Dove Gray

by Guardian Kysra

Before Raven there was Arella. Prequel to Walk on Water.

Dove Gray

By Kysra

Her great fear is that she deserves everything she gets; and there is a stark loneliness to that fear because it is subjective and crude like the insults thrown at her day in and day out. It means that her god loves her as much as her parents which is not at all. It means that she doesn't deserve the love she craves.

There is no joy in such an existence, she often thinks, as if her own life were not the example inspiring such an observation, but what little wisdom she has managed to glean from abuse and constant fear forces such an outside view.

It is why she hungers for the music that blares into her eardrums as she runs the city blocks to school every morning between the time she sleeps and wakes. The lyrics are always honest, seeming to illustrate for her tired imagination the hate and danger she lives with while remaining distant and safe as it comes from a voice not hers. Hard, cruel, screaming words and rhythms tear at her soul and deepen the ache for saving.

So she continues to pray for intervention, growing to understand that silence is God's voice and that His ways are mysterious. This is my trial. This is my cross, she tells herself again and again as the days fly and fade like her father's fists and the bruises that routinely decorate her skin. And she never asks for help, because deep down she is convinced that the only one who can help her is the one being that never speaks.

When she is old enough to fight back, she chooses not to. Good behavior will gain her good rewards though she has ever been well-behaved and never has she been rewarded. Ever. She is a somber girl, small and somehow strong despite the pain of living in her childhood prison of doubt and faith; but somehow there is a smile, shy and hiding, in her eyes when friends surround her. It is a sad smile that matches the way she favors morning over night and seeks quiet over sound.

They know she wakes and leaves her house before dawn, preferring the outright, brutal cruelty of the streets than the subtle, shaking meanness of her parents; and she knows why they never join her, having experienced the strangeness of their families. It is always cold in the pause between dark and light and it jars whatever sleep remains buried in her limbs not woken by the ever-present fear shuddering down her spine.

She often wonders when the sickness of her parents' souls will reach hers. Studies have shown that it will be so, that it will pass on to her to pass onto whatever children she will have. Or perhaps she will submit to a heinous cycle of disgusting habits and men who treat her like a dog because it is all she knows.

This is her second great fear, that her fate is decided by the parents who hate her and that she will allow them further power over her decisions; and she wonders, when it will end.

Sixteen and wounded, she decides that enough is enough and walks away with nothing more than what she has always had - herself, her thoughts, her dreams. She realizes then that she has never been young, has never been happy, will always be searching for something just beyond her reach.

In those first moments, steps, away from the house she was born into, she feels free like the birds she so loved to watch as a child. In those first moments of manufactured independence, there is a stranger called Hope who is as silent as God has been but keenly felt.

Familiar and grounded in the mayhem of the Underground, she strikes out but does not dare settle. There are gangs and criminals and other undesirables afoot, and she is still innocent in the most basic of ways. However, she realizes quickly that though she has broken from prison, she is still an inmate to the lessons she has learned. She will not steal though she is hungry for sustenance. She will not loiter though her body is tired and weighted with the knowledge that she can never go back..

A friend finds her at some point - she does not know how long she has been alone and wandering, maybe days or weeks - and takes her to a home. Here is a house filled to the brim with laughter and companionship and warmth; and she watches wistfully the give and take, push and pull of teases and tidings between parent and child, siblings, and spouses. She knows she must leave soon when all she feels is emptiness.

Her journey continues as she muses on how she will continue her education and plans for the rations she has been gifted by her friend. Light and dark, day and night, her hair becomes matted with the passage of time, and soon, she can smell the stench of sweat and poverty radiating from her clothes and skin. Sometimes, she imagines her teeth rotting from her gums; and other times, she fantasizes that she has somewhere to go where a hot meal and an ocean of clean water lay in wait.

She never cries, never complains - neither aloud nor in her thoughts. The memory of where she has been is still fresh as she enters the caving brick church through rusting doors. She believes it to be abandoned though there is a harsh ringing in her ears. Her little pack of playing cards, mementos, and bartering goods is set upon a cob web infested stool as her eyes seek out an earthenware jar. There is water there, she somehow knows. It whispers to her through the shrill ringing coursing through her head.

It is with abandon that she drinks, uncaring of whether it is clean or dirty, pure or poisoned. She has forgotten what it is to be considerate for she has had few examples. And with the quenching of her thirst, there is - again - silence, the ringing muffled by a full belly. Licking her lips, she takes the time to peruse this place, this sanctuary, unmindful of where the water came from or how there is light lining the hall behind her.

