Into: Okay, Okay, I can explain everybody, just chill. It turns out that I got a little more involved in this section of the story than I planned, so it's going to be longer still than I ever expected. On a happy note, it turned out really good, so it shouldn't be a total chore to read it unless you have some weird obsession with my original story line. In retrospect, I probably should have reserved my desire to write this kind of story for A DIFFERENT STORY, but oh well. Also I made some half-assed promises about butt kicking and fantasy lampooning a while back. Well, the butt kicking wound up in the next chapter for the most part, and the lampooning never seriously materialized. I set out to make fun of fantasy, but instead would up winding a halfway decent yarn. Once again, oh well. Enjoy.
Chapter 11: The Journey--Part 2
"The needle points directly below us now." Starfire commented out of hand as she slowed to a stop in midair. The pair had been flying for quite a while, but with no way of telling time in this world, she really didn't know how much distance they'd covered. Instead, a quick look around confirmed that vibrant green forest surrounded her just as completely as the wavering plains of however long ago had. The wavering color effect, which she had kind of assumed was standard to the dream world, was actually a feature of that strange grassland, and the trees that now surrounded her were no different than any she'd ever seen on earth, if somewhat larger and denser than any that she'd seen personally.
"Great, let's head down and check it out. Careful though, places like this are riddled with danger."
"Right," and she proceeded to float gently down into the dense canopy of treetops, doing her best not to make too much noise as she lighted on the topmost branches. Minimizing the rustling as best she could, she half flew, half climbed down the huge branches of the nearest tree, coming at last to a break in the woody barriers. It was far darker down beneath the tree branches, the cool shade casting a pall over matted green moss on rocks and a seemingly endless blanket of fallen leaves. The twined smells of musty decay and green lively freshness competed fiercely as a slow breeze rustled the endless leaves against one another, telling a tale of the endless cycle of life and death that spoke of a healthy forest. As she slowly floated closer to the bed of rotting leaves that coated the forest floor, flying slightly above it to avoid the many unpleasant critters that no doubt called the vast compost home, her every sense was on a knife's edge, alert for any threat that might present itself now that she approached her first objective in the 'quest' that would take her home.
"You might want to put out the light." Caspar said, using a tone that was less snide than it was admonitory. He'd had an attitude adjustment over the journey here, and was now at least helpful if not exactly polite. They'd had a very long discussion about quite a few different things, and Caspar was now more than a little inclined to keep a cap on his less kind impulses, having gained an entirely new respect for the character of his host. Starfire meanwhile had managed to come to terms with the fact that a negligible amount of her spirit energy, the same energy that would be wasted by projecting off into space naturally, was now the food of her passenger; meaning that her emotions, something sacred to her beyond more or less anything else, were now something else's dinner. It hadn't been easy, but efforts on both sides had prevailed, and the two were closer now than one would have expected entities of their specific personalities to be capable of.
"Right," Starfire confirmed once again, responding to his reminder by looking at the glowing sphere in her right hand and memorizing the direction it pointed (currently through some brush just ahead of her) before concentrating on dispelling it as Caspar had instructed her earlier. When she had successfully submerged the construction in her mind, she flipped her hand over and closed it, causing the sphere to douse instantly, leaving the area suddenly devoid of its gentle green and orange glow.
"Perfectly done. Now I can monitor it for you while it continues to track where you need to go to get out of here and you don't have to worry about one of your hands glowing like a neon lamp. ... Not to say that you wouldn't be used to your hands glowing."
"No offence taken friend," she whispered as she floated slowly and discreetly toward the underbrush that stood between her and her objective. Caspar had explained to her that she need not speak out loud for him to hear her, considering that it wasn't the sound of her words that he was listening to at all (no ears), rather her thoughts of them, but after some practice at subvocalizing, she decided that she'd rather just talk (she just couldn't quite believe that he was hearing her) if there wasn't some dire need for silence (this wasn't dire—not yet anyway). Approaching the bushes, she floated horizontally a few inches off the leafy floor and parted a small hole in the bush in front of her with her hands, giving her a decent view of what lie beyond.
What lie beyond turned out to be a picturesque little clearing surrounding a tiny natural pond in the forest. The clearing was so small that the overreaching branches of many healthy trees competing for limited sunlight managed to cover it almost totally in shade as complete as anywhere else in the forest. As it was, only a small beam of sunlight cut down though the branches, slicing the air with a bright streak of illumination that stood out like a beacon in the dim forest. At this hour of the day, the beam struck the crystal water below like a single pillar of brightness, scattering from its point of impact on the calm water and casting a billion wavering reflections on the trees around the pond. The effect was almost magical, creating a clearing that danced with light and smelled sweetly of wildflowers that thrived on the pond's edge, sucking up sunlight that the trees would otherwise steal away as their own. It was a sight of immense natural beauty, and Starfire sighed as she took it all in, her time on earth allowing her to appreciate the rarity of the scene before her (though deep down, she still preferred the majestic icescapes of her homeworld).
Her eyes had been so drawn by the beauty of the clearing that it was a long moment before she noticed its occupants. Sitting at the pool's edge was a pretty young blond girl wearing a dress reminiscent of the one she'd arrived in, only made of a sparkling white fabric rather than the purple hers had been. The young woman was also wearing a golden tiara not unlike Starfire's own, and this pretty well gave her away as being a princess. Next to her, standing up to its waist in the pond water, was the largest frog Starfire had ever seen. From its posture she could tell it stood on two legs like a man and had a humanoid form roughly four foot five inches tall, but its huge frog head and totally green body made it hard to refute its basic frog-like nature. The two seemed to be engrossed in conversation... or at least, the girl seemed to be talking to the frog, who nodded or shook his head as she spoke.
"So you really are a prince transformed into a frog-man by the spell of a wicked witch?" asked the girl in a slightly doubtful tone, wearing a nervous coy expression as she leaned away from the rather hideous visage before her. The frog-man nodded fiercely, causing his googly eyes to wander around in their sockets.
"And all I need to do is give you a kiss and you'll change back into a handsome prince and we can live happily ever after?" The frog-man greeted this second question with an ever greater fit of nodding, as if he eagerly awaited the touch of the fair young woman's lips.
"Weeeellll," her voice stretched out in rather air-headedly feigned consideration, but it was clear from her demeanor that she'd already decided, "Okay. Come a little closer and I'll give you a kiss, but there had better be white horses and enchanted castles in the deal, or you'll regret it!" The frog-man ignored her threat and eagerly leaned forward, bulgy eyes nearly popping out of his head as he tensed in excitement.
"Hostiles, ten of them, closing in from all around." Caspar prompted Starfire nonchalantly, his E.S.P. picking them up only now as they became aggressive (he wasn't as good as Skye by far, unfortunately). Reacting instantly, Starfire pulled away from the bush and floated herself under the brush she'd been peaking through, concealing herself among the dense foliage so she was invisible from either side. Tensing now for anything that might come, she turned her gaze once more into the enchanted clearing.
The Princess was puckered up, eyes closed as she slowly inched closer to the freakish thing that leaned out of the sparkling water. Apparently her sense of dramatic tension wouldn't allow her to just hurry up and get it over with, and this is what allowed the situation to get as messed up as it did as quickly as it did.
