Thanks for the fantastically supportive response, everyone. To answer a few questions, yes this will be a chaptered work and no I have not read books by Mr. Mckinley...or is it a woman? Should I? If so, let me know in your next review as I've never heard of him/her….obviously, since I can't seem to figure which gender I'm dealing with here…haha. I suppose I should say that the idea of mischief vs. magic was not taken from but definitely inspired by the fact that I just read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the millionth time. Those marauders...tsk, tsk... Heh. Okay, getting off track here...
Anyway thank you very much and it was those reviews honestly that motivated me to write this next part as quickly as it came, and inspired the story that much faster, for truly I hadn't intended to have it out till quite a bit later—I was stuck, but all's well now. And here's chapter two.
Review and thank you for doing so, always!
Glass
Chapter Two: Unafraid
There had been a storm of dissension at the news Raven brought—though none from Garth, who remained in a sullen sort of quiet—and she had to explain several times both why she must go and that the man had promised safety for all, including her. She insisted such a person could not be so bad.
"He is a beast," Terra bit out angrily. She had spent years scraping and pinching to get this family to where they stood today as the eldest and her feeling was that she would be damned if she was going to let it fall apart because of some unseen Mischief.
"No, he's not," Raven said, wounded for no reason she could think of, but wounded nonetheless.
"But Beauty..." Starfire trailed off dully and Garth put his arm around her, letting her find comfort against his shoulder.
"You won't go," Terra decided blithely and Raven sighed.
"Try to understand sister, please," she asked and Terra's petulant gaze grew kind; Raven rarely asked anything of anyone. Wryly, the blonde amended that thought. Raven never asked anything of anyone. But she then remembered exactly what it was she asked of her and the softness was gone. Terra's stubbornness was renowned for a reason, after all.
"I do not understand and you will not leave this place!" Terra's voice hit an unending note of fury and desperation. Starfire winced and Garth's eyes grew darker—hardly possible, but it seemed so—and Raven...Raven's own temper finally flared. Maybe she was a little overly bold, but so was Terra. Maybe she was too curious for her own good. Maybe she should not have gone into the wood.
Okay, this she admitted. But there her open mind stopped.
For she had not asked to be taken into an enchantment like this; she had not gone seeking to be the bond maid of this strange lord of glass roses and forests that snowed in mid autumn. She had not wished this on anyone, least of all herself. But here it was and she had it and she had no choice and it angered her that Terra refused to even consider seeing it as thus.
"You cannot keep me here! Didn't you hear me? Were you not listening? Sister, he will die!" Raven cried in exasperation and what she feared was the beginning feeling of what it was to lose a family member. Terra's blue eyes were flint on stone as the older sister regarded her youngest sibling and Starfire was as still as a statue. Garth for his part, gently stepped away from her and went to stand slightly—though not wholly—between Raven and Terra.
"Beauty, don't leave us," the blonde's voice finally broke under her great attempt to be the figure of authority, shedding its coldness and exposing a slew of feelings that deflated Raven's own temper like a pin to a balloon. The youngest of three could swear she felt Terra's rage at not being able to do anything about this, her unbridled madness at the man who would take her sister from her, the despair at the third loss of family in her still young life, and the thought of never seeing her again. With knowledge of those emotions, Raven pushed past Garth gently and placed her hands on Terra's shoulders; her eldest sister was looking unhappily at her feet though and she did not see the gratefulness or love on Raven's face.
"I am sorry, sister," she intoned honestly and then did something very unexpected. She pulled the fiery blonde into a firm hug. It was awkward because Raven did not normally do such things, but it was genuine and Terra returned it after a moment's worth of shock.
"You cannot think you are responsible for the beast's bad fortune," Terra tried once more to persuade Raven, but the dark girl would have none of it. She was not to be fooled.
"No, but I am bound by my honor," Raven paused and added, "And he is not a beast, sister. He is...lost."
"You sound like you care for this...stranger," Garth spoke for the first time in the conversation but his words struck deep into her heart and Raven grasped for words.
"No, of course not, I do not even know him, but I have never broken a promise before," she said.
"You have never made a promise before," Garth read her thoughts, seemingly and Raven scowled now.
"If your will is that I do not go, I will disobey it. I must," she said defiantly and did her best to look like she couldn't be argued with further.
It worked, for whatever reason.
