Chapter 25: The Raven Enigma

As the Raven slowly awoke from his induced sleep, he slowly took in his surroundings. Wooden walls; dusty, straw-laden floor; thin shafts of light drifting gently down from gaps in the ceiling. He made the quick assumption that he was in some type of human building; maybe a barn by the look of things.

His red eyes also made out a timid form standing by the door; blocking the sunlight from the open doorway.

"Well, come in, won't you?" he demanded. His voice was slightly slurred to his surprise, but still contained its usual cold, condensing tone. "Or are you just going to stare all day?"

The silhouette moved towards him and he saw it was that foolish girl who had brought him back by her writing. Despite the warm weather, there was a slight shaking in her movements. The bags under her eyes suggested this was caused by some level of exhaustion, although whether this was physical or emotional exhaustion, he couldn't tell.

"And I expect you've come to gloat?" he growled. "Come to gloat at how the roles have reversed; at how the mighty have fallen?"

Numbly, she shook her head. "Nothing of the sort," she said gently. She moved forward, and now he could see that she was carrying a bucket of water and a cloth in her hands. Haru knelt beside the captive and quietly wetted the cloth with water and tried to apply it to the prisoner's wound.

He pulled away and snapped his teeth at her. She drew back her hands just quick enough to avoid being bitten. The Raven growled. "I don't need your damn sympathy!"

Haru's expression set itself into firm determination. "Well, tough; because you're going to get it." Suddenly, stronger in her beliefs, her hand shot out and pinned his head to the wall with a dull thud before he could attempt to bite her again. She forced his head to turn around so she could inspect the wound and, with a gentleness that contradicted her previous tone, cleaned at the dried blood.

Unable to resist, with his upper body and arms tied up and his feet bound together, he could do nothing apart from wait for the girl to finish tending to his wounds. "I didn't expect to wake up," he said eventually. There was no gratitude that this expectation had been proven wrong; only a slight disgust at the weakness of his enemies. "I thought the Knight would have had enough sense to dispose of me while he had the chance."

Haru made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat. "He did. But not all of us are like you. He listened to me and agreed to bring you here instead." After a pause, she added, "So did Mum and Charon. They all said you were too dangerous to keep alive. But eventually they listened to me." There was another pause, in which she half closed her eyes. It appeared the day had been a long one; fraught with arguments with friends and family. Explanations had been in order to ensure her mother – aunt, whatever – knew exactly what was going on. The discovery about Creations had been quite a handful.

"You're an idiot," the Raven commented. "You should have killed me while you had the chance."

Haru leant in; a growl creeping into her own voice. "That is what you would have done, but we are not like you. We will never be like you."

"Did you expect me to be grateful?" he growled back.

The girl hesitated. "No," she said truthfully. "Not really."

"Then why keep me alive? You know that if I ever get loose, I won't show you the same mercy. So why did you stop them killing me?"

"I didn't want my friends and family to become murderers. I didn't want them to be reduced to a brutal act of killing."

"No... There's something more than that. Why did you stop them?"

Haru's tending to his wound lost some of its gentle touch. "As long as there's some chance that we can bring Baron back, I'm not going to lose hope. Everyone else has already; that's why all they see is a monster. But I've seen Baron. He was the reason you stopped in your attack on Fakir to look to me and I saw his eyes for an instant before Fakir knocked you unconscious. For a moment I saw Baron, and I'm holding on to that belief." Haru forced the Raven's eyes to look to hers. "Baron, if you can hear me, know this; we will find a way."

After a few seconds, she released him and returned to tending the wound.

"Your compassion will be the death of you."

Haru stiffened at the Raven's cold comment, but continued with her task. In a quiet voice, she replied, "It's better than living in hate."

ooOoo

"He's dangerous!"

"Not to mention crazy!"

Haru walked tiredly into Charon and Fakir's home to hear this argument – the same argument as before – going on. Dumping the bucket and cloth to the side, she waded straight into the conversation. "Is this about Baron again?"

The four humans, a crow and a large cat all jumped at her icy words.

"We just don't think this is the wisest decision," Charon said slowly.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Naoko demanded.

Haru took a spare seat closest to her, still frowning. "No, I don't know what I'm doing. And, Charon, this may not be the wisest decision, but in my heart I know it's the right one."

