where a blade was sunk some time ago

by Mira-Jade

"And sometimes, the Pit would give something back – something stronger than that which had been fed flailing into the bitter earth." Talia rises. Bane follows.

6. before the shield

Author's Note: And here we are, at long last . . . To those keeping track of this story's progress in my profile, I am sorry for all of the continuing delays! Everytime I thought I had my writing scedule narrowed down, life did not cooperate with me. But, here we are with another long chapter, and I hope that it was worth the wait. :)

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VI: "before the shield"

Aleppo came and went; as did the terrorist cell in Kirkurk, and the assassination of an arms dealer in Halabja.

Only three months had passed since setting out from Antalya, and Talia deemed their small band of followers ready for their most ambitious task yet - staging a political coup in Tehran in order to overthrow a corrupt portion of the government. Already, they had seven men who had sworn themselves to their way and their cause, and two dozen more who would serve as a grunt workforce for their endeavor. It was a small number to work with, but Talia had seen her father do more with even less. It was with some dark pleasure that she used many of the footholds in the world that the League itself had carved in order to make its way unseen through the shadows - coordinating and plotting and watching as the pieces fell into place like pawns across a chessboard.

The mission was carried off without a hitch, with only one of their new recruits taking a bullet to the shoulder as collateral damage. She could hear her men celebrating with wine in the rooms below, their voices mingling and rising in the joy of triumph and a job successfully done. The seven recruits she would take with her had been instructed to stay clear of the spirits in order to deal with the excess baggage that would not be leaving Tehran with them – but that would be later in the evening.

For now, the sun was setting, and Talia had no wish to mingle with the others below. She stood on the balcony of her self declared 'room', looking off at the mountains in the distance. The air was chilled, but she could not find it within herself to go back inside and fetch her coat. Underneath the thin layer of cotton she wore, she could feel gooseflesh break out on her skin, rising towards the breath of frost in the air. It would snow soon, she knew. Perhaps, in the mountains, it was snowing already.

Something uncomfortable seized about her throat. Like a fist.

Tehran had been a bold move of her, she knew – brazen almost. Before her departure, she had known that her father had planned to set the Seven Hand on Iran's capital for some time – perhaps they were even now in this very city, her father and his faithful. If they were anywhere in reach, then they kept to the shadows even as Talia stole their goal from them – breaking off upon seeing that she and Bane moved to stage the coup before they could set their own events in motion.

When asked about her motives for the strike on Tehran, Talia had squared her jaw and not answered – ignoring the cold lack of feeling in Bane's eyes at the silence from her (for she would not lie, not to him). Normally so expressive to her, he had been still in the wake of her silence before reporting that their men were ready for whatever course she deemed the right one.

He would not hold her from what she needed to do, even when he disapproved, and that knowledge weighed on her. It weighed like the bite of the wind in the air, blowing at the sand toned city around her.

Talia exhaled at the memory, her breath a puff of vapor on he air as she turned her eyes from her memories to the city itself. Smoke rose in the distance – their handiwork, but she saw only the mountains beyond. There were stormclouds over the peaks. It would reach the city soon.

There was a soft movement of noise behind her – the glass doors to the balcony sliding open and then closing again. A shadow touched her own.

She tilted her head, and heard silence below her. The wine had been stilled for blood, then. Odd, she reflected, wondering when the hour had passed her notice.

"It is done then?" she asked, not turning to face the other. The mountains would not let her gaze go.

"It is done," Bane said quietly.

She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. But the heat from her body was thin, and the motion did little to warm her as she rubbed her thumbs against her skin.

A moment passed, the silence lingering, and then she felt a warmth fall over her shoulders. The softness of sheep's wool and the weight of thick brown leather registered to her senses. The goosebumps on her arms faded, the coat already warm from the heat of his body. It smelled faintly of him, she reflected – shadow cool stone and rain, with that underlying synthetic scent that was the wisp of the venom from his mask, all metal and gas.

"I am not cold," she said after a heartbeat. Her fingers curled in the wool on the underside of the coat, wrapping it tighter about her body.

Bane said nothing – he just rested his heavy hands against her shoulders, the weight of his touch seemingly keeping her body steady against the ground - unable to rise and join smoke and storm and the snowcapped peaks far beyond . . . Talia inhaled deeply of the cold air, and stepped back into him, defeated.

In the distance, smoke continued to rise. The storm could not yet touch it.

.

.

They pushed to the northeast then, into Armenia. The mountainous country was beautiful and dangerous, peppered with small villages and hardy people who did their best to carve out a place for themselves in the post Soviet economy. The country was like smoking kindle, trying desperately to spark to flame. While Armenia had cordial relations with bordering Georgia and Iran, they had a more strained relationship with neighboring Azerbaijan. Even though peace had been officially declared a few years prior, the scars that the country bore from those battles were still as fresh as the feelings and the underlying causes that had sparked the feuds initially.

In response to the country's struggling economy, the government had sold vast areas of lands to out of country mining companies – all of which who were eager to exploit lands that were rich in copper and gold. But, for all of the financial boons the sales granted, there was a downside to the continued rape of the land. There was grief in the cold way that the powers refused to consider the villages that already sat over the rich and fertile ground that was auctioned away to the highest bidder. When Talia had first interviewed men from this area of the world on behalf of her father, she had been regaled with tales of infected crops and displaced families – who even had to dig up their cemeteries, where the bones of their families had sat for generations – in order to make way for the large machines of industry. The forests bore their scars from the massive open pits, and the rivers stank with tailing dams and retainer ponds for the tail minerals. Nearly sixty percent of Armenia's agricultural endeavors – the true life's blood of the poor Armenian – was corrupted by both mercury arsenic and cadmium, infecting the crops and the people who tended to them.

While Talia was not naïve enough to believe that the country would ever be completely free of its mines – and acknowledged the great aid it gave the struggling economy (making nearly fifteen percent of its capital), she did, however, believe that the mines would be better benefited in the hands of Armenia's own people. With the village heads having a say in the mine's location and running, the scarring to the land would be reduced, and the profit would wholly lie within Armenia's hands, thus aiding the country more than any foreign taskmaster ever could.

The plight of the country had long been on the table of the League of Shadows, but always had it been pushed away in favor of larger and more pressing matters. Her father had been the one to engineer the cease-fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan years ago, and that task done, the country had been left much to its own devices.

Simply put, Talia had not the men nor the means to strike on the level of her father – not yet. And so, she considered this to be the perfect way to test their strength, and garner more of it.

She spent weeks outlying her plans with Bane from the country's capitol of Yerevan. On the bank of the Hrazdan river, she bought out what used to be an old textile factory. On the lower levels her men camped out and trained and waited for her orders, while Talia kept mostly to the upper offices, rarely leaving her maps and plans unless it was to journey further south into the country to the mines she had hoped to target.

To their original seven men, they had added eight more on their journey north into the country. The land around them was thick with weapon-trained men looking for a true purpose and calling as much as it was filled with those godless and without claim on conscious or country.

They were at fifteen men now, where Talia's plans would call for at least thirty – and that was where Bane came in.

Talia was a tactician. She could weave together charts and graphs and maps with the intangible factors of human weaknesses - human desires, human hearts. She was born to plot and bring a plan to its whole. Bane was like her father - a fisher of men. A born orator, he could talk a group of men into a zealous frenzy with nothing more than the passion in his voice. Talia could ensnare and seduce in small numbers, in dark corners - where a turn of her wrist and the tilt of her head spoke as loudly as words. Bane, though - Bane could cater to the masses. He could lead.

And so, Talia fell into the background while Bane became the figurehead for their new force – and already word was spreading of the masked mercenary and his cause. His plight. His cares.

And steadily, they stood poised to grow.

While their query was in Kajaran – a city in Syunik in the south of the country, Yerevan was ripe for the gleaning when it came to both men and arms. While Talia planned and waged her own personal war on the board members of MINETEC (a German mining corporation who owned shares in an upwards of sixty percent of the country's mines) in the city's highest circles, Bane slipped through the shadows and the mire, and gleaned from the droppings of the harvest gems waiting for polish and use.

Talia stood still in her office, peeking through the off-white blinds to where the new men were milling below – a good twenty having followed Bane from the speech he had just given in the back of one of the working class taverns. They were a mixture of peoples and tongues – while the bulk of the group was Armenian, she heard a pair of the men with Russian on their lips, and a few were of Kurdish descent. A few more spoke with voices twinged with accents from the east of Europe – leftover from the more violent times in the country's past, no doubt.

"Not bad, my friend," she said to Bane, who was sitting on the corner of her desk, his large hands restless as he twined and braided a piece of string in his hands. "I spy twenty new men? That was double our goal."

"Twenty-three, to be exact," Bane shrugged, a massive rolling of his shoulders. "Perhaps five will be ready to return with us at the mission's end. If they survive."

"If they survive," Talia echoed, feeling pooling low in her stomach at the words. The men were pawns on a chessboard to her, and she felt not at their fate. She frowned, and looked down on the men again.

While many of the recruits were milling about – all getting to know their new comrades and chatting amicably enough, one to the other, there was one man sitting off to the side. He had found a hard-backed folding chair to sit in, and his feet were propped up comfortably on one of the long tables where they kept supplies and arms. In his hands was a book, old and careworn.

Talia let the blinds fall closed. She tilted her head, wondering.

Bane had followed her eyes. "A 'Tale of Two Cities'," he indulged her curiosity.

Talia raised a brow. "Heavy reading for a . . ."

"Sniper," Bane answered for her, leaning over her desk in order to push a file her way.

Tilting her head, Talia took the file from him, but not before noting the blood that coated her friend's knuckles, unseen until then. "I thought that the meeting went without a hitch?" she questioned.

"It did," Bane responded amicably.

"Ah," she said. "Then, I take it that none of this is yours?" There was a furthering of the spatters on the collar of his coat, on the broad expanse of his chest, blending in with the sturdy brown fabric - but still there to see for one who looked closely enough.

Bane shook his head, there was humor in his eyes. If he wore not of his mask, she knew she would be able to hear a whisper of a laugh on his lips. "None," he affirmed. "A man dubious of my words wished to see behind my mask . . . He was most persistent."

"He is dead then?" Talia asked. The hand that was not holding the file fisted.

"Not by my hand," Bane answered, nodding to the file she held. "He has quite the eye, it would seem – he did not look up from his novel once when I spoke, and I did not see him look up to make the shot, either. Originally, I did not think our cause reverberated with him at all." There was curiosity in his voice. Her friend was intrigued.

"A sniper," Talia mused as she thumbed open the file, interested. "Ivan Barsad," she read aloud – taking in the thin face and long nose, the deep set eyes. He had the look of a Judas about him, a part of her reflected, but his eyes . . . No, it would not be so, she thought.

