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bossymarmaladeLian got a message back.
It was the first time it ever happened, really. The number her mother gave her sent her a text back; and truth be told, Lian was pretty excited. It couldn’t have happened at a better time, really. Her dad coming back into town for Mia’s birthday (which totally sucked) and then leaving again after one stupid day (super-sucked), had made everyone else all annoyed and annoying. She was sure it was his fault.
Sure now he was sending her texts and they were so cute, but for whatever reason instead of making her feel better, they just made her madder.
So when she got a text back - from her mother, it had to be from her mother; who else would it be?! - Lian squealed in delight, hiding her face in her stuffed giraffe (the armadillo was now cast to the window seat, far from her cuddling needs). It was way more exciting than dad’s dumb texts. It meant mom CARED. At least she was TRYING. But she was locked up in prison, like Lady Gaga in that video with Beyonce. Lian giggled to herself, because she loved that video, and always imagined her mom in a cool prison like that.
The text was confusing though and for a heart-stopping moment Lian wondered if it was spam. It said ‘N16 10 20.9’ and also ‘W62.34.41’. It wasn’t IP addresses or websites or a phone number…
She’d have to ask someone who would know, and there was really only one person in the world right now who filled the quota of discretion, smartness and loyalty to her, as required for this task.
So, she called Damian Wayne.
Lian and Damian both fidget more than usual as they have lunch in the gardens that flank the Manor, pink poppies and white chrysanthemums bright in spring bloom around the gazebo that houses the picnic table. Lian squirms enough that the iron legs of her bistro chair scrape over the deck, and Pennyworth looks up from refreshing their lemonade glasses. Damian’s been subject to his care long enough to recognize suspicion in the elder’s eyes when he sees it, and as soon as Pennyworth returns his attention to his task, Damian hisses at Lian to be still.
She’s quite pretty in her lavender sundress, a ribbon of peach satin cinched around her waist, and Damian looks the part of their garden lunch date in his summer whites too, the mint green of his collared shirt bringing out the peridot undertones in his eyes. “Miss Harper” and “Mr. Wayne” they call each other, and they might enjoy it greatly if they weren’t so preoccupied. Lian’s worrying her hair until a pinwheel curl tumbles free of the matching peach bow that secures it, and the swing of it makes Pennyworth pause to look upon the children once more.
“We’re quite thirsty,” Damian explains, and their lunch proceeds without further strain.
Pennyworth finally releases them to take a stroll through the cobblestone garden paths, though they’re not to venture beyond the fountain in the courtyard and to return to the house within an hour. It’s enough time, Damian decides, as he walks arm-in-arm with Lian and chats about banal topics such as school and pets until he feels they’re at a safe enough distance.
“Coordinates,” he finally tells her when they reach the fountain and perch upon the edge of it. The goldfish that occupy it swim up to nibble at his fingers when he dips a hand into the cool water. “The text you received contains map coordinates that align with Santa Prisca. There’s a famous prison on the island— Bane, a criminal who operates here in Gotham, grew up there.”
He watches Lian’s face carefully. “Do you really think it’s your mother who sent you the message? And if so… do you intend to go to her?”
Lian always marveled slightly at the different ways things were done here. She’d never been conscious of differences before, in people’s lives - not until she met Damian Wayne. Before that, she could’ve been living in a palace or a one-bedroom apartment and it would have always felt the same to her. Because the people were the same - Grampa; or Aunts Dinah, Mia; or Uncles Dick, Garth, Gar, Vic, Wally; or Dad, always Dad. People she loved and knew loved her back.
Damian’s home was different and so was he. Everything here was so…proper, like a storybook. Living with her dad or Grampa or on Titans Tower, it was always a whirlwind of unpredictable things, noise, smells. Wayne Manor was…airless. Shut up tight and still. It made Lian go still as well.
When they were alone and Damian snapped out of the storybook politeness, then Lian did too as she stooped to try and touch the fat goldfish in the pond.
She didn’t know what Santa Prisca was - so far she knew the geography of the US and some of the Asian continent, but not much else - but when Damian mentioned the prison, she perked up.
"My mom sent it to me," she replied with conviction and she showed him the phone, covering up the screen with one small hand. “You promise not to tell anyone this? I haven’t told ANYONE, Damian. So you have to triple-lock, super-duper, forever swear or you’ll die swear."
"I do," Damian replied somewhat impatiently, if a bit fervently.
Lian told him about the secret phone number her mom gave her two years back, which was the last time she’d seen her mother. "It was just between me and her. No one else. It has to be her…"
Damian’s next question made Lian stand up, dusting her dress off and making a show of folding her arms. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m going to see her. I ran away before, I can do it again." The fever she’d contracted that last time rendered her memory of their excursion a little skewed. “You are going to come with me…?"
It was a statement, but it ended upwards in a question, and Lian added with urgency. “I NEED you."
