Gazing at the stars... again (ISO: Ryuu)

Participating characters:
Debora Ajdelsztajn
Ryuu Riccardo Nefis

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Debora Ajdelsztajn
Debora muttered something at her bunk in frustration, low enough not to wake the other dark figures on their own beds. She changed into some clothes, grabbed her wand and got out of the dorm, once again.

Sleep had just been scarce for her in the past few days and the bags under her eyes were getting bigger each day. Even the animals seemed to be asleep, for there were no other sounds than of the ruffling of tree leaves, and she envied them. However, the bunk was not the problem, and Debora knew it well.

The girl walked, not mindlessly, but to a specific destiny: the gardens, her favorite spot at the Hangout. Her feet carried her quickly and soon enough she was sitting on the bench between a field of white lilies. It was a gorgeous sight, even at night, and Debora longed to sketch it, but the light of the stars wasn´t enough.

"I´ll come back here when the sun is shining..." she thought to herself.

Instead, she sat there, changing the colors of the lilies around her out of sheer boredom, with the spell McStingy had taught them once in his class.

Blue, Red, Green.. she even tried mixing some colors, and ended up with some very odd flowers.

Once the temporary anger had wore off her body, Debora finally felt the cold breeze passing through her loosened curls and her bare arms, making her shiver a little. The girl closed her arms around her knees and sat there, with her head back, gazing at the stars and trying to leave her mind a blank.

Ryuu R Nefis
It had been a year since he has arrived here. Here on this very same bank on the side of the lake. His garb for tonight was no different from any other night he may have been found by the lake - Unkempt hair, half tucked out shirt, undone belt, the open collar that was becoming as signature on the boy as his cold green stare - Some things just never changed.

His coat lay among the rocks further up the sandy bank together with his violin, laid perhaps too carelessly to be identified as one that belonged to a professional musician.

His footprints were deeply imprinted into the wet sand, showing that the one who had walked this path was one who was confidant and faced up to the world with no regrets as to what had happened in the past, but that, was wrong.

Ryuu did have regrets. Too many to count. Perhaps it would take a year before he could finish listing out even the biggest of them all.

Confidence? Perhaps he did have them, perhaps he didn't. But whether he did or not it was an open secret that he enjoyed solitude and it had often been discribed by other that the look that he often bore on his face resembled that of a man wallowing in grief and depression. But then again, no one knew him well.

Yes perhaps Armadeo Wischard had known him for most of his childhood up to the age of thirteen, perhaps fourteen, but what good was that when the Riccardo that resided before him now was not the Riccardo he knew. He had even altered his name to Ryuu instead, a name that struck fear in the hearts of his former slave masters during his five hundred and fourty-eight days of imprisonment. A Japanese name, when roughly translated, meant 'Dragon' and for good reason. He may not have escaped on his own, but the way he carried himself despite his lowered state and the aura about him told them that he was not one to be tempered with. And when he was angered, he did indeed 'breath fire'.

With a hand tucked in his pocket, Ryuu left the lake and picked up his belongings, allowing his legs to do the walking again. He had no where in mind to go anyhow. That was the strange bit. Despite the numerous girls that had thrown themselves at him when he had first arrived, he never really belonged anywhere. Or rather he prefered to perceive it as that. He had hated being in the center of attention during the opening feast and things had only begun to air out for him when he started studying intently for his OWLs. He couldn't escape them in classes of course, even then they had followed him to even the most obscure of classes - History of Magic. But in his free time, he laboured over mountains of books. If it was not to escape from them, it was also for his own future and in gratitude to Ms Levet.

Ms Levet... Ryuu's benefactor who had taken him under her wing after muggle authorities had broken into the slave trade and managed to rescue a miserable fraction of the real number of sufferers. But Ryuu had been lucky, he was among the few that were salvaged and torn from the grimy grip of human exploitation.

Ryuu felt a pang of guilt. It had been months since he had written to her. She had sent him numerous letters of course, some of which were still in their original state - he never opened them. Perhaps later on he would take time to write it, to make up for not returning to Levet Chase.

But then again, it had been her idea that he lived away from the aristocratic life as long as he could, to mingle with the 'common folk' so to speak. She never mentioned it, but he knew she was doing this out of concern for his idea of humanity after what he had gone through.

Ryuu had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had been born into a family of great wealth and status in Venetian Soceity. Though he had often slipped out into the streets incognito in his childhood - unknown to his parents - He never had any real opportunity to know the people about him well, the lives they led, their means of work... But he soon did, get his chance to meet the worse of the lot. Slave drivers.

