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It’s sweltering in the nightclub, the air almost too stifling to even be in the room. People are packed in like sardines, bodies slick with sweat as they dance and shimmy to whatever hit the band is playing. It’s been a while since he’s been in a nightclub, years in fact, and it’s eyebrow raising to see adults partying at two PM like they don’t have responsibilities. The humble feeling arising in his chest almost makes him laugh, the fact that that’s the life he would’ve been living if the worst had never happened all those years ago.
He worms his way through the crowd of gyrating people who trail their hands over his body, until he sees her in the center of the floor, almost in her own little world, the people flowing around her but never coming into contact with her body, like she’s a whirlwind all on her own. That or they don’t notice her presence, which is odd because she’s supposedly an immortal nymph. He feels like he’s being pulled towards her by some otherworldly force, impossible to resist, and frankly, he’s finding that he doesn’t want to.
By the time he gets to her, he doesn’t even have to announce himself as she reaches out and takes his hand, twirling him into whatever body-bending movement she’s going into. “You knew I was coming,” he states unsurprisingly.
Her eyes are shut as she sways to the notes of the guitar, voice filtering through the music like soft rain during a quiet, spring morning. “The spirit of nature is strong, Bruce Wayne. It carried yours to me.” She twists, one arm curling around his neck the other flowing out as if she’s feeling the vibrations from the speakers. “You seek my knowledge and my training for your…hellish crusade.”
“Fighting crime isn’t some hellish crusade,” he returns, but doesn’t shove her away, merely taking the outstretched hand in his own as he wraps his free around her waist, fingers splaying across her back as the music slows to an almost easy rhythm. “I’ve heard the stories about you. Reading the earth, reading the signs of inevitability. You call yourself Mother Nature.”
She pulls her arms away and he’s quick to wrap the other around her waist as she bends backwards, hanging from his grip like she’s free falling, weightless and boundless. “Calling and being are two different things, Bruce Wayne. I am not called Mother Nature. I am Mother Nature.” Almost as if the musicians are responding to her, the lyrics flow into his mind.
It's the new Mother Nature taking over. It's the new splendid lady come to call
It's the new Mother Nature taking over. She's gettin' us all. She's gettin' us all.
The feeling of the eyes all over his back fade as the illusion is broken around them and she lifts up, gazing into his eyes with her impossibly bright own like he’s staring at the world, wise and old, but somehow mirthful and young. There’s a greenish sparkle around them, a spell that’s obviously keeping her hidden from the crowd around them. He has no beliefs that if the spell wasn’t there that they wouldn’t be crowding her. She’s intoxicating, like saccharine syrup, especially when she places her palm to his abdomen and trails it up like she’s running across silk. He feels like the path she blazes leaves an imprint on him as she reaches his throat, middle finger dipping into the hollow of it; he isn’t sure what she’s trying to feel, the heat, his breathing, the beat of his heart, but she’s looking for something and she finds it.
“The point of being aware of it all is to focus on what’s important while still retaining your surroundings. Like the desert kings and the consciousness of each grain of sand.”
That does surprise him, despite himself. “You know the desert kings?”
“I’ve walked this earth since the beginning,” she says, ignoring his question. “I watched the crust break as lava poured over it until the globe was bathed in scorching crimson.” She’s still swaying. “I’ve seen this world covered in water. I’ve seen empires rise and I’ve seen them fall.”
Her eyes find his as her hand shifts upwards of his jaw, around the back of his neck to hold tight, keeping them level and focused on each other. “I’ve seen it all.” She takes one of his hands and presses it to the center of her chest and he fights not to feel embarrassed at holding touching her breasts. “The heart you feel beneath this body is the heart of the world.”
Sure enough, he can feel a steady rhythm beneath, like the thump of the bass in his ears and slowly he begins to feel the awareness around him clear like crystals. “Awareness keeps us alive, but you have to train yourself to feel when that ability is taken away. You have to rely on feeling when you can’t see or hear anything else.”
His sight is taken from him, then his hearing and all he can feel is her hand on the back of his neck, the sweat dripping down his spine. For a split second, his body screams at him to flee but her free hand comes to his hip and holds him in a grip as strong as stone. He shuts his eyes, forces himself to take a deep breath and relax, lets the vibrations around flow over him as he pictures the world around them in his mind. It’s slow at first, like haziness out of a dream, swimming through a thick fog as he navigates through the floor around him and like he’s been dipped into freezing water, he can feel it all. There’s a couple behind him arguing as they shimmy together giving off the air of two people in love yet quite the opposite. He can “see” the way the musician’s lips are pressed to the microphone as he sings and the string of the bass plucks more for him to imagine. The bartender’s heel is tapping behind the waist high bar as he cleans a new glass and sets it down.
He starts moving his feet, dodging bodies and wires as he moves them around on the floor, mapping out every inch of the place and when he finally opens his eyes, they’re tucked away in a dark corner. His eyes find hers and the smile that floats across her lips is one of satisfaction but there isn’t an ounce of arrogance anywhere.
“You are quite a fast learner,” she notes, finally letting him go and she cracks open the door next to him, slipping out of it. “Come along.”
He follows, finally able to breathe in the open air where it isn’t humid, drowning his lungs in sweat and overpriced liquor. She laughs like twinkling stars, and he can’t find it in himself to hide the flush that comes across his already heated face.
“Is there more training coming?” he asks, hot on her heels as she walks down a dusty backroad and he’s subtly entranced by the way every plant seems to bloom as she passes it.
