…..
Cool sunrise.
Her nose itched. Raven lifted her hand to scratch the irritation. She let out a sleepy groan when it subsided; her muddled eyes greeting the sight of a weakly-lit bedroom. Blue walls. To the right of where she laid, appearing to have been looking out to morning from the small bedroom window, stood her spiky-haired lover in black and red boxers.
The muscles in his arms rippled when he stretched out his body absently. White sunrays dipping into the crevices of his chest... where her lips bathed velvety flesh in kisses.
Lover.
The word earned her unnameable shivers down her limbs. He was her lover... she was his, wasn't she?
With that bugging her subconscious, Raven sat up quietly, realizing how sore she actually was. She swung her legs around, sheets seized up to her neck, and picked up her indigo-colored cloak dangling on the end of the bedstead. Raven fastened the button on, hiding her exceedingly naked body to her approval.
His head turned in her direction as she tiptoed, her bare feet making a soft padding on the smooth, uncarpeted ground. A black and white mask returned her composed, outer expression.
On the inside, she felt like screaming.
'He'll never take it off again, will he?'
Raven bowed her head forward.
His voice perked up, "Morning, sleepyhead."
"Why are you whispering?"
Indeed, nothing more than a mumble escaped him. Robin replied, even softer, "I don't know… it feels wrong to talk loud right now." She moved in at the wrong time when a loving arm opened to embrace her to him. His strong forearm crossed over her chest, the heat of his skin seeping through the durable fabric. He didn't recoil from her.
"Robin…"
Her face warmed and he took his cue to let go, taken back to hear her calling him that name of all things. Raven broke the bittersweet tension between them as always, "Do you regret-?"
Robin answered without recognizing he had interrupted her, "I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't loved you."
Her heart rate picked up. Raven blinked.
"Why are you acting so surprised?" He said, gently pushing back her soft, violet hair, tugging and rubbing the ends, launching shock after shock into her skull.
Raven stared right back at him before her emotionless face lost its hard exterior. She put a hand behind his head and drew his face down to hers heatedly, urgently. He responded without delay, battling his mouth against her cool lips with aggressive kisses. Robin ran his tongue across her closed lips, but she pulled away, backing a foot or so away from where he stood. Robin waited confused as her quick fingers slipped the indigo cloak off her shoulders, the foreign material fell to her ankles. Her eyes didn't stray from their target. She stayed motionless and unprotected.
Robin reached for the hand at her side, saying quietly, "You're beautiful." Her other hand disappeared behind her in a modest fashion.
"Do…"
Raven bit her lip.
"…you want me li-?"
"I don't want you at all."
Her cheeks burned shamefully. Raven bent down to take her cloak and pinned it on, trying desperately to hurry to the door before she lost control of her emotions. He sounded so honest.
'What the hell was I thinking… what am I…?'
She was so flustered she couldn't finish her thought.
Robin touched her wrist. She met face-to-face with his eye mask. "Let me explain. I love you, and not because of your body," Robin gathered her wrists together and brought her closer, going on, "I respect you more than that to ever take advantage of you. I would never hurt you. I haven't exactly earned that trust from you, but I will. I swear."
He spoke so passionately, with such devotion she was apt to believe him and there was no trouble in believing.
"There's something I've been mulling over for the past few days, and I've given a lot of thought to it before it as well. If I learned anything in twenty one years of being alive, it is that life is too short to wait for things to happen, and if you have something you cherish with all your heart, you can't let it get away. Risks are too high sometimes." Robin smiled kindly, touching their foreheads. "I don't want to lose you. I want to know every night you are there beside me dreaming, that every morning you'll know when you wake up, you'll be safe with me. I want to have a future with you. I want you to be in mine. I want to be in yours."
She merely nodded as Robin spoke, not saying a word throughout this entire span of time. Her heart was skipping beats in a tempo now.
He was confessing a feeling so deep and so sacred, in a way he couldn't express his emotions unlike the nervous laughter and jerky hand movements in his younger years that she had known him. It was hard to imagine it was Robin who was talking to her.