"You're so damned curious all the time," Terra laughed bitterly and then in a flash her tone was thoughtful as she said, "But you're smart too, Hellishly so, I might add." Here she grinned a grin Raven recognized in her and returned on a smaller level. The smile left her as Terra mussed her hair up brusquely and she tried to bat her hand away. "Yeah, you're smart, and you'll find a way back to us won't you Beauty?"
"You will come home," Starfire said gently and Raven glanced over her shoulder at the distressed redhead, nodding.
"I shall do my utmost," Raven promised and it occurred to her it was her second promise in less than 24 hours, and that this promise-making thing was a troublesome thing, even if it did provide temporary sanity for them. And they needed it badly.
"We will have your favorite tonight," Starfire declared with a brightness that did not reach her eyes and busied herself with the food preparations.
"You should tell your friends," Terra remarked balefully. Raven frowned. Who on earth was she talking about? Friends? She had those?
"She means Logan and Stone," Garth clarified at Raven's perplexity and she felt very stupid suddenly. Of course, for the most part they were all the friends she could ask for in their own ways—even Garfield with his truly terrible jokes.
"I shall go now," she told them and none moved to stop her. It had been six hours since dawn came and left them with morning and Garth had first ushered her back into the house. Now sunlight streamed generously through the windows of their small cottage and it seemed tinted red-gold with the way autumn was supposed to be and it was lovely.
But some part of Raven missed the cold white of the forest snow.
"Wear your cloak Beauty. You'll catch your death out there without it," Starfire called after her and Raven rolled her eyes. Sometimes Starfire worried too much about the wrong kinds of things, she felt. But for love of her sister—who she would not worry further if she could help it—she doubled back, and snatched the dark blue thing off the hook on the wall that Garth had made for it, before she left. She exited with her back to the outside world as she pulled the door shut firmly—it had this nasty tendency to swing back open if you weren't particularly obstinate with it—so when she turned around, she was startled beyond belief.
The caramel glaze of the mid-morning reflected twenty hundred shades of amber in the yard's front garden and it made the growing arches of thorn and vine and petal seem like melted gold. Raven's gaze dropped to the ground and she noticed the parcel she had misplaced before, the small satchel of seedlings. Picking it up and shaking it gently, she noted its empty state somewhat wryly; enchanted, indeed. The roses had sprung up all over in a fascinatingly graceful fashion, all over the course of a few hours; some were blooming, she could swear, right before her very eyes. And they were all white, every single one.
"Well you are very handsome aren't you?" she asked one at the center of the yard as she approached it and took a moment to inhale its scent. She marveled. It was like nothing else, and so it was like nothing she could describe beyond its indescribable nature, and that it was good, no...it was incredible. Distracted, she eyed the sepals of it with admiration and one brush of her index finger rendered her mind blank once more at its unbelievable softness, finer than silk and cool as water. Something crunched behind her and she turned. Garth stood in the doorway, door closed behind him and he slowly entered the garden, but his expression was not one of wonder like hers had been. It was dark.
"Does he think he can appease us with flowers?" Garth asked, clearly angry and his eyes flashed with things Raven had not ever known him to be capable of.
"Of course not; they were a gift, for me," she said with all certainty. Garth faced her squarely.
"A gift? Beauty...what are we to do? Every time we look at these roses we will wish it was you instead telling Garfield he's not funny, or poring over books while you bite your lip because you do that when you concentrate really hard you know..." he trailed off and his voice was not irritated any longer, but despairing. Raven stepped closer to him in the midst of the white petals and the coming of noon.
"Garth," she said quietly and paused, catching sight of a smaller rose, white and unfurling like a kitten from an afternoon nap. Kneeling in the earth, she asked it silently to please watch over her family and with unnecessary care, severed it from its root. Dusting off her skirts with the unoccupied hand, she drew close to Garth once more. "Here," she offered him the single white rose. He shook his head. Taking it would admit wholly and finally to her leaving them and he did not want to do that. Oh how he did not want to do that.
"Beauty," he breathed almost inaudibly. He was breaking her heart; she'd never seen him like this. What did he care so much anyway? Part of her mind reminded her she already had a hunch and she shushed it as she absently plucked each tiny thorn off of the rose's stem. It was a silly thought. For who could truly have feelings for her when that same person could have the ravishing and sweet, if a little neurotic, Starfire? Garth would, part of her mind insisted and she could not ignore it anymore, peculiar and unbelievable as it was to her. Raven was not stupid and would not turn a blind eye to the nature of this situation, slowly coming to be obvious.
