[I do not own Teen Titans, or Dungeons & Dragons. I do own the plot, however! I spent a long time fleshing out the plot for this, and it's been so long since I've posted. I think I'm gonna have a lot of fun writing this! If you don't know the general gist of Dungeons & Dragons, it's a fantasy game set in Medieval times. As I mention things kin specifically to D&D, I'll make a footnote at the top of the chapter explaining what they are so you don't have to go out of the way of googling it. I really hope you like this so far!
Blood Hunter - class of fighter, a corrupted, volatile warrior who has made a deal with a dark entity to become the dark monsters they fight, in the name of good. Both feared and respected.
Dwarf - 4-5 foot tall race usually made of blacksmiths, forgers, and clan warriors.
Cleric - class of fighter, a holy priest of one of gods or goddesses of old, gifted with powers dependent on their particular god.]
The land of Arcadia is a mysterious one. A land before time, filled with magicks, beasts, and heavenly divines. It's the land where heroes are made, where villains find their foothold, and where nothing is ever what is seems. The people here strive to find something, anything to make their presence known. Existence is fleeing, and there seems to be a never-ending supply of monsters to slay and princesses to save.
And if I told you that the offspring of armageddon's favorite food was cake, or that a bookworm, a barbarian, and a bard would save the planet, you'd look at me as if I were crazy.
She never remembered being born, really. She just simply, was. She just simply, is. She doesn't know what she is, who she is. No, nevermind that, of course she knows who she is.
She is Damaia, roughly translated in our language as "Torment", and she continues to scruff, and scruff, and scruff across the barren, black landscape towards her destiny. She herself is as quiet as a mouse, trained in the art of killing for survival. But no, this time is different. This time she wants them to hear her - the guards that are centered in front of the gateway to Earth. She wants them to see her coming, with her dripping black claws and her foaming teeth and her dragging tail. She wants them to see her. She wants them to...fear her.
She'd slaughtered her way up to his point. Behind her lay what seemed like thousands of daemon corpses, all splintered on their own blades and twisted into horrible shapes. Their smell permeated the air, and she could feel it catching up to her. The smell of death, the smell of despair, the smell of hopelessness.
It empowered her.
She felt she deserved to bask in this moment, really. So she continued to slowly trodd, up another step, and another, her tail dragging loudly behind her, the rattle of a snake before it struck in the blink of an eye.
She'd traded and she'd bartered and she'd killed to get here, to get to Earth. She was what was now known as a "blood hunter", though very loosely. Blood Hunters were a noble tradition. They sold their souls and their bodies to become the monsters they hunted, to become consumed with dark magick and power in order to finally slay the beasts haunting their lands.
Damaia did it to conquer.
Infused with dark energy from a thousand daemons, she was unstoppable. She'd fought and slaughtered and brawled for the past 653 years because, above all, it was in her nature. But now no one could stand in her way to make it to Earth. Earth was a daemon's playground. Such stupid humans, such a large populace, such an unorganized government.
Finally, finally, one of the guards of the threshold found enough sense in it to finally take aim of its magick in her general direction, still wickedly hidden in the shadows.
"Ees ouy od tahw? Ouy htiw gnorw stahw?"
(What's wrong with you? What do you see?)
"Enasni em gnivird! Evante tsap eht rof esion gniparcs lufwa taht draeh tnevah ouy? Em ouy gniddik ouy era?"
(Are you kidding me? You haven't heard that awful scraping noise for the past evante? It's driving me insane!)
She smirked in the shadows. Good. She wanted them to squirm.
"Sginht gninigami eruoy, loof ouy pu tuhs ho."
(Oh shut up you fool, you're imagining things.)
They'd wish they were.
A deep, feral, screeching war cry, then panicked yelling. The clatter of spears falling to the floor, following by the clump of bodies. Silence. The hum of the entryway.
The methodical click, clack, and scruff, scruff of boot and tail marching its way through the ethereal, glowing portal.
A dwarven cleric beats back another branch with his large walking stick, muttering a dwarf curse under his breath from the effort.
A tall dwarven cleric, he corrects.
Well, tall for a dwarf, short for literally any and every other species.
No one asked you, did they?
A tallish-but-not-really dwarven cleric continues to beat and haggle his way through a thick woods, muttering curses all the while. Another trampled-through bush, another sharp, empty tree branch to push his way through using his staff, the process was like a science. He gathered he might just be getting the hang of this whole adventurer thing.
Whap!
And suddenly the fabled great and powerful See-More was laying on his back because a vengeful branch had snapped back and struck him right between his eyes.
He sighed, using his staff to pull himself back up, and continued on his weary way, cautiously holding his staff up ahead of him to block any more rogue branches.
He begged to himself, why was he here again? Lost, in the middle of the forest, surrounded by nothing and no one?
The familiar thud followed by a grunt of pain alerted the small boy, perhaps he wasn't alone?
Moving over more tree branches and shrubbery, the tightly cloaked cleric approached the fallen human in as friendly a manner he could. The girl went wide eyed, attempted to back up but hissed in pain when she moved her leg. She had bruises from where she'd fallen, sure, but the real pain was her leg. It was bent in an absolutely horrid shape. It looked like the bend of a spoon, and if See-More tried he could probably break it very easily. Considering his location, he surmised the girl's village must not've had a doctor anywhere near and, too afraid of the forest, her people sent the helpless, crippled girl out alone to either find a doctor in the next town or to die in the forest.
The cleric crouched down next to her, holding his hands out, listening to the familiar hum of magick as his hands started to glow a beautiful chartreuse color.
