My Only Love Sprung from my Only Hate
Chapter Six: Kindness
The winds were starting to bring promises of snowfall. The temperature in the waters had dropped dramatically, for they too were affected by the changing seasons. The treetops, once adorned with the scarlets and oranges of autumn, have become bare. Birds have begun to migrate in organized patterns across the skies, which were becoming grayer and bleaker with each day that passed.
It was the first week of December, and winter had arrived. Raven wrapped her cloak tighter around her, and she set off into the large garden that graced the back of the castle. A basket slung in her arm as she searched for vegetables that today's recipe had called for.
She spotted the leafy green tops of carrots sprouting from a patch, and she began gathering some. When she had unearthed them, she had noticed that the carrot was perfectly orange and normal in shape. The dirt that she had pulled them from was surprisingly dark and moist as opposed to hardened and frigid.
Raven might have not had much experience growing vegetables, but she knew that December was not the ideal month to harvest them. And yet the carrot in her hand was fine, despite the fact that the temperatures had plummeted.
"I thought I would find you here."
Her eyes went from the carrot to the tall, lean figure of Rorek. As usual, he was dressed in full armor and a black scarf partially hid his face from view. His long white hair was a bit disheveled, indicating that he had just woken up.
"Morning," she mumbled, pulling another carrot out of the ground. Again, she had obtained another vegetable that was perfect and fully grown. She looked to Rorek with questioning eyes, and figured that since he had lived here a millennium ago, she might as well ask him how this garden had the ability to defy the laws of nature.
"Could you possibly explain to me how your garden is still alive even though it's winter?"
Fortunately, Rorek didn't mind answering. "That is because every plant and flower in this garden is enchanted. My ancestors were self-sufficient, so they cast a spell that enabled them to harvest fruits and vegetables during any season."
"But wasn't there a town nearby that they could buy food at?"
A grimace appeared on Rorek's face, and the warmth in his blue eyes had suddenly died. The cruel winter wind whistled through the garden as Raven's curiosity was roused from the wizard's change in behavior.
"There was a small village that was an hour away from the castle," he replied in an unusually grim tone of voice. "But my family rarely went there."
Raven noticed the solemnity in his voice, and she caught the glimpse of grief in his eyes. Obviously, she had unwittingly brought up a subject that Rorek didn't want to elaborate on, and she didn't want to say anything more that would hurt him. She knew from experience that prying into other people's business was rarely a good thing; the incident in which Cyborg and Beast Boy had gotten themselves trapped in her mediation mirror is a prime example.
"Are you okay?" she asked, her concern for him evident in her voice. Even if she didn't want to force him to talk about anything he didn't want to, she was still worried about him.
Rorek looked at her and nodded reassuringly. "Yes, I am fine."
"Well, do you mind helping me with breakfast?"
"Not at all," he politely replied, and extended out a hand to help her up, which she accepted.
Afterwards, he seemed to be back to his normal self as they made small talk while preparing their meal. But in spite of that, Raven still caught the traces of sorrow in his eyes.
And for some reason, she was troubled by them all day.
She hugged her doll tightly as she stared into the foreboding darkness of the forest before her. Legend had it that people who have been foolish and courageous enough to walk into that place never came back. It was said that beyond the forest lived evil sorcerers whose idea of entertainment was torturing innocent people.
Although that was back in the Middle Ages when things such as witchcraft and roaming dragons were credible, many villagers still don't like to step as much as a foot into those forests. To go into them meant days of wandering around aimlessly without food or water. To go into them meant no one could ever find you.
And that was exactly what she wanted.
She didn't want anyone to see her. She didn't want anyone to talk to her. Not even her mother. She had no reason to stay at this place where everyone would look at her and then whisper behind her back. She didn't know if they were saying mean things or not, but they made her uncomfortable.
And her mother...she hasn't even taken a step outside of the house. All she does is sit next to her bed, crying until there were no more tears left to shed. She didn't notice her, she didn't even talk to her.
No one wanted her here. And that gave her all the more reason to leave this place.
Giving her doll another hug, she turned her back on the town and walked into the welcoming shadows of the forest.
Raven looked at the tiny spherical object in Rorek's open hand, and then to his eyes.
"So...what's that have to do with the spell you wanted to show me?"
"Watch," he instructed, and then he focused on the seed that was settled on his palm.