A young man, relatively well built and able bodied was all they had bothered to notice about him before they struck. Rough in their handling, they abducted the young man off the streets in broad daylight, but no one had seemed to notice. Perhaps because he had been dressed like any other common person on the street. If he hadn't been perhaps his kidnappers would have had demanded for a ransome - though he doubted they would have any intention of returning him - Pehaps the people on the streets then wouldn't have pretended nothing was happening then. For clothes, in Venice, told of one's status and rank in society and boasted of one's wealth.

He had gone through hell those five hundred and fourty-eight days. But his determination and faith that he would one day return to his family and his iron will to live on pulled him through those days. Ryuu had suffered multipal cases of mindless whippings just because the gang of boys he was workign with were a minute late, or because a fellow slave was ill, or simply because the masters were drunk. For each blow that was laid on his back, Ryuu had bit his lip, once to the point it bled, but never once allowed them the pleasure of hearing him cry out in pain.

But that was then. Now he had been given a chance to relive life as he knew it and perhaps regain what he had lost. Pulling himself out of his thoughts, Ryuu found himself in the Hangout's gardens.

It was pitious in comparison to those in his birth home in Venice and Levet Chase, but then again, it also paled in comparison to Hogwarts' gardens.

Everything was enveloped in the darkness of the night. The stars that twinkled dimly millions of light years away tried in vain to pierce through the black. Out of the corner of his vision Ryuu spotted a flash of blue light, followed by green, then red, then another assortment of colours. A mixture of red and blue created purple. Yellow and Red made Orange. Ryuu stopped in his steps for a moment and watched the colourful miniature display. Somehow it reminded him of the Aurora Boris he had studied about while he was still in the School Room.

That display of coloured light meant that someone else was in the gardens tonight as well. Half of Ryuu wanted to leave at once, but his sixth sense told him to approach the figure that stood crouched beside the lilies.

Lilies, Ryuu's favourite flowers amongst the rest. He loved the white ones especially and had been laughed at once when he had told his mother that he wanted the have lilies as his birthday present.

"Madre! Madre!" The four year old Riccardo ran up to his mother. Tugging on her skirt he pointed out the long French windows in the drawing room at the garden outside where the gardeners were planting new flowers and triming the box hedges.

"Madre! I saw the most bello flowers today," His emerald eyes were wide in excitement and shone with happiness. "They were lilies madre! Pretty white ones. Could we have them in the gardens?"

Aimee had turned from her son to look at the gardens below. She would have loved to be able to fulfil his request, but the planning of what went into the gardens was no in her hands, but totally in the control of their skilled chief gardener, and he was one who loved his work with a passion and hated it when someone gave him a suggestion of any sort. He loved what he did and felt they were perfect and needed no correction. Thinking of a solution to her problem, Aimee suggested:

“Why don’t we get some and put them in your room Riccardo? I’m sure they will look very pretty there.” She had smiled.

Riccardo had trod on proudly to his room, a vase filled with lilies in his arms. He had even refused to allow the servants to help him. As he trodded down the hallways, spilling water in all directions worried servants followed after him.

Katrina had been there when he arrived in the saloon to show off his new gift.

"Riccardo has become a girl!"

Thinking back on it brought a small smile to Ryuu's face, and fueled the fire in him to fulfil his vow and find his family.

By now Ryuu had arrived at the side of the girl he had been watching from a distance. Following her gaze he looked up into the sky, his hands still in his pockets.

"Beautiful night isn't it?"

Debora Ajdelsztajn
((wow, I loved your post! It was worth waiting!))

Debora tried in vain to leave her mind a blank. She just couldn´t bring herself to stop thinking about France.

Just a few days before, her family left their manor in Brazil, but in different directions. Mr. and Mrs. Ajdelsztajn had left Debora, their youngest child and only daughter, in England to stay at the Hogwarts´ Hangout before going back to school, and then proceeded to the french country with the four Ajdelsztajn boys.

The girl had watched the concieving of their plan to go to France. They had always spoken wondeful things about it and since their trip there the year before, they couldn´t wait to come back. But there was something else. Something about the way they acted when talking about the trip. Debora had a feeling her parents were concealing something from her, and when they left her behind, she became sure of it.

But what could they have been hiding? There ought to be a serious matter behind it. She thought of different answers to her wonderings, but nothing seemed to fit the profile. And to not being able to sleep is where her questioning led her.

Beautiful night isn't it?"

An unexpected voice reached her ears, but instead of jumping out of her skin as she usually did when someone approched her when she by herself, Debora just lowered her eyes from the star filled sky to look at the source of the voice. However, there was no need to do so to know who was speaking, for she had heard that voice many times through the previous year.

