Disclaimer: Nothing from Teen Titans is mine

Inspired by Van Gogh's famous painting. This one is pretty surreal, but that's what happens when I try to describe something that really can't be described with words... well, that's what different art forms are for. Hope it's marginally readable.

"Speech"

Thoughts

Night

As far back as she could remember, she had been nocturnal.

Sure, she tried to sleep like a normal person - not too long after the sun set, getting up not too long after the sun rose - but sometimes, that just didn't work out.

It probably had something to do with being half demon, but she really did like night a lot. And so it wasn't really unusual that sometimes she had a hard time falling asleep. And today just happened to be one of those days.

Raven crawled out of bed and wrapped a blanket around her silken pajamas; it was spring, but the nights were still sometimes a little cold. Just a bit, but that did not prevent her from going downstairs, out into the cool nocturnal air. It felt pleasant, comfortable, and as she took a deep breath, she felt a little bit of warmth surge in her body, complementing the coolness around her.

Summoning up a little spark of energy, she took flight and flew up, in the opposite direction of the city, up toward the hills on the outskirts of the settled areas. She stopped before she reached the forests and found a smooth patch of grass to land on. It was barely wet with dew, soothing against the palms of her hands, and she spread her blanket out beneath her, laying down.

Curled up on the hillside, she looked up and the sky spread out before her.

Up in the darkness, away from the city lights, the stars were little pinpricks of light, glowing brilliantly against the darkened backdrop. Cutting a path through the sky, patterned orbs scattered about like marbles on the floor...

She smiled a little. Rarely did one get to see such a sight, living in the city. Sure, there were paintings of such things, and sure, there were several planetariums in the city, but actually seeing it for herself...

The whole sky in all of its immensity, reflected in her eyes, the infinite cosmos with their glorious stars, gleaming brightly like little hearts, beating in the endless void. Enormous, majestic beyond all reckoning, and yet it did not make her feel insignificant at all. No, it absorbed her into itself, and suddenly she fancied that she was flying along with the great spheres in the sky, the heavenly bodies, flying with them, as one of them. Abandoning her physical body, she could feel the energy of the universe flowing around her, as a part of herself. Suddenly she was no longer Raven, a half-demon girl, a Teen Titan, a mortal... no, she was some nameless entity, floating in space, as part of some unimaginably vast entity, and yet still remarkably, retaining her individuality, even as a nameless star floating along with all the others. As if she were a star as well, with her own, unique violet glow.

And yet there was something disturbing about that feeling of utter detachment; it was what she had sought all her life, to be detached from emotions so that she would not have to feel, and as a result, destroy things - but strangely enough, it was disturbing.

Maybe that's because it isn't what I really want. I don't want to feel nothing. I want to be able to fill this void within me. I want to hold a light of my own... I want to be a star, not just another infinitesimal speck of darkness in that vast void... I want to be able to feel something, but I don't want to destroy because of it...

Staring up at the stars, suddenly she felt insanely jealous, jealous that they could float there, hung in the sky so complacently, burning brightly with their own lights, and yet not affecting the things around them. Glowing, but not destroying. They were not cursed like she was.

Suddenly she was again aware of her own body, grounded, weighed down, hindered by her own faults. The fact that she could not feel anything without hurting others. The fact that she was moody, and ill-tempered, and if she lost control of that, she would become that harbinger of destruction she was destined to be. Forever forced to fight her fate, never allowed to indulge in satisfying her needs as a person. Cursed. Detached from life. Unable to let myself feel anything. Not like the stars, the heavenly figures floating uninhibited by mortal boundaries.

She looked up again, reaching toward the sky with one hand, but then closed her eyes and turned away, unable to bear the sight of the starry night. She took a deep breath...

And sat up, turning as she sensed someone approach.

Her eyes lit up. Maybe not so cursed after all. She felt the tension drain out of her.

"Jinx," she whispered.

A smile - oh how she loved that cat-like smile - in response. "Raven. Figures you'd be out here too." The pink haired girl sat beside her.

"What makes you say that?"

She shrugged. "You're Miss Doom and Gloom. 'Course you'd be out at night."

"But why here?"

Jinx grinned. "The view's great."

