It took Damian a moment to process where he was the next morning, worrying for a split second that he had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom somewhere in the slums of Gotham. But when he heard the shower running from the other room, the faint smell of vanilla entering his nostrils, and realized he was lying naked under the covers of a warm bed, the events from the night before came flooding back to him. He lazily pushed himself into a sitting position, pressing his back against the wall behind him and yawned.
It was strange waking up in Gotham city and not in the remote confines of the manor. Usually when he were to wake up and look out the window he would see nothing but trees, or the beautiful night sky, but here as his green eyes drifted to look outside all he was met with was another brick building at an uncomfortably close proximity. And it was far from quiet, he could already hear cars whizzing past on the streets below; what time was it?
The sound of the running water ceased, and Damian moved his attention to the door of the bathroom. It opened after a moment and out came Stephanie, completely buck naked with her hair wrapped on top of her head in her towel. He blinked for a moment, gaping wide eyed at her as she strut over to a small dresser that sat against the wall and began rummaging through her clothing, then with a blush he turned away, fidgeting slightly in the bed. Sleeping with her was nice, but this he was not used to in the least.
"Put some damn clothes on, woman!" he snapped awkwardly. Stephanie quickly froze and turned around to look at him, smiling.
"Oh good, you're awake! Morning!" she chimed, and then turned back to the drawer, pulling out a lavender tank top.
"Have you no shame at all?"
Stephanie chuckled and turned around to him, placing her hands on her hips and raising her chest high. His eyes shifted to look at her but he sincerely wished he hadn't, he could already feel his groin stirring underneath the covers of the bed.
"Aw," the blonde said, pouting her lips. "Am I making you uncomfortable?"
"Uncomfortable isn't the word I would use..." Damian deadpanned as she sauntered over to the bed, her hips swinging side to side. She was doing it on purpose, he knew it.
Crawling across the mattress on her hands and knees, she pulled her lips into a smile, bringing one hand up and flicking him lightly in the nose. He playfully narrowed his eyes at her.
"Well, then...what word would you use?"
Damian had to force himself from smiling and he leaned his head to the side, trying his best not to look down at her breasts. "Must you always be so vexing?" he asked snidely.
Stephanie's smile grew and she leaned forward, kissing him quickly before pulling away and bouncing back over to the dresser. Emphasis on bouncing, because where Damian's eyes fell that was all he saw.
"You know I make you want me." She said, taking hold of the tank top she had placed atop the dresser once more and pulling it over her head. She winced when the towel accidentally got caught and yanked out of her hair, but didn't bother wrapping it back up and tossed it to the floor.
"Accurate, but for the life of me I don't know why..." he said with a shrug. Stephanie smiled back at him and dove back into the dresser, pulling out a black thong and shoving her legs through it.
"You hungry? I've got eggs and baco-" she stopped herself, eyes shifting upwards while she thought for a moment. He smirked; knowing that her memory was flashing back to the time he had told her he was a vegetarian. "Do you like toast?"
"Toast is fine."
"Great! I'll make us some toast. There's like...five different types of jam in the fridge, I've been eating from the raspberry and it tastes fine, so I think it's still good..." Stephanie nodded and grabbed a pair of sweat shorts from the floor, quickly bringing them to her nose for a sniff. They must have smelled okay, because she quickly shrugged and pulled them on. Damian shook his head.
"You're revolting." He said, his top lip curling slightly. "How in the world do you live like this?"
Stephanie cast him a look. "You're constantly contradicting yourself, you know?" Disappearing into the kitchen, she continued to shout out to him. "One minute I'm sexy, the next I'm revolting."
"I don't recall ever once calling you sexy."
The brunette tossed the covers off of him and got to his feet, looking for his clothing. Normally upon waking he would prefer to change into a new set of clothing, but since he had come completely unprepared to stay over he had to settle. Unfortunately, it took longer to find them than he had hoped because of the state of her floor, but when he did find them he quickly dressed.
"Your eyes say it all!"
As Damian listened to her fiddle around in the kitchen, he began picking up the clothing from her floor, throwing it all over one of his arms. Her mess level rivaled that of Beast Boy's...and that was truly saying something.
"Hey, do you want coffee?" the girl asked after a moment, poking her head back into the open concept room. Her eyes immediately narrowed at the sight of him tossing her clothing into a large hamper that sat beside the bed. "Are you cleaning?"
