Chapter 5: Home Improvement

"Raven?"

Dove's quiet voice broke the silence of their coached meditation session gently—though when Raven opened her eyes, Dove was scrambling up and looking outside with her face practically pressed against the glass.

"Can we go outside?"

"I thought we agreed on two full hours of meditation," Raven sighed. It had hardly been a half hour—

"I already meditated this morning," Dove answered distantly, obviously distracted.

Raven looked up at her in genuine confusion. If it was such a struggle for her, more practice couldn't hurt. But... "Why didn't you tell me you already finished?"

When Dove looked over her shoulder, her chin was dipped timidly and her voice even more fragile than before. "Because I... like meditating with you...?"

"And why is that?"

"It's easier," Dove shrugged, eyes dropping in embarrassment. "Your calm is so... perfect. So steady. A lot deeper than mine..."

...well, she supposed there could be worse reasons... Still debating on whether she wanted to allow this flexibility in their training schedule, or if that would undermine the concept of discipline, she asked, "Why do you want to go outside?"

"Sieara."

"Sieara," Raven repeated flatly.

"Yes, Sieara! Raven, I think she's out there!" The excitement in her voice was subtle but genuine.

"And you want to check?"

"Yes! I—" Dove bit her lip, practically plastering herself against the window again. "We have a bond. A connection. Like the one I had with my mother, except—" She cut herself off there and shook her head before she could tempt any memories, or emotions. "I'm worried about her, Raven. She... She feels weak, and... I..." There her voice trailed off uncertainly, and she turned to her trainer, deferring to her permission but also with a thinly veiled plea and concern in her eyes.

Something instinctive told Raven it was warranted. "I guess. Just don't make a habit of interrupting training. These sessions are important."

Dove nodded swiftly and practically ran to the door—though she had to pause there because she barely knew how to get to the living room, and she hadn't gone back to the entrance since the moment she set foot in here. She had to wait for Raven to lead.

Luckily Raven seemed to pick up on her urgency and led them to the door with a hurried pace, but the moment they were outside Dove's eyes were wide and alert, and she turned left immediately and shot off, stumbling once on the unfamiliarly rocky slope but she managed to keep her balance. "I think she's this way!"

"Don't get too excited," Raven reminded her, following just quickly enough to keep up.

"But, Raven, she's—!" Dove's expression sank and her heart clenched when they neared the shore—and neared the small spot of white against the deep green and brown of the earth. "She's hurt..."

The bird was laying still on the rock, eyes open, but her chest heaving quickly under disheveled feathers and she seemed to blink her eyes on every other breath.

"How hurt?" Though empathy could have told her enough, Raven was busy focusing on the waves of emotion shifting through Dove's mind. Hesitance and investigating disbelief, quickly overruled by elated relief and frightened worry playing tug of war on a field of affectionate love.

She didn't know it was possible to feel so much for such a small bundle of feathers... but Dove obviously did. Even though she bit her lip and breathed through her nose, still smiling but trying not to feel too frightened or excited.

"Sieara, thank Azar you're alive..." She was afraid to pick her up, but she reached out and stroked her feathers, and the frail bird stirred at her touch before letting out a weak and smooth chirrup.

"...hurt," Dove analyzed, physical contact clarifying the empathy just well enough that she could interpret what her senses told her. "One wing's hurt... and she's so scared. I think something tried to attack her, and she crashed when she tried to land... Raven?"

Dove looked up, and Raven looked up as well. Something about the bird's mind seemed... strangely human, but before she could dwell, she read the hesitant hope in Dove's eyes, and sighed. "I can help," she consented. Animals felt pain and fear as much as any human, Raven knew that—and they could be healed just the same, too.

So she picked up the bird, exhausted and weak, but very much alive, and they attempted to heal her. (Or, Raven healed her while Dove tried, then failed, and thanked her profusely and focused on choking back tears of relief.)

