Prompt: Sun
Word Count: 1,966
Day ten of the thirty day drabble challenge
Haha wow this was way different in my head and well I think some people are going to enjoy the unexpected turn this took.
I wake up to a hungry kitten walking across my stomach. He doesn't stop meowing until I actually get up and pour him some breakfast. I'd be annoyed, but Alfred's purring is too cute.
It's one in the afternoon. I slept all morning. That happens when I drain my powers as much as I did last night, but I really don't like sleeping so late. It doesn't help that the sun in the morning is the most nourishing to Tamaranean powers, which gives me a tendency to wake up earlier.
It's cloudy, the way it always is in Gotham, so that means I'll have to go to Firewall and hang out in my personal iguana cage, with the solar lamp recharging my powers instead of the actual sun. It's not snowing or anything, it's still kind of early in the season for that. But it's chilly and I'll feel it more than usual.
It's actually kind of fun dressing for winter. I don't do it that often. I mean, I own winter clothes and I obviously wear them because I can't wear shorts and a tank top in winter without seriously blowing the whole secret identity thing. But I usually don't need them. Now I pile on a scarf, a hat, gloves, fuzzy boots, a sweater, and a coat.
I'm gonna be sitting in the Firewall for a few hours in my glass case. So I grab one of the seven Harry Potter books, my iPod, and I even grab my biggest tote and nestle Alfred inside of it. He's not supposed to go in the Firewall because Proxy doesn't like cats. But I'm technically sick so she'll have to deal with it for one day.
Alfred falls asleep in my bag, so the walk to Firewall is pretty okay, but he wants to explore when we get there instead of sit around in a glass case with a lamp in it. I can't say I blame him.
I shed my layers of clothing and kick my boots off until I'm in my skirt and the tank top I wore under the sweater and I turn on the lamp. I'm not sure how long it'll take to fully recharge after being this drained. A few hours, most likely. I'll know when I'm there. It's hard to describe. Being drained feels like I'm hungry, except not in my stomach. I feel it in my muscles. It sort of resembles an ache after you've worked out for too long, but it's not like that, really. I've tried to explain it to my dad before, but I don't think he really gets it. Anyway, after I've recharged fully, my hair will flame and I'll feel warmer and all around better. I don't usually recharge fully, but I might as well today if I'm using the iguana cage, anyway.
I turn on the lamp and use my bag as a pillow, and I open up the Harry Potter book I brought—the fourth one—and I get cozy.
Proxy stops in and we talk for a few minutes, but most of the day passes undisturbed. Since I'm skipping around the book a little (this one's my favorite and I've read it cover to cover so many times that I know the words before I read them) I get all the way to the part where Hermione looks awesome in her dress for the Yule Ball when Damian walks in.
"Grayson," he says, and he doesn't sound pleased.
"Wayne," I rebut without looking up from my book. He clicks he tongue in the way that he does but I ignore him.
"Why are you here?"
Now I glance up at him over the top of my book. "Because I almost drowned yesterday. Remember?"
"Of course I remember. I performed Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation on you not twenty-four hours ago—"
"Okay. Please don't bring that up," I say with a grimace that he can't see and I bury my face into the comforting pages of Harry Potter.
"Would you prefer that I had done nothing?" he asks, his voice bored as usual but I can hear a faint sense of confusion, too.
"No. I just really don't want to be reminded that—" Oh X'hal, this turned awkward really fast. That what, Mar'i? How were you planning on finishing that sentence? 'That your mouth was on mine.' Nope. Wrong. 'That your hands were on my chest.' That's even worse. "That now I owe you for saving me. You know, since I still owe you for finding Alfred."
"Right," he intones, and I can hear the eye roll.
"You can still train if you want," I tell him, nestling more comfortably into my tote bag. "I'm almost done here. Once I hit the end of this chapter I'll probably leave." I expect him to continue doing whatever it is he does when he trains—throw knives at an unsuspecting person on a revolving target, or jump through the branches of tall trees, or sharpen swords on a medieval wheel while laughing maniacally.
"How long have you been in there?" he asks instead of doing any of those things, and I'm so surprised that I lower my book onto my lap and raise an eyebrow at him.
"Huh?"
"I'm interested in the process," he explains. "If there was a way to reverse it and drain you of your powers—"
I sigh. For a second I thought Damian was interested in me. That was weird. "There're already power inhibitors," I say, picking up my book again. "And handcuffs produced by the Psions that take away my starbolts."
"It is not the same as draining your powers," he answers patiently.
"I don't know. Three or four hours or so. Enough to get through more than half of Goblet of Fire for the tenth time."
"Half of what?" he deadpans, and I lower my book slowly.
"Goblet of Fire. The fourth Harry Potter book." He still looks bored, so I embellish a little. "You know, the one with the dragons and Cedric Diggory before he turned into a vampire and the different schools and the Triwizard Cup?"
"I have no idea what you're babbling about," he says, and he's looking at me like I'm absolutely insane.
