I was more making a joke than complaining about young Ezio, and yeah I do prefer his characterization as a older more experienced mentor compared to the cocksure womanizing youth he was.
Bestworst of both worlds: The wise old man ... in the womanizer's body. 100% guaranteed to lead to hilarity and/or excessive freerunning to escape his admirers.
So was this is a flashback to the time he was de-aged, and the future people using the machine to relive his life are seeing the memory of it? I think the writing was fine but my knowledge of the settings might not have been high enough to really understand the importance or magnitude of the information.
Looked to me like one of Those Who Came Before is in residence in Halkegenia, or at least their mind loaded into the Void runes, or something. Did Those Who Came Before actually originate in Halkegenia, or is this the result of one of the other plans to survive the megaflare, an interdimensional lifeboat, as it were?
Ezio walked briskly through the dark passages of the Academy, following his instincts as he searched for Professor Colbert's laboratory. If he concentrated hard enough, he could spot a glowing outline of the man, staff in hand, as he marched ahead, occasionally stopping to speak to some people, inexorably moving on towards the western wing of the large and confusing building.
Ezio frowned in annoyance as he moved. When he tried to explain to his closest friends how his famed 'senses' worked, he found that he just couldn't. They were just too strange. Whenever Ezio was lost in a dead end, they would show him the way out of it. Whenever he sought an entrance to a hidden alcove, he would find a lever or a similar mechanism, glowing brightly in the eye of his mind. And when he concentrated hard enough on a location or on a person he was looking for, he would invariably find them, glowing golden in his surroundings, a tingling feeling telling him where to go. His senses were extraordinarily sharp; he could hear conversations held at the other end of a crowded street, spot a specific person in a crowd from the top of a cathedral's bell tower, and his nose was as sharp as a trained hunting dog's. People had trouble lying to him, as he could see who meant him harm with a single glance – red for foe and blue for friend, a shapeless grey for everyone else. He could even 'see' into the past if he concentrated hard enough, images, smells, sounds and shapes forming in his mind as he sought out patterns and events that interested him.
When he had told all of this once to Leonardo, his friend's eyes had lit up with the manic curiosity that defined the eccentric inventor. "Grandioso, Ezio! It sounds almost like magic!"
But even Leonardo had been unable to explain it, even when he went over the dozens of pages of Altair's Codex that Ezio had painfully gathered on his travels several times in a vain attempt to understand Ezio's strange senses, only finding vague references to an 'Eagle' scribbled by the Mentor in the margin of several parchments. It was just one of many mysteries that surrounded the fortress of Masyaf and Those Who Came Before, and one that Ezio had been unable to solve when he visited the Orient.
And now Ezio was mulling over the words of one of his oldest friends, wondering whether his joke had been truer than he himself believed.
Magic...I wonder what Leonardo would have said to that. He chuckled. Knowing him, he would probably try and learn everything he could about it, as excitable as always, and then try to make it work for one of his various inventions. Or all of them. I should probably do the same... Well, learn about magic, at least. That is something I can do, at least, even if I never had Leonardo's talent for tinkering...
He noted that he'd walked quite a while without really paying attention to where he was going until he nearly walked into a heavy wooden door, his senses having led him here. Ezio knocked loudly. "Professore Colbert, are you there?"
He heard a crack like a pistol shot behind the door followed by a litany of curses in this country's strange French, none of which he could recognize. A moment later the door was thrown open, revealing a harassed-looking Professor Colbert, his face, bald head and robes blackened by ash. "Yes! What is it?" He spotted a rather disconcerted Ezio and frowned. "Who are you?"
"I am Ezio, professore," he enunciated slowly and carefully. "Ezio Auditore da Firenze. Do you not remember me?"
The teacher critically looked him up and down. "I remember you being older by at least fifty years. You also had a beard."
"Something... happened to me because of the strange magic the young lady performed. Sister Catherine said you would know better than she did what exactly happened."
"Well, if Catherine told you to come to me, then I guess you really must be him. Come in, come in," the bald teacher grumbled, "let's not stand in doorways all night long, we have better things to do." There was another explosive bang from inside the laboratory and Colbert swore loudly as he hurried back inside. "Nom d'un chien! I thought I turned that thing off!"
