"Good, Sara."

Nyssa smiled as Ta-er al-Sahfer deflected one of her own strikes to her right inner thigh. Wordless Sara followed charging forward and swinging at her head, forcing her to step back out of range. However the second baton raced to make connect with the Heir to the Demon's knee while the retreating baton stayed close to her core. A new combo. Excellent. Good defense, too. Still, Habibati, it is not enough. She sharply lowered her bow to block the strike, securing the weapon. Nyssa twisted and pulled her bow and its captive weapon with a rapid twist of her wrist toward her body, Sara released the weapon while simultaneously blocking the other assassin's elbow strike by using a middle block. The younger assassin stepped back, keeping her firm stance. A smile slipped on the Heir to the Demon's face as her attempted kick to her lover's ribs was countered.

Nyssa stepped back and throw the weapons on the knee high pile of beige mats sacked in the nearby corner of the sparring room. "Move." She commanded, that smile only growing.

Sara kept her firm stance but refused to advance; an open palm just below eye level and the only remaining baton ready to stop strikes aimed at her chest and upper legs. Her legs were vulnerable but it was too good. That baton would need to be replaced from her defenses. Curious, she moved to take the ploy.

However a hushed squeak from the entry way broke the amused tense hanging in the air. Sara closed all of her fingers into her open palm. Break. Good. Nyssa's eyes wondered to a lone messenger. His muscles tensed after a bow. She nodded for him to spoke. "Your father wishes to see both of you in his study." He informed them.

"We'll be there momentary. Thank you." The Heir to the Demon stated. The messenger left. Sara cast her a confused look. He normally only called one of them, and it was not her lover. The younger assassin comparatively never interacted with him; she still was somewhat intimidated by him. Not that was not there was not good reason for it but... She returned the look with a nod. She didn't know either. Only the continuous echo of departing messenger filled the room. An unstated anxious energy usurped the amused intensity. Tossing the discarded baton to her girlfriend and grabbing her bow, she marched to toward the door.

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Sara sped up to Nyssa's pace as "the Glades", "Starling City", "Malcolm Merlyn", and "full devastation" escaped the her father's study in a distorted jumble of words leaking through the door. She clutched the metal batons with a restless choking grip. Her breaths came in a rapid rhythm of rising inhaling and descending exhaling, as if trying to keep her composure from being conquered anxious and anger. She kept her eyes cast down but Nyssa recognized the fear dancing in her eyes. Her stomach sank at seeing it.

Ten paces from the study door, Nyssa turned and stopped to face her girlfriend. She slowed her own breathing and placed her hands on Sara's shoulders. "Habibati, a terrified bull, is it? Fear has place. It is not here - ruling you." She whispered resting her forehead on her's. Her neutral smooth tone growing tender. She rubbed Sara's shoulders. "Done?"

"Yes." escaped from barely parted lips.

"Now, make me believe you." Nyssa allowed more tenderness flood her muffled speak as she spoke. She took both of Sara's hands, leaving them at her sides. Her lover's muscle relaxed only a fraction of what she wanted but the fatal grip was replaced to an incessant and rhythmic rolling of the batons. Her breathing slowed for panicked rapid current of breaths to a hurried but contained rhythm. Nyssa sigh. "A nervous bull, it is." Forcing her feet to walk, she turned around and continued to walk. It was improvement.

Not sparing a backward look to reassess Sara, she opened the door.

"...glades were destroyed. However a last minute evaluation saved countless lives. Current casualties are unknown. Still estimates are in the thousands. This is..." shattered the tense air like battle mace to an impacted bone. Sara froze unable to even to collect shatters of the air. That was why he called both them.

"Merlyn will be the last person I release from the league." Ras Al Ghul stated as he ran a hand through his silvering hair. "I have already sent agents to learn Merlyn's fate with orders to kill him if needed but preferable to brought him back alive, if the Arrow has not killed him."

If the Arrow or sent league members had not kill him, Merlyn would wish for hell's only hours into his death. He had earned the title the Demon for appropriate reasons. His name alone could cause grown men to abandon everything they once held dear. Still, he had a code. It would only take a day for that fool Merlyn to breath his last treasonous breath - a prolonged day when one hour felt like a day itself but only 24 days in total.

Sara sat down in a reading chair beside the door and glued her eyes on the screen. Based on the blind stare, she was deaf to world around her, aside from the CNN coverage of the damage to her hometown.

Sara would need to gather herself; she could do that on her own but she would need time. Her eyes wandered from her currently deaf-mute lover. Nyssa turned her attention to her father. "Few who broke their oath survive long."

He nodded; a drop of understanding appeared in his neutral but commanding tone. "Tend to her. There is little that can be done now aside from making one aware of the situation. Little truth comes out in the first day."

"Contact me when you need me, father." His heir stated.

"I will." He declared. "I will see you then."

