Quick author's note here I just wanted to thank AlphaPanther and the Guest who both left very nice encouraging comments on the last two chapters as well as the eight people who are following my story! To be honest I have a very vague idea of where the plot of this is going and how Sigrid's backstory is going to actually come out in the open, but she's actually a re-write of a group RP OC I've had for the past three years, so at least she's developed for a while beforehand! I know the conflict is going to be based on Greek Mythology, but the concept I have is a bit spindly to say the least, so the time between updates might increase because of that... Other than these things if there are questions you guys have about her and some of the logistics of the story and her character that aren't clearly explained (unless they're spoilers to her backstory) PLEASE ask them! I will tie loopholes via responses! Ask anything! If it is something connected to backstory shenanigans I'll say ;). (Also if you guys want to correct my characterization of some characters please do I've never written them before and it would help)
Everyone was back to the positions they had been in before, three in the kitchen, three now on the couches with Zatanna, doing homework, when Sigrid joined them again.
"How was your talk with Black Canary?" Robin asked when she sat down on the couch with them.
"It was fine. She showed me where my bedroom was." She replied, starting a new row and changing the position of the plastic stitch marker so that it was in the new loop she had just made.
"What do you think?"
"My dad decided to move everything here... from my old room, so I don't know what it's supposed to look like." She chuckled.
"That's thoughtful of him." Artemis commented.
"Yes."
"What's he like?" She asked, stalling her pencil.
"He is nice. Really hard working, but… he tries to be at dinner… and we would talk whenever he went out with Mirja...when I was smaller… because he'd come early… on purpose. He is good at listening, even if… he isn't familiar with... what I'm talking about."
"Sounds like a good dad."
Sigrid nodded.
"What about your parents?"
"My dad's an assassin with the League of Shadows, and my mom's retired from the same line of work."
"Oh."
The only sounds left in the room were quiet conversations coming from the kitchen, the scratching of pencils on paper, and the soft clicking of Sigrid's wooden needles. Eventually it became late, and the non-residents left, leaving Sigrid to her first night at the cave.
Conner woke to a scream.
M'gann woke to pure terror.
The couple found themselves standing outside of their new house mate's room, unsure whether or not it was really their place to go in.
After he heard another strangled cry, and she felt another wave of panic, they opened the door and rushed to either sides of the bed.
"Sigrid, wake up!" M'gann pleaded, shaking the girl's shoulder. She bolted awake, her forehead knocking into Conner's face with how quickly she sat up. Sigrid sniffed, the two both rubbing at the places of impact, and she tried to hide the fact that she was crying.
"Why are you here?" She asked, wiping at her eyes.
"You woke us up." Conner replied, and she looked at him surprised.
"How?"
"I heard you scream."
"I could feel that you were afraid."
Sigrid sighed heavily in annoyance.
"Are you alright?" M'gann asked, "Do you want to talk to Black Canary?"
"I'm fine. There is no need to bother her at this hour." She responded, glancing at the clock that showed 4:23 in bright red numbers.
"Do you want to talk about it with us?"
"I don't need to talk about anything," she retorted sternly.
"But you screamed." Conner said with a frown.
"It's fine."
"Are you sure?" M'gann asked, not willing to put down the issue so easily when she could feel the turmoil of fear, regret and anger rolling off of the girl in waves.
"It's fine." Sigrid reiterated sternly, "The two of you should go back to bed."
"If you want to talk about it, you can just come to my room." The Martian said with concern in her voice, lingering in the doorway before she and her boyfriend left the demigod to herself.
When they were in their separate rooms, she initiated a psychic link between the two of them.
"I'm worried about her, Conner."
"Did you see something by accident?"
"No, but," she sighed, "she's afraid, and I think she feels like whatever happened was her fault. I don't know, there was so much at once…"
"Hold on, I don't think she's going back to sleep."
"What do you mean?"
"I can hear her moving around." A pause. "She left her room."
"Wait, why would she do that?"
"I don't know, maybe we should follow her."
"Well, I could just-"
"No."
"Like following her is that much better?"
"I think it's definitely easier to explain, at the very least. Come on, she won't notice us at the distance she's at now."
M'gann sighed and exited her room, following her boyfriend quietly through the halls of the cave until they were near the gym.
"Early morning workout?" She suggested, and he shook his head. They followed her until they were in the doorway to the pool deck.
"Okay, I've heard that the swim team practices early but I don't think it's as bad as four thirty in the morning early." She half-joked as they watched Sigrid dive gracefully off of the starting block, breaking out into butterfly when she surfaced about halfway down the pool.
"I guess you'd know more about that than I would."
"Cheer team goes to everything!"
"What's she doing?" He asked when, after four laps, Sigrid transitioned to backstroke.
"Umm… I think it's the one event where they do all four strokes, I don't remember what it was called. Medley maybe? I think that was when there's more than one person swimming though. So much happens during meets it's hard to remember what everything is called. It might have been IM? I can't think of anything else IM would be…."
"Why don't you just ask her later?"
"I don't think she'd like us following her Conner. We should probably go"
"Alright. As long as we know where she is."
