Sorry for the longer waits between chapters. Dead week and finals week have been upon me. Which doesn't mean that it took me longer to write stuff - all of this has already been written - it just means that I...forgot. Hm, that sounds worse, actually.

Right, fourth chapter!


WHERE YOU GO

Chapter 4


When she was small, when her only entertainment through the endless days was watching the play of shadows and light moving along the sides of the Pit, she had asked her mother what had created them. Her mother had told her about a great ball of fire that moved across the sky. Talia had only gone out once, and then she was in too much of a panic to examine the sky. She had never looked beyond the walls of the Pit, never been able to angle her body or face through the bars so as to be able to see the end of the pit, and could barely comprehend the idea of a sun. She had imagined an orange circle scooting over the prison.

Her new protector had more things to do around the prison than her mother had, and often he was gone. The first time he had left was in the early morning. She felt the bed shift as his weight left it, and had awoken immediately, scampering after him, in such a panic that she had forgotten to put her shoes on. He had turned around and pushed her back, so hard she fell and landed on her rear.

He moved towards her, holding his hands out apologetically, picked her up, and brushed the sand off her clothing, though it felt more like he was smacking her body. Then he turned around and tried to leave again.

She followed, scampering out in front of him, and managed to get to the cell door before he saw her, grabbed her, and scooped her up around the waist and put her on the bed.

"Stay," he said sternly, pushing at her chest. He seemed to be trying to be gentler, but still his shove made her ribs ache, and she rubbed at them as she watched him disappear around the other end of the prison. Sighing, Talia lay on the bed, and played around with the covers until she heard his now-familiar footsteps approaching.

He returned with a short length of blue cloth in his hands, which he wrapped around her neck and showed her how to tie over her face. She smiled when she managed to tuck in the end so that it did not fall apart, feeling just like him.

That was how the next day went, and the next, and many more afterwards. Generally he would get up earlier than she, only shaking her awake later, offering some piece of bread or other food in his hand. Many times, he would watch her eat, sometimes nodding approvingly before going outside once more. Then she would play alone, tracing the stones, tossing her blanket about, crawling under the bed, or climbing up to the alcove where he kept his bowls. Sometimes she slept, the heat of the desert helping her in this regard. Occasionally, she liked to tidy up the cell as she had seen her mother do, sweeping the ever present sand off the shelves of rock and from the floor, dusting the bowls, and neatening the blankets. Sometimes she even spread out her mother's blanket among his, smoothing out the dark red fabric with its familiar embroidered designs. And a few times, she tried to follow the man again, but always he pushed her back into the cell. She wasn't sure herself why she kept trying, except that whenever he left, she always had a tight, queasy feeling in her stomach until he returned.

They did not speak much, so that sometimes days might go by with only a few words exchanged between them. But he watched her, so when she licked her lips because the skin was peeling from dryness, he moistened her lips with a wet cloth. When she itched, he wiped at her face, scrubbing roughly at her cheeks or neck or behind her ears. She often went to sleep still scratching at those spots, only now it was because they felt too raw and exposed there. He tried to be gentler to her whenever he saw that, and she sensed that and did not protest if he grabbed her a bit too hard or when a push almost made her fall over.

At night, they crawled into bed together. He indulged her and let her curl up with her mother's blanket instead of using it to cover herself. He also let her have his own blanket, covering himself with his outer robe and usually sharing that with her too. She wasn't sure if he fell asleep after she did. Certainly when she had to go to the bathroom at night, he would roll over to watch her in the darkness, then lift her back into the bed when she was finished. On the occasions she couldn't sleep at all, or when she had bad dreams, he remained awake with her. As the nights passed, she dared to move closer to him, inch by inch, until one morning she awoke with her face in his shirt, his scent of sweat and dust in her nose and his arm draped heavily over her shoulders.

And one day, when she followed him after as he went outside, expecting to be plopped back into the cell as usual, he turned around and opened the door wider. It was so surprising, so unexpected, that she stopped dead in her tracks.

"Haven't you been wanting to go out?" he said, his voice making her jump. He had pulled down the cloth wrappings around his mouth and was regarding her expressionlessly.

She bit her lip and nodded.

He made an impatient motion. "Well?"

Talia looked up at him questioningly, then took a hesitant step forward. Slowly, she edged to the door, until a sudden fear struck her – what if he was trying to be rid of her? The thought made her grab onto the bars of the cell.

