Author's Note: I gotta confess, this one was hard (and I was hoping my number of reviews would become 115 so my OCD-ness would be satisfied, but alas, 114). These two just refused to talk to me so for the first half I kind of had to beat it out of them. But eventually they realized that resistance was futile and despite how embarrassed they both are by the exchange, I wasn't going to let it remain private and leave not only a huge plot hole but also the entirety of backstory untold. So, through many an hours of struggle and refusing to give up, I have finally gotten Chapter 16 finished! Was worried that it would have no body, but once they got talking they wouldn't shut up, so I think it's pretty decent sized. Now, onto the next installment of Siren's Call in which there is some smashing dialogue and lovely exposition, though there aren't any swallows but there are a few sparrow references. Ok, shutting up now. Oh, by the way, IB Done!
PS: In a month and 4 days it will be the three year anniversary of when I started writing this story. Chapter 1 was barely 4 pages long and not as fabulous as these more recent ones. I'd like to think it's helped me grow as a writer and provided many a desperately needed ego stroking. So thank you to all dudes who read this! To all those dudes who've been with me the whole time, if you still exist since that's a crazy long time to keep up with a story, super special awesome thank you! You're why I write... and because I just love it, but also you people! Kudos and love!
Disclaimer: Despite the Monty Python reference in the Author's Note and the use of Teen Titan's characters and settings, I am not claiming ownership or making a profit off of anything! Except Zinara, she's mine and I love her and there's no copyright on Greek myths so I'm not infringing anything. Don't sue, IB broke.
Robin had been in a lot of interrogations. He'd observed the best at the art, practices under their watch, double teamed suspects, gone it alone, attacked all at once, been the good cop, the bad cop, the ally, the antagonist, the jerk, the sympathizer, and anything else you could think of. He'd broken the toughest of minds with little more than words, turned the closest partners against each other, extracted information from beneath the tightest shells like a surgical procedure, acquired knowledge the individual didn't even know they had. All that to say, he knew what he was doing. He'd gotten around, become an expert on how most people act under pressure. Individuals who had nothing and were terrified, individuals who knew everything or had everything to loose, those who had the utmost confidence and those who had none. Everyone, even the ones holding all the cards, broke eventually. Eventually there was the sigh and the outpour. Predictable, like clock work. Robin felt there was nothing left to surprise him. After that much experience, there were no other variables ha needed to account for. That there were only X amount of responses in an interrogation and he'd seen them all. He was wrong.
"Stop me will you," Zinara mocked with a laugh like wind chimes. "The Greek gods couldn't do it, what makes you think you can? You don't even know what I'm planning or what I'm capable of. You cannot play my game."
"Well, that's why I came down here," said Robin in a monotone that rivaled Raven's. "So you can tell me the rules." This was the part where she gave up the fight, told him what he wanted to know, and justice prevailed. Maybe some anger, a scoff, or just a clean break with tears and regrets. Not quite the case.
They stood in silence, staring daggers. Each hopping that by mere eye-contact they could give the other a heart attack. Then, Zinara began to move again, as if the full implications of his words were beginning to sink in. As if a new thought had reached maturity in her mind and she was acting on it. He half expected her to attack him, judging strictly from the intensity in her eyes, but once again he was mistaken. She'd reached the point where she snapped, just not in any rational manner. First, she raised her eyebrows until they threatened to disappear into her mass of hair. Then, she folded her arms, one across her stomach, the other elbow resting on the fist, taloned hand at her mouth contemplatively. Her lips slowly spread into a genuinely amused smile and she let out a snort of air through her nose. Robin scowled, rather confused to be perfectly honest. This was not one of the top 100 responses to the blatant 'I'm in control and you're going to do what I say' tactic... at least, not at this stage of the interrogation. Theoretically she should have been frustrated enough at that point to tell him what he wanted to know just to get him out of her hair. Maybe to annoy him with the complexities of her scheme. If nothing else, she should have wanted to flaunt her own mastery of this situation; call his bluff so to speak. Robin narrowed his eyes, knuckles cracking ominously as his fists clenched across his chest.
