The sun had dipped low on the horizon. The reddish rays stung Ron's eyes. Still, he strained against the discomfort, squinting against the violent light.
There was a shape dancing endlessly upon the waves. He had known Dila to identify the figure as belonging to her. He did not need to hear the laughter rippling across to him to do that. In fact, the sound only annoyed him.
And like other annoyances when left too long, Ron's anger was roused. It was like a patch of skin made raw by endless scraping against an irritating object that refused to cease doing so.
As if guided by the retreating ball of fire, Dila slid across to him. But she was not alone.
What now?` Ron thought, irritated. `She left me in this forsaken place and flirted with a stranger?`
He could not think well. His brain felt like a pool of mud, a mire sucking every thought before it could have a chance of surfacing. Fever had gripped him since early in the afternoon. If Dila left him longer, he would be twenty-four hours sitting there, shivvering and in a building daze, by night.
Trying to ignore the rock scraping the skin of his bottom through his breeches, he shifted and hugged himself tighter, cursing Dila profusely in his delirium. Were his mother there, she would shriek with shock and offence upon hearing the inventive provanities he was jibbering. Were his father there, he would scold Ron directly for the usage and bid the latter to stop. Billy would smirk. Charlie would laugh outright. Percey would sniff haughtily in that prim way of his. The twins would cackle and tease if "ickle Ronny-kins" was irked by a failed attempt of wooing a girl. And Ginny would…
A single teardrop bladed down Ron's stone-ice-cold cheek, hot and sharp against the stiff skin, matching the heat emanating from inside his body.
Dila, ten meters from him, did not notice the liquid beed glittering like liquid fire gemstone, touched by a finger of light from the departing sun.
She was contemplating her new friend, who had been dear to her heart in such a short time – in her reckoning. She was no longer upon her surfboard but paddling lazily with her arms around it. Ossë, as was his wont, swam around her with his two bright eyes fixed on her unwaveringly. In the lack of light, those orbs looked as if two miniscule round windows overlooking a stormy sky lit by lightning; a rather disconcerting view to behold for most people, put into humanoid eyes like this.
Dila was unnerved herself, but for a different reason. She was not known to be one who made friend easily, despite her confident, easy bearing. She had many acquaintances, yes, but only a handful of friends or two.
Something bothering?` Ossë's voice broke her musing. Startled, Dila gasped and lost her grip on the surfboard. She submerged into the warm water for a moment, sucked by the hungry downward current.
No. Not really,` she answered after she had been safely attached to her surfboard again, while her physical mouth was busy coughing up salty water from her stomach and spluttering the tiny bits which had made their way to her lungs. A series of sneezes did the job for her piteous body seconds later.
Not entirely a truth,` Ossë accused. He halted before her, much like what he had done in the afternoon, and fixed her with a hard, searching gaze.
Promise me first that you won't be angry if I tell you,` Dila, making an effort to appear brave and dignified amidst her sneezes and running nose, requested. Ossë pouted sourly but nodded, his stare becoming petulant.
I rarely make friend the easy way.`
And you rue it now?`
No. I just… feel weird; that's all.`
You let your mind guide you too much.`
No.`
Do I?` Dila questioned herself in spite of her denial. The content of her abdomen did a restless series of flips, and she fought with the muscles of her face in order for them not to work into a grimace of – high – discomfort. She had forgotten that she had not eaten the whole day, and now her stomach fell into a squeezing cramp as an effect to the wild churning and fluttering done by its neighbours. She could not think, and partially she would not either. She did not want to waste the last moments of their company for an introspection or a pondering of philosophical matters.
I don't know, Ossë,` she said softly at length during the silent in their mental link. She saw now that the boy's eyes opposite her brightened with delight, pleasure and pride in the moment she spoke his name, as though his inconsequencial name had been made sweet and important by her.
But why?
I'm sorry, Ossë.`
Again, those orbs, already brimming with light, brightened to a fierce intensity. But this time the additional 'illumination' dimmed faster.
For what?` The boy was perplexed. Scratching his head in bafflement, he looked quite like a mere adolescent, betraying the power one could sense rather easily in him – like powerful waves or furious whirlpools –, or the age hidden underneath his casual, carefree, undignified outlook.
`For being cocky and assumptive; for looking down upon you that first time I met you… You have sensed all, haven't you?` Unable to lock gazes with him, Dila stared with shame burning on her face at the glistening surface of her surfing board dimmed by a coat of transparent rubber. Some of her snot had landed there, smudging the smoothly-sloping surface. She brushed the spots away with seawater so that she had something to occupy herself, to hide from the shame.
