It was early morning, the morning after the eventful night on the roof, and I was sleeping side by side with Raven in her bed; my room was often too messy to sleep in. I was awake, which was surprising considering Raven usually woke up hours before I did, while Raven was asleep. I held her close to me, both our bodies bare. I could feel her heart lightly pounding against me; bdm bdm…bdm bdm. It was the soft chanting of her sleeping body, rarely did her heart get so slow. She was a naturally tense person and her heart usually beet much faster then when she slept with me that night. It was a shame that her sleep would soon be disturbed.

The alarm blared loudly suddenly, the moment I decided to close my eyes again. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP…. "Raven…." I said quickly, but there was no need, she was already up and climbing out of bed.

"Get moving, Gar." She said to me over the alarm as she dressed. BEEP BEEP BEEP… She pulled on her black leotard and cape; she was fully dressed by the time I climbed out of bed; I was defiantly not a morning person. She gave me an anxious look then rolled her eyes, chucking my clothes at me. "Hurry up!"

By the time I was dressed she had rushed out of the room, she usually got that way when the alarm went off. She was a gentle person by nature but when it came to protecting the city she got serious and dangerous. I ran to catch up, not even bothering to brush my hair before leaving the room; god knows what it looked like. As we reached the main room the other Titans were already standing around the big screen, a map of the city on the monitor.

"Who is it?" Raven asked as she reached Robin's side, her eyes serious her tone as emotionless as always.

Robin had a serious look on his face as he looked at the screen. "I'm not sure…" He ran his finger down the screen to where a little question mark was blinking in unison with the alarm. "A new villain, I suppose, it's down town and moving at a quick pace… We'd best get moving, if we don't know what it is there's no saying to what damage he or she could be doing. TITANS GO!"

"And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,"

By the time we got down town half of what we one would call 'down town jump city' was covered in a thick layer of ice and snow. This puzzled us; we had never seen this before. Who could possibly cover whole building in ice, and what was the motive? I looked over my shoulder at Raven; I was in wolf form. She did not return the gaze and was looking around. That's when I felt it. It had become dreadfully quiet. The only thing heard was the slight cracking and creaking of ice as it melted in the hot summer sun.

I looked around, my animal senses tingling; driving me insane; for I could not see what caused them to tickle so.

Suddenly, I was attacked. A giant rush of fur and teeth had pounced me. When I pushed my attacker off of me I saw it was a white wolf. It was much bigger then I in wolf form, its shoulders hunched aggressively, lifeless blue eyes, pupil-less, staring me down. It snarled at me, obviously thinking I was actually another wolf invading its new found territory. It jumped back in terror when I transformed into a tiger, growling fiercely. I leaped at it but it yelped and ran off in the direction of the park.

I looked over my shoulder at Robin who looked slightly confused as the wolf's harmless retreat. "Fallow it." He said after a moments delay.

And so I did, quickly picking up its sent and running after it, entering the now completely frozen park. I slowed to a brisk walk as I eyed my surroundings. Trees were covered in ice, the pound was frozen, and bushes were crystallized; It looked like something out of a fairy tale. I heard a snarl ahead of me; the wolf had cornered itself in a corner where two brick walls met. I approached it and it seemed to cower. I turned back into my human form, waiting for the Titans, assuming the wolf was safe. Big mistake, it launched at me, pinning me on my back, snarling fiercely.

"Now now, my pet." Said a cruel voice from behind me. "Let's not play with our food."

The wolf obeyed and let me up. Crawling to my feel I turned around and there before me stood a woman. She was tall, skin so pale she could almost be considered albino, but her eyes were ice blue and similar to the wolf's; no pupils. She wore a crystal blue dress of some sort and a crystallized crown. Right away I could sense she was no good. "Did you do all of this?" I asked, gesturing to the ice.

She seemed to chuckle at me, eyeing me. "Look at the little green one, Borealis, trying to act so macho." She taunted evilly. The wolf approached her and seemed to laugh at me. She then approached me, the air around me getting colder with every step she took towards me. "Someone your size should not be challenging someone so powerful." She circled me, eyeing me dangerously. "Like my ice? Beautiful, isn't it? Soon enough the whole world will look like this and I'll have a beautiful kingdom of ice, and I, Aurora, will be the queen."

"We'll see about that." I muttered, transforming into a tiger and jumping at her. The wolf attacked me, showing no sense of fear this time. It attacked me with the force of several wolves combined. As I changed form to a mammoth I looked around. Where were the Titans?

As if on cue, the wolf was blown off me by an incredible force. I looked up and saw Raven flying there, sending a large block of ice at Aurora. "Fight your own battle, witch!" Raven yelled as the block flew towards the ice mistress.

"I'm the witch?" Aurora asked, halting the ice with a wave of her hand. "If I'm the witch, that must make you the devil." She chuckled as she saw that her comment had obviously struck home. When Raven sent an even larger block of ice at her the witch laughed herder. She halted the ice again by melting it. "Come now, dear. You can not expect me to be defeated by my own element."

And with that she sent a black of ice and snow at Raven. "Raven!" I yelled as she was knocked out of the sky. She flew several yards and onto the frozen pond. At first I thought she'd be ok but then the ice shattered beneath her as she went to recover from the fall. If Raven had suspected it she might have been able to recover and get away before falling through, but I watched her sink into the water.

