[Open]

[raptorcanaria]

Characters: Dinah Lance and OPEN
Date: July, all after Clueventure
Location: Wood Sector, and wherever you need her.
Situation: There are ideas and commitments that Dinah started before being distracted by detective work. Now she intends to follow up on them.
Warnings/Rating: Blood, wounds in the Arthur thread.
I started with prose, but will switch to action if you'd like.

General Starter: She found it in the wood sector, a courtyard formed by four trees growing from each corner, growing and intertwining together above, walled by hedges that have been growing out since the last master left. As soon as she had a spare morning and the presence of mind to do so, it is here Dinah returns.

She keeps the name and cleans first the sign painted so neatly in Chinese: “The Jade School of Kung Fu, overseen by Grand Master Shifu.” She doesn't know what happened to the Grand Master, but a dojo cannot be left unused, and she plans to honor this Master she never met by returning his space to the use it was intended.

She sent messages to the people she knew were interested in training with her, to let them know where they could be found, then she set about trimming the hedges, sweeping the building and the courtyard, and transforming it into a usable dojo again.

Comments

ARTHUR: Some time after Clueventuring, wood sector.

[raptorcanaria]

After seeing what was happening to Asti under the wood sector, all Dinah could think about was how much Arthur needed to see this. Shortly after the families moved back in, therefore, she approached one family to ask if she might be allowed back in with a friend who cared deeply for Tu Vishan and would want to see the damage for himself.

They agreed more readily than Dinah expected, and she let Arthur know where to meet her, “because I need to show you what was being done to Asti.” Because there are some things you just cannot describe in words.

[relentlesstide]

When he got the message, he had come, immediately regretting that he couldn't make it down to help out himself. It came down to not being able to leave his wife, honestly, not with her struggling. Their marriage still feels a little fragile to him, fragile enough that he didn't want to leave her side when she needed him, even for this.

Still, this part at least had been in Dinah's capable hands, and the fact that she actually thought to show him, to tell him what her team had found, means a lot. So he shows up outside on time, looking a little more awake and alert than he has since the power loss really started. "Dinah? I'm here."

[raptorcanaria]

"Arthur, thank you for coming."

She reaches for him when he arrives, and hugs him quickly and meaningfully. "I'm sorry for calling you out like this."

She knows he's got things at home that are important, and she hates calling him away from his wife when she needs him.

"But I really think that you need to see this. They were poisoning him."

[relentlesstide]

"Of course I came." There was no way he would refuse, not when he won't be gone for more than a few hours anyway. Mera still needs him, but he needs to see this, needs to know what happened. He returns the hug briefly, but tightly; Dinah is one of the people he's a lot less sea-urchin-y with. "Don't worry about it, I'm glad you called me."

He pauses, a note of horror creeping into his otherwise controlled expression. How could anyone... Arthur can't wrap his mind around what would make someone want to poison such a kind, wise being. "Show me."

[raptorcanaria]

A single professional nod. "Of course."

She's wearing her costume for this: fishnets under a long coat because it makes her look more professional but also makes her easier for the kedan to recognize as one of the foreigners who was instrumental in restoring their homes to them. It's to one of these homes that she leads him: a house set into an ancient tree just a short walk from the park they met him. Dinah looks up at the tree's branches as they approach the door.

"This tree is thousands of years old. The roots go right down into the shell."

[relentlesstide]

As they come to the door, Arthur sets a hand lightly against the wood, eyes flickering down as if he's trying to mentally follow the path of the roots. "Sort of a symbiotic relationship, then." He doesn't sound terribly surprised by that - a civilization springing up on the back of a turtle, of course it has to be symbiotic somehow. That's how nature works. "How deep do they go? Into the flesh?"

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah nods. "Uh huh. Or at least, I think so - you'll have to see, anyway."

She knocks on the door and gives a warm smile to the kedan woman who answers. "Hi, Tiannu. This is my friend Arthur I was telling you about, to see the basement. thank you so much for having me in again."

Tiannu bows to both of them as she holds the door open.

"Of course, Madam Canary, please come in. The lower basements are still empty so you can see what they did."

[relentlesstide]

Arthur nods briefly and follows her, offering the owner of the house a polite smile and a returning bow of his head. "Thank you for allowing me into your home to take a look, I hope I'm not intruding." As prickly as he can be, and as pompous as he can be on occasion, he's also been a diplomat, and it shows. It wouldn't do to be stand-offish to someone doing them a favor, because as horrible as he knows it's going be, he feels he needs to see it. What people were doing to Asti.

[raptorcanaria]

Tiannu is eager to assure him that he's not intruding, that any friend of the Canary's, &c, but she doesn't follow them down into the lowest levels. And Dinah doesn't really blame her. Furniture hasn't been moved back, and the dirt walls have not been filled in yet, and there are frequent exposures of roots, some of which show deep gouges cut into the roots. Dinah stops on one of the floors and heads over to one, where sap has oozed out and long since hardened.

"They've removed the equipment," she explains. "But I think this was where they were testing the tree sap. Up here, it's just regular sap."

[relentlesstide]

After the polite exchange, he follows Dinah down, expression gone serious again, watching the surroundings, the gouges in the roots. He reaches out to brush the tips of his fingers along the dried sap and the dip of the gouge. "And farther down, it's more than just sap?"

[raptorcanaria]

"Further down, it turns red," she says, now leaning back against the wall to chat, but ready to go down if he needs to.

"Black Widow was pretty sure it was blood."

[relentlesstide]

"It most likely is. You said this tree is very old, it wouldn't surprise me if the roots had grown straight into Tu Vishan. It seems natural for his type of turtle to have that sort of symbiosis with the life that lives upon it." He takes a good look at the gouges and the sap before he nods at Dinah to indicate that he's ready to move on, to see the worst of it.

