a/n: This was done for transficfest over on tumblr; and the prompt was 'a character tries to use magic to change their body to fit their mind'. It features a non cis character, so if that's not your cup of tea, please hit the back button.
"The raven spread out its glossy wings and departed like hope."
―Cecilia Dart-Thornton, The Battle of Evernight
1.
At a young age, Raven made a decision.
She didn't want to be a boy anymore. More importantly, she didn't want to be his son.
The books were easy to find. The spells were a bit trickier. Raven was just a child, and the magic needed was almost too much. But it was never enough that Raven stopped trying.
The monks of Azarath didn't encourage her, but they didn't attempt to dissuade her either. Her will was strong, wanting nothing more than to shed her skin and embrace a new body that matched her feeling.
Then, when her mind left her body in the form of a raven, she thought it was a mistake and crash landed into one of the temples. Arella, the mother that kept her distance, came to Raven and they sat in the rubble together.
"I'm a monster." Raven said.
The people of Azarath knew the future that Raven would bring. She was the son of the demon Trigon, and when she grew up her powers would help bring down the planet that Arella had been born and raised on.
Until that day Raven kept busy. Azar, the leader of the people of Azarath, helped with lessons on meditation, and keeping her emotions under control. Raven was also given a vast selection of books, both of spells and rituals, and of stories and philosophies.
Arella leaned forward, the closest she had been to Raven in years. Raven's hand was rested on her knee, a fist that grew warm with her mother's hand placed over it.
"You are my daughter."
It was a simple acknowledgement that meant everything. The smile that wasn't on Raven's lips was clear in her eyes.
"Thank you, Arella." Raven said, because mother would have been too emotional, too intimate to the point of dangerous. The distance between them needed to be kept, though Raven would be forever grateful to have such a fond memory to look back to.
2.
Splitting red lines tore through her mind's eye, a wicked gleam of enraged madness beating against the shield of her innate magic.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos."
The shield held against the attack, and Raven breathed out. The strain on her mind eased away, a well-earned rest from her hours of quiet reflection and meditation.
To her right, the washer machine hummed, and Raven leaned against the wall in silence.
Her friends were upstairs in the common room of the Tower, hanging out and having fun. She would be with them, but it was her week to tackle the chore of cleaning everyone's uniforms. Also, she sometimes needed time alone outside her mandatory meditation sessions.
A few years ago she left Azarath and arrived to this place, a planet called Earth, where Arella once belonged. Her mother's home was now Raven's as well, and she even had a place where she was accepted and cared for.
The Teen Titans; a group of other people that had their own pasts, their own quirks, and their own way of showing that they cared. They were her family now, and she was happy to be with them.
They knew who she was, what she was, and still accepted her anyway. They helped her defeat her father, and subvert the destiny she was preparing for her whole life.
"Your father's Trigon?" Cyborg had asked after Slade's return from the grave. Everyone on the team had looked tense, all having heard of stories of the kind of creature Raven had come from.
"But, is it not true that Trigon had only sons?" Starfire asked. It was one of the myths about her father, that he could only produce sons and no daughters. Though whether that was a legitimate claim, Raven couldn't say; she did know Trigon had other children, and they were all indeed sons.
"Yes." Raven answered, knowing it would be a truth she would need to explain.
"I was born a son of Trigon." She said, arms crossed in front of her, sinking silently back into the couch.
"Wait." Terra said, standing behind the couch and leaning against the top. "So… you're a demon?"
"Half." Raven corrected. She was a demon, she had demonic tendencies, she had evil lurking within her. "My mother…"
It wasn't a sentence she needed to finish. The Titans understood the implications there, and Raven was glad for it. Growing up on Azarath everyone around Raven knew her story, what happened to her mother, and the prophecy of her future. To have to be the one to explain it all to her friends wasn't something she was prepared for.
"Then, are you a dude?" Beast Boy asked, the most perplexed look on his face. Terra reached over and tapped him with the palm of her hand.
"She said was born. Past tense, Beast Boy."
"I thought everyone was born in the past tense!"
Raven kept her expression composed, but she could feel herself unwinding. The prophecy was coming true, her time to destroy the world nearly upon them, and they were all just sitting there.
"I'm not a boy." She said, and the Terra and Beast Boy stopped glaring at one another, turning back to their friend.
"Then Trigon's sons are all girls?" Starfire asked. She didn't seem as confused as Beast Boy, though she still missed the mark.
"I don't think that's what she means, Starfire." Cyborg said, and looked to Raven. "You're transgender."
It wasn't a word Raven was familiar with, but she felt inclined to agree all the same. Cyborg seemed to know what he was talking about, or he wouldn't have said it.
"What's that?" Beast Boy asked, and he was asking Cyborg but looking at Raven. Raven turned her eyes away from him.
"It means someone doesn't identity with how they were born." Terra cut in, and offered a smile to Cyborg. He nodded at her.
"Right. Simply put, if you're born a boy but you don't feel like a boy, then you're trans. It works the other way around too."
Beast Boy still looked confused, but less so than before.
"There are other identities too." Terra said, and everyone looked at her. "But… that's a conversation for another time."
"Okay, so you're not a boy then." Beast Boy said, directing the attention back to Raven. His gaze swept down her body for a moment, as though convincing himself of the fact. Raven noticed however, and brought her cloak closer around her body.
"Uh, how did you change?" He asked.
"There was a spell." Raven said. "One that I used to alter my body. It's a part of my meditation, it's why I have to do it every day."
Her meditations were more than that. It was connected to everything about her. Her powers, her body, her self control.
"Otherwise, the effects would were off." She finished.
