Thoughts At Twilight
New Member
Hello!
It has been a long time with no see, RPNATION.
I am not essentially sure how aesthetically pleasing I will be able to make this thread, after such a prolonged absence. However, if i recall correctly, interest checks can very well be hit or miss with results anyway. So, I shall spare myself the pain, heartache and misery of relentlessly pouring in hours.
My name is Kas. I've been on here (in spite of my RP-nation biography) since 2013, albeit not on this account. I'm looking for a small group of literate to novella writers, who are fond of Arthurian legends, or rather Netflix's 'Cursed'. Following conclusion of the show, my interpretation of Nimue was sceptical, given the character's Mary Sue tendencies at times. Thus, consequentially, my friend and I are hoping to run this roleplay as an AU. That would entail rewriting the story of the sword (let's call it as it is, Excalibur), and also adapating character interpretations to better fit.
I am hoping to take Nimue, and my friend Gaiwan.
Consequently, we would be looking for:
- Merlin
- Lancelot (the love of my life)
- Morgana
- Guinevere (Red Spear)
- Arthur
- Carden (or, a character alike)
- Pym
We are really hoping to world build here. The show gave a good foundation on which we can really delve into all the derivations of the Fae, the different kind and all their abilities. We're hoping to stretch out into ancient Britannia, but also well deep into character identity. So, hopefully, this shall not be for the weak willed!
Original characters will be welcome, following a character submission form. This can be fae or human alike.
I could go on about this forever. However, I fear I shall bore us all.
Please, let me know if you're interested below, or send me a small PM. I shall attach a writing sample beneath for your own evaluation. By no means my best, nor fantasy either, but a former canon piece that I had written in perspective of Batman's 'Barbara Gordon'.
It has been a long time with no see, RPNATION.
I am not essentially sure how aesthetically pleasing I will be able to make this thread, after such a prolonged absence. However, if i recall correctly, interest checks can very well be hit or miss with results anyway. So, I shall spare myself the pain, heartache and misery of relentlessly pouring in hours.
My name is Kas. I've been on here (in spite of my RP-nation biography) since 2013, albeit not on this account. I'm looking for a small group of literate to novella writers, who are fond of Arthurian legends, or rather Netflix's 'Cursed'. Following conclusion of the show, my interpretation of Nimue was sceptical, given the character's Mary Sue tendencies at times. Thus, consequentially, my friend and I are hoping to run this roleplay as an AU. That would entail rewriting the story of the sword (let's call it as it is, Excalibur), and also adapating character interpretations to better fit.
I am hoping to take Nimue, and my friend Gaiwan.
Consequently, we would be looking for:
- Merlin
- Lancelot (the love of my life)
- Morgana
- Guinevere (Red Spear)
- Arthur
- Carden (or, a character alike)
- Pym
We are really hoping to world build here. The show gave a good foundation on which we can really delve into all the derivations of the Fae, the different kind and all their abilities. We're hoping to stretch out into ancient Britannia, but also well deep into character identity. So, hopefully, this shall not be for the weak willed!
Original characters will be welcome, following a character submission form. This can be fae or human alike.
I could go on about this forever. However, I fear I shall bore us all.
Please, let me know if you're interested below, or send me a small PM. I shall attach a writing sample beneath for your own evaluation. By no means my best, nor fantasy either, but a former canon piece that I had written in perspective of Batman's 'Barbara Gordon'.
‘A sedulous cop, quintessential role model, and dignified gentleman’: that was Commissioner James Gordon – at least, it was in the words of ‘the Gotham Gazette’. To Barbara Gordon, his only daughter and youngest child, this two dimensional sketch of ‘Sin City’s daring, white knight’ was merely the tip of the iceberg. An aesthetic person, by most regards, Jim’s fiery haired daughter were an avid enthusiast of photography. Barbara staunchly advocated that every moment of life – each action, word, and movement – could all be reduced to a single picture, and immortalised forevermore. Some of the world’s most powerful movements were started by photographs alone – a spark to light the ignition of revolution: the open casket of Emmett Till, the Napalm girl, the Arlington Anti-War ‘Flower Power’. A picture speaks a thousand words, they say. And, sometimes, a picture speaks what words cannot. So, Gotham City clung to the picture of their white knight with both hands—squeezing, grasping, clenching. They revered him. They praised him. They chanted his name in the streets and paraded his image after every victory of the GCPD. ‘Gordon for Mayor’, they would declare, rallied at the steps of the Town Hall. ‘Gordon for District Attorney’.
