he were searching for something. What that something was, Florian hadn't the slightest idea. He turned back to him when the boy offered the drawings to him, taking them in his hands with a smile more characteristic of his usual self. Ah, this must be what he had been after. He was a student who wanted his help with research of some kind. Florian felt a mild flattery at the thought and his smile grew upon his features, back to normal he supposed. He didn't know what he was expecting; some strange, fateful meeting with a dark (handsome) stranger who'd whisk him away to foreign lands? That was the stuff of fantasy, and though Florian had to remind himself, this was the real world. Looking back down at the papers in his hands, his eyes widened. Shifting his hands without allowing his eyes to look a way from the proffered pages, he moved the pile of quizzes into his bag with the swiftness of someone throwing an offensive object into the trash. Holding them in two hands, as both were feeling almost unsteady at the moment Florian stared at the drawings and notes upon the papers before him. The drawings were certainly of a distinct style, a certain ink quality and pen type that were unmistakable to his scholarly eye. The characteristic mirrored writing scattered around the page, annotations and notes. But he didn't need any of those markers to know who it was that must have made these. His mind swam, as if he had just entered a room that had to much incense burning within in and too little ventilation. He saw flashes of men, one in rich dark greens and the other in shocking white robes that were familiar but heart-wrenchingly intimidating. He could smell leather, steel... blood. Florian closed his eyes, attempting to stop the influx of what... he didn't know what, but it needed to stop. It was all to familiar of an experience these dreams he'd been having, his experience in the archives those years ago. It was eerie similar. When he had just been accepted as a Professor to the university, his original intent had been to study the old renaissance masters as his thesis on the subject had been largely what had garnered his acceptance. After many long months of petitioning and letter-writing he had finally gained access to the restricted museum archives he needed to complete his research. But when he had finally gotten to inspect one of Leonardy Da Vinci's notebooks, the real, actual notebook that the man had written in during his lifetime he.... Well, he couldn't remember exactly what happened, but after that incident he wasn't invited back to the restricted archives and the dreams has begun. "Where did you get these?" Florian's voice was quite, merely above a whisper. Words of utter wonderment mixed with a graveness to them almost never heard in the soft man's voice. [No worries XD I know how it can be sometimes.] |
Quinn leaned back as Florian took the papers, half-watching his reaction and half-watching the students in the courtyard, with his eyes narrowed against the warm rays of the sun. He didn’t even need to watch the other man to know that his reaction was one of quiet awe, one similar to what Quinn had experienced after his first run in the Animus.
“My grandfather gave them to me,” he said when questioned, keeping his response as open and ambiguous as possible. The lie came easily—because, he supposed, it didn’t technically count as a lie. He tensed a little as the earpiece he was wearing crackled and a quiet, urgent voice hissed through it into his ear. They’re doubling back. Traffic’s bad but they’ll be there soon. Don’t let them see you with him, Quinn. Get out of there. The expression on his face remained relaxed and laid-back, but when he reached out and took the papers back he did so decisively, in a manner not to be challenged. His tone of voice was still casual when he spoke. “Listen, I’ve gotta go. Sorry to leave you hanging like this—looks like these sketches were kind of a big deal.” He stood up, but looked back at Florian as if he’d suddenly had a good idea. “Are you free later? I’ve got all evening, maybe we could grab a coffee and talk Renaissance.” He flashed a charming grin, but there was a note of something akin to urgency in his voice which he hoped Florian wouldn’t miss, a note that would give the impression there was some great intrigue behind all this… which, he reflected with a wan smile, there really was. |
In the moments after Quinn had handed him the papers his eyes had not left them, even to question the other as to their origins. When they were taken from him, his eyes lingered upon the space they had occupied between his hands for a few moments longer than what would be considered normal. When his eyes finally turned upon the man who'd taken them, he stared with a look equally quizzical and something that resembled a small child after the candy they had been promised had been unjustly snatched away.
