A/N: Did it really take half a year to write a couple hundred words? Yes, and I'm sorry. Long story short, I lost my job, my place, I'm not going to school, and any data I had already typed was lost four times. The good news is that's almost over and the next chapter should be MUCH longer and done by August, then I'll take a month off to write some other stuff. This is just an intermission to let you know I haven't abandoned it. Also, I've gone back and fixed a couple errors in the first two chapters. Thank you all for support and patience.
PS: Beta! I need a beta! if you're interested.
The Dream
As her consciousness began to ebb, she felt Trigon's presence at the hedge of her awareness, beckoning. He didn't contact her often, but often enough that it ceased to surprise her. Sometimes she allowed her mind to respond to the ethereal summons, sometimes not. Either way she regretted her decision.
Suffice to say that her relationship with Trigon was...complicated.
This night she responded and Raven found herself amid a grey desert, devoid of color and life. Usually dreams of Trigon were frenetic montages of brutal violence and vivid images of human suffering yet to come. One night of respite, apparently wasn't too much to ask of him. The sky was ink-black and cloudless, populated with millions of twinkling stars like so many distant city lights.
"I bring a gift, Little One." Lowering her gaze from the sky, she found her father standing before her, a small dull grey trinket in his hand. He held it out before her, palm up. It was a lead idol of what was suggested to be a cloaked woman's form. At it's front, the heavy folds parted enough to show that there was actually empty space under the shroud . Under the hood a somewhat featureless mask was delicate and small-boned, hinting at the face of a woman. At the figurine's base, rays of what was obviously sunlight radiated outward from the invisible masked deity.
"It is Baphomet," Trigon explained. There a suggestion in his voice; something she was meant to infer, perhaps.
She didn't touch the offered figure. "I thought Baphomet was the Prophet. A mistranslation," was all she said.
"No," Trigon sighed, his disappointment plain. He lowered his hand and the idol faded away. It would be in her room when she woke, she knew. "Baphomet is the Prophecy." Again that lilt that told her nothing. He sighed again and Raven insides twisted. She hated this demon, this monster, and that broke his heart...and that made her feel guilty...and she resented him for that. (1)
"If all you wanted was to give me a new doll to play with, you can go now," she told him in her raspy monotone.
"Your birthday looms, Little One," he said simply. Her mouth snapped shut. As if she needed reminding. In less than a year, now, she would see her sixteenth and Raven's demonic heritage would truly waken. From there The End was inevitable.
The legions of The Deep prepare," Trigon continued looking of to the side at something too distant to be actually seen. " They work themselves into a spiritual ecstasy and sensual hysteria, ready to transcend the barrier and rend the world to nothing."
She so didn't need to hear this. At least he wasn't showing her this time. "Whatever. I'll destroy them all if I have to."
"They shall not cross over the plane."
"W-what?" That took her by surprise. Was Trigon giving up? Dare she hope? Not really. Likely another trick of his.
"They are unnecessary and I find their company to be quite distasteful." Trigon sneered as he said this. His expression warmed again when he turned his gaze back to his daughter. "You and I shall do this--conquer your worlds."
"Go awa--"
Her father stepped forward cradling her face in his large hands, and her reply trailed off. "Your are my Ultimate Act. My Favorite. A thousand of Earth's winters afore, I saw this: that you would be born of my essence and it would be perfect. The time was Chosen. Arella was Chosen. I was Chosen. This you cannot shirk--that Fate itself shall be cradled in your soft hands and even Destiny of the Endless shall bow to you and you will speak and he shall say 'So it will be.' All of existence has not seen a potential as crucial as yours. You and I, we shall do this. I couldn't be more proud that you are of mine." (2)
What was she supposed to say to this? He did this every time. This morbid attempt at sweet words and cooing over her potential for destruction. It was disgusting and annoying. She hated him.
But she loved the attention.
That was the problem with it. That unconditional adoration that no human was capable of. She could defeat him, keep him from crossing over (and she would) and with his final moment before being condemned back to nether realms he would praise her; would be so proud. It was sick the way this monster loved her, so wholly, so completely. But he did. And it was kinda nice.
That love might be the death Earth someday.
They stood there for a long minute, she drawing in the gray dust with the toe of her soft boot, he openly staring at her, not noticing her effort to ignore him. Finally, he spoke again:
"How was your day?"
Raven had to laugh at that one. It wasn't the nice laugh she had when Star told her tales of the youthful mischief she frequently found herself in back home. It wasn't even the mean-spirited sound she had when Beast Boy crashed Robin's cycle into a shrub. She sounded insane.
But it was crazy!
"Have you finally run out of things to say?" she managed between choking breaths and dwindling chuckles. "'How was your day'?"
"Well?" He prodded. "Do you enjoy your schooling?"
"No."
"Then that is what we shall destroy first."
"YOU WON'T!" Her reaction was what Beast Boy surreptitiously called "typical Raven" when he thought she couldn't hear. Her spiritual energy lash out in all directions--slightly of it's own accord. The gray earth turned black, cracking in places, and somewhere behind Raven even erupted in a geyser of power and rage, swirling stinging dust in around them.
