I'm sorry if this disappoints any of you.
I just know I'm going to get some smartass telling me that Robin's backstory isn't like this in the series. This actually is a sticking point with me, and I wanted to address it in the author's note, so that when the inevitable "critic" who mentions this rears their ugly head, I can point to the author's note and say, I told you so, and WHY.
As mentioned in the summary, this is an AU, or Alternate Universe, for the unlettered. I write alternate universes a little differently than most people, in that if the setting is different, IE, if the series was contemporary super hero and I'm changing it to high fantasy, I don't keep the people's back stories the same. However, people are largely what they are due to the experiences they have had to weather, so while the back stories change to match the setting, I try to keep the character fundamentally unchanged, at their core, by those changes. In order to do this, the things which shape them tend to be similiar.
If that makes any sense.
So while I understand that the person Robin is wasn't created in the fashion he was here... in this setting, this is a situation which would have created a person SIMILIAR to the Robin from Teen Titans, and gives the character an underlying motivation SIMILIAR to what he had in the series. Personally, I think it's cool that I was able to do this, and it also makes for a very cool ongoing plot, as you will eventually see.
Still, SOMEONE isn't going to read this Author's Note, and SOMEONE is going to comment that Robin's backstory didn't go this way, you watch.
C'est la vie.
I'm finding it difficult to find time and energy to write... I decided to go back to school for my degree and juggling that with my other obligations is sapping my creativity. Despite this, I have found the time to release the longest chapter for this story I've written to date. I hope that you enjoy it, and bear with me. Sometimes fun has to take a backseat to responsibility. That's, sadly, a lot of what being an adult is about. You will note, however, that I still make time for fun, and for me, writing is fun.
I hope reading is fun for you.
As a final note, the song quote this time has been divided into two parts because I wanted to emphasize the second part. This song is one of my favorites songs from my favorite band, Rush. In particular, I think we need to heed those words now.
"In the house where nobody laughs, and nobody speaks. In the house where love lies dying, and the shadows creep. A little girl hides shaken, with her hands on her ears. Push back the tears, until the pain disappears. Mama said some ugly words, daddy pounds the walls. They can fight about their little girl later, right now they don't care at all. No matter what they say... Everyday people, everyday shame. Everyday promise, shot down in flames. Everyday sunrise, another everyday story. Rise from the ashes and blaze, in everyday glory. In the city where nobody smiles, and nobody dreams. In the city where desperation, drives the poor to extremes. Just one spark of decency, against the starless night. One glow of hope and dignity, a child can follow the light. No matter what they say... Everyday people, everyday shame. Everyday promise, shot down in flames. Everyday sunrise, another everyday story. Rise from the ashes and blaze, in everyday glory.
If the future's looking dark, we're the ones who have to shine. If there's no one in control, we're the ones who draw the line. Though we live in trying times, we're the ones who have to try. Though we know that time has wings, we're the ones who have to fly..." -Everyday Glory, Rush
There was something, Robin decided, deeply soothing about working in a garden. He supposed it had something to do with working with ones hands. The scent of deeply fertile earth, the orderly, tidy rows of herbs, the rich, slightly eldritch scent of unknown spices, it all blended together to create a sort of non-mindset that was both deeply pleasing and highly relaxing. After a remarkably short time, Robin forgot that he was a Knight (well, almost) with a sacred duty to uphold the wishes of his King.
He was just Robin, puttering about in the dirt, digging little rows and turning the fecund soil. He even forgot he wasn't alone after awhile, and started whistling.
That brought a decidedly unladylike snort from his companion.
He started despite himself, and cast a look backwards at his gardening companion. A little bucket of seeds followed her obediantly like a well-trained... er, something. Every once in a while she'd reach behind her, pick a seed out and drop it into a little hole she'd dug with a perfectly ordinary little spade she had for the job, then cover it up gently with dirt pushed into place with her palms. This was sometimes broken up by a momentary struggle between her and a recalcitrant weed. He'd offered to pull the weeds for her, but she'd countered this with a frankly uncomplimentary stare, and a dry, clinical, and absolutely brutal line of questioning in regards to his ability to differentiate between weeds and a rare and valuable herb. He had wisely shut his mouth and returned to manual labor after that. In any case, after a very short and vicious battle with said vegetation, she would inevitably emerge the victor.
He paused, watching her face. There was no change in her rather neutral expression, but there WAS a subtle softening of its delicate planes and angles. The morning was surprisingly kind to the young looking witch, and her entirely too pale skin fairly gleamed in the morning light. A stray strand of amethyst hair danced across her left cheek and she absently pushed it aside, leaving a slight smudge of earth in its wake. He raised an eyebrow, bemused at this telling show of humanity.
"You might find it easier to keep a straight line if your attention remains upon the task in front of you, Squire." She said dryly without ever looking up.
He looked down and scowled at the slightly crooked line he'd created. The perfectionist in him made him push the dirt back into place and start over again.
"I'm surprised your equine companion isn't here to make a mess of the proceedings." She remarked offhand, tugging at a particularly stubborn bit of tresspassing vegetation with one small hand.
Robin grinned at that. "Oh you don't know Garfield very well yet, or you'd know that anything that smacks of work is like horse repellant for him." He cracked his neck and looking musingly in the direction of the treehouse. You couldn't quite see it from here.
He sighed. "Of course, It doesn't help that you scare the crap out of him."
She sighed. "Well... at least ONE of you is sensible."
He chuckled slightly.
She frowned at the weed and pulled a little harder, this time with both hands.