"Shhh," she smiled up at him and took his hands, folding them gently around the rose. "It will protect you."
"It is not us that I am worried about," Garth said, still upset, but he did not release the flower.
"I know, and I'll be fine too. At least it is not Terra or Starfire who had the mindlessness to wander late at night into the wood," Raven tried to tease lightly but Garth only frowned more deeply.
"Why do you say that?" he asked and she was taken aback. It hadn't occurred to her that she shouldn't say it, for it was to her, the truth.
"Well, Terra supports much of the house with her sewing and with your help of course as the woodsman, and Starfire is your...is...you are to be married," she stumbled over this last part awkwardly; it did not help to have Garth's eyes so intensely upon her and she drew her cloak closer unconsciously. "It would be rather a difficult thing for you to wed with her trapped in some enchanted wood where it is always winter."
"Yes, I suppose it would," he said without feeling. "But I wish you wouldn't go Beauty. I," he paused, fully aware of the weight of his next words and arguing with them to the last second. His gut won out in the end though as he sighed and, tucking the rose in his right breast pocket, took Raven's hands in his own. "I can protect you I think. Won't you stay? Please..." he trailed off and now Raven arched a brow. Her game of guess-and-check was only half done. She felt the checking could come now, that it must.
"Why are you behaving like this, Garth? I have never seen you thus," she said with all kindness and an equal amount of apprehensive concern for his answer. She waited. He sighed. Noon had passed a half hour ago and she was still in the front yard trying to understand something she was beginning to feel she wasn't supposed to...or for someone's sake, ought not to.
"If I tell you this, it must last us our whole lives through, for I could not say it knowing you would only forget with the next morning," Garth said and Raven was reminiscent of the eloquence of the stranger in the wood amidst his fineness of words. She nodded, silent. "I behave like this because I love you, Beauty...Raven," and he held her hands a little firmer in his own as he continued, "Not like the sister people have saddled you with me as, nor as the sister you will soon be to me when I take my vows with Star, but as I love you now, completely."
"I always thought you were not interested in such things, until Starfire approached you and then I assumed you had just been waiting for the right person to ask," Raven said after a proper moment's thoughtful quiet and Garth smiled a little. "Do not hurt her, Garth." She said it out of protectiveness and out of expectancy, already knowing it was hardly necessary. She knew he would never hurt any one of them by design.
"I do love her, you needn't worry that my feelings are untrue; they're full and very real, but a heart is not bound to one alone, I've found. This is not a fairy tale after all, for all its magic and mischief." He released her hands softly.
"And if I had come to you…before Starfire?" Raven, for all her pragmatism, was now finding in light of glass roses and binding enchantments that her curiosity ran wild and rampant unlike ever before.
"We would have danced...and talked outside of the public nature of the stables where Logan would always be talking too much or the forge where Stone would be too scrutinizing to say anything so private..." Garth said.
"And?" She swore she felt something slip through her fingers, but it must have been her imagination, for she was holding nothing to speak of.
"And...I do not know beyond that Beauty, but I felt I must tell you in case..." he swallowed hard and could not finish. He looked down at the soil and Raven read in his face now what had been there since the day he had met her, if only she had taken the time to see it.
But would it have made a real difference, her mind reflected. Would he have been the one for you, open eyes or closed?
No, her heart answered, a little sadly, for Garth was a very kind man.
He will be alright; he has Starfire now, her mind reassured her.
In time, her heart corrected and her mind agreed.
"But you do not regret..." It was her turn to trail.
"I don't," he said adamantly and now had courage again to look her in the eyes. Their shared gaze was powerful and brief, like so many meaningful things, and gradually they shared the softest of smiles too.
"I'll be home by supper," she said.
"We'll be waiting," he replied and she turned, exiting the small wooden gate that divided their yard from the dirt road that led to the town.
Garth watched until she was completely out of sight, not certain what he had done was the wisest of things, but also knowing what he had done was as necessary as it was unwise, and that was at least a little bit soothing.
When she got to the stables Garfield was tending to a white stallion who went by the name of Rorek.
"Garfield," she greeted from the entrance and he turned with a wide grin.
"Beauty, doll, how's life?" he asked jovially. She winced inwardly.
"Well," she began.
"Well's as good as anything I suppose," Garfield said, taking it wrong, as usual. She rolled her eyes with a smile, amused in spite of herself.
