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Altaïr didn’t like his face.
Not because he would’ve considered himself ugly.
What stared back at him from the mirror was something he felt no connection to – the features were somewhat pleasing to look at, true, yet the whole image felt…distant.
His eyes were the worst. There was this saying that ‘the eyes are the gates to one’s soul’, but whatever place they should contain, whatever the thing was they should be home for, Altaïr’s eyes were bereft of it. He pressed them closed tightly, exhaling sharply through his nose.
He had been so full of himself, so sure about everything that he was meant to be that he’d lost this sense of self after the incident at Solomon’s Temple – it felt as if his hubris took his soul and ran to where he would always be unable to retrieve it. The shell that was left behind remained hollow like the discarded skin of a snake.
He traced his hand over his brow down to his cheekbone, feeling for scales, in search for a reptilian structure, until it came to rest upon the stubble that had grown over three nights and days, reminding him of his humanity.
Reopening his eyes was easier after that, though he still avoided looking at his reflection directly, grabbing the shaving knife that sat waiting on the table.
There were days when small repetitive acts like shaving were the only things that saved his sanity and kept him grounded in a world that would’ve otherwise slipped away, so he took his time and indulged in it to the fullest, scraping the blade over his skin in measured swipes.
The wound on his left shoulder still restricted his range of movement and raising his arm was answered by a tearing pain, but Altaïr forced his limbs to follow his commands despite it, breathing through the ache. He should’ve expected his concentration to slip because of it, but he was too busy not to meet his eyes in the mirror, unsettling the knife on his jaw in the end and leaving a nick behind that immediately oozed blood.
‘Damn it…’
The shaving knife hit the wooden surface with a frustrated groan, as Altaïr first grabbed his aching shoulder, before he tugged at the bandage’s end to dab at his bleeding chin.
Finally meeting his own stare in the mirror’s polished surface, Altaïr wondered whether snakes had red blood, too.
If he would’ve been a braver man, he might’ve been able to withstand his own gaze, but being that horrible soulless hull, he grabbed the mirror, put it face-down onto the table with shaking hands, and rose to get himself dressed.
Technically, he still wasn’t allowed to rise from his sickbed, but agitation crawled right under his skin, fueled by the fact that one of the servants brought him both his mended cloths and his equipment. Eying the down-turned mirror, Altaïr wondered why his stuff had been returned before he was released by Masyaf’s leading healer. Maybe Al Mualim wanted him off and away to the next mission as fast as possible.
Donning his gear felt like coming home bit by bit with each layer added and Altaïr was glad that all of his weaponry was returned to him in near mint condition, as he slipped every bade, every sash and belt to its proper place – only to freeze in mid-motion once he noted what was missing so fundamentally.
He searched the trunk at the end of his bed, the windowsill, everywhere, to no avail.
His most important piece of clothing was nowhere to be found.
Rage raced through his veins, because this was oh so obviously Malik’s doing – only he knew him well enough to know that this piece of missing equipment would be able to tie his hands and hold him back. Altaïr would be able to compensate any missing blade, and, by all that was high and holy, he would even walk out barefooted or dressed in just his loincloth if push came to shove, but never without –
The door hit the wall with a bang when he stormed off, heading straight for the library.
‘Safety and peace, brother.’
A familiar voice greeted him once he made it to the rows filled with the oldest tomes on the upper level, but it didn’t belong to the man Altaïr was in search for.
‘Good day, Ahmed,’ he answered with a nod of his head out of politeness, eyes still scanning the room.
A small smile rose on the other’s face upon seeing his gaze roaming across the hallways and nooks. ‘He’s in the dining hall, Master Altaïr.’
His head snapped around, pinning the journeyman with an inquiring stare, arms crossed in front of his chest.
‘Please don’t look at me like this,’ Ahmed said and hurried to explain. ‘You’re searching for him, aren’t you? The two of you are still a unity, even after all, so it was a well-estimated guess. And I guessed right, didn’t I? You’re angry at him?’
Altaïr shoulders dropped a bit once he exhaled. Of course, Malik’s name wasn’t in need to be voiced aloud – it was enough that it hovered in the air like a bird’s stroke of wings. He didn’t like how obvious their complicated relationship seemed to be to outward eyes, so he turned on his heel and headed down the stairs.
