To make things clear about the moldavite stone and the others which will appear throughout this story, their histories are based on bits and pieces of their real-life counterparts, but not a hundred percent. For anyone familiar with the real ones, hope you like these simplified and fictionalized versions. :)
Composed by Phil Rey Gibbons.
Chapter One
Winds of Change, Heart Full of Sky
"Just where the devil have you been last night, child?!"
She flinched at the tone of voice her father gave her as soon as she was awake at dawn, dressed after washing up down at the stream, and combing her hair as soon as she returned to the hut. She'd just slid out from underneath the woven blanket that her mother had woven ages ago just before she'd died when Kristine was a very young child - a bountiful tree of ripe, fiery fruits and pure, pristine flora as though taken from a Book of Hours - and started undoing the wrists of her snowy chemise when Jonathan wasted no time in demanding her excuse.
She bowed her head, sitting down on the edge of her tiny bed when she began to take her locks out of their messy braids, combing her fingers through them to give them some semblance of care in the dawn hours. "Forgive me, Papa," she mumbled, shame overtaking small parts of her heart. "The star fell last night. I have placed it underneath the floor so that no prying eyes would find it." She nodded in the direction of the one section of the wooden floorboards that they knew too well and constructed into the earth after digging up those compartments with the best magic there was.
Jonathan's face was still stern when he scoffed and shook his head of matted auburn hair she inherited from him. "And where precisely did it land? Oh, no, don't tell me. I saw it myself in the stars; you went near Penguin territory, across the bridge. How oft have I warned you -?" Bony hands on equally bony hips remained as they were even as their owner whirled on his heels to make way for the floorboards in the center of the hut; those very same hands opened the left and right sides of the panel in question -
"Dear goodness gracious, Kristine!" Jonathan gasped, uttering wordless syllables before reaching down into the cache with both hands, pulling out the wrapped prize which had a palm's length of a portion exposed for his eyes. "You've found it! You've found what I have searched long and hard for." He remained on his knees as he turned to look up at her. "My winsome daughter - you've gifted me with the first component!"
"I have, Papa, and I pray it was worth it."
"Indeed, I hope it was."
His anger towards her and his fear for her life - and theirs - had been allowed to slip away in favor of this little celebration and the excitement of sharing this with Lord Wayne. Then he could begin the creation that would link Gotham and its allies and enemies in ways that would no longer involve bloodshed and casualties.
~o~
How could everything have gone wrong, and because of her youthful foolishness and idealism?
Perhaps she should have listened to Jason that night, but she had her papa's dream on her mind - a dream she shared because of him. He had wanted to create unity for Gotham and its neighbors, or perhaps it could encourage similar creations throughout, and it backfired nightmarishly. This gift was for Lord Wayne upon completion, but...
Moldavite, the Stone of Connectivity, was the first marker, and more would have followed after time and searching. Had it not been for the shadows of the night who broke into their home.
On the first morning to follow her prize, Jonathan had wasted no time requesting an audience with the lord of the castle, and when Bruce Wayne allowed father and daughter to present themselves in the Great Hall - no others present aside from Jason and his elder brother, Richard, as well as Alfred Pennyworth, the head of staff who had served the Wayne family for a few generations now and raised young Bruce since the loss of his parents - and lay the wrapped green star on the floor for all eyes to see.
Jason had seen it with her the previous night, but he did his best to show the slightest bit of new interest, eyes widening by a fraction and his jaw opening slightly before schooling it back to calm as he'd been trained for appearances despite having grown up in the dirty streets in childhood. Dick, on the other hand, had comically widened everything on his face before snapping back to normal when his father cleared his throat upon seeing the expression.
"My word," Pennyworth had gasped, amazed that a treasure as this, coming only once in a blue moon, would present itself to them.
Lord Wayne had leaned forward on his great chair, the other side empty - reserved for the honored wife, but the man was wary about marriage despite it being beneficial - with both hands clasped beneath his chin as he pondered internally, seen in the horizontal furrow of his brows. After a long beat, he'd relaxed his posture and leaned back against the throne, palms grasping either armrest. "Where did you find this?"
Kristine wasn't sure if Jason had told him anything, if he'd been caught after returning home late and without escorts, so she answered honestly. "I myself saw the streak in the sky and followed it - just outside the barrier to Oswald Cobblepot's territory. Scouts came close to finding me, but I ran before they could," she'd said, bowing her head in a semblance of shame when she finished speaking.
The old head servant had sucked in an audible breath, with Master Richard lowering his gaze to the floor as he imagined the possible punishments ahead for coming CLOSE to breaking the law.
Jason had turned his eyes off to the other side, away from his father who spoke.
"You were near enemy territory," Wayne had stated, eyes narrowing dangerously. "Do you realize you came close to violating the treaty between -" He was interrupted by Jason, who was the more rebellious of his two sons.
