We were a family in every sense of the word. Dick mused quietly as his thoughts drifted off like the barely-there smoke rising up into the night and the chatter of voices around him faded into white noise in his ears. There was Mom & Dad, Uncle & Auntie and Cousin John & nine-year old men, Richard 'Dick' Grayson.

The golden glow of dying sparks dancing in the night easily turned to the glittering lights of the Big Top, the coal littered fire pit faded to the roaring crowds that attended the circus day in and day out. Behind his eyelids, he saw the striped roof of the tent, smelt the stale scent peanuts and popcorn in the air. Litter crumpled underfoot and the scree of the high wire sang in his ear.

We were the ones the audiences were always coming to see, thrilled by the soaring spectacle that brought hoards to Jack Haly's circus. The dangerous tricks of our high-flying trapeze act were well known throughout the acrobatic circuit too, and to everyone else, they only knew us as the Flying Graysons! Sometimes, I can still hear the roar of the crowds as Mr Haly introduced us to the masses.

Shiny red chests puffed up with pride and emblazoned with golden-winged suits clung to their bodies like a second skin. His mother and his aunt both wore frilly skirts that fluttered in the breeze whenever they flipped or flew (which was often). The trapeze was an old friend, mother had often said because he was a Grayson, he was born to fly and he agreed. He loved to fly! Loved it more than anything…except maybe his family.

I never knew either of my grandfathers, they died long before I was born. But Jack Haly—the owner of the circus, Master Showman & Ringmaster—was certainly the closest thing to a grandfather I'd ever had. That any of us had ever had, really. Jack loved everyone like family and we loved him. It was undoubtedly the happiest time of my life!

Ringmaster Jack Haly was a rotund and jolly fellow, like Santa Claus but in a top hat and tails. He had sideburns that framed grandfatherly wrinkles and crow's feet that pinched at his eyes; his hair had been grey back then, but it was probably white by now. And yet, Dick could still picture the benevolent old man wearing bedazzled rainbow suspenders (a gift from his granddaughter) with matching bowtie and plain slacks. His top hat & cane was never too far from reach either.

Until the worst night of my life happened. A crime boss by the name of Zucco, was trying to extort money from Haly's Circus. The problem was that Mr Haly ran an honest business and refused to pay him any protection money. Zucco didn't like that and he made his opinions known in the most cruelest of ways.

Zucco was the slimy sort, running around the underbelly of Gotham like one of the many greasy rats that lined the sewers. Often pictured wearing that grey two piece suit and fedora, he didn't exactly fit in with the brightly coloured birds of Haly's Circus. He and his boys often stood out like sore thumbs whenever they haunted the fairgrounds and yet when the crowds filled the place, they quickly found themselves lost in the fuss. In that sense, Zucco was like a chameleon.

As with all the greatest troupes, we had our own signature move(s)—it was the finale of our performance—and all performed without a net! It was the one that had made the Flying Graysons famous and the reason why everyone came to see us! I was the youngest of the troupe, so Father said I wasn't allowed to be involved with the most dangerous stunts the Flying Graysons ever performed. Even though I would ask every night, and be turned down every night. Instead, I watched them perform this routine a hundred times over until it was engraved into my eyelids.

Heels off, hocks saltos, straddle whips and birdie's. Knee hangs, somersaults, hip circles, cutaways and pirouettes. Shooting stars, splits, whips and piggybacks. Legs, overs, unders and penny rolls. Cut catches, half turns, straight jumps and layouts. Shoots, leaps, planches and twisting doubles to triples. Dick watched them all. Bodies contorted into impossibly twisted positions, beautiful figures that soared high above the roaring and awestruck crowds with no net between them. They were like pretty crimson birds, like robins.

But no one could deny that I had the best seat in the house! Every time the workers would take away the net, I would be sat on the platform—the one on the centre pole—and I would look down and watch as the rope cage disappeared, rolled up tight & tucked out of sight as my family took up their positions around me.

"No net!" The crowd would roar, "This is what we came to see!"

Dick heaved a great and heavy sigh that almost seemed to blow right through him. At his side, Wally spared a concerned brow in his direction but the boy wonder didn't reply to the silent query, and instead stared resolutely at the dying flames. The air felt heavy, but that may have just been in his head.

