The Devil's Trill [Aidan]

[Morrigan Devlin]

The final note lingered in the air long after the bow left the strings. For a moment, the tavern was unusually quiet. Not silent, The Last Port was never truly silent but quieter than normal. Conversations had softened while she'd played, tankards had paused halfway to lips, and even the old wizard in the corner who usually argued with himself about Quidditch statistics had shut his mouth long enough to listen. Morrigan lowered the violin slowly, emerald eyes sweeping across the room. A few of the regulars offered applause. Someone near the hearth whistled. Another demanded she play another song.

"Buy enough whiskey and maybe I will," she called back in her thick Irish brogue. The response earned a round of laughter. A crooked grin tugged at one corner of her mouth as she stepped down from the small platform tucked into the back of the tavern. The violin remained tucked beneath one arm while she made her way behind the bar, slipping easily back into the role most people knew her for. Proprietor. Referee. Occasional source of bad decisions and worse advice.

She set the instrument safely beneath the counter before reaching for a glass that needed drying. Not that it actually needed drying. She simply preferred having something to do with her hands. The tavern was comfortably busy tonight. Enough patrons to fill most of the tables without making the place feel crowded. The air smelled faintly of woodsmoke, spiced stew, and Firewhisky. Familiar. Safe. At least as safe as anything ever felt these days. The feeling lasted all of three seconds.

Her eyes drifted toward the door as another patron entered. Immediately she regretted looking because she knew exactly who it was. Merlin help her, Aidan Blackwood. She couldn't even claim surprise anymore. He'd developed an irritating habit over the years. Every so often he'd simply appear. Sometimes for a drink. Sometimes for a meal. Sometimes just to sit and talk. Talk. As though that was normal. As though they were normal.

Once upon a time, sitting across from him had involved uncomfortable questions, awkward silences, and his infuriating ability to look at her like he could see every thought she was trying not to think. Back then he'd had the advantage of being her healer. There had been rules. Expectations. Now there weren't. Which somehow made everything worse. Because now when he asked how she was doing, he wasn't asking because it was his job. And she still hadn't figured out what to do with that.

Morrigan scowled faintly at the glass in her hand as though it had personally offended her. One of the regulars perched at the bar glanced between her and the entrance before snorting into his drink.

"Your boyfriend's here."

The look she shot him could have melted stone. "Say that again and I'll charge you double." The old wizard only laughed harder. Traitor. Morrigan muttered something deeply unflattering under her breath before setting the glass aside. She straightened, smoothed a hand down the front of her shirt, then immediately frowned because she had absolutely no reason to be doing that. None whatsoever.

She grabbed a bottle from the shelf behind her instead and busied herself pouring a drink for another customer, stubbornly refusing to glance toward his direction again. The fact that she knew exactly where Aidan was without looking was entirely beside the point.

[Aidan Blackwood]

Aidan stepped into The Last Port, looking around and taking in its rather rustic charm before spotting that head of red hair at the bar. From what he'd heard coming up to the bar, she had been up there playing. He wished he'd have gotten here a bit sooner to see it himself, but.

He walked over to the bar as she very much pretended he wasn't in the room, bringing a smirk to his face. "Red, I didn't think we'd parted on such bad terms you would want to pretend I don't exist," he teased her. He'd come in a few times since he'd learned about it, especially when he'd come up here to check on Tatiana, not to do the same necessarily to Morrigan- she wasn't his patient anymore.

He just actually enjoyed coming to see her.

"I thought I was coming in following a bonnie performance, but you're scowling like someone just tried to skip their tab," he mused as he leaned onto the counter.

While he'd moved into a professional setting before meeting her, these kinds of places were still... comfortable for him. He'd spent plenty of time in bars such as these in his hit wizard days, so it was like slipping into an old coat.

"Could I perhaps get a whisky when you're ready to deign my existence? I've yet to decide whether the Irish make it better."

He did find it amusing that she reacted to him in such a way, but he made a point to not try to read her. He didn't want to keep treating her like a patient because he wanted to get to know her beyond that. It kept them on an uneven footing if he didn't turn his brain off when he interacted, and what better way to shut up that analytical part of his mind than to drown it in whisky?