Raven's eyes observed the seed as Rorek recited a chant. Green sprouts instantly broke through the hard surface of the seed and continued to grow at an unnaturally quick rate. She let out a gasp of disbelief as the sprouts formed a long stem with thorns and leaves, and then later a red flower bud. She watched as the petals unfurled completely into a full-bloomed rose.
She gaped at the flower in Rorek's hand. "How did you...?"
"Everything on this earth has a beginning and an end," Rorek began to explain. As soon as the rose had blossomed in his hand, its brilliant scarlet petals began to fade and wither, and the stem had shriveled. "This spell allows one to control when either occurs."
The wizard repeated the chant, and the petals instantly became full and scarlet once more and the stem was green once more.
"You can manipulate time?" Raven asked.
"To put it simply, yes," he answered. "This spell is among the most complicated in sorcery, and it requires a lot of magic to cast it, even on a simple seed."
Rorek extended the rose to Raven with a meaningful look. She realized that it was for her, and she blushed as she took it from him.
"As I said, this spell is very complicated. But I know that you can master it, Raven."
Her cheeks were getting redder, she just knew it. Now he was encouraging her. It wasn't everyday that handsome young men gave her a rose and complimented her. Not since Malchior...
The fluttering in her chest stopped upon the memory of the dragon that deceived her. Even now she couldn't forget his treachery. Once again, her usual pessimism returned, and she stared at the rose in her hand.
Unbeknownst to Rorek, she was half-demon. There was no way that her magic could ever produce something this delicate.
"I can't create anything this beautiful," she spoke out loud. "I just can't..."
An ominous feeling suddenly struck her, causing her to drop the rose that Rorek had given her. She stood on her feet and tried to locate the source. After a few seconds, she could feel that something menacing spawning from the usually calm forest.
"What is wrong?" Rorek questioned her, noticing how uneasy she was acting.
"I sense something," she replied. "And I'm going to find out what it is."
She levitated from the ground and took off into the direction of the forest, leaving the bewildered wizard alone in the garden.
She ran as quickly as her feet could take her. Shadows flew by and the December wind whipped past her. She hugged her doll closely as she dashed through the forest, trying to outrun her pursuers.
She was too frightened to even look back. All she knew was that she heard the menacing growls and that meant that she wasn't running fast enough.
In her panic, her foot tripped over a protruding root and she tumbled onto the cold ground. Pain seared in her right knee from the impact, and her doll had flown out of her grip. She gritted her teeth and tried to pull herself up, but it was too late.
The wolves had already encircled her. They growled hungrily through their razor-sharp teeth, and she cowered before them. She whimpered, but she was too terrified to even move.
The leader of the pack, an intimidating creature with gray fur and yellow eyes, started to approach her. She whimpered as it came closer with each agonizingly slow second that went by. Before she even knew it, the wolf lunged toward her with its fangs intent to spill blood, and she closed her eyes and let out a petrified scream.
"Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos!"
A female voice rang clearly through the air, and she heard bodies falling onto the ground and yelps of pain. She slowly opened her eyes to find the pack of wolves was sprinting away. And when she looked upward, she saw why they did.
A cloaked figure of a young woman was hovering in the air above her. A hood hid all but two dark eyes, and she whimpered again when she landed next to her.
"Are you hurt?" the woman asked in a grave tone of voice.
She moved away and tried to get up on her feet, but her wounded knee prevented her from doing so. The woman moved closer to her and she shut her eyes in fear.
"You don't have to be afraid."
She refused to look at her. This stranger must've done something terrible to chase away a bunch of starving wolves. And the fact that her face was enshrouded in darkness like everything else in this forest wasn't very comforting either.
"I'm not going to hurt you," the hooded woman stated. She wasn't very convinced, and she still kept her eyes tightly shut.
"...if I show you my face, will you feel better?"
She remained silent, but then she nodded in reply. She could hear the slight rustle of the woman's fingers removing her hood. After a few moments, she gathered up the courage to look at the face of the stranger who had saved her.
A pale, solemn face of an adolescent girl looked back at her, and she found that her serious voice made her sound older than she looked. The short purple hair and blue-violet eyes caught her by surprise as did the red gem on her forehead, but for some reason they seemed to fit this girl's features.
Her fear subsided after she saw her face, and she wasn't as frightened anymore. However, the pain in her knee returned again and she winced.
