Chessie Maring is also River Song (musicalwater) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-12-19 02:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | catwoman, door: dc comics, river song |
Who: River Song and Selina Kyle
What: Shenanigans. Stealing from ancient tombs.
When: Recently.
Where: Egypt, Gotham Door
Selina was waiting inside the DC door when River's girl appeared, and she didn't waste any time on small talk before ushering the other woman through. Blondie could make friends with the girl later, if she wanted to. Right now, Selina was on a schedule, and she didn't have any time to waste letting the girls meow at each other. She'd wasted too much time on bats and birds, and Ra's was going to start to think she'd gone cold on the idea of him, and that wouldn't do at all.
The trip to Egypt was as quick as Selina could manage, thanks to a "borrowed" Wayne jet, and Selina spent most of it worrying about things that had nothing to do with the tomb they were about to break into. Jaybird's threats to blow up the manor, coupled with Damian's stress over leading a broken family, plus a million other things that she couldn't do anything about all weighed heavily on her mind; Selina hated things weighing heavily on her mind. The kitty cat had lived a selfish life out of necessity, and she was having a hard time changing that now. She was straddling a fence that couldn't be straddled for long, and even she knew that this trip was her line in the sand.
The trip from the airport through the rough Egyptian landscape was conducted in a dusty, old, open-top jeep that had seen better days, and their guide (acquired back in Gotham) would only take them as far as the edge of the west bank of the Thebes. The necropolis was visible in the distance, but there were no tourists, no visitors, something that set the Door's version of this place apart from other versions. It made Selina think of traps and curses and, for once, the kitty cat wasn't looking forward to stealing something. But the woman at her side looked capable, and Selina was willing to follow her lead. She hated working with another thief, but this wasn't a normal job for her. She needed to succeed.
The walk to the mouth of the tomb was long and dusty, and Selina was glad she'd opted for tan-on-tan, along with a scarf to keep the dust out of her mouth and nose. She shoved her goggles atop her head once they were in the shadow of the necropolis. "We have to go through. The jars are in the dry bay beyond, but there's no other way there," she told the woman at her side, and she gave her a lush smile a second later. "We stop for anything that shines along the way," she warned her.
River was used to jail cells. She was used to lights that flickered an ugly shade of green across everything she owned (and it was very little, these days) and she was used to the sound of the alarm, cranking up to full-blown panic as she trailed fingers across the bars and locked herself back into it, her home away from - there’d never been anything to be away from, in actual fact, so really, just home. Egypt conjured fond memories into a cell, painted itself sandy-bright and warm across the breezeblock walls. Egypt was opulence and heat beating down onto her shoulders, time tied up in the cuffs at her wrists and laughter perpetually at back of throat, ready to sing out.
She had a gun at her hip, in a worn holster, fitted onto a well-beaten leather belt that slung wide across her hips, comfortable. Her hand didn’t stray to it, the way of people unsure of themselves, she was aware of its weight, where it sat and she moved comfortably through the new landscape and Gotham until it was no longer unfamiliar. This Egypt (River peering out of the jet’s windows) was not the one she recognized but nor would it recognize her. No kohl and jewelry, just a soft, white shirt and dust-colored boots and heavy leather cuffs at her wrists and the rhythm and easiness to her stride of someone superbly in her element. She had wrapped a hand around the bar of the jeep and she had sat way back, where the wind chased her and she had smiled, all satisfaction with herself, because River Song was back where she belonged.
“Anything?” River’s eyebrow curled upward, it was an expression of mild amusement as much as inquiry. “Are we not being at all discriminating, darling?”
Selina touched her fingers to the whip at her hip, making sure it was still there, ready to unwind at her command. Normally, that was all the weapon she needed, but there was a gun strapped to her thigh today. She didn't trust Ra's, and she wasn't worried about men taking the weapon away from her, so she was willing to risk the metal. Men had no idea what to do with her whip, and they couldn't make her a victim with it. But a gun? Oh, the things men could do with a gun. But curses and traps weren't men, and she checked the safety before moving into the tomb.