"Born to a Russian father and an Armenian mother," Bane continued conversationally, "He made his mark in the Nagorno-Karabakh war – and was dishonorably discharged for disputes with his superior officer. A dispute which he was in the right of, may I add, but such things matter not in the end."

The same war her father had engineered a cease-fire to those years ago, Talia mused - the weaving of time, of action and reaction, falling curiously before her.

She closed the file, her head tilted as she considered. "Well, on the morrow you can start working with them. We have enough men to move forward now."

Bane inclined his head, his eyes moving past her to the men unseen below – already his mind was turning, and she felt a spark of warmth in her chest at the sight of it, feeling his zeal tug and pull on the strands of her own drive, her own will.

"Let us put the pieces in place, then," Talia announced, slipping behind her desk to review the stack of files that Bane had brought for her, and they stayed that way through much of the evening, until long after the sun fell behind the mountains beyond.

.

.

Two weeks had passed, and already their small group was starting to fall into a seamless engine under Bane's teaching and direction. In the time that Bane spent training their recruits, Talia submersed herself in the role of Ada Yanikian – a wealthy woman concerned for Armenia's future, who was 'diplomatically' trying to buy possession of the mines for the Armenian people. She had with her delegates from the southern providences where the mines were in force, though she kept them in the dark about her true plans – not wanting their good intentions soiled by what had to be done through less than legal means. While she was content being both match and flame, it would not do for country's first steps forward to be built on such things.

Heat rose, but she would not let them near the fire.

And so she returned late one evening, her grey evening gown soaked with wine and stinking of alcohol when she flung her coat and purse to the side – both landing amongst her charts and her plans, knocking a silver blade (which she had skewered into the wood earlier that day in a fit of frustration) to clatter on the floor below. She winced at the discordant sound.

Bane, who had been following a step behind her, leaned over to pick up the blade from where it had fallen. He flipped the knife in his hand, drawing her gaze as the steel flashed between his fingers. He did not bother to straighten her papers as she reached up to undo the pins which held her hair. She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, taking away the color that had lain thickly there. When she ran her tongue over her lips, she tasted wax, but at least she was starting to look like herself again.

She kicked off her heels as she walked, her ire bright in her eyes as she fell down to her true height. The shoes found a home in some dark corner, thudding off of a wall before coming to a rest. She nodded her head sharply, satisfied at the sound.

Bane regarded her with amusement in his eyes, but he wisely held his tongue. She glared at him witheringly.

"They did not agree," was all she said in a clipped tone, setting her jaw as she wiped the lipstick on the back of her hand on her dress instead – the gown already ruined for the evening.

"As we expected," Bane said calmly.

With an annoyed exhale, Talia felt at the skin of her cheeks, where cosmetics still choked her flesh. She would have to shower before she felt like herself again, she knew. When she caught Bane's eyes on the rather large stain decorating the front of her dress, she flipped her head in annoyance. "One of MINETEC's board-members 'accidentally' spilled his wine on my gown," she answered his unspoken question.

"Ah," he said. The amusement in his eyes grew, but behind it there was a shadow. If his hands weren't already occupied with the blade, she imagined that they would fist.

She smirked, pleased. Her grin turned sharp. "I care not about the dress," she said. "And I was sure to see that a waiter 'slipped' and poured a whole bottle in Kajik's lap later in the evening. He received as he gave – as he will continue to do so."

An amused sound made it through Bane's mask, what would have been a snort of laughter from the lips of any other. "I would have preferred your usual method of skewering his hand to the table with a fork rather than such subterfuge," he said good naturedly.

Talia showed her teeth. "I do so hate to be predictable though," her voice slithered. "And I believe he mourned the silk thread of his wardrobe more than he would have grieved over the use of a hand, idle as they are," her tone turned in disgust. "It was sickening," she breathed through her teeth, an old frustration rising in her – even older than the mantras and morals of the League. A waste of food and finery, the overindulgence so enjoyed by the uppercrust never failed to bring bile to the back of her throat. When growing, her greatest treasure had been days when she could eat a half spoiled apple, a sip of water more decadent than any vintage of wine. The shameless parade of wealth by those that had too much was the quickest way to ignite her ire. When the coin that built such dragon's hordes for the well to do was taken from those who had little sealed the hatred in her heart, the cold flame at the core of her, ever burning.

Bane watched this all go through her eyes, a mountain beneath the cruel winds of her storm. "We are ready then?" he asked.

Talia nodded. "The stage is set."

"We begin at dawn," Bane said, rising to his feet with an ease that bellied his great size. "I shall inform the men."

She nodded, moving behind her desk to sink wearily down into her chair. The expensive fabric of her dress ruffled as she moved. It itched against her skin. The product holding the elaborate coif of her hair into place was displeasing to her nose. When she moved to rub her fingers against her temples, she could feel the manicured edge of her nails – where she had had to train herself out of her childhood habit of chewing her nails down into nothing. It did naught for the part she had to play.

The part they all played.

She closed her eyes, hoping that the blackness would aid the ache that had settled behind her eyes. She inhaled once; she let her breath out slow.

Beyond her, she heard the sound of retreating footsteps, and she thought that Bane had taken her leave of her. Instead, a moment later, she felt strong hands at her shoulders, touching the skin left bare by the dip of her gown.

"You hold yourself too tightly," he remarked easily, as if commenting on the weather. His strong hands kneaded her tired muscles, finding the kinks that days of being bent over her desk had caused, massaging away the weight that had fallen on her shoulders the last few months.

"How can I not?" she asked, her voice humming alongside a contented noise in the back of her throat. "Tomorrow . . ." Tomorrow her men would march and die on her orders, and while she cared not for the individual, she did so for the whole. She feared failure, she feared not being able to accomplish what she had set out to do . . . Her father was always waiting to laugh in the back of her mind - where she fancied that her own fire was naught but a candle's burn to the star-like inferno of Ra's great empire.

She feared failure – it was her oldest fear, the fear of leaping without her fingers stretching far enough to catch the ledge and pull herself to freedom. While logic told her that that fear was what made her soar – made her do what others could not - it still swirled sickly in her bones. It still pooled like venom in her lungs.

She leaned her head back so that she could rest against the support that her friend offered. Wind and wings, current and ocean waters, sword and shield; this and a dozen more things she thought in that moment, but could not say them as she felt the easy rise and fall of his chest – as easy as if he were settling down to read a good book rather than marching on those great in might upon the morning hour.

"You will succeed," he said gently, saying nothing more than that when nothing more needed be said. She said nothing of her fears – her innermost doubts and worries, but he picked them up from the pages of her skin nonetheless, and answered the unspoken. She felt a warm feeling bloom in her chest then, more than gratitude, both heavy and light at once, always so much greater than her fear – her inner doubts and demons and cold flames.

His touch was almost painful in its intensity, but she leaned into him nonetheless, taking the strength he would give as her own, like a pallor-born creature feeding on the lifeblood of one living.

She reached up to cover his hands with her own, knowing that she returned that strength – inspired it tenfold in him, just as he did so sustain her. "We will succeed," she corrected, feeling – belief – thick in her voice as she spoke.

"That we will," Bane agreed, his voice a low rumble from his mask. Talia closed her eyes then, content and ready for the morning to rush to meet them.

.

.

The next day dawned cloudless and clear.

The sun peeked out from behind the horizon as their convoy made its way south to Kajaran. At the eastern border of the Zangezur mountains laid one of the largest molybdenum-copper mines in the country. The massive open pit mine spanned the length of a small lake, sinking down tier after tier into the earth to reclaim the bounty she bore beneath her surface. Just to the north of the mines, connected by the haul roads, laid the dual tailing dam and smelting plant, where they refined the ore right on site before shipping it out. Just north of the dam, on the river itself, there was a hydroelectric plant that provided energy to the mine, the plant, and a great deal of the surrounding area – Armenia having no natural fuel supplies past that which they imported into the country.

Their plan would be three fold. One contingent of men would be sent to handle the destruction of the electric plant, where Talia already had contacts within willing to aid them for the country's better good. A second group, under Bane's direction, was on their way to shut down the tailing dam and the smelting plant – the end result of their work would hopefully flooding the copper mine itself, where Talia and their third division of men were tasked with destroying the shaft mines that tunneled down deeper than the open pit – operating with closed walls techniques underneath the surface of the ground. The destruction wrought there would thus ensure that even if the flood could be drained from the pit, then there would be nothing left of the mines beneath worth saving – not without more time and effort – and money – than MINETEC would be willing to pay.

As soon as her feet hit the ground outside of the truck – where they had blended into the traffic of the haul roads, posing as a dump truck returning empty of its load of waste rock - she felt her purpose settle as steel about her bones. They already had their identifications forged and ready, and Talia kept her head down as they passed the security uncontested, her hair tucked up into her hardhat and her face smeared with dirt. She had bound her figure and dressed in a loose miner's uniform, hoping to blend in with the working class men as one of their own should anyone peer close enough.

Once within, she, Barsad, and three more of their men found their way into the deep mines underneath the massive open pit. The hot day, the sand that was already gathering underneath her nails . . . the stone walls all around them, all reminded her of the Pit and the years of her childhood, in an abstract way - towering and indomitable.

And set to burn.

She shouldered her pack on her back, and let a humorless smile settle on her face as they went in deeper.

Above them, a dull alarm sounded, Klaxons wailing in warning. A step ahead of her, Barsad put away a small radio transmitter, his mouth a grim line on his face. Talia blinked, the only sign that she gave that she was pleased by the alarm's sounding. The mines kept a close eye on the methane and carbon monoxide levels in the shafts, and it took only a small amount of tampering to cue the signal to evacuate. All around her, the workers were already steadily making their way to the exits. While they had chosen to act on a day when production would be low, the evacuation served two purposes - minimizing the casualties and ensuring that there were no witnesses to their deeds.

They had several checkpoints around the mines - fifteen total where their explosives would be set, their timing perfectly set so that when the last charge went off the tailing dam would flood the mine completely just minutes after. The tailing dams were designed to rehabilitate the pit into a man-made lake at the end of production - even without their tampering. They were simply . . . hastening that plan along. Talia looked down at her watch, timing the first and second checkpoint as they passed – their charges set in weak spots in the rock, spots that were made even weaker still by the mutilation done to the land from the mines. The irony of that had not been lost on her when she and Bane drew up their scheme, and her smile turned harsh on her face, the cold flame at the core of her licking at her rib bones, ever angry.

Sure enough, when the last charge was set, there was a louder alarm than the one from earlier - signalling the time they had until the flood.

"Bane was successful," Talia announced, picking up her stride. "We take our leave now, gentleman."

