Disclaimer: I do not own 'Teen Titans' or any other DC characters. Some elements of magic/mysticism/alchemy present in this story inspired by The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry, the Saranormal series by Phoebe Rivers, the Keeper of the Lost Cities series by Shannon Messenger, The Swan Kingdom by Zoë Marriott, Court of Fives by Kate Elliott, and the Princess of the Midnight Ball trilogy by Jessica Day George (I do like books other than fantasy, I swear!). The video game title "Attack of the Cloud Sharks" is borrowed from one of ShiningHopeBeast's Teen Titans fics, Realities of Life, and is used with her express permission (this one's on hold 'cause of lack of support, so you should totally read and review! SHB would really appreciate it).


Kin by birth and kin by blood

Kin through trials, kin through love


~#~#~#~


Robin growled and pounded his desk with his fist in frustration. The pushpins in their boxes gave a little leap, and a few landed on the floor, but at this point he no longer cared. He hardly had enough left in him to care about anything except for the map in front of him. He had been glaring at the bird's-eye depiction of Jump City ever since Slade's last attack the previous evening.

The acrobat closed his eyes, rubbing his temples with green-gloved fingers in a vain attempt to clear his head. Slade had struck nearly a dozen times in the past three weeks, sending out what had to amount to a full army of Slade-bots, but never once showing his own one-eyed mask. Robin knew that Slade never made a move without a calculated reason and extensive planning, in which respect he greatly resembled Batman, or even (he was forced to admit) himself. Above all, unlike many other villains, the mercenary never committed a crime merely for the sake of chaos itself. Yet at each occurrence, the robots had seemed to have no clear target or focus besides destruction. Marking the locations with red pins on his map hadn't revealed any patterns either. He had even marked high-end tech companies and other notable businesses with white pins, knowing from experience that they were often the prime focus of Slade's attention. It was clearly not the case here. None of the red pins were anywhere near the white ones. Not even the coordinates themselves gave any clues. Each point was in a different sector of the city, as if the man were systematically covering each area, yet there seemed to be neither rhyme nor reason as to the order he moved in.

He let out another growl, this one mixed with a sigh. A practical part of his mind was telling him that he was getting nowhere, that he needed to rest, but a larger portion drowned the first one out, saying to himself that he couldn't wait until he had determined Slade's intent. Battling fatigue, hunger, and what threatened to become a migraine, he opened his eyes and confronted the map once more.

He heard the door to his room slide open behind him. "I'm busy, Cyborg," he called tersely, no longer searching for anything so much as simply staring at the pin-dotted expanse of parchment.

The half-robot stepped in and approached his leader as the door closed behind him. "Robin, you haven't left this room since we got back after taking out those Slade-bots last night." He stopped short as he caught sight of the Boy Wonder's drawn and haggard face. "Don't tell me you haven't slept all this time either."

"Fine," said Robin, not once taking his eyes off of the map. "I won't tell you."

Victor shook his head. "This is ridiculous, man - "

"You know what's ridiculous?" Robin snarled as his patience broke. "This!" he spat, and whacked the map with the back of his hand, stinging his knuckles. He shook out his right hand and gesticulated wildly with his left as he ranted, "None of it makes any sense! There's no pattern, no system, no logic. It's like Slade isn't even the one behind any of this!"

Even as he said the words, both boys knew there was no way the last statement could possibly be true. Slade would never let anyone, not even his apprentices, have control over his own tech, whether by force or by delegation. Still, Cyborg could see what his friend was talking about. Even with his state-of-the-art data analysis software, he couldn't find any statistical trends.

"Slade knows you pretty well by now. Maybe he's just tryin' to mess with your head," he suggested.

"He already tried that with a handful of dust last year," Robin retorted grimly. "And it worked pretty well."

"Don't remind me." The memory of their friend and leader coming so close to death that night still sent a glitch through his system every time he thought about it.

He was letting himself get distracted, though. He had come here to persuade Robin to come out and eat lunch, not get caught up in his fanaticism.

"Well, if you're gonna go without sleep, you at least need some nourishment," he admonished gently, suddenly inspired as to how to use his friends own motivations to convince him. "Draining your batteries like this without refueling ain't gonna help you beat Slade." He held his breath and waited, half-expecting Robin to explode on him as he continued to stand gazing blankly at the map for a moment. All of a sudden he turned sharply around.

