tell me more, tell me more {Fiora}

“Anyways, like I said, we only started hanging out more in April, so I'm not really sure if it’s too soon, or…”

The Hufflepuff made to shrug helplessly, however she stopped herself just in time to avoid admonishment from Fiora. As it was, Aase was doing her best not to move her lips as she talked – but it was difficult. Sitting for a portrait required a lot more focus on not moving than the dark-haired Trickett would have ever suspected; it wasn’t an idle task by any means. Perhaps she’d talk to one of the Hogwarts portraits about their experience once she got back to school…

In any case, she was hoping her artistic friend might help her work through some of what she was feeling. Earlier in the day, Freddie had handed Aase a note – and had hurried off before she had a chance to read it. Once she did, though, she was met with a rush of different emotions: he had asked her on a date for that very evening. Aase had been simultaneously surprised, flattered, nervous, and excited, and decided she needed an outside opinion; at the very least, a sounding board off of which to volley her mixed emotions. Fiora had quickly come to mind; the girls were friends, and furthermore sharing a cabin. As it happened, Fiora had been looking for her as well, hoping to have her sit for a portrait.

Which is how Aase came to find herself as she was at present: seated fetchingly on a blanket, long dark hair falling in soft curls over her shoulders and down her back, her expression arranged in what was supposed to be pensive (but what she was sure was currently one of anxiety). At least she wasn’t perched on a stool, or standing.

Letting out a long sigh, she tried to relax her shoulders, which had unconsciously tensed as she attempted to examine her thoughts and emotions. She shifted her gaze to her Scottish friend, careful to keep her head still.
“I mean, what do you think?”

"Well, I guess my first question is, do you like him that way?" she said plainly, her eyebrows wiggling from behind the canvas, as she sketched her friend's likeness onto the blank space before her. Fiora tried to be a good friend to her friends, but she was admittedly a little jealous that Aase had gotten asked out before her. However, she liked both Aase and Freddie, and wanted them to be happy, so she tried to put her jealousy aside and counsel her friend as best as she could. From being housemates with Freddie, she knew the boy was cute, funny, and just a little bit charming in his own way.

"It's pretty adorable that he passed you a note-- very second year of him." she giggled, peering her head over the canvas at Aase, who was doing her best impression of a French supermodel at the moment, but there was a look behind her eyes of nervous apprehension. "Aase," she said slowly, addressing her friend gingerly, not sure how she should phrase this next part. "You know if Freddie likes you, and you don't want to go on this date, that he should respect your decision, and be ready to wait until you are ready."

"A quarter-turn towards the window please, Aase?" she instructed, "I want to capture the light on your beautiful face," she said wistfully, almost finished with her chalk pencil sketch. She tore her sheet of clingfilm off her already-mixed paints that she'd put together the morning before, and grabbed a wide bristle brush, and started with wide strokes across the canvas, painting the background in large swaths of canary yellow paint, which her chalk drawing was still visible through.

"Tell me, what part of you is speaking the loudest right now?" she said with a mysterious air over it, again leaning over her canvas, tendrils of her fiery-red locks falling in her face as she smiled encouragingly at Aase. This was the girl code, Fiora thought, friends over mens. Morgana help Freddie if he hurt Aase's feelings ever; the Scottish witch would make @Freddie Snyder 's life a living nightmare.

“Well, I guess my first question is, do you like him that way?”

‘That way’ had to be ‘more than a friend’, right? Aase thought so, but it was hard to say for sure. She’d had crushes on a few boys before, but this felt… different. It was difficult to say exactly how, though. It was just a feeling she had.
“So… yes, I think,” she replied, after explaining this stream-of-consciousness to Fiora.

“It’s pretty adorable that he passed you a note – very second year of him.”

Aase kept her head still, however she swiveled her gaze over to her friend and wrinkled her nose playfully – but didn’t comment further. She smiled softly as Fiora reminded her that Freddie should respect whatever her decision was if she didn’t feel ready tonight.
“You’re right, of course. I have no doubt he would, if that were it. But…” She sighed and hesitated thoughtfully, trying to piece together her mixed emotions. “I… don’t think that’s what it is, though?” Aase felt reasonably sure of this, yet her inflection turned up at the end all the same; it was a habit she was trying to break in her efforts to sound more self-assured and confident. (Fiora had no such difficulty; Aase ought to take a leaf out of the Gryffindor’s book.)
“I will say that I was a little… surprised, I guess, by it – but not, like, ‘turned-off’ to the idea. If that makes any sense.”

“A quarter-turn towards the window please, Aase? I want to capture the light on your beautiful face.”

The Hufflepuff did as she was bidden, batting her eyelashes dramatically to play off the automatic flush in her cheeks that seemed to surface every time someone paid her a compliment. Aase had been told her blushing was ‘endearing’ – but after a while she found it to be just plain annoying, and it made her feel like a child. She was fifteen now, for Merlin’s sake.

“Tell me, what part of you is speaking the loudest right now?”

A warm breath of a breeze through the wide-open window stirred her dark curls, and the petite Hufflepuff fidgeted imperceptibly with the hem of her skirt for a moment before answering.

“My first reaction was that I wanted to go,” she began slowly, replaying the moment again in her head. “It was only when I thought about it more that I wondered if the timing was… reasonable. You know me and my propensity for overthinking everything,” she laughed. “But usually my intuition is pretty good. I think.” Aase wrinkled her nose again.

“You’ve been Housemates with him for four years – what’s your impression of him?”
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her own judgement (she’d already formed her own impression over the past few months especially) – but she always appreciated a second (or third) opinion on important matters such as this.