16741/Damian in the Village of Reeds

Damian in the Village of Reeds
Date of Scene:	01 January 2024
Location:	Iaru Weyat
Synopsis:	Damian is invited to Phoebe's birthplace. There is a long discussion about her, magic, its cost, and what will happen if she's killed. Then they go flying on a dragon bat in the middle of the desert.
Cast of Characters:	Phoebe Beacon, Damian Wayne

---

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    It is currently eighty-seven degrees F in Egypt -- but it's a dry heat. Far south to the crater where the Egyptian army had been such a pain to the Titans, there is a blank space on the Nile that people tend to overlook. The road that lead here stops suddenly, with warnings in Arabic that it was secured land and to turn back.

    Of course, this was the Village of Reeds, once a bustling town of mages specializing in healing, in exorcism and demon hunting, in soothsaying.

    Now it's a collection of broken and burnt buildings, and a ruined Coptic church that serves as a burial ground of the Sabry family of Homo magi, and their relatives, friends, and helpers who were ruthlessly murdered in 2004. They now dwell in obscurity.

    Of this bustling village, only one child remains.

    The pink-gold portal opens in the village square, near the large, covered stone well, with a system that drips water into a low cistern and allows the wildlife to drink and seek shade during mid-day, and passing through it first would be Damian, and the mighty Goliath, followed by Phoebe and Idu. Poor Potato had to be convinced that Alfred really needed his help today.

    Which is why Potato is holding a feather duster back at the manor in his mouth and vigorously dusting everything on his left side, including Titus, Ace, Alfred, and Batcow.

    Phoebe is wearing shorts, sunglasses, a light colored T-shirt and sturdy boots, and carries her leather 'Go' backpack.

    "Welcome to my birthplace, little brother."

Damian Wayne has posed:
Before entering the portal...

"Tt. It's just a portal, you big coward!" Damian turns only a semi-cross look at the large creature that dwarfs him and and Phoebe. Goliath, with his bat/dragon like appearance of red hair/fur and massive wings is wearing the harness that Damian has fitted him with for flight and protection in battle.

Goliath /whines/ in protest. He actually backs away from the portal a couple of steps, hunching down and sniffing at it.

"Really?" Damian asks, and sighs, realizing he's going to have to tempt the creature through. Which is why he opens the bag that's at his side. Unwrapping the paper, he waves the prime rib haunch at Goliath. "Who wants a snack?" he asks, cooing to the dragon, waving that chunk of meat under the dragon's nose. When Goliath starts to salivate and snaps, Damian deftly pulls it away. "Through!" he orders, pointing at the portal.

The Batdragon looks from portal to meat and then at Phoebe, as if she's going to bail him out. That won't be happening. Reluctantly, the batdragon makes his way through the portal and Damian follows him through.

Now in Egypt!

Dressed in loose, airy cloth, Damian is well-versed in how to dress for this clime, it is one that he grew up in for the most part. Tossing the chub of meat to Goliath for him to chow up, he crumples the paper to put it away.

His attention turns to his surroundings when Phoebe points out where they are and he immediately knows how much trust that his sister is putting into him.

"I see." he says, looking around the remains of the village, and in his mind is trying to picture what it must have been like in her hey-day, one that is long past.

At his back is the Themyscarian blade. The blade of House al-Ghul has not been seen... in a bit. And he's not mentioned what happened to it to anyone. That is something he will have to deal with on his own.

"Thank you for bringing me here, sister." he offers to her politely. "I realize what it means." After all, Gabby brought him to Zelda's grave, shortly before she left -- and for a moment, he turns to look at her, as if Phoebe is about to tell him that she's leaving on some mission as well.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe had given gentle 'it's okay!'s to Goliath. She would never hurt him.

    Here, however, he can stretch his wings and fly around; there's no one around for hundreds of miles.

