"So tell me," Laurel says, attempting a punch that Nyssa easily dodges, "what's your favourite colour?"
Nyssa pauses, clearly thrown off by the question for some reason, and this time Laurel manages to graze her trainer's arm with her fist. But Nyssa doesn't seem to really register it - not really. Instead on her sharp features there's surprise and something else that Laurel doesn't quite recognise.
"I beg your pardon?"
Laurel smiles and just about holds back a laugh at her new friend's odd formality in her speech. "Your favourite colour. To wear, to see around you, whatever." Nyssa just looks at her strangely, though, so Laurel gestures to the table (that's been pushed to the edge of Laurel's living room to clear a space for their training) and offers Nyssa a bottle of water and a towel. "I can tell you what colour mine is if you want."
Unexpectedly Nyssa smiles, accepting both gratefully, and after taking a sip she says, "If I were to hazard a guess… I would say - a colour other than black."
Laurel chuckles and opens her own bottle. "How do you figure that one out?"
"It is too obvious," Nyssa says, "and I have observed that you have far too much light inside you to have black as your favourite."
This time Laurel's the one who's thrown off, by the surprisingly unabashed candour in the way Nyssa speaks to her. There's just something about her - the way the sharp edges of her cheekbones seem to soften a bit, into something approaching a smile; the way her eyes go from cut-glass ruthlessness to - warm, almost tender, in a heartbeat; and the way her voice suddenly has affection running through her unusual accent as she delivers the compliment as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"You're right," Laurel replies after a moment. "I mean - it isn't black. You're not the first person to tell me I have light inside me but I - don't know how true that is most of the time."
"Laurel," Nyssa says, drawing herself up to full height, "you consider me your teacher, yes?"
"Yeah."
"Then allow me to give you another lesson." Laurel regards her expectantly, and Nyssa says, "It takes a great deal of strength to do what you do every night, as the Canary -"
"Black Canary."
"Yes. But I suspect it takes even more to love yourself the way you deserve."
"What are you talking about?" Laurel says, now totally nonplussed.
Nyssa smiles and says simply, "Just… take the compliment."
Laurel smiles too. "Believe it or not, you're not the first person to tell me that either."
"Remind me why we are having this conversation to begin with?"
"Because," Laurel says, "you're not just my teacher, Nyssa. At least - I don't want you to be. I want to get to know you better."
"You know plenty about me," Nyssa tries to say but Laurel shakes her head.
"But I want to know you. Not Nyssa, daughter of Ra's al Ghul, badass assassin. I want to know the Nyssa my sister knew." She hesitates and then adds, "I want to know the woman my sister loved."
Laurel wonders, then, as Nyssa plants her feet in a fighting stance and Laurel mirrors her and they prepare to spar, if she's gone too far, said too much. But once again Nyssa surprises her - in more than one way, too, as when she speaks she easily blocks a punch Laurel aims at her.
"Since I was a little girl, my favourite colour was - yellow. It is why I helped your sister choose her name in the League."
Panting, Laurel's arm goes up and manages to just about dodge a kick from Nyssa's left.
"Sara told me her name meant 'the canary'."
Nyssa shakes her head and this time she manages to tackle Laurel to the floor. "Not literally. Taer asafer means 'yellow bird' in Arabic. 'Canary', meanwhile, is pronounced fairly similarly in both Arabic and English. I just felt that… it sounded more beautiful that way."
Neither of them realise until that moment that Nyssa is right on top of her, not until Laurel feels the warm flutter of Nyssa's breath on her neck. Still Laurel smiles. "That's what I said. When she was telling me that she had done all these terrible things - not unlike the way you've done, actually - I said to her that someone with such a beautiful name isn't capable of terrible things."
And somehow Nyssa smiles back and gets up, offering her student her hand. "So what is your favourite colour, ya Laurel?"
"It's purple," Laurel replies, taking it and standing. "I don't know why, exactly, except it's - feminine. For me, I mean. And it's dark without being… bleak, if that makes sense."
"It does."
"So if I were to join the League of Assassins -"
"A complete and utter impossibility, my dear student," Nyssa interjects, but she seems amused nevertheless.
"- would my, uh, assassin name be… purple bird?"
At this Nyssa laughs. "The League of Assassins already has a name for you, Laurel, once it was clear you had taken up your sister's mantle."
Laurel raises her eyebrows. "They did?"
"You are known to the League - and my father - as Taer Jameelah."
"What does that mean?"
"I believe your sister called you the same thing when she had missed you."
And Laurel doesn't expect to be hit with a barrage of emotions at Nyssa's words but they catch her off-guard more than any of Nyssa's rigorous training.
It's strange. Mere days ago Laurel was struggling to remember the sound of Sara's laugh and now - now she was hearing Sara's voice, loud and clear in her ears, saying, I've missed you, pretty-bird.
She barely registers the tears that spurt from her eyes and turns away only just in time. To Laurel's relief, though, Nyssa doesn't try to placate her or smother her with meaningless platitudes, because she gets it. She misses Sara too.
