A Purple Hood

A Book

Even as the gentle waves bushed up against the shore, their soothing and placid movements seeming to slow time itself, Raven could tell her focus was slipping. She silently reprimanded herself for allowing her thoughts to wander, which only broke her concentration further. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly, grasping for control and quiet in her tumultuous mind.

Meditation wasn't something she did as frequently as she used to; it was simply becoming less necessary after the defeat of her demonic father. The dark young woman still relied on the solace and peacefulness to retain her sanity and keep her powers in check, but she had never been one so easily distracted. What did Beast Boy always say? "You love to focus more than I love to lose focus."

Her teammate's quip nudged the corner of her mouth up in a tiny smirk, but this tore her concentration away even further. Raven's eyes snaped open as she felt herself float slowly back down onto the roof of the tower. She sighed and laid her hands in her lap, shoulder drooping slightly.

This was getting ridiculous.

She had thought that a healthy session of meditation would ease her mind, help to make sense of the foreign emotions she had been experiencing as of late. Those strange new feelings.

The pale-skinned sorceress gazed out over the bay, watching the sun sink lower over the horizon. Wisps of clouds streaked across the sky, seeming to absorb the sun's radiant orange glow, preserving it for the coming night. The calm light bounced playfully off of the sleek metal and glass of Titans Tower, bathing Raven in its glow, and dappling her cloak a light shade of purple as if trying to coax a warm smile out of the stoic hero.

Her thoughts fleetingly returned to the book.

Before departing Tokyo over a year ago, Raven had paid another visit to the small and quaint book store she had visited. It was filled with volumes she had never known existed, and she relished in the vast collection contained in such a little library. One book, however, had stood out more than the others. It was tucked away in a corner, perched on a shelf directly at her eye-level as if patiently awaiting her arrival for decades. Her hands trembled as she held the book, and even as she carried it to the counter and paid the merchant, she could scarcely tear her eyes away from its tattered cover.

"The old magicks," The clerk had remarked as he input the book's ISBN. "Not many still understand those ways, let alone can harness such knowledge."

"Sometimes knowledge alone suffices." Raven had replied.

Upon return to Jump City, she had cleared a space on her bookshelf, dutifully dusting off the section and carefully placing the book in its new home. Given the extreme nature of its premise, Raven was unsure whether she would ever truly study such a tome. Yet she simply had to add such a work to her personal library.

These newfound feelings had shifted her perspective on accessing such knowledge, such dangerous and tempting knowledge as described in the little book. But as she stared at the new addition to her collection, the hesitation began to build. The book, especially one with this magnitude and potential, caused Raven to feel slightly overwhelmed by the possibilities contained in its pages as the exhilaration of its initial discovery began to fade.

"Yo, Raven!" A familiar voice called from behind her, piercing her thoughts. "You gonna come eat with us, or are you gonna stay up here and eat with the seagulls?"

Raven flinched slightly as she was snapped back into full awareness. She had been so absorbed in her own thoughts that the rest of her surroundings had completely blurred, the distraction lending a greater level of isolation than meditation had.

She turned her head to Beast Boy. "Give me a minute..."

Beast Boy saluted her and began his return to the tower's interior.