"What sort of poison were they using? Unless it was very potent, they must have had to use quite a bit."

[raptorcanaria]

She can only shake her head.

"I don't know. I know they took some samples of it back to the palace. And it's herbal, if that means anything. I didn't think to take any samples."

On hindsight, she's aware Bruce would have insisted she do so, and Babs would have told her if Babs were in her ear. But Dinah in emergency situations thinks of the now, not the later analysis.

She leads the way down into the lower floors, where the damage becomes more frequent and, as she mentioned, the congealed sap becomes darker, and redder.

On the very lowest, the signs of the damage is mixed with the signs of the kedan healers who have been in to treat the wounds directly. Wounds that look less like scrapes in the roots, and more like the distinct puncture marks left by IV needles.

[relentlesstide]

As they go deeper, as the damage gets worse, Arthur's lips press together, his expression becomes a little tighter around the eyes. He's come to expect hideous behavior toward marine life from human beings, but toward Tu Vishan from kedan... He can't quite wrap his head around it, but it makes him furious, albeit a tightly-controlled fury born of horror. For a few minutes, he just listens, and when they go as deep as they can, he moves to kneel by some of the puncture marks, fingers hovering over one but not touching.

"Oh, Asti, what were they doing to you?" He whispers, frowning down for a moment before he glances back up at Dinah. "Were they all caught? Was this the only site? If the poison was herbal, that likely broadens the range of places it could possibly be obtained."

[raptorcanaria]

She's watching him now, rather than looking at the roots and the damage to Asti. Looking at the injuries itself is hard, but in some ways watching Arthur's reaction is harder. Dinah needs to do it, though. Asti's one if his, in a way, and he deserves to know.

"There were six houses evicted," she says. "They caught people at every site, so it's probable they got everyone. I'm going to keep an ear out."

She works here, now. It might be easier to do so.

[relentlesstide]

His pain is nearly palpable, an empathetic sort of angry hurt with only slight changes in his expression to mark the turbulence beneath the surface.

"Six sites. Six." Arthur stays bent over the worst of the wounds, as if he's trying to burn the injustice into his memory as a warning of what could happen again if they all let it. His voice lowers a little, "I don't understand it, Dinah. How could anyone agree to do something like this? I've spoken to him, he's kind, in a way you so rarely see. He cares about us all."

[raptorcanaria]

"They thought they were ending it suddenly, rather than facing..."

Well, you know.

She crouches beside him, her arm touching his at the shoulder. "The only way I can possibly understand it is that they were scared. Are scared. And we know what fear does to people."

[relentlesstide]

A short, harsh bark of laughter. "Suddenly, of course." Poison, in his experience, is rarely a sudden way to go, especially in a case like this. Who knows how long this was going on? Who knows how long or how much Asti had to suffer?

He pauses, exhaling, to try and release some of the tension in the set of his shoulders. "I know. It is frightening. But causing more suffering... I suppose I don't have an accurate picture of the kedan from spending my time in the Water Sector." It always hurts, to be proven wrong like this.

[raptorcanaria]

"They do have different outlooks in different sectors."

It's something she finds fascinating, even though diversity of attitudes are normal, finding them so concentrated within a single city is amazing.

She glances over at him, biting her bottom lip for a second.

"The people who live in this house are good people," she says. "They were as horrified to find out what was happening as I was."

[relentlesstide]

"Maybe I should... get out more, then. I've been staying where I'm comfortable, admittedly, and that... that's never a good approach." To ruling, to life, to anything. Maybe he really does need to see more of the city, but- part of him hadn't wanted to see the bad in this city. Naive, sure, which he normally is far from, but it had been almost nice after everything that happened with the Black Lanterns.

He nods once. "I can imagine. It must be quite the shock, to find this going on in your own home." The people that did this have been caught. There's no reason to hold it against anyone else.

[raptorcanaria]

"Maybe."

Dinah acknowledges that gently. She understands perfectly the desire to stay in Water, especially for him. But she won't deny her own motivation in seeing as many sectors as possible.

"But I wouldn't force it. Knowing one area as well as you can is as good as knowing a wide area. And I wouldn't say you don't get out more. You probably know the ocean around Asti better than anyone."

[relentlesstide]

"No, I just... It reminds me the most of home. Of Atlantis. I haven't seen my city in months, and after everything that happened, I suppose I was seeking out some sort of familiarity. I shouldn't, though. Staying in my comfort zone hasn't done much good."

Arthur has never been one to hide away his own faults. He's tried all his life to recognize them, and work on them, to better himself and expand his knowledge to better rule Atlantis.

"Thank you. For showing me this."

[raptorcanaria]

"Any time."

He needed to see it, but she also needed to show it to him. Rightly or wrongly, Dinah considers him to be their link to Asti: his guardian in a way. Anything that concerns the turtle concerns all of them, but Arthur remains the best person to deal with that link. Dinah's more ground level, she always has been.

She stands up, looking around the room.

"I don't know if there's anything more to show you. This is all there is, now."

[relentlesstide]

Arthur certainly feels connected to Asti in a way that not a lot of people probably do, even those who have also spoken to him in dreams. Still, he isn't often the first Leaguer people go to with information of any sort, so a little thought is... nice. Especially when he did want to know this.

He nods once, glancing one last time at where the poison was injected before he rises. "We should get out of the homeowner's hair then. Want to go for a drink? I feel like I could use one."

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah rolls her shoulder back, not because they're stiff but as a subconscious indicator as she mentally shifts gears from Serious Conversation to going for a drink with a friend.

"A drink sounds great," she says. "I know this adorable little bar just a short walk from here."

And she definitely could do with one.