The louder they screamed, the more their poster boy devoted his life to their cause – and, the more Barbara’s father latched himself onto this image of ‘Commissioner’. Yet, as regarded before, a photograph regards a single moment alone. It does not do to set upon eternal glorification of one single moment, one single ideology. For, besides Commissioner, James Gordon was many things: a husband, a father, a protector of his family. But, no matter how many photographs were shot, beyond the war against crime, none sufficed to be enough: his daughter’s first steps, his son’s fourth birthday, his beloved wife’s promotion. No moment could ever crawl beyond the shadows that his glorious revolution bestowed. So, eventually, Jim began to withdraw, bit by bit from each moment, each memory and each picture: his son’s graduation, his daughter becoming a teenager, his heartbroken wife losing her mother. Eventually, there were no other pictures at all. There was no other moments. Eventually, as yearned, Jim Gordon embodied every bit of the sedulous cop they claimed, every second of the day. Just like the other photographs, tucked tightly away in their designated albums, his roles as father, husband, and protector were neatly boxed away within his mind, where they gathered little beyond dust and cobwebs.
Barbara didn’t mind. Well, deep down, she supposed she did. Only, it didn’t matter how she felt. So, her own emotions were also boxed away, locked inside the labyrinthine corridors of her mind. Any attention her father did gift her, she latched to it, as though vital to life. Upon realisation that her utility held his attention, she took to burying herself neck deep in books. Any second her father didn’t hold was devoted to learning, so that he may wish to hold more. She first took to learning law, anything she could get her hands upon: from ‘Evidence: no evidence, no case’ to ‘The Criminal Law Handbook: Know Your Rights, Survive the System’. At first, her knowledge amused her father. A trophy daughter, Jim would parade his fiery haired princess around the GCPD, reciting her word-by-word memorised sentences of the US Miranda rights. Until, eventually, the show was tiresome and she were cast aside once more, as though an outdated or outgrown doll. So, she dug deeper: forensics, forensic chemistry and physics; computing, computing codes and hacking; criminal psychology, what makes a killer truly tick. Reading became her life-line, became her entirely. If she wasn’t smart, knowledgeable, then Barbara wasn’t anything. That was how it had always been with her father, and so how she always perceived herself ever since.
It weren’t always like this. Like rocks in relentless tides, Gordon sometimes found herself safe places, at which she felt she could breathe at last. One of these places, these people, was Richard John Grayson. Richard – or rather, ‘Dick’ – Grayson was a peculiar boy, but a few months younger than herself. Unlike most boys, he had a gentle demeanour, and were not the slightest bit ashamed of it. His soft, soothing eyes embodied it, she believed. They called out to all around, like the whispering breeze of the ocean air or melodic washing of the tide against shore. At first meeting, she found him a true enigma—found great solace in observing him, reading his actions as though the black blotted words of her textbook. For whatever reason, she enticed him too. Two broken souls, two halves of two very alternate wholes, slotted perfectly together: Yin and Yang.
As previously accentuated, Grayson was gentle, though by no means open. Yet, he were happy to play therapist to those he cared for. Luckily enough, by fate or fortune, Barbara Gordon soon fell beneath this category. And, he carried her, and all her problems, like Atlas bore the globe upon his shoulders. He held the sky above her head, so that it would not cave around her, so that the darkness would not devour all. Most people were happy to hurtle their problems his way, as she often thought Bruce too freely of doing. They would collect all the horrid, rotten thoughts they had in a dark, grimy bin-liner, and they’d hurtle it in his direction. Witness to the consequences of holding up the world, Barbara set herself the mission of aiding Dick Grayson whatever way she could, so that he may not suffer the same fate her father had. No an easy task, she bid him to talk – at first, just a little: fond memories of his mother, fun times with his father. Then, delicately, she delved a little deeper – as though a crafty brain surgeon, careful not to push, or poke, or prod in sensitive areas. Until, eventually, they were no longer two partner birds flying in perfect synchrony – but two wings of the same bird, one and the same.
