Owner	Pose
Rachel Roth	When last Terry and Raven had spoken, she had somewhat summarily dismissed him with the statement that, vaguely, eventually, she would join him in the main room at the tower. In the kind of cruel joke that is Raven's forte, she spoke in a manner that seemed immediate, but it has actually taken several days.     For that time, Raven has been... Gone. Physically now, not just mentally. For her to somehow become /more/ distant and unreachable than normal is disconcerting, because at the very least, she is usually easy to contact if one is brave enough. For the past few days- at least- she hasn't even been available over her communicator.     Eventually, though, there is a fortuitous moment. One where Terry makes his way to the common room, and Raven is seated there. She is slumped over upon the couch, elbows on her knees, which are pressed together. Her hood is still up about her head, which makes her completely impossible to see above the chest aside from the ravens adorning her hood.     Likely, Terry wants to have words. He'd be more than justified to. Raven, however, has neither the patience nor the manners to let him. He won't get the chance to finish the intake of breath to speak in her direction before she starts speaking.     "When we were in Tartarus, I made a deal."     There's a soft lilt of her head upward, and she looks at Tarry under her hood. "I was not able to participate in the war, and leaving on my own would have made enemies that I didn't need at the time. So, I rode across the river with Hekate. While we were riding, she made me an offer that I... I couldn't /refuse./ You probably think I've just been wallowing in self pity because I /feel/ helpless when I'm not. But, right now, I am. Genuinely, truly, helpless."     There's a pause then, but before the interjections and- because Terry's a good man, likely comforting statements come, Raven continues.     "The deal I made with Hekate was that she would remove half of my soul. The demonic half of my soul. The half that gives me almost all of my magic, and lets me do everything that I do. She was going to hide it. Her motives, of course, are as inscrutable as any other of that pantheon. She asked for nothing in return. Over the past few days, I have been putting thought and research into Hekate's methodology and processes. I know where the other half of my soul is hidden."     Another pause, of course, as Raven works up the courage to come out and say it. "It's in Wonderland. In the Nameless Woods. For a number of reasons, that is the best place to hide it in the multiverse."
Terry O'Neil	"I don't think you're wallowing in self-pity, Rae," Terry says quietly, after that. And then he gives a very slight smile, "You're in grief and feel helpless and are dealing with it as best you can. But there's hope. Funny you should mention Hekate, you see..." He briefly outlined what the team discovered on their trek to New Kronos. That, through observation and actually speaking to Hekate, Troia's reality was nothing more than a dream. "Your Donna, /our/ Donna, is there. She's just dreaming herself up a reality where her nightmare is the real deal. I'll tell you more about how we came to that conclusion... and how far Hekate features into it-" because BOY, does she feature into it, he hasn't even mentioned what else they discovered about Hekate's involvement, because time was of the essence, "-but right now the important thing is this: If we can get Donna to un-dream herself out of that nightmare, we might be able to get her back as she was. But we will need you at your full power. Because she /is/ a Titan and her subconscious might really resist being confronted with an inconvenient truth." "So we're going to go into the Woods and get what you need back. Because what are friends for?" The navigation to Wonderland had been a little awkward, as they had to pass into Troia's throne room to get to the portal, but afterwards, the descent from the Hill of Surveying and into the Woods of No Names was relatively easy. Thick, beautiful, lush, but also amazingly /silent/. Sunlight filters through a canopy so abundant that it looks like a vaulted ceiling of green crystal. Pollen floats and the breeze blows, but birds do not sing- for they have forgotten that the are birds, and that they are supposed to sing. Like wise Terry O'Neil forgets who he is, and what he is doing there. This was, of course, inevitable. "Oh, this is rather pretty," he says with a quiet voice, full of awe at the display of verdant life all around him. "I wonder what it's called?" He had prepared for this. As Irie had suggested last time they were there, there are little notes. The first one that the young redhead notices is clipped to his shirt with a safety pin. After ripping it out, he looks at it. YOU ARE TERRY, it reads, and he chuckles. "Terry. That's silly. What's a Terry?"
