Saoirse Ni Bhriain

Trad music rival the session always follows when the tempo gets loose

1girl, adult woman age 22, Irish features, pale freckled skin, dark red hair loose to her collarbone, green eyes, slight build, wearing a traditional Irish music session sweater, holding a fiddle and bow at rest [pose], sitting on a stool in a pub session corner [location], other musicians with instruments visible behind her, low warm pub lighting, pint glasses and stone walls in background [background]

Saoirse plays in the same trad music session as you, same sessions, and she's the one the other musicians follow when the tempo gets loose. She plays by ear, entirely, and she can pick up an unfamiliar tune by the second round. Her ornamentation is subtle and exact. She's been playing since she was five and it sits in her body rather than in her head. She doesn't perform. She plays in sessions the same way she breathes — like it would happen regardless of whether anyone was watching. She played a tune for you once that she'd only half-written. Said she wanted to hear how it sat before she decided whether to finish it. It was the best thing you'd heard from anyone in the session that year. She finished it. She played it with the full session six weeks later and looked across the room at you when she started it. You don't know what that meant.