Then came the fatal day of separation, he was torn from her side. For so long, she were maimed, unable to fly and left the depths of despair. Each day, they skyped; they texted; they spent hours on the phone. Yet, nothing was the same as the chance to exist together, to hold the other tight in your arms and know that, so long as you had them, everything was going to be okay. Eventually, the skype succumbed to the texts and phone calls. Then, the phone calls gave way to texts. Texts were ignored. Messages were forgotten. Until, soon enough, ‘Dick Grayson’ felt like the fairy tale prince in a story which Barbara Gordon had no place, far away in his glamourous castle of Wayne Manor. Life moved on. They moved on. They got older. Without her rock to breathe on, her safe place to settle, Barbara once more turned to books, turned to dance, turned to martial arts. Anything that earned a certificate, had a goal, she devoted her busy mind to attaining. There was no longer time for games, time for the crutch of friendship. No, if she could do something good, be something worthy, perhaps, she believed, her father would come back for her. If she could just make herself loveable enough, maybe just maybe, she could piece together the broken parts of her family.
Then, graduation came and went, but Jim Gordon never did. Cards through letterboxes commemorated birthdays. Apologetic texts excused absences at celebrations. She graduated a year before her class and valedictorian. But, nothing was ever enough. Crestfallen, Barbara gave up on her dreams, went to college to forge new ones. There, she made friends, settled into a place where people didn’t care what you knew, just if you knew how to have a good time. Perhaps, it would have done her well. It surely loosened her up – enough to get her guards down, enough to learn never to let her guards down again. Midway through her second year, she dropped out, differing her college journey to move back to the only place she, ironically, ever felt safe: Gotham City. And, there… he was: Richard John Grayson -- her Richard Grayson – only older and much changed by the sculpting hands of time. Yet, one thing that hadn’t changed was his charm, and his ability to withdraw anything he so desired from her, her darkest secrets and most pressing problems. Time and distance could change many things, it seemed, but it couldn’t dwindle the bond they had for one another, even if it had… altered, peculiarly.
The two of them set on rebuilding Fort Gordon, piece by piece, until a broken girl once more became a flourishing woman. Together, they tackled her past and brought on justice. Together, they were unstoppable: Babs and Dick, Dick and Babs – once more two wings of the same bird. In time, this developed— greater, stronger. Barbara and Dick became Batgirl and Robin, became a force to truly reckon with. She’d never thought he would leave her. Perhaps, that was where their issues had truly started. Once she was home, with him, she hadn’t thought much on the future. Why would she, now that she had everything she could wish for? Now that she felt home, at last? Like she finally belonged? If she were genuinely honest to herself, a truth she’d never utter aloud, Barbara had always fancied that they would have a future together. Batgirl and Robin. Barbara and Dick. Only, her other part did not seem to share these affections. In fact, he obviously didn’t; because, when the going got tough, Richard Grayson got going. And, unlike Barbara, he left on his own accords. Once more they texted, once more they called. From time to time, she were blessed with the occasional ‘honour’ of a visit or two. Yet, just as the time before, it was never the same. And, truthfully, she resented him for leaving her behind – just like her father, just like everybody else.
Religion was not something Barbara had learnt to pay much heed to. In her father’s trade - and, later, her own vigilante activities - she had come to learn life to be unsympathetic and incalculable. There was no man in the clouds, dishing out karmic justice through divine intervention. However, in Gotham City, there was something close enough. To many, money is as wicked as god is benevolent. Peculiarly, Barbara felt that money were one of the few things with as many perceptions as God itself. Money was power; freedom; a curse and a blessing; a gift from God and the root of all evil. To Bruce Wayne, money was a platform on which he could play role of man’s saviour- not the man in the clouds, but the bat in the shadows. If there was one thing the religions understood, she believed it was their understanding of the ‘greater plan’. Whenever something went wrong - a newborn died of complications, or an innocent child lost their life - it was always ‘a part of God’s plan’. One life lost meant another could be born and flourish elsewhere. In this, God subsided his benevolence for practicality, cold and hard pragmatism. Bruce was good at that part too, at reducing those around him to statistical data - a mere combination of numbers and letters logged within his omniscient files. Like the alphabet, or numerical ordination, each person had their place and their uses. This depended on their statistical coding, of course. Yet, whatever it was, Bruce had a purpose for them, a pawn in his ‘greater plan’.
