AN I watched Dark Knight Rises, and I had to write this. The more I learned about them, the more I thought about their lives. And then...I suddenly had enough for a story.
She had been so, so small the first time he'd seen her. It was bizarre, seeing such a tiny, fragile thing walking on the other side of the Pit, hand in hand with her mother. Eyes followed them at the curiosity of it, and that was something that you never wanted in the Pit; attention. Not unless you had the skills to break the legs of anyone who tried to set their disgusting hands on you. And it was clear looking at this child and its mother, that they could not protect themselves.
Bane had seen the mother come into the Pit, everyone had. A princess coming from the skies, they whispered, and he had spared himself a few seconds to watch the figure lowered so slowly on a rope. Some whispered that she would rescue them, she was the ambassador from the land above, but those were only the ones that had begun cracking up. No one that was sane entertained such terrible ideas. Having that mocking hole in their stone sky was bad enough.
Everyone had wondered how long she'd last in the Pit. There were already a few women down there, the rest having died for some reason or another, poison, despair or having been beaten to death. The ones that survived either had something to provide in exchange for their life or purity, or were simply too unstable to be approached. This one, the new one, the princess, Bane had thought she'd die on the first day, especially when he saw her stomach swollen from a child, but when a man had tried to touch her, she had kicked in the side of his knee and nearly clawed an eye out.
Bane let out a scoffing laugh. It seemed she might make it in the place, after all.
And even when she died, just a few agonizing, brief years later, some could say she had done better than anyone else. This woman, a warlord's daughter, had given birth and managed to keep her speck of a child alive, not to mention safe. Bane doubted many people could pull that off.
He had spoken to her a few times, just to get a proper look at the child. It had been so long since he'd see one that he had forgotten their features. The mother was wary, eyes distrusting like she expected a trick, someone to leap out and pin her down while this usually solitary man spoke to her. The child, however, stared with open curiosity, peeking out from behind its mother's rags. Even at that age, two or three was his guess, the blue, blue eyes struck him.
He didn't find out the child's gender until the next year, when an ancient woman let it slip. She was going senile, which was a true shame, as she was almost the last decent story teller in that forsaken hole, but he had been around for one of her rare, clear moments.
"Shame, shame," she had muttered to the doctor, who was incoherent from morphine.
"What's a shame," he asked, curiosity making him look up from wrapping the cut on his arm. She blinked at him, struggling against the cataracts plaguing her eyes.
"About the child. The one with the blue eyes. There'll be no one to tell her about what it all means. How she'll feel and her flow and becoming a woman."
"Why's that?"
"The men here...they are becoming restless."
She whispered the last bit, as if their fellow convicts might turn savage at her words. Bane understood her worry, though.
Disease had begun to spread, and people were coming desperate. For supplies, for freedom, for entertainment. Since there were so many sick, the number of people daring to climb up the wall had dwindled, and violence had started erupting in its place, quiet, sharp struggles that lasted mere seconds, but the mens' appetite were growing with the prospect of death. Soon they would move on from spontaneous scuffles with people that could fight back to premeditated attacks to those that couldn't raise a finger in defense.
Bane had always been disgusted at the thought of forcing a woman because a person felt desperate and hopeless. Like her screams and her nails down their face would make anything better. Maybe this was what spurred his interest in this mother and child, the curiosity as to how they'd fair. Would the mother be able to hold out, saving herself and her child, or would she crumble under the Pit's alarming weight? He also had to wonder how the girl would look, should her mother be taken before her.
To his surprise, the thought left an odd feeling in his stomach. He didn't recall the last time he'd cared about anyone other than himself.
The shrieks he heard later were unlike anything he'd ever heard. Not like the shouts of pain that were so common, nor were they the occasional demented howl of the insane. They came from the mother, the princess, similar to the ones he'd heard when the child had been born, though it wasn't so much of pain and sadness and exhaustion, as fear and anger and desperation. Bane turned in his cell to take in the view, leaning into the bars for a better look. A man was leering through the bars of the cell with the mother and child, a hand pawing at the air. The mother was pushing the girl back, screaming like the monster that inhabited every myth and legend around the world. She clawed at the man, catching his hand with her nails a couple times, but then he grabbed her, snatching her wrist and yanking her close. The woman screamed and writhed and scratched, and the child watched so, so quietly, curled up in the farthest corner, eyes looking horrified.
