WHO: Seth Wadcock + Arista Sykes
WHAT: Children = disastuh
WHERE: Some W.Q.W. deal
WHEN: BEFORE THE TATTLER LOL
She did not want to be here. And she did not ever in her life want to have children.
Arista would not have deigned to associate with W.Q.W. after that debacle at the end-of-season party. Even after receiving an elegant and hopefully-expensive floral arrangement from one Mr Wadcock in apology for his pitiable actions. But when she found a little note attached to the event's memo she received via owl, reminding her of a little bet, she capitulated. She played for a team called the
Pride of Portree, didn't she? Which was how she found herself at a workshop for witches' empowerment. As one of the youngest female Seekers in the British and Irish League, she was assisting in a flying demonstration and gave a small speech where she tried to sound like a truly empowered witch, and not some legacy brat who made it onto a professional league based on her mother's clout. Even if her team couldn't win a championship.
Much to her surprise, the day had gone well. She'd only briefly seen Seth Wadcock in the beginning, and her aversion to creatures under four-foot-ten had practically been a non-issue. Granted, it was a off-season, smaller function in which she had no large role, but Arista still felt pleased with the outcome. The rest of the day would be spent signing autographs, where her favourite part was handing out tiaras to the younger girls. Like the one perfectly-ringleted blonde approaching her now, who, at five years old, was too young to appreciate the finer things about Quidditch, but whose already-faultless taste had her enamoured with the little crown placed on top of her head.
"Here, look," Arista said with a small smile, despite herself. Tapping one of the snitches adorning a point, they
began to flap their wings and flit around the crown. Leaning back to admire her handiwork, her expression fell when she saw the girl's mouth formed in a little "oh," her eyes large and watching the racing snitches above her head while slowly glazing over.
"Oh, hell," she muttered, the blood leaving her face. The girl weaved a tiny step to the right.
Hastily waving her wand again, she succeeded in sending one madly rotating snitch catapulting across the room. The girl's eyes were now beginning to cross as she bobbed left. Oh, Merlin. Oh, Hera's hopping hippogriffs, she was going to kill this little girl and the
Prophet headline tomorrow would read
Princess of Portree, Child Killer and then they would lock her away in Azkaban forever and she wouldn't even have won a championship! After having killed a precious five-year-old!
Abandoning the wand, she whispered, "Come here!" pleadingly, leaning over the table, arms outstretched in a vain attempt to pluck the tiara off the dazed girl's perfect blonde head, but who stood just a hair out of reach "Where is your mother!" Arista's eyes darted about, wondering if anyone was seeing this horrific display, but more importantly, wondering if
anyone was going to help her! Leaning so far forward that she was no longer in her seat, she upended an ink pot, but felt her fingers close around furiously beating wings. "Gotcha!" she cried triumphantly, just as her flailing foot knocked back her chair with a clatter and there was a good chance she'd just thrown herself across spilled ink.
But Arista Sykes
HAD NOT just killed a child. She thought. Lifting her head from being splayed across the table top, she glanced at the little girl to ascertain this was true and she hadn't made an enormous fool out of herself for no good reason.
Right up until Leanne was dropped off on his doorstep, Seth didn’t quite care for small humans either. They were loud and crying and no one in their right mind would trust him with their child. And Seth didn’t blame him one bit. It took a while, but Seth eventually got the hang of the being a dad thing. Now secretly, he quite enjoyed spending time with kids. Henry thought that he picked this because it was an easy charity, everyone loved kids and would be willing to donate to help, but honestly, he always looked forward to playing with them, and teaching them what he knew about the game he loved. Which was nice as all Leanne really cared about was princess tea parties and playing dress up.
So he could understand Arista’s apprehension about being surrounded by kids. The key was to not let them know you were scared. He gave her a smile and a wink as he set her up with the girls before making himself scarce. He had expected to get at least angry response, if not a howler, to his owl reminding of the event. He figured he should count himself lucky that she showed up at all, so hanging around would probably be a bad idea. Although he did watch from a distance as she spoke with an amused smile on his face. She was better at this that she gave herself credit for.
Once she finished and started handing tiara’s, he turned to go take over where the boys were off playing with the Arrows reserve chaser. Seth ended up stuck in a dog pile under some rowdy boys who had taken an instant liking to him. He had just swung one of them over his shoulder when he happened to notice Arista suddenly standing knocking her chair over. He certainly didn’t miss the look of panic in her eyes. He carefully put the boy down before moving quickly across the room. He didn’t have time to take in the sight of Arista Sykes flailing about and knocking over her ink well. He knelt down in front of the little girl, who was blinking dizzily at him. “Hey sweetie.” he said quietly. “Can you look at me? Show me those pretty eyes.” He grinned brightly once her eyes seemed to focus on him and she stopped swaying a little bit. He was hoping that all it was that she was trying to focus on too many things all at once and nothing more serious. Leanne got like that sometimes, worked herself into a right fit when she couldn’t decide what she wanted to do first. “There they are. Too many shiny things flying around here, aren’t there?”
