#but also would threaten desmond that he’d kick his ass

[teecupangel]

What if scenario: Desmond dies and is reborn in AC2 and ends up somehow being betrothed to Claudia instead of Duccio. (Duccio still gets beaten up though lol) Desmond has his memories like in yew branches.

I’m sure there’s going to be at least three people (one of them being Claudia herself) who would joke that he only wants to marry Claudia to finally be Ezio’s brother. XD

Okay, in all seriousness, let’s talk about how this would work.

Betrothals during this era is quite… early. Claudia herself is betrothed to Duccio by the time she is 15 so it won’t be surprising if their betrothal happened when she was 13 or 14.

Now, you mention Yew Branches and I think that we would have an easiest way to make this happen by just kicking Desmond into a canon character that would make sense to be betrothed to Claudia.

Of course, the first target that comes to mind would be one of the Medicis, mainly because that would fortify the alliance between House Medici and House Auditore and Claudia would be marrying ‘up’ but the oldest son of Lorenzo would be Piero and he has an 11 year difference with Claudia and would be 4 when Claudia is 15.

Claudia would definitely complain and say no. Honestly, pre-tragedy Claudia feels like a girl who would be into older men because she’d think they’re sooooo mature and ‘dashing’ and ‘mysterious’. A bit of a hopeless romantic keeping her Auditore audacity at bay.

So…

May I suggest… kicking Desmond into being reborn as Lorenzo’s unfortunate will-die-in-the-Pazzi-conspiracy younger brother, Giuliano?

He would be 8 years older than Claudia but that’s fine. There are larger age gaps in Renaissance Italy (Lucrezia’s 14 year gap with Giovanni Sforza for example) and it would be funny if Claudia is actually attracted to him because he’s cool, strong and sooooo mysterious.

Desmond… Desmond just wants to save everyone, goddammit.

Also… this gives us an excuse for Desmond to have complicated feelings over having Lorenzo as his brother.

If you’re still iffy with the age gap, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici is only 2 years older than Claudia and marrying Claudia to a branch family member of the Medici would be a better move because Lorenzo is trying to lock in the Auditores’ loyalty (and the Assassins’ support) but marrying from the main family seems a bit… ‘wasteful’.

Either way, pre-tragedy Claudia? She’d definitely be attracted to Desmond.

Post-tragedy Claudia? Yeah, she’d cling to Desmond more because she’s so lost but, once she gets her feet to the ground and starts understanding the ‘freedom’ she has in Monteriggioni, she’d probably be the one to break off the engagement (especially if this is Brotherhood!Claudia).

Desmond accepts it but, shit… He can’t believe he’s saying this but…

He…

He might have accidentally fallen in love with Claudia already???