Behind her, she could already hear the first of the explosives go off from where they had started. She counted in her mind as they made their way to the exit, knowing that their timing would have to be perfect, and -

Only to be stopped in her tracks by the sound of whimpering, coming from the shaft they passed. The sound was low and scared . . . and youthful.

She stopped, her body seemingly acting without her direction as she tilted her head, looking for the source of the sound. She felt her stomach turn sickly. She had known that this mine used children for their nimble dexterity and usefulness with hard to reach places – and the nearly non-existent wages they were paid, at that, but such labor for children was not uncommon in many areas of the world. When asked why she was choosing this mine to make an example of, she had insisted that it was not the use of children that sparked her ire. Bane's eyes had not believed her at the time, and she had sworn to that truth even in the deepest corners of her own mind, but now . . .

She looked down at her watch. Beyond them, the third checkpoint went off.

Her mouth set in determination, she came over to the edge of the shaft - where a wooden elevator of sorts rested above her head. In the bottom of the shaft she could clearly hear the sound of a child's cries. There were other voices to join the one that cried - shushing and comforting but still youthful themselves.

"Hello?" Talia called down the shaft.

"Hello!" the voice from below turned from his soothing whispers to call up above. "Is anyone up there?" There was relief in the voice. The whimpers from the one that had been crying stilled.

And Talia looked around, trying to find the pulley for the cart to get the children up to safety. "Why do you still linger?" she called. "Did you not hear the call to evacuate?" Her fingers made a fist, needing to know the problem before she could help.

"We cannot," another voice replied, older than the first, but still young - the voice of a boy lingering in that strange place between child and young adult. "The pulley for the cart is jammed, and Sarji broke his leg when the alarm went off - it startled him and he fell from his post."

Talia swallowed as the fourth checkpoint went off. The alarm for the flood still wailed.

She swallowed, setting her shoulders in determination. "I am coming down," she announced to the children, "Step back."

At her side, Yeman – their explosives expert, whom they had picked up in Tehran - started, his face had turned in distaste from the first moment of their delay, and now he was openly disapproving. "You have not the time," he protested. "We have but a scarce few minutes, and -"

"Then you waste my time now, do you not?" she hissed. "Make for the surface," she ordered, turning from him to look at the rest of her men. Her gaze brokered no argument. "All of you. I will succeed or fail alone, and you need not follow me."

She needed not to order twice, and then there was the shuffling of retreating feet. Beyond them, the sounds of explosions grew. The fifth cheekpoint then, Talia counted.

When Talia did the rappel line at her belt, her fingers were steady. They did not shake.

Next to her her, Barsad stayed to tie off the other end of the line to one of the strong wooden beams that supported the shaft. His mouth was a determined slash on his face, stretching like a wound.

"I thought I gave an order," Talia raised a brow, curious when Barsad still lingered. "Why do you not run?"

"You did give an order, I heard you," Barsad said simply. His voice was free of fear, but his eyes flickered to the shaft below, and then there was a flicker of worry in their grey-blue depths. "But, the time, milady," he reminded her, his voice that same even, gentle lilt. Steady and sure.

She would linger on thoughts of the sniper later, Talia thought as she stepped into the black air of the shaft, her line hissing as it uncoiled. She fell, the sensation sending butterflies into her stomach for the seconds it took her to reach the ground below. She touched the bottom safely a mere moment later.

Immediately, she was greeted by the dark gazes of the children – four of them. The eldest was a boy of thirteen years with a dirt stained face. He was calm, holding his thin arms around the younger ones, who all but clung to him in their fear. There were two boys of ten, perhaps, and then a tiny one of eight years. Talia felt her stomach settle sickly as she thought of such a life within the mines, at the bottom of a prison of stone, and looking up without the hope of rising . . .

Her hands slipped as she undid the line from her belt.

"My name is Talia," she introduced herself, trying to keep her voice easy and cheerful for the children's sake. They did not need to know how little time they had. "And I am going to get you out of here."

The sounds of explosions were very close now now. The seventh and eighth checkpoint went off as one.

"Here, you first," she said, taking the eldest and the youngest boy at the same time – the younger one whose leg was indeed held at an unnatural angle. Talia winced at the thought of moving him, but further damage to the limb would be better than not moving him at all. She was simply thankful that the child was unconscious - his sleep hiding him from the pain of their flight. It must of been him whom she had heard cry earlier.

Her mind worked as she did the line – the middle two she would be able to carry up with her. Their combined weight was not too much, and time would not allow for any other way. "Barsad!" she called up. "As soon as these two come up, you start running. The child will have to be carried. And when I say that this is an order, I mean it this time!" her voice echoed as she tugged on the line. Above her, Barsad started reeling the children up.

The explosions were near now, very near. The ninth checkpoint went off, Talia counted in her mind. Fear licked in her bones as the line was tossed back to her. Above, she heard Barsad depart, and she knew that her time was short as she did the line about herself and the two little ones, hoping that the wire would hold, that it would be enough -

"I don't like heights much," one of the children said as she held him near – one child underneath each arm, cradling them to her body.

"Think of it as flying ten," Talia said, trying to keep her voice low, soothing. "Close your eyes, and it shall all be over soon." Small fists bunched in the material of her uniform, and her heart ached at the gesture. How easy a child trusted, how easily a child had the faith to rise . . .

Talia thumbed the release, and they sprang through the air easily enough. She held her breath, expecting them to reach the top when -

- the nearest checkpoint exploded, shaking the ground around them, and sending them swinging sickly through the air. A shower of rock fragments and splintered wood flung out at her, and she curled as much of herself over the children as she could, instinct falling into her limbs as she shushed them, all the while trying to get the line to go again. It was stuck, she felt. It would go up no more.

Talia felt her insides turn as she thought through their options. They could rappel up no longer, Talia realized, her fingertips white as she held the children close. And she could not climb with such a load. If she did so, she ran the risk of loosing the two clinging to her . . .

The front of her uniform was wet. Tremors wracked the small forms she held close. A strange peace settled over her as she rubbed her hands absently at their backs, accepting that they would move no further than this.

"Have you ever heard the story of Icarus?" Talia asked softly, trying to ease the fear she saw settle on the two small faces. The children had yet to open their eyes, still following her suggestion from earlier.

One boy shook his head, and Talia felt the fist about her heart move up even higher still. It was hard to breathe for a moment. In her mind she heard her father say weak, foolish girl - condemning the emotion in her that had sealed her own end. She steeled her jaw against it, refusing to let her father be foremost in her mind at the end.

Instead . . .

"Icarus was a boy who was imprisoned with his father," Talia told the tale gently. "And his father built him wings from bird feathers and candle wax so that he could fly away over the ocean, so that he could be free -"

Her voice faltered when she felt them start to rise. There was a tug on the line then – long, jerky movements that told that someone was lifting them bodily, nothing but raw strength and determination lifting them to the top.

Had Barsad returned, then? Talia wondered as they reached the summit. The children in her hold stirred as far beneath them, flames licked and rose, and -

- a strong hand reached down to tug them all over the lip of the shaft, shoving them out of the way and behind a outcropping of rock as explosions rocked the mine below. Talia held her breath instinctively, leaning back into the strong form that sheltered them all as the ground shook, and smoke and debris filled the air from the flames that filled the shaft where they just were. Her breath caught.

The ground stilled, and -

"We can not linger here," came the rasping voice, and Talia opened her eyes to see Bane hovering over them all, discreetly watching the children in her hold in order to ascertain their wellbeing. The children opened their eyes, and Talia felt as they burrowed closer to her at the sight of the large man in the mask. She shushed them. "He is a friend," she assured them. "You need not fear."

They quieted, but only just. When Talia got to her feet, she moved to pick the nearest boy up, but Bane shook his head. "We have not the time for you to be hindered," he said, before kneeling down before the little ones. He was very still for a moment, meeting the gaze of first one boy and then the other, something unreadable passing between them. The boys blinked, and small smiles spread - welcoming, and then Bane picked both of the children up, one brother in each arm, his strong frame easily accommodating the extra weight. They took off through the steppes of the mine, making it to where Barsad was left waiting with one of the jeeps. The rest of their men had already departed.

By the time they made the drive back to the mining town and left the children with those who could reacquaint them with their families, it was drawing close to the evening hour. Satisfaction coiled in her gut as the landscape ran by beyond them on the long drive back to their base. As Bane reported of the second and third team's dealings, she nodded along to his words, pleased to know that their plan had gone off as expected - with few casualties on their part from security at the plant and the dam. They had struck a blow on behalf of the people that day - they had spoken a message that would be hard to ignore.

"Dealings with MINETEC will move swiftly after this," Talia concluded, her smile stretching as she thought of the next few days she would spend in the boardroom. How victory would be sweet indeed . . .

"Ah," Barsad said softly from his position behind the wheel. "Very much a 'your brains or your signature will be on the contract' sort of deal?"

Talia raised a brow, feeling as if there was a reference in the sniper's words that she was missing. Bane mirrored her look.

And Barsad sighed, the barest of smiles tugging on the corner of his mouth. "We are not big on the pop culture references around here, are we?"

Talia shook her head, a brow raised in amusement, even as Bane let out a small snort of laughter. Barsad's eyes twinkled, and the rest of the ride was spent in silence.

.

.

A year had passed since their affairs in Armenia, and already their Brotherhood of Shadows – what her men more commonly called the League of Assassins – was growing in strength and might. To their permanent name, they had near a hundred men now – a hundred good men, worthy of the training and the dogma's places upon their shoulders.

But the running of an operation such as theirs required investments and capital – and while Talia had been careful planning her accounts and finances from that first lucrative surge of income when she left her father's house, new revenues and sources of trade were always under her radar for the betterment of their cause.

That end was what brought her to Moscow that week – and, more specifically, to the Bolshoi opera house to see the ballet open their season with Khachaturian's Spartacus. That evening, she hung on the arm of one General Piotr Vasilevich, a man who had made his fortune in his country's vast oil and natural gas reserves. In the post Soviet economy, much had shifted and changed in the balance of power, and once the Russian Federation emerged from the ashes, Vasilevich's careful planning had won himself a plush seat in the new order. His wealth was built on the struggles of his country, and Talia was only too happy to take that gilded chair from him.

And so, there she was, in a red velvet box on the right side of the theater. The box gave a terrible view of the stage, but all in the audience could see them perfectly well - the seats of the elite, as always, were more for the showing off of their wealth and status rather than a way to appreciate the dramatic art being played out on the stage below. Talia tilted her neck as best she could, and still let herself enjoy the show. The dancing was violent and passionate, and Talia cared more for it than she did for the odious man whom fortune insisted that she deal with. She sat prettily at Piotr's side, a smile stitched to her face from her arsenal of such weapons – all sharpened and kept clean as much as she did with her knives. After a week of eating out of her hand, Piotr would swear anything to her - including a sizable investment from his rather extensive fortune – which would someday lead to a complete overtaking of his companies, if she played her hand right - and Talia considered her work done.

