They were a normal thing. Everyone had them.

Everyone except for Nyssa.

It had bothered, back her when she was small and she would often find herself staring at her father's whenever she saw it, which was far too often, because Nyssa saw her father shirtless a whole lot more than most children ever did. Of course he caught her looking, recognised her confusion, pulled the secret from her unwilling lips. And he told her she was lucky, that it was a good thing - a blessed thing.

Nyssa disagreed.

She made a game of it when she was seven, to distract herself from the searing, blistering pain on the shoulder blade that her vest shirt left exposed. "Suffering is optional" was one of her father's most beloved mantas, one she too held close to her heart - searching for a way to protect it. She began to look, to study the men in her father's league, hunting for them.

After her father's… enormous refusal, she resigned herself to keeping quiet, to never asking, never bringing them up, afraid, the wounds on her stomach still healing. But she guessed, letting her stunted imagination grow as she plotted her father's minion's life around what she could see. "You tell him from both of us" was scrawled across the nape of Sarab's neck in a neat but not fluid handwriting, "I had wished she was a boy as well" in familiar, jagged letters across her father's right pectoral. On her mother… "I'll be back in two minutes" on the liars, "I'm sorry"on the sentimental, "Stay away" on the protective. Everyone in the league had already said their last words to their soulmate. For that was what they were - the mark of a loved one.

Everyone had them. Everyone except for Nyssa.

She learnt from a very, very young age - some people didn't deserve soulmates.

It was the stupid game she had played as she grew that had caused her to notice it.

The dead girl she found on the shore of Lian Yu had "I do love you" scrolled neatly across her wrist. It was a nice mark to have; short, polite and romantic. It was hopeful, because the girl knew her soulmate long enough to confess such a thing, something not everyone had the chance to do. The girl was wet, her skin dewy and sand sticking in her hair, as if she'd been in the ocean - perhaps shipwrecked. Maybe, Nyssa pondered as she knelt in the sand to study the girl, her soulmate had been on the boat with her when it sank, accepting that they would both perish on impact. Or maybe not, maybe they'd said goodbye before she left, expecting to see each other again. Maybe she'd lost them long ago.

But the moment she ran her fingers over her throat to double check for a pulse, the dead girl's chest heaved, throwing up water as she coughed and spluttered, large blue eyes opening wide, and suddenly, to Nyssa's supreme surprise, she wasn't dead any more.

Just like those hundreds as she grew, she never mentioned Sara's mark. Never asked if she already knew them, if she'd met them or had yet to find them. Even when her chest tightened with fear as she fought, slowly morphing into pride as the canary blossomed and took flight, gorgeous and deadly, and her stomach knotted beneath her scars, like her body was rebelling on the little food she ate whenever one of Ra's followers came just to close to Sara's skin. Never asked if the handwriting on her wrist belonged to the Oliver she mentioned so often. She never mentioned her absent mark, never bothered to point out the obvious truth; that no one would ever be so foolish as to fall for the Demon's daughter.

But the Demon's daughter fell. She fell hard for her Sara, gave away her heart and stared at the words on her wrist like they held the secrets to the universe. It looked like her own hand writing in some places, in the right light, just the right mix of curve and stretch to the rounded letters, but the slant was wrong, other letters the wrong shape and size to be hers, like she had written it with her left hand, only neater. Nyssa traced the words on her page, wondering if her handwriting had always looked like that, or if she'd subconsciously mimicked Sara's mark in false hope.

And then someone tried to take her hand off.

The wounds, and the bones and muscles, healed over time, but the joint was never quite the same again. Sara sat by her side, changing dressings and slipping painkillers into tea when she thought Nyssa wasn't looking. Throughout the days and night, Sara stayed, talking, laughing, easing secrets carefully from her, not hauling them out into the open head first. Throughout rest and rehabilitation, learning to cooperate with what her hand wanted to do, re-learning to eat, fight, write, Sara stayed. Sara stayed, and on day two, as she leaned over to change the glaze on the gash on Nyssa's forehead, she shifted slightly to gently press their lips together.

Nothing was quite the same. Her hand shook slightly more when she tried to eat, was steadier and quicker in the battlefield, and her writing seemed to change too. There was just the right mix of curve and stretch to the rounded letters, but the slant was wrong, other letters the wrong shape and size to be hers, like she had written it with her left hand, only neater.