"Both of those should be obvious answers."
"Stop cleaning my apartment!" she demanded with the stomp of her foot. Damian ignored her and continued to tidy.
"Somebody has to do it," he shot at her. "I'm honestly surprised you didn't contract malaria in your youth."
"Look, give me a break, okay? I never really had to clean before. Alfred cleaned at the manor, and when I lived with my dad, the old lady downstairs would come up and do it for us. It gave her a sense of purpose. If you really want, I can go and ask her to come up..."
Damian stood up straight from straightening the books on her coffee table and gave her a blank look, one eyebrow raised high on his forehead. "And how would you explain my being here, exactly?"
Suppressing a smile, Stephanie gave a quick shrug and backed back into the kitchen. "I could say I'm babysitting." She giggled causing the young Wayne to shake his head, his stomach pitting with irritation.
He started towards the kitchen; if she didn't want him to clean, then fine, he wouldn't. But if rats decided to infest her apartment, he was leaving her high and dry with only an 'I told you so' as his parting words.
"You're not funny..."he scolded, crossing his arms and leaning his shoulder on the door frame. Stephanie laughed while she readied a pot of coffee.
"I'm a little funny."
"Tt..."
The teenager pulled out one of the chairs of the small kitchen table and sat down. He only stayed seated for a moment, however, before picking up a pile of dishes that sat on said table and carrying them to the sink, which, big shocker was already full. Turning the tap on he began to wash them, Stephanie's hazel eyes shifted to him as she waited for the toast to pop from the toaster.
"Cleaning..." she reminded in a sing song voice.
"It looks like all of your...everything is dirty, and since eating off the floor is out of the question, I figured I'd help out. You're welcome."
"It's toast! You hold it in your hand and you eat it!"
Damian pressed his lips together in a tight lipped smirk and shook a plate off into the sink before taking it back with him to the table. Stephanie rolled her eyes and turned, leaning her back against the counter.
"Are we ever going to stop arguing about everything?" she asked, turning her body at the sound of the toast popping from the toaster. Grabbing one piece, she held it in her hand and quickly spread a good amount of raspberry jam on it before bringing it over to the brunette and placing it on his plate, then went back for her own.
It was true, he had been in her apartment for only a few hours and they had already bantered multiple times. But it kept things interesting, and had yet to really get on his nerves. He had missed bickering with her for the past month; he hoped she had as well.
"Unless you smarten up, as well as grow up, most likely not."
She sat in the other seat, holding her piece of toast in one hand. Shaking her head at him she took a bite. "You're the kid here, not me."
He picked up his own piece, right away noticing the stiff state of the edges. He didn't mind his toast a little bit burnt though, and when he took a bite he realized that he really had been hungry after all. "Physically perhaps. But mentally you have me beat."
She quickly stuck her tongue out at him before taking another bite of her food then putting it on the table and rushing over to bubbling coffee pot. Damian's eyes shifted down to it; he had the strong urge to remind her why a plate would have been a good idea, but decided against it. Instead he took another, larger bite of his toast.
"You know...I'm still mad at you for what you did to Tim." Stephanie confessed, bringing their coffees over to the table. Damian raised an eyebrow.
"For stealing his girlfriend?"
"For breaking his leg." her tone was tight, she had not appreciated his sarcasm. "Was that really necessary?"
"Perhaps not. I apologize for acting recklessly." He said with a nod, bringing his coffee to his lips. She leaned her head back and looked at him.
"Did you say that to Tim?"
"What do you think?"
Sighing Stephanie looked down into her mug, rocking in her seat slightly so that the liquid swished back and forth. "We should have never snuck around like that. I didn't like hurting him."
"This would have never happened if we hadn't."
"You're not going to start spilling destiny crap at me, are you? Everything happens for a reason, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah..."
"No, I wasn't, Miss Lets-wish-on-a-falling-star. I was just saying, do you really think that we would have come together had you not approached me that night?"
She thought for a moment, tapping the tip of her index finger on her chin, clutching her mug tightly in her other hand. "I don't know...maybe not. But it was still wrong."
Damian shrugged. He wasn't necessarily sure what to say to her; obviously it was wrong but he didn't regret it, it had brought them together. Perhaps they would have happened naturally and come together in a more moral way, but perhaps they wouldn't have. He had gotten what he wanted in the end so there was really no point regretting anything. Tim was...moderately attractive, he would find someone else eventually. Perhaps it was a selfish way to look at it, but Damian wouldn't dwindle on that.