The moment she could stir without her breast bone aching, Sieara blinked up at Raven, as if startled, then she wriggled energetically in the empath's hands, reaching for Dove immediately. Raven let her go; the bird fluttered straight to Dove's shoulder; and Dove's eyes lit with joy and unending relief.

She immediately reached up to stroke her. "I missed you," she crooned softly, letting the bird settle close against her neck. It was so good to feel her claws gripping her shoulders again, so good to have her oldest friend back after being separated and so, so very worried.

Crisis averted, there was time for observations and questions. Like any other Azarathean dove, Sieara was just small enough to fit in Raven's cupped hands, not nearly the size of a Jump City pigeon but still larger than most doves. And her feathers had looked pure white, except for the flash of purple Raven swore she saw when Sieara took flight. That wasn't normal. And something about it reminded her of... magic?

Dove glanced up when she felt the subtle shifts in Raven's guarded mind. "You... can probably tell she's not really a normal bird," she suggested uncertainly.

Raven nodded.

Dove went back to stroking the bird, affection and fondness in her eyes even as they went distant with memory. "She's not. Not anymore. Srentha put a spell on her," she explained. "That was my friend, Srentha... He made it so she could think like a human and understand more of our world... And he changed her tail, just for fun. So now her tail changes color with her emotions. Azar's magic and all... It was amazing what he could teach me in just ten minutes..." Dove sighed at a lighthearted memory of him showing her a simple illusion spell, grinning at the memory of his wild, silvery hair glowing with a green-golden tint and his utter elation at such a simple wonder.

The dove nibbled her hair, tugging her back to Earth. Lovingly.

Dove blinked. "Now she's... more intelligent than most birds. He made it so she'd glow if she was near anything magical. And cast a spell that allows her to sense magic and track it, and so many other things he never had the chance to explain..."

Magically enhanced mind or not, Raven groaned internally at the thought of having yet another pet roaming the Tower. "Just don't expect me to clean up after her."

Since then, the loyal bird never seemed to leave Dove's shoulder—except to sleep of course (and even that was speculation). It was like she was afraid to lose her again.

But for the moment:

An awkward, concerned glance across the river shifted Dove's attention from the bird. "Um, while we're out here... I did leave a box of things in the forest..."

"And you left them all the way in the forest, because?"

"I thought they were safe. And... I, kind of... forgot."

"How, exactly?"

Dove shrugged, too uncomfortable to meet her eyes. "I hadn't slept well. I had a nightmare, and... and I just wanted to get there—Get here. And by the time I remembered, I-I was already an entire day away. I thought I could go back, and, and get them, eventually..." Distant, somehow fragile helplessness came into her as the words trickled to a stop for a beat of withdrawn silence, until her voice murmured forth like a haunted shadow of what her explanation had been.

"Those things didn't seem important, when I thought I was going to die."

Raven's eyes shifted from bored, to... dare she admit it, sympathetic? "If you chose to bring them across the dimensional boundaries, they must be pretty important."

Dove nodded.

"Well? Where are we going?"

Dove blinked up from her introspective trance. "Uhhhm... Across the city..."

Had she already forgotten how far that was? "We'd better start walking."

That signature uneasiness was back yet again. "Oh. Uhhm... Yeah."

Twenty minutes of walking later, when they'd barely stepped off the bridge, Raven knew Dove really wasn't kidding about that whole "not good with people" thing. Hiding behind her, fleeing their gaze, ducking out of sight... and they hadn't even crossed the beach.

"We'll never get there at this rate."

Dove's gaze fell under the weight of embarrassment. "Sorry..."

"You have got to stop saying that."

(She just pulled her cloak and shoulders in tighter.)

"Maybe we should circumvent the city."

Raven used this as an opportunity to help Dove with her levitation problems, but it ended in disaster; Dove couldn't get in the air, couldn't ease her nerves, couldn't even move straight... and then nearly knocked herself out trying to land in the forest between two trees, and only making it into the first.

Poor Sieara had shot from her perch and was fluttering anxiously from branch to branch, curr-cooing worriedly until Dove opened her eyes.

