Avalon took to the forest as if he were coming home, but even the mighty oaks and bent birches couldn't replace his need to feel as though he was anywhere other than inside that castle. It felt like a tomb anymore, and classes the plague. From student to professor alike, he was starting to feel the gap like a whole in his heart, and fought the urge to write home. He could do this. He could do this just fine, but why was it the past month seemed more akin to torture than school. He was doing well enough in his classes, but his grades were slipping. Distracted, Avalon was even injured a little during the last quidditch game, and thought it best to skip the next few. His heart just wasn't in it, and despite all of that the headaches didn't help the matter either.

They came and went, some days worse than before, but on the days he woke without one he cherished every moment. And it was for this very reason that his boots hit the forest floor in search of solitude and Evelyne Grimlish.

Despite their little...run in those few weeks back Avalon tried to keep things as normal as he could between them. He still chased her, tended to their friendship like a fire in a hearth, and kept her always in the back of his mind. Every time he ventured away from the castle he brought her back little findings from the forest, sketches of birds he thought she would like, or leaves that had different imprints and veins like fingerprints--no two were the same.

It was a foggy morning, where winter held tightly to the changing season, and froze the mists until even the air sparkled when the light caught it just right. The sun did rise, though tucked away behind thick clouds it was hard to tell the time, but he knew it to be getting close enough to lunch that if he didn't go looking for Evie; someone else would.

Twisting and turning through the trees he scanned their branches in search of that heart shaped face, and whistled a lark song in hopes she would respond. Sometimes he liked to think of it as a game, but despite his rather foul attempt at romance Avalon figured it to be a lost cause. Yet still...he could not seem to let her go, and wouldn't let anyone say otherwise.

March was difficult. It was a transition month, in which the whole world seemed to be in between and holding its breath. The weather was dank and confused, and beautiful days seemed like fallacies. That didn't stop Evie from getting outside, of course. Somehow, the castle seemed even more cramped during months like these. Outside, the world was no longer quiet – not the way deep Winter was quiet, anyway. Things were happening, though it was difficult to see past all of the cold – Nature was always on the move. It had been March for two weeks now, but it felt like two years. As Evie wandered out onto the grounds, she could feel the damp of the crystallized grass seeping through her boots and into her torn tights, and though they were out of sight, she could feel her toes becoming pale prunes. Damp or no damp, she was headed for the trees.

She had a letter to write, after all. Writing to her mother was time consuming, but always worth it. She really did miss her family when she was away. In fact, she missed the entire outside world when she was at school. Nobody else ever seemed to feel quite as confined at Hogwarts as Evie did, and she often questioned why she seemed to be the only creature in the castle who felt restless without the opportunity to truly go wandering on her own. It made her heart hurt for big cats at zoos. Like her, they were caged in artificial environments that should have been enough to stimulate them, but could never be what they needed them to be. There weren't enough climbing trees here for Evie, or enough books. There weren't enough people or flavors or colors. They didn't teach enough subjects and there wasn't enough space. All she did was pace. She paced from classroom to classroom, from common room to dorm room, wearing trenches in the hallways as she traveled in her familiar patterns. Hogwarts was no place for Evelyn Grimlish, and books and letters were often the only two things that helped to keep the introverted adventurer nearly sane.

So she climbed her tree and she wrote, the loose fabric of her long skirt falling like a curtain over the branch she was balanced upon, her book open in her lap. Time passed, though it felt like no time at all, and Evelyn eventually became so absorbed in her storytelling that she forgot where she was entirely. The sudden whistling, so loud and unexpected, startled her badly, and she jumped, her whole body quaking – which wouldn't have been a problem if she hadn't been perched precariously on a tree branch like a dozing owl. She slipped from the branch, feeling utterly disoriented, and grasped for the air around her with misguided desperation. The wind had left her lungs and she did not make a sound as she flailed. Lucky for Evie, she was a witch, and the magic that lived inside of her veins felt that it was an excellent time to kick in, though she hadn't willingly called it forth. Instead of dropping like a stone, she seemed to flutter to the ground like a stray bit of dandelion fluff, landing delicately upon her derriere. Though she was safe, she was winded and her heart was racing with such speed she wasn't certain it would ever stop its pounding. She'd bitten her tongue and she'd scraped her leg, and the book she'd been writing in had fallen to the ground like a bit of garbage. She was bloody, disoriented, and temporarily stunned.