A hum came from the pocket of his jeans and tilted his hips, digging his hand in and pulling out his cell. His eyes narrowed at the message that showed on his screen.
[Father]
Where are you?
"Who is it?" Stephanie asked, leaning forward to try and see the screen in his hand. Damian quickly shoved it back into his pocket, causing her to frown. "Bruce?"
"He's looking for me."
"He's probably just worried. Did they ever manage to find Widow and Neferti?"
"No."
After eating, the pair decided to venture into the city, Damian insistent on buying new clothing for his stay as he assumed he would be there for a while and didn't want to go back to the manor.
He was never a fan of shopping himself, but discovered that just like the amusement park, Stephanie got overly excited whenever they would go into a different store and peruse through the racks. He truly felt like they were a couple, and it was a very strange feeling. Grabbing his arm a few times, she would pull him around to show him things and force him to try on items even though he really didn't wish to, she would try on items herself and get him to give his opinion (which more often than not was that it looked bad, she really did have horrible taste in clothing), and every once in a while she would steal a kiss or place one on his cheek. He didn't hate it, but it was different and brought him so far out of his element that by early afternoon he just wanted to go back to her apartment and rest. But when they got there, rest was not exactly what they did.
Over the next few days, their routine consisted of waking up, eating breakfast and coffee, going out to do something, coming home, having lots of mindless sex, eating again, watching something together or just talking, more sex, sleep, and repeat.
It had been the most normal Damian's life had ever been, and while he did miss the action of the superhero life, the other action he was getting was momentarily keeping him satisfied.
On the night that marked it being one week since he had left the manor, after he and Stephanie had finished ravishing each other, they lay in the bed; Stephanie laying on his chest while he ran his fingers through her thick blonde hair. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, and he could feel hers. It was soothing, peaceful.
Stephanie nuzzled into him and hummed, enjoying the heat that burned off of his skin. "Damian," she purred in a hushed tone. Damian, whose eyes were closed remained quiet and waited for her to continue, picking up a strand of her hair and playing with it. He felt her swallow against him, as though she were nervous at what she was about to say, but her voice came out confident. "I love you."
Damian's whole body went tense and his hand froze in her hair mid stroke. Immediately Stephanie pushed herself onto her palms and looked at him, concerned she tried to read his expression through the shadows that, the street lights from outside were casting into the small room.
"I'm sorry," she apologized after a few moments of silence. "That's...kind of loaded isn't it?"
Who was she kidding? It was extremely loaded, he was only sixteen after all, it didn't matter how fast their relationship had progressed.
He swallowed hard and began to rub her back. "Its fine," he said, his voice monotone. "But I can't-"
As though scared of what he might say, Stephanie sat up on her knees and shook her head. "No, no! Please!" she insisted quickly. "I get it if you don't feel the same way. I fall really, really easily...it's a huge flaw of mine. I'm sorry for saying anything; just forget I said it, please!"
"Brown," he was still serious. "That's not it." There was a long pause until Damian took a deep breath and exhaled. "Love has just never been an emotion I've been exposed to. I'm not entirely sure how it feels."
Stephanie's concern slipped away from her and she was filled instead with sadness. Damian was correct; in the most fundamental years of his life he had been raised by a mother who might have loved him in her own way, but it was nowhere close to the nurturing love you were supposed to feel from a mother. He had been raised as a weapon, and while Bruce, Dick and Alfred also loved him in their own ways, it was already too late for the boy to be able to identify those variations. Not to mention that Bruce didn't exactly have the easiest of times expressing his feelings, so even if he had had a clue of what love was, he probably still wouldn't be able to really feel it from the older Wayne anyway. Had anyone even ever told him that they loved him before tonight?
Stephanie smiled slightly in the dark. She could see the shadowed bumps of his abdominal's and gently ran her fingers over them, causing goose bumps to rise on his skin. "It's not often you don't know something." She joked quietly.
Damian snorted out a laugh. "Soak it in while you can."
Smiling, Stephanie lay back down and snuggled back into him, draping one arm across his chest. His arms enclosed around her. "Well," she started, turning her head to place a skin on his peck. "I'll help you figure it out, and I'll wait for as long as it takes, don't rush yourself."
