There are a lotta fantasy-themed Batman fics on AO3 (and maybe here on FF that I have no idea exists), but I've been thinking of doing something like this for a while now and will go with the flow and shall be proud no matter what happens or how this story shall turn out. :D Jason Todd and Kristine Crane (my OC and beloved baby) for the win, as far as I am concerned. Not just their love, but them working together and having friends to help them save their homeland, for the win.
Everything related to Batman belongs to DC, but Kristine is all mine. Also, compositions by YouTubers Adrian von Ziegler - prologue after one of his masterpieces - and Phil Rey Gibbons (story title from his piece "Thunder and Flames"), others movies from TCM, are the chapter titles, and content up to my conjuring.
Prologue
Once Upon a Time
Two nights ago, a star was destined to hit the earth, and predictions by the soothsayers came to be.
When she found it by chance during the second night - pieces of it were scattered all over the landscape in its glowing green glory - her father, one of the greatest philosophers of Gotham, was ecstatic and found the beginning component of what was needed.
She'd followed the luminous green streak until she came to the edge of the forest...where it had landed in the most forbidden of spots there ever was. She should turn back, but if this could be something her father had searched long and hard for, then it was now or never. Picking up the skirts of her dress colored auburn like her hair in its braids, she rushed to where the faint emerald glow was pulsing for her eyes like a beckoning siren's call.
"Kristine, wait!" hissed the young man who rushed after her, hand on the hilt of his sword. "You know we -"
"I know we shouldn't be here, but we have to get it," she answered back, falling to her knees and pulling out the cloth from her bosom. "Besides, Papa will be happy when I bring this to him. A risk worth taking." She grinned when she pushed aside the branches of the shrubs and gasped as her heart soared at the mythical beauty bestowed.
Many stories a told, she knew what this was, and the only place it could ever come from: the power of the heart, a great source of protection, and to enhance fertility and the spirit.
Her father needed this to bring about the peace and balance in Gotham, to keep their neighboring, residential enemies from taking everything. Nothing was more effective than the mind, heart, and soul.
Kristine moaned when she wrapped the great, rugged, still-glowing green from its hiding place, her fingers enclosing around it as the heat washed over her senses like the waves lapping the shore, from her hands to the rest of her body. "Jason," she breathed, "I'm on fire." The laughter bubbled from her heart, tightening her throat, and the tears burned the corners of her eyes as she could imagine her papa's joy.
Jason Todd snorted, his laughter giving stronger sparks. "Are you sure it's not another kind of fire I'm thinking about?" he drawled in her ear.
Who gave a damn if the stone's magic was doing it? It might as well enhance her feelings for the boy she'd known since childhood, as he drew close enough to nearly touch her body with his -
"Damn it, Kris, get behind me!" Jason hissed, the sharp slice of his blade intruding on her newfound paradise.
Oh, Kristine, you fool! How could you have allowed -?!
Voices and the lights of torches began to emerge from across the open field, from the depths of that forest. This place they were not allowed to be, and yet it also seemed the enemy had caught glimpse of the fallen star as she had.
They were going to be flayed in the end if they didn't get out of here in time, and for both their sakes, their families, and all of Gotham, they had better not been seen.
Kristine picked up her skirts with one hand, the star wrapped beneath her other arm, as she rushed back in the opposite direction with Jason whose hand was on the hilt of his sword.
~o~
Amazing...I've hit the lucky spot. The little prince and the wee witch - together when the emerald star fell. Below a beak-like nose, thin lips pulled back into a leer before it reverted to a snarl of frustration. But then she had to take it back to dear Papa.
Where else would the little wench go after parting ways with the Wayne spare? Just when his scouts came close to capturing them before they'd crossed the bridge back into Gotham? Blast the peace, for all he cared. Oswald Cobblepot loathed to accept defeat, but what choice did he have? He came close to acquiring what was rightfully his.
He'd waited for years. Perhaps he could afford a little longer, but he wouldn't rest. That fallen star had come to fruition. At least he knew where to look firsthand.
Drawing the cloth over the scrying crystal ball, the man the rest of the world called the Penguin decided he needed well-deserved rest and peaceful dreams that he had not welcomed for months now but first would come the finest wine and oysters beforehand. He'd leave the rest to his agents who knew how to clean up after themselves.
~o~
He knew he could have taken out any of them, but that would have escalated to a much larger scale. Bruce would have his jewels for sure this time if he'd played a part in this existing tension.
But he's tried once or twice before and has yet to find any vulnerabilities. He's been outmatched every time, hence the contract he's been forced to sign on the grounds that we never do anything to insult the other, that we never give each other a reason to wage petty fighting or a devastating war.
Gotham and its central great castle were all on an island with a few bridges attaching them to the mainlands to the east, map-wise. Wayne Castle's location and purposes dated back to the ancient times, surviving without a single moment of mass destruction and being resilient when attacked. It had been some decades since enemies tried breaching those walls, and if Gotham were threatened on a grand scale, the castle and its inhabitants were ready to fire.
It never failed to take Jason's breath away to this day whenever he would take in the surroundings of the great structure at the center of the town, perched on walls covered with ivy and greenery; the towers were a range from spindle-shaped to cylindrical, the streets winding, the great forest on the outskirts and leading to the beach shores after you crossed the western bridge...and just the sheer bulk of the entire island despite its small size when ships and travelers on the roads would come into contact.