Jason Todd fit criteria. So, extracted from the wise, omniscient files, Todd was withdrawn from his life and set on the greater path of ‘Robin’. Yet, the role of Robin came with strict job criteria. In reality, when one aspires to a career, they set upon a path to lead them that way. The winds and turns, the peaks and the troughs, the grit and the sand of this path, all leads to the final destination. Barbara recalled reading a saying, by Heraclitus, that fit this well. *‘No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man’*. Jason should’ve had pursued his journey properly, as Grayson had. The river being his life, and Jason being the man. He ought to have reached this new part of his life altered by what he had learned and encountered. Only, Todd never set on the path at all. One moment he were at the starting line, and the next he were at the finish — with no knowledge of what it meant to be there at all. He did well, given his circumstances. Yet, ‘well’ was never satisfactory, for the bat in the shadows. ‘Well’ was not a part of the greater plan.
Admittedly, she was sceptical at first. Jason Todd was no Richard Grayson. Where Grayson was soft, Todd was sharp. Where Grayson was assuring, Todd was stand-offish. Yet, whereas Bruce sought to modify him, mould him into the perfect partner Robin 1.0 had been, Gordon recognised him for who he truly was. Wayne liked to claim his new ‘son’ had ‘an attitude problem’, but Barbara knew this to simply be honesty. What inadequacies and cruelties Bruce had once flung at Grayson, what Grayson had formerly accepted, was often promptly boomeranged right back at him. Todd called him out, on everything and anything. He said it as it was, called things as they were. She liked it, appreciated it. She liked him. Thus, intrigued, she set to work on her evaluation, on breaking down the fortified walls to peer at what were hid beneath. It were easy enough, given that they lived together. Moments to intrude were bountiful, though most inappropriate and unlikely to be appreciated. So, she waited until she found him alone and training, extending the help and advice that Dick grudgingly withheld. Stubborn, he brushed her off, at first, but Barbara Gordon wasn’t to be so easily pushed away. Like a small yapper dog that had set her loyalties, she set by his side until her company became normality. There was a lot more to Jason Todd than what met the eye. Maybe, it were her inner nerd, but Barbara liked to think of him as an ore. To the plain eye, to an outsider, an ore would look little more than a jagged rock. Perhaps, it may even be a little faded, eroded down by the heavy burdens that came and went through time. However, deep inside, there was a lot more than met the eye. And, what was inside was very precious: invaluable. The inside of an ore could be the most beautiful, most colourful thing that a person could bestow their eyes upon — if they were lucky enough to steal a glimpse. Barbara Gordon was one of the few fortunate.
So, maybe the future wasn’t Dick and Barbara, but it didn’t mean there was no future for Robin and Batgirl. As time passed, the two of them grew closer, stronger. What would have once demanded a verbal warning could now be portrayed in a gesture or even a look. They developed ways of communicating beyond words, through… understanding. Bruce remarked, at last, that ‘things were just like old times’, but they weren’t. And, truthfully, Barbara were glad they weren’t. Jason wasn’t Dick Grayson, but that was what she’d come to love about him. He was brutally honest, whole-heartedly passionate, and a sarcastic little fuck. But, she found safety in his honesty, warmth in his passion, and humour in remarks many others regarded as ‘annoying’. She liked him for him – the boy beyond the mask. She liked him, because unlike everybody else in her life, she knew that he was constant. Jason would never abandon her, because he knew what it was like to be left behind. So, when he needed her most, she refused to let him down. To no avail, it seemed, because she’d inevitably done so anyway.
A gravelly noise pierced the silence. About a decade worth of defence training sprung Barbara to her feet, hands at the ready. Yet, the voice that accompanied the noise were a code that disarmed every fibre of her being, in spite of the altercations that had proceeded this moment.
