This is a new story—I've given up on the others. Really, I cannot conceive a worthy plot line. I'd rather explore the depths of their relationship through mindless one-shots. Some will be sweet, some will be painful. But that it how it is, and how it will always be.
I never enjoyed the idea of Talia being a young, innocent, and bubbly girl. How would that even be possible? Could you walk away from a life in the pit without internal and external scars? She's not happy, she does not laugh, and she does not smile. Her one comfort in life is Bane.
That's all.
She is a hardened soul, and that is how I would like to portray her.
This chapter is for Belle de Sainte Ange. :)
(I do not own these characters)
"Look…" he grasped her small hand within his own, guiding it along the smooth surface of the window. "What does it feel like?" he whispered into her ear, pressing the cold metal of his mask into the short length of hair of her head.
Talia leaned back into his chest, allowing her hand to be guided. She splayed her fingers against the cold surface of the window, savoring the feel of the ice against her palm, and his heated hand. She watched their hands move together, caressing the foreign object with curiosity and wonderment.
They lingered off to the side of the main training rooms, disregarding the sounds of men sparing, and many coaching. They had been summoned by Ra's Al Ghul to begin their training, yet when they entered the room, they remained detached from the fellow members of the League.
They were aliens to them. Foreign creatures, conceived in an entirely different existence. They did not experience the same pain, the same sadness, or the same contentment. Everything they felt had been skewed by the life they had lived beneath the surface of the earth. They had not experienced happiness—only contentment. They had not felt regret—only relief. There were no solid emotions. Emotions and feelings were not needed. Rather they strove off of reality and instinct. They never experienced the comfort to express emotion.
They never loved—only needed.
"Like the ice," she began quietly. "that would come in the season of the low sun…"
He nodded slowly. "Man made this…"
"Not God," she whispered, curling her fingers against the glass. "God makes things that are good… And man makes things that are corrupted. God makes forests, and man makes prisons," she said.
Bane slowly pulled her away from the window, disregarding the looks of scrutiny surrounding them. The overwrought eyes of the men darted across the room, examining the near animal creatures with judging gazes. They did not understand—and so Bane held nothing against them.
"Is man corrupt?" he asked her, lifting her into his arms in a more protective way, when catching sight of Ra's hard stare.
"Yes," she whispered, lacing her arms around his neck. "God is just… God made wings, and man made cages…"
His soul wrestled within him. It whispered a word in the cavities of his ear, over and over and over again. It struck a chord of resentment in the very core of his being, behind the cage of bones that entangled his heart. Had it once been a thing of beauty, the pit had now surely caused it to rot. To see its demise.
But it was always there as a faint callousness that covered the surface of his thoughts, and he denied this like something in the dark. It meant no importance to him, nothing to dwell on or anticipate. He was aware of the presence of such, yet disregarded it like his ever present shadow. It followed him through life, yet its companionship was always highly ignored.
That solitary word. That quiet whisper in the dark…
Freedom.
He had watched them for years.
They were meager animals, creeping through the darkness. They traveled by night, locked away from the small amounts of sunlight that seeped into the dank prison. They were thin creatures, bundled in filthy strips of fabric and dust that stretched across the rises and sinks of their skin. What he did see of them had born him a curiosity of the two feeble souls.
When fate had acted upon them, he had risen to the challenge. It had been a feeble battle of reality and curiosity that had been the cause of his once-considered 'rash' decision. Yet now it was clear that it had been nothing less than a moment of redemption, or justification…
When he plucked her from the teeth of agony.
"Brother?" she whispered into the dark air, dust encircling the pitch of her soft tone.
He had laid awake, slumber avoiding him due to the meager elbow striking into the side of his bony rib cage. With a slow and tired blink, he turned his face to view her—his vision already adjusted to the blackness that enveloped them.
She was a sullen creature, with sunken cheeks and eyes sitting within a pool of dark and tired skin. Her hair, shaved to her skull, caught small fragments of filth, and caused her head to carry a scent of death. Her bones jutted out in an ungodly way, giving her the appearance of an animal, rather than a young girl. Yet her eyes…
Through them, a fire rose inside of her.