He reached down and gave her a shove. "Go on, then." And she was pushed unwillingly outside.

She whirled around as the door banged shut, but her protector had joined her outside and was only locking their cell. He stood against the railing, looking down over the prison, and presently Talia joined him, sticking her head between the horizontal bars. It was the hottest part of the day, and most of the men were in their cells or lolling along the sides of the prison. The center, in particular, was quite empty; it was directly under the light with no cover for shade, the light reflecting off the stone and concrete blinding them.

"Have you ever seen the sun, little one?" Talia's protector asked suddenly, standing over her.

She shook her head.

"Then come." He gave her another gentle push on her back, and led her to the stairs. There were men drifting nearby, lying against the walls, and more than a few of them looked up as they came out, their eyes watching Talia hungrily. But though she waited for hands to grasp at her, for clawed fingers and sharp nails to scrape at her flesh, none dared to approach, likely remembering their experience of a few days ago. Still, she kept close to her protector, and he to her, moving quickly to the steps. It was noticeably hotter there, being exposed to the sunlight, but empty of men, Talia noted with relief.

Her protector went down the steps, then looked up at her, waiting. She edged near them more cautiously. They looked much steeper going down than going up, but she nudged a toe over and let her foot fall on the lower step, then followed with her other foot. Only when both feet were safely on the same level did she take another and another, one hand grabbing onto the railing for support. It was all still new to her, so that even once down on level ground, she toddled over and grabbed onto the nearest thing for help, which was her protector's hand. She squeezed his much larger fingers in her palm and began her way down the next flight of steps, pausing when she noticed he wasn't moving. She glanced back at him, saw he was looking at her hand in his, and gave him a tug, somewhat uncertain of his reaction. He jerked his head about as if shooing off a fly, then went down, dragging her along.

After two more flights of stairs, Talia's legs were aching; she had tripped once already on her too-big shoes and would have gone tumbling all the way down the steep steps and likely to the bottom of the prison if her protector not grabbed her. She couldn't quite contain a complaining moan when she saw yet another level down.

"Tired?" asked a voice that sounded very far above her.

Talia looked up at the man and shook her head, then made her way determinedly to the stairs. She had just started down them when her feet were scooped out from under her and she was lifted into her protector's arms.

She hesitated, but it was not unlike her mother, even if he was bigger and harder, so she wrapped her little arms around his neck as he settled her body against his and started going down the steps, Talia bumping uncomfortably against his body. He must not have liked it either, for several times he stopped and shifted her around, trying to settle her rear against his arm.

They reached the very bottom with no incident, a bright, open area that made Talia feel very exposed. There were stairs all around them, good places for men to surround them as they had her mother in their cell. She glanced about uneasily, clutching the man's scarf. The man paid no attention, but instead pointed up.

"There, child," he said. He pulled up his scarf, hooding his face, but Talia had no such protection from this new source of heat. He pointed again. "The sun."

She craned her neck up and saw the opening of the prison and, in the center, an explosion of brightness. She thought she knew warmth, but being directly under the sun – that was something of a whole new kind. In the cell, heat was slow, heavy, listless; here, it was scorching her skin, an active thing that prickled the skin. She saw the sky – an intense cerulean that made the blue of their shawl look washed out – the clouds – pale white wisps she can barely see because of – and a spiking, constantly changing something, like nothing her mother had ever described to her. She had to duck her head down when her eyes began to sting, as if the thing's rays had shot out and pierced her eyes.

"The sun looks like that?" she whispered, rubbing her eyes. Little white spots were still flashing in her vision.

"What did you think it looked like?"

"My mother-" She paused, twisting her fingers in his shawl; the thought of her mother still brought her pain. "My mother said it was a ball of fire, and it moved all over the sky." She felt a small sense of confusion as the picture in her imagination clashed briefly with the real thing. She had never seen fire, except as an orange glow in the far off cells of the other men, too distant for her to really make out. She had thought, then, of a great golden ball of the same color, scooting over the prison.

He was watching her closely, not answering for a moment. "Your mother was right," he said at last. The pain in her eyes had left, and she peered up at the sun again. "Don't look at it," he warned her. "You will burn your eyes." But he did not stop her as she tried, again and again, to examine this new phenomenon in the sky.

