Chapter Text
His first thought is, ‘Oh fuck, everything hurts.’ His second thought is, ‘Juno is a lying bitch.’
Genius stuff, really.
His arm faintly twitches and sets off cascading sparks of agony through his body that force his spine to arch before slamming back into the unforgiving stone beneath him. He gasps at the impact, and his lungs can’t pull in enough air while the shocks of pain twist through him. Like barbed wire twining around every organ and muscle and squeezing. His jaw clenches, leaving him hissing through each wave of torture and panting like a mindless animal after.
He isn’t sure how long he lies there, his body wracked by spasms until eventually the pain and nausea subside to a dull, constant ache. Hours probably. He hasn’t even opened his eyes yet, the effort of doing so seems all too much.
Maybe he can just not move for another minute? He deserves that much at least.
He takes a few slow, deeper breaths, still cautious about the ache in his chest, but it seems to be fading. He can do this.
Probably.
No sense in delaying, Desmond Miles finally opens his eyes.
There’s nothing.
He gingerly raises his left hand—not the right, he can’t think about the right—and rubs his eyes. He’s pretty sure those are tear tracks on his cheeks. It would hurt a lot more otherwise. He opens his eyes again, but still nothing.
Just pitch-black all around him.
If this is death, it’s really fucking anticlimactic. Also, why would it hurt this much?!
Desmond huffs, and it’s through pure annoyance and spite that he manages to push himself up until he’s at least sitting. He takes one more steadying breath and lets his Eagle Vision take over. It aches a bit, not unlike when he was first learning to use it, but the world washes a comforting gray with a golden glimmer in front of him.
The Eye is still intact, though it’s no longer lit up like the beacon it was earlier. Now, it just looks like an ugly modern art sculpture, all hard lines that look like even the globe will cut you. Maybe stopping the solar flares killed the power to it? It seems kind of weird and pointless for the Precursors to make a one-and-done device given everything else lasted several millennia.
Desmond slowly turns himself over and gets to his feet, reluctant to risk grabbing onto the Eye’s pedestal to pull himself up.
Once he’s standing, faint geometric lines of light flicker to life around him. The familiar sight of the Grand Temple’s towering stone walls and circuitous, crumbling stairs and hallways comes into focus, though muted and dim as it had been when he first stepped foot in it. Like before he’d placed any of the power sources. The bridge connecting the Eye to the rest of the temple is no longer in place, but neither is the glowing doorway that had previously blocked it.
Desmond casts a suspicious squint over his shoulder at the Eye, which still gleams gold in his vision.
“Alright, you little shit,” Desmond rasps, and his throat aches and seizes for a moment in a series of dry coughs. Right, he’d probably screamed. A lot. When the hacking subsides, he levels a watery glare at the device that recently fried him.
Why did it have to be gold? Fuck.
He reaches toward the Eye and flinches back once, twice, before quickly tapping it with a single finger and yanking his hand away.
There’s a brief rumble, and instinct borne of years of taking the subway has him bending his knees and steadying himself as the ground shakes beneath him while the platform's bridge begins to move toward the exit. Only a few seconds later it stops, and Desmond limps as quickly as he can along it and through the doorway. The moment both of his feet are on solid ground, the bridge retreats once more. He supposes that makes sense. No need to prevent someone from getting away from the Eye. Well, anyone alive and not whatever hologram bullshit Juno has going on.
A few more steps, and he can’t explain it, but he feels the doorway seal again, even without all the glowy forcefield bullshit. A glance at the keyhole confirms that the Key is missing.
Either his dad or Shaun must have taken it during their escape to ensure the Templars were kept out. Those two are the type to think ahead like that. The temple is still and quiet, and while Desmond can make out some basic shapes of the walkways and inactive consoles in the minimal light, he can’t track any movement or other presence. No telltale blue glow of his fellow Assassins. Not even a trace of red. A glance back at the Eye confirms it’s no longer of interest either.
Alright, so he’s alive. That’s a nice-ish surprise. And alone, which is less nice but not unexpected since he told everyone to get the hell out.
Now what?
Well, no way to go but forward, he supposes. It’s slow going, but Desmond manages to stumble down the stairs to the central walkway. His legs grow more steady beneath him, but his right arm hangs limp and useless at his side, aching with every step. It’s only when he comes to a halt at the crossroads and examines his surroundings that the nausea he’d felt earlier returns.
No boxes, no crates, no Animus, no computers or monitors. Not even a leftover bit of garbage.
Just nothing.