"Hold on a second there Gar, I didn't say that. I was about to tell you. I'm leaving," she said. Garfield's grin dimmed to nothing.
"What?"
"I'm leaving, in less than three days now," she said.
"But why?" he frowned now, hopping over the one of the stable doors, landing in front of her. He wiped his hands on the sides of his breeches and exhaled roughly. "Are you in some kind of trouble?"
"Not exactly," she replied and green eyes observed her more critically than they ever had.
"Well, I guess I understand if you can't tell me the specifics, but at least tell me about how long you'll be gone. Arella's going to have a fit," he explained and Raven found herself grateful for this unexpected streak of patient understanding.
"I do not think I'll be coming back to Green Hill," she confessed now and Garfield started, appalled.
"Never?"
"I cannot be sure," Raven sighed and Garfield considered it a moment.
"Take her with you."
"What?"
"She's not a 'what', she's a 'who' and her name is Arella thanks to you, Miss Bookworm. She's that damn horse you've taken a liking to and who has taken such a liking to you in return, Miss Beauty, that she probably won't do anything I want her to while you're gone." He finished with plenty of emphasis on the finality of his words but Raven shook her head still.
"That is too kind of you," she began.
"Rubbish. It's not about me being kind, it's about me not being a monster; if I didn't send Arella over there with you, she'd die sure as anything else," Garfield paused. "Besides, she doesn't like anyone half as much as she likes you. So just accept my offer, will you?" His hands sat in an exasperated fashion on his waist.
"Thanks Gar," she said and he snorted, waving his hand dismissively.
"It's nothing. Go tell Stone. I'm sure he'll want to know," he said and shooed her away, telling her he'd bring Arella around to the house in two days. Late afternoon was giving way to dusk as she came upon the forge.
"I hear you're leaving us," he called from within and her eyes widened.
"You know already?" she asked.
"Word gets around; Green Hill's not very big," the blacksmith shrugged and hammered something other than sense into the ironwork materializing under his careful craftsmanship.
"Right, I should've known," Raven admitted and took seat not too close or far from Victor who continued to work, dedicated and focused.
"Well girl, I can't say I won't miss you," he rubbed the back of his head and eyed her thoughtfully.
"I'm glad," she replied cheekily and he laughed.
"Yeah, yeah, well, you just take care of yourself. I don't know where you're headed, but if you can ever find the time to come back here—"
"Victor!" she cut him off, angry suddenly. He set his hammer down.
"What?" he asked and now she saw the austere shade of his eyes and the shallowness of his look; he was upset with her...and all for an invalid reason, she raged mentally.
"If I had a choice I would come back very often, I might not even leave at all! How could you even think that I would just abandon you like that? This is my home," Raven's eyes flared dangerously in the forge firelight and the blacksmith could have sworn he saw sparks in them—glimmering like angry shards of glass—but he shrugged it off as he shot back.
"Would you, Beauty? Would you? I know you better than most here and I'd say you were itching to leave, just aching for a chance to get out and now you have it! What makes you think you can fool me?" He was maddeningly loud against the vague din of the forge but Raven saw through it quickly; he wanted her to stay and knew she wouldn't and he hated it.
"I would. I would and you'll have to trust me on that since I may not ever have the opportunity to prove it to you," she gathered herself in her cloak and turned to leave, standing to go lean on the open frame of the entry. "And I never, ever thought I could fool you, Vic, I never did...but I see you've already done that for me."
"Beauty," he intoned, remorseful now at his temper but still angered by her will to leave. So he said nothing more and Raven dutifully filled the gaping silence with her voice, soft and sad.
"Good-bye Vic. Be safe," she said and with a gentle flick of her cloak, she walked out of sight. Victor took up his hammer and struck it hard on the metal piece, sending its hard-crafted bits to every side, flames tickling the fragments. He hated how everyone he ever cared about left, hated more maybe that it was always somewhere he could not follow.
First there had been his adolescent sweetheart, who he affectionately had called Bumblebee for a number of reasons. She'd died before Raven and her family had even come to Green Hill. It was a natural death, if premature, but that made it no less painful for he who was left behind. Then there was his friend Roy, Roy Harper. They'd been best friends since before Vic could really recall and one day he'd just disappeared. Well that wasn't entirely true; Roy had been doing negotiations over land for some lord or some such of authority. It had been basic real estate, nothing more. But Harper had disappeared within two weeks of his persuasion and had not been heard from since. So, he too was presumed dead. Now Raven would be going too and while she would not die—or so she said; Victor had reasons to be skeptical—she might never come back. Victor's heart grew cold at that prospect, and the uproarious fire around him, thrusting the work area into a frightening mix of red torrents and yellow-orange tongues, did nothing to warm him.
