Raven had watched her friends' progress through the riddle with mild hysteria. In anxious anticipation, she tapped her knee with a single pointer finger while simultaneously bouncing her leg in frustration. Occasionally she'd yell at the board as if it were a football game on TV, and at one point, she thought about flipping the table entirely.
"Oh, stop love. You know it's useless," he'd said to her.
"That doesn't mean I can't try."
"They can't hear you," he smiled.
"Yeah, well, they deserve to be yelled at anyway."
It was true, her team still couldn't hear her or receive messages through the mirror.
Were they handling themselves just fine? Of course they were, but she still felt so helpless. She had never been someone who sat on the sidelines who couldn't do anything. She could not even cheer them on.
A long time ago, the boys had been trapped in puppet bodies. They were completely immobile, only able to mumble one or two words. She felt trapped in a puppet body right now. The white grimoire blanket that had been rewrapped around her legs by Malchior made her itchy - both literally and figuratively.
She just wanted to stand up.
She just wanted to DO something.
Contrary to her frustrations, Malchior had been watching the event like a contented spectator. If he had popcorn he'd have been munching it like a hungry lion, reveling in his cleverness and devouring his spoils of war.
It wasn't until halfway through the fight, when Beast Boy had discovered the answer to his riddle and the key to his trap, that their positions switched.
Raven finally calmed down, a smile spread along her face, and she was almost outwardly cheering their triumph. Her respect for Beast Boy's cleverness soared, and her heart thumped both in excitement and relief. Malchior, on the other hand, had gripped his teacup tightly and huffed.
"Don't be so hissy," she half-joked. "That was clever of him, you have to admit."
He refused to agree, instead leaving the room again to "get more tea".
Raven jumped at the opportunity to work more charms and spells on the blanket. His absence was a blessing, and as she tugged and tore at the spells with her magic and with her hands, she had gotten it quite loose. Her ankles popped when she rotated them, and her knees cracked when she stretched them out to their full length. She wanted to sing.
Finally, she thought. Progress.
Her triumph was short lived, because he'd returned with a full pot in hand.
"You know, with all this tea I'll eventually need a bathroom break," she fished. He shook his head and smiled.
"Clever, but no. This tea is as real as this game. You won't need a break." He poured her another cup.
"My friends are under the impression that they'll die if their health reaches zero," she commented.
He sipped gently on his cup of earl grey. "That's the idea, love."
"You made me think that, too," she reminded him.
"That was also the idea." He patted her clenched fist and chuckled. "You fall so easily, don't you?"
She wanted to hit him so badly. "So what happens if they reach zero?"
He grinned. "Why, they wake up and are released from this illusion. Though, that does pose a problem with your winning the game if they do, as running out of players forfeits your end of the match." He sipped his tea. "Of course, that won't happen. Who would ever want to die for you, my creepy little ghoul?"
While no one ever wants someone to die for them, the way he said it made Raven's heart ache. It was harsh of him to suggest no one cared, and Raven didn't have the strength to fight back. She merely shrugged.
This caused him to frown a bit, unprepared for her silence. He reached over and uncurled her clenched fist, and then took her hand gently.
"I might die for you."
"Oh, shut up," she snapped.
He smirked at her. "What? You don't think I, the great Dread Dragon Malchior, wouldn't lay down my life for a little damsel like yourself. The one who imprisoned me in a book and left me to rot in a dusty chest?"
She huffed at him. "Relax, you escaped."
"True," he agreed, releasing her hand, "I did."
There was a royally awkward pause between them before Raven finally asked the question that had been burning her alive since she'd fought him again against the Brotherhood of Evil only a few years ago.
"How?"
He paused, his eyes for once losing their sharpness and going cloudy with thought. They looked somewhere behind her.
"You, my sweet," he whispered.
Her heart clenched.
I caused this? I started this for us again?
She'd often thought, that day when she'd sealed him away again, that maybe she'd done it wrong. That maybe, just maybe, she'd said something wrong or worked the spell badly, and that it would be her fault if he ever hurt her or one of her friends again. Now he was saying out loud her worst, inner fears.
"Me?"
He nodded. "The Great Wizard Rorek was a powerful sorcerer. Over a thousand years ago he was from a long line of noble and determined Magi that dedicated their lives to 'helping the realm'. Nol was a hideous kingdom, filled with misery and poverty. Death seemed to be around every corner - I admit to contributing to some of the strife, of course - and so the Magi were determined to wipe out the 'bad blood' that was tormenting their world. Self-righteous bastards." He cracked his shoulder nonchalantly and continued. "I took it upon myself to bring them down a peg. Ruin the little land they loved so much. But I underestimated Rorek's power."
"I know," she added. "You got yourself sucked into a book, buried in a tomb somewhere in ancient Europe when eventually you came to my shelf." Raven finally sipped some of the tea, mostly because her throat was killing her. "I loved rooting for the wizard, by the way."
He looked her up and down. "You loved more than his power, darling. Those eyes, am I right?"
