Disclaimer: Tigerchic121 does not own the Teen Titans or any of its affiliates.
Summary: A look into the mind of Terra and her journey. What's she's been through, the basis of her decisions, and her thoughts on everything. Hints of BB/T if you squint hard enough.
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Question Mark (Answers that aren't ready to be shared.)
I shut my eyes tight to block out my grim reality, that I've always out run, but never escaped. When I slip into the confines of my mind, I realize there is no getting out. My worlds are mirrored and merged into one. A reflection distorted, like a rippled pond, disrupted by the tiniest rock, full of inconsistencies prisming outward into agreement. I am trapped in this prison of mine, and it takes me some time to realize that the only way to escape from myself is to accept myself, delve in the inner workings of my mind.
Time passes quickly, as if I had just defeated Slade and called up my power to combat the lava. (The seconds drag on for an eternity, bleeding into each other like slow pouring sand.)
The cave is very quiet. (Every drop of water drives me insane. I wish to both stop the noise, and make the noise, embrace it, and shun it.)
My world is full of contradictions. (I have always been one person, as much I have always struggled against that fact.)
But it is only when I quit trying to suppress the contradictions that I am able to persevere. (For that is what reality dictates.)
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Quake (Feel that? That's veracity shifting.)
Exactly the reason I am released from my stone prison, I do not know. I am aware of a flash of light, the soaring of a dove, the vanquishing of evil, and suddenly I find myself stepping down from my self made prison. Rock that crumbles down from my shoulders, flakes down my body, throws me off balance as I try to grasp my bearings. I hear the crisp crush of decaying flowers under my feet, and prepare to land hard on the cave floor. However when I fall the rock receives me like a pillow, cradling my body into the earth.
I do not remember anything. (The choices I make…)
Until I try to stand up again. With a renewed strength, I bring myself to prop up on two rocky legs, and my hands grasp quickly at the edge of the formation I was perched upon before, where they suddenly brush a foreign substance, I have not felt yet. I look down and realize my hand is brushing a granite plaque, scrawled with words barely distinguishable in the hazy light entering from the mouth of the cave. (The message is loud and clear, loud and clear.)
TERRA
A TEEN TITAN
A TRUE FRIEND
And suddenly, everything comes rushing back into place. (And suddenly, I have a reason to live, a reason to die.)
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Quickly. (Painfully.)
She knows she should not have stopped to watch the fight between the Titans and the latest creature terrorizing the city, but as soon as she catches sight of the five saviors she becomes rooted to the spot. She will not lie, in some part of her mind, the part that she valiantly tries to repress, she is curious as to where they have disappeared to for the last few months. (Jealousy clawing at her stomach, and constricting her throat as she realizes they're off to save the world again…with out her.)
And then…he sees her. Their eyes meet for a second, but, as Terra is used to, the brief contact of green to blue seems to stretch on an eternity. She sees him mouth her name, before dodging a bulldozer being flung his way, and fear, apprehension, nervousness and even a shy sort of feeling pulses over her body in a jolt of shock. But mostly, fear reigns. He must not know she's here, that she's back, that she has a memory. (How long has it been to him, does he remember their days as vividly as she, or are they passing memories, slowly being carried to the recesses of his mind.)
Before she knows it, before she can stop herself, the adrenaline builds up in her chest, and she's off like a flash. (Instinct, she can't stop herself.)
She runs, and runs, until her calves begin to cramp, and her foot collides painfully with the harsh concrete. Until her shoes cut painfully into her feet, and blisters begin to form on her foot and ankle. She runs until her chest burns painfully, and she finds it hard to force air past her constricting throat, eyes streaming with tears of her own choosing and tears whipped out by the wind. (Yet she must go faster, farther, longer.)
She's way past hitting the wall, past the second wave of energy athletes live to drink in and find. The glorious runners high, the ultimate feeling of being lighter then air itself, faster then reality itself, is gone long before she stops running. (She'd do anything to grasp that feeling, touch it, taste it, drown in it.)