‘Thank you, brother,’ he shouted over his shoulder, where Ahmed still stood, waiting for the answer Altaïr didn’t seem fit to deliver.
The dining hall lay to the right and Altaïr didn’t bother knocking. Silence greeted him, when he entered with billowing robes and righteous anger.
‘Ah. Altaïr. Finally.’
Malik was sitting amongst at least a dozen novices, whose laughter had died down to be replaced by muttering and murmuring upon his sudden entry.
That’s him?
I thought him to be disfigured!
He isn’t an eagle at all!?
Are you stupid? Of course not, he’s a man.
He’s tall…and rather handsome!
Be quiet, or else he’ll ends us!
The choir of voices whispered on – and Malik just sat there, spooning his soup. After an agonizing moment, he turned towards him again, his smile surprisingly open – and for once directed at Altaïr. That fact alone did wonders to the rage that brought him here in the first place. Raking a hand through his hair in sudden self-awareness, Altaïr deflated.
‘Where…whe…where’s my hood, Malik,’ he heard himself stammer, all eyes centered on his person.
‘Not here, and that’s a good thing – otherwise you would be already up and away somewhere between Acre and Jaffa instead of taking time to recover fully. Karim, scoot over and you go and get another bowl of soup,’ the Dai said to the boy across of him. ‘Forget the hood. Come, have a seat, Altaïr.’
Granted, his first instinct was to flee. He wasn’t one for socializing even with his hood in place, masking his features, and now without it, he felt all the more bared and naked. Maybe it was due to Malik’s smile that he sat down onto the narrow bench beside him and his troupe of nosy brats, but he suddenly found himself eating the offered food with a hunger he had not been aware of.
‘You really aren’t an eagle…,’ a boy at the far end muttered, and Altaïr felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth.
‘Disappointed?’
‘…no. You would look funny with a beak for a mouth!’
Altaïr cocked his head to the side in mock contemplation, drawing a hand over his freshly shaven chin. ‘That much is true. Would make eating soup funny, too.’
At that remark, the gang of novices started roaring with laughter, but what really made Altaïr perk up was that Malik joined in in tune with them, sharing their glee.
‘But why are you called an eagle then, Master Altaïr?’ Another voice, coming from a round face.
‘Are you blind? He has awesome golden eyes, like a bird of prey,’ another quipped in with conviction.
Suddenly, Altaïr thought back to the mirror lying face-down in his chamber and how he wasn’t able to meet his own gaze. These boys saw something he could not, faced something unabashedly he shied away from.
‘The lot of you should’ve better listened to Master Tarik and his lectures about science,’ Malik interrupted his train of thought, scolding his pupils. ‘Now, who hasn’t slept through his astronomy classes and has the answer to this riddle?’
A thin arm rose and an equally thin voice answered. ‘Aṭ-Ṭāʾir is the brightest star of an-Nasr, the eagle constellation. So, that’s why Master is called like that. I guess?’
’Everyone got it all wrong!’ The boy from the far end again. ‘Then he isn’t an eagle, but a star!’
Altaïr was already on his way to negate that conclusion. No, he wasn’t even remotely a star, he was snake skin – something gritty that was left behind without purpose. He couldn’t be a star, for he wasn’t even able to face his own reflection without flinching, wasn’t able to face the world without a hood to mask his features.
Yet here he sat amongst these children, who looked at him with stars of their own in their eyes. Yes, they saw something he failed to recognize in himself, and that thought troubled him beyond words.
‘I’m no sta-,’ he began to utter, when Malik’s laughter silenced his attempt.
‘Yes, he is,’ the other said, eyeing him from the side with a vehemence that left him speechless. ’And he is not, for he’s just a mortal man, as one of you had already clarified in the beginning. He bleeds when cut…’ Here, Malik thumbed over the cut on his chin with an intimacy that let old memories well up from somewhere deep down in him. ‘Even if it’s merely his own shaving knife that hurts him, or an arrow that pierces through his shoulder and ties him to the sickbed. Stars don’t bleed.’
Neither did snake skin, Altaïr thought, suddenly taking comfort in that thought. Snakes bled, too, no matter their blood’s color. As did men, crimson red.
His hood was gone, and here he sat amongst his little brothers, unmasked and open, and it felt like home, too, with Malik’s thigh pressing alongside his own to anchor him in reality.
