Fic prompt #66
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I am deeply enamored with the prompt where Danny gets mistaken for (or correctly identified as) some kind of pit creatureâgod, angel, demon, mermaid, eldritch problem, take your pick.
The rules are simple:
⢠Danny is a gremlin.
⢠Danny either has no idea who the hell keeps bathing in his pool, or
⢠He knows and is doing something specifically to be annoying.
Now consider this:
Danny discovers the Lazarus Pit.
Naturally, everyone else assumes heâs a creature of the Pit. A guardian. A god. A cursed spirit. A mermaid (he got the look). Danny does absolutely nothing to correct this.
But instead of the usual routesâdestroying the League of Assassins, adopting Damian, picking a moral sideâDanny just⌠starts chatting and continues to do so for centuries in their world.
Raâs al Ghul becomes his pool buddy.
They talk while soaking in the Pit. Raâs gives long, dramatic monologues about destiny, immortality, and the decay of the world. Danny listens politely, floating upside down, occasionally splashing, responding through some kind of ghostly translation magic that turns his very normal thoughts into something vaguely ominous and prophetic.
Raâs: âThe world must be cleansed to be reborn.â
Danny (meaning): âYeah, stagnation sucks. You ever try bubble filters?â
Danny (translated): âAll cycles end in rot, and rot demands renewal.â
Raâs is thrilled.
Danny just thinks his pool buddy is neat.
Then one day Danny sees Raâs with the Batfamily.
Danny, with complete sincerity, assumes this is Raâs trying to invite his other friends to pool time.
So Danny tries to help.
He attempts to guide one of them into the Pit. It does not go well. There is screaming. There is grappling. There is Batman shouting about unknown entities and containment protocols.
Danny is confused. A little offended.
Still, every time he sees them after that, he tries again.
Not aggressively. Just:
⢠appearing out of the Pit like a horror movie mermaid,
⢠holding out a hand,
⢠ominously intoning (via broken translation magic):
âEnter the waters. The pool is warm. We are bonding.â
The Batfamily is convinced this is a recruitment ritual.
Raâs is delighted.
Danny is just trying to get his friends to hang out.
ââââââ-
POV: Raâs al Ghul
In his first centuries, when Raâs al Ghul was still learning what immortality cost, he met the creature.
Back then, the Lazarus Pit was wilder. Less refined. Less⌠tamed. Raâs had only bathed a handful of times when, during one resurrection, the waters did not still.
They shifted.
Something surfaced with him.
Raâs woke choking on life and madness, and found himself face to face with a being already awake, already watching him with mild curiosityâas if Raâs were the strange thing in the pool.
The creature was young-looking, but not young. Luminous in the Pitâs glow, hair drifting like ink in water, eyes reflecting death without fear. It did not recoil from the Pitâs frenzy. It was not consumed by it.
It belonged.
Raâs understood immediately: a child of the Pit, born from death repeated too many times.
The creature spoke.
Raâs heard:
âYou return too soon. The waters remember you.â
What it meant, in a voice filtered through strange translating magic:
âWow, that was fast. You good, dude?â
Raâs laughed. He could not help it.
From then on, Raâs was never alone when he resurrected.
In those early centuriesâbefore the League, before empires rose and fell beneath his feetâthe creature would join him in the Pit. Sometimes already there, sometimes arriving halfway through Raâs rebirth, as if checking on him.
It asked questions. Strange ones.
Why do you do this?
Does it hurt every time?
Do you ever take breaks?
The Pit twisted these into riddles and warnings. Raâs heard prophecy. Doctrine. Judgment.
Raâs answered honestly.
He spoke of saving the world, of cleansing corruption, of shepherding humanity forward. The creature listened, chin propped on its hands, occasionally nodding.
It responded with statements like:
âEndless renewal without rest fractures the soul.â
(which meant: âThat sounds exhausting.â)
Raâs took this as sacred counsel.
Centuries passed.
Raâs refined the Pit. Controlled it. Built rituals, safeguards, entire philosophies around it. Through it all, the creature remainedâunchanged, unaging, eternally informal.
Sometimes it vanished for decades. Sometimes centuries. But whenever Raâs returned to the Pit, there it was again, greeting him like an old friend.
Back again?