Ezio cautiously stepped inside the workshop, ignoring his experience that screamed at him to run away from anything that even remotely sounded like gunshots. He looked around, amazed.
He had rarely thought that he would ever find a room that was even more bizarre and exotic than Leonardo da Vinci's atelier, but it could not hold a candle to the bric-a-brac that was Professor Jean-Baptiste Colbert's laboratory. One wall of the high-ceilinged room was nothing but a large bookcase stuffed to the brim with scrolls and leather-bound tomes, the adjacent wall full of strange mechanical designs and blueprints. Another wall was nearly hidden behind a row of cupboards holding a collection of jars of assorted sizes filled with powders, liquids, grains and other things that Ezio could not recognize. The worktables were overflowing with opened books and parchments, vials of strangely coloured fluids standing next to a mortar and pestle, a strange apparatus that seemed to be boiling something greenish simmering over a small, but intense blue-white fire that whistled. Mechanical contraptions, some of them quietly whirring and moving, some of them silent or broken into pieces, were scattered over another table. A skeleton of a winged creature hung under the ceiling, but it was no bird that Ezio had ever seen, reminding him more of a winged lizard the size of a horse. An open fireplace threw odd shadows in every corner of the room.
Ezio examined the skeleton, fascinated and perhaps even a little apprehensive until angry muttering caught his attention. "Quelle connerie! I'll have to replace my calcinatory. Again! Those are expensive, and my pay isn't exactly the highest... Mon dieu, the headmaster is going to talk my ear off about wasting academy funds first thing in the morning, I'm sure of it..."
Professor Colbert returned, towelling his face and rubbing off the ash on his face and bald head. "Forgive me, Monsieur Auditore," he said quickly, throwing the now blackened towel into a corner. "Alchemy is a temperamental art. It can even surprise those who have studied it for years and years." He smiled ruefully. "Although it has been a rather long time since I singed my own eyebrows off."
Ezio laughed. "I can sympathize, professore. I used to dabble a bit in it myself."
"Did you, now?" the teacher asked, obviously interested. "What kind of substances did you produce?"
Ezio grinned good-naturedly. "Well, I never found the secret of how to turn lead into gold, but I did have a talent for making explosives."
"An interesting talent for a banker to have," the teacher said casually, watching Ezio carefully over the top of his spectacles with steely grey eyes.
Ezio suddenly felt very uncomfortable, his feet shifting slightly under him. "I beg your pardon, professore?"
"Oh, nothing really," the teacher said amiably, though the good humour never quite reached his eyes. "You told us before that you came from a family of bankers, so I naturally assumed that it was your profession as well."
"In a way, you could say that I am," Ezio said warily. He was not exactly lying – he had certainly made Roma and Constantinople flourish with his investments and had received handsome returns. 'Banker' was a good approximation of what he had done during his life. Wars were not always won with steel and blood.
"How extraordinary," the Professor said quietly, walking over to a table, Ezio carefully following two steps after him. "You see, Monsieur Auditore, I took the liberty of going through your belongings while you were unconscious in the infirmary. I hope you don't mind – I saw no other way to ascertain your identity, as we couldn't in all honesty ask you, unconscious as you were! – and consider my surprise when I discover enough weaponry to make even a member of the Queen's Musketeer Regiment green with envy!"
Professor Colbert made a grand gesture, showing the sword, daggers, throwing knives and pouches full of bombs of varying makes and size lying on one of the worktables, Ezio's hidden blades and gun bracers lying neatly side by side next to pouches filled with poison, medicine and bullets; the crossbow and quiver full of bolts at the very back, carefully put out of reach.
The Professor picked up one of Ezio's silver knives, casually balancing it on his fingertip with worrying expertise. "What lawless lands your home must be, if every moneylender has to go as heavily armed as a hired cutthroat."
It was then that Ezio was reminded of the moment when he had seen Professor Colbert for the first time, walking into the infirmary with the assured gait of a predator. Ezio had seen it before in practiced killers. It mattered very little what their motivations were, or if your own intentions were good or bad – as soon as you knew that you had the ability to kill every single human being in your sight, your movements changed. A hardening of the eyes as they roamed around, looking for threats and escape routes, an occasional shift in stance that denoted a readiness for combat, the twitch of fingers towards weapons, hidden or not. Ezio, a man who had fought and killed all his life, knew these signs well.