'So why aren't I strong enough to…'
He whispered affectionately, playing with her fingers, "One day... ha... depends on what you think; but one day, I want to create a life with you and love the life we created."
"You can't be talking about what I think you're talking about…" Raven shrank back, swallowing the persistent lump in her throat with difficulty. After sucking in a few breaths, she managed, "We're not capable of being parents...with the lives we lead...there's no time. The danger to their lives if criminals knew...if...they weren't strong enough..."
Robin asked without a trace of hurt in his voice, "You never dreamed of having a baby, Rav?"
"Dreaming was empty," she replied truthfully, "Please don't look at me like that, I'm not talking about my emotions."
Raven sank onto the mattress, her hands clasping her covered knees.
"I wasn't planning on telling you anytime soon. I kept putting off," she went on. "The people of Azarath have a... condition. Reproductive systems are fragile. It happens naturally. That's why many people are monks. If something goes wrong… it could be your survival. My energy sources come from my mental state and chakra." Raven pointed to her ruby. "But the rest depends on this area." Her hand hovered over her lower belly. She balled up a fist and rested her brow on her knuckles. "My people are infertile. My mother was lucky…"
All of a sudden, Raven let out a sour laugh that gave Robin a haunting sensation.
"Okay... that's stretching the truth a little bit, but her fertility was supposed there. Living in Azarath for so long didn't affect her as it should have been. I never looked toward a future, I always thought I was gonna die as my Father's tool, anyway," she finished off with an eerily knowing sneer.
Robin said stubbornly in the background, "I don't care. I'll love you whatever turns out."
Her fingers dug into the flesh of her kneecaps and he freed them, lugging her back onto her feet. Robin didn't let go of her left hand as he plucked a square object off the nearby mantle. "What kind of game are you playing?"
Robin knelt down on one knee, chuckling at her shocked expression. "Just open it."
Taking the small, blue velvet box, Raven popped open the lid to discover round diamonds embedded in an onyx-stone band. It caught the light in the room and flashed colorfully. She lost the battle versus the prickling of her tear ducts. "Robin…you didn't." Clear and cool they rolled down her face. Before she could lift a finger, he came up to softly kiss them away.
"Your love and beauty is the only thing this blind man can see. It shines brighter than anything. You shine. You deserve any bit of happiness in this world, Raven. Are you willing to let me give you this?"
Overpowering silence.
He smiled, uncertainly. "Maybe being straightforward is the best approach here. Raven Roth, will you marry me?"
There were too many thoughts going round her head, many were the purest intuitions of love for him; others told her to run, meditate, tell him no. She could never refuse him even if the cause would benefit the world. Raven murmured, her eyes blurry with tears, "...Yes. I'll marry you."
Robin slipped the ring onto her finger and kissed her deeply, tasting salty moisture. "Don't cry, baby," he murmured against her mouth. "It's okay. There's no rush."
'Yes… take it a step at a time… What am I talking about? I'm going to marry him. Robin, my leader, the only person who understands me... this is a good thing so... stop crying, you silly girl.'
He struggled from pulling away from deliriously kissing her throat. "I'm going to pack for the Tower… god, I love you… we'll leave in a few hours-"
Knock-Knock.
"Mistress Raven?"
"Shit," Robin said, diving onto the floor and Raven wrapped her cloak tighter around herself, wiping her eyes and calling out.
"Uh. Come in?"
Alfred opened the door, looking unresponsive as usual. "Are you coming downstairs for breakfast or shall I bring up something for you?"
She said hastily, "I'll come downstairs."
Without moving from his spot, he said louder, "Your hard-broiled eggs and cheese quesadillas are waiting, Master Richard."
Robin's interested voice drifted from under the bed, "Really? Cheese quesa-"
Raven smacked her face and Alfred said tediously, although a ghost of a smirk passed over his wrinkles, "No one will know about this, rest assure, Mistress Raven. Are you both coming downstairs then?" They agreed in unision and Robin came out from hiding as the old butler left.