"What, my child?" he questioned. It had been an attempted whisper, yet the bellow of his tone rumbled within the wide cavity of his chest.
They had gone nearly two days without speaking to one another. It hadn't been an odd thing, yet when they finally did speak to one another, their voices were always raw and questioning. It lacked the rhythm of comfortable speech. Many of the other inmates spoke often—yet the child and its beast were the silent lambs that wandered the recesses of the prison. Unforgiving, unloving. Silent.
"Tell me of before the pit," she whispered, her claw-like fingers plucking at the loose threads of his tunic. "Tell me of the world… up above…"
He glanced away from her, gazing up into the stone ceiling. "Well…" he began softly, fighting the need to clear his dry throat. "In the mornings, the sun rises… And you can see the first break of it over the horizon. It comes up from the earth, deep in the expanses of the vast deserts… The sky turns from black to red, to yellow, to green… and finally, as the sun rises fully, it turns blue…"
She smiled faintly, pulling her feeble body closer to his. Her knees dug painfully into his narrow stomach, yet he disregarded it, savoring the feeling of security that she radiated. "Have you seen it?...The sun rise," she asked eagerly, her small hands moving the inspect his unkempt hair as the top of his skull.
He smiled faintly at her, knowing she could only feel the warmth of it in the air, rather than see it. Dare he answer; he knew it would be a lie. Because he had not been born into the recesses of hell, yet he had still never seen the splendor of the sunrise.
"What's it like?" she whispered, seeking a fantasized heaven in the life his words painted out before her eyes. He was the creator of her dreams, the artist of her fantasies. Without him, the only world she would ever know, would be the one that surrounded her… Without him, heaven did not exist.
He pulled her tightly against him. "It's like…" he stopped short, glancing up towards the small amount of sky that they could view from their cell bed.
"Paradise."
"Again."
Ra's watched as two of his young warriors sparred, swinging long wooden dowels at each other. They shifted against the sturdy bamboo padding, like two dark shadows in the duel of death. Each swing was quick, calculated, and graceful. The movements sung of patience and meditation—a process of inner peace released into a forceful and demanding blow of authority.
Ra's Al Ghul had always been that forceful and demanding blow of authority in the fortress. He was the image of peace and meditation, a symbol of sanctity. How he behaved, only the young could aspire to come close. It was an unspoken understanding—that no one was ever good enough.
"Lord Al Ghul," a brooding messenger came to stand beside the man, standing a foot smaller than himself, yet holding more respect than he could ever wish for.
"Yes?" Ra's questioned, eyes intent on the sparring men.
"The girl…" he began, searching and picking his words carefully. "She has been taken by a fit of rage."
Ra's chuckled lightly, turning away from the men to look up at the tall messenger. "And her governess cannot put the girl at ease?" he questioned, a tone of distaste in being disturbed seeping into his voice.
"No, my Lord… The child attacked her," the messenger said slowly, standing straighter at the look of shock that passed over Ra's Al Ghul's face. "The girl left trails of claw marks up her arms… The governess departed in a haste."
With a deep sigh, Ra's took one last glance at the sparring men, and turned away. "Take me to her."
When she had first arrived at the fortress, Ra's had been eager to become the father he was meant to be. The moment he laid his eyes upon her small face, he knew he would be rendered helpless to her innocent beauty.
"My darling," he had said, his voice hardly above a whisper.
She had been a frail creature, more animal than human. With bones that jutted out like daggers and reminders of the fate he had left her to perish in. Her hooded eyes, circled in dark rings of exhaustion, watched him with caution. She considered his every movement, flinching away whenever anyone attempted to touch her.
Yet beneath the mire that cling to her skin, despite her shaved head, and the fat that she lacked… She looked exactly like her mother once had.
"Tell me…" he had begun softly, pressing food in her direction. They had sat in his grand dining area, seated at a vast oak table. She had ravished the food quickly, pulling it close to her chest and watching him from beneath her brow while she ate.