“Yeah?” she spat, venomously, balling her shaking hands into tight fists, a guise of anger for her heartache. “And, what would you know about that? Always being there, that is… And, better yet, Jason, too”. Gordon turned abruptly—casting him out of her eyeline, so that she may equally push him from her mind. Not that it were possible, this much she knew. She’d tried far too many times before. The truth was that internal inferno raged on inside of her—a war between the beloved memories and overwhelming hurt. Barbara wanted to hate him, wanted to hurt him as much as his abandonment had hurt her, hurt Jason. Yet, no matter how much she tried… She shook her head, crossing her arms to hold herself tightly together. Her peridot eyes set, locked, upon Todd’s headstone, reminding herself how much Dick Grayson’s ‘friendship’ was truly worth. Only, she knew, really, that she couldn’t hold him accountable. That was exactly why she couldn’t meet him in the eyes, couldn’t even stomach looking him in the face and keeping her anger. She was weak, disgustingly weak. That was the true reason Jason died, and the reason why Dick had left her in the first place.
The last time they had spoken, her anger and grief had been vanquishing to any forces that love and friendship could muster. The darkness inside of her had shrouded everything, until all she could see was black rage. Words had been said, words that ought never to have seen light of day. Fingers had been pointed. Grayson wasn’t all innocent, having flung his fair share of cruelty back in her own direction. She had simply just initiated it, ignited the fuse that spark the explosive separation of their relationship, forevermore. Or, so, she had thought. The frost whipped her cheeks, nurturing the ferocious glow her fury had painted. The icy wind carried her fiery locks like flickering flames behind her. A single hand lifted, to tuck stray strands that slapped her face behind her ears. Yet, she found herself burying her face in both, without a single thought more on it.
Dragging her palms down, Barbara forced her shoulders back and her head high, before begrudgingly turning to face her past—face him, at long last. “I don’t see why you’re here,” she crossed her arms, beneath her chest, a further barricade to protect her heart. “You never had the time of day for Jason when he was alive. Why start now that he’s dead?” Taking a few steps forth, her boots crunching the snow beneath her feet, Gordon squared up to him. At a mighty five ‘six, any other may have made the erroneous presumption that she didn’t possess the walk to match her red-haired temper. Both of them knew that weren’t true. Whilst she wasn’t about to turn Jason’s resting place into a gladiator ring—as much as he may have loved it, alive— Barbara was not one to shy away from a fight. Batgirl and Robin had sparred before, as had Dick and Babs, and that certainly wasn’t going to be the last time. “And, don’t say, because your sorry. You’re not sorry for what you did. I know you’re not,” nostrils flaring, she glared up at him. “The only thing you’re sorry for? It’s yourself”.
The louder they screamed, the more their poster boy devoted his life to their cause – and, the more Barbara’s father latched himself onto this image of ‘Commissioner’. Yet, as regarded before, a photograph regards a single moment alone. It does not do to set upon eternal glorification of one single moment, one single ideology. For, besides Commissioner, James Gordon was many things: a husband, a father, a protector of his family. But, no matter how many photographs were shot, beyond the war against crime, none sufficed to be enough: his daughter’s first steps, his son’s fourth birthday, his beloved wife’s promotion. No moment could ever crawl beyond the shadows that his glorious revolution bestowed. So, eventually, Jim began to withdraw, bit by bit from each moment, each memory and each picture: his son’s graduation, his daughter becoming a teenager, his heartbroken wife losing her mother. Eventually, there were no other pictures at all. There was no other moments. Eventually, as yearned, Jim Gordon embodied every bit of the sedulous cop they claimed, every second of the day. Just like the other photographs, tucked tightly away in their designated albums, his roles as father, husband, and protector were neatly boxed away within his mind, where they gathered little beyond dust and cobwebs.
Barbara didn’t mind. Well, deep down, she supposed she did. Only, it didn’t matter how she felt. So, her own emotions were also boxed away, locked inside the labyrinthine corridors of her mind. Any attention her father did gift her, she latched to it, as though vital to life. Upon realisation that her utility held his attention, she took to burying herself neck deep in books. Any second her father didn’t hold was devoted to learning, so that he may wish to hold more. She first took to learning law, anything she could get her hands upon: from ‘Evidence: no evidence, no case’ to ‘The Criminal Law Handbook: Know Your Rights, Survive the System’. At first, her knowledge amused her father. A trophy daughter, Jim would parade his fiery haired princess around the GCPD, reciting her word-by-word memorised sentences of the US Miranda rights. Until, eventually, the show was tiresome and she were cast aside once more, as though an outdated or outgrown doll. So, she dug deeper: forensics, forensic chemistry and physics; computing, computing codes and hacking; criminal psychology, what makes a killer truly tick. Reading became her life-line, became her entirely. If she wasn’t smart, knowledgeable, then Barbara wasn’t anything. That was how it had always been with her father, and so how she always perceived herself ever since.
