Interlude: Realization And Despair.
With a jerk, Raven found herself back in her room on her bed with her stone and her mirror at her side. Mulling over what she had been told, one phrase stood out in her mind; 'what she was looking for today'.
Picking up her book on scrying, she leafed it through it quickly, the images from the stone once again clear in her mind, although she knew that it would not be there, she had already gone through it several times before.
Then with a feeling like her heart had stopped, it came to her. The memories of when she had entered Robin's mind to save him, during his moments of delusion about Slade; so many things, now with the clarity of hindsight were so familiar. It was Robin.
This revelation hit Raven like a slap to the face. Suddenly it all made perfect sense, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place; fitting so tightly that it seemed to always have been there. Her deep half-afraid feelings for her moral courageous leader. And her admiration of his morals and his indiscriminating concern for all; especially the team.
And the tentative unexplored feelings she had felt since the day they met.
When Tara had made her appearance and with her eventual betrayal, resulting in his delusions, she thought she had a chance. She had seen into his mind, his soul. She had borne witness to his deepest memories, and his greatest fears. She knew him and his darkness as no one had and would ever know.
Who better to understand, to share, when an even blacker darkness was her birthright, in her very blood? But it became so painfully obvious that he regarded her as a teammate, a very good friend, but nothing more, nothing less.
He was lost to her, he had chosen another, Star, and hey seemed the perfect couple. She with her sunny personality to banish away his darkness; and he with his dark, to stabilise and temper her almost neon brightness.
When Malchior had appeared, she thought she had found someone to replace him, but that also had led to disaster. Not toward her, but toward the entire city. That had been a hard lesson to learn and one she had never forgotten.
It was dangerous to love, and with her, it was a hundred times worse. Then there had been the heartbreak, the aching sense of loss when Malchior had to be banished, that she remembered all too well.
She had shut her heart and her will to love deep down inside her heart, thinking she would never use or see them again. She also vowed never again to allow herself to feel that way, it was a waste of time and energy, as all you would get when it was over was a broken heart.
All she could have done was done. All she would have was his friendship, to console and support when things got too bad. This at least was what she had and was not going to give up. If what she truly had was out of reach, then she was content with what she was going to get.
But friendship was what she would get forever, while she watched Star have all she wanted, ached for with all her heart and whatever soul she had, while Star, uninhibited as she was walked up and grabbed whatever her heart desired.
If so, then why was Robin stalking her? It could not be out of love, that much was obvious, was it something suitably ironic, brotherly concern? Friendship? Or worse, a leadership complex? Either way, it would be painful, a sharp reminder that he could not love her. And she could not love, at least not outwardly. It would turn her emotions to mulch and unleash havoc upon the city.
Only Malchior's powers helped to avert that disaster. Suitably ironic how evil was the only one who could help her love freely and withought restriction. Now, she could never show love, she could only love inside her heart.
In utter despair, she did what she had not done since he day that she found out Malchoir was evil and a dragon; she pillowed her head on her arms, stretched out across her bed, and she finally unleashed her confusion, her remembered pain and her hopelessness.
She cried.