#batober2022

Batober day 22:shine

BATOBER DAY 2-RUINS

The thick cloud of dust forced several sneezes out of her, it had likely been ages since this entrance had been opened as she pried the grandfather clock from its place against the wall. Illuminating the darkness with her torchlight, she descended back into the darkness. As she entered the dilapidated state of the Batcave, memories of a distant lifetime began to re-enter her mind. Her muddy brown eyes drifted towards the empty space near the damaged and destroyed Batcomputer where a mat would be placed for sparring.

“I demand a rematch!” Yelled Damian after his very public defeat at the hands of Cassandra. Cassandra smiled and offered a hand to her young brother, both had a silent understanding of one another that neither had with their siblings. Both born and raised weapons, but found something else, something better for themselves under the tutelage of their siblings and father. She welcomed the challenge anyway from such a worthy sparring partner. To her memory, they might have still been tied at fifty wins each.

She saw the broken torn bookshelf that Barbara had Tim and Alfred set up for her greater education. While she enjoyed Barbara teaching her and giving her the skills that monster stole from her childhood, she did admit to mostly enjoying her and Alfred’s recreations of A Midnight Summers Dream and Othello. Those were the moments she enjoyed the most out of all her lessons.

She remembers the nights where she couldn’t sleep and Dick would find her down here staring into the display case of their fathers first Batsuit. The one that started the legacy and legend of The Batman. She would often ask Dick what it was like when he donned the cowl, “How heavy did it weigh on you?”

Dick would always take a moment to ponder his answer and he would respond with a variety of answers, but they all boiled down to a simple message. “It was immense. Like the entire weight of the world was sewn into the very cowl Bruce wore every night.”

Beside that case sat one that was far too familiar, Jason’s. He’d always felt like an outsider, some might say even more so than herself or Stephanie despite Bruce still loving him as a son. She would always catch Jason staring at this costume when he visited, his hands balled up into fists and anger all around his body. But that anger quickly metamorphosed into sorrow before becoming pain, she would try her best to comfort him. A hand on the shoulder, a hug, or kind words, but she knew best that nothing could make up for the pain that others put you through and made you believe it was deserved.

The ruins of the Batcave were immense, and all consuming, but she was there for a reason. Multiple in fact, she approached the ledge of the cavern and stared down into the abyssal darkness below. What felt like hours or even days, time lost all meaning as she peered downwards. She then asked a simple question to whoever would listen.

“Am… I… ready?” Silence. That is until she hears his voice. The voice of her father, the voice of the man that made her into the person that she is today. The voice of The Batman.

“You are more than ready Cassandra.” At that moment, a swarm of bats eject themselves from the caverns below. She watches in awe as they form a trail towards a tattered curtain, beckoning her to follow them.

Parting the moth-eaten veil, she was met with an artifact she thought long lost. Preserved in a glass case and untouched by the powers of time, a black suit with the yellow outline of the symbol stretched across the chest letting all know who this was. It wasn’t Batgirls or Batwomans, it was his. She looked at the cowl and found a bat sat atop the glass. The two locked eyes and she smiled as she finally accepted the message.

“Yes father. I shall become The Bat.”

Even when the magnificent buildings of the past are ruined centuries later, they continue to shine like candle flames that weaken by the wind but never go out!