Nyssa walked over and knelt down by the deaf-mute. "Habibati, Let's go."

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Sara's blind step echoed like an almost inaudible taps down the echo chamber of a hall. Normally, her step were silent. Her eyes surveyed the stone of the space but seemed not to adsorbed any of it. Nyssa laced her arm onto the Sara's shoulders and pulled her closer. "Monster." She mumbled, so low, it took the Heir to the Demon numerous repetitions to understand what she was saying.

"Yes, he is." Nyssa agreed upon decoding the phase. She opened their bedroom door. Normally she could translate the terrified mumbling in her rare nightmares without effort but it had taken too long this time. The phases of Sara's torment were constant or minor variations. However, for this phase she had more context than the dreams - far more context. Sara slipped out of her grip and walked forward.

"I need to check on my family." Her lover stated collectedly but hints of panic and fear entered her voice. "They could be injured... or worse dead." She did not yell or scream. Fear and panic didn't overwhelm her speech but the distress could not be ignored. It pained her to see Sara like this... so scared... like when she found her... barely able to walk and only a week from death.

"...Or alive and untouched. Tonight is not the night to leapt into things." Nyssa stated in the softest version of her customary indifferent tone she could, breaking from her thoughts. She wrapped her arm around Sara. "In the morning, I will speak to my father about the soonest possible mission near or in Starling. Just rest for now. We'll know more in the morning. I promise you." Sara would need this trip. Her father had personally assigned to his heir to remind some uppity Boston residents of the league's power. Not a difficult feat but a needed one. Still, that was two weeks away. Too long for Sara. Besides, she would need to better organize her points before speaking to her father about moving the trip up. He didn't need to think his heir was too blind by her emotions.

The Heir to the Demon noticed Sara's gasp on the separated Bo staff tighten into the same grip from outside the study. "Nes..." The impression of a smile carved itself on her lover's face. "...Thank you."

The corner of Nyssa's mouth curved upwards even revealing the beginnings of white teeth. She wrestled out the batons from the iron grip and placed them between the dvd player and compact platinum screen TV across from their bed. "I'll brew some tea." She traced her hand down Sara's shoulder to her forearm. Her lover gave her a concerned look. "It will not be that tea."

Relief glowed across the Starling City native's eyes. Her face still twisted in a wistful expression. Nyssa herself would be the first to admit the cinnamon tea she savored was... an unique tea. Still... It was not the cinnamon "overload" Sara claimed.

"A zombie would be better." Sara muttered under her breath.

"That could be arranged." The Heir to the Demon allowed a ghost of laugh to exit. A zombie was robust for her tastes but if Sara wanted it, she would make it. Her own plans for the day had imploded thanks to this senseless event. A rare day of only three hours league duties filled with reading, sparring, training, and lastly a evening walk of the Nanda Parbat. There were far worse possibilities though. She was not personally affected by or lose anything in it. They still could do the walk.

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Nyssa flipped to the next page of the ten pound Ramayana volume resting on the table. She had read it at ten times previously. Still, her mind protested any attempt to absorb what she was reading. Words blended together to an incomprehensible jumble on this page to. Surrendering, she closed the epic. She thought reading would be even to escape her concerns for her canary. Archery practice had failed. Five arrows wondering into the inner third ring in a set of 30 shall have been a clue but it had taken three sets to cease the pointless exercise to realize it. Not even imaging Merlyn's face had been enough. The Heir to the Demon should not be this distracted. It was unhealthy. A plan needed to be created to deal with the traitor. Her thought took over.

Sara had allowed the hunt for any new bit of information to replace any other form of activity for the day. Nyssa trusted her to work it out and would support in her solution, no matter how foolish or masterfully it would be. Her beloved was thousands of miles from her birthplace - not knowing if family had survived. Still her self-imposed isolation from them did not help the situation. Family is family. If they disowned her purely based on her new job, they were not family. However as Sara had argued countless times before her father trained in arts, her lawyer sister and Cop father would probability detest Sara's use of. The only remotely valid reason for disownment would be she was that she changed too much... Nyssa could not attest to Sara's pre-league or even pre-island character but Sara's amiable and thoughtful nature had survived the league training and life. If it could do that, it had to be a pivotal part of her character before...

Her father's footsteps broke her interior rant. "Good evening, father." She stared at the leather intricately engraved cover, blind to its painstaking details. She should have hears the squeak...

The Demon interrupted her thoughts. "How is your Golubushka?" He sat beside her in the one throne-like reading chairs.

"Processing the matter but overall well." Nyssa replied. An envelope caught her eye. She looked in her father's eyes. An unspoken question reigned in her own. Anything he held had a purpose.

"Here." The envelope slipped into her hands along a vague outline of a smile on his face. "Your mission in Boston has been bumped forward. There are two plane tickets." A foreign cordialness entered his voice. A faded outline of a smile crossed her face.