He frowned. "I don't get it."
"It's not terribly difficult to "get", Squire. I'm sure you've heard the stories about how terrible I am, and the evidence of my transformations are all over these woods. I've already told you that I'm dangerous, so the animal is being sensible-"
"No, I got that. I meant something else."
The weed finally came loose with a spray of dirt and Raven grunted slightly in satisfaction before tossing it into the pile. She rubbed the dirt from her palms and gave him a cold look.
"I know you meant something else. I was being deliberately obtuse in the hopes of defusing further attempts at small talk."
He frowned and turned around to stare at her directly. Once again her eyes slide away from his face, staring off into the woods.
"It doesn't suit you." He said calmly. "You are many things, but I'm coming to find out that you are most definately NOT obtuse."
He grinned. "So far, you've been an acute pain in the arse."
Having scored this verbal point, he turned back to his duties. He could almost feel her glare on his back. It felt like victory. Well, that and vaguely alarming, impending ruination, but Robin had found that the two sensations intermixed more often than he'd care to admit.
A sigh behind him made him pause and he cocked a sidelong glance in her direction.
"What don't you "get", Robin?" She said grudgingly.
He gave her a slight half-smile. "Your magic. You use it in every day tasks... like that bucket, for example, but you spend half a day of toil pulling weeds when you could probably just, POW! magic them into something fairly inoffensive, like dust or something..."
He paused, considering. "Pulling them all by hand... not a very efficient use of one's time and effort, if you ask me."
She rolled her eyes. "I suppose this observation comes from your vast storehouse of magical knowledge and years of experience in matters arcane and esoteric?" She said, sarcasm practically dripping from her every word.
He grinned. Damned if he wasn't really starting to enjoy himself. "So educate me." He said reasonably.
She narrowed her eyes at this and frowned. "You wouldn't underst-"
He shook his finger at her. "Ah. Ah. Ah. I think we've established that I'm a reasonably intelligent individual-"
"The court is still out on THAT one." She groused quietly.
"-so my comprehension of the topic is hardly an issue." He continued, ignoring her comment.
She puffed out her left cheek with her tongue for a moment, eyes unfocused in consideration, then sighed.
"I suppose it couldn't hurt anything, and I am categorically for anything enacting the banishment of ignorance in any form."
She turned slightly and gathered her legs underneath her, sticking the small spade into the dirt and frowning in concentration.
"First off, what do you know about the Three-Fold Law?"
Robin narrowed his eyes. "Er... that it has three parts?"
She looked upwards. "Lord and Lady give me strength."
Robin frowned. He liked learning new things, but one thing he hated was being condescended to. "Alright, we've established that I am woefully ignorant where magic is concerned. It's honestly never come up before. If this is going to be such a trial, then you can forget it."
Raven narrowed her eyes. She hadn't been condescending, at least, she hadn't intentionally been so. One might remember, however, that she had spent the better part of a century alone, and she wasn't much of a great speaker when she HAD been socially active.
Well... she wouldn't have if she'd ever BEEN socially active.
Which she hadn't. Right.
"You DID ask, in the first place."
The two glared at each other for a good long time, neither giving an inch. Finally, Robin sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Alright, I get it... I'm sorry. Please continue."
She blinked, then took a deep breath and let it out, centering herself. She began.
"The Three Fold Law is the foundation upon which all true magical works are built. They are laws to which all things must conform. Magic is a powerful, reality bending force, but even it obeys this simple precept."
She eyed him to see if he was following, and since he was carefully watching her, stone-faced in concentration, she continued.
"The first part of the Three Fold Law is simple, all things that exist are made up of smaller parts. This is relatively easy to explain... a human body is made up of various organs and tissues, those tissues in turn are made up of smaller pieces and humours, and so on and so forth. More importantly, the physical world is a conglomeration of plants, animals, people, and such. The connection is not necessarily directly evident, but without people, a city does not exist, without trees, a forest does not exist, so on, and so forth."
She paused for a moment, then started again.
"The second part of the Law is that all pieces retain a connection to the larger whole. This isn't as easy to explain, but it IS easier to prove. When a dark magic practicioner lays a curse upon someone, they usually need to obtain something with a connection, physical, or spiritual, to that person. A lock of hair or a bit of blood, flesh, even a cherished childhood toy."
"The third part of the Law is that the more pieces an object contains, the more resistant it is to magical change. This is why mages will often throw around fire or lightning with relative impunity, but spells which effect living things are considerably rarer, and spells which effect more than one of these things at a time, rarer still. You've probably heard of killing curses that Black Magic practicioners use. This is actually a very simple spell that doesn't effect the whole body, merely a very small part of its operation. It introduces a disruptive rhythm into the unfortunate's heart, which causes it to cease the pumping of blood. If the spell were attempting to simply cease the entire function of the target's body, it would require large amounts of energy to do so, but by focusing only on a smaller part of the person, it is made, unfortunately, simple."
Raven frowned. "That is, in a nutshell, the basis upon which all magic is conducted. Magic, as we understand it, is simply the act of exerting one's will upon the universe. It works because you, I, that tree, Garfield, all of these things are connected. The particles and aethers that make us up are all pieces of a larger whole which when combined make up what we perceive as the world."
Robin frowned. "I don't see how this explains..."
Raven shook her head slightly. This time, she wasn't particularly annoyed by his interruption, as though she had been expecting it. "I have to give you a basis of understanding, or my explanation won't make sense. You have to learn to crawl before you can learn to walk, and you have to learn to walk before you can run."