Desmond closes his eyes and tries to remember anything past the light and fire and pain. He felt the temple shaking when he’d activated the Eye. It wasn’t just the shock of his own body being a conduit for the device, the earth itself had been quaking. There was no way they had time to take everything. Someone snagging the Key and the Apple as they ran was one thing. Hell, he wouldn’t put it past Rebecca to have grabbed some pieces of the Animus on the way out too. But there had been entire workstations that took several trips back and forth to the van to set up down here in the first place. Now there’s not a trace they’d been in the temple at all.
Which means they came back at some point.
And they just... left him there.
No. That’s not right. If they came back, they would have at least looked for his body.
Someone else could have cleaned it out, he supposes. Though there’s some holes in that particular theory, such as how they could find the temple, figure out a way in, and steal all their shit before he woke up.
God, how long has he even been down here?
It’s difficult to tell given the whole being unconscious thing. He’s not particularly hungry, but he could chalk that up to pain killing his appetite. He’s a bit thirsty, but more for the sake of his raw throat than anything else.
So, less than a day probably? Hopefully.
Right. He can’t stay holed up here, even if he could resort to eating the cardboard food paste Shaun had sampled from a seventy-five thousand year old machine. While his dad and the others must be long gone by now, Abstergo undoubtedly has noticed something coming from the temple. He’ll be a sitting duck when the Templars decide to come knocking.
So, Desmond keeps pushing forward, heedless of the exhaustion clinging to him. When he skirts past the console near the base of the temple entrance, he notices a bright blue flicker in the corner of his eye. On the ground, right where he had seen it before, lays the first power source. He takes a few steps closer and scrutinizes it more closely. Maybe the consoles eject depleted power sources, or it’s some kind of safety mechanism? There’s no sign of impact around it, though. The dust and dirt don't even look disturbed.
The hairs on the back of his neck rise, and Desmond staggers away from the console, his eyes sharp and frantically searching for any sign of... well, anything really.
Still nothing. Not in the temple itself anyway. Down the corridor and up the slope towards the entrance, he can see a faint golden glimmer of the pressure switch that he knows opens the exit doors. He grimaces at the ache developing behind his eyes. It would be best to get out of here before he gets a full-on migraine, or worse, passes out again.
Getting down the hall is the easy part, with nothing in the way to stop him and only a few stumbles over some debris hiding in the shadows. The climb up, on the other hand, is gut wrenching agony. The steep, rocky slope annoys the shit out of him even on his best day, with dirt and rubble sliding out from under his shoes while he tries to keep his balance. He manages about two-thirds of the way up before the slope sharply inclines. Desmond pauses, glaring from the doors above down to his right arm and back again. Normally, he’d scramble up on all fours as quickly as possible, using momentum and reflexes to make up for the unstable surface. But there’s nothing on him to brace his arm or make a sling with except his grubby hoodie, and he’s not exactly keen to try and take it off over whatever remains of the mangled limb.
With a determined growl, he reaches up with his left hand and slaps around until he gets a promising grip on some rubble. Then he glances around for a decent foothold, letting his right arm hang at his side as he puts his foot on something sturdy and pushes himself up. The movement jars his body something fierce, but he grits his teeth and stretches with his left hand again. Over and over, he repeats the process, slipping and backsliding when a rock he’s clinging to comes loose and he has to scramble to not fall completely. Despite that, he makes progress even with only one functional arm.
Desmond swears he can hear Malik criticizing his poor performance somewhere.
When he finally reaches the doors, Desmond allows himself to sit and breathe. A tiny rivulet of sweat drips down his face and he wipes his brow with his sleeve, scowling at the likely mess he makes of himself, but it will at least stop getting into his eyes. He gives himself a few minutes before getting back up. He didn’t climb all the way up here to sit on his ass after all.
Desmond reaches out, pressing the plate in the wall, and revels in the rumbling sound of the inner doors sliding apart. He never thought he’d be grateful to Minerva and her kind for anything, but in this case, he appreciates that they treated the Apple like a set of house keys: needed to get into the temple but not to get back out.
The rest of the way is significantly easier. The path is much broader and less steep, and he reaches the exit with minimal fuss. Another pressure switch later, and he’s able to duck under the massive outer door.
As warm sunlight hits his face, Desmond blinks away his Eagle Vision, waiting for his sight to readjust and the tension around his eyes to ebb. He takes a moment to gather his courage and finally looks down at himself. Specifically, his arm.
“Jesus!” He gags and clenches his eyes shut, as if that will make it go away.
