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Raven’s never wished on a star, but if ever there was a time for it...
She’s sitting on the roof of a too-tall building in some city with too loud traffic and too bright lights and too vibrant people, and she’s out of ideas and out of options. Wishes are all she has left.
She remembers Arella telling her about the Earth tradition of wishing on stars. There weren’t any stars in Azarath, but there were little white flowers that looked like stars if you squinted, and she had pretended they were stars when she was smaller and less cynical than she is now. She wishes she could go back to Azarath, wishes she hadn’t left everything she knew behind on the chance that a group of heroes from third hand stories would help her. It’s been three days since then, and she curses herself for not creating a plan for if they refused her. She hadn’t known about Zatanna, hadn’t known she would sense her father’s evil in her. There were a lot of things she didn’t know. How much time, she wonders, does she have left? How long to learn all the things she doesn’t know before her father comes and it doesn’t matter anymore?
She turns her attention back to the sky. She knows the stars are up there, she saw them as she fled across the country, not knowing where she was going but needing to get away from the heroes who had stared at her with such suspicion and horror. Now that she’s in the city, there are lights everywhere, and smog, and she can’t see any stars anymore. Maybe she doesn’t even have wishes left.
Then, as she sits and bemoans her fate, a star appears. It’s small. It’s green. Can stars be green? None of the ones she saw before were, but she’s only been here three days. Maybe they change color over time? It doesn’t matter. Raven will take what she can get.
What should she wish for? The obvious wish, what she needs the most, is a way to stop her father, but that’s an awful lot to ask for from a speck of light millions of miles away. It feels greedy and unfair to ask for so much, even when she knows it would benefit so many others. She has nothing to offer the star in return. Maybe something smaller. What else does she want? She’s not really supposed to want things, but the monks had never minded as long as she didn’t express her desires. Still, she’s out of practice. There must be something she wants. She has nothing.
She didn’t have much in Azarath either, but she had a bed and books, and sometimes she had Arella. She had the monks too, as distant as they were. She’s alone now. She deserves to be alone, probably. Not even the Earth’s bravest heroes could stand her once they knew what she was. But she doesn’t want to be alone. She’s never had a friend before, but she thinks it would be nice to have one, just one. Just for a little while before her father destroys everything.
She turns back to the star. It looks bigger. Should it be getting bigger? It doesn’t matter. She isn’t an expert on stars; who is she to decide what they should and shouldn’t do? She takes a deep breath, wishes as hard as she can, and hopes it’s enough.
Then the star falls out of the sky, and things get complicated.
The star’s name is Starfire, and she might be the kindest person Raven’s ever met, and she doesn’t flinch when Raven looks at her. None of the strange people around her do.
Years later, Raven still isn’t sure if it was a coincidence that she wished on a star for a friend, and then the star came down and became her friend. Not only that, the star helped her defeat her father. She knows now that wishing on stars is only a children’s story, a foolish made-up ritual that isn’t real. But she also knows that most people don’t think magic is real, and there are still some who don’t think aliens are real. She decides that it’s best not to test it unless the circumstances are dire. And circumstances are far from dire. Years ago, she only had wishes. Now she has so much that she doesn’t need wishes at all.