Rou caught her gesture indicating one of her discarded shoes and it was quickly obvious that she wanted him to find the other. Rou looked off to the side, specifically in the area where his body obscured her vision, and quickly spotted the other one not far from the other shoe, considering that he'd thrown them together before focusing on their clash. A simple Summoning Charm brought the pair to his hands and Rou quickly stowed his wand once more, not wanting to possibly give Dione the impression that he might sucker-hex her. She asked him why he stole her shoe, but it was somewhat clear that she thought Rou had taken both and not just one shoe, the other one having hit him in the head.

"I was watching you practice," he began meekly, knowing that it was really his fault that they wound up in a fight to begin with, "You were dancing so nicely and I was carving some wood and..." With a bit of humor for breaking the tension, Rou took one of Dione's shoes and sharply tapped it against the side of his head. "One of your shoes hit me right on head. I saw you, decided you looked better barefoot, and decided to...show you, I guess," Rou's voice was inflected with a bit of a joking tone, mainly to show that he was just trying to be nice and humorous. A small, friendly smile came to his lips as he offered Dione's shoes to her and this time held eye contact as he did so, showing his sincerity. She would be able to get a better look at his eyes this time, as well.

'Looked better barefoot...'?

Dione's eyebrow climbed steadily higher, regarding the strange little man with a mix of bewildered amusement and genuine flattery. How nice to have her efforts recognized. Most students their age wouldn't know a proper dueling form from one of those nasty muggle fad dances. Interesting.

She held Roland's gaze for the course of his explanation, then nodded in understanding and took back her shoes. She removed a handkerchief from her pocket, delicately wiping each foot before slipping them back into the slippers. However much it disappointed Mr. Dylanis, It felt so much better to have her feet safe and dry.

As she settled both her feet on the ground again she noticed something lying in the grass between them: a piece of freshly-carved wood. Dione lowered herself into a deep curtsy, collected the figure, and held it up to the sunlight. The little dancer -- for it could clearly be nothing else in such a pose -- was remarkably well-done, the soft wood filed to graceful curves with the hint of details beginning to take form. Roland said he'd been carving while watching her practice. The doll's face and, especially, her hair looked particularly familiar...

Dione held the wooden figure alongside her face and quirked her head in wordless question. 'Is this me?'

Rou could only nod in response. Her lithe, graceful dueling movements had truly entranced the boy. He saw them in action once again when he was dueling her briefly, and her feet interestingly complemented her form as they clashed spells. It was truly fascinating to watch when Rou wasn't having to focus on keeping himself from getting hexed!

Roland was a bit put-off, now, by the fact that Dione continued not to have much of a smile on her face as much as a bemused smirk of sorts, suggesting she felt his compliments were flattering, at least. Still, he couldn't help but feel uneasy, perhaps it was due to her inability to speak and her unusually adept use of body language for communication that result. Even so, he saw that she seemed to like the sculpture he'd made of her, and he'd have no choice but to bin it before heading home to Wales anyway once school was over.

Rou bashfully extended his hand toward Dione, offering to finish the sculpture before he would give it to her.

With a huff, Dione handed over the sculpture. It was admittedly flattering, that he'd spent so much time on a piece with her appearance. For an eleven-year-old, Mr. Roland Dylanis possessed a unique artistic skill. But Dione couldn't help but notice, as the wooden figure passed to his possession, that the boy no longer attempted to longer attempted to speak with her. Dione huffed and lifted her hands.

"You do not need to..."

She hesitated, hands frozen in mid-word. No one, to her memory, had ever spoken to her on her level before. Her world belonged to the voiced, to those who could express and communicate with others on a recognizable level that she no longer accessed. Even the artifact had only been designed so that Mother, and Father, and Mopsy, and all the other people in their hidden world would be able to perceive Dione on equal footing.

And yet, this boy...he knew no signs, yet attempted to speak to her as an equal, with only the body to communicate their words. It was almost touching. Such a shy and quiet young man. What a fascinating sample for Hufflepuff to produce.

Dione pulled her hands close to her chest, thinking deeply of her next move. Then she smiled -- a tiny, hesitant smile, but a genuine one -- and lifted her hands again. "I am used to people speaking to me," she signed. "Please do not feel that you have to remain silent for my sake."

Her smile was comforting Roland, now, as he began his work to finish the sculpture. He thought maybe she believed him to be a talker, then again he was sorted into Hufflepuff. But it seemed that she believed him to be remaining silent for her benefit as she spoke to him once more, as he really didn't see any difference between his spoken word and her sign-translation artifact.

"I'm not one to talk that often, Dione," Rou said as he finished fleshing out his sculpture's details so that way it became a definitive recreation of one of Dione's forms during her practice. He frowned slightly and cocked his head sideways as he felt, oddly, that his carving of this girl wasn't really...complete. Oddly enough, though her flats were part of the piece, there was something about how her feet moved when they were bare and the two of them were dueling that continued to bug him. Briefly chewing on the tip of his dagger, being careful not to cut himself on the blade, Rou then proceeded to carve out a final detail.

