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Bruce finds that he's still getting used to the sensation of his own aching knuckles.
It's been four years since he left home, left Gotham, left Alfred... Left everything he'd ever known, really, and exchanged it for the life of a nomad.
Through The Philippines to learn Arnis and Yaw Yan, then Thailand to study Silat Pattani-- along with a short stay with a master of poisons in Phuket, who refused any payment not delivered in pure gold. Then it was onto Myanmar for training in Leth Wei in an underground fighting ring just south of Mandalay. Then, four different provinces of China in fairly quick succession, picking up studies in metaphysical healing and pressure point attacks. After that, he'd gone back South for nearly eight months in a Tibetan monastery for advanced meditation and another three in Nepal for hunger conditioning. Japan for Aikido. Russia for sharpshooting, explosives, and KGB stealth techniques. France, England, and Spain to work with various experts in undercover work. A remote island off the coast of Nigeria for underwater combat skills. The Congo to study animal body language. Back East one last time to learn Kalaripayattu...
And now he's here, somewhere in North Africa, overlooking The Mediterranean Sea as it lazily rose up onto the shore before sweeping back out again, glistening as it reflected the moonlight above.
Four years alone. All over the world. Approaching mastery in countless different martial arts... And he still can't stand the way his hands feel after a day of training. His palms had long since earned the calluses that guarded him from the stinging of his own flesh, but the sensation of his aching joints, fingers sore from hours of drills... He couldn't stand it.
Slowly, Bruce stood from his place on the floor of his bedroom, rolling his shoulders and listening to them crackle slightly in protest as they were forced to relax.
The man Bruce is studying with now calls himself The Demon's Head-- which frankly felt a little pretentious, but Bruce wasn't in the business of critiquing the methods of his masters, so he made an effort not to question it. At times, that proved difficult-- nearly everything here, this entire compound, it all feels... Wrong. As though something is being hidden from him.
He's been in worse places, though. At least here they give him a bed (stiff as it may be), rather than leave him to the streets or the hillside. They fed him too, which was a surprising pleasantry-- most of his food was without luxury or excess, but it was hearty and warm and well seasoned, and it ensured he had the energy he needed for a long day of The Demon's training regiment.
He ate his meals alone and cross legged on the ground most days, half watching The Demon's other students-- those he simply called His Forces-- run drills in the training yard, their collective movements in perfect sync like those of a school of fish through water. They were of one mind, and though Bruce has little interest in joining their ranks they fascinate him still. He wonders absently if he will ever know someone so deeply that they could move as one person the way The Demon's Forces do.
As Bruce ate, he made an effort not to look at his mentor's daughter, who almost always remained several yards away from him as he took his occasional breaks. She wouldn't speak, not typically-- she simply sat there on her knees, sharpening her swords or combing her hair or reading a book-- she seemed to appear at the strangest of times. While Bruce had to make a concerted effort to walk in the quick, silent way as The Demon taught, his daughter seemed to do so by nature alone, without a single thought. She could appear at random without sound, her expression neutral and graceful as always, but her green eyes glistening with something more that she wouldn't let on.
In truth, Bruce hasn't actually spoken to the girl in weeks. They'd sparred together more times than he can count-- but always silently, with her father as the single member of their audience, stiff and calculating, occasionally standing to adjust one of their forms or make a point about... Something. Bruce found that listening to The Demon's instruction when his sparring partner was... her... Grew an unreasonable and impossible task.
Talia.
For the record, it wasn't that Bruce had never fought a girl before. Bruce had fought plenty of women in his years of training and he'd long since gotten over any sort of twitching adolescent desire for them once they'd broken a few of his bones. No, it wasn't like that-- not really.
He didn't... Lust for her. Not quite. Not entirely.
... Alright, maybe a little bit, he was a teenage boy-- but that wasn't at the forefront of his mind! There was something else about her, something... weightless. Looking at her... Her eyes, her hair, her hands, the curve of her nose, the delicate arch of her cupids bow...
It was like floating.
True, they rarely speak to each other, but still... He feels that he knows her somehow. They share something. Be it a past, or a future... he isn't sure.
Just as that thought crossed his mind, he notices a familiar silhouette talking along the beach. He smiles to himself, just slightly.
Think of the devil's daughter, and she'll come strolling by your window, he chuckles at his own thought. His eyes trail her slow, careful steps. The tide is out, and she's barefoot walking along the still-damp sand, her head down, scanning for something.
Bruce is lost in his own thoughts, and he doesn't notice until it's too late to have heard whatever it was that she's spoken to him.
"... What...?" He calls out awkwardly.
