Don't hate me for not getting this proof read cause I did it for you, really I thought you had gone long enough with out Raven's antics. And I'm doing this after no one reviewed to the last chapter or to the latest update of MISUNDERSTOOD.
From the agent's home Raven was shoved to Dakota. To a home for 'special people'. This woman was to be her new foster mother, permanent no matter what until she turned 18.
"Are you a nice girl Raven?" Ama asked in a northern clipped paced.
"Uh…" I'm here because I've been kicked out of everywhere else and the government doesn't want to get in trouble. You tell me. She made a noise but other wise remained silent.
"Good." Raven's hair fanned out and the rear window cracked. "Ba-ad." Ama Abra continued indication the glass. "But good, none of the girls are good ones."
"What?" Raven was confused, was she joking or being serious, could she talk about her charges like that? Even that empathy Raven wasn't sure.
"They're not, honestly. I'm a last resort house. I know it. All my girls were trouble in their other houses, I was told that you have a bit of trouble yourself."
"I, uh," Raven shifted her feet.
"You don't need to get defensive. I'm just trying to be open. If you don't want me to be honest I don't need to be. I can lie though my teeth, really, I'm quite good at it."
"No really I'm.." Glad? "Appreciative."
"That's good too." She paid the parking attendant and pulled out of the deserted metro-airport parking lot.
"Welcome to Dakota, Raven, Where the weak are killed and eaten." Ama laughed at her own urban humor. Raven watched rotting houses and dieing plants out the window. Several minutes passed. The neighborhoods got slightly better, at least better kept.
"Did I scare you?" Ama asked at last braking the silence.
"I don't do fear." Was her automatic cold response.
"Well that's good, cause there's a lot of it her. Especially since the accident. Did they tell you that your housemates were bang-babies too?"
There was that word again. Bang-baby. In all Azar had though her, all the languages of earth and other prominent dimensions, all the customs, everything, that word had never come up. Not in any alphabet or dialect she'd ever studies with Azar or her mother-yet twice she had been called it since this whole fiasco started.
Ama Read he face as easily as Raven read her scrolls. "Bang-baby" she repeated, as though that would fix it. "Meta-human? Freak? Witch breed? Hell spawn?"
Now that last one I know. Spite huffed.
"That's what you right?" Ama continued, unaware of her ward's internal dialogue.
"Which one?" Raven asked half sarcastic half serious.
Ama laughed. "They're all the same thing sweetie, depending on the group you listen to or the religious nut you follow but they all mean the same thing. Some poor kid who… changed… after the big chemical explosion a few years ago."
"So my room mates…"
"House mates; you'll only be sharing a room with Fondea and Jasmine."
"So my house mates are all bang-babies?" Learn a word might as well use it.
"Not if you ask them, they're people, delinquents, but teen girls all the same."
They hit a pothole and the back glass Rattled. As though this was something that happened everyday, like they hadn't just been talking about a very serous topic, Ama asked Raven casually, "you mind keeping that up? Fondea can fix it when we get home."
"Huh, oh right." A black aura surrounded the glass holding it in place.
"Black eh?" Ama noted. " That's—different."
She means creepy sad whispered. Shut up you. Lady says what she means. Brave hissed. "Azarath, Metrion Zinthos" Raven whispered to quite her other sides."What'd you say?" Ama asked turning the hard right and cutting off several people to get to her exit. Horns sounded and fingers showed. Ana concentrated on the pale girl in the seat next to her.
"Nothing, it's just my mantra, a chant I say, it helps me keep control." Raven blushed. Explaining did not equal fun in her mind. There were so many things about her that shouldn't, no couldn't be told that she guarded the information like a wolf bitch guarding her den.
Ama smiled easily and jumped the curb in to the driveway of a small brick house with no basement and 3 bedrooms. "You should teach some of the girls that trick."
"Uh, what?" Raven asked, her majik was never called tricks.
"Control, they could use it." Ama pulled up the parking brake and politely waited for Raven to get out.
Teach control? It was hard enough to keep it. "Maybe." Raven popped the door open toting her bag out yet again.
Ama moved quickly across the small plot of grass, Rave raised and eyebrow at some of the burned spots and the for sale signs up for 3 houses in both directions. The woman was still fumbling wt keys when the door flew open and a yellow flash burst through. Ama jumper back in a choreographed step and Raven's force field flew up out of instinct.
"Thank you Jasmine" Ama replied sarcastically but not angered.