The doctor lumbered over, roughly shoving the man back and talking to him in his own language. The woman scrambled back, clutching at her child and heaving slightly, staring as the two men argued. The attacker eventually backed down, but as Bane turned his back on the scene, one thing was abundantly clear. A message had been sent. The warrior princess had fallen. Next time, she would not be able to fight back.
The group was assembled several days later, and Bane joined. They whispered about a plan to distract the doctor from locking their cell door and storming the place. He wasn't interested in stealing what little the mother and daughter had left, but he couldn't stand the thought of just watching it all from his cell, twiddling with a stone or some piece of string as more screams, hopeless and hurt and terrified echoed through the cavern.
No one looked twice at him when he stepped up, just gave awful, hungry laughs and said not to worry, there'd be enough for everyone. Maybe even seconds if they included the child.
"It might be a boy," he said, and the only shrugged.
"So?"
The were savages, he thought, smothering the urge to fight them all now. Despite his strength and skill, he'd never be able to outlast their numbers.
Bane pulled the hood onto his head, hating the smell and coarseness of it. But it would protect him, hide just who he was when he acted. The protection wouldn't last long as he couldn't wear the hood for forever, but the confusion would aid him in his rescue attempt.
The signal was given, and the howl and laughs of hungry men boomed across the Pit. Bane stayed quiet, focused, trusting the others to be too preoccupied to notice.
He hadn't known what he'd do when he got to the cell, so Bane didn't really have any plans to be foiled, but that didn't stop his heart from dropping when he saw the men dragging the woman away. There'd be no saving both her and the girl, whom the men had ignored or not noticed yet, too interested in the mother at the moment. If he didn't act fast, though, there was no way he'd be able to save either of them. Bane made his decision quickly; the mother would realize a rescue faster than the child, but there were far more people to get past, she was heavier, and wouldn't last long, all things considered. The girl it would have to be.
She was gasping and crying, curled in the farthest corner of the cell. Had he not been looking for her, Bane doubted he would have noticed her in a pile of rags, half hidden by the small cot.
He leaped forward, shoving past the men blocking the way, scooped her up and charged back through the mass of bodies. He held her tight, probably tighter than he should have, but he couldn't afford her writhing and making him lose concentration. He didn't know how old she was, five, maybe, but she was so tiny, a bird that had flown down on accident and forgotten how to get back up. When she started screaming, he pressed her face into his chest, muffling her somewhat. Several men tried to stop him, but he forced his way past, twisting arms and cracking ribs when necessary.
Finally, they were free. No hands grabbed at him, no one pointed at the bundle in his arms. He sat down heavily, leaning against a the edge of a walkway and looking furtively at the others like a child that had manged to steal the last piece of candy.
Bane pushed away his surging adrenaline, trying to be gentle as he examined the child in his arms. A terrifying, forlorn thought crossed him; what if he'd smothered her? Held her too tight in all the madness and ruined all his efforts? But no, as he loosened his grip, he saw how she shook, saw her wide, wide eyes, staring at him in utter fear.
For one moment, they were frozen, sizing each other up. He the potential predator, waiting to see if she would bolt, she the possible prey, waiting to see if he'd lunge.
"You're safe," he told her, and she just blinked, pulling a little farther away, pressing up against his bent legs. "It's alright, I'm not going to hurt you, little one."
Bane paused at this. Little one? The term of almost affection was one from his own childhood, where everything had been dark and the people were dark versions of the ones above ground. It was strange, how naturally the words had flowed out.
The girl frowned at him, and he raised a hand to smudge away a tear, but she flinched, grabbing back at his thighs before realizing that was a part of him as well. The girl glanced around, trying to figure out how she was supposed to escape a man so huge. Her feet were resting on his stomach, each one smaller than his hand.