When he dares to look again, the ugly, charred flesh is still there. Still blackened aside from a few red spots in his cracked palm and around the end of the burn marks near his elbow, but even more alarming are the grooves etched into the flesh. Familiar geometric lines and circles he’s seen all over Precursor technology and architecture. He has faint memories of seeing them on his skin before. Once when he came out of his coma in the Animus after talking to Jupiter—Tinia—whoever, and the other was in the moment when he placed his hand upon the Eye.
Bizarre burn scarring aside, he still can’t make sense of what happened. His whole body had felt like it was on fire, and the pain stuck with him after. He remembers grabbing his wrist with his other hand, trying to pull away, but his left hand isn’t burned at all. The hidden blade on his forearm should’ve conducted something, but there’s nothing besides the pressure marks of normal wear. Even the fabric of his hoodie near his right elbow is barely singed, and the rest of his clothes are intact, if a little dirty. He’d assume it was an electrical burn maybe, but it doesn’t explain how the hell it looks like he left part of himself in a barbecue for a few hours. When he tries to move his right hand, it won’t so much as twitch, permanently locked in the cupped shape in which it had rested upon the Eye.
There’s not much he can do for it now except keep it clean-ish. He knows for a fact he doesn’t have any kind of burn cream or even bandages, and he’s hesitant to pull down his sleeve and have that rubbing against the damaged skin. So, it’ll just sit in the open air until he can get actual medical attention. Luckily, it’s strangely warm for December, and Desmond won’t complain, seeing as he isn't exactly geared up for winter. He hasn't needed to be, given he’s not been allowed out more than a few hours at a time since August.
It feels good to be outside and able to breathe fresh air. Not just bouncing from hideout to mission with only trucks and planes and the like in between. It’s funny, he hadn’t cared much about being outdoors for years until he lived Ratonhnhaké:ton’s memories. As a kid, Desmond loved any chance to be outside the compound, but as he got older the remote location served as an isolating prison. And when he escaped, he lost himself in the anonymity of the most densely packed urban environment he could find.
Now, there’s a small part of him that revels in the familiarity of these woods. For Ratonhnhaké:ton, it was never so much any intrinsic connection to nature itself as what it could remind him of. No matter how far he traveled, running the treetops or hunting a worthy prize brought him memories of his community and the places he long considered home.
With Desmond’s luck, climbing a tree in his current state will get him picked up by Abstergo’s surveillance if he doesn’t fall and break his neck first.
He brushes aside the thoughts for now. His first order of business should be getting away from the temple and staying off Abstergo’s radar. He pulls his messenger bag around to the front, not wanting to bother with the clip, and peers inside. There are a couple of squashed granola bars and one very sad, lonely m&m, the latter of which he eats just to put it out of its misery before it becomes a gross smear on the inside of his bag. Other than that, there’s just his phone, notebook and pen, wallet, and some tickets and receipts.
“Yeah, I’m a functional adult,” he mumbles to himself and digs out his phone.
A quick check shows it’s got a good amount of battery left, but there’s no signal. Not surprising, deep into the woods and surrounded by caves as he is. Still, he turns it off to conserve power since there’s no telling when he’ll be able to get a charger for it. He tucks it away before closing the bag and tugging it back into place.
With that taken care of, Desmond takes in the surrounding forest, trying to orient himself. There’s only one real trail out of here, far from any kind of paved road. An overgrown mess that had Shaun cursing and spitting like an angry cat half the time he drove it. But it gave them the advantage of vegetation springing back and hiding their tire tracks a bit better than soft dirt or mud would. Desmond’s eyes follow the path between the trees, and he feels a chill run down his spine.
Even with the overgrowth, there’s doubtlessly going to be some signs of their driving back and forth for the Templars to follow.
He weighs his options. If he remembers right, west of the temple is more state forest he can get lost even deeper in, but it doesn’t solve his problem of being alone and cut off from the Assassins. Turin should be roughly southeast-ish of the temple. It’s the closest town with fuck all going on, but there’s also a higher likelihood of Templars snooping about. There’s a resort about a half hour northeast that’s marginally more useful. A bit exposed given he doesn’t know how many tourists would be in the area, but he could potentially steal an ATV or a car. Worst case, he’d miss, and it’s an hour or so to the highway where he might have enough signal to get in touch with his team, or anyone else really. With that decided, Desmond slips into the trees to the side of the trail. While he can’t climb and race through them, he can at least use them as cover to keep out of sight within a reasonable distance of the trail. That way he can also hear anyone coming and hopefully not get lost.
