A/n) Early update, I feel like crap lately, and I just churned out this angst-y piece.

Beast Boy and Raven bring out the angst in me, I can't help it.

Motivating is your Superpower


Raven never told her mother. Not for the three years that she's known the Changeling did she tell her.

"Were do you go every day, Raven?" Her mother asks out of curiosity on a warm summer day, shortly after Raven's tenth birthday.

The girl smiles secretively. "I told you Mom, I have friends now. I want to play with them."

She doesn't see her mother's slightly worried face. "Before you go love, how – how do you feel this morning?"

Raven glances at her mother from underneath thick dark lashes as she continues packing her wicker woven basket with fruits and breads. "I feel fine – why do you ask me that every day Mom?" She wonders really. Her mother has been odd in these past months, always looking at her, asking if she's alright, if anything hurts – giving her hidden guilty looks that Raven catches when her mother thinks she's not paying attention.

"Oh – it's just - um – there's a sickness going around the village -." She's lying.

Raven knows she is. Though the young girl doesn't know how she knows but – she can just feel it.

"Ok – um – I'll be back later mommy, bye."

"Be safe."

Raven doesn't hear the words whispered to her as she rushes outside in the fresh heat of summer, the grass was thick, tall and green, birds sung and flitted around, the sun was bright and hot and the wind cool and playful. Raven liked Summer the most.

It was also the easiest time to see her friend.

She carefully picks her way around the River bend, taking the long way so nobody will see her go directly into the forests' edge.

Rumors were already flung at her about how she's a witch born of demon blood. She hears those rumors a lot, she ignores them better now.

"Well, if it isn't the little demon girl." Olivia sneers at her from the river bed, urn in hand and basket filled with wet clothes next to her, her straw colored braids thin on either side of her head as the other girls that follow her shuffle behind, sneering and jeering with her.

Raven smiles thinly. "Hello everyone. I'm busy today, sorry I can't play with you."

Olivia – she's the nastiest girl, and a year older, sneers. "Right – because we ever let you. Why don't you just go and die somewhere already? Better yet, why don't you jump in the river right now."

The girls laugh meanly.

Raven feels their malic and their empty headed taunts. It hurts her – but she refuses to stay near them, they make her stomach twist and it gets harder to swallow around them lately. "Bye." She mutters and ducks away, heading down the hill so they won't be able to see her anymore.

Their taunts and nasty laughter follow her.


"What's the matter Raven?" Changeling asks her as he munches the apple she brought him. He likes fruit and bread over meat.

"Nothing." She mutters and dips her bare feet into the small brook hidden away from prying eyes as she hugs her knees and looks at her rippling reflection under her.

"Was it those girls again?" He guesses easily. He could read her very well, Raven doesn't know how he does that.

She sighs and lays down on the soft moss underneath her, staring up at the tangling branches above her, they make the sun's rays come through in crisscross streams, the forest ground ripples with the trees shadows.

"I don't know why they hate me so much. I never did anything to them." She confides in her friend.

He nods, his unruly dark green hair fluffing around him. "I know – they don't deserve to be your friends anyway." He insists, seemingly believing this as a fact.

Raven glance up at him and smiles softly. "Thank you."

He grins back, his canine glinting sharper against his other teeth. "Besides, I like being your only friend. You have more time for me this way." He admits unabashedly.

Raven giggles and swats at him lightly. "Selfish boy."

"I guess I am. I never learned to share anyway." He admits and moves to lay down beside her, crossing his arms under his head.

"Tell me about your village." She asks softly, curiosity makes her ask – they don't talk about outside life too often, but since they were at this moment . . . she wants to know.

"There's nothing much to tell –." He says calmly. "There isn't a village really, just a small settlement. Um – there aren't too many of us – there aren't – um – there's me, my mum and dad and some uncles and friends. Fifty of us about." He explains as Raven listens to him talk.

She hums in interest, "I wish I could see it."

He shifts on his side and looks at her while propping his head up on his fist. "Yah – but you're a secret I can't show them. They'd be really mad and then I wouldn't be able to see you ever again you know."

She knows, it's the only thing keeping her from following him or begging him to take her. Because she doesn't want to lose her only friend.

"You're a secret too." She informs him simply and sits up, leaves sticking in her long dark blue hair.

He laughs and reaches up for her head and picks out a dry leaf, blowing it at her.

"So – can you turn into something else now?" She asks suddenly excited, he can turn into a lot more animals since the first time she's met him – she likes it when he learns to do a new one and she can watch.

"Oh! I'm still trying a bird, wanna see?"

She nods vigorously and hugs her knees to wait and watch as he stands and settles into his feet. He scrunches up his face and squeezes his eyes shut and she watches with a smile as he shrinks and shrinks and shrinks – and – pop.

"Oh!" Raven squeals and leans down into the ground, pressing her palms forward. "You're a mouse!" She giggles and he scurries into her open palms, she lifts him up and laughs again. "You're so cute!"

He squeaks and his little whiskers twitch as he runs up her arm and down her leg, jumping back down into the ground and shifts back into his original form, with an exhausted huff, he flops back into the dirt, limbs stretched out tiredly, his chest heaving as he grins up at her.

"I didn't mean to do that." He laughs.

Raven smiles and lays down next to him curling up at his side. "I liked it." She says kindly and pats his head.

It's silent for a minute.