"No problem." A slim girl with curly hair and mocha skin waved to Ama then resumed watching TV.
The room was a lot to take in all at once for Raven; luckily she had a few moments before anyone seemed to remember why Ama had left the house. The floor, couch and chairs, were filled with young women ranging in age form 14 to 17. Jasmine reclined on one end of the couch and an olive skinned green eyed girl on the other, in a recliner sat an incredibly pale red head who gave the impression that she would have been thin, had she not been very pregnant. Sprawled on the floor was a tanned girl with white hair, similar snowy wings folded close to her backed covering the ties of her shirt, Crystal blue eyes were cast on the TV. Another girl with short blue spiked hair and translucent skin sat in the other laz-e-boy. She wore a spaghetti strap tank that showed her two tattoos proudly, furthering the proof to her ignorance. On the left collarbone she had the tree of life and on the right she had the eagle, the death bringer. Raven shook her head. This girl was no bang baby. She was cursed, trapped in the middle verse between life and death. No one would choose that fate. Sitting, all alone and almost ignored, in the corner was a greenish girl with her finned hands in water threading knotted seaweed through the diminished lengths of her fingers. Raven wasn't quite sure how this girl had managed to get out of place but she sure had.
The pregnant girl began to speak. "Ama, you me my goddamm ice cream?"
"No!" Ama said rather harshly, " I got you a SISTER!" Only at that statement did any one notice Raven's presence. The girl lolled her head more to Raven's angel.
"Well then you got ice cream?" She asked lazily.
"Uh, no." Raven responded.
The room erupted in to laughter. Raven was more that a little confused. Ama watched Gazing Smugly form the sidelines. Every girl ambled up and fromed circle around Raven, all but the girl in the corner.
"So" the olive skinned girl started. " What are you in for?"
"What?" Raven confusion elevated.
"Ok," the winged girl answered. " Introductions."
The olive skinned girl took over gain pointing to each girl in order. To the girl in the corner. "Karra, petty theft." The winged girl. "Ariel, shop lifting."
"And breaking and entering." Ariel injected.
The nether-worlder with blue hair. " Eileen, Lee."
"Ghost." She broke in.
"Grand theft auto." The girls laughed again. Could a vigilante live in a house of criminals? The pregnant redhead was next. " Hercules."
"Herc." She threatened.
"She's an abuse case." Everyone snickered at a joke that Raven didn't get. The amethyst haired witch's eyebrows merged with her hairline clearly asking, "what's she doing here?"
"Don't worry new girl, she wasn't the one abused." Jasmine filled her in. "she hospitalized her sisters. All 9 of 'em." She smirked. "Oh and I'm Jasmine, Destruction of property."
"And I'm Fondea." The introducer explained.
All the girls screeched. "ARSON!" and burst in to giggles again.
"It was an accident!" Fonda protested.
"Two times." Lee asked.
"So?" the girls asked pointedly staring at Raven.
"I'm Raven." She said simply.
"And…." Ariel demanded.
"I haven't committed a crime." Raven said.
They all looked t her in shock. "Ama, she's defective, take her back!" Herc called.
"Sorry girls, she's here to stay." Ama stated. "Jasmine, Fondea, she's sleeping with you two. Show her to her room."
Raven followed the tow to the room. It had just one problem, two beds."
"Not it!" Fondea screamed ignited her hand.
"Not it!" Jasmine followed only a split second latter, shooting off an energy blast. "Fine." She grumbled. "You're sleeping with me."
Raven's bag was tossed on the bed. She took a look around. There were two double beds on opposite walls, a dresser below a large window and a closet that opened up through to another bedroom.
"So ready for the grand tour? That big room." Fondea pointed to a room slightly larger than the room they were standing in. Raven briefly thought, about how this house was about the size of her room at the tower. "Herc, Lee, and Ama sleep there so I guess it's kind of a master suit."
Raven bristled when Fondea's abnormally hot hand grabbed her are. This girl was a non-stop furnace. Raven found herself pulled thought he door to the hallway. "That's the bath room," she pointed to a room that was the literally definition of 'water CLOSET'. A tiny shower, tub combo took up three quarters of the room leaving only enough floor for the toilet and the standing sink right next to each other. The tiles were falling off the wall but the room was undoubtedly clean.
"Then there's the wash room." She indicated past a small kitchen to a closed porch with a clothes washer and no dryer. Though the window she could see a burned as scarred back yard with a clothesline.
"Then the kitchen." It was a small room with a fridge, stove, small counter, cabinets, and a microwave.