The older girl knelt down and placed her hands on her knee, and before her very eyes they emitted black fire. To her shock, she didn't feel like she was being burned, and the pain in her knee was suddenly going away. The girl's hands stopped glowing, and her dark eyes looked at her.
"Can you get up?"
She stood on her feet, still amazed that this stranger had somehow healed her. The older girl began to walk away from her, and she was kneeling onto the ground again. When she turned around, she saw that her doll was in her hands, and a small smile of relief lifted the corners of her lips.
"This yours?"
She nodded happily and took it from the stranger, holding it tightly against her chest. All fear that she had for the older girl had instantly vanished and she smiled up at her.
"We better get you back home," she said, and her words sank her lifted spirits. The smile disappeared and was replaced by a saddened expression.
"Do you know your way back?"
She didn't answer her. Instead, she looked downwards and just held her doll. The other girl was silent, too, probably angry or impatient with her. Maybe she'll just leave her where she found her and not look back...
"It's getting dark," she suddenly spoke. "If you're not going to tell me where you live, then you'll have to come with me."
Her head shot up and she stared at the older girl. Her face showed no signs of annoyance or frustration. Instead, she walked away, her soft steps echoing through the silence.
The stranger stopped, and turned her head towards her.
"Well? Let's go."
She followed the girl's orders and rushed to her side. She was convinced that this stranger was good, and although she would be what villagers would coin a "witch", she felt that she wasn't evil.
Still, one question was bothering her as she walked next to her in silence...
"What's your name?" she feebly asked, and the girl looked down on her.
"It's Raven," she answered. "What's yours?"
She gave her a small smile, and replied, "Emma."
"Raven!"
Rorek shouted her name, relieved when he made out her cloaked figure from the trees. He ran to her and was met with her usual blank expression.
"What happened?" he asked. "What did you sense—"
His blue eyes fell upon the small figure that was hiding behind the empath. He saw the two blonde braids and the pair of green eyes that peered at him from the safety of Raven's blue cloak.
"I'll explain inside." Raven told him, and she walked towards the castle with the little girl trailing right behind her. Rorek watched them, and he suddenly felt uneasy.
She watched Emma as she slept with the blankets curled around her. Her rag doll was lying next to her underneath her right arm, its coal black eyes staring back at Raven as its owner slumbered peacefully.
Her eyes left the girl and traveled to the rose that she kept in a small glass of water. When she had put Emma to bed, she went back to the garden and retrieved the rose that Rorek had given to her earlier. For some inexplicable reason, she wanted to keep it instead of leaving it in the cold where it would wither and die. There was something about it that made it almost precious, and she didn't know why.
The white-haired wizard crossed her mind, and she remembered telling him that she would explain everything to him. Surely he would want to know why she had brought a child to his castle.
Careful not to wake Emma, she left the room and closed the door behind her.
"So, how is our guest?"
She turned around to meet Rorek. "She's asleep. I guess you want me to give you some answers now."
"Please, if you would."
They went into a room further down the corridor. More books were stored here, but not nearly as much as the library had. The window had a view of the ever-shifting ocean outside, and the faint beams of the moon came in through the panes.
Raven felt a bit of a chill, and she pulled her cloak closer around her. In the instant that she did, a fire sprang to life in the fireplace, courtesy of Rorek.
"Sorry, it does get a bit cold in the castle during this time of year."
"You know how to keep a garden from dying in the winter, but you can't keep a castle warm?"
He chuckled. "I am a wizard, Raven. Not a miracle worker."
She allowed herself to grin as she settled closer to the fire with Rorek sitting at her side.
"What is the child's name?"
"Emma," she answered. "Her fear was what I sensed. She was running from a pack of wolves when I found her. It looks like she has been wandering around that forest for a day or so."
"...did she say where she came from?"
She noticed the slightly ominous tone in his voice, but she didn't comment. "No. I asked her where her home was, but she didn't answer me. I couldn't just leave her in the forest, so that's why I brought her here."
"I see."
"You said yesterday that there was a village an hour from here, right? It's most likely that she lives there."
That same look of despair flashed in the crystal blue pools of his eyes. After spending more than a month here at the castle, Raven could make out the wizard's expressions, scarf or not.
"If that is the case, then you should bring her back as soon as possible," he stated almost gravely.
