fandomtownies | The Park, Sunday Afternoon

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The Park, Sunday Afternoon

Anyone who knew Raven would probably be very surprised by her appearance. She looked mostly the same, only younger...except for the little horns sprouting from her head. And then there was the matter of her clothing. She was wearing a cape, long gloves, a leotard, and thigh-high fishnet stockings. It was probably safe to say this wasn't the Raven you were accustomed to.

This Raven was very confused as to how she'd ended up in Fandom. She'd run away from Atlantis with Harley and Ivy so she could find her father, but she had no idea where she was now or how she'd gotten there. Had she fallen into some sort of trap from the Joker's Daughter? She'd spent the first day hiding and trying to find a way home, but today, magic at the ready, she cautiously explored this strange place.

[Raven is Raven from DC Bombshells.]

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Whelp. This was a weird weekend. Jono figured it was bad enough that the island had turned him into a snake for a couple of days. Of course it had then gone and turned everyone else into other people.

... Which meant that he was going to embrace his morbid curiosity and go for a walk. Which was why he was wandering through the park in time to notice--

//-- Raven?//

He supposed it wasn't a weird people-turning-into-other-people weekend without running into some manner of Raven, anyway. Even if she didn't seem, ah, quite herself.

Raven jumped at the voice in her head and stared warily at the stranger who addressed her. "Who are you? How do you know my name? Where am I? You're on fire!"

Hooboy.

//Jono, we've sort of met, you're on Fandom Island, and yes, I noticed.//

There was a pause.

//Don't mind th'fire. It's nothing.//

Raven's hands began to glow with magic. She still wasn't convinced the Joker's Daughter wasn't behind all this.

"Where is Fandom Island? Is it part of England?" That would explain the accent.

Jono glanced at her hands, and just kind of reached up to rub at the bridge of his nose.

//Off th'coast of Baltimore, actually.//

What he would give to find himself in England right about now...

Baltimore she knew to be in America, which was in theory a safe place. Still, she wasn't out of questions yet.

"Do you know who the Joker's Daughter is?" she asked. "Are you homo magi?" It had to be some kind of magic that made him seem to be on fire and let him talk in her mind.

//Ah, getting a little personal there, aren't you?//

Look, what he did with his husband was none of your business, almost-Raven.

Raven lowered her hands, letting the magic dissipate. Did her horns seem to get smaller as she did so? Yes, they did.

"I only ask because you seem magical," she said. "You speak in my mind, and...that is not real fire, is it? It is magic."

//Oh?// A pause. //Oh. No, it's not quite magic, either. It's... psionic energy, if that means anything t'you. I'm a mutant. A telepath. I'm what happens when humanity's genes go a little extra haywire.//

Eldritch energies she was more familiar with, but psionic she could wrap her mind around as well.

"Mutant." She repeated the unfamiliar term. "Do you fight in the war? So many of us with magic and other powers do."

Yeah, Jono was scratching at the back of his neck awkwardly, now.

//Erm. Which war would that be, then?//

"The Second World War, of course," Raven said. What other war was there?

Jono blinked.

//... Good lord, no. It's 2017, luv. War's been over since well before I was even born.//

Maybe break a girl into that one gently, Jono.

2017?!

"How...?" she said, then launched into the really important thing. "Did we win?"

There was another pause, and then Jono spread his hands a little.

//Depends who 'we' is, luv.// He wasn't about to assume she was on the right side just because she was speaking English, no. //Allies took that one, in the end. Wasn't pretty getting there, though.//

Raven had seen her share of that lack of prettiness, but to hear that they'd win filled her heart with joy.

"Germany was my home, at least when I was younger," Raven said. "But I have stood at the side of the Allies since I was freed."

Jono gave a little nod at that. His great-granddad had told him stories about living in London during the war. Being able to breathe fire wasn't going to save you from the sodding Blitz, after all.

//Good, then. Any Raven I know has better judgment than to work for th'bloody Nazis.//

Not that she would have necessarily had a choice, granted. But still.

//So, uh, what brings you here? Or do you not know?//

Raven shook her head, and looked a little embarrassed. "I don't know," she said. "I was in Atlantis, but I made a clone of myself so Zatanna and John wouldn't know I was gone and worry, and I stole-away with Harley and Pamela so I could go find my father. But I found myself here instead."

Jono didn't want to know. Jono didn't want to know. Jono didn't...