He laughed at her expense as her face flushed without meaning to.
"Yes, I was pulled into the grimoire. I was bound by a power more ancient, more deep, more extraordinary than yours. With such knowledge lost to history, I'll never see the like again. I'm afraid to say I'm a little bored with the modern age. Less of a challenge."
He set the teacup in the saucer and went to throw a log on the fire, though Raven suspected it was just out of habit. The fire was run by magic, and also an illusion, but Malchior took his time picking a good log from the pile next to the grate. Once he had added fuel to the fire he returned to his seat.
"I tried teaching you, darling. I wanted to rekindle the old days, reintroduce real magic to the world, and of course get myself out of that hideous book. You, though, had to go all noble on me, too."
She interrupted, "this still doesn't explain how you got out the second time. I saw you dimension hop at the Brotherhood of Evil's lair. How did you do it?"
"Again, I tried to teach you, but you were too noble. Furious? Yes. I loved seeing that fire in your expression. I crave seeing it again, though in your current state all I see is glassy sickness in your eyes."
He moved to sit down next to her on the couch this time. He didn't look at her, but he leaned back and settled in like they were old friends.
"Rorek was the greatest sorcerer I have ever faced, and darling, though you are formidable, you just didn't have what it took. You didn't embrace my teachings and it was a magic far before your time. The rules are different. The words weren't enough, there were immediate cracks. I wormed my way out of them and, like ink, spilled over into the next dimension I could find. Eventually I made it back to this world of ours and I wandered the hills of my first home for a time, taking over the forms of mortals who stumbled upon me. There's a queen in charge of the land now, did you know that? Imagine…"
She rolled her eyes at his wistful tone, but on the inside she was kicking herself for being too incompetent. How could she lack the magical 'oomph' she needed when she was slowly making progress on the restraints he'd put on her? Unless that was all an illusion, too. Maybe it wasn't magic she was breaking apart, but the reality around her. Maybe she was slowly waking her body up the more she got the blanket off of her. Either way, she was nearly halfway there… if she could just get him to leave again.
Out of nowhere he leaned over and ran his hand through her hair, to which she jerked back in surprise and coughed into his face again. He closed his eyes in disgust and frustration before leaning back and wiping his nose.
"Charming, love."
"I told you, several times now, I think, to stay away from me. Couldn't you just respect that?"
She grit her teeth together and leaned as far from him as possible. He gently traced her knee with the back of a gruesome claw.
"Why do you hate me so?" he asked quietly. It felt like a genuine question. "You have so much potential, love. Perhaps you could not seal me away, but you are by far the closest thing I've found to my old magic. I sat idly by while centuries passed, missing everything, losing all I knew, until you came along. You, a violet beacon in my dark, dark existence."
Her skin prickled and a haunting chill went up her spine. She didn't know how to handle this strange man before her or the lies he knew how to spin; the words he could say to make her feel special.
"Your childish grudge against my little tricks in the beginning is wearing thin. Sweet Raven, I needed to escape. Desperately. Would you have released me, knowing what I was? Accepted me? Of course I had to lie to you. Maybe I was a little tough when you let me out, but I was back in full power. Overzealous. Not myself. Now? I am lost in a modern world of fools and flashing lights. Nothing is still, nothing is slow. Nothing is familiar to me. Not anymore." His bright green eyes looked deeply into hers, and she almost saw something human in him, something relatable.
"You are all that I have."
This time when he leaned in she didn't move away, but it was purely from awe at his declaration. As he very carefully stroked his thumb across her face, she closed her eyes and exhaled.
"No, Malchior. I'm not."
He paused, his hand still on her face.
"Can't you tell? Don't you understand what you did?" Raven pulled away and shook her head and tried to forget her teenage heartbreak, instead focusing on what mattered.
"You tried to kill my friends and myself. You align yourself with the Brotherhood, those who would destroy the planet, and now you expect forgiveness? Understanding? I may be creepy, I may be dark and different, but I am a hero. I save people, and I take care of the ones that I love."
"You are so much more than a civil servant to a world that would despise you if they knew the truth. Daughter of Trigon? They'd consider you a threat," he said, his voice pleading.
"You are a threat, a danger. A villain." She spoke with a calm, finality. "You and I are not friends, Malchior. There's nothing for you here. I'm not all you have, because you have nothing."
A spark in him went out for just a moment; a candle flame in a winter wind. He swallowed thickly and pulled his hand away where it had been suspended in mid-air between them. He stood from the couch and stared into the fire.
"Fine," he whispered. "What a tantrum. You ask me questions, I answer them, and what do I get? A lecture."
He returned to his chair and examined the board, quietly with an impassive expression.
The silence fell heavily between them, and though Raven was relieved that she had finally broken through some sort of delusional facade that he had concocted on her behalf, a small part of her felt empty. Maybe, with her words, she had finally and truly let him out of her heart, scars and all.
"Oh," he said without looking at her, "perhaps we should be paying attention."