A voice breaks the heavy quiet as she begins to search for food, and she startles at the marvel of a voice outside her body.

"Hello, my child." It is a beautiful voice from a beautiful woman, older than herself, taller, cleaner. Her savior has red hair that tumbles into curls and red lips that smile benignly. There is a cutting sweetness in that smile that reminds her of suicide and razor blades. She suddenly feels nauseous and looks guiltily at the now-empty jar and begs forgiveness with her eyes. Holy water, she damns herself so that God won't have to, I drank Holy water.

The woman is dressed in flowing, gray robes that echo the stormy blue of her eyes; and raw-bone hands raise a hood that leaves the angular loveliness of her face in shadow. "Come with me, my child. You look famished."

There is a sudden CRASH! when a stray cat jumps from the broken window, knocking her pack and the stool to the floor; but there are hands upon her own that pull her into the hall and through it, down a short flight of stairs and into a large maze of a basement that seems black and fiery and wrong. But the people she finds there are kind in their fashion, and they seem interested in her plight. She is able to be clean again, full and warm and rested because of their hospitality; and all they ask in return is that she join their church.

In time, she ceases to pray for an intervention because she feels she has received it. God is still silent, as He always is. She is still lost, as she always was. But she is no longer alone; and home is a run down, blighted building atop a catacomb where she makes her bed. These are people who take in the unwanted strays, who bandage them then adopt them into the fold, and she is grateful for their clemency in taking her because she has never been wanted, never been valued. Not even by her self.

She does not know how many months she spends there in the dark light of the church, but she has grown comfortable in the abrasive fabric of her dove gray robes and somehow knows that the anniversary of her birth has passed as the days melt into one another. Seventeen is a magical number, she remembers a pagan friend saying.

The only magic she eventually finds is that of evil's inherent seductive beauty.

Her savior becomes her teacher in the worship of a new god, one whose voice reaches her in the dead of night and loves her in dreams. There is ecstasy and madness in his words, and she finds delight in his phantom arms. Soon, she has fallen in love with the aroma of fleshy sacrifices and the taste of celebratory wine. Soon, she is honored beyond all others with the promise of becoming his wife.

The reward of his love is something barely believable to her mind. She has given of herself so much, wished so hard, only to be denied the one thing God promised to all His children again and again. Now, this promise of love and family seems an intangible web paraded before her eyes until she reaches into the trap to be devoured. Nightmares erupt behind her eyelids when she attempts sleep, and doubt creeps in again to scream out the alarm bells.

Too much, too soon; but the desire remains hungry and twisted like gnarled roots buried in the depths of her soul. So, she agrees to the preparatory motions - the cleansings and purifications and spell bindings. There are blood sacrifices and foreign tongues from the priests, her flame-haired savior among them. They wish her to be their Queen Mother. They say she is perfect. They speak of divine rewards, of eternal love, and the family that will be hers if she just submits herself to this god's will.

And she is torn between her want and everything she has ever been taught in life. God help me, she prays again, apologizing for ignoring Him all this time and begging forgiveness. But He remains silent, and she cannot stand the empty quiet anymore. This is the God of her parents; the God of the 'rule of thumb'; the God who abandoned her countless times when she needed solace and protection. It is easy to blame Him for all the bad things for she cannot remember any good things; and though she ultimately chooses to abandon Him as He abandoned her, her hands will not obey the mental order to unclasp the cross from her neck.

She dresses with care the day of her wedding ceremony, massaging her body with scented oil before donning the flowing silk of her chemise. It seems more a baptismal gown, but it is lovely and sets off her skin perfectly. Until now, every garment has been simple and free from decoration; however, today everyone is encrusted with gold and jewels though she does not entertain how such finery was acquired. Somehow, she feels as if the scene is not real, that she is on some misplaced movie set and a director will yell, "CUT!" before the ceremony begins.

But it is not a movie set. There is no director.

The altar is covered with silk and linens, and she approaches the site of her wedding with growing trepidation. The sense of wrongness in this place returns, and she wishes the guttural chanting of her fellows would quiet for she cannot think with the echoing noise. Her savior smiles that same cutting smile that she suddenly recognizes as malice; but it is too late to turn back, and she has already turned away from one God. She will not turn from this one.