"I said," She chuckles lightly and the sound makes a chill run up Bruce's spine. "That if you're going to stare at me, you might as well come join me."
Bruce blinks. "... Join you in what?" He asks the question, but he's already in the process of swinging his fist leg out the window, followed by the other-- so apparently, he was agreeing. There's another voice in the back of his head, berating him for the sudden trust he was oh-so-willing to put in this girl. He had a duty, and obligation-- he hadn't taken this journey for fun or pleasure or friendship-- and certainly not for pretty girls.
His feet land in the sand, and after a moment to acclimate to the sensation, he begins to walk out towards her, his stride even and intentional. For a brief moment, he considers that had he been on Odysseus's ship when they encountered the sirens, he would have been the first to die without a doubt.
As he finally comes close enough to see her, he feels his breath hitch in his throat. She's wearing a long, flowing emerald skirt that barely hovers above the sand below as she walks. Her blouse is a sweet shade of lily white, wrapped over itself and tucked into the skirt's waistline carefully. Bruce swallows hard and tries not to stare. He's never seen her wearing anything other than her training clothes, and dressed like this, she looks... beautiful. Her hair is down from it's usual place tied back out of her face, now falling gently over her shoulders, her carefully cut stray bangs-- which were chopped in a straight line close to her face-- flipping about slightly in the evening breeze.
"... Are you cold?" He asks suddenly, and the moment the words leave his mouth he feels painfully stupid. It's Summer. In Northern Africa. If Bruce isn't cold, he can guarantee that the girl who's probably lived here all her life isn't. Nice going, white boy-- now she thinks you're stupid.
"I think I should be asking you that question," she smirks, tilting her head slightly as she looked him up and down. "You're not wearing a shirt."
Bruce looks down and remembers that, indeed, he's only wearing a pair of loose training pants he hadn't bothered to change out of before he took his afternoon nap (which, of course, had turned into a late afternoon nap... Then an evening nap... And now it was 10PM and he was wide awake). He blushes slightly, suddenly feeling a little exposed.
"I, uh..." He clears his throat and looks away. "... Yeah. I'm not. I... I can go... Put on a shirt... If that's... Uh..."
Talia giggles again, and Bruce feels his heart flutter. "Nothing I haven't seen before, American," she teases. Bruce knows what she means-- he's shirtless during nearly all of his training after all-- but his blush deepens anyways.
"... What are you doing out here...?" He changes the subject carefully. She holds out her hands with a soft smile to show him.
"Collecting shells," Bruce looks over the seashells she holds gently in her slim brown hands, and he feels his eyes widen slightly. She seems to favor the smaller ones, tiny swirls of white and pink and brown and red and purple... Somehow, that was the last thing he'd expected her to be doing.
"... Really?" He smiles, just slightly, almost disbelievingly. The girl in front of him now seems so... Different... From the girl he's been sparring with.
"I do in fact have hobbies outside kicking your ass," she huffs, strolling past him with a sway of her hips.
"W-wait, I didn't mean--"
She starts laughing again. "Ya Allah, you must learn to relax, American," she grinned, revealing the slightest gap between her two front teeth. Bruce can't help but find it... cute... She seems a little more human, all of a sudden. "That's why I always beat you."
He couldn't fight the urge to smile back, just a little. "You don't always beat me," he said, crossing his arms as he began to walk slowly next to her, watching her searching the shore for her little treasures. "I think we have a... Solid 60/40 ratio of wins."
Talia snorts. "More like 80/20," she gives him a playful look, and he returns it with a scowl-- though there's no real heat behind his eyes.
It's a strange feeling, he realizes suddenly... He can't remember the last time he was able to talk to anyone this... casually. Easily. There's no tension between the two of them, no quiet pain sitting in the back of his mind... Even in acknowledging it, he can't seem to let his grief take hold as he so often does. It's simply... Not possible. Not with her.
"In your defense, though, The Demon's Head is my father," there's a strange tone to her words as she continues, and he can't help but note it. "I was quite literally born for this." He's not sure if by 'this', she simply means beating him... Or something more.
"I suppose you were," Bruce says quietly.
She's looking out at the sea now, her brow furrowed just slightly. He wants to say more, but the idea of offending her or scaring her off makes him sick to his stomach in a way he's never felt before.
"... Do you believe in fate, Wayne?" She turns to him suddenly, and the cheeky grin she'd had only moments ago has faded into something more contemplative. They've stopped walking now, and suddenly the way she holds the shells in her palms looks like a prayer. His own eyes narrow slightly.
