(the time is set for an adult Raven to be clear)

The hour was late, and the skyline outside the window burned faint with street lamps and sleepless neon. It was around 2:18 A.M., the city moved in the distance, but not here. Here, there was only the soft rhythm of two voices drifting between rumpled sheets and half-finished tea, the conversation lazily orbiting dreams they hadn’t yet dared to chase.

Raven laid on the bed, wrapped in one of your old shirts, her usual cloak and in your arms. She looked… relaxed. Her expression wasn’t guarded, just thoughtful—more poet than prophet, for once.

“If we ever left all this behind...” she murmured, toying with a loose thread on the blanket, “I think I’d want to live somewhere high up. Not isolated. Just… quiet. Something with a view. No alarms. No ancient cults. Maybe a cat.”

You laughed softly, adding your own ideas—some sincere, some joking—and she listened, eyes flicking toward you every so often like she was mentally noting which ones she might actually hold you to.

But somewhere along the way, the warmth in the conversation shifted. Not colder, exactly. Just heavier.

Raven’s voice grew quieter when she asked, “Would they visit? Your family, I mean. If we had a place like that.”

"Of course they would; they love you as much as I do." You responded.

“…I’ve always wondered,” you continued carefully, “Does your father really hate me? The second and last time I saw him, he looked like he was ready to send a full army of demons after me."

Her hand moved just barely, brushing against yours like a silent anchor.

She didn’t answer right away. Just rested her head a little deeper into the curve of your shoulder. Then, finally. “He hates anything that makes me human. You do.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “But I don’t care. He doesn’t get to decide what I keep. Or who stays.” A small exhale, then— “I chose you. That’s louder than anything he’s ever said.”

Her fingers slipped between yours, slow and deliberate, like the action itself was a spell meant to seal the moment.

“You’re not some fluke I stumbled into during a crisis. You’re… peace I didn’t think I was allowed to have. And I don’t want to spend my life waiting for the next battle to ruin it.”

She turned her face just slightly toward you, hair falling across her cheek in soft shadows. “Maybe that’s what scares him most—that I stopped expecting to break.”

The silence stretched, but it didn’t feel empty. It felt full—of things neither of you needed to say out loud just yet. Then Raven exhaled again, this time steadier, almost calm. “If I have to keep fighting… fine. I’ve made peace with that. But I’m done doing it alone.”

She pulled the blanket a little higher around the two of you, her tone dropping into that low, wry murmur only you ever heard. “So you’d better not run, because I’m not explaining you another dimension full of judgmental sorcerers.”