Creature-fic One

[icarus_chained]

Title:  Freedom
Rating:  PG-13
Fandom:  DC
Characters/Pairings:  Barbara, Arthur, Bruce, Jim.
Summary:  Barbara is cursed to become a mermaid. Or at least, they thought it was a curse.
Notes:  for bradygirl_12 
Prompt:  mermaid
Wordcount:  886

They thought it a curse, at first, aimed at the one among them who least deserved another curse in her life. As she'd lain dying in her tower, chest heaving uselessly, her face turning blue as her blood starved of oxygen, Barbara had certainly agreed. Magic. Curses. No better than madmen with guns. As fatal. As futile.

But then. Oh, but then. When they found her, identified the curse, saw her gills, her nascent tail. When they realised what had been done, and reacted with all the efficiency of the Batclan. A saltwater pool beneath Wayne Manor, and a summons to the Sea King. She didn't remember that part, really, that final agony of transformation. There was only pain, and hands holding her beneath the surface of the water, and others on her face, soothing, doing all they could to help. And her father's voice, in the depths of Wayne manor, and that had nearly woken her, she remembered. But the voice soothed, curled around Bruce's own, both only there for her.

When she'd woken fully, the burn gone from her limbs, her chest, when she'd become fully conscious of what had happened and what she'd become ... There had been despair, at first. A further entrapment, she'd thought, not to a chair this time, but to a world completely other than any she'd known. She could not walk, but neither could she breathe the air for more than an hour at a time. Trapped again, driven beneath the waves.

Then Arthur had lifted her from the pool beneath the manor, waded through the tunnels with her in his arms, Bruce and her father and the clan following. He carried her out to the sea, crashing amongst the cliffs and caves near the manor, out farther and farther, while her family stood waiting on the rocks. And when they dove beneath the surface, when he tumbled her down with him to fight the currents, to fight him, to twist her powerful tail against his legs, break his grip with the ease of long practice ... she realised. She realised.

For long moments, she had remained still, hair drifting in a cloud around her stunned face, some instinct keeping her balanced against the currents, the Sea King smiling gently at her. And then she had moved. Twists and turns, powerful and controlled. Long, pulsing motions that drove her in any direction she pleased, speed and power she had not felt even as Batgirl. And flight! Flight like she had never known it, for in the sea up and down were merely two more directions in a world three-dimensional. She laughed, ecstatic, the bubbles climbing towards the surface, and on a mad impulse she chased after them, letting power and momentum build with every motion of her mermaid body, until finally she broke the surface, arcing clear and high and delighted, spray and laughter in the wind.

She crashed down again, harder than intended, breathless and stunned, and the water swallowed her again, wrapped around her, gave her life and breath and power. She lay back against it, let it hold her, pull her gently down, and when two powerful arms wrapped around her once more, she smiled up at the King of the Seas, and laughed for the secrets of his kingdom that he kept from all the world. He laughed back, a silent promising, and the sea pushed firm against them in confirmation. No curse, this, however it had been intended. No trap.

There was a moment, as they returned to the shore, as she say in the surf to face her father, her family, all the world she had known ... there was a moment when the pain returned again. Always, she seemed driven from life to life, balanced on the cusp of death between them, left to adapt if she could and die if she couldn't. And always, it was her family that shared the pain of it, the guilt. Bruce, his stern face bleak. Her father, eyes hollow with the echo of past tragedies. But behind that, even now, even again ... there was something stronger. A joy. A certainty. They knew she would survive, find her own strength, again and again, even as they did.

But this time, they could not help her. She was no longer of their world. So they looked to one who could. Arthur stood there, calm and compassionate beneath their gazes, the strength of a father, and nodded to her family in a promise firm as the sea's. That he would watch over her, show her the ways of her knew world, protect her as he could. She bristled a little, at that, tired of being helpless, but ...

She wasn't. Not now. Not here. And they deserved what comfort they could get. She didn't need it. Not now, not when she knew, had felt the power of her new body, her new world. She wasn't afraid this time. She would learn, she thought. Learn the ways of the sea, learn how to live here, how to fight here. And soon, when she was ready, she would call on Bruce again. Get him to build her a base, underwater. Computers, equipment.

Oracle wasn't finished yet. Not by a long shot. She'd not been destroyed. She'd been freed. And boy were people going to know about it!