Raven glared at the calm water that surrounded her.
"Well isn't this just great," she muttered to herself. "I get caught out once and now I'm stuck in the middle of Azar only knows where until Dick decides he's ready to trust me again."
She scowled at the horizon and the setting sun that painted the sky a thousand shades of beautiful. I suppose there are worse places to be exiled to, she thought, as she settled into a meditative position on the black sand. Her eyes drifted shut, and she began to hum gently, letting the soothing tides of memory carry her away.
}5 weeks earlier{
"Friend Raven? Are you in there?" Starfire's worried voice carried through the triple locked bedroom door to the ears of the purple haired girl inside. "We are all quite worried about you. We only wish to know if you are all right, please come out?"
"For the last time Star, I'm FINE!" Raven growled out, despite the fact they both knew she was anything but. "Just leave me alone, I don't want to talk." Don't want to talk to him, she meant.
Starfire placed a hand upon the door beseechingly, knowing Raven could sense it. "Please Raven, I am sure Beast Boy did not mean wh-"
Suddenly, the door was flung open, shattering the locks. Raven hovered behind it, eyes glowing blood red beneath her hood. "I said I'm FINE Starfire," she bellowed, wind whipping behind her. "He knew what he was saying and he meant every bloodcursed word. Just leave! Me! Alone!"
As she uttered the last syllable, the deep shadows of her room flared behind her. They flared out, throwing Starfire against the corridor wall. Before the Tamaranean could right herself, the door slammed shut once again. The locks clicked back into place, as if they'd never been broken at all.
Defeatedly, Star turned away. If Raven would not even talk to her, how could she possibly help her suffering friend?
}o{
Hours later in her shadowed room, Raven lay on her unkempt bed, staring unseeingly towards her bookshelves, replaying her last conversation with the green skinned shifter, the same conversation Starfire had tried to say hadn't meant anything. She gritted her teeth at the thought, angry at Star for being so hopelessly naive, yet also pained that her friend would so blindly choose Beast Boy over her, without even hearing the full story. But at least Star had tried to check in on her. Three times, in fact. Cyborg and Robin hadn't even checked once. They'd just given her slightly alarmed looks when she'd stormed past them, almost a full day ago. Of course, they would side with Beast Boy over you, she thought, after all, aren't you just a hideous demon masquerading around with a stolen face, pretending you could actually be good instead of the evil being you will always be? That's what he said, wasn't it? She angrily brushed away the droplets of despair forming in her eyes. It was clear to her that she was no longer wanted in the Tower, and she had long ago learned the consequences of staying where she was not wanted.
Raven stood forcefully, almost as if she were trying to physically quash the hurricane of emotions that swirled inside of her. Glancing around the room, she speedily assessed what she would need most, and what she could feasibly transport over a long distance without straining herself to the point of exhaustion.
Without giving herself long enough to reconsider, she grabbed a duffel bag, and the eyes of the purple raven printed on it's side followed her as she darted across her room, gathering various supplies. Clothes, pads, toothbrush and paste, a few hundred dollars in cash, non-perishable food packs she'd squirreled away when no one was paying attention. One by one they all went in the bag, and with each item she argued with herself more.
You're making a mistake, this is your home
Home? They don't even care enough to make sure you're still alive!
Star did, three times. Remember?
Yeah, but is one person enough? She even defended Beast Boy!
She probably just doesn't know the exactly what happened.
Well what about the others?
On and on it went, each good point being countered by an equally persuading negative. But eventually Raven found the little voice warning her to stay was on the defensive more often than not, and that eventually, everything came back to that one thought.
Is just one person enough?
No, she decided, zipping her bag shut, no it isn't.
Opening a portal to somewhere far away, she turned and gave one last farewell to the room she had called home for so long, a single tear falling from her eyes. Then, she was gone, leaving only a glossy black feather drifting through the air to rest on a note, her only goodbye.