It weren’t always like this. Like rocks in relentless tides, Gordon sometimes found herself safe places, at which she felt she could breathe at last. One of these places, these people, was Richard John Grayson. Richard – or rather, ‘Dick’ – Grayson was a peculiar boy, but a few months younger than herself. Unlike most boys, he had a gentle demeanour, and were not the slightest bit ashamed of it. His soft, soothing eyes embodied it, she believed. They called out to all around, like the whispering breeze of the ocean air or melodic washing of the tide against shore. At first meeting, she found him a true enigma—found great solace in observing him, reading his actions as though the black blotted words of her textbook. For whatever reason, she enticed him too. Two broken souls, two halves of two very alternate wholes, slotted perfectly together: Yin and Yang.
As previously accentuated, Grayson was gentle, though by no means open. Yet, he were happy to play therapist to those he cared for. Luckily enough, by fate or fortune, Barbara Gordon soon fell beneath this category. And, he carried her, and all her problems, like Atlas bore the globe upon his shoulders. He held the sky above her head, so that it would not cave around her, so that the darkness would not devour all. Most people were happy to hurtle their problems his way, as she often thought Bruce too freely of doing. They would collect all the horrid, rotten thoughts they had in a dark, grimy bin-liner, and they’d hurtle it in his direction. Witness to the consequences of holding up the world, Barbara set herself the mission of aiding Dick Grayson whatever way she could, so that he may not suffer the same fate her father had. No an easy task, she bid him to talk – at first, just a little: fond memories of his mother, fun times with his father. Then, delicately, she delved a little deeper – as though a crafty brain surgeon, careful not to push, or poke, or prod in sensitive areas. Until, eventually, they were no longer two partner birds flying in perfect synchrony – but two wings of the same bird, one and the same.
Then came the fatal day of separation, he was torn from her side. For so long, she were maimed, unable to fly and left the depths of despair. Each day, they skyped; they texted; they spent hours on the phone. Yet, nothing was the same as the chance to exist together, to hold the other tight in your arms and know that, so long as you had them, everything was going to be okay. Eventually, the skype succumbed to the texts and phone calls. Then, the phone calls gave way to texts. Texts were ignored. Messages were forgotten. Until, soon enough, ‘Dick Grayson’ felt like the fairy tale prince in a story which Barbara Gordon had no place, far away in his glamourous castle of Wayne Manor. Life moved on. They moved on. They got older. Without her rock to breathe on, her safe place to settle, Barbara once more turned to books, turned to dance, turned to martial arts. Anything that earned a certificate, had a goal, she devoted her busy mind to attaining. There was no longer time for games, time for the crutch of friendship. No, if she could do something good, be something worthy, perhaps, she believed, her father would come back for her. If she could just make herself loveable enough, maybe just maybe, she could piece together the broken parts of her family.
Then, graduation came and went, but Jim Gordon never did. Cards through letterboxes commemorated birthdays. Apologetic texts excused absences at celebrations. She graduated a year before her class and valedictorian. But, nothing was ever enough. Crestfallen, Barbara gave up on her dreams, went to college to forge new ones. There, she made friends, settled into a place where people didn’t care what you knew, just if you knew how to have a good time. Perhaps, it would have done her well. It surely loosened her up – enough to get her guards down, enough to learn never to let her guards down again. Midway through her second year, she dropped out, differing her college journey to move back to the only place she, ironically, ever felt safe: Gotham City. And, there… he was: Richard John Grayson -- her Richard Grayson – only older and much changed by the sculpting hands of time. Yet, one thing that hadn’t changed was his charm, and his ability to withdraw anything he so desired from her, her darkest secrets and most pressing problems. Time and distance could change many things, it seemed, but it couldn’t dwindle the bond they had for one another, even if it had… altered, peculiarly.
