Author's Note: Raven and Sibyl Barabel are currently mind melding (as they would call it in Star Trek). Raven is still the viewpoint character here, but since the Sibyl's mind is currently wandering around inside hers, any paragraph that represents the Sibyl's thoughts directed at Raven will be rendered in italics to differentiate from the things Raven is thinking, doing, perceiving, etc. Please note that an occasional word or phrase in italics is not the Sibyl's thoughts intruding upon Raven's. Entire paragraphs in that font, however, definitely are Barabel's comments as she rummages through Raven's memories. (A few of Raven's thoughts that are aimed directly at Barabel are rendered as regular dialogue in quotation marks, even though no one is speaking those words aloud.)
We won't be visiting Nevermore this time around, however. I regard Nevermore as the way a visitor will perceive Raven's mind after entering it via her magic mirror. But the magic mirror is nowhere in sight in this story; and besides, Barabel isn't interested in meeting Raven's personified emotions one by one; just establishing that Raven has a Timid and a Brave and a Happy, etc., wouldn't prove a thing about whether or not this Raven is really the same Raven who was a founding member of the Titans.
Chapter Ten: A Tour Through Raven's Mind
Vision blanked, hearing faded out, touch became irrelevant. Raven was no longer consciously aware of her body's surroundings; there was only the pale yellow glow of the Sibyl's mind moving through the periphery of Raven's own mental processes, smoothly, delicately, warily; looking for the key to unlock various memories, while keeping a figurative eye peeled for any trace of a psychic ambush about to be launched. The only hint of the physical world that remained in Raven's conscious perceptions was the throb of her own heartbeat.
One beat, and Raven knew she would have her work cut out for her if the psychic contact with the Sibyl became a relentless contest of their respective willpowers and psychic training; two beats, and Raven became reasonably confident that Sibyl Barabel did not want such a clash any more than she did; three beats, and the Sibyl had completed a cursory scan to double-check that Raven really believed she was a Teen Titan; four beats, and the Sibyl glanced at some of Raven's detailed memories of American culture from the early Twenty-First Century to verify that they were more than a modern girl might have learned from a few old books; five beats, and Barabel went plunging far down into the oldest coherent memories in Raven's brain. . . .
Come closer to me, my compeer, my forerunner; come and show me how you lived, if and when you were a child in Azarath.
Azarath-that-was, peaceful, beautiful, bright city built on the flat top of a huge chunk of rock that floated in the void, deliberately constructed in the middle of nowhere (with more literal truth in that cliché than you'd encounter anywhere on the planet Earth), almost impossible to find unless you already knew exactly where you were going . . . Raven invoked a memory of how the whole city appeared if you backed off far enough to see it all at once, and now the Sibyl superimposed her own image of what the city looked like from that same angle in happy days before Trigon (accursed-be-his-name) reached out to crush it, and the two images matched almost perfectly; someone who knew must have shown Barabel a true vision of the city in its prime, so many centuries ago now . . . a surviving Azarathian, unknown to Raven, who somehow escaped to another plane of reality when Trigon's wrath descended?
Shown? Not to me directly, young lady, but to the First Sibyl of the Faith. And not a surviving child of Azarath, but a dead one, who had already ascended from mortality to divinity. Cenobia dreamed of Azarath, dreams drawn from the memories of the Queen of Air and Darkness who was born there, nurtured there, and never forgot. And the memories of those dreams have been handed down through the generations; they are part of the legacy my predecessor and I have shared with current members of the Conclave, and someday I or they will in turn impart them to my own successor. I have never met anyone outside the Faith who had such accurate knowledge of Azarath's glory that was, at least when seen from the outside; show me the depth of your own knowledge; show me the interior of the great central tower.