"But she didn't, did she, Father? They don't know it was her, nor did they get any evidence that it was someone from Gotham. No harm was clearly done." So, your father doesn't know you were out that night...unless he does, but hasn't said anything to you. Perhaps he's waiting for one of us to confess. The way his elder brother glanced at him, however, told her that he certainly did.
"Who knows what Cobblepot could have done to her if he had." Wayne had glared at him from the corner of his eye, then returned it to the Crane family still kneeling before him. "Nevertheless," he'd said with his expression softening somewhat, "Jonathan, you and your daughter are to be commended, and I hereby commission you both to get to work straight away, but it has to be done in absolute secrecy. We can't have it falling into the wrong hands."
That had been the plan, but little did any of them know was that they had been spied on - notably her and Papa, for the next night that followed, loud voices and smashing against their hut had sparked them both into paranoia, and Jonathan took action in shoving her, the moldavite rock and its portions as well as the belt it would be attached to, and the books down into the floor cache so that they didn't suffer his fate.
The magic security protocols protected her and the items from detection, but her father was not as fortunate. It was enough for her to break down in tears when she climbed out of her hiding space, leaving everything behind her and sealing the floor back into place.
With futile effort, Kristine had cried for her papa even though she knew he was far from her, and despite running to Lord Wayne for help in the hunt - and having glimpsed the Cobblepot crest on the clothes of one of the kidnappers from beneath the floorboards - it was in vain.
She was allowed to live in the castle for the time being, as her family was commissioned for generations, but it didn't feel like a true home despite the shared history. Jason, her childhood friend since before his adoption, was who she had every right to call a HOME - the definition being that you were always loved and welcomed back, not solely being a place of residence - until another portion of her life had come to an end. It was like the world playing cruel hands with her, ending an era of her life.
The fire which ruptured her heart with all the gold beneath the earth roared with the fury of hellfire, burning everything to a crisp. Her heart then shattered; all of this was when she lost the one whom she shared love confessions with before he went off on his father's orders.
It was inevitable that the unsettling treaty between the exiled son of Gotham and the lawful one would come to an end this way.
~o~
Five years later...
He rolled the heavenly stone within the palm of his hand, his gloves removed for the time being. Talia's priest gifted this to him for all the services he'd done for her - her personally, not her father, because the immortal fanatic was dead by his hands, taking one problem off Bruce's plate. Told him in parting that he prayed it would guide him in his life paths. The warrior princess herself promised that her doors would always be opened for him if he needed her.
It was just as difficult to say goodbye to that vicious little one of hers who he'd fondly grown to call his own baby brother.
He was long ways away now, but he could still hear the thundering of cannon fire in the distance. The petty skirmishes continue even as darkness falls, no surprise. Nothing new anymore.
"Guess they'll continue even if it destroys the entire country like I've been saying," Roy grumbled after another swig of mead - his fourth that evening, and he was pushing what was supposed to be his limits, but this was nothing new. When they got back to the castle, his poor daughter would once again need help in the form of Garfield. Because Jason was NOT going to do the job again.
If only Dick was here, with them, instead of elsewhere in Penguin territory, where he'd been missing for days now.
"Feel like using this?" Jason held up the divine blue within his fingers. "You might need this more than I do now."
The older redhead sniffed and smirked at the treasure of the east, raising his pint. "Nah, Jaybird. I got all the stress relieving I need, and all the peace and comfort necessary. But I could use Kori's magic as soon as we get back." That loving nickname still made the spare Wayne heir bristle inside even now that it had grown on him after many years by this man's side.
Roy Harper had been captain of the Wayne Castle guard for several years up until five years back. Despite his years of loyal service and mass accomplishments which included mentoring Lord Wayne's adopted sons, his continual drinking habits had been excused long enough up until the explosive destruction of the treaty between Gotham and the Cobblepot castle. Philosopher Jonathan Crane's abduction, both Wayne sons and their chosen band of skilled agents attempting to infiltrate the other land only to be swarmed with an ambush...
...and ending with many deaths, including one Jason Todd-Wayne.
You heard it well and good: Jason Todd really did die at the enemy's hands, after impulsively disobeying orders because this was the father of the girl he loved.
~o~
The pieces of moldavite from Crane came in handy if Jason said so himself. There were plenty of precious stones all over the world that were said to link people telepathically, and this was one of them if albeit rare. Perfect for espionage without being detected by scouts.
His blood thrummed with the rage at the thought of his beloved's father ripped from her - and the knowledge that the enemy wanted his techniques for whatever diabolical plot Cobblepot was hatching now in violation of the treaty. Whatever it was, he was going to pay, so here he was with his brother and their boys.
Alright, no one goes out there until it's clear, Roy's voice warned in their minds, reverberating like an otherworldly attraction. Once the scouts are not looking, we make way for the tunnels and get inside the castle.