    And the amount of trust Phoebe has in Damian is reaching Tim levels; Tim is the only other brother who she's brought out here to keep her company as she tasks. Often she just disappears, her tracker pings in Egypt, and then she returns a few hours later to dump sand out of her boots.

    "It means I trust you with some details that Bruce doesn't even know. I've had to move human remains down to the necropolis. Leksandra didn't exactly care about what happened to anyone when she returned here." she explains, motioning around. "That building was the hospital. One of the buildings to the side of the square was my grandfather's house. I don't know which one. There's only a few from the village who aren't buried here. My uncle Marius. Great uncle Benji." she trails off quietly.

    "There's so much I don't know about my direct relatives. I know more about the Wayne family than my own."

Damian Wayne has posed:
Once Goliath is done chowing down on the chunk of beef, he lifts his head and sniffs at the air with a series of snorts as he takes in his surroundings. Once Phoebe has convinced him that they are isolated and there is little chance of the dragon being seen by prying eyes, Damian nods. "Very well." he comments.

His attention then turns to the dragon. "Hup!" he orders and then gestures. "Go play!" Goliath needs no further encouragement, massive wings spreading out and then slamming downwards, sending sand swirling around him as he launches into the sky, taking flight into the cloudless sky that causes him to cast a shadow over the village with every pass.

"I can keep things from my Father." he assures Phoebe as he watches the dragon swoop and swirl through the sky for a few moments as he turns his attention towards the buildings as Phoebe points them out to him.

He memorizes their locations, the names offered to him. "I understand your feeling. I know only of Ra's and Talia on my mother's side. But I feel that may have been for the best." he offers to her as he gestures for her to lead where they may head. He will follow.

"I do not know if there is a way that we could learn more of your past, your ancestors and relatives - or if you have one that may exist that was not in this village on the day it perished." he suggests to her, looking thoughtful. "Is it something you wish to research in? If Timothy is involved, I assume that he knows more about what you wish to learn here than I. But I will not disturb a tomb unless asked."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Tim's been looking for my uncle Marius. He's the only one I remember -- but I was two when he was killed. His spellwork on my shirt hid me from my cousin for years, as long as I didn't leave Gotham."

    "See, my village had a thing with their women. The young adults were sent out into the world to gather information, starting in the 1930's. Colleges, modeling, hospitals. My mother? She went to Oxford, and modeled. I have pictures of her from the late nineties." she gives a small smile, walking towards the church building. "And a couple of her journals from afterwards. Including when she was pregnant with me. Described me as a mouse in her belly. That was..." she blinks a moment "... a little weird to read. But I got to know who she was."

    "But the women of my village? Their job was to go out and 'steal' magically potent or important bloodlines to invogorate the village. So because of that, there's a really, really *really* detailed list of who begot whom and from which person, mostly African -- which explains why I'm darker than most Egyptians. Then Middle Eastern, and on occasion European, Asian -- UNLESS you were a holder of the Spark, like my mother... like me. That would have been an arranged marriage."

Damian Wayne has posed:
Tim has his mission, so Damian has no real desire to go meddling in that. Instead, his attention turns to the story that Phoebe is offering up to him. His footsteps follow after Phoebe as she leads the way towards the church. There is no telling what the sand might hide, so he remains on the path she makes.

"At least you were carried under your mother's heart." Damian points out with a dry tone, a reminder that Talia stuck him in an artifical womb as fast as she was able to.

The batdragon sweeps across the village again, his shadow cast upon the church that the pair are approaching.

"It is good that your mother kept her journals, to help you with understanding things when she was no longer with you." he points out as he tucks his hands in his pockets.

"Yes." he decides. "It would explain why - bloodlines that would be closer to your own genetically would suggest a genetic disposition to a powerful, less diluted bloodline that one would find in those that are not magically inclined." he admits to thoughtfully.

