The Bat's dark growly voice usually terrifies anyone who hears it. Everyone except the other equally cryptic members of his brood. But that is not a shock, for they are a family after all. The interesting thing, or what Gothamites know as the legend of the eldritch bats says that anyone who hears the bat's voice and wouldn't feel the fear coursing through their body eventually becomes a part of it's pack.
It's inevitable. A law established through the years with the increasing numbers of shadows in the city. If you are afraid means you are not chosen. Also if you are an adult. Because for some reason the Bat always attracts the young ones, tortured souls whose youth were mauled by the city, who still managed to have heart in a heartless hellhole.
The outside circus kid was the first to smile at the cryptid's voice instead of crying like every other kid. The police claimed their was curiosity in the creature's eyes when he saw the kid but like he was not surprised either . The acrobat explained how it sounded like a pretty song and how it's not very nice to call mr Bat an "it".
He disappeared eventually and the kids at the Juvie claimed how he would talk to shadows and how his smile would look too big for his face at times. The city saw a blood covered robin loudly cackling on criminal's terror. When the red blood turned blue, the cackle remained to remind them who was the first bird to fly in lady Gotham's night sky.
Then it was a street kid rescued from one of Joker's "games" by Bat. The rich Drake kid was not a surprise as he always held a weird obsession with the Bats. Commissioner's daughter after his death looked more like the dark knight then the robin and the girl who spoke a lot before her language changed with her humanity. there was the young boy with the foolish assassins who thought they could claim Gotham's wilds. And they proved their stupidity by sending another young girl assasin to get back the child who was already swept under it's wings.
The city forbade the kids to talk of it's protector. It's good if teens or kids are scared because that means that they had a caring guardian to warn them of the embodiment of night, and they would hear only monstrous sounds when the Bat would talk. But the bat mourns for children, and he loves the unlovable and grieves children's pain, you might hear a lullaby in it's voice like the Thomas kid who fell asleep to it after his parents death.
The people might fear it but they also find a comfort in their saviors, their eldritch. Their mythical being who sings to the sorrow of this broken city's lost and forgotten children. The being born from the cruelty of this city weeps while it embraces them. It's tragic and melancholic like everything in Gotham but it's relieving to the guardians to know their children won't be abandoned if they die.
The laughter of bats and birds will echo in night and scare everyone but their hearts would be lighter for they are a proof that there is hope.