"You don't seem to be taking this very seriously," he said sarcastically into the silence, scowling. "Don't you get it? This is it. The end. We have you, you're not getting away, and I'm not leaving until I know what I came down here to find out. You might as well just give up and tell me." Her mouth tightened as if she were trying desperately to swallow an uncontainable humor. "It's not funny." She- and there's really no better way to put this- exploded. Zinara choked on her own giggle half-heartedly before giving up completely and releasing the most brilliant, rich, warm laugh. Not the cold, arrogant villain laugh. Not the hollow rasp of despair. This was something totally different from anything Robin had dealt with. Frustrated, stressed, yet sill dazzling.
Zinara's laugh rang like the final chord in Handle's Hallelujah Chorus. She doubled over, gasping for air in harsh puffs that juxtaposed with the orchestra of her voice. Robin did the most rational, level headed thing his sleep deprived and overly stressed brain could think of. "Are you insane," he yelled, holding he hands out palms up as if asking the universe itself. "I explain the situation you're in and you laugh? What, did you just loose your mind in the past hundred years or something?"
"You- just-" she tried, still doubled over, practically in tears. "Even now- you- just- refuse. You- can't- can you?" Robin honestly didn't know what to do. The Joker was more logical than this girl, simpler to understand. At least with him he was always laughing, not swinging from homicidal to innocent giggles every ten seconds. He waited patiently and, when she just kept going, gave into the temptation to run his hands over his face in frustration. "It's not even- that you mean to. You're just- oblivious!"
"Are you finished?" She let out a final squeak before managing to control herself, simmering down into light titters which shook her thin shoulders.
"I'm sorry. You're just so clueless! All this time we've been talking and you still think you have the tiniest smidgin of control. It's almost like you're not even capable of understanding what's happening!"
"How could I? You won't tell me." His consonants were overly annunciated and his mouth was working very hard to spit out words instead of screams. She, being the kind and compassionate soul he knew was lurking somewhere behind the condescending tone that wouldn't make his life any more difficult, gave him the first clean answer he'd had all week... Not! Zinara broke into fresh giggles which pushed Robin to such an extreme that he snaped. It was either get violent, or break into psychotic laughter. Given the choices, Robin found himself right there giggling with her. "Why- do you have to be- so difficult?"
"You- have me locked up- and- you're interrogating me- and- I'm being difficult?"
"I'm interrogating you- because you want to destroy the world. Don't- feed me that- I'm innocent crap. I saw you-come- out of- my friend's chest- for crying out loud," he said through sarcastic chuckles.
"Oh! So that's- what I'm here to do? Destroy the world? Well- thanks for- telling me. Good to know my own plans, right? You sound..." Her laughter suddenly changed. The frustrated silliness bled from it, leaving only a shell. Shouts that sounded more like sobs than anything else. "You sound just like my father." Robin didn't quite catch the change in mood.
"You had a father?" Sleep deprivation and lingering sentiments of the slap-happy humor that had seized him moments before made him stupid. He'd intended for sarcasm to consume the comment and give it a funny sense of false shock. About the time it was leaving his mouth, Robin realized that that hadn't happened at all. On the contrary, it came out sounding more serious than anything that night. Bad move.
"Of course I have a father," she snapped giving him a death glare that might have been more toxic than one of Raven's. Her amber eyes were burning with anger, pain, but when she realized they also held hot tears she looked away, letting her hair cover her face. "And he was human, incase you wanted to know." Robin regained control instantly. The little give, the hint of motive, it was enough to save him from the brain dead insanity he had allowed himself to succumb to. Now she was talking. He could get somewhere if he asked the right questions. Justice might still prevail. He moved carefully, cautiously, as if to sooth a wounded animal.
"That's not what I meant."