"When will you tell me your name?" She asks, breaking their comfortable quiet.

He shifts next to her uncomfortable now. "I – I can't tell you . . . yet."

"Why not?" She's asked about this before. And he always answers the same way.

"Because . . . Changelings don't give out their names – unless the person's really close." He sounds like he's copying someone he heard before.

Raven sighs and sits up again. "But we're close friends, aren't we?"

He shrugs. "My Pa says I shouldn't tell anyone my name unless I'm absolutely certain they're close."

"But who do you know besides me that doesn't know your name?"

"Nobody – I think he just doesn't want me to make friends outside our village." He admits.

Raven scrunches up her nose in thought. "So – can you tell me anyway? He'd never know." She insists, sounding, and feeling, naughty about this.

He smiles and shakes his head. "Maybe – one day."

She huffs and shoves him away from her, upset now. "Fine. I need to go anyway." She gathers her things in petulant disappointment and he watches her silently as she turns away and heads for the opening.

"Will you come back tomorrow?" He calls.

She glances at him with a frown. "Maybe." She says just to be contrary, and stomps off.


She doesn't go back tomorrow, or the next day – or the next.

She can't help it. Mother's been behaving strangely and she doesn't look well – and the more she thinks about the Changeling the more she gets upset that she doesn't know his name. She even knows the village girl's names, and they hate her.

But finally, after feeling that emptiness that comes with a fading child's anger, she decides she should go just to tell him she's not mad anymore.

"I'll be back mom." She calls and her mother gives her a weakened smile. Raven worries but she tries not to let it bother her.

Quickly, she makes her way to the rushing river, there's no one here today – huh – odd. She glances at the sky, the sun was high up – the girls were usually there washing clothes at this time, or gathering water.

She pushes it out of her mind and skips towards the forest edge, carefully picking her way through the bushes like Changeling had taught her – then she hears it.

Screaming and shouting and cursing.

Raven's heart drops like a stone and she runs towards the sound. She hears something smacking and cutting flesh and a whimper – no!

She gasps, falling into the clearing, all the girls and boys that hate her – they're surrounding Changeling and pelting him with stones and slashing him with leather whips the boys had for their horses.

"Kill it, kill the monster!"

"What is it? Get it away from me!"

"Ahhh, it's going to eat me! Get it off!"

"Kill the monster!"

Screaming and blind fury fills the air. Ravens' stomach twist violently, her heart stabs against her chest, "Stop, stop!"

"It's her, she's the owner of this thing! Kill her too!" Olivia screeches, her eyes wild with hatred and fear.

They don't understand – they're afraid – they don't understand.

Raven gasps as they turn on her and leave Changeling discarded on the hard forest ground, he's bleeding, his face is swollen and – and she doesn't know he's alive until he whimpers her name and stretches a bleeding arm for her – the gashes hideous and oozing red against his soft smooth green skin.

"Stop, stop, don't hurt him! He's done nothing to you!"

"He's a monster, just like you!"

"No!"

A whip comes down and Raven flinches, raising an arm to shield her eyes.

The blow never comes. She gapes when something warm and wet drops onto her lap. Changeling coughs, blood drips out of his mouth and he can't see out of one eye.

The girls shriek in disgust and fear.

"Get rid of them!"

The whip raises again. Raven's hands shake as she lifts them up and looks at them - blood – blood – hot red blood staining her pale palms, spreading into the spider web lines of her skin. Staining it.

She gasps for breath; she's hyperventilating – then she screams.

She screams and screams and screams, her eyes flash red and the children screech after her as something explodes from her body and shakes the trees, throwing them back out of the forest with fierce force.

"She really is a witch! Run!"

And they scrabble over each other in desperate attempt to get away from their cruelty and the cause of it.

Raven sobs, her hands shake, her vision blurs and she grips her friends bleeding face. He coughs.

"Are you -don't- don't die, please don't die." She blubbers, tears streaming down her face and dripping onto him, smearing his blood.

He tries to smile, his mouth twitches painfully. "I – I just wanted to show you -"His breathing is desperate. "I could turn into – into a bird now."

Raven hiccups and shakes her head.

"Are you –still mad at me Raven?" He asks, as if that's the important thing here.

She wants to shake him, to hug him, to make the pain go away – to make it stop hurting him.

"No-no I'm not mad, I never was I -I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I -" Her words are cut off by a choked sob.

He raises a shaking hand to her wrist and smiles with a little more effort. "You smell nice." He mutters, his voice thick and dropping. "I like your smell, it smells like kindness Raven – you're – you're the nicest friend I ever had." He slurs and she shakes her head harder.

"Don't die – don't die please. . . I never showed you my house, or my mom and - and you never told me your name or – or anything and - " She stops, eyes shimmering and wide – her hands start to glow a bright white that envelops her friends face then slowly engulfs his entire body. "What – what's happening?!" She gasps as she watches his wounds heal slowly under her very eyes. What?

A few moments later, he lays there, head in her small lap, breathing evenly as if nothing had ever hurt him before.

"Are you – alive?"

"How did you do that?" He gasps, eyes fluttering open, wide and green as he looks at her in awe and a little uncertainty.

Raven shakes her head, wordlessly and stares at her hands – they still had blood on them – his blood. How – how could -

"Um – Raven . . . I think you need to talk to your mom about this."

She agrees.


Let me know what you think, you all know your thoughts are appreciated throughly!