aterat | Wrestling with these contradictions.

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Wrestling with these contradictions.

Altaïr was still unsure about this place. He'd been keeping to himself so far with great intent, watching from the rooftops and, though he'd been assigned a building and a room, he'd yet to enter it, having slept on those rooftops as he had countless times before.

The story they told about rebuilding, about strange magic - though he couldn't deny the magic, as much as he wanted to, it struck him with doubt. If this was a place to rebuild, why him? He was a killer. It was what he'd been raised and trained to do. He had no purpose in a place trying to rebuild unless someone specific was hampering that process. He could eliminate them, certainly. But why?

It wasn't as if he wanted to return to Masyaf. Not consciously, at least. Now that he'd seen precisely how conditional Al Mualim's care was, how he would be treated for doing precisely what he'd been raised and taught to do. He'd already wanted to leave the Brotherhood. That, he'd certainly done. Not of his own accord, true enough, but he'd left. This was, in its way, a chance to change things. It was what he'd hoped to do with Adha. But at least she would have been there and taught him another way of life.

Here... what did he have here? Nothing. Nothing at all.

He dropped own onto the street level between a pair of buildings, careful to not be seen before stepping out into foot traffic. He was hungry. While he had no money beyond what had been granted to him on his arrival, it was surely enough, with what he'd saved so far, to purchase a bit of food. He could've stolen it, but why? It served no purpose. Not yet. And he wasn't yet that desperate.

Food. For now, that would serve as a goal.

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His answer was blunt, spoken while he passed Nida on the way to the person attending the tavern so he could request his food: "I am not a practiced hunter."

Hunter of men? Certainly. Hunter of food? No. He tended to survive on the most basic of meals outside of Masyaf and the Bureaus, which meant that this fare, when he received it, was unusual. Stew. He wasn't familiar with the style of cooking and it smelled... serviceable as he brought it up to his face to breathe in the scent.

Where were all the spices?

Still, he looked around the inside of the building and decided he didn't like what he saw. Not that anything was wrong, but it was too walled-in. Thus he stepped out with his own food and--

And a bit of vindictiveness came to him. He sat at Nida's table with no preamble and, after a glance to the street, pulled back his hood just enough that he could eat without fearing for the white of the fabric.

Who was these days? Nida himself wasn't exactly adept at the practice either. But with Altair heading inside, he didn't have to worry about explaining that. He could just return to his stew and mealy bread. Except... Except then there the man was again, sitting across from him. For the life of him, Nida couldn't help but chuckle.

"I'm honestly surprised you didn't try to climb with the food in your hands."

"That would be foolish."

Though a glance at the roof and he wondered. He could probably make that jump with just a small aid. A vendor's stall, or perhaps a few crates. And his hands wouldn't have been needed. But--

"I have no reason to steal the bowl."

It wouldn't do to burn bridges here.

Though now that the thought came, he wondered. Should he apply it to this man as well, or only the natives? He wasn't very knowledgeable about life outside the Brotherhood. He'd never seen it for anything but a fiction that other people lived. Now...

"Where you came from. Was it much like this at all?"

He can see it. The calculation in the attention the other turned away from him. And Nida wanted to laugh. Even he wouldn’t consider a climb with a bowl in hand. That was just silly. But you had to support that sort of creativity.

“No it wasn’t. And yes it was. Really, it depends on which city or village you were in. Winhill? Yes. One of the capitals? No. But there is also tech lacking here that even those places had.”

Most of what the man said, he understood. He ate while he listened, but when that one word came, his brows lowered. "Tech?" What was meant by that? What would this place lack that another had? Much, but the context helped not at all. What did he mean by 'tech'?

Wow, that's... Wow.

"Tech as in technology. As in machines and computers and all that jazz."

How can the guy not understand that?

His brows lowered further and, with his hood pressed back as it was for his meal, it was, for once, visible. Altaïr looked up with his oddly yellow eyes full of unknowing, shaking his head. "If that is a language not English, German, French, or Arabic, I do not understand."