It worried Selina, the fact that the entrance was there, solid steps in the packed earth and no one for miles around. The kitty cat knew all about superstitions, but for not even one thief or archeologist to be in the area? It was worrisome. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and she wanted to run back to Gotham as fast as her paws could carry her. But she didn't. She took the steps, down, down, two at a time into the dark, cool earth, and she flicked the flashlight she carried on. "You never know what you might pass up if you discriminate," she told River. River. She liked that name. It was peaceful, and entirely ill-suited to the woman at her side.
Selina flicked the light from side to side, illuminating the narrow entrance that had been carved into the foot of the steps. "You first. You're the expert."
River laughed and it was a full, throaty sound, old as the tombs themselves. She took the flashlight from Selina, fingers sliding over her wrist as she took hold of the weight of it - old, the way these things were, old, nothing made to do it for you, marveling at it the entire time - and she bounced it against her palm like she was testing it. “No sense of adventure, sweetie,” the admonishment was kind, but it was as if delving into the unknown should be done by diving off the metaphorical cliff-face, arms outstretched to embrace the danger of it. River was not peaceful, she was not quiet and meditative. She dove into adventure, and the more danger there was, the better the skitter of adrenaline along her spine.
The tomb was dark, it smelled of heavy earth and the mustiness of dead air and of far-gone things - it should have smelled of burning grass, of herbs tossed into the fire, of the wax that dripped pleasantly down her neck. River passed the light across the walls, the carvings there -- “We need to go further in,” and her voice danced off the walls, as if she were suggesting a move from the kitchen to sitting curled on the couch, nothing as difficult as that at all.
Her hand had strayed to the butt of her gun, and sat there, resting. It was not a conscious move, the reflex of so many years of muscle memory, and River looked sublimely comfortable, the halo of her hair backlit by the flashlight as she roamed ahead, and deeper. There was a faint, groaning sound from deep within the tomb, heavy and old and unmistakable. River stopped, quite deliberately.
“I think that might have been a trap,” she said, contemplatively.
Going further in was a given, but the kitty cat didn't like it. "I don't like stale air," she admitted. Give her a skyscraper, airducts, rooftops and vaults. Give her a safe that no one could crack, or an alarm system that no one could bypass. A man no one could seduce, or a curmudgeon that no one could win over. Give her a jump that no one could make, and give her a building no one could scale. All of those things made Selina purr. But this dark, place that smelled of death and forgotten things? The kitty cat didn't like this at all. It wasn't her kind of thrill. It was dirty, and the stakes were too high, and the finish line mattered way too much.
Of course they needed to go further in.
Selina's fingers twitched near the gun at her thigh, and her finger curled around the trigger lovingly when she heard that groaning sound. "Do you really think so?" she asked facetiously, because of course it was a trap. No sooner had she spoken, than the fresh air that was filtering in from behind them wooshed past them, into the dead-dust air ahead. Nothing moved behind them. No air, no hint of breeze, and the darkness had become even darker.
"I think something wants us to stay," Selina finally added, not bothering to look back. Their entrance had suddenly become erased, and the only way to go was deeper.
“Really?” Selina’s facetiousness was returned full-fold, River the sweet-sharp familiarity with wielding it as a conversational tool. “I’ve never been one to let tombs tell me where to go and when.” But her boots were edging down the dusty path, the light unwavering along the walls. There was enough of a sense of danger to trace the back of her neck, fan the hairs there on end, deliciously cold.
“I think,” River’s voice echoed back, remote and deadened by the walls, “We might be close to the first chamber,” but the hard, heavy sound of bolts, wooden and steel-tipped, deadly sharp, embedding themselves into the tomb wall broke through her words, and there was nothing but the thud, thud, thud as the volley ricocheted into where River had been. The light bounced, and was still.
