Explanations
"ROTTY?!" Raven burst out in disbelief.
"Hi Rae." He said casually as he headed for the dazed bird on his sister's bed.
Raven fumed. "Don't 'hi Rae' me!" She shouted. "Where were you?! Do you have any idea how many times I tried to call you?!"
"I'm guessing triple digits." Rotbart said as he reached for his swan charm.
"Don't pull that smart-ass act with me!" Raven snapped. "What happened?! And who is that?!" She said as she pointed to the woozy-looking falcon. Which quickly passed out.
"Apple." Rotbart said as he let a single drop of transformation fall on the unconscious bird's head. And before Raven could utter an incredulous word, the white falcon on her bed morphed into none other than her previously-missing, crown princess roommate. Who happened to be dressed in very skimpy tatters.
Raven looked as though her violet eyes were going to pop out of their sockets and onto the floor. "What…why…how…where…what…huh?...why…?" She stuttered.
"One question at a time, please." Rotbart said wryly.
"WHAT THE FUCK ROTTY?!" Raven exploded. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"
"SHHHHHH!" Rotty hissed as he stuck his head out the window to make sure that nobody had heard his sister's mental and vocal eruption. "Quiet! You wanna get us caught?!"
"Caught? What do you mean 'caught?' What did you DO, Rotty?"
Rotbart sighed. "It's like this…" He began.
Five minutes later, Rotbart had explained the situation to Raven. What he and Apple saw at the Yule Ball. How she reacted. How he ran after her. How he found her in the snow and how he found the cabin. How he managed to save her from hypothermia and why she looked the way she did. How his phone just happened to completely run out of power the first time Raven tried to call him. And finally, how he and Apple concluded that it would be best to travel back to the school incognito as birds.
"Holy godmother…" Raven breathed as she sank into a chair. This whole story was a lot to take in. "Poor Apple…"
Rotbart scowled a bit. "This whole thing hasn't been a picnic for me too, you know…" He grumbled.
"I do know, but I meant what Daring did."
"It was a dick move." Rotbart said. "No pun intended." He added with a smirk.
"Definitely." Raven agreed. "I mean, I know they're not officially dating or anything, but, geez, no WONDER Apple ran off like that. Princesses put such high stock in True Love; this must be torture for her…"
"Yeah, she was pretty upset." Rotbart said as he remembered Apple's heartbroken face when he found her in the snow. "But she's OK now."
"Aside from flying head first into a window." Raven pointed out.
Rotbart shrugged as if he didn't care. "Details. Anyway, I promised her that I wouldn't try to kill her until she got another shmuck to replace Dick Charming."
"Really?"
"Uh-huh. I swore on my powers." Rotbart admitted.
"You did?" Raven asked in amazement. "Why? And why did you save her at all?"
Rotbart sighed heavily. He didn't like talking about the motives behind his embarrassing heroics, but he knew that Raven would never let it be until he gave her the whole truth. Might as well get it over with. He figured.
"I couldn't let her die with a broken heart, Rae." He said. "That's all there is to it."
"Why?" Raven pressed.
"I had to grow up around heartbreak. All those swans around Dad's house, the ones that hadn't lost their humanity yet…" Rotbart stopped as he tried to think of a way to describe the eyes of those swan maidens to Raven. The eyes of women suffering from heartbreak. The eyes of women who were being tortured on the inside, far worse than any machine or magic spell could inflict. The eyes of women who would willingly let go of their souls to escape everything.
"…In the end," Rotbart finally said. "All those swans stopped being human because they chose to. Not because Dad turned them into animals. He only changed their bodies. They did the rest themselves. But the time in between was awful. I could hardly look them in the eye. I tried to convince myself for years that I could do it, but in the end…"
Raven nodded understandingly. It was why he had leaped at the opportunity to replace her as Apple's villain; to spare her and Duchess from that kind of heartbreak.
"And here I thought you liked being the bad guy." She gently teased.
"I do." Rotbart said. "But I'd rather scare or embarrass the shit out of someone than let them suffer and die like that. No one deserves that. Not even Miss Candied-Apple-With-a-Stick-Up-Her-Ass." He said with a small grin. "Plus, it's kind of my patriotic duty to make sure she's got someone to get her through that story."
"Oh yeah, True Love's kiss." Raven said. "She can't get her destiny without that."
"Uh-huh. I can't let everyone miss out on the inexplicable joy of having Apple as their queen." Rotbart sarcastically.
"Speaking of everyone, how are we going to explain Apple's sudden reappearance?" Raven asked.
Rotbart thought for a minute. "Tell them that a handsome stranger came to her rescue. No need to say it's me."
"You're handsome?" Raven quipped in true little-sister form.
"Hah-hah." Rotbart said. "When she comes to, tell her to think of why she was in the woods in the first place. I can't think of any good reason for that…stupid princess move..."
"OK."
"Oh, and don't say a word about the whole Daring and Lizzie thing." He added.
"Why?"
"Because she wants to deal with that herself. Privately." He said. Given Raven's goody-two-shoes nature, he figured that it was probably best that she didn't know that he and Apple were going to plot a horrible, embarrassing revenge for those two.
Raven nodded. "Alright. I'll wake her up and get her dressed. You'd better get out of here."
"Gone." Rotbart said. And he quickly transformed himself into his owl form and prepared to fly out the window.
"Wait!" Raven said to him. "You still want to meet up at I-POP?" The black, blue-eyed owl nodded his head furiously. "OK, I'll meet you there at 1:00." And Raven watched as Rotbart (alias "B.B.") flew back towards his dorm room.
"My brother, the knight in shining armor." She muttered as she smiled and shook her head fondly. "Who'd have thunk?"