Machines... That, he knew at least in part. The wells, even carts - those were machines. But... Computers? Jazz?

How does this man not understand the word? Especially since places like this TRANSLATE for them already. Nida just stares for a very long moment.

"Technology. I... I can't even explain this. The wheel is technology, even if it's old. So is mortar. And blacksmithing processes. Technology is... it's the things you learn and can do as a society I think? But usually I use it to mean higher end things, new stuff. Things that run on electricity typically."

Part of the explanation did help. Discoveries, then. Scientific constructions. But then he said, "Electricity?" It felt odd in his mouth, and sounded odd in his accent. It was a word he'd not heard before, but now his curiosity was being tugged at, like dangling a string before a cat.

Oh boy. Altair is about to drive him to drink.

"Lightning, but controlled by humans."

It was immediate, how he leaned forward, hawkish eyes focusing tightly on Nida, brows lowered, eyes even narrowed - suspicion and curiosity all at once. "How?"

Wow that is... a very loaded question. Nida groans and his fingers come up to rub at his temples.

"Dude, that's a really serious question there. Needs diagrams and all of that. Maybe... I can find a beginner's book on it in the Directory? It could help you. But it's pretty common stuff. We light our homes with glass bulbs with small bits of metal in them that heat up and give off bright light when electrical current runs through them. And we have vehicles that run without animals to pull them. Hell, we have running water."

Glass bulbs and heated metal. Lightning trapped in bottles for the purposes of heat and light. Vehicles without animals and running water--

Well. The last, at least, didn't surprise him so much. All water in rivers ran, after all. But the rest...

Altaïr looked down at the tabletop as he tried to consider how any of this was possible, and found nothing. There was no reasoning, no thought, that could tie this together.

Lightning in a bottle...

"Your... Your world has more than its share of wonders."

"A lot of worlds have them. Yours may well too, in time," Nida answers with a shrug. "This place may, in time."

Nida has to believe this place will change, like the Village did.

"I wish I could show you. But my world isn't one of wonder. It's one of serious danger."

"Every world is one of serious danger." He said it without pause because of that one thing, he was sure. "Wonders and danger do not preclude one another."

But don't they? Nida doesn't know. He considers Altair briefly and then nods.

"Perhaps. I've seen some that have never known true danger before, though. Which may be less their world, and more their lives."

That got a small nod. "Few are those in my home who have not known danger. From soldiers to farmers. Our lands are home to war, and those who try to escape it rarely succeed."

He knew well. He'd tried to escape it, and he'd failed - until now.

"Well congratulations. You are, as we like to say, out of the frying pan, and into the fire. Worlds like this? They have new sorts of dangers."

Ones that Nida shuddered to even think about. To the point where he scrapes at the bottom of his bowl, trying to get the last bite out rather than think of them.

"How are you adjusting, Rooftop Hero?"

"I am not."

But then, after a moment, he added a single word: "Yet."

He was still learning. Trying to see this place for what it was, compare it with the world he knew. It was far from as easy as it should have been. Too many old rules had to be disregarded.

Yet. That's a hopeful word, one that was enough to earn a smirk from Nida. That's the ticket, Altair. Learn to adjust, to adapt. He liked it.

"I'm sure you're learning a lot. Hopefully we don't all seem like barbarians."

If there was any facetiousness in those words, Altaïr missed it, choosing instead to lift a shoulder. "Few do. If any. Though you seem more like Englishmen and Frenchmen than those of us from the Ash-Shām." But with that said, he glanced up, the yellow of his eyes dulled by what shadow his hood still cast. "Your appearance is that of one from further East than West."

The comparisons Altair make mean literally nothing to Nida, so he just keeps smiling.

"I'm from the West. My blood is Galbadian, my home is Timber. And none of those will probably make sense to you."

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Wrestling with these contradictions.

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/was literally just emptying his inbox when this came in

Good timing ftw

Re: Good timing ftw

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