Raven Doll
By: Platinum Hero

Chapter 1: The Heart

Nevva Winter sneered as she fumbled through her purse trying to find her keys that were apparently lost. She glanced quickly at the locked door to her office and then continued digging through her purse. She cursed softly when she couldn't find the keys after a few minutes. Nevva was not very patient on Mondays, and her patience level was dropping fast.

Nevva smirked a little and mentally scolded herself when she checked her pocket, and fortunately found her keys. She hastily entered the door to her workplace - the Ravinia company - and walked faster than usual, seeing as she was late. Nevva nervously checked her watch again and bit her lower lip, speeding up. Today was not going well at all, and she was behind schedule on a seemingly busy workday. Nevva weaved through other workers, who didn't seem to be in as much of a hurry as she was, trying to reach her destination before her boss noticed her absence.

I hate Mondays, Nevva growled to herself while making a sharp turn into her cubical and carelessly tossing her black leather purse onto her desk. Nevva quickly sat down at her desk and looked blankly at her computer. She made a face when she noticed a bright blue, fish-shaped note stuck to her monitor, which read: You're late again. Indeed, Nevva was late. She sighed heavily.

"You know," Nevva heard from the entrance of her cubical. "Saint Dane's going to be mad at you for this one."

Nevva turned to see Vo Spader, a fellow employee, casually leaning on the side of her cubical entrance, lazily playing with a loose stand of his long, messy black hair. "You're one to talk," Nevva snapped rather bluntly back at him. "Oh, and don't be coming into my cubical again to leave childish notices. I realize that I'm late."

Spader merely chuckled and shrugged, while walking away. Nevva sighed and silently wished for an office with a door. Possible on with a working lock to keep out unwanted co-workers. Shrugging off this thought, Nevva hesitantly turned on her computer monitor to check her email, a vital part of her job at Ravinia Company. Right now, Nevva mostly answered clients' questions through email and phone calls. She was aiming to become a receptionist for her boss, Saint Dane. It wasn't a secret that Nevva wanted that job more than anything, and was often one of the hottest gossip topic in the office. Nevva knew this too, and she knew that Saint Dane knew of her longing.

Saint Dane was somewhat of shady figure to his clients. To the people who knew him, Saint Dane was a bit cocky and did rebellious things just for the fun of it. You could almost say he was arrogant. Of course, this was top secret material, and if Saint Dane found out, he wouldn't be very pleased, and people would be fired. No one ever bad-mouthed Saint Dane. He was in the most powerful position in the company, which was one of the most powerful companies.

It's kind of like world domination, and Saint Dane's aiming to be the high ruler, Nevva thought to herself while the corners of her mouth tugged upward, obviously amused by the ridiculous parallel she just made. Although, the parallel she made could actually be very relevant to the current state of the company. Nevva checked to see if she had any emails.

To: Nevva Winter: "nwinter(a)raviniaco.pen"
From: Patrick Mac: "pmac(a)raviniaco.pen"
Subject: Meeting

I just wanted to remind you of the meeting we have today at 10:30. It's in the biggest conference room in the left wing.

-Patrick

Nevva growled impatiently to herself. Naturally, it completely passed her mind that there was a meeting today. If she didn't attend, the would harm her chances of getting the promotion she wanted so badly. Nevva quickly pulled her thin, blond hair into a messy bun and grabbed a small notebook and pen that she kept at her desk. It was almost 10:30.

Once Nevva arrived to the left wing, she prayed to herself that this room indeed was the right conference room and slowly opened the door. When she peeked in, all eyes were on her, so she slipped inside and immediately looked to the head of the table, which was empty. Nevva let out a sigh of relief and smiled at the people who were still looking at her. There were about eight people or so in the conference room, and she found an empty seat next to Patrick.

"Thanks for that," Nevva whispered.

"Anytime," Patrick softly replied without bothering to turn towards her. He looked tired.

Nevva quietly adjusted herself by pulling her seat closer to the table and straitening out her work pants. She set her notebook and pen down on the table - symmetrical, of course - and folded her arms respectively, waiting for Saint Dane. Nevva knew that he would come in perceptively when the clocks turned to 10:30 sharp. Saint Dane liked to keep you intensely waiting, and he sure knew how to make an entrance. Nevva smirked to herself and looked at her watch - 10:29 and 55 seconds.

Almost on cue, Saint Dane busted though the conference door and had on a face that obviously meant business - as he usually did when working. Nevva and a few other people, excluding tired Patrick, sat up straighter and cleared their throats'. Saint Dane was a bit young for the typical label of 'office tyrant'. He had very long, purposely dyed white hair that was now slicked back into a neat ponytail, with a few loose strands hanging at the rims of his face. He had sharp features and blazing eyes, which always seemed to work in persuasions or punishments. A glare from Saint Dane could make any grown man squirm.

