(Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.)

Shadow was wounded. The Titans were able to incapacitate him easily enough after a short battle. Raven and Moonlight did not join in the fray. They sat together on the couch and watched.

"I think we need to talk," Raven muttered.

Moonlight looked down. "Yeah. We do."

"They can handle him. Come on."

Moonlight hesitantly followed her cousin out of the room and up onto the roof. "Rae, it's beautiful."

"I like to meditate up here." She abruptly changed the subject. "I realize I didn't give you the warmest of welcomes. I would have said, 'I don't do warm or welcoming,' a few months ago. Now I've almost broken free."

Moonlight heard the longing in her cousin's last sentence. "Rae, that's wonderful. You had it the worst of us all."

"That's because you're not half human. As you can see, I don't need your problems right now." Raven sighed. "I guess they're here anyway, though. If you want my help, tell me what you've been keeping from me, Moonlight – and I mean everything."

Sitting down on the sun-warmed rooftop, Moonlight agreed. "Alright. You won't like some of it...but give me a chance to explain things before you kill me?

"Your mother tried to find Firestorm using forbidden magic. I...I was afraid and told –"

"You told! Do you know what they do to people who use that magic?"

Moonlight pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. "She had gone into a deep trance. They hadn't been able to bring her out of it when I left."

"You just left?"

"No, Rae! It's not like it sounds! There was this man, you see. He had given your mother what she needed to perform the magic. He offered me a choice: your mother or our cousin. Before you get mad, listen! Finding Firestorm is what she wanted. She risked her life for it. I knew if the three of us worked together, we could free her. I chose Firestorm. He taught me to make the knives and then, once I had them, turned me over. Apparently, they are forbidden magic as well."

"And you ran," Raven predicted in her usual monotone. "You ran and abandoned both of them."

"I...I have plenty of excuses and explanations, but I don't have any justification. I decided he would try to do something like that to you if I brought you back, so I abandoned the whole idea."

"But not the forbidden magic of your knives," Raven retorted.

"But not the forbidden magic of my knives. Shadow first attacked me after the second time I used the knives to defend myself."

"Defend yourself?"

"Resist arrest," Moonlight amended sheepishly. "I barely escaped and started hopping worlds in an attempt to lose him. I picked up a few names on the way. When he learned my name I was on a planet whose people called me Lucine. On another planet, a group of little kids called me Dierdra." Moonlight laughed dryly. "Funny thing about little kids: they can always seem to tell who a person really is. I certainly was and am a sorrowful wanderer. Some called me different variations of the name, but they are all more or less the same."

Raven was levitating with her legs crossed and her eyes closed. "Any other names I should know about?"

"I've been called Aysel, which is 'moonlight', and Ilandere, which means 'moon woman'. Out of all my names, though, the Mendai seem to refer to me – to the three of us – as Desdemona."

Raven's eyes flew open – all four of them. They were red. "Desdemona?"

"Yeah. 'Of the devil.' No offense, Rae, but look at you. It's nasty of them to call us that, but it doesn't change the truth of it," Moonlight murmured. "Firestorm was the most devilish of us all."

Raven calmed down enough that her eyes returned to their normal number and color. "Shadow said something about what really happened to Firestorm?"

"That, I swear, was only to make you not trust me."

The two cousins sat in silence for a moment. The silence was broken by the growling of Moonlight's stomach. She smiled apologetically. "It never lets me enjoy peace and quiet anymore."

"When did you last eat?"

"A few days ago."

"You might not be human, but you still need nourishment. Come on."

Author's note: Thanks very much to all who have let me know I'm loved - or at least that I'm interesting. I'm very open to suggestions, ideas, and such.