With the Stealth of an Injured Tortoise..

[Aiden Titus]

The sun was dripping with heat and England was sweltering. More and more, lately, the weather had been slowly frying the small island of the United Kingdom but Aiden wasn't fussy, as long as he got shade. Unfortunately, as he wandered the streets, stuck for something to do now that the school term was over, Aiden found his protruding shoulders burning through his thin white shirt. He could only see one possible place to hide from the sun- and that was under the large oak tree in the park, five minutes away. Still, the walk gave him time to think.. Not that there was much to think about, now.

Aiden was about to go into his fifth year at Hogwarts but until September, all he could do was kick the stones at his feet and read over the many school books he had already read. He couldn't play Quidditch outside of Hogwarts because he lived in a muggle neighbourhood.. But his mother had promised that they would soon be moving to the countryside which meant that Aiden could start teaching his siblings how to play the wonderful game of Quidditch, the thing he mostly looked forward to at school.

He had not been concentrating as he had neared the shade of the tree, something that everyone in Britain longed for. In his haste to reach the cool shadows, Aiden had failed to notice someone. Someone very small, walking in the opposite direction. At six foot five, Aiden was rather tall for his age and it made him wonder if he should ask more questions about his family history. However, Aiden had better things to do than have a chat with his mother which would, inevitably, lead to her in floods of tears over his father and Aiden trying to comfort her. No, he was certainly not in the mood for that, today. He was so very close to the small girl walking his way and, if one of them didn't notice soon, his next few strides could cause a serious accident.

 

[Artemis Tuuri]

Artemis, coming the opposite way, was just as distracted as the boy was in her route. She too was headed for the shade, which for her was unusual since she was so small that overheating was never a problem. It was the cold that got to the her the most and in winter she could usually be found in front of the fire, bundled up like a starfish. When Arty Yearling was hot, that's when everyone else was practically frying like a lobster. Still, spending time in New Zealand was helping her get used to heat a bit more and she wished she was there, now. Not that England wasn't her homeland and basically the blood in her veins, but she missed her sister who hadn't come along with she and Simon to visit their father. Even Deirdre was in New Zealand and spending all of her free time with Wallace Montgomery. Everyone reckoned they'd soon be married, and a good thing, too. "Dada will be so proud," said Art to herself happily, kicking along a pebble as she skipped up the pathway. Her little blue sundress swung from side to side as she skipped. It felt slightly embarrassing to skip as she was, but Art like to get places fast and she could go much faster if she took the same strides as everyone else.

A shadow fell over her and she sighed happily, bathed in the cool light. It took her a moment to realise that the shadow was in fact growing and to Art's intense alarm, an extremely large boy was heading straight towards her. Why, he was almost upon her! Artemis let out a squeak of terror and headed for the nearest shelter - a large oak tree only meters form the pathway. Quick as a squirrel, Art leapt up and kept on leaping till she was fully immersed within the leaves. She would have been hidden very well if not for her large, floppy pointed ears that poked out from behind the tree branch she'd wintered down behind. Soon her rounded nose follow as she peeked out to see whether the boy had passed yet. Then, as bad luck would have it, she knocked an acorn onto his head. Art disappeared again, too terrified to look out in case he looked up.

 

[Aiden Titus]

Aiden had heard a squeak and sort something move like lightning to the oak tree nearby. He turned his head, curious as to what this was and strode over to tree. However, he wished he hadn't as whatever it was had caused an acorn to fall onto his head. It may not have been heavy but it did hurt for a moment "Ow!" Aiden cursed, covering the point of impact with his hands. He looked up. Now, this may have been a stupid thing to do as another acorn could have fallen and hit him in the eye. But still, he looked up.

He stared for a moment. Had it just been a squirrel? No, it was too big. He'd seen it run. Maybe it was just a cat, then? Again, it seemed too big for that. Surely it couldn't be something from the wizarding world? Aiden looked a little worried for a moment, as though he feared a wild magical creature would be all his fault.. Which it may have been. It was a moment before the obvious answer came to him; a very small person. A child, maybe. But why would they hide in the tree? He must have really scared them. Aiden felt guilty. "H-hello?" he called up, feeling a little silly that he was talking to a tree. Although, this wouldn't be a first..

Aiden placed one hand on the tree trunk as he craned his head as far upwards as he could. "I'm sorry if I scared you." he called out again, falling silent as a young couple passed him by. He looked at them, nodded, gave them a small, false smile and looked back up into the tree. He could certainly see something, but what, Aiden didn't know. "Please come down." he called again, weakly. Well, he didn't even know who or what this was but he was certain that he owed it some form of apology.

 

[Artemis Tuuri]

Artemis was too nervous to look again, but she could still hear the giant person coming closer. The bark beneath her fingers bean to crumble as she squeezed it in fear, trying to console herself that tall people weren't renowned for eating people of her size on public pathways. She said and did nothing for a long moment, sure that the boy ... man ... thing ... was gone. She peeked out once more - and came face to face with him. Immediately the tiny fifteen year old girl teared up and her bottom lip began to wobble lip jelly. It was so irrational to be scared of someone who had such a nice soft voice, but she'd always been terrified of very tall people that she didn't know. Art couldn't even speak; instead, she began a mad scramble down the side of the tree in order to escape, hoping to all hope that they didn't try and stop her. Ironically, the only thing stopping her was her own height. As she clung to a branch, her feet began to scrabble for the next foothold, only to find that there was none. "Oh!" whimpered Art. She couldn't bear to be so exposed. In her desperation, she leapt. There was someone there to catch her! She clung to the neck of the person and buried her head into their shoulder.

Perhaps it would have been more prudent to look up at that point, to see what kind stranger just happened to be at the right place a the right time. Nevertheless, fear made one do very blind things. Later, Artemis wondered why it hadn't occurred to her that the person she'd fallen onto was the person she had been trying to avoid. Still, when she finally had the courage to look up, then she truly was face to face with the boy. The moment she looked into his eyes, Art wondered why she'd been scared at all. He had a simply lovely face, kind and very sweet to look at. She stared ... then her cheeks lifted the tiniest amount and she smiled. "Oh. Hee hee! Sorry," said Artemis, going a bit pink.

 

[Aiden Titus]

Aiden had maybe expected the thing in the tree to attack him.. And it almost seemed as though it had. Aiden had caught the tiny person as they leapt from the tree and they clung to him for a moment. That moment seemed to go on forever and Aiden couldn't decided, on a scale of one to ten, how uncomfortable he was with this. Finally, the person- a girl, looked him full in the face. It was a moment of silence before the girl suddenly smiled. "Oh.. um.. okay.." Aiden muttered awkwardly, bending down to the ground and giving the girl an opportunity to be free again.

That was one of the things Aiden had not expected to do that day. Another was that he would spend the night smiling to himself as he thought about the strange little girl with the odd ears. "My name is Aiden," Aiden said as casually as possible. Being British, he felt it was his duty to take such things in his stride.. And what a very large stride it was. "Aiden Titus.. What's yours?" This was good; try to establish some form of connection which could be easily bridged. He had never intended to scare her like he had. Aiden was not the bullying sort and he spent his days trying to get along with people as best as he could, even if a friendship seemed impossible. He supposed that his height of six foot five could be somewhat intimidating to such a small girl and he didn't smile very often unless he was with his friends or when it was christmas. Merlin, he loved the feel of christmas.