º . ✣ ⸻ the italian renaissance welcomes JACOPO AN of FLORENCE, the INITIATE of THE ASSASSIN BROTHERHOOD. news borne by ships sends word that he bears a resemblance to PARK YURI. the TWENTY FOUR year old CIS MAN is reputed to be PRUDENT IN ALL THINGS and INSIGHTFUL TO THE POINT OF UNCANNY, but with papacy spies watching their every move, they might turn out to be CURIOUS ENOUGH TO KILL and BELIEVES THEMSELF TO BE INFALLIABLE.
when history is recorded, the documents speak of SIDE EYE AND EYE ROLLS WITH SILVER SHARP SMILES, CRISP BED CORNERS AND FOLDED CLOTHES, THE FUTILITY AND AGONY OF MAKING YOURSELF A PALIMPSEST. whispers throughout italy claim that their allegiance lies with THE BROTHERHOOD, where they conspire to GRANT THE PEOPLE OF ITALY FREEDOM AND SECURITY.
tldr below | about | timeline | statistics | connections
what up city slickers and country stompers! I’m Noah, just gone 24, I use all pronouns and I’m tragically based in the UK. i’m thrilled to start plotting and I invite u all into my DMs over on discord!
i’m here with best boy jacopo, a kid who’s realised his dad might not be always right after he started receiving visions. it’s been a wacky time, helping execute an assassin, running away from home, joining the assassins, offering to kill your dad for the assassins because you know they’re all gonna kill you if you don’t promise something big. rip to him i guess.
now he’s in the brotherhood, has been for just under a couple of months, probably still hasn’t even chopped off his own finger. he folds all his clothes and he perfectly does his bed and he shouldn’t be surprised at the lack of pure order but the amount of individuality around him is kinda overwhelming.
sure, he’s eager to survive, so he’s a little eager to please, a little too confident in his ability to always land on his feet. don’t be taken in by his wide eyes because his smile is sharp and his internal monologue is arrogant. he’s been called prodigy, he’s been called traitor, his pride has been shredded to smoke, and sometimes he talks like a man twice his age, but he’s cocky, desperate for acknowlegdment, and for affection.
he’s also used to being a pretty big fish, known and respected, for both his name and his skill, but now he’s known and it’s definitely not with respect. he is also big on the creed, swore it and everything, but a lifetime of conditioning is hard to break. acting from the shadows in service of the light - he’s heard that tale spun before.
If you asked me now who I am, the only answer I could give with any certainty would be my name. For the rest: my loves, my hates, down even to my deepest desires, I can no longer say whether these emotions are my own, or stolen from those I once so desperately wished to be.
" i have found conspirators and heathens among us ! "
the man had fed him chocolates once. prized cocoa, sweetened with cane sugar. jacopo had once looked up at him, taken the chocolates in grateful hands clasped together. a leader, the closest thing to god. he had admired him, once.
" - for the enemy lurks in your very shadow - "
he stands at the edge of the crowd, one of the many looking up at the pope. at the man. at the the greedy, blood-stained, corrupt effigy of power. jacopo, unlike the many, holds neither rosary nor love in his heart for the church nor its structure.
he still prays to the saints, in the way that he prays to his ancestors. candles alongside incense. the new year alongside easter.
he just lacks ... devotion. belief? faith?
" trust not the ones who would stray from its light. "
he does not lack familiarity, and even as the borgia pope condemns him and his, he grows too comfortable. too familiar with the man and the message, jacopo pushes back his hood to better angle his head to see rodrigo rant from his balcony. steps away from enzo, steps away from the shadows that shelter them.
They'd arrived at the Vatican early enough that the crowd hadn't filled *every* available inch of space of the courtyard, streams of people driven by curiosity still filtering in. It's easy enough to break away from Enzo into the centre of the crowd, where his face will blend in with every other, though he doesn't doubt that Enzo still knows exactly where he is.
There are flags snapping in the breeze above them, punctuating the gradual rise of noise. Soon, there will be too many people for him to move. Already someone nearly walks into his back, the free space around him slowly shrinking.
He turns away to slip through the crowd, when a hand catches at his sleeve, before the fabric slips through it. Jacobo glances back, before stopping mid-step. "Ah - fuck. Hello again."
late afternoon | five days later | florence cathedral | open
Jacopo doesn't normally find himself in cathedrals. Too closed in, too full of cold stone, now too likely to be found perched on its roof instead. Sure, his father had his duties and his political allies were all members of the clergy, hiding power behind religion, but he had followed his mother's lead and generally kept his distance.