At the end of the performance, Talia saw to it that the General's valet took him away from the evening – having slipped a special blend of herbs into his champagne earlier in order to ensure that he would have a night of pleasant slumber rather than the company he so expected. She smoothed out the front of her skirts as Piotr was carried away, preparing to leave.

She had lingered until the auditorium was empty but for the theater's own personal who were cleaning up after the performance. The lights were dim already, casting long shadows this way and that. It was an almost eerie silence, held too still in the eaves of a building that was made for sound – for an orchestra's wave and a singer's soaring tones. As soon as she pushed aside the velvet curtains of the box, she slipped her shoes from her feet and winced as the arches of her feet realigned themselves to stand levelly upon the ground. The thickly carpeted floor was soft under her toes, and for a moment she winced, not even wanting to put them back on for the cobblestone ways outside.

Ah, but it in Russia, she reminded herself, the ground would undoubtedly be cold outside. She looked beyond the walls of the theater, and wondered if it was snowing. That thought in her mind – that longing in her heart, she made to leave the theater, ready to distance herself from the folds of gold and marble, the womb of music and the haunting strains of dead arias left wafting in the air in favor of the night air beyond.

A shadow detached itself from the wall when she turned to make her leave through one of the service corridors, keeping to the unused ways of the theater to avoid being seen. The shadow fell into step next to her, and Talia raised a brow, her mouth a straight line upon her face.

"I had felt you lurking about this evening, my friend," she said in greeting.

"Such theaters have long been accustomed to sharing their shadows with shades, if indeed I was lurking," Bane said levelly in return. His footsteps were silent, the only sound on the air was the breath through his mask. The hum of his mask was an overly synthetic sound, surrounded by gild and velvet as they were.

"Lurking you were indeed," Talia retorted, her mouth forming a smile without humor, "And yet, you are in the wrong city for such a thing, my friend."

"And only Paris can lay claim to a masked ghost in its theater's shadows?" Bane inquired curiously.

A chuckle escaped her lips, amusement rising in her throat instead of irritation. "It is very French, you have to admit? Few other theaters could handle such a paranormal specter so well," Talia responded in French, slipping into the rolling language as if the shadow of the Pit was still around them, and they played with one tongue and then the next in order to pass the time.

"I would understand a ghost's preference for Paris," Bane gave, steadily keeping his voice to the language of her childhood – the soothing dips and slurs those she remembered from her mother's mouth.

Talia's eyes fluttered at the sound of that language on his lips, her skin warming as if remembering the dessert sun. Her mouth was suddenly dry, as if from thirst, even though she still held the taste of champagne in the back of her mouth.

"I had thought that there was a football game that had drawn your attention to the evening?" Talia questioned from a different angle. While not a tradition – Bane and Barsad (who had risen through their ranks to be Bane's most trusted man - a friend, had they lived any other life besides their own; had Bane not had Talia and her shadows and little regard for anything else) were known to slink to whatever football stadium they were near and watch a game when they could in the shadows.

"There was," Bane said without giving more.

"Ah," Talia said, raising a brow. Her voice was clipped from her mouth. "You thought your eyes were better suited here?"

"Or perhaps I am simply a fan of Khachaturian," Bane responded levelly.

Talia raised a brow, trying to bite down the annoyance she suddenly felt rise in her throat – knowing that he did not tail her out of doubting her own skills, but rather for a sheer distaste of the games she played with such men.

"And Barsad is as fond of Khachaturian as you are?" Talia questioned.

"Even more so," Bane's voice was dry.

Talia sighed, fighting the urge to rub at her temples. "I hope that you at least waved him away before coming to fetch me. Or is he still lingering in some corner of the theater?"

"He did not linger in any corner," Bane said conversationally, "He was bought a box of his own."

Talia blinked. "I did not notice."

"He was directly across the auditorium from you, and one box over," Bane said. "I am surprised that he went past your notice – unless your companion's conversation was so engrossing this evening? Then such lapses can be understood."

Talia bristled. "What can I say? Khachaturian is enough to ensnare the senses completely."

"Indeed," Bane's voice was clipped, a match for her own.

And Talia sighed, suddenly weary. Her annoyance failed her, like a flame without the air to give it life. "Such men as Piotr are a necessary evil, Baldassare," Talia said gently, speaking to the rage that even still lurked in his eyes. "I lead them with my words, and they read what promises they think dwell there. Nothing more."

A moment passed before Bane spoke. Even feeling as he did, his steps still shadowed her own, a mirror unfailing. Talia breathed, and could feel as his breath echoed his own; like two bodies cut from the same fabric of flesh. "Even the honor of your eyes, of your words, bestowed in such a way . . . Even if you are only as a spider spinning her web, each and every gift of your attention burns," Bane said frankly. It was the first time he had said so, and she knew it would be the last - for not lightly would he voice his discomfort, and not lightly would he belittle the choices she made for their Brothers - for the cold flame deep in the core of her. "It is disquieting . . ." he finally admitted, as if sharing something secret. His voice was a stilled whisper, as if even he was discomforted by the depths of the ferocity which he carried in his veins. "It is disquieting, how little I care for a man's right to live and breathe when he even looks upon you, let alone those who think themselves entitled to more – those who expect more."

She twined her arm through his, resting her head on her shoulder as they walked. She sighed. "And words are all they have – smoke and mirrors - an artist's lie. I have known your touch, and yours alone, and only you have seen the face that is truly my own. What I show to the rest of the world is only a mask - thought not as tangible as yours."

Bane was silent, saying naught of the thoughts that were as a noose about his mind. Her words were a truth to him - something he accepted at a logical level, if not as anything deeper, and it was for that reason and that reason alone that he let the men she dallied with live. If ever one was to push past her words and whispers for more than she currently gave . . . Bane did not obey her, he did not serve her, so much as he moved in time with her - his goals and aspirations meeting and matching her own. If that day ever came, she knew that she would not be able to keep the blood from his hands. In a moment of honesty – a dark moment, born from the part of her that was still Pit-feral and fed - she knew that she would not want to, delighting as she did in the dark thread of possession that had layered his voice when he had had simply admitted his jealousy to her.

Talia bit her lip as she thought, wondering if such a twisted thrill was something that she should worry over in the depths of her psyche. She turned the question over in her mind before pushing it away, knowing that if she judged her thoughts by the rules the rest of humanity used to govern their lives, then she would be found wanting indeed. But they . . . they did not have the means nor the determination to do what was necessary. The world was built on evil, but it could be cleansed by necessary evil, just as the forests were fed and made fertile again by fire. The most violent of deaths gave way to the greatest of births - what was born from the ashes was always the stronger for that which had died before.

Finally, she sighed, her thoughts as a weight on her shoulders.

"Sometimes," she whispered, "I wonder what any other life would have given to us. Here we attend the theater, I in my mask, and you in your shadows. Under any other circumstances, I would have helped you knot your bow tie for the evening. I would have smoothed the lapels of your suit. Perhaps, on normal days, I would even match my dresses with your ties – if you were some accountant or doctor and I was -"

Her mental picture faded, unable as she was to see herself without blood and steel, even in her most fervent imaginings. She searched for an occupation, unable to find one beyond knives and fire. "A dancer . . . an artist?" Bane supplied when her pause stretched on.

"Aren't I already?" Talia smirked.

"In a way," Bane said levelly, and she rolled her eyes unseen from him.

"We would have a quaint two story brick house, and a child or two," she continued, feeling a smile turn up over the words. "Or three," she said next, something right about the number settling on her tongue. Another time, another life . . . she thought, and something twisted, deep inside of her. Longing, perhaps? The emotion was hard to define in the deep of her. She could not put a name to it.

"With a white picket fence," Bane added.

"A dog named Spot," she mused aloud.

"It sounds perfectly . . ." he faltered, searching for the right word.

"Dull?" Talia supplied for him, something heavy sitting in her stomach, like a stone.

"I wouldn't say that entirely," Bane gave carefully. She stiffened, just slightly, worrying her lip between her teeth. For this world was hers, and into her shadows Bane had followed - not out of love for them, but for her. It was not the first time she wondered at his place at her side, and it would not be the last . . . "And yet, I regret not of the decisions that have led me here," he said, no doubt feeling the tension in her spine, travelling from her body to his. "I would each and every one of them, had I again to choose."

"All of them?" she looked up. His mask was swallowed by the shadows, nothing but a black shape where the light did not touch.

A second. "All of them," Bane breathed as they came to the exit of the theater.

Before the doors, Talia leaned on her friend in order to put on the accursed heels that went with her dress. The sides of the stilettos were scuffed from a stumble she had taken earlier while preparing for the evening. The sight of the mark made her smile, remembering those long hours she had spent in her father's house – learning to dance while wearing such things, Bane's smile shaped to tease from the corner of her room as his eyes lingered with an intensity she had not understood then . . .

Her cheeks were flushed, but the air beyond the theater was cold. Cleansing.

She looked up, and saw that it was snowing. The clouds hid the moon and stars from the sky. Fat flakes of snow glittered in the lamplight as they fell, bathing the city in a starry field of its own. The world was quiet in that moment, the bastion of stone and mortar around her turning in on itself for the night.

As they passed the shadow of the quadriga, Bane held her closer to her side – to shield his face, to add to her warmth, to protect them both against the cold biting at their bones – a dozen reasons passed through her mind, but none mattered in the end as she leaned in to him, content to share his stride until it could not be told where her shadow ended and his began.

.

.

Two years after their flight from the League of Shadows, their Brotherhood in Antalya grew past a hundred men.

The base she built in the green mountains becomes prosperous, pregnant and full with the sound of voices. The training rooms were alight with steel and arms of fire. The kitchens bustled – chores traded and completed as they had been at the League those years ago. There was a constant coming and going – those senior of her trust and care now taking missions on their own, all in the name of their Brothers left behind.

This time, instead of eating at their sides, instead of toiling in the kitchens and scrubbing the floors of the dojo – her name nothing where all must have a share – she stayed in the distance, in the background, like a shadow, a wraith. She kept separate from the men of her Brotherhood. Where her father had been tangible amongst his own men – even when hiding behind the shadow of Henri Ducard, Talia was an idea, a whisper – a specter lingering, female shaped, behind their leader. They thought Bane to be the head of the beast, and Talia let their illusions remain.