"Be calm," he said, raising his hand, palm open by his face. She flinched away, closing her eyes. The girl probably expected him to strike or grab her, remembering how the other men had treated her mother. Instead, he pulled the rags from around his face, separating him from the other monsters. She cracked open an eye, watching him warily. He waited, watching her relax the slightest bit.
"What's your name?" he asked, and she continued to stare at him. A thought hit Bane - maybe she didn't understand him. Wonderful. He searched for the language he had heard the mother speak. He knew several languages, mostly because there was such a variety of people in the Pit and he didn't like living in ignorance. The majority of their names had blurred into nothing at this point, but then, he didn't need those down here.
"What's your name?" he tried again, and she stiffened in recognition.
"T-talia," she murmured, and he nodded. They'd have to keep that quiet if they wanted to her last very long in here. He'd have to make sure to only call her 'little one' or the like when the others were around.
"Hello, Talia," he said gently, and she gave a tiny, tiny nod. Her eyes were large and uncertain, blue as the ocean he had nearly forgotten amidst all this rock and tan and dust. Her hair was shorter than his, and since she was still young, no one could tell what gender she was without a good look. But what about when she was older? What about when she started to bleed, or her voice didn't boom and crack like a boy's? Or, what about the more immediate matter of someone noticing she didn't have the right parts?
He smothered those thoughts. He'd be careful whenever she went to the bathroom or changed, and judging by how she was acting towards him, she'd take care of the rest. Besides, most of those problems wouldn't come for at least another seven years. They had time.
"Where is...where is my mother?" she asked, lisping voice tight with emotion. The woman's screams had died away while they'd been talking (or rather, while he'd been talking and she staring), so maybe they had gagged her. Bane glanced up, noting the huddle of men. Talia tried to look, but one of his large hands on her cheek made her freeze.
"She's not here. She's..." He struggled with the words, because he wasn't sure he should explain the concepts of rape and murder to a child, and because he was losing the words of a language he hadn't used in so blasted long.
"She won't be coming back."
There was a muffled shriek of pain, and his first instinct was to clap his hands over her ears, but the noise died down immediately, turning into the hurried, angry murmurs of the men. Talia flinched at the sound, pulling in on herself. She looked like a half drowned cat, something Bane had seen a couple of times before being tossed into the Pit.
He opened his arms, a question asking if she needed comfort, but she shook her head, staying as far away from his chest as possible. When she heard the shouts of rage, as well as the dull sound of a person being hit with something hard, she jerked into him, clutching at the rags covering his chest. She may have been little more than bone, but there was a softness he'd long since forgotten, a softness that always went with innocence. Bane held her again, rocking her slightly while he watched the huddle of men, which was breaking apart surprisingly fast.
At first, he was confused because such things never ended so quickly, but then he saw Talia's mother. She was limp, a rag doll dragged along the rough ground. A stream of glistening red trailed from her mouth down nearly to her stomach, large enough to tell him what had happened. Respect for the woman blossomed in him, because truly, she deserved the title 'warrior princess'. She had bitten off her own tongue and drowned in the blood, rather than wait through the nightmare those monsters had planned.
"What happened to her?" Talia whispered, voice husky from crying. "Did they have their way with her?"
"No," he said, wanting to laugh, because such resistance was so rare in the Pit. "No, little one. She made fools of them, and then she rose above it all."
"Is she dead?" The words were so soft that he barely heard the emotion in them. Trepidation at the truth, the vaguest hope for her mother's survival, fear as to what he might do should she be alive. Would this giant let Talia go back to how her life had been before, or would he keep her there, motives the exact same as all the other men?
"Yes. She is dead."
Talia let out a breath, a short, heart sore gasp. He felt the tears seep through the fabric of his shirt, and then she said "It'd be worse for me."
Bane was silent for a moment, imaging the wary, paranoid life she and her mother must have lived.
"Yes, little one. Yes it would."
AN OKAY BEGINNING CHAPTER DONE. I tried to make this different from the other fanfics starting at this same general moment, and I hope I succeeded.
Review, tell me what you thought! I can't wait to hear what you have to say :)