Subtle, but there. Subtle, but familiar.

Sara worked behind her, maneuvering between the tear in her skin to dislodge the stubborn bullet, firmly embedded in Nyssa back in a dangerous place, only a few inches to the right of her spin. Unable to see as she was, the demon's heir felt the tweezers slip between shaking, fearful fingers, the heat of the cave not helping them in the slightest, and the metal scraped up against the bone there. Unable to hold it back any longer, Nyssa's withheld scream became a strangled sob, and her strong arms shook where they braced her against the wall.

"Sorry."

"Just focus on getting the bullet out, Sara." Nyssa forced out - her breath steady again, even as the rest of her shook uncontrollably.

"Yeah sure." She nodded and pushed down on the middle of Nyssa's back. "I need you to keep your back straight for me, okay?" Sara went back to work without waiting for a response, but also without Nyssa flinching, no longer arching away from the white hot pain and the red coated bullet finally, finally slipping free of her scarred skin.

"All done," Sara told her, swiping her hand down her back carefully and tenderly, avoiding the deep, painful wound. She had nothing to stitch it with.

Forcing her way under Nyssa's arms, Sara helped her to lip onto her wounded leg from the fire in the mouth to makeshift bed in the belly of the cave, crafted out of any available materials she had been able to attain, before she'd notice the blood leaking from the wound. She stayed there with her, all night, to wake her from nightmares, to cool rising temperatures, like an infant with a fever.

Sara forgot to mention it then.

Enjoying the rasp of material on rarely exposed skin, Nyssa spread herself out over the cotton sheets of the bed in one of their nicer safe houses, not too unlike her room in Nanda Parbat. Fittingly, they were a deep, blood red, the normal colour of anything that couldn't be black in the League of Assassins. Her eyes wanted to close themselves as she tilted her head, pressing the side of her face - not just her chin - into the plush pillow, but there were gentle fingers stroking over the skin of her on her shoulder blade, as though the tender touch could errace the brand there. And there, as though they could sooth, soft lips replaced callused fingers in softer kisses.

"Did I actually tire you out this time?" Sara laughed, following the trail her fingers left with her mouth, from her shoulder blade to the back of her neck, and then down across her cheek as Nyssa turned her head into her.

"I'm not tired." She muttered back, arching her back and stretching out her abused muscles and folding her arms under her head lazily. "I am simply… content, Azizity."

"A very rare occurrence!" Nudging their hips together, Sara nudged her across the bed until she could press herself up against her side, melding them together in the bed. Nyssa moved only slightly, keeping her as close as possible. "I like seeing you like this. Relaxed, happy… I love it, actually."

Nyssa grinned at her, pushing up onto her elbows, forcing her muscles to hold her as she hovered over Sara and settled her mouth over hers in the gentlest move she'd ever made in her life, contrasting the boisterousness of her expression. She touched only Sara's lips, keeping the rest of her weight off of the delicate girl she'd found dying on the beach and her strong Canary alike.

"You're a big cat, aren't you?" Sara laughed, nudging her shoulder so that Nyssa spread herself out on her front again. Nyssa went willingly, following every non-verbal direction she was given. "All palpable and willing, but only as long as you get what you want first."

"On the contrary, Sara, I would be more than happy to comply to your wishes, no matter my mental or physical state." She stroked a finger gently against the prominent veins in the leg beside her. "Your satisfaction has always been my main priority."

"I like the sound of that." She laughed happily, that same laugh that she had tormented the demon head with. She traced gently down the line of Nyssa's spine with a gentle finger. "I'll be back soon."

"Are you leaving?" Nyssa turned herself quickly, propping herself up on her elbows. Her eyebrows draw in, and she tilted her chin down, angling her head so that Sara was back in her range of vision. "Sara, if I did something-"

"What…Oh, Nyssa, no!" The younger girl hooked her index finger underneath her lover's chin, raising Nyssa's eyes to hers as she stroked her hand over deep brown hair. "I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have - I was curious."

"Shouldn't have? Curious about what?" She stayed quiet. "Sara?"

"I saw it in the cave in Tennessee." Sara sighed, her beautiful features pulled down unhappily. "I thought... maybe that you would have prefered for me not to say anything. You never mentioned…"

"Mentioned what, Sara?"