She drinks from a silver chalice the mingled blood of the entire congregation before eating a sliver of the meat roasted in their god's honor. There are words spoken as Scath is called upon to descend upon the world and claim his bride. It is not until the room erupts into a maelstrom of red light and sulfuric fumes that she begins to realize the truth of what is happening; and it is not enough to make her ignore the handsome man taking shape before her, not enough to make her stop them from stripping her nude and joining their hands.

For a moment, she is held and protected and safe. For a moment, she believes in him with everything she has been, is, and will be. For a moment, she knows peace and bliss and happiness - nirvana. His kisses are sweet upon her lips, his taste addictive upon her tongue. Their bodies touch, and she burns for more. When he spills into her, she weeps for the sinfulness of it.

Her heart is wild as they consummate their binding. Her eyes are closed until her skin cools despite his unearthly warmth. Somehow, she knows something is shifting inside of her; and he has already left her body.

It is the sniggers, guffaws, and awed gasps that force her eyes open again to reality and the veil of modesty; and when she sees the true face of her husband, she wishes she were blind or dead. Screaming, paralyzed and vulnerable, she manages to escape the altar, the Maze, the Church with nothing save her life and a mind conquered by confused panic – W-What was that! He comes after her in his beautiful human guise and his multitude of followers; and she can barely stay one step ahead.

And she can't help but wonder - when she is not contemplating death and night has fallen into the flawed silence of city life - what he's really after for she was never fanatical, never fully indoctrinated. It is several weeks before she is found half-starved by a local doctor and discovered pregnant. She cannot understand yet what that means, but she knows suddenly that she cannot kill herself now. Her faith has not allowed the existence of the being she has wed, but here in her belly grows the spawn of something alien and powerful that will drag her soul into Hell, to him.

Sleep becomes a memory as she travels cracked, graffiti stained sidewalks and white-washed buildings. She takes to begging for cash and food at corners and mom-and-pop stores, swearing to herself that this is as low as she will go. Her mind is still struggling with all that has happened even as it continues constructing frantic plans for escape and flight should they find her. There is little peace to be found on the run, and she worries that she will drive herself to insanity. Sometimes, she thinks she is already there.

Mr. Ed owns a little vendor cart where he makes hotdogs and serves ice cream everyday; and she is grateful for every scrap he throws her without asking undo questions. It frees her from begging so that she can spend time in the library, pretending she is still in school and working on a scholarly project. This is one way she reclaims her life. Contacting her friend is another.

They meet on the weekend, when there are few other bodies lurking the stacks; and she is grateful to see him again, if only to cry upon his shoulder without fear of judgment. Her belly has become rounded despite her irregular eating habits, and he places his hand upon the bump and smiles, congratulating her, before turning stoic and asking if she's in trouble.

She knows then that she cannot tell him everything, but it is good to feel companionship again. They talk of her parents - who have since been arrested for drug trafficking. She is little surprised to learn they never tried to look for her; but she is devastated at the death of her desperate belief that they had at least some measure of affection for her.

Before he is forced to leave her, she tells him to speak of her to no one then begs that he inform the police commissioner of the church and the danger they pose to innocents. He merely stares at her, putting the puzzle before him together, before kissing her cheek and promising to fulfill her request. She suddenly knows she will never see him again.

There are nights when she manages to find a bed within the security of four walls; and these are the nights she is able to rest her head and eyes and heart until the day breaks again. People stop to pat her stomach, simper in her general direction, cast flinty glances down their noses. She is ashamed and heartsick; and there are moments when she wishes to die so badly she imagines her heart stopping, killing the thing growing inside.

One night, she almost gets her wish and realizes that it is not her wish at all. She is walking the stretch of alley between Mr. Ed's cart and her bedding spot for the night when she is surrounded by shadows and smoke. There is no where to run as her 'savior' approaches her from the throng and she begins to cry, hands clutching at the worn, too-tight shirt covering the evidence of her folly. They won't have me. They can't have my baby.

It is the first time she has admitted to herself that she is pregnant, the first time she has admitted to herself that the child is hers. Something crystallizes in that moment; and it is elemental and dangerous, and she screams with the searing pain of it. They pounce then as she tries to dodge their clawing grips and snarling breath, but they are too many, too strong while she is only one and too weak.

