A/N: The cheesebunnys are here!!! Sadly I do not own the Titans, nor nini-legs-in-the-air, who in her futile act of revenge has riddled this chapter with some inserts of Moulin Rouge songs, pay no mind... I do not own those either...
Dedicated to ChocolateCurlz for the semi-inspiration for this fic.
'I follow the night
Can't stand the light
When will I begin
To live again?
One day I'll fly away
Leave all this to yesterday
What more could
Your love do for me?
When will love be
Through with me?
Why live life from
Dream to dream
And dread the day
when dreaming ends?
One day I'll fly away
Leave all this to yesterday
Why live life from
Dream to dream
And dread the day
When dreaming ends?
One day I'll fly away
Fly, fly away...'
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Black roses lie. Each petal cracked from the stem, a pair of broken wings. They fell. Withered scarlet, cold amaryllis lying on unmarked graves. Wordless whispers, wafts of black smoke ripple.
Four rotting roses. Cyborg... Beast Boy...Starfire...and Robin.
The Titans are dead...
A red of bleeding narcissus trickled, dripping red as she sobbed. And roses turned to ash.
Sometimes she wished they'd shatter instead of reminding her of what used to be. She could hear them in her dreams, hear their cries, their screams, and their laughter. They're only echoes, roaming the dark recesses of her heart. But the whispers flecked scarlet breathe her memories...They live in them...
"Yo Rae, pass the syrup! Gonna kick me some bad guy patootie, startin with these pancakes!"
"Wakey, Wakey, tofu eggs and bakey..."
"Odious atrocity of bogus and stale ludicrous! Perhaps our blue furry food is akin to the displeasing stench of Beast Boy's crusted socks of sweat!"
"Morning to you too, sunshine."
...They drank away flecks of narcissus and choked out more...
"BOOYA!"
"GO Beast Boy, I'm a milnip! Who's your whusserloop?"
"Victory!"
"Great job, team!!"
And then, then they would fade again, the black strands of shadow dragging her friends into the dark. Leaving her to drown in loneliness. The roses were withered a dark-brown, dried blood and faded. "NO! Wait, don't leave me...please..." Strands of heart-wrenching shadow leered, suffocating her. "Please, come back...I-I miss you..." Her breaths cried soft whispers, "I miss you...Come back."
"Titans GO!"
Sometimes she wondered if memories were worth anymore than the torn, rotting graves. She breathed them, cried them, sobbed poppy-red whispers. She wondered sometimes if she was crazy, that maybe it was all a terrible nightmare. And she would wake up and they'd be there again.
But every time her opened crimson smeared eyes, she saw the same vast wasteland.
No Beast Boy to crack jokes... No strong, fearless leader...Only despair, agony, grief, and sorrow. She wondered if it was better to never known friendship before the cold solitude swallowed her whole. Then she wouldn't be incessantly plagued by her dreams, the smoky shadows tracing the bumps of her spine, red eyes leering at the glittering spill.
And pale, deathly fingers smeared narcissus strands, shaping black flames of purple gems. The jewels she poured her soul into. Poured everything but shreds of her dreams. Living barely as she stalked the shadows, breathing her last memories. Breathing her goodbyes.
Her memories would be gone soon. And Raven of the Titans would be gone with them, forever trapped inside the gem. Nothing would change for dreams are eternal, but for once, she would know quiet from the voices of her heart.
And true peace. A peace she deserved.
If only she'd known it sooner.
But laying there, her pupils smeared wafts of amaryllis red, strands of black shadow twisting around her like some cocoon. She wondered, if it would have been better to never known friendship, than to have lost it all. If only she never had friends, never seen them fade, then the haunting of bittersweet torment wouldn't ring in her ears. If only she could have saved herself from the agony that ate away the roses.
Because she could hear them laughing without her. And her heart dulled to an ache. Even she didn't know how long before the shadows of regret would consume her. But she missed them...even after all of eternity had past, she missed them still. "Come back...please...Come back."
"Please..." Her whispers were flecked scarlet, breathing her memories, taking her last breath as they coughed smears of narcissus. And in that final moment, Raven of the Titans saw the cold truth at last. And knew she had been a fool.
'I was a fool to believe...'
Friendship never died, but her friends had been scattered to the winds like ash, one by one before her very eyes. And now she saw nothing but empty smudges of faces she once knew. Now, there was nothing more for her to see. Red smeared eyes leered from the trickles of smoke, torn feathers scattering and lying scarlet. The crows knew it too. They knew the last rose was dying. And they had come to watch.
She felt cold, a cold of true loneliness and her heart being torn. And in that second, she hated the Titans. She hated the voices that called out but were never there, she hated the strands of shadow and pure darkness. She hated the faces she could no longer remember.
"Come back...please...come back. I miss you..."
Her eerie pair of light-filled pupils rippled, tearing a portal in time. She couldn't save the Titans, they followed the calls of Death, just as she wandered the shadows. If only she never had friends, her heart-wrenching shrieks would never smother the night. And their laughter wouldn't wake her sorrow.
She didn't have enough power to escape the grasp of the jewel and return to the past, not now. She could only breathe her cursed memories, waiting as her dreams faded. And when it was all over, when nothing of her was left in body, the purple gem would be sent to her past self. Because the dark wouldn't be lonely if it was all she ever knew. And the jewel would change her, it would make her friends hate her, despise her.
She would never hear them call in her dreams. Raven closed her eyes, murmuring a final spell as the jewel sucked out the last of her soul, and shattered as her body withered away.
'Today's a day...'
And a necklace shaped from the violet shards.
'...when dreaming...'
A necklace that would end her misery beyond eternal darkness.
A necklace that would return to where it all began.
A necklace that would change her from the Raven they once knew.
A necklace that would destroy the Titans...
'...ends...'
From the inside out.
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Eh, does this make sense? Well, regardless...A short summary from yours truly is in order:
Basically, the Titans have all been killed in some terrible accident, leaving Raven all alone. She wanders and is haunted by her memories and goes slightly wacko. So she decides her life isn't worth much and stores her self into the purple jewel thingy which sucks out her soul, but left a little bit of her memories behind so she could remember her friends one last time. Ain't that sweet?
Okay, there's more...so seconds before death, she wonders if having friends was really worth it if she lost them all in the end. Just as her last memories disappear and she goes bye, bye, Raven answers her own question and decides to send the gem, which contains her essence/soul thingy, and give it to herself in the past which will ultimately change her. By altering the past, her future will change and she'll never have known friendship, but never have known the loss.
But there's only one teensy problem...
FRIENDSHIP WON'T GO DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT AND THE TITANS CERTAINLY WON'T EITHER. breaks out the cheese whip and is dragged to asylum because of cheesiness (Told you nini-legs-in the-air was replaced by a real cheesebunny)
Well, all's hokey dokey smoky when the Titans find out about the necklace but it seems the longer Raven wears the necklace, the more she changes and with an additional bonus, her powers will disappear as well. Funny thing is, Raven actually likes the personality change and her new mascara wearing, high-heel clicking, pink wearing, lip-glossifying self and doesn't want to change back. Quite a predicament I'd say...