Raven flashed through memories of the vast library, the classrooms, the kitchens, the infirmary, the Grand Assembly; all the places required for the nerve center of a city that was essentially one huge school plus necessary housing and other bits of support structure. Barabel kept up with her, matching most of those memories with imagery from the mental files of the Sibyls; discrepancies were minor and (in Raven's expert opinion) entirely attributable to the slight corruption of data that was bound to happen across several generations of mental downloading without any opportunity for Sibyls to visit Azarath themselves and update their knowledge of the details.
Perish the thought that your own memories might be inaccurate enough to account for any of the mismatches we observe now. But I agree in principle—the variations are small, the similarities overwhelming; neither of us is using false memories based on anyone's best guess of how the true Azarath might have appeared. You are certainly strengthening your case. I am virtually convinced that you once lived in Azarath in a past age. But surely many thousands of people did the same. Are you the Raven of legend? Let us look at your father.
Trigon. Four-eyed, red-skinned, usually-gigantic demon-lord, with the sort of egocentric approach to world conquest—one world after another—that made Genghis Khan look like an insecure wimp frantically pretending he knew how to be ruthless. (The Great Khan's armies only caused the deaths of an estimated ten percent of the human population of that era—Trigon would have called that "going very easy on them.")
Yes, I see. Trigon sits on your second home, the T-shaped tower he has turned into a throne. His four eyes see anything it occurs to him to gaze upon; following the transition to this world, he is letting his strength rebuild before he reaches out to grasp everything at once. You have long known that he would use you as a portal when he could, and you believed that if he made it through into this world, it was all over but the shouting. Definitely the worst day of your life when he finally arrived. Although that later became the best day of your life after your friends showed you he wasn't quite so invincible as you'd already known/believed/dreaded, and you were finally able to somehow purge him from the world forever.
A fleeting thought occurred to Raven—something odd about her own previous assumption of Trigon's ultimate success if and when he got the ball rolling in an invasion of Earth—but she tabled the idea for later consideration. Barabel either didn't notice or didn't care.
Now let us examine the four who co-founded the Teen Titans with you.
I see them through your eyes—your friends, your kith; Robin, a credit to his mentor's training, and having at least five times the leadership skills of that surly man who hunkers in a cave half the time; Cyborg, who bears up incredibly well when so much of him is cold metal and plastic—you doubt you could handle it half as well if you lost so much of your own flesh; Starfire, the light-hearted sister you wish you'd had when you were so much smaller and desperately needed one; Beast Boy, the overzealous clown who—roughly once in a blue moon—shows enough sensitivity to make you think he might actually remember to finish growing up . . . some day . . . but you aren't holding your breath waiting for it.
Moving on from general impressions to specific moments, as seen through your own eyes and ears and feelings:
Cyborg storms off after a vicious quarrel with Robin, and when Starfire wants to commiserate with you, you pretend you're so stoical you don't much care about an occasional Titan deciding to strike out on his own . . . but an entire bank of monitors suddenly needs to be replaced, for some odd reason.
Much later: You are standing near Starfire as she is introduced to her betrothed, Glrdlesklechhh, whom she has never met before in her life. At first glance, you know he is not of the same species; not even a "cousin species" such as you conjecture humans and Tamaraneans might be. Looks like a pile of green glop with odd little appendages radiating out from all sides of his body. Telling "little white lies" for tactful purposes has never exactly been one of your strengths, but for Starfire's sake, bearing in mind that all the way here she has been bound and determined to accept whatever mate her lawful ruler has chosen for her and presumably her strong sense of duty won't let her back down now, you make a rare effort and manage to force the words out: "Um . . . he's cute."
Much later: You're small and powerless, falling toward a river of lava, and Robin reflexively throws himself off the face of the cliff after you, gambling on his ability to catch you in midair and then contrive a rescue before you both get fried. You've already given up on any hope of ever beating Trigon, and you reflect, rather bitterly, that this boy has some seriously messed-up "reflexes," jeopardizing his own life that way for a girl who has nothing left to live for. Rather than risk a lava bath, the sensible thing would have been to cling tightly to handholds on the cliff, shed a tear, and say, "Alas, poor Raven, I knew her well." (But then, if Robin wanted to be sensible he wouldn't be Robin in the first place, would he?)
