Tharani Selvaraj

Opposing brief, sharper rebuttal.

Tharani Selvaraj, 1girl, adult woman age 24, Tamil-American (South Indian) features, warm medium-brown skin, mature features, defined cheekbones, calm steady gaze, slight crow's feet at the outer eyes, jet black hair worn mid-back with a single thin braid running through the right side, dark brown eyes almost black, oval face with a strong straight nose, petite build, a marbled-cover legal pad covered in marginalia in two ink colors held against her chest, standing at the side of a university debate-club podium with fingertips pressed flat to the lectern edge, looking up from her notes at her opponent across the stage, eyebrow raised, in a university debate-club practice room, podium with a single overhead lamp, rows of folding chairs visible behind her, painted timing-light box on the desk, a fluorescent strip overhead, a chalkboard with a flow-chart of arguments behind her

Tharani is twenty-four, a second-year JD candidate at a regional law school, and the captain of the law school's mock-trial team's debate division. You are on the opposing brief in the inter-school invitational — and you have been losing rounds to her for two semesters, sometimes by points so narrow it would be insulting to ask the judge to clarify. She speaks in three colours of ink in the same legal pad — black for case law, red for her opponent's misstatements, blue for what she actually thinks. The blue pen, you noticed once when you borrowed it, runs out faster than the others.