“You have me.” Damian cups her hands with his own, the phone suspended in the middle of their joined grasp. He holds her gaze as he assures her, “I won’t tell anyone, and I won’t leave your side until we’ve found her.” Because he understands the desperate need to answer a mother’s summon. Because Father has taken his mantle and his place in Gotham City along with it. Because Lian is more lovely than any of the blossoms that surround her, and Damian can deny her nothing.
He doesn’t blink for several seconds until he becomes mindful of his own intensity, having learned from daily interaction with his fellow Watchtower students that the other children didn’t often appreciate his dramatic behavior. It only seems fitting right now, though, dressed in their fine frocks and conspiring alone near the babbling fountain. Damian thinks for a minute to stand and take Lian by the hand, to pull her along after him and disappear together into the trees.
But no— he must plan, he must be wise about this sojourn. He’s eleven now. He can no longer afford the mistakes he made as a younger man. “Our journey won’t be easy. Santa Prisca will be difficult to infiltrate, and our fathers will pursue us the moment they realize we’ve gone. I need a week to prepare. “ He looks up as Pennyworth appears at the end of a lane adjacent to the courtyard, calling the children to return to the house for tea.
“A week, and then I’ll call for you,” Damian repeats, offering his arm again to Lian as they rise to meet Pennyworth. There’s a rhythmic flow to his steps, as if he’s leading her down a wedding aisle. He imagines himself a knight escorting his princess back to the castle until they can safely abscond together, away from the gaze of the wrathful king. “When I call for you, Lian, you must be ready.”
——————————
He’s as ready as he will be, and he calls.
It’s exactly midnight when she materializes on the zeta pad in the cave, suitcase in hand. Pennyworth is upstairs, Father is on patrol, and Damian remains confined at home, his Robin costume unused in its display case. It’s more symbolic than practical, a means by which Father emphasizes his punishment— Damian already has a spare suit packed away in his own bag, and he boards both suitcases and Lian on the back of his bike before they ride off into the night.
Lian’s arms wrap tightly around his waist as they take the backroads that lead to the harbor, and Damian decides it isn’t an unpleasant sensation. He stops only once, to dismantle the tracking computer from his motorcycle and dump it into a sewer, letting the current below take it where it will.
The pier they finally park beside is dilapidated, graying wood projecting at crooked angles from the water. The tide is high, crashing against the breakers, and there are no streetlights here as there are at the public marina several miles down the road. And Damian prefers it that way.
He helps Lian dismount with their luggage before revving the bike and jumping the curb to land upon the broken pier. It travels the length of shambled wood for only a few feet before Damian rises on the seat and flips backwards in the air, landing on one of the slabs of the pier that remain in tact while his motorcycle sinks into the sea.
It’s quiet, then, the water bubbling where it consumes the bike and Damian watching impassively as he clicks something in his hand. A moment of silence passes, sea spray bathing both he and Lian as she carefully tiptoes on wooden planks that appear solid to join him, before the crest of a submarine’s cockpit roars to the surface.
The hull hisses open, the light inside pouring out like a beacon on the dark sea. Damian takes their bags in one hand and Lian’s elbow in the other to keep her from falling. “Get in.”
Lian is unfailingly impressed and slightly terrified in an exhilarated sort of way, as she clutches Damian tightly during the drive to the sea. She doesn’t try to show any of it. Damian always seems to know what he’s doing, always. It’s comforting in a way, since Lian’s used to people around her being competent, if a little loud about it. Damian is silent and grim and given the nature of this particular expedition, it suits Lian just fine. She’s quiet as well, not her usual rounds of loudly pointing things out or making suggestions or squealing or even singing.
No, right now, she is not her dad’s daughter. She is her mother’s child. She is Jade Arrow and she must be beautiful and sleek, perfect and precise like mom.
It is all a little scary, though. Unlike last time, where it was just a zzzzzap of the zeta tube and suddenly in a strange new place, this time there was process and travel. And a submarine. And not like the one in the mermaid lagoon in Disney. This was a lot different.
"How much trouble are you gonna be in?" Lian asks as she climbs into the awaiting sea vessel. “My dad won’t care at all, he doesn’t care about me, just mom. Mom loves me, she gave me a secret number."
The ride there is boring; and eventually, after Lian tries to kindle her inner marine biologist, she decides she likes aquariums and Blue Planet episodes much better than the real thing. The sea is dark and cold and boring. She sleeps.
— and is awoken by Damian shaking her shoulder, firm but gentle. And she looks out into the pale morning sky and the terrifying sound of the waves crashing against a large, looming yellow-bricked fortress built into the rocky cliffside.
“Peña Dura," Damian speaks grimly, not looking at her, but regarding the monstrous walls as if trying to figure out how to scale them. “If your mother is anywhere on Santa Prisca, it would be here."
Lian rubs her eyes and pulls her cellphone out from her Pinkie Pie knapsack. "I’m gonna send her another text and tell her I’m here. That we’re here. Maybe she’ll meet us and we’ll all live together and train and have fun forever. Or you can go back home and I’ll stay here with her." As her phone blinks into life and attempts a connection, she flings her arms around Damian’s neck and squeezes him.
"Fanks Damiwami," she says shyly.
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