"THERE you are beastly one, I've been looking EVERYWHERE for you," came the sarcastic voice of a stranger from the opposite end of the clearing, all done up in a singsong tone that barely concealed volumes of menace. The voice started the princess out of her kiss preparation, causing her to jerk back and jump away from the sound, leaving the frog-man high and dry on the pools edge. The voice was no less of a surprise to him, and as he dragged himself off the pool's edge, his body changed, even though he'd never been touched by the pretty girl's lips. After a moment of almost imperceptibly swift rippling and writhing of green flesh, Starfire caught sight of some familiar short hair from behind, and the implications of the green silhouette before her caused her to gasp softly from her hiding place. The Princess was much less happy when the frog-prince she'd been about to rescue transformed with no help from her, and the façade of blond bubble-headedness that she'd expertly played so far evaporated in her burst of rage.
"WHAT? YOU'RE NO HANDSOM PRINCE! YOU'RE JUST A DIRTY, SNEAKY, SLIMY LITTLE DRUID!" The exclamation of the princess, who the stranger's appearance had caused him to forget about, caused him to forget about the stranger in turn, his head whipping around to glare at the shrieking beauty from his ignoble heap on the ground.
"HEY! Who do think you're calling LITTLE?" queried an extremely annoyed voice that Starfire knew all too well. It belonged to a certain green-skinned joker, one whose very likeness now lay before her only a few feet from her hiding place. Only a stern warning from Caspar allowed her to control the urge to leap from the brush and wrap the young man in a crushing embrace, she having never been so happy to see his familiar features.
"So this is what you've been up to Beasty? Baiting princesses with the old 'frog prince' routine? I thought you had better luck with the ladies than that! Your insufferable bragging would certainly have it that way," said the stranger mercilessly as he advanced the short distance from the forest's edge to the prostrate changeling and the incensed princess.
"Well Dominic, it's like this: it's been a whole lot harder to get a date ever since SOMEONE jacked my ride!"
"That old nag? I figured you'd be happy that I took it off your hands and saved you a trip to the glue factory." The sneer in Dominic's voice was so pronounced that his vicious pride in his own cruelty was a palpable thing in the air around him.
"That old nag was a certifiable CHICK MAGNET! Ever since you walked off with him I've been reduced to begging for smooches with big googly eyes and fish in my boxers."
"HEY! DON'T IGNORE ME! I'M EXTREMLY FURIOUS OVER HERE!" the Princess shrieked, trying to break into the conversation and express her righteous discontent over being deceived and baited out into the backwater without a single handsome prince to show for it. Her efforts were in vain however, the two old foes having nothing but all-absorbing dirty looks for one another. Beast Boy slowly pulled himself to his feet, water dripping from his damp brown tunic as he regained his composure.
"Well you know, I'd love to continue catching up on the good old days, but you know why I'm really here," sneered out Dominic once more, stepping a little closer still so that Starfire could finally catch a glimpse of him. He was a tall blond youth, his long curly hair falling past his shoulders and his strong features molded into a mask of arrogance and deceit. He wore sumptuous red and gold robes of office, a huge heraldic crest of a dragon rearing on its hind legs embroidered on his chest and a vermillion cloak falling over one broad shoulder.
"You can forget it, Dominic. If you think I'm paying one red cent more to that tyrannous whore on the throne, you have another thing coming. That Magic tax has already bled me dry anyway, so I couldn't even pay if I wanted to!"
"HA HA HA!" Dominic belted out, crossing his arms and throwing his head back to accentuate the deep viciousness of his laugh. "Well Beasty, Empress Kitten doesn't take kindly to debtors or tax evaders, especially not from magic using scum like you, so if you can't pay I guess I'll have to cart you off to The Crag to work your debts out of you. I'm sure you'll make a great beast of burden or twenty at the labor camps." The malicious smile on his face was almost manic now, as if he'd waited for his chance to put Beast Boy in shackles and take a whip to his back for ages.
"First of all, my name is NOT 'Beasty!' My FRIENDS call me Beast Boy, though you can call me Archdruid Garr. As for dragging me away to The Crag... well... you and what army?" The force of overconfidence was clear in Beast Boy's tone, and Dominic's sneer only grew wider as he heard the green one's latest boast.
"My but I was hoping you would say that! Boys... get him!" Suddenly, the other nine men that had been lying in ambush made their presence known by leaping from concealment and surrounding the three figures in the small clearing. The space was downright cramped now, Starfire's view blocked by a man that had leapt over her hiding place to close off that avenue of escape to his target. Though she could see little now through the mass of bodies around her friend, what she did see involved short swords, leather armor, and a number of drawn bows, prompting Caspar to make some offhand comment about using scout infantry in the woods because heavier armor got caught on branches and whatnot. Starfire took his word for it and tensed for her opportunity to leap in and help (it took all her willpower not to just blitz in right away, but Caspar still advised caution) as the soldiers rushed to surround the shape shifter, penning him in at sword point from every side.
"Dominic," Beast Boy began, his voice never faltering for the swords pointed at him, "do you honestly think you can take me in with just nine men?"
Dominic, who had moved around the clearing so he was closer to the princess, responded with, "Oh Beasty, of COURSE not. I'm no fool, and I'd never try to take you in with just nine men. However, I'm absolutely certain I can take you in with nine men... and ONE INNOCENT HOSTAGE!" Hr punctuated his final cry was a grab for the princess, who shrieked in terror and batted at his grip vainly. Wrapping one arm around her supple chest and pinning her arms, he brought his other up to her neck, naked knife pressing against her soft throat.
At the sight of the girl he'd been looking to score a date with only a few moments ago trapped and in mortal danger, Beast Boy's confident façade deflated like a punctured beach ball, his face falling as the gravity of the situation finally dawned on him. His whole body was tense with the urge to transform into something nasty and teach these guys not to mess with him, but he dare not endanger the innocent young woman's life. Glaring daggers at Dominic, he slowly held his hands in the air to show surrender.
"Good boy Beasty, that's what I like to see. Who knows, maybe if you're really cooperative, the boys and I will let you watch us teach this pretty thing what the Empress's men do to little princesses that wander too far from their castles." The threat in Dominic's voice was dripping with vicious lust, causing the girl's eyes to go white all the way around, not even capable of screaming from her intense terror. The soldier's all laughed at her fear, one of them taking out some glowing ropes (enchanted, Caspar commented) to tie up Beast Boy with.
Their laughter was cut off abruptly when a thin green beam of light flashed out from some nearby bushes and struck Dominic squarely on his knife hand, causing him to emit a gurgling bellow of agony as he dropped the knife, flung the girl away, and gripped at his ruined right palm. A black burn described a perfect hole in his hand, which he glared through, spotting a green-eyed face as shock overtook his body, fainting dead away at the sight of his own charred flesh and blackened bone. His men and Beast Boy stood frozen together in complete and abject surprise as his body hit the ground.
