Disclaimer:
I wish I owned the Titans.
But the Titans belong to me just as much as the entire earth can belong to one individual.
My Iconic Birthday
Chapter 2
Three days until Raven's birthday.
She was sitting in the library with Stella. It was a solace, where people around whispered in hushed voices around old stained books that smelled of spilled coke and mould. The librarian surveyed the scene with piercing black eyes, ready to discourage slackers and kick out the noisy in a finger's snap. Raven could hear the gentle shuffle of feet hiding behind the towering shelves, and feel the dampened emotions of every being in the room. It was a place for quiet, and that's all she needed.
The two girls were having a private study session. It had come into general knowledge that not all four individuals would always be available at the same time, so on occasion they split into smaller groups to gather whenever available. It was early morning before class, and they had an English test second period. Raven took a moment to watch the girl.
Once upon a time, they had been friends. Stella had lived in Azarath when she was younger, adopted by a childless couple as a baby.
Raven remembered their first meeting.
"Give that back!"
Two older boys stalked in a circle around a four-year-old brunette. One of them held above his head a doll, red-haired and button-eyed, simple blue dress stopping at her plush, peach coloured knees. The boy cackled.
Raven, crouched inside a bush, watched the girl's face contort as she let forth an animalistic snarl.
"Oh, she's got a temper," the other boy said. "Can't be having that."
He leapt forward and an outstretched hand made contact with the girl's chest. She fell backward into the dirt, her hands reaching forward as if to grab the air before she could be injured. She shrieked on the ground and her eyes scrunched up angrily. "You're so mean!"
The boy with the doll laughed as the other one aimed a kick at her ribs.
Young Raven had had enough. She didn't want to be caught sneaking around town, and the boys were sure to recognise her garb as that of the demon child, but she couldn't just sit back and watch this horrid behaviour.
She stepped out from inside the leafy bush. "Stop!"
Stella's golden-brown eyes traveled over Raven's notes, lingering on longer words and flying past topics properly discussed in class. Her golden hair betrayed darker roots, as a soft curl fell over one eye. She brushed it aside with a scarred finger.
The boys stopped. Each one took a moment to observe the intruder, then, as if they had only been one person, simultaneously paled and backed away from the girl. The one boy dropped the doll and they both took off at a stumbling run along the dusty park path.
When they grew up, they wouldn't fear her, but for now… she sighed.
Raven knelt down next to the girl, who stared at her with wide eyes, her hands trembling. "You're… you're…"
Her hands were bleeding, though Raven took note of a thick rock that had lodged itself deep within her pointer. She grasped the rock between stubby grey fingers. "This is gonna hurt."
The girl didn't move.
The girls hadn't had any time to talk these past two weeks. They hadn't been alone since that first day, and Raven was hesitant to bring up her past in front of the others. She wanted to ask so many questions, but questions really weren't her thing.
She didn't flinch as the rock was pulled delicately out of the wound. She didn't even seem to notice as a steady flow of blood seeped from her finger. It wasn't until Raven wrapped her small hand around it did she react. Her hand jerked as she tried to pull it back, and her gaze snapped to the blood soaked ground.
"Oh," she said.
"I'll fix it."
Raven's hand glowed blue and the girl watched in awe.
Maybe questions weren't her thing, but at the moment her mind needed answers. Stella had disappeared when she was eight, and no one knew where she had gone. She'd have to ask.
"Stella?"
Stella looked up from the book.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?" Raven asked.
She lifted her hand to inspect the mostly healed skin. Eyes softened as she looked towards Raven with a newfound respect. "You're Raven," she said.
Raven nodded.
"I'm Stella."
"Not really," Stella answered. Her eyes narrowed slightly and she tried to go back to reading Raven's notes.
"Where do you live?"
"Around," she said, not looking up.
"Parents?"
"If you insist."
This wasn't getting anywhere.
"Stella, we have to have this talk sooner or later."
"I think I prefer later."
She snapped Raven's binder shut and placed it in front of the dark-haired girl. She clenched a fist, opened her mouth, and closed it again. "I need some fresh air," she finally said, and stood up.