Raven looked up again.

And suddenly the scene seemed to shift before her eyes - the stars, once tiny pinpricks of light, seemed to grow larger, orbs of a myriad of colors, deep sapphires, bright ivory, gleaming topaz, amethyst, magenta, crimson... all growing into giant swirls of light barely contained into their spherical shapes... vast swirls of stars, decorating the sky, each mass a mosaic of varied, glowing orbs - she pointed up and counted them; there were eleven large swirls shining back at her.

A light breeze blew over them and in the sky, the swirling, glowing clouds shifted, unmasking the crescent moon, whose glorious, pale light began to shine down upon them. She felt her breath catch in her throat as the brilliant, silvery light cascaded down from the heavens, casting everything in a sort of beautiful, ethereal radiance. It shimmered directly over them and she could feel the wonder and awe radiating off of the other girl, fueling her own.

She felt a couple of warm fingers graze her hand. Normally, that would have bothered her, but not now, not here, outside under the starry night. How could she be annoyed by sharing this glorious, otherworldly sight with someone else?

The fingers explored further up her hand and she felt the other girl's cool palm press on the back of her hand, slip under, and encircle her smaller hand, resting there comfortably. They laid there, linked together, like the spiraling stars above and for some reason, she found it to be a marvelous feeling, that she actually did have someone to share the sight with. Not just someone. A friend.

A smile touched her lips, and as Jinx turned to look at her, she grinned as well.

"You look happy."

"I am," Raven replied softly.

Jinx's eyes locked on her own, and in the silence, Raven felt as if something were being transmitted between them, something utterly ineffable, which no words could even hope to express.

They both knew that they understood each other well, but still it was a surprise that they shared the same feelings.

Staring at the sky, knowing that they were both cursed, one by fate, one with bad luck, and that they could never be free, never flying as freely like the stars in the sky. Dragged down by what they were, they could never do anything but fight to control the destruction that threatened to spill out. And so they could not shine so uninhibited, not like the stars did.

A tinge of jealousy, but in that moment that their eyes had met, that jealousy had evaporated. Maybe they could not be completely free from their burdens, but they had something just as good... someone else to share their troubles with, and thus lessen the weights that they felt that they carried around all the time. That terrifying destructive force that lay dormant within both of them, there was that implicit understanding that they were both fighting to repress that, and in some ways, being able to share that feeling was even better than being free of it.

Being cursed... in a way, it was a bond between them.

Jinx laughed. "I - you - we-"

The violet haired girl smirked. "You should be a poet."

Jinx glared at her. "Thanks," she grumbled, then looked back at the starry sky, breathing out lightly. "You know, I've always wondered why you're the only person I've seen out here."

Because it's dark. We are creatures of darkness, more so than most other people. But it is not the filthy darkness in which things like my father and Slade reside. This darkness is pure, just another shade of light - or the absence of it, without any destructive force at all. It is a void of sullen emotion, but it binds us together.

Jinx moved closer to her, squeezing her hand. Ordinarily, she would have moved away, but for some reason, at that moment, that motion just felt right. The physical contact... she was not used to it, but the warm body next to her own was comforting.

As if on cue, Jinx flashed a grin at her. "You're letting me touch you."

Raven sighed. "Way to make it awkward."

"It's what I do," the pinkette laughed lightly. "Besides, you're plenty awkward too."

"How so?"

"You're so hard to talk to. Like, you don't talk to anyone and you just stare at people..."

Raven shrugged. "Don't like talking. Don't like people."

"You're talking to me."

The violet haired girl frowned slightly, thinking for a moment. And smirked. "You're not a person."

Jinx raised an eyebrow. "Then what am I?"

"A star," Raven replied tonelessly.

The pink haired girl looked at her oddly. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Whatever you want it to."

"Ah, well, that's-"

"Think about it," a smile touched Raven's lips, and she went back to looking at the sky.

Jinx opened her mouth, but then realizing she was next to Raven, who tended to dislike noises interrupting her silence, she decided to look at the sky as well.

