"Baptised with a perfect name, the doubting one by heart—alone without himself.

War—between him and the day, need someone to blame … in the end, he can do alone."

-Nightwish; "Amaranth"

Damian darted down the hallway, his footsteps absorbed by the plush rug, and pressed his whole body into the heavy door of his private chambers. Dropping to the floor beside the enormous four-poster bed, Damian yanked out a small open suitcase. He had lined it with his softest shirts earlier this week, and the kitten made a soft mewling sound of contementment upon registering his presence.

Damian hushed it hastily.

A much heavier tread came from the hall, and there was no time-no time to take the cat to Cook, an older woman who indulged the small child in the large house and no time to summon the new maid who had helped Damian smuggle the kitten into his bedroom the first time. His tutor was coming, and the master of the house did not approve of pets.

Sentimental attachment was a weakness.

Damian had written to his mother, requesting intervention on his behalf, but Damian wasn't entirely certain that Talia al Ghul even received his letters. Nothing had kept his tutor from drowning the rest of the stray cat's litter after all.

Damian had managed to rescue this one, the runt of the litter and too sickly to follow its siblings out of the barn. Cook taught him to feed it and warned him to keep it well-hidden, but Damian knew those things already. He had been taught those lessons by the birds that Grandfather had sent, by the puppy that had been left on their doorstep in the middle of the night, the pigs at slaughter, and the stray cat that had never returned for her kittens.

And now he was suspect, but there was no time. Damian thrust the kitten into his pocket as the door was thrown wide behind him, and met his tutor's eyes squarely. He was Damian al Ghul, Ibn al Xu'ffasch. He would not be budged.

The six year old was almost carelessly brushed aside as his supposed-mentor threw open the closet and ripped out clothes and shoes with reckless abandon. Damian stayed pressed into the heavy floor-length draperies as the man turned to Damian's bed and flung the covers to the floor. The suitcase was soon hauled out, and Damian scarcely had the opportunity to drop the kitten behind him amongst the heavy folds of velvet. Any sound of protest on the kitten's part was easily swallowed up by his tutor's incomprehensible rage.

The man shook Damian, but Damian would not speak. He was the heir of his grandfather's organization and would one day be among the highest echelon's of the League of Shadows. His tutor was a peon, meant to educate him and incapable of actually damaging the child-warrior. This man could only take out his anger on his wife, his servants, and hapless animals.

Damian had five years of training under various Masters, and the security of his favorite living in residence to prevent Damian from growing soft while he was formally educated. He would not bother the woman with trivial things, but should his tutor forget his place . . .

Damian broke the man's grip easily, because the man was no fool. Damian strode towards the door, turning to demand his Latin lesson if necessary to get the man out of his room and away from the kitten . . . the kitten that is nosing its way free of the draperies.

Damian yanked on the shadows instinctively and near shrouds the room in darkness. That attracted the man's attention certainly, but fortunately kept it on Damian-eager to escape close confines with "the little demonspawn."

Small victories to be sure, Damian considered as he rescued the kitten and restored it to its temporary bed. He would give the little thing to the maid when she took her day off so that she might take it home and to safety.

Damian could not be everywhere at once, and he had a duty to his Mother. He must learn the things that this man could teach him and train hard to become worthy of his role. Dependent creatures could not be afforded in this house at this time.

He cried the day that the maid told him the now-grown cat had been struck by a car and killed . . . but only in the privacy of his room.

He did not cry when his mother came for him on his 8th birthday with Shakespeare and Latin, engineering and swordplay under his belt. He only smiled as his former-tutor was dealt with and the large property made his own; Talia al Ghul would have nothing between herself and her son and the burned letters were the man's downfall.

. . . but Damian never quite took the interest his mother expected in the exotic cats that she bestowed upon him or the spoiled dogs that came and went. In that way, perhaps his tutor had succeeded in teaching him one final lesson.

Sentimental attachment was a weakness.