"You said that you had photos and journals. I assume that your father is no longer with us as well?" he asks her, just to verify that. "Maybe he has an extended family that does not know of your presence?" Though that may not be a good thing, he realizes.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "That's the thing --" Phoebe looks over her shoulder "No one seems to know who my father is. She doesn't mention anyone at Oxford at the time where she would have... you know. Gotten pregnant. There's pictures of her with several men, but I look an awful lot like my mother, her name was Paisi." she explains. "And it's unusual for a mother to pass to her daughter the Spark; usually it's grandmother-to-granddaughter, or great-grandmother. The Longest Lasting Holder." she replies, and she, with some difficulty, opens the heavy canvas that was covering the church doors, still splintered inwards and half-buried in sand.

    Idu gives a whine, and withdraws backwards.

    "Almost everyone who has borne the spark, the shard, this... *thing* that's let me heal incredible wounds was in an arranged marriage. And if you were a woman, it was your duty to give birth to the next generation. But because the young people -- I'm back on track, see? -- because they left on something like a walkabout or Rumspringa, where they would fight social wrongs and if they were a girl hopefully get pregnant, they had what was called a 'Mimissi'. It was a tracking tattoo, generally over their left shoulder. Just something small."

    Phoebe pulls the door of the church open wider.

    "That's how my cousin tracked down and killed everyone. My uncle had his removed."

Damian Wayne has posed:
"I assume you have considered a blood test to draw a profile of who your father might be?" Damian asks curiously. Not like she went to Ancestry.com or something, but it would be a logical start for him if he were trying to find a blood relative. Especially a father.

"Is there a reason that she decided to pass it to you, or was it in the midsts of this attack?" he asks her. But when Idu pauses and whines, he freezes in place for a moment, his hand dropping to the hilt of his blade for a moment.

But with Phoebe continuing on, he follows. "That makes sense. A matriarchal society would value the bloodline of their daughters above all others and sons well, it is what it is." By that logic, were they all siblings of Phoebe's family, Phoebe would be the most important one.

"Do you think that your mother may have found that someone during her mimissi?" he asks her, a glance towards her shoulder as it's mentioned, not that he can see anything, but he nods as she explains how the tattoo works against her.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "CHecked it against the Bat computer and JL archives. No match. Checked it against what samples I could get out of the village. No match on the patrilinial side. It's almost like he showed up and then disappeared. IF he existed. Magic's weird like that." Phoebe comments brightly, and then she ducks in after Damian.

    The interior of the church has a scant few inches of sand on the inside -- because it's the desert. There's sand everywhere. The roof has been patched up in places. There are pews. Sometimes. Some had been destroyed or shattered, since this building functioned as sacred and mundane, and was the last stand for the village's defenders. Damian may be able to feel the sombre atmosphere here.

    And also the whispers. Gentle sounds of mothers shushing their children, distant lulabuys like in a dream. The frescos on the walls here are still vibrant. They LOOK like they should be saints, like any other church -- save that the halos change depending on how he looks at them, to the shape of birds heads, rams, jackals.

    "The way I understand it..." Phoebe states, taking a seat in one of the pews as she looks up to the front of the church, where eight figures stand, with an unidentifiable figure in the center -- its face had been blasted away.

    "There wasn't a choice. Leksandra struck my mother with a poison that was eating away at her in the physical and in the astral. She was dying. I was born in the midst of her death." she states quietly.

    "I shouldn't be the holder of the Shard, but because my cousin was poisoned by an outside force, driven to murder hundreds or thousands of others... I was cursed with it."

    She looks over to Damian, and raises her sleeve on her left arm. He'd plainly be able to see the blue lotus she's had tattooed, with its Arabic caligraphy of 'I only blossom for you' and shows the whorled scar tissue of her shoulder, which some of the petals cover.

    "Tim was there when she hit me with the same stuff; Thompkins almost had to remove my arm."

Damian Wayne has posed:
If there was a shiver that ran through Damian's frame, it doesn't show as those whispers dance around the empty chamber. Those soft shushes, those words he did not get when he was a child. Just that emptiness that his mother presented him with.