She bends down beside a boy begging for money on the sidewalk and takes a handful of dirt, placing it into his hands while covering it with her own. When she pulls away, there’s a roll of hundreds in his hands, and he starts to cry as she leaves with a smile and a caress of his head.
He follows her with a wonder growing in him as she weaves through the back alleys, ultimately finding himself in an overgrown forested area surrounded by cherry blossom trees and wildflowers. Birds circle her and she lifts them with her arms to the branches of the willow she parts, letting him come inside. It’s warm, but not like the nightclub had been. No, it’s comforting, like the hugs he remembers his mother used to give before he went to bed. A blanket of security washes over him and for once, he feels like he can truly be at peace; he watches as she sits beneath the willow and cards her fingers through the zoysia grass, picking up a gorgeous green and black-spotted snake that’s covered in spines. It takes him a moment to realize it’s a Nitsche’s bush viper and he marvels because he’s never seen one outside of Africa.
The viper doesn’t seem to be particularly excited that it was awakened, but it curls itself around her shoulders, laying its head on her chest. “Did you know that this species is an ambush predator? They hide in trees or beneath foliage and wait until their prey arrives to strike.”
He takes a wary step as he sits down. “It feels sacrilegious to have Mother Nature holding an extremely venomous snake.”
A rumble of laughter shakes the viper at her chest, and it curls, staring at him with one eye, pupil slit and narrowed like it’s waiting for him to come within striking distance. “Nature is beautiful and serene, but people forget that underneath that beauty is unforgiving power.” A mouse crawls along her knee and he watches as the snake slowly begins to turn, eyes locked on the rodent currently on its hind legs, nibbling at something it its hands.
The strike is like lightning as the viper attacks, fangs digging into the mouse as it curls its body around it and he almost flinches at the pained squeak the rodent makes; she is merely gazing at the scene unfolding, unbothered by it. “You wish to become something like this, Bruce Wayne,” she acknowledges. “An ambush predator, awaiting his prey to come beneath him so he can strike.”
He frowns as the snake begins to eat. “I’m not planning on injecting people with neurotoxin and killing them.”
“You persist in your quest like a small boat in a hurricane.” Her eyes move back to his. “You do know that you will face hardships following this life? Such is the way for those that fight against nature’s pathway.”
“And nature’s pathway is to murder?”
“Nitsche did not murder that mouse,” she corrects. “It has no sense of right or wrong. It’s merely doing the task it was created to do. Feed, reproduce, die.” She drags a hand down its spiny back. “It merely exists. It hunts when it is hungry, rests when it is tired, and dies when it is time. It follows the natural order of life and death.”
He stares back at her. “I don’t believe in killing. I won’t ever kill.”
She nods. “A commendable attitude to have, but there are many people who do kill, and you have to make the choice whether to allow them to follow their cycle in life or to stop it. Whether they live or die.”
“Killing someone doesn’t change the world.”
“There are those who disagree with that statement for good and bad reasons.”
“I want to help people.”
“Them? Or yourself?” she inquired, raising a hand to catch a hummingbird on her pointer. “This journey you’ve made across the lands and seas has been for one reason only.”
He doesn’t look away as he states with conviction, “I want to save innocent people from facing the same thing I did.”
She waits, seeing something in his eyes and holds out her hand until he places his in hers. Turning it over, she moves the hummingbird to his hand, and he barely feels it as it perches there and he forces himself to still, every muscle begging to twitch. “Then you need to have tender hands.” Her fingers are soft, like flower petals. “You fight like the fiercest storms, but you cannot save people if you cannot bring them the calmest seas.”
Her eyes soften. “The grace and lightness of birds, but the strength and speed of vipers. Awareness in all forms. Who to be kind with? Who to be cruel against?”
She takes his other hand around the bird and for a moment he worries he’s going to hurt it, but when he opens his hands, the wind picks up the small flower petals laying there. “In the end, it all comes down to what we chose to do with our lives. Life is fleeting, Bruce Wayne,” she murmurs. “And this life will not bid you happiness, you know this, don’t you?”
“I do,” he answers quietly. “But it’s what I’m called to do.”
Meeting his gaze, she nods. “It is an answer as good as any other.”
“You’ll train me?” he asks.
She smiles. “It seems I must.” Holding out her hands palm up, he lays his over hers and a mirage of crystal color blooms in his vision. “I will train you under one condition.”
“I’ll give anything I have.”
“One day in the far future a war will ravage the lands, you will request my help along with others. The world will burn, and the seas will boil, nature will reclaim lives, good and evil alike.”
“Is this a prophecy?”
“One which will come true,” she replies. “I will stand beside you, but the enemy will be a twisted creation, born of hatred and rage.” Her eyes narrowed and the colors around him shifted to a glowing crimson. “You must allow me to fulfill the natural order. The creation will die by my hand, and you, nor the ones you fight with, can stop me. It must follow this way lest we see the world meet its end.”
He weighs his options silently before he nods. “I’ll submit to your condition.”
The colors around them shift once more, back to the serene blues and greens. “Then our deal has been struck.” Smiling, she adds, “I will show you what Mother Nature sees in this world. You’ll see through my eyes, hear through my ears, smell through my nose. You will train your senses to be aware in the moment or when they are taken away. And you will not stop until you master them.”
He nods firmly, shifting his hands, to grasp at her wrists, pointer fingers pressed up her forearm. “I’m ready for whatever you’re going to teach me.”
“I hope so,” she responds, and gone is that wise look in her eyes, replaced with the mirth once again. “I’m going to break you down and rebuild you.”