The girl gasped in fear, crawling away from him some more and holding her arms up as if to shield herself.
See-More deflated, letting the magick seep out of his hands as he thought about a compromise. Looking back up at her but still hidden behind his cloak, he grinned sweetly.
Suddenly See-More started to rub his hands together, as if he were trying to warm them up on a cold wintery day, and small light green specks floated out of them and hovered in the air, like wiping dust from your fingers after working in a wood shop. See-More drew his hands a few inches apart, collecting the mid-air particles, and with a jerk of his whole body he clapped his hands back together, trapping all the particles inside as if they never existed. The still wounded girl watched in confusion as this happened, her blue eyes softening and filling with wonder.
See-More let out a full body sigh as if he'd been holding his breath this whole time, and opened up his palms like a book. A miniature sized horse, all green and yellow and chartreuse, went galloping out of his hand on an invisible path through the air, circling the girl and covering her in particles in the process, giving her face a sweet nuzzle. It was completely see-through and shedded dust wherever it tread, though it wasn't much bigger than See-More's own palm.
The girl laughed- a sweet, melodic sound - as the horse nuzzled her and seemed to just fade out of existence all at once, disappearing as quickly and as strangely as it came.
The girl started at the space in the air the horse once was for a moment before turning to See-More, still hidden in his cloak and smiling, with a sniffle.
"Marigold was my best friend - she was the horse my father gave to me on my tenth birthday. But she died a few weeks ago, and I thought that I'd never see her again. How did you know?" The girl asked with glassy eyes and a broken but amazed smile.
See-More gave a sly grin under his hood.
"Call it a...lucky guess." He replied. "Now, may I see your leg?"
"Are you sure?" She asked, worried. "No one's been able to fix it. We don't have any doctors in our town and, well…" the girl trailed off, not wanting to admit that her village really had sent her out here to break her leg completely and let her die.
"I'm absolutely positive." See-More replied, picking up her leg and bringing it toward him with the gentleness of a newborn. See-More pulled away his hood just a small bit, eyeing her leg critically.
"You're...you're blind." She said in a dumb, amazed voice. See-More rapidly pulled the hood back over his head.
"Yes, yes it appears so. Um, would you mind telling me the story of your leg?" See-More stated more than asked, quick to change the subject.
"But, wait, why did you even pull your hood away then? How did you even make it this far in the forest without a-"
"Of course if you'd prefer we could always sit in stale, agonizing silence." See-More said clipped and sternly.
The girl shut her mouth with a quick pop, before sighing and going along with the crazy man's change in subject.
"I was born like this. I've never walked properly in my life, and I've had to use a walking cane since I was a child. My parents, they tried to kill me as a child, to put me out of my misery, but the royal guard wouldn't have it." She monologued, getting lost in her own biography, barely noticing the chartreuse glow that permeated See-More palms.
"I was always made fun of, teased and bullied. I couldn't do what everyone else could. I could barely stand, let alone run or play. The trouble came when I couldn't work. My parents realized I'd never really be able to contribute to the village with a leg like this and...they just, sent me out here. The royal guard didn't get involved this time. It's not as heavy a moral burden when the cripple's all grown up, I guess." She finished bitterly.
"I'm sorry, I really am. But, may you never live with such sorrow and exile every again. May you never feel the weight of the world's eyes on just one part of you." He said, as if reciting a heartfelt poem.
There was a bright white flash from the woodland stranger's hands, too bright for her to keep watching, so she had to turn away for a quick moment. Upon looking back down, her leg - it was healed. No bumps or bruises, and not a single slight bend in her leg at all. It was as if the bend were never there. No aching pain, no ugly shape.
She started laughing, and then she started crying, not able to believe that she was really, truly healed. The girl sprung up with a start, nearly falling over because she was so used to having to balance on just one side of her body.
"Careful, careful." The kind boy doted with a smile, catching her and balancing her before she could fall. "You aren't used to it yet, it will take time."
She laughed some more, and she cried some more, not knowing which to feel, and started spinning in rapid circles like an out of control child.
"It's healed! It's healed, it's healed, it's healed!" She started yelling hysterically, spinning on the leg that once would've snapped under her own weight.
"It's healed!" She whispered in disbelief one more time as See-More caught her before she could fall.
"I'm glad I was able to help you." See-More said with a soft smile and a satisfied hum. "And, Clarissa, tell your father to put his money on a horse named Tricolour, if he truly wishes to bring your best friend back."
"I...okay. Wait, but, I didn't tell you my-" Clarissa said, stopping her spinning for a moment.
"...name…" She whispered in disbelief as she whipped around. No one was there. There was a slight fluttering of green leaves passing by in the wind, but there wasn't a single trace of the kind man she met in the forest. There wasn't a stamp of his weight on the ground, nor even the easy-to-see push of branches and limbs from where he'd come from. He'd simply...vanished.
"...Thank you." She whispered to the forest, to the wind, praying her words found the man somehow.
[So, it's been forever since I've posted, sorry. But I had this really cool idea for a fic and I've spent forever organizing and planning it out! It's kind of a medieval adventurers/Dungeons & Dragons-esque au. Elves, dwarves, fairies, orcs, the whole mile. For anyone who might not be familiar with the vocabulary here, I'll post footnotes at the top.
Also, I'm partially writing this out of spite for my past works. Re-reading a lot of my stuff is just painful. But I remember always being really sad whenever a fic I loved was deleted or taken down. I HATE most of my past writing, just because I know I've improved since then, so, if anyone would have a problem with me deleting some of my fics, please let me know!
Read & Review please! I wanna know if you guys like my writing so far or not!]