He let his hammer drop as he sank to his knees, burying his face in his hands, hoping he would never grow attached to someone, to something, to anything, ever again.
The loss of something so precious was too great and the pain was far too much.
--------------------------------------------------------
Raven felt her friend's desolation as she dragged her feet home, sun going down behind her. She wondered at it, but it wasn't that she did not empathize with Victor usually. In fact, she was quite accustomed to being able to note and sense his feelings more clearly than most because of their closeness. This, however, seemed different, felt different. It was as though she was actually experiencing his pain firsthand and she held a hand to her heart, fearing it might burst with tears that were not her own.
I wonder if this is residual magic from the wood, she thought absently, but shelved the idea as the cottage came into view. No sooner had she unlatched the small gate when Starfire bounded out.
"Beauty, there you are dear. Come, you almost missed it," she smiled brightly and Raven recognized the necessity of false ease when she saw it, so she smiled back and followed.
Night was upon them before any of them wished it, and the first day was gone with the stars.
The last two days passed too quickly and it was a blur, not because there was so much going on, but because no one wanted to remember too clearly what was happening.
Or what was going to happen.
Terra berated more inanimate objects than usual though—scolding the fireplace, the well, the gate, and the front door all within the span of the second day's morning—and Starfire cooked an ungodly amount of food to soother her anxieties, insisting Raven would need to bring most of it with her, because what did a beast eat?
Raven refrained from reminding both of her sisters that he was a man after that first conversation. Their minds were set and she knew better than to try and change those settings; it was about as futile as someone arguing with her own self and that was downright impossible
Garth was gone most of the time, for which Raven was both grateful and disheartened.
Love was a complex thing she had thought to never encounter outside of her sisters' embraces and motherly chiding, or Victor's over protectiveness. That's not so, her mind rolled its nonexistent eyes at her and she rolled her own eyes back at it as if to say, what are you jabbering on about? It occurred to her that arguing with her mind was a little less of a sane thing to be doing, but she was putting less and less stock in sanity as a whole concept anyway, so she shrugged off her boundaries as she answered herself: you knew. Somehow, you knew a little bit. You felt him watching you. But I did not recognize, she insisted and that was true.
After all, a person who thought they could not be loved in that way would never think to see what to them did not exist. At this point, her mind's offense retreated, leaving Raven to think more softly on the subject.
Garth was absent the second morning as soon as the sun was up and did not join them for meals, and she thought he meant to avoid her. She admitted to herself that the awkward feelings between them now would be better left to imagination rather than fruition and logically strove to appreciate his nonappearance, as much as it hurt her.
And it hurt her a great deal, for all that her wisdom told her to lock that hurt away.
For she loved him too, if not the exact way he loved her.
It did not escape her that she very well might have reciprocated if she had danced with him, had talked...had known.
But this was not to be and so she loved him as well and as wholly as she might, which in her defense, was genuinely and no less than if she did care for him like more than a friend. He was dear to her for many reasons, not the least of which was that he was an intelligent young man who appreciated similar things as her, reading being one of them, as much as he made fun of her for it.
Briefly she wondered if he begrudged her, but he had said he had no regrets and she believed him. He did not have the look of one who regretted much at all, really, and that was admirable, something not many could attest to.
Similarly, she did not begrudge him not being around in her last days there. She understood too well and too much to hold it against him and she was very, very shrewd, for all that she was the youngest of three.
On the morning of her third day though, Garth was there at breakfast and he even offered her a smile as authentic as he was—which was entirely—and she returned it. There was the passing of salt and some light-hearted talk but soon it was filled by a knowing quiet.
"Tonight?" asked Starfire. Raven nodded and strategically bit into a roll to keep from having to answer another question like that. She chewed slowly.
"I've half a mind to tie you down here, Beauty," Terra chuckled without humor. Raven swallowed a piece of the roll—which she was fast learning a new appreciation for—as slowly as possible to excuse herself from responding to that; she didn't know how to.