He nodded. "Go on."
She frowned. "All things exist in a state of balance. Whenever one force pushes, another pushes back. The harder the push, the harder the push back. In other words, in response to heat there is cold, in response to creation there is entropy, in response to light there is dark..."
He grinned thinly. "In response to evil there is good."
She snorted. "Yes, and that makes evil a natural force, doesn't it?"
He shrugged. "Never claimed it wasn't."
She blinked, then shook it off and continued. "Anyway, these forces exist and act in nature accordingly. When a mage works magic, they create an unnatural imbalance in these forces, an imbalance that the universe will seek to rectify. Understanding the forces that one manipulates is essential, because one has to know which force must be balanced in order to prevent backlash."
She raised an eyebrow. "Question?"
He shook his head. "I follow, so far."
She cleared her throat. "May I see your compass?"
He blinked, then pulled it out of the bit of metal and string and passed it over to her, curiousity etched on his face. It struck her that this was a very different side of him. He was absolutely fascinated by all of this.
She could sympathize... she had been the same way, when Azaron had explained it to her, so many years ago.
She held the compass out and they watched as it waggled back and forth. "This is a simple illustration of the principle I'm speaking of. Now, as you will note, there are two forces at work here, the pull of the metals polar end towards north, and the push of the string's natural resistance to being twisted. These two forces wavver back and forth until a happy medium is achieved and the two forces balance out, and the magnet, or "lodestone" as alchemists call it, points north."
She pushed at the magnet with her finger, turning it south. "Now, a mage enforces his will upon the magnet, making it point South."
She released the magnet and it spun around, jerking back and forth before finally settling northward again.
"As you can see, when a force is thwarted and thrown out of balance, the opposing force reacts violently to return the balance, often with far more force than the mage originally enacted. This causes a seesawing between the two forces. As one causes imbalance the other acts to return the balance, upsetting that balance the other way. The opposing force, in return, attempts the same balancing, and this causes the balance of forces to wavver back and forth, until equilibrium is once again achieved. The more intense the effect of the original force causing the imbalance, the more violent the reaction, and if unchecked, the longer the seesaw effect remains before balance is once again achieved naturally."
She looked him in the eye. "This is a simple example. I once watched an apprentice burst into flames because he used a cantrip to freeze the water in a fellow student's glass."
He frowned. "So... why don't mages burst into flames or freeze whenever they cast spells?"
She continued. "This is where the Three-Fold Law comes into play. We've already determined that all things are connected. At their most basic level, the forces of nature are simply energy in action. When in action, this energy becomes the force it fuels, or the object it creates, what have you. At rest, it is simply neutral energy. This energy, mages call Mana. It is fundamental building block of the universe, everything, and nothing."
She paused. "Living things are natural storehouses of Mana, and they are also generally made up of a large number of parts. So ANY magic which directly effects a living thing is difficult, because there are a large number of forces interacting in a living thing at any given time, because there is a large amount of potential energy waiting to be unleashed, and because there are a large number of parts to be effected."
She frowns. "The thing that determines a mage's skill is two-fold. One, the mages ability to effect an increasingly large amount of parts at any given time, and two, the amount of personal Mana the mage has to effect change with."
She held up her fingers as she ticked off the points. "The first skill can be learned, and as the mage gains experience in their field, they will eventually be able to effect greater and greater magical change, with greater and greater efficiency. The second is innate, and cannot be changed... the amount of personal energy the mage has will never increase beyond its original limit, though if depleted through large amounts of work it will slowly return over time."
She frowned. "Apprentices usually don't destroy themselves in the course of learning magic. The most dangerous time for a mage is between their apprenticeship and their achievement of master status. At that point, they have gained the experience necessary to effect great magical change, but they haven't learned their limits yet. Sometimes, they learn just how limited they are the hard way."
She snagged a weed and yanked it from the earth with a small grunt of effort, and looked at it musingly. "I COULD utterly obliterate this weed. As living things go, plants are relatively simple. The problem is, the personal energy that I would have to expend in order to do so is more than the physical effort required to simply pull it out of the ground."
Robin nodded, a considering look on his face. "I suppose making a bucket float is really only the manipulation of a simple force, so that makes it convenient?"
She nodded, a slight pleased expression on her face. "Furthermore, if you invest a portion of your own Mana into an object, over time it comes easier and easier to manipulate. Non-mages do this naturally to a lesser degree by long association with an object, that is why a sword you've used for years feels more comfortable in your hand than a brand new sword of the same heft and balance."
He nodded. "That makes a lot of sense..."
She raised an eyebrow. "You trailed off as though you'd just thought of something." She observed.
He frowned. "Well... doesn't that mean that your father was a massively powerful mage? I mean, didn't he destroy an entire Kingdom?"
Her expression darkened. She closed her eyes.
He winced. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to-"
"Just drop it, Squire. What's past is past. Let's just say... there was a lot more at work there than the simple manipulation of forces. Mages can make pacts with other beings, and some of those beings that exist do so as a representation of pure darkness. Making such a pact allows the mage to tap unimaginable power, but like objects, if you associate with a being or force for too long, it stains you just as much as you stain it. Those beings eventually invest so much of themselves into you that you end up being more them than yourself, and when you die, they simply add you to their own essence."
She shuddered. "Sometimes, you don't even have to die."
Robin didn't really know what to say to that, so he simply turned his attention back to the task at hand.
Her words left a chill on him that stayed with him long into the afternoon, however.
