Chapter Text
Talia al Ghul took her first breath with a gasp on her lips and an ache in her bones. She had died moments before from an explosion made by the damned clown, and once again, she lived.
It doesn't take her long to feel that something was right.
Resurrections had always been unpleasant. Unnatural as they were, it wasn't unusual to feel a sort of unease in her body after it. It was expected even, as her body is forced back into the living and her organs to operate once more.
Merely another sensation for her to overcome with the nature of her life, though she doubted that she ever would.
Resurrection was always unsettling, always unnerving. She could never forget the first time she had been plunged into a Lazarus Pit. The bite of the waters still fresh in her mind despite the many years that had passed.
This time, however, was different.
Talia didn't need to open her eyes to know that something was wrong. For one, there was no drag on her skin. No pull from the Lazarus Waters trying to drag her down and prevent her from resurfacing. No bitter taste lingering in her mouth after inevitably having swallowed the water in her death.
No, this time she felt almost at peace. Like a weight had been lifted from her body as a calming hum settled in her bones. She had never felt anything like this before. Not after her resurrections, most definitely.
Then, she opened her eyes and suddenly, all she felt was pain. A scream erupted from her throat as she felt the force of hundreds upon hundreds of memories flashing before her eyes.
The death of her mother, the greed of her father, the betrayal of her bestfriend, and an uncle abandoning her.
Except those memories weren't exactly hers, were they?
Talia had no memory of her mother as she died from childbirth. She knew her face from paintings and her qualities from her father’s stories. Furthermore, whilst her father’s ambitions, though great and consuming, had never pushed her mother to birth countless heirs.
It wasn't as though her father needed an heir. He almost immortal with the Lazarus Pits so truly there was no need for them. Most importantly, she didn't have any memory of a girl she grew up with.
There was no auburn haired girl beside her giggling as they snuck away from their afternoon lessons to eat cake in her childhood.
Neither was there an uncle with silver hair and purple eyes. Her father had no siblings and she didn't even like lemon cakes that much. She much preferred honey over them, if not dates.
When she was finally able to get a hold of a bronze mirror, Talia stared at her reflection, and another woman—a girl stared back.
A beautiful girl, Talia noted. One that had long silver hair and striking violet eyes. Younger than her Jason, if she were to guess, by a year or two, or perhaps even three at most.
If it were another time, Talia would have taken more time to examine the pretty face in front of her. A face like hers deserved to be admired, after all.
Now she simply stared dumbfounded at the girl she saw in the mirror when the door to her chambers bursted open. A man ran in, one with the silver hair similar to hers and pale lilacs for eyes.
He was the man in her memories. The father whose greed for a legacy drove her mother to an early grave. The man who married her maid. Her father.
He looked pathetic.
“Rhaenyra!” He yelled obnoxiously loud as though he was trying to wake the dead with his screams. A flurry of men entered behind him, healers most probably, ready to examine her at a moment's command. “Are you alright, my dear, what happened? Where are your servants? Why have they left you?”
He looked her over. Touching her with such ease and gentleness as though he hadn't personally delivered the deepest betrayal to her years ago. The gall of this man to act as a concerned father when he was the farthest from being one.
Talia wanted nothing more than to shove him away. To scream at him to let her go and to demand that he never touched her again. This was her—this body’s father? How unfortunate for her to have a man as pathetic as this as her father.
“Apologies for that husband, it was my fault.” Another girl claimed, beautiful with her auburn hair and brown eyes, though not as beautiful as the girl that Talia saw in her reflection. “I ordered the servants to call for us as soon as the princess woke. I was merely concerned for her.”
To this, Talia stared. Concerned for her? That's why she had her servants leave? This girl was either stupid or trying to kill her. To think that this girl used to be a trusted companion, clearly her affection for her wasn't as deep as she thought.
The man—her father, a part of her corrected, sighed, “Alicent, I–”
“Are you dim?” Talia asked, and one could almost hear a pin drop the moment those words left her mouth. Clearly no one had expected her to say that as a collective gasp echoed around her room. Her father specifically looked at her with wide eyes and a gaping mouth, while her former friend looked as though she had been slapped.
“Stepdaughter, I meant no harm.”
And if she were any closer, Talia would've honored her with one for daring to say such an audacious thing to her. “Were you dropped on your head as a child then that you think it wise to order that?”
“Rhaenyra–”
“Enough!” Her father shouted, the girl flinched while Talia remained unmoved and unimpressed. “Leave us, Alicent, my daughter is unwell and confused. She does not know what she is saying, forgive her.”
Talia scoffed, as if she had done anything wrong by voicing her thoughts. How wonderful for this man to act as if she had. Truly an amazing father he was to respond in such careless manner. By all means, he should have been on her side and demanding this girl's head for ordering something that could have harmed her, but of course he isn't. When had he ever taken her side when it came to that wretched girl?