Instead, she capitalized on Bane's ability to speak; to lead and to inflame and inspire. He became the physical head of their order, no one ever the wiser that he bowed to another when the doors were shut and the curtains drawn. But, that was as much as the tides bowed to the moon – each tugging and pulling and being drawn in return. Bane took her mantle of leadership with tender hands, as if afraid to bruise a dream, and in the wake of her trust he was building an empire to someday aspire to the same ranks as her father's.

Where Bane was their leader and lord, Barsad took on many of the roles that Ubu would have once held. The men would never find a friend in Bane – but in Barsad they took their tiffs and complaints. Barsad, in turn, reported to them, and the knowing of the everyday human connections in their ranks made for smoother sailing in the long run – keeping an eye on morale and the individual cares and aspirations within their ranks.

In Barsad as a whole, Bane had found himself a shadow – much as Ubu had seconded her father's steps. As Ubu had placed himself as both sword and shield in the hands of the Demonhead, so the sniper became to Bane. The man moved through their ranks, slowly growing in their trust, moving from hired hand and bodyguard to a voice of reason at their councils and trusted spokesmen whenever they moved men on their own missions - away from her and Bane's direct contact. Talia could not go that extra step and call them friends, for Bane was oddly uncertain over how to deal with such a thing, and Barsad was leery to step past the line that separated commander and commanded.

Ubu would have liked him, Talia thought, thinking of the sniper's soft and oftentimes morbid humor, and the easy sort of insight he wore behind his eyes like sorrow. Thoughts of Ubu still bought a pain to Talia – not unlike missing – but whenever those moments would come, she would breathe in deep with them, and exhale. The emotion meant nothing to her. She needed it not. And so, memory of her friend was forgotten until it could again be of use to her.

And yet, just as a well oiled machine was of great value, of great worth, it was still a machine, and things of steel and wood broke. Cogs slipped from their sockets, and gears sputtered and refused to spin.

And, sometimes, things needed to be broken to work again.

It had started simply enough. The dojo was divided into rings – on the lowest rings, the oldest of their recruits worked with their newest, teaching them the basics that they themselves had learned at Bane's side. In the middle rings their intermediate Brothers trained with each other, and, most often, with Bane – who took over at this step of their development, a critical eye out for success and failure. In the outermost circles, the advanced recruits worked within their own ranks, advancing their own skills and sharpening those of the others. When eager enough for a test, a challenge, they would draw Bane into their circle – Bane, who could crush a neck with one hand, who knew the hollow spaces between bones and the fragile spots on flesh, became a teacher then – easily disarming his student's attacks, even the most advanced of them, and speaking why he did so, ever schooling, ever shaping. Forging.

Talia, who remembered his schooling from her earliest years, felt her heart hang heavy in her chest watching this. What had happened in the world Before (as she abstractly thought of Bane before the Pit, when his face was youthful and he knew the light of the sun. When he was called Baldassare and not Bane – monstrosity and nightmare and feared, half-feral thing), to allow him to instruct in such a way? Where had he himself learned? It was a question she often held on the tip of her tongue, trapped behind her syllables at odd points of the day. But he would not answer and she had ceased to ask – letting him keep his secrets for as long as he deemed them necessary to keep.

She returned one day to silence in her office – overlooking the training rings bellow, much as her father's had at the monastery. She had just completed business a week of business in Mumbai – her hair still smelled of the hot sun and thick spices. Though she wore a grey business coat, she still had dozens of golden bracelets on her arms, their sound musical as they moved – an indulgence as she had yet to remove. The soft, thin material of her shalwar khameez slipped against her skin, a bright flare of color underneath the drab tones she wore overtop. Few would of known of her return but for Basard – who had met her at the airport in the city, and for Bane, who had an uncanny sixth sense for her comings and goings.

But whispers had followed, speaking of the wisp of the woman who walked through their halls – Ammon was foremost amongst those voices, having catching sight of her golden jewelry and speaking of it to his fellows. Vaguely, she remembered recruiting him during a rather violent piece of business in Alexandria. Bane had liked the man - all dusky skin and clever eyes, and rather crafty when it came to wielding a knife.

But his tongue was loose, and his words were tinted with scorn as he dared to speak aloud to his fellows the only reason a woman could be of use to Bane - especially hidden so in shadows. When his whispers had turned crude – much to the shifting eyes of his fellows, who were not as bold to speak so of their leader, even when hidden by shadows – detailing the exact ways that his mask would hinder such activities, he had had the gall to be surprised when he was plucked from the shadows that had concealed him – stirring the beast that lurked underneath the calm and amiable voice of Bane, distorted by rasps and venomous fumes.

Talia still hadn't bothered to take the gold bracelets from her arms as she knelt before Ammon's prostrate form – held into place by Basard's restraining hand and Bane's unkind eyes both. When she lowered the hood from over her head – revealing her thickly lashed eyes and sensual mouth, that same mouth had smiled to see the understanding on Ammon's face when he realized just how the balance of power worked at the summit of the Brotherhood – Bane and Barsad both looking on her in reverence as she traced a painted nail over the curve of his chin, the rise of his cheek. She fought the urge to nip at his flesh, to taste blood pool under skin and let her teeth linger.

She exhaled, rising. As she passed Bane, she let that same hand rest on one of Bane's broad shoulders. She had to reach up to do so.

"See to it that he cannot speak again," she said conversationally. "After that, I leave the decision of his fate to you." As she spoke, she let her touch wander over the back of his neck, finding the path of stones that was her friend's spine. She needed no touch of her mouth to make Bane's eyes flicker – a barest glimpse of emotion for the sake of the man bound at their feet, just enough for him to understand what Talia was to Bane, and he was to her.

By the time Bane returned that evening, Talia had already washed the scent of Mumbai from her skin, and was dressed naught but for a pale beige robe for the night. She had her charts and maps out in the lamplight, but her eyes were unfocused, far away.

She was lost in thought, remembering the easy way Bane had taught the green students in the moments before their day had turned unsavory. She remembered the rightness of him as mentor and teacher both.

In any other life, would he have taken so easily to blood and fire? From is mask, a whistled tune fell in discordant tones as he went into the bathroom to wash the blood from his hands. It had touched little anywhere else. He was careful. Precise.

And she sighed as she got to her feet. Her thoughts were heavy in her eyes as she leaned against the doorpost, watching him. The water was pink in the sink.

"You watch me as you would have watched the sky years ago, little one," he said. She blinked at the old nickname, her hands falling to fiddle with the tie of her robe.

She opened her mouth, wishing to share her thoughts. They curdled on her tongue, but she could give them no shape.

Bane waited patiently – turning off the sink and drying his hands. When he stepped closer to her – hooking a single finger under the point of her chin to turn her gaze up, his skin still smelled of copper. Her eyes glanced to the shower beyond him, suddenly wishing for the comfort of steam and water as blood was washed away for that base scent that was him and him alone.

His eyes followed her gaze, but his mask hid his expression from her. Her fingers itched, wanting to peel that veil away. Her mouth hooked, but that too was unsaid on her lips. She could not find a way to say it.

While his first finger held her chin, his thumb came to caress the skin beneath her mouth - tender and loving, assuring.

"What else would there be?" he asked then, his mask hardly picking up from the whisper from his mouth. "A white picket fence?"

She swallowed. "And a dog named spot," she finished, her words falling against his skin.

She could not see his smile, but she could see the crinkling around his eyes. She could feel his fondness in the shape of his skin. "I want naught of it," he said softly, his voice a promise – an assurance, all you are stronger than these walls – the sky can deny you not.

She swallowed. Her throat was a stone, sinking with her breath. Instead of answering, she leaned her head forward against him, a burden slipping from her shoulders – a weight falling but not forgotten, there to join her shadow.

.

.

Five months later found them in Durban, South Africa, breaking up a shipping line of the corrupt Ten Knives organization – a league of men who dabbled in everything from weapons to live human cargo, with men for hire and armies available to the highest bidder along the way. Over the years, the Ten Knives had developed a monopoly on criminal shipping - running cargo from Shenzen and Busan to Dubai and Durban and then as far north in the world as Hamburg and Felixstowe. They were branching out across the sea then, touching even the ports of Gotham and South Lousiana in the States.

Tackling the Ten Knives was one of the most ambitious missions she had given to her men yet. To optimize their blow, Talia and her Brothers picked a time to strike when the three highest ranking men of the Knives would be in Durban, overseeing a shipment of arms to Jeddah, a port city in Saudi Arabia. Along with the deaths of the lead men in the organization, her Brothers would also sabotage the shipments of some very dangerous men – casting doubt on the wisdom of dealing with the Ten Knives after the careful campaign Talia had been waging against dozens of their other shipments as well over the last year. It was a large organization to topple – in some ways, it was akin to toppling a small country, but she had not lasted for so long in life by thinking small. Her men she trusted implicitly - she would take any of them over her father's Shadows. Her Brothers, formed in flame and crucible and blood as she had been . . .

Fighting on the docks was long, and it was bloody. The men of the Ten Knives were no mere hired hands, they were true assassins, cruel ex-military men, devoted to their trade and demanding top dollar from their employees for their skills. It had been a very long time since Talia had faced off with someone worthy of her skills, and it had been liberating standing toe to toe with weapons of steel rather than weapons of words.

But, that night, they were not the only ones who thought the Ten Knives ripe for the picking.

When she made it to the Harbor Master's office – in the summit of a tall tower standing regally from the piers - none other than Ra's al-Ghul himself and his Seven Hands were there already, her prize claimed as their own as the dead bodies of the Ten Knive's overseers feel to the ground, their blood running sluggishly to soak the rug underneath them.

Talia had stood in the doorway with her chest heaving, her eyes looking on in disbelief as Ra's calmly turned to face her – his smile as easy as if he had seen her just the other day rather than years prior. Only the coolness around his eyes revealed a glimpse of his true emotions.

The cold flame at the core of her flared into life then. It burned.

"An adequate diversion, daughter," Ra's said, his voice as pleasant as if he were asking her to pass the salt at dinner as he flicked the overlord's blood from his blade. The Chinese sword caught the light, and she focused on that for a moment rather than the mocking glow in her father's eyes.

"Diversion?" she repeated incredulously, finding her voice – lost as it had been by the tightening of her chest. "We did all of the grunt labor so that your Seven here could sit pretty without sullying their armor. This victory is not your own!"

Ra's' face creased in delicate disapproval – as if she were still a child, throwing a tantrum that he had to sit patiently through. She clenched her hands, wishing that she did not wear her gauntlets and gloves. She wanted to feel the press of her nails into her skin. "The only victories you have achieved, daughter, are those we have allowed you to."

