To Be a Bird of Prey

Origins

I. The Hunter and the Prey

Chapter Six

The sun was blaring down on her, making red spots dance behind her closed eyelids.

Helena turned over to the other side, feeling the hard ground dig into her shoulder, and was met with the same problem; she sighed and rolled over to her back before opening her eyes. It was to the sight of the empty space where the church bell used to be – or at least, Helena presumed there used to be a bell.

What she could say with absolute certainty, though, was that there were no shutters here. No glass windows either, actually; just holes in the wall that let the sun right on in. But hey, Sara had wanted 'a good vantage point'.

"Morning."

Helena turned her head to the side, to find Sara sitting with her back against a support beam, a coffee cup in one hand and a sandwich in the other. So, the Canary bought breakfast, then.

Pushing herself off the ground, Helena worked the kinks in her neck before hopping to her feet. Sara nodded in the direction of a paper bag on the ground. "Didn't know your preferences," she said, "so you get a turkey club sandwich and black coffee – there's some sugar on the side, though."

As far as breakfast went, it was pretty luxurious compared to her recent standards. Deciding she didn't want to get on the ground again, Helena picked up the bag and opted to eat standing up; she reached inside and grabbed her cup, taking an appreciative whiff before bringing the rim to her lips. "I take it we didn't spend all the money on helpful informants last night, then?" she commented, to which Sara gave a faint smile. Helena took a moment to look her over; it was a little strange seeing her in street clothes. She looked – well, normal. Just your regular blonde.

"Speaking of informants," Sara said, "you'll need to make your own rounds tonight. You'll know where to look for the Sabatoni's men, right?"

Helena shrugged. "It's the Italian mob. You always start at the docks."

"Which is also where I'm pretty sure your father will be coming through."

"It's convenient." Helena smiled. "The river's right there for the body drop."

Sara kept quiet for a moment, seemingly considering something. Eventually, she asked, "You're really looking forward to it, aren't you? Killing your father?"

Was that some more moral judgment she was hearing? "It's all I look forward to these days," she said.

"Well, you'll get what you want soon enough," was Sara's response.

Helena tipped her head to the side. "Does your help always come with passive-aggressive lessons in morality or am I getting special treatment?"

"I told you, I'm not well-placed to give lessons in morality to anyone," Sara reminded. "But even though we're both killers," she added, "I still don't know what it's like to feel what you feel." Her eyes went to the cup in her hands, and more quietly, she said, "There's only ever been one man I wanted dead for having wronged me. Someone else killed him."

Curious development, Helena thought. Though she supposed it did make sense; if what she'd heard about the League of Assassins was true, and she believed it was, then its members were sent to kill whoever Ra's al Ghul told them to. It was never personal for them. For Sara. Not the way it was for her, with her father.

"Do you wish you'd killed him yourself?" Helena asked, idly wondering if this could be called bonding.

Sara raised her eyes away from the cup and to the side. Helena knew that look; haunted memories and all that. "I don't think it would have made that much of a difference," Sara eventually spoke. Helena gathered from her tone that she wanted to leave it at that. Which was fine by her.

For her, though, it would make all the difference in the world to get a chance to put her father down herself.

"So, I'm thinking I could go after Sabatoni's men tonight," she changed the subject. "And tomorrow night. You can pull your little bait-and-switch after that."

Sara nodded.

And then came the awkward silence.

Helena wasn't used to roommates these days – especially not vigilantes who called themselves after birds. Apparently, neither was Sara. So, they stood and sat there in silence – and they had nothing to fill it with.

When she could practically feel herself twitching from the discomfort, Helena prompted, "So, what do you usually do to pass the time 'til sundown?"

Sara looked about as uncomfortable as she felt, and Helena thought there was some solace in that.

"Usually, I just – train, I suppose," the other woman said. "Sometimes, I go to an actual gym – mostly to use the shower."

Helena couldn't help but crack a small smile at that. "Interesting," she remarked. "I usually break into empty houses for my showers."

Sara looked like she was about to smile, then realized it hadn't been a joke; she raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you're serious."

"I like to take my time with a good bath."

There was a beat where it looked like Sara might laugh, but it soon passed and she merely nodded. "Well, I think I will go for my shower now," she announced, rising to her feet in one swift motion. She shoved a baseball cap on her head – a Rockets' one, Helena noted – and slung one of her smaller duffel bags over her shoulder. "See you later."

And with that she was out – through the hole in the wall that might pass as a window. Because stairs and doors were obviously for crazy people.

