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Let's talk about Elektra Natchios.
Her story is always told in relation to other men - a lost lover, a dead father, a cruel mentor, but tell me about Elektra herself. Because Elektra Natchios is not defined by her relationships, but by what she became and more importantly, what she was .
But let’s start here.
vii.
She’s dying.
Again.
She does it so well.
But here is the truth: Elektra Natchios is going to die.
She knows this now.
Matthew’s arms are heavy around her and the scent of copper drifts in the air and he laughs briefly, full of the unspoken words between them, before she presses her forehead to his and runs her hand over his face, feeling the trickle of blood from the cuts over his eye.
His blood is so red, like life itself.
They’re going to die down here.
She was always going to die down here, but Matthew -
He was always the better one out of the two of them and -
“I’m so sorry, Matthew, for all the pain I’ve caused you.”
His smile is still so beautiful, even as he grimaces slightly with the pain.
He's taken off his mask at the very end of it all.
They're not the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and the Black Sky, but just Matthew and Elektra, two people that loved each other to the point of madness.
What can he hear above?
Can he hear his new team struggling to reach him -
“We’re going to die down here,” he says, regret weighing down everything in his voice and -
No.
Their story was never about death.
It was about finding life amidst the death and destruction they dealt out.
All of her love has come to this, all the days of her love and the years that she poured into it.
It was about anger and love and life and all that entailed and -
Matt’s still there with her.
The building rumbles one last time and -
Their lips touch for the last time, his hand tangling in her hair as -
There’s the rush of darkness and water and rocks and the world turns red and -
It’s all over.
i.
Names are important.
They define who you are and who you will become and Elektra has had more names that she can remember.
But this is how it starts.
Elektra was a girl, once.
This surprises people, for some bizarre reason.
They imagine her to be the fierce assassin and fighter born of Stick, like Athena was from the head of Zeus.
But no.
She was a girl once and she can remember parts of it, almost so faded that they're impressions rather than memories.
This is what she remembers:
A gentle whisper of Khmer over her crib, the feeling of love everywhere around her and the cool hand of a woman ghosting over her forehead.
That deeply familiar smell of diesel, dust and decay that paints all of her memories with the scent of home.
The tapping and rumbling of rain on the tin roof of their old home, while her mother sings quietly.
But this is not how a warrior is made.
A warrior is made through hunger, through pain, through the tears of her mother as she is left in the arms of the white women that she doesn’t want to be with - their accents are too harsh, their voices too loud, she wants her Mama, she wants -
If only it were that.
Maybe she could have been adopted by a happy family and grown up in a world of love and comfort and forgotten her old home in favour of her new.
But that’s not how this story goes.
Instead, there’s an old man who comes to the orphanage, his stick echoing loudly on the ground, while the nuns shove her into a pretty set of clothes to stand there and wait for the new prospective parent to judge her of being worthy enough for him.
She’s scared, but she buries it deep within her and holds her chin high, the way her mother always told her to.
The man smiles and crouches down in front of her, his eyes clouded over and his face lined.
“Want to tell me your name, kid?”
So she does, and watches the frown form on his face.
“It’s a little hard to pronounce. Mind if I change it?”
A nod.
(She doesn’t want to set aside her name, but she buries it deep, alongside her fear and clutches it closer to her during the warm nights that remind her of home.)
He cocks his head, his nostrils flaring and his sightless eyes boring deep into her, before he stretches out a hand that she takes.
His hands are rough, covered with callouses from a hard life.
“You’re a bit like a moving dream, aren’t you?” he says with a grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I reckon you’d make a good Elektra.”
iv.
Elektra’s bored.
Honestly, this isn’t anything particularly new, but this is what’s happening for her.
She’s all dolled up to the high heavens, high high heels and a tight red dress, all in the name of seducing a blind man.
Excellent.
This was exactly what her evening needed.
Stick’s whispering in the back of her head, telling her about the importance of her mission and what it will all mean, but this is what it boils down to:
Elektra at an insanely vapid party, her feet aching and her bracelets clinking hard against the rim of her martini glass while she watches a blind man being dragged out by security.
Wait a moment.
Don’t dive in too soon.
“Time to go now,” she hears the security guard growl and -
“He’s with me,” she purrs, running a finger around the rim of her glass.
What does it sound like for him?