Selina held her flashlight high, like cops in Gotham did, blinding if anyone came at them at eye-level. "How many chambers do we have to look forward to?" she asked, hips swaying as she moved, feet steady as she stepped even the worst piles of stones underfoot. She imagined Ra's, at home and in comfort, laughing at what he'd put the kitty cat through. If this wasn't so important, she would have already turned around and returned to Gotham. But here she was, watching the darkness open up to a wide open space, and she didn't particularly look forward to that wide open space.
But there they were, and a wide courtyard opened in front of them, bare and empty, followed by another narrow dark hall, and the first chamber River had mentioned. Selina shined her light this way, and she shined her light that way, but there was nothing that sparkled, and she knew the jars would be beyond the final chamber, in the light on the other side. "Please tell me we're only talking about a few chambers here, or the kitty cat is going to have to rethink this friendship."
The narrow hall gave way to a small room, a shrine of sorts, and while the kitty cat's hair stood on end, she had no idea why. She could only think of what Damian said, about mothers and death and the fact that all of this was a warning. She wanted to hiss, but she didn't take it that far, and her foot caught on the thinnest of strings as she stepped forward. Bad news. "Feel like telling me about that man of yours?" Because that, at least, would take her mind off things.
“Usually four or five,” River’s voice floated on the dead air, as though she were used to the dark places beneath and deep below, and her voice was used to carrying across their particular stillness, issuing orders and having them executed. “They were usually buried with their personal possessions - jewelry, and the like,” and her eyes flickered back to the thief, all apprehension and tight lines of her drawn darkly against the flashlight, “But enough chambers to resist grave-robbers.” Her voice was round, satisfied; River liked pushing down the boundaries erected particularly for her. “He’s the Doctor. He isn’t a man at all.” Her voice was pleased, soft, even warm.
She stepped in close beside Selina and she bent, fingers delicate as an artist, or a musician, “Duck,” she said, and it was hard, and an order, as she slid one finger beneath the string, ancient as piano wire. The Doctor - for that was who he would always be, whether his name were lilting Gallifreyan or not, she’d heard him shape it out, she’d mouthed it quietly to herself, she’d not speak it aloud except to he alone - was not a man to pry apart, inspect the pieces and expect to fit them back again. He was a memory, a series of them, and oh if they got into trouble, perhaps here was now, a now she’d briefly see before it became a then for her and a might-be for him. She looked at Selina’s ankle and only the faintest kind of thought of yanking the string, of making danger of its pieces and parts, occurred.
“Mind anything that looks like a pit,” River said, as she strode ahead, Selina freed. “It looks,” and she cocked her head as her flashlight painted brightly over a wall painting, one thickly stroked and colored after years, “Like you’ve found the tomb of someone important. Funny,” she shook her head, “I ought to remember but I don’t.” Her face was very bright, very alive in the halo of the artificial beam.
Four or five felt like way too many chambers for the kitty cat, but it was better to quickly work through unpleasant things - meowing about them never did any good. "That sounds like a waste of perfectly good jewels to me," was Selina's response to the concept of being buried with things. In Gotham, rich people were buried in mausoleums and poor people were buried in graves without markers, but no one took their pretties with them when they died. And the kitty cat, for all her pretend sophistication and culture at charity events, was just a twenty-two year old girl from the streets. She'd never been here, to Egypt. She'd never gone beyond Metropolis. She intended to someday, and now that she knew how to help herself to a jet, she might just do it sooner rather than later. But this place, sand and clay and too many chambers, it was something out of a book to the little girl lost who still didn't even know her origins.
But Selina was good at quick responses, and she ducked when she was told to, watching the string and waiting for the ceiling to come down on their heads. But it didn't, and she followed when River moved forward, stopping for something that sparkled in the corner of the chamber. But it was just breakthrough sunlight on dust, and the kitty cat barely lost a second before following the woman in the lead. "My Bat is a bat, but he's still a man. I'm guessing the same rule applies to your Doctor," she said, and she couldn't help the displeased sound that escaped her lips at the mention of a pit. "I've had enough pits to last me for an entire month, thanks."