"You saw the living room." This room held a tattered, tread bear couch, two old, second hand, recliners a TV (With VCR and DVD) and a large open space between them all. "Ariel likes to sleep out here so she can stretch." Fondea cleared her throat and omitted "her wings."
"Where does Karra sleep?" Raven asked wanting to know hw to avoid every one.
"inthebathtub." Fondea said quickly as though this bit of information might be the strangest thing encountered in their house. To Fondea's relief, Ama cut in.
"Have you met Karra, Raven?" She asked.
"No," the grey girl replied. And stepped toward the outcast.
"Say hello Karra." Ama instructed.
Karra looked up and the thing raven noticed first was the symbol carven on to her head. A drop with a wave running through it. "Ni-la." Karra said causally, but four octaves higher then a normal speaking voice.
Raven gasped at the scar and lowered to her knees and bowed her head. "Ni-la Comma Selak." Raven replied, her voice much lower.
"Karra's eyes widened. "Se lan. 'Ke na!" the shriek seemed to annoy the other members of the house hold but they were fascinated just the same.
Raven stood but kept her eyes lowered out of respect for the priestess. "NeKa."
"Wait, wait just a second! That's a real language?" Herc asked astounded. "She's not just crazy?"
"No," Raven answered. And realized that the others must not know. Probably for good reason, give what humans had a tendency to do to species they were unfamiliar with. Karra was protecting her people, and more importantly, her family. "She's not crazy."
"So why have I never heard it?" Herc asked persistent. "Is it like Klingon or something?"
Raven looked at the mer-leader. "anan lee na?"
"Arc!" she responded dropping the letter she was reading. (the sea weed chain for those of you not familiar with mer-culture.)
"It's a Native American language—not many people know it, and of the people that do even fewer speak English." There, that wasn't a lie, just more like intentional misdirection. Guilty had nothing to worry about, except of course she did because she was Guilt.
"How do you know it?" this time it was Ama that asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
"Extensive research." Was her only answer.
"'ey Rea?" Jasmine's voice came out of the bedroom with it's owner following it. "What's dis?" Jasmine asked holding up Raven's communicator.
The yell machine flew through the room faster than Raven almost ever moved things. "That's MINE!" Her hair bristled and a strange wind seemed to move her clothes as Anger took over. She was able to keep most of it under control though, and didn't even break any thing.
"Damn girl, touchy!" Jasmine threw her hands up. " I was jus—"
"Yeah well don't." Raven spat and fixed the communicator to her belt.
No one was in the room at the tower when the computer flashed, "communicator activated: Raven."
Back in the new house.. In Dakota, resentment was building. "Hey now girl I was jist curious a watcha got." Jasmine tried to defend herself.
"Really Raven." Ama tried. "All the girls share thing, it's not that big a deal.
"Stay out of my stuff." Raven hissed. Every one's eyes widened. Maybe this new girl wouldn't fit in after all. "And that includes any friend you might have over."
The room could have died at that moment and no one would have notices a difference. "We don't have friends." Lee whispered.
"We're too- unacceptable." Herc added.
"Really we're like lepers…" Ariel spoke up in a light toe. "But worse!"1
The room spun back in to motion and Raven was left more than a little ashamed in the corner next to Karra. Why had she reacted like that? It wasn't like she didn't know how to control herself. She stood slowly land walked past Ama through the door. " Excuse me."
"Where 'you going? You don't know your way 'round here." The guardian crossed her arms ready to stop Raven.
"I need to meditate. I'll be Back." After she was sure no one would follow she made her way to the roof. The view was more depressing then the one off of the tower but Raven was merely glad for the time.
The camera focused on a large as life raven on the screen.
"There she is!" Beastboy cried. The aerial angle form the satellite didn't throw him off as much as it had Robe and Cyborg. After all it was called Bird's Eye View for a reason.
"Friends we have located our missing comrade! Should we not celebrate with a visitation?" Starfire asked gleefully.
"No Star. She's not supposed to see us." Robin remembered the restraining order that had been put in place. "I wonder why she turned her com-link on. Maybe she's in trouble."
"Nah," Cyborg reasoned. "She's just meditation like always. Nothing's wrong. Maybe it just got bumped around in her luggage."
They watched as a group for another couple of seconds. " She seems—undamaged." Starfire added. The screen clicked off when they were all satisfied of her good health.
In a very dark corner of Beastboy's brain a light blinked on and he began working on a very difficult puzzle.