//Why th'hell would you want to find your father?//

THAT WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA.

Raven blinked in surprise. "Why does that upset you? Do you know who my father is? He is a mountain spirit, made tame by my mother's love. But I've been having dreams that something terrible is happening to him."

Jono blinked back.

//He's a what now?//

Okay, that sounded a little less horrible than 'demon who wants to re-create the world in his own image.'

"A perchta," Raven explained. "He was born a monster, by the love of my mother made him a man." She hesitated a moment, then added sadly, "Only my mother was murdered, and I fear without her he may become the monster again."

So, this Raven was what happened if Beauty and the Beast happened in mid-twentieth century Germany? Jono scratched at his head.

//That would be unfortunate,// he allowed. //I... I'm sorry about your mother, for what it's worth.//

"Thank you," Raven said, eyes downcast. "I am lucky in that Zatanna and John Constantine are my guardians now, but I miss her a great deal."

//I know...// Jono paused for a moment. //I know a John Constantine,// he offered, gently. //He's good people. I know he'll do right by you however he can. Doesn't mean it won't be hard...//

He'd lost people before.

Hell, he'd lost Raven before. Not that he was going to share any of that with this one. She had enough to work through herself without some stranger attempting to commisserate and botching it up somehow. He was good at that.

//If you're anything like th'Raven I know, you'll pull through, though. The whole lot of you across the multiverse is made of stronger stuff than you soemtimes give yourselves credit for.//

"You keep speaking of these other Ravens," Raven said. "Are they clones like the one I made in Atlantis? Or am I a clone?"

Well that was going to potentially cause an existential crisis.

//Not clones,// Jono replied. //Not so far as I'm aware, anyway. I think it's more a matter of alternate realities at play. The Raven I know best is from my time, more or less. There are a few other differences beyond that,// cough cough Trigon, //but there are just as many similarities.//

"That's so amazing," Raven said, looking positively giddy. "I can't wait to tell Zatanna and John about all this. Can I meet her? Your Raven I mean?"

//Heh, that might be difficult to arrange,// Jono said. Her giddiness was kind of stupidly adorable, he couldn't deny that. //She's nowhere around here at th'moment, for starters.//

Or, rather, she was likely right here, unless this was that other more different Raven becoming another Raven who was not quite Raven...

His head was going to start hurting, here.

//If you're still around in a few days, I'll see if I can get in touch with her, though. How's that sound?// Since by that point, it would probably be a safe bet that they weren't actually the same person, and all.

This Raven had only about a quarter of Prime!Raven's trauma and was still a teenager to boot. The fishnets weren't the only thing she didn't have in common with her counterpart.

"That would be delightful!" she said. "Did you know a group of ravens is called an unkindness? That's not very nice. It should be a kindness of ravens, or something like that."

Yep, the tiny adorable Raven was going to be the death of him. Jono was going to just get adorable Raven'd to death and he would die.

//I think I'd heard something along those lines,// he said, a laugh in his voice. //I suppose a group of ravens is still faring a touch better than a group of crows, at least. Then again, rattlesnakes get a fun one. They're called a rhumba.//

Jono could spout pointless trivia with the best of them.

Raven giggled. "Why are they called a rhumba?" she asked. "They don't really dance, unless you count wriggling."

//Honestly, my guess is that it probably just alliterates nicely,// Jono admitted. //But it paints a fairly fantastic mental image all th'same, doesn't it?//

"I don't think I'll be able to look at a snake again the same," Raven said.

She lifted a hand and said a strange word, and an image of a pair of snakes appeared, balancing on their tales as they wiggled about in a semblance of a dance.

Jono blinked at the image, slightly caught off-guard by it for a moment. That was a new trick, after all. But a moment later he was watching the ridiculous dance, his face wearing an expression of amusement as best as it was able, and he was projecting a wordless expression of the same, psionically.

That? That was fantastic. And he thought this as somebody who had woken up a snake that very morning.

//Oh,// he deicded, //I like that trick.//

Raven laughed and added a few more snakes, making a conga line. "Zatanna and John have been teaching me to control my magic," she said, beaming. "As long as I control my temper, there is so much I can do."

//I'd say dancing snakes is as good a reason as any to learn self-control,// Jono decided. //Definitely a delightful one.//

It sure beat 'self-control for the sake of not flattening the island,' anyway.

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The Park, Sunday Afternoon

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