RavenOfNight: Thanks for the compliments!
Dark Shadows 01: Wow... you post so much faster than me, lol! Anyways, I'll remember to get your name right!
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"What do you mean? I know my moth-" Raven said suddenly, before truly seeing Celeste.
The similarities were uncanny, impossible.
"Who are you?" The teen's voice was a bare whisper.
"Raven please let me explain." Celeste said softly, her eyes begging.
"Explain what?" The venom returned, a natural defense.
Mother stared at daughter for a second, eyes locking. "Everything."
"Then... who was?" Raven tried to speak, but questions were blazed together with fury, confusion, and under a harsh exterior, perhaps even sorrow. She did the only thing she could.
With a swift movement, Raven teleported away.
"Raven!" Beast Boy screamed after the swirling air.
"You didn't tell her?" Desparos's tone was questioning.
"She did not need anything more to worry about." Celeste sighed, then straightened up. "I'll be back."
"Wait!" Adena cried, to nothing more then a glimmer of light.
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"Arielle!" Raven stormed into the beautiful patio, white birds singing. A lamp exploded by her head.
"Raven?" Arielle seemed surprised. "What—how?" The woman with dark lilac hair stuttered.
"I have some questions and they need to be answered now." Raven demanded, taking deep breaths to calm herself as her head spun.
"But—Trigon... you should be dead?" Arielle's voice was more curious then joyful.
"Are you my mother?" Raven breathed.
"What?" She faltered.
"Raven!" A soft, wispy voice suddenly rang out as footsteps tread quickly toward them.
"Raven I--" Celeste halted as she saw the scene in the golden room.
Raven, stood; anger barely hidden by a pale, glassy table. Arielle sat on a soft ivory cushion, and she was half-way in the door, a bloody gash on her pale skin.
There was a time of complete, incoherent silence.
"C-celeste?" Arielle whispered, her eyes wide and helpless.
An empty weariness passed through her eyes just long enough for Raven to catch it, then it was compassionate grace.
"Hello Arielle," Celeste replied gently.
"Celeste?" The woman said in disbelief again, as she walked over entranced and touched the red cut on her cheekbone. "You haven't aged a day." She croaked.
With an almost bitter smile, Celeste replied. "No I am afraid that time passes you by buried in the Sepulchrum of Mortis."
"The forbidden tombs? Nothing lives there!" Raven muttered.
"Behind the door of Trigon's sign, lies the fallen star he captured there. Sacred life, half-death 'till eternity ends." Celeste spoke in a melodious monotone.
"Then you are-" Raven couldn't form the words.
"I am your mother, yes." Celeste said.
It seemed to sink into Raven and Arielle at the same moment. Arielle threw herself on top of Celeste, crying. Raven met eyes so like her own, and sat in silence as Celeste led crying Arielle to the cushion.
"Arielle is my younger sister." She began, though she appeared six or so years younger then Arielle the age still was obvious. Arielle was independent, emotional, and slightly vain. Celeste was older, sedated and comforting with a darker soul that Raven finally began to understand. The same shadow that claimed her own soul.
"I am six years her elder. Arielle was always getting into trouble, broken pipelines, vandalizing schools, and most of the time I was with her. We were kids, having some fun..."
Raven found in hard to imagine Celeste graffiting a wall.
"One day, she got into an argument with our parents and ran out."
Arielle gave a heavy sob.
"I followed her, and... found someone waiting for her."
"Trigon." Raven knew.
"Evil demon lord, he can go fu--" The younger sister spat heatedly.
"Arielle, words will not harm him." Celeste said softly to quiet her. "He had been watching Arielle, and enjoyed her spirit. She fought, got into trouble, but always remained loyal. Trigon wanted to take her and force her to live in Azerath as his own."
"And you told him no." Raven could almost see the past playing out.
Celeste gave a wry smile. "She is my sister, of course I refused. Trigon was amused, more or less, with my bravery. So we made a deal. We would both come to live in Azerath, but Arielle would be left alone and I in her stead."
"You shouldn't have agreed." Arielle began shaking. "You should have left me with him. It's all my fault..."
"No," Her voice was suddenly powerful. "Do not say that. It was never your blame. I had a choice Arielle, and I do not regret it."
The blue-eyed woman was silent.