"Sorry."
"At least Alfred is a decent guy."
"So… you feel like telling Bruce?"
Raven crossed her arms automatically underneath her cloak. "After everyone else knows," she said. Robin grinned at this.
"I figured you'd say something like that. I will be telling Alfie."
"Fine by me."
He goofily smiled against her lips. "Is it wrong to feel giddy?"
Raven half-smiled in exchange. "Feel free to be giddy, Bird Boy." He leaned in for another kiss. She pushed his chest, chastising, "Go before you decide to never leave."
Robin said smugly, coming ever closer to snaking his hands into her cloak and she batted them away, laughing, "It's hard. You're still naked under that thing... I just wanna…" Raven used her powers to brutally seize him and push him out of the bedroom, slamming the door shut. He said on the other side, defeated "Got it."
A big smile fixed over her face as she glanced at the ring on her left hand. It made her slender hand so tiny and the black contrasted to make her finger paler. But it was beautiful she had to admit and must have cost a small fortune to buy. Raven cradled her hand to her chest, the cool metal stinging the heat of her exposed breast. She changed into a freshly washed uniform, courtesy of Alfred's special detergent, and threw her things into her suitcase.
Raven would have made it safely into the dining room without an interruption but fate was cruel at times. A rather large hand planted itself on her shoulder and a deep voice asked, "Do you have a moment?" Dark, sharp eyes peered down on her.
'To put it adequately…crud.'
"Actually, I'm hungry, and I'd rather use my appetite before I lose it."
Bruce Wayne steered her from the kitchen doors, hand still stiff on her shoulder. "It will only take a second, I promise." He and Raven walked out into the foyer, the exact area they argued a night ago, and he let her go. "I realize that I haven't been the kindest host to you-"
"Robin put you up to this, didn't he?" she said perceptively.
"That's beside the point. I have treated you wrongly, not only here but in the past as well."
"I accept your apology, and for your upcoming one you will be saying, because of how you treated not only me but your son."
"I'm sorry to you both," he agreed.
"Okay, now you have to go in there and tell him that yourself…"
He chuckled, "You are manipulative, aren't you?" She shrugged, struggling to contain her own itch to laugh.
"Unsurpassed. Can I eat now?"
"You didn't lose your appetite?" the billionaire taunted her but not without an open smile.
Raven said, coolly, "I enjoyed my time here, Mister Wayne. Thank you for not kicking me out on sight." Hurried into the dining room. The bonding they were having made her think twice. She couldn't trust people just in an instant. In time, she guessed. Raven got her stomach full as she wanted and said goodbye to Alfred, favoring him a quick smile. Bruce said goodbye with less aloofness. She just wanted to go home. The newly engaged couple landed securely on the roof of Titans Tower at approximately one-thirty in the afternoon.
Starfire burst in on them once they exited the main elevator, her amber cheeks glowing with rapture. "Friends, you have returned! I was very lonesome without your desired company!" She squeezed Robin until he was out of breath and then advanced on Raven who held up her hands in surrender.
Bright green eyes caught the flash of the ring on her finger and she halted, mouth agape. Raven caught on and for the first time felt excited, really excited about something.
"Starfire, what do you think?"
"AHHHHH!" shrieked the horrified Tamaranean woman, running as fast as she could in the opposite direction.
"...Alright." Raven rubbed her hands together in mock enthusiasm. "...Now that that's settled."
Robin sighed, jerking his head, "Come on," and they went to locate her screaming behind Cyborg on the next level.
Starfire took one look at Raven and pointed an accusing finger. "SHE HAS CONTRACTED THE BLA'CRAFDUR! X'HAL REDSYUL WEEL!"
"What?" Robin frowned.
"Yes, what?" Raven asked, also frowning.
"THE BLA'CRAFDUR! THE DREADED CARNIVOROUS DISEASE! FLESH-EATER!"
"What are you talking about, Star?" Cyborg demanded.
