Soul Self

Once upon a time, someone asked Raven what her favorite of her own abilities was.

She did not answer immediately. She sat with the question the way she sat with most things — quietly, giving it the space it deserved. Then she said, "The soul-self," and went back to her book.

Let me tell you about the soul-self.

When Raven calls upon it — and she can do this without drama, without running start, without warning — a shape of deep, dark energy rises from her. It is black and violet all at once, like the sky at the moment just before night settles in completely. It takes the form of a raven. Her raven. Enormous — wings that could shelter a city bus, a beak like a carved blade of shadow, eyes that hold the same careful light as Raven's own.

It is not a costume. It is not a tool she has made. It is genuinely, truly, absolutely a part of her — the visible form of her inner self, her self-shape, sent outward into the world to act while she remains.

In Azarath, the ancient scrolls spoke of the soul-self with great respect. The monks called it the truest expression of a person's character — not what you said you were, not what you hoped you were, but what you actually were, made visible and sent flying. Developing the ability to send it out clearly and control it well took years and years of stillness and practice. Raven had begun that practice when she was still very small, sitting in the white-towered halls of Azarath with her eyes closed and her breathing steady and the monks watching with quiet patience.

She had learned many things in that time.

She had learned that the soul-self knew everything she knew and felt everything she felt. When Raven was troubled, it flew with a searching, sweeping caution. When she was joyful — rarely, but sometimes — it moved with a lightness that surprised even her. When she was absolutely focused and sure of her purpose, it flew straight as an arrow and fast as a thought.

The soul-self could pass through walls as though they were made of breath. It could carry people gently from danger — out of collapsed corridors, out of sealed underground rooms, out through holes that no body could fit through. It could spread wide around the team like a living shield of shadow, turning aside harm before it arrived. It could fly ahead in darkness and come back with the shape of the danger mapped clearly in Raven's mind.

Once, on a long and difficult mission, Cyborg looked up from his equipment and noticed something.

The soul-self was hovering above the entire team. Just hovering — spread wide, shadow falling softly over all of them. It had been there for some time without anyone noticing. Robin was bent over his plans. Starfire was scanning the horizon. Beast Boy was doing something complicated with a power junction and mostly trying not to break it.

Cyborg looked at Raven.

She was standing at the edge of the group, eyes forward, face calm. She hadn't said anything. She hadn't pointed at the soul-self hovering above them. She hadn't announced that she had been quietly worrying about all of them and spreading her protection over the whole team like a wide dark umbrella.

She had just done it.

Cyborg made a sound that was not quite words — more of a soft exhale. Then he went back to his equipment. But he remembered it.

Raven kept the soul-self inside most of the time, folded within herself, a presence felt rather than seen. Letting it out fully took trust — in the situation, and in the steadiness of her own feelings. She had learned that when her emotions became turbulent, the soul-self became harder to guide precisely, as though the wind had picked up and was pulling the kite sideways. She had built her control through years of practice, the way a musician learns to feel the bow rather than thinking about it.

One evening in Titans Tower, Starfire sat beside Raven in the library — Raven reading, Starfire making a flower crown out of some things she had found in the garden — and she looked up from her work and said:

"Raven, what does it feel like? When you ARE the soul-self. When you are the bird instead of the girl."

Raven lowered her book.

She considered the question for a long time. Starfire waited, because she was very good at waiting for Raven. That was one of the kindnesses Raven had come to treasure most about her.

"It feels like being entirely yourself," Raven said, at last. "With nowhere to hide and no reason to."

Starfire set down her flower crown and looked at Raven with her large, luminous eyes.

"That sounds beautiful," she said.

Raven looked back at her book.

"It is," she said.

And somewhere inside her, quiet and folded and warm, the soul-self settled softly and was still.