When Ezio looked into Colbert's grey eyes, he knew that this man was as much a killer as he was, the bumbling teacher nothing more than a facade to fool those who might mean him harm. And he knew that Colbert was aware of his own true nature as well.
"I trust, of course, that these weapons are meant to be used only to defend yourself?" the teacher said politely, holding out the throwing knife hilt first, his eyes never leaving Ezio's for even a moment.
Ezio took it slowly. No sudden movements. "I have only ever wielded them in my defence and that of the innocent against oppression."
"You must have quite a lot of oppression back home, then, if you carry enough weapons to start a war by your lonesome," the Professor said drily, the hint of steel in his voice obvious underneath the sarcasm.
"Quite right," Ezio agreed soberly. "Scoundrels abounded in my home, both common and high-born. But do not worry, professore," he continued, throwing the knife in one fluid movement, piercing the centre of an anatomy drawing pinned to the far wall dead centre. "I promise that as long as I am not attacked first, none here shall come to harm by my hand."
The teacher hadn't even flinched when the knife flew past his face by a mere inch or two. "Can I trust you on that?"
"I give you my word as a man of honour," Ezio said solemnly.
"Good. That's all I wanted." And then Colbert smiled, the facade of the easily distracted teacher reappearing as if nothing had happened. "By all means, take your things, Monsieur Auditore. I have to say that I was quite fascinated by some of them... I think I have your armour stashed in a cupboard somewhere as well, just let me check..."
As Ezio reclaimed his weapons he suppressed a shiver. For some reason, the Professor (who was now happily chattering away about the beautiful design of Leonardo's hidden blades) unsettled him. He would have to be careful around this man – Professor Colbert didn't seem to trust him very much. He would have to be careful not to prove himself to be a threat. Ezio had fought many enemies in his long life and survived, but even he would not dare wager his own life against a man who could conjure a firestorm at will. He might have been reckless at times, but he had never been stupid.
…Well, at least not for the longest time.
He felt much better when all his belts and pouches were back in their usual places, sword and dagger hanging by his side, the throwing knives in their sheathes, the crossbow and quiver on his back. Their weight was a reassurance in an unknown world. He picked up one of his bracers, keen eyes watching him intently.
"I admit that I examined those quite carefully while we waited for you to wake up," Colbert said good-humouredly. "I even tried putting them on myself, but all I did was tangle up my own fingers in the straps. Quite tricky to put on, I gather."
Ezio chuckled as he quickly put it on his left forearm, tightening the leather straps attached to metal. "They are even trickier to use. If you had not been careful, you might have easily lost a finger or two."
"Why would that happen?"
Ezio flexed a muscle in a movement born of long experience and the hidden blade slid out, nine inches of ornate steel leaping forward and catching the dim light of the flames from the fireplace. "That is why, professore."
Colbert's eyes had widened considerably. He leant forward, lightly turning Ezio's wrist this way and that, examining the blade and its bracer intently. "Fascinating... I don't think I have ever seen a mechanism like this before." He looked up sharply. "How does it work?"
Ezio had the decency to look embarrassed. "In all honesty, professore? I have no idea. I had a friend who designed these weapons for me, based on an heirloom left behind by my father. He was... a true genius," Ezio said wistfully. "No one else would have been able to create these blades for me but him."
"Truly, the design of the springs in here is a work of beauty," Colbert muttered as he returned to examine the mechanism of the hidden blade intently. "A friend, you say? I'm sure I would like to meet this man. He seems like an extraordinarily clever inventor."
Ezio relaxed his tense muscles, the blade sliding back with a hiss of metal. "He is dead, professore," he said curtly. "Six years already."
There was an awkward silence as Colbert blinked. "I'm terribly sorry, Monsieur Auditore."
Ezio smiled, a forced grimace that was born more out of politeness than real warmth. "Do not worry. He accepted death with a calm I have never seen in a man before or since."
Still, Leonardo's death of old age and illness in France had hurt him far more than he ever thought it would, considering how many people he had seen draw their last breath in his life, both friends and foe. It had not been entirely unexpected, but it still rankled at him. He had been unable to do anything.