Where Evie paced trenches in the halls, Avalon hid away in his room. Ravenclaw Tower had become a castle all in it's own, where he could be free from the constant bickering of the other years, or the ever filled days of drama. He could tuck away in hidden rooms and fill them with colored pages, turn his music up and disappear in the corners of his mind. He was a creative soul, with a passion for music that he couldn't understand. Hogwarts was plenty big enough for him, full of friendly faces, and empty spaces; however, there was nothing that could compare to finding the forest just as they left it.

Avalon couldn't relate to the wildlife like Evelyn could, he didn't cherish it as much as he should have, but just knowing she loved it so made him search it out just the same. He walked the same paths she did, wondering what it was she saw--how the world looked through Evelyn's eyes must have been something to see. Often he wondered if he closed his eyes if he wouldn't have a better chance, but it wasn't that she was blind. It was just that Evie seemed to live in the space between, and he was always only ever close enough to touch the hem of her blouse.

And yet...

The moment that she fell he felt as though reality came crashing down with her. His heart slammed against his chest, while his feet carried him quickly to her side. Shaking hands came to cover bend her knee, gently he worried for it being broken. His face pale, moisture started to collect on his temples, all the while blue eyes scanned her for further injuries.

Omg I'm so sorry, his panic spoke for him as he sat there on his knees beside her touching her as though she were a porcelain doll, and not realizing that his chest hurt more than his head for once. Gently he touched her face, her cheek, the smooth warm skin beneath his fingers was softer than he could have ever imagined, but he couldn't think about that now. Instead he raised his eye brows as he mouthed,

"Are you ok?"

Her mouth tasted of sharp copper and something on her leg stung, but all things considered, Evie was just fine. She'd been frightened badly, however, and it showed in the pallor of her face and in her extended silence. She was still catching her breath, allowing her brain to comprehend that the adrenaline that it had sent coursing through her body was unnecessary. She sniffed hard and released one singular sob of ambiguous emotion as two solitary tears streamed down her cheeks – one from each eye. Though her magic had slowed her descent, the fall had still happened very quickly and it had taken her a few seconds to process that it had happened at all. She looked up and her eyes met Avalon's as he loomed over her, and she allowed him to pet her a bit. He looked worried. For a long time they were both silent. There was only breathing, soft but frantic, and the feeling of his rough palm against her cheek. Evie could feel the damp of the earth seeping even further into her clothing, which sucked up the moisture greedily, sending a wild chill down her spine, causing her to tremble and then go still.

She read his lips and she nodded, swallowing a mouthful of her own watered down blood. It felt thick and tasted funny, like the potions she'd sworn off years ago, and in that moment she committed to spitting her next mouthful out into the dirt. Elijah would likely be disappointed in her, failing to tolerate a little taste of her own blood, but she didn't plan to tell him. That fleeting thought of her brother reminded her of the fact that she'd been writing home, and her gaze traveled, seeking out her book, which was laying face-down on the ground a short distance away. “My book fell,” she remarked quietly, “I was writing a letter to my mother, but something startled me.” She didn't blame Avalon. She hadn't even registered that it had been him doing the whistling (though it may have seemed obvious), and she couldn't have faulted him even if she had. When you liked climbing trees, you had to be willing to fall out sometimes.

“I cut myself,” she told him, indiscreetly lifting up the edge of her long skirt to reveal the bleeding scrapes on her thigh and calf, which were peeking through her tights. She studied them with something akin to minor fascination. “That was rather frightening,” Evie admitted, though her voice was lacking the kind of emotion one might expect to hear injected into such a statement – when Evie said it, it was merely matter of fact. “I haven't finished the letter yet. I hope the book is alright.”