The way he said those words...it was almost disturbing, and her concern for him from yesterday returned.
"For someone who fought a dragon single-handedly, I didn't think that you would be afraid of kids."
He chuckled again, and he stared off into the licking flames of the fire. "Fear...how I wish it were that simple."
She stared at him, worry etched in her features. This was a side of Rorek that she had never seen. Instead of the warmhearted young man she knew him to be, he looked like a weary soul who seemed haunted by something that refused to give him a moment's peace.
"Then again, there are few things in life that are," he said sadly, his eyes never leaving the graceful movements of the all-consuming flames.
Emma watched her hostess as she chopped up the tomatoes evenly with the knife she held in her right hand.
"Why don't you use just your powers to do that?" she asked.
"I don't need to waste my powers on something as simple as this," Raven replied.
"Oh..."
Raven looked at the girl and noticed the downhearted expression on her round face. She then looked at the doll that she held lovingly in her hand. She saw that one of the arms was barely hanging on to the rest of the body by the thin threads that bound it.
Putting aside the knife, she telepathically sewed the arm back together. Emma gaped in amazement as the thread came to life with dark energy and closed the opening. When she was done, there was no longer any stuffing hanging out, and the arm was perfectly attached once again.
"Thank you very much," Emma said with a big smile on her face.
"You're welcome," and Raven resumed chopping.
"I tried fixing her myself, but I always pricked my finger on the needle," the little girl chatted. "I asked my mommy, but she can't do anything anymore."
Raven raised an eyebrow. "Why's that?"
"'Cause, she's always so sad..."
Emma fell silent, and her sentence was left unfinished. Raven took note of how the vivacious girl had suddenly turned unusually somber, but she just continued chopping the vegetables.
However, the image of a woman with long dark curls and sorrowful eyes flashed in her head. She remembered hearing muffled cries and words of regret when she thought that she couldn't hear her. She remembered how her hair would cover her entire face when she would bury it in the palms of her hands. That woman was the one who had given birth to her, the one she had called 'mother'.
A small hand tugged at her cloak, and a pair of big green eyes looked up at her.
"Was your mommy always sad, too, Raven?"
The empath said nothing and took the cutting board to the cauldron, and she added the tomatoes to the boiling water. She felt the green eyes staring at her back, expecting her to give an answer.
"Yes," she finally replied. "And I think she'll always be that way."
Neither girl noticed the presence of the wizard outside of the kitchen.
A few days have passed since the arrival of their new guest. Wherever Raven went, the blonde girl was bound to follow her like a puppy. Surprisingly, Raven did not lash out at her. Of course there were times that he had seen her irritated, but now it was like she didn't mind the constant company of the child.
This morning was one of the rare ones where Emma was nowhere to be found near Raven. Rorek found her meditating in the garden, levitating in midair as usual. Although she hadn't been practicing her spell casting as rigorously as she did before Emma's arrival, she still made sure to keep up with her meditation.
These past days, Rorek was unable to talk to Raven as much as he used to. With Emma's constant presence and Raven's determination to continue her meditation, he hadn't said so much as a few words to her. A part of him sorely missed the time he would spend with her when he taught her new spells or was guiding her through another intricate spell book.
He wasn't envious of Emma, but rather he was envious of the time she got to spend with Raven.
"You're always looking at Raven, Mister Rorek."
The tiny voice peeped, and he discovered that the child had snuck up behind him.
"Oh, good morning, Emma."
"Morning!" she returned his greeting cheerfully. "So why do you?"
"Why do I what?"
"Why do you always look at Raven?"
He could feel his face getting warm and he looked away from Emma, cautious to not look in the direction where Raven was meditating. "Um...that's quite personal."
"It is because you like her?"
He was certain that his entire face was red. Who knew that a child could ask such embarrassing questions?
"Raven has a rose in her room, you know," Emma continued, not waiting for an answer from Rorek, much to his relief. "She keeps it in water and puts it where it can see the sun. She looks at it a lot, and she takes really good care of it."
Despite his slight humiliation, a sense of happiness swelled inside of him from hearing what Emma had to say.
"You were the one who gave it to her, right Mister Rorek?"
"I believe that I have something of importance to attend to. If you excuse me..."
He didn't wait for Emma to excuse him and he kept himself from sprinting and prayed that Raven didn't hear anything.