Young Jason had once been intimidated by it all when he was still just a child from the streets that even the lesser nobles never paid mind to.
There was a secret passageway that he discovered by chance shortly after he was adopted by Bruce Wayne, lord of the land of Gotham and belonging to one of the oldest families since its birth. He took the shortcut there so that he wasn't found out.
Except that didn't save him from a certain goldie as soon as he ventured up the stairs and found himself out in the open just when he thought the corridors were clear, sans the guards, at this time of night.
"You'd better get back to your chambers before dear old Father notices you're gone - again." Vivid sapphire blue eyes glittered from the flickering light of the torches lining the passageway. Jason scowled and stalked past the taller form of his elder brother.
Ahem, adopted elder brother. Just like me.
Jason Todd and Dick Grayson - the sons of the lord of Gotham. Technically, they were adopted as Lord Bruce Wayne had never taken a wife and therefore had no blood heirs of his own. Although, it had been rumored that he did have a tryst some years back with the daughter of Nanda Parbat, their neighbor to the east, and had a child with her.
Long before that, Wayne took in two young boys off the muddied streets at separate times. First had been the son of two traveling performers part of the vibrant Haly's Caravan; his parents had died during one of their acts, the line having been cut without their knowledge by a jealous fellow performer. Another was a street urchin whose father was a thief and stole for his family only to get more than he bargained for, mother succumbing to illness, and leaving their son to fend for himself only to get picked up by Gotham's lord when he was trying to remove a wheel from the grand carriage, having done it to other nobles plenty of times.
Their relationship wasn't the best, but for certain, it wasn't terrible, either. The brothers had squabbles, but at the end of the day, they respected each other as brothers would. They joked, they laughed, they had fun.
But also, at the end of the day, Dick was the eldest and expected to have everything shouldered upon him. Jason was exceptionally trained as much but was the spare.
"So, little brother, how was your latest escapade?" Dick could never get enough of non-maliciously tormenting him. "That star from the sky -?"
"Glimpsed," Jason answered dismissively, "but what makes you think I went anywhere near that thing, wherever it landed?"
A chuckle. "Knowing you and Miss Kristine by now," his brother answered in a hushed voice, "nothing escapes me anymore." But then Dick's eyes narrowed; by this time, they arrived at the secret door to Jason's chambers, lit by the torches in this passage's hallway.
"However, if my bird's eye is correct...it landed near Penguin territory."
That was both a statement and a question in one, and if he tried to lie his way out, Dick would see through it right away. He said it himself, "bird's eye". It was no wonder everyone called him Nightwing, aside from the infamy of his wartime and espionage tactics.
As to his query... "Yes," Jason answered, avoiding eye contact altogether. "It did, and Kristine took it back to her father."
And of course, Dick would not cease his interrogation, as was expected of the next-in-line and eldest. His eyes returned to normal but were now hard as ice. "Don't tell me the enemy's scouts caught you two."
"Not exactly. They heard a commotion, but we ran away before we were discovered. She's gone home safely, and here I am now."
A heavy, intense silence permeated the atmosphere around them until his brother broke the silence. "Stay here in your quarters. I'm going out this very moment to make sure nothing unwanted has transpired." By unwanted, you mean the wreckage of the truce we have with the one we all call "Penguin". "Roy and I will round up the scouts and join them." His face had been firm and would not take disobedience, but while he wasn't strict like Bruce was, you should know better than to cross him. And then it was replaced with that easy smile that warmed you to your bones.
"Happy you are safe, Little Wing, and pray your lady fair is, too."
Speaking of "lady fair", Jason found himself plagued with dreams of the sweetest and most intense kind because of the visible effects that green rock had on the girl he'd known for some years now, which felt like his entire life. He was unable to stop hearing her moans of euphoria, which made their way into illusions of pleasures of the flesh that only his innermost desires could conjure up...
~o~
Two more days pass, and Gotham was soon wracked with the disturbance of the generation, shaking the town to its core.
Jonathan Crane, the renowned philosopher, had been taken from his home near the castle in the dead of the night. His daughter would, too, have been if she'd not hidden from sight - and with a precious prize in her arms that had to be hidden away, lest the abductors return for it.
It didn't take long for Lord Wayne and his agents to discover that Oswald Cobblepot had orchestrated the abduction, thus shattering the fragile peace, but the settlement had to be dealt with in secret in order to avoid catastrophe...only to end in tragedy.
And so, for five long years hence, the land of Gotham remained in a bitter dispute with the exiled Penguin and those who served him, but little did anyone know...
Mont Saint Michel in Normandy inspired Wayne Castle, which every description detail came from. Tried tweaking the wording of the detail from sources I've used for bringing this to life, though some descriptions are TOO irresistible for changes. ;D Because it fits.
The "green star" everyone is after is called moldavite, also known as the Stone of Connectivity. Articles that I've read include "Moldavite Healing Properties, Meanings, and Uses" from the Crystal Vaults website, and "10 Gemstones That Will Improve Your Mental Health" (which includes other stones that will appear later on in this story, but you will have to wait and be surprised ;D).
