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What even is the mystery of the druids?
The mystery is that when I played Dragon Warrior on NES, this thing now called a "Lunatick" was called a Druin:
And as a kid, I wasn't 100% on letters or memory so when I saw or heard the word "Druid" this is what I pictured. When people told me the druids made Stonehenge or worshiped nature or whatever, I assumed there was a real world version of these things.
No unreality or joke here, I thought that 'til I was like 12.
“Do you believe in God?”
Jason Todd’s hand stopped mid-air reaching for a spoon in the half-open drawer. He had woken up around ten minutes before, it was one of those nights that Jason decided to crash on one of the many spare rooms of the manor. Made his way to the kitchen, pajama pants and all. It was around two in the morning, the only reason he wasn’t out on patrol was because it wasn’t his turn to roam around Gotham at night. He had expected the kitchen to be empty, as it usually was; not that Jason would know, he never went to the kitchen at night. Instead, he found Tim doing the exact thing he had come down for: eating a bowl of cereal. Turns out Tim had gone down just a few moments before him.
“God?” Jason kept his movements and grabbed the spoon, then hip-checked the drawer so it closed. He placed his spoon in the bowl on the counter, already having cereal and milk. “I don’t know, Tim."
“Jason, ‘I don’t know’ doesn’t cut it.” Tim pointed his spoon at him, accusing.
Jason sighed, he rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, still holding his own spoon. “It’s a matter of thinking about it, I suppose. Think about who we are, Tim, who we were. We were teenagers that fought evil at night. We’ve gotten hits and bruises and sprained ankles and broken bones and concussions and blood on our hands. Blood that wasn’t even ours. We’ve seen hell, and have perhaps even had our share of heaven,” Jason put a spoonful into his mouth. When he finished eating, he spoke again. “Does it sound like God would let that happen?”
Tim kept quiet.
"I’ve asked myself that. Countless times. And then another question comes. God? What God? Because face it, Tim. We've met gods. Hell, for the longest time I was in love with one of those gods. At this point, meeting a 'god', its... its sort of normal.
"Normal for us, at least," Jason scooped another spoonful of cereal. "Then again, I don't think we were ever normal."
Tim took this in consideration, he set down his own spoon in the bowl of cereal. “So... you don’t believe in God?”
Jason seemed to ignore him. Maybe he had forgotten altogether that he was talking to Tim in the first place. “Look at all the lives we’ve taken. Every last breath we’ve seen, looks of terror. The lives I’ve taken. Because face it, I’ve killed people. I should go to hell for that.
“But you know, I was dead, Tim. And I know I bring it up more often than not, as a joke or whatever,” Jason stirred the cereal and milk in the bowl, he could feel it become soggy, but he wasn’t paying attention to it. “And I mean, I didn’t go to hell. Nor heaven. Nor... anywhere else. And maybe I don’t remember it, because you know, I was brought back to life and stuff. But still.”
Jason looked at Tim straight in the eye. “Maybe if God existed, Gotham wouldn’t. Batman wouldn’t. After all, we’re supposed to clean the streets from all the demons, villains and stuff, even if we’re one of those ourselves.”
Now he shrugged, Jason Todd. “But enough about me,” he said. “What about you? Do you believe in God.”
Tim took in a breath, he took a while to respond. “No,” he said quietly. “But sometimes I wish I did.”
Do you ever think that the orphans of gotham beat themselves up on the daily, thinking they weren’t good enough to get adopted by Bruce Wayne, funder of most orphanages?
Because it’s one day that he takes in a little boy, the boy on the flying trapeze. He could have gone to the orphanages, he really could’ve. Their parents had also died, just like this boy’s, some maybe worse deaths, if things as that are possible. But Bruce Wayne took the boy under his wing, raised him as his own. What did this boy have that they didn’t? Was it because he looked more like Bruce than they did? They could see the resemblance, once a year or so had passed. They boy always had the black hair, the blue eyes. Yet as he grew up, you could see the devilish smile he had. Sincere, kind, yet devilish. Maybe he knew something.
