Into the Cracks PV Aislin Darragh Finished

@Aislin Darragh

What Bridget had not been expecting from the kid was an earnest encouragement to try. Then again, her read on Aislin had been constantly lagging behind each new word she spoke. Bridget made no promises, no verbal affirmation, but she did nod. She might never see Aislin again, but she would keep trying.

At Aislin's age, Bridget had been a very different kid: shy, a haunt of the library who avoided talking to adults and even most kids. A quick conversation could not give her the full picture of a person, but she was much less surprised for Aislin's second out-of-pocket question, though this one was more of a statement. She did not bother trying to respond to you cast like you're solving a maths problem and could not prevent the automatic little hike of both eyebrows. It was kind of funny, actually. In all her years of duelling, Bridget could say confidently she'd never heard that one before, and in her peripheral, a shudder that must be suppressed laughter ran through Fianna.

She was half-curious what else Aislin could come up with, but her and her grandmother seemed to have mutually decided it was time to go. Their chaos was bookended with politeness, at least. "Have a good afternoon," she wished at the same time as Fianna's enthusiastic bye! The pair of Midlands supporters walked (and skipped) away.

As an intentional choice, she turned to check on Arthur in a way that avoided eye contact with Fianna. She would like not to unpack all of that just yet. Encouragingly, Arthur was up, elbows on his knees and back to enough awareness to give them a little smile. That meant mediwizard attention on her and Fianna was soon to follow, so she retook her seat and rolled her trousers back up to her knees.

With Arthur back in the mix, the conversation shifted and stuck on post-match reflection for a while. It wasn't until they were all the way back in Cork, a few steps outside of the building, that Bridget found a private moment with Fianna and enough resolve to ask, already partially regretting it, "What do I look like when I duel?" She shoved her hands deep into the thick coat she had on over her black and teal Magic Marinas warm-up jumper.

Luckily, Fianna did not laugh in her face. She wasn't the sort of person, even if she'd been amused earlier. With a thoughtful purse of her lips, Fianna walked another few metres with her before answering. "You do look quite serious." With a glance at whatever look was on Bridget's face now (probably some barely disguised resignation that this meant she did look like someone doing maths), she added, "You're just focused! But I think it intimidates the other team a little, sometimes, which I am much in favor of."

"... Okay." There wasn't much she could see to do with this information. She wouldn't sacrifice her focus, so she would just have to accept whatever it looked like.

Fianna drifted a step left to bump into her shoulder. "Don't worry about it, yeah? Enjoy your week off."

"You, too." She wouldn't worry about it. There was no cause for worry, really, only contemplation as she took the time to rest (the Marinas duelling club was fully closed for any practice), recover (her minor match injuries faded within a day), and prepare for nationals.