2006-11-10 - Who IS My Father?

Days pass. His mother is nowhere to be seen, nor is Ra's-- though, at least, word of the latter filters throughout the compound, overseeing this task or another. Ubu is Damian's constant companion during those days, as much a shepherd as a bodyguard and servant.
After a week, the compound is close to back to normal. The walls have been scrubbed clean of blood and gore; the bodies disposed of. The remaining traitors had been put to a messy death by Ra's. Talia remains missing.
Until her voice can be heard coming from Ra's room, angry and frustrated. "No, Father. I /must/ send Damian to his father, especially after this last uprising. He will be safer there, and he can learn from him--"
"No." Ra's voice intones. "We will speak no more of this."
Damian had been coming to demand to see his mother, and not for the first time, when he hears her voice in his grandfather's chambers. The voice fills him with hope and dread all at once. He does not enter the room but waits outside, listening. His father? His father was dead wasn't he? That was what Ra's had told him and his mother had not denied it. That pushes him past any trepidation and he pushes his way inside. "My father is alive?" he asks them when he's through the door with no further greeting.
Talia is quick to wrap her son up in an embrace. She does hold Damian tightly to her for a few long moments, though, and then releases him, standing beside him and looking to her own father.
"Father," she says, a touch more calmly than before. "Please. The Detective--"
There's a moment's pause before Damian returns the hug but he does return it. "Why is my father-" he begins to ask before Ra's replies to Talia's question with a sharp "No, Daughter I have made my decision and you shall live by it, the boy will remain here with us and learn to do his part for our mission. The Detective is not an option." 
Damian tries to struggle free of his mother's grip. "Why is my father still alive? You told me he was dead!" 
Ra's turns then and regards his defiant grandson for a moment "It was necessary, your father has refused to join us so has no place in your life, your training, your destiny, must always be first in your mind," he says before he turns away again. "Talia, take him back to his rooms, you may tell him what you wish about the Detective, but know that Damian's place is here, learning to take his rightful place in the League."
For a moment, it seems as if Talia may be just as defiant as her son. But then she looks down at the boy, and her anger fades.
"Yes, Father. Come, Damian, back to your rooms." And she gently but firmly begins to lead him towards the door.
Damian glowers at Ra's' back before he is lead away. Once outside of earshot he turns to look at his Mother. "You should have told me my father is still alive," he says to her crossly as they walk back towards his room.
"To what end?" Talia responds coolly to her son as they make their way through the halls. She says nothing more, though, until they reach the door of his room, and she opens it, gesturing for him to enter first.
Damian enters as instructed. The room is Spartan. There are books, there is a chest for clothing and a slender bed with a single bolster pillow at one end and blankets neatly folded at the other. Once inside he turns "The end of me knowing he's alive obviously," he answers peevishly. "I want to go see him."
"You cannot," Talia says sharply. "No more than can I. Content yourself with the knowledge he is alive and well." She shuts the door, then takes a seat on the closed chest of clothing. 
Damian paces back and forth. "You want to see him too, don't you?" he reasons. "We can both go, grandfather will be angry but he cannot punish us too severely, he needs us. Especially after this attempted coup." He turns to gauge his mother's reaction to his idea.
"He would not wish to see us," Talia says. She might be lying. Or perhaps not. "Your grandfather once thought to make him his heir. Your father is not like us. He declined that glory, and to be with us, Damian." She neglects to answer Damian's question, of course. "The Detective is a man as gifted as your grandfather. And in his own ways, just as unyielding."
Damian moves to crouch down across from his mother looking up at her face with the same searching look his father had used when sifting through lies for the truth. "He really walked away from grandfather and lived?" he asks. The feat sounded impossible. "And why does he reject us? He can't be one of the Unworthy if Grandfather offered him the chance to be heir."
"He is /not/ Unworthy," Talia says sharply-- a bit too sharply. "And he did. His path is a different one than ours, but he is no less than we are for it."
