Less than twentyfour hours & I'm updating already! I TOLD YOU THIS STORY WAS RUNNING AWAY WITH ME. It's only a short one, really, but it was pretty much already written before the last one went out. Seriously guys. Balia. They are my OTP. I cannot stop writing. I'm verryyyy slowwwllyy starting to hint at romance, but it's going to be unbelievably slow. Hope you can bear it. Just shout if you get too bored/frustrated and need smut NOW! Haha.
...Is it bad that I've already planned & written the first kiss? Muaha. It's coming. Eventually.
I'm REALLY trying my hardest to keep these two in character, also. Since Talia is a teenage girl & I was once a teenage girl (not that long ago) I find her alot easier to write. Bane speaks with a very definite style, and I always try to imagine his voice when writing his speech. I really hope that comes across.
MonDieu666 & Belle de Saint Ange - You guys are my heroes. THANKYOU for taking the time to read & review EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER. Seriously, you guys have no idea how happy I get when my phone alerts me to your reviews. It REALLY inspires me to keep going with this. And yes guys, like I said, a slow burn. Slow slow slow. They're both going to deal with it in different ways too. Obvs this is a Talia POV & she's going to accept it much quicker than Bane is. Bane is going to do things in the stories that are motivated pretty much entirely out of his love for Talia, but Talia's POV is going to insist it's because of something else. IGNORE HER. I just can't have her figuring things out too soon. ;)
Thanks guys! Hope you like this little one.
The Sky.
She finds him where she looks first - a place they have already spent countless hours of blessed silence together. It is a balcony that juts from the west side of the compound, overlooking the mountain ranges in which the League's home is built. Since leaving the pit, Bane had taken a specific liking to this spot, spending a significant amount of time stood at it's ledge, looking out over the world. Talia secretly wonders if he has a plaguing need to see the sky; to be able to stare at his relatively new-found freedom in the face, and to know that it is real. Talia wonders this because she has that precise gnawing ache in the pits of her stomach when she first came here. It is a feeling she can both acknowledge and appreciate.
As expected; an enormous, hulking figure is silhouetted against the setting sun. He is leant forward, those thick arms locked on the balcony ledge. Talia approaches silently, and she is by his side and speaking softly before he is able to register her presence.
"When I first escaped the pit, and I looked up into the open sky for the first time… I thought I was going to fall into it."
Bane doesn't startle easily, but Talia can tell she has surprised him. He turns to look at her;
"The world is more beautiful than I remembered."
She keeps her eyes fixed on the incredible view for a heartbeat, choosing to ignore his last comment before their conversation is derailed. Then she faces him, her expression cold;
"You need to tell me what just happened."
Bane's eyes sweep back over the mountain range. He shrugs in a manner that infuriates her;
"You saw what happened, did you not?"
Her jaw tightens, "You could've killed him."
There is a long pause. Talia knows Bane is a man of few words and, more often than not, he choses to make his actions speak for themselves. Strangely, this had always seemed to give people the impression that he was simply incapable of expressing himself through speech - though this could not be further from the case. Talia has never known someone to pick their words more carefully; almost as if it were an art form, and when he speaks - in whichever of the many languages he is fluent - he is florid yet articulate. Everything he says, he means.
"What I did and what I could have done are two different things, little one. If I'd wanted to kill him, he would be dead."
"Then why hurt him?" Talia questions immediately, her temper barely simmering beneath the surface, "You had no right to touch him!"
Bane's breathing is slow - his great shoulders rising and falling beneath the black collar of his gi. He doesn't answer her straight away, instead choosing to stare out over the horizon for a short while. A soft, warm breeze idly blows a few bronzed leaves across the view. The only sound is the rustle of the trees, the occasional call of a bird. Talia sees the setting sun illuminating the metallic sheen on his mask, the fire burning in those dark eyes. She follows his gaze - past a deep valley, where she is just able to make out the shoreline; golden light twinkles on the distant waves. The sky is turning red.
When he finally murmurs a response, his voice is a rasp against the metal grating on his face;
"Just as he has no right to touch you."
Talia cannot help herself, and she erupts, "Mohan was my sparring partner!"
