Chapter 10
Pride and Prejudice
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or anything related to Teen Titans. Unfortunately.
A/N: For anyone still alive and picking up here, since this is where I left off years ago, I wanted to make you all aware that I have read through and updated the old chapters. Nothing major. No big plot changes or whatever, mostly small things and polish. I have a note about this at the end as well, but I also want to take a moment to thank everyone who's read this and to say how much it means to me when someone says they enjoyed the work or that it helped or affected them in some way. It's all of you who kept this on my mind, despite things in the real world, so that I never quite forgot about it. And now here I am finishing it. Never underestimate the power of comments and good vibes. Thank you all, and I guess...on with the show, finally.
Clad in blue and shining gold, Doctor Fate floated in the air before them, eyes, expression and intent concealed in equal measure behind his helmet.
A surge of emotions from her companion washed over the empath: shock, awe, even worry. Raven, however, put them aside. After all, she could see little sense in worrying. In fact, just the opposite, she found herself filled with a growing sense of relief.
The events surrounding her father's arrival and subsequent defeat had done wonders in helping her to feel supported—outwardly. The sad and inescapable truth, though, was that the greater part of that battle was not outward at all. And in that inward war, she had always been alone.
But now, she saw a finish line of sorts. A checkpoint, at the very least. Perhaps not someone to shoulder the burden for her, but someone who could tell her the score. Not the biased opinion or half-baked morality of some random individual spewed from a soapbox, but the honest estimation of a Lord of Order.
Did she really crave judgment that badly?
Something inside her rankled at the thought, disgusted and insulted.
Validation, then? That her life, all her work had amounted to something more than could have been accomplished by removing herself from the equation right from the start. Recognition, assurance even, that she had not merely managed to avoid becoming a negative but that her existence was indeed a net positive.
There was solace in it, somehow. In presenting the sum of herself for evaluation from perhaps the only being whose appraisal she could accept. Not enough that she might ever have gone out of her way to pursue it, perhaps, but enough that she would welcome it, given the opportunity.
She stepped forward.
Fate descended, stopping short of landing to float above the rooftop. "Ladies," he greeted.
Speechless, Jinx raised an unsteady hand in hello.
"Thank you…for your time," Raven said. "I didn't expect you so quickly. Or…at all, really, if I'm being honest. Part of me even doubted the League would pass on my request."
Fate touched down, lightly brushing himself off. "Oh, I'm sure they will, once they've settled their internal deliberations on the matter. Until then, I thought I would come ahead. Take the initiative, as it were."
Raven's brow tensed in thought as she processed the implications of Fate's statement. "You've been spying," she concluded.
"Observing," Fate corrected, somewhat defensively. "Tactfully…yes. Since a hole was ripped between this dimension and your father's."
Raven turned her eyes downcast. "Sorry…"
"Ditto," Jinx chimed in.
"Nothing of the sort," Fate waived aside their apology. "A rather pleasant surprise, as a matter of fact, to be reminded that the universe need not always be in peril, that some ultimate evil need not always be lurking behind every cosmic goings-on, that sometimes an accident may simply be…an accident." His tone conveyed a peaceful smile behind the helm. "Quite refreshing, if I am being honest."
"All right…" Raven conceded, not totally sure what to make of a man called Fate who took comfort in accidents.
"Now, ah, I'm sure that you have questions—certainly, we've much to discuss—but before that, I wonder…would you mind?" Fate asked, holding up his right hand in a way that suggested Raven should understand his meaning.
And she did. Or at least, she suspected. He was asking permission, to peer at recent events not only through her eyes, but through her mind. Actions, considerations, thoughts however fleeting, he would sift through them all and gather a much clearer understanding of the situation than any words might have conveyed, and considerably more quickly.
She consented with a nod, and Fate moved forward and placed a hand over her head, touching one finger to the crown.
The process lasted only a few moments, Jinx apprehensive in the background but trusting that Raven knew what she was doing.
In reality, Raven did nothing at all, experienced no unusual sensations or dredged-up imagery or memories, a subtle sensation in her chakras the only giveaway to Fate's work—a deftly subtle touch, his.
His finger lifted. "I see," he said, then turned to Jinx, who put on a distinctly deer-in-headlights look.
She pointed to herself. "Who? Me?"
"If you wouldn't mind," Fate told her.
"Uh…" The guttural utterance dribbled dumbly from Jinx's mouth while she turned to her partner for help. A nod from Raven, and she took a preparatory breath. "Sure, I guess…"
Fate moved toward her.
Her anxiety spiked, and she began a lengthy list of apologies for some of the things he might find poking around in her head.
Fate only chuckled. "You needn't worry."
Jinx swallowed as Fate went to work on her; then, her eyes darted around a bit, as though whatever she'd been waiting for had failed to come. "Should, uh…should I—"
"Just a moment," Fate told her kindly. "You're doing fine."