"Of course it is!" The bitter wrath had returned, but this time tinged with the pain of a child. Vulnrability. "You're all the same, you humans. What isn't like you in one way couldn't possibly be similar in others. Everyone always thought I'd just crawled out of some crack somewhere. Maybe hatched from an abandoned egg off a cliff. My own father never wanted to admit ownership, so they were never refuted." Her mouth twitched in disgust and she let out a sharp snort, as if she'd been reminded of something truly unpleasant. "You're just like him you know. Kept me tucked away from prying eyes, came in periodically to ask me pointless questions, 'how' this and 'why' that, heck he even thought I was a demon." She gestured vaguely to the inscribed symbols which had kept this little haven 'demon proof'. The room was also equipped with indestructible cameras, semipermeable gas vents, retinal scanning locks, heat sensors, titanium plating, and pretty much every other security device Cyborg could come up with, but no, she thought she was in there because they believed her to be a bat out of Hell, so to speak. "The only difference is that he was actually funny while you're just pathetic." Robin let out a long, exasperated sigh. This was Raven's turf, all this emotional baggage mumbo-jumbo, not his. Now if she wanted to attack him physically then he was down with that, but Robin was vastly too proud to just stand there and be insulted for no good reason by this stubborn mule of a woman. How much more he could take was debatable. He ran a hand over his face, giving Zinara a hard stare.
She looked very much like she wanted to say something but was too proud to spill the beans unprovoked. Her mouth was tight, wide lips pulled in like a drawstring to hold in anything helpful. There was a willful jut to her chin and her golden eyes sparkled knowingly, pupils dialated. Where before there was aloof arrogance now a hint of mischief. Sulking anger and sharp tongue replaced by almost agonizing restraint. When he'd come into the room, it was to interrogate a criminal, just like always. And that was what she'd been, conceited and disdainful. Her body was tall and lean, her gaze dangerously calm, prepared for battle, prepared to dance around him with ease and savage grace. She'd locked her heart away so deeply it seemed hard to believe she even had one. Safe and ready to defeat the storm with sheer willpower. Now things had shifted. Now there was no woman or criminal or any embodiment of strength before him. She was a child, lost, alone, and very much wanting to tell a deep dark secret. Her heart had risen back to the surface against her will but as much by her hand as his, and with it the answers he sought. The past was there, the why and the how. All he needed to do was reach out and take it... if he could figure out the 'right way' .Then it clicked. If he could be what she hated then she would tell him why. If he could make it safe, then the little girl would come out and tell her story. Not interrogator vs. criminal, but punching bag vs. angry girl.
"I get it," he muttered under his breath, meeting the half-siren's expectant eyes. "These are the rules..."
"What did you say!"
"Is that it? What this whole thing is about? You have Daddy issues? So what, did your dad lock you in a closet when you were a kid and that's why you want to wipe out the human race. "
"What are you, a shrink now," she spat, a mixture of annoyance and thrill in her voice. She wanted to 'go off' on him like a thousand year old mine. She wanted to scream and swear and tell him exactly why he was inferior. And she wanted so desperately for him to feel guilty about it. She wanted someone to feel guilt for the ways humanity had wronged her. The tension and stress which gnawed at Robin's brain were at her throat too. Now all she needed was an excuse, and she'd bring the world to her feet. He was giving it to her.
"I don't need to be. It's obvious. Not to mention pathetic. Let me guess, your dad was a jerk to you and your mom so you decide to take it out on his entire species?"
"You don't know anything! My dad wasn't a jerk he was an ungrateful bastard who couldn't keep it in his pants or take responsibility for his actions! But humanity has brought this on itself by-itself." Zinara's breath was sharper now, her entire body trembling with rage pent up over a thousand years as it dripped from her tongue. The only other person Robin had ever seen this mad was Raven. He counted his blessings that at least Zinara was just yelling as opposed to blowing things up. And that her anger, at least, he had asked for. She took a deep breath and the story he'd sought began to spill from her lips, uncensored and uncontrolled. "The half-breed told you the story, didn't she? A man called Metiochus fell to the song of Parthenope, but instead of drowning him as was the custom of her breed, the siren decided to keep him alive. What possessed her to do so is beyond me, maybe she found him unique some how. Different from the other idiot men who'd pursued her. Never got a chance to find out, once the goddess Demeter discovered that one of her celibate sirens had had a fling with a mortal, she wanted all three of us dead. As it was, Dionysus found the whole thing hilarious and made a deal: Parthenope's life for mine. She swore her services to him and I was allowed to exist. Metiochus was charged with caring for me, if that's what you want to call it."