"Fine," he muttered, rubbing his eyes with the back of one hand and trudging out of the room.

Cyborg followed, slightly stunned by his success, and managed to call out with forced cheer, "Good! I made turkey sandwiches, so you won't have to deal with none of BB's tofu nonsense." Normally under such circumstances he would have had a satisfied grin on his face, but after what he'd just seen, he was worried. He could tell that Robin was under a lot of stress, and he knew from experience that it would only grow worse the longer things went on unresolved.

He had a hunch that it was gonna take more than a turkey sandwich to fix things.

~#~#~

In the common room, Raven floated by the window with her nose in a book as Beast Boy polished off the last bites of some unidentifiable tofu concoction. Starfire was licking the mustard from her sandwich off of her fingers when the door opened and the other two members of the team entered, causing the empath to cringe and descend to the floor. Frustration, stress, and exhaustion rolled off of Robin in waves, and his headache was giving her a physical pain at her own temple. Entering his mind to locate him had given her a familiarity with his mind that made her more sensitive to his thoughts and emotions. As a result, his pain affected her more than the same feelings would have coming from almost anyone else. Cyborg's anxiety wasn't making her feel any better, nor was the sudden burst of happiness that came from Starfire as she rushed over to the detective and embraced him, crying out, "Robin! At last, you have abandoned the solitude!"

"Dude," called out Beast Boy, who was stacking plates in the sink. "I was starting to think you'd turned into a hermit." His back was towards the couple, so with Raven left currently unable to process Robin's rising pleasure and slight embarrassment, Victor was the only one who noticed the flush seeping across his friend's face. He suppressed a smile as he retrieved his and Robin's sandwiches from the counter and set them on the table.

Kori finally released her boyfriend and floated off to her room to feed Silkie as Garfield began channel-surfing from the couch, and Robin was finally able to sit down and begin his lunch. As he took his first bite, he realized just how hungry he was and proceeded to wolf down his sandwich, momentarily distracted from thoughts of Slade. The abatement of his stress allowed Raven to lift her head and open her eyes, but the worried buzzing of his subconscious acted like a psychic static, preventing her from focusing on her book once more. Instead, she continued to sit on the floor and gaze distractedly about the room, from Beast Boy, who still hadn't seemed to find a program he liked, to Cyborg, who was busy artfully slathering his sandwich in Cy-B-Que sauce, to Starfire, who was just returning from tending to her little bumgorf, back to Robin, who had finished his lunch and was taking an aspirin for his headache. "I'll be in my room," he said, beginning to head for the door.

Cyborg instantly jumped up from his chair and neatly cut Robin off. "Oh, no you don't," he scolded, wagging his finger at the masked teen like a strict parent. "You've been spending way too much time alone in that cave of yours."

Robin seemed determined to push straight through him when Starfire approached from the side. "Friend Victor is in the right," she said gently, the stern frown on her face mixed with an expression of deep concern. "So much of the seclusion by one's self in the darkened chamber cannot be healthy for the human creature any more than it is for the Tamaranean." At this, he hesitated, and Raven could sense that he was wavering when Garfield saw fit to speak up.

"Totally!" he exclaimed, kneeling on the sofa cushions and looking over the back at Robin. "Too much stress gives you high cholesterol!"

"Blood pressure," Raven corrected from behind One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch.

"Whatever," the shapeshifter said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "The point is, dude, you need to take some time to chill out!"

Cyborg folded his arms over his metal chestplate, clearly not about to budge. "You are not goin' back to that room until we find a non-work-related activity that'll get you to relax." Starfire crossed her arms in clear imitation of their friend's adamance, and Beast Boy followed suit, grinning at the prospect of forcing their leader to do something for a change. Raven continued to silently watch them over the top of her book.

At last, Robin gave in. "Fine," he grumped, plopping himself down on the couch in irritation. Raven could feel his anger soften, though, as the alien princess to giggle and clap her hands in obvious delight.

"So," declared Cyborg, a broad grin spreading across his face. "Anybody got any ideas for an activity?"

Garfield looked up, his eyes glinting mischievously. "We could have him spend some quality time with Starfire in an empty closet," he suggested slyly.