She had expected him to snort dismissively or derisively like her younger siblings or any of her friends, or tilt her chin up in search of her eyes like her parents or older brother. But he did neither of them.
A warm body pressed itself against her back exposed to the bite of the buffetting cold wind from the west. A pair of strong, supple arms wound their way around her neck and clasp themselves to each other under her chin. A head rested on the left side of her head, snuggling to the small nook on the crook of her neck. A voice like rumbling waves hummed with contentment into her left ear when the effort proved a success.
Warmth which had nothing to do with the heat of another body's closeness to her spread from her chest to her head and down to her body and limbs, resting at last on the tips of her fingers and toes in pleasant tingles.
He doesn't care,` she whispered in awe to herself within the walls of her mind. `He doesn't care. He does not.` The sensation was new to her. Such blind love and care felt alien when applied to someone older than an infant or toddler, in her opinion. She had never encountered an instance like this before, and she was shocked into dumb silence with the bliss it offered. It was like ddrinking cool, soothing water while taking a soft-but-fresh-scented bath to a traveller nearly dying from thirst in the desert.
Such simple touch… Such simple love…
Until now, she had dismissed the burden in her mind and heart as something trifial. That was why she had managed a smile – albeit an irked one – when some in her company had protested about sore and aching muscles after half-a-day ride on horseback in a blistering afternoon the remnence of the previous summer. She had reminded herself that she and her siblings had been accustomed to riding long distances in the countryside with their parents and older brother… She had broken Hermione's arguments with other people with automated words and movements. She had only glowered at Draco for his incessant protests about almost everything. She had replied to Ana's chattering in her mind dutifully even while she had wished for silence and contemplation…
And she wondered why she had not broken now, when all the memories flooded back to her with a force that made her reel physically – alarming Ossë in the process.
His simple bliss shattered, the boy grumbled, `What now?`
But his grip on her was relentless, as though nothing had happened.
Nothing related to you,` Dila answered quickly. He snorted distrustfully.
Well, to summary the long story,` She gritted her teeth, `I'm quite happy that you are here and close to me.`
She had said the words without thinking, only to soothe the brewing storm in her cranky friend – perhaps literally –, but that confession, unintentionally honest and forthright, was like a whip to herself. She was seldom so open in stating her own feelings or emotions, and now she did it, to a friend she had made in less than a day.
Ossë did not perceive the thoughts… or probably he chose not to. He grinned; the tightening of the muscles on his face, which made his skin shifted against hers, informed her that he was beaming widely.
Without knowing why, Dila hated his unrestrained emotions. Her mind formed a way to thwart his happiness, to wipe the silly grin from his beautifully-feral complexion, before she realised what she was doing.
Then, when she was finally aware of it, shame and guilt clawed at her conscience. `Have I fallen so low? Why?`
To distract herself, she focused her attention at their bodies and surroundings, as she had done countless times before to calm herself down.
The waves were lapping at their upper bodies gently, nudging them at the direction of the wall of rocks jutting from the depths as if cloven. The chill and tugging sensation underneath and around her feet informed her that they were hovering above a deep cleft thrust far into the seabed. She had to tread the water unceasingly in order not to be dragged down by the undercurrent, yet there was no movement detected from Ossë's. He was effortlessly buoyant, confident in his powers of bending the water to his will.
Dila was tempted to employ her own – meagre – power so that she could stay her wheeling legs for a while, but Ossë's presence hindered the wish.
She was afraid that Ossë would forsake her company if he knew she was not a mere human, a mere girl.
Thinking of it once more, she realised that almost every gestures, movements and words from Ossë aimed at her screamed the same fear.
She smirked wrily.
We are not so different, after all… despite everything.`
Yes, despite the wide distance of age and power,` a small voice chirruped to her, a part which often annoyed her. Silencing the chirping, she focused her thoughts in listing the tasks she should do once she was back to the land.
And that was when she remembered Ron in full.
Sucking her breath, she tore herself from Ossë and swam away, looking around wildly. She strained her mortal eyes, her outer ones, against the near-darkness.
What is wrong?` surprised, Ossë urged. He swam to her side and held her right hand tightly. She was shaking, and tremors racked the hand under his cool grasp.