She closes her eyes, pushing everything back and focusing on the moment.
This is true: Matthew Murdock is a handsome man.
He’s awkward and still growing into his confidence, but there’s something about him that calls to her, her other half and the better angels of her nature.
A quick sideways glance at him reveals his smirk.
He knows it.
Her smile only grows, the Russian Red on her lips leaving a line on the rim of her glass as she turns to face him properly.
“Nice wingtips. Polish them yourself?”
His smile grows in response.
It’s too bright for this.
God, Stick is insane if he thinks -
No, there’s a flicker of something across his face.
She hammers her advantage home, going on the attack, before sitting back, a nonchalant expression (wasted on him) on her face. He knows it.
He knows that she's toying with him, and much like the rest of the Chaste, he's helpless against it.
No.
There's something in his face, something dark and angry and enjoying this.
He likes the chase.
He tilts his face downwards for a moment, his eyes shadowed by his glasses before he faces her again, his jaw set and his eyebrow raised.
A smile in return, the waxy slide of the Russian Red on her lips brought to the fore.
“You want to know what I think?”
Elektra raises an eyebrow, all seduction and darkness. This isn't as boring as she thought it would be. “Tell me.”
“I think the game’s just beginning. I think you're bored,” he whispers, inching closer to her as he keeps going, offering her the unexpected.
She likes it.
Her hand goes out to him and her feet are light when she gets off her stool.
“Elektra Natchios.”
“Matt Murdock.”
“Let's get out of here, Matthew.”
His cane clicks on the ground as they leave the party and she can feel the particular frisson of the chase wash over her.
The game really is just beginning.
vi.
Elektra Natchios is dying.
She’s in Matthew’s arms, the wound in her stomach burning cold and hot at the same time and she can feel the blood in her veins threatening to boil over.
Her heart is pounding loud in her ears and her vision is starting to cloud at the edges.
Oh God, it was never supposed to end like this.
She knew that she’d die as part of this war, but not like this.
It was supposed to be a grace to die, an escape from a life that had become pain, but not now.
They were supposed to die together.
Matthew looks like he’s torn between anger, grief and despair above her and she tries to reach out to touch his face, but her arms feel like lead and - oh God, everything hurts so much, she just wants it to end.
Where’s Nobu?
What happened to him?
Is he still there?
She tries to raise her head to look around, to find her last enemy but -
His hand is surprisingly light against her face.
Her breath is starting to get shaky.
Her mind is racing, trying to tell Matthew everything that she wants to pass on in her last moments, nothing about the war, about the darkness, but everything about him and them and how she tore herself apart trying to be more -
“I know now what it means to be good.”
Her eyes flicker shut and the world burns red behind her eyelids and the world goes silent.
She’s at the end.
And she is no more.
ii.
This is how a warrior is made.
You can’t just hammer at them until they break and break and -
No, to make a warrior, you have to start young.
Elektra knows this now.
You take a girl, poor and hungry, and you force her to bend and break and then you temper it.
And then you do it over and over again.
And this is how you do it:
Elektra is a young girl, a pair of staves held tightly in her hand, blindfolded and barefoot, trying to keep her ears open while she listens for the next attack.
It’s been a scant few weeks since she was whisked from the orphanage and the control of the nuns and a knife placed in her too-small hands.
Her feet seem to be hugely loud as she shuffles around, a tiny whisper of noise behind her.
She twists quickly, the rush of air passing her face and -
A stick is slammed into the back of her knees and she falls to the ground, landing hard on her wrist with a sickening crack.
There’s a grunt of pain that escapes her lips and she reaches up with her good hand to adjust her blindfold.
Another crack as a stick is slammed into her hand.
“Keep that shit on,” Stick says, his voice as merciless as ever.
“My wrist,” she grits out, the pain rushing up her arm and burning hard in her wrist.
She hears the rush of air and -
There’s the sound of a stick slamming in the ground where she’d been kneeling earlier and a pause, a sharp intake of breath.
“You know, we might make something of you yet.”
She can hear the smile in Stick’s voice, before it shifts.
“Now get up.”
Elektra picks herself off the ground, ignoring the agony in her hand and grabbing the stave again.
And this is how a warrior is made.
Through pain and blood and suffering, and you do it over and over again.
v.
The rain pounds on the windows outside, such a far cry from the tin roofs that she remembers as a half-forgotten dream.