Raven caught herself cracking a smile when Jinx shivered like a cat from tail to tip, probably a product of the unfamiliar sensation of having her chakras activated and utilized.
"Hmm." Fate removed his hand, stepped back a bit, and bowed deeply. "Thank you both for your cooperation."
"Yeah…" Jinx said, suppressing another shiver.
A few seconds, perhaps half a minute or so, passed as Fate seemed to contemplate, his cape dancing regally in the breeze. Then, he approached the nearby edge of the rooftop and hovered there, in a very familiar pose.
Raven waited, although she wasn't sure for what.
"Would you care to join me?" Fate asked.
Like she'd missed a segue, Raven nonetheless took up her hovering lotus position beside their guest, more curious than focused on any sort of meditation.
"I, uh…can't float," Jinx said.
"Ah, yes," Fate replied knowingly. "Ours is the obligation to do all we can, and the right to have no more expected of us."
Taking the hint, Jinx sat down beside Raven, the empath hovering several feet above and beside her. She tried to meditate. Or what she understood meditate to mean, anyway. Or at least look like it.
Raven, meanwhile, even despite the situation, found herself distracted by something she hadn't really anticipated: Fate's blankness. A complete and utter lack of empathic feedback, an empty void in space like she hadn't ever felt from a living thing. Whether from a spell or through sheer discipline, she couldn't say. But for all psychic intents and purposes, he wasn't even there.
"Wonder, confusion, curiosity…" Fate mused aloud.
For a moment, Raven considered the words, and then realized: he was reading her.
"Realization," Fate said sagely but pleasantly, the word breathed in the crisp, clean air atop a misty mountain. "Points of interest along our journey toward enlightenment. Yours has been a confounding path of late, I understand. Please, tell me."
Raven peeked one eye open skeptically. "Didn't you just…?"
"I have seen the storm," Fate affirmed. "I thought we might navigate it together."
"All right…" Raven said.
"Focus," Fate advised gently.
Raven closed her eyes again with a measured exhale. A few moments later, she focused. Not on the present, as meditation often did, but shifted her focus inward. The way she always did since she had begun seeking oneness with her emotions, she arrived not in Nevermore, but in the primordial soup beyond, the vast void-sea of thoughts, feelings, and the memories that inspired them for which Nevermore acted as a filtering lens, providing shape and order. Here, they flowed freely, ran rampant in surges and churning swells, dragging her along their currents and, occasionally, submerging her entirely.
The more she struggled for purchase, to right herself, the larger and more frequent the waves became: the more powerful the thoughts, the feelings, the pushes and pulls, and the more difficulty she had recovering her bearing. Her guts slid up into her stomach as she felt herself pulled up along a gathering riptide; when the resulting wave crashed, her eyes snapped open with a gasp, her focus broken.
She frowned.
She just couldn't…get any sort of foothold, any semblance of form, anywhere to start. It was just…an ocean: fluid, impossible to grasp, and far too—
"The jnana mudra," Fate observed almost reverently, commenting on her pose. "A gift from the monks?"
"Yes…" Raven replied, keenly aware of some circuitous tactic at play but unsure of its precise design. "Peace, and mental stability."
Fate offered a nod, demonstrating the form. "The individual consciousness and the universal consciousness, the touching thumb and forefinger a symbol of the connection between the two—the mudra of knowledge. An interesting choice," he added.
Raven said nothing, only considered. It had been a long time since she'd had a teacher, and it took some effort to ignore her knee-jerk distaste. Instead, she took in Fate's own pose: the dhyana typical of statues of the Buddha.
The mudra of balance.
Just like that, she understood his intent: her meditation wasn't working because she was doing it wrong. Or at least, approaching it incorrectly.
Non-Euclidean…
She'd had that thought, that realization before, and here she sat, still making the same mistake, still trying to force this new, alien thing into the same approach to self-understanding she had applied all her life. At the same time, recognizing the need to push past Nevermore, but then using the mudra that was Nevermore—and wondering why it didn't work.
Of course it didn't. She was speaking the wrong language, beginning the journey on a path that did not, could not lead to the destination she sought. Using the wrong lens and wondering why it all seemed so unclear.
Nevermore gave her peace through separation, knowledge via the critical analysis of those separated parts—holding pieces of herself at arm's length to observe, understand, and ultimately shelve them. To that end, it had served her well over her lifetime.
But it could not lead to oneness. It could not, by its nature, offer the completeness she sought. For that, she needed balance.
Her lips turned down in a momentary frown at the thought, one that she could no longer avoid if she wished to progress, that part of her had continued to avoid even just a few moments earlier: this was not something she could master by removing herself from it or by chaining it down with iron will.
Biting back her insecurity, she committed, copied Fate's pose, and dove in again.