Yet she consumed very little, her body unable to hold anything more than a few scraps.
"What can I do for you? Anything," he had gently pleaded, leaning close—yet careful to not move too closely. "Let me do something for you… Please… Anything…"
She had gone stiff, quickly looking up at him with wanting eyes. "My brother… Save my bother."
The idea of a brother had baffled him. He thought, possibly, a twin. Or the outcome of forced intimacy. He had been unsure, yet he had obeyed her request.
Ra's chuckled to himself as he followed the messenger through the fortress towards the living quarters, where his daughter was having a fit of rage.
What a fool he had been. To believe there may have been another child, possibly of his own blood. How terribly, terribly foolish.
The moment they had drug the beast from his hell, she had gone to him. Like a tired bee to its sweet honey. She had instantly found her way into his beat and feeble arms, curling into them like they were a sanctuary in her weary world.
He had hardly been conscious, yet somehow—to Ra's amazement—he had clung to the child as though she were to be torn from his grasp.
"My Talia," he had rasped through what was left of his mangled mouth. And a look of peace had crossed over his eyes.
What a damned fool he had been.
He could hear her now, as he drew closer to her room. Her cries of rage, curses to the heavens. The sounds of her destroying her surroundings, releasing pent up rage on the unknowing world around her. She sounded like a beast, with the battle cry of a dying creature.
When they came upon the opening of her room, three members of the League lingered outside, watching the madness that took place within the recesses of her small room. They hastily stood straighter when they saw Ra's approaching, ducking away from the door.
"What is this about?" he asked one of the members of the League, glancing into the room to see young Talia walking in circles, cursing the heavens while meager tears streaked her thin face.
"The governess tried to bathe her," one of the men answered slowly, a tone of distaste leaking into his voice. "The governess wouldn't allow him to be present."
Him.
Ra's lip twitched with a hidden rage at the fact. The fact that all she wanted was that masked creature. That monster that lingered in the shadows, that stole what was left of the girl's innocence away from her. That hulking beast and reminder. That damned monster.
"Where is… it?" Ra's whispered.
The man jerked his head in the direction of the room. Ra's looked in to see the masked creature watching the girl from his seat at her desk.
He watched her with calmed eyes, blinking slowly when she would throw her fists into the walls, her bedframe—anything around her. He made no attempts to stop her, only allowed her rage to consume her.
He gave her the freedom to release the devil inside her.
He was the menace that gave that devil the freedom to consume her.
"Enough!" Ra's cried, stepping into the room. His presence hit like a forceful blow, and the masked man's eyes shot up to him. Yet Talia behaved as though she had not heard him, continuing in her fit of rage.
The man stood to his full stature, hands in tight fists at his sides—no doubt a pose of defense. He took a handful of large, quick steps forward to stand between the girl and her father. It was an instinctive movement.
He would forever be the barrier between them.
"She's fine," the man, Bane, huffed in a deep, throaty tone. The words rattled behind his mask, a metallic echo.
Ra's snarled, eyes intent on the man he had saved. "You consider this fine? A young girl rolling in her mire, like a madwoman possessed by the devils? This behavior is entirely unacceptable. She, nor anyone else, will be permitted to behave like this."
Ra's could see it in the way that Bane's eyes had gone from hard to cold in an instant, that he was restraining himself from the instinctive and animal-like reaction to the words that angered him. The instinct to attack.
Bane stepped closer, in towards Ra's. He was a hulking creature, a brooding figure standing taller than six and a half feet. All else was small and feeble in comparison. He was a monster of a man, unworthy of living—unworthy of his daughter's undying affection.
Unworthy.
"Spend your life in the pits of hell before you inform me of what I can and cannot do," the masked man snarled, trapped behind his prison of metal.
"You? You think I speak of you?"
Bane paused, cocking his head slightly—almost like a child. His eyes softened slightly, and he blinked slowly. His entire life's story read clearly in those eyes. They portrayed the emotion he no longer could with words, or his mouth. They were the small window into his depths. He was a caged man. Caged in by his bones.
Bane took in a slow breath, and released it.
"We… are the same."