I find myself falling asleep a lot these days. The nights come earlier and the light fades faster. Independent of summer or winter. The only equinox we ever have is in our calculators.

Things are darker. The curtains in my room. The corners of the Tower's hallways. Even the gnarled wrinkles in the trees. I spy a silent obsidian creeping up to the surface of everything in my life.

And I'm not scared of it. I don't do 'fear'. I am simply tired. Sleepy. Exhausted.

Sometimes it's hard to keep my eyes open. The lectures. The T-Car rides. The fights. The fights. The fights…

I want to roll over and die. Drink some tea. Roll over and die some more. And then call it a night, perhaps.

Perhaps not.

When Lady Azar first taught me meditation, I used to fall asleep all the time. Mother joked that I was a lazy girl when she was alive. 'How could a demon ever be housed in such a cute little sleepy head?' She loved me. I loved her too….as long as the blood still ran in her veins.

I've learned to stay awake during meditation. Much to my chagrin too. Because now that I can meditate and center myself and collect my thoughts and actually do everything that is fully invested in my power to keep my soul-self and flesh shell in balance….someone or something comes to wake me up from a nap I am absolutely not having.

"Ever seen him asleep?" Terra rambles.

"Nnngh…," I grunt, rising to the surface of my levitating stance on the corner of the rooftop. "Who?"

"Beast Boy."

"What about him?"

"Hehehe….ever seen him sleep?"

"No, Terra. And I promise you…I'll never have the opportunity to."

"Awwww. Well I have!"

"Wow. You lucky girl."

"Just this morning, he was nestled up on the couch with the Gamecube controller tossed on the floor like a forsaken teddy bear. And….ya know…I-I've never seen him asleep outside of being a cat or a dog or a bunny rabbit. But this time he was sleeping natural."

"In the nude?"

"NO! Elf-mode, you silly goose!"

"Gee. What a surprise."

"It's kinda….wyrd seeing Beast Boy as he normally is….only….st-staying in one place for a long period of time. I mean, he wasn't loud or goofing around or being an overall jackass…..he was just lying still. Peaceful like. A green fuzzy pillow in his own right."

"Hmm. Sounds promising, actually."

"Hehehehe! Somehow I knew you'd say that."

"Why in Azar's name are you interrupting my meditation to tell me this….?"

"I just….well…."

"I'm happy, Raven. For the first time since I rejoined you guys….I-I no longer feel anxious or concerned or afraid of my powers. I just feel….happy. Peaceful, kinda like Beast Boy. On the inside. And just seeing him like that made me feel that more complete. It's like you're being hugged on the inside. You know what I mean?"

"No. I don't."

"Well, I had to tell someone. But….hehe…no use telling Beast Boy. I didn't want to wake the guy up!"

"So naturally you had to come up here and shake me loose of my concentration."

"What? Not like it's hard for you and stuff!"

"Terra, you have no idea."

"Pffft! Lighten up, girl. Look at me! I learned to get loose a little!"

"It takes only one pebble on a mountainside to start an avalanche…"

"Say what?"

"Nothing."

"Heh. You're wyrd. I'm going to go see what Cyborg's up to."

"Yeah….you do that…."

As Terra runs off towards the stairwell, I can't help but wince.

I glance up and my eyes thin. The sun is unbelievably bright. The day is unbearably hot.

I yawn. I'm tired. I want to go to bed. Early? So what….

Here in my room it is darkest of all. That is the way I've always wanted it to be. But today, there is something about the shadows that stab me. Even as I stand here at the foot of my bed, I shudder in the middle of stripping of my soft blue robe and wonder…

The world is full of Terras, and equally so of Beast Boys. The awake and the asleep. The living and the dead. So many people looking over each other's shoulders and wondering how the gears inside the collapsed dolls turn and grind and grate. And something in the deepest, coldest part of me is still sleeping while Lady Azar teaches me the sacred arts of meditation while my mother giggles away into the corner that is ever so regularly being replaced by rising, rising, rising obsidian.

On the brink of the endless night, do I have someone looking over my shoulder while I'm in bed and smiling?

I lie down. I slide under the covers. The veil of somnambular impulse dwindles into a steady stone oozing my limbs into soft corners of the bed and with a shudder I cannot help but pull the covers completely over my petite self…

And shiver in hiding until the darkness lulls me away from the burning Sun.