"We don't even know if Baron's still there," offered Fakir.

"Well I do! I'm telling you, I saw his eyes return to green just before he was knocked unconscious. Ahiru! You were there; you were watching! Didn't his eyes change?"

The other girl squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. "Haru... I'm sorry... I wasn't really looking. I didn't see anything."

"Maybe it was just your imagination," insisted Fakir. "You were almost fainting at the time... Is it possible you just saw something that wasn't there?"

"I know what I saw. It wasn't my imagination."

"I'm sure you are very sure about what you saw, but taking circumstances into account..."

"Baron is there!" Haru rose suddenly to her feet, slamming her hands down on the table. A sudden silence filled the room before Charon finally spoke.

"We only have your word to go on this," he said calmly. "And we've got to think about the overall safety..."

"He's still there," the brunette growled. "You weren't there in the cavern. You didn't see the Raven being driven nearly over the edge as he was forced to listen to Baron shouting inside his mind. The Raven can still hear Baron inside him!" Her last sentence was accompanied by a few angry beats onto the wooden table. "He's there! If only you'd believe me...!"

Suddenly, Fakir was also on his feet; glaring over at Haru. "We've done everything to entertain this little notion of yours so far..."

"Fakir..." sighed Charon in a warning tone.

"We've kept the Raven alive, even though he's dangerous–"

"Fakir..."

"Baron's there too!" snapped Haru. "I asked you to keep the Raven and Baron alive. They are joined. You kill one; you'll kill the other. And who's to say that this will kill the Raven? You didn't manage to kill him last time, did you? Why am I the one to blame?"

"You need to see that this is foolishness and that this is only threatening the lives of everyone involved! If something happens because of your actions..."

"Me? Me?" retorted Haru. "If we're to point fingers, perhaps if you lot had killed the Raven properly the first time, we wouldn't be in this mess!"

"Fakir... Haru..."

"If you hadn't started writing and lost control, you would never have brought the Raven back and it wouldn't have been a problem!" Fakir shouted across the table.

"If you hadn't written in the first place; I wouldn't have been tempted to write!" Haru returned angrily. "If you hadn't turned Baron to wood, I would never have picked up pen and paper and I would never have wanted to write. It's all because you were too caught up in bringing your girlfriend back that you never considered the consequences! Who were you to decide that a duck is worth more than a Creation? Who gave you that right? Maybe–"

"Haru!" Naoko suddenly raised her voice and snapped the brunette's name. Haru came to a stop. "That's quite enough. This is not the time to be laying the blaming on one another."

Haru's mouth was half open, almost as if it were ready to throw the next accusation. She paused long enough to see the other occupants of the table; namely, Ahiru. The girl was struggling not to cry. Haru tried to drag up some reasonable comment or some apology, but none would come. Deeply ashamed by her cruel words, Haru kicked her chair away and fled.

Fakir moved to follow her, but Charon caught his arm. "Give her some space."

"Space?" repeated Fakir. "You're treating her like some little girl who doesn't understand right from wrong. She's not. She's my age and she shouldn't have said those things about Ahiru."

"She's upset. She's just lost a very dear friend of hers and feels responsible for what she's brought about so she needs to find some way of discharging that anger."

"Even if it means she's deluding herself into believing that he isn't gone?"

"Yes, even if it means she's deluding herself into believing he isn't gone."

"She's putting everyone in danger," Fakir insisted. "I know we have him drugged so he can't use his magic, but even so... if he escapes..."

"I know. I'm aware of the risks that the Raven poses, but, for a little while at least, give your sister some space. She'll work out that she's just deceiving herself sooner or later."

"So you don't believe that the Baron's really there either?"

Charon shook his head. "Sorry, but no. She's just seeing what she wants to see. Give her some time to come to terms with her grief and guilt and she'll see the truth."

Fakir paused, but still moved to follow his sister. "I'm going to talk to her. She needs some sense knocked into her before she does something foolish. Again."

"Fakir!"

"This is all my fault," Ahiru whimpered. "If I–"

Fakir turned around on the spot. "Don't you dare finish that sentence. I was the one who wrote that story and Haru was the one who wrote the Raven coming back."