"Yeah, she did mention something like that, in less detail and with one little difference. The relationship in the legend was unconsummated."
"Oh! The Greeks lied! What a shocker. There are a lot of things wrong with their version of events. I was an embarrassment, it's no wonder they tried to write me out of history."
"So that's why you want to destroy the world! It all makes sense!"
"I don't want to 'destroy the world'."
"Right..."
"And even if I did, that's not why! I couldn't help my conception and I didn't deserve what I got!" There was a long intake of breath and then her voice changed. Lower now, pleading almost. "Do you have any idea what it's like to grow up a freak?" Robin tucked his chin to his chest, folding his arms. She looked like a child, a little lost child trying to understand why her dog was sick. It was an honest question, yet this was the same girl who had put his Team through Hell and was jerking its members about like puppets. Robin couldn't empathize with her and, despite her doe eyes, she didn't want him to.
"Nope, can't say I do." It was a boldfaced lie; Robin grew up first in the circus and then under Batman's care. He was as much a freak as the rest of them. She didn't need to know that. Zinara scoffed.
"Of course not. Well, let me spell it out for you then. We lived on a hill a good half mile outside of town. My father kept me there most of the time. Too humiliated to have fathered a monster, I suppose. But he fed me and cared for me and I'd worshiped him. He could do no wrong and I was too blinded by a child's love to notice his many faults. When I was little we used to play with clay from the well bottom. I'd watch the most beautiful things come forth from his hands and I was so frustrated when these-" She raised her three fingered scaled and taloned fists before he face in revulsion. "-could do nothing but scar his creations. Then he'd laugh, smooth the clay back with his giant thumb, and take my hands in his to work another piece. That was life and I never wondered about the little buildings far bellow or where Daddy went every day." Her eyes dropped, intense golden gaze now focused at the ground as opposed to Robin, voice softening. "Until one day when I was about nine I got curious and followed him. It wasn't like I was threatening in any way beyond not being human, just all big, golden eyes and hollow bones. I remember wondering why no one would talk to me or tell me where my dad had gone to. Why they all darted into their little shops and houses like insects as I walked down the street. Just as I was starting to really explore, my dad found me, took me by the hand and led me home. When I asked why we had to go so soon and why I'd never seen such things before, he didn't answer.
"The next day, at day break as I got up someone came to our hill. I peered through a crack in my door as he burst it, tall and muscular, a round shield attached to his arm and a long sword at his waist. He had skin like my father, dark, curly hair about his ears, and black, empty eyes. My father stood up to greet him, like he knew who this strange man was and why he'd come, pointed to my room and said 'The monster child lives in there. But be warned, it's a curse placed on me by the god Dionysus. It may be unwise to try and kill it without asking for the gods' approval.' That was all. I remember those words specifically because they were his last. I saw the man look right at me, drawing his sword as I hid under the bed. Maybe because I was small and the window was open they'd think I'd run and he wouldn't find me. He did." Her voice was high now, trembling, eyes closed. This was a story never before told, a secret never shared with a human. Pain kept deep inside for too long, stale and rotted.
"They pushed the bed aside and I was thrust suddenly from darkness into cold, unforgiving light. I heard the clink of metal, a battle cry, felt the wind of the incoming blow as I huddled in a ball close to the wall. What else could I do? I closed my eyes and screamed. For the first and only time in my life I screamed, not like the little shrieks you've heard; I screamed loud and hard and by the time I opened my eyes to find their voices had joined my own there was nothing I could have done. My dad was on his knees by the door, hands clamped over his ears as something bright red dripped from them. The 'hero' was still standing and still clutching his sword, but he was swinging it wildly around, trying vainly to disrupt the sound as the same bright red liquid stained his shoulders. Then in an instant steel impacted flesh and it was over. I felt a spray of warm and wet, saw my dad's body hit the floor and heard the heavy steps and shouts of the wounded warrior as he fled. I'd never seen blood before and I tried to keep the wetness in my leaking father as best I could, but all too soon the hot blood went cold and he'd left me. Betrayed me and left me." She jerked he head quickly away from Robin, letting her hair fall like a concealing screen between them, but it couldn't hid the steady drips of tears pooling on the floor at her feet.