And she is tired of letting them have all of her when she never gets anything back, sick of waiting for miracles and redemption that will never come because she has not earned it. She is not genuine with her many wishing masks and fingers pointing blame; and as they hold her down to tie her wrists and ankles, she suddenly knows that she is not the real victim, that should she continue as she has been, she will doom her child as effectively as she has doomed herself.

She struggles against them, finding a twisted kind of solace in the cacophony of labored breath, biting curses, and clanging, falling trash cans. And suddenly it is all pitch black, whooshing wind, and flesh hitting against flesh. Strong but gentle hands pull her to her feet and a harsh, tempered voice asks if she is alright.

Wide-eyed and thankful, she waits until the street lamp flickers back on and gazes into the kohl blackened eyes of Gotham's own Batman to assure him that she is. He tells her to be careful then disappears, and she has never felt so blessed. Drying her cheeks, she wades over the bodies of her fallen hunters to the music of approaching sirens, and soon finds herself standing before the doors of St. Christopher's Cathedral. The doors are locked at this time of night, but it does not stop her from placing a hand upon an etched cross and whispering a heartfelt, "Thank you."

It is days later when she realizes that her baby is half-demon. It is days later when she first glimpses the four red eyes shining through the all-too thin membrane of her stomach. It is days later when she decides that sleep is overrated because visions of this thing tearing through her stomach burn behind her eyelids. It is days later when she climbs to the top of Gotham's tallest building and makes to jump. She is sobbing and holding her middle, wishing there was another way; but she is done with hope and knows that one must bear the consequences of one's actions. Though she was manipulated, she gave herself willingly; and she cannot change the fact of her child's origins. She has already turned from God once, she will not bring His enemy into this world.

And as she prepares to take the plunge, there is the barest echo in her head of a baby's cry that grows louder as the seconds tick and her steps approach the edge. Soon, it is too much for her to take, and she stands down, dropping to her knees and weeping at her continued weakness. My baby is half human, she protests to no one. I'll raise it to be a good person, she tries to convince herself; but it bears for her to ponder, How can I raise a child to be good when I'm so worthless?

So she goes through the remaining days of her pregnancy on edge and scared until she decides to return to her parent's house with a specific purpose in mind. The place has a foreclosed sign planted in the tiny yard, but she has learned much about breaking an entering during her time living homeless, and it takes only a few seconds to pick the back door. She is blind to the dust and spider-webs, the missing cat and unnatural quiet; but her heart races and hand shakes as she lifts the nearly full bottle of sleeping pills from the false bottom of her mother's bedside drawer and dumps half of them into her open palm.

It is painful to swallow them, but she chokes them down because it is the right thing to do, the only thing she can do to erase her greatest mistake.

She did not want to live in this house, and she certainly does not want to die there. So, she makes her way out and away again, settling in a little niche between two garbage cans in a dead end alley between her old school and church. It is dirty here and smells of piss and gasoline; but she doesn't care anymore, just sings softly, words slurred and tight with tears, as her palm rests over the baby bulge.

I'm sorry, her mental voice speaks to the child, but you can't be. And she prays for forgiveness from the God whose voice is the rustling newspapers lining the street and the barking of a stray dog somewhere nearby. He has been speaking to her all this time, and she was too self absorbed to listen.

Soon, it becomes difficult to keep her eyes open, and she drifts in and out of a reeling doze when a tornado seems to touch down next to her, sucking in the trash and causing gale force winds to pummel her sluggish body. Fighting to stay awake, to defend herself, she wraps her ratty jacket tightly around her, and drags herself away from the vortex opening from the brick wall.

At another time, before she mated with a demon and became pregnant with his spawn, before she had ingested enough sleeping pills to kill a small horse, she might have been afraid or disbelieving; but she has learned the hard way that anything is possible.

A hand reaches out from the crackling, swirling dimensional whirlpool. Come, Angela. Come with us and know peace. The voice is sweet and there is a palpable selfless kindness as it speaks her name.

She cries but cannot move, her limbs conquered by chemical death; and she lays there, cheek to the dirt and slime, and thanks God for allowing her entrance into His kingdom.

Arms, warm and safe, wrap around her, hoist her up and cradle her; and she can barely stop the wrenching sobs as she tries and fails to hug this person and never let go. Another voice, male and equally kind, asks if she will accept their world as her home, learn their ways, and live as they live. She grits her teeth against the whimpers threatening her speech, but manages to nod whole-heartedly, not understanding where or what their home is, only wanting to enjoy whatever after-life she might be granted.