"Bummer." Beast Boy said. Then he rattled his head around and sat up straighter, placing his hands at his knees and looking Raven in the eye.
"Okay! So what do we do about your father?"
"We don't do anything." Raven said, sparing a glance over at Robin. He remained still, listening to them talk with a frown on his face.
"C'mon, Rae, there must be something we can do." Cyborg said, and everyone around her was so full of hope that she couldn't reject them, couldn't reject their help.
2.5
The meeting came to an end, and the Titans let Raven be. She got up from the couch and followed Robin into the hallway.
"You didn't say anything back there." said Raven, feeling at odds with the conversation she was trying to begin. But Robin looked to her, and there was a hint of a smile on his face.
"I didn't need to." Robin said, and Raven could only believe him. Her eyes widened, seeing the knowledge in the way he stood, connecting his silence during the meeting not as displeasure, but as support.
"You already knew." It couldn't be phrased as a question, but Raven felt the obvious had flown right by her. Robin nodded, and the bond they shared was never more clear than then.
"Metrion." He said the word that could never be more on his lips. It was the spell Raven found long ago on Azarath, in one of the many books she had access to then. A powerful magic that set about the changes to Raven's body, one that constantly needed to be reinforced along with her standard mediation for her powers.
"I had always wondered what it meant." Robin continued, and Raven could only think of she had been in his mind once, to help him from hallucinations of Slade's return. Though she had delved in his mind, it was now obvious that her own memories mingled within, allowing him glances into her past that no else had ever known.
Robin had such knowledge about Raven for a while, and yet he remained silent this whole time. From the moment he knew, he didn't reject her.
"I still have the book with the spell." Raven said. Though she hadn't looked at it in years, it remained in her room.
The question Raven didn't ask hung in the air—"do you want to see it?— and Robin smiled.
"Lead the way."
3.
Trigon stood taller than the tallest building in the city, the sky a deep red, and the people all frozen in stone.
The strength Raven once had was left with the rest of the Titans, her friends. They were her beacons of hope as she stumbled and fell to the will of Trigon. He couldn't be stopped, that was the belief so often hammered into her thoughts. It was destiny for him to rise up and destroy, and it was her destiny to make it possible. It was why he sired her.
The voices of her friends reached her, returning the power she had shed, the power that without made her back to the young child she used to be, with no way to fight.
The magic blossomed from within, coursing through Raven and giving her back the age and body that she grown into over the years. The feelings of her friends were intermingled in her power, which fed so hungrily on them: Robin's hope; Starfire's happiness; Cyborg's strength; Terra's anger; Beast Boy's determination.
These people were her pillars, encouraging her to stand back up and fight back against the one who she called father.
"You are my daughter."
Raven stood, an inverted darkness spreading around her. Trigon's growled his anger to the air, spitting words of despair, demanding his son give into destiny.
Precise movements and clear direction lead the path of power, Raven's power, striking Trigon. It was all bundled together, the love of her friends, the hatred of Trigon, the acceptance from Arella.
"You are not my father," Raven proclaimed, verbally shattering the connection that was tied so tightly between them. It would not break them apart entirely, but it enforced a distance, backed up by the force of her magic.
Her teams, friends, family, where there with her. Standing behind her, supporting her, their emotions living in her. She could do this, she could fight back.
"And I am not your son."
4.
…and her thoughts returned back to the washing room, the machine beeping to notify the end of the cycle. Raven looked out from underneath her hood, and for another minute remained where she was against the wall.
There were steps coming her way. Raven looked over to the door for the laundry room and saw as Terra stepped into the room.
"Hey," Terra said, eyes checking the still washer machine. "How's the wash going?"
Raven pushed off the wall and walked over to the machine; with the door opened Raven began to move the clothes over to the dryer.
"Okay..." the voice carried from behind her. Raven didn't look back. "I just thought I'd check in."
Terra was hesitant, but Raven turned to face her then.
"On the laundry?" she asked. "Or on me?"
"Ehh, both?" Terra didn't sound so sure herself. Raven let it slid. Despite the quiet she was previously enjoying, it was nice that someone thought to check up on her.
"I'm doing well." Raven said, allowing her powers to finish putting the clothes into the dryer. A few days had gone by since the defeat of Trigon. Outside of no longer having a destiny to bring the planet to its doom, not much had changed. There was a great reprieve that Raven felt granted to her, no longer bearing the pressure of premeditated genocide.
"That's good." Terra said, head nodding with more force than necessary. "I'm glad everything worked out."
Raven hit the button to start the dryer. Everything did work out. Trigon might not be dead, but he could no longer return to their dimension.
"Are you just going to stay done here?" Terra asked, trying to keep still. She was always in motion, Raven noted, as Terra began to step lazily about the room.
"Until this is finished." Raven said, her mind drifting back to their fight against Trigon.
"Terra?" she said.
Looking away from the minutes remaining on the dyer, Terra stared at Raven with a curious gaze.
"Yeah?"
Raven kept silent. Anger. Unlike the others on the team, the strongest feeling within Terra wasn't one that would be automatically considered in the positive. With the feelings of the team, Raven was given more insight in more of who they all were.
It wasn't the same as Raven's bond with Robin. She had personally delved into his mind, and in return shared a part of herself with him. However, it wasn't completely different either. The reason for Terra's anger…
But Robin had kept silent. For whatever reason, he allowed Raven the space to share what she wanted, and she was thankful for that.
"Would you like to keep me company?" she asked instead. The surprise wasn't lost on Terra, but it didn't remain for long.
"Yeah, okay." Terra said. Raven kept the information she had tucked away in her mind. In his own way, Robin looked out for Raven when she needed it. Now, with Terra, she would make sure to do that same.