Following the Signs

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Arrow/Assassin's Creed Genderbend
Summary: The Arrow thinks about her past and the Creed.
Word Count: 650
Rating: Gen

        Nothing is true.  It’s a good reminder that even in this seemingly safe city she still doesn’t know who to trust.  Well, she has a few, but even then—  Though the arrow in her side and the fact that she’s tasting blood feel pretty real.
        She stumbles, leaving a bloody handprint smeared on the wall.  It’s a problem.  If the polizia—if they identify—
        It’s easy enough to keep a hold on her identity, on the last words Robert spoke to her before blowing his own brains out.  Normally, anyway.  When she’s not half-dying, of course.
        Everything is permitted.  She understands these words better than when she was a child.  She’d thought, back then, that their money allowed them to do anything.  She was, of course, wrong.  And just because something is permitted doesn’t mean that it’s a good idea to follow. 
        Just like with Sara.  Of course she would cheat on Laurel with his sister.  She always did prefer women.  She’d always enjoyed the forbidden, shocking people, and in any case, it was far easier to bring pleasure to a body more similar to your own.
        Safety and peace.  Honestly, it’s a little silly.  She stumbles again.  It’s not as if she will ever have either.  She doesn’t deserve it, not for what she’s done, but maybe she can bring it to her enemies, who will only experience such things themselves in death.
        Ordinarily, she would walk the rooftops, faster and easier than the streets, but right now, with her side as it is, she’s in more trouble than she appears.  She watches her vision wobble.
        No, peace.  She is more than this moral shell.  She may physically be in pain, but her mind is stronger.  She will—
        Where is she going?
        We work in the darkness to serve the light.  She’d never questioned it before, whether she was a good person.  The Queens had money.  It didn’t matter.  Now she knew.  She wasn’t a good person; she’d killed, done unspeakable things, but in the end…well.  It mattered.  But she made the sacrifice so that others didn’t have to.  Only truly lived in the darkness, with her bow, for the greater good.
        Stay your blade from the flesh of an innocent.  The only ones to be killed outright were those on the List.  The rest were merely to be wounded.
        Ensure peace in all things.  Cleanse the city, stop the Templars, and the city will be peaceful.  Will be better.  Will be the place her father wanted it to be.  She just has to be the hand to do it.
        Be unseen.  Hence the hood, hence the clothes that mask her appearance, make her look like a man.  She’s a stupid blonde.  Who would suspect a rich, blonde socialite who cares more about a party than any sort of charity?  She doesn’t blend in, but that’s the point, protects her better than anything else.
        Never compromise the Brotherhood.  Not that there is one, not in body, other than a grumpy bodyguard and a hacker with her own agenda, but maybe in spirit, because the Mission, the Mission is the Brotherhood and the Brotherhood is the Mission, and better she die than leave the work undone.
        One may be two things—opposite in every way—simultaneously.
        That had been a Templar.  She had taken his bow, but he had taken one of the arrows from her quiver and stabbed her in the side.  A Black Cross, too, by the way he fought.  Or maybe Assassin—al Ghul…
        She is—
        “You’re—you’re the Hood, aren’t you?”  She recognizes the voice.  Friendship, love, safety.  Tallia, concerned and angry, but if she can trust anyone, other than the Brotherhood, it’s her.  She can rest now.
        Her vision flickers as she falls.  She barely feels the rustle of the fabric as the hood falls off, but it’s fine.  Her work, for now, is done.