Rachel Roth	"Maybe not." Raven remarks after a moment, but there's little else that she says after the fact. "I now Donna's nightmares. I have seen her dreams. This thing that's invaded our reality is just a figment of her imagination, the worst case scenario following her departure to Themyscira and... Absence, when Doomsday appeared." Raven explains. "I was hoping that... The encounter the other day, that if I said the right things it might get through, or... Do something. I had theories. I was... Intoxicated."     Raven follows through into Wonderland with little objection or even much of a noise.     "This is the Nameless Wood. You probably know all about it, but you'll forget. That's just how it works." She starts walking forward into the woods as if, somehow, someway, she knows exactly where to go. "Nothing here knows what or who it is. You won't either. What I'm looking for doesn't either. There's supposed to be a trick." she remarks, "You don't remember who, or what, but you have to remember that you /are./ Hold onto that. Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. Maybe what I read was what someone who forgot what works in here thought they remembered after the fact. It's /Wonderland./" Reason number one that hiding Raven's soul in Wonderland was a brilliant idea: She really, really hates the place, and her tone really, /really/ makes that evident.     "We probably won't stay together long. I'm probably talking to nobody already."     As she strides with a depressed confidence through the trees, finding a path that doesn't exist and wouldn't even know it was a path if it did, Raven prepares to be alone very soon. Or not. You never know with Wonderland.
Terry O'Neil	YOU ARE HERE WITH SOMEONE That's the reverse of the note. STAY WITH HER. What follows is... well, it's not the /best/, but it's a little doodle of what Raven looks like. It's not a bad likeness. For his level of skill. "Okay, so I am here with..." he glances up, and he thinks he can see someone through the foliage, up ahead. Or is that one of those tall things with green on top? He holds up the picture. Nope, no green on top. It must be her. He walks in that general direction, arms pumping to give himself some speed. In the flapping of his arms, he notices another note, pinned to the sleeve of his jacket. This one, he takes and reads while walking. YOU ARE LOOKING FOR SOMETHING BELONGING TO HER. HELP HER. "Help her? Okay, but ho-OW!" That's because he just ran into a tree. He circumvents it, and heads towards the figure he thinks he sees in the distance. "I am supposed to help you look for a thing!" he calls after her, with a cheerful tone. This was the right thing to do, right?
Rachel Roth	The power of names is an incredible thing. Raven, in her foresight, has thought of ways to recall her name. She is wearing things that are little reminders. She is steeled, and aware of what she is walking into. Terry is more haphazard. Raven's layers of strategies are working. There are moments where she ponders whether it was Rachel or Rachael, whether it was Roth or Rath, but eventually it comes to her. The fact of her name, that she is Raven, cannot be taken from her. Like a beacon, that knowledge of her identity is what takes her deeper into the woods.     Like someone who has been here before, or has been here the entire time. There are footsteps behind her, and for a moment a blissful realization that she doesn't know who it is that's following her- which, normally, should be alarming- washes over her. She isn't going to be cruel enough to later tell Terry that she was happy to forget him for a moment, because it isn't really the truth. What is the truth is that she remembers only Raven and Donna right now.     That is the happiness.     It is a long trek, with plenty of opportunities for Terry to get lost, but he doesn't- sticking behind Raven the entire way, as they find their way to a section of the woods that is a combination of scorched earth and smouldering trees. It... Pulses, with horrible energy. A feeling of unending maliciousness made manifest. At its center is a ball of red that doesn't know anything other than rage and hate.     To be near the area feels miserable and oppressive. To be within it would be many times worse. The crimson light of the red sphere at the center that has forgotten its name, but is too stubborn and powerful to forget its purpose, bathes the dead zone entirely. Raven pauses at the edge.     "You'll want to wait outside. This could kill us both." Or us all. Or everyone.
Terry O'Neil	The Boy With No Name, but who suspects he is Terry (or was that Turry? His hand-rwiting really could use some improvement) blinks a couple of times. "Oh... oh, yes, that could be bad-" He looks at he note that is sticking to his shoulder. He tears it off and moves his lips as he reads it. "-Ramon." Dear god, his hand-rwiting really could improve. But it's probably hard to hate him for getting it wrong, with that earnest look on his face. He knows he should be helping. That's what the notes said, and if Ramon needs him to wait outside, he will. "But- if you need anything I can help with... you'll call, right?" He pauses, "I'm Turry. Just call my name out, I'll hear you."
