Been a while since I updated this.
Well, I hope that I haven't gotten too rusty. Thank you everyone who reviewed, it really did help. A big problem I had was I didn't want to spoil the reveal of 'Sin' and her real name, so had to work out a way to dance around the subject for flashbacks to work. In a TV medium, it wouldn't be a problem because we wouldn't have to deal with internal dialogue, but for the fic it posed a bigger problem.
So be patient with these next few updates, this style isn't one I'm overly fond or familiar with but is necessary. And again, thank you everyone who waited.
Disclaimer: I don't own "Arrow" or it's characters.
This crazy girl could run.
Like, crazy fast for a crazy girl... well, that made sense. Still, how did someone so short get around so fast with such stubby little legs?
'Well, not like you're going to be MVP of any basketball team,' she thought, glaring down at the holes in her skinny-jeans. And crap, her new friend/bodyguard was getting away and all she had to go on was a name on a sweatshirt that looked like a third-place hand-me-down.
Well? Run like hell, pump those stubby legs.
"Hey! Hey Cindy, wait up!"
But the girl didn't wait up, and the chase started all over again, going into the deeper heart of the Glades, as far in as a person could go (why would they want to?) from the docks at a run. She was Asian, some kinda Asian that was hard to pin down, maybe mixed-race, so maybe she was a stowaway of some kind? Maybe she ran with the Triads who were pushing for more territory? Like a weird child-soldier kinda deal.
Hopefully not though, that'd be... freaky and scary, scarier than even what she was used to. Not that she wasn't a tough girl, but trained preteen killer ninjas? That was a bit too much, and this city was already getting pretty weird.
(naturally her weirdness tolerance would get built up by the time she rolled with a leather-clad superheroine, but that came later)
The little stone-eyed hopefully not ninja looked her over warily, sitting on the edge of a fire-escape she had scaled with a couple of free-runner gymnast moves that looked painfully complicated. A little bit like a cat that had been kicked before, but not enough that it came to expect it out of hand.
"So um, what's your name? Your real name? Not Cindy, right?"
Silence. Maybe the girl was a mute. Maybe some sign-language? If any could be remembered... dang it.
"Alright, if it's not Cindy..."
Blank, bored stare.
"... Becky?"
A surprised blink, and she shook her head.
"Alright, how about... Trudy?"
Glare.
"Okay okay, I'm trying here, let's have some give and take, alright?"
Glare reverted back to staring blankly.
"... Elizabeth?"
Now she actually rolled her eyes.
"Okay, am I far off or am I getting close? You can give me that much, right?"
Ninja girl just shrugged.
"... does it start with 'a'?"
Head-shake.
"Does it start with B?"
She shook her head again.
"But not C? Alright, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, Stop me when I'm at the right one?"
Still nothing.
"... T? U, V, W... XYZ? Really?"
Sigh.
"So no name. Fine, you don't have to tell me-"
Head nodded once.
"... wait, seriously? You don't have a name?"
Nod.
"Dayum... okay, um... well I'll just call you Cindy?"
Arms folded. She practically pouted.
"Hey, it's on the sweater."
No reaction there.
"You can't read, can you? Okay, um. So you don't have a name and you weren't taught how to read but... BUT someone taught you karate?"
A slow, slightly embarrassed nod.
"People are jerks. I knew it, like some child-soldier thing for what, Yakuza right?"
The not-Cindy-ninja waved her hand in a 'so-so' gesture.
"Not sure how I'm supposed to react to that. Alright, well starting now I'll give you a name."
Eyebrow raised.
"No seriously, least I can do. You saved me, I bequeath on you a name."
Blink.
"I don't know why I used a word like 'bequeath'. That was weird, sorry. Alright new name, new name... you like a name beginning with A?"
Head-shake.
"B? How about B?"
Head-shake again, a bit more intensely.
"Not C though?"
A pause, a long one too, and she shrugs.
"Come on, this is important."
Shorter pause, and she nods, definite.
"Alright! Now we're getting somewhere. Okay, how about Candy?"
