Each story has a beginning. A point in a person's lives where something old ends, and something new begins. It's a common rule that has been shared between humanity, spanning the breaking points of a galaxy, shared between the generations. It's a rule of life and death, one that each person shares, each creature shares, despite their intelligence or species. There will always be something that ends, and something following that. A beginning. This is the circle of life.

Knowing this, why would it be any different for Raven?

When asked, this is the point where she begins her story despite the unpleasantness of telling it. Feelings change, but the memories will always stay the same. So this is why Raven begins her story with an ending, and endings will often be in pain.

The story goes that she was crying, at the time. Balling her eyes out in a painful, uncontrollable manner. She was sad, more depressed then anything, and equally as angry for feeling this way. It didn't make much sense for her to feel this way, angry that is, depressed, because she was Raven. But in her case she had a right to.

For sixteen years of her life, Raven had spent every waking moment learning and training her body and mind to contain her emotions. It was painful, grueling, and oh so very hard. The slightest mistakes could end in disasters. She was living, sleeping and breathing meditation; learning different poses, stretching her boundaries, speaking the words "Azerath Metrion Zinthos".

She learned patience and peace. She rose with the sun at the tolling of the loud bell inside the main hall of the monastery. She did so to meditate with the other monks for hours before breakfast, which even then was of the smallest proportions. Only to take what the body needs. There were others that were not as fortunate to have it, that needed it more.

She was taught pacifism and logic. Being the daughter of the demon, this was stressed as often as the need to keep her emotions in check. Equally so. Fighting is not the answer. Raising your fists to another does not solve problems. There are better ways to vent than to bring pain onto others. Think through these situations. Find the answer. Solve it. Forgive. Anything less is unacceptable.

She was given a mirror, one that split her emotions. This act alone had been so terrible, so painful, she could not rise from her fallen state for days nor eat anything given to her. She was too nauseated, too disturbed, too disgusted with herself. It felt like someone had invaded her mind and taken everything, had seen everything, had looked at all there was to her and taken a picture to keep for later. She felt naked and at the same time caged. Suffocated. Empty. The goal of course had been achieved. The monks had been successful. Her soul had been split evenly into various emotions.

She was less dangerous that way.

Easier to control.

Despite all this pain, like having someone reach into your stomach and pull out your innards and feeling hollow inside, Raven accepted it. She was nothing to them. That is, nothing good. Nothing kind. Nothing that could be more than just the bastard daughter of a demon. Nothing but a threat to be taken care of.

Azerathian monks are pacifists, they had to find another way to deal with her besides the obvious one.

Raven spent those sixteen years of her life on Azerath in seclusion with the other monks. Learning to control her powers, learning to keep her emotions in check, learning how not to hate, how to forgive, how to take only what's needed, how to do everything to protect others within your power. She learned that she was dangerous. That she was the daughter of the demon. That she would never be anything more to them. She would never be anything more than an object, a nuisance, a demon.

She understood and accepted this.

She was raised to, nearly brainwashed to a point.

It pained her that the others were pained because she existed. It pained her that she was causing them to waste their time and energy on her, a hopeless case. Raven was and would always be the daughter of a demon. She had a purpose with which she was born to. A destiny that she couldn't change. She was born as a portal for Trigon. Nothing they did, the monks or herself, could change that.

She learned that no matter what the monks did or how they cared for her, she would ultimately be the one to kill them. She had no choice. They would die. She knew this because they taught it to her since the moment she could understand the words they said. She didn't want to hurt them because, above all the reasons, she owed them it. Their lives. Being as far away from them as possible. Running away.

She escaped to Earth. An alternate dimension to hers, strange and alien. It was there that, at fourteen, she met her first friends, made her first family, had truly lived for the first time. On Earth, everything she had ever known was questioned and tested. While some things remained strong, others fell through the cracks, broken and rearranged.