Ezio suddenly chuckled, remembering something. It was easier to remember things now, as if the fog of age had been lifted from his mind. "He left me a letter before the end, you see. You know what he wrote? 'As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.'"
Colbert smiled. "Wise words from a wise friend."
"Agreed." Ezio put on the second bracer, the blade and its sharp hook jutting out rapidly and back. They were in perfect condition. Ezio had always taken good care of them.
Ezio held out an open hand. "Thank you, professore, for taking care of my things. They mean... a lot to me."
Colbert eyed him warily for a moment before he clasped forearms with Ezio, nodding once. "I'm glad to have been of service."
"Ah, could you help me with another thing, professore?"
"Of course."
Ezio pointed to the bits and pieces of Altair's black armour scattered across the tabletop, looking slightly sheepish. "I can carry my weapons easily, but that armour is rather heavy and cumbersome to wear during the day. Would you keep it safe for me?"
"Certainly!" Colbert answered, waving him over to a large oaken cupboard. He snapped his fingers, the heavy doors opening all by themselves. Ezio started. "Even though I would suggest wearing it, by all means, you can entrust it to me."
Ezio paused in stowing away his armour, breastplate in his arms and throwing an uncertain look at the professor. "Why would you say that?"
The teacher smirked, an amused look dancing in his eyes. "You'll probably need all the armour you can get your hands on, considering you'll be Mademoiselle de la Vallière's familiar."
Ezio felt his stomach sink. "Why? Is she violent?"
"Oh, she is," Colbert said casually. "And she's quite powerful as well. She has a temper like a tickled dragon and the fire to match." His smile widened. "I suggest you watch your step around her."
È vero. I am a familiar to a mage now, Ezio thought, the realization hitting him like a punch to the chest. He remembered the casual ease with which Colbert had set the air aflame and shuddered. That cannot be a good thing.
"Tell me, professore," he said quickly, trying to think of other, less worrying things as he finished securing the straps of his armour and locked the cupboard. "Sister Catherine suggested to me to talk to you about my changed appearance." He gestured vaguely to his own face. "She said it was... rather unusual, and that you would know more about it than her."
"Sister Catherine? Oh, bless that woman's soul, she's absolutely incredible with the healing arts, but the magical traditions and more complicated arcane theory are not exactly her specialty. Let me see..." He grabbed Ezio's chin, tilting it like a street doctor in Florence would, the examination quick and efficient. "You have become younger, and your scars have disappeared, yes? I remember that you had one on your upper lip before you sealed the familiar contract."
Marveling at the man's observational skill and memory, Ezio nodded. "Esattamente. All my scars are gone. I feel stronger, faster than before."
"Hmm... Well then, that means that I have absolutely no idea what's going on. Oh, don't look at me like that, Monsieur Auditore!" Colbert threw his arms up in annoyance. "I may be considered particularly clever by my peers, but I don't know everything there is to this to know about magic! The summoning of a human instead of a beast as a familiar is already unusual enough as it is without the interference of Mademoiselle de la Vallière's magic changing you. It's just too strange! I have absolutely nothing to go on, as irritating as it may be."
"Would this perhaps be a clue?" Ezio took off his armoured gauntlet, showing him the runes carved into the back of his left hand. They still itched, just like old wounds.
"Perhaps," Colbert commented, dragging out a loose piece of parchment from a large stack of papers that was wobbling perilously. He copied down the runes expertly in a matter of minutes, staring at them intently when he was done. "Étrange... I'm sure that I have seen this design somewhere before..."
"What do you mean?" Ezio, getting more and more annoyed with the muttering and cryptic phrases. He had definitely had enough of it for one life—he certainly had no need of it in another.
"Well, Monsieur Auditore," Colbert said absentmindedly, not taking his eyes off the strange runes, "I think that I will have to visit the library once more..."
"And what shall I do in the meantime?"
"I'm sure that Mademoiselle de la Vallière will welcome you."
"Now?" Ezio asked, disturbed. "It is the middle of the night, professore!"