"... No," he says firmly. "... I don't believe in things I can't see or touch or feel. Fate... Destiny..." His gaze drifts downward, and for an instant he finds himself somewhere else, somewhere far away, somewhere covered in hot, sticky blood-- "I refuse to believe in the idea that I don't have control over my life. That when bad things happen to good people, it's just... Supposed to be that way. I get to choose what I want to do with my life, not anyone else, not some higher power..." He trails off, finally glancing back at her. Her eyes have that big sparkly look again, the way they did the night they first met.
"... I think I'd like to believe that too," her smile returns, softer this time, gentler. He returns it, with some reluctance.
The two of them fall into silence for a while, continuing their path down the beach. Occasionally, one of them would stop and pick a shell off the ground, holding it up for the other to see and discussing for a moment before discarding it back to the sand or adding to the growing collection in Talia's hands.
"I have pockets, but I don't want to put them in there," she explains, looking over her collection with a careful eye. "I don't want to crush them on accident. They're very delicate, you know."
"Yeah..." Bruce said softly, holding one of the shells up in his fingers. It was pale, with an orange pattern twisting around to it's tip. A gastropod of some kind. Probably a sea snail.
(He doesn't notice the way she's looking at him, admiring the focus in his eyes as he considers the tiny thing he holds in his hands. She's seen those fingers paralyze her father's best guards with a single strike to the right pressure point, and she's felt them against her own flesh in combat... And yet here he is so... Careful. Gentle. Sweet. Somehow, it makes her want to weep.)
Bruce hums finally, handing it back to her after a long moment of consideration. "What are you collecting them for...?" He asks after a moment.
Talia was quiet for a moment, before smiling just slightly. "... I'm not sure yet." She says. "I... Suppose I get to choose that for myself."
"...I suppose you do," He says quietly. She looks at him as though she wants to say more, as though she wants to spill to him her entire life story right then and there-- but she keeps her mouth carefully shut. There's that silence again, warm and strangely comfortable. Neither of them need words, they find. They both seem to consider it in that moment, allowing something to be born there on the beach, something new and perhaps unwise, as is the nature of their age and time...
And somehow, it seems to be a collective decision when they allow it to slip away.
"... You are unlike any boy I have ever met," she says quietly, stepping past him and out towards the sea. The tide is beginning to come back in now, and she lets the early beginnings of it lick at her bare heels and kiss the edges of her skirt with salt water.
"... Am I?"
He watches the back of her head as she nods. "Oh, yes..." She replied wistfully. "... It's very rare that I get to speak with outsiders. Outside The League, I mean. And even then, even within our compounds..." Talia sighed, turning back to face Bruce. Her arms are crossed now as if to comfort herself, and her gaze is wary and careful. "The people here... Even the ones my age... Most of them won't even look me in the eye, you know that? They see me as... I don't know-- something sacred. Mostly just because of who my father is." Her shoulders tense. "It's hard to make friends with people like that."
Bruce huffs shortly, looking at the ground. "... Yeah. Yeah, I... I get that. I mean-- not exactly, but..." He swallows the rest of whatever he was trying to say, and the two of them meet eyes once again. She understands. She doesn't need to hear him explain.
"I think we both want the same thing," Talia says quietly, her eyes going back out to the steadily rising water.
"... We do," it's not a question this time.
Freedom.
Neither of them needs to say it.
Slowly, Talia turns back and begins to trek back up the beach, and Bruce follows her instinctually. Her eyes drift down slowly, and she frowns as she looks at Bruce's hands. Bruce looks down after her and realizes he's been flexing his free hand subconsciously as they walked, cracking and snapping his sore joints with his thumb: a bad habit. The other is occupied holding more of Talia's shells for her, but if it weren't it would be doing the same.
"Oh-- it's my knuckles. I'm still a little sore from running drills today," he explains, a little embarrassed. She makes a brief sound of understanding.
"I see..." Talia pauses and purses her lips slightly in thought. "I have an oil in my chambers that will help. Come see me tomorrow morning and I will assist you."
Bruce finds himself blushing at the thought of the two of them touching hands, which only inflames his embarrassment further-- what is this, 1890? "I... Don't think your father would take kindly to me showing up in his daughters room... morning or otherwise."
Talia giggles softly. "You're right, he probably wouldn't," she nods, but her smile doesn't fade. She doesn't seem to care.
Bruce fights back his own smile, looking away from a moment. "So... That means you want to see me again? Outside our sparring sessions, I mean..."
"Well... An extra set of hands can carry more shells," she said softly. "And... The company is nice."
He finds he's not able to hold back a grin from blooming slowly on his face.
"... That, it is," he says simply.
That it is.