Disclaimer: don't own teen titans...yet.
Rei thanks all who read this, especially all who review and even more especially: Cherry Jade and alena-chan
Let me know what you think of this chapter.
Glass
Chapter Four: Alias
So far she'd discerned her new outline of a friend could float, walk through walls and make himself entirely invisible if he wanted to.
What he couldn't do, Raven thought dryly, was shut up.
Roy, or "Speedy" as she now knew he preferred, had a fine knack for charging headlong into one-sided conversations; so far he'd spoken on the state of the castle, the moodiness of its keeper, the fact that it never stopped being winter in this magicked place, and the most recent but probably not last topic he now proceeded to tackle was a list of the pros and cons of going to dinner.
"Speedy," Raven began.
"...of course, then you're chancing a great deal of, blah, blah, blah..." he prattled on, charming and completely ignorant.
"Speedy," Raven tried again.
"...but if you don't go then he'll probably get angry—have you seen him angry? No, I don't suppose you have. He's a real grouch sometimes.—and then when he does get angry, and he will, you'll be upset and then it defeats the purpose of not going to not get upset because it'll altogether be a very upsetting experience for the two of you anyway and—"
"ROY!" She shouted now and he stopped mid-sentence, mouth still open. She sighed. "I'm going. He did answer my question and I told him I would." Smoothing her skirts needlessly, Raven stared unhappily at her hands. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it." At this, Roy chuckled and she sent him a penetrating stare. He shrugged.
"You're both very stubborn," he said as if it explained everything.
"He is difficult," Raven said, insinuating there was at least an inch of difference between how she acted and her captor did. She knew there wasn't, but there was little to no chance of her ever admitting it out loud. On that thought, she smiled just a little; it seemed she'd only gone on and proved Roy's point.
"He's not so bad...on his good days," Roy offered and Raven eyed him, skeptical at best.
"What did he mean when he said he 'sees' more than others?" she asked, not certain she really wanted to know, but unable to curb her curiosity. Her friend rubbed the back of his head—or he seemed to; Raven wasn't certain that such actions should be possible with a being that wasn't solid.
"Well, I'm not sure. See, that's part of the problem. No one here really knows much of anything outside of what he tells us and...well," Roy trailed off in a chuckle much less filled with mirth than his others and Raven read sadness in his eyes for the first time.
"You have been trapped here, I gather," she guessed. He nodded.
"Longer than I can remember," he said.
Longer than he can remember, Raven thought and a renewed sense of bleakness came over her. Would she be there so long as to forget that too?
Would she be there forever?
She didn't have time to think further on the matter as the clock tolled like a call for the dead.
"So are you going?" Roy asked as lightly as if he were asking her what color dress she would be wearing that day and Raven simply rolled her eyes at him before stepping out into the hall.
It will bring you to me.
That's what he had said.
Very well, she thought. If it will bring me to him, then it will bring me to him.
"What are you waiting for?" she asked the presence she knew permeated this domicile, even if she couldn't see it, and then almost lost her balance. The world seemed to ricochet unnaturally around her, as though she were inside a giant sphere and being rolled about in it.
It was not a very comfortable feeling.
But almost as quickly as it had begun, it was over and Raven found herself standing, staring dumbly at two large, elegant and ominous doors. The carving seemed to have images in the little bevels of the sides and they almost seemed to move, very lifelike, but more importantly than that, Raven realized the hall had indeed transported her.
She was here.
Or there.
Wherever.
She rubbed the bridge of her nose, doing her best to repress the nearly perpetual scowl she had been wearing for the past twenty-four hours. Maybe she wasn't happy. Maybe she was downright furious.
But she wouldn't let him know it.
Oh no.
She wouldn't let him have the gratification of seeing her squirm or spit fire.
That in mind, Raven placed both hands on the finely crafted door handles—made of what must have been gold, though Raven had never seen gold that she could remember—and opened them with the measured grace of the Queens she knew she wasn't.
"You came," he said as soon as he laid eyes on her. What he didn't say was: that's...unexpected.
He thought it, yes. But he did not say it.
Pride was a curiously dividing similarity between them.
"I said that I would, did I not?" she replied imperiously and he gave a short nod before walking the few steps up to meet her and offer her his arm.
And they were back to distant courtesies, it seemed.
She accepted.
He led her to one end of an elaborately set table where a chair—a throne, she thought absently but thought no more on the subject—made of cherry wood and covered in midnight shaded velvet sat. Pulling it out, he gestured for her to sit, which she did after a pause born of her tendency to be offended by politeness rather than gratified for it.
"Thank you," she said even as he made his own way to the opposite end of the table where he sat on a chair of the exact same make hers was. Her eyes surveyed the cabaret of silverware with some anxiousness. There were so many...
"You're welcome," he said, the phrase echoing uncomfortably across the many trays and platters and so on. "Whatever you wish, it's yours." And now he sat, hands folded on top of one another in an expectant fashion, gaze distinctly on the dark girl facing him and it was only a few awkward minutes later that Raven realized he must be waiting for her to start.
She started.
Eventually she even relaxed.