The moonlight filtered through the leaves as it spread across the modest house in the trees. A single, pristine streak of moonshine fell across the Witch's face as she lay dreaming. She slept fitfully, her calm shattered by the images that flickered through her mind's eye.
Her eyes snapped open and she gasped, a sharp intake of breath shattering her calm.
She looked about her in confusion.
City streets at night. How did she come to be in this place?
A creaking tavern sign and the chatter of drunken voices caught her attention. She took to the night sky quietly, wishing to avoid attention.
Had she not been keeping and eye out for witnesses, she would have missed him.
He crouched quietly on the roof of the building across the street from the tavern, his threadbare woolen cloak doing little to keep out the night's chill. He was a slight boy, an urchin, hardly worthy of a second glance, save for the look of absolutely chilling intensity gave the streets below. As though sensing her presence he looked up, and her eyes widened.
It was Robin. A young face full of loss and anger, pain and grief at war with pure hatred in his gaze. A red, infected circular wound was visible on his small neck. It looked suspiciously like a horrific rope burn.
"No..." She whispered. It was happening. She had been so careful! She-
He narrowed his eyes in her direction, then a clattering noise drew his attention downward. A procession of horses traveled below. His mouth took on a grim, anticipatory set. His lithe muscles grew tense.
Below, a small group of soldiers and a pair of lords approached, the lords in platemail armor suitable for war. The procession's colors were barely visible in the feeble light of the tavern, but they appeared orange and black... orange and black... where had she seen that before...
She was startled from her musing as the boy leapt silently into the night, with a soundless shriek of rage, a dagger clenched in one small fist. Landing lightly on the hindquarters of the horse carrying the more important looking of the two lords he brought the dagger down in a strike towards the man's unprotected nape. He was rebuffed when the Lord, in an amazing display of reflexes and agility, twisted in the saddle to take the daggerblow against his right greave, backhanding the boy solidly from the back of his horse.
The younger Robin curled around the blow and flew from the back of the horse, then twisted in midair like a cat and placed both feet against the wall of the tavern. Absorbing the shock of the impact in his soles, he redirected that force and shot from the building back towards the knight in an impressive display of acrobatics.
"Slade!!" He roared, his strides eating up the distance between them. He dodged around the few guards who had realized something was wrong and spring back at the mounted knight.
The knight spun his horse impressively in place as the rest of his men milled about in confusion. His sword cleared sheath in a single smooth motion. He parried the returning dagger stroke easily, locking blades with the boy, his eyes burning coldly behind the slits of his helm.
"What have we here..." His voice was low and dangerous, but smooth, like poison mixed with sweet syrup. "A mouse with fangs?"
Robin snarled. "You killed them! You killed all of them!"
The man's eyes glittered with recognition. "Ah... a Tymani, I see. The object lesson objects."
He forced the boy's dagger wide in a single vicious shove, then grasped the boy's neck in his other fist with snake-like speed and held him fully extended away from his body, dangling over the street. The horse danced several nervous steps.
His mailed fist squeezed cruelly, and the boy choked and gasped, his face turning purple. He stabbed downward at the man with his dagger, but his arms weren't long enough to reach Slade's elbow joint, and he could find no opening in his steel armored greave.
"I thought I taught you people the meaning of a Lord's priviledge." His voice betrayed no strain as he choked the life from his tattered assailant. It remained calm as though he were simply putting out a candle.
He chuckled.
"You Tymani always were a bit slow to learn life's more... unpleasant lessons."
Something that glittered darkly and whistled as it flew slammed into Slade's arm at the vulnerable joint and he reflexively dropped the boy to the cobbles. The man let out a low, menacing growl.
"Who-"
Whatever he was going to ask was lost in a howl of agony as the boy once again astounded everyone present. As he dropped from Slade's grasp, he twisted and used the momentum to throw his dagger straight armed at Slade's face. Distracted by pain and searching for another enemy, the Lord recoiled and clutched the slit of his helm...
Where a dagger hilt now bloomed like an obscene flower.
Robin lurched to his feet and drunkenly ran from the enraged Lord, but slammed into an unyielding surface and collapsed to the street.
He found himself looking upwards at a black armored nightmare in front of him. He was tall, and encased head to foot in a closefitting black suit of fine platemail. A helm stylized to appear bat-like and terrible glared down at him in judgement.
Robin shuddered involuntarily.
The dark knight glanced upward then, and shifted slightly, widening out his stance.
A longsword of heart breaking beauty flashed from a dark scabbard and a whine of steel on steel distracted attention to the sword which had nearly cleaved Robin in twain. Sparks showered him.
"THAT BOY..." Slade's voice was no longer calm and collected now. Rather, it spoke of a cold, murderous rage. "IS MINE. I DEMAND JUSTICE!"
He pushed with all of his might against the sword blocking his vengeance, but it didn't even wavver.
A coldly amused voice answered him from beneath that terrible helm. "Which he shall receive... in full measure."
Robin lost consciousness then, and Raven was left to stare at the frozen tableau in confusion and dismay.
Long after sleep departed, the memory of those events remained, like a dagger in her mind's eye.
She could not reclaim her focus, try as she might.
The next few days were like clockwork between them. Raven, Robin quickly learned, was a creature of absolutely strict habit. She rose at the same time every morning, and proceeded with the same routine, without fail. Despite this, she was not terribly inflexible, nor did she get put out of sorts when things didn't go according to plan. Rather, her entire existence was ordered in a way that involved the minimum amount of stress on her.