He held himself haughtily as he signaled to his men, and neatly, moving as shadows, they followed their master from the office. Talia stood for a moment and watched them go, ire and shame fighting for supremacy in her as she sheathed her twin blades, sick of the feel of steel in that moment

She did not step to the side, but the Seven brushed past her anyway, scarcely disturbing her in their haste to leave. At her back, Barsad was a presence, a weight, and suddenly Talia was so very grateful that Bane still fought with the men below – for that was a confrontation she wished to postpone indefinitely, knowing as she did that Bane would hold his blows before her father for her sake, but unsure if her father would grant the other that same honor.

Ra's was the last of his men to leave – standing in her shadow and lingering. "Did you think that once you walked free of the shadows, that their stain would touch you not?"

He lingered a moment. Her breath was shared with his.

And then he left, leaving Talia in the wake of his cool disdain. Her fisted hands trembled, even while the rest of her seemed to be carved from stone – untouchable and unmoving.

Behind her, Barsad wisely said nothing. He did not lift a hand – either for comfort, or to urge her onwards. He was merely silent.

And Talia exhaled violently. She spun on her heel, and ordered her men to draw back. There was nothing left for them there.

While Bane and Barsad rallied the men and took care of the loose ends, Talia retreated to the sea shore, angrily throwing rocks into the lazy rolling of the surf. The sea was not placid that night, it was angry, coming in with a great and rolling rage, attacking the rocks of the seashore rather than gently kissing the sand. Above her, the moon was full, yanking on the chains of the tides before sending the waters reeling back to crash against dry land.

Her vision was white. Talia knew exactly how the waves felt.

She did not know how much time had passed – she only knew that the moon had waned to her left and there were new stars in the sky by the time Bane joined her. He ignored her anger and her steady assault of stones she threw to be swallowed by the waves. He took a seat on one of the lower hanging rocks as she continued with her task, sitting with his wrists crossed lazily over his knees. The light from the heavens made twisted shapes on his mask, it cast distorted shadows against his skin.

Adequate . . . diversion . . . allowed. The flame at the core of her was behind her eyes then, she couldn't see past it.

With an inarticulate sound, she threw the last stone from her hand. It split like a tear in the tissue of the waves before the water crested, crashing upon itself, and her stone was no more.

She stood very still for a moment – doing nothing but breathing as she willed the static to disappear from her gaze.

She was only moderately successful.

"Diversion," she spat as soon as her thundering pulse was quiet enough to allow her words. She reached down at her feet, picking up more pebbles. "Adequate," another rock pierced the waves. "Allowed," and another. "Who does he think he is?" Talia seethed, her voice thin and shrill at the end of her syllables.

She ran out of stones.

Twirling in place, she looked down at the ground beneath her. She moved another step to the right, that area of the shore picked dry. But she moved too fast, and her vision swirled drunkenly. She fell to one knee, trying to catch her breath, trying to still the spinning of the world around her.

Her other knee fell to join the first. Her fists trembled as she knelt before giving up and sinking completely to sit upon the shore. Her hair whipped wildly around her face, caught in the same dance of the waves in the ocean beyond.

A moment passed, and then another. As her heart stilled in her chest, another shadow joined hers. She looked up, and for a moment, Bane blocked out the light of the moon. She inhaled shakily, her lungs aching in her chest.

"I do not understand why I still care," she admitted miserably as he knelt down next to her. "It is clear that I have passed from his thoughts. It is clear that my work – a shadow of his own," she laughed hollowly, "reaches not the lofty and high standards of the League of Shadows. But I . . ." the words were trapped on her tongue, she could not get them out.

Suddenly weary, she leaned forward, wrapping her arms about herself. She rested her forehead against Bane's chest, lulled by the strong and steady beat of his heart. He was still slow to embrace her – resting only a heavy hand against her back as he let her work through her grief, acting as an eye in her storm until she was ready to calm completely.

"Why do I still care so much for what he thinks?" Talia asked into his chest. Her breathing had calmed, lulling in order to match the steady cadence of his own. "It would be so much easier if I just knew hate. If I just knew anger for his condescension, for his hypocrisy. Because, I do . . . I want his pride in me. I want his favor." I want his love, she admitted miserably in the shadows of her mind, unable to let the words drop from her lips – even to Bane's ears, whom she thought of as an extension of her own body, of her own soul.

But she couldn't . . . She could not shape her mouth around the words.

And, somehow, he heard what she did not say. He saw what hid behind her eyes, like a fawn in the forest shadows. "He is a fool not to love you," Bane said gently. His hand was no longer still against his back – he traced slow circles, rubbing soothingly. His touch was hindered by the straps of her armor, the thick padding of her vest, but she could still feel the heat of him.

"I thought . . . I thought that with all of the work I did from afar . . . work so much like his own life's mission . . . I thought that when he did not see my face – my mother's face -" Talia laughed bitterly, for as each day passed and she grew into her years, she was Melisande's ghost returned completely. All but for her eyes . . . her father's eyes. "I thought, that without me there as a constant reminder, he would love – if not me – then my actions. He would find pride for the work I did in his name. But it is for nothing, it would seem."

She turned her face so that her cheek rested against the coarse fabric of the front of his shirt. The straps of his own armor were coarse. They chaffed against her skin.

"Before Father found me," she started, exorcising an old tale, an old grief, still fresh in her chest, "I was a petty thief – thinking that I took from those who had more to give to those had little. I killed those who held their power over others, but I was young and blindly striking out against the injustices of the world," she sighed. "When Ra's found me in that prison, he said that I was flailing aimlessly, striking against the shadows of injustice rather than its core. I hate . . . I hate to think that he thinks that of me even still. And I hate that I yearn for his approval, even still. It is . . . it is such a flame inside of me. I feel that I cannot breathe with wanting it so, at times."

She wondered if he could see it shining through her, the cold flame at the core of her – she wondered if it spilled out from behind her eyes and seeped through her pores, if it lingered in the cracks and corners of her body and glittered for all to see. She felt could feel it rising with her breath at times, encircling her bones like new skin . . .

"Nothing you feel is wrong, my dear," he whispered, his voice a low hiss from his mask. My dear, not little one – she to be protected or held close, but rather she of strength. And her strength was as much her own as that which she gave to him and he to her in return. She sucked in a breath. "I cannot give you the words you seek," Bane continued, "but I can say . . . I can say that your father is a man whose mind words in shadows – perhaps even to himself. I fear nothing for your feelings but for that same shadow to someday poison your own soul."

Her hands fisted against his chest. She fought the urge to strike then. She forced her limbs to be boneless rather than straight and severe.

"How do I let this feeling go?" she mumbled, her voice muffled from where she had pressed her face against him. He heard her anyway.

"When you learn how to do so, my dear," Bane's voice was rueful. "Do let me know."

She snorted, a stab of black amusement stabbing between her ribs as she leaned back enough from him to look up at his face. She could not see his eyes, only the spidery shape of his mask, dark in the unlight. She could not smell the salt of the sea over the sour smell of the venom he breathed, numbing his pain.

She reached up, gently running a single fingertip over the tubes and metal plates. Her lips tingled as she remembered those same shapes under her mouth – breathing in devotion and apology both.

Her fingers stilled. She could feel her breath against her skin.

He was not the only one to wear a mask, her thoughts reminded er. But the one she wore offered her not of oblivion, of peace. She thought as such, but did not say the words aloud. Instead, she let the ocean chase away the sound of her thoughts, the festering source of her pain, and tried to find peace in the tide.

.

.

In the fall after Durban, she saw Don Giovanni at Prague's Stavovské Divadlo.

She sat, quiet at the side of that night's target, as Donna Anna's murdered father came as stone and righteous breath, allowing Giovanni one last chance at repentance before dragging the rake to hell. The chorus of devils and demons drowned out Giovanni's last despairing notes as he descended bellow the stage. But even with the flames, brimstone and salt, he still refused to admit his error; he still refused to seek forgiveness from a spirit that he had wronged in the most grievous of ways.

Talia exhaled, the stiff corset of her dress making it hard to do anything more. She fanned her face as she uttered something simpering about the heat from the flames on stage, but, in truth, she saw little else as the final notes rang sweetly through the too-warm air.

She stood before the orchestra played its last bars, and turned from the box. Her heart was hammering like Leporello's on the stage below. Her fingers were white knuckled as she picked up the skirts of her dress.

"You did not enjoy the finale?" came the question from Lord Lepedo's lips – her 'date' for the evening – and Talia hid a smile behind her fan before snapping it shut with a flick of her wrist.

"What can I say? A little opera goes a long way," she teased, winding her arm through his as if she truly were a jeweled flower of the aristocracy. She lead him those final steps, and unlike Don Pedro, she gave the murderer on her arm little time to repent of his sins. There was no heaven and hell in her world; only the grey in-between of the shadows. And the shadows answered to her.

She thought not of her father as the man's screams were cut off before they began.

"Questo è il fin di chi fa mal, e de' perfidi la morte alla vita è sempre ugual," she whispered as she fell to the background of the action, her voice cold.

Such is the end of the evildoer; the death of a sinner always reflects his life.

She fisted her hands, and felt nothing.

.

.

Time passed. Days spent out their hours and nights passed on as dreams forgotten as the years unfolded before them. She shaped her words as blows and thrust her blades into the matter of the world in order to cut away from the body of humanity its cancer. She carried on her work, her father's work, adding an ever constant fuel to the cold flame, ever burning in the core of her.

In the end, some days were better than others.

Some days were only silence in the green mountains of Antalya, where Talia would close her eyes and listen to the rhythm of the rain. She would feel her pulse hammer at the sound of thunder. The storm snared in her bones and rose with her breath as if they were kindred. She'd remember -

"It is such a big sound, the storm. Such an angry sound."

"Even the skies wish to scream at times, little one. It cannot hold itself up forever without wishing to tell the world below of its pain."

- and she'd hold her hand out to the storm as if she were a child seeking the rain between the bars again.

She was able to show Bane the temples in Bagan – where she had first understood the idea of worship in those years after the Pit, and Bane in turn showed her the ruins of libraries at Celsus, Ugriant and Nalanda – great academic wonders from the ancient world. Their outer shells were in ruin, but the wealth of knowledge they held within lingered even past their fall - their shells burned, but their spirits remained. She asked if his fondness for lost literature was from Before, but his answers were vague and his eyes twinkling – as if teasing her with his refusal to provide answers to the questions she asked.

Some days she would remember for camaraderie. Barsad had taken it as a personal challenge to keep up with she and Bane as they switched from one tongue to the other, and although his Hungarian needed improvement, his French was excellent. There was a night in Antalya after a particularly rough patch in Mosul where the sniper finally showed to them the Godfather, and that led to a list of other such classics that he said they were missing out on. Talia, never really one for the cinematic arts, did not appreciate the films so much as she appreciated Bane's amusement over them – his laughter low and snaking from beneath the confines of his mask as he watched the plots play out before them.