Then Wallace West, Dick's closest friend out of the lot of them, spoke. Yeah, yeah, Captain, and then I do the job of speeding my way through the corridors to find the good doctor and then coming right back to report. The captain grumbled under his breath, and Jason could picture him shaking his head at the impatience and eagerness. It was hilarious to have the old man - not THAT old, but the oldest of them all - surrounded by all these witty younger ones while there was a dangerous task at hand.
They were all scattered through the trees in various hiding spots: Roy taking head point to the northeast of their position, near the shoreline to the sea which Cobblepot Castle overlooked, and hiding behind the shrubs. Richard and Wallace were to the south, the former having grappled his way up to crouch on the thickest branch he could find and the latter ready to speed away - an ability that was a family lineage.
The rest were hiding beyond, behind the walls of the maze pathways in disguise and under the cover of night, planting the bombs. And that left Jason behind the greatest rock formation on land and before the forestry. It was his job to act as the chief eyes and ears when he could have just gone in himself and hid in plain sight until he found old man Jonathan himself.
Had they been mere travelers, they would have called this decrepit place exquisite in the sense that it was atop treacherous rocky cliffs connected down to the ocean; if man or woman plunged by force or accidentally, it would be a one-way trip towards death by rocks or drowning. Moss grew over those ancient stones from the deep cracks, the smashing waves reaching their ears like a foreboding melody.
Gives anyone the creeps if the spirits that still haunt the Cobblepot walls in there are anything to go by, Jason had to casually comment for the hell of it, earning snickers from some and disapproval from others.
While Roy - who was in several ways like the father he should have had, since he could confide in him about anything that he couldn't with Bruce who was raising him - didn't disagree with him, the reprimand of focusing on the mission was spoken, reminding him of the diversion of blowing up the untraceable bombs outside the castle's grounds that would go off after the strings were fired; Jason's inventions which he passed on to his subordinates wouldn't really make dents or breaches in the maze, but would only prove to be a distraction without Cobblepot and his lackeys knowing they were from Gotham. In fact, you could pinpoint the bombs from anywhere.
The distraction worked, and everyone was inside in no time, as soon as shouting guards and scouts hurried out of the castle and from the outdoor posts to assess who the possible intruders were.
The sewer tunnels were disgusting and crawling with rats and God knew what else, but it was nothing they hadn't endured before. And one stone tile lifted later, the Gotham Knights were inside the enemy's domain. Entering from the south side of the castle, one would think a man like Cobblepot wouldn't have the area protected much, but he'd set up tripwires at some point in the tunnels in the event something, or someone, was trying to get in without his permission.
That had been the case they discovered too late when one of them accidentally tripped said system, and it was none other than JASON as soon as they discovered where Jonathan Crane was kept prisoner, via Roy's trained messenger crow who got back to them without alerting the first-level patrols: Kristine's father was just below them, directly, but they needed to find a quick way down there without blowing the floor up and rocking the castle on the inside.
Jason should have known better because this was a disgrace to his training, but he lost patience and demanded what the hell they were waiting for, and the first step he took resulted in him coming into contact with cleverly invisible wiring that made him lose his footing and faceplant into the stone floor.
Miniature cannons fired from over their heads as well as hidden places in the walls, alerting their presence and reigning hell on earth.
~o~
He'd been so young and stupid then. Technically, he still was young, but his mind and thought processes improved on such spectacular levels upon his return from the darkness. From another place he couldn't recall, except for the monstrous pain in a sequence of events.
Tempered metal running through his heart.
Pain on a level never previously known.
Blood...too much blood.
Bellows of denial coupled with orders to retreat, failing to take who they'd come here for.
Cackles devoid of anything except for a sneer that he'd struck not only the heart of the son of his enemy but also the man's heart itself.
Jason Todd did die that night, and he had no idea what happened in between that and when he awoke in venomous green, except for words that were in splotches, but could have been interpreted in this form:
"LITTLE WING, NOOOO! NO, JASON, DON'T GO! I lost my family before, my best friend just tonight, but I will NOT lose my baby brother! Don't leave me...!"
Dick's face was the last one he'd seen as he was held in the elder's arms, and behind him, Roy rushed to join, panting in desperation that the boy he'd come to love like his own son - and was, in a way, his daughter's elder brother - be strong as they got out of here alive, and would fight another day because there was always another chance for them.
It was not meant to be. Not for more years to come.
They never managed to return to Cobblepot Castle after that incident which sparked the war and left all sides battling it out, with one thing leading to another, but before that, Jason recalled what happened when he awoke - rose from the dead.
