m-findlow.livejournal.com

Title: Honour bound
Fandom: Arrow
Characters: Malcolm Merlyn, Nyssa Al Ghul,  R'as Al Ghul
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,207 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 166 - Honour
Summary: Nanda Parbat is full of harsh lessons to be learnt

Malcolm was inspecting the bruises on his torso, which were both old and new, black and yellow, yet all equally painful. He still wasn't sure what he'd expected when he'd come here. It just seemed easier to escape and think that everything would fall into place once he was here.

Some pain was to be expected. He'd come here to make sense of the world in a time when the one person who'd been his whole world no longer existed, except in his memory. Now his world consisted of long days of brutal training and exercises in extreme discipline. He'd expected the physical training to be the harder of the two aspects. Mental resilience was something he thought he'd perfected in the corporate world, and if anything, perhaps he'd dedicated too much time to that world. Yet one more thing he couldn't take back.

Tucked away in a box was the phone that contained her last words to him, though he'd listened to it so often, he needed only to imagine the phone in his hand to hear her voice. The voice that he'd ignored in favour of some mindless board meeting proposal. Had he answered his phone, Rebecca might still be here with him now. Physical pain had distracted him from a lot of those thoughts, but here now in the darkness as night fell, those thoughts returned to haunt him until the morning would break anew, solidifying his resolve to keep going and take on whatever this place threw at him.

He let out a pained sigh had as he inspected one particularly nasty bruise on his back, a welt delivered by the flat of a sword, viewing it in the mirror's reflection. Also in the reflection he spied a young girl with long, dark hair and equally dark eyes, staring back at him.

'Pain is the child of a weak mind,' she said.

How had she snuck in here so quietly and unnoticed? The place was a maze of passage and rooms, and yet she had found him here, in this tiny space that was his for sleeping and for meditation or prayer, a far cry from the spacious manse he'd left behind.

He let his top fall back over the blackened torso and turned to her.

'Hello, Nyssa. You should be in bed.'

'I wanted to see a magic trick, Al Sa-her.'

Al Sa-her, The Magician. That was what she called him. Ever since the first time he had performed his sleight of hand. To everybody else he was no one, something that he was finding hard to get used to. To the world he'd been Malcom Merlyn, corporate giant and a man to be feared and respected. To the league he was a soldier, and a poor one at that.

He knelt down in front of her and reached behind her ear, revealing the nickel in his hand. She smiled benignly at the parlour trick, keeping her emotions tightly concealed, though impressed by the trick nonetheless. Tommy would have squealed with delight and begged him to do it again. He missed Tommy, and this only reminded him even more why he had to be here. He would protect his family no matter what. If the world would be cruel and violent towards him, then he would be cruel and violent toward it.

'Would you like me to tell you a story?' he offered, holding out his hand, glad for the company, in what had become a harsh and lonely place. Never before had he craved the attention of another so much.

He could scarcely imagine what it must be like for her, growing up in this place full of assassins. Just like Tommy, she too had no mother, he had learned. What kind of man would her father be to her, he wondered. Her skills with a sword and in combat frightened him, but here she appeared to be nothing more than a girl in need of a father's love.  

'Stories are for children,' came the voice, and he looked up to find R'as Al Ghul standing there in the shadows, watching him. He'd only seen him twice before now, and had been addressed only the once. He was unworthy of R'as' attention, just another fledgling soldier in his army of hundreds.

Nyssa stood between them, taking neither side, watching patiently, as if an observer.

'She is a child,' Malcolm replied, not understanding.

'She is heir to the demon,' he correct. 'An honourable place that few will ever know, lest hold. She must learn the truth of the world if she is to walk my path, not be fed the lies and misdirection of fairy tales.'

Malcom frowned at the man. His usual affable charms served no function in a place like this he'd discovered, but perhaps he could still find some common ground.

'I have a son, Tommy,' he said, 'not much older than your Nyssa.'

'He is the reason you are here, is he not?'

Malcolm nodded. 'My wife was mugged and murdered. I went after him, the man who took her life. I, I killed him, but, it didn't change anything. There's was no absolution.'

'And this how you honour her memory? By running away?'

'No,' he protested. 'That isn't what I did.'

He could still remember how the gun had trembled in his hand in that last desperate act to avenge his wife's brutal murder. 'I have a duty to protect him, my son.'

R'as gave him a smile that filled him with an uneasiness. 'You have a duty to me. The league will do great work, but it must have one mind and one heartbeat. The members of the league were nothing more than a rabble army of assassins and lost souls without a shred of honour before they came to me. Just as you are.'

Malcolm frowned. Did R'as think he had no honour, or was he simply implying his unworthiness?

'I thought you said that you could forge my pain into something stronger. That's what I was promised. It's why I came here; to learn to be strong so I could return and heal the disease that plagues my city.'

'Assassins do not leave. What would they do on this earth? They follow me. They are mine,   and you will also be mine.'

'But my son, I'm doing this for him! For Rebecca!'

R'as walked up to him until they were just inches apart. He could feel the raw power exuding from him.

'You begged for my teachings. I can numb your pain turn your anger into a weapon you can yield, but you must be prepared to accept the consequences of the gift I offer you.'

'How long?' he asked, scared of the answer.

'Until I decided that you have learnt all that I can teach you. Until you learn that the league is your family now, and that there can be no greater honour. Death will be your final teacher.  Only the student hopes to defeat the master.'

R'as looked down at his daughter who had been silent and unmoving as stone throughout their exchange.

'Nyssa, come. Tomorrow you can return and teach Al Sa-her the lesson of patience. He will need it.'