Raven had one last shot at getting answers out of her. Stella knew about Raven's past.
"My birthday's in three days."
Stella stopped with her school bag on one shoulder. Her breathing quickened, and she glanced at Raven. Her eyes were wide, but they darted away from Raven's gaze as if burned by fire. She clenched her jaw and stared at the floor. "I'll get you a card," she said, and walked away.
Raven sighed and covered her face with pale hands. Why did Stella always have to be so difficult?
x-x-x
Raven woke up that morning feeling exhausted. It was Saturday, and she'd been invited to the movies later on with her study partners. It had been Garfield's idea of bonding, but Raven wasn't sure if she'd go.
Stella hadn't spoken a word to her the past three days, and Raven was surprised to find that she was actually upset about it. The blonde had gone so far as to bail on the English test for a "doctor's appointment" and refused to even look at Raven the next day.
Raven sighed and brushed a shaky hand through her short, black hair. The house was silent, the clock on her bedside table reading 5:30 am. She groaned as a short wave of nausea rolled through her stomach and hunched over into her soft, lavender-scented bed sheets. Should she even bother to get up today? Would it really make a difference in the end?
The room was silent, except for the electrical hum of her alarm clock. Her blue curtains were pulled shut, keeping any light from marring the shelves of ancient tomes on her walls. There was a dusty smell to the old books that Raven treasured in the morning. It was hers, as was the entirety of the room, and Raven took comfort in that.
But she couldn't just lie there breathing through her bed sheets. She groaned again and rolled onto her back, closing her eyes. Meditate. An unconventional meditation at best, but she really didn't feel like sitting up.
She slipped into her own mind, pulling a tight leash on every emotion she had and burying her anger so far underground she'd need a backhoe to find it. By the time she came back to the real world, the clock read 7:00 am, and the salty scent of bacon wafted through her bedroom door.
After getting dressed Raven trudged down the stairs to find her mother in front of the stove, cooking breakfast. A greasy pan sizzled with bacon, while another held a portion of scrambled eggs. There was a steaming cup of tea on the table, next to a bowl of strawberries, cantaloupe, and honeydew. At her place of the table she found a plate with buttered toast and orange juice.
"What's with the feast?"
Arella turned abruptly, spatula in hand. She gave Raven a sad smile before turning back to the stove and picking up the pan full of eggs. "A mother's not allowed to make her daughter breakfast on her birthday?"
More like a last meal.
Raven eyed the meal with uncertainty. She felt ill, which was completely foreign to her young, healthy body, and the prospect frightened her. She wasn't hungry in the slightest, but she couldn't simply say 'No.'
Making up her mind, she sat down in her chair and watched her mother cook.
Arella prepared the breakfast in elegant, fluid movements, brushing back locks of her unusual lilac-coloured hair to avoid singeing the tips on the hot stove. She hummed stiffly as she slid crispy bacon onto a plate and placed it in the centre of the table. The pan of eggs she removed directly from the stove, arranging them in front of her daughter with a smile. She kissed Raven's hairline.
"Enjoy."
Breakfast was silent. It wasn't an awkward silence, but neither was it a comfortable one. The weight of the world hung in front of the two women, and no matter how they turned, it was always staring them in the face.
Raven tried to ignore the pain in her stomach, but she found it increasingly difficult as her mother was casting expecting glances her way. She hid it, and ate a healthy portion of everything with mild disdain. Arella ate as well, and between the two of them, they managed to eat most of what was one the table.
Raven looked at her plate, where a piece of bacon, two strawberries, and a bite of toast stared at her with a malformed smile. Her stomach protested the food strongly in a sudden, painful contraction, and she clenched her jaw against the nausea. She placed her napkin on the table with a shaking hand. The once solid, square table warped in sickening waves, rolling back and forth so that she had to grip the side of her chair to keep steady. There was a harsh hum in her ears. An urgent itch under her skin. She swallowed.
"Raven, what's wrong?"
Her mother's voice was muffled. What was happening to her? A headache stabbed into her temples and she snapped her eyes shut. Oh god, make it stop! She groaned and crumpled forward into her arms.
