Poor Timing PV Everly Charlton Closed

@Everly Charlton

She took some time to warm up, starting with familiar spells. By the time she was done with that, up to the speed needed for any serious practice, she had figured out what she wanted to do with this session. Her focus today would be aiming while off-balance, as one so often was. The duelling stance was sturdy, solid, and so it was little trouble to shoot a straight shot. Typically, though, you weren't so stationary, forced to weave away from incoming spells with only a short, often imperfect window to get off your own. The better she was at aiming amidst a leap to the side or a duck, the better future duels would go. Just because Henry had taken most of the fire during stage one did not mean that would always be the case, and it certainly hadn't been in her duels last year. She had done perfectly fine with the evading then, but often her aim suffered; she couldn't have that.

It wasn't the smoothest of processes. The fact it was hard was the point, but tempering her frustration and trudging onward cost energy and enjoyment. A while after starting, by which point she had decided the key was remaining squared to her target as much as possible through the dodge, something breached her concentration. A 'hi', at which she lowered her wand to identify who was talking to her.

She was expecting a teammate, that seemed most likely. It wasn't practice, but she was still a co-captain and wouldn't mind the interruption to lend a hand. But it was no Viridian Viper breaching her focus, in fact a girl whose name she couldn't immediately recall. Though recognizable as a duellist, she wasn't someone Bridget was very familiar with. There were, after all, forty-eight people between all the teams, and having the written rosters memorized wasn't quite the same as identifying everyone on sight. Squinting slightly, as if that helped, through the rest of the younger girl's introduction, she narrowed it down. She'd played last year. A Gryffindor, someone she was pretty sure she'd taken notes on last stage in preparation for when their Houses faced off. She could practically see the name at the top of the page...

Because it would be weird to wait until the name clicked to answer, she put the name-searching on hold for a moment. A question? Other teams didn't normally approach her. She supposed none of the Gryffindor captains were in here at this exact moment. This girl did know their Houses would be on opposing sides of a duelling platform not long from now, right? Bridget was hesitant to answer questions with that in mind. And she had been in the middle of something. But the request had been polite, and if the question edged anywhere into information Bridget wasn't keen on sharing, she was hardly obliged to. "Okay. What is it?" She did not sound particularly enthused. Still, she was accepting, now fully turned from her dummy to face the Gryffindor, wasn't she?

@Everly Charlton

Everly. That was her name. Bridget was briefly satisfied with having figured it out, and this saved her from having to carefully edge around addressing her by an actual name. It had taken a minute to place, but she wasn't new to the duelling team, having participated in her first year if Bridget recalled correctly. She would have hated to have to admit she couldn't think of her name.

Whatever this was about, Everly did not seem very confident, shifting where she stood and stumbling over words. Bridget should have used this observation to make a conscious effort to lessen that anxiety. Just because Dmitri, the face of the Viridian Vipers, was unapproachable and generally disagreeable did not mean she had to live up to that; on the contrary, she tried to counter that negativity and be a positive point of contact for the team and the other captains. But right now she was tired and mostly just irritated it was taking so long for Everly to get to her point.

"I'm familiar with Ventus," she supplied, unsure of how else to answer. Everly wasn't exactly making a specific inquiry or request. Did she want Bridget to show it to her? Did she have questions on the theory of it? Maybe she wanted to know why it had been used in a certain situation?

When it was clear the Gryffindor wasn't going to clarify right away, she added, "What were you wondering about it?" She tried to not sound so harsh with the prompt, though her patience was slipping. Everly was only a second year anyway, wasn't she? That was not to say she couldn't manage an advanced spell--Bridget had been teaching herself older DADA spells since last year--but they required more focus and precision and she was pretty sure she was not qualified to be teaching that, if learning the spell was what Everly was after. Hopefully it was just theoretical. She had the feeling she wouldn't have such a hard time brushing her off today, though, if it came to it.

@Everly Charlton

Ventus was a pretty interesting spell. Useful for hitting hard while trapping your opponent in a vortex, unique in the splitting thing it sometimes did. Bridget had once told Illowy it was her favorite spell, as far as duelling went, and she stood by that still, though she imagined at some point some powerful higher year spell would catch her attention and steal the jinx's spot. Its applications were broad, so what made it an interesting spell also made it impossible to tell where Everly's inquiry would go.

But slowly she clarified. It was riddled with filler 'uhs' and rather an onslaught of questions. If Bridget had cared a bit less about how she presented herself, she might have put up a hand and told the younger girl to slow down, to ask just one question at a time. That certainly would have been a lot easier to deal with. She held her patience, though, quietly listening and trying to keep track of it all. All the questions pertained to splits, at least, so she figured if she explained that she'd probably hit everything Everly wanted to know.

"The split, yeah." She sighed softly, trying to figure out where to start. "I can't say I know the exact science behind it, but when you cast the spell well enough, the spell can split into two. I think the wind has to do with it being prone to split." Bridget did fairly extensive research for the advanced DADA spells she taught herself, but less so for the ones she learned in class. For those, she mostly relied on the lecture and what she had to know to complete the homework, perhaps only researching a few aspects of interest further when she had the time. Most of her familiarity with the Wind Jinx came from trial and error, witnessing its effects firsthand in the duelling room.

What else had she asked about? Right, splitting on command, like Dmitri did. "There are people who can split any spell intentionally. It's a learned skill, while anyone can split Ventus." And not an easily learned skill, at that. Bridget had tried a few brief times to see if she could will another spell to split, but she'd come up emptyhanded and lacked the time and motivation to put in the needed effort.

The last of her questions: was there a limit? "I've never seen anyone split their spells more than in two," she answered simply. Well, actually... "I suppose you could say a Ventus could split four times, but I wouldn't really count that as being able to split a spell in four. Someone with the skill could split the cast, and then each stream could split as well by nature of being Ventus."

That was everything, right? "Does that make sense?" By that, Bridget was checking if Everly had any follow-up questions, if she'd missed anything, or if she'd explained poorly, but it might have come across as condescending, her voice lacking enthusiasm. Another day, Bridget might have even found Everly's curiosity and little hand movements cute. Today was just not that day.