About two hours later, Desmond decides he must be some kind of idiot because he is definitely lost.
He’s been walking non-stop in what he swears is the right direction and hasn’t seen shit. The downside of having so many memories crammed into his head is that everything looks familiar, but he has no way to determine why, or more likely in his case when. The trail doesn't backtrack unless you take a couple of sharp lefts, and he hasn’t seen the distinctive rock faces that surround the cave again.
He should’ve hit the highway by now, but all he’s come across is wildlife and now a small stream, which he decides to park his ass next to for a minute while he debates the merits of drinking unfiltered water. On the one hand, hydration is good for the whole not dying thing. On the other hand, even though the water is running fast and clear, there’s no way to tell what’s in it. It’d be embarrassing as hell to survive three encounters with Daniel Cross and getting zapped by the sun just to shit himself to death.
Whatever, fuck it. He feels terrible and needs to eat and drink something. Gastrointestinal distress is a problem for future Desmond.
He scoots forward so he’s kneeling at the water’s edge and attempts to wash away the worst of the dirt on his good hand. After a minute, he cups some water into his hand and gives it another critical glance, but it looks about as clean as he’s going to find. He wrinkles his nose and drinks.
It doesn’t taste that bad.
He’s probably going to die.
It’s a slow, painstaking process to get enough water one handed, but he manages. With that taken care of, he sits back and pulls his bag around once again so he can dig out one of the granola bars. It’s completely flattened on one end, but that won’t make much of a difference for the taste. He shoves as much of the bar in his mouth as will fit so he can set the remaining piece on his lap while he fishes out his phone. Not like there’s anyone around to judge his manners or make snide remarks.
His phone still shows no signal, which is ridiculous. He’s got to be within spitting distance of a tower somewhere, and he doesn’t recall reception being this patchy the few times he went out with the others. Although, in the days leading up to the Second Disaster, the flares messed with communications. Maybe even with the Precursor device protecting Earth itself, cell service got knocked out. Regardless, that means the GPS isn’t functioning, though the compass app shows he’s heading in the right direction. It seems steady, so he hopes that any of the geomagnetic crap Shaun mentioned isn’t happening. He definitely missed the resort, but he should still be on track to reach the highway soon. Maybe he’s moving slower than he feels? It’s not like he’s in top form right now. He turns the phone off and tucks it back in his bag, then finishes the last of the granola bar and shoves the empty wrapper in there as well.
Once his bag is back into place, he grabs a few more gulps of water before he sets back on his course. After roughly an hour of mindless trudging later, the woods finally start to thin out and Desmond picks up his pace. There’s no sound of engines or the whoosh of cars speeding by, so it isn’t the highway. Maybe he hit a farm or private property? When he finally catches sight of something past the forest, his heart skips and his stomach drops.
“No. No, no, no,” Desmond hisses to himself and shakes his head, as if that will dispel what he’s seeing.
No way has he been having a bleeding episode this whole time. There’s been no one here.
When he looks back up, he still sees a very familiar palisade and the roofs of a few longhouses in the distance. A breeze carries the faint scent of wood smoke and little else of note. Normally, Kanatahséton was bustling with activity and voices, but there’s none of that. Just the sound of the wind in the trees and the chatter of a few animals. It doesn’t make any sense. His bleeds are memories, people, not empty places. Even his bleed that led him to the secret entrance at Villa Auditore had Ezio urging others to safety.
With no better ideas presenting themselves, Desmond cautiously approaches the closest entrance to the village. Maybe he’s wrong, and this is some random reconstructed historic site that no one bothered to mention. Or this could be some really weird hallucination his brain has cooked up to ignore the fact that he’s dying. Wouldn’t that be a bitch? It couldn’t give him something more interesting than a painful eighteenth century nature hike?
The part of him that’s convinced that this is a hallucination half expects to fall into a state where Kanatahséton remains constantly out of reach, but his approach is unremarkable. The village walls maintain their integrity as he gets closer, perhaps even more detailed than he remembers from the Animus. The only thing missing is life. There’s still no sound of the villagers or their tasks. When he passes the wall into the village itself, he spots two figures sitting near a campfire. One appears to be a frontiersman or trapper going by the furs he wears, probably just traveling through. As for the other...
Desmond’s heart pounds at the sight of familiar white robes.