ârendered by magic asâ
âThe cycle resumes.â
When Raâs finally formed the League, he spoke of the guardian with reverence. He warned his followers not to disturb the waters unnecessarily. It was watched.
They obeyed.
Only much laterâmuch laterâdid Raâs bring outsiders to the Pit.
The bats.
ââ
Raâs al Ghul has faced the Detective many times.
This encounter is no different: steel, smoke, accusations, inevitability. The Bat stands between Raâs and the Pit, his allies fanned out behind him, tense and prepared. Raâs is already calculating angles, exits, casualties.
Violence is imminent.
Then the waters of the Lazarus Pit ripple.
Raâs freezes.
Slowlyâdeliberatelyâthe guardian emerges.
Pale glow first. Then eyes. Then the familiar, impossible calm of a being that has watched Raâs die and rise more times than any mortal ever should.
The Pit-spirit floats at the surface, blinking as it takes in the scene.
The bats.
The weapons.
Raâs, poised to strike.
The creature tilts its head.
âOh,â it saysâthough what Raâs hears is something closer to:
âConflict stains the waters before it begins.â
Raâs does not move. He does not dare.
The bats, unfortunately, do.
One of them shifts, weapon raising half an inch.
The creature immediately misunderstands everything.
Its expression softens. Brightens. Recognition dawns.
âYou brought friends?â it says, pleased.
Translated as: âThe circle widens. New souls approach the threshold.â
Batman reacts instantly.
The creature reacts faster.
It glides closer to the edge of the Pit, extending a handânot threatening, not aggressive, just inviting. Like one would gesture toward warm water on a cold night.
âCareful,â it says gently. âFirst time can be rough, but youâll feel better after.â
Raâs closes his eyes.
Of course this is happening.
Chaos erupts.
The bats scatter. Someone swears. Someone fires a grappling hook. The creature recoils, startled, nearly slipping back into the Pit.
âHuh,â it says, confused.
Rendered ominously as: âFear resists transformation.â
Raâs snaps orders, retreatingânot from the bats, but to shield the Pit. He positions himself between them and the guardian, blade lowered but ready.
The creature looks at him, baffled.
âThey donât want to hang out?â it asks.
Raâs exhales, slow and reverent.
âThey are⌠unprepared,â he says carefully.
The guardian considers this. Nods. Withdraws a little, sinking back into the waters.
âOkay,â it says. âNext time, then.â
The bats escape.
Silence returns.
Raâs kneels by the Pit, heart still racingânot from battle, but from relief.
âI apologize,â he says quietly.
The creature shrugs, already relaxing.
âItâs fine. You tried.â
And Raâs al Ghulâimmortal, feared, unwaveringâaccepts, once again, that he is not the most dangerous being in the room.
He is merely the one with the pool.
I'm reading this and imagining a Danny who's still a vigilante but a seasoned one, who comes hang out with his pool buddy whenever things get a bit too hectic. Who has sometimes complained about the Ghost hunters or other Ghosts to Ra's (who due to translation errors thinks that they are one in the same and are just older than his Pit buddy.) Or talks fondly of his friends Sam and Tucker (who Ra's believes to be the Guardian's partners.) Just Ra's learning things about Danny and misinterpreting them due to mistranslation.
And at some point for whatever reason, whether bad reveal or the G.I.W get the jump on them, Danny gets really hurt, like missing an arm levels of bad. In this Ellie either destabilizes or is forced back into her core along with Dante, and desperate to protect them he takes them to his pool buddy to protect while he goes and deals with whatever is happening in his world, not exactly realizing what he looks like at the moment.
So instead of the usual tranquil looking dragon-mer (thinking eastern or sea serpent style) Ra's sees an absolutely feral and furious looking dragon who is missing an arm telling him to protect what looks like a pair of massive eggs before diving back into the Pit to teleport back to wherever its nest is to deal with whatever attacked.
Ra's staring at the eggs. Wondering what on earth the Pit creature (Danny) survives on now. Because the eggs make it clear that even though Ra's hasn't seen him age, they must age somehow.
He just got tasked with protecting these two eggs. And has no idea how to keep them alive. He doesn't even know if Danny's eggs are like crocodile eggs, and the embryo changes gender based on temperature.