"So we both went, and for the first three years it was fine. She lived in this tower, and I in the house of Trigon. Desparos was assigned as my personal guard. I probably needed one, since I tried to do everything in my power to make my host miserable... then something changed." Celeste swallowed to clear her throat, hiding her inner struggle to say the words.
"He told me that I was carrying a child, his child."
"Did you sleep with him?" Raven asked with characteristic bluntness.
"No, demons have... other ways." Her mother said.
Raven wasn't sure to be relieved or afraid by this statement.
"At first, I refused to believe him; then I wanted to make him pain. I have seen Trigon's evil and I did not want to spread it."
Raven looked down, only to feel a soft warmth touch her cheek, as Celeste made her look up gently.
"But instead of an evil demon I had a little girl, a beautiful little girl with no hint of her father's cruelty."
She blinked. All her life, those were the words she had wanted to hear. She had nothing of her father's sick cruelty... She was Raven, not Trigon's child.
"Trigon left me alone for a while longer, but forbid me to name you. So, for nearly six years we lived in Azerath. We have a dream, that one day we would grow wings and fly away from here... just like the ravens."
Raven. Her name suddenly seemed a lot less dark.
"On your sixth birthday, Trigon came again. He told me that you were going to be marked. I led you to the monks, and then when you had left he told me why... my daughter, my little raven, was going to help destroy the world I had come from."
The dilemma struck Raven with harshness. Trigon had forced her hand. The daughter she loved was going to destroy the world she loved. She felt her blood boil at his barbarity.
"You came back to me, crying because the scars burnt onto your skin hurt. I knew, I could not let him use you again. So I fled. I took you out of the palace, down into Azerath and knocked on Arielle's tower. I told Arielle to keep you, begged her to raise you. She agreed, then... I erased every memory you had of me except one..."
"Raven," The teen whispered.
"Trigon was furious when he found that I had hidden you. Yet, I had grown powerful in my time in Azerath. When his blood mixed with mine I became more then human. Not yet demon, but I was granted powers. He could not penetrate my mind to find where you were, and Trigon had been to busy invoking his plans to rise again to remember Arielle who had stayed in her tower, never bothering him. He lost you, and my sister raised you. However, he did not kill me as I thought he would. If Trigon could love something I suppose he would have loved me. So instead, he put me into a sleep, and locked me in the Sepulchrum of Mortis, not living; yet not dead I lay for sixteen years. On your sixteenth birthday, I was awoken again. Desparos, my ever loyal guard, used a key formed by the return of your markings to awaken me. I began to follow a plan layed long ago, and now it is almost complete." Celeste finished her harrowing tale.
"Celeste," Arielle whispered, hugging her sister.
"I am fine," She replied softly, a small smile forming on her face.
Everything began to fall into place then. The way Arielle had treated her, her name, her birth... everything. Raven couldn't talk.
"Come now, we have already wasted to much time. I fear for Desparos and Adena, as well as your friends. We have already stayed to long." The comment was directed to Raven.
"I am coming with you." Arielle said forcefully.
"Arielle..." She sighed, seeing the defiant air in her sister. "This is not a happy tale."
"I have thought my sister was dead for sixteen years." Arielle said softly. "And I am not letting her go off into the night again."
She nodded, and then grabbed Arielle by her wrist to bring her to Jump City.
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"Raven!" Robin exclaimed as the half-demon appeared in front of him.
"Are you... okay?" Cyborg asked.
She was paler then usual.
"I-I'll be fine." she said finally, swallowing her feelings to allow clear reason to see. Celeste was her mother, and Arielle was her aunt. That didn't change the fact that Trigon controlled earth, and they were the last people who could stop it.
"What happened?" BB ran over.
"Nothing, just... a nice talk. Right now, we have to make a plan."
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"Home, its been so long." Arielle said, sad and excited at the same time. Her smile faded as she saw its entirety.
"Trigon." She didn't pose it as a question.
"He still reigns, and will if we do not do anything about it." Desparos walked over to the two woman.
"My Lady, Arielle." He nodded.
"I already have a plan." Celeste said loud enough for the Teen Titan's to hear her. "But I need to go somewhere first... To tie up loose bonds."
"May I ask where?" Desparos sensed a deep loss in his mistress.
"Somewhere safe." She replied without a real answer.
"So Celeste is really your..." Robin didn't know how to say the words.
Raven complied. "Sit down, we have a long talk about my birth."
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A/N- Just a brief past of Celeste. I will go into more detail later. Any questions? Comments?