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━ END OF THE EARTH epilogue ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈୨♡୧┈┈┈┈┈┈┈
THINGS CHANGE. Things change and nobody knows this quite like Freya Anastas. Her life has been in a constant state of flux ━ taking her from the scared and angry girl to a Star Sapphire, letting her grow and morph and become somebody she never could have imagined. The old Freya, the one before the Titans, would never have put it all on the line for a girl with murder in her eyes, but that may have been the best thing she ever did.
Because as much as things do change, always shifting around her, Tara Markov has a delightful tendency to remain the same. She's still brash, ruled by her emotions, still the same girl with freckles on her face and galaxies in her eyes that Freya fell for. She'll still make her turn bright red and she'll still have her back.
She's still beautiful, even when her face is scrunched up in disgust and she's looking at Freya like she's some vaguely hedonic monstrosity.
"Why the fuck would you put Red Bull and expresso together?"
Freya pouts, stealing the chipped mug away from her. "Because I need to be alert, Miss Markov, for when we inevitably fight my former mentor."
"Uh huh."
"We will!" She insists. "It'll be a marvel to watch ━ you'll throw a mountain at him, I'll create a super cute construct to kick him in the face, and then, once we've beaten the evil out of him ━"
"Not how it works, but go on."
"Once we've beaten the evil out of him, we'll ride off into the sunset. I could make us unicorns to ride, or maybe a dragon for you."
"Definitely a dragon for me", Tara says, running a hand along her cheeks. "You're sure you're alright?"
"I've got you, don't I?" Freya replies. "It'd be impossible for me not to be fine. And besides, we've fought a million and one bad guys like him."
"It's Hal. It's not gonna be like all the others."
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is further proof of how things change, how your world can be one thing one day and an entirely other entity the next day. Kind of like how Freya Anastas went to sleep thinking that Hal Jordan was the best mentor in the world and woke up the next to the news that he'd massacred the Green Lantern Corps.
There's only one Lantern left in existence, an artist by the name of Kyle Rayner, and Freya's already taken him under her wing. It works, considering they live in the same city... and that Freya may be wanting to go a round with Parallax, Hal's new identity, herself.
Hence the coffee/Red Bull abomination. She needs to be alert if she's gonna take him down (and she will... after she tries to talk him down...) and look cute doing it.
Although, it would be impossible for her not to look cute, since Tara's gonna be there by her side. It's always been the two of them, ever since the start, and there's nothing Freya would prefer. It's all love and rage with them, both intertwined, and dancing in the dark, violet auras covering them both.
And when Freya's fears come for her in the dead of night, when they whisper in her ear at night ━
They get replaced by scarred arms, calloused fingers, sweet whispers of absolutely nothing. The smell of campfire and dirt, something earthy and pure, replaces that burning, destructive voice, drowns it out until the only thing that matters is the girl running a calming hand through her hair.
It's not everything, she won't pretend that it is, but it's enough, enough to keep her head above waters and head in the clouds. Tara's all grounded, deciding upon a goal and committing to it, and Freya's the air, the space above them, the hopeless wanderer and when they collide, it feels a lot like coming home.
Tara's hand intertwines with her and she smiles. They're not perfect heroes, either of them (though, personally, Freya likes to think that Gaia toes the anti-hero line a hell of a lot more than Star Sapphire ever could), but they're here every day, trying to make the world a better place, trying to stop the hurt in whatever way they can.
And right now, that includes finding Kyle Rayner and training him until he's exhausted, until he wants to drop dead, until he's safe. When Freya looks at him ━ when she looks up at him, she wishes the Teen Titans of her day were still a team, there to open the door to him. He looks like he could need it.
But, the Titans of old are gone and new groups are popping up, ones with old members and fresh blood mixed up together. Sometimes, Freya will go to Titans Tower, help them out a little while Tara attends to the garden ("have you people even heard of fertiliser?"). It's not perfect, no, not in a Tower that holds far too many ghosts, but sometimes, Donna will be there and her eyes will crease with laughter, Dick's shoulders will slump with relief and Wally West will arrive in a tornado of red.
Her friends, her family, still remain mostly unchanged. Wally may be the Flash now (and isn't that insane to think? One day he's talking about quitting, about going to college and having a normal life, and then, a crisis unlike anything they're ever faced comes knocking and he's suddenly the Flash, a member of the Justice League, but a Titan now and forever) and Donna might be sporting Darkstar armour, but they're still the same people at their cores.
Things do change though. This little life that she and Tara have built will come tumbling down one day. It could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could all be kick-started by yet another crisis, but ━
Until then, there's just this: the two of them, against the world, until the end of the earth, as it's always been.
