Damian hated Europe.

Hated it with a passion that rivaled everything he had hated in his life - and yes, he was quite the disagreeable child during his youth - but the cold snow of Europe right now topped his lists of hatred with a passion he hadn't thought possible.

Well, maybe the snow was a close second.

First would have to be the disgusting hag who had greeted him on what seemed to be a Persian carpet that had seen better centuries even before Russia was an actual country while the stifling smokes of the incense burning by his side seemed to want to strangle him with its thick stench.

"I knew you would eventually come, child of the blood," the hag said, white, unseeing eyes rolling inside her eye sockets uselessly. "Just as your father before you did."

"Cut the chase, hag," Damian snapped, hand instantly going to his waist for his sword. He had been sitting there for an hour in complete silence, after all, and the forced aura of mysticism the room so eagerly tried to portray was getting on his nerves. "If you knew I was coming you obviously know what I want."

"Oh, yes," the woman hissed, cracked lips parting to reveal black, rotten teeth. "You seek the answers to the question. The guide to follow your path."

"Well?" Damian scowled. "I paid your gold, hag, give me what I've come for."

"My child," the hag tutted, spittle flowing freely. "I'm afraid my answer is not that simple."

Skeleton hands rose from stained robes to caress the ruses before the woman, each polished piece of onyx shinning against her sallow skin. One turn of the stone, two, three, and suddenly the unseeing eyes were turning towards Damian, a complete void of darkness swimming in them.

"There are two roads for you, child of the blood," she whispered. "Two roads for you to choose from. One will lead you to what you want while the other will take you to what you need. There is a difference, as you can tell, for they are not one and the same."

"I paid you for both," he snapped, hands curling around the hilt of his sword threateningly.

"The runes can only give you one, child of the blood," the hag said, shrugging bony shoulders. "For only one is the path you shall take."

"You are testing my patience, witch."

"If you wanted me to die, I would be dead by now, child," she replied. "Now make your choice for my time is far more limited than yours."

Damian wanted to stand and cut the witch's head off, he wanted to leap at her and strangle her until she revealed her secrets. He was sixteen, after all, and had spent the last ten years looking for this answer, looking for the way to avenge his father.

He wasn't ready to be patient with her.

He was a child still.

And she knew it.

He shook his head.

"Where to these two paths lead me?" he asked, eyes straying to the furred edges of his cloak. "Can you tell me that at least?"

The hag nodded.

"One will lead you to the one you so ardently seek," she said, her head swaying to the tune of a melody only she seemed able to hear. "The other will bring you your death."

Damian's cheeks colored.

"And, of course, you can't tell me which is which," he growled, valiantly ignoring the way his eyes seemed to dry at the possibilities.

The witch shook her head. Bristle hair falling into her eyes.

Damian closed his eyes, remembering his father's small, yet proud smile, the way he would hold him against his strong chest whenever he was afraid and breathe into his hair when he wanted to comfort him. The way his massive hands held his own as he taught him how to hold a sword, how to shoot an arrow.

His prideful stand as he told him the duties of the family he would one day inherit. How one day, Damian himself would take the mantle of the Head of the House of Wayne and protect those who could not protect themselves. Hunt the night-dwellers until nothing remained but their memories.

… The desperation on his voice as he told him to run, as he begged old Alfred to take him and never return.

'Go, Damian, save yourself!' he had said, face soaked in sweat and blood. 'I love you, son!'

Damian shook his head.

"Give me what I need before I cut your head off, wench," he hissed, forcing his voice pass the lump in his throat.

The witch smiled once again, all rotten teeth and whitened gums.

"You need to go to the Alexandrinsky, child, where the guide of your quest will await for you," she explained, gleeful. "He has been waiting for you for years, despite the fact he doesn't know it himself."

Damian scowled, lips pursed.

"The Theatre?" he asked. "How can I find just one person in an enormous theatre?"

"You will," she giggled. "Because the pull between both of your destinies is too strong."

He had left without another word, her cackles of mirth following him into the snowy streets.

And now here he was, eyeing the crowds entering the massive Alexandrinsky Theatre cautiously, looking for any sign of recognition, any sign of threat. Security was on its highest, that night, apparently, since the Tsarevich himself was in attendance of tonight's show.

Apparently the Tsarevich and his wife had been in attendance every night, from what he could pick up of the whispered rumors around him.

It would make moving unbothered with his sword still on his hip far more difficult than he imagined.

He threw his gold at the usher's face carelessly. Deciding he would have to play the bratty aristocrat if he wanted to be left alone and tried to stand as straight as possible, eyes narrowing in distaste, whenever he was approached, hoping the display of his presence would finally attract the guide he was supposed to meet.

No one, however, seemed to pay him any mind.

His scowl deepened when the lights disappeared and the signal for the public in general to take their places could be heard all over the cavernous building. He had no time to waste on frivolous entertainment, he was so close to the end of his quest he could almost taste the blood of his enemies in the back of his tongue.