Several minutes later (after you've finally expelled your father from your life forever): Beast Boy gets seriously worried about whether you're really the same Raven he remembers. You're actually smiling, for one thing, and giving Robin a quick hug of gratitude, for another. You quickly do your best to assuage your green friend's fears by insulting him. Greatly reassured by this evidence of a return to normalcy, he pounces and hugs you. Something he normally wouldn't dare to attempt. You make a token effort to tell him to quit, but you don't actually use telekinesis to push him off right away.
This was very awkward, reliving those moments with a stranger watching it through her eyes and offering commentary, but Raven comforted herself with the thought that after the Titans got back home to their native era, it never would have happened. Barabel, she knew, heard that thought too, but seemed mildly amused and didn't comment on it at all.
Show me some of the other villains you have fought since forming the team. Ah, yes . . . now I see them. . . .
Control Freak, who thinks the world's a television show and he's the new producer who should have veto power over each script; Mumbo, who somehow works magical effects that even you don't always understand; Mad Mod, master of illusion, who feels that whole "free will" nonsense is vastly overrated when everyone can just have an exaggerated version of British culture forced down their throats instead; Kyd Wykkyd of the Hive Five, who has enough in common with you to make you very uncomfortable when you let yourself speculate about his paternity; and Slade, whose "return from the dead," totally unanticipated by you, made you wonder if the cheerful influences of other Titans were beginning to corrupt your usual thought patterns with a dangerous degree of optimism, for how else could you explain your failure to consider such a worst-case scenario as Trigon striking a deal with him.
Raven finally dug in her mental heels and thought: "Even at the speeds at which thoughts can race around in the human brain (well, a half-human brain in my case), it would still take an awfully long time to review my entire life story. Have you seen enough hand-picked samples to satisfy you of the depth and texture of my experiences, as you rummaged around for any subject that caught your fancy without my trying to steer you away from problem areas? Lots of authentic memories, dating back to Late Twentieth/Early Twenty-First Century, childhood in Azarath, strong ties with the other Titans, fighting Trigon, fighting others, all in colorful detail? You haven't mentioned finding any mysterious gaps or stitching jobs, as if someone had cut-and-pasted manufactured memories (or stolen ones?) into my head to replace the authentic ones of the life and times of some other girl who never called herself Raven until someone started doing a real number inside her head in order to make her a genuine sincere ersatz version.
A mental sigh from Barabel. Very well. You are correct; your head is full of fascinating things that could answer many historical questions, but if I have not yet found any proof that you are someone else brainwashed to recite certain claims and remember certain scenes, then I doubt I ever shall. I now believe you are the mortal incarnation of Raven of the original Teen Titans, come forward in time unintentionally; as I suggested before, there is nothing in the Faith's theology that absolutely precludes that notion; it's merely very surprising. Are we done, then?
"Only half," Raven projected. "Your own bona fides still need to be established. Your mind doesn't radiate an aura of pure evil, but then, most people's don't. They always think they have good reasons for the things they do to other people. Blackfire didn't feel guilty about how she treated her sister. I warned you up front that I will give you the same sort of scrutiny you gave me."
Yes, you did. I think I only meant "Are we done in your mind?" Though I admit I am not wildly eager about having the shoe on the other foot, but I have experienced it before and shall live with it now, as you will live with this. And if you are the real Raven—which I suppose you are—then you already know it all anyway, in a matter of speaking. Your deified future self does, that is to say. So why should I kick and scream in a futile effort to prevent you from seeing the things you already know about me?
"I'm still having serious trouble with that part," Raven communicated. "But I'll try to keep an open mind while I see what the Faith of the Five, and its patron gods and goddesses, look like from your perspective. Ready or not, here I come!"