Chapter 2: Turtle Doves
On the second day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
The morning met Raven uneventfully. The blasting music had been toned down today but was still present as she finally made her way out of her room.
The Christmas lights were still on making her wonder if Starfire ever took the time to turn them off. Suddenly she was relieved the city picked up their utility bill.
Raven had had a very fitful sleep. No meditation made it just that much harder. The raven has insisted on hopping up every once in a while to perch on her head and peck at her amethyst hair. She made a mental post-it to get a cage today.
"Morning!" An unusually perky Beast Boy met the girl as she ventured into the kitchen. He had a red chef hat on and was working with something at the stove.
"Morning," She replied in her calmest voice moving over to get herself some tea. The caffeine would do her good.
Out of the corner of her eye she watched the green boy. He rotated the pan professionally paying careful attention to what he was cooking.
"What, break your tofu streak?" She asked finally.
Beast Boy turned his head slightly as if the mere suggestion had sent him into shock. "Never! It's a new tofu product, I'm going to see if I can fool Cyborg into believing its real bacon and eggs."
He turned around for a second giving her a wide smile. For a second she examined him again. Her eyes traveled over his features, his green hair...
Her gaze paused a second. There was something green mingled in his hair poking out just below the hat. When he turned back around to his food she could still slightly see it.
It looked like a leaf. She smirked to herself putting the puzzle together. She put her tea cup back down on the counter and turned full attention to the cook.
"Beast Boy?"
At her addressing him Beast Boy turned fully around a small questioning smile in place. "Yes?"
"What's this?" In one swift motion she stepped forward and pulled the green bit from under his hat. He seemed to cringe a moment probably expecting pain of some sort.
"That looks like a piece of garland, must have fallen into my hair," He grinned and Raven looked down at her fingers, and glared. It was a shiny piece of green garland. Now she had been wrong and made a fool of herself. "You ok this morning?" The boy raised an eyebrow ignoring the food Raven could tell was burning.
"Fine," she muttered more angry at herself. She needed to stop jumping at conclusions. Things always had a way of working themselves out.
Beast Boy watched her a moment longer. It made her want to pull out a snide remark, but decided not to. "So in that case, could you set the table? The titans will be down soon."
She nodded finished with being in the same room with this one boy. She sighed quietly as he turned back to see his burning food.
She summoned some plated and utensils with her powers and grabbed her tea. Walking past a screeching Beast Boy she made her way to the table. There was some clanging from behind her as Beast Boy had started mourning the loss of his tofu.
Raven had finished placing all dishes down when Starfire came prancing down. Still in high spirits she twirled a little with the music bobbing her head.
"Morning friend Raven!" She greeted over the music. This morning she had a lime green bow tied into her hair.
"Morning Star, Beast Boy's cooking and it should be done soon."
There was another crash and shriek from the kitchen.
"Or not," Raven added rolling her eyes and adjusting her cloak.
"Raven, today I would like to venture out and see the Sand ta in the mall. Would you come with?" Starfire fidgeted a little picking a place to sit.
Raven racked her brain for possible conjugations and meanings of "Sand ta". After a moment it hit her.
"You mean Santa?"
Starfire nodded vigorously sitting down at the table, Raven took the seat beside her.
"Sure I'll go." Raven jumped at the chance to get out of the tower. Maybe it would help her calm her thoughts. It was always amusing to see Starfire in new situations.
"Glorious!" She smiled radiantly.
There was another ruckus and the two turned to see a scorched Beast Boy stepping out of the kitchen. In both hands he had balanced plated of food.
"Bon appetite!" He grinned and made his way toward the girls with the plate of steaming burnt tofu, Raven could feel a headache coming on.
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"That was very interesting, I did not know such fat men did such laborious jobs!" Starfire giggled floating just above the ground. Raven shook her head in much better spirits.
Starfire had insisted on meeting the Santa in Jump City mall. She had also made the mistake of asking him a million questions.
