11220/Lazarus and Icarus

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Lazarus and Icarus
Date of Scene: 18 May 2022
Location: A Lazarus Pit somewhere in southwestern Asia.
Synopsis: After 6 years of slumber, Ra's al Ghul has been resurrected by the Lazarus Pit. Reunited with Talia, he asks for the location of Damian Wayne.
Cast of Characters: Ra's al Ghul, Talia al Ghul




Ra's al Ghul has posed:
Six years.

For six long years The Demon's Head lay silent. For six long years the machinations and designs of The League of Assassins has been relegated to the shadows; ever present, but with seemingly no forward momentum. Ra's al Ghul was dead.

It had happened in an instant. A team of his seemingly most trusted followers had fallen on him like crashing thunder and ended his rule, tearing and stabbing at his mortal form with precision, tenacity, and hatred. His body was nowhere to be found.

Not to be found until just a few months ago. A mangled and rotting corpus buried beneath a monastery in Qatar. Ubu, Ra's' dearest and most loyal follower mobilized The League at once. Noone was denied Ubu's wrath, each and every guardian of the temple put to the sword, and The Head of the Demon restored. Ra's' body was taken, broken and aged as it had been, to the Lazarus Pit that curdled beneath Kuwait City and there it was lovingly and carefully sank into the depths of the mysterious, foul-smelling alchemical marvel.         And there his body was cradled for months, the Earth nurturing her champion back to health.

The time of his resurrection is nigh.

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Do you feel it, Talia?

Al Bahah, Saudi Arabia. May 15, 2022 3:47AM.

Two days ago.

Talia al Ghul's eyes widen as she sucks a breath into her lungs. The drag of air through the channel of her throat is enough to resonate, pushing out a bit of sound despite the pull of air. She clutches a white linen sheet to her chest and exhales the breath she'd just sucked in. Raven black hair frames her face and spills past her jaw and neck towards her shoulders until her free hand reaches up to delicately tuck it behind her left ear. Big, brown eyes turn out towards the screenless window overlooking the sparse urban landscape that is Al Bahah. The morning light has yet to crest over the horizon, but the lights of the stars and full moon are enough to paint the landscape in a milky, incandescent sort of light. Far away in the distance, the ruins of some ancient castle can be seen nestled amongst the hills and the palm trees. She slips from bed, bare feet touching old wood floors that creak beneath even her light weight. Her robe is pulled over her shoulders and clutched to her chest -- a breezy, silky sort of thing that seems more apt to flutter against her than take any meaningful chill from the air. It's a good thing it's a warm night in Al Bahah.

Her eyes settle eastward, toward Qatar. The sound of a stopper being pulled from a decanter (more rubber than cork) is followed by a splash of sherry-and-port aged brandy into a tumbler glass. She swirls it and takes a delicate sip, before lifting the glass eastward, catching the light of the fool moon to shine a reddish-brown shadow along her left eye.

"See you soon," she murmurs.

=-=-=-=-=-

Today.

Talia al Ghul stands within the Lazarus pit, the acrid smells of alchemical substances tickling her sinuses as well as her memories. It isn't a restful sleep within those waters. It's a waking nightmare. Purgatory. A saber has been drawn from her hip and its edge driven into the sand and dust that had once been solid rock. Both hands rest on its ornate pommel.

She waits patiently for her father to awaken.

Ra's al Ghul has posed:
The glowing green pool begins to roll, giving the appearance of a pot left too long to boil. The League members gathered, numbering somewhere in the twenties all take note, each of them scurrying to their places to kneel in front of the Pit, heads bowed and thoughts turned to one thing and one thing only; the return of their glorious purpose.

The Lazarus Pit continues its raucous display for a time before, like a match-head burning out, its waters become still and its light dimming just a touch, signifying the likely end of that particular Pit's viability. The anticipation in the room is palpable.

The surface tension of the Pit breaks as a hand bursts forth, clutching the rough-hewn stone edge of the pool. Ubu leaps forth and grabs the hand in his, pulling the naked body of the reborn Ra's back into this realm. Ra's, like a newborn foal struggles to find his balance and nearly buckles, but Ubu keeps him upright. Everyone waits in a palpable silence as a pair of attendants rush forward with a robe to drape over Ra's.