Never, if the memories shown to her were anything to go by. Was he really worthy to call her father when he couldn't even stand up for her? When he couldn't even defend her from a woman with a lower station who had tried to harm her?
He wasn't. Had her father—her real father Ra's al Ghul—been in his place, he would have never stood idle like this. He would have never even allowed such a thing to be possible in the first place.
But he wasn't. She missed him greatly for it.
The girl—Alicent nodded, “Of course. I will see you at dinner then, husband.”
Then she left. Without even a punishment handed to her for her dismissal of her servants, that girl left. The gall she had in her body to act as if she was above her. Talia would take great pleasure showing her rightful place to her later.
For now, Talia stewed. Allowing the healers the man—our father a part of her whispered, she ignored it—to examine her as she reran the earlier events in her mind.
She had died, that much she was certain. But by all accounts, she shouldn't be here. She had died plenty of times to know what happened between life and death, and never before has this happened to her or her father. Never before had they drawn breath in another person's body, much less possessed the memories of that other.
Rhaenyra, they called her.
Princess, was her title.
Talia had heard that name before. From where, she could not remember. It was not from her father, there had never been a Rhaenyra important enough to be spoken of between them. Neither was a Rhaenyra spoken to her by her men; they had never encountered a woman with such a name even with their wide spear of influence.
It was not from her Damian either. She would remember if it was. She always did. Ever since her son had left for his father’s home, their time together grew short. Only occasional calls and rare visits were what allowed her to get a hold of her son. So every message she received, every word she heard from him, she treasured deeply.
It was the reason why she didn’t even think twice before shielding his body with her own when the explosives went off.
Better her dead than him.
Briefly, she wondered how he must be faring now that she was dead. Her son would not take this lightly, that she was sure of. He would demand justice, if he had not already killed the clown for her death. As would her father. He would take great offense that she had died in Bruce’s city. She could only imagine his fury when he found out what happened to her.
The man in front of her, the one that part of her insisted was their father, would he also go great lengths for her? He would, the voice insisted. But Talia already knew that wasn't true.
If he would then he wouldn't be there continuing to scold as though she was a child for being angered by his wife's audacity. She paid him no mind, of course, but still she wouldn't deny that part of her was hurt by his dismissal of her anger.
This man chose that girl over her. He chose to lay excuses for that trice-damned whore while his supposed daughter was sitting here staring into nothing. She had only awakened just moments ago but already she was wishing that she hadn't.
Talia felt pity for the girl whose body she possessed. To have a father who held so little regard for her wellbeing was a nightmare. One that Talia could never imagine herself having.
“–are you even listening to me, Rhaenyra?!” He demanded suddenly crowding her, face flushed with anger.
Talia’s eyes—or rather the eyes of the body she possessed—suddenly watered. She was sobbing before she even knew what she was doing, “Do I really mean so little to you, father, that you don’t even ask how I am?”
Immediately, this brought the man to silence. The men examining her paused to watch them. “I did not mean it like that.” He said, as if his intentions made any difference.
“Then how did you mean it?” Her body trembled, arms wrapping around her own torso as if desperate for some form of comfort. “You left me. You, Alicent, mother, you all have left me. Abandoned me to die as if I was more important than the dirt beneath your shoe.”
“Rhaenyra–” He tried to reach for her but Talia pushed him away.
“Who even am I to you?” Her voice cracked, “Am I still your daughter or have I finally outlived my usefulness to you that you push me away?”
A pained noise erupted from the man’s throat and he fell to his knees in front of her. “My girl, my sweet daughter.”
The men around her gaped at them, as did some of the servants that had flocked outside of her room. There was no doubt that word of what was happening in her chambers would later spread. But at that moment, Talia couldn’t bring herself to care of the consequences, she wanted to see what this man would say. Though part of her, already beyond hurt and disappointed by this man, had no desire to.
“You are my daughter, Rhaenyra Targaryen. My heir. My sweet girl given to me by my Aemma.” He placed a kiss on the back of her hand and another tear fell from her eyes. “I thought by distancing myself from you, I would be giving you time to heal your wounds. Now I realize that I made a mistake.”
Another sob escaped from the body Talia possessed, and the man pushed himself up to take her into his arms. “Forgive me, daughter. Allow me another chance to make things right. I will be better, I promise you.”
As her body seemed to relax into his embrace, Talia cursed inwardly.
She remembered it now. It was not her father, her men, or Damian who told her of this Rhaenyra; it was Jason—her second son who told her of this woman. That was why Talia could not place her name; it was because that name didn’t belong to a living person.
Rhaenyra Targaryen wasn’t a real woman. She was a fictional character who belonged in one of Jason’s favorite series. The princess who had her throne stolen from her before she could even properly sit in it and her children killed before her very eyes.
Talia cursed her luck. Of all the stories that she could have gone into, this was the one she had the fortune of waking up in? The one story that she absolutely despised and saw no logic in was now her new reality. Lazarus give her strength, she might actually strangle this man embracing her.