"I remember you telling me this." Damian responds as she mentions that she should not be the holder of the Spark and that she should have been passed over for her child.

When the tattoo is exposed to him, and he frowns as she relays the fact that she was attacked as her mother was. How did he miss that?

His attention focuses on the eight figures at the front, especially the one that has been blasted the hardest. That seems rather... intentional. And that curiousity shows in his features as he considers it, the young detective trying to piece it together.

"So either your mother's magic hid your father completely from any type of DNA search, or... your father was that powerful of a mage."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Or there wasn't one. Or he's from a completely unknown bloodline. Or maybe he was removed from history en damnitum and no longer exists. I don't know." Phoebe replies quietly. "And maybe I'll never know. Paisi has only spoken to me when I'm on the edge of death. My ancestors are frustraitingly silent when I ask for advice." Phoebe states quietly as she looks up to the front of the church.

    "This happened two years ago. We weren't close then." Phoebe comments softly. "It was a giant scorpion with the heads of my dead loved ones crying out to me for help, it struck me, pierced through my shoulder." she replies. "Tim stayed with me through the night. That was how I found out that my immune system is non-existant." she gives a wry smile.

    "Magic isn't free was the first lesson I learned. There's always supposed to be a cost to it."

Damian Wayne has posed:
Approaching the statues, Damian glances over his shoulder. "Then perhaps you are not asking the right questions?" he suggests to her. He moves, standing before the one with it's face blasted off. "What do you know of these?" he asks her curiously.

A glance up. "This one in paticular. This one was attacked with malice. Whoever did it, they had something against this diety in paticular.

"Yes. I suppose, two years ago, I was quite different than I am now." A little frown at that. He was rough around the edges to say the least, but the young man nods. He knows about her immune system as well. "That's why I would rather you be careful when you use magic. At least until a way is found to make things more stable for you."

"I don't want the cost to one day be more than you can afford to pay." he admits.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "I've already lost three families. I was *really* hesitant to accept your father's offer to join his for that reason." Phoebe replies, and she gives an upnod to the fresco at the front. "Officially that's supposed to be some early saints and Christ. In case authorities ever came around and tried to get the village for Witchcraft, which in some areas of this continent? Still punishable by Death." Phoebe states, "But they're the Ogdoad, or Khemenyu. The Primordial Gods my ancestors worshiped. Nu and Naunet, who parted the waters. Hehu and Hehut, the Infinite Ones. Kekui and Kekuit, who held to the darkness, and Amun and Amunet, the Hidden Ones. There's not much information on them in my books, unfortunately." she explains.

    "The middle one? Probably Heka. Heka," Phoebe stands, and comes closer to the fresco as she looks up to it.

    "Heka took the Shard from the moment of creation, and gifted it to the first priestess. Her decendants were the holders of this shard, and were capable of great magic -- turning the tide. Setting the sun. Healing masses from plague, and even banishing demons with just a force of will. Zatanna-level spells with a thought and a turn of their hand."

    She frowns.

    "My cousin Leksandra was also a powerful mage... but she was a gifted necromancer. She attacked us with creatures made from the bones of beasts and humans, powered by tormented spirits. Sometimes of children long dead. Sometimes relatives more recently murdered." Phoebe's expression darkens.

    "I keep paying the cost even when I'm not using it, because it's always with me, Dams. Without it," she looks over to her brother, "Idu would cease to be, and so would I."

Damian Wayne has posed:
For the first time, Damian may understand why his father feel so over his head when it comes to magic. Damian isn't much better. He doesn't grasp it, he doesn't understand it. Instead, he tries to focus on the things that he can. As she explains the rules and local customs, he nods. "Not this village as much now, I imagine."

