"Ra's al Ghul does not grant second chances," Nyssa looks at her as if she expects Sara to break out into a confession or something. But Sara doesn't bulge.
"And still you're alive."
What the hell does Nyssa want from her?!
How is she supposed to know why any of this is happening?
"Why don't you tell me?" Sara hisses, lifting her chin as she closes the last bit of distance between her and Nyssa, "You came looking for me!"
"I was following orders." Nyssa doesn't back away but it sounds almost defensive.
Oh, how the tables have turned.
Don't be stupid. Stay low. Don't provoke her. You saw what she is capable of.
But Sara doesn't listen to her own advice as adrenalin pumps through her body. If Nyssa thought intimidating her would have her running scared, she got the exact opposite reaction somehow even though Sara usually avoids head-on conflicts she can't win.
"And you didn't even ask why?" Sara inquires spitefully, "I mean clearly Ra's al Ghul knew about the Mirakuru, so what the hell do you need me for?!"
Nyssa blinks and maybe Sara is putting too much into this but it feels like she just hit a sore spot.
"If Ra's al Ghul decides that Anthony Ivo's expedition is the League's concern all the sudden, then you do well to not question his orders." Nyssa almost grimaces as if she had to learn that lesson first hand.
But Sara can't think about the pain the Demon's Head may or may not inflict on his own heir right now.
"You knew about Anthony's experiments."
Sara feels like she's been punched in the guts.
They knew and they didn't do anything.
"We have been keeping an eye on his ridiculous quest for years." Nyssa is motionless, almost bored. As if the pain Anthony inflicted meant nothing.
Sara wants to strangle her for that, her fits twitching to reach out.
Instead she digs her nails deeper into the palms of her hands until she's almost breaking skin.
"How… how could you just let him?" Sara breathes slowly, forcing herself not to scream or cry, "Do you have any idea what he did- what he was willing to do? How many people he hurt and killed?"
Her voice cracks during the last sentence.
Anthony might have been behind all this but it wasn't solely through his hands that people have been hurt.
Nyssa and the League stood idly by just watching despite having the means to stop him.
But what she did was worse.
She helped him.
"Murderer, smuggler and trafficker... They deserved it."
It's stated with such nonchalance that Sara is cell shocked for a moment.
How can Nyssa say that without even a hint of guilt or second thought?
How can she just decide which life is worth what?
How dare the League of Assassins justify them play God when they are the worst of all?
"Shipwrecked couples, lost tourists, priests- people with a family! No one deserves that." Sara exclaims and clenches her fist again when Nyssa still doesn't show any appropriate reaction.
There is no use denying that most of Anthony's lab rats belonged in prison themselves - an actual prison with a sentence decided by a court - but that doesn't mean they deserved being held in cages and getting tortured.
Nyssa gives her this curious yet somehow pitying look again, like when she left Sara alone with Ra's al Ghul, as if she can't understand how Sara can't agree with her that these people deserved what Anthony did to them.
Sara feels like she might actually give into physically attacking the other woman if they'll keep discussing whether or not people deserve to live in a basic amount of dignity no matter what they did.
She takes a deep breath and slowly pries her finger nails out of her flesh.
She did break skin at some point without noticing.
"Look, I have no idea why this is all happening or why Ra's al Ghul apparently treats me differently. I had a regular life, you know."
Nyssa doesn't show any sign of believing her – not that she shows any sign of anything. Sara if she's just sick of the lack of reaction or getting freaked out by her constant stoic expression.
"No mad scientist or miracle drugs or people who are trying to kill me," Sara adds though she doubts it'll change anything, "I was just another girl who couldn't decide on a college major, stayed out too late and fell for the wrong guy. Completely normal," Sara stretches the last word.
Nyssa doesn't answer immediately. The silence stretches on for just a second too long and it's that one second that rips away whatever little feeling of control Sara had before.
"Maybe the girl you were was ordinary but what about the woman you are going to become?" Nyssa wonders with just a hint of a knowing smile.
The way she formed that sentence combined with her soft tone and smile sends shivers down Sara's spine and makes the hair on her body stand up.
It takes her a moment to fully grasp what exactly Nyssa is implying, too focused on how much Nyssa resembles Ra's al Ghul right now despite looking so different physically.
"I'm not gonna be- I just want to go home!" Sara tries to state firmly but she's staggering and stumbling a step back as she's hit with pictures of her future-self being anything like them.
She looks at Nyssa with wide eyes, frantically searching for any doubt in dark eyes that she could ever be what Ra's al Ghul wants her to be.
"Even if I could grant your that wish you know that it is not going to be the same." Nyssa replies, not granting the other woman any sympathy or reassurance. She's just studying her once more with that weird mix of curiosity and pity.
Sara shakes her head and crosses her arms over her chest. She doesn't want to think about that. She decides that she doesn't have to.
"There is something about you, and you can't even see it," Nyssa sounds genuinely fascinated and Sara hates that the possible potential as an assassin is the thing that breaks through her hollow mask and emotionless demeanor.
"Aren't you curious as to what makes you so different?"
"No." Sara hasn't been more sure of anything in her life before. If it's something the Demon's Head and his daughter see in her then she doesn't want it to ever reach the surface.
Once again the two women stare at each other, only now it seems to be Nyssa trying to figure out what's going on and ponder what to do instead of Sara.
"Very well," Nyssa finally responds, "I don't want to keep you any further, you have an important decision to make."
And just like that Sara wishes Nyssa didn't just drop it. She wants to keep arguing about dignity, ask her why the hell no one around here seems to wear anything other than black leather, she wants to give into the urge of clawing at the other woman's skin – anything that would make her stay longer and not leave Sara all to herself.
But Sara just watches frozen in spot as Nyssa collects the food tray and then picks up the ointment jars on the ground next to the bed.
"No, please leave the ointment."
Sara bites the inside of her cheeks. She didn't mean for it to come out so needy and panicked. She shouldn't have said anything at all, shouldn't have shown weakness. Infected wounds on her feet are going to be the least of her worries.
But they would make everything unnecessarily more difficult.
Nyssa is taken aback by her request. Previous actions of Sara might have left her wondering or curious but they never seemed to completely take her by surprise.
"Why?"
"I… need it." Sara tries to sound casual but it comes out lame and awkward. She just can't think of any logical reason on the spot except for the truth.
"But the Lazarus Pit healed your wounds."
Squirming away from piercing, dark eyes, Sara hums nonchalantly. She doesn't want Nyssa to know she hurt herself.
What the hell was I thinking? Why did I do that? Sara questions herself as she remembers the feeling of scrubbing through her own skin, only now recognizing the act of self-harm as such.
But apparently Nyssa figures it out on her own. Or she just doesn't care. Sara can't decide what would be worse. Either way she returns the ointments to their original spot without further questions before heading to the door.
"It is a pity," Nyssa turns around to her one last time with her hand already on the door handle, "You survived against all odds and it'll be in vain. You choose somebody else's life over your own."
"That's not much of a choice!"
Sara's distraught outcry is lost in the sound of the door falling back into place.
A/N: Phew, I have a feeling that Sara and Nyssa are going to be clashing a lot. Sara has just grown up with a completely different world view. We know the Lances, they become cops and lawyers and vigilantes because they want to help and protect people. We know how much Sara hates herself for the things she did years ago.
Which is why I'm struggeling a little with understanding her train of thoughts that do lead her to joining the league.
What to you think is the thing that drove Sara to go angainst everything she was raised to believe in?