The Last Battle
Chapter I
~ Somewhere in Tibet ~
"Concentrate." The voice that spoke this was monotonous and slightly morose. The young woman to whom this voice belonged maintained her current position, meditating a few feet above the plateau she had picked in the middle of nowhere. She found it to be much more peaceful when there were a few hundred miles between her and the nearest populated city. So much easier to try and forget, forget about her old team, her friends; and him.
She could feel the sun as it climbed ever higher in the sky, baking the earth beneath her and making her mediation session more and more difficult to maintain. "Just a little longer Raven… come on… just… a little… longer…" When she could no longer take it, she stretched out, lowering herself till her feet touched the warm, crusted plateau ridge. "Just another day in paradise… Yeah right…"
Reaching for that dark power again, Raven took to the skies, moving south towards her homestead. Her little hideaway was nestled in a cavern on the sheer face of a larger plateau. Facing due west, the mouth of her cave afforded her an unobstructed view of the sunset each day. She supposed that watching the sun disappear over the horizon would look nice, with the right person beside her. But after what happened, what to most must seem a beautiful sight only filled her with longing.
As she alighted at the threshold of her current home, she glanced at the communicator, a relic of her life before this. Silence greeted her entrance, as it had for many months now. Gods, she tried to recall when exactly she had begun her self-imposed exile, but the days had been blurred together for far too long. Not that it mattered, really…
Making her way inside, her thoughts returned to the people she had left behind, her team, her friends, and him. 'Stop it, Raven,' she thought to herself, 'no use thinking about what might have been. You used to tell Garfield that all the time, right?' She made her way to her bed, unhooking her cloak and hanging it on a broken root jutting from the wall.
Reaching out with her power, she moved a stone set in the wall that held back a constantly refilling reservoir of water. She pulled the straps of her uniform off her shoulders, lowering it over her smooth skin. Her supple breasts and toned body betrayed her to the cold of the cavern, goosebumps rising momentarily before she became used to the temperature again. Raven had always had a firm grasp of her identity, she was who she was, and so therefore, she never gave much thought to the way her body looked.
As she made her way through the cave towards the natural pool she had discovered, her footsteps echoed down the cavern tunnels. Finally reaching her destination, she tested the water, reaching into the center of the stream. Finding the temperature to be just right, she stepped into the stream, letting the warm water rush over her skin. Standing there, in that embrace of warmth, she felt her mind drift, thinking about the embrace she missed, longed for, even desired…
From the dark corners of her mind – of which there are many – she could remember the feeling of his hands, strong yet gentle, taking in every inch of her skin, as if she belonged to him
'Raven'
Those commanding lips, which with but a word, could bring her to her knees, making her a veritable slave to his will. How she wished those lips could kiss her, taste her skin
'Raven, that's enough'
And those eyes, that even amongst their team, only she had been trusted with, an ocean's green, calm, yet hidden beneath was a raging maelstrom, threatening to drown her forever
'Enough Raven!'
Opening her eyes, she brought herself back to reality, reminding herself that those memories weren't real, he was not here. She was suddenly filled with such longing, verging on sorrow, as the painful reminder of what she had done to save his mind, had cost her, how she had sacrificed everything for him. Tears began to fall, her daily ritual now complete, as she whispered into the emptiness the name of the only one she would ever love, "Damian…"