Selina stopped when the flashlight skated over the paint on the wall, but she wasn't surprised at the other woman's comment. "We're a little different. I didn't realize it until the tin man told me, but we have cities other people don't, and historic events other places don't, and if this place is cursed it might explain why no one's here, or why you don't remember it. It might not be the same as your version." She moved ahead with a roll of her expressive green eyes. "You didn't tell me you were an archaeologist." No one got excited about dust the way archaeologists did.
The room beyond was brilliant, a bright collection of furniture and housewares, the kind of thing to furnish a great home. "I was told the bones of Amenhotep and his mother rested here," Selina said over her shoulder, just as the pebbles around the edge of the chamber began to tremble against the hardpacked earth.
“Mind,” River’s eyes were fixed on the pebbles, the way they jumped and danced and skittered warnings. It was - it had been - the first point of training, if the roof looks like it’s about to collapse, run. She was observant, the slim woman who persisted in talking in the third person now and again (everyone had their foibles) and River’s mouth caught at the edges into a smile as genuine as it was utterly thoughtless. An archeologist - well. That was one word for it.
“This isn’t where they should be,” River mulled it over, the flashlight trained on the stones and thoughts somewhere far brighter, alive, older than the tomb and its contents. “Don’t get too attached to those vases,” and she gave Selina a hard shove, palm flat and warm against her back as the walls began to judder and quake, threatening to shatter themselves into dust again. The next room was unlit, hard and dark and the door was solid, steel-bound. The shiver of excitement stroked against the back of her neck, curled hard and cold in her belly. Breaking into new places, breathing in air that hadn’t been touched for centuries - part of the fun was being first.
There were scattered jars, earthenware - a motley collection of household pots by the looks of things, hardly interesting but one or two and half a dozen useful types of things River vaguely recognized. But they were not here on a student dig, no professor waiting to understand the ins and outs of a dynasty’s household inner workings. “I’d like to know what kind of curse it is,” River said aloud, very clear and very interested. The possibility of a curse being bound down upon her own head had obviously not occurred, or if it had, it had very little implication.
Selina minded alright, but not how River intended. She minded the way the pebbles bounced, promising bad things ahead. She minded that she was there at all. She minded that she kept forgetting who she was, and that she kept risking her fur for the wrong team. She'd forget once they were clear of this place, but right then she minded very, very much. But River meant for her to be careful, and the kitty cat was, for once, perfectly willing to do that too. "This is where they are," she said of the bones. Oh, Selina believed what Damian told her. He was her new Lola, her new Gwen, the person she went to for information, and Selina had always been more dependent on those people than she should have been.
Instinct made Selina fight the shove, but only for a second, and then she was following River's gaze toward the locked door. Normally, breaking into something with a door was one of her favorite things. Vaults held money, and things that twinkled, and papers that gave a person power. But this wasn't that kind of a door, and she wasn't even thinking about finesse as she made a run for it, then a graceful jump and an aerial flip over what remained of the shuddering pebbles. She landed just in front of the door, beyond the room that was falling in on itself, and she looked back at River over her shoulder.
"Forget the curse," Selina insisted. "Are we blowing it?" She had a few small explosives in her utility belt. It might be enough firepower.
River gave a smile that was steel at its edges, proud satisfaction with herself curled around its core. The door meant secrets, the door meant fathoms-deep beneath Egypt’s cardamom sky there were places no one else had yet walked. She rolled her palm across the worn grip of the gun and she curled her fingers experimentally until it was settled, weighty in her hand. “We are,” she said, and it was conspiratorial, that sound, River sharing a little of the joy of discovery, of breaking in. She drew the gun and she fired -- two shots, one and then another, hard and they were very bright in the dim of the tomb and clearly no gun found in Gotham. The door smoked, and the lock flicked open in River’s hand, and she pushed the door hard, and gave it a kick with the toe of her boot until it bowed open.
“Never forget a curse, darling,” she said, over her shoulder and through the curls that sprang around her face. “They never forget you.” It was sound advice - and it applied to more than mystical curses, although River was no stranger to those. She had seen too much to disbelieve anything, even if it might have a name other to that in use. She mulled over the bones - it made a certain kind of sense, these times running in parallel, different places entirely. The knowledge settled on River like oil skimming over water, unnecessary and absent any weight.
