[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

[alphatar]

"Hey, I can live with that." Korra said, a small smile trying to fight its way through her mood. "Just out of curiosity, what are the calming techniques you were thinking of?" Korra doubted they would be any different from ones she had tried back home, but maybe on the off chance that they coincided with what Banner had taught her, then she could openly work on the techniques he discussed with her.

[raptorcanaria]

"There's a technique I use in some of my styles called Seishin Toitsu," Dinah explains. "Pure concentration from the gathered mind. It's the nearest thing to an actual meditation practice I've ever been able to do regularly."

[alphatar]

Korra nodded her head slowly while thoughtfully sticking out her lower lip.

"Nope." she said in answer to herself now that she compared the method to Banner's. Maybe one day she could do that, after doing the smaller steps he outlined for her. "Let's give that a shot later on. Much later."

When Korra finished the one kata and began the next, she looked over at Dinah.

"Did you want to yell at me?" Korra knew Dinah didn't, but she was now wondering if that was because Korra had already gotten her fair share or if Dinah just didn't see it as anything worth yelling over.

[raptorcanaria]

"Ha, no."

Dinah grins, shaking her head. "If I want to yell at someone, they know. The whole block would know, actually. My yelling tends to come with structural damage. When I want to yell at you, your first clue would be meeting me in an open space.

"I just wanted to hear your side and figure out what we can do about keeping people safe in the future."

[alphatar]

"I'm the one that keeps people safe." Korra muttered as she went through the kata, her moves having more of a whipping motion to them than required.

"So who's side are you taking?" she asked flatly.

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah's pretty sure Korra doesn't need to be reminded that burning down clinics isn't compatible with keeping people safe.

Dinah glances over at her, her smile fading as she keeps moving.

"What does that mean?"

She's teaching Korra. She's breaking off all contact with Amon. How obvious does she need to be?

[alphatar]

Korra raised her eyebrow, not sure if Dinah was actually asking that as an honest question or was being offended.

"It means just that. Whose side are you taking: Mine or the Lantern?" Amon's side wasn't even a factor to Korra. Taking his side instead of hers would have been a disaster in and of itself.

[raptorcanaria]

"I didn't know I had to take a side," Dinah says. "Kyle's a colleague. He's my step-son's best friend and he's been a good friend to me since I arrived. Are you planning to draw battle lines?"

Kyle was in his rights to defend his clinic, but Korra was clearly triggered. Dinah's not planning to raise her fists against either of them.

[alphatar]

"I thought they were kind of drawn as it is." Half of that was Korra feeling like she had just been challenged over whether she could or not. In fact, she stopped mid-kata to put her fists on her hips.

"What do you mean colleague?" Reflexively Korra's eyes look to Dinah's, searching her fingers for a ring.

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah's wearing leather gloves to train in. Her wedding and engagement rings are locked in a safe in the office.

She notices when Korra stops and comes to a halt again.

"I mean we both save the world on a regular basis," she says. "We've both been members of the Justice League. He would have been at my wedding, except he was busy off- planet."

Three Green Lanterns turned out to be only just enough.

[alphatar]

Lost at the save the world part, Korra just got even more so at the Justice League part, something she's never even heard of before, and the wedding just kind of knocked Korra for a loop. She had no idea Dinah was married.

"Whoa, whoa. That's-" Her eyes widen for a second as she tried to process all that. "So you work with them in their League and you're married?" Because the marriage is just as important as the saving the world part.

[raptorcanaria]

"It isn't their League," Dinah says with gentle firmness. "It's our League. And yes, we usually have at least one GL on the roster.

"And what does my marriage have to do with anything?"

[alphatar]

"So you guys are like, Team Avatar. Got it." Korra left anything she wanted to say about the Lanterns out. Mostly because she was blinking at the question Dinah gave her.

"I just didn’t think you were married. That’s just surprising to me. "There wasn’t anything teasing in her tone, just honest confusion. "The only married people I knew were just a couple of my masters and my mom and dad."

[raptorcanaria]

"Except we don't name ourselves after any one member."

She can only imagine the dick-waving contests that would result from that idea. And the boys have enough of those as it is.

"Really? It's that rare on your world? Or you just don't know that many adults?"

Either is possible, of course. When Dinah was seventeen most of her friends were married or divorced or widowed, but most of her friends were from the Justice Society.

[alphatar]

"Hey, the name’s a tradition." Korra said, though it wasn’t without a smile.