"Raven!"
A sharp pain flashed across her brow and she heard the roaring flames of hell erupt from around her. The house was in ashes, surrounded by glowing orange and red lights. A sulphuric smell broke through her senses, battering against her pounding head. In the sky, four glowing eyes observed her with a piercing gaze. Dead trees crumpled around the solid stone form of her mother, of Garfield, Starfire, and Stella, frozen in a silent scream. She tried to close her eyes, only to find them already closed, and opened them instead.
Her mother was crouched in front of her, concern in her eyes. The dim lights in the kitchen hummed to themselves, and an overpowering scent of bacon filled the room.
Raven leaned over the side of her chair and vomited.
x-x-x
There was much to be said about being sick, Raven discovered. She hadn't much enjoyed the hours spent gripping the rim of the toilet bowl, retching and shivering. The burning glyphs on her limbs, face, and torso had left her warm, sweaty, and in need of a new set of non-singed clothes. Her tongue tasted of bile for most of the day, and exhaustion crept under her skin like an ever crafty bank robber.
Her dreams were plagued with images of death and destruction. She often woke up screaming, only to find herself wrapped in the arms of her mother, who hushed her, kissed her forehead, and hummed childhood tunes the monks had taught her. In quieter moments she was aware of a cool presence on her forehead, soothing the burn in her chakra.
At one point she sat up in bed, tracing the heated glyphs etched into her flesh. Her mother had stepped into the room at that point, watching her daughter from the doorframe.
"Raven," she whispered.
Raven elevated her eyes to look at her mother. They stared at each other in a frozen second, before a tear escaped Raven's eye and Arella was forced to balance on the edge of her bed in a precarious hug.
By five o'clock in the afternoon, Raven was dozing peacefully in her bed, and her mother had wandered into the kitchen to make tea.
Raven dreamed.
"They weren't very nice to you."
Stella was clutching her doll in bloodstained fists, eyes downcast. She was sitting on a small boulder, oversized boots dragging through the dusty earth. "They never are," she said.
"Didn't it hurt?" Raven asked.
"No."
Raven moved closer to the girl and removed her cloak. She went to drape it around Stella's shoulders, but the smaller girl flinched away. "It's cold," Raven said.
"I don't feel it."
She put the cloak back on and watched her new acquaintance. She wasn't sure how to go about making new friends. The monks never let her outside, and she was only here because she'd slipped away during one of their morning walks.
"Why are they mean to you?"
"Because they don't think it's wrong… to hurt someone who can't feel pain."
She watched Stella, who was so immersed in self-pity she was half expecting her to implode in a torrent of tears. Stella drew her lips into her mouth and sniffed the air, swallowed, but did not cry.
"I'm different too," Raven said.
Stella looked up, gazing for the first time into Raven's eyes. Her eyebrows drew together in a frown, and she un-pursed her lips. "Ya," she said.
Raven dove through her own confused thoughts, trying to pry something out of them that would drive Stella to like her. Something they might do together.
"Do you like to read?"
Stella, looked away, drew her legs up, and rocked back and forth on the boulder. "Don't know how."
"I can teach you."
"Do you have a book?"
"I can bring one tomorrow."
Stella stopped rocking and looked at Raven again. She seemed to be thinking.
A soft, steady patting of the earth sounded to Raven's left. Someone was coming down the path. Someone frightened, and angry.
"I have to go," Raven said.
Stella slipped off the rock and shuffled forward until she was standing in front of Raven. She looked at Raven's face, then her torso, and finally her legs, as if assessing some decision. She shrugged her shoulders and looked away, holding her doll in front of Raven. "You saved her," she said. "She wants to play with you now."
And when Raven's caretaker thundered around the corner, cursing and berating her delinquent behaviour, Stella smiled timidly and waved. "See you later Raven."
"Raven."
"Raven."
Raven opened her eyes groggily, sifting through her foggy mind to figure out where exactly she was. Arella was leaning over her, hand resting maternally on her arm. "Raven, there's someone at the door for you."
"Today?" She sat up slowly, glancing at the clock. It was 5:30 in the afternoon.
"It's Stella."