She sits in the twilight, swathed in blankets and sweaters. Her frame, once strongly petit and slender-lifetimes past- is frail and bent underneath the volumes of cloth. She sighs…a sigh that contains her existence, all the grueling centuries or being Raven, of Being. A sigh that encompasses her entire self, unchanged for an epochal subsistence.
Her breath creeps in, and out.
Noise comes from the apartment below her dusky balcony. The intrepid couple residing there were always very accommodating when she met them in the transporter or on the streets. She was a gorgeous brunette with glimmering teeth and sparrow-fingers, always dressed in the most eccentrically fashionable styles and chattering about the recent scandalous news. So-and-so had decided to bind with her long-time love, but everyone knew he still had eyes for this level three girl, and wasn't it silly of her to think she could compete with someone like that?
He was the stereotypical average guy, placidly boring and appearing mostly content to be publicly overshadowed by his gregarious bondmate. When they were alone, though…He seethes, rising against her, lashing out against his own submissive shortcomings, the world, his life, life. She argues with him, providing the conflict he so desperately craves. In private, he was a man, and she had more meaning than a pretty smile. They shouted and raged, and were happy.
Stars gleamed, uninhibited by the smog that had plagued the twentieth, twenty-first, twenty-second centuries. The moon sent down its stolen light, marred by the enormous grey dome of the abandoned base. Abandoned…When had that happened? A few years ago, it had been the pride of the scientific community. Or maybe it was longer…
Her breath creeps in, and out.
The noise below abates, and a peaceful apathy hangs in the autumn air. Raven huddles inside her blankets and tries to meditate the cold into deference. The tired old words trickle from her lips. "Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. Azarath Metrion Zinthos. Azarath-Metrion-Zinthos-" She falters. The words, once so important, no longer meant anything, stringing together in so many nonsensical syllables. She was not a child anymore, fighting away the bogeymen and the monsters with her friends at her side.
The streetlights below hummed imperceptibly, nuclear energy singing gently in the underground wires. At least, she thought it was nuclear. It had been; a hundred years, two hundred years ago. It was so hard to keep track of things. Not that she really tried, anymore.
Her breath creeps in, and out.
There had been an accident the day before, or a few days. Earlier. A fire in the complex across the road. Sidewalk, really. All the old roads had become one giant pedestrian play area since the use of cars had been prohibited. The fire had broken out when a kind had wandered into the kitchen and, mimicking what he had seen his parents do, tried to light the flash oven. Things had gotten out of hand, and the boy was trapped in the blazes.
Raven had seen, or sensed, the trouble from her eternal watch on the balcony, and had responded. For a minute, she was Raven the Titan again, shedding the limitations of age and summoning the eternal blackness to her hands, phasing through the walls and snatching the child up before enveloping them both in cooling shields of dark magic.
He had been terrified. Not of the flame, of her. He had kicked his way out of her grasp, trying to slough off the demon-driven sorcery that coated his skin like so much dark oil, screaming and running from the phantasmal, sweater-clad witch.
He died. Her magic failed her, not strong enough to protect him from the inferno he fled to. Raven had returned achingly to her balcony, leaving the professional response units to deal with the tragedy and cleanup. Soot and charcoal marks drifted haphazardly off of her clothes and hair, drifting in the air before disintegrating. No one knew she had been there, and yet…and yet…
She shouldn't have let him get away from her, no matter the bruises his fists and tiny feet made on her paper-thin skin. No matter his fear. No matter his mindless, animal hatred.
Her breath creeps in, and out.
The experience, the use of powers long left dormant, the movement of stagnant muscles…it had exhausted her beyond measure, depleted the ever-dwindling stores of energy her broken body had managed to retain.
This was the end. She knew it, welcomed the maw of oblivion. And yet…and yet…Her thoughts inevitably return to the Saxophonist, and herself, and the boy…
Her entire life, she had lived to die.
Her entire life, she had lived unselfishly.
Her entire life, she had meditated.
Her entire life, she had submitted to her fate, done what she could to make amends for her own existence, worked and strove and struggled for forgiveness and acceptance. And in the end, she was still feared…and she was still afraid.
Her entire life, she had lived in fear.
When she had first met the Titans, she had been so uncertain about herself. The rage Azar had taught her to smother was becoming harder and harder to control. Emotions broiled within, hurling themselves against the cool meditative barriers she had so painstakingly erected. The Titans, new teammates she found herself with without ever really understanding how, were smashing the wall down from the other side, yearning to know what the girl behind the witch was like. She was afraid of letting that girl out, because the innocence and purity- the white that she embodied- could so easily be tainted by her father's blood.
Her father had ensured she lived in constant fear. Fear of him, of herself, for herself. The dreams and whispered possessive comments tormented her young mind, and she feared what she could so easily become…
And then, when Trigon failed and the end of the world was averted, she was afraid she wouldn't be accepted again by her friends, by the world she had so nearly destroyed.
When the Titans split and went there separate ways, she was afraid her mind would break and she would end up as Starfire had foreseen. That very apprehension had almost fulfilled itself because she worried about it so much.
When the Titans died, she clung to the walls between herself and the world, and she feared what would happen if the walls came down.
She feared her powers, her control, her lack of control, herself, the world, her solitude, chaos, and she was afraid…
Her breath creeps in, and out.
The biggest fear…was that she hadn't done enough. All she had done, all the lives she had saved- was it enough? The Saxophonist had made his peace with her help, but now the eye of the machine god had turned to her.
Her life…was finally closing. Her demons were sealed, her friends waited, and her fears were meaningless… Were meaningless? No. That couldn't be right. Her fears were part of her humanity, of her consciousness and her conscience. It was reasonable to be terrified, because life was horribly cruel when you were chosen to be a sacrifice for the good of mankind. And really, what more could be asked of her? She failed, sometimes, but she did her best. The constant suppression of herself without losing the battle between insanity and control…She had given up herself, her freedoms, her right to live; all for the world, a world that never accepted or understood her in all the time she had lived, a world that feared her as much as she feared it.
That…was enough. She'd had enough. She had done enough. It didn't matter anymore, if the world with their sparrow-fingers and rage-joys failed to understand her, or even if god himself wasn't finished using her. Achingly, creakingly she stood and shed the multitudes of cloth that enshrouded her, keeping only a single blue quilt. It wrapped around her shoulders, trailing at her feet, and a sense of nostalgia washed over her. She slipped a hand on the railing.
A brisk wind rises, whispering sweet everythings. The time had come to finally accept herself, to embrace what she was and what she had done. To experience happiness and anger and anything, anything but fear. Maybe…maybe that was why she had been kept alive so long. It had taken her that long to love herself…
In a week's time, she would be forgotten, the last relic of ancient times fading into oblivion. That was fine. This wasn't her era, anyways. Her time had ended long, long, long ago. All that was left was a ghost…
The autumn breeze whirled, sweeping through- no, sweeping into her. It slid across her skin, beckoned gently…and she followed it.
She could not see to the end of the wind. There was no way to know where it would lead her. But she knew, as she left behind the crumpled husk, the demon blood, the uncertainty, the fear…she knew her family would be waiting. Waiting for their friend to finally, finally come home. And a man, ever fashionable in black, would be amidst their ranks...
Her breath creeps out…