Three voices called out, "Beast Boy!" all at once, though from Robin it was more of a yelp as his face flushed a deep red.

Cyborg shot daggers with his look at his buddy as Starfire furrowed her brow in confusion. "But will not the entrapment within the dim and closely confined area only serve to increase the distress of our friend?"

"Exactly, Star," Raven quickly replied before the shapeshifter had a chance to say anything else. "Which is why we will not be doing anything of the kind." She joined Vic in giving the green teen a death glare, for once grateful that Koriand'r didn't fully understand the nuances of human speech.

Beast Boy cowered in his seat and held up his hands as if to shield his face from projectiles. "Okay, okay; it was just a joke!" he squeaked. All of a sudden he perked up and asked, "How about a video game?"

~#~#~

Robin was too distracted by the Slade situation to focus on playing Attack of the Cloud Sharks IV: Return of the Torrential Tuna with Gar. The same was true while shooting hoops on the roof with Cyborg. He listened with as much patience as he could muster to the Tamaranean Ode to Peace and Tranquility, but after the seventeenth verse of nerve-grating discord, he had to explain to Starfire, as gently as he could, that her singing wasn't helping him. She was disappointed at first, but agreed that it would probably be best to try something else.

They had resorted to letting Garfield tell corny jokes when Raven decided she had finally had enough. "That's it," she declared after Beast Boy had made yet another cringe-worthy pun. She stood up and slammed her novel shut with an authoritative whump, causing all eyes in the room to turn to her. "I'm taking over." With that, she strode across the room and grabbed the Boy Wonder by the wrist. They both flinched at the contact, Robin from surprise and shock, Raven in pain at the amplification of all his negative energy. Nevertheless, she continued to drag him inexorably down the hallway.

"Where are we going?" he managed to ask, flustered.

"To the roof," she replied, not bothering to look back at him as she pulled him into the elevator.

"So...what exactly are you planning on doing?"

"Relieving your stress."

"Riiight, but, um...how?"

"I'm going to teach you how to meditate." The sorceress could feel the surprise and confusion billowing off of the acrobat, but he remained silent, and she did likewise.

When they arrived on the roof, Raven sat down in lotus position with her back to the open ocean and motioned for Robin to take a seat across from her. She was afraid that seeing the city from this height would only serve to remind him of the Slade situation.

"Close your eyes," she commanded, and he obeyed. "Find your center. Focus your energy."

"Azarath . . . metr-"

"No," she interrupted, shaking her head. "My mantra won't work for you. You need to create your own."

He opened his eyes in confusion. "Starfire always uses your mantra when you meditate together."

"When Star and I switched bodies, we had to learn to become one, another in a way; learn each other's history and perspective," she explained. "She knows what the words mean to me, and she's felt for herself the effect that they have on my powers. You and I don't share that kind of a bond. Besides, Star does it mainly so that we can connect with one another somehow, not because she's searching for balance." As Robin began to nod his head slowly in comprehension, she continued, "So I'm going to help you develop a mantra the same way I was taught to come up with mine: by asking you questions that should reveal things that are important and meaningful to you. Close your eyes." As soon as he had done so, she asked, "Where was your first home?"

"Gotham City," he answered without having to think.

Raven paused to consider before inquiring, "What is the name of the person who has been the greatest positive influence on you so far?"

"Koriand'r." He wasn't quite sure why he had said her full, real name, but it had seemed to roll naturally off his tongue.

The empath was scrambling to come up with a final question. All of a sudden, it came to her: "What is your most treasured physical possession?"

He swallowed before whispering, "Briefcase," and she nodded, even though he couldn't see her, understanding that he did not mean the briefcase itself, but rather the item that it contained.

"Now put those words together," she instructed. "Gotham...Koriand'r..." He nodded and began to chant. She waited until she sensed that he was becoming absorbed in the repetition before silently levitating to another corner of the roof. She needed to process all of the negativity that had barraged her this afternoon.

"Azarath...metrion...zinthos..."