“Well, this is a bit better,” approvingly, skimming around the room. The stone plinth, on which the sarcophagus sat, was surrounded by the trappings of its lifetime. “I rather like this,” a pliant, gold toque sat in her hands, River sliding it beneath the light Selina’s flashlight shone.
Selina quirked a brow when the door smoked and gave. "Well, color the kitty cat impressed," she said, watching the gun in River's hand for a moment. "I don't suppose you have any more of those lying around." Because, no, definitely not the kind of thing they had in Gotham. And, when times called for it, Selina wasn't averse to having a good gun handy, especially one that did that. Her own gun, still tucked into her thigh holster, wouldn't have touched that lock.
"When you deal with the type of villains we have in Gotham, curses start to sound like a blessing," Selina explained as she followed River into the room. The air was dead, stale from years of not moving or being disturbed, and it made the kitty cat long for open sky and Gotham's foggy rooftops. "You're interested in a hat?" she asked with disbelief, but she was already moving to a box, one gold and encrusted with turquoise and lapis lazuli. Inside, a headdress of red and blue in old, malleable gold, and a necklace. "This is much better," she added, looking over at River as she pocketed both items in her utility belt. Curses? What curses? She didn't think twice of taking a dead woman's jewels.
"The jars should be just beyond here," Selina suggested, and the kitty cat sounded very cocky. They'd made it this far, hadn't they?
“No,” River said, to the gun - and her hand curled around the butt of it in her holster as though she were a child with a comfort blanket, as though the gun and its counterpart (resting on her left hip) were as natural to her as another limb. The technology - a few thousand years ahead of whatever and whenever Gotham was - was not to be shared. River cared little for wading into others’ times, but she cared about that.
She let go and she watched Selina with the necklace with a fond, almost wistful smile and her eyes were somewhere far away and far ago. “I had one like that,” she said, and she did not linger over it, nor elaborate on the memory but she ran her fingers across the empty space where it had lain until Selina had taken it.
“Careful,” an eye for the door beyond, the tunnels that would swarm out from this central point, that would lead to certain death far more often than they led to bright, sunwashed skies. “Curses can be more than a villain. More than a man.” River’s hands were everywhere, touching everything but with the soft, sweeping touches of a lover reacquainting herself with the landscape of their skin.
Selina gave a little shrug of her shoulders. She wasn't concerned about River's no. Like any good thief, she trusted her abilities to net her one of the guns in the future, if she wanted it badly enough. Right now, it was enough to know the firearm existed. Selina wasn't a big believer in honor among thieves. "Had?" Selina asked of the necklace instead. River didn't seem like the kind of woman to sell the things she liked. Sentimentality was in that touch; thieves couldn't be sentimental.
"People think black cats are cursed," Selina reminded the woman at her side. She wasn't good at being careful, but even she could tell that there were multiple paths beyond the door. "Which one?" she asked, looking over her shoulder. She didn't want to get caught in the belly of this place. She just wanted her jars, and she wanted to go. She had enough in her utility belt to make it worth the trip and, unlike River, the kitty cat really didn't care about the packed dirt and dust that hid the lives and deaths of these people.
Live in the now, that was Selina's motto.
“Had,” River agreed and she said nothing of being treated like an empress, like a god-chosen ruler placed on earth, of anklets fastened around her feet and a laughing, naughty smile for the man who broke through the time and hauled her out of where she’d carved herself a temporary spot. She had little interest in things - the necklace Selina held, coveted, was a trinket. Pretty enough, but not worth dying for. Not worth killing for, either. She’d killed for less, but that had been far more fun than the tomb.