Damian looked up at the dark ceiling. "It could take a long time."
"I'm in no hurry."
"It could take forever."
"I'll wait."
Damian smiled to himself and leaned his head down, placing a rough kiss into her hair. Perhaps he did love her, perhaps he didn't. He wasn't sure and he meant it when he said he may never know. Of course she meant more to him than any other person, but love was such a strong thing, or so he believed. At least romantic love. It was something you gave to one person, something you could not come back from, something beautiful but also dangerous. He wasn't even fully sure that it existed.
They lay for a while in silence, Damian's eyes slowly lulling closed. But just as sleep began to take him, Stephanie squeezed him lightly, causing his body to lightly jerk into full consciousness.
"D," she mumbled quietly. "Let's get out of here."
With his eyes closed, he scrunched his face questioningly. "The apartment?" he asked. It was a strange request at such an hour.
"Gotham."
He stayed quiet so she continued. "I mean it. You said yourself that you don't think you can go back to the tower, and do you want to go back to work for Bruce?"
Again he did not answer.
"Besides," Stephanie shrugged against him, her voice quieting. "I never really wanted to be stuck in this garbage city anyway...let's go start over somewhere."
"You're serious?" he asked, noticing her tone.
"I am."
He inhaled through his nose, thinking about it. It would definitely be a gamble, and a big change. It wasn't that he was attached to Gotham and he had been raised to be adaptable, and he supposed she was right, but the idea of leaving with her when they had only been together, if that was what they were, for a week made him hesitant. Of course he would want to, and he supposed he could continue to fight crime; he would just have to help her improve a little so they could be a duo. It might be a good opportunity, and there would never be a lack of after mission sex.
After thinking for a few more moments he slowly nodded his head. "Alright..." his voice was low, dragged out. "Let's get out of Gotham. Where are we going?"
She thought only for a second. "London!"
"London?" he repeated in question.
"Yeah! You know...castles, Big Ben...fish and chips."
Damian snickered as she giggled at her words. Of course food would be a determining factor for her; you could take the fat out of the girl but not the girl out of the fat...or something like that.
"I've always wanted to go there, every since I was little." She continued. "When my mom was alive, we used to talk about it. Just leaving and going to live in some nice house in the middle of the city."
There was a pause and her tone became downhearted. "But then she died...and I was stuck here with my father. I thought I would never get out, after that. Then I met Clyde and he made me all of these promises of how we were going to be together forever and move to LA and leave all the crime bullshit behind us. He told me he loved me more than anything but..."
She fell silent again. Damian had heard her mention Clyde, her ex, a few times before and not once did he like the sound of the man. He had been a little older than her, someone who worked for her father in the crime business and had been there for her and made her confident in herself. He supposed he could thank him for that, but nothing much else.
Stephanie huffed. "Well, I guess love had limitations because he left as soon as I told him I was pregnant. Forever must have meant something different to him..."
"He was an idiot." Damian growled causing her to laugh.
"Don't I know it..."
Damian swallowed but waited a beat to say anything more. "London sounds good to me." He agreed. She tilted her head up to look at him.
"Really?"
"You'll have to actually break up with Drake first..."
"Of course I will, I'm just trying to think of everything I want to say."
"Very well, if you wish it."
"I've only wished for this every time I've ever seen a shooting star! See, its coming true!"
Damian rolled his eyes and leaned down to give her one final kiss. He was beginning to get tired; it was time they called it a night.
"Let's get to sleep. We can look into it tomorrow." He told her, but he could feel her vibrating on top of him.
"But this is so exciting! We should celebrate!"
"Honestly," Damian sighed, his stomach twisting with embarrassment. He knew what she wanted, but his body was ever so exhausted. She was far too good for her own good...and his. "I don't think I have another go in me."
Stephanie let out a rough "ughhh" and rolled away from him, causing his skin to spike with a sudden chilliness. "So much for the stamina of youth." She grunted, rolling on her side.
"Brown..." Damian groaned, rolling onto his own side and pulling her into a spoon. She was sulking, and despite it being cute, it would not get her what she wanted. She scooted back into him and relaxed.
"Fine...but you owe me some really good celebratory head sometime soon." She smiled into her hair, and even though she said nothing, his mind knew the response to that; gladly.