Above, with the celestial bodies streaming light down, and apparently, I'm a star. What's that supposed to mean... she looked to the side, at Raven. The other girl's eyes were closed and the tranquil expression on her face made it seem like she was sleeping, though she knew better than to believe that. Her gaze shifted again, and she looked down, toward the city, the large, dark shape closer to them - the Titans' Tower - and then to the smaller buildings in the city proper; in the windows, warm lights could be seen, melding in with the pale moonglow around them.

Everything seemed small in the sheer vastness of the starry night above her. Even the Titans' Tower, soaring above the rest of the city, was puny... nothing but a speck, beneath the might of the sheer cosmos above them. And they, tiny dots of life in the immensity of the whole universe. Insignificant, but part of that mosaic that made everything whole. I wonder if I'm thinking too much... She drew a deep breath, looking up, then back at Raven.

"Raven?"

"Hmm?"

"Have you ever wondered what it'd be like if we were just normal people?"

The violet haired girl did not stir, but instinctively, Jinx knew that she was thinking. She closed her own eyes, letting the darkness settle in about her and waited for an answer.

It was silent for a while, as it often was, but she did not mind it so much, just as she knew Raven did not. Sometimes there was no need for words, only feeling the ambient world. The darkness, the chaos, but it was not terrifying, as it was to most people. No, it was magnificent, like the random scattering of light in the starry skies; all the universe was chaos, and to feel it was akin to feeling the surge of the power of the cosmos itself. Entropy... the sensations of everything hitting her at once, coolness, patches of light across her eyelids, the wind, blowing through her hair, over her skin, the blanket beneath her, grass tickling one of her hands, her own clothes smooth against her skin, the hand held tightly in her her own...

A slight squeeze; she felt Raven shift a little beside her.

"Do you want to be normal?"

Jinx's eyes opened and she turned, looking at the other girl. "That's not an answer..."

Raven smiled. And remained silent. Jinx sighed, shaking her head. "Dunno."

"Neither do I. I've always thought that being normal was better than being cursed by fate. Dealing with normal people problems, you know. Not having to worry about destroying everything. Or being evil. Or anything like that."

Jinx nodded. "I... suppose so... normal, huh..."

Raven's eyes opened and she looked at Jinx. "But then I realized, if I had been just a normal person, I wouldn't be here with you right now. We wouldn't be sharing this night together..."

They both looked back up at the starry sky, and suddenly everything seemed much closer. No longer so vast, no longer so distant. She felt as if she could reach up and the stars would be right there, in the palm of her hand, like little glowing orbs of life. As if she could reach up, and freedom would be right there...

Suddenly she could feel herself lifting off the ground and she turned toward Raven, looking puzzled for a moment, but then her eyes lit up as she saw the ground growing distant beneath her. She held Raven's hand more tightly, letting the other girl take them up into the starry skies.

And they were soaring through the air, through the swirls of bright clouds in the pale moonlight. Flying out, completely uninhibited, with the breeze streaming through their clothes. Soaring in the sky, and looking down at the city beneath them, the city that now seemed so tiny compared to the endless, wondrous night around them, with its colored lights and placid darkness. It was utter chaos, but neither of them minded at all... there was no need to make sense of the multitude of ineffable sensations around them; it was enough to just feel, and nothing more.

There, in the starry night, soaring through the air, there was finally freedom, and those buried emotions which had so long been denied could finally break free of their prisons and burst forth.

Around them, as they flew, great swaths of pink and black danced through the clouds, and where that energy normally would have found something to destroy, here, on the edge of the great void, it could be released freely. Pink and black, surging around them in an intertwined painting of colored light, like the release of a rain of chaotic emotion, streaming out into the starry night. And so they were completely unbound.

And so she was not surprised when she saw the look of sheer joy in Raven's eyes. Not surprised that the other girl was finally showing some sign of unbridled emotion. And she must've had that same look because Raven looked at her and smiled, knowing that they were sharing the same emotion.

The violet haired girl laughed - a low, melodic laugh. "If we were normal, we'd never be able to do this."

Jinx smiled. "I s'pose so."

They flew in circles a while longer, then Raven brought them up above the layer of starlit clouds and they sat, as if the bright puffs of dust matter beneath them were soft cushions. And there they laid, together, basking in the ivory light of the moon and the starry night...