"Et alors? You're her familiar, aren't you? Where else would you go? Now, do go away, Monsieur Auditore," Colbert said, making shooing motions as he marched over to his worktable. "I have a calcinatory to replace and your dilemma is probably going to rack my brain for quite a while if I cannot find an answer. I'll see you tomorrow morning, yes? Goodnight!"
And with that last dismissal, the eccentric teacher began rummaging among his papers, Ezio's presence completely forgotten. Ezio shook his head, amused despite his annoyance. Perhaps the absentminded teacher was more than just a facade.
"Buona notte, professore," he said, moving to close the door the door behind him.
"Monsieur Auditore!" Colbert called out.
"Yes?"
Professor Colbert had not turned around from his worktable, holding a stained, cracked calcinatory into the light and examining it carefully. The only thing to be heard was the crackle of the fireplace, shadows dancing on the wall.
"Those blades of yours... they're not really designed for self-defence, are they?"
Ezio just closed the door behind him, refusing to answer.
He would have to be careful. Very careful. Jean Colbert was a very observant, very clever, and above all a very dangerous man.
Λ Λ Λ Λ Λ
Colbert was just one of the most fun characters to write.
In a lot of fanfics, Colbert's past is very much emphasised to make him a bit of a raging badass, and it's a perspective I was wholeheartedly willing to embrace. I especially wanted to do it to emphasise that there were still characters in this new world who were totally willing and capable to wreck Ezio's shit if they wanted to, no matter how skilled and powerful he was. Colbert's conversation with Ezio in this scene was meant to do exactly that, to put Ezio on guard and to shown him that he would very much still be in danger in this world and unable to get away with too many shenanigans.
But one aspect from the original novels that I felt was a bit lost was that of the eccentric professor who liked to tinker and experiment with things, and so I decided to show Colbert skipping between the two aspects of his character in this scene at the drop of a hat. Also, that way it was just funnier.
I also wanted to lampoon Ezio's tendency to claim to be a "nobody" and pretend that he was just an average dude when he generally carried enough weaponry to singlehandedly massacre a small village. Suuuuuuuuuuure, Ezio. Just passing through, eh?
The description of Colbert's laboratory is an aspect that I think ended up very emblematic of my writing style then and even still today: very detailed descriptions of interiors and surroundings in order to characterise a setting and a person. The laboratory is a dark, weird place full of strange exotic things that shows Ezio and us just how different things are in Halkeginia, and it's a chaotic, cluttered researcher's hideout that shows how Colbert is in private. Or at least that was the goal; whether it works that way is another question with its answer entirely up to you.
That quote of his is one attributed to him in his private writings, specifically his "I Prolegomena and General Introduction to Painting". We don't actually know whether Ezio was able to visit him on his deathbed, but a little artistic freedom from my side can't hurt. And I can very much imagine that Leonardo's death would have wounded Ezio deeply, as well as his memories being tinged with good and bad memories.
Rest in peace, Leonardo da Vinci. The world shall not see a man like you again.
"I'm sure that Mademoiselle de la Vallière will welcome you."
"Now?" Ezio asked, disturbed. "It is the middle of the night, professore!"
"Et alors? You're her familiar, aren't you? Where else would you go? Now, do go away, Monsieur Auditore," Colbert said, making shooing motions as he marched over to his worktable. "I have a calcinatory to replace and your dilemma is probably going to rack my brain for quite a while if I cannot find an answer. I'll see you tomorrow morning, yes? Goodnight!"
I also wanted to lampoon Ezio's tendency to claim to be a "nobody" and pretend that he was just an average dude when he generally carried enough weaponry to singlehandedly massacre a small village. Suuuuuuuuuuure, Ezio. Just passing through, eh?
A brilliant update as always, and I found your mention of characterization via setting to be enlightening. Not only did you pull it off... decently well? To be honest, it's hard to tell when you already know the characters involved. Still, you did at minimum a decent job and most likely an excellent one, though I simply can't tell.
But! I've been sidetracked. My initial reason for commenting was that your mention of using the setting to characterize someone jelled a bunch of thoughts in my head that I've had floating around recently.
Thank you for that, and I eagerly await further updates! (Seriously - I actually found this story a year or two ago and I've occasionally gone back to re-read since. It's great to see this alive again.)
