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Between a Father and Son
series: Assassin's Creed
characters: Darim Ibn-La'Ahad, Altair Ibn-La'Ahad
rating: pg
summary: Darim's reflections on his relationship with his father as the years go by.
When he sleeps, he dreams of his family. He dreams of his mother, his brother, and his father, and of his childhood. He dreams of the times when they were all together, when he and his brother would play together, when he would play pranks on him because he was the older one and that's just what older brothers were supposed to do. He dreams of sneaking into his father's office to help him with his work even though at such a young age there couldn't possibly have been anything for him to really do. He dreams of his father spending long hours locked in his office and not understanding why his mother and uncle would get so upset. He was only doing some work, wasn't he? That's no reason to be upset.
He didn't understand it then, but he understands it now. Now, while he watches his father spend those long hours in frog of his desk, hands resting on the Apple, cold, unmoving hands; a cold, unmoving entire body -- he understands now. Despite his best efforts he hasn't managed to get his father to eat or sleep for three days now, he's too wrapped up in the images of the Apple and Darim wonders if his father even hears him when he speaks. It's times like these when he feels the string urge to be angry with his father, like a petulant child who hasn't gotten some gift he's wanted for all of a week and will soon forget about it within the next. It's a petty anger, born out of a frustration from being unable to reach his father the way his mother and uncle were able to.
It's a petty, bitter anger and whenever he feels it coming up it quickly turns to anger at his own self. What right did he have to be mad at them for something like that, to be mad at them at all? They were the ones closest to his father, they had the experience of dealing with his father in his state that he never had time or need to acquire; it's only natural that they would be able to handle this in a way that he couldn't. Occasionally he dreams of that, too; what they must have done to get him to come back to reality, how hard it must have been for them to watch him like this because at one point they had known him before he'd become so obsessed with the Apple. They would have seen the change as it happened and that must have been far harder for them than it ever was for him, who had only ever known his father while the Apple was a prominent fixture in his life.
More recently, though, since they'd begun to live with Sef's family, he had started to dream of what it might be like if his family were still here with him. If his brother had gone with them to meet the Mongol threat, if whatever had transpired between his parents and Abbas had never happened (his father refused to tell him any of the details), and if his uncle had been in well enough condition to fight off the one responsible for his murder. He dreams of them all together and how much happier he and his father would be if any of that were reality, but when he wakes up he knows immediately that his dream has really only been a dream. There is no tired glimmer of hope that would lead him to believe otherwise, and the happiness his father and he experience in the dream does not linger for any amount of time after he opens his eyes. He knows, will always know, that the current reality is likely the one that will remain for the rest of their lives and that frightens Darim more than the idea of dying at the hands of a Templar or even Abbas as his family had. The idea of he, and what is effectively only an empty shell of his father only having what they have now - small amounts of forced happiness and far too many failed attempts at communication - makes him prefer either of those fates over this one.
Maybe that's why his brother's house suddenly feels so much smaller when his sister-in-law and nieces leave for Alexandria. Maybe that's why he finds it harder and harder to stay in that house, alone with his father and spending his days making sure that the man is taken care of. When he makes the decision to leave he says nothing, doesn't have to say anything. His father understands, has probably been expecting it, and maybe the Apple has already told him that Darim would leave him there eventually. Whatever the case, neither of them says anything the night before he does leave. For once, his father has not locked himself in his room with that object that he has grown to genuinely hate; that object that has kept them from having a true father-son relationship rather than the relationship they had now, which more resembles the relationship of a very old man and the person who has been hired to take care of him.
On this night Darim asks his father to tell him what exactly happened to cause the death of their loved ones, but he receives nothing more than the usual answer. He receives an apology for something that Darim doesn't know of, doesn't even know if it's an apology for his father's direct involvement or if it's an apology for his father's inability to take the place of the one's they'd lost. He doubts it's the latter. He doesn't think his father is the type of person to feel any responsibility to even do that sort of thing, but that's just what he thinks and he becomes very aware of the fact that he really doesn't know his father at all.
