All credit to this fic in itself goes to Casey Baldwin, whose paper I peer-edited yesterday. One line in his story stuck out to me still, word for word, and if that doesn't mean something... then I wouldn't be surprised. "It rained arrows and he stuck out his tongue to catch the droplets." Don't worry about the other fics; I will get around to updating them. The phrasing just doesn't come to me when I have time.

Disclaimer: Young Justice belongs to DC, as with all the mentioned characters.


Once upon a time, when a man held the Lord, his lord and his lady highest in worth, there was a strong knight who was very, very brave. He spent his time fighting wars on his lord's behalf, riding on the Lord's blessings and the thought of his lady back home. One night, he returned to find his lady murdered and quickly assumed the Lord to be responsible, so he stumbled to a tavern and drank down half the bar until he couldn't see straight. When the morning came, he stumbled out onto the battle field where it rained arrows, and he stuck out his tongue to catch the droplets.

Dick remembered this story vividly as he grew up, but he never thought much of it. When his mom would tell it to him, he had always laughed at the knight in the end.

"He's so drunk he thinks the arrows are rain!" he would explain with a big grin, and he never quite got why his mom looked so surprised at his words.

"What about his wife?" she would ask.

The seven year old would simply shake his head, "She was just his lady. There were a lot of ladies back then—and he had a lord too, in case he ran out."

That would sometimes make his mom laugh, and he would beam proudly to the fact that he had made it happen.

When he was seven, he didn't know a lot about death, but he didn't worry about it. The people in the movies always had smiles on the hospital beds as they died, so he figured it was a very pleasant thing and that people should be happy when someone they know passed on to wherever it was they were going.

After his parents died, he forgot about the story. When they died, he forgot about a lot of things.

The story remained forgotten until he stepped out of the bioship some nine years later as Nightwing, a smile hard on his lips as he came to believe the world was safe again. The Flash trio had reversed the chrysalis, after all. He had jogged up, ready to clap his best friend on the back and joke that it had him owing Wally twenty bucks on a bet they'd made that he'd save the world before the redhead did. The trio had been taken to a duo, though, and he'd been taken to his knees.

After turning in his Nightwing costume, he gave word to Bruce and set out to a club and drank down half the bar until he couldn't see straight. When the morning came, he stumbled outside and cowered from the rain, waiting to feel the shafts pierce his skin.


F.J. III