And then, some days she would remember as finding bright places in dark skies – like that time in Baghdad when she rediscovered just how badly a bullet wound hurt. Her surprise and indignation over the pain had been worse than the actual wound itself, or so she had thought at the time . . . Although, admittedly, she had not had to suffer through such a wound since a particularly bad day in Islamabad in her second year with the League – and she knew she had been fortunate to be spared such a thing again with such a list of campaigns notched in her sword – but still, she had thought that she was ready to face the fire on her skin, the sting to her nerves – the throbbing of muscle and bone as she carried her useless arm with her other, trying to keep her wits about herself in order to see the retreat through to its end. She remembered little past that - not regaining conciousness until they had reached their encampment on the banks of the Euphrates river and Barsad was sewing her flesh back together. When he noticed her awake, he took to speaking of his own scars to pass the time. Bane, watching steadily from beside the sniper, had then revealed to the origin of a long knife wound on the back of his arm he had had since before the Pit. Talia had drank his words in almost desperately, willing to face the pain of the bullet in her arm in order to grasp at any piece of her friend's past. She had fallen asleep that night with the river in her ears and a half-haze memory of Agadir (a city just southwest of Marrakesh on the African coast) to pass through her dreams that night, a small piece of a much larger puzzle falling into place.

Some days she would remember as peace – laying on shores far unknown from any living soul and listening to the sound the ocean made, never forgetting her fascination for the waters of the world after spending the first years of her life with her mouth nearly always parched with thirst. Some days she would remember as satisfaction – sinking blades in deep and whispering her judgments even as her executions were played out before her eyes.

Some days, she would remember at the end – the very end. She would remember hands at her skin worshiping where mouth and tongue could not but for shape of words. She would remember dozen upon a dozen places of the world – nameless to all but to those who knew the hidden secrets of the earth – an interlude there, a gift of sakarni there on an anniversary she had not intended to celebrate, a whispered word there – how dots on a map slowly filled with memories and recollections rather than goals and aspirations.

Those are the memories she would draw close in the cold days before the end . . . the very end . . .

. . . and long for.

.

.

And then, there were days when the shadows stretched on long and deep and refused to share the comfort of their embrace.

Talia had nightmares on more nights than she liked to admit to – but normally they were born through in silence, her mouth curved in displeasure for her body's betrayal as soon as she awakened. Such a weakness, such a soreness in her armor, was unacceptable - even in the unwaking hours.

But her oldest nightmares had refused to release her throughout the years. Those were the ones she could not shake - memories of the Pit, both real and imagined - remembering her mother as she was torn apart, imagining herself older and in those same hands as greedy hands clawed and took what they wanted. Worse than those dreams were the ones where, not only could Bane not save her, but he was torn apart before her eyes – and his death was her fault - her fault, her fault – his only crime loving her so foolishly enough to find his end where hers was already assured. Her death in that place was an inevitability - nothing but a matter of time, and how easily he placed himself into her fate . . .

Those were the dreams that left her shaking in their wakes, stumbling up from her bed – still a nest of blankets on the floor, throughout the years, that had not changed – to move to the cool fireplace that dominated one wall of her quarters. Those nights, she had not been able to stand the darkness, and her fingers shook as she tried to get the kindle to spark, to take flame . . .

Only to have the flint taken from her more often than not – Bane sparking the fire to life as she sat back to watch, her feelings still too great in her veins to speak. Always Bane seemed to understand without her words as the golden tongues of flame let their light fall between them – dancing over their skin while never truly touching.

And she would ask, "Do you ever dream of it?" her voice low and uncertain, as if she were a child all over again. "The Pit?"

"More often than I would like," there was a simple honesty in Bane's voice, no pity or condolences, just understanding. She cleaved to the sound like she would to an anchor amongst waves. "But, my memories of that time are not constrained to the nighttime hours."

Too often, such thoughts did dominate even the day . . . The thought was a wound, a blow.

And she inhaled with her pain, her memories. She held the breath on her tongue, as if preparing for a stitch, the sting of a healing balm.

And she exhaled.

"I remember the first time I saw you – you passed bread between the bars," she whispered as the fire before them grew warmer, its flames building, feeding one upon the other.

A moment, and there was something unreadable in Bane's eyes. "And your mother nearly removed my hand from my wrist when I came too close," Bane shared the memory.

The smile she gave felt awkward upon her face, as if not sure of its place upon her mouth. "She did not trust you," Talia revealed, her smile stretching tightly. "She told me never to trust men with handsome eyes, especially when they had smiles to match."

"She was wise," Bane nodded his head in agreement, and Talia moved so that she sat right next to him, her thigh pressed to his. Her heart had lost its chaotic rhythm. Her past was just that – past. She took what she needed from it and left the rest. At least . . . in theory, such a thing was easy enough.

"I do not know," Talia looked thoughtful. "I find your eyes very handsome," she reached over to trace a fingertip against his mask, "Your smile as well," she revealed. "And I have not yet found my trust betrayed."

"It would be unbecoming of me to call the lady on her falsehood," Bane said evenly, his humor self deprecating. "But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I do believe that that is how the saying goes."

"There is no falsehood in my words," Talia whispered. "And as I am the only beholder whose opinion matters, you shall have to suffer though my observations."

His hand came up to wrap around hers – drawing his touch away from his mask. For a moment there was something sad about his gaze before that too fell away.

"And I remember the first time I saw you," he revealed next, the same as she – taking what he wished from his memories and leaving the rest. "It had just rained, and much of the prison was sick with fever. Few went to the lower levels, where it was flooded, but you strayed from the bars out of curiosity for the water. You were laughing as you splashed in the pool. You laughed, and I remembered wondering when last I heard such a sound in such an awful place . . . Innocence. Laughter. Even when your mother found you - scolding you for straying, you still smiled, and I caught your eyes over your mother's shoulder . . ."

His eyes crinkled from above his mask. She imagined that he smiled. "I think I loved you from that moment," Bane revealed in a whisper. "If I did not, then, at least, you stole a part of me for yours, and I have not yet found a need to ask for it back."

She could not smile at his words. The feeling in her throat was too great for that - greater than her fears and memories and terrors from the unwaking hours. Instead she leaned in to kiss the black strap of his mask, showing with actions rather than words, and thoughts of the Pit were far from them in the warm green of the mountains as she sought to fill the night with new memories instead.

.

.

They were in the air over Hungary when Talia felt a lurch in her side, a pain in her chest. She attributed it to the turbulence, to too many hours of not sleeping.

In the east, Bruce Wayne threw off his shadow, and descended from the ruin of the mountains, unaware that the Head of the Demon was left alive with eyes still shining.

And Talia looked out of her window, and squared her jaw. Beneath the plane, a storm was raging, and she lost herself in the flare of lightning against the dark - even the sky itself not enough to hold the rise of fire away from earth.

.

.

They had been in Budapest for a month, doing reconnaissance on a corrupt politician who had long been on their 'list' of unsavory characters that the world would be better off without. The Hotel Victoria was on the Buda side of the Danube river, overlooking the Hungarian Parliament on the opposite shore. In the morning, the sun glinted off of the red-copper dome, throwing patterns in the water before them, while at night a hundred golden lights made the building appear to be cast from gold, rising like a flame from the water.

Every morning she would rise, and stand in the shadows as various spies of theirs reported to Bane. Afterwards she would dissect the information they gleaned before heading to the Parliament at the noon time hour - where she had taken up work as a secretary to do reconnaissance of her own. Then, shortly before sunset, she would return back to the hotel room, and continue working on her plans long into the night. It was a slow mission, a tedious mission, but if and when they succeeded, their actions would greatly serve the country.

That current day, though, she found her limits reached for just how much inane chatter she could withstand in one day. She was taking off her heeled shoes before she even completely opened up the door to her suite, curses from three languages rolling off of her tongue as she thought about a dozen or so creative ways to remove from her 'boss' a rather valued asset of his anatomy.

But as soon as she passed the threshold, her muttering fell silent. She became still.

Instantly, she dropped her handbag, the bag making only a whisper of sound as it hit the floor. Glad that her feet were bare, she slipped forward, the sensible indigo material of her skirt swishing as she walked . . .

. . . only to have the adrenaline in her chest spike – sensing not the immanent urge to attack, but rather the stone like sense of apprehension settle in her veins when she saw that her intruder was quite calmly going through the small cupboards of the suite's kitchenette – no doubt looking for her stash of tea.

She glared at the shaven head and dark Tibetan robes – not given up, even when its wearer was so far from the mountains.

"Where are my men?" she asked lightly, moving past the figure in the kitchen in order to put water on for tea. She flipped open the cupboard where the tea leaves were kept at the same time, revealing what his search had not yet uncovered.

"Them, you mean?" came Ubu's falsely bright voice, gesturing to the side where poor Jacopo and Mikhail were fast asleep on the thick rug by the settee. Needles glinted from their neck - no doubt that toxin from the Philippines that she remembered Ubu being so fond of using. His tone chided - he knew that she had seen them.

"As much as I appreciate you drugging my men," Talia said pleasantly, as if remarking on the weather beyond. "I must ask that you leave a message and take an appointment next time - like everyone else."

"And you would have responded to such a summons?" Ubu chided. "You, the great Lady of Assassins, as your ring of toy soldiers call you now?"

Talia's fingers tapped against the ceramic sides of the mugs as she pulled the set together, as if she were playing the well bred lady host to some long beloved acquaintance.

"I may have surprised you," Talia said easily, her voice still as smooth as river stones. She arched a brow as she turned back to the assassin, a challenge held in the glance.

"That I believe," Ubu said, his voice softening.

"Here," Talia inclined her head, gesturing to the ring of couches. "Take a seat? And I shall hear what you have to say."

Ubu smiled slightly at her hospitality, sitting on the couch just to the right of her downed guards. Mentally, she reminded herself to slip the antidote into their tea that would take away the headache that their current slumber would leave them with when they awakened.

Then again, Talia reflected, if anyone had been able to slip past their watch – Ubu included – perhaps the headache would be of a fitting punishment. She didn't care to think about what Bane's reaction would be when he found that there was such a slip in the shield of her defense.

She took a seat across from Ubu, crossing her legs elegantly at her ankles and folding her hands primly in her lap. Her hair was still pulled back primly, and her feet were bare but for her stockings, her heeled shoes still forgotten somewhere by the door.

And Ubu's eyes softened upon the sight of her as he took in the differences to her countenance – the added curvature to her figure, the thinner planes of her face, the darker cast of her eyes.