At times like this, I was certainly jealous of my older cousin and secretly wanted to be out there, flying in his place. But John would always ruffle my hair and tell me not to worry, that my time would come soon enough. Instead, he'd tell me secret stories, words whispered behind wicked grins of his first time up on the wire, how he'd ripped his pants wide open in his debut, how auntie always insisted on caking his face in make-up despite the crowd being unable to see that far up; on and on he'd ramble until Dick no longer felt sour with disappointment. He always knew the right thing to say.

Dick always pictured his older cousin as tall & strong, like an oak, like his uncle and his father. People liked John…but sometimes they liked him a little too much. Like that pretty Lloyd girl that he'd meet behind the tents. Mother never approved of her, even though they were all technically family. It was this whole thing—a family feud that stretched back to the Great War—something about the supposed theft of a horse and the death of a Snake Charmer back before Dick was born.

Then it happened. You could FEEL the air being sucked out of the tent, followed by complete & utter silence. Then a scream. It's funny, but I didn't hear much of anything after that. Everything sort of fell into a tunnel vision…a lot of things happened after that. Most of them were a blur, even if I concentrate, I don't think I would be able to say exactly what order things happened in.

Dick could barely remember climbing down the swaying ladder as he hurried down to family. There had been hands grabbing at him, holding him back. Tears that blinded his vision even as he stared down at crimson suits that suddenly seemed too red. Someone had turned him away from the scene—the scent of old cigars and Tiger Balm, told him it was Mr Haly. But that didn't matter, awkwardly bent limbs and unseeing eyes were burnt into his brain, engraved into his eyelids just as the Flying Graysons routine had been. Only this time, he hadn't needed to see it happen again—could barely remember seeing it once—to memorise it all.

Everyone was dead & gone. My mother & father dead, my auntie & cousin John dead, leaving only my uncle alive. Broken and shattered, but alive. Somehow the fall hadn't managed to kill him like the others, but it did leave him fully paralysed for the rest of his life and therefore unable to take care of me. So much for circus sticks together.

At the time, Dick had hated his uncle for what had happened. Hated him for turning him away, hated that he didn't want him anymore, hated that he got to live while his parents had to die. It was childish and cruel, he knew, but there was no one else to blame. That didn't mean he didn't weep for his uncle, he did, but those tears also held something more than grief in them. Something, that he was pretty sure his uncle could see because he noted how much of his mother's wrath he could see in him.

The next crystal clear thing I remember was the elusive and stalwart billionaire, Bruce Wayne. Instead of his uncle, Bruce Wayne came to my rescue and let me become part of HIS family. He'd gone through something similar when he was younger and I guess he saw himself in me, at least that's what Alfred (his butler & my pseudo uncle) had told me. We worked together, trained together, fought together and lived together. It was a time of rehabilitation and of revenge, because of this partnership, we were able to weed out Zucco & bring him to justice! And in the end, that was how Robin was born.

"What about you, Rachel?" M'gann inquired curiously as she smiled at the sight of the young witch practically asleep already. It was well passed her curfew by this point, honestly it was a wonder that she was even conscious at all.

"Hm?" Rachel hummed tiredly as she blinked languidly at the martian across the campsite. Thankfully M'gann seemed to have calmed down from her sugar rush at least a little bit.

"How'd you become a hero?"

"Oh um" Rachel stammered as she sat up a little, despairing only slightly over the loss of gentle fingers soothingly carding through her hair. These were new friends, if she could even call them that and she didn't want to tell them what she had done to get here. What would they do if they found out about the prophecy? (In reality, it was less of a prophecy and more of a promise because dead or alive, Trigon would use his children as gates)."It's really not as interesting as everyone elses"

"C'me on!" Wally grinned encouragingly, "What's your story?"

"Uh, w-well I was born on Earth"

THE GEM WAS BORN OF EVIL'S FIRE

The babe lay wreathed in molten cloth, a single crimson gem sat snugly in the middle of her forehead, right between her barely-there brows which announcing to the world just who had sired her. The Apostles of Trigon crowded around her cradle where it sat nestled upon the altar and sang their praises & hymns with a reverence not oft found outside of Churches or cults. But with a Father like hers and a foolish Mother to boot, it was not like the babe had much of a chance; particularly with a name like Munin Rachel Roth.

"But then we—my mother & I—moved off-world, to a place called Azarath"

"Aza~rath?" M'gann puzzled, brows furrowed as she sounded out the new & strange word. "I don't think I've heard of it before. Is it some kind of planet?"

"Uh, not—not quite" Rachel barely held back the wince that threatened to make itself known.