"They came that afternoon and burned the house while I hid with my father in the bushes by the clifs. Then there was no where else to go, no one else, but the siren mother I'd never known. He'd always said she was in the sea, and though he missed her, we couldn't see her because we had to live on land. When he didn't get up and stopped looking human, I sent him to her. She'd take care of him like I never could, and maybe if he'd never loved me, at least he loved her. They could be together, finally. When I tried to follow I found that, although I could sample some of the most exquisite varieties of human pain, I couldn't die. Maybe my mother's blood, but probably part of the deal. Yet I couldn't see the point of living alone and a freak, so I wrapped myself up in a torn sail from the shore, passed through town to the mainland (all the while hearing terrifying stories about the child monster on the hill who'd killed good Metiochus), and sought a way to end it.
"Eventually I found that my voice didn't have to harm. It could sooth, calm, move, and even persuade. I could connect to people in a whole new way, sense their thoughts and memories, albeit one at a time, and found that the people of my town were not the exception. I learned to change what I sensed, keeping my epic quest for death a forgotten secret. Once anyone found out what I was I was either chased out or 'killed'. I found it better to just take the blow and wait for them to stash my body somewhere then run, though from time to time humans tried to make trophies of my limbs. Then I had to 'convince' someone to come to my defense (I never hurt any one again by actually screaming). Turns out I was an artist afterall. Not skill with clay but singing quite literally kept me alive as long as I kept myself well concealed. Isn't that the definition of an artist? One who creates beauty and lives by that creation?" It was a rhetorical question and Robin didn't interrupt her to answer. "At some point I ceased to age, so I stopped counting the years and villages. As I moved north legends of a People of the Sea began to arise, a people who had possessed great magic and power, but whose arrogance had destroyed their land. Though they themselves had long since faded into the rest of humanity some of their magic remained, sealed in rings of stone. In the North West I found one such ring, rather like what you know now as Stonehenge, and in it, the Half Heart."
Her voice died away into silence, like to conclusion of one of the Greek epic poems. The room echoed back her final words eerily and vibrant, like her speech had been a great choral work and the final resonance was still ringing before the applause set in. 'the Half Heart' 'the Half Heart'. Robin stared at her for the long moment and she stared off into the distance to her left. The lighting hadn't changed, yet it was different. She hadn't changed, but she looked different. Softer, gentle contrast and blend of gold and blue, complementing each other. Endless regret and wonder, with hints of poetry and lyric. Zinara now looked, for all her off composition and avian body, very beautiful. A sad beauty, aching. Had this really been the romantic reality the two enemies felt, Robin would have just left and let her bask in her release. Maybe even succeed in her plans. But for Robin there was something greater than beauty, something more moving and motivating. Duty. Justice. He was a Teen Titan, their leader, and he had a duty to protect the city and the world. He had a responsibility to justice and a deep rooted instinct that no matter what happened to the individual, it was wrong to take it out on society as a whole. Zinara was very tragic, and she did move him to compassion, but there was still more that needed to be done.
"Look, I don't really know what to say," he started awkwardly, holding out a hand palm up in a gesture of apology. She didn't move, her gaze fixed on the distant past. "Nobody deserves what you've been through, and I could see how you might think that all humans are bad because of it, but you're wrong. Not all of humanity is cruel and un-accepting. You don't need to kill all humans to be part of society. Just look at the Titans!" With a heavy and exasperated sigh, Zinara broke the trance like mood. With a harsh jerk of the arm she wiped the remaining tears from her cheek with the back of her hand and turned to face him full on.
"Why are you being so melodramatic," she chided tiredly. "I already told you, I have no intention of destroying the world or killing anybody."
