#macushla

When Talia, daughter of the demon, sometimes called Talia al Ghul, sometimes called Talia Head, is twenty-eight years old, she gives up her son.  It is not an easy thing to do, leaving him on the doorstep of the orphanage, with only the necklace that Bruce gave her as a memory, a clue. The necklace she deems to be safe enough. It is not a Wayne Family heirloom, which might raise eyebrows or be engraved with anything. He’d purchased it quietly, as a gift for her and her alone. Perhaps, when he is older, if he inherits his father’s keen mind and their joint tenacity, he will be able to track it down to the store where Bruce purchased it from, perhaps get a description of his father, eventually track him down to Gotham City. It’s a nice little fantasy, as she wraps him in white cloth and leaves him on the doorstep. It’s also what destroys her.

Macushla Redux

Names

It matters what you call a thing. It has been three years and sometimes Love still gets jammed up into my throat, resting there, tightly coiled, like some small animal waiting for you to return home again, unwilling to accept your passing, perhaps unable to comprehend what death really means in the end.

But is that really the word for it?  I look into the dark blue eyes of my eight-month-old child. Daughter, I call her. My lovely one. Love walks in her like summer wheat fields. Like the smell of wet earth and the sound of the river swelling up over the edge of the bank. Like her golden hair. My husband’s laughter.

What word do I give you, then? Your calloused hands and ordinary face. The pain you carried in your small mouth. Though the heart moves from time to time, when I call out it does not answer me. At times it slinks into the corner (is it slinks?) and rests there.  I think it knows you aren’t returning. What is it that it lingers for there in the darkness?

What is the name for that silent vessel inside the body? Those inanimate paperweights of memory surrounded by so much life? I try to study it, losing track at times of where it is crouching, swept up inside the tall grass and heavy trees. Cold sheets and the body of my husband pressed tightly around mine. Lover, I call him.

It matters what you call a thing. It has been three years and sometimes Love still gets stuck there, heavy. But that is not the name for it. For her navy eyes or his giant heart or your heavy one. I’m sorry I could not lift you. Macushla, I will call you. Pulse of my heart. Like orange rust forever settled in the iron. The weight of your hand on my shoulder that will never quite leave me.

the fact that people still like Macushla just... is so wonderful, honestly, I do really still love that fic.

... I realize that you probably meant this to be cute, but like...

I’m just going to cross Macushla over with Cass’s canon backstory. 

Cain hates Steph, because she is really bad at the “not talking” thing. However, he can’t exactly keep her away, because she’s Talia’s favorite. 

Cass and Steph fight a lot. Cass always wins, but Steph has fun with it. 

Damian tags along sometimes and he adores Cass, almost as much as Steph. He wants Steph to marry Cass so they can both be his guards forever. Talia starts taking Cass to her compound more often, because Damian likes her so much. 

But whoops, Cass still runs away after Macao, and she and Steph aren’t reunited until Steph pops up to find Damian in Gotham. There’s a lot of hugging and crying. Things are even more awkward about the killing, though.