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In her free time, Raven sometimes writes herself epitaphs.
She writes them in notebooks, on napkins, and on toilet paper. There are flashcards by her bedside and on her desk, complete with pencils and pens. The styles of writing are all different, too. Some are written in her native Azaranian, others in English, others still in the various other languages she knows, of which there are many. A great deal of her writings are in her normal, poised script, but others are written in print, calligraphy, big block letters or tiny capitals. It’s really a mishmash, when you look at them all together.
Some are repeats, written in different styles or languages, as though she were trying them out to see which looked or sounded best. Some are funny in a morbid sense, others horribly tragic, a few are simply quotes or seemingly irrelevant.
Thanks to the incredibly random nature of her musings, nobody really knows what she’s doing for a long time or even how or when it started. Beast Boy teases her for writing "emo" poetry, Starfire puzzles over the languages she doesn’t recognize, Cyborg just leaves her alone, and Robin tries and fails to feign interest.
But the Titans, if nothing else, are snoops and sleuths. Beast Boy is the first to note that she avoids leaving them in plain sight. Starfire notes that, when in public, Raven only writes in other languages. Together, these observations make Robin suspicious, despite Cyborg’s insistence to leave it alone.
“Do you know something we don’t?” Robin asks Cyborg one day.
“No,” Cyborg says, “but it’s Raven we’re talking about.”
Robin frowns, but leaves it at that. Reminding each other that “it’s Raven” seems to be the be-all-end-all for conversations about her. Regardless, Robin remembers that he himself has counseled Beast Boy and Starfire to leave Raven in peace before. He resolves to once again content himself with her mystery.
That is, until he stumbles upon the answer. He catches Cyborg using a gadget on his arm to translate something written on a napkin in their kitchen in what looks like ancient Greek. It must have been left behind earlier when they’d been called out in the middle of breakfast.
He didn’t know that Raven was literate in ancient Greek, but she’s the only member of the team who could be. And what Cyborg is doing seems like a clear invasion of privacy.
Before Robin can chastise him or Cyborg can apologize for what he’s doing, the translation appears on the screen on Cyborg’s arm. They both pause.
“‘It’s impossible to escape from what is destined’?” Robin reads aloud.
“‘For illustrious men have the whole earth for their tomb’,” Cyborg reads the rest. They look at each other. Cyborg rests his arm on the counter. They look back down at the innocuous napkin with its neat pen scrawl, written by Raven’s hand.
“Is she talking about herself?” Robin asks.
“I guess so,” Cyborg says.
Robin picks up the napkin and examines it closely as though it would reveal some clue.
Cyborg redirects his attention back to the screen on his arm. “I’m not sure where the first phrase comes from, but my computers say that the second one is taken from Pericles’ Funeral Oration.” He barely hesitates before asking, “Did you know Raven could read and write ancient Greek?”
“No,” Robin says, setting the napkin back down on the counter.
“Neither did I,” Cyborg says. He turns the display off.
“I don’t know what this is about,” Robin says, turning tail and making for the door to the hallway, “but I intend to find out.”
Cyborg doesn’t try to dissuade him.
As it turns out, Robin is unable to get an audience with Raven until that evening, when the Titans convene for dinner. Robin never gets his chance to corner her. Raven is writing on a flashcard when Starfire asks, “Raven, what are you writing?”
“An epitaph,” she says. She doesn’t look up.
“For whom?”
“Myself.”
Raven doesn’t seem to think this as odd as her fellow Titans do because she doesn’t stop writing until she feels all their stares on her. “What?” she asks.
“You write your own epitaphs?” Beast Boy asks.
“Mm-hmm,” Raven says. “Why?”
Cyborg and Robin share a look. “Rae, isn’t that kind of… depressing?” Cyborg says.
“No.” Raven raises an eyebrow. “Should it be?”
Voicing his thoughts from earlier, Robin rubs the back of his neck and says, “Well, it just seems like you’re thinking about your own death a lot.” Their fellow Titans nod and hum in agreement.
Raven considers this. “Death is a fact of life.”