Helena rolled her eyes to herself, casting a look around the place as she finished her sandwich. Maybe she could make a little daytime run to the town, too.

"Should I have left you an allowance?"

The question came as just her arrow pierced the makeshift target she'd set for herself, and Helena didn't even bother looking up from reloading her crossbow to answer Sara's question.

"I can rob a store just fine," she declared. "Even in daylight."

"And you did it to...steal drapes?"

Helena did look up at that, to the soft, shimmy fabric she had set over the – well, holes in the walls. She shrugged. "I like purple," she said, letting her eyes linger on the play of light against the material; the bright spots where the sun hit, and the darker shades on the outlines.

She brought her eyes to Sara as she added, "And I don't particularly like waking up to the sun blaring down on my face."

Sara pursed her lips, then just shook her head. She discarded her bag and cap, tossing them aside, and seemed to have every intention of just going about her business until Helena fired again; the hiss of the flying arrow made her whip her head around. "Do you have another one of those?" she asked, her eyes flickering towards the crossbow.

Helena raised an eyebrow. "In my bag," she informed and when Sara went to retrieve the spare crossbow, commented, "I thought your thing was that multifunction bo-staff you carry around."

"I'm versatile," Sara responded – a little cheekily, Helena thought. The other woman came to stand at her side, shifting her stance to take her aim; Helena noted that it was not exactly perfect.

"Not too used to a crossbow, though," Sara added as she pressed the trigger, hitting to the right of the target's center. "I'm better with just a bow and arrow."

Helena could practically taste the bitterness on her tongue. "He roped you into it, too?"

Sara kept her eyes on the target for a moment longer, then looked sideways; Helena frowned at the slight smirk on her face. "I didn't get it from him," she said, but even as she spoke the words, her smirk slipped, and her tone grew softer – more intimate. She faced away again.

Helena dropped her own gaze to the ground before focusing it forward, too. "That guy in Coast City," she spoke, "there's a good reason why he called you 'beloved', isn't there?"

Her answer was the release of another arrow.

With a cluck of her tongue, Helena remarked, "The daughter of Ra's al Ghul is an archer, too, then?"

She almost expected not to receive an answer, when Sara said, "Yes, she is."

So, the daughter of Ra's al Ghul called the Yellow Bird her beloved; it was a good thing to know, Helena supposed. "That guy also said she's waiting for you."

"Yes, she is," Sara repeated, then met Helena's eyes. "But I'm not going back." With a quiet sigh, she added, "I don't regret running away, but if there's one thing I could miss, it'd be her."

"Well, you should think it through better," Helena advised, taking her own shot and hitting dead center. "Losing someone you love makes you...vengeful." And somehow, she doubted the daughter of Ra's al Ghul would take kindly to being left behind.

"I know," Sara said simply, and reloaded her crossbow.

This was no fun.

These men didn't have any information for her, nothing she wanted from them; as she took them out one by one from her vantage point atop one of the shipping containers by the docks, Helena felt more like an executioner than a huntress. No, she decided. No fun at all.

Once the deed was done, she headed for the club she'd heard of from her father; he always talked about it after his trips to Edge City. Sabatoni's men were there in clusters. Maybe she'd engage them in a fight; at least then she would get some fun out of this whole deal.

Thinking on it, she decided that Johnny Sabatoni had probably promised his men a fight – oh, he'd warned them of the danger for sure, and they probably knew already, but they'd probably also been under the impression there was a chance for them to take her down. Fools.

She did take her time at the club, after having spotted the particular group of planted possible informants waiting for her; she fought them, let them think they'd gotten the upper hand at one point, too – if only to spice things up a little. In the end, she put them down, too.

Back in the bell tower, she found that Sara had already returned from her own stroll through the streets; it had been her idea to take the spare crossbow tonight, to further the illusion that the Huntress was truly the only one in town. After some internal debate, Helena had allowed it.

The crossbow lay discarded now, as Sara was it the process of beating one of the steel grids with her batons. The impact of metal against metal echoed in the tower.

It clanged and clanged and clanged, and it hurt Helena's head.

"Would you quit that?" she snapped, after having discarded her own garb. Shacking up with the Canary was one thing; listening to her drill holes in her skull with her 'training' was another one entirely.

It took a moment for the noise to stop, as Sara lowered her weapons. "Only if you are willing to offer a better challenge," she retorted.

Helena raised an eyebrow, then grinned. Now this should be fun.