Saint Dane wore his usual black suit that looked slightly authentic and very expensive. Saint Dane liked expensive. After walking diligently to the head of the table, he dropped a large binder on the table, making more noise then necessary. Nobody dared to say anything, of course. The people in the conference room waited quietly for Saint Dane to begin speaking, as Saint Dane scanned his audience with his cold eyes.

After seeing that everyone was present, Saint Dane seemed satisfied and began to speak. "For many years, my company - our company, - has been growing. At first, it lingered up in the charts, as most companies do. Naturally, as the company grew, it got bigger, and bigger, an kept growing faster and faster. Why is this? The reason is you - they employees. You're the heart of the company, you mean everything. You fix all the flaws and keep it growing. Not myself - I'm simply just there to help guide the company; the veins of the company." Saint Dane paused to stand up, and walked over to the side of the conference room. All eyes followed him."

"So, why I want to know, is this happening?" Saint Dane said in a bitterly disgusted voice. On cue from his speech, he rather roughly pulled down the hook by the room's blackboard to reveal a line graph. Saint Dane frowned at his small audience and let the graph sink in. After a while, he took the pointer from the rim of the blackboard and cracked it loudly against the graph, causing a few people to flinch. Saint Dane liked it when people flinched - it made him feel powerful.

Continuing, Saint Dane led the pointer along the somewhat vertical line on the graph. "You see this, this is good and this is how it should be." Saint Dane frowned deeply and then snapped the pointer on a line that was slowly going down towards the end of the graph. "What's this? The blood isn't being pumped, so the body is dying. The employees are slacking, therefore the company is dying." Saint Dane paused dramatically and glared at his audience. Nevva intentionally averted her eyes in shame. Saint Dane always seemed to make her feel so guilty during his meetings. Meetings at Ravinia Company usually were not very pleasant.

"I would just like to know the answer to the simple question: why?" When nobody answered Saint Dane's ironically rhetorical question, he continued with a frown, going back to stand by his seat. He leaned onto the table while resting both of his hands on it. Trying to avoid his dangerous gaze, I noticed that it was sunny outside.

"You see," he continued. "Nobody can answer that. This means I have to take action, and fast. Already narrowing my limited options, I have no other choice but to start firing the slackers. I'll give everyone one more chance, because I'm a generous guy, but if things don't go outstandingly this upcoming mouth, I will have no other choice but to eliminate the problem." With that bitter note, Saint Dane rather abruptly ended the meeting be roughly grabbing his binder and storming out of the conference room, looking rather disgusted. Nobody in the room made any movements - they were all moved by Saint Dane's powerful lecture.

Nevva was the first one to slowly stand up and take her still-empty notebook and silently exit the room. Patrick and a newer employee named Aja, left right after her. Nobody spoke, but Patrick gave Nevva a grim look and wave once he got to his row. Nevva nodded, feeling kind of sick.

She didn't want Saint Dane to be mad at her and she felt as if this meeting was partly because of her. Nevva would admit, she had been guilty of being late recently. She had also been slightly monotonous during her phone calls and typical in her emails. Nevva frowned and bit her lip, feeling bad, rather than irritated like before the meeting. She would never get a promotion at this rate.

Sighing softly, Nevva decided that she would work her hardest this upcoming month and do extra work. No slacking, no free time. Determined to follow through, Nevva hastily pulled out a drawer in her file cabinet, containing record of people who called and what they said.

"Miss Winter?" she heard a deep voice ask quietly all of a sudden. Nevva was slightly startled when she noticed that she had been working without interruption for some time now.

"Yes-" Nevva cut herself off when she noticed that the speaker was Saint Dane himself. Trying to hide her flush of embarrassment for not showing proper respect, Nevva clumsily stood up and said almost too quickly, "Sir! What can I do for you?" A feeling tugged at the bottom of Nevva's heart: she was going to be fired now. She looked down.

Saint Dane looked slightly amused by Nevva's reaction. "I'm not going to fire you, Miss Winter," he said, as if reading her mind. Nevva's eyes widened slightly as she lifted her head to look curiously at her boss.

"I just wanted to say that you've been doing an exceptionally good job recently," Saint Dane said almost coaxingly while concentrating on nothing in particular. "The meeting before really didn't apply to you - I just needed to say that to everyone working here. I am noticing your exceptional work, Miss Winter."

Nevva tried to avoid looking at her boss, but she beamed, almost speechless. "T-thank you, sir."

"Thank you, Miss Winter," Saint Dane replied, while walking away from her cubical. Nevva tried hard not to scream with happiness at the conversation she just had with her boss. They had never had a direct conversation before, and she felt a couple steps closer to her much-awaited promotion. Nevva could feel herself blush a bit.

Author's Note: What a strange to-be pairing, you might say. Nevva/Saint Dane? It seems perfectly logical to me. I absolutely love alternate universe stories set in a big company setting, too. This has been fun to write so far. Feel free to review and critique me. English is not my first language, so I would appreciate grammar corrections. Thank you.