When she wakes it is with pain searing through her entire body and the smell of incense hanging heavily in the air. She is naked beneath a thin blanket of white-gray wool and surrounded by white-gray walls of stone and marble. There is a clay basin near her head; and she realizes that she is lying on the floor of a strange house.

"Please remain still. Your body has been through much. Rest is still needed." A gentle hand smoothes her hair back before cupping her cheek. She murmurs that she isn't dead and is answered by lips pressing against her forehead and the words, "And we are very glad that it is not so."

It is the first time anyone - including her friends - has expressed happiness at the notion of just her existence and it brings tears to her eyes. The woman tending her is older, perhaps thirty, with hair of gold shot with silver and eyes that echo the slate veined marble of the walls. She is assured that the baby does well, and her hands move at once to cup the expanse of her midsection.

She still knows no affection for this thing inside her for she cannot get past the horror of how it came to be. However, her heart beats a little steadier knowing she did not commit the ultimate of sins; and she soon falls into a healing sleep that is deep and free of horror-filled dreams.

When she wakes a second time, it is with the knowledge that she is still laying upon the floor, firm cushions cradling her back and legs. Darkness has fallen and is chased away by torches and an odd glowing powder strewn around her makeshift bed.

Pushing herself up, she is overcome by the smiling face that greets her again; and in what seems an eternity, she finally feels safe and cared for. Words are exchanged, and she is smiling when the gray woman hands her a cup of steaming tea, a plate of biscuits. Both are bland, but she would be hard-pressed to name a meal she has enjoyed more.

Azar is the woman's name, and it is weeks before she understands this person's importance in this world. There are many talks and inquiries and questioning looks, but she never feels on display or maligned. There is only green peace and simplicity here, and Azar makes it clear that she is no prisoner, that she is free to go should she wish it though it would be ill advised.

And that is what Azar becomes to her: a guiding hand and conscience. The older woman is refreshingly honest, undeniably bold, and unerringly wise beneath an evident sort of humility. It is what makes Azar a great leader in her jaded eyes - a charming air of deferment while being firmly decisive.

Azar refers to her always as 'Arella' though the High Priestess knows her true name. But she never begs to hear the syllables of her birth moniker for 'Angela' died upon a wedding altar and would prefer to stay dead. So, she suffers through the rest of her pregnancy in silent reverie concerning where she is and where she is going while looking up to Azar's pristine example.

And though Azar has taken responsibility for her, the gray woman does not prod for stories of the past, does not question the bulge of her belly. Soon enough, she understands that Azar simply knows.

Her child's birth pains begin in the cool light of morning while she is fetching water for tea; and she nearly falls into the river with the intensity of it. It is a prelude to the fire that scorches her inside and out, to the days of total agony that wrack her body to the brink of death. She begs them to kill it before it can tear out of her, begs someone to please make the pain stop. But they are all calm in the face of her panic and soon enough she is relieved and exhausted as the girl-child is pulled out and wrapped in homespun blankets of dove gray.

Tears still wet upon her cheeks, she gazes up at the bundle, this thing that has caused her so much misery and forced her on this journey that crossed soul deep fear, desperation, death, dimensions, and peace. She remembers the protective impulse she had felt when attacked in the alley and saved by the Batman. She recalls the moment she claimed this tiny girl as hers.

Eager but trembling hands, reach out to touch and hold, but she is denied the simple contact as the priestesses take the child away under Azar's grief-tinged supervision.

There are so many things she doesn't understand, doesn't want to understand when she is told she will never see, speak, or touch her own child, this little Halfling whose sire yet searches for her.

And her great fear was once that she deserved everything she has suffered. Now it is that she had been wrong all along and that she loves this child, that this baby - who looks so human but boasts the blood of the King of Demons - is the answer to all her prayers; but mostly that she will never be worthy of her daughter's forgiveness for never putting up a fight.

Notes: Not EXACTLY comic canon but pretty close – as presented in the New Teen Titans graphic novel "Family Lost." I'm not positive if Angela's parents were physically abusive, but they are here.

This is a prequel to my yet-to-be-completed TT Raven-centric epic, Walk on Water.

And a great big THANK YOU to Emaniahilel who was kind enough to take a look at this baby for me. She is the sole reason for whatever edits I made to the draft you see here (Go check out her stuff if you haven't already – you will NOT be sorry!)