Somehow all of it gave him the strength to answer the boy, who sat at the far end of the row. ‘No, I’m not really a star, but I was born under the one named Aṭ-Ṭāʾir, and that’s a nice name, for it gave me wings and claws to strike down my prey, like the eagle would.’
Whatever the boy might have wanted to say, it got lost over the shout of the instructor, calling them all back to sword practice, and after a lot of shuffling feet and clanking plates, the room lay silent and deserted again.
‘Would you still stay, if I would return your hood, Altaïr?’
The question startled him. There was something unnamable in Malik’s black eyes, something that spoke of challenge and something that looked utterly hurt. He didn’t like the last part especially. Weighing his words in the silence of his mind, Altaïr dreaded the question that arose.
‘Do you want me to stay?’
Anger flashed across the other’s face and Altaïr regretted his counter question already.
‘Of course I want you to stay! Why else would I resort to such childish strategies to keep you grounded?!’
Fumbling with the inner pouch of his mantle, he produced a folded piece of linen and slapped it onto the table in front of him. ‘Here. If you want to leave this place so direly, take it and be off.’
Altaïr didn’t need to unfold the cloth to know that it was his hood, and the urge to slide it over his head was almost unbearable, yet he restrained himself, staring at it instead. Next to him, Malik drew a hand through his short hair in exasperation.
‘Do you know what’s really so sad about this whole charade?’ The following pause was heavy with expectation. ‘It was so nice to see you without that damn hood for once,’ he said, gesturing wildly at the folded fabric. ‘You always hide behind it like a foot soldier hides behind his shield.’
Thumbing the hood’s hem, Altaïr wasn’t able to meet his gaze, as another question sat heavy on the tip of his tongue.
‘What was it that they saw in me, Malik?’
He heard him snort, and he hoped that the other would be able to decode his question like he’d done so many times throughout their shared history.
‘They saw you as what you are. You are neither a star, nor an eagle, nor the legend all of Masyaf has made you out to be, nor whatever other attributes they could possibly spawn out. You’re human, Altaïr, with all your flaws and mistakes.’
Maybe it was due to the half-light of the flickering torches, but suddenly the texture of his hood looked like the fine scales of a snake and Altaïr retracted his hands as if burnt.
‘You were the one, who had to pay the price for my flaws and mistakes,’ he pressed between clenched teeth.
‘Altaïr.’ Malik’s voice was stern and exhausted at the very same time. ‘How many times have I to repeat myself that I forgave you? If you don’t forgive yourself, you won’t be able to leave this behind you. You’ve grown so much, so, please, let this rest and move on. Leave this mistake behind you, like a snake would with its old skin.’
Altaïr’s head snapped around at these words. How could Malik be able to know? But who else would know this part of himself, if not he? He alone?
‘Snake skin,’ he murmured, his voice shaken, but at least he felt brave enough to search and hold Malik’s gaze, now that the demon was finally out in the open. ‘I…I don’t know if I’m able to. I’ll…try.’
It felt nice to see a small smile rise on Malik’s face and Altaïr knew it was mirrored in his own features, too. There was one, final thing left to be said, though, an answer long overdue.
‘I would stay, Malik. I promise that I will stay.’
The other huffed a laugh, noticing the change in tense as well as the fact that they came back to where they’d started their conversation. ‘You are such a complicated character, my friend.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
Malik shook his head in mute surrender, his smile still in place, and let his hand rest upon Altaïr’s good shoulder, heavy and warm. ‘Go, get some rest, you look tired.’
Denying was useless, for exhaustion crawled through his veins by now, so he nodded and rose clumsily. He was almost through the door, when Malik spoke up again.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something,’ he asked, gesturing to the folded piece of fabric that still sat upon the table.
This time, Altaïr’s voice was steady. ‘No. I’m leaving my snake skin behind.’
The puzzlement was evident on the other’s face, but he refrained from asking questions, and Altaïr was glad for this small mercy as he stepped on, his heart beating up to his throat. Only once the door to his chamber fell shut behind him, did the tension leave his body, making room for a deep weariness.
Before the urge to sink down onto his bed could grow any stronger, he turned to the table where his mirror was still lying face-down. Hesitantly, he lifted it to let it rest against the wall.
The face mustering him out of bright brown eyes looked bone-tired.
And utterly human.