I ran to the pound but found out a new layer of ice had frozen on the surface. Behind me I heard Aurora chuckling. I heard her laughing cease behind me as the other Titans arrived but I took no part in her take down, I was too worried for Raven. I saw her beneath the ice, using her powers to slowly chisel away at the ice. For some reason her powers did not work well under water. I went into my T-Rex form and began to scrape away at the ice with my large reptilian body. But the form of a T-Rex was not meant for the icy conditions of the present and I slipped. Though it caused me slight discomfort I did manage to break through the ice.

I looked up, momentarily stunned by the icy cold water, and there was Raven, swimming to the surface. I turned into a sea lion and helped her to the air she so desperately needed. Her head broke the surface with a loud and sputtering gasp. As I pulled her onto the ice, back in human form, I felt her body tremble. She was freezing, and the icy air she was desperately gasping in gave her no relief.

"A wind blew out of a cloud by night
chilling my Annabel Lee;"

"Raven," I said quickly, desperately wanting to hear some encouraging words come from her lips. I held her close as she shivered. "Hun, you alright? Talk to me."

"I'm fine." She said, standing up. I wanted to help her, even carry her, but she was in one of those moods where she was so determined that me helping her would have just irritated her.

And so I let her stand for herself and watched her fly off to help the other titan's as if nothing had happened. With a smile I ran off, back in tiger form to help bring the ice witch down. We did, eventually, but little did I know how much I would come to despise that woman.

Back at the tower I took Raven to her room and helped her to undress from her damp, freezing clothes. She was beginning to look rather ill and I began to worry. As she undressed I saw that her body was paler then usually, and veins, blue as the ice she nearly drowned in, were showing through her delicate skin. This worried me, she was much colder then I thought. I went to run a warm bath for her and helped her climb in.

"Are you going to be ok?" I asked desperately, my voice quivering. Raven was not one to get sick, the fact was I had never seen her ill and I did not know what to expect. "Please tell me you're going to be ok."

Raven gave me a smile, rolling her eyes as she settled into the warm water. "Of course I am." She said, messing up my green hair with a wave of her quivering hand. She relaxed in the warm water and said a few words before falling asleep in it. "A little cold water can't do much harm."

As I picked her up pout of the water and into her bed I began to worry. That was way more then a little cold water. But now was not the time to worry, more drama would come ahead. For now I just had to hold her and keep her warm. I thought how we missed the sun set. 'Oh well' I told myself. 'We'll just have to catch tomorrow night's instead.'

But things did not get better. Raven became sicker with every hour that passed. She had a horrid fever of 104.5 and it kept rising. She would often break out into cold sweats and panic attacks. Her eyes dilated and sometimes she would act like she didn't even know who we were. We took her to the emergency room when we decided the Titan's Tower medical facility wasn't doing her any good. Sadly, after a week at the hospital Raven only grew worse. She eventually told us to check her out of the hospital; there was nothing they could do, she told us.

When we settled her into her room we stayed with her until she fell asleep. The Titan's left the room but I stayed. It was such and odd illness. Her fever kept rising and yet she still lived.

"This is inhuman." Said one doctor. He ended up calling in a team of medical experts far greater then he, but they drew a blank as well. She could not be diagnosed. For whenever they thought of an illness a new symptom would show, completely blowing up the diagnosis. Eventually they told us there was nothing they could do to help he; "it was our of there hands" or so they told us.

That night, as I lay by her side wishing, praying she would be ok, beings whom I have never met before came to her. "It is alright, green one." A polite woman told me. As I studied her face more I realized she was raven's mother. "Raven is sick, and needs proper help from people who can actually provide for her."

A man in a white robe approached Raven and picked her up, gently removing her from her bed. I quickly grew defensive. "Where are you taking her?" I demanded.

Another woman next to Raven's mother gave me a soft smile. "To Azerath, where we will do what we can to help her." she stated clearly. "Raven's immune system is breaking down. She is part demon and that demon half of her is not accustom to earth bound illnesses."

I went to say something of protest but the man in white stopped me. "Whatever the outcome we will return her too you." He said warmly. "We'll do what we can."

And with that they left as if they were never there. I turned to where Raven had bee, hoping it was all just a bad dream, but no. they had taken her away. They had taken my Raven to Azerath, a dimension only reachable by them. And so I lay down in the spot where her body once lay. Maybe this was for the best. Maybe they could help.

"So that her high-born kinsman came
and bore her away from me,"

Several weeks passed and Raven was returned to us. Nothing had changed, she was not better. The only positive thing was she had not gotten any worse. They told us we needed to keep her in a sterile environment, and so we put her in the Titans medical room under extreme air lock. We could see her as long as we bathed before hand. It was like living in a hospital, I don't know how Raven stayed sane through most of it. But I kept visiting her and tried my best to stay with her all the time. I even told her about the sun sets in extreme detail, though most of the time she seemed completely out of it she would smile as I spoke to her. She loved the sun set, even when she only saw it from my visualizations. Her smile gave me hope even though I knew it was false hope.

"To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea."

Getting a bit sadder now. Well, I write good tragedies, happy endings aren't my thing. Don't worry; this still has quite a few chapters to g until i finish it. Who knows what might happen. For those of you looking for some foreshadowing, read "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allen Poe.