Outside there is a loud 'SKREE' as Goliath comes in for a landing. His head appears in the door of the church, looking in on the two, just to make sure that the two siblings are not in trouble. Once they are sure that's fine, there's a satisfied snort before he pulls back to stand in the sand and wait.

"How can I help, Phoebe? I will offer what I can and be by your side. You are my sister after all." he points out, as he turns around to face her again. "I do not have answers. I doubt I ever will. All I can offer to you is what you already know you have."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... it's actually nice just to talk about it. Batman doesn't much care for magic. Tim tries his best to either find ways that it makes sense to him or kind of lets it flow over him. And he doesn't like to think about my dying without it. It's not a really pleasant thought." Phoebe passes a bit of humor.

    Idu pokes his head in under Goliath's. And also snorts.

    "Idu doesn't like coming in here because the sand he was born from's been moved outside. I didn't get that it was important at the time. Know better now."

    She leans back again.

    "I worry that there's a time coming that I'm going to write a check my magic can't back. There's just this fog I feel. I'm not sure about it. Because... things have been going good. /Too/ good." she states, and she draws her gaze to Damian.

    "And that usually means something's going to drop. And I just... if something *does* happen... I don't want to be forgotton anymore."

Damian Wayne has posed:
"Then don't find a reason to be forgotten."

Simple words. Damian considers Phoebe, and he tilts his head. "You're right. Father doesn't grasp it. Tim would try to solve it. Jason would listen but ask you who he needs to shoot. Dick... I don't know." He's not been in contact with that brother in a while.

"But I can tell you this. You're not alone. Between the Outsiders and your family, you never will be. And yes, things are going well. I hope you have none of the bad luck I have had as of late." He smirks slightly at that.

"If you are asking if I will forget you, Phoebe? That's impossible. You are a standard in my life. You are a friend. You are someone that isn't scared to tell me when I'm messing things up. And you are my sister. Maybe not flesh and blood, but you are one in the same."

"So it would be impossible, unless you forced me to. And... if you did that?"

A smirk. "I'd just have to hunt you down somehow."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe gives a moderately disturbed expression. "You and Robbie both." she mutters. And then her head bows, and she presses her hands over her face.

    "There was spellwork done. I'm pretty sure it was undone. It would have forced others to forget me, to spare them mourning me, and to use their memories as a catalyst to destroy my soul beyond repair and make it worthless. That's why I got kicked out of the Justice League Dark." she gives a look over to Damian. "Just so you know. I *did* swear upon my friendship to Tim to never tamper with minds again."

Damian Wayne has posed:
"Good, because I would have asked for a blood oath." Damian responds flatly with a roll of his shoulders in a shrug. Unsure of what else to do, he reaches out, but stops from grabbing her shoulder, remembering her adversion to touch.

"Let's deal with Cupp. Then we can figure out how it was you came to be, and as a group, as your family, we can do our best to make sure you know that you are wanted and appreciated." a sigh. "No more spellwork, no more memory tampering." A pause.

"Want to take Goliath for a ride? Helps me feel better."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    There was so much to do. So much on Phoebe's mind.

    "I gave him my first dog's collar, a lock of my hair and a ring from my adopted mother. He has everything he needs to have someone summon me back to yell at me." Phoebe states, and as Damian reaches out, she pauses. She reaches out for his wrist, and puts it to her shoulder.

    "You're allowed." she states softly, and she breathes out.

    Deal with Cupp. Solve her own mystery of existentence..

    "Ohmigod yes I want to take Goliath for a ride. Think Idu will put up with it?" she questions, looking to Damian. with a smile -- and then with an almost hesitant hand, she reaches up to ruffle his hair.

    Like a good big sister.

Damian Wayne has posed:
"I will make sure I'm there for the yelling session." Damian responds, not flatly, but there's no heat to it. A touch to her shoulder, and then...

He smiles. "As long as Idu doesn't pee on him, yes." A smirk at that, before she ruffles his hair.

A grunt. But he tolerates it.

Because she's family.