Not Quite Normal
Dec. 28th, 2023 03:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerMain Points:
Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond initiates an investigation mission.
Word Count: 1125
Rating: Teen
In general, Desmond had been keeping his distance from the “other” Bee-touched, mostly because he’d been worried he’d give himself away without enough information. At this point, though, he really wants to find any clues he can, so he actually mingles. A lot of them come to the Horned God or Tabula Rasa, the nightclub, and they’re more than happy to talk to him, even though that does seem to be making Shaun worry and the rest of the Templars watching him slightly on edge. Which is honestly a bit of a problem, because they’ve been on edge since the whole attempted murder thing, so it’s just making that whole situation worse, but he’s not just going to sit around and not try to investigate, either. He believes that Shaun and Rebecca are actually trying and would actually tell him what they found out, but he’s not too sure about anyone else, and if there’s somebody higher up in the Templar chain of command who wants him dead he’d like to know about that. He does find himself drawing on Ezio’s social skills, just a little (both Altaïr and Ratonhnhaké:ton would probably rather beat someone up to interrogate them, and that’s not useful here), but, to his pleasant surprise, even more on his own. Being a bartender had actually really prepared him for getting someone talking and then just listening while making them feel heard. It’s a real confidence booster to realize hey, I’m not actually too bad at this, so take that, Dad.
Bees in general don’t care too much about opposing factions, apparently. Not like the higher-ups. But there’s something that just strikes him as off and makes him wary, though it takes him a while to work out what it is. Friendly or not, they remind him of Minerva. They act inhuman, more like an Isu. Rebecca had a point about how they treated death and pain. Not all of them, obviously—Chelsea, for example, is an exception. Okay, they might have a reason. They’re, to all intents and purposes, immortal, seeing as they can’t stay dead and don’t seem to age. It’s too early to be sure, given that a lot of time hasn’t passed since the bees empowered people, but also immortals do clearly exist in this world. Shaun’s complained about them. More than once.
With the Bees, though...a lot of them act like they’ve forgotten what it was like to be human in a matter of weeks or months. Even when they’re just hanging around in London, being vaguely normal, they’re weirder than even Shaun and Rebecca, and that’s saying something. So, could one of them have taken the shot? Sure, especially as they don’t seem to see the killing blow as anything more than the end to a good spar and are slightly confused about the whole thing: torture? Yeah, sure. That’s serious stuff. According to all of them, every other faction does that but their own, but even that’s rare enough to be just the stuff of rumor. (Part of Desmond is pretty sure that’s just excuses used to try to paint everybody else as the villains.) What’s the point in making someone teleport to the anima well in the park when it’s not that far to run back just to kick your ass? Which means that he probably now has a name for that gold fountain.
Of course, having played through his ancestor’s memories like a video game, it feels like the attitude you might get if you actually had respawn mechanics in real life, but that doesn’t make it any less weird. None of them are red, but, disturbingly, he gets the feeling none of them would have to be, not if they thought he’d just walk away after. A lot of them seem confused that it happened in London, rather than Shambala, wherever that is, because it’s there and Stonehenge (is it not a tourist attraction in this world? How does that work?) and El Dorado and Fusang Projects, whatever that is, where the Council has okayed them actually going cutthroat like the Templars and Assassins would on meeting each other back home. They’re treating it more like ‘oh hey someone broke this gentleman’s agreement by trying to splatter your brains across the pavement in the wrong place, they didn’t think that through did they, how about I buy you a pint and tell you about the last twelve texts I got about switching sides’? It never occurs to any of them that just because you happened to walk away from dying, that doesn’t mean it’s all fine either. Look at him; he’ll still have the occasional nightmare about his own death, and judging by Shaun’s reaction, even if he didn’t necessarily know the specifics, that was the kind of trauma that you’d expect to lead someone to a bar or therapist, but it somehow doesn’t seem to occur to any of them. None of them are the transparent of the Morninglight, either; most of them are just the white of indifference. It could be that their orders have changed, but Desmond gets more of a feeling that the hitman’s long gone, because with the speed he’d left, he didn’t seem quite so blasé about it. From London, anyway; the likelihood is, the second he gets out of Templar territory someone may very well make an attempt again, so he’s going to make sure he’s prepared.
He also gets what seems to be a blank, staticky voicemail on his phone that makes him feel weird, but also grateful that he’d got Rebecca to cast some sort of magic-protection spell on his phone. (Actually, it was less of ‘he’d asked’ and more ‘she’d just snatched it from him and insisted’, but she was cool enough to do it in front of him and the blue hadn’t wavered, so he’s pretty sure she didn’t also sneak in something to spy on him. Probably. He’d actually snuck around the barriers to head to the public library more often after that, though, because he could also absolutely see her thinking spying on him was for his own good.) Maybe it’s just another failed attempt to curse him and the Illuminati haven’t given up; they’re the obvious suspects, as they’d already threatened him, but Desmond’s also wary of coming to conclusions too quickly, because he’d seen Italian Renaissance politics and politics during the Crusades and politics during the Revolutionary War and if there’s one thing he could say from those experiences it’s that things got messy. If he just straight-up assumed it was the Illuminati, he’d let down his guard and he’s semi-firsthand seen how dangerous that could be.
Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond initiates an investigation mission.
Word Count: 1125
Rating: Teen
In general, Desmond had been keeping his distance from the “other” Bee-touched, mostly because he’d been worried he’d give himself away without enough information. At this point, though, he really wants to find any clues he can, so he actually mingles. A lot of them come to the Horned God or Tabula Rasa, the nightclub, and they’re more than happy to talk to him, even though that does seem to be making Shaun worry and the rest of the Templars watching him slightly on edge. Which is honestly a bit of a problem, because they’ve been on edge since the whole attempted murder thing, so it’s just making that whole situation worse, but he’s not just going to sit around and not try to investigate, either. He believes that Shaun and Rebecca are actually trying and would actually tell him what they found out, but he’s not too sure about anyone else, and if there’s somebody higher up in the Templar chain of command who wants him dead he’d like to know about that. He does find himself drawing on Ezio’s social skills, just a little (both Altaïr and Ratonhnhaké:ton would probably rather beat someone up to interrogate them, and that’s not useful here), but, to his pleasant surprise, even more on his own. Being a bartender had actually really prepared him for getting someone talking and then just listening while making them feel heard. It’s a real confidence booster to realize hey, I’m not actually too bad at this, so take that, Dad.
Bees in general don’t care too much about opposing factions, apparently. Not like the higher-ups. But there’s something that just strikes him as off and makes him wary, though it takes him a while to work out what it is. Friendly or not, they remind him of Minerva. They act inhuman, more like an Isu. Rebecca had a point about how they treated death and pain. Not all of them, obviously—Chelsea, for example, is an exception. Okay, they might have a reason. They’re, to all intents and purposes, immortal, seeing as they can’t stay dead and don’t seem to age. It’s too early to be sure, given that a lot of time hasn’t passed since the bees empowered people, but also immortals do clearly exist in this world. Shaun’s complained about them. More than once.
With the Bees, though...a lot of them act like they’ve forgotten what it was like to be human in a matter of weeks or months. Even when they’re just hanging around in London, being vaguely normal, they’re weirder than even Shaun and Rebecca, and that’s saying something. So, could one of them have taken the shot? Sure, especially as they don’t seem to see the killing blow as anything more than the end to a good spar and are slightly confused about the whole thing: torture? Yeah, sure. That’s serious stuff. According to all of them, every other faction does that but their own, but even that’s rare enough to be just the stuff of rumor. (Part of Desmond is pretty sure that’s just excuses used to try to paint everybody else as the villains.) What’s the point in making someone teleport to the anima well in the park when it’s not that far to run back just to kick your ass? Which means that he probably now has a name for that gold fountain.
Of course, having played through his ancestor’s memories like a video game, it feels like the attitude you might get if you actually had respawn mechanics in real life, but that doesn’t make it any less weird. None of them are red, but, disturbingly, he gets the feeling none of them would have to be, not if they thought he’d just walk away after. A lot of them seem confused that it happened in London, rather than Shambala, wherever that is, because it’s there and Stonehenge (is it not a tourist attraction in this world? How does that work?) and El Dorado and Fusang Projects, whatever that is, where the Council has okayed them actually going cutthroat like the Templars and Assassins would on meeting each other back home. They’re treating it more like ‘oh hey someone broke this gentleman’s agreement by trying to splatter your brains across the pavement in the wrong place, they didn’t think that through did they, how about I buy you a pint and tell you about the last twelve texts I got about switching sides’? It never occurs to any of them that just because you happened to walk away from dying, that doesn’t mean it’s all fine either. Look at him; he’ll still have the occasional nightmare about his own death, and judging by Shaun’s reaction, even if he didn’t necessarily know the specifics, that was the kind of trauma that you’d expect to lead someone to a bar or therapist, but it somehow doesn’t seem to occur to any of them. None of them are the transparent of the Morninglight, either; most of them are just the white of indifference. It could be that their orders have changed, but Desmond gets more of a feeling that the hitman’s long gone, because with the speed he’d left, he didn’t seem quite so blasé about it. From London, anyway; the likelihood is, the second he gets out of Templar territory someone may very well make an attempt again, so he’s going to make sure he’s prepared.
He also gets what seems to be a blank, staticky voicemail on his phone that makes him feel weird, but also grateful that he’d got Rebecca to cast some sort of magic-protection spell on his phone. (Actually, it was less of ‘he’d asked’ and more ‘she’d just snatched it from him and insisted’, but she was cool enough to do it in front of him and the blue hadn’t wavered, so he’s pretty sure she didn’t also sneak in something to spy on him. Probably. He’d actually snuck around the barriers to head to the public library more often after that, though, because he could also absolutely see her thinking spying on him was for his own good.) Maybe it’s just another failed attempt to curse him and the Illuminati haven’t given up; they’re the obvious suspects, as they’d already threatened him, but Desmond’s also wary of coming to conclusions too quickly, because he’d seen Italian Renaissance politics and politics during the Crusades and politics during the Revolutionary War and if there’s one thing he could say from those experiences it’s that things got messy. If he just straight-up assumed it was the Illuminati, he’d let down his guard and he’s semi-firsthand seen how dangerous that could be.