Which, judging from the powers contained in her petite form, was probably for the best.
Every morning, for an hour, she would go down into the little clearing to the east of her house, to its exact center, and simply sit. Eyes closed, breathing deeply, her lips moving in a silent mantra of some sort, she would meditate.
Robin watched her, sometimes, as she did so. He told himself he was simply making sure nothing happened to her.
It certainly had nothing to do with how peaceful she looked when she did it.
Afterwards she would collect Robin, and they would go about the multitude of tasks necessary to keep the witch's home in a good state of repair. Tending her garden, mending her fences, repairing small things around her house. More often than not, Robin found himself utilized as a strong back and a source of manual labor, but he didn't mind.
Despite the mornings becoming more and more chill, the amount of work usually left Robin dripping in sweat by late morning to early afternoon. Robin was an extremely neat individual, a habit since childhood, and such a state would have driven him crazy, had there not been an alternative.
As it turned out, Raven had a little well behind her house, and if the stones fit together a little too well, and the rope was perhaps a bit too finely made, it held clear, cold water all the same. After the heat of late morning and early afternoon, it felt good to strip down to the waist and let the cold water wash away the dust and sweat. His unruly hair he tossed back from his face, and he turned with a slightly satisfied expression when he noticed someone watching.
"That teacup is about to spill." He pointed out reasonably.
Raven started, yelped as hot tea lapped over her hand, then set down the cup and scowled at him, a very slight blush dusting her cheeks.
He grinned.
She muttered something quietly to herself and sighed. It sounded suspiciously like, "been entirely too long since.."
Robin wisely did not press for further details, and in a moment she turned a questioning gaze at him.
"You are something of an enigma, Robin." She conceded, after a time.
He raised an eyebrow, bemused.
"Says the three hundred plus year old magician who looks somewhere on the southside vicinity of eighteen."
She closed her mouth after a moment, then gave him a considering look.
"Touche." She conceded.
"I'm not a nobleman." He said after a short pause.
She blinked. "What?"
He turned back to the well and shook his head, flinging droplets about the clearing. "It's what you were about to ask, isn't it?"
He could almost feel her frown. "Actually, I had already figured that bit of information out for myself. You don't talk like a nobleman, you certainly don't act like one, and physical labor doesn't cause you to break out in hives."
He snorted.
"What I am somewhat curious about is how a common man becomes a knight... since I was pretty sure that you had to be noble born in order to be one."
He raised an eyebrow.
"What you mean is, how does a common street rat who attacked and injured a lord in his own kingdom find himself a squire of said kingdom?" His voice was quiet.
She started and turned as if to leave, then stopped and froze for a moment as though torn between two equally unpleasant choices. Finally, almost against her own will, she looked back at him.
"Yes." She said hoarsely.
He stared at her for a moment, a somewhat troubled look on his face, then bound his hair back with a deliberate motion, and shrugged his tunic on. She sighed.
"Alright, sorry I-"
He shook his head. "No, no... I'M sorry... I suppose it makes sense. I don't know what it is that binds us, and you won't tell me..."
He raised a hand, forstalling any argument. "For what I'm sure are very good, and very personal, reasons."
"Still, I... I wasn't sure. I thought I might have seen you for a moment... I haven't had that dream in a long time, but I suppose..."
He straightened. "Fair is fair. I should warn you though, it's a long story. I scarcely know where to begin."
She raised an eyebrow. "Why not begin at the beginning?"
He grinned slightly at that, then shrugged. "Alright, but I warned you. We might want to find a place that's not out in the sun."
She frowned, then nodded. "We can take a walk through the woods if you like... there are some herbs and mushrooms that don't grow in my garden that I've been meaning to look for."
He nodded. "That would work."
Out of the clearing and into the woods they went. It was pleasantly cool, and an occasional breeze filtered playfully through the trees. They walked without a particular sense of urgency, more of a stroll, actually, though neither of them would admit it.
He frowned. "You ever heard of the Tymani?"
She nodded. "Of course. I didn't think you were one of them... skin color is all wrong."
He smirked. "Well if you've heard of them, you've heard the rumours as well, right?"
She considered a mushroom near the crotch of a tree, then dismissed it. "Well, just the usual. Rob you blind, not to be trusted, shiftless wanderers, practicioners of witchcraft, steal children... I never really gave much credence to them, seeing as how rumours have been SO accurate in my own set of circumstances." She gave him a sardonic look at this.
He gave her a shrugging gesture in response, as though acknowledging her point. "Well... in the case of the Tymani, they're actually kind of true. At least, from an outside perspective. They don't have any concept of individual ownership, and in their case, need outweighs any other concern, so if there is something you have that you don't seem to need, and they do... they'll take it. It's what they do amongst themselves, only nobody takes it for a crime. As far as not being trusted, Tymani hold their word as sacred, so they don't give it very often, not to outsiders. The only oath that has any binding relevance to them is if they give their spoken word of honor. Anything else is negotiable, so written contracts or a handshake mean nothing to them. They DO wander about from place to place, but where ever they happen to be at the moment is home, because everything and everyone they care about is in their wagons."
Robin reached into his belt and held out the magnet. "Witchcraft. At least, to a peasant, and sadly, some nobles who never bothered to learn any different. You and I both know there's about as much magic in using a lodestone to find north as there is in hitting a wild beast with a stick. Also, if they get a reputation as soothsayers and fortune tellers, what do they care? They'll take coin that a peasant obviously doesn't need, since he's spending it on a fortune telling, and if their prediction doesn't happen to come true, well, by that time, they're already long gone. As for their supposed healing powers, they travel a lot... they come across a multitude of different cultures, and things that are practical and work they tend to pick up and utilize."