"And because of this different path, he won't see us, even if we come to him?" Damian asks as he continues to search his mother's face for signs of the truth.
Talia looks into her son's eyes-- so like his father's, brilliant, searching, /seeing/ all that was there. She narrows her own. 
"Perhaps he will, or he will not," she allows. "But he is no ally of ours, Damian. You must understand, he is one that would bring down all that we strive for. His path..." she shakes her head slightly. "He denied the position of heir and left the League, Damian. You know how your grandfather regards deserters."
She sighs. "Let us not talk of this, my son. Surely there are other things you wish to ask, besides this?"
Damian frowns when further answers are not forthcoming, though the thought of other questions reminds him that this is the first time he'd seen his mother in over a week. "How have you been, after the Pit?" he asks her quietly. "I was there when you rose from it but grandfather sent me away."
"He was right to do so," Talia says firmly. "When one rises from the pits... they are not quite themselves, at first." That's the closest she will get to an explanation, it seems. "As soon as I came back to myself, I went to your grandfather. Our casualties were heavy, but only here, it seems. The traitors all wanted the glory of killing an Al Ghul. They forget we are perilously difficult to finish."
The cold woman is back again, it seems, the part of his mother than was his most ferocious instructor. "They would have been the destruction of the League, my son, had they succeeded. Remember, nothing is as important as our mission. That is why you must not upset your grandfather with questions and demands of your father. Blood is important, but there is more to the worthiness of leading the League than blood. More than being an effective killer. You understand this, do you not?"
"Idiots," Damian says of the traitors with a shake of his head as he rises to his feet and begins pacing again. His mother's changing tone soon brings that pacing to a halt as he turns to face her hands behind his back. "Yes, Mother, I understand, without our purpose the rest is meaningless."
"Good." Talia regards her son emotionlessly. "You may ask what questions you will about your father-- now. After today, not again." She settles back, and waits. She knows the boy will have questions.
There is no guarantee she will answer them as he wishes, but she has made the offer-- though, admittedly, at R'as's subtle command.
Damian sits when the opportunity for questions is given, chewing his lip as he thinks. "How did you meet?" he begins. "And did he really defy grandfather, and what is his path if not ours?" he begins with and as each is answered more questions tumble out to take their place.
"He trained with the League. We met while we were both training under Kirigi." Talia pauses for a moment, taking a slow breath in. "He was the most gifted of Kirigi's students."
She considers the last two questions. "He did defy your grandfather, in many things," she says finally. "Perhaps that is why you are so disrespectful," she quirks a brow at him, "as your conception came in one of those moments of defiance." She smiles a bit in memory, and her looks soften quite a bit. She loved him. Or perhaps still does...?
"As for his path... our path is one of cleansing, of renewal for the world. We are gardeners, my son. We walk among the Unworthy and pluck the weeds out." She shrugs. "Your father is not a gardener. He is a detective. He does not seek renewal, but vengeance. He does not seek to cleanse, but wallows in the filth of the city he was born in."
Her tone twinges with anger and hurt. "He is the only man I have seen fight your grandfather to an even match. No-- not even. He could have killed him, but he chose not to. And when offered everything-- the League, the tools for his vengeance to be wroth large, me-- he slipped away into the darkness, and in the darkness he remains."
"/That/ is the man your father is. Brilliant. Dangerous. Without peer. But his soul has been swallowed by the darkness, Damian. And he will never crawl out from it." Tears sparkle slightly at the edge of her eyes. She stands. "Do not ask me of him again. You know all that you need to know."
And with that, she leaves.
Damian takes in every precious drop offered information in virtual silence. When the session is over he stands and bows murmuring "Thank you, Mother," as he does so. When she's gone, he stands there, silent, processing, storing each kernal of information away in his brain. His father was greater than he imagined and being denied a chance to meet him stung more deeply than it had before he understood that. He frowns, fists clenched, only for a moment before he turns and departs in the wake of his mother in search of his instructors. He /would/ meet his father one day and when that day came he would not be a disappointment.
Category:Historical Log