The little girl nodded shyly before sneaking glance back up at the tiara in Arista’s hand. Seth was surprised that it hadn’t snapped in two with the grip she had on it. The kid obviously wanted the thing despite the fact that it had just made her go into some sort of fit. “I’ll make a deal with you, how about you go find your mum, and when you bring her back here, Miss Sykes will have a pretty tiara specially just for you.” Her blonde curls bobbed as she nodded her head vigorously and ran off in search of her mum.
Seth pressed his hands on his knees as he stood up to take care of the other freaked out girl. If she didn’t look so terrified, he might have laughed at the whole ordeal now that he knew the five year old was okay, but he remembered all the times he panicked when he first got Leanne and it wouldn’t have been fair to laugh. “Are
you okay?” he asked in all seriousness. “It wasn’t your fault. Kids get over excited, it happens.”
Her eyes were wide open, still staring at the spot the little girl had occupied seconds ago, as if she hadn't fully comprehended all that had just transpired in the last two minutes and that the danger was now over, no thanks to her.
But the hardest part to believe in all this, aside from nearly killing a small child aside (honestly, not that out of the realm of possibility for her) and his magical prowess with tiny human beings, was that Seth Wadcock was actually not laughing at her. From her half-sprawled position atop the table, Arista craned her head further to look at him through narrowed and suspicious eyes, searching for even the slightest hint that he found her current predicament amusing, so she could end him.
Luckily for his life, Seth seemed genuine in his concern. But suddenly that seemed worse than laughing at her. Because if this infuriating man wasn't trying to rib her some more, she must have literally almost killed that child to garner his sympathy. Now he must be trying to placate her so she wouldn't go on another killing spree. Or inadvertently throw another drink in his face.
Coming to her senses, she pulled herself up and away from the table and stared at the front of her fussy purple robes, now with a great streak of black across it, then at the mess of parchment, quills, and ink on the floor from when she dove onto the table top. Arista just wanted to die. Honestly crawl into a hole and stay there forever (which would hopefully be a very short while). Have the earth open up and swallow her. Maybe even plummet off a broom while at a great height. All of these options sounded much better than continuing to stay in this room.
"Do you see why I can't do these things!" she hissed suddenly, snapping out of her mini-comatose state and swatting Seth in the arm perhaps a little harder than she might have ordinarily, given the surge of adrenaline she was now experiencing. "I knew this whole thing was a rubbish idea!" And again, with the swatting. "TERRIBLE idea!" Once more. She muttered something about stupid bets and stupid drunk wizards. Hitting him made her feel a tiny bit better, though.
Once Arista started her assault on Seth’s arm (which he hoped she didn’t think that actually
hurt), he couldn’t help the chuckles that passed his lips. Obviously she was just fine if she was capable of taking out her anger on him. It was just all too much. The panic stricken look, the black splotch on her purple robes. The prim and proper Arista Sykes unraveling at the seams do to a adorable curly haired blonde who had focusing issues. He cover his mouth trying to curb his laughter a bit.
“Oh come on, one kid out of what? Twenty? Thirty? And she is
fine. By my standards you are doing great.” He said the smile never leaving his face. He really was trying not to laugh, but just the look on her face. And when she turned to glare at him, his snickers were renewed as he noticed that she had somehow managed to get a bit of ink on the side of her cheek. Poor thing was a mess, and Seth found it beyond amusing. "And it was a fantastic idea, thank you very much. The girls love you, never seen so many kids sit still for so long while you were speaking." He pointedly ignored her mutters.
“Now if you’ll stop abusing me.” He said reaching over and plucking the tiara that started this whole mess out of her hand and placed it on her head. “Look on the bright side, there is only about fifteen minutes left, and it looks like that girl was the last. And wouldn’t you know, you look fantastic wearing a tiara despite the ink on your face and robes.”
"On my
face?" Arista all but shrieked, finger tips immediately going to her cheek in horror. When she took them away and noted they were a smudgy black, she realized she'd probably just added four more smears to her face. Was this, in fact, the worst day ever?
Striving to maintain her dignity, she lowered her hand and composed her face into its trademark unflappable and unimpressed expression while trying not to dwell on the fact that, in addition to being splashed with ink on her face and her robes, she couldn't be trusted with simple magic or small children. Instead, Arista sullenly accused life of generally dealing her such a rotten hand at present, that Seth Wadcock was making her feel better about herself. The same Seth Wadcock who tried to drunkenly use her as a dating decoy and then make a number of innuendos about how they would be spending the night. She wasn't quite sure what to make of this Seth Wadcock who was acting nice and dealing out compliments and, yes, was laughing at her, but not in a way that seemed wholly malicious. Considering he could quite possibly have taken some form of legal action against her just now, she was in the baffling and somewhat uncomfortable position of feeling just a little indebted to him for not doing so.
Not that she found him any less insufferable in the least. Or that she felt even the slightest bit inclined to forgive him for the scene they didn't quite make that night at the party. She was simply… calling for a truce.