Years later, Bruce Wayne had adopted another boy, this one nobody really knew where he came from. He didn’t speak with the press much, but you could tell that he wasn’t shy. He just never felt like sharing anything. He had similar features to the first boy’s, to Bruce Wayne himself. The same drill, blue eyes, black hair. Most times, he looked like he couldn’t believe his eyes, even as he got older, as he spoke to the press more. He had gotten confident, cocky, yet there was always this somewhat hollow look behind his eyes. He was missing something, but it was obvious he didn’t know what. This was the second boy Bruce Wayne made part of his family. He didn’t seem to know what he had to make Bruce adopt him.
As if it weren’t enough, Bruce Wayne took a new boy, and people recognized this boy. He wasn’t shy, nor quiet. He had the blue hair, black eyes, just like the boy past him. He had been taken in by Bruce Wayne after the murder of his father. Then again, the parents of the kids in the orphanages had also died, murdered. Why weren’t they taken in by Bruce Wayne, too? What was it about them, not being good enough? Was it still the blue eyes? The black hair? Even as he grew older, matured. He looked so indecisive sometimes, as if pulling an emotional punch every five or three steps. He seemed to remind himself that he was, in fact, adopted by Bruce Wayne. Like he didn’t deserve this. He knows, he just won’t say it. Why Bruce took him and not one of them.
Now there’s a new child beside Bruce Wayne. The rest have grown up. The first boy, the one on the flying trapeze, he’s already in his mid-twenties. He’s around ten, this little one. He’s nothing like Bruce, not even from appereance. He doesn’t have the black hair, the blue eyes. He has dark brown hair, almost black, but brown enough you can see a difference. Green eyes, vivid. What he does have is a matching smirk of Bruce’s, yet it’s not a playboyish one, it’s a superior one. Like he knows exactly what’s wrong with the kids in the orphanages, why Bruce picked the first three boys instead. Why had Bruce picked him, if he had at all? Time passed, you could see this boy change, little by little. His smirk stayed the same, though. You can’t really change that, it was a somewhat reflex of his. The meaning behind the smirk, though, that changed. It wasn’t superiority anymore, it wasn’t pity as if sometimes was. It was relief, to sorts. He was with Bruce. If at first he knew anything, as to why Bruce hadn’t picked the children in the orphanages, he doesn’t anymore.
They’d give anything to know, they really would. Why hadn’t he picked them. What was so special about the four boys?
It is Damian Wayne’s second time with the fear toxin. He is sitting in a chair, his arms are tied back, his ankles tied together. He is in the Arkham Asylum, in the padded interrogation rooms. He has been in that same room many times before, he knows every inch of the cells, yet this is entirely different. Damian does not know this side of the cell, he always was at the opposite side.
"Father, I dont understand why we are going by doses," Damian spoke into the empty side of the room, he made eye contact with his father on the other side of the glass on the far end. "It seems ridiculous. I wasn't affected by the newest he had, why would I be affected by the lighter ones?"
Bruce's voice echoed in the room through speakers. "We need to know just how you weren't affected by the Scarecrow's tear gas. Going by doses will help analyze the chemicals that might or might not affect you."
Damian started fiddling with the rope around his wrists. He ran his fingers overtop the knot, he smirked. It was an easy knot, one he could untie in his sleep. He wasnt going to untie it, though. He knew why it was there in the first place.
Just for caution, Bruce had told him.
Damian let his hands go limp, his eyes drifted to his domino mask on the floor in front of him. He was wearing civilian clothes, he had taken off his uniform when he entered the cell. Other members of his family, such as Red Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, and the Red Hood were standing outside the cell, keeping a guard of some sort. Damian did not know why he needed to take his uniform off.
You have too many weapons in the uniform, Damian. We don’t know how you might even react to the toxin, the Batman had told him.
Damian was growing impatient. “Are we starting now, Father?”
Bruce held up a hand at him, signaling for him to stop. Nightwing entered the room, he took his mask off and placed it on the monitors. He started talking to Batman, cowl and everything. Damian understood everything they were saying, reading lips was child’s play.
‘What if something goes wrong, Bruce?’ Dick didn’t even make an attempt to make the conversation private.