She gulped, making a sign on her forehead with three of her fingers, and her voice lowering to a squeak, "On my home planet... rings are worn on the fourth finger to symbolize caution to those who have not yet been taken by the disease."
"Raven doesn't have a disease. That's not what it means, Star," Robin explained. She tilted her head, confused.
"Then… what does it mean?"
The empath said, already exasperated by her, "It means I'm getting married." Cyborg's human eye bulged and Starfire gasped in understanding.
"Oh! To whom have you chosen as your mate?"
Raven's cheeks faintly blushed.
"Azar…you make me sound like some kind of animal."
Cyborg moved past the Tamaranean to sweep both birds into a bone crushing hug. "Well alright! I knew you two would end up together eventually!" Starfire clapped her hands furiously.
"Robin and Raven are to be wedded? This is most glorious news!" She used her own inhumanly strength to yank Cyborg away from the panting Titans and gave them her own version of a death-grip.
Raven wheezed, her face becoming oatmeal gray, "I'd really like not to die young…"
They were soon released and Raven scrambled to clutch at Robin's cape, trying to regain a normal blood pressure as Starfire beamed, red hair bouncing. "I shall begin the making of the Pudding of Matrimony. I shall need several weeks before the cheese of blue can curdle properly…." She floated out of the hallway, talking to herself about the usage of rotting ingredients.
Raven straightened up, pressing a hand to the small of her back. "I don't know how but that reminds me, I should go."
Robin's mask narrowed. "Go? Go where, we just got back."
"My Mother. in Azarath. should know."
"And I'm not coming because….?"
Cyborg snickered fearfully, "I should help Star-now-" and whizzed out of sight before anything could be thrown at him.
Raven stopped glaring. "You should be announced properly..." She shook a hand. "It's complicated, I should go alone."
He trusted her judgment, even when a part of him didn't.
"Do you know when you'll be back?"
She paused before answering, "Dinnertime, if everything goes right."
"What could go wrong?"
Raven flinched at the phrase, an impression of dé jà vu smacked her across the face. He touched her arm. "Raven?"
She shut her eyes, shaking her head to try and block her mental vulnerability.
"Like I said… I should go alone."
"Be careful," he advised.
She got away, his fingers slipping over her flesh, leaving the fading awareness of human contact. Her room waited for her expectantly, forever ready to embrace her back to the darkness welling, darkness she grew to love. Raven twisted her ring offhandedly as her eyes scanned for The Book of Azar. She plucked it off her dresser and flipped to the thirteenth bookmarked page. Without thinking, she routinely cleansed her breathing with incense, filling her lungs, and magically set the items she needed in place.
Raven sat cross-legged on her carpet and tensed her mouth.
"Azarath Metrion Zinthos," she chanted monotonously, "Carazon Rakashas Endere. . . . . .Vaserix Endrien Azarath Azarath AZARATH!"
The portal over her head swallowed her into her world; her quiet, softly-colored world. Raven touched down on her feet, cloak billowing silently around her shins.
The metal antique buildings. Copper. Bronze. Shadows cast over them. Orange. Yellow. Gold. Purple windows. Bare of any life.
As she traveled down stony streets, low vibrating hums came from the temples in the distance. Achingly familiar. Yes, the people of Azarath must have been meditating at this time. Raven flew up a lofty-sized building with an emblem of a golden bird. On the balcony, a numerous amount of doves fed off the feed sprinkled on the ground.
"Hello?"
As she rested on firm ground, the white-feathered creatures scattered in all directions gracefully. The rose, metal doors gone. Filmy, sheer curtains in the open fluttered their tails beckoningly. The unceremonious walls of a nameless color and simple furniture brought back forgotten memories of a short lived childhood in her realm.
"Arella?"
The room smelled of old lilacs, mildewed and dying yet strongly fragrant. She found a black monk robe on a table, folded neatly aside. Heavy thick cloth, not found on Earth, just like her indigo cloak. Raven gripped it in her hands, mumbling almost feebly under her breath, "...Mother?"
"I wasn't expecting you for one more week, Raven."