The two of them set on rebuilding Fort Gordon, piece by piece, until a broken girl once more became a flourishing woman. Together, they tackled her past and brought on justice. Together, they were unstoppable: Babs and Dick, Dick and Babs – once more two wings of the same bird. In time, this developed— greater, stronger. Barbara and Dick became Batgirl and Robin, became a force to truly reckon with. She’d never thought he would leave her. Perhaps, that was where their issues had truly started. Once she was home, with him, she hadn’t thought much on the future. Why would she, now that she had everything she could wish for? Now that she felt home, at last? Like she finally belonged? If she were genuinely honest to herself, a truth she’d never utter aloud, Barbara had always fancied that they would have a future together. Batgirl and Robin. Barbara and Dick. Only, her other part did not seem to share these affections. In fact, he obviously didn’t; because, when the going got tough, Richard Grayson got going. And, unlike Barbara, he left on his own accords. Once more they texted, once more they called. From time to time, she were blessed with the occasional ‘honour’ of a visit or two. Yet, just as the time before, it was never the same. And, truthfully, she resented him for leaving her behind – just like her father, just like everybody else.
Religion was not something Barbara had learnt to pay much heed to. In her father’s trade - and, later, her own vigilante activities - she had come to learn life to be unsympathetic and incalculable. There was no man in the clouds, dishing out karmic justice through divine intervention. However, in Gotham City, there was something close enough. To many, money is as wicked as god is benevolent. Peculiarly, Barbara felt that money were one of the few things with as many perceptions as God itself. Money was power; freedom; a curse and a blessing; a gift from God and the root of all evil. To Bruce Wayne, money was a platform on which he could play role of man’s saviour- not the man in the clouds, but the bat in the shadows. If there was one thing the religions understood, she believed it was their understanding of the ‘greater plan’. Whenever something went wrong - a newborn died of complications, or an innocent child lost their life - it was always ‘a part of God’s plan’. One life lost meant another could be born and flourish elsewhere. In this, God subsided his benevolence for practicality, cold and hard pragmatism. Bruce was good at that part too, at reducing those around him to statistical data - a mere combination of numbers and letters logged within his omniscient files. Like the alphabet, or numerical ordination, each person had their place and their uses. This depended on their statistical coding, of course. Yet, whatever it was, Bruce had a purpose for them, a pawn in his ‘greater plan’.
Jason Todd fit criteria. So, extracted from the wise, omniscient files, Todd was withdrawn from his life and set on the greater path of ‘Robin’. Yet, the role of Robin came with strict job criteria. In reality, when one aspires to a career, they set upon a path to lead them that way. The winds and turns, the peaks and the troughs, the grit and the sand of this path, all leads to the final destination. Barbara recalled reading a saying, by Heraclitus, that fit this well. *‘No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man’*. Jason should’ve had pursued his journey properly, as Grayson had. The river being his life, and Jason being the man. He ought to have reached this new part of his life altered by what he had learned and encountered. Only, Todd never set on the path at all. One moment he were at the starting line, and the next he were at the finish — with no knowledge of what it meant to be there at all. He did well, given his circumstances. Yet, ‘well’ was never satisfactory, for the bat in the shadows. ‘Well’ was not a part of the greater plan.
Admittedly, she was sceptical at first. Jason Todd was no Richard Grayson. Where Grayson was soft, Todd was sharp. Where Grayson was assuring, Todd was stand-offish. Yet, whereas Bruce sought to modify him, mould him into the perfect partner Robin 1.0 had been, Gordon recognised him for who he truly was. Wayne liked to claim his new ‘son’ had ‘an attitude problem’, but Barbara knew this to simply be honesty. What inadequacies and cruelties Bruce had once flung at Grayson, what Grayson had formerly accepted, was often promptly boomeranged right back at him. Todd called him out, on everything and anything. He said it as it was, called things as they were. She liked it, appreciated it. She liked him. Thus, intrigued, she set to work on her evaluation, on breaking down the fortified walls to peer at what were hid beneath. It were easy enough, given that they lived together. Moments to intrude were bountiful, though most inappropriate and unlikely to be appreciated. So, she waited until she found him alone and training, extending the help and advice that Dick grudgingly withheld. Stubborn, he brushed her off, at first, but Barbara Gordon wasn’t to be so easily pushed away. Like a small yapper dog that had set her loyalties, she set by his side until her company became normality. There was a lot more to Jason Todd than what met the eye. Maybe, it were her inner nerd, but Barbara liked to think of him as an ore. To the plain eye, to an outsider, an ore would look little more than a jagged rock. Perhaps, it may even be a little faded, eroded down by the heavy burdens that came and went through time. However, deep inside, there was a lot more than met the eye. And, what was inside was very precious: invaluable. The inside of an ore could be the most beautiful, most colourful thing that a person could bestow their eyes upon — if they were lucky enough to steal a glimpse. Barbara Gordon was one of the few fortunate.