He shouldn't feel this way, shouldn't want anything more from his father than what he has because he's lost so much already that it's far more than selfish to believe he's deserving of anything else. He's lost so much and he knows hat be should be thankful that he still has his father, but it's so hard to think that way when words are few and far between and he really only sees his father when he brings him food and his father never sees him, not really. His mind is too occupied by whatever it is that the Apple shows him. Before they retire for the night they hug. It's not a particularly warm one and both are remarkably stiff. It feels more like they're strangers and that alone is enough to keep him from second guessing his decision to leave in the morning. Maybe it's cowardly, but he can't stay here and see his father like this.
He's gone before Altair even wakes up, if he ever actually slept. It’s more likely that he spent the night looking into the Apple once again, just as usual. He feels as though there should be some more sadness in this moment, but he can't bring himself to feel it.
He rides off with that thought lingering in his mind and only some slight guilt for not feeling worse than he does.
The next few years go by slowly. He spends most of his time traveling from place to place, warning who he can about the advancing threats and thinking of his father and how he must be. He wonders about him a lot. He'd left because taking care of him day after day while he all but destroyed himself, but now-- now that he was on his own, away from the terrible sight of his father's miserable state, he couldn't think of anything else. This should have been a predictable thing, he thinks sometimes. Did he honestly think he could erase all thoughts of his father from his mind?
No, only wishful thinking. Altair, the legendary assassin, his father, was always going to be just that - his father and he never would be able to forget about him, his own flesh and blood and the man who raised him. Despite their lack of closeness, he'd never be able to stop worrying about his father.
When he hears of his father's return to power in Masayf he decides that it is finally time to put his travels to an end. He writes a letter to his father informing him of this and leaves the day after he sends it, heading in the direction of the place of his former home. He's nervous the whole way there, unsure of how his father would take his return, but knowing that even if his father was less than pleased - or even pleased - he would likely only show a calm indifference to it. For a good portion of his memories, that's how his father has always been; since the time of his training as a novice and all of the years until they ended up in the home of his brother. Then it was only the powerful depression that had driven Darim away, in the end.
Remembering that, thinking of the time he'd spent taking care of his father almost as if he were an invalid makes him pray that he truly will be met with that indifference he had once been so accustomed to. He knows that will probably be the case; there would be no way for him to have once again become Grand Master if he were still in that pathetic state he'd been left in, but the worry is there all the same. It will probably remain there for the rest of his life, until both he and his father are long since in their graves.
He had broken from the Apple's hold once, and soon after found himself under its influence again. Darim is certain that even if he is once again free of it, it might not be very long until he loses his father again. If it happens again, though, he won't leave. He has to promise himself that. He won't be the coward he was years ago when he ran away from the only family he has left.
His father greets him in exactly the way he expected him to. He looks stronger, healthier, but he can't tell if his father is truly happier. He's never been the sort of person that was very good at reading that sort of thing about people, least of all people like his father. Despite this, he can't help but to feel happier himself. His father truly does look much better than the last time they'd seen each other and he feels proud of him.
He is obviously nowhere near where he had once been when he was much, much younger, but his father is human no matter what and because of that he is still vulnerable to the effects of age. No one can blame him for no longer being where he was in his prime, not at this age.
They are under constant attack, and that is fine. He expected it and he is an assassin. He can handle it. He worries for his father, though. He doesn't need to, he knows this, his father tells him so many times, and yet no matter how many times he hears it, tells himself that, the message does not seem to truly sink in. He's convinced that his need to make sure his father is always okay is some sort of subconscious attempt at making up for the time lost; the time where he ran from his responsibility to do just this for his father when he really needs it, but he doesn't think much of that time any more. That, at least, has been left in the past.