Finally she reaches the edge of the city, the edge of a beach, the edge of the deep blue mesmerizing sea. She drops to her knees, sand seeping into her shoes, water lapping onto the fringe of her skirt, and lets the salty tears from her eyes join the salty water in the sea, her body racking with silent, dry sobs. (But she's screaming, screaming violently, at the top of her lungs inside the confines of her mind.)
She stands up after awhile, after she's able to catch her breathe and quell her tears. She attempts to fix her appearance in the reflection of the ocean, but the flowing, sentient waters ripple during her attempt, leaving her with that same, incomplete yet familial sense of reflection. A distorted sense of reality, of life, of self. She forces herself to leave after awhile, trudging back to her school, willing herself not to look at the Tower perched on an island, sand squishing between toes, uncomfortably. (But yet, its land, solid and deliciously forbidden, dancing playfully down her toes in agreement to her thoughts.)
Sometimes it's good to be in control. (Sometimes you just have to lie to yourself.)
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Quiz. (Excuse)
A quiz in Geometry. Or perhaps it's a test in Geometry, but whatever it is, she needs to get away from the friendly boy with green skin, whose name longs to burst from her lips. (Beast Boy, Gar, Love.)
You hold back your exclamation when he finds you, an exclamation of joy (he hasn't forgotten) of pain (he remembers). You bury it deep under the layers of your mind (your eyes hold anything he needs to find.) However he does not do the same.
Terra!
People. People were your problem. You knew that you were unstable and unable to be in a productive relationship. The trust wasn't there, the mind frame wasn't there. So you tried. Tried to live on your own, tried to make your way alone. But you couldn't. You always broke your promise and brought attention to your self. You just wanted to be surrounded by others. You wanted someone to pay attention to you, but this was doomed to fail, because you couldn't pay attention to your own internal problems- your fleeting self control and insecurities.
(It was a never ending circle, a twisted fairy tale with mediocre beginnings, happy middles, and tragic endings. But you wanted human touch, simple affection, a mere hand shake or smile. Any would do. And it was just your luck that all the people you stumbled upon-not so accidentally- were wonderful, caring individual that were willing to give me just that: attention.)
And so you hear his voice, coated with emotion (exuberance), remembrance (pain.) You know he wants you. (In more way then one.) He wants you to remember him and perhaps the rest of the Titans, but most importantly the ties that still bind you, full of what could have beens, and what still can be's. He wants to know he's not crazy pining after you after your dead, and he also wants to know he's not crazy chasing after you now that he's found you. (It's all about him, the bitter voice in your head tells you. His own personal need to verify his reality.)
Carried by your own fear, resentment, bitterness, pain, joy, love, towards him, him, reality, the world, your voice pounds out:
Stop calling me that! (Please, call me one more time.)
My name is Terra. I have blonde hair, blue eyes, and many destructive secrets. I have been hailed as many things, apprentice, traitor, teenager, and for a few blissful months, Teen Titan.
Sorry. You've got the wrong girl. (Please, chase me one more time.)
I've lied more times then I can count, and have hurt people many more times then I wish to ever recall.
Things change, Beast Boy. The girl you want me to be is just a memory. (Please, love me one more time!)
And so I run. I run from a memory, I run from pain. I run from the heartbreak of my past and the uncertainty of the future. I run from all triggers of an old life, all people, places, or things that remind me of promises I can not keep. (And of all the promises I have kept…)
I run from reality. (But what is reality, except that which comes out of the eyes of the beholder.)
And because of this I am doomed to fail. (Question, question, answer, answer, question or answer, question or answer…)
My name is Terra…
Name…Terra…Is…Question…Answer…Quit…Quick…
The inexhaustible (cyclical) disaster.
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1580 words. Last Edited: Monday, April Ninth, 2007. Winner of the LAS Round 5 challenge, prompt: the letter Q.