Teale sat on his bed, arms on his knees, head bowed.
Tomorrow. It will happen tomorrow. Only a few hours left.
He wished he could go back to the Main Ops Room and share in the merriment with the other Titans. But he knew he couldn't.
He wished – Gods, he pained – to see her again, to feel her touch, to smell her hair, to hear her voice.
He heard soft knocking on his door. He got up, went to the door and opened it.
He stood there dazed for a few seconds, just like he did when he saw her for the first time. But now the reasons were different.
"May I come in?" she asked.
Her soft voice pulled him out of his daze and he stepped from the door. "Please."
Raven walked in, realizing with some amusement that this was the first time she was here. The room was smaller than hers, clean and relatively tidy. Only a few books were scattered around the bed and nightstand. Teale was obviously a heavy reader.
She sat in an armchair, gathering her cloak around her as if for protection. Her hood was up and her violet eyes glowed softly from its depths. She waited.
He returned to his bed and sat on it. He looked into her eyes for a long moment, and then, realizing she was not going to speak, he said "I suppose you would like an explanation for my conduct."
Raven moved a little in the armchair. She waited a few seconds before answering. "The old Raven could have said 'Whatever gave you that idea?' Or she could have said 'Am I that obvious?' Or she could have said 'How could you tell?' But I am not the old Raven. And I think you know that. But not only because my fa– my creator's taint was cleansed. It is also because I had to chain and lock away a part of myself. Because I dared to dream of joy and happiness, if only for a few days, but not even that was allowed to me. I wish to know why."
"It is a long story" he said.
"We have all the time in the world."
No. We only have until tomorrow morning. Aloud, he said "Very well."
"When I first saw you, I saw your future." She nodded. "I know that."
"No, you don't. Not fully. Because I didn't feel your future as I usually do. Your future probabilities did not diverge, they converged. That in itself was shocking. But that was not what left me dazed. What I really saw was the Prophecy, in its final form, and in its entirety. I saw its past and future. That is what dazed me."
He continued on. "Raven, the Prophecy was created by Trigon to enable him to take over our Universe. It is – was – an unimaginably powerful force. And it was Trigon's downfall."
"What?" She gasped before she could control herself.
He nodded. "Trigon fell into the same trap like many other tremendously powerful beings before him. He created something bigger than himself, and in his arrogance he didn't realize it. The power that he had to pour into the Prophecy was so huge that he created a quasi-sentient magical construct, whose only purpose was to lead everything – you, me, our entire Universe – to the designated ending."
She started to understand "And Trigon, also."
He nodded again. "Without knowing, he created something that not even he would be able to resist. And he implanted this in your mother, so that it became you. His arrogance betrayed him again, then. He was certain that there was no power in our Universe capable of challenging Trigon the Terrible, so he scoffed as your mother took refuge with the monks of Azarath."
"And yet, under the influence of the monks, the Prophecy changed. You were born, you grew up under their gentle tutelage. They taught you control over your powers."
She frowned. "Do you mean that I controlled the Prophecy somehow?"
"No, no. You must never forget one thing: The Prophecy was you and you were the Prophecy. Your powers were a gift of the Prophecy, not of Trigon."
"As I said, the Prophecy had some kind of quasi-sentience. I do not think that it was something that Trigon granted it, but rather that the Prophecy mutated itself in order to be able to fulfill itself."
"This is the problem when you deal with prophecies. They have a nasty tendency to become self-fulfilling – remember that Greek story about Oedipus? His prophecy said that he would end up killing his father and marrying his mother. So his father sent him away to be killed, but he survived and was adopted. Then, as a youth, he learned of the prophecy and left his home, because he did not want to harm his adoptive parents, whom he loved. And in his wanderings –"
"– he came to Thebes, fought and killed Laius and married Iocasta!" she finished the story for him. Her head was whirling with the implications of what he told her.
"Exactly. Now imagine a similar Prophecy, created by an arrogant, immensely powerful and immensely evil demon, which is then given flesh."
"I am, of course, not an expert in curses, demonology or prophecies, I can only tell you what I saw and what I later reasoned out. The two critical things were that the Prophecy was able to change itself and that it was given form – your form, your flesh, your blood, your mind and soul."
"As you grew, learned and changed, so did the Prophecy. The final result – the end of the world – could not be changed; indeed, the Prophecy would destroy mercilessly anyone or anything that might try to prevent it. Instead, it grew with you, learned with you, shared your thoughts and feelings. And so it changed. The influence of the monks of Azarath made it feel incomplete. It felt/understood/reasoned/desired that it needed to complete itself. So it slowly transformed into a Tao circle. Half dark, half light, both with a little of one in the other."
"In the end, the two halves reached harmony. Now the Prophecy could reach complete fulfilment – it would bring Trigon in and destroy our world, and then banish Trigon and restore it."
Raven's head was spinning. She had trouble assimilating everything that Teale was saying. "You are telling me that no matter what I did, no matter what Trigon did, we wouldn't be able to change anything?"
"Yes. The Prophecy of Dark needed to bring you to the Place of Summoning and allow Trigon to enter through you. This was its purpose, and once it was done, the Prophecy of Dark had no further use for you, or Trigon for that matter. The Prophecy of Light safeguarded your human half, and it kept your friends safe so that they could give you hope and awaken your powers – your powers – and defeat Trigon."
Raven was silent for a long time, mulling over what Teale had told her. She finally lifted her head and said "I think I understand. I also think that you are right. Yes, once both were fulfilled, they had no reason to exist any more, and they simply vanished." He nodded "Such is the way of prophecies."
"Thank you for explaining this to me, Teale. But it does not answer my first question."
Teale looked blankly at her. He had gotten so involved in explaining about the Prophecy that he now did not understand what she was talking about.
She looked into his eyes and said softly "Why did you leave?"
He looked at the floor and did not answer.
"You choose not to answer me. Very well, I will then have to answer it myself."
She got up from the armchair and walked toward him. She sat on the bed beside him and took his hand.
"I love you, Teale. And I know that you love me. You did not want to be there because our love would have changed things. You saw the Prophecy, the Dark and the Light, and you knew what was going to happen. Your talent showed you that if you allowed yourself to be with me, your mere presence would be an unwelcome influence on the final results that the Prophecies were trying to achieve. You reasoned – perhaps you even sensed – that the Prophecies would not allow it, and that to prevent the interference, they would simply obliterate you."
"That is so", he said quietly, still staring at the floor. But it is not all.
"And you couldn't tell me this because…"
He frowned. "Because I feared that telling you would carry the same consequences."
She smiled her crooked, mischievous smile. "I was teasing you, silly. That was obvious."
Her smile faded. She looked down. "I'm sorry I doubted you."
He shook his head "What else could you think? If I could have done anything to spare you the pain, I would." He turned towards her. "I love you more than life, Raven."
She came closer to him, her eyes closed, her scent making his head spin. He kissed her hair, her eyes, her lips. She kissed him back and he lost track of reality.