He focuses most of his thoughts on rebuilding their relationship. For as long as they have together, he wants to be closer with his father. He doesn't realize this until his uncle's son, Tazim - although he goes by Malik, now -, scorns him, and all but beats it into him that he is unworthy of being at his father's side during those first few months of his return. He gets the message and does what he can to change this opinion, and eventually, it works.
He and his father do get closer, but they only have a few years together, that much is obvious. As the years pass there is no denying that his father is far too old for this job, too old for the pressures and stress that come with their lifestyle, but they make the best of it for as long as they can. And despite his father's and his own aging, Darim likes to think that for the first time in years, they are finally, truly happy. He wishes he knew if his father thought the same way, but it seems a strange thing to ask and so he settles for only knowing that he does feel that way. He is thankful for his mended relationship with his father - even though that was only ever truly broken on his part -, that there is no longer a constant, overwhelming loneliness in his heart when he thinks of the people who are still missing from his life, that his father is well, and for once, despite the ever present Mongol threat, the pieces of his life seem to be falling right into place.
Those few years soon come to an end, and shortly before escorting the Polos out of Masayf, it soon seems that the rest of its inhabitants will have to leave as well. Darim proposes that he and his father go together to Alexandria and again live with Sef's family. He has not married or started a family of his own, but he does not mind that. He is content to help his brother's family and take his place whenever they require him. His father never gives an answer, there's only a long pause that Darim doesn't know the meaning of and then requests that Darim take his books and send the away - a strange request considering the recently built library, but one he does not question and carries out as his father requests.
It isn't until they are standing in front of each other in that library that he does question the request, and when his father answers he wishes he hadn't. A vault for the artifacts that had been in his father's possession for so long, not a library - and it makes sense to him that his father would do that, but when the realization hits that it would also be a vault for his father, he can no longer understand even if he is forced to accept it. When his father tells him to go and to live well he wants to protest, to say that his father can leave his artifacts here, but it isn't necessary for him to stay here, too. He can't find the voice to say it, though, and there's heaviness in his heart when he thinks that this will be the last time he ever sees his father again. All of the regret from the past because of his inability to be there for his father when he really needed it returns for a split second, but he forces it away. Now is not the time to think of that, now he will simply think of this moment and leave the past and the future for when he walks out of ere and begins the journey to Alexandria, when he will have the time to think of anything he wishes because he will be alone on that journey.
"All that is good in me, Father, began with you."
It's probably the most honest thing he's ever said in his life and as he wraps his arms around his father he can feel his eyes begin to burn with the beginnings of tears that he only just manages to hold back. In this moment, he feels like a small child again, and he wants his father to hold him for a whole longer, to comfort him and say that everything will be alright, but he doesn't expect that and his father doesn't go against his expectations. Their eye contact is not broken until the door lowers enough that he cannot see his father’s face and although he wishes to bang on the door, demand that his father return and accompany him, he does not. He turns away and heads out as he knows he should, thankful that he had been given those last few moments with his father.
Darim never hears of him again, but he knows what must have become of his father, locked away I that vault with nothing to sustain his life for any significant amount of time. He only wonders how long it was after he left that his father had to be alone in there and he hopes it was not long. His father had been alone enough in his life; Darim would not want him to have to have been alone again for an extended period of time.
That night, when he sleeps, he dreams of his family. He dreams of his mother, his brother, his father, and of his childhood. He dreams of the times when they were all together, when he and his brother would play together, when he would play pranks on him because he was the older one and that's just what older brothers were supposed to do. He dreams of sneaking into his father's office to help him with his work even though at such a young age there couldn't possibly have been anything for him to really do. He dreams of his mother, his brother, and of his uncle who isn't really his uncle, but was close enough to his parents that he may as well have been. He dreams of them all together in the afterlife, happy and free of the worries that plagued them in life.
When he wakes up, he is content. He will join them one day when his time has come, and he will be with his family once again and his uncle's son - now his best friend - and his brother's family - who he now considers his own family - will join them, too, and all will be well. They will be happy and worry free, and though it will be the afterlife it will be okay, that is more than they ever could have asked for in life.
characters: Darim Ibn-La'Ahad, Altair Ibn-La'Ahad
rating: pg
summary: Darim's reflections on his relationship with his father as the years go by.