She focused on her breathing—in, and out—did not surrender herself to that tempestuous sea, but did not struggle against it. No attempt made to analyze, she allowed each thought and urge the simple acknowledgment of carrying her along, treated them each as valid without any need for justification.
But…she'd had that realization before, as well. To do exactly that. Why, then, had she not?
Foreign and fleeting, the questions wove through Raven's mind. More words flowed through her.
Denial, yes. Clearly. But, why? Why deny a truth she knew to insist upon an approach she'd known could not work?
Her heart quickened with anxiety.
Worry… Hesitation… Why?
The answer flashed into her mind in an instant, a reflex responding to the question: balance.
Balance frightened her? Some part, yes.
That was stupid. Wasn't that what she wanted, what this whole thing had been about? Wasn't balance a good thing?
Sometimes…
Okay… And…other times?
Having since dissolved into the water, Raven jolted slightly at finding herself whole again, and surrounded no longer by a sea of thoughts and feelings, but of stars.
Space.
Whoa…
Her mouth twisted in frustration.
So close… She had been so close… On the right path, at least. And then—
Hit a snag.
Awareness came to her subtly but steadily, the unmistakable reaching out of her empathic senses, but to a degree she could barely conceive. Slowly at first, it grew exponentially until she could no longer discern its limit, or even if it had one. She felt…everything…
Her senses reached out; they, the universe, reached back—and wept. By virtue of sheer volume, the individuals within her range blended and merged into a single, amalgamated ball of sorrow, of hopeless resignation.
Visions materialized in her mind: visions of conquest, of victories, of peoples, planets, and whole star systems subjugated and brought to heel, of gods challenged, torn down, and bound in preparation for the moment close at hand. They cried out in collective anguish, bleeding their strength, offering their immortal lifeblood to fuel the ritual in progress.
It took shape in her mind's eye: whole galaxies gutted and rearranged, a lifetime of preparation—the stars themselves moved and realigned into a ritual circle of cosmic proportion that would not simply summon but build a permanent bridge between dimensions and allow free passage.
Turning in place, Raven found a black hole in the indeterminable distance; much closer, a figure floated, facing it.
The snag.
"You could say that," she muttered to herself.
Roadblock, more like.
She floated closer to the figure: herself. Older, although by exactly how much she found it difficult to tell.
It didn't react; its four-eyed gaze held forward—red, glowing, and utterly unperturbed.
"I get it," Raven said aloud.
Nothing.
Raven floated in front of the image. "I want balance. To achieve that, there are certain things I need to…confront."
Again, nothing.
In annoyance, Raven moved up to put herself at eye-level; she narrowed hers. "You're in my way."
A satisfied smirk.
A fire crackled in Raven's chest, stoked and kindled from somewhere outside, a force pouring into her.
As if in response, words burned across her mind, a prophecy spelled out in runes seared onto her soul.
"No," Raven said, calm but definitive.
The image turned its head slightly, just a glance, leveling its stare almost in amusement.
"No," she said again, this time very nearly in challenge.
"To what?" it asked, giving Raven its full attention.
"To you. Him. This." Raven motioned wide around them.
"Why?"
"Because I say so!" Raven replied with force, tired of the back-and-forth; the universe around them seemed to ripple at the outburst.
"Good!" it bellowed back, any trace of amusement entirely gone. "Finally! Show a little pride for once in your miserable existence." It drew closer. "Now she wants to talk… Fine. I've been waiting."
"You—" Raven bit off her retort, cut short and caught off guard by the remark. "What?"
"What are you really afraid of?" it asked.
Memories flashed, moments of lost control.
"No!" it declared. "Be honest! Give yourself at least that much respect."
Raven furrowed her brow at what sounded like disgust in its tone.
Behind it, the black hole thrummed, gathering strength.
"I—"
"You lie to them. Lie to yourself. But you do not lie to me. I have spent my entire life choked down, bit back and chained in every dark corner of your mind. I know," it promised her.
"Know w—" Raven started when it struck like black, silent lightning, suddenly inches away and looming over her.
"You claim you're afraid of losing control. You claim you're afraid of me," Pride hissed. "Well, which is it?"
"B—"
"Don't lie to me!" Pride roared in her face, then grew calm. "Think. In every vision you've ever had, in this—the worst case—have I ever looked out…of control? In all those memories," it spat the word with wearisome frustration, "have you ever really felt out…of control?"
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
"Lies…" Pride growled, pushing the advance. "All lies… Reservoirs, dams bursting—excuses, convenient metaphors just plausible enough to let you continue avoiding the truth." It pulled back some, seemingly satisfied by the way Raven's jaw had snapped shut at the accusation. "Light. Last night. Even this." It lifted its hands limply and let them fall. "You aren't afraid you'll lose control. You're afraid you won't."