Raven learned that not everything was as it seemed, that it was okay to fight back because sometimes that was what was truly needed to find an end to a situation. That was what was needed to solve a problem, to do all that was in her power to help others and fight back. And still, throughout it all, her emotions remained divided and separate. Easier to control, but always so confusing because what she felt was on such a much smaller scale. Her mirror did much to help her, but it did much to hinder her learning of how to be humane. How to act like everyone else. How to determine the reasoning for others actions beyond their logic. She did not know of the unnaturalness that it was for her to be so empty of emotions.

Her mirror was just a barrier, a wall, a dam that held her emotions back. A cage. A prison. One that was strong and powerful but not perfect. Her emotions still slipped through sometimes before her logic and her inbred need to keep them caged brought them back. For all her life she had learned that this was the only way to protect other. Her entire life, there could be nothing less than for her not to express her emotions, let alone feel them at all. It was dangerous otherwise.

And now, here she was, sixteen years later crying. It went against everything she had ever known. This is why she was angry. This is also why she was sad.

For some, birthdays are to be celebrated and congratulated. For her, it was to be condemned. Every year. On her sixteenth birthday, as it was prophesized, she would become the portal, let Trigon through, and destroy all the world. She would die, become inexistent in the process once it was complete. And now that it was her sixteenth birthday, it was complete. She had destroyed the world. Had defeated her father and ensured that he would never again rise against them. Had spun back time to make it so that the world once again lived.

And instead of dying completely, she lived. And she was free. Defeating her father defeated the purpose for her emotions to have a cage. She was in complete control. Her mirror was useless. To defeat her father, she had called upon every fragment of emotion inside of her to her aid. In that one moment when all else failed, and she saw her friends laying there dying from her father's wounds, in one fell swoop she broke the walls, the magic of the monks, the cage inside her that held everything back and pieced herself together again.

That burst of white light, of white magic, that intense heat and burning energy was the moment that she once again became whole. That emptiness inside of her suddenly filled her, overwhelmingly so, and all the magic that her emotions had conjured just by existing created an outlet by using her father. She directed her energy, her emotional magic, to her father to protect her friends and her home and her family. She directed it to him because she had no where else for it to go. It was so powering, and so overwhelming, it seemed to move of it's own accord almost.

Her father, Trigon, wasn't prepared for it. Wasn't prepared for the power of it. Wasn't prepared for the intenseness of it. So he burned and vanished in it's heat and flames and light.

And that emptiness inside of her became full.

After using such power on Trigon, Raven had become physically and emotionally drained. Such a use of power, so sudden and with such amount, the dam inside of Raven holding herself back braking and flooding her mind and soul until all was level and calmer, allowed Raven the complete control she needed and had never truly had until just that moment.

So Raven's mirror became useless. So it broke. So she could now feel all there was to feel with reckless abandon.

Except for the one fact: feelings change, but memories will always stay the same.

And it was after the mirror broke, and everything had died down and became normal, that every painful memory that Raven had ever had flooded her mind. Though they had hurt then, those memories, they hurt more now. Especially since she was allowed to feel. Raven could control her powers, but could not control her emotions. Feeling on such an emotional scale was new to her, overwhelming, frightening. And she was feeling everything.

Those painful instances that hadn't hurt at the time suddenly became agonizing. Terra's betrayal suddenly became torture. The memories of Malchior using her, of her falling for him, of another betrayal caused her to choke on her sobs and fall to her knees in such pain. Raven now understood why some people acted as they had. Raven felt heartbroken, and everything was coming back at her at once like a series of dominoes falling over. Why oh why did she have to feel like this?

She felt guilty.

She thinks she might've killed her father.

She tried meditating, and locking herself away. Just resting and trying to find ways to free herself from these emotions. Why would anyone want to have them if this is how they would make her feel? Her friends didn't notice. It didn't matter so much. She was still Raven. And she still hid that pain she felt inside. She could never express it. That wasn't how she was raised.