"She'll slip out," Starfire said, pushing some vegetables around on her plate for no apparent reason. Raven bit her tongue from an indignant retort and the rest of the meal continued in anxious quiet.
"Where will you be today, Beauty?" Garth asked as she stood up from the table.
"In the garden," she replied and went there.
Garth, Starfire, and Terra exchanged looks but said nothing and soon went about their daily work; the every-day chore regiment was a welcome distraction in the face of all that was to transpire.
Terra visited her once during the mid-afternoon.
"Beauty...do you mind?" she asked, referring to her coming into the garden's space...into Raven's space. Raven glanced at her sister out of the corner of her eye speculatively; Terra rarely asked anything.
"Of course not," was the response. She saw Terra nod out of her peripheral vision before going back to tending to some tangled rose vines. She hadn't known roses were capable of growing on vines before this...incident...and she was still somewhat awed by it.
"I wanted to ask you," again with the asking, Raven thought, a little worried now, and looked fully at Terra who continued, "Are you...very afraid?"
Raven considered.
Slowly she shook her head, no.
Terra bit her lip and, nodding understanding, retreated to the safety of their small cottage.
The day passed faster than any wished and they all found themselves back in the small dining area for dinner sooner than they could account for. It was like someone was speeding time up but that was a silly thought and they attributed the quickness of the day to their own anxieties
"You don't want to go, do you Beauty?" Starfire asked, a dangerous mix of despair and curiosity pouring from her.
"I—" Raven stopped as there was a knock on the door. "I'll get it." She said sharply and pushed herself back from the table. She set her napkin down, moving to the door with a less hurried pace than her statement, trying hard to not look like she was being evasive.
"It's me," Gar said through the door and Raven opened it. He grinned.
"Nice set-up," he complimented, seeing the others at the table behind her and then he gestured at Arella, standing as docilely as a four-poster pony outside the gate. "I didn't want to mess the garden up," he explained and added, "How is it these...flowers are growing in the middle of fall?"
"Roses, they're roses and...they're special," Raven decided on and Gar nodded.
"Well Beauty, take care wherever you're headed. Arella'll watch out for you, I'm sure," he added in all seriousness and after a pause, he embraced her. It was short and a little uncomfortable, but Raven appreciated it and returned it.
"Thank you," she said and meant it.
"Bye then, Beauty. Miss Starfire, Garth...Miss Terra," he nodded emphatically as he addressed her eldest sister with a bit of a brighter smile. Terra waved blithely back and Starfire shook her head, but she was smiling. Garth, for his part rolled his eyes, amused at the silent exchange. Garfield had been showing interest in Terra for some time now and it seemed she was maybe beginning to return the sentiments—she'd never waved to him before this night.
"That was very kind of him," Starfire noted pleasantly and Raven agreed with a nod as she watched him disappear down the road. She was about to close the door to finish the meal when something caught her eye and instead, she walked out into the front yard.
Minutes passed.
"Beauty?" Garth called after her and when she did not respond, he and her sisters went to the door. She was still there—their pulses settled down as they saw her physically there—and she stood in the midst of the roses. Her pale skin seemed to match the pearl loveliness of the roses in the moonlight and for a moment one might have taken her to be a bit of a dream. But then she turned to them and the sadness in her eyes broke the trance.
"It is time," she said.
"You cannot stay even to...to finish supper?" Starfire inquired helplessly.
"I cannot," Raven sighed and held up that which had caught her eye moments before: a glass rose. "It's his way of calling to me, I think." She added the disclaiming clause because she truly wasn't certain and did not wish to lie. When no one else spoke she moved past them, glass rose in hand, and went up into the attic, only to return minutes later with the few things she had finally decided on bringing the night before.
"Don't go, Beauty," Terra implored once more, no longer ordering or demanding, but pleading, and this was a side of Terra no one else had ever seen. Raven was moved by her sister's show of honest feeling and felt more than understood how she went to wrap her arms around the blonde who couldn't stop shaking her head in denial.
"Sister," Starfire could only say and Raven was awash with guilt at the tears in her sister's bright green eyes.
"I'm so sorry Star," she intoned as gently as possible and stroked her sister's hair as comfortingly as she could, feeling her tremble within their embrace, defeated and bleak. Eventually though Raven had to step away and Terra put an arm around Starfire's shaking shoulders, drawing her near to console both of them. A hand laid itself on Raven's shoulder, which caused her to break her stare from her two sisters that loved her so, and to turn and face the only other person there.
