SEA, SWALLOW ME, remus lupin

ceithir deug, into the woods

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
into the woods

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COVE CAN'T EXACTLY USE THE WORD 'recovery' to describe how the past few days have gone for her.

Although, in saying that, she hasn't gotten any worse. No, not at all! She just hasn't gotten much better, either.

The sudden shift in her demeanour is palpable from the way her smiley disposition has totally dimmed to the frequent bouts of silence she finds herself indulging in, any coherent words lost to the labyrinthine horrors of her own mind. Once again Cove finds herself yearning for the water to swallow her whole when upon two legs, and for the kiss of land to soothe her drowning emotions when she gives in to the seal spirit at last.

  Nothing seems to feel right any more — she hasn't felt this lost since before... well, before Remus. All the conflicting feelings bubbling up inside are enough to give her goosebumps.

   Deflecting is the only way Cove knows how to handle what she's feeling. Her friends and even her professors have been worrying after her, only to be dismissed whenever they dare to ask how she's been holding up. Every portrait and every ghost has coined on to her stress by now, the foundations of the school shuddering under the way she seems to drag her feet along these days. There's clearly something eating Cove Henderson, yet only a few can say they truly know what it is.

   Remus has been especially worried — though admittedly, Cove hadn't expected anything less from him. It wouldn't have been as much as a problem as it is if he wasn't fretting over her with enough intensity to grey his hair, and with the full moon so close on the horizon, she's been pleading with him to leave it alone for a bit. For his sake more than hers.

  Unfortunately, whether he listens or not isn't up to her. Cove digresses.

   All that life seems to have quietened down inside her now that she's got her ultimatum to think over for however long it deigns to haunt her — Pomfrey said that she can last a few more years without choosing before it becomes completely life or death. The grains of sand in her hourglass have begun sprinkling down slowly and steadily, the clock ticking forward with every indecisive breath she takes.

Honestly, Cove thinks that she's willing to sacrifice her sanity for a few more sweet years of being free to just choose between them whenever. Decisions typically weigh down on her until she's quaking beneath the pressure, though this one seems to be beating down on her more furiously than ever.

   She's just so tired these days. It feels like first period was centuries ago, which only makes her more desperate for the cushioned embrace of her bed. Cove checks her watch to see that it's approaching five o'clock, her face set in a deep frown. How have all those hours managed to escape her and yet it feels like she's not moved forward one centimetre? She feels glued in place, frozen in time as a fragment of the girl she was before.

   Her feet are dragging her out of supported study after school, her thoughts clogged with sweet dreams of collapsing under the covers until the chirping of an alarm clock jolts her from sleep at the breaking dawn. Suffering through an extra hour of revision isn't her preferred way to end an agonisingly long day, especially with Remus absent and ill in the Hospital Wing. She was alone, tired and worried all through that excruciating hour of studying — one she had regrettably brought upon herself.