I forgot my friend,` she confessed in a self-loathing tone. `He was here. He should be here. It has been a day full!`
Calm down…` Ossë was restless, unaccustomed to her frantic mode. Dila chuckled to herself to the irony. The easily-stirred Ossë asked her to calm down?
I can sense someone on the foremost rock formation over there.` He tried to help, guiding Dila's inner eyes to said place. The girl cringed visibly – as if stabbed or struck – upon finding where Ron had been perched, shivering, curled in an upright fetal position.
My fault,` she moaned. `What am I going to say to him and everyone else? What a leader I am!`
You can't put all blames on you,` Ossë chid her softly, but she ignored him.
I shall accompany you there,` he offered. `I covered myself from mortal eyes when we were playing earlier, but now I shall let him see me. Then you do not have to bear the blame alone, at least that which comes from him.`
Dila uttered a sound torn between a gasp and a squeak. `No,` she pleaded. `You don't know what his reaction would be. He would accuse me of flirting and the like…`
But I was not flirting with you!` Ossë was indignant and appalled. His innocent confession sent Dila into a fit of nervous chuckles… which died down when they arrived before the rock bearing Ron's weight upon it.
And, true to her prediction, the red-haired boy was furious. But that was only after she had touched the back of his right foot and proclaimed that she was Dila.
Ron's skin felt like burning. His slowness in recognising her told her that fever had been gripping him for some time, that the heat she could feel a centimetre's distance away from his skin was caused by his body and not the lack of it in her fingers after some time dipped underwater.
What will I say? Can he survive a fever this high without damage? Or will it be our friendship that is doomed to be damaged?`
Why should he hate you so?` Ossë asked amidst the clamour of frantic thoughts in her mind. `Look. His mouth is foaming. It is quite an appalling sight to behold. You did not forsake him, did you? You came, whereas you could have not done so.`
His simple observation and understanding, whereas it would colour Dila's dull world in other times or situations, now gritted at her already-sore brain, irritating it further. She did not offer him any answer.
I shall aid you in removing him from here,` he persisted. Dila whirled around from her inspection of Ron and opened her mouth as if to chide him physically. But the words were never uttered, physically or mentally,and her jaw clicked shut. Ossë's eyes were burning fiercely, filled with a light which make them look even more unearthly in its radiance, and distrust – as well as deep suspicion – shone through them. She wondered why his words had been formed so simply and innocently while his expression – and most likely feelings – differed greatly from his ignorant-and-nonchalant-sounding statement.
What is he thinking about? Does he distrust Ron or me? Why? I have been honest enough!`
To cover her quivering unease – and truthfully, fear – she raised her voice over Ron's jibbering and told him that she would rescue him from the rock in a short while. She swam away quickly afterwards, but not before making sure that Ossë swam on the lead. As annoyed as she was with Ron, she would never let him be harm. Indeed, she would not even 'feed' Draco to Ossë's wrath; perhaps never, or at least not anytime soon.
Sorry I'm late,` Dila projected her words to Daphne and Ana, still frolicking idly on the beach, upon detecting their presences. `Would you please bring the rubber boat there and a lantern or flashlight? And at least one blanket too. I have found Ron.` Her request was met with a flurry of thoughts and actions as the two other girls immediately did what she had told. Many in the company, the three girls included, had waited too long for that moment to come. But still, questions crackled and shot up like sparks from a roaring campfire from Daphne's and Ana's minds even as they were working, tumbling over each other in their haste of reaching Dila.
None of the inquiries was answered – not in the sence of the present. Dila was secretly glad that the sudden bustle had made her two friends occupied; she would not have escaped so easily otherwise.
She hovered some meters from the shallows, pretending to ignore Ossë who had once more taken up to swim around her. Upon her friends' arrival, she motioned for the boy to lurk somewhere while she herself swam to the beach, fighting against the current that dragged her instead to the open sea. She aided Daphne and Ana in pumping up the inflatable boat and setting it up accordingly, being used to maritime matters since her parents had brought her and Ana to a traditional pier, full of rustic fishermen, for the first time eight years ago.
Ossë came silently on the rear of the boat when it had been launched into the mercy of the seaward current. He was well-hidden from the rays of the halogen flashlight, yet Dila was still worried that her companions' sharp senses would detect his presence sooner or later…
Sooner, it seemed, for Daphne remarked that the sea was strangely calm; the waves were gentle, almost measured. She could sense power in it, she said, and actually nearby.
Dila recoiled slightly on her seat on the rear of the boat, on the arch-point of the engorged rubber belt. She ceased rowing for some seconds, trusting Ossë to guide them safely to the rock formation. Her mind reeled back as if struck by a merciless force.