"What about stealing children?" She turned and remarked idly, despite her obvious interest.
He got a sad, wistful little look on his face that made her stop walking. "Hmm. That is one rumour that's actually true."
She blinked.
He smiled bitterly. "The Tymani are a race of half-bloods, Raven. Somewhere in the distant past they interbred with the Fae, and because of that, they live an extremely long time, for humans. In addition to that, some of them are allergic to iron, and more importantly, they don't have children very often. So children are the only things they really hold sacred. If they see children being abused, or neglected..."
He smiled. "I don't remember who my mother and father were. My birth mother and father, I mean. I just remember a lot of pain, and then I remember a happy little gold skinned man seeing me with one of my eyes swollen shut and a busted lip, and wheedling me away from my chores and taking me away in his wagon."
He paused, remembering a warm, soothing voice, and a strong hand that did not bring pain with its descent. "Why little bird... little Robin Redbreast, who has treated you so? Come with me, little Robin, and you will never be mistreated, I swear upon my name, Mihai."
He shook it off, smiling gently.
"I don't miss them... like I said, I don't even remember them all that well, since I couldn't have been much older than five or six. The parents who I DO remember... my REAL mother and father, were Lyubitshka and Mihai."
His smile turned bittersweet. He looked down for a moment.
"I never felt neglected, or abandoned. I felt cherished... all I ever wanted to be was a Tymani boy. I didn't look like them, so I overcompensated, I suppose. It was silly. They never made me feel like I was different. I had to work twice as hard to keep up in the children's games. Tymani kids are like monkeys, Raven. Some of the things they do for fun... Everybody who wasn't too old or too young was an acrobat, a tumbler, a juggler, a knife thrower"
He looked upwards, lost in thought.
"I wasn't one of them by birth, but I made damn sure I was one of them by trade. By the time I was ten years old, I could do anything my father could. By the time I was twelve, I was earning as much as two adult Tymani."
His smile fell. His eyes took on a hard, almost ferocious glint. Not pain... there was no evidence of pain in them, but of anyone, Raven knew that you didn't let that much darkness escape from your gaze unless there was pain pushing it out.
"Then we came to Gotham."
He frowned. "You have to understand something about the Tymani, Raven. Nobody likes to see them, but everybody tolerates them because of the novelty they represent. Your average rural village might see one Tymani band pass through in a generation, and that's what everybody in that village talks about for decades. If times are good, and harvests are plentiful, the village might even just so happen to have a "festival" right when the Tymani happen to be in town."
He sighed. "Right away, we knew something wasn't right. The peasants were unfriendly and more than a little fearful, and everywhere you looked, people had that raw-boned, bleeding edge of starvation look to them. No dogs, no cats... barely any livestock. There wasn't even a terribly large amount of grass. You could tell they were just scraping by. Still, they were at least a little receptive... they didn't throw rocks. I wish they had. If they had been hostile, we would have just moved on."
His eyes grew far away as he remembered. "We stopped, and we set up... I remember a juggling routine, and I remember a few coins. Coppers... nothing special, but more than we expected. I remember a girl dancing... if there is anything magical about the Tymani it's in their women and the way they dance..."
He snapped back to the present, and fixed her with a hard gaze. Despite herself, she was spellbound.
"They rode in on horses... huge, monsterous looking things. I know now that they were warhorses, but at the time, the biggest horses I'd seen were the occasional plowhorses the peasants used, and these towered over them. Some of them wore tabards and light armor, but a small group of them were in Lord's plate... and their leader..."
His lips took on a hard, angry cast. "Orange and black, Raven. His colors were orange and black. Everyone in the caravan was scared at first, and the villagers all but disappeared. The lord took a look around, and even in that featureless helmet I could FEEL the cold, calculating evil... He glanced down at our pot, and saw the coins... and..."
"His voice was a slice of winter, and he asked why it was that the village had the coin to give to vagabonds when they couldn't pay the taxes owed to their rightful king."
He shook his head. "I don't know how it started really... I suppose one of his men took a fancy to the girl who had been dancing. All of the sudden there was fire, and there was screaming... and..."
He smiled grimly. "We didn't go down without a fight, I can tell you that. Only a few of his men without armor survived. Knights... those are a different story. We couldn't fight heavy cavalry... not without the element of surprise, and the Tymani are not a violent people... they couldn't have conceived of that kind of brutality... it just wasn't in them."
"When it was all over, they lined us all up, everyone who could still stand that is... and they took us out to this huge tree that overlooked the village. Anybody who couldn't walk there, they put to the sword and left them to rot."
"There were a few men, mostly too old to have fought. Women. Children... lots of children. They lined us all up, and they tied a bunch of ropes into nooses..."
Raven closed her eyes. "Oh no..."
A queer little smile flickered on his lips. It was almost like he couldn't think of any other expression that would fit.
"He said that this would be a bit of incentive for the villagers to be more forthcoming in the future. We weren't a threat. We weren't even a nuisance. We were a CONVENIENCE. An object lesson that no one would miss. They built a bench, they had us all watch while they did it, laughing and joking as they worked, then they set it up, and had us all stand on it, then they just... kicked it over."
"Have you ever heard twenty necks break at the same time?" He said quietly. Then he shuddered.