Alright, it’s probably a bleed then. That means he’s alive, but where? Still passed out in the temple? Or wandering around the modern world with no awareness of his surroundings? He takes a few steps closer, concentrating over the sound of blood rushing in his ears to hear anything. It takes a moment before he can start to discern what the gruff voice of the traveler is saying.
“Government says they don’t take land that’s already owned, but, uh...”
Desmond can’t help the soft gasp he lets out. Both from the revelation of what's happened here, and that this is a memory beyond what he’s seen in the Animus. The men abruptly look up as if they’ve heard him, and Desmond tenses awaiting the sound of a hidden blade sliding forth.
He glances around but sees no one else, yet the other two keep their gazes fixed in his direction.
“Ratonhnhaké:ton?” Desmond murmurs, still unsure but willing to see if they actually can hear him.
That hooded head tilts the slightest fraction in confusion.
“Do I know you?” Ratonhnhaké:ton asks, and Desmond shivers at the cold, distrusting tone directed towards him.
“This isn’t right.” Desmond rubs at his eyes, trying to dispel the illusion, but when he opens them, Ratonhnhaké:ton and this other unknown man are still there. Still staring at him.
“Okay... Bleeding,” Desmond mumbles to himself, pacing near an abandoned house, and those eyes track him the whole time. “Just a new kind of bleeding.”
“Bleeding?” Ratonhnhaké:ton asks, looking him over for obvious wounds and fixating on the discolored mess that is Desmond’s arm. “You are... hurt?”
That sparks a bitter laugh from Desmond. He’s partially barbecued and going insane. Sure, he’s hurt.
“Not in any way you can fix, buddy,” he replies, and Ratonhnhaké:ton’s concern only seems to grow.
Desmond twitches under the scrutiny and turns his focus to the empty village, studiously avoiding his bleed. His mind has conjured Ratonhnhaké:ton a number of times. Usually as an image seen out of the corner of his eye or a voice speaking to someone he can’t see, and seldom both at once. Bleeds that do interact with him usually only happen when he’s bleeding as his ancestor, and someone is addressing them.
“Why are you even talking to me?” Desmond finally asks.
Ratonhnhaké:ton seems taken aback by that and shares an uncomfortable look with the traveler across from him. “Do you not wish to be spoken to?”
“No! It’s fine. Great. You guys just usually don’t. Not to me anyway,” Desmond rambles. God, how many times has his brain been fried? He sounds like an idiot.
“If I have not spoken to you before, it is because we have never met,” Ratonhnhaké:ton insists, his voice becoming clipped with irritation at Desmond’s antics. “Who are you?”
“I’m uh... Desmond Miles,” Desmond answers. It doesn’t actually matter what he says. The bleed will call him whoever he’s supposed to be. Desmond’s just along for the ride as always.
“Desmond Miles,” Ratonhnhaké:ton repeats, mulling over the name with careful consideration. “I think you should come rest by the fire.”
That pulls Desmond up short. He can’t remember a bleed ever acknowledging who he is. Ratonhnhaké:ton must take Desmond’s silence as agreement, because the man makes to stand from his seat, willing to let Desmond take his place. However, his movements are a bit stiff, and Desmond can’t help but wonder how long it’s been since Ratonhnhaké:ton nearly died in his pursuit of Lee.
“Don’t get up,” Desmond says. “Seriously, I’ll be fine.”
He might be in rough shape as well, but aside from his arm, he’s mostly intact. Still, taking a rest and warming up seems like a good idea, especially with the sun dipping lower on the horizon. Desmond’s careful not to make any sudden movements, as wary of Ratonhnhaké:ton and their current companion as they undoubtedly are of him. He finds a relatively rock-free spot on the ground between the two and sighs as he sits down.
The traveler raises a brow but doesn’t say anything in protest. Instead, he stokes the fire a little more, making sure they stay warm. Ratonhnhaké:ton’s hood blocks much of his expression, but Desmond can feel that sharp gaze upon him.
“Said your name’s Desmond?” The traveler asks.
“Yeah.”
“Well, Desmond, I’ve got a bit of extra food if you’re hungry.”
“If you’re sure?”
The traveler shrugs in Ratonhnhaké:ton’s direction. “Big man didn’t want any, and you look like you’ve seen better days.”
“You’re not wrong about that. And sorry, I kind of fumbled introductions. Was having a bit of a...” Desmond trails off and waves near his head with his good hand.
“The name’s Laurence,” the traveler, Laurence, replies and hands him some rather dry bread from his pack and a bit of roasted game meat that’s been staked near the fire.
