Title: Sorrowful Wanderer
Disclaimer: I do not own Batman Beyond or any other DC continuity this hinges upon. I make no money from this, either.
Warnings: This is a one-shot, based off of 'Twinning'. Lots of angst and theories unrecognized.
Summary: Things are never as easy or as difficult as first assumed. A single life, or thousands of lives, are no exception.
This is written in dedication to Rose Midnight Moonlight Black, for a little inspiration in my thought process again. But, seriously, those warnings at the top are there for a reason. The mythology on the twins is lacking and, though I was tempted to have this directly born into Twinning, I felt that as a standalone it could accomplish more. Please forgive me if it's confusing.
Told from Deidre Dennis's POV.
There are reasons why parents go through baby name books like they're the bible for a time. It's important that a new life is given a name to suit a purpose. Though, sometimes, meaning is thrown completely out of the equation and simply taken because it means something more personal, like naming someone after a dead friend or relative or hero.
For me and for my sister, this has never been more appropriate.
Our grandmother, the only person that ever had a hand in raising us, and perhaps the only parent we were supposed to have (thank God) took great care in choosing names for us when it became so very apparent that our birth mother would not even bother.
It's kind of funny. When I was little and still had to go to school, kids used to ask each other what the story behind their names were. Like it was an epic tale of some kind. My sister always changed her story for some reason that I still don't quite understand, seeing as her name is a bit more inspiring than most as it was. I never really joined in the game, claimed simply that I didn't know where my name came from or meant. Which was both a lie and the truth, kinda.
I found out years later my family history and took the time to read into our meaning and our purpose. Each individual had a meaning, though some had nothing to do with anything.
Our Nanna Harley (Harley/Harleen- warren of the hare, the hare itself being a classical figure of bravery, fertility and trickery) told me that if we had been born out of hiding, where people wouldn't judge us, we would have inherited the name of Quinzelle (or Quinn- queen or strong, which is basically the same thing if you think about it) and wouldn't have been saddled with such a plain name like Dennis (Dennis- follower of the Greek god of wine Dionysus, also known as the god of food and drink). I always felt sorry that we didn't get to hold onto Nanna's name. I think it would have made me feel a little less awkward.
When we stopped going to school (Delia because she had an IQ that surpassed the teachers and flaunted it in their faces and myself because I had passed through high school and could have gone to college if I'd wanted at any time) and made new…friends, I guess…I continued to pay attention to any names I was brought into confidence with. Though, to be truthful, that was only myself, Delia, Ghoul and Melanie.
I shall only go into those, because, really, that's all I want to safely go into, without dragging their real history and my own out into the open.
Melanie Walker (Melanie- dark skinned, though when it says skin, it might actually be an implication of one of the central chakra points for energy and when the book says dark it may only mean not completely good or bad. Walker- not as obvious as may be implied, rather to mean the cleaner of cloth, which could mean a lot, depending on the culture, but most being predominately good) is perhaps the nicest girl I've ever met, despite her family and background. Who am I to judge on past occurrences, after all? I could have liked her far more if I'd stuck around a little longer. It's a shame.
On the few occasions I've actually been able to call Ghoul by even a poor fragment of his real name, he's only let me use the middle part. He says it's because the rest makes him think of his worthless ass father, and when I call him Carter (Carter- cart driver, which was actually not such a bad occupation as those people were trusted to assist in bringing someone from one place to another) it actually sounded right and like his first name. I miss being able to do that. Call on him by name and still be okay, because we were okay. Now, I doubt I'll ever get to call him that again.
…I often think—or suspect, as that is more appropriate—that Nanna had a friend who knew magic and told her the future. Her future, our future, it doesn't matter, because whatever was suggested has come true and she made sure to remind herself about it every single day on account of what Nanna named us. True, to those without any knowledge on the matter, are names our manufactured to appear exactly the same. But, they're not, as we're not.
My sister, Clown Princess of Crime, Joker's Daughter, Delia. She, in all of her psychotic glory, gave us the joint-name of Dee Dee. Which is a bad name to share. Or, to have at all. Period. Dee by itself simply means dark and black. Repeating in on itself is an amplification of those words. Not a good thing, since dark repeated over itself is evil and evil is not something you want to be known for. Black, obviously, can go many ways, but none of them are very good. Black is usually a symbol of death and a lack of emotional attachment. Since me and my sister (on good days) were perky, I always felt like speaking this aloud. It depressed me to be called Dee Dee.
Now, my sister's actual name, Delia was an appropriate, if somewhat daunting name. But, Nanna knew what she was getting into, I think. As with everything, her name has more than one meaning; one—from Delos, though that is rather inaccurate. It's a festival in celebration of Apollo held every five years in Greece. Apollo the hunter, brother of Diana the Huntress, the more masculine of the siblings and the most rambunctious. Thus, leading us to the second meaning; visible. There are so many different meanings to that word that fit my sister perfectly. Because, as unfortunate as it is, she knows who she is and so does everyone else. She is like a well-defined constellation in the heavens, burning bright and apparent among all the smaller stars, dwarfing them and making them insignificant, like the people she surrounds herself with.
Now that she is completely as she has always been, only more so, I think, I find that Harley chose wisely. My sister is who she was born to be, even though I cannot like who that is, or support it, I could recognize it, because Nanna chose wisely.
But, what does that mean about me?
I told Terry (Terrence- Smooth. Smooth designating its meaning to all things coming into their own time without trouble and with serenity. Rather fitting, for the current Batman) what my name actually means when he asked why I seemed to hate myself so much and had no answer as to why Nanna would name me something like Deidre without really thinking it over and knowing what would come.
Deidre means both sorrowful and wanderer. It is based off an old story originating somewhere near Ireland about a woman who died all alone, with no family and no children. This would not be so upsetting, if only I didn't read the encyclopedia when I'm bored. Sorrow means exactly what it entails, but another word for wanderer—a more accurate word—is outcast. Now that, is depressing.
Did Nanna know I would be an outcast, even after Bruce (Bruce- Brushwood thicket; woods—"now that the trees are gone, one can almost see the forest") has taken me in? Or, did she simply know that I could never go home again? God, I miss Summerset…
Whatever. There's nothing in a name that says we are what our names entail.
And, even if we are, I'm not afraid to be alone.