The man, clearly unsettled by the floating alien was nervous at first. But there had been little smiling children around who encouraged the story. The mall Santa had been forced into an hour long story on who he was, where he lived and how the elves made toys. By the end he had been in full character smiling and laughing as he gave everyone candy canes.
Starfire had paid rapt attention the entire time sitting in with the group of smiling cheery children while they all heard the story. Raven couldn't help but paying slight attention, she had read the basics about Earth holidays and this "Santa", but it was interesting to hear the intricacy in the story that made it work.
"Yea," she answered back to her smiling counterpart. "Ready to go back?"
"Oh yes, I must share this story with the others!" Her happiness made the girl subconsciously float higher up.
With that the two girls ascended into the air heading back to Titans tower.
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Back inside Raven noticed something amiss. The Christmas music that she had become accustom to had been shut off. The only sound left in the tower was the video game sound track.
"Star, what happened to your music?" She asked the girl next to her. Starfire looked up from biting at her still wrapped candy cane.
"Oh you are right, I must fix this at once!" She floated up and flew away in search of her cd player.
Raven shrugged to herself and grabbed some more crackers and a dish of water from the kitchen. Beast Boy and Cyborg barely noticed as she started up the stairs.
Over their game system she could now hear Starfire telling the Santa story to Robin as she headed for her room. He kept trying to interrupt her to get away, but Starfire wasn't to be stopped.
She was watching the balanced water as she walked toward her door. At the last moment before she pressed in her code her foot hit something. She stumbled a bit but succeeded in not spilling much water.
She glared down at whatever she had hit.
Her breath caught a moment. It was a small brown box with a few small holes in one side. There were no markings or anything to indicate who they were from, but she knew.
Cursing to herself she angrily pressed in her code, when her door slipped open she kicked the box into her room. Something rustled and Raven hoped she had broken whatever it was.
Pacing herself Raven brought the food over to Ebony who was curled up on a space on her bed. She left the open crackers and water beside the sleeping raven and turned back to the box.
The walked over to it and kneeled down daring herself to open it.
Finally her curiosity got to her. There was a fold part at the end that was easiest to open. She pulled it apart and the box was opened. For a second she thought maybe there wasn't anything in it.
Then there was a small scraping type sound. She tipped the box so whatever was it in slid out.
To Raven's surprise two white birds landed on her carpet. They were larger than the raven, full-grown maybe? Each of them had a green bow around their neck. They cooed softly and began to explore the area around them.
The physic groaned as she noticed a small bit of paper tied to one of their necks. Carefully she slid it away from the birds neck and unraveled it in her fingers. Her teeth gritted at the same typed script as before.
Raven,
They are doves, did you think you were getting only one gift?
-An admirer
She looked back down at the birds. Raven sure as hell wasn't keeping any more birds. Carefully she refolded the note and got up to place it with the other on her book case.
Did her admirer have a thing for birds? And what was with the pear tree?
She sighed loudly. "He must enjoy watching me squirm." Raven paced back over to the white birds, they clashed terribly with her room decor. And the bows-
Raven stopped. She'd seen a bow like that already today. She remembered this morning Starfire messing with a green bow in her hair. It had looked exactly like this one.
She immediately changed directions heading back out of her room. She needed to talk to Starfire.
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"Oh this?" Starfire touched the green in her red hair. Raven nodded trying to seem casual, she was not about to let her nerves get frazzled over it.
"Cyborg found them in a Christmas box, he said they would look nice in my hair," She grinned obviously pleased someone had noticed.
Cyborg?
Raven tried to push down her conscious. She wasn't going to foolishly jump out like she had this morning. She had to be cunning, and nonchalant.
"Where is Cyborg?" Raven asked trying to slow her words to a dull monotone.
"I think he is, video gaming,"
Right. Raven chided herself for not thinking.
"Thanks Star, and forget we ever had this conversation," She added as an afterthought. Starfire smiled confused for a moment before nodding. Raven started for the stairs down to the living room in search of Cyborg.
She ended up floating down the stairs in her haste. Consciously she was lost deep in thought. It could mean two things. Either it was Cyborg, or someone set it up to look like Cyborg.