Her dinner companion kept his peace because they both seemed to have come to an unspoken agreement that if they didn't want a fight that involved flying forks and the like, their best conversations would be of the silent nature. And the food was very good, very. Some dishes Raven recognized even if she couldn't put a name to them and others were delightfully new, spiced to a point that made her eyes water but savory enough to take another bite. By the time dessert came around she'd realized how hungry she truly was and had given in to simply eating her fill—she might as well, she reasoned. Perhaps she could eat this man out of house and home and then go back to hers.
There have been less likely escape plans, she mused, slightly entertained by the very idea of running out of anything in this castle that seemed to define the words 'vast' and 'endless' with capitals.
"Why thank you," she smiled lightly at the teapot as it finished pouring some tea when all the main courses and sweets had been cleared away. To her fast diminishing surprise, it seemed to bob at her, its lid doing a fantastic imitation of a man tipping his hat. She suspected it, even, of chattering vaguely at her, but it was muddled and all she really made out was the rattle of its metal and eventually she gave up trying to decipher it and moved to politely sip at her tea instead.
The teapot at least did not seem offended and made an impressive leap onto the side cart which quickly sped away in the direction of what Raven assumed must probably be the kitchen.
"Your dishware is very courteous," she remarked and though his face remained impassive, she thought she heard a tone of interest that resembled her own in his voice when he next spoke.
"Everything here is very proud of how well it can do its job," he said as one who is trying to not sound too cheerful, but feeling rather sunny regardless.
"You are in better spirits." She read him like a book anyway.
"As are you," he replied quickly.
"You aren't going to apologize are you?" she inquired with the tone of someone who is very tired.
At least it was a change from the irritability she'd generally endorsed so far.
"You weren't," he pointed out. She graced him with a humorless nod and they gazed at each other momentarily.
"This is stupid," she stated, setting her teacup down with extra force and she thought its clinking sound resembled a slight and indignant protest at the treatment. Blue met amethyst in a battle of variously sized question marks but he said nothing and she went on to explain, thinking: well, he should very well have said something if he wanted me to shut up and since hasn't, I'll say what I like...I think I might say what I like regardless. "You must have some name." At this he rolled his eyes like a drunk man who was being told he'd had too much. He wasn't of course...drunk that is.
"I have told you the truth, Beauty. I have no name to speak of," he paused and considered her in an almost meditative manner, the fire crackling beside them the only white noise to shroud his scrutiny. And it didn't, not much anyway, but Raven diverted her stare to the flames to help it along. She knew she thought better when people did not look at her. Maybe it was the same with him.
We do blow hot and cold, she thought absently, in no way disillusioned by the almost pleasant atmosphere they'd concocted over dinner. She well knew their tempers now, a quick and apt judge of character and circumstance, as well as their practically lethal attachments to pride and so on.
Funny, she'd never before met someone who could match her for temper or pride...
"Unless you wish to give me one," he said and his hands were a resting place for his finely chiseled chin, fingers interlaced in a thoughtful manner.
"You are not teasing?" she all but accused and she swore his eyes lost their dark veil.
It was only a second, a mere flash of humor, like the first light of sun in the morning that blinds you, but she'd seen it and stored it away in her heart to remind her he could find humor in things after all.
"I do not tease," he replied and his voice was stoic even if the look she had just discerned had been otherwise.
It was her turn to consider and she sipped her tea an uncounted number of times before answering. She had an answer before she spoke, minutes before, but she waited until she felt the edges of his impatience, and curious, explored it subtly. Almost it was like she could feel his own emotions wrapped tightly around hers to a point where she nearly felt impatient with herself.
How odd, she mused and eyed him speculatively as she spoke with a smile found entirely in her eyes, and only if one was paying attention.
He was.
"Well?" he prompted, vaguely unsettled by how long she was taking to say anything.
"Robin," she said and it was his turn to frown.
"What?" It seemed too simple a phrase for such a fine man.
"Robin, I shall call you that," she said, clarifying. It may not be his real name, but Hell's teeth! I can't call him 'you. She barely repressed a smirk at the thought and mused also: it would not be much different from me using 'Beauty', a sort of alias.
"But, why?" he asked, clearly a mixture of dissatisfaction and—to Raven's amusement—indignation.
"In the rose garden I found a robin and you called him away from me. You will be my Robin now," she explained. In fact, she explained it in such a matter-of-fact way that she did not read into her own words. As such, she did not understand the look that came over 'Robin'.
But he read the words for what she meant them as and what they might mean and his eyes seemed ablaze with starlight, and flecked with silver sparks.
He smiled. 'You will be my Robin...' Her phrasing echoed hauntingly in his mind, pouring life into his long cold heart. And he knew, knew that the young girl standing before him could not possibly know what that meant to him, for him. But he did—he knew—and it was this kind of knowing that was the reason for that smile. It was not a very big smile—though Raven admitted to herself it made him even handsomer, almost regal. It was not a very long smile—it was gone almost as soon as it came. But it was definitely a smile.
Raven returned it about thirty-percent.
"Very well, I am Robin then it seems," he said and they lapsed back into a far more comfortable quiet, laced with the laughter of the fire.