"Well, all the information I have indicates that that's exactly what you're going to do if I let you out. I'd be thrilled to find out that it's all wrong and that I'm just being neurotic! I would love for you to set me straight! But until then I have to act off the information I have. That means keeping you from doing whatever it is you're planning. Better safe than dead."
"Of course. Why trust the word of a half-breed when there's a lie from humans long dead to believe."
"Listen, the fact that it was probably humans who carved your story on the pots from that exhibit has nothing to do with it!"
"No you listen," she snapped intensely, pointing at him with one taloned finger as if to scold a misbehaving kid. "Even if that was what I wanted to do, I couldn't do it with the Half Heart. That rock posses one ability, one power which separates it from any other hunk of quartz. The power to divide. To take what was one and make two separate, complete, unique organisms."
"Splitting the world in half still seems like destruction to me."
"That's not what I want!" Her screams echoed loudly, the cries of a vexed child when no one could understand. She pulled her hands into fists, tightening them till the shook, then releasing them in resignation, dropping her shoulders and rolling her head back to stare at the ceiling longingly. "I hate humanity for what it's done to me, for what I've seen it do to others like me. For using the freaks and natural slip-ups for personal gain then casting them aside to die like insects. For telling us we're less, that we don't deserve what we have and we should be grateful for the scraps. For dismissing us as arrogant and stupid, not listening even when we have valid points. For refusing to let us just be what we are, different. For the abuse, the sadism, the genocide. If you were all just to keel over and die I would shed no tears." Her voice hardened suddenly, taking on a defiant edge which contrasted sharply for the nauseous scorn from before. She looked straight at him again, her gaze even more intense than her wrathful glares.
"But I won't be the one to do it. I have enough blood on my hands already, that of my father, and I want no more of it. I've hurt people and I never want to do it again. The only way for me to atone for their pain, deserved as it may have been, is to set things right."
"And so you're going to..." prompted . Zinara let out yet another exasperated hiss of breath.
"Don't you see we can't live together? Can't you see that as long as the freaks and humans coexist there will be nothing but pain and conflict? But if we were apart, then one would have no reason to harm the other. We could live just as we are, no more pretense, no more dissent. No more fear or shame. We could all finally be free. I want to split what we share between us. I want to take this earth and make it two: one for you, one for me. We can live peacefully, separately."
For a long moment they sat in silence as her words sank in, as all the pieces in the puzzle fell into place. Then the obvious slipped through Robin's lips... just to make sure. "That's why you were imprisoned. The Greek gods stopped you from trying this the first time and locked you away where you could never try again."
"Correct. They couldn't kill me because to do so would have broken the word of a god. I was not to die by a human's, god's, or even my own hand. So they split the Half Heart, sealing one in my chest and hiding the other in my mother's tomb (hence the name). I was set adrift until the Half Heart was made whole, a condition which should have kept me secure forever. But they didn't count on Garfield finding me or that archeological site being conveniently excavated and it's artifacts being put on display in the city I happened to be closest to." She smirked almost remorsefully, bitter, admiring her talons smugly. "Strange, isn't it? Like fate itself is helping me to succeed." Robin made a sort of sarcastic little grin, tilting his head away from her. The way she described it he couldn't find anything inherently dangerous about her plan, but his gut and his logic were both sending out warning signals. His hazard sense was tingling. No matter how innocent it seemed, he couldn't let Zinara complete her mission. After all, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.
"Fate's gonna have to hold off on the cake and ice cream," he said sternly. "Because I'm still here and I'm still not going to let you go through with this."
"Why not? You know I'm right." Genuine disbelief, confusion. Like she couldn't understand how he didn't agree with her.
"I know that both humanity and those you call 'freaks' both have a lot to answer for." Stern, defiant, the harsh glare of truth. "I know there are things wrong with society and the way things are. But I also know that you can't force change. People have to make their own decisions and humans will and are choosing to live and work with those that aren't like them. Ignoring the problem by segregation isn't a solution."