~#~#~

She opened her eyes, relishing the feeling of the balance and tranquility she had achieved. At least an hour had passed, and evening was quickly approaching, though the days had begun to lengthen with the season. She could hear and see Robin still lost in meditation, and as she stood to go to him a breeze swept through her hair. She had been letting it grow out at Starfire's encouragement, and it was now at a length where she could tie it back if she needed to, a few inches past her shoulders. It had also darkened over the past few months, deepening from violet to a midnight purple.

As she approached, she heard the acrobat repeat his mantra a final time before taking a deep breath. Crouching beside him, she touched him gently on the shoulder and quietly asked, "Feeling better?"

A relaxed smile spread across his face as he opened his eyes. "Yeah," he sighed. He turned to face the sorceress. "Thanks, Raven."

"You're very welcome," she replied with a tiny smile of her own. "Come on, we'd better head back in. Cyborg's not going to be happy if you miss dinner."

~#~#~

That evening, the other Titans could clearly see the change in their leader. Throughout the meal, Robin joked and bantered with the other boys, and even suggested a group outing sometime the next week. Starfire bubbled with excitement and happiness, and Cyborg gave Raven a nod of approval as Beast Boy fumed at not having a sufficient comeback for Robin's latest witticism. He quickly recovered his good humor, though, and invited the acrobat to watch a movie with the rest of them after dinner.

"No, thanks," he replied. "I think I'm just going to head back up to my room."

Cyborg instantly jumped up. "We just spent a whole afternoon tryin' to get you to relax, and now you're goin' straight back to work again?" he yelled, practically snorting flames.

"Actually, I was thinking of getting to bed early tonight," Robin corrected, rather amused by Victor's typical reaction. "Like you said, I need to recharge my batteries."

Mollified by these statements and a bit embarrassed by his own rashness, Vic sheepishly apologized, "Sorry, guess I did jump to conclusions there."

"That's all right," the Boy Wonder replied with a smile. "Good night, everyone."

"Good night," the others chorused as he stood.

Starfire rose along with him. "I believe it is also time of bed for Silkie as well," she cooed, scooping up the wriggling larva. "But I will return shortly for the communal viewing of the film."

The pair exited the common room and walked together in comfortable silence until they reached the branch in the hallway that divided the guys' rooms from the girls', and Robin felt the urge to say something. "Star," he called, almost shyly, and the alien turned to face him.

"Yes, Robin?" she questioned, wearing that smile that always made his heart beat faster and looking at him with those large, kind green eyes.

He swallowed, then cleared his throat awkwardly and continued, "I wanted to thank you for trying to help me this afternoon. It really means a lot to me." He inwardly cringed for sounding so cliché, but then her smile broadened.

"Please, you are most welcome, but there is no need of the thanks," she insisted. "I would never hesitate to offer the assistance to any friend in need." She dipped her chin and gazed at him bashfully through lowered lashes. "But most especially you."

Both his heart and his cheeks were warmed by the sentiment, and he couldn't help but smile back at her as he said, "Good night, Star."

"Good night, Robin," she replied sweetly. She began to turn away, but stopped in surprise as Robin took two quick steps to stand beside her. He gently cupped her chin with curved fingers and gave her a soft kiss on the lips before swiftly disappearing down the hallway.

It was Kori's turn to blush this time as she stood with a drooling, half-asleep Silkie in one arm, her other hand resting lightly on the spot where his lips had brushed hers. For a long moment, she remained gazing in the direction where her friend who was a boy had gone before finally making her way to her own room.

~#~#~

Robin covered a yawn with his hand as he walked through the automatic door. He caught sight of the pushpins that had fallen earlier still lying on the floor and went to pick them up. As he replaced them in their container his eyes fell on a sector in the center of the map which had two schools at opposite ends of it: one a prestigious private school with an excellent reputation, the other a run-down public school with an astoundingly high drop-out rate and which was notorious for violence. A red pin was tacked near the sector boundaries, less than a block from the public school.

He stood for a moment in contemplation, his brow furrowed as the wheels of his mind began turning. He abruptly began stabbing the map with pins, marking all the public schools in white and the public schools with black.

Who needed sleep, anyways?

~#~#~

Raven had to suppress a smirk as Kori entered the common room, practically glowing and floating a foot off of the ground. She had sensed the flirtatiousness between Starfire and Robin as strongly as if they would have been in the same room as her. Now, however, the sorceress expected that Robin's high state of mental excitement would begin to die down as he succumbed to sleep. Or so she thought.