A soft, calming tone drifted from the other end of the sitting room. She looked around to see a tall woman with similar features. Violet hair, somber eyes, still faces, and blood red chakra gems. Her daughter rushed into her route, hugging her around the middle.
Arella gazed down at her, smiling thinly. "You show more affection than the last time I saw you."
Raven smiled, widely. "I bring you good news."
The older woman sent back the smile sadly, eyes flickering to a slender, left hand. "You have?"
"Robin… I have told you about Robin, yes?"
Her mother said, patiently, "You spoke him of fondly, this leader of yours. Almost too fondly…"
Raven became somewhat awkward under her gaze. "Arella, Robin is not just my leader. He and I have been in a relationship and he has asked me to marry him."
Arella asked watchfully, her white robed arms tucked together, "You have agreed to this matrimony he requested?"
"One day, yes."
"I see," Arella whispered, turning her head out to the doors.
Raven whispered after a moment, "You don't approve?"
"I cannot pass perspicacity on a man I do not know personally." Her slim face met Raven's grave one. "I have taught you that lesson when you were a child."
Raven burrowed her delicate brows.
"I have ceaselessly followed your rule and advice." Her chin lowered respectfully and Arella's fingers enfolded around it gently, helping her raise her eyes.
"Do not humble yourself to me. You are my equal at this point." Raven narrowed her eyes at an added, "...You were not born in that situation." Her mother started reminiscing, mildly toying with her daughter's tresses, "You have grown, Raven, from a defiant child to a heroic, young woman. When you were little, you would asked me why every time you dropped a book from the edge of your chest it fell to the floor. I answered it was gravity. Gravity made objects heavy and pulled them down. You looked at me and frowned the same way you do now, your upper lip thin and the crinkle around your outer eyes deepening. You asked me why I could defy gravity by flying and not falling as your book could do."
Raven recalled slowly, "I remember. You… said it was magic."
"Correct, and you were frustrated with my answer, not understanding why I could fly when you could not. Your inheritance at fourteen had not been reached, mind you were only five years of age. You wanted so terribly to see how gravity worked, to see if your body could defy limitations-"
"That I jumped off the West Temple and broke my neck," Raven concluded, eyes wide with memories.
"You were healed, of course... you would have died if it were not done, but since then you never took anything lying down, especially if they were against your morals," Arella spoke selflessly to her, "In my eyes, at this moment, I see that your determination has faded. I do not know where you obtained this passive nature, but it is not you."
"I… you can't…"
Raven couldn't find the right words to defend herself. She couldn't have lost resolve. Her mother said, "That is not my worry now. My heart is weighted by a different burden."
Her daughter stepped back.
"No."
"I do not understand... what are you refusing?"
"Whatever bad news you plan on telling me." Raven receded herself back into the folds of her cloak. "I can't take it. Don't spoil the happiness I hold in myself now. I have a chance to be eternally content with the man who loves me. Loves the dark and light of my soul… why do you have to take that from me?"
Arella said, seriously, "You don't have a choice. Your people need you."
"They aren't my people. I never ruled them. I never did anything except live here for five years I can't even remember accurately!" Raven spat, "I don't know if the thing you called my Father was a full blooded Azarathian! What's more, you yourself are of human blood!"
"My descendants were the desert people of a dwelling we now call Azarath. Outsiders maybe, but Azarath-born through and through. Raven... you know better then to fill your head with fanciful ideas."
(-flames -deep reverberating- searing fire in her bones- monstrous laughter- she could hear it in her head-)
Raven pressed her hands on the side of her temples. "No... shut up..." she mumbled.
Arella tugged her forward, shaking her forcefully to get her attention, violet eyes afire.
"Azarath needs a leader. A king has agreed an alliance for future protection. I understand as the former Queen that Azarath cannot stand alone against evil and you know this as well. You are pure of royal blood and not infertile. You can bear the children of Azarath. You can save us all."
"Is that all I am to these people? The gateway to Hell? Salvation? Prophecy? A whore?"