"Your mark!" Sara spat out, nervousness that Ra's Al Ghul had never managed to instill in her swallowing her every cell swiftly and without restraint. "You never mentioned it, and I figured that maybe it was a sore subject, but it was there and…"

"I don't have a mark." Nyssa corrected her quickly, folding her legs into a lotus flower position and sitting up to look properly at her... she didn't know exactly what Sara was to her. She loved her, yes, she was certain enough not only to admit it to herself but also to inform even her father, but not yet Sara herself. They were… like this, but there had been no conversation. No emotions exchanged.

"Um, yeah you do." Sara nodded. "Right here." And she trailed her fingers down Nyssa's spine again, like ice dropped into fire. "'I'll be back soon.' Did you seriously not know that this was here?"

Forcing herself out of the bed as quickly as her nimble, ablet unstable, legs would let her, Nyssa twisted herself, screwing up her face as she contorted herself, trying to find what exactly Sara was talking about in the the few reflective surfaces in the room and craning to see the black splodges on her back among the scars. And failing.

"Come here." Sara laughed, patting the side of the bed and reaching over for the large DSLR they used on the job. Nyssa tilted her head at her dubiously. "I'm only going to take a picture of it, dummy. I'm not asking you to model for me!" She paused. "Maybe you should though. You'd make a wonderful nude model…"

Having pulled on one of the soft robes that the hotel offered, they sat together, both with legs crossed like they were mirror images - or maybe photographic negatives, one in black and white, the other in bright technicolour - Sara offered over the camera. There were several images, all from different angles, showing the dark black works against the fibrous tissue scattered in evidence of the league's claim to her. And the Mark.

As was promised, written down her back in jet black letters, were the words "I'll be back soon."

In Sara's handwriting.

Most people avoided so much as thinking the words that were written on their skin, foolishly believing that they could avoid the inevitable simply by avoiding them. But when ever Sara left on her own for one of the several tasks that Ra's Al Ghul set her, Nyssa knew that she always tried her hardest not to lie. So she refused to say she would live, that he'd be okay, because whenever Ra's sent her out it was always to kill, and she never came back whole. So 'I'll be back soon' was her go-to send off

Nyssa surprised herself, turning out to be a complete sap. Despite knowing the words would be their end, she could not hold herself back from assuring her beloved of her affections as often as was possible. But Sara's face had a habit of twisting herself into a grimace whenever she heard them, not because she fear the commitment, an idea that had Nyssa's own heart stop, but because of the words she'd seen all her life. That made Nyssa ponder, wonder whether assuming that she had no soul mate until she found her was indeed worse than knowing that she had one. So she started adding to the sentiment, endearments, both in english and in arabic, pointless, romantic expressions, tacking poetry onto the end of her sentences. Even just adding Sara's name onto the end of the words… Anything to sooth the panic in the large, blue eyes.

Eventually, Sara picked up the habit too.

The discovery of Nyssa's mark had lifted the weight that had pressed over her head, that burden of the belief she would neither live long enough or ever be important enough to be loved by another in such a way as her mother had loved her father. But, of course, the space in her heart that was opened up by the absence of that horrific belief had been taken over by Sara as well, as though there was not a part of her being that she did not wish to ensnare.

Neither were surprised, in the end, when it was Nyssa who admitted - out loud - those private feelings that she'd been brought up to believe were a weakness. Neither were surprised when Sara repeated the words instantly.

Logically, they both knew that to fight against the words would be beyond stupid, that fate would play its course whether they fought it or followed. Emotionally, Nyssa wanted to shy away from those words, every time they fell, involuntarily, from her mouth.

When Sara had left all those months ago, once the demon's head had informed the League about Al Sa-Her's treachery, those words had been all the inspiration that Nyssa had needed to go after her, with or without her father's permission. Because Sara, bless her disloyal heart, had offered no goodbye, and had certainly not promised anything alike the words that were scribbled down her spine in her own rough, distinctive handwriting. And when Nyssa had returned to the Hindu Krush, her head down and more than ready to bare the brunt of her father's oh-so-predictable anger, she breathed a sigh of relief that night, wrapping wounds tightly. Neither phrase had been uttered through stubborn lips, not in the face of Sara's other beloved, and the demon's daughter smiled to herself in relief, knowing their opinions on the matter bor no consequence, and that fate would have them meet again.