Ana confirmed Daphne's assertation but with much less bravery in her voice. Laughter seeped into Dila's mind from Ossë. She perceived it as more an offence at her twin than merely a playful chuckle, though. Indignant, she ssealed him out, barricading herself from inside with water barriers. People said her defenses were unbreechable due to the sleek but strong and supple nature of water, and she wished to test them now after so long unchallenged – only four months, actually, but it seemed so long to her with all that had been transpiring.
She forgot that Ossë was much more powerful and knowledgeable than her in matters of water. He seeped back into her mind like liquid worming its way through a crack on its container and expressed his own indignance at her.
Dila was positively annoyed now. Ideas popped up in her innermost thoughts.
One stood out amidst the clutter.
Water, although It was not extinguished on the face of fire, despised the latter nonetheless for heating it up. It was a concept of nature, imbued by personal experience.
And now it was Dila's weapon, since her secondary element was fire, the one she was fond of almost as keenly as water.
She kicked Ossë out again and slammed the barriers shut, yet this time she layered a fiery wall outside her usual fortification. A grim smile fleeted across her face when – she knew – he attempted his slippery way again on her. A physical muffled yelp went up behind her. Unlike before, however, she did not wish to let him flee from her presence. Panicked, she quickly seized any part of him less it was too late and he was gone. Unfortunately for Ossë, her hand chanced upon the hair on his scalp.
Forsaking her paddle, Dila grappled with him, fighting to subdue him and to pull him aboard. Fear blossomed in her heart in place of indignation, born of intuition rather than argument; a horrifying feeling which told her that Ossë would not return to her anymore if she lost him now. Unwittingly, she had disclosed a part of herself to him, something that she had been avoiding.
Apparently, it was the part he despised and feared in equal measures, because he sat trembling as far away from her as possible once Dila had managed to haul his squirming lean form up, while ducking to avoid his flaling arms which struck her anyway, and perch him with just as much effort on her former post. The boat had pitched dangerously backwards, and now there was no use covering up his existence.
From the tense poses of her friends on the other end of the boat, Dila discerned that they were both frightened and morbidly curious about the unknown and unannounced stranger behind their backs. Were she them, she would have been in the same predicament. Alas, she had to deal with a problem less pleasant than that. By now, she had already been tired of 'taming' Ossë's capricious, precarious moods, but she could not let him go for fear of her feeling becoming reality.
I'm sorry, okay? But don't laugh at my twin again like that. As much as I love you – in such a short time –, I love her too,` she snapped at him at last upon realising that they had neared the rock formation. `Now I need to concentrate on other things.` She swallowed, which had less to do with her nervousness at confronting Ron than with her pride. In the end, necessity won and she relinquished her pride for a sentence spoken in a rush: `Do not leave this boat, would you?` Both of them caught the underlying meaning of it; `Please do not leave me.`
Ossë did not give a direct answer, but he relaxed and slipped back to the water, attaching himself to the rubber belt like a limpet upon a rock. He directed the boat deftly from there, leaving Dila to sit in peace, her paddle discarded across her feet. When they arrived, he left the boat and took up the task of removing Ron from the rock upon himself, ignoring Dila's weak, quiet protest.
Ron did not struggle and that, more than anything, worried the girl. Ossë was also subdued upon arriving back with the red-haired boy's limp form in his arms.
Indeed, Ron felt almost nothing by then. All that he felt was the heat burning him from inside out and the unrelenting wind slapping his skin with cold intensity. He dimly saw a strong beam of light crossing his field of vision, casting overbright sparks which danced upon the waves. Then someone – a male, seemingly – lifted him up carefully from the acurst rock with lean arms betraying his strength and carried him away. The stranger's gait was firm, as if he were treading on packed earth and not needle-sharp jagged face of rock. In his delirium, Ron fantasised that he was born away by an apparition summoned by Hermione to rescue him, far more effective than whatever way Dila had come up with.
He was satisfied.
Someone pulled a blanket over him and bundled him inside it. Then the same person – female, with elastic clothing, skin and hair smelling like the sea – cuddled him close to her like a wee baby. He was content. It could be Ginny, who often fretted over him as much as he did her. He let sleep overtook him, permitting himself the luxury that he had denied previously in fear of plunging into the sea to his death.
…Nightmare seized him like a hungry beast.
