Disclaimer: Neither Young Justice nor The Handmaid's Tale are mine.
A/N: The following (related) oneshots shall all be centered around quotes from the dystopia novel The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood. Themes/Oneshots not particularly tied to the (wonderful) book, but nevertheless, do inspire the tiny scenes. Pairings/characters/genres used are probably from all over the world, though most likely angst-centric. No knowledge of the book required to read/understand, only an open imagination. :)
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"Angel makers, they used to call them; or was that something else?" - Offred from The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood
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Artemis's father shoved through the door and her mother lunged after, spitting Vietnamese that Artemis couldn't understand then, can't remember enough to translate now. Her mother hurled syllables and then a knife. It missed; her father spun. He struck out and Jade yelled, their father's open palm hitting air. He slid back to avoid his wife's wild stab. Jade stumbled into the stove.
Artemis saw angels. Light. Full and bright. At night a rarity. At their home a rarity. Her family saw fire. Her mother screamed to run from the flames. Her father dragged Jade out the door. Her mother tore her from the light. Artemis reached back to it. Fingers claws and voice high, high, high. The sound of the angels. Piercing. Almost silent.
She squirmed from her mother's arms, hit the ground hard. Her mother threw her body over her as the angels screamed, took to the skies, the neighboring walls. Lots of heat. Lots of cracking. Talking. They talked to her, and Artemis's mother left in panic. The dark angel flew down, out of the stars in the sky, between the flames. Artemis screamed, reached out her singed arms, hair halfway to flames.
He flew her away, patted down her hair. The angel with wings. He took her from the wild dance of angels into the dark, dark, where the city lights didn't touch. Little angels flitted, danced through the grassy plane. Artemis reached for them with starved hands and burnt skin. They crawled over her body, went dark and then light.
Light and dark. Dark then light.
Her mother took her from the flying lights, using callused hands and blurted syllables.
That is her earliest memory.
Jade hid with Artemis in a closet that didn't close all the way.
Through the crack in the framing, Artemis saw her father hit their mother when she crawled away from him on the floor."Những gì đang xảy ra?" What's going on? Jade squeezed her sister's arm, a warning. "Làm cho họ dừng lại –" Make them stop -
"được yên tĩnh," Jade hissed. Be quiet.
Artemis watched her mother bleed through the strip of light. She closed her eyes, turned her face into her sister's Sunday shirt. Jade pulled away. Artemis's eyes fluttered up to stare into the back of the closet. She wished it was possible to close ears like eyes. "Tại sao cô ấy không chống…?" Jade's hand slammed over Artemis's mouth. Why doesn't she fight…?
"I'll tell you a story," Jade whispered, her eyes didn't look away from the fight - the beating. "If you stay quiet."
Artemis licked Jade's hand, and she jerked it away. "Anh?" English?
"Anh, yes, Anh pig-twerp."
"Angels?"
"No. No angels. They don't exist."
"Saw I."
"Saw I? What type of – Listen, Arty," Jade said, trying to be soft, "You never saw any angel. Angels don't exist."
"Do."
Jade seethed. "They don't."
"Bạn đang nói dối." You're a liar.
"Nếu có là angels, thì tại sao không lưu bạn chưa?" If there were angels, why haven't they saved you yet? "There are no angels. None. Not now. Not then. The world is like Alice in Wonderland. Nhầm lẫn, đau, và kinh hoàng." Confusion, hurt, and horrors.
"Jade…"
"That's why Dad beats up Mom, because she is weak, holds onto fantasies. She takes us to church; she fills your head with nonsense."
"Bạn đang nói dối." You're a liar.
Jade wrenched her sister's blonde hair. Artemis screamed. Their father opened the closet and looked at Artemis's tearful face. "You should know better," he said, tearing her from her sister's arms.
"Không," their mother said around blood, unable to rise and take her child from her husband's grip. No.
Artemis's father pulled her by her blonde hair, deeper into the falling house. He taught her that Sportsmaster doesn't allow his children to cry.
In bed, not safe. No angels in the world; Jade told Artemis of Alice in Wonderland. The Queen killed, punishing without reason except for amusement.
Their mother now goes to church alone.
Artemis walked Gotham in the day, because the angels saved at night, and she was no angel. She listened to demands; she the Devil's servant with Lucifer's friend as her owner.
She thought angels came from fire - fire that lit the sky and burned out decay and disease. However, if that was the case then Artemis should've been an angel, risen from flames. She should've pulled others from fires instead of igniting them. She should've distributed food to the starving instead of eating it herself. She should've fletched arrows to hunt food instead of humans. She should've learned to skin roadkill instead of live animals.
She went out at night, because Sportsmaster demanded she learn to hunt angels. (He didn't call them that.) There were two of them she was supposed to track down, with twin black capes. She followed them over rooftop edges and down into alleys. She crept along after them into the "forest", growing between desolated buildings, crumbles, ruins, people as piles of fabric. The trees tall and half-dead, half-thriving, between Heaven and Hell.
She slid into the branches as the angels swooped in on mere pick-pockets. She drew back the bow, she had the shot, and a flittering angel crept into her vision. It blinked softly in the night. Light and dark. Dark then light.
Artemis dropped her stance. She reached out and captured the lightning bug. The angels with the capes turned on her as if she'd made a sound. They drove her back into the concrete maze, calling her names, laughing after her. She lunged into brick buildings smelling of feces. She dropped through the holes of leftover homes of cockroaches, pressed up against a grating wall, tore at her body. She held her breath, then went out.
She followed them into the light of fires and buildings, into the dark of the streets and alleys. The caped crusaders glinted white, they glinted red, like painted, dripping roses of Wonderland.
Artemis likes to pretend it is an angel that saved her (though her sister says it's a lie) even if the angel is inside her mind.
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All translation errors mine. ^^"