The sun was bright. Shining its warm rays throughout space, and onto Earth. Creating light. Leaving little to no hiding hole for the sneaky shadow.
Now this shadow was different, she wasn't attached to anyone. She didn't have to follow anyone around, and she was free. She could go wherever whenever she wanted. She could visit the mall, go to the small park, walk on the streets or just sit in the corners of the room. She didn't have to do what someone else wanted, she was free to do as she wanted. But freedom isn't free. It, like magic, had pricey costs.
One could say loneliness was the cost of her being free, nothing knew she existed. She was invisible to the world. She didn't even have anyone to look behind them on a long summer day and say "hey! Guys look at our shadows! We're so tall!" To their friends, as they laughed and played in the warm sunset. She was nothing. A mere spot of darkness in the light. A crinkle at the top of an old book's page, something that everybody saw but never notice. A creature of indifference that was just ignored. As if everybody was blind. People didn't scream and run in fear of her, they simply turned their heads. They didn't want to know she there. She didn't stand out, she stood in. She was like a global problem, something people would rather leave alone, turn a blind eye, then deal with.
Pitiful really. The Shadow thought. They talk about about world peace when no body is willing to make a difference, and if they do speak out and say something, everybody sits and watches. No matter how many people do something about the global problems we have, there will always be those who don't speak up, because they don't see purpose in what everybody else is doing, this is simply why we have so many problems. If everybody did the save things, if everybody thought the same way, there would be no problems.
No, the loneliness wasn't something horrible that had happened to her. She actually liked how she was alone. Because, while everybody walked by her, turning their heads, she was still there, watching. Somehow just watching a person's action can tell you everything you need to know about them. And Raven had lots of time on her hands to watch. She watched them in their brightest moments and their darkest ones. She watched them when they were down, up and twisted inside. She could learn everything about a person by just watching. Loneliness give her an excuse to listen, to watch, to learn. So it was not a bad thing. Loneliness meant being alone, and as long as she could hear the song of the graceful robins, see the words on a page of a book and smell the sent of tea inside her favourite cafe, then she wasn't alone.
The cost of her freedom was rather her being unstable. Since she had nothing to be attached to, she didn't have a place. She was crossed in between living and the darkness of being a shadow. Every book, every animal, every crack had a shadow. Nothing needed her, nothing wanted her, she had no purpose. She was just there. Or so she thought. There could possible be a reason she was here, something that she was meant to do. That thought held little hope. But any hope is hope.
Because she really wasn't supposed to be here, she could possibly be killed by the sun, by the light. Unlike normal shadows that had something to hold onto, a rock, when they were destroy by the light, they could always return because of the fact that they had purpose. She, however didn't have a rock, this means moving place from place trying to find a good dark place where she could survive, so the light wouldn't rip her to pieces.
Why did she even do this? Make an effort to survive? To live? She didn't know. But something was telling her, she needed to wait. That if she waited one more day, something would change, something would acknowledge her. But day after day nothing happen and then something did.
She first heard their horrible teasing comments, and mean words while looking for a new hiding place for the coming morning. She was about to forget about it and move on, it was probably just another poor high school boy. What could she do? She couldn't physically touch anyone in her shadow. What use would she be? Then the boy spoke. His tone wasn't necessarily weak but was not strong either. It was instead like a small boy living on the street, knowing life could be better, but knew the chance of anything getting better, easier, or brighter in the pitch black crave he was helplessly wandering around in, was very small, almost impossible.
It reminded her of herself. And before she knew what she was doing, she was following the sounds of the boys' voices. By the tones of the voices, she guessed they weren't more then fifteen. As she made her way to the group of boys and the one person who seemed to change her mind, she made sure to use the dark spots to travel. The sun was still out. It wasn't that she couldn't go into sunlight, just more then a few seconds exposed and she would feel like she's a poor soul that has been granted the delight of burning in Hell for the rest of her life after death.
She walked down the mysterious alleyway. Trash littered the dirty floor, overflowing trashcans and dumpsters that were against the sides of the wide alleyway were to blame. Stray cats that everyone seemed to talk about weren't at all present, only three bullies and one victim.
They seemed to have him cornered, they all created a tight semi-circle around him, using the wall for an advantage. She could hear the victim's voice, as he tried reason his way out. She could see how the three didn't stop trying to hurt the boy. She shivered at how cold the boy's voice was becoming, after every taut and every pushing words, he was closer to the edge, closer to breaking. She could feel it. How could those three idiots not go racing away from the boy in fear? She'd seen so many mortifying things in her life, but this was...different. How could they possibly think the boy wouldn't fight back? Not just with words either.
This continued on for sometime, the only difference was the boy didn't speak back, he just took it. As the bullies continued their fun, she did what she always did. She watched.
The moon was now out and beaming down a soft, pale light. Now this light was one she was friendly with. Something about it changed her. It revealed what she really looked like. It was a type of spell, in daylight she was a shadow but by night she was a person. She had to admit, with skin paler then the moon, jawline light purple hair and deep knowing black eyes with rims of dark purple, she looked more like ghost than anything else. It didn't help she had a mid-night painted cloak she always wore. She was visible right now. But it was the last thing on her mind.
The boy was still there, still taking battle damage the enemies were throwing. She knew he hadn't broke, hadn't cried, and hadn't shown anything but stone-cold electric blue eyes. With a small frown.