"He does not need you like we need you," Garth said softly and she heard the 'I' in the 'we' but discarded it as she knew she must.
"He may need me more than you or I can know," Raven said with a resolve Garth recognized well and he let his hand slip off her shoulder silently.
The air was cold again, and it seemed to reach in long fingered hands out of the wood and wrap its wispy appendages around the small cottage; Raven could swear she saw frost edging itself around the petals of her magnificent and enchanted rose garden. Pulling her cloak around herself more tightly, she approached Arella.
"Shhh, Arella, it's just me," she said quickly but quietly when the horse gained a panicked look at first. Her voice calmed the animal and she mounted effortlessly, seeming almost to float up and into the saddle—it was still a wonder to everyone else that someone so petite could mount without a footstool or block or even a leg-up. Turning Arella to face the house once more, perhaps for the last time, Raven surveyed all she had come to hold dear.
"We love you always, Beauty...Raven," Terra spoke loudly to force away tears and succeeded mostly, but the slight waver in her voice was terribly evident.
"Always," Starfire added with more strength than Raven had ever given her credit for, until now.
"And we will be here," Garth finished for the three of them, leaving the 'should you return' hanging unspoken in the open space.
"I love you too," Raven said at last, not knowing what else she could possibly bring herself to say, and rode away as fast as she could. She plowed into the forest, Arella's mane tangled in her fingers like a complicated weave, heedless of branches or anything else, even of the glass garden in the center—or what she presumed to be the center—of this forest.
She was blind with the loss of her family.
One never really did know the degree to which one felt for anyone until they were faced with their indefinite absence. Her heart beat wildly in her chest and the cold around her was making it hard to breathe but she was absolutely certain that Arella had a sense of where to go, even if she didn't. So she buried her face in the warmth of the neck of her horse and let slip tears she would not allow back there at the cottage. Back there she had needed to be strong, but now, feeling more alone than she ever had, and not by choice, she found no restraint left in her to keep it locked away. And so she wept, bitterly and incoherently.
It was some time before she realized Arella had stopped her headlong plow and she herself raised her head to look around.
This is not the rose garden, was her first thought.
Oh dear, was her second.
For there, almost rising out of the uncanny mist before her, was a castle.
"I am not afraid," she said to the castle; it seemed to grow in the shadowed light. "I am not afraid," she repeated to herself now.
"Then you are a fool," a familiar voice said and Raven's gaze dropped from the topmost tower to five feet in front of her.
"So are we all," she returned and felt him consider her answer and her presence as his diamond blue eyes scrutinized her shamelessly.
"Come," he said at last.
And she did, only vaguely aware of the great iron gates swinging to close behind her with a mighty and finalizing clang.
"Leave your horse." His order was not wholly unexpected but Raven still found herself unmoving. He arched a brow at her and she read annoyance in his face, but ignored it. Was it not he who had ordered her here? She would act as she pleased, she decided indignantly.
"Where?" she asked, feeling dumb in spite of her resolve to be bold.
"Here will do," he replied, disinterested. "Hurry along," he added. She frowned and dismounted with extra grace, care, and lack of the requested 'hurry'.
"I'll visit every day, Arella," she told the horse, stroking its neck affectionately. A thought occurred to her. "By whom will she be...taken to the stables?" she inquired.
"The help," he said shortly. So he has servants, Raven mused and then further thought how silly and impossible it must be to maintain such a large palace, even with a thousand servants or 'help' as he called them.
Perhaps it is enchanted too, she theorized as she eyed the hand the young lord proffered to her with some misgiving.
"I said I would not harm you," he said in the tone of a man who spoke to an uncooperative child. She bristled.
"I recall, sir," she added this last part and again, he arched a brow. It seemed a favorite of his expressions.
"Not 'beast' or monster?" he asked, curious and still—she noticed—defensive.
"You are only a man," Raven said without disrespect and found her earlier words to be truer than she'd expected.
She was not afraid.
"Only a man," he whispered and his blue eyes seemed to cloud. An unexpected surge of sympathy for something she did not yet know or dare to understand, struck her as Raven placed her palm cordially against his, and the two beautiful strangers entered the castle.
Hand in hand.
Thank you so much for all of the reviews; they meant a lot to me, mean a lot to me. Please keep on, if you've got a second. All the thank-you I can muster!
-Rei
Next Chapter: Beast