ima so sooooooo sorry that it took so long to update. i had some great ideas, but my mom said i couldnt go on the computer until the end of the semester, so i was forced to give into her evil demands, and wait a week until i could update... sorry it took so long! thanks for the reviews! D they make me feel so much better...

Disclaimer: um.. i dont own them.. if i did, why would i waste my ideas here? o.O hehe... P

The Loss: Part III

if he would ever reawaken...

Robin's body lay still after the darkness surged, then died away again. It was quiet in Nevermore, the only sound, a soft gurgling of a faraway stream, a few dark notes played softly from a hidden flute. A dim echo of a wind played across Raven's cheeks, her violet hair fluttering slightly. Raven stood and lifted Robin with her magic, and he bobbed slightly, as if on a rolling sea. Raven was concentrating to hard to notice the sudden oppressiveness of the darkness, the lack of the wind, and the flute started to play a darker, faster tune. A caw rang through the darkness, and the unearthly sound was distorted and disfigured. It was at this sudden sound that Raven looked up, her eyes flashing black for a moment, before fading back to their amethyst color.

There was no movement when her eyes flickered over the surrounding landscape, nothing changing from its bleak surface. The rocks were still, stars twinkling slightly in the distance, and the darkness was unmoving. No nightmares slunk forward into her sight, and she felt no emotion growing close. She went back to her work on Robin, floating forward, before it rang out again. The caw was louder this time, its tones ringing in and out of the audible spectrum, still distorted, forming nightmarish images in her mind.

A red man, darkness cloaking minimally on his heavily muscled body, reached out and struck a young woman, who fell to the ground, white dress flowing out behind her, her clothes completely the opposite of the man's. The woman turned around, blood dripping out of the corner of her mouth, anger in her eyes. She attempted to hit the man, but he grabbed her arm, and twisted it painfully behind her back. She screamed out in pain, and the man's eyes multiplied and glowed red.

Raven cried out as if she had been struck physically, and the black aura holding Robin up, suddenly dissipated into nothingness, and Robin's lifeless body slammed to the earth. Raven was kneeling on the ground, eyes and teeth clenched in terrible pain, arms clutching her head, as if to stop the images that were forming faster and faster.

Raven, as a young girl, sat on a darkly sheeted bed, eyes closed, and whispered three words. Azarath, Metrion, Zinthos. She whispered this several times, and her body slunk into a deep meditation. Focusing all of her energies on a talisman that sat before her, she tried to make it float in black energy, but failed miserably, again. Frustrated by her failed attempts, Raven reached out and grabbed the talisman, and threw it across the room, where it hit the black wall, and fell, cracked to the ground. A figure in white rose out of the cracked jewelry, and disappeared after a moment. Raven's anger, which had changed her eyes red, suddenly disappeared after she realized what she had done. "Mother!"-

The caw faded away, as did the horrifying visions that had flocked eagerly to the broken-down girl, that was kneeling on the dusty ground.

"No! NO!" Raven called out into the darkness, her voice echoing eerily in the empty land before her.

He was returning to strength, and she was letting him. She was letting the Seed grow in her. She was not stopping this monster. She knew exactly what he would do if she lost control again and he took her over. It couldn't happen again. Never, never, never again.

She had to get out of there. Now. If she stayed much longer, Anger would want to fight her, and she would lose. After all, she could not win in this state, not this soon after losing such a dear friend.

Raven stood, and concentrated her energies again, this time calling more quickly on her resources, and they came much faster, as she was so close to her emotions. Her helpful, but fatefully damned emotions. Robin rose by her powers, and she ran as the rocks in front of her created a path. There was one place where she was certain he would be safe, at least for a little while. She was running on the path when she heard the caw again, and this time she ignored it, but it rang louder, and this time, only in her bones. She stumbled and kept running, and then ran off the path, cape flapping uselessly after her, but she was unafraid. Robin fell beside her, still in his case of onyx energy.

The stars on the horizon were not moving, and were it not for the movements of her cape and hair, she would have thought that she was not falling, but simply hanging in empty space. She stopped falling a moment later, when she reached a pool of silvery water, which on its surface, showed a full moon and flickering candles. Raven instructed the energy holding Robin over the water, and watched as Robin slipped silently under its surface. No waves rippled across the glassy surface, and the moons presence did not waver, nor did the candles. There were five candles, one black, one green, one white, one blue, and one red. They circled the pool in the vision, placed in the scene of a pentagram, the black at the top, the red at the left, the green at the right, the blue in the lower right corner, and the white, the lower left. Raven remembered hauntingly of her own birth and consecration, by the people of Azarath, and she remembered this setup of candles, and it was different from all of the other children's. None of the others needed the candles of the five elements. None of the others needed any specifically colored candles, inscribed with runes of indeterminate age and power. She felt different, badly different.

Robin was fully underwater now, and she need not worry about him until he was reawakened. The emotions did not know of this place, or she hoped that they did not, and she hoped that the goodness of her mothers' memories was a sufficient enough barrier, and strong enough one, so that Anger could not reach Robin's body and make use of it as its will.

She hoped.

RR! hehe.. next chapter... Terra returns... or is it really her? o.O oooooohhh! the DRAMA! haha... ok..