"Is it perhaps more like Atlantis?" Kaldur suggested.

"Uh, no…not really" Rachel shook her head.

"Then what is it?!" Wally cried, more than a little confused.

"It's…it's kinda hard to explain" Rachel bit her lip in thought, "It's more like…like the Tower"

"The Tower of Fate?" Said Robin as he blinked out of whatever funk he'd fallen into.

"Mmhm" Rachel hummed. "It's like a seperate realm tied to this plane. Something that is neither quite here nor there"

"That doesn't make any sense" Wally groused, "How can something be here, but not here?"

"Says the guy who can break the sound barrier in his sneakers" Robin retorted with a grin.

THE GEM SHALL BE HIS PORTAL

Finally reaching the end of her rope, Arella (Rachel's mother) fled the Apostles of Trigon cult with her toddler in her arms. She'd been young & rebellious when she'd joined the cult, gullible when she'd agreed to do the classic Bride-of-Satan ritual and foolish when she'd bedded the horned creature who'd stepped from the smoke, however alluring he may have been. But those charming words of his that dripped like honey were soon gone, replaced by the wailing cries of her daughter as she demanded to be fed with the sort of demonic urgency that reminded her of him. More than once, she'd thought of ending it all. Permanently.

And then, like guardian angels, the monks had found them where they had stood perched precariously walking along the razor's edge, too afraid to go on and too afraid to return. Arella was unafraid to admit that she'd wept when the ivory-cloaked monks had swept the two up into open arms and taken them away to a land quite unlike their own. It was there, in Azarath (so named for their ancient leader, Azar, who watched over them all) that they'd finally make a life for themselves.

"And we lived there—grew up there—for a time. It was there that the monks taught me the mystic arts: healing, empathy and the like" Rachel smiled as she remembered the glistening city made of stone.

"That sounds like the great priests and priestesses of Mars!" M'gann chirped, her eyes alight with wonder and kinship.

"There appears to be a certain level of similarity between atlantean sorcery as well" Kaldur agreed.

"Yeah?" Rachel smiled.

"Tch" Wally scoffed derisively, unable to hide his contempt at the reverence of a craft that he neither believed in nor trusted.

"What?" Rachel scowled irritably at the blatant disbelief painted across the speedster's entire being. "You don't believe in magic?"

"W-well, I—" Wally stammered, eyes wide as he was suddenly called out by a witch he knew very well could do some pretty nasty things to him if he pissed her off. "I—I never said that—"

"But you were thinking it" Robin hissed out of the corner of his mouth, eager to see how this would play out.

"You're not helping!" Wally replied in kind as he spared a quick glance over at the two magical practitioners behind him—one of which he was trying his hardest to impress.

"This magic that the monks taught you" Kaldur interjected before Wally dug himself a deeper grave, "How does it work?"

"Hm?"

"In Atlantis, we have the use of runes and tools, like my water-bearers & tattoos"

"It's a pretty secretive art on Mars, but I've heard the priests & priestesses use prayer" M'gann added.

"Oh, well, I s'pose there's an element of both" Rachel replied as she pushed herself upright to ready herself for a demonstration. A petty & vindictive part of her mostly just wanted to do this to show Wally just how real magic was. "The language of our mystic arts is as old as Azar herself. The monks of antiquity called the use of this language 'spells'. But if that word offends your modern sensibilities, you can call it…a 'programme"

"The source code that shapes reality" Robin hummed, easily following the analogy as he elbowed his friend in the gut for his mindless comments.

"Mmhm" Rachel unabashedly sneered at the speedster who cowered sheepishly under her glare and Robin's muffled laughter. Shaking out her fingers, Rachel then proceeded to demonstrate her point by moulding a familiar four-eyed raven out of the shadow magic she loved so dearly. "We harness the energies drawn from within ourselves and other planes of the multiverse to cast spells" The dark blob grew wings that stretched wide, two spindly legs dropped as they were pulled down like taffy, pinched fingers pulled forth a curved beak that could cut steel and four beady eyes glowed red from inside its inanimate skull. "To conjure shields & weapons, to heal & hurt, to make magic!" As if to emphasise her point, the newly born raven surged forward, talons outstretched for the speedster who'd scorned her. It dissipated before it reached him, but Wally still flailed about as if hit.

"…That wasn't very nice!" Wally gasped dramatically, hand clutching to his jackhammering heart with eyes blown wide at the display. Rachel merely grinned in response.

