She stood next to her best friend, Alli, and they wore matching blue T-shirts with "Melbourne Rebels" printed on the front in navy that they'd purchased at a merchandise stand only some minutes prior - at a rather ridiculous price. The backtrack to the Australian national anthem was blaring through the speakers of the packed-to-the-brim Allianz Stadium, and she had her right arm across her chest over her heart just like all the beer-bellied men, toddlers with painted faces, teenagers who would later be waving flags, basically everyone around her.
The only difference between her and them was that they knew the lyrics to "Advance Australia Fair" and she only knew the part that goes "Advance Australia Fair." It was mid-July and that meant that the temperatures would range between a minimum of zero and a maximum of approximately twenty-three degrees Celsius at midday, on a good day. Tonight the weather report said that it would be a chilly 9 degrees but Nicola, hailing from Minnesota where it most certainly gets colder than that, only wore a light zip-up jacket which she kept unzipped in order to reveal her support for the Melbourne Rebels.
Her attire more or less resembled that of Alli's but was a one hundred percent contradiction to the heavy and thick K-Way parka that the gentleman next to her wore. He shouted the song of his people and he did so with the native accent that Nicola had grown attracted to in her short stay in this country slash continent.
"Excuse me ma'am," the gentleman with the accent said, tapping Nicola's shoulder after the anthem was complete, "I can't help but notice your shirt... uh it says 'Rebels'?"
Ma'am. He called me ma'am, she thought to herself.
Usually she'd take offence at the title, she's barely even 25, but the word coming from the defined jaw of this brown-eyed Australian left her with only one response to choose from: a smile, then a glance at the T-shirt she knew said what he said it did because she and Alli had had a brief difference in opinion about which T-shirts to buy so that they would fit in with the crowd; Alli won the quarrel.
"Yeah, go Melbourne Rebels, right?" Nicola said with as much fake enthusiasm as she could muster.
"Well-" the man said in between a small laugh "we're in Sydney and this is Waratahs home ground, so no. You're kind of an enemy right now."
Nicola held her hands up in mock surrender, "I don't even know how this game works. I actually told my friend here - Alli?" she said, gaining the other girl's attention. " - apparently we're rooting for the wrong team. I told you we should have bought the other shirts!"
"Well the other shirts were uglier and more expensive than these," Alli countered.
"See? Not my fault," Nicola said defending herself.
"I can tell by your accents that you're definitely not from here so I'll forgive you."
"Thank you, kind sir," Nicola said in her best Australian accent; Alli just nodded in agreement.
"I'm Steele by the way," 'kind sir' finally introduced himself, forgetting to also introduce his friend who was on his left, as he decided to give his new acquaintances a crash course on rugby - but mostly Nicola.
"A try is worth 5 points and-"
"Wait, what's a 'try'?" Nicola interrupted.
"When any one of the players of one team gets the ball past that white line of their respective sides, there," Steele pointed to the appropriate line on the green pitch.
"They get five points? Okay." Nicola confirmed.
"Exactly, and a try is awarded with a conversion which is worth an extra two points."
YOU ARE READING
Here: A Tronnor Short Story
Fanfiction"... the distance between the here where he was and the there where Troye was reinforced Connor's fondness of the little things."