Once they were sure the crash didn't result in a concussion, Raven helped Dove carry the wooden container into the Tower, both girls using telekinesis—well, mostly Raven; Dove spent most of the journey nearly dropping herself to the ground, she couldn't possibly hold up the box too.

But they made it back alive.

Once they were in her room, safely grounded, Raven watched Dove kneel beside the crate, her eyes distant and her hand resting on its lid.

"Aren't you going to unpack it?"

Dove asked, "Where would I put everything?"

"Good point," Raven conceded after scanning the empty room. "Any ideas?"

Dove blinked up at her in confusion. "For what?"

"Shelving. Tables. Places to put your precious... things. Setting up the room, to be your room."

Dove's eyes lit up—she had never been able to change her surroundings, personalize any place she lived... She never even had her own room before! "Um... I think so. Yeah, actually."

But where to begin?

Only another moment's hesitation, and Dove voiced that she might, maybe, need a shelf? "I used to read three new books every week," she told Raven. "I love reading..."

The gaze Raven responded with was uncertain, half understanding, half bewildered.

They seemed more similar every day.

"Until you have books to fill it with..."

They later moved forward at Robin's suggestion: Using a catalog to find and order her decorations. It didn't take long for everyone to notice Dove's choices were based on peace, safety, and security, no physical thing in particular. Dove wanted it to remind her of Azarath. Which made it a lot harder for the others to make suggestions, but Dove seemed quite certain of what "like Azarath" entailed.

Raven seemed to mysteriously disappear before Dove could explain to the others exactly what Azarath was like, and Dove's throat closed around any attempt to talk about it, anyways.

Everyone had downtime when the shipment arrived, and so Robin called it moving day.

"Is the Moving Day yet another one of your Earthly hollering days?"

Robin explained patiently: "It's not a holiday, Starfire. It just means we're going to help Dove move her new things in."

Beast Boy groused, "When did it become moving day?"

And Robin leveled, "When the shipment arrived and proved we need to help Dove assemble everything she ordered."

"But we had a five-hour gaming marathon scheduled for two o'clock!"

"Yeah, and it's almost two o'clock!" Cyborg tapped the digital readout on his wrist.

Their leader checked the other two before elaborating; Raven was thoroughly engaged in lecturing Dove through another attempt at telekinesis with the smallest, lightest box, and Dove was indeed focusing on the task so hard, her steps were stiff with auto-piloting and tension.

And then, voice low, hanging back for a moment of discussion, Robin reminded them: "We still don't know if Dove is who she says she is. This is the perfect opportunity to learn more about her. And the sooner she settles in her own space, the sooner she'll be comfortable enough to talk to us."

Robin ran up to them eagerly. "Hey! It's best to leave the boxes out here. We should personalize the walls before you get the furniture in."

Dove looked almost as exasperated as Raven, and twenty times as breathless. "You mean... I brought—the boxes... up here, and we... We can't use them—?"

"Not now. But don't worry, it wasn't for nothing. It's just going to be a little later than you thought."

Raven said, "We could use the break."

(Dove sighed at her use of "we", wishing such a simple task hadn't been so frustrating.)

Robin quickly took the role of impromptu project manager, and everyone in the tower pitched in.

The first thing they changed when she moved in was the color; Dove preferred it to be soft on the eyes, with a dark blue carpet on the floor and the ceiling dark green with stick-on clouds, accented with a multi-colored galaxy on the wall opposite her window, a custom commission she had fallen in love with especially for its reminiscence of Azarath's skies. The moment her lamp was plugged in, she began to forgo the (recently-repaired) ceiling light entirely, and instead kept it lit by that soft, golden glow.

Nobody would deny that affixing wallpaper was much easier when you had two teammates in the air, a geographically calibrated laserpoint that doubles as a leveling beam, an octopus, and a grappling gun.