HE COMES TO CLAIM

There had been troubles and problems as time went on, because of course no place nor person was perfect, including Rachel—especially Rachel. But taught by Azar, Rachel (not Munin—that was HIS name, not hers) had flourished into a sorceress that any mother could be proud of, taking to the mystic arts like a duck to water. Not that everyone else had the same view of her; most days she rarely left the temples. She'd already been told how one of the other monks had tried to chuck her out into the void as a toddler, so as to avoid wrath of Trigon in the future. Thankfully, that attempt hadn't worked, but things like that didn't really change over the years, people just got sneakier.

"You were saying?" Robin prompted, unable to hide the mischievous grin that mirrored her own.

"Uh yeah…where was I?" Rachel murmured to herself.

"Azarath?"

"Oh yeah! I lived in Azarath until I was eight, and then my father showed up to take custody of me. So I went to live with him"

"How'd he find you if you were in another realm?" Conner pondered.

"He has his ways" Rachel replied ominously as she slumped back into her previous spot, only this time Hugin, her familiar emerged from her shadow and hopped up into her lap as she answered her silent call for comfort. Just as Conner's fingers had carded through her tresses earlier, her own fingers moved through blackened feathers in a soothing manner of comfort.

"What's that?" Robin inquired, brow furrowing at the strange bird. If he didn't know any better he'd have said it was the creature that the young witch had formed from the shadows to scare Wally.

"Who? This?" Rachel replied, pausing only briefly in her ministrations at the question. "This is Hugin, my familiar"

"Familiar?"

"Yeah, everyone has one"

"Have you always had…that?"

"She's always been with me"

"Then how come we've never seen her before?"

"Just because you've never seen her before, doesn't mean she wasn't there"

HE COMES TO SIRE

Unlike the peacefulness of Azarath or the chaos of Earth, Trigon's realm—Gehenna—was what one might refer to as 'Hell' Another pocket of space dedicated to the Lords & Ladies of Chaos who fought so hard to protect—disrupt—the balance of the universe against the Lords & Ladies of Order.

Rachel had been only eight years old when she'd arrived in Gehenna, clutched tight in her Father's strong arms, cloak still smouldering from where she'd summoned him to learn about the sire her mother refused to talk about, to learn WHY people of her homeland hated her so. Needless to say, she had NOT expected the destruction & death that had followed in his wake.

Wide-eyed & terrified, Rachel had barely squeaked when she was shoved into a second pair of arms, these ones just as ancient & elemental as her Father (if only a few millennia younger). His voice sounded harsh on her ears like sandpaper, and yet there was a quality there that made her want to listen as he commanded this new person to raise her. Rachel would soon come to learn that as the youngest of Trigon's children, she was no more than a babe in the eyes of her Father and his family.

"And then about six months ago, I met Kent Nelson and he decided to tutor me" Rachel ended.

"Just like that?" Robin puzzled, unable to believe that the ever elusive Doctor Fate would pick an apprentice so easily.

"He said I had potential" She shrugged, unable to swallow the yawn that burst through her lips.

"Why Fate?" Wally pursued.

"Huh?"

"Why the Doc? Why not Zatara? Or that British guy?"

"Constantine?" Robin tried.

"No, the other one"

"Kipling?"

"Uh…I guess? Why not them?"

"Eh~Constantine doesn't like kids and Kipling doesn't do…people" Rachel replied as she tiredly scrubbed at her eyes in an attempt to stay awake. It wasn't working. "As for Zatara? Well, he just doesn't like me very much"

"Why? If I may ask?" Kaldur piped up.

"Apparently creatures of chaos are 'dark' and 'evil' and 'not to be trusted' blah, blah, blah…" Rachel replied, tone clearly unimpressed.

THE END OF ALL THINGS MORTAL

Finding her anchor had been a complete fluke. Her sudden arrival had scared off the old man on the bench who had been feeding the birds (a collection of pigeons, sparrows and a stray corvus). The bonding of familiar to witch had been done easily enough, turning the regular bird into the four-eyed raven she'd come to know as Hugin, and soon enough Rachel found herself grounded on the Earthen plane thanks to her new anchor.

The fact that her familiar & anchor had turned out to be a raven of all things, still tickled her pink whenever she thought about it. Klarion Bleak—one of her MANY step-siblings—had been the one to christen her with the nickname 'Raven'. He had this weird thing with Earthen animals, including a fondness for cats (likely biased due to his feline familiar) and a particular dislike for armadillos.

