Memories
Equals
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The girl toddled across the floor, stumbling as she walked. Graceful hands caught her before she could plonk down on the ground. Shiny white teeth gleamed up.
"Doda!"
Tora laughed as Zillah giggled up at her. She responded in Hebrew, Zillah's clear first language. Etana tended to naturally slip into it when she had half a chance, and Tora often responded in the same so Zillah had picked it up as her main language, with a smattering of English, Yiddish and Aramaic mixed in to spice things up.
"Slow down, little one."
"Lama?"
Why? It was Zillah's favourite word. Everything was 'why?' Why this and why that. Etana seemed to enjoy leaving Tora to babysit, saying that it was "at least something your omniscience is good for." Tora disagreed. She'd gone through this stage with Jamie, before he realised that Hank was better when it came to asking "Why can't we create a perpetual motion machine if we used unstable molecules to bypass friction?" Zillah's questions weren't that level yet but they were almost as difficult. "Why are you sometimes made of water and sometimes look like a pink person?" was one –'pink person' was Zillah's term for it. Two out of three of the people she knew had black fur and a tail. Tora was the odd one out.
"Because you'll fall and hurt yourself."
Zillah pouted. Tora smiled. Zillah was actually a little cuter than Etana had been –a better balanced diet had helped make her more chubby and round-faced. And while Etana still hadn't quite forgiven Tora, putting Zillah in a Captain America sleepsuit had been one of the cutest things Tora had ever seen. The blue was rather sweet against her black fuzz and the little red mittens had waved around in the air, expecting to be picked up and snuggled.
"But lama?"
"You're going to be difficult today, aren't you, little one?"
"Love you, Doda."
Tora laughed and picked up Zillah, swinging the little girl around.
"I love you too, my little one."
Then she held Zillah upside down, enjoying the giggles that exploded from her when she did so. Eva had loved being held upside down as well, giggling madly when the blood rushed to her head. Depositing the squirming toddler on the ground, Tora then began tickling Zillah, allowing herself to laugh as the girl tried to get away from the deft fingers.
"Am I interrupting something?"
Zillah immediately leapt up and ran over to Etana, who had just entered, her hair still wet from the shower she had taken.
"Ima! Ima! Ima!"
Tora rolled her eyes. She always came second to Etana. Zillah loved her Doda but adored her Ima. No matter what Tora would be doing, if Etana entered, Zillah would immediately drop it and go and follow her 'mother' around, like a cute little puppy, full of energy, bouncing along at Etana's heels. Stretching, she stood up and glanced at Etana. It was a Shadow she had never seen, not even when they were at the X-Mansion together. Her wet hair was pulled up into a loose shape and she went barefoot, wearing a light dressing gown. Off-guard and relaxed. It was how Etana coped after she had been out doing something messy. A shower, a long bath and then spending the rest of the day with Zillah. A small hint at redemption, a way of trying to forget that she came home soaked in blood that wasn't her own.
"Her arms were soaked with blood. How could she cope with it?"
"By being harsher than you could possibly imagine."
Tora sighed as Etana folded her arms stubbornly.
"I have bandages and you're injured. For pity's sake, let me help."
Sighing, Etana carefully removed the tattered remains of her blood-stained top and turned, allowing Tora access to the cuts running around her back and waist. Tora sat behind her and began cleaning the wounds.
"What happened?"
"Ambushed from behind. My own stupid fault. Knew I should have worn the armour, even if it slows me down."
"And once more, I'll offer you star-steel armour."
"And once more, I'll refuse. Adamantine suits me well enough, and I'm not entirely sure I trust your star-steel."
"You've seen the Destroyer…"
"Yes. And it weighs a couple of tonnes."
"I can easily change it."
"No you don't have- ARRGH!"
"Sorry. Disinfectant."
"Warn me next time."
Tora carefully worked on methodically cleaning the cuts, starting with the deepest. Looking at Etana, it appeared that whatever wasn't muscle was scar tissue. Her back and chest muscles were almost overdeveloped, having to be capable of supporting each of the seven-foot wings. From X-Rays, Tora knew that Etana's rib cage was rather…unusual, with a strong keel, like birds had. It jutted out and all the many muscles that were linked to her shoulders and wings were attached to it. The rest of her back was a mixture of scar tissue from various injuries. The surgical lines around her wing bases, where Tora had carefully cut into the skin. The marks of a whip just under the wings, where a cat o'nine tails had been used to lash her half to death. There were numerous small scars on her back, but nowhere near as many as on her front. Etana didn't do retreat so any scarring on her back had probably been the result of an assassination attempt or an ambush.
"They almost got your heart."
Tora traced the cut that had come within inches of tearing through the main wing muscle.
"If it had been deeper, it could have killed you. If it had been longer, it would have crippled your left wing."
"They're already crippled!"
They sat in shocked silence for a moment and then Etana coughed.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to snap."
"It's okay. Just… Stay still. Stop fidgeting. I can't clean you up unless you let me."
She placed the pad over it and micropored it in place.
"Twitch your wings please."
Etana complied and Tora was pleased to see it didn't move the pad. They continued, in comfortable silence, Tora every now and then breaking it to ask Etana to move so she made sure that the bandages or pads weren't impeding her motion. Finally they finished and Etana shrugged on a loose jacket.
"I could get used to you being my first aider."
"Stop running into ambushes. Or next time, teleport out immediately."
Etana twisted around and barely winced.
"Oh, stop babying me. Save that for Zillah."
The pair of them looked in each other's eyes and then started giggling, clinging to each other hopelessly. There was something so…equal about them at that moment. It didn't matter that Tora and Etana had fought and laughed and trained and griped and joked over the years. There had always been a clear master-student relationship over the years but in this single giggling fit, that was swept away and now two equals looked each other in the eye.
"I still hate you."
"I hate you too."
"That's the Tora/Etana dynamic I remember."
"What? Going from giggly to sarcastic in a split second? I don't remember it that way."
"That's because you tend to have the bad habit of picking out the bad memories."