Their freeze was thawed by the appearance of a screaming goddess of battle zipping out of some nearby underbrush and flying directly toward the clump of soldiers and pointy objects surrounding the young druid. With a piercing battle cry and a blur of movement, Starfire delivered a flying full-roundhouse kick to the nearest soldier, her heel striking him so hard that both he and his compatriot directly next to him were completely swept away, flying into the brush on the far side of the pond with startled cries of pain and the sound of bones breaking. Landing for an instant to regain her balance after the huge blow, Starfire leapt into the air toward the bow wielding soldiers on the other side of the pond just as Beast Boy felt his own combat instincts kick in.
Deciding not to look a gift ally in the mouth, he leaned forward into the space she vacated with her leap into flight and underwent a flash transformation into something to 'take care' of the two soldiers that remained at his back. The two had been so surprised by the appearance of the flying girl only instants ago that they'd each taken a step back, and now just as suddenly found themselves staring at the south side of a north bound, half-ton, jungle green unicorn stallion. Never having had a chance, the two were quickly introduced to one unicorn hoof each, the impact audibly breaking ribs and throwing them back into the trees.
As Beast Boy was instructing the soldiers on the finer points of equine foot anatomy, Starfire was on her way to a point directly over the center of the pool and had consequentially become the subject of attention for five bow-armed men who were no longer surprised. Each having an arrow knocked and drawn already, they trained their bows on the speeding girl as she launched into the air. Before they could get anything like a good bead on her, Starfire had taken measures. As she rose from the ground to the air, she flung a starbolt underhand to each side, delivering two, low energy, low impact, high area projectiles designed to incapacitate without incinerating. Even as these were on the way to smacking the outside two soldiers senseless, she began an aerial summersault and charged another two of similar design, flinging these toward the next two full overhand as she finished her roll. This left one bowman, arrow drawn and aimed, and Starfire at a dead standstill in the air, momentum exhausted by her aerobatics. Rather than attempting a dodge, Starfire went straight to the offensive, launching beams from her eyes even as the last man loosed his arrow at her heart. Sweeping the beam quickly upward from just before his feet to just above his head, Starfire caught the man full on, incinerating the arrow in mid-flight as her gaze rose, blasting the man and grinding him into the wet dirt next to the pond. Pristine control of her power allowed her give him only mild burns in the process, though he wouldn't wake anytime soon.
Calm settled on the clearing then, Starfire slowly relaxing herself as she floated in place over the water, allowing the green glow to bleed from her eyes as the (Tamaranean equivalent of) adrenaline was drained from her system. Caspar's sudden scream into her mind caused her to twirl to the side reflexively, charging a starbolt on the fly as something when whizzing through the air only inches form her gut. Intending to use the momentum from her spin to fling green destruction in the direction of the attack, she caught herself, seeing that green destruction had already arrived. Beast Boy, now in the form of a minor Wyrm (head and spiny scales of dragon, limbless body of snake, 20ft long, 3ft thick) had grabbed up one of the two to first feel Starfire's heel in a tail-wrap embrace, flipped him up in the air, then smacked him like an oversized baseball with a twirling slam from his spiny, gigantic snake's body. The man had another free trip through the air, this time complements of a green lesser dragon, impacting with a thick oak hard enough to shake some leaves off.
Taking a long look around to make sure none of the others felt like another go, Starfire quickly noted that the princess hadn't budged from where Dominic had thrown her, apparently frozen in some kind of post traumatic stress (or so Caspar said, anyway). Sure this time that they were safe, she hovered over to the water's edge and landed gently in the soft soil. Beast Boy, who had snapped back to regular shape virtually the instant the last guy had finished his flight, was still catching his breath a little (remember, big things are hard for him) but stood to full height (about Starfire's chest) and gave her a once over as she walked calmly toward him. Mixed suspicion and admiration competed on his face, but admiration won out rather quickly, and he smiled as she stopped a few steps away from him.
Meanwhile, in Starfire's head, Caspar was doing his best to prevent what was about to happen, trying against all hope to convince Starfire that the young green man she was standing not two feet from was NOT the one she'd know for so long, and had in fact no idea who she was. Why did he even bother? I sure as hell don't know.
In a sudden burst of movement, Starfire went from standing calmly to lunging the short distance between her and Beast Boy. Spontaneously growing a radiant smile, she swept the shorter boy up into her arms and proceeded to hug the life out of him. As the sound of his back cracking and his lungs expelling their contents over her shoulder filled her ears, she shouted a traditional Tamaranean greeting that sounded to Beast Boy something like a combination of baby talk and rocks rattling in a can. As she finally exhausted her joy at seeing him (some three minutes later) and dropped him back to his feet before stepping away, he was able to catch his breath (after another two minutes) and ask, "Do you mind running that by me one more time miss?" between gasps for air.
It was at this point that Starfire realized two things. One, that he really didn't recognize her, vindicating Caspar's point even as it caused her happiness to falter slightly (but not that much really). Two, that he was speaking English, and hadn't understood her greeting at all. This second one caused her to loose a step completely, her face twisting in confusion. He'd been speaking Tamaranean—they'd all been speaking Tamaranean just a minute ago.
"I thought Skye said that everyone here would speak my native language?" she queried to Caspar aloud, still in Tamaranean, making Beast Boy think she was talking to him and trying to explain that he didn't understand her with expansive hand gestures and slow pronunciation of his response. Starfire ignored him and listened intently to Caspar's explanation.
"No, no, this is a good sign boss. Remember that the progress of your quest here reflects the condition of you recovery. You completed this skirmish and suddenly another language has been absorbed from your mind into this world. That must mean your condition is stabilizing. You're now one step closer to recovery!"
The news caused Starfire to twirl into the air elatedly in unrestrained glee, starling Beast Boy out of his inept attempts at communication as he fell away from her rocket's path into the air. She floated slowly down again, eyes closed as she reveled in the good news, finally opening them again a few moments later and noticing the prostrate young man at her feet. Shaking her head slightly, she got herself back into English mode in her mind, trying to pick it back up again after an extended immersion in her native tongue.
"I am sorry friend, it has been some time since I spoke in any but my own language. I forgot that not everyone is familiar with it," she said kindly, smiling brightly as she reached down and helped Beast Boy back to his feet. As she pulled him up easily, he got a sense of her grip, and suddenly everything sort of clicked into place. Growing a smile of his own, he brushed off his plain brown tunic before addressing her once more.
"I think I get it now. You're from out west aren't you? One of those warriors from the Kingdom of Tamaran right? It would explain the extreme friendliness, the flying around, the butt kicking, and that interesting language of yours, so I kinda figure that must be it."
"Why... yes!" Starfire improvised nervously, never very good at fabrication of any kind. Caspar was there to whisper crib notes into her ears however, and together they managed a fairly believable tale. "I left home on a spirit quest, an ancient tradition of my homeland. My spirit guide brought me here, where I stumbled upon you and your... acquaintances. I could not bring myself to ignore your plight." She smiled nervously while she waited for him to call out her lie, but to her surprise, he seemed to buy it rather completely.
"So your spirit guide is a snake huh?" he asked, examining the unmistakable mark on her face. She was startled by his insight, wondering how much of the tale Caspar had whispered to her was a lie and how much he'd read from the young man's mind, but gave up that line of thought as profitless before answering.