Rachel Roth	"Thank you, Turry. Just stay here and... I wouldn't take up a career in writing, or journalism." That said, Raven takes the few steps forward into the red. It doesn't obliterate her as she worried it may, because what it is remembers that it is, and that it needs /something/ and this part of her is vaguely aware that it needs more of itself to be itself, even though it isn't /sure/ what it is. It is possible that this invading being, that is Raven, is the rest of what it needs. There's a level of familiarity there, that allows Raven to live as she approaches it.     Then, there is an agonizing hesitation. It all rushes back to her in that moment. Her Who, her What, and her Why, and she stares upon the portion of herself that is abjectly, purely, horribly Evil in every sense of the word. Without it, she should not be capable of rage, but all humans are. Before her floats the object of Raven's hatred, the part of her she despises so deeply it is intoxicating, and she is here to welcome it home.     But, she can't. She can't bring herself to. The most she can do at this very moment is stare at it with the hatred it is and deserves, and all at once what comes to the forefront is emotion that she suppressed so well for so long.     Tears flow freely, pouring from her eyes all of a sudden. Her fists clench in a way that nearly makes her palms bleed. The first active noise she makes is this primal, furious howl in its direction. She screams, actively and horribly, with no words within it, just a rage filled, hateful, vocalized bilious shriek.     She does this until her lungs give out, and in her breathing, so do her legs. She drops to her knees, and takes a moment or two to just sob there, a lump of noodles upon the ashes that half of her have created out of an ageless forest of primal magic.     "It's /all/ your fault. Every last thing, every last bad thing has been directly linked to /you./" Were Terry listening, the venom with which Raven addresses this red light would make any disdain she's ever had towards anything else sound like a friendly sarcasm.     There is a languid push that Raven makes, forcing herself back to a stand as she stares upon it. "And you know it, and you know I hate it, and you know I hate you, and worse of anything else, the worst crime, the most horrible thing about any of this, is that I need you, and you know /that/ too."     She takes a few lumbering steps forwards, as if her legs are fighting her will to move.     "Is this what you want?!" she cries, shouting at the thing as if it can respond verbally. Heaving breaths, Raven is now mere inches from the source of the light, too bright to see its center. "Huh?! IS it?!"     There is a weak pause, there, as her arms go limp at her sides, and she just stands there. "Of course it is." the whimpered words sounding ever more so pathetic than she ever has been. "Because you always get what you want. I don't, but you do. I just wanted to be happy. When you're there, happy means death. Destruction. Rule. I just want Donna. I just want my mom."     Another pause. "But you've already taken one of those from me, and now you're about to do it again by being here. By being useless."     Her head lifts up, and she pulls her hood down. Her face streaked with tears, she addresses this thing with a resolve that is pulled from the only thing she has to hold onto. The mission. Her love.     "You are Raven, daughter of Trigon. You are me, I am you. We are Rachel Roth. We are Raven. We are Pride, and we are Power."     The moment it is given its name back, its identity back, Raven could not stop the joining even if she wished to, anymore.     There is a light, the red turns into a blinding white, and the first words Terry actually hears is someone calling his name, a familiar voice that he recalls- suddenly, is that of Raven.     "Terry. It's time to go."
Terry O'Neil	There are a lot of things Terry knows and never tells. He knows who Batman really is. He knows that Gar sometimes cries out his parents' names in his sleep. He knows that his mother sometimes cries herself to sleep because of the man who has his eyes. Family means knowing a lot of things you never tell, it means pretending you don't know, but you /know/ and let that knowledge inform how you think about people. Until today, Terry 'knew' of Raven's burden, but had never seen it, had never /known/ it. And then he herd it. He heard it in a voice that made his marrow cold. He heard it in a voice of loss and rage and anger and frustration and resignation. He heard it in a tone of sacrifice. "Yes, Rae," he says quietly, following that voice. When he receives his name back, the memories of the Woods put everything else into high contrast. Now he knows, and now he wishes he didn't know, because it means he knows of the suffering, and a burden that he can't help lift, a pain that he is insufficient to assuage. Something he is completely powerless to help. Or is he that powerless? There is, at least, one thing he can do: Help restore Donna, because she is enough- or at least, mostly. "Let's go." There was still the task of planning the approach, the intervention to confront Donna gently within her own dream. But now, at least, they were all ready to act. The hard part was over. Right?
