Interlude: Scrying.
Disclaimer: I own nothing at all in this entire story except the plot. The plot is just the circumstances for all the stuff I don't own to come together. This is the last time I am repeating this. On with the story….
In the safety and privacy of her room Raven made a snap decision; she would try to find out who it was that was always following her around.
Not that she found it repulsive or irritating, it was something of a mystery. She had even gone through what she had recorded of all the villains and anyone who might have a grudge against the team all those who would have the capability to enter the island and be crazed enough to follow them .A long shot, near impossible as the aura she sensed was so loving and comforting, but she did not put anything past the deranged. Anyway, the hunch was right. A big fat nothing.
Unlocking with her powers a specially locked and spelled cabinet where she kept her tools and books.
She levitated toward her and started to arrange her necessary things. First, her treasured scrying stone, a large strangely light chunk of obsidian, a stone as black and bottomless as the darkest moonless night.
It was carved in an oval shape, flat two surfaces but faceted and carved with runes for searching, protection, ward evil and strength in the sides. It was particularly precious to her as it had belonged to her mother.
Around this stone, she placed a chunk of amethyst for clarity, citrine for concentration and several protection crystals: agate, malachite, a pearl, rock salt and brown topaz.
As a last preparation she drew completely the heavy drapes on her curtains and lit the candles that were scattered around her room in various holders or just stuck directly to surfaces.
Raven then settled down cross legged and cleared her mind, entering her centre, focusing her energies on the chunk of crystal before her; then recited her spell as she fixed her mind on the aura and presence she had come across:
Stone of jet,
Thou, thy hue of night,
Help me now as I open up my sight.
Let me scry the one I seek,
He whose face I long to meet.
As she recited the spell, over in her mind, opening her mind to the crystal before her, asking it for its help in solving this mystery, asking it to show her if it may the identity of this mystery person who so haunted her thoughts.
At first, Raven could see in the stone was only darkness, then slowly a shape started to materialise. It was what looked like a swing but with no seat , or with one that was very slender. Then as the image became clearer, the shape was more clearly defined, it was a bar suspended by two ropes. A trapeze.
It was suspended impossibly high up, as if she had shrunk down to the size of a small child. She saw something falling from that height, what looked to be a person. Suddenly she herself felt like falling, heard an evil laugh, full of exulting ,cruel glee resound through her mind, and felt a wave of jumbled emotions chief of which was a deep abiding grief, and a burning desire for revenge, a righteous anger to see that this would be the last time these emotions were ever felt by another.
Then all faded, kind of like a corny movie, to black. Then suddenly, two white eye shaped spots appeared, with a thin white lone cutting between the two spots. Then, a falcon, spreading its wings to fly.
Raven broke out of the trance with a jerk gasping at the abruptness of it, breathing heavily. Glancing at the clock, she noted it had been almost two hours since the start of her session. She extinguished her candles with a thought and flopped down across her bed.
As she prepared to decipher the images she saw, the alarm rang, with its loud blaring and flashing red lights reminding her that whatever went on in her personal life, outside her room, outside the Tower, life went on and it was not always as good a life for others.
Sighing, she responded to her leader's call to duty, she left, her sanctuary. How ironic that she was on her way to save other's lives, when she was the one with none of her own.