“Well, yeah, but, we’re still teenagers,” Beast Boy says. “We’re not supposed to die for a long time.”
“I was supposed to die after my birthday,” Raven says.
Her teammates don’t look thrilled at the reminder. Her nonchalance doesn’t really help, either.
“But you did not,” Starfire says. Raven doesn’t see why this matters. She deposits her dishes in the dishwasher and takes her flashcard and pen with her to her room. While not embarrassed, she doesn’t like being scrutinized.
There’s mostly quiet in her wake.
“Should we be worried about her?” Beast Boy asks.
There is no answer.
The whole episode doesn’t deter Raven. She keeps writing what the team assumes are epitaphs with no particular rhyme or reason, no more or less often than she had been. Nobody really mentions it or talks about it again, though there is the occasional shrug or look of concern exchanged between team members. Peculiarity, when it comes to Raven, is normalcy. After all, it’s Raven we’re talking about.
Eventually, Raven starts compiling them all into one new, unmarked journal. There isn’t much organization to it, but she copies all of her epitaphs over, neatly arranged in this journal she begins to carry with her. Every now and then, she still adds to it, but her teammates now sometimes catch her reading it.
There is no special occasion that precipitates Starfire asking Raven to read the journal to her. There is no mishap, no battle, no outcry or bonding experience or trip. It is her inherent curiosity meeting opportunity. Maybe Raven even expects it.
In a manner befitting the circumstances, Raven responds with a perfunctory, “I’d rather not.”
Without missing a beat, Starfire asks, “Why do you write them, Raven?”
It’s a perfectly natural question, one that nobody else had yet bothered posing to her. Raven closes her journal softly and runs her fingertips over the plain cover. It is a completely unremarkable book being examined on a completely unremarkable day at a completely unremarkable time by two very, very remarkable girls.
Finally, Raven says, “I guess… they’re reminders.”
“Of what?”
Raven doesn’t meet Starfire’s eyes when she says, “Of the good things I am, the things I want to be remembered for.” Starfire might’ve interjected, but Raven stalls, letting both her palms rest on the journal in her lap. “They remind me of the things I haven’t done yet, too.”
Starfire had once visited the cemetery with Robin on the anniversary of his parents’ deaths. Their headstones were simple: their names, dates of birth, dates of death. But they also both mentioned the Flying Graysons and how beloved they’d been as children, spouses, and parents themselves. The things that defined their lives, mere words chiseled into stone for eternity, had brought Robin, and in turn Starfire, to tears. Starfire, who’d never met Robin’s parents and never would, knew them only by the words on their headstones—knew them well, and loved them.
And, somehow, another part of Raven begins to make sense to her.
Because what might her own headstone say? Koriand’r, also known as Starfire, of Tamaran. Princess. Beloved… daughter? Sister? Friend. Teammate. Hero. Girlfriend? Wife? Mother? Would there be a quote, or a sentence, or a picture engraved, too? How could her life be summed up briefly, lovingly enough? Would she be proud of it?
For a moment, as she tries to picture a mossy headstone in a gray cemetery with her name on it, she sees a somber kind of beauty. The kind of beauty Raven embodies and engenders without trying.
Starfire could’ve cried then. Raven knows it.
“I see,” Starfire says. She wipes an unformed tear from the corner of her eye and stands. “Thank you, Raven.”
“You’re welcome,” Raven says, watching Starfire retreat. Perhaps she’d return to her room, or maybe go find their teammates, or maybe just fly for a while. Maybe she’d even meditate.
But Raven could sense how Starfire was affected. It was a deep, heady mix of emotion wafting from her, getting fainter as she went further, but no less potent.
Raven thought Starfire might’ve just uncovered something profound about her. Raven keeps many secrets and holds her privacy in high regard, but not everything she does is so strange and otherworldly. She’s part human too, even if she’d grown up in another dimension, so far apart from everything they knew here on Earth.
Of course, however humbling Starfire’s realization might’ve been, it doesn’t change anything. Raven is still as secretive, introverted, and aloof as ever. It would take a lot more than an ordinary day to change Raven’s world. And why shouldn’t it? It’s Raven we’re talking about.