Twenty minutes later, as the heroine of the movie was admitting her feelings for the hero to her bosom friend, she could still feel his mind frantically buzzing. Disconnected fragments of '...Slade...school...crime...violence...children...' flitted rapidly through her brain. Victor happened to glance away from the tender "sister" moment on the screen just in time to catch Raven's flicker of a frown. "Somethin' wrong?" he asked in a whisper.

She shook her head. "It's nothing. I was just distracted by the chain of Robin's thoughts."

Cyborg started to nod in understanding, but as he grasped the full implications of what Raven had just said, his human eye widened. "You mean he's still awake?" Before she could formulate any response, he narrowed his eye and said, "He's working on the Slade case again, isn't he?" Without waiting for an answer, he jumped up and stormed out of the room, muttering something about "that little spiky-haired workaholic" under his breath.

All the fuss had by this time diverted Beast Boy's attention from the movie, and he now whispered to Raven, "Do you think we should go after him?"

"They'll be fine," the empath replied dismissively, seemingly becoming as absorbed in the film as Starfire, whose gaze hadn't left the screen once throughout the entire disturbance. The shapeshifter made one last worried glance toward the door before imitating Raven, knowing that she was probably right. Robin could take care of himself, and besides, as much as he might have been concerned for their leader, Gar did not want to be nearby if and when Vic exploded.

~#~#~

Cyborg entered irately without knocking, but as he opened his mouth to begin yelling Robin called out over his shoulder, "I think I've got a lead on Slade!" marking three orphanages with black pins in rapid succession as he spoke. Seeing his friend's obvious enthusiasm, Victor forgot his reason for coming in the first place and became excited himself.

"What can I help with?" he volunteered.

Without looking up, the Boy Wonder shoved the plastic container of white pins at him. "Mark all of the affluent neighborhoods, luxury apartment complexes, and successful businesses," he ordered. The half-robot complied, and with his programming he had no trouble finding the places that Robin had listed. Within a few minutes, he was finished, and he helped the masked teen finish marking the orphanages, homeless shelters, and centers of gang activity in the city with more black pins. When they were done, Robin could see that his prediction was correct. The red pins prodigiously avoided the white, yet each one stood surrounded by a cluster of black pins.

Now that it was all laid out in front of them, Cyborg could instantly see the trend. "So we know that Slade's targeting the worst parts of the city," he stated. "But why?"

Robin frowned and furrowed his brow. His theory didn't extend that far yet; he had mainly been focused on highlighting the pattern he had suspected. "What do the slums have that Slade could be looking for?" he mused half to himself. He became lost in his thoughts as he considered. '...criminals, orphans, domestic violence...' "I've got it!" he exclaimed, and Vic looked up again, startled but hopeful.

"Well?" he asked expectantly. "What is it?"

The acrobat hesitated, his initial excitement at his success waning and being replaced by a sinking feeling as he realized the grave import of the words he was about to utter:

"Slade's looking for a new apprentice"


~#~#~#~


The woman sat in the center of the cavern, eyes closed, her legs tucked beneath her, basking in the strong currents of life that swirled through the hollow in the mountain. She could sense the apprehension of the girl who stood before her as clearly as she could discern her presence. The child had been waiting, silently, for quite some time, but experience had taught her to be patient, that the lady would address her when the time was right. Now, as the full moon crested the tops of the trees in the east, the woman called Amaranth finally deigned to speak.

"So," she said simply, the word filling and resonating throughout the high-ceilinged chamber. "It is time."

The girl nodded, not so much in affirmation as in acknowledgement of the fact, and the woman could almost feel the small motion through the channels of immense vitality that flowed between them. At last, she opened her eyes and took in the appearance of her student.

She had grown in many ways since her arrival at Haven Mount three years prior: in stature, in strength, in maturity. Her form had filled out with graceful curves and toned muscle. Loose, chocolate-colored curls reached to the middle of her back, framing a fair, contoured face. Rosebud pink lips rested beneath a straight nose. On either side of it, finely arched eyebrows hung over eyes that were a crystalline blue, eyes that seemed to reflect so much of their owner, as well as the world around them. Beneath the surface, the lady knew there resided one who had learned how to develop her capabilities, who possessed the key to unlocking her own future. In all respects, she had truly become a young woman.

