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“seen you around before,   haven’t i?”   the mage asked companionably.   a bit like a shadow he was,   disappearing in and among the crowds that made their way throughout the keep.   he’d never heard the lad speak.   perhaps he was just shy,   or aching like everyone else with invisible wounds.   “here.”   he had a particular sympathy for that crowd,   unfortunately,   the soft spoken ones.   he nodded toward a couple of unwieldly volumes he’d set out,   hands already straining with three others.   old tomes on plants and potion crafting no one else would miss for a few days.   “help spare me a second trip to and from the undercroft,   and there’s coin in it for you.”

[almakfi]

or awake + tend dealer's choice

the heavy shift of woolen sheets wakes basim. it's not a troubled awakening this time, as it was not a troubled sleep—deep, dreamless, unsettlingly peaceful. he turns his head, the flat of his cheek pressing slightly into the straw-stuffed pillow, to gain a better perspective on the room he shares with hytham. the other rises, a shadowy silhouette but for the lamplight-crowned auburn tinge of his curls, backlit like a spiderweb. he's quiet, but not stealthy, or he'd have been mindful of the cloth rustling. he knows that some unexpected approach in the dark would trigger a violent reaction, maybe he wants to be heard.

he cuts the gap between the beds barefoot, like a killer; the hidden blade, stripped of bracer, gives a metallic gleam from the soft underside of his arm. basim keeps it on, too. he blinks the fog in his eyes and rapidly calculates that, should they fight, they would fight on equal terms.

badly-cut stitches pull uncomfortably at the edges of the wound when basim rises to a half-sitting position. they were the work of a sailsmaker found in a whalers' settlement nested on the jagged coast of rygjafylke. a firm-handed man but harsh and sloppy, used to spinning flax rather stitching wounds. and where the skin was pierced by the hooked needle it bled, again. the stains have dried brown on basim's white robes. it will leave a flashy scar on the upper side of his stomach, just below the arch of his ribs. hytham's eyes follow the dark, indented path. he seems to recognize it like a familiar patten, even through the stripe of linen tightly binding it—the width, the depth, the weapon that caused it, the hand that drove the blade.

he understands all that, and nothing more.

hytham pulls a stool and sits at the bedside. the line of basim's shoulders relax visibly, too much to go unnoticed, but he knows it would be foolish of him not to expect the hidden ones' punishment as much as it would be of hytham not to consider delivering it.

"we are even, hytham." in case that is keeping you from deciding freely what to do with me. he cannot see hytham's face very well. though it is in front of him, it's in the dark, both the dark of the late hour and the dark that's heavy-lidded and foggy. hytham, instead, can see basim perfectly—the dim lamplight feebly but surely bares every detail to sight, from the sheen of sweat across his brow to the half-inch that his hair has grown since the last time they saw each other. maybe that's his punishment. to be so painfully bare while hytham hides in plain sight.

valka reluctantly approved of the stitching when faced with the danger of undoing it. hytham unpins the worn bandage and tests the edges of the wound, before wetting his fingers with some yarrow ointment that valka prescribed and spreading it across the unevenly sealed injury. basim swallows a complaint. the other performs his duty with surgical focus and deliberately ignores him.

"thank you." basim says when it's done. hytham does not reply, though he does not expect him to. he turns, half of his face flashing in the light, too quickly for basim to detect a trace of expression.

come sunrise, he thinks, neither of us will be able to hide.

SETTLING DUST.

[almakfi]

¹ SIDEBLOG. ² PINTEREST. ³ HCS.

@ALMAKFI. prv basim ibn is'haq of assassin's creed valhalla / assassin's creed mirage—writer is vinn, she/her, 21+ from italy. canon and lore divergent, please skim through my #hcs. tag for further insight. not spoiler free but spoilers for the latest ac game will be tagged as ac mirage spoilers tw. affiliated w/ @iqniz.

my other blog is a multimuse found at @vinduri. note that english is not my first language and i will not follow "purple prose" writers for the sake of my reading comprehension. no bigotry / illegal material / right wingers. while his relationship with religion is complicated due to in-game circumstances, basim is muslim and i am not; please feel free to correct me if you spot any inaccuracies. i am unlikely to follow blogs from certain fandoms, though exceptions might be made for multimuses. i am plot-oriented, though not strictly plot-based; some plotting is always preferable, especially if you are not familiar with assassin's creed. selective w/ shipping due to the nature of basim's profession and his personality, though not necessarily off the table—it requires some plotting, whether it be romantic or platonic.

GENERAL. basim ibn is'haq, master of the hidden ones in constantinople, born in 835 a.d. in samarra, soon-to-be-capital of the abbasid caliphate, brought up in baghdad. son of the court architect under caliph al-ma'mūn, later disgraced by al-mu'tasim. killed his father out of self-defense at the age of twelve, grew up as a street thief. reincarnation of loki. joined the hidden ones at seventeen. considers himself agnostic, raised muslim. cis man, bisexual.

STATS. arab and kurdish descent. bilingual-born polyglot with an intuitive mastery of northern germanic languages thanks to loki's memories. proficient thief / pickpocketing skills, double-blade swordsman, agile freeclimber, capable and creative killer. possesses an ability inherited from loki that allows him to see things that are hidden.

PHYSICAL. amber-eyed. dark brown hair, moderately wavy, shoulder-length. thick, full beard. 5'12'' / 182 cm. broad-chested, solid, but light-footed and gracefully swift. powerful limbs from climbing and wielding weapons. a deep, soothingly cadenced voice, strongly accented when speaking any language other than arabic. ring finger missing, severed at the knuckle.

ASOIAF. TOLKIEN. DA. IMMORTAL AU.