A/N: I don't know if this is normal for authors, but every time I read a kind review, or I find out that someone favorited or is following my fic, I get these happy little jitters that either gives me a massive happy high that transforms into energy that I use to continue writing, or I get this warm, cozy feeling that automatically drops me in the zone I'm in when I write my best work. I've never really written a story before, and posting my first one on here makes me less worried that people are just telling me it's great because they don't want to hurt my feelings.
Another big thank you to Ju5t An0th3r H3d63h06, as well. I've started relying on your reviews to gauge the quality of each chapter (I'm so much of a perfectionist, I can no longer trust my own judgment), and I'm happy that someone has noticed and mentioned my grammar, as it is one of the three things in my writing that I pride myself on. I'm also really happy that my spelling is okay, because without the power of the almighty spell-check, my spelling would be atrocious.
*giggle* Ju5t An0th3r H3d63h06 thinks my author's notes are funny. :) And I didn't have to mooch any jokes off my sister to write them. Ju5t An0th3r H3d63h06, I dub you my new best friend. Everyone, please enjoy this new chapter while I go romp and frolic in a field of flowers.
Disclaimer: Look at the A/N. Does it say I give a darn who owns the Teen Titans as long as they let me write about 'em? Yeah, didn't think so.
I also don't own the nicknames Speedy uses for Bumblebee and Aqualad in this chapter.
For the first time in years, Terra woke up feeling refreshed.
And then she gasped for air for a full half-minute before she realized she wasn't drowning. But, when one considers her surroundings at the time, it was a perfectly understandable mistake.
Out of the four walls of the room she was in, three were glass, stopping the crystal water on the other side from flooding in. The walls next to and facing the bed were windows, while the wall behind the bed was a wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling uninhabited fish tank. The fourth wall, with the door, was painted a soft blue, a shade darker than the sea-green carpet, and bordered on the top and bottom by dark purple wallpaper printed with a simple, subtle, vaguely Greek design. A bookshelf stood against the same wall as the door, the top two-thirds overflowing with books, pictures, and an odd jumble of knickknacks, and the other one-third consisting of three levels of drawers: four square ones at the top, two rectangular ones below, and a single, wide, shallow one at the bottom. On the other side of the room, a desk sat in the corner opposite the bed, both facing the same direction. The final pieces of furniture in the room were a sofa set against the same wall as the bed, near the shelf, a small side table, and a window seat built into the back wall, running from the corner to the foot of the bed, with slanted, pillow-like armrests and cushions of the same muted purple color as the sofa. All the furniture, including the bed frame and the cupboard-lined lower part of the window seat, was made of the same blue-green material that could only be described as a type of grainless wood, with a clear varnish seemingly made by cross-breeding scratch-resistant glass with a soap-bubble. Oh, did I mention the wall wasn't the only part of the room that imitated the windows? The ceiling was a fish tank, too. That's right, the freaking ceiling.
This, coupled with the rippling light from the windows and the overall medium blue/green/purple color scheme, gave the impression that the room was underwater, rather than simply below sea-level.
Obviously, you don't need to be a brain surgeon to figure out where she was.
*linebreak*
When Garth woke up, he was confused for a moment as to where he was and why he was there. Then he felt the person next to him shift slightly, and his unique purple blush began spreading itself across not only his face, but also his ears, neck, and possibly his entire body, deepening when he remembered exactly where they were.
"What on EARTH was I thinking when I brought her HERE, out of all the rooms in the tower?"
"You awake?" He heard his temporary bed-mate say.
"Uh-huh."
Terra sat up half-way, eliciting a sloshing sound from the water-bed's mattress as it rocked gently beneath its inhabitants.
"Is this your room?"
He grinned, calmed somewhat by Terra's apparent lack of awkwardness.
"How'd you guess?" He joked.
"Well, aside from the fact that when I woke up, I almost died before I realized the water wasn't inside the room..." She giggled back, lying back down and snuggling beneath the silky, midnight blue blankets. (A/n: Blankets. Not sheets. Blankets.)
Garth glanced around the room and nodded solemnly.
