If you haven't read Enigma yet, it precedes this story. I strongly suggest that you read it prior to this chapter. Thanks for reading, and enjoy the show!
Renascence
Chapter One
Dust billowed out in every direction, blown from the ancient book once she opened and slammed it onto her desk laden with similar bodies of writing. Inscribed in gold leaf on the cover were the words Mors Dcemonis. A shiver of cold memories crawled up her spine, thinking about the words she had exchanged with whom appeared to her as Arella. She had felt...different since that fateful day. Ever since the moment her split halves rejoined as one, life had become a new frontier world for Raven.
For the first time in her youth, she had no more interaction with the segments of her personality—Timid, Brave, or anyone else—just Raven, and the occasional manifestation of her subconscious existence that offered her answers and wisdom. Rage was no longer causing conflict, nor was she evolving into a bloodthirsty demon, completely unrecognizable from the person she was. She could enjoy her humanity, her life without being a hazard to herself.
"What does the title mean?" A voice piqued behind her, and a gloved hand held her shoulder in a firm grip. Without turning to him, she replied solemnly, "Death of the Demon. This book might give me more information about what exactly has happened to me."
Robin slid beside her, craning over the book. "I thought you did get more information. Didn't you?" She nodded, flipping through the thick, brassy-scented ancient pages.
"Yes, but I need more. I need to know what is next to come. That part of it was pretty vague." Robin grew silent for the moment, then placed his hand on hers as she was turning a page. She looked up at him, glowering into the concealed eyes of his. "A lot of things have changed."
He nodded, never taking his focus from her. "That's true."
A spare of a moment gave them time to feel out the emotions, the old and the new, woven through unspoken gratitude and modest apologies. Raven knew that he could not find the words to say to lead into the inevitable conversation, and the guilt of his unforseen loyalty to her was impossible to see past.
There was only one thing that needed to be said on her part.
"Thank you."
Robin's face softened, almost into an affectionate smile. He took her hand into both of his, eyes unwavering.
"Raven, I.."
The screaming siren interrupted him as it wailed throughout the halls of Titan's Tower. He dropped her hand, shielding his emotions with a stony iron façade. Whatever he had intended to say would have to wait.
"Trouble."
IIIIIII
City streets lined with security and police cars as the Titans walked away from the scene, excluding their own team leader, who was writing a report with the police chief. "You'd think they would actually come on time when a robbery happens at the Jump City Reserve," Beast Boy mumbled angrily to Cyborg and Starfire.
"When are they ever on time?" Raven added, landing between him and the other two teammates. She could not deal with they undercutting sarcastic remarks by the chief and his lackeys, and left Robin to deal with them on his own. "I guess they're taking care of those H.I.V.E idiots by themselves. I got pretty tired of them calling me The Crow." She snorted, blowing a piece of hair out of her face as she lowered her hood. "Funny, I didn't know they were smart enough to come up with that one."
Beast Boy snickered while Cyborg tried to nudge her for comfort. "Aw, Rae. Beats being called the Snack Machine. And that one was terrible, compared to yours." Beast Boy toppled over in laughter, morphing into a monkey, leaning on Starfire's leg.
"I am confused. Friends, why would a police officer call Raven a crow and Cyborg a machine of snacks?" Beast Boy stood up, wiping tears from his eyes.
"Ahhaha...because they're assholes, Star. Because they're assholes."
After Robin joined them, they headed immediately for the nearby pizza parlor, where Robin had added his opinions on the officers.
"Sure, you guys are right. They can be real pricks but they're necessary in the process of putting those criminals to justice," he bit into a slice of cheese pizza with a lone piece of pepperoni. Cyborg and Beast Boy rolled their eyes, but only Raven interjected.
"That may be true, but why can't we do the process of securing the criminals ourselves without them being involved? They're so unreliable, and the villains always somehow break out under the police supervision." Starfire nodded furiously, face stuffed with pizza and mustard, and quickly swallowed.
"Raven is right! The criminals are never properly detained as we insist they should be!"
Robin shrugged. "Yeah, but..we would have to be involved in all of that legally. The only way would be through the mayor and city council's approval, since the police force want us to have no part in formally arresting villains."
"Well, we should definitely get to encouraging them," Raven finished, eying him while taking a bite of pizza.
"That's what I'm talking about, Raven! Some good old-fashioned encouragement!" Beast Boy exclaimed.
"Non-violent encouragement, Beast Boy. Legal, non-violent encouragement," Robin input. Beast Boy grinned mischievously.
"Of course."
They headed back home to the tower in a noisy T-Car, and even Raven felt jovial. It was a good day. She let her mind wander while she gazed outside the window of the passing scenery as they drew closer to the bay. A flock of birds flew by and gathered by a sidewalk, and as they slowed to a stop at a light, a black bird flew up closer to the car. She watched as the bird fluttered its large, ebony wings and preened its feathered breast.