‘Nothing will go wrong,’ Bruce answered. Damian could see that he didn’t care for privacy either.
‘He’s just a kid, Bruce,’ Dick waved his arms around, and Damian could see his eyebrows notched together. ‘He’s just eleven and we’re making him see his worst fears.’
Bruce sighed. Damian saw his shoulders move, his breath on the other side of the glass. Was it cold? ‘He will be fine, Nightwing,’ Bruce grabbed Dick’s domino mask and handed it to its perspective owner. ‘That’s why we’re going by doses.’
Dick accepted the domino mask, then set it again on the monitors. ‘Doses, my ass, Bruce. What if it was luck? What if he just... trained his lungs to reject it or something? Maybe he got lucky and we’re torturing him.’
Damian didn’t even have to read Batman’s lips to understand what he’d say next. He knew this line by memory. ‘Luck? We can’t let luck decide our fates.’
Batman spoke into the comm-link, his voice was loud and clear to Damian. “Are you scared, Damian?”
Damian scoffed. “Scared?” He smirked. “Like hell.”
Batman nodded, he looked at Dick. Dick snatched his mask from the monitors, put it on and left the room.
Damian started to hear hissing, slow and soft. The lights in the room dimmed, Damian could see the toxin being released. It was a tint of purple, not green nor white as it usually was.
“Father, Why is the gas purple?” Damian asked.
“Don’t speak, Damian,” Batman stood tall as the mildest version of the toxin filled Damian’s side of the glass. “Tell me, do you see anything?”
Tell him? Father must be getting too many hits on the head, he had just told him to not speak. Damian opened his mouth anyways. “I see you, I see the monitor, I see the purple gas. Why is it purple, father?”
“It’s just a variation, Damian. Are you holding your breath?”
Damian rolled his eyes. “If I were holding my breath I couldn’t be talking to you.”
“Can you see clearly?” Batman asked.
Damian sat calmly, he started bouncing his left foot. He breathed in and out, exaggerately, just to prove a point. He didn’t feel anything, he didn’t see anything. He had to admit the gas was starting to affect him, but just in the way of gas filling his lungs and stinging his eyes. Now, if he had his mask on, this wouldn’t be happening.
Damian blinked a few times. “Yes father, I can see. I can even see that mole by your mouth.”
“Good. That was the third mildest version of Crane’s toxin.”
Third? Damian sucked in a breath. He was calm, to his own surprise. It just took him unprepared that it was the third dose already. He had thought Father would at least tell him.
“Fourth dose, Damian.” Batman’s voice was stern. Oh, so now he tells him.
“How many are there?” Damian asked. He noticed the fog started getting thicker. He blinked rapidly, coughed. It was just the fog, not the fear toxin. It was like being in a room with a bunch of smoke. He could breathe, so it was fine.
“Just five. Six, if you count the one he used on us. But I don’t have a variation of that one yet.” Batman pressed a button. Or maybe slammed his fist on the monitor, it was getting hard to tell. “Fifth one, now.”
Damian sniffed. He could easily untie the knot and reach for his mask. Maybe that was what Batman wanted him to do, to prove something. He tried concentrating on the fear toxin, on what it could do to him. He had to admit that the toxin stinked, but maybe nobody noticed, they’d be too busy living their greatest fears. Damian had his eyes shut tight, he was unconciously holding his breath now.
“Damian?” Batman’s voice was fainter, he sounded worried. “What do you see, Damian?”
Damian tried to untie the knot. He couldn’t. His eyes burned and his lungs felt like dust. He was just physically hurting, he could still somewhat think rationally. He wasn’t living his greatest fear. He couldn’t even think of his greatest fear. Maybe that was why he didn’t react to it in the way Crane wanted him to. He just didn’t know.
The toxin of the room started clearing, Damian dared to open his eyes, they still burned, yet it was a fainter sting. Damian coughed frantically, and he heard the door open. Nightwing pressed his fingers on the glass.
“Damian?”
Damian could see clearer now, he untied both knots with ease. “Yes, Nightwing?”
“Did you see anything?”