Dove, largely unable to fly, or move anything useful, or assemble shelving, or generally help in any way, didn't know what to do and mostly stood off to the side awkwardly... until, at Robins' suggestion, she drew up a vague yet surprisingly recognizable draft of the furnished room in the pen and notepad he produced from his belt, with labels to give them an idea of their goal.

Then it was time to assemble the shelves. Beast Boy nearly tripped over the crate while handing Robin a screwdriver and danced around it with the slightest flail of his arms. "Hey, what's in this box?"

Dove pulled it into her lap and sat on the bed. "Well..." She began unpacking its contents—thus revealing the contents of her previous life.

A knee-jerk surge of pragmatic responsibility rose in Raven's mind: We should probably get back to work...

...but a moment later her curiosity and suspicion won out; she couldn't help wanting to learn everything she could about the younger Azarathean.

The first thing Dove took out (and held with the most careful and reverent touch) was a small golden statue of an Azarathean dove. The base curved out like the foot of a wine glass and fit perfectly cupped in Dove's palm. The bird had its wings outspread, and they were so meticulously detailed, the individual feathers shined clearly, with its fanned tail making it seem like the bird would soar right from Dove's hand as she held it on her open palm.

Really? Dove reportedly had a violent premonition of utter devastation, the instantaneous death of a thousand people at the hands of an other-dimensional demon, and in response to such a dire threat, Dove had chosen to rescue that? Raven couldn't wrangle her disbelief. "Why would you bring something so... small?"

The sincerity strengthening Dove's voice indicated no small significance. "It relaxes me, and helps me remember happier times... It was my mother's favorite, and mine, too. My grandmother added the base for my mother's hands. It was crafted from pure Azarathean gold, and decorated with textures that are just... so breathtakingly realistic; she carved it by hand and magic, Raven. Bringing it to Earth was like saving a piece of Azarath. And my mother. It... keeps me calm."

Raven could only wonder what it was like, to have so much sentiment attached to a family heirloom.

And... Had Dove really said so many words at once, without a single gasp or stutter? Maybe there really was some steadying magic in the little golden bird.

It seemed Dove was blissfully oblivious to her musing. But after another breath, gentle and sighing, she finally put the figure down (just beside her, right up against her leg), and pulled out a larger gold item wrapped in so much familiarly formative, grounding, internalizing magic, Raven's attention snapped raptly alert.

Dove was holding a mirror. A modestly-sized hand mirror, with a golden rim carved to look like outspread wings and the handle turned into an outspread tail. Closer inspection revealed gold-rimmed wood in a very delicate hue, carved with filamental mystic whorls arranged in layers of 3 reaching from the glass to its wing-tips and tail.

Raven's astonishment, and the immediate yelp and recoil Beast Boy and Cyborg performed in unison once they saw it, made Dove giggle a note or two, and she put it on the bedside table. A moment of consideration, and she told them, "My mother made it by hand, but used magic too..." Then she gave Raven a glance, with a sheepish, tiny grin, and a confession. "She heard about yours, how it helps you with meditation, and we both really liked the idea. Since it's... hard for me to meditate on my own..."

Next Dove pulled out a well-worn, hard-bound book with care and set it beside her on the bed. "My mother used to read it to me all the time..."

Two more books sat beneath it, and then Dove took out a gently-used journal, two notebooks both she and her mother filled, a tome she declared came from her grandmother, a few scrolls from the same woman, and a lightly used journal or two, the bound items sometimes small and seemingly insignificant, but always inked with Azarathean calligraphy.

"For poetry, not agenda, or... keeping track of all the bad things that happen," Dove explained quietly. "Nothing special..." She sighed, then took out the rest of the box's contents: another book, a few crumbling leaves with a refreshing scent, and a bag of dried vegetables and grains for Sieara. And then the box was empty.

"These things bring back so many memories... I just wish I wasn't in such a rush to get out of there and had said goodbye to Srentha."

"At least you weren't killed by—"

"I know," Dove cut her off hurriedly, almost CHOKED it, as if the thought stung her. "But it still hurts to know I'll never see him again..."