"Yes, indeed it is. His name is Caspar, and we have been together for only a short time," she said, bringing her right hand up to stroke the mark on her face and rub at the continuation around her neck.
"Well, thanks to you both, you two totally saved my butt back there. I mean, leave it to the Empress's tax collectors to show up at the one time when you've got a princess around to take hostage, right? Oh wait... THE PRINCESS!" he realized his mistake with a shout, turning on his heel and rushing over fallen soldiers to get to where the terrified young woman still sat on the ground. As he grew near, he kneeled down next to her and took her hand in his, forcing her to look at him as he steadied her trembling hand.
"Princess, are you all right? Listen, I can TOTALLY explain the whole frog prince routine. I know I wasn't completely honest about the castle and white horse thing, but I was going to take you out to dinner at a very nice inn I know not far from here, seriously. Before that though, the other reason I needed your help was—"which was as far as he got before she hauled off and smacked him one. The unexpected blow whipped his head around and laid him out on the ground a few feet away, a glowing pink hand mark on his green face.
Springing to her feet, the mud-bedraggled and red-faced girl was no longer quite the vision of beauty she'd been when Starfire had first laid eyes on her. Starfire began to try and speak to her, but Caspar stopped her, and she watched in silence as the girl kicked Beast Boy in ribs once with her pointy sandals, eliciting a yip of pain from the semi-conscious young man. Turning on her heel, she took her earring off her right ear and threw it at the ground, shouting some words that Starfire was unfamiliar with. Promptly, a red rectangle of light grew out of the ground and stopped at roughly door shape and size.
"If I EVER lay eyes on you again, I will PERSONALLY have you thrown in my DUNGEON!" she shrieked, tears in her eyes and dead leaves in her hair. With that she turned once more toward the red gate, striding with as much dignity as possible through it. She didn't emerge from the other side, and the rectangle shrank back into the ground the next moment anyway.
Starfire floated slowly over to the once more prostrate young man, helping him up once more as he recovered from the blow. She wasn't entirely sure what that whole episode had been about, but got the impression that the princess blamed Beast Boy for her ordeal.
"She was... angry with you... yes?" Starfire asked as Beast Boy once again cleaned the layer of forest floor off his now filthy cloths.
"You could say that," he said sarcastically as the sting finally began to fade from his cheek. "Then again, I don't really blame her. If it weren't for me, she'd never have gotten within five hundred feet of that," he indicated the prone form of Dominic where it lay still on the very edge of the clearing, referring to him as though he were something one might scrape of his or her boot.
"Yes," Starfire began with a growl, overcome by a wave a nausea and anger at what the scum had implied doing before she'd stopped him. "My people have very specific punishments for men like him," she said vaguely, but with very clear menace.
Incidentally, the punishments involved very sharp things and very soft parts of the male body, not that Starfire knew all that. Her education on the whole subject of the birds and the bees had been insufficient to say the least, complicated as it was by her caretaker's shyness on that subject as well as her lack of friends during that period of her youth (what few young teens that would associate with a princess were scared off by her tyrannous older sister). She'd ended up learning most of what she knew from awkward conversations with Raven following a case involving a serial rapist in Jump City. The threat was one she'd heard her caretaker use many times without ever understanding what it actually implied, but Beast Boy guessed (correctly) and turned a little white at the thought.
"I don't think that'll be necessary, not that he wouldn't deserve it after what he did to poor Moped."
"Mo...ped?" Starfire asked, familiar with Beast Boy's fascination with such a thing but nevertheless confused at his reference to it here.
"Yeah, that was the name of my horse. Honestly, it took me forever to save up and buy him, then the Empress creates the magic tax and suddenly I have to give him up again. Girls love a guy on a white horse you know, even though he was closer to a pony, I guess." The last he said shyly, but with no real regrets. Caspar commented that he doubted the success of the Moped scheme for getting girls, but Starfire ignored him as Beast Boy continued.
"Some of his goons will be awake soon, and they'll help each other to the nearest town. As much as I hate letting scum like these go, they have the backing of the government, so it's not like we can arrest them or something. Sometimes I wish I had the stomach to just off dirtbags like this, but even if I did, the druidic order prohibits killing, so I guess it doesn't really matter."
"True, killing is never the answer," Starfire commented, feeling the conversation grow strained. Beast Boy seemed to have something on his mind, and it weighed heavily on him as he sulked, kicking a stone into the pond and watching the ripples flow over the still shining water.
"Is there... nothing else I can help you with?" Starfire asked hesitantly, no longer content to watch his distress.
"I don't know, it's just that, I wasn't baiting that princess to get a date with her."
Even Starfire caught that one, and stared at him pointedly until he lost his nerve.
"Well, I wasn't only baiting her to get a date with her. Actually, my friend is in some trouble involving magic, and I was hoping that princess would use hers to help him out. I saw her in the woods while I was searching for a wizard and couldn't believe my luck, I mean, princesses are all packed with magic, y'know?"
Starfire didn't know, but was willing to take his word for it. She was about to offer her condolences about his friend when Beast Boy suddenly smacked himself on the forehead.
"DUH! You've got magic, I just watched you toast five soldiers with it! You could help out my friend no problem!"
Starfire suddenly felt trapped. She didn't know the first thing about magic, and she didn't think Caspar knew all that much about it either. On the other hand, she didn't think an explanation of how her powers worked would satisfy her new/old friend. Going with it as best she could, she tried, "I'd be... happy... to help as much as I can. Though I cannot really promise anything, I fear," through clenched teeth, holding a big smile and trying not to sweat too much as Caspar assured her everything was fine. When Beast Boy took this without question too, she sort of let out a breath and continued with, "Please, tell me of your friend's plight so I might know if I can aid him."
"Trust me, it'll be quicker if I just show you. He's not far from here, not since we can both fly. Come on!" and he turned and began to open his arms in preparation to transform into something with wings. Catching himself half way to jumping into the air, he turned around again and walked calmly the few steps back to her, something else entirely clearly on his mind.
"By the way, I don't know what happened to my manners, but I'm Archdruid Garr; you can call me Beast Boy—everyone else does."
"Yes, friend Beast Boy, I am called—(prompt from Caspar telling her to embellish it)—uh... umm... (new prompt from Caspar providing the embellishment) ... I am called Dame Starfire of Tamaran, but please, call me Starfire." Beast Boy once again ignored her falter, seemingly oblivious to her terrible lying.
"You're a knight? That's so cool!" he said enthusiastically as he turned once again, this time leaping into the air and becoming a falcon, flying quickly upward through the gap in the greenery that light still filtered through. Starfire remembered briefly the thought that she was progressing toward recovery, shooting through the same gap and following the green falcon into the open air.
Side of the Main Forest Road
"So, he just stopped here?" asked Starfire, when Beast Boy had finished explaining the situation to her. The two of them stood beside a wide paved road that ran straight as an arrow though the forest, providing a clear path for travelers to make good time through the otherwise almost impassable terrain. To their right was a huge, gunmetal gray, steel-clad carriage, with a covered wagon attached to the back. The wagon was particularly noteworthy because it had no horses, instead sporting a complicated system of pipes and smoke stacks on the back that Starfire assumed was some kind of combustion or steam engine. To their left was their current object of conversation.