"In a way, you could say that I am," Ezio said warily. He was not exactly lying – he had certainly made Roma and Constantinople flourish with his investments and had received handsome returns. 'Banker' was a good approximation of what he had done during his life. Wars were not always won with steel and blood.
Y'know, that's a facet of Ezio (or of the other Assassin protags) that never got discussed much. It's a pretty gamey mechanic alright, but one of my favorite parts in Brotherhood was restoring Rome block-by-block from its husk-like state to a vibrant city. And by Revelations, Ezio was managing a significant portion of the trade in the nations surrounding the Mediterranean sea, alongside juggling contracts and missions for the hasashin branches there.
...Huh. So he's kinda like Hiruzen at the end, eh?
And Henrieta could definitely use a financial adviser. (I mean selling the royal furniture to fund the Albion invasion?! Were the fuck did all the taxes run off to? Are you hiding Robert Baratheon under you skirt?!)
FYI, the Henrietta's musketeer corps was founded post-Albion arc. According to the Back to Basics thread at SB, they were created when the Queen's trust on various knightly orders were put into question with Wardes' betrayal.
Ezio flexed a muscle in a movement born of long experience and the hidden blade slid out, a foot of ornate steel leaping forward and catching the dim light of the flames from the fireplace. "That is why, professore."
Nitpick: 12 inches seems too long for the hidden blade. If it was, then its almost as long as Ezio's entire forearm. IIRC, it looks like its as long as his hand.
Maybe because you're dropping Ezio, who charmed his way through Renaissance Europe, into a setting where a typical clueless MC gets a harem with minimal effort? (Points to Saito for actually picking one, though). Halkegenia is not ready for Ezio "Ladykiller" Auditore da Firenze.
Y'know, that's a facet of Ezio (or of the other Assassin protags) that never got discussed much. It's a pretty gamey mechanic alright, but one of my favorite parts in Brotherhood was restoring Rome block-by-block from its husk-like state to a vibrant city. And by Revelations, Ezio was managing a significant portion of the trade in the nations surrounding the Mediterranean sea, alongside juggling contracts and missions for the hasashin branches there.
...Huh. So he's kinda like Hiruzen at the end, eh?
And Henrieta could definitely use a financial adviser. (I mean selling the royal furniture to fund the Albion invasion?! Were the fuck did all the taxes run off to? Are you hiding Robert Baratheon under you skirt?!)
It's an aspect of Ezio's character that (again!) I often see neglected in fanworks. So I decided to include it. There's something in the works for that, of course.
FYI, the Henrietta's musketeer corps was founded post-Albion arc. According to the Back to Basics thread at SB, they were created when the Queen's trust on various knightly orders were put into question with Wardes' betrayal.
That's actually legit helpful. I was never as up-to-date on ZnT canon as I would have liked to be, but I can still work something out here. Well, I'll kinda have to, seeing how important Agnes is for the future... Thank you for the head's up.
Nitpick: 12 inches seems too long for the hidden blade. If it was, then its almost as long as Ezio's entire forearm. IIRC, it looks like its as long as his hand.
And we don't have a "canon" length for the hidden blades, as far as I can tell.
My speculation is that the blade is actually pretty long in terms of retractable blade, but has a shorter cutting edge to protect its wielder. The base being blunt would make sense. That might make some sense.
So yeah, no idea. I could leave the "foot" as is as a sort of creative/figurative license, change the wording a bit, or... I'll get back to you on that.
EDIT: Will change it to "eight nine inches". Twenty-three centimetres works best, I think -- not too short and not too long.
Heyooooo~
EDIT II: Added some more length after looking at the source again and double-checking using my own hands as an example; eight inches is a bit too short.
EDIT II: Added some more length after looking at the source again and double-checking using my own hands as an example; eight inches is a bit too short.
Excellent work as always. I very much in enjoyed the way you characterized Colbert, both how it was done and the traits you highlighted. It's nice to remember that he is a genuine badass, while not forgetting his academic routines are far from a simple cover. It was fun to watch him very lightly integrate Ezio until he was sure enough he wasn't going to hurt anyone, then admire his gear. You could almost see the twinkle in his eyes.
Overall a fun little bit of character interaction. Of course, I'm more looking forward to this next scene....