But if it was Cyborg what exactly would she do about it?
She mused cursing him to the depths of hell for giving her presents, and at that birds.
But he acted like a brother to her most of the time. Or was she mistaken?
Not watching where she was going she smacked right into someone. Fumbling back Robin grabbed her arm to keep her from falling.
"Sorry," Raven gently pulled back her arm minding the physical touch.
"I guess we were both a little sidetracked, you ok?" The masked leader asked. He was watching her in that analyzing way.
"Fine," She dulled looking for a way away. Knowing Robin he'd try to engage her in a conversation on criminal leads or something since he had gotten away from Starfire.
"I heard about your daring trip to the mall today. I didn't know you had it in you Raven."
"You'd be surprised," Her tone was more snide and sarcastic. Her eyes quickly moved sideways trying to look around the boy. She hoped Robin hadn't noticed.
"In a hurry?" He asked a lazy smile now on his face.
Ravens eyes jumped back to his masked ones. She didn't know what to say, but she knew for sure this classified as suspicious behavior on her part.
"It's ok, the holidays got me rushing for everything as well," He stepped aside and Raven saw her exit. Robin had a gift for saving awkward conversations. "We'll all have go out sometime soon before all this Christmas stuff drives us crazy." With that he started up the stairs.
Raven waited for him to go before she moved toward the blasting music and video gamers. She made sure her breath was steady and mentally chanted to herself. Her hours of un-meditation were quickly catching up with her.
She came up on the couch and quickly sat down. The two tapped furiously on the small controllers making rude remarks to the other when they took the lead. She could hear a Christmas carol slowly drifting in from another room.
Raven decided to wait. They had to take a break sometime, and Cyborg always took the chance to engage her in a conversation.
To Raven's irritation it was fifteen consecutive games and forty-five minutes before her chance came.
"Break time," Cyborg got up and stretched, his winning comrade celebrating on the screen.
"Hey no fair you cheated!" Beast Boy cried standing up and pointing an accusatory finger at the metahuman.
"Yea whatever, I still beat you," He chided grinning at a crestfallen changeling.
"Mm well I got a new game, I'll go get it so I can whoop you at it." Beast Boy stuck out his tongue a second before scurrying away to get the new game from his bedroom.
Smiling Cyborg shook his head before turning to face Raven. "What's up Raven?"
"The Christmas spirit," She added carefully. Cyborg chuckled and shook his head.
"Yea I overhead Starfire talking about the mall Santa," He looked at her and she couldn't suppress a groan which made him chuckle.
"Hey where'd you get those ribbons you gave Star?" Raven asked after a sufficient amount of silence.
"Umm," The boy scratched his head and Raven made a mental note. "I found them in one of the Christmas boxes, figured Starfire might enjoy them. Why?"
"They're...nice," Raven spoke slowly making her choice of words precise. Cyborg grinned taking it as a complement.
"I'd have given you some had I known you liked that kind of thing," He laughed to himself causing Raven more of a headache. For all she knew it could be Cyborg just trying to mix her up.
Or, it could be a red-herring.
She heard Beast Boy nearing again. "Well I better go meditate." Cyborg nodded and Raven excused herself.
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When Raven was tucked back in her room she had decided what to do with the two conspicously white birds.
She took their ribbons off and threw them out the window.
Maybe her admirer would see them and give up.
She turned and glared back at her dark room. Now to get a cage for Ebony...
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He passed by one of the titan windows later that day. He heard a tapping that made him stop. Moving the colored garland he peered out the frosted glass.
A faintly recognizable white turtle dove pecked at the window.
The boy laughed to himself figuring she had gotten rid of the birds. It didn't weaken his resolve in the least, if anything, it was highly amusing.
—————————————————————————————————Wow thanks for everyone who reviewed! I didn't know I'd get such great feedback. You'll get clues each chapter and eventually will be able to eliminate one of them. I've had guesses for each guy so I'm going to let someone down in the end, ah well. Thanks for reading, critiquing and flames welcome!
-Dragonslayer527