When he sleeps, he dreams of his family. He dreams of his mother, his brother, and his father, and of his childhood. He dreams of the times when they were all together, when he and his brother would play together, when he would play pranks on him because he was the older one and that's just what older brothers were supposed to do. He dreams of sneaking into his father's office to help him with his work even though at such a young age there couldn't possibly have been anything for him to really do. He dreams of his father spending long hours locked in his office and not understanding why his mother and uncle would get so upset. He was only doing some work, wasn't he? That's no reason to be upset.
He didn't understand it then, but he understands it now. Now, while he watches his father spend those long hours in frog of his desk, hands resting on the Apple, cold, unmoving hands; a cold, unmoving entire body -- he understands now. Despite his best efforts he hasn't managed to get his father to eat or sleep for three days now, he's too wrapped up in the images of the Apple and Darim wonders if his father even hears him when he speaks. It's times like these when he feels the string urge to be angry with his father, like a petulant child who hasn't gotten some gift he's wanted for all of a week and will soon forget about it within the next. It's a petty anger, born out of a frustration from being unable to reach his father the way his mother and uncle were able to.
It's a petty, bitter anger and whenever he feels it coming up it quickly turns to anger at his own self. What right did he have to be mad at them for something like that, to be mad at them at all? They were the ones closest to his father, they had the experience of dealing with his father in his state that he never had time or need to acquire; it's only natural that they would be able to handle this in a way that he couldn't. Occasionally he dreams of that, too; what they must have done to get him to come back to reality, how hard it must have been for them to watch him like this because at one point they had known him before he'd become so obsessed with the Apple. They would have seen the change as it happened and that must have been far harder for them than it ever was for him, who had only ever known his father while the Apple was a prominent fixture in his life.
More recently, though, since they'd begun to live with Sef's family, he had started to dream of what it might be like if his family were still here with him. If his brother had gone with them to meet the Mongol threat, if whatever had transpired between his parents and Abbas had never happened (his father refused to tell him any of the details), and if his uncle had been in well enough condition to fight off the one responsible for his murder. He dreams of them all together and how much happier he and his father would be if any of that were reality, but when he wakes up he knows immediately that his dream has really only been a dream. There is no tired glimmer of hope that would lead him to believe otherwise, and the happiness his father and he experience in the dream does not linger for any amount of time after he opens his eyes. He knows, will always know, that the current reality is likely the one that will remain for the rest of their lives and that frightens Darim more than the idea of dying at the hands of a Templar or even Abbas as his family had. The idea of he, and what is effectively only an empty shell of his father only having what they have now - small amounts of forced happiness and far too many failed attempts at communication - makes him prefer either of those fates over this one.
Maybe that's why his brother's house suddenly feels so much smaller when his sister-in-law and nieces leave for Alexandria. Maybe that's why he finds it harder and harder to stay in that house, alone with his father and spending his days making sure that the man is taken care of. When he makes the decision to leave he says nothing, doesn't have to say anything. His father understands, has probably been expecting it, and maybe the Apple has already told him that Darim would leave him there eventually. Whatever the case, neither of them says anything the night before he does leave. For once, his father has not locked himself in his room with that object that he has grown to genuinely hate; that object that has kept them from having a true father-son relationship rather than the relationship they had now, which more resembles the relationship of a very old man and the person who has been hired to take care of him.
On this night Darim asks his father to tell him what exactly happened to cause the death of their loved ones, but he receives nothing more than the usual answer. He receives an apology for something that Darim doesn't know of, doesn't even know if it's an apology for his father's direct involvement or if it's an apology for his father's inability to take the place of the one's they'd lost. He doubts it's the latter. He doesn't think his father is the type of person to feel any responsibility to even do that sort of thing, but that's just what he thinks and he becomes very aware of the fact that he really doesn't know his father at all.