But the arrival of a Lady of Chaos was not going to go unnoticed, particularly by a Lord of Order. Doctor Fate had arrived shortly after the young cambion had returned to her motherland, with a young and wary Zatara at his side. As sorcerers of light magic, they had been cautious of the young witch who wielded so much potential power. Age did not matter, appearances were easy enough to change, but one's true magical worth was hard to hide.

Zatara had been all for destroying or containing her & her familiar (for one cannot REALLY hold a being of chaos in place for too long), but Fate had other ideas. It was unprecedented for beings of Order & Chaos to mingle as they did (though no more than Klarion & Savage's relationship), but Kent Nelson had always been a persuasive man and with a keen eye for such talents. Fate could not deny him.

The revelation of Zatara's supposed dislike of Rachel didn't sit right with M'gann. She wasn't sure why a fellow sorcerer (one whom she'd never met, mind you) had such a fervid dislike for a child. One hand the Leaguer was a trusted friend & colleague of Uncle J'onn, but so was Fate and he had taken the child on as an apprentice. On the other hand, in the short time that she'd known the young witch, Rachel had been nothing but sweet—powerful, yes—but sweet. An image that was unshaken as the martian watched her valiantly fight against the exhaustion which had been plaguing her for most of the night, tucked between the log & Conner's leg.

"Hey! You haven't told us your story" Wally smiled as he turned from the dozing witch who had curled up around her familiar like it was a teddy bear and spared a glance over at the martian behind him. "What's the dealio with you, M'gann?"

"Oh…" M'gann blinked, "Okay, since all of you told your stories…I guess…well, um, I'm from Mars—Ugh! Hello Megan! You guys already knew that! So what can I…? Uh…Ooh! I know! I can tell you about Mars! So, all martians live in underground cities because the surface is uninhabitable"

It had only been a few months since M'gann had been standing on martian soil, but she could still picture the scarlet caverns that framed the subterranean cities which hung from the ceiling like stalactites and bejewelled in a thousand gemstones. And then there were the people themselves, hordes of green, red and white martians all mingling together (but not always so cohesively). She could still hear the numerous voices that chattered in her mind of the people around her. Sometimes she would drop her mental filters just to see how many snippets of conversation she could stitch together to form a ridiculous story for her mind only. It was quite fun, until her parents found out and she had to stop.

"Our family lives are very intertwined, y'see and as you already know, we mostly communicate telepathically. This form of communication is used to help larger martian families maintain a sense of community and stay closer"

"Large?" Rachel murmured, "How many are there in your family?"

"Oh! That's right! You said you had an extended family too, didn't you Rachel?"

"Mm"

"Well, martian families are usually quite large—much larger than any human family. I have twelve sisters and seventeen brothers! And in my extended family, there are over three hundred cousins!"

"Three—three hundred?!" Wally choked.

"…Yes?" M'gann replied hesitantly.

"Are they all hot girls, like you?" He grinned lecherously in an attempt to cover the blush that danced beneath his freckles in embarrassment.

"Wow" Robin drawled sarcastically, "You are a class act"

"Dude!" Wally exclaimed in a not-so-quiet stage whisper, "Three hundred girls that all look like her? Now, that's a planet I'd wanna visit!"

"Well, actually" Piped up M'gann. "Half of my cousins are males, but yes, most martians look very similar. There are three types of martians too! Green ones, like myself & Uncle J'onn, red ones who're martian royalty and white ones who're not always seen as equals, which is ridiculous!"

"What makes you say that?" Conner pondered, lips pursed in thought.

"Uh, my parents are green & white, so I was raised in what you might call a 'liberal' type of environment" She replied, a little more subdued than before. "My family—I—had no issue with the white martians, but others were not so tolerant and the treatment of the white martians was especially horrific"

"Oh"

There was a beat of silence as the idea that Mars wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, settled in. Unfortunately, the mood had turned sombre at her words, and it was quickly becoming uncomfortable (particularly for M'gann who seemed to be taking the whole white-martian-inferiority-thing personally). Ever the graceful leader, Kaldur decided to step in, in an attempt to divert the tension.

"How—how did you happen to come to Earth?" Kaldur wondered, only slightly stumbling over his words.

"Oh! That's easy!" M'gann brightened as if returned to the present by his words, "Of all my siblings, parents, uncles & aunts, the family member I'm closest to is my Uncle J'onn. We've got a great relationship! We would watch the television recordings of his exploits on Earth with the rest of the Justice League, all the time! He grew to be this true beacon of hope and stood for what our society could achieve and he's currently the most famous martian in history! After Queen Z'ia, of course"

"Queen Z'ia?" Robin asked.