"Prove it," she said softly, dangerously. The pent up bitterness and anger were simmering in her voice, beautiful and terrible. Like the spider's web. "Prove to me that there is still goodness in your kind. Prove that you're capable of compassion for the outcasts. That you can accept them into your little society and understand that they too have something to offer, even if it's not what you expect or think you need. Prove that they'll be loved in your world and I'll leave it alone." With bird like cock of her head and a grim twist of the mouth she paused, as if recalling a phrase she'd repeated over and over again when there had been no hope. A phrase that had given her mistaken existence meaning. "When you can't, I'll be here. I'll end all our suffering. I don't care what you call it or what any of you think; I am taking the only just road there is. And in the end, regardless of what happens to me, I'll make things right."
"Don't you see what you're doing!" Robin's firm control and composure, for the second time that night, snapped. His voice cracked (not audibly, mind you) with the emotion of his plea. She looked at him coldly, analytically. "You've generalized the entire species! You've just decided to play god with their lives because you think you know better, but you don't. You think you are superior, without fault or sin, but look at you!" He pointed at her accusingly, the strict morality he'd been raised with, the black-and-white reality he lived in ringing in his words, rivaling Zinara's in their impact. "You've let hatred and malice run your life for so long you've forgotten what it's like to care! What of those people who are coexisting? Will you just tear them apart and let them hemorrhage? What about those who only find belonging among the other? You think you can just decide for them? You think you can just run everyone's lives? I got news for you; that's not by any means an original idea. You wanna know what we call the people who think like you?" Silence. She was so taken aback by the volume and intensity of Robin's voice Zinara couldn't even conjure a clever reply. He moved in closer. She backed away, shaken. He continued the advance, till her back hit the wall and she couldn't run from the truth anymore. He leaned in and whispered "Dictators." She winced and recoiled. "And they've all killed millions by trying to lead their people to utopia."
"You're wrong!" Zinara grabbed his shoulders and shoved as hard as she could, which wasn't that hard as she had barely enough muscle mass to keep herself standing, but Robin stepped back nonetheless. She might try to claw out his eyes next and that wouldn't be such a pathetic attempt. Her breath was coming in short, trembling, shallow puffs, like a hyperventilating sparrow, her eyes wide and wild, pupils dilated to almost spherical proportions, a small ring of white rimming the brilliant gold.
"People, humans and not included, try to destroy what isn't like them. Sometimes they turn on each other, but equally as often they attack themselves. Your solution will do nothing but shatter an already broken world. People are sill going to hurt other people."
"You're wrong," she repeated quietly, not convinced of her own words. There was still unyielding conviction, but it was wavering, unsure. Doubt. "You're wrong, when people live with other people like them they have no reason to hurt anyone. When the people are separated they have no reason to attack the other side. There's no threat from what's different, no fear, no reason for all this violence! I just want to help. I just want to make it all right to be different."
"How can you be so naive," asked Robin in earnest. "Don't you see what you've done? Don't you realize what you're planning to do?"
"I haven't done anything wrong!"
"Look at Beast Boy!"
"Garfield understands! He wants to help me! He wants to be with me!"
"You haven't given any choice! You split him up into so many pieces he doesn't even remember who he is!"
"I made it easier for him to protect himself! I've kept him innocent! And I'm going to make sure he's safe! I'm making a world for the both of us, where we won't need secrets!"
"So he's all right with all of this?"
"Yes!"
"Did you ask him?" Pause like broken glass.
"What do you mean? He's been helping me, remember."
"I'm not talking about that thing you pulled out of him. I'm not talking about your 'Garfield' who attacked his own friends and is sitting in our interrogation room. I'm talking about Beast Boy, the kid who heard your song and went out to find it. Did he have a choice? Can a man ignore the call of a siren if he decides that he just doesn't feel like drowning that day? Did he say 'Oh, you know Zinara, I'm down with the whole end of the world thing but could you please split my personality and turn me into a monster?' -"
"He's not a monster!"
