Closed Bitter Pill

[Celia Vu]

The nurse was saying a lot of objectively scary things — blunt trauma, kidney contusion, possible internal bleeding — but Celia could barely bring herself to care. After all, magic would end up fixing all of this. She had already taken one potion for the pain and another to stop any bleeding. The rest would be administered shortly, and the nurse had assured her that she would make a full recovery within a couple hours. She would be completely healed, which meant none of this really mattered.

What did matter was that she'd been knocked out, eliminated, embarrassed in front of the entire school plus some. There was no potion in the world that could fix that. As the nurse left to go prepare some more healing draughts, Celia settled into the bed, her thoughts quickly turning dark. She hoped Slytherin lost. She hoped Ilvermorny lost. She hoped the bludgers went rogue and knocked out the Ilvermorny beaters and Reeve and Eleanor and Liusaidh and Ivelisse and on and on until there was no one left on the pitch. If she had to suffer, then she wanted everyone else to suffer with her.

Footsteps echoed through the empty room, and Celia looked up, nearly laughing when she saw who it was. It seemed at least one of her wishes had come true. "Well that didn't take long at all," she sneered. Thanks to the potions, the pain had faded away, leaving behind a bitter rage that bubbled in her lungs, threatening to drown her. It was a good thing, then, that she now had a target for all that anger.

 

[Ivelisse Burleigh]

While being escorted off the pitch after getting knocked out during her first game as seeker Ivelisse had thought there wasn't any feeling she could hate more than how she had felt right there and then. Boy, was she wrong. If she thought she had despised being told she couldn't play on the first time she wasn't even sure what to call whatever it was she was feeling right now. There wasn't even disappointment like she had felt back then. This time it was mainly just anger at being told she couldn't play on when she was confident she could. Annoyance at how the beaters somehow weren't able to function at playing either offense or defense. Not that they cared much for playing defense anyways. They seemed more than happy to let her fend for herself while also expecting her to have no trouble finding the snitch.

Ive didn't exactly care about what the referee had said, nor did she care about the nurse already trying to figure out what sort of injuries she had while still making their way towards the hospital wing. She didn't care what parts of her body did or didn't hurt. Didn't even care about the outcome of the match, although part of her hoped the team would lose. What she did care about was being forced to sit on a stupid bed in the hospital wing once again and while Celia's visit had been an unwelcome surprise last time she was now well aware that the other girl would be there too. The only difference was that Celia deserved to be there at the moment. She didn't.

Being escorted into the hospital wing, while fair since she had protested being send off the pitch and had almost tried to make a run for the common room, sucked. It sucked. There was no pretty way to describe everything Ive was feeling at the moment. Especially not when Celia felt the need to open her mouth as soon as she had set foot into the room. "Oh, that's rich." Ive scoffed as she reluctantly took her seat on one of the beds at the nurse's instructions. "You're one of four players on the pitch who have the means to defend themselves against bludgers and you feel like you can comment on me getting knocked out of the game? While you were already here? Nah." She shook her head, unimpressed with Celia's sneer. It wasn't like she had expected anything else from her either. If she knew anything about the other girl she wouldn't even be surprised if Celia'd try to come up with some way in which her getting knocked out was somehow Ivelisse's fault.

 

[Celia Vu]

Mouthing off in front of the nurse probably wasn't the smartest idea. But Celia had never been great at controlling her emotions. Besides, in a world where the only two options were to attack or be attacked, it was better that she land the first blow. Celia had no doubt that if she hadn't said something first, then Ivelisse would have. They had long since abandoned any pretense of friendship.

Celia dug her fingernails into her palms, unwilling to show how much Ivelisse's words stung. How often had she judged other beaters for getting hit? How often had she told herself that hitting beaters was more impressive than hitting seekers since beaters had bats to defend themselves? And it was an undeniable fact that she had been knocked out first. But she was not going to concede a single point, not out loud at least. Because while Celia could admit to herself her own shortcomings, she would rather get hit by three more bludgers than admit her faults to others.