The screaming nearly ripped his own throat into pieces when he burst from the waters colored in the shades of the moldavite star, his body on fire and ice at the same time. His first instincts were to attack anyone in his path because they were a threat, notably. After all, he didn't recognize anyone's faces - until two voices mingled together and made him halt after he'd been subdued with chains on his wrists and ankles, the metal cutting into his skin because of the wild thrashing.
"JASON! Little brother, my Little Wing! Get a hold of yourself!"
"Jaybird, you hotheaded little imbecile, it's Captain Roy!"
And then the two together: "You're alive!"
Alive...he'd been killed, but brought back to life. His brother and mentor were not the only ones there; there were two other people that made him roar in outrage. There was a man, tall and aristocratic with his stone-streaked dark hair curling upwards on either side like the dome of an eastern temple, clad in sobering dark green stricken with heavy borders of gold and jeweled piping, frontal and on the great sleeves. The woman beside him, many years younger, was in a flowing, desert sand-hued silk gown with vibrant oasis blossoms, hair a canvas of night and illuminated by the large, tear-shaped earrings of blue-green around swirls of lighter hues and amethysts like a peacock's feathers; her throat was wrapped with pale blue and green crystals around a great blue lapis lazuli. At her side was a small child of perhaps seven or eight years old, with the same dark hair and jade green eyes, but the resemblance...
That was the moment - him and Richard together - learned that the little boy was Talia's...her and Bruce's son. Sired out of wedlock in a single night of passion that ended any hopes of an alliance, not only caused by the difference in ideologies despite the common desire for world peace.
Roy and Dick had finally met him at long last, confirming the rumors from abroad. And did it come as a surprise that the boy was harder and surlier than both adopted Wayne brothers, having been born and raised in the League of Assassins, which had existed in the shadows for centuries? Absolutely not.
Bruce had refused Ra's al Ghul's offer to marry his daughter and take his place; the insanity of the man's means of complete world domination just to "save" it was more than he could bear. This enraged Ra's, along with the moment which left Talia impregnated after the fallout.
However, it did seem that despite the lingering animosity, the men came to certain agreements, and the child produced, named Damian, would one day lead Nanda Parbat and the League of Assassins as a part of the uneasy alliance...but then everything came to a head as soon as Bruce Wayne's adopted sons and their captain remained as guests and discovered a nefarious plot of the al Ghul family's own, primarily in the part of its patriarch.
Ra's was plotting to use the Wayne sons to take over Gotham himself and then instill the al Ghul bloodline into one great empire, including eliminating the lord himself right after Richard and Jason on his soil. And this intel had come from the most unlikely source expected: Talia herself.
There was great reason to suspect her, granted that she chose her father over the man she claimed to love, the father of her child. But she apparently still had Bruce in her heart to finally see that her father wasn't the man he once was, or perhaps she'd known all along and just bid her time. Either way, Jason and the others held her in their debt, because there was Cobblepot to still deal with.
The Wayne sons and Captain Harper faced off against the once-great Ra's al Ghul, with a rage-driven, newly resurrected Jason going head-on and finishing off the killing blow by decapitating the man known as the Demon Head.
Gotham had been saved from one less menace, who would be replaced with someone willing to ally with them.
When time passed, the word got worse.
Roy had been forced to return to Gotham, leaving his charges vulnerable and without protection, but they'd been trained well to look after themselves. Dick was vehement about remaining in Nanda Parbat with his recovering younger brother, but when Bruce's messenger hawk found them and gave them the scrolled words, he didn't speak of his worries for his youngest's life when he wrote of his sorrow over the losses of some of their finest and would ensure their families and loved ones would receive compensation and proper burials, nor did he just simply stay at the castle after sending out his own message.
"Their losses will not be in vain; we'll honor them by moving ahead. But don't return to Gotham until I come to my sons."
This was how Bruce always had been: cold and formal yet warm and caring underneath all of that. He was still putting the mission above all else but was also making the time to see that both of his boys were all right, even if it meant stepping into enemy territory with special dispensation.
His being there resulted in a lot on their plates to handle: he finally met the son that he couldn't publicly announce despite the rumors, he came to learn of the Lazarus Pit that brought Jason back from wherever he'd been, and he agreed to an uneasy alliance with the al Ghul family in terms of his second son's well-being while they dealt with their threat.
Dick, too, was eventually made to leave Jason's side because duty called. Things took a downturn from there as the conflicts worsened especially when it was leaked to all that the Penguin secured a devilish bargain with their neighbor from the north, the Empress of Tamaran.
Kristine's blanket is based on the Tree of Life Bedspread, found in the Pyramid Collection.
Lapis lazuli, the heavenly gem, is known for relieving stress, resulting in serenity.
And ROY HARPER - cannot go wrong with him. :D Oh, and he's been aged up so that he's in his forties, being in the oldest of our Titans group, but not necessarily the wisest. General idea, at least.
The Cobblepot Castle is based on Scotland's supposedly haunted Edinburgh.
