Erza~ Origins

Erza Ben-Abiah 1
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-(find Ancestor of interest)
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A Cobra, a large animal capable of consuming many other animals, once inhabited the dunes of a great desert. He was king of all he saw. No animal could escape his fangs. He did as he pleased and had an unsatifyable appetite. After he had supposedly consumed all the animals near his den starvation was imminent if he did not leave his hunting grounds. However the cobra was so used to finding his prey practically waiting for him when he left his den he never thought to move his den.  He slithered in the sand hunting for prey that had long since been gone, yet as he turned to head back to his den he spoted the brief flicker of a passing centipede. Instincts take over and in a split second the poor whelp was impaled by his twin lances. Yet this centipede was a delusion, in reality he has bitten his own tail, thusly pouring his deadly poison into his own body. His never ending hunger had driven him to ruin but even in his death throws he kept his fangs embedded in his tail, for his hunger had consumed him. 

We, as humans are much the same as the cobra, our incessant lust for knowledge often drives men to ruin. They become so engrossed in thier quest for knowledge they bite thier own tail so to speak. Men live under the pretense that the more knowledgable they become, the more power they have. Knowledge isn't power, knowledge is the means to attaining the means to attain power. If, with that knoledge, you cannot think of a way to create power it is simply useless. Men obsessed with the notion that knowledge is power are quite similar to the cobra, too ingnorant to leave thier den, doomed to die knowledgable yet unable to see beyond thier hunting grounds, into the vast expanse of possibilities that knowledge has opened. Knowledge and power are meaningless without the other.

Therein lied my flaw in my younger years, I had a wealth of knowledge without the backing of power. Don't get me wrong, I did not obsess over power, had that been the case I would have gone to the templars. But I did see it as a means to better myself. 

I spent my earlier years in Yeriẖo...  {ANIMUS DATA}~(The Hebrew name for modern day Jericho, a city located on the west bank the Palistinian border. It's presumably the oldest consistently inhabited city. After the recent proceedings of assassin Desmond Miles the previous fact has led to increased assassin interest in the city as it may contain traces of those who came before us. During the 1400's and very early 1500's it was predominantly Christian and Jewish.) ...a lively city of many unique peoples. It is much like Roma, where I reside now, in that respect. However the architecture is vastly different. Yeriẖo had much lower roofs and most of the buildings were erected from either sandstone,  or rough stones crafted from the nearby mountains.  It was hot most, if not, all day and at night and temperature dropped rapidly. 

Most of the inhabitants were traders and poor workers, my family, the latter. My dad worked as a laborer pulling stones to construct various battlements across the city to prepare for what we knew would be a inevitable take over by the Ottoman empire. It wasn't something we could really fight, the inevitability was just a part of life. We knew that if the ottomans decided to attack this city directly we would hardly put up a fight. I once asked my dad why he was breaking his back for a losing cause, to this day his response is ingrained in my memory. "Erza, sometimes you must think on a smaller scale. The big picture is always made of single, delicate strokes of the hand. This was never about protecting the city. It is about making sure there is eggs and sugar for challah."
 
I was a fairly inquisitive youth. I lingered in the market and would go around talking to traders most of the day, I became a regular amongst them.  I picked up a nickname amongs them from a far eastern trader named Huang-Lao; Sháobíng. In his tongue it meant something along the lines of "one who keeps watch" . Whenever a trader passed through I would pester them asking "where are you from? What are you bringing? Where are you headed? Have you ever been to This or that city?" They would tell me stories of far off lands, teach me foreign tongues, and on occasion bring me trinkets from these unthinkable places.  Before I even knew of the conflict between templars and assassins I knew they existed. I would occasionally get a story from a light skinned trader named Terentia about assassins and Templars and the feats they both pulled. She would come every five to eight moons always carrying clothing yet always leaving with weapons and armor. I though her quite the odd trader, for who would trade weapons and armor for meager clothing? It vexed me but she was always secretive about her trade so I never really gained an answer to that. But as I look back upon it now it's fairly obvious what she what she was doing and for whom.
I grew quite fond of a few traders and whenever they would come into Yeriẖo they would bring me small items or teach me about the culture or language of their homeland. By the time I was 15 I could fluently speak 2 dialects of Arabic, Greek, and a good bit of Chinese. Farther mastery of Chinese, Italian, Sanskrit, another dialect of Arabic, and a small bit of English would come in time. 

