Last chapter: Felicity looked up at Diggle. "John… it's Oliver. He's alive!" She whispered with tears in her eyes.
This changed everything! Their quest was no longer to find the League's outpost or their sacred duel ground to find and bring home a body. No, they had to find Oliver and bring him home, wherever Ra's had taken him.
xoxoxo
The dark walls of the cell were only illuminated by the torches burning outside in the hallway, casting their flickering light through the bars of the small window set in the door and painting their dancing shadows on the opposite wall.
Maseo stood above the slumbering form of his friend, the empty vial loosely fisted in his right hand. He studied the man's relaxed features; the deep frown lines on his brow had disappeared, the tense set of his lips smoothed away, the tremors shaking his frame vanished. His breaths were slow and even in his sleep. He seemed… at peace. For that Maseo was glad. He didn't care anymore, what Halari had put into the vial, or how she had obtained it. It helped. Calmed down the raging thoughts and fears in Oliver's mind. And that was all he cared about.
The approach of footsteps, their echo still distant, pulled Maseo from his thoughts. He tensed for a moment, caught unawares, but then his sharp mind calculated he still had time until the guards would reach this sector of the tunnel. He hid the vial back under his tunic, before turning away from the man curled on the mattress and left the cell. With a low scraping sound, he swung the door closed and slid the bolt home, then stood next to it, waiting for the new set of guards to appear.
It didn't take long for them to round the corner. He saw them falter in their steps for the slightest of moments, when they saw him, wondering, if they had done something wrong to warrant their superior's attention, then walked on as if nothing happened. As they approached, they nodded their heads in respectful greeting, a fisted hand across their chests, as was their custom, before one murmured lowly in Arabic. "Is something wrong, Master Sarab?"
Maseo shook his head. "No, nothing is wrong. I came to check on this man's condition, to report any changes back to our Master." He replied in the same language, now flowing, if not fluently but somewhat easily, from his lips. It had taken him a while to master this foreign tongue. And what he said wasn't even a lie. He would have to report back any changes to Ra's al Ghul, whether he liked to or not. Acting on his own authority to help his friend was one thing, but lying to The Demon, even by omission, he dared not. Ra's had a gift. He was like a venomous snake, a serpent. And just as the snake could smell the fear of the prey it hunted that man had the ability to sense if someone was lying to him. Few had dared and even fewer lived to tell the tale. He wouldn't take that chance.
The guards nodded, their minds set at ease. So Maseo turned his back on them, about to leave. As he was passing the cell, he cast one last glance through the barred window – and stopped dead in his tracks. Oliver lay facing the door, his eyes open. But that wasn't what made Maseo hesitate and turn back, because Oliver had done so before. It was the wide awake lucidity of his stare. Maseo grabbed onto the bars of the window with his right hand, fingers curling and uncurling reflexively around the round metal, as he waited with bated breath for a reaction. Oliver's eyes were wandering about his cell, taking in the world around him, as one seeing it for the first time, until they finally found Maseo. He blinked. But there was no recognition there, only innocent curiosity…
xoxoxo
The silver blade arched through the air in a set of intricate moves, smoothly gliding from one into the other. Always followed by its silent shadow on the wall. It performed its deadly dance at the hands of Ra's al Ghul, stabbing and slicing invisible enemies as it became one with the man who wielded it – an extension of the man's body and will. Again and again this dance was repeated like a well-practiced routine, until the blade suddenly stopped midair, mere inches separating it from the soft flesh of a man's neck.
Ra's al Ghul coolly gazed upon the man standing in front him, silently applauding Sarab for not flinching as the blade had arched towards his neck, nor as it hovered dangerously near his jugular. It would take just a flick of the wrist to open a vein, ending the man's live. Yet the soldier seemed unfazed, gaze set respectfully somewhere above Ra's al Ghul's shoulder, fixating a point on the far wall and waiting for permission to speak.
The Demon studied the man standing in front him, letting his silence settle on Sarab's shoulders like a heavy, dark blanket, making him wait for his master's permission to speak, thus re-enforcing his power over the assassin, because he was the only one who could lift the blanket
When he found enough time had passed, Ra's al Ghul sheathed his sword with an easy grace born of years of practice, turned his back to the man and walked away. It wasn't an act of trust, because The Demon trusted no one, but he knew nobody would dare to attack him here and even if one would be foolhardy enough to try, the guards at the door would apprehend the person. If they got the chance…
His steps took Ra's to a stone bench at the side of the large room, where he lifted a white linen towel from the mass of cloth lying there, patting drops of sweat from his torso and arms, before carelessly dropping the towel onto the floor. In the same moment a shadow appeared from a dark alcove set into the stone wall, stepping into the sun-lit chamber. Halari. Her light feet carried her soundlessly towards her master, where she lifted his dark, ornate brocade mantle from the stone bench and helped him slide into it, smoothing the fabric down his shoulders and arms. Then she stepped back, respectfully lowering her head to look at the floor and folding her hands in front of her, waiting on further orders.
