2014-07-02 - Talks With Bats

Cassandra is out and about tonight. She wouldn't be recognizeable as her normal self; she's not training OR patrolling. She's sitting on the edge of a roof, her legs dangling, and studying a pizza shop while she waits for a friend she had called earlier. She's wearing a silk shirt and denim pants. Not exactly crime fighting gear, and looks like she is deep in thought.

There aren't a whole lot of people who can sneak up on Cassandra, or anyone trained by the Bat. Kara's one of those people though who can. Helps when you don't have to have footsteps and can be in a place faster than senses usually can register.

"Um.. so is it casual Friday or something?" a voice says from behind Cassandra.

Cassandra starts a little as the voice comes over her shoulder, apparently a bit jumpy. She turns her head to the left enough to lower her eyes and widen her peripheral vision. When she sees Kara, she gets up to her feet and brushes off her pants with both hands. A slight smile on her face looks a bit forced.

Cassandra looks down at her clothes. "Uh...Tuesday," she mumbles, not getting the joke. Then she looks Kara over, squinting as she tries to read the woman. Below on the street, Gothamites live their lives unaware of the power landing over their head. Or of the caring heart.

Kara Zor-El looks down at the street below as she lies on air. "Uh.. yeah I mean... it was a jo- never mind. Casual Tuesday. Yes. Exactly. So... what's with the casual clothing? Don't you usually do this stuff in the black bodysuit thing and mask?"

The human girl actually smiles now, walking up and offering to take Kara's right hand with her left. "I speak," Cassandra says, offering that in a voice that is just as rough and gravelly as ever. "Bad, but speaking." She steps a little awkwardly, which is really very out of character for her.

Kara Zor-El lands on the roof when her hand is taken. "Um... yeah. You're speaking. I can hear you speaking." She nods a bit, not quite understanding. "You're not bad though. You're a good person."

Cassandra Cain raises an eyebrow at Kara, her smile getting a little wider, and she pulls Kara into a hug that bypasses language barriers. Then she flops down on the rooftop on her butt and crosses her legs, putting her hands on her knees. "Sit," she suggests as she does so herself. She pulls a soda from behind herself and offers it to Kara.

Kara Zor-El smiles, a little surprised by the hug. Cass hadnt struck her as being a hugger, but it was nice. She gives a hug back. "Everything okay?" She then sits down by Cassandra and accepts the soda. "So um..... everything okay?"

Cassandra Cain drinks some of her soda as well, not talking for a moment. She looks Kara over, then shakes her head in response to the question. She tries to consider how to respond and seems to remember that she can talk, and opens her mouth. She pauses, then says, "I never spoke before." She flips the half-full can over 360 degrees without spilling too much of the soda, then adds, "I learned."

Kara Zor-El peers at Cassandra. "Okay you're admittedly not a chatty cathy, but I've heard you talk before. What do you mean by you learned? You learned to talk?" She sips the soda, dangling her feet over the side of the building idly.

Cassandra Cain sighs. She may be talking, but she's apparently not being understood any better than before. She puts the soda down by her side and says, "I knew...thirty...words, Kara. All about...fighting."

She shakes her head and says, simply, "Tell me about your..day? I...never under stood before. Want to hear you talk. To me. First time."

Kara Zor-El peers at Cassandra. "Really? Wow.. um.. okay well... nothing special happened today. I mean.. okay well I stopped this Somali Warlord who was holding a dozen women for a slavery ring, and he had this private army. And lets see.." She sips her soda. "I diverted a nuclear bomb into the sun when it misfired from a submarine in the south pacific, and there was a Russian aircraft carrier that I had to carry out when it got caught in a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic. Um... oh yeah, a few radioactive giant iguanas were attacking Japan and I took them back to Monster Island after a little scuffle there."

Kara shrugs a little. "Other than that, same old same old. Bunch of bank robberies, drug shipment at the Mexico border stopped, about let's see... 18 muggings, one really bad case of road rage, helped fix a traffic jam in Chicago, saved two planes from crashing, and caught two more guys who jumped off buildings and called for me to get my attention."

Cassandra Cain wraps her arms around her knees and pulls them to her chest as she listens to the words her friend is saying, storing them away in her head for sadder times. When Kara pauses for a moment she giggles a bit, enjoying being quiet for a time. Her laugh isn't very good, but it's honest. She sips her soda, savouring it instead of slamming it back like normal. She adds "What's it like?" as her only useful contribution to this, for the first time wondering what it must be like to be strong.

Kara Zor-El smiles when Casandra seems to be enjoying herself, then peers at Cassandra curiously. "What's what like?" She takes another sip of the soda.

Cassandra Cain waves her hand at Kara, indicating all of her from blonde head to shoes. "Being..you," she says, wishing she could be herself a little at the moment. She lowers her head into her knees, closing her eyes as a few tears leak out. "Ten years," she mumbles into her pants. Probably confusing the poor kryptonian.

Kara Zor-El looks confused indeed. "You mean like... being an alien or the powers or something? I mean... all that's pretty nice, I guess. The whole responsiblity thing freaks me out though. My mom never exactly thought of me and 'responsible' in the same sentence and I used to regularly reprogram the family robot so I could sneak out of the house and go to places like the fire cliffs or drive my friend Thara's vita-transport. Almost crashed into the light-bridge with it once and-"

She then tilts her head. "Ten years what?"

Cassandra Cain takes a breath, then explains. She tells Kara about how she used to think in actions instead of words. Then she tells Kara about meeting a mutant on a mission, and everything changing suddenly and learning all these new words. Then she tells Kara about Batman testing her, and about having no idea what anyone is going to do anymore, and about being taken off of combat duty. Denied the right to patrol, unable to fight effectively, she's off duty. Batman told her it would take "Ten years" to become like him, unless her brain fixes itself. She says it all quietly, not angrily, and apparently needed to get it out.

Kara Zor-El listens as Cassandra describes hte long story of what happened. Then asks, "How long would it take to re-learn that... body reading thing now that you know how to speak? You know. Instead of learning how to fight like Batman does from scratch... Wouldnt THAT be like re-learning how to ride a bike?

Cassandra Cain coughs, her voice giving out quite noticeably after all that talking. She shrugs at the question, then manages, "Don't know," and that's about it for her talking, her voice actually making squeaks when she tries to talk. Her voice box just isn't used to this kind of work.

Kara Zor-El nods a bit. "So.. um... would you want to go back to not talking a lot if that mutant can undo what he or she did?"

Cassandra Cain thinks seriously about that one, with a lot of emotion backing it. A lifetime of talking or a lifetime of perfection. She thinks about that for the space of a heartbeat. Cassandra nods to Kara, just once, and she mouths 'yes' as her voice fails her. And she gets a rather focused look on her face, as she begins to plan how to find Monet.

Cassandra Cain realizes she's not going anywhere tonight. She realizes a lot of things, and she reaches over and takes Kara's hand gently in her calloused one, and she mouths with an amusing little squeak, 'tell me what it's like to be you.' as her free hand points to Kara. 'The powers, I know what it's like to be an alien.'

Kara Zor-El looks at Cassandra again. "Wait what?" She then asks, "Oh you mean like... in a figurative sense alien. You're not like... from a planet where people learn how to talk by looking at body motions right? Because I looked at your DNA and it looks human." She pauses then says, "The powers are nice. It's really different though. I didn't have powers on Krypton. None of us did. I mean... Kryptonians were genetically augmented and stuff but that was typical for everyone, so it's not like there was anything extraordinary about that. Red sun and all that."