"How many years has it been, child?" Ubu asked then, knowing the answer but asking it anyway. There was a warm note in his voice, never hiding that she had been amongst his favourites in that bygone time in the mountains. "Six years?"

"Nearly seven, I think," Talia corrected vaguely, though she knew the distance down to the month, week even.

"Ah," Ubu's voice was wistful. "How time flies."

"Indeed." Talia's voice was crisp.

"But you have kept busy, or so I've heard," Ubu raised a brow.

Talia rolled her shoulders, brushing an imagined piece of lint from the knee of her skirt. "One must find ways to pass the time."

"And you have passed it more fruitfully than most," Ubu commented. "Where was it . . . That business in Marrakesh? That was your work, was it not?"

"Casablanca," Talia corrected, her lips drawing back from her teeth as she spoke.

"Shenyang?" Ubu looked thoughtful, rubbing at his chin as if to aid his memory. "That was you as well?"

"There was an arms dealer there that was particularly unsavory," Talia answered vaguely. "Yes, it does strike the memory."

"The nasty business in that African port . . . Dakar, was it?" Ubu continued. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"Connected to the one in Port Elizabeth," Talia said thinly. "And Durban."

Ubu grinned, remembering. "Riga?" he asked next.

"And Jūrmala too," Talia confirmed.

"The prostitution ring in Zagreb?" Ubu asked. "It seemed like a step back for your might at the time."

Talia locked her jaw. "Children are always worth the detour."

"Then I know Kuching was your work," Ubu nodded his head. There was a dark satisfaction about his voice. "And Nah Trang as well?"

Talia made a fist, where she bore a thin scar about her palm, over her wrist. Ubu looked down, and saw the faint line of angry flesh. Nah Trang was recent, and she would carry the mark of the Chinese coast with her for the years to come. "Nah Trang as well," she echoed.

"And Algiers?" Ubu continued, his eyes still lingering on her scared skin.

"A story told to scare the new recruits," Talia admitted wryly. "I cannot claim to every part of the tale as truth."

"As I assume Tunis is, then?" Ubu snorted.

"No," Talia differed from him. "Every word of that particular tale is the truth." Her grin turned sharp, a hunting shape. "I cannot make up a story like that."

"Though if one were to believe in stories, Pyongyang would be the greatest tale to tell," and there Ubu's voice sobered. There was something pregnant in the air.

And Talia hesitated, considering just how best to answer. "We have men in place. But it is a long term project. I don't see action being taken there until late next year, by my timetable."

Ubu inclined his head. "Long has your father's gaze been turned in that direction," he admitted. "And it was one of our next larger targets. Not on par with Rome or Constantinople, of course, but one of the more serious threats to this world at large that would have the hand of the League touching its fate within the last ten years."

Talia raised a brow. "Then what drew his gaze away?" she questioned boldly. "Has a different Rome caught his attention?"

Ubu's eyes glinted, letting her see his answer, though she knew he would answer her not outright. "You may say that. A Rome of a sorts is what we aim our sword at, but it is not my place to tell you. You would have to ask your father himself."

Talia snorted, an unamused sound. "You have come very far, old friend, if you only wished to confirm what my father's spies have told you as fact. And I do have things calling upon my time. So -" she waved her hand, gesturing. She waited for him to continue.

Ubu sighed, drawing his breath deep from his lungs. His mouth worked, as if he were unsure how to shape his tongue around the words he wished to say. Talia leaned forward expectantly, not allowing him to move from the weight of her gaze, when -

- beyond them, the tea kettle whistled, announcing the boil of the water within.

Talia sighed, still holding Ubu's gaze pointedly as she rose to her feet.

"Do not think yourself free, my friend," she rolled her eyes as she moved into the small kitchenette. Her gaze was still on Ubu as she measured the tea leaves and added them to the boiling water, before taking the whole set into the low slung coffee table between the sofas. "Now," she asked, taking her seat once more. "Does my father know you are here?" she asked.

"In a way," Ubu avoided the question outright.

"That is not an answer," Talia returned, a brow raised. She taped a single nail over the side of the delicate china cup. "Now, does my father know you are here?"

Ubu paused, and a flicker of emotion in his gaze made her reconsider her question. There was concern there, she easily read. Concern and compassion, and . . . something she could not name. The cold flame at the core of her flickered. The flames licked at her lungs.

"He was not in any condition to know of my movements when I departed," Ubu replied carefully.

And Talia sat up straighter. Her breath held in her mouth, and it was not fear in the deep parts of her – it was not.

Ubu exhaled, seeing the question in her eyes. He waved his hand, brushing her concerns away. "He lives," he said simply, and Talia felt her breath again fill her lungs. Ra's al-Ghul, terrible head of the demon, undying in name but mortal in body . . . She tried to wrap her mind around the idea of his death, and found that it was a thought she could not process; as foreign as asking the skies not to rain or the tides not to flow was to ask Ra's al-Ghul to sunder his spirit from his flesh . . .

But Henri Ducard was a man. Her fingers were white, bloodless, as she went to pour the tea, mechanical in her motions as she passed first Ubu his own cup before working on her own. Though it had been years, she knew how he liked his sweetened with milk and honey, she doubted his tastes had changed. She drank hers black, strong against her tongue. The heat burned her palms through the thin china, but she noticed the sensation but little.

She asked no further questions, and only a moment passed before Ubu continued. "He was in a coma when I left, though Cain tells me he shall awaken any day now. He had a blow to the head that harmed him – the rest of his injuries are of bones and flesh and shall heal well enough."

She bit her tongue. The taste of copper filled her mouth. "Was he away from the monastery when it happened?"

"No," Ubu shook his head. "The monastery is no more. It burned."

And that lanced through her, nearly as violent as Ubu's news about her father's health. She had never known home in sense of one place, one hearth to always return to, but she had known love for the mountains and her place in them. They had nurtured her as father and mother both, playing witness to both her own growth and the growth of her relationship with Bane, as well. They were as indestructible as her father in her mind.

"We were attacked?" she asked numbly.

Ubu shook his head. "It was the work of one man, from within."

At that Talia's eyes snapped up, finding Ubu's with cold purpose. "An infiltrators?"

"No," Ubu said. "A Shadow – one of our own. A man your father took under his wing, but who had not the strength for our ways in the end. He was a disappointment."

Talia felt fire lick through her veins, hot where normally such a flame was cold. Treason, betrayal, the thought swirled in her mind like poison through a wound. She sipped at her tea to calm herself. Her teeth bit at the cup.

"And he was caught?" she asked.

"No," Ubu shook his head. "He escaped."

"And this," Talia asked. "My father, you said he threw aside his plans for this one new. Was this man in any way connected."

"And, for that, I need for you to speak to your father. It is not a story I can tell."

Talia sighed, frustrated. She could not keep her fingers still as they danced around the sides of her cup. Outside the river sloshed in its cradle, and she could hear voices from the streets. The urge to rise then, to move, kindled in her, though she knew not where to go.

"You came to fetch me then?" Talia said. She did not ask.

Ubu shook his head. "I came to tell you what you deserved to hear. You are still the Demonhead's heir, and this . . . this was very close. I have a warning in my heart for the days ahead, and I wish for you and your father to mend your breach before it is too late for such things to be fixed . . . but it is not my place. Either you or he must take that step, and I am here only so the balance of knowledge is equal between you two. After all," the assassin laughed tonelessly. "Were some harm to befall you, your father would know before even your own men."

Talia felt her lips draw back at that, but said nothing.

"My father," she said carefully, tying iron bonds about her emotions and drawing them down beneath her heart. Her eyes turned cold then. Her restless hands stilled. "Made his feelings upon my presence . . . upon his presence quite clear. And I am to return now like a prodigal child? Am I to seek forgiveness?"

"No, child," Ubu shook his head, sighing softly. "You are to allow your father to do so."

And Talia blinked, the simple words threatening to ensnare something deep within her. It was a dangerous feeling, that hope – more vile and unkind than any prison or torture, and that was a bitter taste Talia knew well against her tongue.

"Your father is a proud man. But he is mortal for his immortal name, and his decisions are not infallible. His heart is not stone," Ubu said next, holding her eyes carefully - reading the thoughts that flickered there like a traveler would read a map. "I cannot guarantee the welcome that you . . . or yours would receive. I wished only to inform you of that which had occurred . . . not wanting you to hear of this when it was past and too late to take action . . . one way or the other."

He stood, laying a heavy hand on her shoulder as he left. "Long have I watched you over the years, child, and long have I felt . . . pride over the course you have carved in life. I would hate for you to burden your soul with more than it already bears."

His touch lingered, and Talia did not move away from him. She did not meet his gaze, and he did not try to force her. Instead he was a boulder before her – a strength.

And she exhaled, finally reaching up to cover his hand with her own.

"I thank-you, Ubu, for telling you this," she said softly, and in that, at least, her voice was sincere.

"I leave tomorrow, at noon," Ubu said gently. "You have until then to make your decision."

He squeezed her shoulder, and his hand fell away. She did not watch him depart, her eyes slipping to look out the window – to the east beyond.

Finally, she convinced herself to stand, and she picked up the tea set with numb fingers, the mundane work giving her mind time to process – time to think.

She set the china down by the sink and cleaned it, before putting away the set, before moving to the window beyond to look out into the east – knowing that somewhere, far beyond in the night, the mountains stood tall and the Head of the Demon laid felled by one of his own Shadows – a brother of the night who should have succored that which had given him purpose and life, her brother in training and arms who should have welcomed . . . should have loved the approval that Ra's al-Ghul so freely gave him.

Talia stood still there for a long time to come, her hands fists upon the windowsill, unmoving as the sun sat beyond the horizon and the day turned to night.

---

Parting Notes:

Real World Events: When making up 'scenarios' for Talia and her men to fight with, I picked and choosed from things going on around the world - but nothing here is supposed to reflect real events or opinions. For example, there are problems with mining in Armenia, but child labor in mines is something I gleaned from an online article from Mongolia - everything here is artistic liberty and amateur research. :)

Barsad's First Name: Barsad is based on the character John Barsad from 'A Tale of Two Cities', so for his first name I gave him the name Ivan - the Russian equivalent for John. I hope you enjoyed that little throwback. In the end, I enjoyed writing his character as much as I enjoyed writing Ubu's character.

League of Assassins: Was the original name of the League of Shadows in the Batman comics - so it seemed a fitting surname for Talia's Brotherhood here.

And then, for those of you wondering, holy heck, but when will you update again?, I am sorry to say that it will be at least be another month before I update. We are moving into the heighth of the spring, and as a full time landscaper, my time is ridiculously booked this time of year - when I normally get nothing done but for drabbles and vignettes. But, this story will be finished, no matter what, and I thank you all for your patience in advance. It means the world to me. :)