"Yes. Yes of course. Where would you like to meet?" Florian responded, his expression lightening considerably with the promise of another meeting and making no attempts to hide his excitement at the prospect. He even considered asking the other if his grandfather would company him, he remained quiet on that subject. He told himself it was because this young man was most likely a student and his grandfather would undoubtedly live some span away or that the man had more important things to do than meet with overzealous young scholars plagued by strange dreams. It was certainly NOT because the idea being alone in a cafe or library with the attractive, pointedly familiar yet mysterious, young stranger both excited and intimidated him. [Sorry for the shortish post XD. The next few will be better I'm sure.] |
Quinn smirked, though not unkindly, at the childlike exuberance Florian displayed when faced with the prospect of another meeting. It seemed almost cruel to mislead him like this, but the Assassin supposed that the truth of the matter was vastly more exciting than the mundane concept of looking through some old drawings. Even after all he’d been through with the Animus, Quinn still had a hard time understanding historians and the strange pleasure they derived from studying the past.
He faltered when Florian asked where they were to meet, but recovered smoothly and flashed and embarrassed smile. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m… new in town,” he went on. “It’s your choice. Wherever you recommend.” [Nah, no worries. It's a... a transition scene, I guess. xD Posts are bound to be shorter around now. 8D] |
Florian's mind ran through the possibilities. Though the pleasant university town was full of trendy little cafés, bistros and shops there was something about these papers and the equally enigmatic bearer of said leaflets that suggested some air of intrigue about this whole situation that wouldn't lend itself well to a meeting amidst a crowd of university students to over hear them. The immediate solution to this dilemma came quickly to him, although he wasn't sure about how he felt about the idea.
Café La Blanca would be a perfect meeting place, a small bar, restaurant and café well off the beaten path of the main college jaunts. The owners were a kindly older couple in their mid-sixities or so, if Florian had to guess. But the place was oddly personal to him, the café was only a block or two from his small flat and he'd grown fairly close with the couple after many trips to their restaurant. They'd even asked him to paint a portrait of their late daughter (for whom they'd name the café) which hung in the restaurant, which he'd been touched to supply. Even then... This young man was no mere student, and there was no mistaking who had penned those graphics. Retrieving a small legal pad and pen from his bag, Florian sketched out a quick map to the place staring and circling the eventual destination. He offered the small map to Quinn feeling that he would be both dreading and dying from anticipation for their next meeting. "You said you are knew in town? Will you be able to find your way?" [Yeah. I suppose. I also had a pretty horrible day full of sickness and a distinct lack of food and sleep T^T So that couldn't help] |
Quinn didn’t have so much as the faintest idea of where this Café La Blanca was, but he had access to people who could find out for him in a heartbeat. Even so, he took the map with a strange sense of déjà vu and gave it a quick glance. Maybe he would go and find the café himself rather than letting the others do it for him. He had time to kill, after all, and though his mind was troubled there was still nothing he enjoyed more than the warm breeze rolling in off the Mediterranean.
“I’ve passed this place before, I think,” he lied. There were a lot of lies being bandied about today, he didn’t see the harm in adding one more. “I’ll find it.” Tucking the map into his pocket with the copies of the drawings, he nodded slightly at Florian with a smile on his face. “Say 7pm?” he suggested with a vague shrug of his shoulders. [Ah, agreed, that probably didn't help. :( Are you feeling better today?] |
[Apologies in advance, this week I have exams coming up so that would be why I'm slow on the posting for the time being. I'll try to get stuff up for you, but I can't make any guarantees XD Sorry!]
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[No worries, I don't mind waiting. :)]
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[Again, sorry for the shitty response time. I SHOULD have time after this week when exams are officially OVER :D I can't friggin' wait.]
The professor's eyes innately followed the papers as they were whisked away from him, finally out of sight into Quinn's pocket. He may have attempted to hide his blatant actions had he been more aware of them. Still, with the papers gone, there was still plenty to look at with those wide pale-blue eyes. After all, Florian couldn't entirely decide which was more insatiably interesting to him: the papers, or the man who had presented them. Although he hardly felt that he had to choose. Somehow, he knew that there was something that unmistakably linked them. Whatever it was that enticed him so about Quinn was irrevocably tangled up in the mystery that those papers promised within their cryptic sketches. Florian blinked, forcing himself to present, normal cognition rather than this fog of wonder into which he was so willing to loose himself. He nodded, perhaps the sensation of the gesture would further clear his head. "Seven." He replied with a smile that completely betrayed the anticipation he was trying so hard to keep out of his voice. |
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