Ryuu Nefis was standing beside the bench she was sitting, looking up at the sky, as if he had followed her gaze. He looked no different than when she had seen him last, with his untucked clothes and messy hair. Debora knew him well enough to know that he hadn´t yet recognized his 'little sister', as he considered her.

Over the past year, the two of them had become really close friends. He was, perhaps, the closest friend she had and she cared for him deeply. However, a series of events had confused the girl´s mind. First, the young Gryffindor found out Ryuu had a crush on a Slytherin girl: Arizce. He hadn´t told her, but the extra spark that appeared in his emerald eyes when her name was mentioned next to him was unmistakable. And then, there was the Castle In The Clouds Ball. Debora remembered it all too well.

"Hey, have you seen Ryuu anywhere?" she asked Rinoa, another good friend of hers.

"No.. not for a while anyway." she answered, looking around for him as well.

"Oh, ok. Thank you, Ry."

And the girl walked off, still searching for him as she did so. She had been looking for him for the past half hour. Debora knew he was not fond of social events, and maybe she could cheer him up a bit. But he was nowhere to be found, so she figured he sneaked out of the party.

"I´ll go back to the Café to see if they need my help there." she thought to herself.

As she walked though, she finally found Ryuu. He was close to the Fortune Telling tent... kissing Arizce!

"Oh.." she muttered. A mixture of feelings took over her as she looked at them frowning, and she felt as if a hand was clutching at her heart. Unable to stay there a second longer, she ran back to her dorm, her hair and the white butterflies adorning it falling from its messy bun.

Debora didn´t understand what was happening to her at the time. She tried to avoid the subject from her thoughts, only to realize that she had feelings for her friend.

"He must think I´m a fool.." she had thought, more than once.

She had tried, however, not to let him know how she felt about him, though sometimes she could have appeared colder than she normally was.

And now, they met again.

"It is a beautiful night indeed. Not that it needed to be beautiful for you to be wandering around, right?" And though her appearence showed her lack of sleep, she opened a small smile.

Ryuu R Nefis

So many stars, beautiful stars that were suns in their own galaxies. A sign of hope perhaps, as it was the sun - a star - that brought life to the earth and her sister planets around her. Life could be warm and loving, a comfort to those wrapped in her arms. And yet there were those few that had to suffer in the dark and cold side of her wrath like a rejected child of a broken family. Life meant a new beginning, even if it meant at the cost of the old. In order for something to begin a new, something else had to end. If winter never ended, where would be spring? But spring never failed to come, year after year, no matter how much longer or how much colder and harsher winter was, spring - a sign of hope and a new beginning - would come again.

But where was the spring in his life then? His childhood had been like the summer of his life, where it was all about the glimpse and glammer he enjoyed with his family stature and played almost endlessly from day to night. His youth was but like autumn, where he had retreated deeper into the cold and guise of an artificial identity so he could roam the streets through the eyes of someone who was not born an aristocrat, an experienced he considered a luxury.

His slavehood had been the winter of his life at length, his entrance into Hogwarts would probably have been perceived as a hope of spring. but just when he though winter was about to end, the cold of reality set in. He had kissed Arizce.

When it first happened he had truly thought he was in love. It was only later that he discovered that that was a far cry from the truth. Once the love potion's effects had worn off his heart never did respond again to the girl's declaration of love. A side of him had tried to lie to himself and force him to continue in their loveless relationship based on the conviction that since he had never been in love before, how would he know what love felt like.

All had come to naught and he was sure Arizce hated him now after he had given in to his frustration on the issue and blurted out that he had not loved her in the way either had thought he did.

"You're just... better at being a friend to me Rizcy... we're not... meant for each other in the... personal way..."

His own controlled words haunted him, cynically echoing repeatedly in his mind.

To make matters worse, Ryuu discovered that he had indeed been in love, but only with another, the last person he would have thought he loved... or had he already anticipated it?

"It's because of another girl isn't it?" Arizce demanded, her cold grey eyes flashing with anger. "It's always because of someone else."

Ryuu had glared at her, he was already experiencing problems keeping his anger at bay and she had had to add fuel to the fire. He couldn't take it anymore. Without another thought he lashed back at her.

"Yes there is! So what if there is? You're not the only girl such that the world has to revolve around you you know. In fact, I think this argument is unnecessary because reality speaks for itself, you don't even have any real friends! And you know what? I can't stand you! Never could since the first day we met! I loath you!" Ryuu growled. "If there's any girl worthy of my love, it's Debora! You don't even hold a candle to her!"

He had regretted those words the moment they had left his lips. He never meant to say them, in fact, he had never meant any of them. His anger had gotten the better of him again. A tight knot twisted itself in his stomach as he had watched tears spill from her eyes. He had only stood and watched like a fool as she fled towards the Slytherin tower. His pride refused to allow him to run after her and apologise. A grave error in its own right.