All Nyssa does is place her hand on Laurel's shoulder - enough to tell her she's there, but while still keeping her distance.
"I am sorry," Nyssa says softly. "I did not mean to -"
"It's fine," Laurel says and she manages to wipe away her tears on her sleeve before turning round. "I… didn't know she had told you that."
"It is very - what is the word? Cute, perhaps. I daresay I did not share the same bond with my sister."
Relieved (and wondering if Nyssa changed the subject on purpose), Laurel grabs her tonfa and plants her feet in a fighting stance once more. "You have a sister?"
"Her name is Talia," Nyssa answers.
"Older or younger?"
"Older. Something she would constantly remind me of as a child."
Laurel laughs and then aims at Nyssa's middle, succeeding in winding her - to the surprise of them both. "It's an older sibling thing, I think."
But then, equally unexpectedly, Nyssa tackles Laurel to the floor once more, snatching her tonfa from her grip. In that moment, though, Laurel feels a shot of pain through her wrist and Nyssa's grasp is already slackening, her eyes widening.
"Oh dear," she mutters.
"It's okay," Laurel says breathlessly, even though it hurts, a lot, and she's wondering if she's sprained something.
"Let me see," Nyssa orders. Laurel obeys, allowing Nyssa to feel up her wrist.
"Ow!" Laurel yelps.
"I am sorry," Nyssa says, and up close Laurel can see worry in her eyes, in the way she bites her lip and a rivulet of sweat trickles down the side of her face. "I am not a medical professional but I would guess you have a hairline fracture."
"Hey," Laurel says, covering Nyssa's hand with her free one, "don't worry about it. These things happen. I'll just go to the ER, no big deal."
"I will come with you," Nyssa declares.
"You don't have to," Laurel says immediately. "I might be there a while."
"No," Nyssa says firmly, "we might be there a while. This is my doing, Laurel. Accompanying you is the least I could do."
"Thank you," Laurel says gratefully, and a jolt of something else, a spark, of some kind, goes through her as Nyssa squeezes her good hand, smiles back, the kind of tingly feeling that sends shivers up her spine. And in that moment her world is tilted, ever so slightly but noticeably still, and even if she doesn't want to accept it, she can tell something has changed in the way she looks at Nyssa.
Later that night Laurel sleeps fitfully, her mind full of the pain that should have been dulled by pills if it weren't for her sobriety. She tosses, turns, tries her best while attempting to get used to the cast now on her arm, but nothing works when she craves something she can't have.
She wonders, then, about Nyssa. Laurel can't have her either - she knows that much, no matter how beautiful Laurel thought her on sight when she first met her last year, and no matter how much Sara's assassin girlfriend had changed since then…
Sara.
Laurel chastises herself, wondering how on earth she could even consider thinking about the love of her sister's life in such a way. Briefly she entertains the thought of what must have gone through Sara's head with her and Ollie all those years ago.
But that was different, surely. Ollie cheated. Nyssa didn't. She wouldn't. She isn't that kind of person anyway, Laurel tells herself. Still, it would be a betrayal to Sara's memory to even consider -
There was something, though. Laurel hasn't been imagining the embers that flare between them whenever things get emotional or heated - she can't be.
And she's not sure why, exactly. Maybe because she's in pain, and she could use a distraction, or maybe her brain just decided to torture her in that way tonight, but when Laurel finally does drift off into a fitful sleep, they're in a field somewhere, Nyssa and herself. Nyssa's wielding Sara's bo-staff, and Laurel fights back with her tonfa.
After a couple of minutes Laurel - surprising even herself - manages to wrest the bo-staff from Nyssa's hands with far more ease than she expects, but then just as easily, Nyssa grabs both their weapons with one hand, throwing them aside, and pins Laurel to the grassy ground, her other hand on Laurel's throat. Her chokehold grip loosens, though, almost instantly, and turns into something closer to a caress.
"Do not underestimate your opponent's ability to move even without a weapon," Nyssa tells her, and Laurel tries to nod, but the rush of heat she feels rising in her stomach makes it hard for to think straight.
And then Nyssa reaches up above Laurel's head with her other hand and picks a flower out of the grass.
It's a violet, and the vibrance of purple automatically makes Laurel smile. But it fades a bit when Nyssa makes to place it in her hair, and it's then, too, that Laurel becomes acutely aware of Nyssa's warm weight where she is still perched on top of Laurel.
"What are you doing?" she whispers.
"Purple is your favourite colour, is it not?"
"Yeah, but I mean - what are you doing?"
"You are more than just my student, ya Laurel," Nyssa says softly as she places the flower in Laurel's hair just behind her ear. "You should know that by now."
When Nyssa kisses her it's with a - kindness that Laurel doesn't expect. Nyssa's hands as they touch cheeks and neck are rough but her lips are soft. And Laurel wants to lose herself in Nyssa, let her hands slip under her shirt and kiss her back, but she knows she can't. With every ounce of strength she can muster, Laurel pulls away, opens her eyes.
And when she does, the stabbing pain in her arm is back, and so is the craving - only this time it is not for somethingshe can't have.
No. Just someone.