Raven lurched out of her grasp, dashing out into the balcony and jumped off, hitting her shin on the hard ground below. Ignoring the pain, she sprinted. Flying was convenient but running carried her thoughts away entirely. Under the purple-orange, shapeless clouds, she would have preferred to run beneath the threatening shadows of downtown Gotham. Out of oxygen, she concentrated on nothing but her strength draining from her breath released.
Too tired to cry, too tired to scream out her physical and mental anguish, Raven didn't get far before she collapsed.
Her forehead rested on the stone street. Her frame shook with hoarse coughs. Arella materialized from a pure white light, somehow not surprising her daughter with her magic ability. She held out her hand in condolence. "Raven... I did not wish to bring you any kind of impairment to your happiness."
"You can't make me go through with this."
Arella shut her eyes, forlornly. "There are others who can."
Raven begged weakly, her hair rustling in the breeze near her Mother's sandal. "Please…"
"This is out of my hands."
…..
The night run through Jump City had more satisfaction.
Icy cold rain battering her head and body, making it more of an effort to keep up with the howling wind. It sheltered her away from the certain. Neon lights from buildings gave her false comfort. Get away, got to get away. Somehow she found herself standing on the staircase in the Tower's operation center. Her friends looked up from whatever they were doing to stare troubled at her dripping wet appearance.
Raven shot out a hand to steady herself and missed the wall, heading for the floor. Starfire, the closest to her, caught her. She brushed her stringy purple hair out of her face.
"Friend Raven?" she asked.
The response was a series of violent coughs.
Cyborg said, sternly, "Alright, Rae, I don't know what you've been doing but we'd better get you to the medical sector." Starfire touched her moist forehead with a gentle hand.
"She is cold."
Raven protested dimly over their voices, eyelids fluttering together, "Robin…"
"She might be delirious as well," Cyborg added.
By means of his supersonic hearing or pure coincidence, their leader found his way onto the scene. Raven used a surge of her materialized power to get herself to her feet and drew herself into her leader's arms, her sodden body sticking to his costume. Robin let her head sink to his chest, whispering in her ear, "Are you going to knock me several centuries out of my way if I ask what's wrong?"
"You don't... want to know."
He cupped her cheek, lifting her face up. "Fess up. What did your mom say?" She shook her head, her nose grazing his shoulder.
"What? She hates me? You're grounded? …am I getting close?"
She murmured, angrily, "Don't mock me. Above all this, do not mock me."
"I can't help you if you leave me in the dark," he countered. "Talk to me, please."
Raven stared off into space, mutely sealing her lips to a thin line. He got to his knees, pushing her cloak aside. "You're bleeding all over the place." An irregularly-shaped cut with a fresh coat of blood gleamed on her left calf. A crimson trail slipped down her skin, and disappearing into the crease of her boot. "What did you do?" he asked.
"Jumped a balcony," she said with a slight smile.
"Ever heard of flying?"
"Somewhere on the Sci-Fi channel."
Robin said, sarcastically, "Ha, ha... I happen to know you don't watch TV at all." He persisted, getting his feet. "So tell me what happened."
"Why? Why do you want to know so badly?" she asked, dully.
"Because it's obviously hurting you. I'm going to be your husband one day so you have to open up to me at some point."
Raven said, intentionally, "I'm not marrying you."
His mouth dropped open.
"That's a little harsh… even coming from you…"
"I'm engaged to someone else. " Raven felt her heart tear out of her chest. "Azarath needs me and I'm the only one who can rule it." She purposely left out the whoring part. This news was completely new to Robin, obviously.
"You're royalty…. like Starfire royalty?"
"Except on her planet, she can freely choose who she can marry. Azarath has always had its traditions and magical background. They've kept to themselves for generations and built an advanced civilization on a giant, floating asteroid." Raven's forehead wrinkled between her eyebrows. "I'm going to fight this but-"
Robin stopped her from speaking their dread, confirming listlessly, "Life isn't fair."
She had to disagree with him.
"No. Because there is no such thing as fairness."