Damian shook his head, he coughed once more. “Nah,” He felt like smirking, to show just how tough he was. “I didn’t see anything.”
Nightwing exchanged glances with Batman. “Nothing as in... Nothing?”
Damian picked up his domino mask. “Well, yeah.”
Conner Kent stood in front of the full-length body mirror on the back of Tim’s closed bedroom door. He was leaning in, fixing his hair, and the door opened, hitting him in the forehead. Tim walked in, a blank stare on his face. He ignored Conner’s exclaim of surprise, he sat down on the bed, his head tilted low.
“Do you ever want to change something about the way you look?” Tim looked up in his direction, yet his focus was on the wall behind Kon. “Something… something small, that’s all.”
Kon thought about it. Sometimes he regretted putting his hair on a side part instead of a middle one, sometimes he wished he had worn the other leather jacket, but it was something he could go and change in the blink of an eye.
His appearance wasn’t something he bothered too much with, not to change at least. Yet he knew Tim felt otherwise. It was something they didn’t talk about, something they had never talked about, something that Tim just knew that Kon knew and that was that.
“Why are you... why?” Kon asked. The question had come from nowhere, but Kon knew that Tim meant it, so he answered it. “No, not really.”
Tim seemed to have heard him, yet ignored him anyway. He stood up, walked to the mirror, looked in it, closely. “Blue eyes, they’re so… Blue eyes are so boring.”
Kon looked closer in the mirror, he looked at his own blue eyes. He kept quiet.
Tim’s eyes shifted towards Kon’s reflection, then back to his. He kneeled on the floor, not taking his eyes off of their reflection. “They’re everywhere, Kon. Everywhere. Everyone has blue eyes, and they all look the same.
“It’s not like in books, like a ‘spark here, and a spark there’. There’s no ‘dance of colours’ nor ‘slivers of white’ nor all that bullshit,” Tim was frowning slightly, and Kon crouched down beside him, and they both stared at their own blue eyes. “They’re just blue.”
Kon built a silence, a silence he was scared to break into the wrong thing. “But blue eyes are pretty sometimes,” Your blue eyes are pretty all the time. "They are, they really are."
Realization dawned on Tim, his eyes widened. Then he sighed and covered his face with his hands. “No, no, Kon. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I had forgotten you have blue eyes, too.”
Kon hadn’t even considered that. His eyes were just like Tim's, mostly. They were closer to looking like Clark's eyes, for obvious reasons. "It's okay," he waved Tim off and stood. He tried to steer the conversation elsewhere. “We should be leaving, see what Bart’s up to.”
Tim stood up, he kept looking at his own eyes, at the reflection of them. Kon didn’t understand it, as he didn’t understand Tim, not really. He liked Tim, loved him, in one way and the other, but there were times in which he couldn’t understand Tim, as much as he wanted to.
Tim spoke up, turned from the mirror. “No, Kon. It’s not okay. Your eyes are… they’re not like normal blue eyes.”
Conner’s face scrunched up in confusion. “I was… I was made in a lab, of course, they’re not like normal blue eyes.”
Now it was Tim’s turn to look confused. He smiled a little, smiled sadly as he stood up. “No, I-” He sighed in frustration, and Conner kept still. “Your… your blue eyes are… they might have been created in a lab or something, but they’re anything but.”
Tim reached Conner’s face before continuing. "I know that I just said blue eyes were robotic and stuff, but your eyes really aren't.
“They're… blue, but they’re perfect. They can’t be compared to oceans or crystals or the sky or anything. They’re just the colour blue, simply as it is, as vast as it is.”
Tim paused, his hand lingered on Conner’s cheek. Relaxed, but meaningful. “Well, that’s the thing with the colour blue. I mean, I see it everywhere, and sometimes it’s so tiring, but then I see you," he smiled. "I see you, in that blue uniform, laughing, and the glasses you always wear are covering your eyes, but…”
Kon’s expression softened. “But what, Tim?” he whispered.
“But I know your blue eyes are underneath the sunglasses. And they’re so... They’re you, Kon,” He caught his own lip. “I look into your eyes and I feel like loving mine all over again.”