At least, until he started laughing again.
"I—Thank you, I suppose." Arista studied him for a moment, then looked away awkwardly. Her hands made to adjust the headpiece until she remembered the ink on her hands and dropped them by her sides. "It's only—I don't really get along with children." Understatement of the year. "But I appreciate you... intervening. You may be a jerk, but you can keep a relatively calm head during the impending death of a five-year-old. Which is more than I can say for myself."
Seth just laughed more as she spread more ink on her face. “Here, merlin, just stop. You are making it worse.” he said, glad he caught her attention before she tried to adjust her tiara again. He pulled out his wand and performed a quick spell to siphon the ink off her hands and robes. When you had a three year old, you learned spells to clean up ink and various other stains pretty quickly. “I didn’t get along with children much either, but having a baby dropped off on your doorstep changes your perspective pretty quickly. Believe me, you are starting out much better than I did.”
Seth just shrugged his shoulder as he put his wand away. “There, you are now ink free. And really it’s no big deal. It’s terrifying when they freeze up like that and you have no idea what to do. It gets easier.” he said reaching under the table to get one of the extra tiaras. The charm work on the snitches were too complex for him to deactivate, but when the little girl came back with her mom, he could give it to her and just be sure to point out that she shouldn’t turn it on, or suggest she find someone who could uncharm it altogether. “I mean, if I can learn to be good with kids, I’m pretty sure anyone can. Just don’t go telling anyone, I still have a reputation to uphold, Seth Wadcock, asshole and inconsiderate jerk to all.”
He twirled the tiara between his figures considering giving Arista an out. Obviously kids were out of her area of expertise and after everything at the end of season party things were a bit awkward, but a deal was a deal. And he was pretty positive that he wasn’t going to get any other Pride players unless they were forced into it. What he really wanted was to get Arista to keep doing this because she wanted to, not because of some stupid bet. Although, when he thought about it, he was pretty sure he ruined any chances of that at the end of season bash. She certainly seemed like the type of person who didn’t like being told when they couldn’t handle something. “So.” he started out a bit awkwardly. “How about after this is all over you let me take you out for dinner, or at the very least coffee. I believe I still owe you quite a bit after how rude I was at the party. I’ll give you tips for next time, that is if you are still willing to volunteer. I wouldn’t want to keep making you do something you didn’t want to do over some silly bet.”
"Silly or not, I don't renege on bets—that
you proposed, I might add," she said, still a little haughtily. For someone who found this whole proposition downright shocking and appalling two months ago, she'd apparently become a champion gambler with a professional's integrity. Arista stared absently down at her hands, now free of ink, and sighed. It was hard dealing with this man when he wasn't outrightly doing things that made her want to throttle him with her small but deadly precise hands. She still wasn't used to him showing the nice, decent, and relatable side, which she presumed stemmed from the daughter she didn't really know he had.
"But perhaps… dinner wouldn't be so bad." Mad as she was, Arista could not deny she'd just been saved by Seth Wadcock. As unpalatable as the idea was, being rude at a party was severely outweighed by saving a child from Arista-induced peril. She didn't have to tell
him that, though. Anyway, they'd survived Valentine's night together, didn't they? Another dinner couldn't be so bad.
Provided, of course, he wasn't drunk and she didn't have to pretend to be somebody's date or kiss someone who tasted like a pub. Surely that couldn't happen
twice in a row.
“Hey now, I didn’t mean it like that. You yourself said not five minutes ago this was a terrible idea, I was trying to be nice. And dinner, that was just--” Seth stopped mid sentence when he finally processed what Arista had actually said. He was all ready to argue his point, dinner was merely just a meeting of colleagues, and he was genuinely just trying to help her for future events. He was not at all expecting her to agree that easily, if at all.
“Really?” he asked still a bit shocked. Actually he really didn’t have a plan in place at all for if she agreed, he made the offer fully expecting to be shot down. Not that it wasn’t doable, it would just take a little juggling. “Well, alright then. Just have to finish up here, and I’ll owl someone to pick up Leanne from daycare, as I’m sure you’ve had enough children for one day.” Seth said gathering himself, pushing off the table he had been leaning against.
“You can pick where we go,” he said leaning over to pick up some miscellaneous clutter, “If you can finish with your area before I finish with mine.” Seth challenged, although it was a rather easy one. Her area being where she did her signing and his being well, everything else.
She empathized greatly with his blatant surprise; Arista felt much the same way. "Ladies never choose the destination," she told him primly, in spite of the smudges of ink still on her face and her hopelessly mussed hair. "They only give their approval or disapproval."
Looking critically at the ink-splashed, paper-strewn, chairs-upturned area she was standing directly in front of, she crinkled her nose. You would think, if he continued to go on so pompously about how prestigious W.W.Q. was, they might manage a service-witch or two to manage the dismantling and cleaning up. Dusting her hands off, she raised an eyebrow in his direction before turning to walk towards the signing table.
"We'll see which one you get."