Fire does not laugh, Raven thought stubbornly but when she looked at it again she saw what might have been a smile and so she looked quickly away again.
There were some things she simply wasn't ready for.
Living fire is definitely one of them, she decided firmly and glued her eyes hurriedly to her empty teacup.
"You are bothered by the life here," he observed and she started involuntarily. A minute, and then she sent Robin a distinctly exasperated frown.
"I understand your 'seeing', but...well, no, that is wrong. I do not understand it at all, but I accept it—mostly—and that's more than you could expect from most people I might add. But in not understanding, I'd appreciate it a great deal if you would at least phrase such...observations like questions," she finished with a long sigh.
"Very well," he said, not too fast, not too slow.
"Thank you," she said.
A pause passed and it might have been seconds or hours, but Raven was fast losing any sense of time at all in this place.
"You may—" Robin stopped short and quickly rephrased, "Would you like to retire for the night?" There, that wasn't so hard, was it, the half-full wine glass at his right hand seemed to say, its contents swirling almost imperceptibly. He ignored it as he'd grown used to doing in such situations and simply placed all his attentions on his dinner guest.
She did not answer and he realized she seemed to have flown off in her own little world. That worried him. Such ventures did not work the same here in the castle or on its grounds as they worked outside of it; sometimes they were even dangerous.
"Beauty?" he called, a little more emphatically, and now she snapped to the present from wherever else she'd been, looking terribly lost and he felt pity well up in him, for all that this truly wasn't his fault. Robin had not lied about anything, least of all that; it was a binding contract and curse this part of the wood had been entwined with for longer than he could remember and it had been that that had trapped Raven…but still...
"I-I apologize," she mumbled with an uncharacteristic demureness.
He missed her fire.
"Go rest, Beauty. It has been a long day."
Understatement of the year, her mind chortled at her, but she brushed the wryness aside, tired even of her own ability to make sarcastic light of every conceivable situation, wanting only to do as he instructed.
I am so very tired, she realized dully and stood to leave for her room, wherein she paused at the door, a question hanging unsaid between her turned back and Robin's watchful stare.
"It will bring you to your quarters, as it will always bring you to me...or me to you, should you wish it," he said with new gentleness but Raven was overcome with exhaustion now, barely able to keep her mind conscious and she did not note the unusual care with which Robin now spoke.
And he knew she did not know, but said nothing.
She had given him some hope tonight, even as he watched her exit, door clicking shut behind her. Such a meek noise for such a grand fixture, Robin thought critically and the door's hinges reacted by squeaking unhappily at him. He would have laughed if he laughed anymore, but he didn't so he simply shook his head.
Hope, it'd been a while since he'd even dared to remember such a thing existed.
Robin, he pondered his new 'name' she'd given him so pragmatically and stated so prophetically—without knowing it of course.
Raven did a lot of things that meant more than she knew.
You will notice someday, Robin thought with the faintest touch of the hope she'd given him without meaning to, and then allowed himself to get lost in the amuses smiles of the flickering flames.
Meanwhile, Raven found herself outside the room with the name 'Beauty' scrawled on its nameplate and leaned against the door heavily.
"This is very strange," she murmured rather incoherently and probably gave a sound of startled unsettlement when she fell into her room, door giving way beneath her as if someone had opened it for her.
And here something as strange as she'd just noted everything to be happened.
Her eyes closed entirely as she yielded to the tiredness that had been threatening her deeply all the way from the dining hall and she felt certain she'd hit the floor, but didn't mind because as she recalled, it was carpeted and would not be so hard to sleep on...
"Poor girl," she thought she heard Roy say.
"Why didn't you catch her?" a voice she did not recognize asked with an undue amount of annoyance.
"I find it difficult," Roy replied wryly and the other voice snorted dismissively.
"Oh you could do it. You just wanted to make me get a closer look."
The half-conscious girl in his arms didn't know quite what to make of that statement.
"No, I couldn't, but it hardly matters. I see you've got her."
Raven was very, very vaguely aware of the pair of arms cradling her like a child.
"Move over; I want to lay her down. Look at her, she's in pieces," the unidentified person said disdainfully, like someone who referred to something very distasteful, and even in the clawed grips of exhaustion, Raven felt something boil up in her at being referred to as gone to 'pieces'.
She stirred a little.
"I think she is insulted," Roy noted cheerily.
"She would be," the other voice replied sourly and Roy laughed.
"Don't be that way X," Roy said. "You'll like her, yes, even you. She'll be the one, just wait and see."
"Not like I have much choice," the one called X responded crossly, but tucked in the girl called 'Beauty' with some grudging care. "It's times like these I actually miss the others. They'd be much better at this than you or I."
"Maybe, but I don't think she'd get along with them too well; she doesn't seem a typical kind of girl," Roy remarked.
"That may yet be to our advantage," X admitted and leaned against one of the bedposts, eyeing Raven a little less like a burden now.
"It will have to be," Roy said with more seriousness than Raven had heard him use up until the present.
And that was finally the last thing she heard before unconsciousness crashed down entirely around her in many curtained waves of soundlessness.
There's Chapter Four. Review please. Thank you!
-Rei