The woman did not fail to notice the traveling attire the girl wore, nor the large satchel slung over her shoulder. She rose to her feet with quiet dignity and grace, and softly commanded, "Come with me," turning towards the shadowed rear of the cavern and knowing that the girl followed close behind her. When she reached the darkened area, she took a piece of wood with its end dipped in pitch from a holder attached to the rock. She cupped her hand beside the top, drawing a tight swirl of life-current around it, and the torch sparked into flame. The light ripped the darkness apart, revealing a recess in the wall with a stairway leading higher and deeper into the mountain. They ascended the staircase together, the torch dispelling the shadows as they continued to climb.

At last, they came to the top of the passageway, which opened into a cavern much like the one they had just left, save that this one had a cleft in the ceiling that ran from directly above where they stood to the opposite end of the room, disclosing a jagged strip of the night sky. Their torch was used to light six braziers dispersed throughout the area, which in turn illuminated a hollow stone circle about eight feet in diameter, covered with engraved patterns and raised two inches from the wall, its bottom level with the floor and its top six feet below the far end of the crack, carved straight from the surface of the rock.

From behind one of the braziers, the lady retrieved a clay pitcher and a stone knife, the latter of which she handed to the young woman. The girl raised her hand and pricked the pad of her thumb with the point of the knife. The wound closed almost instantly, allowing only a single drop of blood to fall into the mouth of the earthenware vessel and mix with its fragrant contents. The child then replaced the blade on the floor where it had been before.

The woman approached the stone ring and began to pour the pitcher out over its base. The connected carvings served as channels for the liquid, which flowed up the grooves on either side in defiance of gravity. As the two trails met at the large whorl at the top of the structure, a shaft of silver light fell upon it. The moon had just risen past the end of the fissure above the entrance way. Immediately, the engravings began to glow, and a faintly luminescent layer that looked like some sort of fluid rolled from the inner edge of the disc and converged at its center. The image of a midnight cityscape appeared in it, fuzzy around the edges and gently rippling as though seen through water.

The lady produced a velvet drawstring pouch on a cord and hung it around the young girl's neck before placing a kiss on her forehead. "Take care," she admonished with a gentle smile.

"I will," the girl replied earnestly. Then, looking her mentor straight in the eye, she said, "Thank you, Amaranth."

The two embraced, then turned toward the portal. "Go," the woman commanded with another smile, and the girl obeyed, stepping through the gateway without hesitation —

— And stepped down onto a concrete rooftop as neatly as though she was descending the last step of a flight of stairs. She felt the soft rush of wind as the portal closed behind her, but she did not turn back to see it. Instead, she looked out over the maze of busy streets and still-lit buildings.

Gotham City. The place where she had said, and knew, she could never belong. The only place that she could truly call her home.

She grasped the pouch around her neck and emptied its contents into her upturned palm. Strings of gold spoiled over and between her fingers. She tugged on the chain in various places until the oval shaped locket lay in the center of her hand, the garnet nestled in its front glinting in the big-city glow.

For a long moment, she stood gazing at the object she hadn't seen in nearly three years. Shortly after each young person's arrival at Haven Mount, Lady Amaranth would require them to commit their most precious treasure to her keeping during the duration of their stay as a proof of their dedication to learning, or they would not be permitted to remain. The locket had clearly been that treasure. Aside from the material value of the metal and the gemstone, the piece was worth a great deal to her. The tiny object might hold the key to the mystery of her origins.

Her experience at Haven Mount had taught her how to unlock her future. Now, it was time to discover her past.


A/N: And there we have it! The first chapter of my first ever fanfic. A warning to those of you planning to keep reading this: updates will probably be many yet far between, so it will probably be a loooong time before this fic is finished. Hopefully someone will like it enough to stick with it. Also, kudos to anyone who can guess which of the books listed above the first OC's name comes from (it really is painfully obvious). Feel free to hazard any speculations about the other OC if you like, but I can already promise you: you're all WRONG! (heh-heh-heh-heh; hopefully I've piqued your interest enough that you'll keep reading). See you in another two, three, six months maybe? (I'll try not to take THAT long, I promise!)