The Demon's Head belts forth a near-bestial roar and shoves the attendants and Ubu away, staggering a touch to the left and clutching the fabric tighter around him. His eyes shoot open, glowing brightly with a shifting green light.

His breathing, to this point ragged and unsteady, finally settles into a rhythm as his body remembers its core functions. Joints pop and crack as he straightens out, the light in his eyes dimming as they take in his follower, landing on Talia for a long look of appraisal. There's an instant hatred in that look, but it's gone in a flash.

"Where is my sword?"

Talia al Ghul has posed:
As the Lazarus Pit begins to bubble and boil, Talia knows that her father's resurrection is imminent. It has been imminent for some time. That feeling in the back of her skull. Like fingernails on a chalkboard, raking along the inside of that bone as she sleeps. Six years is nothing in the grand scheme of the cosmos. And, thus, nothing in the grand scheme of Ra's al Ghul either. The acolytes and devotees rush to stoop and kneel, but Talia remains standing. Her eyes are fixed on the pit.

When her Father's form rises from within, naked and vulnerable, she does not turn her eyes away. In fact, that gaze is entirely piercing. Pitiless. Similar to her father, there is hatred in her expression that washes away before he has time to regain his faculties. She resents him for this. For being weak. That roar is the first thing that prompts motion from Talia. It is a subtle motion. A roll of her eyes and a shift of her weight from one hip to the other. Her palm lazily twirls that sword on the floor, spinning a little cone into the sand.

"Fetch him his blade," Talia says, and one of the League's subjects scurries to retrieve the sword from the ornamental stand it has come to rest on for the past six years. His fingertips are the only fingertips that have been laid upon it -- the rest of its surface evenly coated with dust from the ceiling. Erosion from time. An apt metaphor, if there ever was one. The subject kneels before Ra's and lifts the sword up with both hands, head turned down. A loyal, faceless subject.

"Welcome back, Father," Talia says at last. Her gaze remains unbroken.

Ra's al Ghul has posed:
The sword's filigreed hilt is grabbed and slid feee with one expert move, the scabbard not moving an inch in the kneeling Assassin's hands. The blade catches the green, shifting light of the pool and Ra's takes a long look at it before the scimitar is swung down to rest at his side. He takes in a long, deep breath of the sulfurous air and breathes out slowly through his lips, the hair on either side still touched with flecks of gray. Ra's, though returned from the dead, knows his prime, and has opted to return somewhere in his body's early fifties.

"I hate the smell of this place. This Earth. It's worse than I remember," he says. "Even so close to my beloved sands, humanity's sickly impulses have spread."

He takes a few steps forward, moving down the aisle that his followers have prostrated themselves to either side of. "But our time draws near, my League. My rest has not been without its turmoil, by I awake refreshed nonetheless with renewed purpose. Our home is sick, and our crusade the medicament."

"Leave us. Set to your preparations," he says, sweeping his sword towards the exit before he turns to look at Talia.

"My beloved daughter," he says, his words sounding almost a twisted parody of the way he spoke when he cradled her in his arms for the first time. "Where is the boy?"

Talia al Ghul has posed:
Talia, by contrast, looks not a single day older than when Ra's had last seen her. Perhaps it's a compulsion of vanity that keeps her suspended in her early thirties. Or maybe it's because Talia's world stopped the day her father died. Regardless of the 'why' of it, father and daughter stand reunited after six years. As if no time has passed at all. She watches silently as he speaks. As addresses the League and speaks of renewed purpose and new machinations. Talia al Ghul gives nothing away -- her face betrays nothing. When they are dismissed, she lifts her sword from the ground and slides it back within the sheath at her hip. A few moments are spared to tug her gloves back into place and give a final glance over her shoulder at the members of the League slowly disappearing down the shadowy corridor.

My beloved daughter.

Words that make her skin crawl, her eyes briefly lid, and her lips thin. She hasn't turned her body to face him yet. Instead, her eyes are on that sickly, bubbling, foul-smelling pit in front of her. A soft sigh washes out of her nostrils and she finally turns her shoulders in the closest thing that comes to an embrace with her father. An open sort of body language from ten feet away.

"Gotham," she says softly. It's pointless to lie. Ra's al Ghul's resurrection was not the only inevitable thing about the man, after all.

"Walk with me, father," she says. Talia moves beside him with one hand on her hip and the other on the grip of her sword. "Tell me what things you dreamt of in such a long slumber."