When looking at the sun yielded no new answers, she reached up for it, trying to shield her eyes at the same time. It was so blindingly bright but utterly fascinating. She shifted her rear, which was seated on the man's arm, clambered on his shoulders for height, and reached up. It looked so close that she thought she might grab it, if she stretched just a bit further. She tilted over so much she finally slipped off the man's arm. In her panic, she grabbed the nearest thing for support, which unfortunately happened to be the man's face.

After extricating her hands from his nose and mouth, the man carried her back to their cell, Talia still glancing back for one last glimpse of the sun. "Can I see it again?" she asked. She wiped her hands neatly on his robe.

He glanced down at what she was doing, eyebrows raised, but did not stop her. He said, "Later, little one."

"When is later?" she dared to ask.

"Later is later."

"Is later soon?"

"I suppose."

"How soon?"

"Child…" he sighed, in the same tone of voice her mother had used when Talia talked too much and her chatter had begun filling the cell. Talia quieted and rested her head on his shoulder, rubbing her cheek against the rough fabric of his clothing. Very soon he sighed again and rubbed her head. It felt rather like he was trying to take her scalp off, but she liked it. It meant she could spring up again and ask him questions, and she had one burning in the front of her mind.

"Can you pick that up?" She pointed to something she had seen over his shoulder.

"What?" He spun around, a little too quickly, and for a moment it seemed the cells and walls had melded into an indistinguishable blur. He grasped the back of her head. "What is it?"

She shook her head, then spotted it again. "That. That rock." She pulled her arm free from where it was trapped between her body and his chest, and gestured to the side.

"This?" He held the rock in his hand. She grasped it eagerly. Her old collection was lost, but she could start a new one. She held it out to him, the rock taking up her palm, admiring the smoothness of the stone, the perfect swirls of gray and black over its surface. "It's pretty, isn't it?"

Her protector looked at it briefly. "I suppose." He hoisted her into a more comfortable position, then wrapped his arm around her so that his robe covered her. "Be quiet now. We're going back."

She did as she was told, playing with the rock in her fingers as they made their way to the cell. In some ways he was not like her mother, who had marveled over her collection just as much as Talia. She held onto that assumption for as long as it took him to start coming back to her with gifts hidden in his pockets – bright crystals and rusted coins and, once, a polished gem that she always placed at the center of her, a place of honor among the rougher, unpolished rocks of her collection. On the hottest days, he would sit against the wall, legs sprawled out and Talia between them, watching her play. As she divided up her collection, she would hear other inmates approaching and see him tense, then draw up his leg if anyone came too near, his robe falling over his knee so that she was blocked from view. Only when the intruder left would he relax, body loosening.

And sometimes, as he watched her play, he would say something.

"Tell me," he said, with a touch of caution, "what other stories did you hear from your mother?"

She looked up from her rocks, thinking. "Flowers," she answered, remembering.

He leaned forward. "And what are flowers?"

"They are like… birds." And she scooted nearer to him. "Like this." And she made the motion her mother had shown her, her palms held close to one another and her fingers splaying out. "Or this." Another shape.

"Mmm… there are others, too." He took hold of her fingers gently, folding them slightly inward. "Like that." And then he cupped her hands. "Or that."

"You've seen them?" she asked eagerly.

He released her hands, examining her face for a long moment. "No," he said finally, "I have not." And she knew by the tone of his voice to drop the subject.

But he had many stories, and knew many things, and Talia accepted this happily, passing the interminably long days listening to him, playing near him, around him, with him; she dragged herself up and down his legs or his arm or his body when he sat, while he watched with bemused interest.

He was her friend, her protector, and he always knew what to do. The starvation period was passing, more food was being dropped down to them, but there were still time when they did not have enough to eat, when he came back not only with food but also with blood on his clothing and spent nights wrapping cloth around his cuts, so he showed her his secret stashes of bread, hidden in holes around the cell. Sometimes he gave her a few pieces, picking off the spotted, fuzzy bits, while telling her of worse times, times when there was so little food that the men grew mad with hunger, became wild beasts, and attacked one another in their rage and insanity – to steal each other's bread, Talia assumed. When she said this chirpily, he gazed down at her with the same bemused expression he seemed to like using around her, and agreed. He knew where there were plants struggling to grow in the cracks of the prison walls which he would tear out and give to her. She ate them, even though their leaves tasted strange and their roots were tough and often had long hairs she would have to pull out from between her teeth. While she gnawed at them, he told her where to find them, how to recognize them, how to gather them, how to pay attention to when she ate them and how a tingling or burning feeling in her mouth meant she should spit them out.