She knew better.

It came to her as quite a surprise one night when she found herself on the roof, curled up in the fetal position, crying her soul out in the pain she could no longer keep in of all those memories, of Malchior and of the months, all those years spent training and practicing and fearing herself made useless, clutching a paper rose. She didn't notice anyone else there, the doors never opened or closed, her empathy knocked off balance due to the haywire that was her soul at the moment, until a hand rested on her soldier.

She blearily looked up into understanding green eyes before throwing herself at him, Beast Boy, the only other person who would ever be up at this hour. Her arms wrapped around him in a desperate hold as if he were the only anchor that left her to this life. Her face pushed against his chest as she sobbed into him, tears leaving stains on his shirt and her cheeks. His own arms wrapped around her, holding her close, his head resting gently atop her own.

His voice was soothing, calm when he spoke, "Shhh... Raven. It's alright. I'm here. You're not alone. You're not alone."

Moments later she looked back into his eyes to see the truth there, the understanding, the sympathy and love that family feels for family. And for the first time since her birthday, since she could feel with her entire being, Raven felt strong again. She felt that terrible pressure built up inside her weaken, waste away, break. Raven removed her arms from around him, though she did not back away, only stray tears falling now.

She looked down to see that same, crumpled, paper rose held in her fist. Beast Boy's eyes followed hers down, and met hers when she looked up again. He did not say a word.

Raven turned around and slowly walked towards the edge of the roof, she could feel Beast Boy's eyes following her every step.

"Raven?" he asked tentatively. Her eyes met his defiantly, as if daring him to speak again. She understood why he might be scared for her, but she no longer had a reason to. Instead she abruptly turned away after seeing him hesitantly nod his acceptance and stepped to the very edge. Slowly, she held up her fist. Unsure of herself for a moment, Raven unclenched her fist, the crumpled rose laying freely in the palm of her hand. Did she really want to? It was a question she was unsure of, seeing the paper rose laying there. Malchior's rose.

For a moment, she felt her heart ache uncomfortably, and she turned her head to Beast Boy. Meeting his eyes again, Raven let go.

As the paper rose fell into the waves of the ocean below, Raven turned and hastily walked across the cement of the rooftop, not meeting his eyes or saying a words as she past Beast Boy. She had opened the door to leave, Beast Boy's eyes following her but his body still where he had been when he comforted her, when she paused.

Wiping away the tear stains and leftover wetness on her cheeks and eyes, Raven met Beast Boy's eyes again. Her hard, determined exterior faulted for a moment, becoming soft and kinder as she quietly whispered two words; "Thanks Gar."

His small smile was slight, but personal as it was clear upon his face that there was no one in the world that could change this moment for him, distract him, that mattered to him, than her right now. And he whispered one word in reply: "Anytime."

If asked how Raven would begin her story, how she would tell all the pains and the bumps in the road that came with being a Titan and the bastard daughter of a demon, how she would describe the rapid pace with which her entire demeanor and personality changed within a year, this is how she would tell it. This is what she would say. Because as she walked through that door, off of the rooftop and back into the warmth that was inside, it was the end of one way of thinking and feeling. It was the end of one way of being and existing. And walking through that door, there was something new.

She felt a flutter in her chest. Her soul felt whole again. And she kept thinking about Garfield's smile.

She was ready for anything.

Author's Notes:

So you asked for it, and so it is. It's been a while since I've written last, and there's bound to be grammar errors, but tell me: how did I do? And an even more important question, should I keep writing? I've got an idea now about what I can do if you guys think I should. I can't promise to update weekly or to be perfect when I do, but so long as you guys are interested I'll continue the story. Leave a review and say.

But for now, thanks to the three that have reviewed so far. Your feedback has been amazing. I'm glad all three of you thought it was good enough to keep going. Really guys, thanks. :)

And for now, that is all. Thanks for reading, and please review what you think. Should I keep writing or no?