Beast Boy's 'friend' had been more or less exactly what Starfire had expected: a low-tech version of her Beast Boy's best friend, Cyborg. Though overjoyed to find yet another analogue to her friends from home, she was more than a little startled by the change in appearance he'd undergone. Gone were the dazzling blue circuitry conduits and hair-fine robotic joints he'd enjoyed in his original body. Instead he was constructed rather crudely, if infinitely sturdily, from plain steel plate and angular metal joints. It was as if he'd been stripped down to the bare robotic skeleton and rebuilt with hunks of medieval plate mail. His head was still encased by metal along the left side, and his eye was still but a slit in the metal, though his current inactive state meant she'd yet to find out if it still gave off that red glow.
"Yeah, that's about the size of it," Beast Boy answered her question, walking up and tapping a few times on the much larger man's metal body, eliciting a dull metallic clang with each blow. "He runs on magic, and when he runs out, he just shuts down like this 'till he gets more. Usually we keep him running on a magical ore you can pick up in any given city, especially since they hit that new lode of it in The Crag. The stuff is called crisym crystal, and the Empress is the main supplier, her mines pulling up millions of tons of it a week to power her golem armies."
"I am sorry... golem armies?" Starfire queried, somewhat embarrassed by her own ignorance of current events here. It was shaping up to be a repeat performance of her first three months on Earth.
"Wow, stupid me," Beast Boy hit himself on the head again before apologizing to her, "I keep forgetting your not from around here. Come on, let's get the tin man here running again, he can explain this strange new world better than I ever could."
With that Beast Boy went over to the carriage and pulled a folding stool out from where it was attached to the bottom. Setting it up right behind Cyborg's heavy metal body, he used it to close the foot and a half distance between him and a well concealed latch on Cyborg's back. When he cracked the hatch, it vented a cloud of red gas that caused him to gag and wave at the air to drive it away, until finally he could see through the crimson miasma. Curious beyond her ability to contain herself, Starfire flew up behind Beast Boy and peered into the gaping hole in her mechanical friend's back.
"The crisym goes in here," Beast Boy stated the obvious, indicating the deep metal pit before him. "We'd have had enough, and we wouldn't have this problem now, only SOMEONE cheaped out at the last town! I TOLD him we should get more than five crowns worth, but NOOO. He's been pinching every shilling since the Empress started the magic tax—he says he's saving up for the war fund or something like that."
"Umm..." Starfire reluctantly began to venture another question, but Beast Boy waved her silent.
"Like I said, he'll explain things better than I can, so let's just get him started."
"Very well. What do you wish me to do?"
"Simple. All Cyborg here really needs is a jumpstart of raw energy to tide him over to the next town a few miles from here. He can run on any kind of magic, so just go ahead and shoot some in there, we'll slam the hatch shut, and he should start up just like that." It certainly sounded simple to Starfire, but she wasn't entirely sure Beast Boy knew what he was talking about, and, much to her continuing doubt, neither was Caspar.
"I do not know if that is such a good idea," began Starfire then, putting a finger to her chin and looking up in uncertainty. "My power is highly destructive... and I have no idea how much he may require. I do not wish to damage him internally with my 'help.'"
"Ah don't worry about old Cy, he's built to last. Just go ahead and shoot a goodly blast of that starfire in here and I'll take care of the rest. I'm sure he'll thank us afterward!" The confidence in Beast Boy's tone was something Starfire had learned to be wary of, indicating as it often did that he really didn't know what was going to happen and was bluffing his way through the situation. Then again, this Beast Boy had so far proven to be far more 'cool' than the one she knew, showing much more competence, if not a whole lot more maturity, than her own familiar friend. She went ahead and used this fact to base her decision to go with his plan. Unfortunately for Beast Boy himself, some things never change.
Nodding her agreement to him, she flew a little higher and backed up, putting a little distance between her and the roughly 3/4 ft cylinder she was about to try and stuff a starbolt down. Beast Boy changed into a monkey, climbed limberly up to the top of his big friend's shoulders, then changed back. Placing one hand on either side of the double hatch that covered the reactor, he poised himself to slam it shut and trap the green energy inside.
Balancing herself ramrod-straight in the air, Starfire placed her left fist in her right palm, elbows extended outward to form sort of a cross shape with her body. Taking one last look at the target, she closed her eyes, turning slowly ninety degrees to her right in the process, so that her left elbow pointed toward Beast Boy and Cyborg. After a moment of concentration, during which she struggled to choose just the right amount of power for the size of the hole she was aiming at, she opened her eyes again, letting their new green glow shine brightly as she turned her head to stare at the target. As ready as she'd ever be, she executed her attack in a single fluid movement.
Drawing back her right hand, she allowed the power she'd already formed in her mind to flow into her palm even as she brought her arm through an over-shoulder arc that would make a professional pitcher shed a tear of joy. Twisting in midair, she used the movement of her body through a simple contortion to accentuate the momentum of her throw, coming out of the maneuver with her legs pointed slightly behind her and her arm extended fully forward. Her shout of "KIYAHH!" perfectly coincided with the climax of her movement, the green teardrop-shaped spheroid of melting energy ejecting from her hand and bee-lining for Cyborg's reactor with pinpoint accuracy.
Her blast struck his power core with a dull clang and a backlash of green lightning that vented freely from the now-glowing hole until Beast Boy slammed the hatch shut and latched it closed. For a moment, nothing happened, and both watched with baited breath for some reaction from Cyborg. Sudden enough to startle both of them, his whole body began to hum softly, and after their initial jumps of surprise, each smiled in satisfaction.
"SWEET! I knew this would work, I KNEW IT! Who's the man?" Beast Boy asked himself in congratulations, doing a little dance from where he sat on Cyborg's shoulders. The calm humming slowly rose to a higher pitch, Cyborg's body vibrating like an oversized electric razor in the process. Starfire, assuming this was a normal part of the startup process, smiled and giggled charmingly as she watched Beast Boy's continuing antics.
Beast Boy, it turns out, had been so absorbed by his own victory that he hadn't noticed the vibrating going on right beneath his butt, and when he did take notice, his face fell and panic caused his eyes to nearly pop out of his head. He looked down, body otherwise frozen by heart-stopping terror, and he managed to whimper slightly before his plan's ultimate backfire lit him up like green neon lamp.
The power overload from using raw fusion energy in an archaic magic conversion reactor was spectacular, taking the form of a full-body green lightning bath running through Cyborg's metal frame like dancing streamers of iridescent burning light. The lightning hardly ignored Beast Boy, who found himself the subject of extreme pain as he too was riddled with hot needles of power. Jerking wildly about on his perch and screaming as his every nerve was rocked with heat, he looked... well... a lot like someone being electrocuted. The force of the energy running through him finally overcame his 'electrical' connection to his bud's metal body though, and he was blown off the metal man like a smoking green bottle rocket, flying several feet into the air before landing in a crumpled heap at the foot a nearby tree.
