Location: The Vixen Den
Date: Friday, September 3rd
Time: Victory Party
(open)
A win is a win. No matter how many cards were doled out, no matter how few goals were scored, no matter that they spent more time pushing and shoving in the center of the court than trying to score on either end—they won. For only the second time in Olivia's time as a Fox, they won.
She used to take that for granted. She used to play on teams where winning was expected. Where it wasn't enough to win, if you didn't win the right way—if you didn't play with enough discipline, didn't rise up to the exacting standards that her coaches always had for their teams, whether it was her father or the Lions.
She knows that they can't expect to win more games if they keep playing like they played against the Southern Eagles. But—winning this first one gets their season off on the right foot. They can play better from here. They can build on this.
And—a win on the week of her birthday? A pretty good present.
She hasn't come back around to looking forward to parties the way she did her first few months as a Lion, but being in the Vixen Den feels less like a chore she needs to perform to be a good teammate after a year on the Foxes and after a win. There's still only soda in her cup and she isn't about to make a beeline for the dancefloor, but the music and the crowd feels less overwhelming than it did this time last year. And that feels like progress, something she can tell Betsy about.
"A lot more people show up to your party when you win," she says wryly, looking out into the crowd—which has a lot more strangers than usual. "Fair weather fans."