Without realizing it, Raven had balled her hands into fists, clinging tightly to that fire, that assurance still being stoked from outside.
Pride's hostility, all its venom fell away, and it spoke in simple, honest observation, turning to face the black hole in contemplation. "It's easy…to blame our actions on a loss of control. Safe, to disconnect ourselves from our mistakes. I didn't do it. I wasn't thinking. That isn't me. The alternative…admitting what we might— what we're capable of justifying when we feel too much, too strongly, it's…terrifying." It paused, then added, "And insulting."
At that, Raven looked up, confused.
Pride turned to her again, its form straight-backed and confident once more. "You're not here to confront me. You're here to confront your deepest, most well-tended insecurity, the real reason you could never stomach me: not shame, but a lack of self-respect. You don't trust yourself." It shook its head, as though unable to understand. "We saved the universe—defied prophecy," it implored her with growing vigor. "Defeated father, together. I was born that day. Is this really how you see me?"
Raven blinked in surprise, suddenly staring herself in the face—her real self, blue cloak and all, just as she was. Behind the new Pride, a shadow floated facing the black hole.
Pride smiled, a real smile, although small. "Pride can come from many places." It looked back over its shoulder at the shadow hovering wordlessly. "Pride in our heritage, in the life we were handed." It faced her again. "Pride in ourselves, in the life we have made."
Raven felt something swell in her chest.
After a moment to savor something, Pride spoke again. "Stop focusing on what we are. Take pride in who we have chosen to be."
Raven relaxed, releasing herself and letting her shoulders fall. "Okay," she said, then chuckled once to herself. "Even after I met the others, got to know them, cared about them, for the longest time, I thought I was the only one I would ever really be able to trust. But…it turns out I guess I never really did that either."
Pride offered a shrug. "You should. Whatever else we are, we're something worth believing in."
Raven nodded graciously. "Thank you."
Pride only smiled more broadly.
She blinked again, and Pride was gone. In a swirl of blended colors, so was the rest of the scene, swept away in the tide.
On the rooftop, Raven opened her eyes.
Fate loosed a quiet, contented sigh.
Raven floated down to stand on the roof. She looked up at Fate. "Thank you."
Fate offered a dignified half-nod. "Well," he said. "I believe I should go, allow you time to reflect."
Raven nodded, working through exactly that even as they spoke.
"The League will be in touch, I'm sure," Fate told her. "Through Robin, I imagine. They'll likely have reached their decision by now."
"Thank you again for your help," Raven said.
"A catalyst, nothing more," Fate brushed aside the compliment. "But you are quite welcome, just the same. Ladies." Bowing as he floated higher, he summoned a portal and bid them farewell before passing through and leaving them alone in the fledgling light of dawn.
Their meditation, it seemed, had lasted longer than she'd realized.
Raven lingered a few seconds on where Fate had vanished, allowing her mind time to process what she had glimpsed: illuminated by the brilliant light of the portal, a hand-sized paper doll in Fate's center. She understood then why she had been unable to read him: he had never really been there.
The realization only served to impress her more. It did, however, beg the question as to why he had elected not to come in person.
Meeting with the League? Something else?
With him, she supposed guessing would be pointless anyway.
Instead, she turned her attention to Jinx, unsteadily rising to her feet. She considered helping but, not wanting to offend, decided that Jinx would ask, if she wanted it. "Are you all right?"
Jinx held her head with one hand. "Sorta… Gotta say, ya hear people talk about meditation or whatever, but uh…"
"Most meditation isn't like that," Raven told her. "Mine is…"
"Complicated, uh-huh," Jinx finished for her. "Got it."
"I wouldn't normally take a novice through something so intense, even by proxy, but…Fate seemed to think including you would be beneficial," Raven explained.
Her stupor easing away, Jinx looked to her companion. "And…was it?"
Raven smiled a bit, unsure whether the light blush she felt was visible. "Yes. Thank you."
"Anytime, I guess. I don't really get it, but…" Jinx thought a moment. "I mean, what did any of…that…have to do with, y'know, balance or whatever? That's what set ya off, right?"
Raven nodded. "At least, I thought so at the time. What you saw was balance, taken to the extreme: an end for every beginning, that version of me using the concept of cosmic balance to justify taking pride in its purpose."
"Okay… I'm glad you're feelin' better or whatever, but like…what does it all, y'know…mean?"
Raven turned her eyes down to one side a moment in thought. "It means…I was afraid—but not of what I thought I was."
And that maybe, if she was correct now, there had never been anything to be afraid of, after all. As much as that seemed, to her more pessimistic leanings, too good to be true. But she had made a decision, a promise to a part of herself that had earned its right to stand up and be recognized. And she would honor it.
"So…what now?" Jinx asked.
Raven drew a deep, cleansing breath, allowing herself time to let it out slowly, before responding. "Now, we go home."