If only his twice damned guide would make his appearance so he could leave this cursed place and the cursed country with its cursed weather behind.

Music started.

He took his seat in between two old me who eyed him carefully as he appeared.

His heart beat powerfully inside his chest when one of them tipped his hat at him in greeting, one pointed ear showing as he did so.

He nodded back.

"Can we move elsewhere?" he whispered at the old man, doing his best to appear nonchalant.

The man stared at him in curiosity.

"I'm afraid I paid handsomely for this spectacle," he said, his voice equally cultured, careful. "It would be a shame for me to abandon it."

Damian nodded, teeth immediately sinking into the inside of his cheek in an effort to keep his temper in check.

"Of course," he whispered. "My apologies."

The elf by his side nodded, eyes going back to the stage as dancers dressed in all colors of the rainbow seemed to be performing a welcoming ceremony for a goddess.

Damian rolled his eyes.

Trust an elf to get distracted by their own self-importance.

He sat back down on his seat, arms crossed over his chest to ward the cold off himself – how come this important theater had no heating? Weren't they cold? – and continued to stare at the stage in boredom.

Ten minutes of nonsensical dance and music later, Damian noticed all the audience sit straighter in their places, their eyes widening eagerly.

He blinked, confused as the music came to a halt, all dancers falling to their knees in reverence.

A slender figure was lowered from the ceiling on a bejeweled swing, flowing robes of pure white silk floating as it descended onto the stage, bare feet making no sound as the new dancer took its place – Damian's eyes squinted against the light – his place at the center of the so-called procession, hands stretched towards the other dancers magnanimously.

The theatre as a whole fell into an eerie silence.

The new dancer opened his pale lips, his small frame impossibly frail with such gesture.

Damian unconsciously held his breath.

The creature started to sing, it's powerfully melodious voice filling every single atom of the room, capturing the attention of all spectators and pulling them all into its power.

The elf by Damian's side, - whom, he would shamefully admit later, he had completely forgotten about – sighed.

"Such a shame, this," he whispered.

Damian turned to him.

"What do you mean, sir?" he asked, tilting his head in order to stop himself from turning back towards the singer.

"A child such as that, such gift misused for common human entertainment," the old elf shook his head, eyes glinting. "Kept by selfish humans as a toy for their amusement."

Damian's eyes widened, all facts clicking on his head.

"He's one of the merfolk then," he hissed, instantly turning back to stare at the boy. "He has human legs, however."

"Most likely an imposition by the selfish humans, child," the elf shrugged. "It is fortunate you came as well, we might need your expertise in order to free him."

"… free… him?" Damian scowled, confused.

The elf nodded, the glint in his old eyes intensifying.

"It is time we take a stance against the humans that oppress us," the old creature continued, reaching into his pocket absently. "We are not toy for their children, we are the makers of their nightmares."

With a sudden clenching of dread in his chest, Damian realized that the elf sitting in front of him was not, in fact, the so-called guide he had come to find, but one of those mad liberationists his father had warned him about, a crazed group of different creatures dedicated solely to destroy the control the human race had now of the globe and give it back to – what they believed – where its rightful owners.

He shivered.

And, of course, the elf had been able to smell the mixed inheritance Damian shamefully carried in his blood and decided he must be a new hopeful recruit.

The young man cursed under his breath, hand instantly going for his weapon.

Curse that monstrous witch and her ridiculous predictions. No wonder she had states a path would lead him to his death.

He had walked right into the middle of a political statement from a group of mixed insanity.

"Freedom to our brother of the oceans!" a woman screamed suddenly, her fanged mouth releasing a flame…

… straight towards the Tsarevich.

"Shit!" Damian cursed out loud, standing from his own seat as the guards around the stage burst into action as one, while everything fell into chaos. The old elf raised his hand with a war cry of 'Death to the tyrants!' and started manipulating the air itself into beheading as many from the audience as he had close and Damian could only duck as fast as he could to avoid such fate himself.

Blood and smoke mixed with the screams of those still alive enough to struggle for safety while the woman – a dragoness, a fucking dragoness in the middle of Saint Petersburg – started shifting forms to continue her rampage.

Bodies fell all around him.

Screams deafened his senses.

Dancers, guards, nobles and peasants alike trampled over eachother to reach the exits.

The merman still stood on stage, frozen in shock.

Damian cursed once again, torn between his duty as a protector of mankind and the instinct in his blood telling him to save himself, the conscience forced upon him by his father and the simple thought of: 'what would father do now' warring inside himself.

He jumped into the stage, grabbing the singer's pale hand in his own bronzed one and pulling with all his strength.

"Move!" he ordered, coughing smoke and blood and panic. "Come with me!"

The merman stared at him for a second, sea-blue eyes incomprehensive, before he wrapped thin arms around his neck and hid from the heat of the fire spreading around them.

Damian felt his resolve strengthen.

The majestic Alexandrinsky fell around them.