"Oh no, it’s not that it’s rare. It’s just, my friends only have one parent or none at all." In fact, Korra could only list both her parents and Tenzin and Pema as being a part of any intact marriage. She couldn’t place Katara there since it would have been impossible for her to see her with her husband.

That’s the whole scope of marriage as Korra understood it.

"So, I just kind of thought that you never mentioned him…" After a moment Korra blurted out embarrassedly. "…or her. "

She rubbed her arm with her hand.

"That’s just, I didn’t know if you lost anyone."

[raptorcanaria]

"Him," Dinah offers her. Although the idea of a female Oliver amuses her greatly, there's a definite streak of maleness to that guy.

But that's the only thing she can find to smile about.

"And I have lost him. Or rather - he's missing, right now."

[alphatar]

Korra ducked her head a little. "Just missing though, right?" She was kind of hoping it was just that and that Dinah was one of those exceptions like her parents were.

"So no kids to worry about either?" It was odd asking that question for Korra, Dinah always seemed like just a slightly older sister. The adults she thought were cool usually were knocked down an age bracket in her own little world.

[raptorcanaria]

"Just missing."

Korra doesn't need to know that Dinah killed a man who looked exactly like Oliver Queen on their wedding night. Or that Ollie himself was dead for a few years a while ago. She knows, without a doubt, that the corpse in her basement is not her husband, and Ollie is just missing.

"And that really depends on how strict your definition of 'kids' is. At a generous count, there's four. Five if you count the 'grandkid.'"

And that's not counting Robert, who they haven't seen in years, or Cissie, whose existence Dinah doesn't even know about.

[alphatar]

Without a sound, Korra mouth slid open like a gash on her face. Never had she assumed Dinah would have had kids.

“Kids. You know. Like how I’m my parents’ kid, Mako’s his parents’ kid.” Laboring under the assumption Dinah literally meant to ask for Korra’s definition. “The whole man and woman have a kid thing. You know: kids.”

She was not going to give Dinah the lizard-birds and scorpion-bees explanation.

[raptorcanaria]

Dinah holds up her thumb, counting 'one.'

"Roy was Oliver's ward and partner before I even meat either of them. But shortly after Oliver and I started seeing each other the first time, he came to me with a problem he was having a hard time with and I helped him out. He's as much a son to me as he is to Oliver, and I'm the godmother to his daughter Lian."

The index finger extends, joining the thumb: 'two.'

"Connor was Oliver's son from a long time ago, and I didn't even find out about him until..." too complicated to explain about Oliie's death? Probably. "...Oliver last went missing. Zatanna says he's been here; you might have met him? He's the step son I was talking about... Kyle's best friend?"

She's been smiling anyway, but it brightens when her middle finger comes out.

"Mia is about your age. She only really came into our lives a few years ago but she's really worked as Oliver's latest partner. I think you'd get on with her a lot, actually."

And last, but definitely not least, Dinah's ring finger extends: 'four.'

"Sin's eight. I found her when I was... well, it doesn't matter what I was doing, but she was being treated poorly by some very bad people and Oliver pulled some strings to get her into the country. She's not had a very happy life, but we're working on giving her something as normal as possible."

It kills Dinah that 'normal' means not living with her and Oliver, but the fact that she's safe is the important thing. And Dinah will never not think of her as her daughter.

[alphatar]

“Wow, so no kids but, yeah, kids.” Korra had bitten off more than she could chew with that question. From Korra’s look, it was probably clear that she didn’t recognize a single name listed off. The mention of being Kyle’s best friend only got a furtive look away before looking back.

“So you and Oliver just kind of find kids then.” Korra folded her arms over chest, a small smirk on her face. “And here I thought you were just looking for someone to hang out with.”

[raptorcanaria]

"That's about the size of it."

And then she blinks, confused, before breaking out a grin that's been absent on her face for a few minutes now.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves with that one."

[alphatar]

“Fair enough.” Korra said loftily, she wasn’t about to poke Dinah on the subject. More important things came to her mind.

“Any way we could speed up those chi-blocking defense lessons?” She gripped her arms as she spoke. “I could really use them.”

[raptorcanaria]

"Okay," Dinah agrees. "I'll expect to see you here every day, then? Same time work for you?"

[alphatar]

Korra shifted her weight onto one foot and rubbed her arm, suddenly averting her eyes to look at the dark sky between the trees along the horizon.

“Um, actually I was kind of hoping you could teach me now. Before I go home.”

Her voice was even, but it didn’t match her body language at all.