At seven thirty in the morning Conner and M'gann woke and went into the kitchen for breakfast, where they found Sigrid, sitting at the island with a mug of coffee and a portable CD player. When she took off her headphones and passed Conner to refill her mug he could smell coconut from her waist length cloud of wavy, still drying hair.
"Good morning." She said, not looking at either of them.
"Good morning," M'gann replied. The following silence was tense before Sigrid broke it again.
"I know you both followed me."
"Hmm?" M'gann asked innocently, opening the fridge.
"I saw you both," the girl stated, "You cannot hide from me just because you are both in shadows."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Conner asked, "Do you have night vision or something?"
"Shadows conceal nothing from me."
With that cryptic statement, she took her mug and her CD player and left the room.
It was funny to her that the safe place Diana sent her to was underground. The stone under the walls hummed with protectiveness, knowing she was their daughter. She was safe underground, where her jealous uncles and who knows what else had no say. Where shadows hid her but hid nothing from her.
She opened her wardrobe fully. In it was the evidence of all of her hobbies. Knitting, wood carving (though she didn't want to look at that box right now, with its symbols and place for ash), her guitar, her paints, the swords hanging from the inside of the door, everything she liked doing. She felt no motivation to do any of it, but she knew she still had to practice. She reached past the clothing hanging in the back, hand stalling at a black velvet dress before she grabbed the padded armor necessary for what she was planning. Once she was suited up she took her steel longsword and a coal black figurine with her to the training room, where she spoke a command and watched the figure expand to a full sized opponent. It stood at the ready, also wielding a longsword, waiting for her to make the first move.
She sparred with it, countering each of it's moves as it learned from her, the sound of clashing metal eventually attracting the residents as well as Red Tornado, who had just come back from a solo mission. They watched her for several minutes, surprised at the fast paced movement and startled when two fighters began to use the half swording method; Sigrid bringing down the animated opponent by hooking it behind the neck with the guard several times before ending the session by getting behind it and pulling it backwards over her left thigh to the ground.
With that she looked at the people watching from the doorway and took off the protective headgear, showing her red face.
"Is watching the new person train part of initiation or something because this is becoming strange."
"You are quite skilled, Sigrid." Red Tornado stated.
"Thanks." she replied, the padded marionette like figure shrinking back down into her hand.
"I am Red Tornado, the team's caretaker. I apologise for not being here for your arrival."
"It's fine" She casually held the sword over her shoulder and walked back to her room where she put everything away and went to shower again, chastising herself for not thinking that aspect of training through before starting.
While Sigrid quickly showered Black Canary entered the cave, coming early to their scheduled training.
"Hey guys." she greeted, a chorus of hello's replying. "How'd everyone sleep?"
"Well" Zatanna replied, while M'gann and Conner exchanged looks.
"Did something happen? Conner? M'gann?"
"Well… we woke up Sigrid from a nightmare around four thirty, but she refused to talk about it." M'gann said.
"I think she just stayed up after that." Conner added, deciding not to tell of how they had followed her to the pool. Black Canary nodded solemnly.
Soon Robin, Artemis, Wally, and Kaldur showed up for training, and Black Canary invited Sigrid to join them or watch if she felt like it. She stood in the doorway of the training room and watched everyone practice their hand to hand combat, not engaging, just observing, despite Black Canary's attempts to get her to join them all.
"I already practiced today." was all she said, dismissing the invitation.
"Did you sleep well, Sigrid?" she asked when everyone was in the rec room, snacking and talking about summer plans.
"Yes." was her terse reply, clearly not willing to elaborate on anything.
Black Canary again nodded, and decided to drop the subject, leaving the team to try and get her to open up more as she left the teenagers in the room alone.
"We should go to the beach." Robin said suddenly.
"After what happened yesterday? Do you even have a swimsuit on you?" Artemis asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It'll be a bonding activity, besides, we don't have to actually go into the water. What do you think Sigrid? Sound like a good idea?"
"Sure." The girl replied, hiding her concern under a steel expression of light indifference.
Robin looked around at the others expectantly, and slowly they all nodded in agreement.
"We should tell Red Tornado of our plans before before we go out." Kaldur stated.
"Good idea, I'll get the sunscreen and towels." The boy rushed off
"I'll make a bag of snacks!" M'gann said, clapping her hands together and rushing to the kitchen.
Within half an hour they were at the beach at the base of the mountain with a picnic lunch assembled and other assorted beach-going paraphernalia. Sigrid was back in her swimsuit, covered by a floaty cream orange knee-length sundress with her hair in a milkmaid braid to keep it out of the way. Artemis wore a blue tank top and black pair of running shorts loaned to her by Zatanna, who was in a white one piece swimsuit. The girl's were all compacting sand into buckets to make a sand castle, while Sigrid wandered the shore and into the shallows of the water to look for shells and stones to decorate it with. The boys were in two teams, competing amongst themselves to make their own. Wally and Kaldur worked a few yards away from Robin and Conner, the four of them enjoying the good-natured competition. After about an hour they braked for an early lunch, sitting on towels under umbrellas. Once they deemed the castles completed, the girls, at Sigrid and Artemis's suggestion, voted that their castle was far better than either of the boys' castles, and thus they won instead. After this they all played volleyball until having to go back inside before the sunscreen wore off and left the paler three team members with peeling skin.
It was a good sunday to kick off the last week of school.