Eden Isley
A.N.: I'm planning on writing a story featuring some OCs of mine. In order to grasp their characters a little better, I'm also writing some short stories from their perspectives. This, of course, is that story. Please let me know what you think, and enjoy!
The first thing that greeted her as she awoke was the distant whispers of her brothers and sisters. The second thing was the glorious smell of dirt and leaves.
Dragging herself from her comfy, DIY bed in the boughs of her sister the weeping willow, she swung from the nearest branch to the ground, landing in a crouch. She looked down and surveyed her clothing.
Her lime skin nearly melted into the yellow shirt she wore. Her brown, fleecy sweatpants weren't much more fashionable.
Deeming her attire perfectly fine – it wasn't like the guards would care about her clothes – she pulled on some slippers and made her way into the vegetable garden.
It had once been a hidden chamber – or something like that – just off the Aviary. But the amount of light and the location was perfect for growing vegetables, and even some fruits. It was large, well lit naturally by the sun, and contained some cabinets for plants particularly sensitive to insects.
Her plants did as asked and supported her step for step as she strode ever so casually into the room. The bridge across the abyss below her had been taken out by the Joker in some mad riot thing. He'd told her about it once.
Personally, she didn't understand it. It wasn't like he was going to escape. No one could ever escape from Arkham Island.
She absently watered and cared for her beloved plants, squashing the thought as soon as it arose, that she'd have to take their children one day, and all for a few bucks that she didn't really need anyway. It wasn't like she paid for much here. A computer, she supposed, and some clay pots and paper bags. Everything else was either made by her or provided for free. Meals, residence, healthcare, education…
She'd just finished quenching the thirst of her last sibling when the grating sound of the opening door reached her ear again.
"Eden Isley," the guard said, standing ramrod straight, with her rifle in hand. She must've been new, as her face was unfamiliar and her stance told of nervousness. "Your mom's been found. If you want to pay her a visit, you know where she is."
"Yeah," she hesitantly replied, lowering the watering can. "I'll be there soon." The guard left, the door grinding back into place behind her.
The plants around her surged with their own apprehension, knowing just as well as she that, for a little while at least, they were under a new, cruel mistress.
With a hefty sigh, Eden succumbed herself to her fate. She would, not completely out of moral obligation, visit her mother in her cell.
Throwing on some more appropriate clothes (a pair of jeans and sneakers) she navigated the rooms and complicated hallways of her "house." She made a mental note to get an electrician on the subject of the power in the flooded room. She didn't need deadly waters in her home, but she needed bare, live wires even less.
Nevertheless, she called on a vine to carry her across, the plant receding the moment she touched ground.
She gingerly inched around the hole in the stairs when she was out the door. Apparently, her mom had grown some huge plant there and, despite Eden having removed it herself, no one thought it necessary to clean up the staircase, leaving a massive jumble of stones where cement slabs should have been.
Casually, she cast her eyes to the mansion as she walked away from it. Perhaps she'd visit J later. Maybe Moira and Ethan, too. She hadn't seen them in a while.
Her feet dragged her past the mansion and through the passageway linking Arkham East and West. There, she strode straight past the medical ward and to the penitentiary, where guards passed her by, sending her pitying sideways glances.
Her step never faltered, even as she passed the poor, unfortunate souls trapped in their cells, screaming like the mad men they were.
The only time she hesitated was when she finally found herself on the Green Mile, those horrifying screams still surrounding her. But it wasn't the incoherent yelling that scared her. There was only one thing, one man, she was afraid of.
No, right now she felt only sad. Only disappointed.
Her mother had her back turned to her, giving her a very full view of her "cell walls," but, with Poison Ivy as a mother, things like that hardly bothered her. At the are-they-ever-going-to-oil-that-thing sound of the automatic door, she turned around to face the newcomer, her face lighting up in an instant.
"Lily!" she exclaimed. "It's so good to see you."
Eden painted an obviously fake smile onto her face. "For the last time, mom, my name is Eden; it's not that hard to remember," she singsonged.
"You used to love being called Lily," her mother bickered, stepping forward and sitting on the floor in her red tinted cell. Eden copied her.
"Yeah, back when I was a little kid and assumed lilies smelled nice." For all her plantiness, she still loathed the scent of lilies. "What'd you get caught doing this time," she asked.
"I tried to free some poor babies from Commissioner Gordon's house. He was torturing them."
Eden rolled her eyes. "You know, one day, you could just remind him to water his plants, instead of trying to kill him."
"Lily, he won't listen to reason. We need to take our babies back by force," Ivy replied, making Eden inwardly cringe at her old name.
"Has it ever occurred to you that you're no more than a bully?" the young girl asked. She was used to this by now. Back when she was a little girl, she'd been asked to talk sense into her mother every time she'd been incarcerated. She hardly needed to be told to do so, now. "You hurt people, even kill people! And for what? They don't listen to you. There are better, more effective ways to get people to care about the environment."
"Have you seen them work, thus far?"
"Are people going to care about the Earth if they're all dead?" A long silence followed, in which Ivy did not at all consider her daughter's words and Eden completely regretted even starting this argument.
"Well," the woman concluded, trying to get off the subject of her ecoterrorism. "What have you been doing with yourself while I was gone?"
"Same old, same old," Eden replied, eternally grateful for the change of subject. "I heard Puffin's been dealing with some sort of spy in Penguin's crew. She's got a good idea who it is."
"And who is it?"
"Some girl named Disa Proctor. It's just a hunch – based off the meaning of her name, at that – but it's better than not knowing."