He shouldn't feel this way, shouldn't want anything more from his father than what he has because he's lost so much already that it's far more than selfish to believe he's deserving of anything else. He's lost so much and he knows hat be should be thankful that he still has his father, but it's so hard to think that way when words are few and far between and he really only sees his father when he brings him food and his father never sees him, not really. His mind is too occupied by whatever it is that the Apple shows him. Before they retire for the night they hug. It's not a particularly warm one and both are remarkably stiff. It feels more like they're strangers and that alone is enough to keep him from second guessing his decision to leave in the morning. Maybe it's cowardly, but he can't stay here and see his father like this.
He's gone before Altair even wakes up, if he ever actually slept. It’s more likely that he spent the night looking into the Apple once again, just as usual. He feels as though there should be some more sadness in this moment, but he can't bring himself to feel it.
He rides off with that thought lingering in his mind and only some slight guilt for not feeling worse than he does.
The next few years go by slowly. He spends most of his time traveling from place to place, warning who he can about the advancing threats and thinking of his father and how he must be. He wonders about him a lot. He'd left because taking care of him day after day while he all but destroyed himself, but now-- now that he was on his own, away from the terrible sight of his father's miserable state, he couldn't think of anything else. This should have been a predictable thing, he thinks sometimes. Did he honestly think he could erase all thoughts of his father from his mind?
No, only wishful thinking. Altair, the legendary assassin, his father, was always going to be just that - his father and he never would be able to forget about him, his own flesh and blood and the man who raised him. Despite their lack of closeness, he'd never be able to stop worrying about his father.
When he hears of his father's return to power in Masayf he decides that it is finally time to put his travels to an end. He writes a letter to his father informing him of this and leaves the day after he sends it, heading in the direction of the place of his former home. He's nervous the whole way there, unsure of how his father would take his return, but knowing that even if his father was less than pleased - or even pleased - he would likely only show a calm indifference to it. For a good portion of his memories, that's how his father has always been; since the time of his training as a novice and all of the years until they ended up in the home of his brother. Then it was only the powerful depression that had driven Darim away, in the end.
Remembering that, thinking of the time he'd spent taking care of his father almost as if he were an invalid makes him pray that he truly will be met with that indifference he had once been so accustomed to. He knows that will probably be the case; there would be no way for him to have once again become Grand Master if he were still in that pathetic state he'd been left in, but the worry is there all the same. It will probably remain there for the rest of his life, until both he and his father are long since in their graves.
He had broken from the Apple's hold once, and soon after found himself under its influence again. Darim is certain that even if he is once again free of it, it might not be very long until he loses his father again. If it happens again, though, he won't leave. He has to promise himself that. He won't be the coward he was years ago when he ran away from the only family he has left.
His father greets him in exactly the way he expected him to. He looks stronger, healthier, but he can't tell if his father is truly happier. He's never been the sort of person that was very good at reading that sort of thing about people, least of all people like his father. Despite this, he can't help but to feel happier himself. His father truly does look much better than the last time they'd seen each other and he feels proud of him.
He is obviously nowhere near where he had once been when he was much, much younger, but his father is human no matter what and because of that he is still vulnerable to the effects of age. No one can blame him for no longer being where he was in his prime, not at this age.
They are under constant attack, and that is fine. He expected it and he is an assassin. He can handle it. He worries for his father, though. He doesn't need to, he knows this, his father tells him so many times, and yet no matter how many times he hears it, tells himself that, the message does not seem to truly sink in. He's convinced that his need to make sure his father is always okay is some sort of subconscious attempt at making up for the time lost; the time where he ran from his responsibility to do just this for his father when he really needs it, but he doesn't think much of that time any more. That, at least, has been left in the past.
He focuses most of his thoughts on rebuilding their relationship. For as long as they have together, he wants to be closer with his father. He doesn't realize this until his uncle's son, Tazim - although he goes by Malik, now -, scorns him, and all but beats it into him that he is unworthy of being at his father's side during those first few months of his return. He gets the message and does what he can to change this opinion, and eventually, it works.