He says nothing this time, and Talia thinks she finally understands - that it is perhaps a compulsion of his; to look out for her, to protect her. A swell of guilt tries to inflate in her chest at the thought of him spending so many years doing nothing but making sure she was okay in a place where neither of them truly could be, but she forces it away. They cannot continue to live as if they are still down there. Talia sympathises, and she knows she owes her friend a debt that she can never repay. but she is determined that they both put the pit behind them. She will help him in whatever way she possibly can.
"I am not a little girl anymore, Bane." She speaks quietly, resting a palm across the back of his hand, where it clasps the ledge. "And we are not in the pit. I owe you more than I can possibly say, but… You cannot continue to protect me from every evil in this world." She exhales and shakes her head, suddenly exhausted, "Especially when they are imagined."
Bane's glance flickers to her touch before he straightens his back. Talia watches the dying light fade from his eyes as the sun eventually slips past the horizon. He seems to come to a conclusion in his head before turning to look at her, squeezing her hand in his own.
"I am... Sorry, Talia. Truly."
He looks down at their entwined fingers while speaking again;
"My only thought was that you were hurt, and that incensed me to action. Forgive me, little one. I did not foresee that it could be my own actions that harmed you."
Talia nods, a half-smile creeping up one side of her face, "It's okay, my friend."
He lifts his head, and she is surprised to see a misty glaze over those eyes, "If I make my apologies to both the boy and your father before lights out… Would that please you?"
Her smile spreads, "It would."
The skin around his eyes crinkles - Talia's heart leaps a little at the thought that he is smiling again - before he raises their clasped hands to his chest. His other palm moves to her cheek, and she leans into it, as she always had. He's always so warm.
"Thankyou."
Talia's brow furrows, "For what?"
"For not being angry with me. You have every right, little one."
She removes her cheek from his touch, instead taking his free hand with hers, so that both sets of fingers are now cradled together between them. They simply stand for a moment, the sky behind now a dark, inky blue. A few stars begin to twinkle above their heads.
"Why were you never angry with me?" She speaks quietly into the twilight.
Bane stares, confusion playing in his eyes.
"When I left, the first time." Talia confirms before he speaks. She worries at her lip, "I left you. Alone. All those men… The fighting, the screaming. I heard it as I was climbing, but I didn't even look down to see if you were alright. All I could think about was the sky; the sky, the sky, I must reach the sky. I must rise." She takes a deep breath, her emotion suddenly threatening to spill over, "I thought… When I'd return, you may not even want to see me again."
She drops her gaze, now unable to look him in the eye. A stone appears, unbidden, in the middle of the throat and it hurts when she tries to choke down any tears that may try to spill at the immediate memories of her escape.
"Why don't you hate me?" She splutters; a tidal wave of regret and guilt now crashing all around her. Talia doesn't know where this has come from, only that she'd been meaning to ask him these questions since she brought him here. It has been hurting; a deep, dark soreness somewhere in her unconscious, "How can you forgive me so easily?"
Bane slowly unravels one hand from her own. He brings his arm up and takes her chin in a thumb and forefinger; forcing her to look up at him. His eyes are glistening with unshed tears. Talia gazes into them longingly.
"You did not belong in that place, Talia." He tells her with almost stern authority, "The pit was a place for the dregs of human life; for the scum that feed on the unfortunate masses. It is an... appropriate prison. We criminals - we deserve to succumb to the bittersweet emptiness of everlasting despair. I forced you to rise, so that you would not. I decided to save you, because you saved me."
Talia swallows. She doesn't understand. Bane owes her nothing.
"You saved me." He repeats, nodding. "The purity and innocence of a beautiful girl was an epiphany for me, little one. No longer would I live to serve naught but myself. You were meant to come to me. You were my salvation. Because of you, the sight of myself in a mirror no longer turns me to disgust and misery."
A few tears manage to silently streak down Talia's cheeks as she stares at him in disbelief. All this time, and she had never known that this - this - was how he saw their struggle through life in the pit. She simply gazes at him, her mouth slightly parted, lost for words.
Bane blinks back any remaining moisture in his own eyes - eyes that are pinched at the corners. He is smiling at me. Talia returns the expression.
He renews his grip on her hand, letting the other drop to his side;
"I think it is time we retired, little one."
She nods, allowing him to lead the way back to his chambers.