"And what have you been doing?"
"I got through six seasons of How it's Made; that's about it. Other than that, I've been mostly keeping to myself. Lonesome days, lonesome nights…" A thought sprang to mind. "Lonesome birthdays."
Pamela sighed, looking away from her daughter. Guilt dripped into Eden's stomach; she knew this was the response she'd get. She knew it would only make her mother sad that, yet again, her daughter had been left – save for J, Moira, and Ethan – alone and present-less on her confusing birthday. But she was about as sweet as a lemon, and so the words had forced their way out.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be there," the woman breathed. "I wish I could've been, but I can't."
Eden shook her head. "It doesn't matter; just forget it."
"Lily-"
"EDEN!" she corrected.
Pamela sighed again. "I'll be there next year. Next year, I promise."
"You promised this year, too, and last year. I'm tired of broken promises."
"I'll keep it this year; my word is my bond."
"Your word is your bond when you're talking to your babies, never to your kid!" The second the last word was out of her mouth, Eden regretted every single one. Her mother glared at her with a neon green gaze, her eyes sharpened by her immaculate smoky eyes.
Without a goodbye, Eden took a few steps back, out the grating door before turning and sprinting down the halls and out the door, back the way she'd come. She said she'd visit J earlier, and that was exactly what she intended to do.
Her pace slowed when she was through the doors. It was a good thing too, because coming in the opposite direction and turning up his nose at the sight of her, was Quincy Sharp.
"Warden Sharp," she addressed him, something she almost never did. "Is J here?"
His gaze did not soften when he saw how close she was to crying. It never did.
"He's moved all of his things into Dr. Young's office, at long last," he replied in his pompous British accent. "I think you'll find him there. Now leave me." With this last command, he hobbled out of the mansion, cane in hand.
She made her way into the mansion, leaving the sour man behind. Her hands were shaking as she continued to wring them, trying desperately to keep herself together, at least until she was in private.
She shivered as she passed the small morgue at her side. Why a morgue was in the mansion and not just in the medical facility was beyond her.
She gripped the rail like a vice and she made her way down the stairs. She knocked when she finally found herself at the glass doors.
J opened the door only a moment later, his face screwed up in confusion, a look which softened as he saw Eden in her shaking, tearful, guilty state. Without words, he pulled her into his new room.
"You like it?" he asked, flashing a wide smile at the prospect that he now had his own, private room. The smile was infectious; Eden allowed a small, sad smile as she nodded her approval of the room.
"What's wrong?" he asked, this time with genuine interest in her insights. He sat beside her on the cot he'd set up, having gotten Penny's huge desk out of the way.
"Mom," she answered. "It just…it just…it feels like she loves her plants more than me. She's willing to kill for them, but she won't even take me with her when she breaks out and goes back to Gotham. I…I know I can go there myself, but it's not the same. I want to live with her, like Kitten lives with Catwoman. Even if it's in Arkham City, I want to live like I'm somewhat normal."
J wrapped an arm around her, his makeup making his mouth look hopelessly confused as he frowned. He didn't respond. It was always better to let her vent her frustrations and stay in a mood than to try to fix everything.
"I know she loves me," she continued. "But it doesn't feel like it. I never get to see her out of her cell, she hasn't taught me anything except how to use my powers, and even then, she taught me to use them to kill people! There's no love in that, I think."
"No," he agreed. "There isn't. Eden, look at me." He turned her around until she sat cross-legged on his bed, red eyes looking into his green. "Pamela loves you; don't doubt that. And while yes, she gets herself arrested, and while no, we can't have a normal life, imagine what would've happened otherwise. Can you really say you'd prefer to be a crook in Gotham, he-who-shall-not-be-named on your tail 24/7? You'd be terrified!"
"I'm not saying I regret living here. I just want some normality, y'know? Going to a family restaurant with mom, seeing a movie at a movie theater, and baking cookies like a normal person! And sleeping on a real bed, not a hammock, not a gurney, but an actual bed!"
"Why not go live with Kitten for a while? I'm sure Selina would be glad to have you."
"It won't be the same. I want mom there, not just staying with a friend."
"Just trying to help," he replied, holding up his chalky white hands in surrender.
"And J, can you honestly tell me you don't want the same? Imagine it; you wouldn't have to avoid Quincy all the time, you wouldn't be put under the microscope like you are here; J, do you have any idea how much better our lives could be if we actually went to school?"
"School sucks," he simply replied. "Besides, you know d*** well we'd be put under the microscope. I look like a murderer, and you're green. We're hardly inconspicuous. Maybe the others could pull it off, but the two of us just can't."
"Whatever. I'm heading home," she said tiredly. She slid off the cot and made the way back to the entrance.
Feeling properly vented, she slid into the gardens, instantly feeling more in her element. She made a mental note to do a major cleaning after lunch. While Zsasz's victims had been burned, rather than left to rot in her home, the tallied bench still stood, and the TYGER guards' leftover trash didn't fix the appearance.
A small smile found its way onto her face at the prospect of cleaning. It was something everyone else did; it was normal. She supposed, if this was her life henceforth, then she would take what normality she could get.
A.N.: I'm not great at writing "'slice of life" stories, so please let me know what you think this character, or the chapter in general. The next chapter will be a day from J's perspective, hopefully in the first person (I'm not great at that, either). Let me know what you think would be good to see from Eden – either in this story or a larger one – or what I should've done. Thank you for your time, and GOD BLESS!