“Well, thanks, Laurence,” Desmond replies, taking the offered items carefully so as not to drop them. The meat is a bit too well done for his liking, but like hell is he going to complain about free food.
There’s a few seconds of near silence, save for the crackle of the fire and the sound of Desmond tearing into his meal.
“You said the government sold this land.” Ratonhnhaké:ton cuts through the quiet, and Desmond is surprised Ratonhnhaké:ton’s patience has lasted this long. “How could this have happened?”
Laurence stares into the fire, stoking it again as he speaks and ignoring Ratonhnhaké:ton’s piercing glare. “We’re on our own now. No more Merry English parts and labor. Which means we gotta go at it ourselves. Gotta pay for it too. Sellin’ land is quick and easy and not quite so nasty as taxes. And since some say they’re what started the whole war, ain’t no rush to bring ‘em back.”
Beneath the hood, Desmond can see Ratonhnhaké:ton’s mouth twist into an ugly line at the reality that taking his people’s home is somehow preferable to demanding money from the colonists.
“Clever men, these new leaders of ours. They know not to push it just yet. Too soon for taxes. Too... British,” Laurence adds.
“Bunch of assholes,” Desmond snips, remembering Shaun’s rants on the topic and Ratonhnhaké:ton’s experiences with Washington and his cohorts.
That earns an amused hum of agreement from Laurence, but Ratonhnhaké:ton stares blankly into the middle distance, not saying anything.
Desmond’s never claimed to be the sensitive type. Honestly, he’s a bit of an asshole sometimes, but he gives Ratonhnhaké:ton all of about three minutes to stew in his inner turmoil before the awkward silence starts to wear on him. He needs some kind of distraction from the fact that he’s stuck in the world’s weirdest bleed, possibly in the middle of nowhere with wild animals or some suspect people looking for an easy target.
Careful not to seem too threatening, Desmond offers the man the remaining half of the meat he’s been given.
“You sure you don’t want any?” He asks. It’s a simple distraction, but it’s what he’s got.
That gets Ratonhnhaké:ton’s attention at least, and he shakes his head. “You need it more than I do.”
“Christ, I’ve got two grown men mother-henning me,” Desmond huffs. “Didn’t realize I look that bad.”
“You do.”
The honesty startles a full laugh out of Desmond, while Laurence has the decency to wince at Ratonhnhaké:ton’s lack of tact.
“Well, aren’t you a charmer?” Desmond replies, but there’s no bite to his words. Just a bit of gentle sarcasm.
Ratonhnhaké:ton doesn’t deign to offer a response. Either Desmond’s teasing is obvious or confusing enough to not be worth questioning.
“You still haven’t explained how you know who I am. Are you a recent recruit?” Ratonhnhaké:ton asks, and his eyes track to the hidden blade strapped to Desmond’s arm. It’s a more modern utilitarian make than Ratonhnhaké:ton would likely have ever seen, but the man’s not stupid. It’s pretty obvious what it is when you’re familiar with them.
“Not really?” Desmond feels like slapping himself because he sounds way less confident than he should. Though, in fairness, he isn't sure where he places within the Brotherhood.
“Did Achilles tell you of me, then?”
“No. He and I, uh... well, we never directly met. It’s all a bit complicated.”
“Then make it less so.”
Laurence diligently avoids getting in the middle of their awkward conversation, though it’s clear he’s interested to some degree. Desmond is an obviously out of place stranger with his odd clothes and even odder behavior and injuries, but at least he seems run of the mill crazy and not part of a secret organization. So hopefully, even if Laurence blabs about the weirdo he met in the woods, it's not going to bite him in the ass later.
Desmond tilts his head and picks at his food while he considers what to say. His own name doesn’t mean anything to Ratonhnhaké:ton. Not the way it would to Ezio, or maybe even Altaïr if he saw far enough with the Apple. But Juno had been all cryptic with Ratonhnhaké:ton, dismissive even. Just, hey, go live your life this way or you and your people are screwed. Then they got fucked over anyway. All so the future could be what she would make of it.
“An eagle told you that I would open the door,” Desmond finally explains, this time in Kanien'kéha. It’s not as smooth as his Italian, and he probably flubs a word or two, but it gets the message across. It’s still vague enough that on the slim chance Laurence can understand the language, it won’t mean anything.
Ratonhnhaké:ton seems even more unnerved by that response than when Desmond spoke his name, but he doesn’t say anything, simply staring at Desmond in disbelief.
“I can explain more later, but I don’t think this is the time or place,” Desmond adds, closing the discussion.