"That might have something to do with it."
"Yep." She answered, turning her head towards the window.
"Nice view of the ocean, though." The blond observed, gazing at the other world on the other side of the glass.
"Best there is outside of Atlantis."
"Really?"
He nodded and shrugged.
"As far as I know."
Terra wasn't even going to try to visualize what an ocean view from Atlantis looked like. She'd traveled enough to know that this was just one of those things you couldn't imagine.
Instead, she turned her attention to the room's interior.
"I've never seen furniture like yours before. Where did you find it?"
"I didn't." He admitted ruefully. "I got it as an extremely over-expensive housewarming gift from Orin and Mera."
"Who-and-who-now?"
"My adoptive parents."
"Oh."
Garth wondered why, during his first early morning on the surface that ever felt this right, he had that weird feeling people get when they felt like something bad was going to happen.
"Hey, Fishstick." Garth stiffened.
Yep. That would be why.
"It's like an hour after you usually get up in the morning and Bumbleb*tch said..." Speedy trailed off as the door slid open, then promptly had to stifle a laugh. "Am I interrupting?"
Speedy was escorted out of the room by a barrage of pillows.
*linebreak*
By the time breakfast was over, Terra was satisfied that the team was convinced of two things: she was sleeping in Garth's room the way a scared little kid would sleep in their parent's room (as worded by Speedy), and she wasn't above attacking Speedy with a heavy marble rolling-pin (an attack he eagerly reciprocated with the biggest skillet he had on hand).
Now, however, she was planning on doing something a bit more calming than having an improv sparring match with a fellow teenager.
She was going to sketch her next sculpture.
Who knew? Maybe the sketch would end up being one of the ones she turned into a drawing after the sculpture was done.
"Now," She thought as she walked down the sidewalk-sized beach, sketchbook and camera (for photo references) in hand.
"if only I could find something to ske..." Her train of thought completely derailed as her eyes alighted on a scene that one would normally never see outside of an illustration for some ancient, glowingly written epic.
Slowly, almost reverently, she lifted the camera and took a picture, not taking the risk that her unknowing models would move before she finished the rough sketch, which was most definitely going to end up as a drawing once she had finished the work she had planned on.
"Target acquired."
*linebreak*
"Someone is watching us."
Garth stiffened for the second time in about two hours, before relaxing again, turning his wistful gaze back homewards and sighing in resignation.
"Speedy with his fishing pole aimed for my shirt?"
"No. She is female. She does not look like the winged one either."
"Is she one of the male-crazed females?"He asked, panicking slightly, using the dolphin term for "crazed fangirls".
"No. She is sitting calmly, making no attempt to either hide or draw attention to herself, and her eyes lack the trademark glint of greed and lust."
"If you have any sympathy in your heart, you will never use the word "lust" or anything associated with that word to describe one of those things again."
The dolphin glanced at him, amused.
"Well, after the last one-"
"Please just tell me what she looks like."
"Her skin is the kind surface-worlders call "Caucasian", and her eyes and hair appear to be similar in color to those of your father and younger brother."
"Terra?"He thought in surprise, starting to turn around.
"Please don't move yet. I just have a little bit more to go before I can start using the photo reference."
"Photo reference?" He glanced suspiciously at his marine companion.
"How long was she here before you told me?"
The dolphin smiled, or at least did something close to a smile.
"About half an hour."
"Have I ever told you how much I hate your sense of humor?"
"Yes, yes you have."
A/N: Food? Sleep? What kind of lazy bum still has time for stuff like that? The scary part of that sentence is I was only half kidding. I have had problems falling asleep for as long as I can remember (My self-imposed bedtime is 2 AM), and no one can tell that I chose reading, writing, and letting my glutton of a muse pig out every night in favor of lying in bed, wasting my time waiting to get sleepy (Don't tell my mom though, she still thinks I only stay up past midnight on New Year's Eve). Did I mention that I don't drink coffee (otherwise known as bitterness in a cup) to accomplish this? And as for food, dinnertime in my house is two-and-a-half hours longer than it needs to be. So yes, I have better things to do with my time than eat and sleep.