"How is Starling City? Treating you well, I hope?" Nyssa asked gently once she had settled into one of the many available catacombes, hidden well within the walls of Nanda Parbat. Her Father never came this way, very rarely at the most, and she'd bribed one of the guards using a selection of the foods she, yes, still smuggled away from dinner and into her quarters. She'd tried to kick that practice, multiple times, but with Sara's presence in both her heart and her room, her desire to store food had only increased.

"Of course - you know I wouldn't let it do otherwise." Sara muttered quietly, as though she too was trying not to announce her presence to anyone who loitered nearby. "Ollie was surprised to see me, which would have been funny if he hadn't looked so sad. I didn't get a chance to ask him why."

"It has been almost half a year, my love. Many things have happened since then, to them and to us." Nyssa sighed to herself, twisting her upper body so that she could see out of her little nook, both left and right, before sinking down onto the floor to wrap her arms around her knees. "You haven't happened to have seen Felicity yet, have you?"

"Not yet!" Sara laughed. "You really do have a soft spot for her, don't you? No, I haven't seen anyone else from the team yet, but I'm meeting Laurel in a moment. Oh, and I spoke to my dad about Jansen-"

"Not over the phone, Ta-er Al-Sahfer. You know this. Tell me when you are home."

"Right, yeah. Gotcha. I'm always forgetting that." Sara's laugh was tinny through the small, poor quality device Nyssa kept hidden away in her room against League regulations, but it eased the weight of the fear and presser that had followed Nyssa since a young again, tethered to each of her many scars. "I miss you."

"And I you, Habibty. You've been gone far too long this time. Especially alone."

"I am more than capable of looking after myself, Nyssa. I'm a big girl." Sara snorted, and Nyssa could see her roll her eyes at her through the phone. "You did train me, after all."

"I know, Sara, I do." Nyssa sighed back. "That doesn't mean that I do not worry."

"Yeah me too."

"But, you Azizity, have nothing to fear. I have been apart of this life, for longer than my memory spans. You are not likely to lose me. But you… you are still new to this. Still a child, with a long way to go to adulthood. I could lose you so easily."

"And yet I'm still here." Sara told her. There was an attempt of light in her voice, but it would only ever be fake. There was as much light in their lives as there was yellow in Nyssa's hair. "Please, Nyssa, don't patronise me. I'm more than capable of doing my job."

"If you weren't, my father would have had you killed years ago." Nyssa sighed again, her head pressed back against the wall. "He has already spared your life once for my benefit, I doubt he will do it again."

"Well, you're in a cheery mood today, aren't you?" Sara laughed, slightly sarcastically. "I know you miss me, but I didn't realies just how much!"

"I am not only sullen when you are away, Sara."

"Well, that's true. You're a grump when you're hurt too!"

"You're hilarious." Remaining quiet for a second to double check - or maybe at this point it was quadruple check - that her hideaway was still as deserted as it first was, Nyssa dropped her voice lower, as though the words that wanted to leave her mouth were forbidden in by something other than her heart "I just… I feel like something will go wrong, Sara. Like being away from you now isn't safe. For either of us."

"Yeah…" Sara whispered back. "I feel it too."

"Then come home." Nyssa pleaded. "Meet Laurel, and then come home to me Sara. Please."

"I will." Nyssa's eyes slammed shut, and without her sight she could easily see the way that Sara nodded her head, almost violently, when she was passionate about something. "I promise. I'll get the first flight out of Starling. I just need to see Laurel again, and then I'll come back to you."

Nyssa exhaled deeply, slumping back into the wall as she allowed herself to relax. "Thank you, Sara. I know I'm being foolish." Unwilling to hold it back, the words fell from her lips: "I do love you."

"I know you do." Sara sighed. "And I you."

Nyssa smiled to herself - her superstitious Sara…

"Hey, I think I see Laurel. Nyssa I've gotta go. I'll be back soon."

"Nyssa!"

With her mouth half open to yell out anything down the phone, Nyssa turned sharply on her knees, just in time to see her her father storm towards her, her guard following behind him sheepishly. Twisting skillfully onto her feet, her hands automatically coming up to defend her face and upper body, it did not sink in until the first boot had kicked her panick ridden body to the floor, that the phone had shattered on the stone ground.