He and his father do get closer, but they only have a few years together, that much is obvious. As the years pass there is no denying that his father is far too old for this job, too old for the pressures and stress that come with their lifestyle, but they make the best of it for as long as they can. And despite his father's and his own aging, Darim likes to think that for the first time in years, they are finally, truly happy. He wishes he knew if his father thought the same way, but it seems a strange thing to ask and so he settles for only knowing that he does feel that way. He is thankful for his mended relationship with his father - even though that was only ever truly broken on his part -, that there is no longer a constant, overwhelming loneliness in his heart when he thinks of the people who are still missing from his life, that his father is well, and for once, despite the ever present Mongol threat, the pieces of his life seem to be falling right into place.
Those few years soon come to an end, and shortly before escorting the Polos out of Masayf, it soon seems that the rest of its inhabitants will have to leave as well. Darim proposes that he and his father go together to Alexandria and again live with Sef's family. He has not married or started a family of his own, but he does not mind that. He is content to help his brother's family and take his place whenever they require him. His father never gives an answer, there's only a long pause that Darim doesn't know the meaning of and then requests that Darim take his books and send the away - a strange request considering the recently built library, but one he does not question and carries out as his father requests.
It isn't until they are standing in front of each other in that library that he does question the request, and when his father answers he wishes he hadn't. A vault for the artifacts that had been in his father's possession for so long, not a library - and it makes sense to him that his father would do that, but when the realization hits that it would also be a vault for his father, he can no longer understand even if he is forced to accept it. When his father tells him to go and to live well he wants to protest, to say that his father can leave his artifacts here, but it isn't necessary for him to stay here, too. He can't find the voice to say it, though, and there's heaviness in his heart when he thinks that this will be the last time he ever sees his father again. All of the regret from the past because of his inability to be there for his father when he really needed it returns for a split second, but he forces it away. Now is not the time to think of that, now he will simply think of this moment and leave the past and the future for when he walks out of ere and begins the journey to Alexandria, when he will have the time to think of anything he wishes because he will be alone on that journey.
"All that is good in me, Father, began with you."
It's probably the most honest thing he's ever said in his life and as he wraps his arms around his father he can feel his eyes begin to burn with the beginnings of tears that he only just manages to hold back. In this moment, he feels like a small child again, and he wants his father to hold him for a whole longer, to comfort him and say that everything will be alright, but he doesn't expect that and his father doesn't go against his expectations. Their eye contact is not broken until the door lowers enough that he cannot see his father’s face and although he wishes to bang on the door, demand that his father return and accompany him, he does not. He turns away and heads out as he knows he should, thankful that he had been given those last few moments with his father.
Darim never hears of him again, but he knows what must have become of his father, locked away I that vault with nothing to sustain his life for any significant amount of time. He only wonders how long it was after he left that his father had to be alone in there and he hopes it was not long. His father had been alone enough in his life; Darim would not want him to have to have been alone again for an extended period of time.
That night, when he sleeps, he dreams of his family. He dreams of his mother, his brother, his father, and of his childhood. He dreams of the times when they were all together, when he and his brother would play together, when he would play pranks on him because he was the older one and that's just what older brothers were supposed to do. He dreams of sneaking into his father's office to help him with his work even though at such a young age there couldn't possibly have been anything for him to really do. He dreams of his mother, his brother, and of his uncle who isn't really his uncle, but was close enough to his parents that he may as well have been. He dreams of them all together in the afterlife, happy and free of the worries that plagued them in life.
When he wakes up, he is content. He will join them one day when his time has come, and he will be with his family once again and his uncle's son - now his best friend - and his brother's family - who he now considers his own family - will join them, too, and all will be well. They will be happy and worry free, and though it will be the afterlife it will be okay, that is more than they ever could have asked for in life.