Raven echoed, "Srentha. Why does that name sound familiar?"

"You lived in the temple, right? He was the high-magistrate's grandson."

"I... didn't even know Coman had a child, let alone a grandchild."

"Me neither, until Srentha showed up. He spent most of his life training in the libraries, locked away from the rest of the world..."

Raven sensed an aching pain, a loneliness so deep it had to have come from shared experience. Her brows contracted with her own empathy, ever so slightly.

"Srentha was like a brother to me... but, now, all I have left of him is my memories."

"Hold them close," Raven advised calmly. "They're as precious now as they were then."

Dove nodded—glanced away...

She was looking for a distraction. Seeing wisdom in that, Raven offered, "We should probably put these away."

Dove nodded and picked up the books before setting them on the single bedside shelf. Then she took the statue and the ingredients in her hands thoughtfully, and put the ingredients on the middle shelf, the statue next to the books.

She continued her impromptu stories as she set them in place. "My grandmother wrote this one. She was very powerful with magic, and she was even an advisor to our leader, but she caused too many arguments among the council, experimented with things we really weren't supposed to do, and she wound up exiled. So she wrote her experiments down here instead. She had kept it hidden away for years, until the Azaratheans banished her, and then, it was almost two decades before she sent it back 'home' in my mother's hands when she sent her back to Azarath. I inherited it the moment I knew, that... my mother was going to die. And... she knew I wasn't."

Nobody complained that she wasn't helping them, because it was keeping them all entertained. Who knew Dove had such a family history?

Dove's gaze was distanced, but a frail smile graced her lips, like she didn't mind recounting such stories one bit. "And this one..." She withdrew a small band in a bright golden yellow, runes inscribed on its outer surface—

Wait, Beast Boy knew that ring! His elephant form perked up just enough to bumble into the smaller shelf Robin was inspecting, they jumped back and it tottered—

"WHOOOA!" Cyborg cried out and braced to steady it. "Watch it, Dumbo!" He shot Beast Boy a disgruntled glare.

Beast Boy whirled back to human form and rubbed his neck. "Heh heh, my bad. So, uhh. Who else is thirsty?"

Robin looked over. "I could definitely use a drink."

Starfire chimed, "A glass of mustard would be MOST refreshing!"

He zoomed right out to prepare.

With a nod of approval at his and Cyborg's handiwork, Robin turned from the shelf to see what had distracted him... and he also recognized that decorated gold band immediately. "So. Another Ring of Azar, huh?"

"How did you get that?"

Dove cringed at Raven's sudden demand. "From Azar. It was treasured by my grandmother... Magena. That's who I told you about—"

"Why did you keep it?"

Dove's voice suddenly went very, very quiet. "It felt important. Like I needed it."

"What do you need with something that powerful?"

"Protection. Calm... Guidance. After my mother's—When she; I-I— I..."

Raven remained sharply withdrawn against the wall, arms crossed, head low. But her quiet voice was sharp and unyielding as steel.

"What do you know of protection?"

Dove's mouth hung open, speechless and helpless in the face of her honesty... until she just dropped her gaze, and surrendered to silence.

"Ooookay." The awkward tension was broken by Cyborg. "Things are gettin' a little heated in here."

"Who wants some nice, cold, fresh-from-the-fridge chilled-out iced tea!"

Beast Boy reentered with a big tray filled with overly sweetened lemonade and extra-cold, extra-iced iced tea.

The others took it readily, but he had to directly offer it to their new roommate. "Tea, right?"

Dove only took it because he offered so exuberantly, and she nodded, so he handed the glass off with an especially excited smile.

"Bet you've never had tea like that."

Which piqued her curiosity and led Dove to taste it once, twice—and then cough at how sweet it was until tea came dribbling out her nose.

Beast Boy promptly erupted in laughter, and Raven rolled her eyes.

Meanwhile, Starfire sipped from her own glass of much thicker liquid, and with the room littered in empty boxes and packaging plastic, their mission for the day seemed to be completed. "Have we completed the improvement of your home to satisfaction?"