"It was dumb luck really... I happened to be at the end of the limb they put eight of us on, and all that weight made the tree limb bend a bit. I guess the knot wasn't tied right, either... so when everyone else died instantly, I sort of bounced instead. Dazed, hurt, suffocating, but still alive. Choking. My hands were tied, but I was maybe fourteen and small for my age, so they didn't bother tying my feet together, just my hands. So I bounced, and I came back down, and I saw it coming... KNEW that if I didn't act, I was going to strangle slow..."
He looked at her intently. "I almost didn't bother. I almost just let it happen. Everyone I loved was dead, for nothing."
He grinned. "But I DID have something. They were riding away. They didn't even stay to see what they had done. I was outraged. I was mad. It wasn't FAIR. It wasn't JUST. So I flipped, and flopped like a fish on a hook, and somehow, I got an ankle around that tree limb without breaking my damn neck. It was sunset by the time I managed to inch myself up on top of that branch... the crows were already hard at work by then. It was the middle of the night when I finally managed to chew through the ropes around my hands."
Then she saw it for the first time. Pain. Self-recrimination. She knew those feelings well enough to see them reflected in someone else's eyes.
"I couldn't bury them. I couldn't get them down. I just had to leave like a dirty thief in the night. I went back to what was left of the wagons, and I grabbed only what I needed, then I set out to follow them."
He looked down.
"There was just no way I could keep up with them on foot, but I remembered them talking about the King, so I figured they worked for the King of Gotham, King Bruce. I was half mad with grief and mostly ignorant of the way young men make their way in the world without a family to support them, but I learn quickly."
He sighed and shook his head. "I'm not ashamed to say I took what I needed and others didn't. I don't know what I was thinking, how I was going to find the man responsible for the murders. That's what they were to me. Murders. What right did he have?"
He smiled bitterly. "In any case, I got to Gotham and asked around about a Lord who's colors were orange and black. Not surprisingly, people didn't want to talk about it, but I finally found out they were a Lord Slade's colors. He was currently out of Gotham proper, on his knightly rounds."
Robin shook his head. "Knights ride rounds to be visible symbols of justice. Slade was using his as an excuse to shake down a few peasants in the name of the King. Sadly, this was not terribly uncommon among the Knights. Everybody was just too afraid to say anything."
He stopped and stared upwards at the canopy of leaves above them. "I didn't care. I wanted to die, but before that... I wanted to take that bastard with me."
Raven nodded, quietly. "I think... I can understand."
He started and looked back at her. "Can you?" He whispered. He searched her face for a moment, then nodded to himself.
"You know... I think maybe you can, at that."
She looked away from the intensity in his face. After a moment, he continued.
"That Dark Knight who appeared on the scene was something of a local legend. There was a time, apparently, when Gotham was much worse than it was when I came on the scene. This Dark Knight with no colors, and no markings identifying him other than a sort of batlike sigil appeared and began to cut through the corruption and decay in the city. Rumours varied about him... that he was a disaffected noble who hid his face for fear of censure by his peers... that he was a close personal friend of the King... that he was a demon summoned to do the bidding of the King..."
He grinned ferally. "As I said, rumours sometimes have a ring of truth to them. In any case, eventually, Slade and I came before the King, and when Slade glared at me, he had to do it with one eye."
He sighed.
"I only wish I'd aimed just a little better. As was his right, he spoke first, and to hear him say it, I attacked him with no provocation and cruelly injured him just out of sheer spite and perversity. The court ate it up. I mean honestly, this was the word of a Knight in good standing. One with a somewhat checkered reputation, admittedly, but a Knight nonetheless. Here I was, an unknown, dirty urchin who consorted with Tymani, with a nooseburn around his neck and who admitted he had done the deed and was glad he did it."
He grinned. "Still, the King bade me speak, so I told my story. To be honest, I was a little relieved at that point. I figured that he would listen to my story, then condemn me to death, and this time, they wouldn't botch the job. At the very least, Slade was never going to forget me."
He looked up. "I couldn't have known that the King had been investigating reports of Knights overstepping their bounds. I couldn't have known that several other Knights had already been made examples of. I also couldn't have known that my story filled in the gaps in the reports of the Kings most valued agent, the Dark Knight. The signed and sealed testimony of the Dark Knight himself corraborated what I was saying, and you could have heard a pin drop when I was finished speaking. He looked around his court in disdain, then the King passed judgement."
"Slade was stripped of titles, lands, and Knighthood. He was also to be placed into custody while the King considered the proper sentence for someone who had ruthlessly murdered a band of sovereign peoples. What disturbed me most about it all... was that Slade didn't appear all that disappointed. Oh he still glared at me with hatred, but he didn't look devestated or defeated. At the most, he looked inconvenienced. I suppose that should have warned me, but at that point, I didn't much care."
"For my part, I was found guilty of assaulting a Lord. My life was forfeit."
Raven frowned at this.
"I was taken to the infirmary, at the time I thought it odd that they would make me well so that they could kill me. The King came to visit me, and he asked me what I felt of his Justice."
He grinned again, this time at a fond memory. "I told him exactly what I thought of it. When Knights act like bandits, and Lords indiscriminately oppress the people they are sworn to serve, they make their kingdom trash that not even MY people would pick up. I didn't have anything to lose, why not say what I really felt."
The trees were now interspersed with the occasional bit of stone. When they approached what could only be described as a tumbled down wall. Robin frowned. "I didn't know men had settled these woods."
Raven looked around and raised an eyebrow. "These are ruins are considerably older than man, Squire. The Fae once held court here, but they have long since retreated to their space between worlds, the Underhill. When man brought Iron into the world, a little bit of the magic that once held sway fled forever. The Fae followed."
