Chapter Nine: Strange Currencies
XLVIII
Emotion's Muse
Raven levitated herself from the bleak shoreline, to cast her gaze far across the Sea of Unconsciousness to one thousand souls who lay at the bottom of depths immemorial. Spreading her arms like the bird of memory, she began to emanate emotion.
The Siren's song of old had entranced men to their deaths upon rocky shores. Her song of feeling was the promise of the Siren's song, the hope of Azarath, the love they shared. She would bring the souls of her kindred back from oblivion… even if it drained her of all she held dear. She was Azarath.
All that the rings of Azar were and had been poured through her. Memories from one thousand years, every hope and triumph raged across the calm seas, calling to the souls engulfed in its deep chill. The ocean was vast and uncompromising, unresponsive, uncaring. It dissolved fear, love, hope across a thousand leagues of dark, briny apathy.
Raven let go of memory and opened her heart and soul against the tides of oblivion. The fear burst from her like an explosion, pushing the ocean aside, awaking a dozen souls of Azarath who had known fear. The fear of what she would become.
Winds buffeted her cape as dark clouds swirled in the skies above. But still… it was not enough.
She flew farther from shore above the icy depths. When her fears were extinguished, the leaden weight of responsibility poured from her to spill along the ocean's floor. The creeping call of molten duty awoke hundreds more, the image of Trigon set their soul afire as they sought final redemption. The call of duty for past transgressions.
As waves crashed below her, Raven's love became the sun. The love she had withheld for so long. The love for her mother, for Bruce, for herself. It burned the ocean and lit its murky depths. For all her life, she had wanted acceptance, to be loved. This primal desire of human need she cast across darkest floors.
They had flocked to her cause. Slowly, the souls of Azarath walked from the seas to her shores. She had called hundreds to their cause, but there were still hundreds more. She had given all that she had. As her entire body began to shake from the strain, she fell from the sky to the ocean below once again. How easy it would be just to let it all go… to stay here, drowning. This was peace. To become one with the sea.
A darkness stirred in her soul.
Her fear of the demon had been let go. It no longer lived in her soul. Whatever had been buried deep within her now spilled into the ocean.
But this was not the dragon. The dark spirit flew from her on leathery wings to an extinguished sky, a bat of flame and shadow... It was terrible purpose. It was war. It was revenge.
Merciful Gods…it was Bruce!
The emotions she had stolen from him. His need for revenge, his hatred, his pain had broken from the gilded cage that had cost her so dearly. It could no longer be denied. The bat-creature was enormous, the collection of a year of nightmares and fears from a lifetime of tragedy. A single shrill, ear-piercing cry separated every molecule of her soul as it came for her.
Claws that could have crushed her very essence wrapped around her gently and carried her to shore. Six hundred and sixty Azarathian souls embraced her in their light, sharing their emotion, replenishing her empty vessel. Old memories, fears, loves and duty came back to her. But still there were more. She needed them all.
She watched as the giant bat took the skies and dove into the ocean, like some giant dark bird of prey. After a moment, it re-emerged with two souls in its claws and flew back to the shore. Discarding its payload, it perched on the shoreline facing the obstinate waves, leveling its face inches away from the water, staring with eyes of fire at the sea… challenging the cold waters of oblivion to deny him.
Within moments, souls began to wash ashore in the tide. Some walked through the crashing surf as the bat creature only glared. Azarath was restored. It lived within Raven. One thousand souls over the course of one thousand years.
The bat creature scurried on winged-claws back to within inches of Raven's face. Round black eyes, brimmed with the flames of hell, shot an icy chill through her very being. As it screamed a deafening shriek at her, her cloak fluttered in sulfurous winds while her eyes closed in fear.
She understood. She would never imprison her husband's emotional burden again. It was a primal force within him that was undeniable. And God help them all, it was free.
One thousand Azarathian souls watched as the monstrous bat took to the skies above them and shattered the night-time sky, flying higher past the realms of boundary…back to the realm of the living.
Author's Note:
Chapter 9's title "Strange Currencies" was taken from the R.E.M. song of the same name.