"And yet," Celia started, scornful look firmly in place, "I still managed to actually help the team." In fact, she'd contributed more to a possible Slytherin victory than half her teammates. It struck her as incredibly unfair that she could no longer play while Ares got to continue flying around in circles, hitting nothing but air. "We could've replaced you with an enchanted dummy and the end result would've been the same." As far as Celia was concerned, the only thing Ivelisse was good for was attracting bludgers away from the other players. And she couldn't even reliably do that, not when the other team's beaters had sh!tty aim. "So that's what, two out of three games where your biggest contribution is getting knocked out? Even I didn't play that badly as a second year."

 

[Ivelisse Burleigh]

Ivelisse couldn't say she was surprised to find Celia attacking her the second she set foot inside the hospital wing. Hell, she hadn't even fully been checked by the nurse and yet here she was already having to defend herself against someone that practically wasn't even worth her energy. Especially when there was so little energy left inside of her at the moment, most of it being put in any and all attempt to ignore how much she was hurting.

She glared at Celia and kept her mouth shut for a second as she nurse started checking her over. For a second, she wondered if the woman was going to do anything about it. Seperate them, give them something to keep them silent, anything. With her now being quiet she didn't seem to impressed by their little altercation though and Ive barely listened as the woman started listing what was wrong and needed to be fixed, repeating some of the things she had already mentioned on their way over. She let the woman go ahead in doing her work and quickly downed the potion she handed her, wanting to get her out of the way so she could focus her attention back on Celia.

"Really?" Ive scoffed when Celia tried to tell her she had managed to help the team. During other games, perhaps. During this game, not so much. "Did you even hit the Ilvermorny seeker a single time this game?" She questioned, trying not to let whatever Celia said get to her. All she was trying to do was tear her down in an attempt to defend her own lousy performance and while that would usually result in her getting under Ivelisse's skin the potion the nurse had given her had helped in fighting the pain and she could now shift her energy into trying not to show that Celia's words did in fact get to her. Getting knocked out twice wasn't how things were supposed to go for her this year but she was still set on believing their team's beaters were more at fault for that than she was. "Oh, I'm sorry but did you not literally hit your own teammate during the previous game?" Ive bit back when Celia mentioned how little she believed Ivelisse had contributed to the team's effort. "I reckon it's only a matter of time before you somehow manage to hit yourself. And even then I'm sure you'll find a way to blame someone else for your own shortcomings. But guess what? They are just that. Your shortcomings. So you can say whatever you want about me, but that's not going to make you a better player."

i'm sorry this is late and also not great

 

[Celia Vu]

Celia shot Ivelisse an incredulous look, unsure if the girl was being serious. "Of course I did." As far as Celia was concerned, accomplishment without recognition was basically worthless, and it annoyed her that Ivelisse had somehow missed the hit she'd landed against the Ilvermorny seeker. "No wonder you can never find the snitch," she scoffed. "You can't even keep track of the other seeker." How the girl had managed to hold onto her position as a starter, Celia didn't know. There were a lot of things about Liusaidh that Celia found baffling, but her decision to keep Ivelisse as their starting seeker when they had a much better alternate had to be at the top of the list.

The mention of the rogue bludger hit from last game sent a wave of shame and fury through Celia, and she could feel her face heat up. She clenched her fists, and it was only the sight of a passing nurse in the distance that kept her from lashing out. "One mistake doesn't make me a bad beater," she said through gritted teeth, her voice cold as she tried to suppress her anger. Celia had always believed that any mistake was unacceptable, and she still did. But she wasn't going to let Ivelisse pretend that she was somehow the better player, not when Ivelisse had made a series of mistakes over the past year. "I've already proven ten times over that I'm the best beater on the team. Can you say the same about your position?" The mention of blame caused Celia to snort because it was such an absurd thing for Ivelisse of all people to say. "When have I ever blamed anyone for anything? No, you're the one who keeps blaming everyone but yourself. Remember the last time we were in here? You spent the entire time whining about how it was somehow mine and Ares' fault that you had gotten knocked out. You are the one who can't admit your shortcomings."

((you're all good!))