"The thing that attacked me had no boundaries, not reservations, no loyalty to any one but you. He hurt us because it was fun for him, said the most horrible things because he knew they weren't true. Because he enjoyed inflicting pain on humans and 'freaks' alike. That thing is only out for itself, and it will do whatever it feels like to accomplish that goal, necessary or not. You've created the very thing you think you'll purge by splitting the world. You've taken what was good and kind, flawed yes, but honorable and courageous and released the absolute worst in him. You've turned him into a monster."
There was only an instant for the full impact of his words to hit. A tremor shot through the Tower like a bolt of lightning, causing the whole building to shutter. Robin stumbled slightly, setting his weight to maintain balance; Zinara, well, didn't. Her frail body crumpled to its knees, face blank, eyes wide in horrid realization. She looked paler than usual, afraid for the first time. It was the look of someone who'd found themselves in a nightmare where the evil had their face. Doubt, once only a hint in the quiver of her voice, now all consuming. She didn't understand- couldn't. If she admitted that the monster she truly dreaded, the one she fought so hard to extinguish, lived inside her, it would tear her apart. Robin felt... sorry for her. Not pity, not even compassion really, just sorry.
Another tremor rocked the building. Steel groaned and concrete crumbled, until it seemed as if the building itself would split in two. Zinara gasped suddenly, a sharp cry as if a broken bone had been reset, doubling over and clutching her chest. The bright light she'd emerged from back in the museum began to push through her fingertips, its golden glow almost suffocating. Robin stepped back heavily, trying to get away before whatever was trying to happen happened, but he found that anything past that movement was impossible. The pressure in the room was increasing by the moment, weighing down on his body, forcing him onto one knee. Then the song started, a quiet buzz at first, then louder and louder, a haunting melody of infinite intricacy and harmony, racked with dissonance like glass marbles rubbing together and still ringing in perfectly tuned chords. It grew stronger, more beautiful, and with it the room seemed to grow. Zinara was being pulled away from him, the edges of his vision curving around her as she got smaller and smaller. The room twisted and moaned, bending to her will, the glow of the Half Heart coating every hard surface, distorting them like liquid in the wind. The song built, getting very quiet, intense, then slowly, gradually, getting louder, until his very heart beat with the rhythm and his breath came in shallowly with anticipation. Then the voice began to smooth and somehow by slimming down to fewer notes became more powerful, until there was only a one quavering voice, high and thin.
And then it all stopped. The glow was gone, the room was returned to perspective, and Robin found gravity had released its paralytic hold. There was just a tiny little difference, so small Robin almost missed it as he stood up. A film like a sheet of mist had extended itself between him and Zinara. It blurred the edges of everything on the other side, making Zinara look like a hazy reflection as she stood up, eyes closed, hand still over her pounding heart. Her eyes flickered opened and for the briefest moment she almost looked sorry before her gaze hardened. Defiant, bitter, proud, and above all else, determined.
"You're wrong, Robin. You're wrong," she said softly, coldly. "I know that people have suffered, that they will suffer, and I take that willingly on my soul to accept whatever punishment it may incur. But what I'm doing is important. It must be done and then everything will be right." Her conviction was audible, her faith so strong he almost thought about agreeing with her. "My life will be the price of devision. When I'm gone I can only hope that you'll come to understand and handle things on this side. Take care of the human's won't you? I know your half-breed and Garfield have the others." The mist was condensing, her words and form becoming harder and harder to sense. Robin reached out to try and push bast the barrier, to restrain the siren-human hybrid, but he found the wall was hard. He struck it, but his blow just bounced off the surface, accomplishing nothing but a throbbing fist. She grinned, amused by his efforts. "I'm sorry you make sense of it now, but you will. In time everyone will."
"Just answer me this Zinara," he yelled after her as she began to fade. " Do you honestly believe what you're saying? If you're magic can do what it's done to Beast Boy, what do you think will happen when you use it on the world? Is it worth the risk? Will you create utopia, or tear apart the one thing we all have in common?" There was no answer, but Robin knew she'd heard. There was a final glimmer of hesitation in her eyes before the wall solidified and she was gone, leaving Robin with perhaps his biggest problem since the last time the world had ended... and a lot of explaining to do.