May 4th, 1888 - Puddlemere United Quidditch Season Kickoff Gala (Boxes)

The delight of watching her favorite team compete in their first match of the season was somewhat lost on Lucinda, who was too nervous about what people might say re: her husband, his wheelchair, and his retirement. Or re: her rather odd summer season. The Cavanaugh Quidditch Party - her re-entrance, so to speak - in February had gone well. That was the off season, that was Quidditch People, this was about to be the season and held a mixture of Quidditch People and Normies.

It was this anxiety that brought her to the front of the box, watching through the glass with her fingers wrapped tightly around her cocktail glass. If she was anxious about the match instead of about the people around her, then life was instantly less problematic. She was wearing dark blue for Puddlemere, carefully selected to exactly match the hue on the player's robes.

The game - and perhaps the half a cocktail - had managed to absorb her attention. Wimbourne's new Chaser snatched the quaffle out of the air in front of the box. "Damnit," Lucinda sniped, clapping a hand over her mouth as soon as she realized she had just swore - swore! - in a box full of people who might not Get It. Damnit.

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Tuni almost felt as if she were on cloud nine. She was happy, blissfully so, even if she was now forced to watch a Quidditch game with her father's childbride. Luckily enough, the woman had found another wife who wasn't a fan of Quidditch to talk her ear off instead of distracting Tuni from the game. She'd meandered to the front of the box she had been shown to thanks to the tickets given to her by Mr. Bixby and was rather intently watching the game progress, most of her attention being focused on Mr. Bixby himself. She'd been so wrapped up in the game that she'd hardly noticed the woman standing beside her. Until, of course, she heard the woman swear.

With a small smirk on her face, she turned to look at the woman. Her smirk only widened when she realized just who she was. Ruth's best friend, Mrs. Cavanaugh. "I'm sure no one else heard," she responded lightly, "But I must agree. Puddlemere better get their act together if they have any hope of winning."

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"Thank you, Miss Lockhart," Luce said. Lock's sister was certainly a better option than - well, pretty much anyone else in the box. "Well - as long as their seeker stays good," Lucinda said, "It's really all about the snitch." Unless Wimbourne was able to amass enough points to discount the snitch, but before that happened Lucinda would probably have a stress-induced heart attack, so it really wouldn't be a problem at that point.

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Tuni nodded in response. It was a bit sad that a lot of it simply came down to the snitch even if one team was clearly the better of the two. In her opinion, catching the snitch was mostly luck as opposed to actual skill. Of course they needed to know how to handle a broom and the like but all it took was one lucky glance to catch a glimpse of the snitch to be off in chase of it. She doubted that was what Mrs. Cavanaugh wanted to hear though.

She'd been just about to respond, however, a familiar chaser flew closely by their box and she suddenly lost her train of thought. Her cheeks even flushed a bit, betraying her again. "Yes," she finally managed to say though clearly distracted, "All about the snitch."

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Oh, now that was interesting. Generally, Lucinda was more interested in Quidditch than in other people's interpersonal drama, but this was Lock's sister and her cheeks were flushed. Not only that, but they had flushed at the flight path of one of the chasers - so it was almost like it was related to Quidditch.

"And who was that?" Lucinda asked mildly.

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She'd noticed. Mrs. Cavanaugh had noticed Tuni's rather embarrassing distraction. She blushed more at the thought. She surely couldn't play off the blush as it wasn't that warm but perhaps if she was a bit blase in her response it would be enough.

"Oh I believe that was Mr. Bixby," she stated simply, "He plays for Puddlemere." Obviously.

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"Oh, he's a talented player," Lucinda said cheerfully, consulting her mental roster of Quidditch players. Bixby: first string chaser, came from a Quidditch family, muscular and good-looking and single. Ha. "And yourself and Mr. Bixby are acquainted?"

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There was no denying the blush on Tuni's face even if she did all she could to will it away. It seemed to only continue to burn on her cheeks as she nodded in response to Mrs. Cavanaugh's assessment of Mr. Bixby. "Yes," she answered with a smile, "We've met a few times. Seems we have a knack for running into one another."

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"That can be strategic," Lucinda observed, an unsubtle creature if ever there was one. In her life as Thom's personal assistant, she had not been forged in subtlety except for when she was trying to get him out of trouble. "And," here was the key question, "Is Mr. Bixby unattached?"

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Tuni nodded in response, turning away from the other woman to watch the game so she hopefully didn't give a way too much of her true emotions. She had just kissed the man on the cheek, after all. A rather bold thing for her to do but she'd done it nonetheless. "As far as I know," she answered. And she did quite know but there was no way of answering that so surely without going into more details of her acquaintance to the chaser.

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"Hm," Lucinda said, without further comment. If Fortuna was her sister, she might have pointed out that Quidditch players had no money and, with the exception of Lock, were mostly whore-ish. (Never mind Rue marrying Lock - Rue was used to not having money and did not expect some shiny comforts, but Miss Lockhart probably did.)

But Fortuna wasn't Luce's sister, so Lucinda just noted this information for later. It seemed like the sort of thing that Thom would be, if not interested in, then perhaps intrigued by. (Quidditch players who wanted to get married quit Quidditch.)

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A brow rose at the one syllable answer. It didn't really set well with Tuni. In her experience, a person wanted to say a lot more than they were. But if she pointed that out, it would likely lead down a conversation she wasn't sure she was ready or wanted to go through.

"Any predictions for the season?" she asked instead, still watching the game but glancing slightly to Mrs. Cavanaugh in the process. She knew it was just the first game but Puddlemere were the reigning champs after all.

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Lucinda made a clucking sound. "If Thom Pettigrew's gambit - that is, keeping the entire team on - pays off, then Puddlemere's got a winning formula," she said, "But. Quidditch wears down your body. Sometimes young blood is better." Thom's play relied on his team keeping themselves up to the task. And Lucinda just wasn't sure.

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Tuni nodded, understanding what the other woman was saying. "But the team was rather young to start, were they not?" she questioned, brow furrowed slightly in thought. She didn't follow the actual players so much as she did the overall stats. Numbers were more her thing, not so much actual faces.

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Lucinda shrugged her shoulders, as if to say: well that's how time works, isn't it?

"Michaud's pretty young still," she said, "Bixby and Tilcott aren't old either. But Zavala's twenty-seven, and Quidditch strains the body." An injury for any of those three could be, if not disastrous, then at least destructive.

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Tuni nodded as she listened to what Mrs. Cavanaugh had to say. What she was saying certainly made sense but surely there had to be some talent on the second string, right?

"And the second string?" she asked, honestly intrigued by what her opinions were, "Is there someone there that could fill a spot should one of them get hurt?" Hopefully, not Rufus.

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