"How simple life would be," she mouthed to herself, looking closely at the interesting bird whose eyes looked familiar...reminiscent of...
"Raven? You okay?" Robin jolted her to reality, snatching her attention from the window. He had a look of fleeting worry.
"Yeah, I was just looking at these...birds." she whispered the last word as the car drove off, and the little bird was gone, and the entire flock had disappeared.
"What birds, Raven?" He whispered, his eyes slowly growing wide. "Are you seeing-"
"No, it's not a vision or a sign, Robin. I'm fine," she rushed to assure him, and returned to the window, keeping all of her thoughts inside.
Surely, she was just seeing things.
Right?
IIIIIII
She could sense his tangled emotions approaching her door, hesitating to knock, and a slight fear of rejection could be smelled through the metal. Raven rose up from her desk and opened the door before he could make a sound. There he was, with a goofy grin and an awkward poise.
"Hey...um-"
"Just come in, Robin," finished his unnecessary beating around the bush. He came into her dark, dimly lit room and waited for his eyes to adjust before he stole a nice long look of her choice in sleep wear.
"You always sleep in that, huh?"
She shrugged, straightening her tank top, outlining the mounds of her breasts. "Only until the weather gets cooler."
He nodded, feeling a bit distanced from her. Raven watched his demeanor, realizing that for the first time, he was appearing vulnerable to her, unsure and un-put-together. She raised an eyebrow, a gentleness appeared on her face. "Do you want to sit down?"
"Sure," he said quickly, having a seat on her round bed. Raven laid back on the silk bed covers, gazing into the faux night sky on her ceiling. She moved her head to see Robin doing the same. "Is that really the Canis Major constellation?"
She nodded, a bit taken aback by his random observation. "If you look closely you can see little red flag pointing out where Sirius B should be." He chuckled, looking over to Raven, and laid back next to her.
"How many other stars have flags?"
"None. I'm quite fond of Sirius B."
They reveled in silence for a short time, until she decided to finally ask the question that had been on her mind the whole night. "You wanted to tell me...something..earlier..?"
He froze for a bit; she could feel his pulse quicken laying beside him. He was suddenly nervous. "...I.."
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"No, I do, it's just.." he trailed off, his eyes looked distant into another place, another world—as if his initial intentions to visit her had been disrupted. The both of them had suffered much trauma together within the past few weeks, and they shared the burden of silence. There were some things better left unsaid, that would not be shared with anyone else. "I told the Titans that Control Freak had been found dead in his apartment."
Raven could hear a light fixture in the hallway shatter the moment those words left his lips.
That was a memory she had been trying to recede and push into the depths of her mind since that bloodstained night. There was a word associated with it that she had been afraid to say, in fear that the demon inside would resurface again, even if it was impossible. "By the police?"
"No. By the landlord. I handled it with him." He paused, second-guessing the right words to say next. He knew she would not want to know the details of what he had found. "He had no relatives to reach out to, so we just gave his body to a crematory." He turned his head back to the ceiling.
Her stomach rocked and turned painfully at the thought of Robin seeing the disturbing mess she left in that apartment. Not only was Control Freak left unrecognizable, but the room around him was splattered with crimson stains and chunks of flesh. She remembered the sight so vividly, like it was her work of art in the city museum. There was nothing human about what she did to him, even if he was a worthless villain; she had become an ravenous monster.
What shocked her even more was the fact that Robin even opted to cover up a murder. It was so unlike him, and hard to believe. "Why...what made you do this? What made you want to—"
"Protect you? Because I know who did it, and it wasn't you. It was something else inside you that you almost lost your own life to. What happened to him...I just know you are not capable of that." He inhaled deeply and looked back to Raven, whose eyes were slowly starting to gloss. "And I know how it feels...to need to be protected." He swallowed, forcing down his own torturous memories.
"I'm sorry I couldn't protect you from it.."
"It's not your fault, Robin. It never was."
"But still... if I had just paid attention, I could've stopped you from.."
Raven grabbed his head, forcing his unseen eyes to hold tight to hers. Robin was blaming himself for this whole situation, and reasoning the murder with his own lack of support. Her heart ached with guilt, and she summoned the words to say, but somehow could not find them.
On impulse, she reached out and kissed him, her soft lips grazing his. He jolted in shock, unaware that she would act on the very feelings he knew he had wanted to confess to her. She felt gratitude and desire without pity, but guilt still remained—a permanent oil stain in fine fabric. As if he knew her emotions, he kissed her back forcefully, grabbing her waist and her cheek. Her anxious tears finally fell as they kissed, filling the hole that had been there with what they both craved. Raven's hand stroked down his arm, sliding down the chiseled bicep, and unbeknownst to her, a tiny spark of power struck him from the tip of her nail scratching across his skin.