What Selina couldn’t see - obviously, for all that cats’ eyes shone brighter in the dark - was the stamp of time, of lives entwined over the same spot, of feet that had shuffled down these corridors to bring either the last pieces of a broken household to rest with its owner, or lives briefly, momentarily, lived beneath its roof. Time, lived out the way it should be, spooled like string - River’s eyes glinted as she looked at the discolored markings on the walls, the hieroglyphics faded and dull in the face of so much time. If she squinted, she could pretend they were as bright as fresh paint.
“Second on the right. And jump,” River advised, with another re-read of the accompanying literature. All talk, these Egyptians, but if they didn’t have a pit with a half god, half-crocodile waiting to eat you on the other side of the door, you didn’t want to know what they did have.
Oh, the kitty cat knew all about doing things just so someone would come after her. Her entire relationship with her version of the Bat was a big game of cat and mouse, one where she went places she she couldn't go and where he came after her. But this wasn't a game. For once, she was stealing something without the pleasure of it. Even the take, the necklace and headpiece in her belt, were only for show. Everyone knew Selina Kyle didn't do something for nothing. They were an excuse, a reason for her to be in this place and doing this thing.
And no, Selina had no interest in time. It passed, and that was the only thing she knew. She lived in the present, in the now. There wasn't any point in dwelling, and there wasn't any point in planning ahead. That was the way she lived her life and, therefore, places like this weren't impressive to her. Maybe if she had a man who traveled through time, maybe then things would be different. But she couldn't even catch a Bat in her claws, much less envision a future.
Second on the right. And jump. And the kitty cat did, just in time for the room behind them to begin crumbling, the one before it doing the same. There was heat, and there was dead air, and there was an ominous rumble. But River was right, and the canopic jars were there, at the edge of a dried up pool in the chamber. A dry bay, the kitty cat thought, was a bit excessive, but that didn't matter. There were three, small jars, and Selina unfolded the messenger bag that had been tucked into one of the compartments of her belt, and she tucked the jars in and slung the bag across her body. Behind them, the world was caving in. "After you."
“What are they?” But River’s curiosity was short-lived, her reaching out to touch was halved by the need to run, to put heavy-soled boots down on solid ground and to scramble along the passage-way and the crumbling walls until sunlight sharded down into the dearth of space. The air was choking-thick with dust, cloying into nostrils and throat but the sunlight said up faster than passages and doorways did. River’s device - a thin, nylon-like cord capable of bearing all kinds of weight - and a spring-loaded gun - was in her palm faster than an explanation.
“Are you ready?” Her face was covered in dust when she turned it toward Selina but there was a smile wrought there, alive and bright and wild, beneath the dirt that said better than words how very much River enjoyed this kind of living. “The only way is up.”
"Are you offering to give the kitty cat a ride?" Selina asked, all quirked brow and entirely too calm in the face of all the destruction in their wake. She could try to wrap her whip around something, but that cord looking like a much, much better plan. And the kitty cat wasn't one to look a gift escape in the mouth. She didn't bother asking again. She flung her arms over River's shoulder, and the kitty cat wasn't the type there was scared to get close. "What are you waiting for?" she asked, a curve of her lush lips, a grin and the adrenaline of getting the job done, of getting out. Oh, the kitty cat knew they would get out. She didn't doubt for a minute.
The cord made a hissing noise as the teeth of the device slid upwards, River’s hand firm around its handle as the two women dangled through air and soared upward as the tomb crashed into the surrounding desert, a yawning maw of emptiness and broken history behind. The run to the vehicle - overly hot and dusty, sat out in the sun and abandoned for far too long - was laughing, sticky and sandy but so very much alive, and River’s smile was rounded satisfaction, her fingers brushing the very edge of near destruction and yet retreating backward.
The flight was quiet, River curled with knees beneath her and her nose against the window to another world spread out like a blanket beneath her and the cabin lights dimmed low enough for her to fancy a night sky out in the beyond. They barely touched ground but she was through the door - not hers, but she fancied she’d visit again. Worlds with unknown places to explore, they called her name as clearly as if it were to be understood by anyone at all. She stepped back through and Chessie shivered with the silver-tang of adrenaline still coursing through veins not hers. River would be back, but for now, appetite for adventure had small satiation.