It was his look of first computation, then appreciation that reminded her,This is what he wants...
"Calm yourself, child," he told her. "Remember your lessons and separate your Self from emotions and attachments--you won't be with them long and needn't become acquainted."
(oooo)
Raven had spent the past six hours in her bed, staring at the adjacent wall.
After the visit from her father--over an hour of awkwardness, with him inquiring on minor details of her life ("Did you enjoy your summer? How are your friends? Do you watch much of the television? I'm told you write poetry. Have you ever written about the wasting disease? It is a fond subject of mine."), he finally left her to her dreams, which were not at all pleasant.
It was the mud dream, again. She hadn't had it in months.
Drowning, suffocating in mud. She could actually feel it, taste it. The earth pouring in through her nostrils, her throat, filling her lungs as spots flashed before her vision. It surrounded her, squeezing, crushing her, and shook her body with righteous fury.
It's not what really happened. Terra hadn't come near that close to killing her. Even then, Raven was mere seconds from using her own power to surround Terra, to squeeze her, to kill her. But for Slade's help and Terra's new-found control, Raven would have snapped her pretty little neck.
The other Titans--good people, but they really couldn't fathom why she should feel so isolated. They would exchange confused looks and shrug soundlessly--maybe Raven just preferred books to people, poetry to socializing, scathing sarcasm to comradeship. There were all kinds of people in the world. Beast Boy, for example, was green.
Maybe she should test Cyborg. "Hey, Cy," she could say, "I'm a seed of malevolent nature, destined to destroy this planet and a couple others. Can I talk to you?"
But no. For all their faults, her friends were pure in virtue, and Raven was inherently evil. There would be little compassion...or even comprehension of such a miserable predicament.
There was a demon, told of in the writings of Augustine of Hippo (3), Demogorgon, who'd renounced his position as Great Duke and walked the Earth for a thousand years begging forgiveness of God. Whether his prayers ever found God's ear was never answered. It was a scary thought, and it was the closest thing to consolation she had--to read these musty books that told of magic, light and dark; powers, terrible and insignificant; personalities, virtuous and evil, and float on her own ambiguity as if maybe--maybe--she were the one and not the other. Who else, after all, was there to talk to besides the comforting tale Rorek slaying Malchior, the great deed overcoming the vile nature?
Speaking of which, shifting around from under her silk sheets, Raven leaned across the bed, reaching for the novel sitting on her nightstand, only to recoil back. The gift from her father, statue was there staring back at her. She'd almost forgotten about it. Beside that was not the book she was looking for. It was her diary.
She wrote in it until about noon.
A/N: You'll have noticed the format of this story is different. As an intermission, this'll be the only one like that. You also may have noticed Trigon isn't all "Grrrr, I'm gonna get you Raven." I always thought that sort of character was too simple and didn't make sense, despite the fact that it is largely how both the comic and cartoon characters come off. If you'll forgive the transgression, you likely won't have to deal with it again, as I'll be ruining the canon in other ways. I also wanting to talk about perhaps why Raven has such a fascination with reading in general and fantasy in particular. I could have said "likes magic...duh..." but...I didn't. Sorry.
(1) Baphomet is a myth, at best. This idol didn't really surface until as late as the nineteenth century according to some. There may or may not have been much ado about worship of an idol called Baphomet in Christian Europe around the times of the Crusades. Kind of like how Satanic cults in today's America don't really exist except in pop-culture. The most famous allusion to Baphomet is the implication that the Knights Templar were heretics and worshiped such an idol--except, like I said, there's no proof such an idol ever existed. Historians have concluded that "Baphomet" was an Anglicization of the Moslem "Mohammet," and the hatred of Islam from the period translated into the frenzy against this idol. And if you have trouble seeing how someone could so completely butcher a word check out some of the other foreign words in the English language and their forebears.
So when Raven says she thought Baphomet was the Prophet, that's what she meant--that she had assumed it was a bastardized reference to Mohammet, not that such an idol actually existed. Trigon's statement that Baphomet is the Prophecy...may or may not be too vague for the story. I'm not yet sure, because I don't know if I'm going to write the follow up to Diary.
(2) Destiny of the Endless is an actual DC character, most notable for his appearances in Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, although he existed outside of that canon before that. The Endless are personifications of various aspects of existence: Dream, Death, Desire, Delirium, Destiny, and Despair. There was a point in a Superman comic where Supes flies to the edge of the universe, and there stands Destiny. He tells Superman to go no farther, and Supes turns around and goes back. Just like that. For Trigon to predict that Destiny would bow to Raven is has serious as it sound, although keep in mind that like most prophets, Trigon is speaking in circles and playing with words.
(3) There's no such demon in his writings to my knowledge, but Augustine of Hippo was a real person and a Saint who proclaimed demons to have been Angels that had fallen from grace for rebelling against God. Demogorgon is a demon oft-mention in other texts, however he is not like how I portray him here. The name is Greek, (demos people, not demon), but Demogorgon is Christian invention. History is strange indeed.