"Oh my fucking god. You've never read Harry Potter."
Looking a little alarmed now, Damian shrugs.
"No, you cannot shrug this off." I stand in my little glass case, and I don't know whether it's because I'm a little giddy from the nonstop artificial sunlight I've been taking in for a few hours, but my emotions are spiking like crazy and I'm getting worked up. "This is Harry freakin' Potter. You have to know something. You know… Wingardium Leviosa!"
Damian looks hilariously confused and I don't know whether I should laugh because this is so ridiculous or start to weep because seriously, what kind of child grows up without Harry Potter?
"Please tell me you're joking. I'm about to cry. Weren't you upset about not getting your Hogwarts letter when you turned eleven? I cried so hard that I had to call Lian."
"I had much larger things to worry about than a ridiculous book series. When I was eleven, my mother put a several hundred thousand dollar bounty on my head. I did not worry myself over fictional characters."
I don't even know what to say. "Go home and read Harry Potter right now."
"Excuse me," he deadpans, and I think he's given up being confused because he just sounds annoyed.
"You train all the time! Go read Harry Potter!"
"I am not going to—"
"Fight me," I blurt, getting excited.
"Over a book?"
"No, stupid." He glares at me but I keep talking so he can't protest. "If you lose you read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
"I don't lose."
"Then what the hell, right?" I step out of my iguana cage and Damian's looking exasperated.
"You nearly drowned not one day ago. It would be unfair." I roll my eyes at that and shoot a starbolt at his feet, but he pulls a katana out of the scabbard in his hand and the shot dies on the blade.
"The second problem is that a wager goes two ways. There is nothing I need or want from you, Grayson."
"Doesn't matter anyway because I don't think you've ever fought a fully-charged half-Tamaranean who's defending the honor of Harry Potter."
"I really don't get you."
"It's probably better that way," I say, and I spread a starbolt and shoot it at him. I'm still having trouble with the effectiveness of that move, but he can't block that whole shot with his sword.
He's forced back a few feet and even though I'm in a skirt, leggings, and a tank top and Damian's wearing jeans and a sweater, we start sparring.
I don't want to use too much of my powers. I mean, it's actually good practice for everybody else, because we do get the occasional metahuman villain in Gotham, and practicing against me is way better than a simulator. But I feel like I'm cheating sometimes. Only, right now I'm sort of supercharged. It's hard to gage.
Fighting Damian, I'm discovering, is a challenge on its own. I like starbolts, which are for a farther range, and Damian likes swords and punching the crap out of people, which you obviously need to get pretty close to do.
His sword blocks my bolts pretty well, and I'm trying to knock it out of his hand but I don't want to burn him. Not yet, anyway.
I lift off the ground and that's when he catches me by the ankle and he throws me on my back into the ground. I'm not hurt because now that I'm fully powered again, I've got better resistance to things like that would hurt regular people a lot more. But the fact that he's not being gentle is noted.
He moves to level his sword at my throat, ending the spar, but I knock it away with a particularly strong burst of starbolts. I scramble to my feet and I immediately have to duck under a punch. He's very fast and I can't figure out how.
I go for a sweep kick, but he jumps over my foot like I'm moving in slow motion and I'm getting frustrated and I can feel my hair burning I jab a few punches at him and I land one but he blocks the rest. I decide that I don't particularly care if it's cheating anymore and I charge two starbolts, but he hits me hard in the solar plexus with the flat of his hand and I grunt as I hit the wall.
I'm going to lose. Dammit. He puts a hand on the wall next to me—
And then, from behind Damian, there's a pitiful, "Mrowr." I forgot I brought Alfred along, but I'm so glad I did because Damian looks over his shoulder and I take the opportunity to elbow him in the stomach. He sinks to his knees and I worry that I might have elbowed him too hard, but I'm so excited that I won that I don't care that much. I hold a starbolts clenched in my fist at his throat.
"That's not fair," he says, scandalized. "That—that stupid cat started me—"
I laugh, loudly and unattractively, until tears form in my eyes. Damian's glaring at me and I choke out, "Big bad assassin's afraid of my itty bitty kitty."
The look on his face is priceless. He's mad and annoyed and a little embarrassed, I think, but there's no protesting that I won that round. "I expect a full report on Harry Potter in two days," I tell him.
I can't even explain this. The… the prompt was sun and… Well first I was just going to have her laying out in the sun but then I was like 'Oh wait, it's December. Derp.' So then I remembered the solar lamp thing that I mentioned a few chapters back and then I mentioned Harry Potter as like a generic thing and somehow this chapter became about Harry Potter?
Another note- because I write these every day, I think more of my current mood than usual gets channeled into each chapter, because Mar'i's a bit peppier in this I think? It's an interesting problem that I didn't think about before I started this, so I guess doing is learning. Blame it on her being… high on sunlight (don't actually though). I just wanted a fluffy chapter because they've been dark-ish lately.
(That was a crappy fight scene and I apologize.)