So, maybe the future wasn’t Dick and Barbara, but it didn’t mean there was no future for Robin and Batgirl. As time passed, the two of them grew closer, stronger. What would have once demanded a verbal warning could now be portrayed in a gesture or even a look. They developed ways of communicating beyond words, through… understanding. Bruce remarked, at last, that ‘things were just like old times’, but they weren’t. And, truthfully, Barbara were glad they weren’t. Jason wasn’t Dick Grayson, but that was what she’d come to love about him. He was brutally honest, whole-heartedly passionate, and a sarcastic little fuck. But, she found safety in his honesty, warmth in his passion, and humour in remarks many others regarded as ‘annoying’. She liked him for him – the boy beyond the mask. She liked him, because unlike everybody else in her life, she knew that he was constant. Jason would never abandon her, because he knew what it was like to be left behind. So, when he needed her most, she refused to let him down. To no avail, it seemed, because she’d inevitably done so anyway.
You were always there, when I needed you. Then, when it mattered most, I let you down.
A gravelly noise pierced the silence. About a decade worth of defence training sprung Barbara to her feet, hands at the ready. Yet, the voice that accompanied the noise were a code that disarmed every fibre of her being, in spite of the altercations that had proceeded this moment.
He was… Always there, that is.
“Yeah?” she spat, venomously, balling her shaking hands into tight fists, a guise of anger for her heartache. “And, what would you know about that? Always being there, that is… And, better yet, Jason, too”. Gordon turned abruptly—casting him out of her eyeline, so that she may equally push him from her mind. Not that it were possible, this much she knew. She’d tried far too many times before. The truth was that internal inferno raged on inside of her—a war between the beloved memories and overwhelming hurt. Barbara wanted to hate him, wanted to hurt him as much as his abandonment had hurt her, hurt Jason. Yet, no matter how much she tried… She shook her head, crossing her arms to hold herself tightly together. Her peridot eyes set, locked, upon Todd’s headstone, reminding herself how much Dick Grayson’s ‘friendship’ was truly worth. Only, she knew, really, that she couldn’t hold him accountable. That was exactly why she couldn’t meet him in the eyes, couldn’t even stomach looking him in the face and keeping her anger. She was weak, disgustingly weak. That was the true reason Jason died, and the reason why Dick had left her in the first place.
The last time they had spoken, her anger and grief had been vanquishing to any forces that love and friendship could muster. The darkness inside of her had shrouded everything, until all she could see was black rage. Words had been said, words that ought never to have seen light of day. Fingers had been pointed. Grayson wasn’t all innocent, having flung his fair share of cruelty back in her own direction. She had simply just initiated it, ignited the fuse that spark the explosive separation of their relationship, forevermore. Or, so, she had thought. The frost whipped her cheeks, nurturing the ferocious glow her fury had painted. The icy wind carried her fiery locks like flickering flames behind her. A single hand lifted, to tuck stray strands that slapped her face behind her ears. Yet, she found herself burying her face in both, without a single thought more on it.
Dragging her palms down, Barbara forced her shoulders back and her head high, before begrudgingly turning to face her past—face him, at long last. “I don’t see why you’re here,” she crossed her arms, beneath her chest, a further barricade to protect her heart. “You never had the time of day for Jason when he was alive. Why start now that he’s dead?” Taking a few steps forth, her boots crunching the snow beneath her feet, Gordon squared up to him. At a mighty five ‘six, any other may have made the erroneous presumption that she didn’t possess the walk to match her red-haired temper. Both of them knew that weren’t true. Whilst she wasn’t about to turn Jason’s resting place into a gladiator ring—as much as he may have loved it, alive— Barbara was not one to shy away from a fight. Batgirl and Robin had sparred before, as had Dick and Babs, and that certainly wasn’t going to be the last time. “And, don’t say, because your sorry. You’re not sorry for what you did. I know you’re not,” nostrils flaring, she glared up at him. “The only thing you’re sorry for? It’s yourself”.