"And in the morning, I'm making waffles!" Stephanie's voice trembled with humour which allowed the younger being to know it was just not a statement about their breakfast, he knew her at least that well.
"If you're referencing something, it's been wasted as I told you all of your childish media nods would be if you insisted on sharing them with me."
Stephanie wiggled her bum into him, causing his length to twitch against her. She would not get what she wanted.
"How do you sleep with yourself at night?" the judgement that rolled off her tongue was rich.
"Thanks to you, that's not an issue I need to concern myself with. Sleep!"
"Okay, okay! Goodnight Damian."
"Goodnight, Brown."
The silence didn't last long however before her quiet voice spoke again.
"You know..."she said in a whisper. "You can call me Stephanie. I think we've reached that point."
He swallowed and hesitated before his own whispered voice spoke out into her hair.
"Goodnight Stephanie."
It was still pitch black in the room when Damian was awoke by a light wrapping on the glass of the window. Confused for only a moment, he quickly sat up in full alertness, looking around the room for any sign of movement. Stephanie shifted slightly when he pulled away from her and mumbled something incoherently.
The sound had stopped and the room was still, but something was off to the young Wayne and he got up from the bed and quietly walked over to the window, looking out into the alley below them. From what he could see, there was no movement outside either. It was strange.
Quickly grabbing his windbreaker from the arm of the couch, he pulled it over his shoulders and went into the kitchen, focusing entirely on not waking up his sleeping lover in the next room, and went out onto the small metal balcony. The wind was colder than it should have been in July; it was clearly blowing off from the harbor.
Peering over the rusted side of the balcony, he looked down again, still nothing, but the sound of the metal from the stairs above him creaked and he quickly looked up.
"My how you've grown." a raspy voice said quietly. Above him, sitting on the stairs was a woman, her face lost in shadow.
Damian swallowed hard as she stood up and walked down the stairs, her heeled boots clicking against the stairs. Where he stood was closer to the street, closer to the light, so when she stepped up to him he could get a better look at her features.
She was tall, taller than he was but only just, and she looked exactly like his mother; same facial structure, same jolting green eyes. But her brown hair was buzzed from her head, leaving her with a sharp buzz cut, and the olive skin of her face sported multiple scars. She was dressed in a sand coloured body suit that hugged her every curve, a utility belt strapped around her waist and a few leather straps wrapped around her chest and thighs. She smiled at him, though the gesture was anything but sweet.
"Let me take a good look at you." She hummed, roughly grabbing his face in one of her hands; her finger tips digging into his cheeks while she moved his face from side to side, looking at him. He didn't stop her, he had no idea what she was capable of and Stephanie was only a wall away.
"Hm," she grunted, giving him one light slap on the cheek and dropping her hand to her hip. "Handsome, but your eyes are soft. You should have come and lived with me, nephew. You've been failed."
"Neferti." Her name rolled off Damian's tongue as fire and she laughed.
"Yes," she said nodding her head. "I was called that once, yes. A long time ago, but no longer. They now call me-"
"I have little to no interest in what alias you go by. Tell me why you are here."
She laughed again and crossed her arms across her chest. "Well, you may not look like him...but father worked his way into you somehow, didn't he. Always so keen to get right to the point."
"What do you want?"
Neferti looked over the side of the balcony, down at the ally below them as if checking to see if they were still alone. Her eyebrows rose high on her forehead.
"Oh, I want a lot of things, I can assure you that. But this is not about what I want right now."
Damian snickered coldly. "Right, it's about what Deathstroke would have wanted."
His aunts lips pulled into a long, crooked smile. "Deathstroke?" she questioned with a laugh, causing his confidence to slip. "God no, Slade Wilson was a madman, surely you're aware of that. He left me to die in the deserts of Egypt when he got what he wanted, when he got power. Killing him is something I should be thanking you for."
Uncrossing her arms, she dragged one long fingernail over the rusted metal of the railing, her smile fell and she looked seriously at the younger man. "No, this is bigger than that, bigger than everything. You're part of a spectrum that hinges humanity to this very world. A prophecy; a boy born of the Al Ghul bloodline, but also from a bat, a boy who would bring to life the army of the dead, risen from the gates of Duat itself to cleanse this world and start anew."
Damian stayed quiet, one of his eyebrows slightly rising. He had no idea what the woman was talking about and his mind began to race, processing her words. His blank expression did not go unnoticed and Neferti's smile returned on her face.
