Hi guys, I'm back. So some of you asked why Klarion says his spells backwards, even though the only like he did it was to mock Zatanna. Well the answer is simple as I LOVE hearing Klarion speak spells instead of just conjuring them. Plus it adds to the intensity of the story.
Title: Slender Man, Slender Fingers
Summary: Everyone has a talent. Be it Wally and eating everything in sight, Dick with his acrobatics, or Artemis with her bow. So naturally Klarion must have a secret talent too, right? It's just a matter of weather you pay enough attention to see, or hear, it.
Artemis can take a lot. She can spend hours a day training and taking meta human punches. Can hold back the string of a bow without her fingers cramping or arm muscles twitching in pain. She can take a lot, but only so much. There's no way she'd ever let anyone hear her admit or think that. (M'gann has a bad habit of opening her mind to others on accident. Like a door you want to close but won't fit in the jammer, so it stays open every so slightly instead of fitting every so nicely.)
So sometimes to try and calm her racing mind or electric beating heart she'll take walks around the mountain. Through dark tunnels with flickering lights, into brightly lit rooms, to storage halls that have been forgotten. Covered in dusty snow that gives way to her boots as she steps across the floors of cold concrete.
A few months ago Artemis had found a room, it was filled with a strange collection of anythings and everythings. Old instruments, mostly. Large violins and small guitars, harps, drums, and so many more. However her favorite piece of the entire room was the large shinning black grand piano that rested in perfectly in the middle of the room. Elegant white keys clashing with small black ones. So strange and perfect, kept in perfect condition despite the state of abandonment the room held.
To Artemis the piano was perfect. Because even though she couldn't pay she liked to sit on the bench that was the instrument's partner and run her fingers over the slick keys for hours. It was so soothing, she couldn't explain it. (She's not good with words. She speaks through her actions, violent and rough. Cold) But she knew somehow to go there, remembered the twists and turns of the halls to reach the room like the back of her hand, or strings of her bow. And when things and problems and pressure piles onto her back so much to the point she thinks maybe she can't hold it anymore and her spine will snap. Puncture her heart and everything will come tumbling out and crashing down like a wave to sand, she goes to the room, and sits and just-breathes. The air may be heavy and itch her lungs. She doesn't care. (For once.)
Something's different today though. When she reaches within ten feet of the door to the room, she hears it. A noise. It's beautiful. Someone's playing the piano, she realizes. Excitement and shock grip her gut as she sneaks closer to snoop. (Investigate, thank you very much. Artemis doesn't snoop.) The melody is dark and storms, rain and lightning and sorrow. It's tragic and mesmerizing. Almost like a funeral, she thinks. Stepping close so her hand can grip the door and keep it from moving, she peeks her head in, as not to disturb the player.
Black horns and long claws are not what she's expecting. Not pale snow skin and obsidian eyed boys. Not Klarion the Witch Boy.
That's who it is though. She can't think her mind is playing tricks on her, she can see Klarion's shoulder blades flexing as he applies pressure to the ivory keys and the way he slightly sways to reach higher or lower notes out of arms reach. He looks lost in his tragic lullaby and Artemis can't seem to find it in herself to open the door. So she slowly pulls the door shut as not to make noise.
As she's sneaking away she can almost imagine she hears Klarion whisper, "Around, around in Limbo Town."
It's just her mind, she says. And walks away, and well, if she maybe hums a tragic lullaby when she helps M'gann make dinner that night. She pretends not to notice.
Later that night when they are all gathered around the kitchen table and Wally's stuffing pie in his mouth and Robin's cackling at him, when Kaldur is trying to be the adult but isn't really doing anything to make the two stop their antics. When Connor slips Wolf a few treats, or M'gann smiles at them all. Artemis sometimes watches Klarion's fingers drumming the table in annoyance while he restrains himself from insulting them, and thinks of them creating a different spell with sounds and sadness.
"Around, around...in Limbo Town." she whispers to herself.
Artemis thinks maybe she needs to do some research on Klarion.