Is this how Matthew feels every night in his city?
The light flickers from the billboard across the street and Elektra takes the time to turn her head look around his apartment n.
It’s empty and open, almost like a showroom (or like her apartment, a tiny part of her mind whispers), but it’s warm and cosy, lived-in in a way that her homes never quite will be.
Where is Matthew?
Her fingers tap idly against the arm of his sofa.
She bites her lip, trying to restrain the urge to go rummaging around in the bowels of his life.
Does she do it or not?
A woman’s forgotten voice whispers to her of politeness and of guest-right and she shakes her head to get rid of it.
It’s not Christina’s voice and it’s not her nanny’s, or anyone else in her life, but a woman whose voice she can barely remember from a lifetime ago.
Matthew had always had a way of getting under her skin, even when he wasn’t even there.
Where is he?
Is he playing at being justice out on the rainy streets, beating down terrible men and telling himself that he’s not violating some unspoken code because he’s only putting them in the hospital and not the morgue?
Or is he somewhere -
No.
He wouldn’t be.
A quick look around his apartment reveals what Stick had told her - he was completely alone, the perfect sort of man for them to recruit.
Was this how Stick had chosen her in the first place? A lonely little girl at the end of the -
But again, at the end of the day, she has a war to fight and a man to recruit.
And all she has to do is -
There’s a set of footsteps outside the door and she forces herself to relax, to play the nonchalant heiress that the world expects of her and that only Matthew can quite see past, despite his impairments .
There’s a rattle at the door.
The very moment for her act is here.
The door creaks open and her lips curl up instinctively with the thrill of the chase.
“Hello, Matthew.”
iii.
There’s a woman kneeling in front of her, brushing her hair out of her face in a way that she can almost remember, but there’s something strange about it.
Elektra’s too rough now, too far a cry from - no, that name is dead now. Her hands are calloused now, and she knows what it means to be knocked down and get back up, blood staining her teeth and her nails.
The woman’s hands are too cold and too timid, shaking as they brush her hair back.
“Hugo, she’s perfect,” the woman is muttering, her accent not quite that of Stick or the nuns, but something more rounded, something foreign hiding in the too-wide sounds.
There’s a man standing there too, his face shadowed as he stares down at the woman and at Elektra.
His face is that of a man trying not to break, and it’s such a relief to see something other than the harsh lines of Stick’s face.
“What’s your name, little one?” he asks, sounding like he’s not used to being gentle.
The woman’s hand is still cool on her forehead, but it’s something at the very least.
It’s not home, but it’ll be close enough for her.
She smiles, painting it on as broad as possible. “My name is Elektra.”
The woman smiles in response, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes and she pulls Elektra close.
“Welcome home, Elektra Natchios.”
viii.
There is a dead woman, and she stands in front of what was once a crowded slum of scrap metal and rotting wood and she breathes.
It’s the smell of death and decay and dust and diesel and life and it’s the smell that sits deep in her veins, calling her home.
This is true: Before Elektra Natchios became who she was, the fierce warrior, the vapid socialite, the lover, the soldier, she was a girl in the slums of Phnom Penh, loved and wanted.
This is also true: she has never forgotten the place that she once came from and who she used to be.
It’s not Elektra that’s come home to this place at the end of the world, with her glamour and her darkness and all that entailed.
“My name is Sovanna Phy,” she says, the name slipping easily from her lips as if they belonged there all along.
Out of instinct, she slips her feet out of her shoes, those high, high shoes that she can barely walk in, letting her feet feel the familiar dust against their soles and leave prints in her wake.
Her bag feels as if it has been filled with lead and she forces herself to walk closer to the place she once called home.
The incense is cool in her hands as she takes a deep breath and tries to reconcile her memories and her dreams and her reality.
She feels herself fall to her knees in the street and people giving her strange glances, before moving around her.
Bow once for yourself, her mother whispers.
Then another time for your family.
Then once more for the gods.
She feels a broken smile on her face as she lights the sticks, bowing her head and praying for that which she once had and all that she’s lost, her lips moving easily with the half-forgotten prayers, before she sets them upright in the dirt and stands up straight.
Death is only a door, and even that isn’t the end.
The only thing she feels now is life.
Sovanna Phy walks into the crowd, feeling the overwhelming sensation all around her and she smiles.
She’s come home.