Even with all the teasing and taunts, it took a simple sentence from the teenage on the left, to break him.
A simple, "You'll never be as good as him, you're too weak, too young, you're still too much of a little boy." He sneered.
It took less than two seconds for the victim to throw the first punch. It took almost ten to knock the first guy out. The second one, the one that had been standing in the middle of the semi-circle was next. That took almost less than one second. The right one, the last guy, was the only one to actually try to fight back. The blue eyed boy simply caught the punch in motion before pulling his hand holding the guys fist back, causing the guy to stumble forward, only to met the once victim's now self hero's knee. The boy let go of the guy's fist and placed his leg back on the ground. The last guy stumble backwards, his arms wrapped around his middle. The boy then, using the same leg, kicked the guy in the head, making him drop to the alleyway floor like a feather.
She was not scared. Just shocked. She knew he was going to fight back, but she didn't know he was actually going to knock all three of them out.
Unlike before. She had no idea what he was going to do next. Only that she was going to follow and watch, she needed to find out more about him. And she would do it by using the only method she knew, watching.
It struck her then and there, she was visible and no longer just a shadow. He could see her. And after everything he just inflicted on those three teenagers, she had no idea how he would react if he saw he saw her.
He didn't even look around after that third teenager hit the ground, he run like his life was on the line. Racing throughout the streets of Jump. Passing the night life and the society he lived in and was part of. He played a role, and that role was outcast. You would think because he was Richard Grayson everybody loved him, everybody would notice him, cheer him on. He was the famous ward of Bruce Wayne. Jump was very different than Gotham. In Gotham people basically bowed down to him, he was in control there, people loved him. Everything was different in Jump, people kicked dirt at him and pushed him down, they hated him for the life he was living with angered jealousy. He had no control of anything. This scared him the most. When he didn't have control, he couldn't control what was happening, meaning anything could happen. It was terrifying. It made him feel helpless. Richard could deal with being insanely happy, poetically broken and sad, but he couldn't deal with helplessness. He couldn't deal with not knowing what came next, or what to do. It reminded him of his parents' deaths. He struggled to swallow a dry sob and ran faster to his escape, to his paradise.
He needed to get away. Hide.
Richard still was oblivious to the shadow following his every step.
He ran through the forest on the outskirts of town.
The trees of the green forest seem tall and haunting, like they were the place used to film "Little Red Riding Hood," with thick branches and only streams of moonlight in certain places. The forest was dark and scary. Something you would see in a horror movie. It didn't bother Richard. He liked it.
He found it beautiful.
He raced through the trees and tall grass to an old willow tree. The willow tree itself was hard to spot, because of it being surround by tall evergreens, however Richard had found spotted it on his monthly walk around the forest. The tree was an easy climb and had the best view. Nobody else knew of it. The tree was his Eden. His paradise.
Richard still didn't know about the bird flying after him. Doing what she did best, staying in the shadows, standing in.
He started climbing, one branch at time until he reached the top.
Tears already blinded his sight, as he seated himself in a comfortable position. He didn't try to stop them or muffle his sobs, he didn't have any energy. Everything hurt, he just needed to cry. All he wanted to do was to let go and fall. But he knew that would just mean more pain. He was just helpless, because of his classmates' teasing and jabs. At the start and a while into it, the names had just been the usual. But after...
"You'll never be as good as him, you're too weak, too young, you're still too much of a little boy." It broke him.
It hurt him because he wasn't thinking about Bruce or the gym teacher Slade, who always seemed to always find a way to make Richard look bellow him. The teenager who had said it may of been thinking of one or the other, but Richard was thinking of his parents, of his father. Because no matter what, he knew he could never be half the man his father was. It hurt because he didn't know his father, so how he possible know if he would've made his dad proud? Even though most people say he would have, those people didn't know his dad. He had no connection to his father other than his gravestone all the way back in Gotham.
He was homesick.
Tears were continuous. Water droplet after water droplet rolled down his red cheeks. Until a cold hand was wiping them away. The soft hands belonged to a pale girl, she looked no younger than himself. She settled herself down on the branches facing him. She was different. She looked like a ghost. It didn't matter, something in her dark eyes told him not to question, like this was rare, and was only meant for him.
"Look." She spoke, looking into his eyes. "I'm not going to pretend I know what your going through or say everything's going to be alright, because it's not. Or at least from what I can tell from back there."
Richard looked away slightly. This beautiful girl saw him knock out three guys and then go running crying. His cheeks were burning red, and it wasn't just from the crying.
"But I do know, you have to kept getting up." She reached out with a cold hand and grabbed his warmer one.
"Why?" Richard asked, "why get up if I'm going to fall again? Why set myself up for failure?" He looked into her eyes searching for an answer.
"I don't know, maybe that's our purpose." Raven replied, "maybe were here to show everybody how many times we can fall and how many more times we can stand back up."
Richard liked that answer.
Author's Note: I was surprised at the out come of this. I had planned to take it in a whole different direction, but this just flowed better. So I did have slight Rob/Rae, can't help it, I'm sorry they're my OTP. I actually planned that from the beginning. Nothing else to say really, I just hoped you enjoyed this, and if you see any mistake, error in communication or grammar or maybe I need to be clearer about something, just let me know!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans or any mention city.