Knuckles cracked.
"I was kidding kidding! Alright alright, sheesh... how about Cynthia?"
Pause, considering, head-shake.
"Catherine?"
Head-shake.
"Caroline? Oh, Coraline?"
Pause, head-shake, twice.
"... Cassandra?"
And this was the longest pause yet. And then she smile for the first time and it was perfect.
"Alright! Cassie-"
Glare.
"-Cassandra! Well I'm... um, well I don't really... you can call me Cindy, how about that?"
Head-cock to the side in confusion.
"Look it's just a personal... I lived on the streets alone and I don't really... you know what? I don't like my name very much, how about that?"
Cassandra folded her arms.
"Yeah, I don't like Cindy either. Alright, how about... Cin? Cinder? Cin... Sin?"
Eyebrow raised.
"What? I like it. Sin."
It took a bit, and she frowned considering it, but eventually the younger girl (Cassandra) grinned and it was perfect again.
For a brief moment for them both, Cassandra and Sin shared perfect happiness knowing who they were for a change.
Wow that seemed a long time ago.
And it wasn't.
It was just after her uncle, before the fights and the things that couldn't be taken back, and her mom's funeral. It was before Sara dressed like a dominatrix angel kicking butt and saying with authority "no woman should suffer at the hands of men". It was way before Sara disappeared. No one would tell her where Sara went. This city was going to Hell and chances were she'd get dragged down with the rest of the sorry sons of bitches. Dragged straight down to the Devil and his pitchfork covered in like... rust and sinner feces.
Oh gross...
But before any of that, Sin would get enough food to eat and worry about repentance later.
"I'll give you fifteen bucks." The greasy pawnshop owner shrugged, dismissing her haul of wallets and rings and one out-of-date flip-phone.
Okay, maybe she'd get enough to eat for tonight and then what? "You mean fifty."
"Ha. You wish," the jerk snorted. "Fifteen or you can peddle your crap somewhere else. Maybe to someone who asks a lot of questions."
"These are real leather, and that phone's practically mint condition! And look at all that shine? You could... pass that off as diamond or something, to someone. I mean I, I could get more for all this on eBay!" Sin protested, digging through her pack for something else, something that might get a proper price that'll get her enough to spend the night somewhere other than a shelter. No one trusted shelters anymore, people being abducted for experiments on top of all the other things that could go bad just gave the places a bad rep. And going to sleep in that church now was just not on the table, no way.
The pawnshop greaseball didn't like the look she had rifling through a bag though, his beady little eyes narrowing suspiciously and his hand on the handle of a Louisville slugger he kept under the table. "You don't like my business, go to digital for all I care, just get the hell out-"
"What about this?" Sin slammed the chalice on the table. It glinted in the light and cast reflections of gilt crosses on the walls and glassware.
"Well what did you do? This someone's idea of extra Christian charity?" Still the bucket of asphalt-spit and skid-marks was looking the chalice over with renewed interest. He didn't ask where things came from, never had, wasn't going to expect answers now.
"Fifty bucks? I'm going to say a hundred now." Sin folded her arms, glaring. "Slap me a Benjamin now or no deal."
"Fifty bucks. No deal."
"Seventy."
"... Seventy five."
"Done." Grease-ball counted up crumbled bills from the register and handed them out. "Pleasure doing business with you."
"Smell you later," Sin predicted, wrinkling her nose as she did her very best not to avoid touching sausage-sized and sausage-greasy fingers. The money was more than she was expecting but still felt like she settled for cheap. Probably had, if she was superstitious to believe maybe her soul was forfeited or something like that.
Maybe not though, but it did mark her for death.
She just didn't know it yet. How could she?
No one noticed the shadow following her outside the pawnshop after all.
It's been a while, but updated this. Aiming to finish it too.
"Arrow" sure has taking twists and turns, and I guess they won't bother too much with Sin now that her actress is on MTV's "Scream", doing great btw.
Thank you everyone who reviewed and/or followed this story, I promise I will see it done.