Nightmare assailed Dila also, despite her wakefulness. Ron's moans and feverish mumbling sent her mind into a frenzy. She did not hear Ossë talking to her, only focusing when he jabbed a finger to a spot under her left shoulder. `What?` she hissed, unable to filter the pain sizzling through her teeth and the mental link.
I will meet you when Tilion's vessel is high up among the stars.`
Who is Tilion? What kind of vessel could be there in the sky?`
`He is the lovesick lunatic who steers the moon.`
You are kidding.`
`I do not!`
But I have to tend to Ron.`
Who is Ron?`
The one you've just rescued.`
I will wait.`
But—`
I will wait.`
Dila sighed in resignation – now being careful that it did not travel physically out from her lips or nose. `Must you be so difficult? We can meet again tomorrow afternoon, you know.`
You do not like me being there with you? I just wished to accompany you in your difficult time…`
I know… You mean well… but—`
Do not give me that reason again, plese.`
Another sigh from Dila.
It's as if you were wounded deeply. It's just a fact, Ossë. I can't hide it if I want to be honest.`
But I was, and still am. Time does not lessen the blow.`
She was silent. She could not provide any adequate answer for that, and did not wish to risk their brittle relationship for a wild venture.
He helped her to carry Ron to his room in spite of Dila's adamant protest. He took off before Dila's impatience blew up into fury, having noted her room. Dila was left to her own devises right when she needed his company, if not his support. She grumbled and cursed him silently, half-heartedly.
Upon arriving in her own chamber some time later, she regretted her promise to him. She needed to be alone to calm down and recollect her wits. Someone with Ossë's personality and intention – she suspected that he wished to share stories with her – was not a welcome presence when she could not even accommodate for herself.
Having taken a quick shower in the house trunk she had borrowed from Ana, she forced herself to eat some amount of food also there, in the kitchen, while the house elves bustled around and kept asking her if she needed more. They had been left too long without someone demanding their service, she realised with a pang of guilt. Sadly, she could not tolerate their unceasing urges and chattering now. She dismissed them with a flick of her wrist, her eyes flying briefly to the cupboard housing a ready supply of wine, teased by the temptation of drinking herself into oblivion.
No. He's going to come, and I should be a good hostess.`
Yeah… Good… But without acknowledgement.`
No! I mustn't think that way!`
Why can't those creatures cease chirping like frenzied chicks? My head hurts!`
She lied to herself partially; her chest hurt more than her head.
"Does Mistress Dila wish Dora to fetch Milly?" Dila's faithful house elf, Dora, appeared by her knees as she was sitting brooding on her hot chocolate on the kitchen counter.
"Yes, please, and Loril too," Dila mumbled absently. She had indeed missed her owl much. Besides, her funny, chittery puffskane had proven to be a potant source of consolation in the past.
Loril flew directly from atop Dora's head upon arriving in the big but deserted kitchen. She fluttered around Dila once then nibbed at her left ear – a bit too hard, eliciting a startled, pained cry from the girl.
"Loril! I'm sorry, okay? But we don't know this land enough to let you loose! You refused to be with many others in Susan's animal trunk…" she moaned, grimacing. "I didn't have enough time for playing either, and I thought you'd be safer here."
It did not work. When Milly was passed to Dila from Dora, Loril tried to claw at the energetic electric-blue furry ball. Dila wailed with pain and distress when the owl talons scratch the back of her hands instead in her attempt to save the innocent puffskane.
"Bring me my medical kit and lock Loril away for a while, Dora!" she half-howled half-moaned. In short, the silent kitchen was full of noise… and feathers.
Dora came back from Dila's bedroom in a condition worse than her mistress after struggling with Loril all along.
"Treat your wounds," Dila ordered curtly, her hands already seizing the medical box from Dora. "Come to me for the antiseptic."
There was a piece of Loril's silvery feather in her chocolate mug. She had lost appetite. So, surrendering to her bad luck – and bad night –, Dila trudged up out of the trunk without so much as a brusk nod to the house elves. The shocked and terrified Milly was chittering in Dora's arms. Dila was glad that she could escape the noise, for it stabbed at her skull like a thousand needles.
"It can't be worse, can it?" she mewled to the sealed trunk sitting at the foot of her bed. The open window let in a waft of breeze which caressed her back, but she paid it no heed, although it soothed the heat building in her body.
Yet, even as she said it, she knew that the situation could not mend magically – as she hoped in her desperation. Some said that a bad situation would worsen before going better…
If at all.