A little story I wrote, I'm trying to show the side of Terra not seen in my other fics. Do I like Terra? No. Will I ever Like Terra? No, but I can feel sympathy for her character, especially because her situation is so similar to Faith in Buffy, who has got to one of my fave characters of all time, so I made them a bit more similar, and to boot, I just felt like writing this, so there.
"Terra, you don't have to do this"
"Yes Robin, I do"
Robin sighed, and watched the guards take her away. Somehow, no one was quite sure…well, that's another story. To make it short, Terra had been revived. Her friends ready to welcome her back, to start afresh. But Terra was not ready, she had refused their offer and turned herself into jail.
The guards pulled her along roughly. Didn't they know that this was her choice? That she wasn't going to run away? She would never run off again, not anymore. They stopped in front of a cell. One guard fiddled with the keys for a moment, while his companion kept a firm grip on her. The door swung open and Terra was practically tossed in. Her time training with the Titans….and Slade, had given her good reflexes, and she landed on her feet. The blonde girl looked around the cell, relatively spacious, with a pair of bunk beds on either side of the room. She sat down on the bed closest to her and buried her head in her hands.
"Hey'
Terra's head snapped up. Across the room, on the tope bunk of the other set of beds sat a girl about her own age. Terra hadn't even seen her before, she blended right in with the shadows, her clothes were faded, her skin pale from lack of sun and her mousy hair lacked any luster.
"Scared ya?"
"Um, kinda" Terra admitted. Silence ensued, neither girl saying a word.
"You're that girl, the one with the Titans. Aren't you" Terra started, but then relaxed, slumping a bit.
"I was, but not anymore "
The girl's sad brown eyes looked at her from across the room
"But you're a hero…"
Terra felt her eyes begin to brim with tears.
"No, I'm no hero, I'm just Terra"
The girl shook her head, "Yes, you are, you just made a mistake"
Terra nodded.
"…and you couldn't get yourself out"
The blonde wiped her damp eyes, "Yea, I couldn't"
"And so they threw you in here"
"No, I turned myself in"
"Why?"
"I did bad things, I tried to hurt people, kill them, I worked for an evil man, of my own free will. That's why, I deserve this, as punishment"
The girl gave a sigh, "Someone said something like that to me once, they didn't realize that my punishment had begun long before I came here, just doing it, that was punishment enough"
Terra looked up
"what did you do"
The girl seemed to stiffen "that's my business"
Terra gave a little snort of indignation, "You could at least tell me your name"
"Can't"
"Why not?"
"Just can't"
The girl hopped off the bunk and walked over to where Terra sat. As she walked into the dim light, Terra saw just how terrible the girl looked. She appeared to be very under nourished and small, her eyes were haunted and sunken, and couldn't have been older than fourteen. Again, Terra couldn't help but wonder how she had gotten herself into this dark hole. The girl brushed a lock of stringy hair back behind her ear, and for a moment, the light illuminated an arm crisscrossed with what looked like hundreds of scars. A cutter. Terra thought.
"But they forgave you?" The girl said
Terra nodded again
"Yea they did"
"But you can't forgive yourself"
"No, I can't, and I don't I ever will be able to"
The girl shook her head, and showed Terra her arms, covered in marks
"Old wounds take time to heal, but they always do, remember that"
The girl walked back over to her own bunk and laid down.
"See you in the morning" Terra said weakly
"I won't be here in the morning"
"Oh" The blonde girl didn't ask, knowing she wouldn't get an answer
Terra felt exhaustion over coming her, and she too flopped back onto her own bed. In a few minutes, she was drifting off to sleep. The last words she heard were
"Forgive yourself Terra, I have"
A week later….
Terra sat on a park bench, enjoying the cool spring day. Her inmate had spoken the truth, in the morning, the cell was empty, the guards said that she had been moved. Terra had taken the girl's words to heart. That day, she had called up the Titans and said that she'd changed her mind, that she would serve her "time" better fighting crime. They'd come to pick her up immediately. Terra was glad she had made the right decision, the first of many she would hope. An old newspaper blew by, catching on the blond titan's leg. picked it up. It really was old, March 10, that was just a few weeks after she had… no, she didn't want about think about it. An article caught her eye.
…the series of earthquakes that caused the evacuation of the city were thankfully not terribly destructive……
Terra gulped
…only one injury was even recorded, when, fourteen year old Mara Williams, late of Juvenile Hall, was riding home on her bike. There was a tremor, and a landslide. Mara was killed by the mass of falling rock. It took hours to clear off all the debris, and another hour to identify her, as the body had been mutilated by the razor sharp shards of shale embedded in the cliff side. The funeral was held a month ago before the mass evacuation, in a small ceremony.
Next to the article was a picture, of a small hand and arm sticking out of a pile of rubble, it was covered in slash marks.
"Oh my God…."
End.
So how was it? Please read and review.
-Angel