She meditated and chanted over Emma's delighted giggles as she collected seashells from the lapping waves with her doll in one hand. She had gotten used to the girl's hyper activity; she was just like a miniature human version of Starfire.
But underneath the bubbly personality, Raven knew that there was something darker to the girl. From what she gathered, she suspected that Emma might have come from a broken family, or at the very least, experienced something tragic. That alone made her feel connected to the child.
Raven, of all people, knew what a broken family was like. She was born from one.
"Raven, Raven!"
Her eyes opened to see the mound of different seashells Emma had gathered in her arms.
"What?"
"The sun, it's sinking into the ocean!" she declared excitedly. "Come on, you're going to miss it!"
"I can see just fine," Raven assured her. She stopped levitating and allowed herself to be pulled near the edge of the water by Emma.
The sun was setting into the endless horizon of the blue ocean. Shades of light pink, violet, and orange painted the sky in distinct streaks, and already stars were beginning to awake. In a fiery blaze, the sun sank and gave way to the darkness of night. The shadow of the moon glowed faintly in the sky, and the stars shone brighter than ever from the black sky.
Her mother would always look at those stars when she wasn't crying. She remembered that she would stare at them for countless hours, as if she was seeking something that only the stars could provide. What that was, Raven never found out.
Was it redemption? Was it mercy? Or perhaps her mother was praying for a way that would relieve her of living with the burden of giving birth to a demonic child.
"Raven?"
"Yeah?"
"I can stay with you and Mister Rorek from now on, right?"
Raven's eyes widened and she gawked at the child, who smiled hopefully at her.
"Why do you want to stay with us?"
"Because, I like staying with you," she simply answered.
"...but what about your home? What about your family?"
The girl's smile vanished and she looked at the ocean, the waves shifting small pebbles and sand over her feet.
"I don't like my home," she started. "People are always looking at me. They always say things about me when they think I can't hear them. They've been doing that since Daddy died."
Comprehension dawned upon Raven as she listened to Emma, who she noticed was beginning to tremble.
"Ever since he went away, Mommy doesn't do anything anymore. She sits next to the bed and cries all day and night. She never notices me anymore. She doesn't know whether I'm home or not. She just cries..."
"That doesn't mean that you should run away, Emma," Raven attempted to talk sense to her.
"But I don't want to go back!" the girl shouted in protest, tears glistening in her jade green eyes. "I don't want people to keep staring at me! I don't want to go back if all Mommy ever does is cry!"
"You can't run away," Raven repeated solemnly. "And if your mother is crying, I bet it's over you."
"She probably doesn't even know I'm gone!" Emma said defiantly.
"You're wrong," the empath replied. "Think about what you're doing to her."
"I'm not doing anything," she pouted in the cruel, insensitive way that all children did.
"Yes, you are. She just lost her husband, and now she's lost her daughter. How do you think she's feeling right now?"
The girl was silent but she tried to keep the scowl on her face.
"Put yourself in her place. Someone you loved more than anything has just died. The only person that you have left has gone away without saying anything, and they haven't come back. You think the worst has happened, and you feel abandoned. You feel like you've got nothing left in this world to live for because everyone that you cared about is gone. Is that honestly what you want to do to your mother?"
The scowl disappeared and large, gumdrop tears began rolling down her face. Raven was anything but happy at the sight, but she was relieved that her words had gotten to her.
"...no," she cried. "I don't want to hurt Mommy...but I'm still afraid..."
"Why are you afraid?"
She sniffed several times, wiping the tears away, but to no avail. More just came forth.
"Do...do you think she'll hate me?"
Raven shook her head. "No. She couldn't ever hate you."
Her own mother had always looked at her with fear, anxiety, and sadness...but never hatred. Raven knew what hatred looked like, and her mother never looked anything like it.
"She won't hate you. I think she'll just be happy to see you."
A cry erupted from Emma's throat and the tears flowed steadily from her eyes. Without warning, she threw her arms around Raven's waist and cried into her cloak.
A bit shocked from her actions, Raven recovered and did something that she didn't think she would do again: she hugged back.
"I'm scared."
"You shouldn't be."
"What if she's angry?"
"She won't be."
The girl's feet shifted in the snow uncomfortably, and her green eyes traveled back to the empath.