It means that every time he steps inside, it is only then that he remembers how beautiful it can be.
He pauses in the entrance, wanting to drink in the detail across the ceiling, before he pulled his hood down further, shuffles into a pew at the back, watching the light paint the floor through the stained glass.
He doesn't pray, but he kneels there for a long time, eyes open. Long enough to watch the light turn its back, for the beauty to turn golden and red across the walls. Long enough for someone to slip into the pew beside him.
Late night | 18/07/03 | florence assassin’s bureau | @ofiseult &&& @mentorei
His hair is a mess. It's a strange thought to have, considering he's about to die, but it's really not how he thought his hair would look at his death.
Foolish, perhaps, to not anticipate it. That strands of hair would stick to his cheeks and neck with sweat, that it would be tossed in such disarray, crumpled where it presses against the pillar. Of course he would never die in his sleep, in peace. Of course he wouldn't get out of the building alive.
Perhaps that's too defeatist. There's a fifty fifty chance he'll die tonight.
His body is too busy panicking to get the announcement. It hasn't taken a full breath since his body was caught and shoved into the pillar, knife-point resting in the hollow of his throat; he doesn't know if its blood or sweat he can feel trickle from it. He hasn't been able to look away from the coin, shifting gold catching the torchlight, his eyes fever-bright.
This is what he deserves. His judgement is set.
He has the blood of the brotherhood on his hands. Perhaps the assassin infront of him knew them. Perhaps they were close. Perhaps this could be personal.
"Hea-." His voice cracks like he's fifteen again, tripping over his voice an octave high. He's going to die and this isn't his biggest concern but still his cheeks flush red and his ears grow hot. He can't shift, can't cough, so Jacopo screws his eyes shut and tries again.
"Tails." His voice is soft. Hopeless. Four days spent scouring Florence to find this base. Fourteen minutes to spill every worthless secret he knows. In four seconds -
Jacopo's eyes flash open - they haven't flipped the coin yet. His hand snaps up, grabs the dagger by the blade. The future *isn't* stone, that's the *point*.
"Please." His voice is still soft, pleading. "Please. I'll - I'll kill him for you. To prove it." He's never been this desperate before, and he doesn't know what he's begging for. His life? Or his redemption?
I hope that this letter finds you in good health and your family fortune continues to provide endless unicorn babies.
My tutor this morning was terribly droll and wants me to research something. I decided to ask for your knowledge in the matter, for no doubt you have little else to preoccupy your time.
Is it true that your family tree is only traced back to Domènech de Borjia? My father can trace his line back to Prince Maengdam, then further. Is it true that no-one knows how Dominech died? Do you think someone killed him? Or maybe he died in a really embarrassing way so they didn't tell anyone. I would just lie and say it was in a heroic duel to save my true love.
Also, you probably don't care but there was a duel between Ciccotti and de Carazi had a duel in Milan? I wish I could have been there to see it.
His hands are clean. He knows this, he does. Knows that there’s no blood on them. Knows that no blood touched them. Knows the blood spray arced high, spattered across the bridge of his nose, across the shadow of his cheek, across the sigil of his armour. It didn’t reach his hands, steady on the hilt even as the blade dripped thick with viscera.
His hands are clean. Death haunts their shadows, lives taken in service of a war he was born into, but his armour has gloves that he was always sure to put on. His hands are rare in this line of work, free from scar, free from blemish, free from dirt, his callouses moisturised, his nails well kept.
Jacopo sits on the spire of the roof, stares down at his hands. At this distance, they could cover all of Florence. He had been taught to smother its shadows in service of the light, that its citizens did not know what was best for them, how to work in the dark to pull the strings from its political underbelly.
But still, his hands are clean, and they are dripping.
Faith in life, in oneself, in others must be built on the hard rock of realism; that is to say, on the capacity to see evil where it is, to see swindle, destructiveness, and selfishness not only when they are obvious but in their many disguises and rationalisations. Indeed, faith, love, and hope must go together with such a passion for seeing reality in all its nakedness that the outsider would be prone to call the attitude ‘cynicism.’ And cynical it is, when we mean by it the refusal to be taken in by the sweet and plausible lies that cover almost everything that is said and believed. But this kind of cynicism is not cynicism; it is uncompromisingly critical, a refusal to play the game in a system of deception.
Erich Fromm, The Art of Being
(via ophelia-network)
requiescat in pace ─ welcome to requiescatrp ! please review our checklist and set sail for italy within the next twenty - four hours. the following character(s) and faceclaim(s) are now closed for application:
