A New Path Solo Finished

September 18th, 2020
Mentions: Flash Holmwood, Thora Larkston, and Artemis Vernatis

There was something scary about decision making. Bridget had always been a fairly decisive person and it wasn't necessarily that she feared change. Change could be a good thing, a chance for growth. Perhaps even the bad changes had a purpose, a lesson to be learned. Still, standing at the figurative threshold of a door and knowing if you opened it you would have to close another door, possibly for forever, was daunting.

It was symbolic, she supposed, to be sitting in the stands and looking out at the Pitch she might never play on again. Bridget had only ever been in the stands to watch the other Houses play, but now it could very well be her only connection to the game of Quidditch. It was a windy day and her stray hairs cut across her vision no matter how many times she tucked them behind her ear. Honey brown eyes swept over the Pitch--the hoops, the grass, the sky she felt so at home in--as if soaking it all in for the last time.

Bridget liked Quidditch, she did. But it was the flying that she was good at, the soaring high above the ground that made her feel alive. Not the bludgering. Not the game itself. And her teammates? The Slytherin let out a small sigh that was lost in the wind. She would miss them. She would perhaps feel a pang of regret when Flash eventually made the team and she wasn't on it with him. And of course, the time Quidditch practice gave her to spend with her best friend would be missed. Part of her was worried her absence would hurt the team, but she knew it wouldn't. Not in any significant way. She was practically a joke of a Beater. Who knew, they might even do better with her gone.

Besides, how could Bright justify spending all her time practicing Quidditch when her spellcasting had nearly cost Victor his life? If she had spent all that time improving her magical abilities, she wouldn't have botched something so simple as the Umbrella Spell. She would have cast Lumos in time and Victor wouldn't have been stabbed. She pressed her palms to her eyelids, trying to push away the images that plagued her nightmares. Shadows. Blood. Victor going limp. It being her fault. What had happened to Victor was her fear, but also her motivation. That could never happen again. Ever.

It was true her flying had more or less saved Santario's life, but it wasn't as if she would stop flying altogether. She enjoyed it far too much for that and hadn't spent all those precious galleons on a Silver Arrow for nothing.

There was a sort of calm finality that came with having her mind made up. She knew what she was going to do. The brunette could already picture herself resigning from the Quidditch team. Trying out for duelling. Making the team. No second-guessing herself, just plunging forward on a new path, a part that could very well be the deciding factor in her survival and the survival of the people she cared about. In her mind she could hear Professor Vernatis' voice at the end of her first duel a little over a year ago. Telling her she'd fought well, saying he hoped she would join the duelling team. Join the team she would. She was going to reconcile losing that first duel. She was going to make herself a force to be reckoned with. And if that meant saying goodbye to Quidditch, then so be it.