"I tend to be punished when I talk too much while training," Rou said as he finished the carving. "Grandpa doesn't like a student who questions him too much." Removing her flats entirely, Rou's finished sculpture featured a complete detailing of Dione's feet, from every fold and wrinkle, as her body's form was perfectly captured in this carving. And the way her feet flexed in this position as she cast forth a spell perfectly encapsulated the grace and beauty she'd given to the art of dueling. As far as Rou was concerned, his grandfather taught him very basic and very no-nonsense forms.

He examined the sculpture briefly, continuing to chew on his dagger's tip, before smiling in satisfaction. As he gave a small sigh of triumph, though, the blade slipped and cut him at the corner of his mouth, a small gout of blood began to flow down his chin. Rou recoiled before dropping his father's dagger and pressing the hand to his mouth to stifle the flow, and then he offered, with his free hand, the completed sculpture.

Dione settled on the grass beside Roland, watching him carve and listening to his explanation. Perhaps he didn't speak much, but he did speak well. And yet, to be punished for speaking...that was something she couldn't wrap her mind around. If she'd spoken a single word during her training, her mother and auntie would have dropped everything to throw a celebration. Dione's fingers lingered at the small of her throat, just beneath the gem she spoke through. Once, her mother hoped that she would sing, like the nymph she'd been named for. But that, of course, would never happen.

"Who is grandfather?" she signed. She didn't recognize the Dylanis name, but you never knew sometimes. After all, her legal name bore none of the proper respect her grandfather's blood should have earned. And Roland had clearly been trained, both in combat and art. A gentleman's education.

A slight gasp -- just a silent intake of air -- passed her lips when Dylanis accidentally cut the corner of his mouth. He offered her the statue and she, gracefully, took it, only to set it aside without looking and take hold of the wrist of the hand the covered the wound. No doubt, the art was beautiful, but it would remain so after the wound was cared for.

Gently, Dione tugged at Roland's wrist to guide the hand away from his lip. She lifted her wand in silent offer. Just last semester, Professor Storm had instructed them in a simple healing spell for exactly this sort of wound. She could have him patched up in an instant, if only he would allow.

Her grip upon his wrist would normally be met with a more hostile move. His grandfather's regimen included basic self-defense and hand-to-hand techniques, as he himself was trained not to expect spells to do all of the work for you. While wizards were incredibly powerful compared to Muggles with their ability to tap into magic, they were still human beings and thus not entirely invulnerable to the same things that would incapacitate a Muggle, like a broken wrist or being winded, which had the extra effect of prohibiting spellcasting for a wizard who wasn't an adept nonverbal magic user. And yet, while his instincts said that he shouldn't trust this girl, her firm yet gentle grip was enough to get him to override this reaction and instead allow her to pull his hand aside and allow her to get access to the wound on his mouth.

As he waited for her to cast the healing spell needed to seal the slash at the corner of his mouth, he found himself rather transfixed by the gem upon her throat. He noticed one of her hands lingering close by and couldn't help but reach toward the stone and gently touch it, for the way it glowed and felt beneath his fingertip was a bit...comforting in light of the fact that he'd sliced open part of his mouth. He jerked his hand back quickly just as he touched the stone, not sure if it would be uncouth of him to let his hand linger there.

"My grandfather," Rou quietly began once Dione had finished healing his cut, "He is Roland Dylanis the Ninth. I am the Tenth to bear the ancient name of my family. The only thing that distinguishes our names is the one my mother gave me: Aderyn. An old Welsh name that ran in the Bowen family on her side." The Bowens were a Pureblood family from Wales, perhaps a name that Dione would recognize. It was clear that the Dylanis name didn't carry the weight here in Great Britain as it did in America. Then again, that was probably one of the reasons Grandpa Roland decided to retire from his position at the Bureau of Magic and instead raise Rou in Britain.

Smiling, Dione waved her wand across the wound, releasing a soft breath as her mind whispered the spell: Sano.

The skin flickered with cool sparks and knit itself up, leaving a small but noticeably pink scar in its place. That, of course, was only to be expected -- talented or not, trained or not, Dione was only a first-year, and couldn't hope to master healing magics anywhere near so well as a proper medical practitioner. Still, she gave a disappointed sigh as she lowered her wand and made a mental note to practice better at another time. If she ever wounded her face, it certainly wouldn't do to leave such a mar.

As she lowered her wand, Dylanis's fingers ghosted momentarily toward the stone on her throat. Dione pulled back, raising her off-hand in defensive instinct. It wasn't the touch that bothered her so much as the attention to her artifact. If even a single piece slipped out-of-place, she'd be rendered silent. With so few people at Hogwarts speaking sign language, that would be inexcusable.