Ra's ignored the woman, like one would ignore a fly on the wall, too inconsequential to be noticed. Instead he turned back to Sarab. His sable eyes glittered with a dark mirth, as he spoke. "I find that you interrupt me at the most inopportune of times, Sarab."
There was no answer. He hadn't expected one, as he hadn't allowed Sarab to speak yet or asked him a direct question.
"What is it this time, Sarab?"
At the question the man's gaze turned away from the far wall to focus on him. With a slight of bow of the head, Sarab began to speak. "Master, you asked me to report any changes of my charge to you. I am here to inform you that Oliver Queen has finally woken."
Ra's al Ghul squinted his eyes. "He's lucid?" He asked for clarification.
Sarab nodded. "Yes." As he said those words, a barely perceptible smile crossed Halari's lips. It was gone as soon as he had seen it, no more than a blink of the eye, making him wonder if he had only imagined it. He re-focused his attention on Ra's al Ghul, not wanting to draw attention to himself or the woman behind Ra's.
"What do you want me to do, master?" He asked.
The Demon seemed to contemplate his choices for a few seconds, before answering. "Nothing, I want to see him for myself."
With those words, he strode towards the large double winged-doors, which swung open on silent hinges by the hands of the guards.
xoxoxo
He fingered some loose strands on the thin, threadbare mattress he was lying on, letting them glide through his fingers in a repetitive motion, an unconscious action to calm himself, while curiously gazing around the room he found himself in.
He had woken some time ago to a strange world, dark and cold and surrounded by stone. The only light coming through a small, barred window in a wooden door, which had made him realize he was in a cell. That had been his first conscious thought. The second had been even more distressing, because he'd realized he didn't know where he was and how he had come to be there. He tried his hardest to remember, but where should have been his memories, there was just a blank space in his mind. A slate whipped clean. A void.
Panic had seized him, as he couldn't remember his own name. His heart had begun to beat faster and faster with every passing second, threatening to explode out of his chest, as his anxiety mounted. He had felt overwhelmed, a dark wave of despair sweeping over him. Drowning him. But just as everything had threatened to become too much, he'd felt the return of the soft, warm blanket, he had come to associate with safety. It had draped itself over his hyperactive senses and raging thoughts, dulling them. In his mind he had known, he should feel anxious, yet he'd felt removed from those feelings, like they weren't his own and he was just an observer.
Feeling calm again, he had let his eyes roam again, taking in the dirty floor, the musty walls, until they finally came to rest on the door. A man had stood on the other side of the bars, intently studying him, as if waiting for a certain reaction. He had wanted to speak, wanted to ask the man where he was, how he had come to be here… and … did he know who he was? But the words wouldn't come, his mind suddenly blank. So he had just looked at the man.
He didn't know how long they had looked at each other. It could have been seconds or even minutes, his sense of time was off, but at some point the man had turned away from him, obviously fed up by his non-reaction, speaking to someone else in a language he did not understand. He had wanted to call to the man, begging him to come back, but before could muster the strength to try, the man had been gone. Leaving him alone in his dark world.
And so he waited. For what he did not know. For his memories to return? For somebody to come and help him? Or tell him where he was? Who he was?
The cell door banged open, hitting the stone wall behind it, making him flinch at the loud noise and sudden increase in brightness. He threw an arm over his face, shielding his sensitive eyes from the light. When he finally dared lowering his arm, he saw the tall, dark figure of man standing inside the doorway. He blinked, trying to bring him into focus, but the light streaming into the cell around him, made it impossible to see more than his looming shadow.
When the man stepped into the cell, he could finally make out more of his features. A middle-aged man, with dark hair and the hint of a dark beard gracing his weathered face. Dark, sable eyes sat in the hollows beneath his forehead, gleaming with a strange light. And he was tall. Broad-shouldered. A dark, floor-length mantle sat on his shoulders, making him appear even taller and broader. A sword was girded around his middle, resting at his left hip, swaying menacingly as he approached on silent feet.
He cowered back on the mattress, suddenly afraid.
As if sensing that his presence had spooked the man on the mattress, Ra's al Ghul lowered himself into a crouch to appear less threatening. With his arms resting loosely crossed on his right knee, he curiously studied the young man, looking for any sign of recognition. And found none. A satisfied smile crossed his lips.
"Do you know who I am, boy?" He asked, voice gravelly.
There was a slight hesitation, lips parted as if to speak, but then the boy chose to simply shake his head no. Ra's nodded understandingly, silently contemplating his next question for a few seconds.
"Do you know where you are?" Again a shake of the head.
So Ra' finally asked the most important question. "Do you know who you are?"
The boy's eyes widened at the question, darting about the room as if looking for an answer that just wasn't there, before finally returning to the man before him. His breath had quickened in agitation and it took him a few seconds to calm down enough to reply. He stuttered, his tongue tripping over the word as if it had unlearned how to speak. "N… No."
His gaze suddenly turned hopeful. "D… Do you … you know who I am?"
Ra's smiled. "Yes." He paused for a moment, letting the words sink in. "Yes, I do. Don't worry, son. I will teach you everything you need to know."