As she vanished into the shadows of the long winding corridors - perhaps from his life forever - a sinking feeling came over him. It hadn't been out of guilt, it had been something else. After thinking back on his words he found out that there had been some truth in it afterall, he had loved Debora, ever since the first darn day at the lake, at this very place.

But she had seen him kissing Arizce at the Valentine Ball. He had known this from a cheeky painting that wouldn't leave him alone, taunting him repeatedly as he made a dash for the Gryffindor tower after his fight with Arizce.

"Ooooo you're in trouble now..." The little imp sang, bouncing about from painting to painting with joy. "I was there! I saw it... Ooooo you're a bad boy you are! Hurting two girls now are we?" It snickered as it followed Ryuu down the corridors.

"Well you must be very good at it then, you got one running to the Slytherin commons in tears and another is sobbing in the Gryffindor dormitary... I know because the fat lady told me."

'The fat lady ought to keep her mouth shut.' Thought Ryuu to himself as he ascended the steps to the Gryffindor tower.

He had arrived in the commons that night alright, but he never got down to looking for Debora. After a failed attempt at climbing the stairs to the girl dorm, he had slid to the bottom, his adrenaline rush diminished. What had drove him to run after her to explain himself, was gone. Instead he had gone up to his dorm angry and spent the night writing senseless sentences in his journal before he tossed it against the wall in frustration and resorted to composing letters of apology for both girls.

Arizce's, he never sent. Pride had been too great in his heart. He had intended to give it to her at the graduation ball before they left for the summer holidays, but the cold glare he had received told him she was not worth the apology he had eaten a huge share of humble pie to write. That night when he had gone back to the commons, he had burned it.

"It is a beautiful night indeed. Not that it needed to be beautiful for you to be wandering around, right?" The voice, unmistakably Debora's rang load and clear in his ears.

For a moment, Ryuu lost his composure. He had not expected the girl he had seen to be the one he sought. Everything he had wanted to say to whom he had thought could have been a perfect stranger was gone.

The hand in his pocket tightened itself around the crumpled final draft of his letter of apology to Debora. Should he read the letter now? Or just let things be as they were?

To the Queen of my heart, Debora Ajdelsztajn, The letter had begun,

A countless multitude of words have passed through my mind,
And yet I have not found a single line
That echoes the cries of my heart
Or even comes close
To this declaration of love i now propose.

That kiss I had given
Was given for keeps
But one truth lingers:
It had been meant
Only for your lips.

My relation with fair Arizce had been but a mistake.
One that I do not wish to make
Ever again
As my love for you
Is not at all fake, but totally true.

You're the light in my darkness
The sun in my rain
Whenever I was down
You were always there
To take away the pain

My friend in times of trouble
My soulmate for eternalty
You were always there for me
In all my times of iniquity.

You've been through the worse of life
Through the molten lava, through grime,
But you're always smiling
Bringing light to the world;
An angel in disguise.

So please my angel,
This is my cry out to you
You have rescued me countless times
For a situation like this,
Would you save me too?

I fear I have sunk deeper in
And said more than I should.
But I take none of my words back
For they were meant for you.

Weren't birds meant to sing,
And flowers meant to bloom?
This poem of mine I hum as I write
In a voice so out of tune.

Sunken deeply in love
And lost in regret, that
There are not enough words
With which to confess,
Without further a do
I bid you farewell
With love,
Riccardo Nefis.

His inner self was bursting to get out, to tear up the letter and just make his proclamations without it, the short stanza upon stanza of words were not all there was on his mind, there was much more he wanted to say to her. He wanted to pour out his soul to her. On the exterior, he kept his cool. His hesitance was backed up by many sensible reasons - Or were they really just doubts?

What if he used the wrong words and deepened the cut in a wound that already existed? What if she didn't feel the same and would just laugh at him after his days of sleepless nights trying to get his words right? Why couldn't he get his words right at all? What had happened to the 'eloquent charmer' as Armadeo had often teased him to be? What if this wasn't love? What was love anyway? The million questions raced through his mind as the pounding of his blood grew louder and louder in his ears. He just couldn't risk the possibility that he was going to make another error and another broken heart if what he thought was the truth was but another lie.

Afraid he would make things worse than they already were, Ryuu had wordlessly turned to flee in retreat, his mouth unable to utter a sound as he headed back to the lake.

Unknown to him he had dropped the letter. And as he disappeared through the trees the crumpled sheet of previously neatly folded parchment lay unattended beside Debora on the bench.

((continued in Ryoko Shigami's thread at the lake :) But you can post a reply here first if you want))