Demons (Damirae)

Chapter Eighty-Eight

What...father, what do you know of love?

You come to me with questions of LOVE? Are your new friends, FOR WHOM YOUR LEGACY AND I WERE ABANDONED, not trusted enough to answer such a fickle question? Why do you with to know such a thing, child? Why do you presume I will answer your questions as you demand?

Maybe curiosity- to see what you'll say. Or maybe...Pride.

Hm. You always had such potential my child, such potential. Thrown away for the sake of morals. I do not value pitiful morals as you do, for the sake of AMBITION I do not value them. Why should I think upon love?!

You've loved before.

You know not what you speak of.

They all use to speak about it: the time when Trigon loved. Not a love for war, or bloodshed, or carnage, but true adoration.

STOP IT CHILD.

The Queen. Your queen. The mother of my brothers who died at your hand.

ENOUGH CHILD. ENOUGH!

You loved her. Didn't you?

ENOUGH! I SAID...I said...enough. Child, enough.

Didn't you?

Raven...my child. I loved her indeed. How foolish was I. I loved her until she  loved another. Fickle, fickle emotion. Guiding even the strongest of hands to build their own weapon of assassination. My child, I loved as every other foolish being to exist in this universe and every other.

You buried that love. Father, I heard the stories. I heard them all reminisce of the times when. The Hellish lands were at peace, beautiful, an ideal for all lands- even the fae. Before love fell.

Times long gone, child. Times of no ambition.

Times that will never be again?

...

Father, do you not regret it: letting go of your Love?

SHE BETRAYED ME! I GAVE HER THE WORLD AND SHE BETRAYED ME! How could I keep my Love after that?! ...How could I?

Then do you not regret letting go of love? Refusing to open space in your heart.

My child, my Raven, I have not let love go. Fickle as it is, it is a complex emotion, far too complex for complete dismissal. No being is worth anything at all without it- might they realise or otherwise. Child, I have obliterated planets, lain waste to billions, presided over the tortured souls of trillions and let chaos rule my hand, but even I cannot escape the inevitability of love. Know that, my child.

G-goodbye, father.

Raven sat on the couch, a sleeping cat in her lap, a mug of tea besides her, thinking on what Trigon had said. She couldn't fathom why she'd thought to reach out to him, but she did. Maybe it was because -in her frustrated state- she sought to appease herself by answering a question that had conflicted her heart for a long time.

Can evil love?

Because that's what demons -for the most part- were. Evil.

And evil is not good. Love is good. Hence the two shouldn't- couldn't- go together. No?

Or perhaps the question was, is evil worthy of love? Any being can love. Her father even admitted so. But do the evil ones, the not-good ones, the ones who kill and torture and enslave and destroy, are they deserving of love?

Trigon's recounts answered as much.

No.

Love finds a way to escape the wicked. The unworthy. The undeserving.

But Raven wasn't an evil, wicked demon. She wasn't inherently bad. But she couldn't be called good either, whether she'd aligned herself with the golden side or not. Wearing the badge of Earth-protectors did not stop the adrenaline pumping through her blood when she held a man within an inch of death or bloodlust urging her in to combat. Being a hero did not change who she was.

A demon. Non-evil. Non-wicked. Non-good. No matter how little sense that made.

Raven had given the world up for the sake of Good. Surely that made her deserving enough.

***

Whistling sharply, Damian caught Bella's attention. Behind his father's back (whilst Dick, Stephanie and Koriand'r enthused about the penguins; Duke, Tim, Jaime and Cass sipped on milkshakes and an ice tea; and Jason pulled a face at a moody preteen by the polar bears, flipping the kid off) Damian mouthed 'come, this way'.

Making sure that her dad wasn't looking, Bella tiptoed towards her brother, both prepared to dash of need be.

"Just where do you two think you're going?", Bruce asked, not turning around, ignoring the cameras flashing nearby. Billionaire heartthrob Bruce Wayne couldn't go out in peace without catching attention, at this point in life he was a bit too tired to even give a shit. Press had flown out of the roof when he'd officially declared Belladonna his daughter, and when they'd found out he was dating Selina Kyle: the Wayne-mania apparently hadn't died down yet.

"Uhhhh...somewhere?", Bella cringed, hiding behind her curls.

Before Bruce could protest, Selina stepped in, hands on hips, passing his kids a sneaky grin, "Don't worry Bruce,", she pressed a kiss to his cheek, "I'll go with them. Make sure they don't get up to no good."

Walking through the other people in the zoo, next to Bruce's hostile son and scheming daughter, Selina pulled them off to one side. Digging her hands in to her coat pocket, Catwoman smirked, "What's the plan?"

A.N:

I'm sorry that this update is late guys, but I've had a lot going on this week and last night I was out until reaaaaally late so couldn't update or finish up. This is partially a filler but still somewhat significant, so sorry again. I know that not every chapter has Damirae moments, but to make a good story I need to develop other aspects of it not just their relationship- I felt like I needed to explain that for some reason.

I'm apologising now for if in future I have another late update also, but you guys do know that that I'm a real person with a real life. As such, things happen that mean I can't update or don't have the time to write as much. You guys also know that I've always been regular with my updates apart from two-or-so incidents, so if I don't update, know that there's a justification for it and I'll update as soon as possible.

Well, with that out of the way, thank you my darlings.

-Bats