The older girl knelt down to her height, and she held out her hand. Emma saw that a seed rested there, and she watched in awe as green sprouts magically burst forth from it. In a matter of seconds, the sprouts formed a stem and a bright yellow sunflower appeared in Raven's hands.
"Here," she gave the flower to Emma, "something to give to your mother."
Her lips formed another smile, and she hugged the empath. "Thank you, Raven. I'll see you and Mister Rorek again, won't I?"
Raven bit her lip, and she gently placed her hands on both sides of her head.
"...I'm sorry."
Her hands glowed with jet black energy as she cast the spell. She rarely altered people's memories, but the mind of a child was so simple and vulnerable that she had no trouble at all. She felt guilty, but she had to do this. To protect Rorek and herself and keep the village from going into an uproar, she had to.
No matter how bad she would feel about it afterwards.
Emma fell forward and Raven caught her. She gently placed her in the snow, the sunflower and her doll still clasped in her hands.
She heard footsteps approaching, and she quickly teleported herself out of view. When she was in the safety of the shadows, she saw a woman approaching Emma's unconscious form. Her hair was falling out of the loose bun she had worn it in, and there were dark circles underneath her green eyes. She shook Emma's small form, and Raven saw her eyes fluttering open.
Feeling that she had nothing more to worry about, she teleported back to the edge of the forest where the castle had stood.
Rorek was there to greet her.
"Well?"
"She's fine," she said, and they made their way towards the castle, their footsteps making tracks in the snow.
"I knew that you would master that spell," he remarked. Raven gave him a wary look. Had he been spying on her?
"I only wanted to make sure that you were fine."
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"I feared that someone might have seen you, but I'm glad that is not the case."
Raven decided to let the subject die there. It was always like Rorek to be worried about something.
She remembered how relieved and joyous Emma's mother had looked when she found her lying in the snow. She must've been so worried about her, for it appeared like she hadn't had a good night's rest for a while.
"Raven?" Rorek's voice brought her back. "Are you all right?"
"...she was so worried that her mother would be angry," she said abruptly. "But she was so happy to see her again. She was crying..."
Rorek said nothing, mainly because he didn't know what to say. But Raven didn't mind.
"I could relate to Emma. My mother didn't talk to me, and whenever she looked at me she was so miserable. People were talking about me behind my back all the time, and no one wanted to go near me. Not even my own mother. I was alone."
She didn't know what compelled her to confess all that in front of Rorek, but she felt a great need to say it. Raven expected him not to answer, or make an awkward joke or statement like her friends would have done if she even showed the slightest trace of emotion.
"You're not alone, Raven."
Her eyes met his, and somehow she knew that he was smiling underneath his black scarf. He was smiling at her.
"I will make sure of that," he stated.
She blushed, but her lips formed a shy, but genuine smile.
"Thank you."
He quietly slipped into her room, a thick quilt in his arms. He found her sound asleep underneath the comfort of her blanket. Wordlessly, he unfolded the quilt over her slender form without waking her.
A strand of her violet hair fell across her lovely face, and he gently brushed it behind her ear. She looked so peaceful in her sleep. He often wondered what she would dream about, but he never had the courage to ask.
His eyes spotted the deep scarlet petals of the rose that she kept in the vase near her window. He knew that it was inevitable that like anything else in the world, that flower would die.
But although the flower would fade away from existence, the way he felt about her wouldn't. He didn't know why, but seeing her smile was something that made him feel at peace, as if nothing could go wrong.
He pulled the quilt closer to her chin to make sure she would be warm during the night, and he silently left the room, her image of her smile still fresh in his mind.
He wanted to make her smile again. He wanted her to be happy, and he hoped that one day, she would realize that.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
...wow...nearly 15 full pages. That's a definite first.
Anyway, I know that this chapter is kind of weird, but I wanted it to be different. I hoped that you guys didn't find Emma to be annoying, but I created her for a reason. I think that although she doesn't talk about it, Raven has a lot of family conflict and I tried to show that here. Also, Raven's capable of being kind to people like any other Teen Titan, and I guess I wanted to show that through this chapter.
Oh, and I enjoyed writing the part where Emma was giving Rorek a hard time about Raven :p
I plan to make the next chapter about Rorek. I hope you guys enjoyed reading this chapter, and I'll post up the next one as soon as I can! Thanks for all your wonderful reviews. I really appreciate your support!