These traders were like second mothers and fathers to me. They comforted me when I cried, laughed at my jokes, and celebrated my achievements. I grew especially attached to a trader named Tyreseus. He was a medium sized man of a stocky build in his 30's or 40's. It has been so long since his passing his face eludes me which is sad, but the tides of time erode even the grandest of memories. He hailed from Greece and had been trading since he was my age. He told me of the Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus and many other wonderful places in his homeland. He would give me money if my family couldn't afford bread or chicken. He tutored me in the Greek language and culture. But by far his greatest contribution to my life was his vast knowledge of sciences and machinery, particularly his crafting of magnificent contraptions. He had a collection of small metal animals that would do various things such as walk, stand on their hind legs, and even do flips. To think of it, the machines I now craft to deal death all spawned from an innocent mistake. It's odd how the origins of such slaughter can be so pure, such irony, it's despairing.

Tyreseus was at my house displaying some of his new inventions. He had a set of them layed out across our small wooden table. There was not much room in our home, as one would except from the home of a laborer, and I turned too quickly knocking a small iron lion off the table and onto the hard sandy floor. It broke and scattered its pieces all over the floor of our home. He looked upon me not with the scorn I had expected but with a sort of amusment and quite simply said "fix it" in his thick Greek accent. "I'll be at the market, return it to me when you finish." with that he smiled and walked out the door. I must say I spent a good two hours scouring out the last of the infinitesimal gears, rods, and smooth metal pieces that composed the lion. When I finally assured my self I had all the pieces laid out on the table I started work on the toy. I thought "no way I can fix this it's too complex for me to comprehend." but as I popped the first gear into the empty metal insides of the lion my mind began to click and whir like the machine I was operating on. I spent hours seeing what gears turned what, where this pin went, why this spring turned this apparatus. Suddenly it all came together and I had a working metal lion sitting on the faded wood of our table. I wound back a tiny crank on its side and smiled proudly as it stood up on its haunches and opened its mouth as if to roar. I rushed to the market to see Tyreseus and show him that I had remedied his broken lion. When I showed him the working lion and he nodded in approval. 
"Erza" He said in a cool voice.
"Yes" I replied.
"I have grown tired of trading. It bores me and I have long since made my fortune selling my craft. I intend to return to Athens and open up a shop with wonders man has never layed eyes upon before!"
"Oh, that sounds wonderful." I said in a dismayed tone.
"Erza, I have watched you grow from a curious little boy into a man worthy of more than this city can offer him. If you can find it in your heart to leave your parents and accompany me back to my home land I would be more than willing to let you become my apprentice. I will teach you how to construct machines that escape mens imaginations even in thier dreams. I will teach you the workings of the world, of the great oceans and the vast deserts. I will teach you of deadly poisons and the herbs that may dispell them. Erza I wish too grant you something that you may never have the chance to truly obtain if you don't break this cities bounds. Erza, I offer you knowledge!" he exclaimed exitedly
I was dumbstruck, I had heard of lands outside of this city but to be able to see them, to meet the people, to spend time with a man who could unlock worlds of possibilities to me... Unthinkable.
I stuttered "I-I... Y-yes... Yes. YES! That sounds wonderful. I cannot wait!"
Tyreseus laughed and clapped me on the back and said " talk to your parents and then come see me. I wouldn't want to cause them strife by kidnapping thier son."
I ran home and presented the idea to my dad.
"dad you don't know what this could mean for me" I said ecstatically "I could invent new ways to cure ailments. I could build machines to do the unthinkable, I could-" 
My dad smiled as he rested his muddied hand on my mouth.
"Single delicate strokes of the hand my son. Single delicate strokes of the hand. Always remember that. I'm sure you will grow to become a brilliant man. Be sure to come home from time to time though."
I screamed "so, that is a yes!"
He nodded in silent assurance.
And so my adventure began.