"She didn't mean to. She was just angry and upset, and when people are like that, they do all kinds of stupid things," the girl defended.

"Yes, but not usually at this magnitude!"

"What about Rue?" Ahiru retorted. "Look at what she did. And she fixed that."

Ahiru's words mollified Fakir for a few moments more before heading off. "She still shouldn't be left alone. What if she tries to write again to fix this?"

"You think she would make the same mistake twice?"

"I don't want to risk it."

With these words, Fakir headed out and tried to pick up where Haru had disappeared to. He tried her room first, but either she was there or she wasn't answering. And then he went to the pizza parlour and even asked round if anyone had seen a girl of Haru's description. All this resulted in was one dead end and several gossipy stares that probably meant there was going to be a rumour circling round the next day. He tried the pier, but that was as empty as always. Even in a moment of desperation, he looked round the ballet rooms; even though he was near certain his sister couldn't dance.

It was as he was passing back through the academy that he noticed one of the art rooms had a small light standing in its window. It was late evening and instinctively he started towards it; with the barest hope that it would be the person he was looking for. He didn't bother tapping on the door, but just let himself in.

He had guessed right; it was Haru.

She lay sprawled on her front, with various pieces of paper scattered around her; all filled with doodles. She had a music player spewing out tinny music beside her. Currently she was focusing on a particular doodle before her.

"Come to shout at me some more?" she asked idly.

"What?"

"It was a simple question," she said in a bored tone as she tilted her head to get a better angle at her drawing. "Have you come to shout at me some more?"

"... No, of course not."

"You're lying," she noted in the same bored tone, "but it doesn't matter. Doodling always made me feel better about things."

Unsure what to make of this newly calm Haru, Fakir wandered over to her side to see the subject of her drawings. "You've still got Baron on the brain then," he commented.

"Not just Baron," she amended. "I've got a certain day on my mind. Sketching it out always made me feel... closer to my time in the Cat Kingdom." She hesitated, and her previously fast-moving pencil slowed to a stop. "Even if no one apart from me had any choice in the part they played. Not even Baron," she said quietly. The pencil picked up movement just as suddenly and continued its frenzied dance across the page. "Not even him..." The outline on the page began to resemble a cat baring a wooden cane, supposedly against opponents, but Haru hadn't got that far yet.

Fakir picked up a few of the other sketches lying around; a few of Toto, and others of that large white cat (there was an odd one out which consisted of neither, but of a cat couple, with one holding a wrapped box) but most were of the figurine. However, in each one, his eyes were rubbed out. A large grey smudge across the face accompanied most of the figurine drawings; the only ones exempt to this rule being ones which didn't show his face.

"Having problems with the eyes?" he inquired innocently.

Haru looked up from her current project. "I've been having problems with his eyes for a while now. They keep on coming out wrong. Look..." She moved to the side and picked up one piece of paper buried under the others. "I didn't get round to removing the eyes off this one."

Fakir took the offered drawing and nearly dropped it when he saw it.

Haru smiled wanly. "Remind you of anyone?"

"That..." He looked down at the paper, then over to his sister with haunted gaze. "It looks like the Raven's eyes."

"I know."

"But... how?"

Haru reclaimed her sketch and proceeded to remove the offending eyes. "I don't know. I've been having nightmares about Baron turning into someone – something – that I don't know, but I thought they were just irrational fears. But now it's all gone terribly wrong and it's come true. It's almost as if I were aware that it was going to happen before it did."

"But how could you know that...?"

"I don't know."

"I'll talk to Autor about it."

"Autor?" Haru repeated with vague distaste. "Why him? He's an obsessive nutcase."

Fakir paused. "Okay, he's obsessive about the whole Drosselmeyer thing; I'll give you that... But because of it he has a wide knowledge of those with the Drosselmeyer gift. Maybe he can throw some light on this subject..."

"Okay, you go and talk to the obsessive freak; I'm going nowhere near him. He threw water over me last time!"

"He did that to me too. Look, he's not as bad as all that."

Haru huffed and returned to her current project.

Fakir sighed. "I'll leave you to your stuff. Just... don't go writing anything else."

"You think I'm going to write again after this disaster?" she asked in an icy tone.

"... Okay, valid point."