Starfire had also been frozen with shock, her own eyes wide as she stared at her small green friend's writhing form. His explosive separation from the electrical storm that was Cyborg shook her from her shock at last, and taking a wide route through the road proper to avoid the leaping electricity around Cyborg, she made her way to the charred changeling. Upon closer examination, he wasn't that badly hurt, merely given a light toasting and dazed out his senses, and she helped him to his feet after she'd determined that he would survive. She talked to him to try and get him back into his right mind then, even as Cyborg continued to cook in brilliant green auroras.
"Friend Beast Boy! I'm so glad you are all right," she said to him, patting some of the char out of his now truly tattered tunic. "It would seem as though I... overdid it." He responded with some woozy mumblings about pretty women and wanting kisses, but Caspar assured Starfire that he was not asking her for anything.
It was at about this point that Cyborg's systems finished assimilating Starfire's power, the green lightning dying down as he began to activate properly. Besides a rising cloud of grey smoke that wafted out of his joints, he seemed undamaged in any way Starfire was able to see from where she stood by Beast Boy. In fact, he looked really good, as if the green lightning had fried off the dull patina on his armor and left him looking shiny and new. As she continued to reassess her original disdain for his crude look, he began to truly start up, and she realized how deeply wrong she'd been.
As energy reached his quiet body, the blue light that she'd missed in his arms and legs presented itself, intricate blue lines tracing themselves all over his arms, legs, head, and shoulders as he powered up. The lines seemed to draw themselves right onto his body as he lit with the glow of his own power source, and suddenly Starfire realized that the lines had actually been etched into his metal plating, remaining invisible until he received power. As the final lines appeared in the metal plate in his skull, the light that was the sensor array replacing his left eye flickered into life, glaring out its mechanical red glow.
"Ohhh..." began Cyborg, one huge hand rising slowly to his metal-plated cranium, "my head... feels... GREAT!" and suddenly he split a huge smile and closed his eyes as he went into a series of stretches that would test all his joints. Some of them had squeaking kinks, but he moaned in pleasure as he worked these out, doing some test punches from a classic boxer's footwork of hopping about that made the ground shake under Starfire's feet and caused big cracks to appear in the cut-stone pavement. Starfire was just a little too bemused by his apparent health to speak up herself, and Beast Boy wasn't in much of a state to address anyone just yet. When he finished waking up, he began to search around for someone he knew should have been there.
"B.B., where are you homeboy? I don't know what kind of crisym you switched me to, but damn man, we need to get some more of this... stuff?" His hesitation was caused by the sight of Beast Boy and a strange young woman when he finally turned their direction. Walking up to them with a seriously perturbed look on his face, he asked simply, "Miss, would you care to explain why my green friend there looks like he got in a fight with a thunderstorm and lost?" Starfire broke out in a slight sweat when she realized that he must suspect her of something, and her answer reflected her nervousness at the force of the huge man's distrust.
"Uh... It was an accident. There was a clearing... and the Empresses tax collectors... and a big fight... and a princess—"
"Did you just say princess?" Cyborg caught out the one word that always stuck out with Beast Boy and trouble.
"Yes—"she was cut off again before she could explain further, this time by an expansive groan and gesture of hopelessness from Cyborg. The groan said something like "how does he manage to get us into these situations?" even as he resigned himself with the huge shrug.
"Alright, I know just from that that this'll be one heck of a story, so let's take care of the little guy first."
Indescribably relieved to no longer be the subject of Cyborg's intimidating glare, Starfire helped him get Beast Boy into the passenger area of the horseless carriage. At his beckoning, she sat up on top next him as he began manipulating the simple levers and pedals that drove the device. When he had gotten it started, it vented a single, long, whistling blast of steam from the huge pipes sticking on the back and began to sidle forward slowly. It picked up speed quickly, and soon they were bouncing down the road at a magnificent clip, the rubber-coated, metal-reinforced, wooden wheels making a fantastic racket as the uneven stones raced beneath them.
"Alright, go ahead an lay it on me," he said, giving a quick glace at the mysterious beauty Beast Boy had once again managed to cross paths with. That little guy had all the luck.
On the Main Forest Road
Starfire told her tale slowly as they zipped down the wide road, pausing often to catch her breath when the jarring bumps knocked the air from her lungs. As she detailed meeting Beast Boy and the encounter at the clearing, the landscape moved by at a harrowing pace (45mph seems REALLY fast when you're on an open vehicle). Every so often, Cyborg would spot someone ahead of them, turning a crank on the wooden paneling between his driver seat and her passenger seat that would in turn make a hammer strike a huge bell attached to the front of the carriage below the driver's perch. People they buzzed by tended to gape and stare for the few seconds it took them to fade into the distance behind them, indicating to Starfire that their mode of transportation wasn't exactly a commonplace sight. When she'd finally finished describing the process of restarting him, punctuated by his bursts of laughter at the thought of Beast Boy getting toasted, he sat in consideration of her words for some time, the only sound that of wood jarring along stone.
"Y'know," he began at last, speaking detachedly as he stared off into the distance for people that might get in the way, "Normally, I wouldn't trust you even a little bit... and, I'd probably pitch you off my carriage out of principle and wait for B.B. to come to to find out if I was justified or not."
Starfire felt her heart leap into her mouth at the thought of having any kind of serious fight with her friend, but her protest died in her throat when he held up his hand to forestall her interruption. Apparently he had expected her to profess her innocence and beg his patience, and didn't want her to waste her breath.
"Normally, that's what I'd do, but there's something about you... something familiar. You just seem like someone who wouldn't lie, and I respect that—it's pretty rare after all. So here's what's up: we'll wait to hear B.B.'s side of the story together, and after that, if he confirms it, then we'll talk more."
"You are a very suspicious man." Starfire commented, not the slightest hint of accusation or admonition in her tone. The statement had been made as only a statement, and thus, no matter how much it grated on Cyborg, he couldn't really bring himself to get angry at her.
"Well, I've got good reason. There're about a dozen extremely powerful nobles and knights—plus all their armies—that would just looove to get their greasy paws on me and my bud back there."
"You mean like Dominic?"
"Nah, that scum-sucker was most likely just doing his job. Human trash like him come up so far down the chain of command that I doubt he's even heard the orders to arrest us on sight yet. If he had, he'd have brought more men to get B.B."
Accepting this, Starfire once more fell into silence. She had a stinging curiosity to know why the fantasy versions of her friends were wanted by the government rather than acting a crime fighting heroes, but she dared not ask lest she aggravate Cyborg into making good on his earlier threat. Caspar, however, would have none of it, and proceeded to prod at her incessantly to voice her question, apparently having a curiosity of his own to satisfy. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore, and asked her question, more to get Caspar off her back than to satisfy her own earlier curiosity.
"Cyborg, why is it that these people are after you? Have you... done something wrong?" she cringed slightly when she was finished, ready for any outburst he might make.
"Hmmm." Cyborg glared at her out of the corner of his human eye, keeping always aware of those ahead of him. "For no particularly good reason, I feel like answering that one. Okay, you ask if we've done something wrong. Well, by the standards of the people we oppose, we've committed unforgivable crimes, the kind of thing they execute you for. By the standards of sane and just people, we're heroes."