Jon Kent had become an excellent liar.
“We're never finding Damian.”
That was a lie, although it could also count as truth. They were never finding Damian.
He was.
He didn’t have any of this information assured, but he was trusting that it kept real. He had known Damian for at least a year and a half, perhaps even less, but it had felt like forever. It was funny how people changed over time.
When he met Damian, things were rocky. Jon actually despised Damian, he tried to get away from him. He’d always make excuses for leaving, either with Kathy, or his dad, or Maya, even. Damian had been too cocky, a little far too confident.
Too sure of himself and his abilities, it made Jon angry.
It filled him with envy.
When they were sent to boot camp, Jon realized something. Damian was, sure, older than him, and more mature, and maybe not taller, but he was more skilled than Jon in almost everything he could do.
Damian was, in a way, just like him. A small way, of course. Nothing big, they weren’t mirror on mirror. Jon hadn’t been raised by a supervillain grandfather, and Damian wasn’t a half-breed between an alien and a human.
That was really the reason that he offered Damian the granola bar. He realized the small chance that they were similar. They were both lost, in different ways, but lost altogether. Jon didn’t actually know if Damian had ever been lost, if Damian even knew that being lost meant.
Maybe someday he’d find out.
When Damian slipped into his room, mocked him for going to sleep while the moon was still living, when he dragged him out the window, mocked him once more for not being able to fly, that’s when Jon knew there was something. Something in Damian that made Jon want to stay, just for a while longer.
When they matched in school, just a few educational years of a difference, nothing much, Jon was psyched. They were already close friends, even though not much had passed since Damian had visited him at night that first time.
What could he say? They became friends pretty quickly.
When Kid Amazo destroyed their headquarters, Jon and Damian had become pretty close friends. They were actually joking with each other, and mocking each other and making fun of each other, as friends do. Of course, Jon wouldn’t exactly know this by the palm of his hand, for friends weren’t exactly his area of expertise.
Yet Damian felt like a friend, like a best friend.
After all, he had saved him, when Jon was drowning at the bottom of Morrison Bay, given him a rebreather, and swam Jon’s limp, unconscious body for a few minutes, until Jon regained consciousness.
Saving each other’s lives, they were practically inseparable.
Their second Summer together came around, the whole gig with the cube of the fortress and the primary colours of Jon. If he was being honest, he really enjoyed that summer, perhaps the best summer in his ten years of life. Jon had always wanted a sibling, and that summer it felt like he had hit the jackpot. He could finally say that Damian was his best friend, at least without getting elbowed in the stomach. The golden kryptonite, Jon took it as a gift, being split in two, it was a portion of something he had wanted for so long: A brother. And even though having somewhat of a twin wasn’t as fun as he had expected, he enjoyed it, for as long as it lasted.
Jon remembers telling Damian that he’s going to spend time with his grandfather. Jon was spending the night at the manor, he was sitting in front of the TV.
Jason Todd was a mastermind when it came down to what others thought of him. Every move was calculated, every layer of clothing, every detail in his movements, every flick of the wrist and every hunch of the shoulders.
Jason Todd had perfected this game, the game of lying to someone’s face, leading them on with movements, facial expressions, and actions.
He wasn’t lying to them.
He was just letting them believe everything they wanted.
The helmet, the motorcycle, the jacket. The gloves, the suit, the thighstraps. The mask under the helmet, the man under the alias was not a rough man with no boundaries, a reckless man with no sense of right nor wrong.
The man beneath the carcass of confidence, he was most things the alias was not.
for more understanding, read this.
"Mr. Jay?"
Jason pinched the bridge of his nose in an exaggerated manner. "Kid, I told you not to call me 'Mr. Jay'. Someone else goes by that and it's pretty messed up."
"Alright then, Jay. Can I ask you a question?"
Jason was sitting on the rim of the balcony of the boy's bedroom, because suddenly even a child can have a balcony on his bedroom. It was Thursday, and Jason was there, helmet off, domino mask covering his eyes, a sandwich bag in his hand, two granola bars in the other. He handed the boy a granola bar, and answered. "Sure, okay."
