Raven is told by Sister Ophelia that she is destined to destroy everything. It is the first time that such hostility is displayed towards her, though it certainly isn't the first time she has felt it. The cold, angry and hateful emotion waves can't be hidden, though they can be muted. No one really tries to do so. Still seeing such hate and disgust towards is rather traumatizing, though she now knows why. She is a monster, not capable of emotion, and she will have to play the role she was born for and kill everybody she knows and everyone who lives and will live in the years to come.
She is three.
Raven is told by the Magistrate Juris that she needs to die, and she would if it were not for law. He has manipulated his position, and her own personality that estranged her from anything and everyone,, and planned to cast her in Limbo for eternity. It was against the law to kill on Azarath, but no one said anything about perpetual banishment. When she finally begins to struggle, he attempts to have her succumb to his will by force. A mistake he would never be able to regret. As she lost consciousness, her powers, and Him, take it upon themselves to protect the Gem. Juris is dead within seconds, his portal to Limbo closed.
She is five.
Raven is told by Azar the meaning of love. The newer ruler has taken the young girl in her care for training to control herself, and Raven is still having trouble getting used to so much one on one time with the woman. But when hearing the description of love, and the many forms it takes, Raven wonders, however briefly she can before the other empaths are alerted to her feeling, if Azar might love her, and vice versa. How do you know you are in love? How do you know what type of love? At this question, her teacher simply smiles, and responds with two words, you'll know. It is the first time Raven can remember smiling.
She is eight.
Raven is told the meaning of true agony by a demon. She does not remember its name, only that it somehow managed to slip into Azarath with the simple goal of retrieving her. She cannot recall what it looked like, or sounded like, only its words. Raven had fought her best, but still being a novice, was soon defeated. As it prepared to bring her to Him, her teacher suddenly was there, and then there was so much magic and power that she couldn't even follow what was going on. The only thing she did see was the thing she wishes she had missed. A sharp spear-like projectile flung in her direction, the sound of torn flesh, and Azar's blood-stained face before her. The demon spoke then, explaining that true agony is when things you hold higher than yourself, things you love, are taken from you. Azar simply smiles as her pupil stares in horror, and with a few words of comfort and faith, falls onto Raven's shoulders and dies. All Raven can remember is that someone (possibly herself) screamed, and when she woke up the demon and everybody within a five mile radius is dead.
She is ten.
Raven is told that she should kill everyone willingly by her father. In an attempt to save Azarath, she was traded over like cattle by a woman that was so familiar, so dear, that it nearly broke her then. She is told by Him that if they see her as a monster, and that is all they see her as, shouldn't she rise to their expectations? Avenge the wrongs they have done her? What He doesn't realize is that in all this time Raven has decided one thing; they did her no wrong because she diddeserve it. People lived in fear and were hurt and died because of her, what right did she have to extract revenge? It was they who deserved revenge, not her. Disgusted, He attempts to force her into blind demonic rage by the most cruel tortures, physical, mental, and emotional. If she had trouble opening up before, it was near impossible now.
She is twelve.
She is told by four teens that they want her to join them. To be with them. They only met three days ago, after forming a makeshift task force to protect a city she happened to be in after escaping from her father. An alien, a former sidekick, a robot, and a shapeshifter, all wanting her to be with them. She honestly can't comprehend it. There's not malice in their souls, no hatred, not even vague suspicion from any of them. How do they trust so easily? If they knew, they would never be so kind. But they don't even think that she would, they have so much blind faith in her, they knowenough, that any normal reasoning seems lost on them. She knows that she probably won't be able to stop what's to come, and that forming attachments would not help, but she still finds herself nodding.
She is fourteen, though at this point her age doesn't really matter. Maybe if she forgets, it won't happen.
She is told by Slade that it will happen. Alive, through her father, he works tirelessly to ensure the destruction of the very world he stands on. Doesn't he know that as soon as he's done his job, He will toss him away? She fights back, her new friends taught her that. But all that ensues is pain, danger, and that woman hurting her all over again, and the utter loss of everything she held dear merely flaunted in front of her face. The thought of ones who showed her the meaning of love dying all over again nearly ends her right there. So she agrees to give in, if only they can be saved. She is not thinking of the world, or of what she was taught by the monks. She is simply letting her emotions take control for once, protecting her friends, her loved ones. For some reason, she can't help but think that Azar is smiling at her, with two words- you know.
Who cares what her age is at this point. She's going. . . .going. . . gone.
She is told by Melvin that she's a great caretaker. She felt herself blink in stunned silence, never once in her entire life as anyone ever even mentioned the possibility of what just came out of that girl's mouth. She then calmly replies that no, she is not good, she simply does what she wanted but never got as a kid. At this, Melvin frowns, saying that she should've had better caretakers then. At this Raven is shocked again. This nine-year old just insulted a thousand-year old civilization based on peace, on their ability to be kind. Then again, she muses, they didn't do such a good job, did they? Of course, then she might not take care of the kids the way she does now. . .
She is seventeen, but she might as well be an adult; she's their mother now.
She is told by Garfield that she is loved. Even though they were. . . dating, together, coupled, whatever it is they were, for quite some time, she still finds herself silenced by that declaration. Even though she suspected it with Azar, and knew it already with her friends, the fact of the matter is that no one has ever told her that before, and certainly not so bluntly. Of course, the fact that they were in the middle of an intergalactic war - siding with Tameran of course - proved that he still was a bit of an idiot. But she smiles anyway, and calmly replies that if that intense emotion that he had been radiating was love, then she reciprocated it.
She is nineteen. And even though they are fighting through fire and blood, she has never been happier.