Other times, he would frighten her with scary tales, for some reason often coinciding with the times when Talia did something strange or wrong. After showing her the sun, he had allowed her to venture out occasionally from the cell to play in the sun, always when he was near enough that he could see her. There were many times when he spotted some danger she was unaware of and would suddenly appear at her side, scooping her up and back into the cell without a word. More often than not, it was a man who had come too close.

Other times, though, it was something else. Once, it was because she had followed an odd, scuttling creature she had seen crawling on the ground. Her protector seemed to have mixed feelings towards the moving things that were not men. The mottled, scaly things that could crawl up walls, with their lashing tails and bugged out eyes, he would tolerate, but he killed the furry animals because he said they stole bread, and had to drag her away once from the strange, legless creature that slid along the floor on its belly.

However, the many-legged thing she had seen was nothing like any of them, and Talia had followed it in fascination, drawn by its shiny black skin, the two claws it clicked threateningly at her, and the thin tail it held aloft over its body. She had just been reaching out to touch it, to see if it's black covering was as smooth and hard as it looked, when her friend had found her and scooped her away, knocking the creature with a stick into another cell. She had heard a surprised shout from the occupant of the cell before her protector rushed her back. Later, she had listened as he told her a frightening tale of a man who was killed by just such creature, its sting making his foot swell and blacken and rot. Afterwards, Talia avoided such animals when she saw them, except to try and knock them into any nearby cells, just as he had.

Some nights, he would take her outside and show her the silvery orb in the sky that he said was the moon, and tell her the story of why it was always a different shape when she saw it. Once, when the moon was completely gone, he showed her the speckling lights that filled the sky in the moon's absence, tracing outlines and reciting tales about each one. Even though Talia could never see the shapes he described, she enjoyed listening to his voice, her head pillowed against his shoulder as he talked.

And the remaining nights, they would swap stories of Outside, Talia struggling to tell all her mother had described, then listening with rapt attention as her protector told his. And if sometimes she forgot to tell him one, or if both could not remember who owed one a story, he would shrug and relate one of his own anyway, for he had dozens and dozens of them, and if he repeated one:

"You already told me that one." She pouted at him; she had reached the point where she could tease and poke at him without too much fear.

And he would tilt his head and smile a bit and say, "So I have." And then he would tell another, always one she had never heard before. He never complained if she forgot herself and told him the same story, but listened just as attentively. Night always ended with his stories, lulling Talia to sleep, where she fell into dreams of the pit, of the Outside world, of her mother, of him.


A/N: I don't ever plan on writing this from Bane's POV, but if I did, it might go something like this:

"Occasionally, he had heard the other men speak, not just of life outside the pit, but of the people. More often than not, they spoke of their families: parents, wives, children. Bane had never held much interest in any of that, but he had absorbed the knowledge nevertheless - a lucky thing, considering his circumstances now. The men spoke of many things - their children's faces, their schooling, what they ate and wore and played with - but Bane could not remember them speaking of the one, strongest feeling that had possessed him since the child came into his care: sheer paranoia.

The child got into everything; there seemed to be nothing and nowhere safe for it. Suddenly, it seemed like Bane was spending all his time running after a child half his size (closer to a quarter, he thought). He was catching it when it tripped over its own feet (which was surprisingly often, considering that the floors of the prison were generally smooth and level), leaping after it when it threatened to plunge headfirst over the railing and down to the bottom of the prison, dragging it away from the scorpion it had insisted on following. He could not take his eyes off the child, because every time he did the child seemed to teleport itself to the opposite side of the prison (somehow in spite of the fact that it kept tripping over itself). It was exhausting, and he soon began dumping the child back in his own cell, but then he would come back and find it traversing the walls or tipping the bed over onto itself or attempting to eat a moldy piece of bread, until finally he wanted to grab the child and shake it in the hopes that some common sense might penetrate its fuzzy-headed skull. That inclination lasted as long as it took for him to enter the cell and for the child to see him, to leap off the bed and cling onto his pants leg and chirp happily about how today it had seen this and played with that and here was everything it had done all day, and what had he done while outside the cell?

Those inclinations always died a quick death."

Oh Bane. He cares; he's just hiding it behind a grouchy, un-talkative facade. Oh, and occasional unintentional roughness. (It's okay. He's just not used to being around anybody he can't beat the living crap out of. Or around someone who is probably a quarter his size. He'll get better.)