Dove nodded.

Cyborg's appraisal led to curiosity. "Now how is she going to fill a shelf that big with those tiny things?"

"Well," Raven offered, "she said she likes to read..."

"Ooh!" Beast Boy volunteered, "I have these awesome animal books I could show you!"

Dove tilted her head. "I liked a couple stories with animals."

Eyes shining, he smugly specified: "These aren't just stories, and they're all about the animals!"

Cyborg, in response to her blank-faced blinking: "What, you've never read a biology book before?"

Dove hesitated a moment, uncertain—then decided she must not have, and shook her head.

"What do you read?"

"I... like poetry, and mythology?"

Starfire leapt into the air, her smile ELATED! "Oh, I too enjoy the logging of myths, and rhyming words! There are so many beautiful and thrilling tales I can share from my home planet."

"I'd... like to read them... If that would be okay?"

Beast Boy nudged her. "Only if you want to spend like fourteen hours listening to the Tale of woober-snitzel or whatever."

Dove's face blanked. "Fourteen hours?"

"No exaggeration."

Robin suggested, "Maybe we'll take a trip downtown, show you the library."

Dove's eyes were then openly delighted, though her voice stayed modest as ever. "I think I'd like that. Can we go now?"

"The library won't be open when it's 11 at night."

Raven added, "And we do have a training session in seven hours."

Only the low-toned flatness in her voice betrayed her dread, but three of her four teammates groaned audibly.

"Guess we better get some sleep."

Robin stalled, "There's just one more thing." Dove watched quizzically as he rushed from the room, quickly becoming aware that she was the only one confused, and she almost started to dread his return.

But when he returned shortly, it was to offer her a pyramidal stack bound in ribbon with a big white bow in the center. "There's one from each of us."

Taking the pile from him revealed the stack to be five books. Dove's eyes were wide, her brow furrowed, and after pulling the ribbon aside, and staring at them in silent wonder, processing the shock and depths of gratitude, her arms wrapped around the small bundle, and she clutched them close to her chest. "Thank you. Thank you so much, I—I don't know what to say."

"Welcome home," Robin smiled.

She nodded, she smiled, and then she set them all on the shelf immediately, already debating which to read first.

As she stepped back to admire them, Cyborg surveyed the space. "Well, it's not exactly magazine material, but it's looking good."

Now that they finally finished setting up the small room, it was sparsely decorated but with plenty of personality. A big wall-sized shelf housed Dove's cherished books both old and new, a hanging censer from a new-age catalog awaited its smoldering incense, the small bedside table bore a drawer, her bed (and new rounded wraparound headboard) was centered on the back wall with a smaller shelf on its other side, and her big, thick black curtain was hung and prepared to cover the window behind it whenever she wanted to lock out the light.

Her shelves had a slight elegant curve to them (which to her felt like an homage to Azarathean architecture), and they were sparsely cluttered with books. Just a dozen now, but to her they meant everything in the world.

There was also her bed frame, of course, outfitted with a flat wooden headboard rising towards the ceiling, outlined with light gold accents, shaped into dual mounds that wrapped around the mattress with a peak between them, like a bird lifting its beak skyward, holdings its wings down and nearly embracing the mattress, calming and protectively. It surrounded a spacious queen-size with about five pillows and three separate blankets—Dove obviously treasured coziness and comfort. The bedside table was small and elegant with light decorations, silver and gold; her mindscape mirror rested on its surface, along with a notebook and pen, and inevitably it would hold a book she wasn't busy reading just then.

The whole place was very tidy, mostly because she didn't have much to clutter it with, and Dove imagined she would only ever use one thing at a time and tenderly set it back to safety at night, anyways.

It was wonderful. And Dove finally felt like, maybe, she could start to feel at HOME here.

"You'll feel just like a member of the team in no time."

Dove just bit her lip and shook her head slowly. She'd never dreamed they'd accept her so openly...

Then again, they didn't know what she had to hide.