"Are you one of the bad guys?" The boy looked away as he said this, by obvious means hiding something.
Jason thought about this. It depended on a lot of things, so he asked further. "Depends, kid. What would you define as bad?"
"I dunno, but today you showed up on tv, looking all cool with your red hood and stuff, and I pointed at you, and I called my mom. I guess I was really excited because she did this," the boy waved his hand. "And told me that you weren't a good guy, not like superman is." The boy looked like he was going to continue, but he just added, "My mom really likes superman."
Jason re-adjusted himself on the balcony. He sat cross-legged, and opened the wrapper of the granola bar. "Well, you see, I don't think there really is someone that's like Superman," he was looking down, concentrating on the wrapper. "Except for maybe Wonder Woman."
The boy laughed a little, then he got serious. "You didn't really answer my question," he said. "Are you a bad guy?"
"... Do you really want an answer to that one?" Jason kept playing with the wrapper. Truth be told, he didn't know if he was a 'bad guy' or a 'God guy'. Sometimes he liked to think he was a healthy middle, but that wouldn't be necessarily true.
"I guess not. You're not really a bad guy anyways." The boy shrugged, and Jason remembered for the fifth time that evening how much he loved Thursdays. It had been a tradition with his new friend, every Thursday, Jason showing up in his balcony. Just to talk, nothing more.
Jason folded the wrapping of the granola bar in his hand, and he out the whole in his pocket. "How do you know I'm not a bad guy? Or maybe somebody in between? An anti-hero?"
The boy stared at him blankly. "An anti-who?"
Jason chuckled. "An anti-hero is someone who, uh... Someone who is in the somewhat middle, of a hero and a... not," It was a stupid answer, he had to admit. He did know the definition of an antihero, but it didn't seem right, not at the moment. "An anti-hero is someone that doesn't really have the things that make heroes." If they went by that definition, then Jason was definitely an anti-hero.
The boy nodded slowly. "So... What makes a hero, then?"
Jason didn't have a an explicit answer to that question. He wanted to brush it off and answer something superficial like 'their outfits'. But this was somewhat of a serious question, so Jason asked himself just that: what makes a hero?
He thought about the heroes he had met throughout his life. The justice league, the Titans, even the teen titans, they were all heroes. Maybe it was loyalty, that could make them heroes. Then he remembered all the times they had planned behind each other's back, for all the good they thought they were making.
Perhaps bravery, or getting back up again. Cheesy things like that. Maybe the fact that they were all a team, but then he thought about how super-villains had teams as well.
As these thoughts crossed his mind, Jason realized something.
"A hero is a hero because they are admired by people. They could be rich or poor, super-powered or not, they could have dark hair, or light hair, it really doesn't matter. They can stand in the middle of those lines, or even in the outside of them, and it really wouldn't affect their being a hero or not," he realized he was ranting now, so he went to his point. "They just need to be admired by someone, they need to be thought good by someone.
"Kind of, a hero is someone that is part of a team. It will always hero and his teammates. Sometimes these teammates will be cities they've sworn to protect, sometimes it will be galaxies," Jason realized he had unconsciously taken out the granola bar from his pocket and started toying with the wrapper again. "And when people get saved, they are usually thankful. It's always shown in different ways, but that's what it comes down to: heroes are just seen as heroes in the eyes of others."
The boy blinked a few times. "So... You're not a hero?" The boy's head was leaned against the frame of the balcony slide-door. He looked tired and bored, Jason should be on his way.
"I'm... I'm not sure. Am I a hero?" He started picking up his things, stood up slowly, stretched.
The boy yawned. "Yeah, of course you're a hero!"
"Yeah?" Jason watched the boy stand up and stretch as well. "Who's my team, then? Who will I ride into battle with, carrying their hopes in my pocket?"
"Me."
Jason laughed, he put on his helmet, ruffled the boy's hair. "Yeah, you're right. It's you and me, bud."
As Jason went to his safe house, he realized something. He had known this already, but today it was practically transparent, right in his face.
Thursday evenings were his favourite part of the week.