Robin nodded. "I'd always wondered..."
Raven nodded quietly. "So what was the King's reaction?"
He grinned and continued. "The King looked at me for a moment, then asked me if I had the courage to change that. I told him that I didn't know about courage, but that seeing as how my life was effectively over, and I was already a dead man, that dead men don't particularly fear anything."
"He gave me an odd little grin at that point, and left. I got well, and my life WAS forfeit. I found myself a ward of the state, effectively oathbound to serve the interests of the Kingdom directly."
He rolled his eyes. "I was given over to the Dark Knight for training, and he pretty much beat what it was to be a Knight, a REAL Knight, into me. I certainly didn't make any friends when I was entered into the Chapterhouse rolls as a Squire, but by that time, I was unhorsing and besting fully invested Knights at single combat without breaking a sweat."
He wrinkled his nose. "Which is probably why I am still a squire, come to think of it. Still, I won't stop until I'm a Knight. I don't care about the titles or the lands that come with it... most of that stuff I'll never have anyway. What I care about is what Knights are for... what they are REALLY supposed to be. Knights dispense justice, and their word is pretty much law outside of Gotham City. I want to prevent what happened to my family from ever happening to anyone ever again."
Raven nodded, and cocked her head slightly. "I suppose there may be some truth to your claims that your King is a just and fair ruler..." She grimaced. "Well, for the most part. He certainly seems to have a rigid sense of justice, but I suppose that isn't necessarily a bad thing."
"What happened to Slade?"
His expression grew dark.
"He was escorted to his estate, and on the way there, his men struck from ambush and freed him. I suppose he had a backup plan. He fled Gotham and became a mercenary. The sort that gives credence to their reputation as dogs of war. Every once in awhile a Knight will go to apprehend him. To date, he has killed seventeen of them."
He sighed. "They call him the Deathstroke."
Her eyes widened. "Deathstroke... I've heard of him... YOU were the one that put out his eye?"
Robin nodded grimly. "Like I said... he won't ever forget this streetrat."
He turned away and scanned the woods, an odd expression on his face. His voice was slightly distracted. "One day... I'll find him."
Raven frowned. "And what then?"
He did not turn. "I'll bring him to justice, and this time, he won't escape what he's due."
He paused. "Raven, are you sure these ruins are abandoned?"
She frowned, opening herself up to her otherworldly senses. The residual mana of the ruins pulsed in her sight, the odd tone of the alien magicks giving her a slight headache and obscuring her from getting a good feel for the surrounding area.
She narrowed her eyes.
"I was... I don't sense anything."
He looked back and her and raised an eyebrow. "I could swear that we're being-"
His eyes widened and he dived at her suddenly. "LOOK OUT!"
Taken off guard, she was unprepared when he slammed into her bodily and knocked her to the ground. An oddly shaped bolt of green fire hissed through the space where her head had been and slammed into the crumbling masonry behind them. The section of the wall pulsed green a split second before it exploded violently. Robin threw himself over the prone girl in front of him as superheated shards of ancient stone showered them.
He looked up, and glanced around violently. His eyes narrowed.
"Raven, we've got to..." He glanced, down.
Despite the tenseness of the situation, he couldn't help the sudden release of a downtrodden sigh. The girl had apparently hit her head on a half buried bit of stone from the crumbling wall. A goose egg and a trickle of blood from her right temple explained her unresponsiveness.
Robin rolled his eyes upward and stood. He muttered disgustly under his breath. "Great job, Knight boy. You just creamed the damsel. What's your next feat, have tea with the assassin?"
He scanned the trees worriedly looking for the attacker, his feet widened into a defensive stance over the unconscious girl. He thought furiously. -That bolt came from a downward angle... whoever it is, they're shooting from above, but the angle is too steep for the trees...-
A sudden thought came to him and he glanced upward at the open sky. His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open.
"Ohhh... boy."
An otherworldy figure floated above him, glaring down coldly. Her jewel-like green eyes flashed furiously, and her skin, so golden in color it was almost orange, reflected the green corona that surrounded her lithe form. She cocked her head slightly, red hair shifting as she did so, and he caught sight of the strangely insectile wings that flashed behind her, trailing motes of green light.
What caught his attention most was the glowing crescent of emerald energy that extended in both directions from her right hand. Her left was drawn back behind it and a similar bolt of energy glowed across the crescent like...
He winced. "That's a bow. It would have to be a bow, and not just any bow... A green magical DEATH BOW, apparently."
She narrowed her at his words and frowned. A sound like a cross between a pure musical note descending into a derisive tri-tone fifth note and a liquid language escaped her lips.
He blinked, then frowned and stepped slowly to the side. The bolt followed him as he moved, and something in her eyes flashed.
He narrowed his eyes.
The hand drawing the apparently invisible bowstring back tensed.
That strange language/music phrase was repeated, this time more forcefully.
His eyes never left hers. "I don't... understand... you." He said slowly, calmly.
He had only a split second to react to the anger in her face, and then he was flipping backward away from the explosion of hot dirt and green fire that lit the location he had been standing. His feet found purchase atop the blasted wall and he spun his right hand, the staff extending and spinning in his fist in a dizzying pattern. He held it perpendicular to his body and shifted his left foot backward, a throwing knife appearing like magic in his left hand.
"Nevermind, I think I understand you now." He said grimly.
Another eldritch green bolt was her only answer.