He wasn't sure when it was he pulled her onto his lap, but Avalon held her there after her comment about her book falling. She was shaking as much as he was, and in his over active imagination he worried through the 'what if's' of what could have really happened had she not been fast enough to cast a spell. Would he have gotten to her in time? He didn't think so, but now that he had a moment to process what happened he was very aware of how he didn't remember getting this far. With one arm around her back supporting her, he did his best to inspect the open gashes and frowned.

“I haven't finished the letter yet. I hope the book is alright.”

He was very good at healing spells, but it was one thing to patch up a black eye and the other to cast on someone he cherished. Yet, he did his best to levitate her book close to her so that she couldn't worry, but his trembling half covered hands made even that charm hard.

Writing home to your mom? What about? Words appeared behind his head, as he used the chance to look at her lip and tip her chin up so that he could get a better glance. Did she bite her lip? It didn't look like it, but he couldn't very well just put his finger in her mouth like he did the sheep back home to check their teeth. With his thumb he brushed away the tears and finally just held her tight.

Avalon wrapped both of his arms around her as if he could take it all back and rocked gently for a moment, absolutely a mess. His heart was pounding so much that he thought for a moment he would throw up with the way it wouldn't stop. He needed to get her to the healing hut or at least to one of the professors, or even calm down enough to cast the spell himself. With a cheek to her temple he tried to calm down, and when he thought he had control of himself he pulled back enough to sigh.

"Ow," The sound that came from his mouth was a little too low and too drawn out, but it was his own. One of the only words he could muster, but in his many years of being here never used. It was embarrassing, and he'd rather just say nothing at all. Stubborn boy that he was.

Despite Evie's typically standoffish and isolated nature, she loved being held. Not many people recognized that, since people didn't often go out of their way to cuddle with her – not with her hair full of live fairies and her clothing full of strange stains. At home, however, Evelyn was a veritable cuddlebug, crawling into bed with her dear relatives and making herself a nest there, hoping for a little bit of loving and attention. She loved hugs, and adored it when people played with her long, dark hair- assuming they were people she trusted, anyway.  How could someone as spiky and independent and odd as Evelyn Grimlish be such a sucker for physical affection? It seemed almost like a contradiction, but it was true. She melted into Avalon a bit as he drew her into his lap, feeling even more needy now that she'd been so badly startled. She trusted Avalon – not because she believed he was harmless, but because she knew otherwise and was okay with it. They had an understanding, and that was good enough for her.

Evie, too, was decent enough at healing – her own version of healing, anyway, which was a combination of traditional healing magic and hedgewitchery, which suited her moral standards better than much of modern magical healing practice. Wandwork was typically okay, but she preferred using herblore over potions due to her moral leanings. She could patch herself up later. They were only scrapes, after all, and she'd spent enough of her life without the convenience of magical healing to know that she could survive a scraped leg.

She reached out for her book when he levitated it over to her and hugged it to her chest. It was just a book of parchment – nothing precious like the shrunken diary she wore around her neck – but she'd spent a good, long time on the letter she planned to send home to her mother and she was partial to the words she'd chosen. She wasn't sure she could recreate it genuinely. “My mother and I are pen-friends,” she responded, passively allowing Avalon to inspect her for injuries, “We write letters to one another every week. I like to tell her about school, and she tells me about home.” It was nice getting post every week, particularly because Marietta Grimlish was always certain to remind her children how much she loved and missed them, whether they'd left for school a week ago or a month ago. Evie liked being missed – it seemed to make her own longing feel justified.

“I bit my tongue,” she informed him once he'd finished inspecting her, leaning back greedily into his embrace. Though she'd said she wouldn't swallow her blood again, she did, not wanting to move from her spot. When Avalon 'spoke' in response, Evie – who still felt shaken, but also safe – cracked a smile. Hearing words, even just little sounds, coming from her friend was oddly amusing. She was surprised and tickled, and even managed a little giggle. It was the farthest thing from judgmental. “I like the way you sound,” she told him. Evelyn Grimlish rarely lied.