The spark startled him, like electricity flowing through his body; but it did not cause him harm. In fact, it felt wonderful, like a light euphoria, and he wrapped his arms tighter around her small frame.
IIIIIII
Raven glared at the reflection of herself, with baggy eyes and a mop of messy hair on her head. She could not sleep at all, and yet had the appearance of someone stuck in bed for three days.
She needed some time to herself.
Or just a drink.
Anything that could straighten her out and back on the right track; she had not been the same Raven in months. Maybe this was a change for the better. Maybe this was a part of the grand scheme of things—the major lesson of this lifetime. What did she possibly do during the last one that set her up for this level of struggle?
She shook her head, as if the tangled mane would shake out into its normal state. A deep-seated urge to continue reading the Latin book she had discovered returned, and a sense of dread overcame her. The book had so much knowledge and ancient information that if she started reading now there was no way in the nine circles of Hell that she could ever finish within this week. The language was heavy, requiring her to pause every few pages just to interpret the signifying hidden meanings to every sentence. Raven had encountered something close to this, and it took her almost six months to finish that book.
Still, the urge remained. There was something in the text of Mors Dcemonis that had the answers she needed, and her intuition sensed it.
She shut off the light in the bathroom and headed for her desk, careful to avoid waking the sleeping boy wonder in her round bed. She inwardly laughed at his perplexing position he took to sleeping in, with his arm stretched across his face and his legs laid diagonally across her sheets. He was quite adorable in his most vulnerable state.
And he would let only her see him vulnerable.
Raven sat at the desk quietly, staring at the intimidating cover of the book. Well, latin never stopped me before. Just as she turned the cover over, a hand grabbed her wrist and startled her. Her power fizzled, but waned when she realized it was only Robin, the supposedly sleeping beauty.
"I thought you were asleep."
"You were being pretty noisy."
She glared at him menacingly, and he shot her a goofy grin. It was hard to stay upset with him, especially when he stood in front of her shirtless and unabashed. He stepped away from her, pulling her arm with him. "Come back to bed with me."
"I can't," she started, feeling his strength overpower her seated position. "I have to read this book. It's very important."
He nodded in agreement, but continued to pull her in the direction of the bed. "It's still pretty early, Raven. You have the whole day to read. Just..lay with me for now." The completely uncharacteristic moment took her by surprise, and she narrowed her eyes at him.
"Who are you and what have you done with Robin?" He snickered at her comment and laid back down on the bed, yanking her with him. Raven landed on top of him, and for once, simply obliged to his request. She felt...warm and fuzzy inside, a sensation foreign to her. "And what have you done with me..?" She added, staring into the hidden world of his mask.
"I have done nothing, madame," he said softly, stroking two fingers through the side of her hair, detangling it slightly. "You've done it to me." In that moment, Raven slipped her fingers under his mask.
"I haven't seen these in a while," she whispered, peeling the entire thing off his face. She leaned in and kissed him, his long eyelashes tickling her forehead. His presence simply comforted her; she felt a strange pull to him that was not always there before. Raven stared into his naked eyes, drawn to his spirit, desiring no more than to remain in the moment.
It seemed as if he felt the same way she did; his eyes refused to move from the enchantment of her own. She saw into his essence through those deep pools of oceanic blue, losing herself in the waves of a fierce storm and falling deeper into the abyss that was Dick Grayson. Raven's eyes glossed over, unaware of her reaching touch to his hands, and a flame of power danced between their fingertips. She absent mindedly noticed the strange green light and it shocked her out of her stupor; she sat up on his lap and snatching her hands to her chest.
"Wh-wh-what the hell was that?" She screamed, staring closely at him to assure that she was not in a dream.
"What was what?"
"That! I touched you and green..." her mind flashed back to the first time she saw the green power, and she was laying atop of Robin before. "Come to think of it-"
She paused, watching Robin slowly reach his fingers out for hers, and sure enough, a soft green glow awakened between their touch, growing in size and licking at their skin. "Is it..."
"It doesn't hurt at all," he said calmly, finally clasping his grip around hers. "In fact...it feels..."
"Wonderful," Raven finished, beginning to believe she had stumbled across a newfound power of her own.
IIIIIII
I know, it's so fluff-filled, you can't hardly see straight. Don't worry, it doesn't go away. I'm happy to announce that Enigma Part II is underway. I'm very excited about this one.
It took me days of overcoming stress to an exponential degree to finally decide on a title and submit this first chapter. That may sound like exaggeration but I'm graduating soon, and it gets very tough around this time. Not to mention, sleep does not exist.
Anyway, enough of my ranting. Thanks for your time, guys! As always, feel free to review!