But Roland''s gaze was one of curiosity, not avarice, so she allowed it to pass, nodding thoughtfully as he recited his family history. Bowen was a name she recognized. Her deceased uncle's wife had been a Bowen's grand-child. A fine name and, though she didn't know the Dylanis family, the fact that over five generations existed to carry the same name spoke to the history there. How, she wondered, how a person of such prestigious pedigree washed up in Hufflepuff? At least they were still young. The soft-headed countenance of badgers could still be combated.

Now that the injury had been sorted, Dione turned her attention to the statuette, gathering the wooden dancer from the grass. She turned it in a slow circle, examining its details from all sides. The craftsmanship was impressive, especially given how quickly it must have been carved for her dueling practice to be the inspiration. If she hadn't seen him work with her own eyes, she would have assumed the piece to have been created with magic.

"Lovely," she signed, lowering the statue into her lap to free her hands. "Where did you learn."

Rou's face briefly twitched as his skin stun while it repaired itself. As his flesh healed, he noticed a look of disappointment coming to Dione's face as it finished, and his raised his fingers to the scar now in its place. The smooth, puckered tissue felt interesting beneath his hands, though he knew he would probably carry this sort of injury for the rest of his life, much like many of the other injuries he'd incurred before.

When their hands briefly met during his curious reach toward her neck's stone, Rou felt an odd warmth emanating from her hand. It felt odd to him, he guessed, because at first glance he felt like her skin might be as cold as it was pale, as if she were a vampiress. That, of course, made no sense considering that vampires would die in the sunlight, even if it was rather dim and weak during winter here in Scotland. Even half-vampires were known to avoid sunlight.

But with Dione, there was a definite person that he felt lived beneath that rather cool, unfazed exterior. It comforted him even as his face still stun a bit from the healing, and it helped that she seemed to be more than capable of functioning on a high level despite her apparent disability. The fact that the wonders of magic allowed her to communicate on the same level as other humans, both Muggle and wizard, definitely went a long way in bridging any sort of initial gap between them in establishing a small rapport. Then again, maybe she just liked healing things that looked weak for her own purposes...

"I...didn't," Rou finally replied after he'd touched his fingers to the carving he'd made of Dione, lightly running them along the detailings from her hair to her dress' detailing to her bare toes, "I just took it up when I started here...at Hogwarts." He blushed as he realized he was focusing more on the sculpture than the real person who had inspired it and removed his hand before meeting her eyes again, "Between classes. Before classes. After classes. I had a lot of time to myself to practice over and over again. It's not like pinewood is especially hard to find in this sort of place..."

Rou leaned back a bit at a time until he could fully lay upon the grass after a time of sitting next to Dione. He looked up at the cold, muted blue of the winter day sky and clenched his hands and feet a bit before continuing.

"Hogwarts is the only place where I can...be alone, I guess."

Dione quirked her head. Of all the descriptions she might have attached to Hogwarts, 'a place to find solitude' was not the first to come to mind. Rather, the castle seemed crowded, always bustling and loud, filled with hundreds of students. Compared to that, her family's spacious home -- occupied by only herself, her parents, her auntie, and the servants -- seemed empty during the holidays.

But then, she had never been hounded in her home. The lessons with her mother and auntie were her favorite moments, the one time when she stood at the center of everyone's attention. From Dylanis's clipped words, the training under his grandfather did not provide nearly the satisfaction he craved.

Cradling the statue in her lap, Dione leaned over to look into his eyes, her long hair hanging like a curtain that shaded them both. For a moment, she simply held his gaze, peering into those key blue eyes and contemplating whether they were clear enough to see into his soul. Then she decided that it wasn't necessary -- guarded though he may be, young Roland Dylanis wore his heart on his sleeve compared to the sort of boys she knew in Slytherin. She smiled at him and nodded in understanding.

She lifted her head and looked to the sun. In the time they'd talked it had begun to creep towards the top of the Forbidden Forest's treeline, which served as something like a horizon in such a deeply wooded area. She ran a few calculations through her mind regarding the time she'd started her practice, then straightened and tucked her hair back behind her ear.

"Dinner," she signed. "Soon. We should go."

Rou was slightly disturbed when she leaned over and just...looked into his eyes for a brief time. There was something in those pretty little eyes of her's that showed that she was definitely more than just a skilled, if mute, witch. While at first glance, he took her for maybe a bit on the vulnerable side, the long moment where she simply looked at him showed that she was definitely made of tougher stuff than what one might take her for. Her eyes were sharp, keen, and seemed to pierce right into his mind, which made him relieved when she smiled and nodded, warming her gaze considerably before she looked up to see that the sun had crept behind the treeline and it was getting close to dinnertime, meaning that it would definitely be getting colder soon.

Rou nodded and rose to his feet when she informed him of this, dusting himself off and making sure to gather together his things before rejoining Dione. He motioned for her to go on ahead and lead as he came back to her side and made to follow her to the castle and the tempting food that awaited.