"Truly?" she egged him on, wanting to believe that even here her friends were champions of the people.
"Let's just say that the current rulers aren't what you'd call sane or just. Empress Kitten is an insufferable, self-indulgent, greedy little brat with more power than sense by a hell of a large margin. No one can prove it, of course, but it's said that she assassinated her uncle to become ruler. The engineer of that whole plot, and the true power behind the throne, is a psychopathic sadist by the name of Duke Slade, Lord of the Northern Marches. That warmongering scumbag became Prime Minister out of the deal, and immediately began a war of aggression with the Kingdom of Jump's closest neighbor, the Kingdom of Gotham." Suddenly, Cyborg found himself telling her the whole story of the last three years, even though he'd promised himself he wouldn't trust her until Beast Boy woke up and confirmed her story. Something about her made him trust her intrinsically, despite the various powerful figures out to see him disassembled.
"The war raged for two and half years, Jump's newly built force of golem warriors, stone automatons that follow Duke Slade's orders, having an upper hand at first. The ruler of Gotham changed that when he fielded his own special force, the Dark Knights. King Batman led them himself, and his chosen air, Prince Robin (Starfire's heart skips a beat), was their captain. Using daring nighttime raids and unparalleled skill, they beat back Slade's forces mercilessly, not even Slade's own chosen Captains able to stand against them. Each of them fell: Masonstone (no cinderblocks here folks) the living siege engine, Sir Mammoth the Strong, Mistress Jinx the Black Witch, and... oh... who was that last one? Oh yeah, Sir Gizmo the short, foul-mouthed and obnoxious."
"Umm..."
"Yeah, I did make up that last one myself, because I HATE that guy. We studied together in the Jump Royal Engineering Academy, and we didn't like each other then. When the war broke out, he was scouted by Slade and I fled the country, not wanting anything to do with a war like that. When I got to Gotham, I realized that my abilities were going to waste, so I joined the Dark Knights hoping I could help depose Slade and Kitten and move back to my home in Jump."
"How did everything 'turn out'?" she ventured, trying another idiom she'd been practicing of late.
"Well, while in the Dark Knights, I met Prince Robin and Beast Boy, and the three of us became buds. Beast Boy's situation was similar to mine, he left his druidic circle in Jump Forest to fight against Slade, even though all his fellow druids opposed it. They're not supposed to be violent y'know, even though they do train in combat to protect their forests. Anyway, with King Batman and Prince Robin to lead us, we drove back Slade and his golems, no problem. It looked like we would win and force Jump to surrender when Slade pulled his fast one. Enlisting the aid of a nutcase criminal within Gotham—some crackpot by the name of Joker, dangerous though—he managed to strike against King Batman himself, wounding him and damaging our morale big time. We fell back when we should have advanced, and the next thing you know it was a stalemate."
"Prince Robin... was he unharmed?" she asked, fear jumping into her spine as she thought of having lost the Robin of this world as well.
"He was fine... but why'd you wanna know? Never mind. To our great surprise, Slade himself came forward with a peace offering, something that should have aroused our suspicion right away. Robin sure as heck didn't trust him, but King Batman's ministers snapped up the chance to end the war without loosing any land right away, ignoring the danger of dealing with men like Slade. The exact wording of the treaty was sort of an armistice, just and end to conflict, no provisions made for anything. The only stipulation was that the two countries be bound by marriage to cement the deal. So, having little choice as long as King Batman's ministers ran the country while the big guy was down for the count, Robin agreed to the arranged marriage.
Starfire's gasp expressed the spectacular way her heart dropped quite perfectly, her hands flashing up to cover her mouth as her body stiffened in horror. "He... had to marry... KITTEN?"
"HA! She wishes! No, traditions older than most of these trees clearly stipulate that if Kitten married Robin she'd have to give up her throne to him. As much as she'd love to have Robin as her own, she loves her power far more, so they had to track down the current heir apparent to the throne of Jump. Royalty has been pretty scarce there, especially since Kitten had all her closest relatives killed or otherwise removed from the line up to secure her power base. So, the heralds checked the records for days looking for a suitable bargaining chip to secure the peace agreement, finally coming up with a third cousin of a third cousin or some such, a princess from out west somewhere. Hey, you said you're from out that way, maybe you've heard of her? Her name was... uh... Kiriand'r—or some such foreign thing or other."
Starfire felt sick. A wave of nausea threatened to sweep over her, followed quickly by a compulsive urge to either scream or faint. The knowledge that what Blackfire had been talking about, all that rambling about marriages and wars and Starfire's intrinsic role in it all, that it had all been true, and that she was supposed to MARRY ROBIN, hit her like a speeding horseless carriage. Caspar took that moment to exercise his discretionary emergency authority, putting a plug on her reaction and allowing her to take the news without the slightest quirk of her features.
"I do know her..." she began slowly, "and I heard she never made it to the wedding."
"Yeah, that turned out to be the catch in Slade's deal. Apparently, they'd found a new mother lode of crisym crystal in a part of the Mountains of Agony known as The Crag. The peace treaty was to give them enough time to tap it and rebuild their army before striking again. No one knows for sure, but it's suspected that when they struck the deal that gained them Tamaran's princess, they also struck a deal to have her 'taken care of' on the trip over here. Anyway, it didn't stop there. Using the pre-wedding celebrations in Jump as bait, they lured Robin into a trap and captured him not two weeks ago."
"No..." Starfire felt her whole body go numb, the knowledge that her loved one and, apparently, fiancée had been captured by a vicious enemy settling like bad pasta in her gut.
"The worst part is, because of the months of delay between the armistice and the marriage, the Gotham army, including me and B.B., had already dispersed back to our homes. It was good to be back in Jump... for about the first month anyway. After that, Empress Kitten instituted the magic tax. We thought it was just some annoying extra provision to cover the cost of the war debt at first, so we put up with it. Then it got worse, and people who couldn't pay started disappearing. About two months back, B.B. and I decided to stop paying it, and we were on our way out of the country when one of Robin's messengers caught up with us. When we found out about his capture and Slade's plot, we turned my wheels around on the spot and started back toward Jump Palace, where we figure he's being held. Using our secret messengers, Beast Boy, Me, and one other of the old Dark Knights living in Jump formed a plan to rescue him. That's where we were headed when I ran out of power, and that's why were hauling that (he nods back toward the cart behind the carriage)."
"You must allow me to help you rescue Robin." Starfire said without preamble the very instant Cyborg had finished talking.
"Whoa little lady, this is our fight, not yours. You seem nice, so I'll give you a ride to the next town, but after that, we're going our separate ways."
"No, you do not understand, I MUST help you save Robin." The determination in Starfire's voice belied her gentle nature, sounding like hot steel and burning forge fire under her words.
"You're right; I don't understand why you're so insistent about some guy you've never met from a country you claim you've never been to before." Suspicion was creeping back into Cyborg's voice, his eyes narrowing as he wondered if it had been such a good idea to spill his guts to this interesting young woman.