Haru kept her eyes trained on her drawing; only moving one hand to turn the volume up slightly on her music player as Fakir left.

"Idiot," she muttered to herself once he was gone, in an effort to relieve her building stress.

She didn't feel any better.

After a groan, she let her head fall onto her current sketch, not caring if she blurred the lines. "Maybe they were all right. Maybe Baron isn't there." Just as quickly, she picked up her head again. "No; if I even start thinking like that, I'll give in to the pressures of the others."

"That's right; don't allow the others to suppress your choices," a familiar voice told her. "Don't allow them to make your decisions for you."

Haru's hand clenched on her pencil; bringing her current sketch to an abrupt stop. In the background, the music had cut off. "I'm not in the mood for your games today, Drosselmeyer."

There was that insane laugh – the one that freaked her out – jumping around the room.

Haru slowly got to her feet, leaving her drawing to the side, and looked up; not bothering to try to track down the source of the sound. "What is it? What do you want?"

Eventually – as Drosselmeyer saw that Haru was neither impressed or intimidated by his show – the laughter died away and the deceased writer appeared (still not as solid as the living) before the brunette. "I want a tragedy," he answered, "which you, my dear, seem so able to deliver."

A hiss broke into Haru's voice. "You tricked me," she accused. "You knew this would happen; you knew the Raven would take over Baron!"

Drosselmeyer tutted and shook his head. "You give me too much credit, my dear. I knew that something would happen, but as to the exact consequences – I was oblivious. However, I must say it turned out nicely, very nicely indeed. A delicious tragedy. Oh yes, certainly; the heroine, in her fight to bring back the hero for whom she cares so very, very much, only loses him in the process. It works out perfectly."

"This isn't a story, Drosselmeyer!" Haru snapped.

"Isn't it?" His crazed, clockwork eyes whirled. "You all are so easy to manipulate; you're all nothing more than... marionettes..."

"Not me," she insisted. "I'm–"

"A Wildcard, yes. Un-writable, but not... uncontrollable. You still wrote a story; you still did as I wanted. Just because words on a page won't change you doesn't mean that words spoken to you won't. Or did the Baron never explain that to you?"

Haru tensed as she remembered Baron trying to tell her something along those lines. "You... tricked me..." she repeated, but this time it came with a new emphasis.

"I wanted you to dance for my entertainment, and you outdid yourself," Drosselmeyer said, highly amused by the whole idea. "Bringing the Raven back to take over the form of the Baron... Beautiful! Just beautiful! Far better than I expected for a first-time writer!"

Something snapped inside her at the careless words.

"Get out..." she whispered. "I don't care who or what you are... just get out!" She grabbed the nearest item that could be used for a weapon – this turned out to be a stool – and rounded on the dead author. "I said get out!"

Cackling, Drosselmeyer disappeared and re-appeared across the room.

"My, you're just like the Creation. So full of fire!"

"So full of fire and dangerous; is that really a combination you want to take on?" she demanded. "Hang on, what do you mean "just like the Creation"? Do you... know Baron?"

"We've talked. Well," amended Drosselmeyer, "I talked. He preferred to shout." Drosselmeyer half chuckled, although his eyes betrayed a deeper insanity. "But his story was so beautifully tragic." The writer's eyes went dewy at this point. "Long-lost forgotten fiancée; his own fate and feelings controlled by story; falling..." Drosselmeyer's gaze lingered on Haru, "in love with a human..."

Haru attempted not to flinch, but a slight shiver rippled through her all the same. "Liar," she whispered. "He never loved me."

"Why would I lie? It's too late now; the Baron you knew is gone. Too late, and true love can't conquer all. Not this time. It just completes his story..."

"Leave," she ordered. "Just leave. I don't want to listen to you anymore."

"I wasn't the one who wrote this story..."

"I said leave!"

Abruptly, the music started up again; signalling Drosselmeyer's exit as the shadowy form of the author disappeared. Still breathing heavily, Haru dropped the stool to the ground and, after a moment's hesitation, kicked it venomously across the room. It slid on the polished wooden floor and ground to a halt with a dull thud beside the canvases on the other side. Soon after this action, thick, heavy tears started to roll down her cheeks again; she brushed them away angrily.

"Dammit. Why have I got to be so weak?" she murmured.