"She was the warrior queen who slayed the Florbag in combat"

"Ok~ay?"

"Anyway, upon Uncle's return to Mars, it was declared a day of planetwide celebration! Like your Earthly festivities for the Santy Claus—"

"—Santa Claus—" Wally amended.

"—And when he came back, it wasn't just for the adulation of our people, but also because he had a specific purpose in mind. Having learnt about all of you—Robin, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Raven & Speedy—Uncle J'onn decided that now was the time to introduce a younger martian hero to Earth" M'gann steamrolled on, unencumbered by Wally's interjection. "He declared that he would hold a competition to find the next martian champion who would return to Earth with him! It felt like half of the martian population decided to enter the contest—myself included—but I knew that I was coming to Earth!"

M'gann's gaze grew glazed over and dreamy as she recalled the roaring crowds that filled the capital's stadium. The arena had been filled with all kinds of assessments that tested every level of their combat abilities; ones that were expected to be of use and others that weren't. It had been quite fun, playing with those gladiators in green.

"The competition was fierce and dangerous. It was exciting and consumed/touched the lives of every single martian on the planet! I'd heard that some sort of betting pool had even been set up!" M'gann beamed before her grin slipped slightly, "At first, Uncle J'onn seemed like he didn't want me to compete. I thought maybe it was because he did not want me to come to Earth—I had seen many of his adventures and they were life threatening & dangerous—but I wasn't going to let that stop me! I was going to win! I absolutely adored everything I had ever learnt about Earth up until that point and I wanted to come see it for myself! And I did! I won the whole competition!"

M'gann threw her arms wide as she jumped to her feet, mimicking the victory pose she had taken up all those months ago. Head tossed back, grin beaming and glee shining through every inch of her body. "My heart soared! I was going to Earth! It was the most exciting time of my life! Now I'm here with all of you and I am part of the Team! I truly love it!"

"We are happy that you are here with us as well, M'gann" Kaldur smiled.

"You could say that again" Wally agreed.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I think I've had one s'more too many" Robin groaned as he rolled to his feet and patted his protruding belly in contentment. "I'm gonna hit the hay"

"I believe someone has beaten you to it" Kaldur smiled, turning his gaze to Rachel who had clearly fallen asleep at some point during the story.

"Aw! That is adorable!" The martian couldn't help but coo at how the young witch had intertwined herself around both her familiar and one of Conner's legs whilst she snored. It took them more than a few tries to detach her from the kryptonian and make their way over to the girls' tent with Rachel curled up in her arms. "This has been such a wonderful evening, but I think it's time for bed now"

"I'm right behind you!" Wally grinned, moving to follow after the two girls, only to be stopped by Robin's quick reflexes.

"Yeah, but you're sleeping in this tent, right over here" Robin chuckled as he redirected the speedster over to the larger of the two tents, the one dedicated to the boys.

"Hey, next time d'you think we should go camping for real? Like at a real camping ground instead of just in our backyard?"

"You don't strike as the outdoorsy type"

"We're sleeping about five feet from the Cave entrance"

"Maybe next time we can try further down the hill?"

"Yeah, I guess" Wally shrugged as he ducked inside.

Meanwhile, Robin took the chance to spare a glance over at the girls' tent where M'gann appeared to be trying to manoeuvre Rachel into her sleeping bag. Though she looked to be having some trouble detaching the ten year old's arms from around her neck. Hugin, her familiar, had yet to leave and the boy wonder couldn't help the shiver that ran through him when those four crimson eyes stared straight back at him, bleeding through the darkness like a set of headlights.

"That was a fun evening, but I think I'll be turning in as well" Kaldur hummed as the others rose around him and moved off to bed. The sound of a slight scuffle echoed out from the boys' tent as Robin & Wally settled down and it didn't take long for their banter to be replaced by their snores. On the other side of the clearing, the girls' tent had been zipped shut, leaving only Conner alone by the fire pit. "Unless you would like some company?"

"No, that's okay, I'll turn in soon" Conner shook his head as he tried to order his thoughts. "I just wanna sit out here with the fire for a bit longer…"

"…Well, if you need anything, y'know we're all here for you" Kaldur acquiesced before he too turned to disappear beneath the flaps of the boys' tent.