And say Danny was so desperate to protect Ellie and Dante became their cores are cracked.
So not only does Ra's have no idea what to do. He has no idea if either egg is alive anymore. Cracks on eggs when they aren't hatching is extremely concerning after all.
(wrote this right before bed. If things are confusing that's why.)
For lack of better info to start, he rushes to build them the Most Supportive Nests of the Finest Stuffs, right there in the pool-chamber. And quadruples all security leading to it, locking the chamber itself down more thoroughly than ever seen by still-living minions/kin.
Then starts diving into ALL the centuries of bestiaries, trying to find Anything to narrow down similarities between these Apparent Eggs and. Any category of species ever. Anything. Birds? Reptiles? Amphibians? Platypi? AnYtHiNg, pls.
Given that they came from his Pit Buddy, he can guess that Lazarus Waters are Probably beneficial? But. Will they drown if he just. Nests them IN the Pit? Should he rig some kind of floating, supportively-suspending net to the shallows for them? Keep them always partially above water but rotate them so no spot gets too little? Should he be keeping the cracks above water or below it? Do they Need to breath air or Pit Water?
(I accidentally gave myself the mental image of heavy-but-exquisite netting attached to rings made of pool floaties or noodles. Like a floatie ring for toddlers but makeshift and silly.)
Ra's has had entire CENTURIES less collectively-stressful than that first week. Has never at any point been This Stressed in his LIFE.
Imagine either Ellie or Dante heal enough emerge from their core (preferably both of them at once).
And Danny still isn't back yet.
So to Ra's it looks like his Pit buddy's kids are hatching. Without him.
And he read about how many animals imprint on the first thing they see.
Let Ra's be scared that he might piss of the Pit Guardian by accidently stealing their kids.
De aged Elle and Dante? While Danny is trying to rescue his Ras is babysitting the adorable tiny pit guardians and is so worried about offending their parent.
Meanwhile, the League has started leaving offerings in the pit chamber for the twins. Lots of soft materials and piles of shiny treasures that the female loved to play with and even a couple potted plants that the male seems to appreciate.
When Danny eventually returns, he brings Sam and Tucker with him.
I'm a sucker for the everlasting trio as halfas, so Sam is in full dryad mode and Tucker has skin that shimmers, golden eyes, and golden claws. It's clear to Ras that these are the Guardian's mates and the twins' other parents.
He doesn't dare protest as the dryad tips over the potted plants which rapidly grow into a miniature jungle and the gold touched being begins to create otherworldly devices by molding the precious metals like clay.
Ras orders his most trusted to stand guard outside the chamber as the Guardian creates a nest from the furs and rugs that had been given as offerings and settles down with his young for a long nap.
YES!
I'm imagine that the trio are in rough shape right now, with Danny being the worst atm, way worse than before. I'm imaging that life half his torso is gone and his tail is all sorts of fucked up, wounds that'd instantly kill any mortal (and maybe even Ra's).
The thing that ends up concerning Ra's the most though is that the Guardian isn't healing as fast as usual, he understands that this amount of damage would take ages to heal, but by the time the Guardian's partners are healed the Guardian themself has barely made any progress.
So concerned, he asks one of Danny's partners if he was okay and why healing was taking so long (I'll say that it was Sam he asked), and she explained that he got hit with a weapon that used blood blossoms, and how they were essentially death for Ghosts and liminal.
But because we still have translation issues Ra's hears of a flower that eats away at and devours all that the Lazarus Pits touch, how it was turned into a weapon to destroy the waters and all those blessed by them, how despite the danger the Guardian, who the Dryad called Diadem (she actually called him Danny, but weird magic translation stuff happened and now he's a star), had taken hits from this weapon to protect his partners. And while he'd heal, it'd take much longer as the poison remains in his system trying to eat away at him.
Ra's, not wanting the Guardian (who he somewhat considers a friend) to potentially die because of this poison, he asks if he could take a sample to try and find a cute. And while both the Guardian's partners are hesitant, and rightfully so as neither knew too much of the LoA and they'd just been driven out of their nest, agreed. Letting Ra's take a few samples from Diadem(Danny) in the injured areas to try and find a cure for it.



