Rachel Roth	For a moment, Raven was not visible within the light. It was hard to even look at it as it was fading, into Raven herself, floating there above the burnt ground that, over time, will heal- because these woods cannot die, at least in this way. They've forgotten how. Only a certain being can grant them the knowledge of Death, and she hasn't come here yet.     She is altogether different to look at when Terry can finally see her. Raven had long ago forsaken this garb: That of the traditional Azarathian sorceress. She had- and has, frankly- outgrown it. If fits her like paint in some ways, the cocktail-dress like outfit she wore when she began her career as a hero. Her chest and hips are probably the most striking- it is perhaps a touch too revealing on her figure now, but regaining her second half was... Perhaps demanding of a return to tradition.     The hood of her cape, clasped to the dress with a pair of golden clasps adorned with the silhouette of ravens. Long ballroom gloves leave her thumbs and index fingers exposed. Around her waist, more golden clasps form a belt, these plan yet leading to a buckle in the form of a raven with wings extended. Reaching her mid-thigh, pointed boots cling to her flesh slightly tightly, ending in impractical- but only so impractical when you can fly- high heels. The costume is clearly designed for fashion and to be regal and imposing.     It is disturbing how well she wears it.     "There is one more thing." she states, lowering to the ground. "You should understand. When Donna and I... When we agreed to become what we are, to one another. I asked her to make sure that I did not do what I have been created to do. She is the only one that can. The only one that would... Be able to create the opening."     Dancing around the point doesn't suit her much, but she recognizes that quickly, and cuts to the quick herself.     "I asked her to kill me. Those were the terms I set. She agreed."
Terry O'Neil	Of course Terry knows this outfit. His childhood room still has that classic Titans poster from before Doomsday- the same one that could be seen at the Tower. Raven's costume actually mesmerized him as a kid- when you're nine years old, you can be seriously impressed by mystery, and Raven of the Titans /was/ mystery personified. He would wooosh around the house in his mother's bathrobe, a towel over his head as his hood, pretending to be a Mysterious Sorceress. And then he tripped on the bathrobe one day, rolled down the stairs and ended up with a dislocated shoulder, and that had been /that/. Admittedly, nowhere near as bad as April's broken arm from when she thought she could fly if she jumped out of the hayloft while wearing a Superman cape but... close enough. The point being that that costume immediately strikes at memories. He is, briefly, that nine year old looking at the poster all over again. But there's also more knowledge than a kid had, of the pain that was behind it all, and what the mystery concealed. Terry nods slowly after Raven's statement. "I hear you..." he can't say 'I understand', because it would be insulting. He can't really understand, he's never been in that position. But he can do the best next thing to that. "We'll get her back, Rae."
Rachel Roth	Raven sees the memory play out before her, in a way. That sense of childlike awe infuses her senses like a scent or a sight. She understands this clue to his upbringing, knows the effect she had on him- pieces of insight put together to create understanding. It does affect her, but it does not, at the same time. Her expression has returned to that imposing neutrality.     She is in control, now. She has a mission.     "Yes. We will."     There is no snarky remark, no questioning of Terry's usefulness, no insults. This, in the truest sense of the word, is Raven.     "But first, we will tend to your wound. The Titans need you, Terry. We need Vorpal. Do not ever believe that we do not."     Then, there is a flurry of shadows that spring up around them- Wonderland a difficult place to traverse, the forest a difficult place to leave on top of that, and yet Raven simply /does./     They return to the tower in the space of moments, and there is of course the unpleasantness that comes with being pulled through dimensions, of being teleported, by Raven.     "Get Garfield and Kian. Reach out to me on the communicator when you are ready. We need them, too."     And with that, she is gone again. To somewhere else entirely, and somehow, that somewhere else may be altogether more esoteric, strange, and dangerous to invade than Wonderland was.