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Talia’s girls dance across the sands, blades flashing, blood trailing in their wake, opening wounds on each other’s skin with every movement, no blow is too deep to survive, no hit aimed to slaughter. A show of skill, a show of grace, a show of carefully-controlled strength in battle.
A trio. Athanasia, Damia, Mara. Three borne of the demon’s blossom, three sacred princesses, three granddaughters for Ra’s to choose from.
He demanded they fight to the death. Commanded one to rise above her sisters, prove herself worthy of the title of heiress.
With every pulled strike they refuse to bow to the most powerful man in the world.
Talia could not be more proud.
As one they stop. As one they turn to face him. As one they stand tall.
Ra’s sneers at their choice.
“Daughter,” he calls, disgust dripping from his voice. “You have brought weakness before me. Dispose of it.”
Talia steps onto the sand. Ra’s follows.
She smiles at her girls, her three treasures. Two born of her flesh, three nursed at her breast, her glorious children. They smile back.
“Lift your heads, my loves,” she murmurs to them.
They raise their heads as one, proud and noble as she raised them to be.
Her sword sings as she draws it. She can feel the shift as Ra’s draws near to her back.
“I will give you no room for treachery, daughter,” he hisses, leaning close to watch.
The sand is hot and bloody at her feet, the air stifling and heated, pressure rising as she breathes steady and slow.
Time slows.
She moves faster than the eye can follow, the sure swing of her blade opening three deep lines across her daughters’ throats. Ra’s exhales, the sound loud in the hush between her heartbeats as her sword continues the slash.
Then with a serpentine twist, she whips her sword around and separates his head from his neck.
Four bodies collapse to the sands. One head lands at her feet.
Talia crushes her father’s skull beneath her boot and stands tall above the blood-soaked sand.
“Long live Talia al Ghul.”
The assassins around her kneel as one. Talia stabs her sword through the mess of Ra’s brain matter and bone fragments, the blade burying itself deep in the ground.
“Incinerate the demon’s head,” she commands, “and bring the girls’ finest robes to the pools.”
Her elite guard moves, but she pays them no mind, turning and stooping to scoop her children into her arms. Their bodies are still warm, eyes hazy and dim, breaths weak and stuttering as she leaves the sands behind and walks into the compound.
Her burden is heavy, hot blood rushing down her arms with every slowing beat of her girls’ hearts, but she carries them without strain, the way she did when they were small and weak, barely able to lift their own heads.
They are much the same now.
She carries them deep into the compound, down countless steps, the sound of their breathing stilling one by one until only her own breath remains. Only her heart beats against her skin.
When she enters the deepest chamber she does not stop. She walks on beneath the stone, the green glow cast from the pools of Lazarus reflecting off the ceiling and painting her children’s faces. She walks down the steps without hesitation, wading into the pool, lowering her children down into the gleaming waters, their spilled blood flowing across the surface, red refusing to mix with the green.
And there she waits.
The waters shine brighter, fog rising from the surface to curl around her face. Whispers sound from the depths, desperate and haunted, pleas with no words, cries of terror and pain as the waters start to churn.
The bodies in her arms stir. She breathes, and holds them under. Her daughters flail and thrash their way back to life, but the surface of the water refuses to break for them. It stretches and bows with their movements, clinging to their open mouths as they scream.
Talia holds them down until the waters start to dim.
All at once the light goes out and the waters shatter around them, releasing them from their watery grave, and the cavern fills with the sound of their anguish. She pulls them up and presses kisses into their hair.
“Forgive me, my daughters,” she begs near-soundlessly as they shriek and howl in her arms, a many-armed demon clawing at her in unending rage. “Forgive your mother.”
Damia twists to scratch a gouge in her cheek. Athanasia bites into her restraining arm. Mara digs her nails deep into her hands.
Talia’s blood drips into the dying waters, suffusing into the fading green and leaving a rusty brown stain.
She holds them close and swears to them.
“I shall make the world kneel at your feet, for you are immortal, everlasting conquerors.”