"Please friend Cyborg... calm yourself. I can explain all," she said, looking down as she brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs where she sat on the deep seat. Caspar began detailing further lies out of habit, but Starfire ignored him, instead gathering the courage to come clean with this version of her friend and trust that he was as understanding here as he was in her world. "You see," she continued, "I am Princess Kiriand'r, former heir of Tamaran... and betrothed of Prince Robin of Gotham."
Cyborg did a double take to say the least. Nearly choking on his tongue with the force of his surprise, he took his bulging eye off the road for one second too long, finally catching himself and swerving to avoid a trader's wagon at the last instant by going up on two wheels and edging bye, very nearly loosing the trailer behind them in the process. Carefully regaining control of the speeding vehicle once all the wheels were back on the ground, he pulled on the brake lever and cut the power, allowing the vehicle to slow to a stop on the side of the road. Both were breathing heavily, recovering from the near-miss shock, but Cyborg nonetheless found the breath to voice his staggering surprise.
"YOU'RE THE PRINCESS?" he managed, succinctly expressing the question that had successfully hijacked his brain.
"Please do not be upset," Starfire begged, slumping slightly where she sat as she became fearful of loosing his trust. "I escaped from my captor with aid from a... friend. He gave me my spirit guide and advised me to find my quest if I wished for true freedom. Now I fear that Prince Robin has been captured because of me, and I cannot simply sit aside and not help rescue him."
"So...?"
"I don't know if I want to marry him or not, but I must at least help rescue him. It is my duty."
Cyborg sighed deeply, knowing in his magically-hybridized heart that she was telling nothing but the plain truth. Making a snap decision that he was somehow sure he would live to regret, he said simply, "Alright princess, you can come along."
"Truly?" Starfire snapped back, head rising out of her folded legs with an expression of such pure relief and joy that it would melt the heart of any sane man, Cyborg not excluded. "Thank you SO much friend Cyborg, you will not regret this decision!" Caspar made some forceful suggestions, annoyed that she'd spilled the beans but otherwise just trying to keep things safe, so Starfire went ahead and followed his advice, finding it to be sound anyway. "If I might make one request however?"
"Now what?" Cyborg was less annoyed than he was concerned about having a princess along for the quest, but his tone wasn't so clear, and Starfire had to gather courage again to finish her request.
"It is just that, I do not wish to be treated as something frail and easily breakable while traveling with you and your friends. I am a warrior in my own right, and I desire no special treatment. Because of this, it would mean much to me if you would not tell the others my true identity."
"You realize what you're askin' me?"
"Yes, and I would not ask it if I did not truly believe it would make things easier for everyone."
"Heh, Robin often said pretty well the same thing when people would try and stop him from doing dangerous stuff. Hmm... okay, we'll keep this between just the two of us."
Starfire expressed her enormous gratitude with a hug around the metal man's cold steel chest. It wasn't one of her crushing friendship hugs, but Cyborg could still feel a strain on his joints as her strength shined through, and decided that maybe she wouldn't be a burden after all.
The Kodak moment was broken by the sound of tortured wailing from the passenger cabin containing Beast Boy, and both of them turned with a start to look back, even though there was no way to see in through the metal-plated roof. Cyborg's concern melted into amusement quickly however, as he immediately realized what must have happened. When Starfire gave him a confused look at his uncontrollable laughter, he slowly stopped himself before answering.
"I've got a big mirror on one of the wall panels down there. Beast Boy musta come to and gotten a look at what his dew looks like after that electricity bath."
They shared the laughter this time.
The Meandering Bog, that night
"Mannn, I HATE this swamp!" complained Beast Boy, adjusting his hair again as he sat between Cyborg and Starfire on the roof of the coach, just behind the actual driver's perch. "Are you sure there isn't any other way?"
"For the millionth time man, we HAVE to go through the swamp, every other road is patrolled by Slade's forces." Cyborg was more than a little tired of Beast Boy's bellyaching, having heard no end of it since he'd first told him of the circuitous route they were taking to Jump Palace and the tower Robin was being held in. The whole way here it had been nothing but "the swamp makes my fur frizzy," or "the swamp smells bad," and the ever classic, "are you SURE there's no other way?"
"Honestly B.B. you're a DRUID! Aren't you supposed to be, I don't know, a little more in touch with nature?"
"Hey, forests: yes, mountains: yes, jungles: oh yes, any water at all: I'm there—THAT swamp? HELL NO! It's a completely lifeless hole and it gives me the creeps, nine out of ten druids agree it would be better wiped off the map!"
"Friends, please stop arguing," cut in Starfire as it looked like Cyborg and Beast Boy were about to have a serious slap fight on the moving coach. They were in a barren clearing currently heading toward the edge of the swamp, which lay some distance away ahead of them. Cyborg was somehow able to argue with Beast Boy and keep the coach on the roughly hewn path they were riding along, although only at a much lower speed.
"This is such a bad idea. That swamp is cursed, no one who goes in there on the west road ever comes out again! I mean, why do you think Slade doesn't bother guarding it?"
"Would you just stuff it man? We're going through and that's FINAL! I've taken the north road myself, and it was fine. The west road can't be as bad as everyone says, that's all just a crock of half-baked legends used to get people to take the toll road along the northern path. I say we can definitely go in there and survive the experience!"
"I'm telling you man, if we go into that forest, we're done for. Some of the other druids came to check this place out, just a routine trip to see if it was worth starting a circle here, y'know? The ones that scouted the north came back with stories of a creepy place devoid of any animals or plants, just barren dead things, not even really rotting. The ones that went to the west side were never heard from again."
"Come on, maybe they just... got lost or something?" Cyborg actually sounded kind of nervous now, almost as though he was trying to convince himself.
"Druids? Get lost? In nature? You're kidding, right?" Beast Boy could smell victory, but it was not to be, the carriage barreling down the last open stretch of road and into the inky black shadows of the gnarled dead trees that overshadowed the road and blocked out the last vestiges of moonlight. Cyborg pulled another lever, opening a pair of hatches that covered two torches with mirrors around them set into the front of the carriage. At the same time, he shrugged his left shoulder, opening a panel Starfire hadn't noticed before. Snapping his fingers in front of it, he created a spark, lighting a small oil lamp with a similar mirror set up as the torches on the front of the carriage. Three beams of light struck out then, illuminating the endless black pit before them with lonely streamers of warmth. As the moonlit clearing disappeared around a bend in the road behind them, Beast Boy began muttering quiet prayers to the gods of nature, praying desperately as darkness closed around them on all sides. Starfire too felt a sense of foreboding that she couldn't deny, and hoped deeply that Cyborg's gambit was successful. Finally, Caspar added his own fear to the mix, commenting on a sense of impending danger that was no mere worry...
Preview: Cool, up next, we'll see that, oh lord almighty NOOOOO! ... Beast Boy (AHHH!) was right! Will the wonders never cease? In any case, neat battle scene (or two) and some more fantasy junk next chapter. Actually, I may be able to end this story arc next chapter too! In any case, look for the entrance of fantasy Raven and a little bit of something I've been planning since, like, chapter 7 and 8. Stay tuned for: The Journey Part-III.
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