"You look confused, nephew. Did they tell you nothing on that mountain top?" she lulled. Damian sneered at her, turning his attention back to the door of the apartment. If she had brought him here to listen to folklore, he was uninterested.
"Grandfather thought it was best to spare me from nonsensical fairytales."
Shaking her head, his aunt took a step closer to him. "Oh, this is far from a fairytale. This is the Al Ghul reality, the reality that my father, your grandfather, spent years trying to bring to fruition. Why do you think he chose Bruce Wayne as Talia's stud? His money? His wit? His good looks? No, it was because it needed to be him."
"Why did it need to be Talia? You're the eldest aren't you...your name didn't fall into the 'prophecy'?"
Neferti glowered at Damian's snide expression and he could see her jaw clench for a moment, but after inhaling deeply through her nose she relaxed.
"I, unfortunately, am unable to produce. No doubt why father always favoured dear little Talia." Her tone was bitter, hateful. It was clear that she harbored great resentment towards her younger sister.
Damian eyed her suspiciously, still finding her words difficult to believe. He knew prophecies existed, but prophecies surrounding him?
"If this is true, why is it the first I'm hearing of it? Why wouldn't grandfather or my mother say anything earlier?"
Neferti took another step closer and Damian had to take one backwards, his lower back colliding with the railing. Lifting one of his arms, he grabbed onto it for support, just in case she tried to throw him over the side and he would need something for support. But instead of pushing him over the side, she brought one hand up to his face and gently rested it against his cheek, her thumb softly caressing his skin. His eyes narrowed at her.
"Unfortunately, young one, in order to bring the dead to life, blood must be split." Her green eyes bore into his own like needles, making it impossible for him to look away. It was like she had him in a trance. "Your blood. But when my sister had you she became weak. She begged father for your little miserable life to be spared, for him to find another way."
Her top lip curled into a harsh grin, her thumb continuing to brush his skin. "And he did...he decided to make you his successor, taking away all of his promises to Slade, and trained you to work beside him."
She curled her fingers in slightly, her nails pressing into Damian's flesh roughly but not hard enough to break the skin. He winced a bit, his eyes squinting.
"What's stopped you from finding me before, when I was younger, weaker?" he hissed quietly. Neferti shook her head.
"It took me many years to find a following that could help me. You've been protected, by the League of Shadows, by Batman, by others. I needed assistance."
"And what's stopping you from killing me right now?"
Neferti's lips pulled over her teeth and her hand fell slowly from his face, her nails scratching slightly and leaving deep red marks.
"Unfortunately, the blood that must be spilled must be voluntary. A self sacrifice. I need you to come with me on your own, and give yourself to the Krv Amyh-Pa."
"That's funny because your goons tried to off me a month ago. Guess they didn't get the memo."
"Charlotte and Jaclyn?"she mused, her head tilted so that half of it was now covered by shadows. Damian supposed that was Widow and Jackal's real names. "They were supposed to convince you, not attack. Jaclyn's powers are new to her; she has a hard time controlling them and she made a mistake, one that I cannot forgive. She's where she needs to be now."
There was a short pause.
"I will give you two days to think over my proposition and then I will return. Come with me and give yourself up..."she stopped talking and Damian smirked. There was no consequence for him not to come, she needed this to be voluntary or else her plan of resurrecting this dead army wouldn't work, and Damian didn't feel like volunteering. She had no standing.
Puffing out his chest, Damian stood straight. "Don't have much of a bargaining technique. I'm going to have to go with no. But thanks for stopping by...aunt."
Neferti hummed a bit in the back of her throat and turned her gaze towards the window of Stephanie's apartment. Though the light was dim, the sleeping human could just barely be made out. Damian turned his head slightly to follow it, his stomach suddenly stirring. Her eyes softened.
"She's pretty..." she purred quietly, but there was a threat to her tone. "Dear Talia would be proud."
Without thinking Damian side stepped in front of the door in a defensive manor, his eyes narrowed into slits. "If you touch her..." he growled. Neferti merely grinned, and eerie, menacing grin.
"Think about my words carefully, nephew." She waved her hand at him, and slowly her body began falling into sand. It surprised Damian a bit, but he didn't look it, he was too angry over the threat. He watched as the sand blew away with the light, spring breeze until Neferti was no more, but her echoed voice lingered. "Two days..."