When Niamh turned to face her, Aurelie was still looking at her lap, posture compact. It was only when Niamh said her name that she looked up from tracing the edge of some stain or another with her eyes. She hadn't really been expecting a response to her half-formed and ill-planned question. If she couldn't even decide what it was she wanted to know, how could Niamh possibly answer her? She was struck again by how odd it was, to have her be so... Normal wasn't quite the right word, but something very like it. Talking to Aurelie like a person, a real person. Not always an intelligent person, to be sure, and she had experienced it enough to know Niamh had a bad habit of condescension. Still, a person of some kind.
"Recently enough," Aurelie admitted. There was a discomfort in acknowledging that her sister had come to see her. Too close to what Ana had actually come to say, and Aurelie wasn't about to tell Niamh about any of that. No matter how kind she was being, they weren't friends and Aurelie was not often given to trust. The wound was too close, too personal. Too twisted up in things about herself she didn't know how to explain or if she even should.
When Niamh paused, Aurelie straightened her posture a little, curious. She frowned when Niamh reached out a hand, but gave it readily enough. She didn't immediately understand what Niamh was trying to show her, or why--until she started speaking again, and Aurelie realized with a kind of wonder that she was looking at the signs of her own nervous habit on Niamh's hands.
The sight was surreal. Niamh was much better at keeping her nails neat than Aurelie was, of course; while she'd long been trying to stop, she couldn't keep the biting under control and the last few days had been especially trying. The servant girl almost wanted to pull her hands away and bury them out of sight, a wave of shame washing over her at the state of them, but that wasn't what Niamh was trying to demonstrate. That the student was the nervous sort was no surprise, Aurelie had seen that well enough for herself--still. It was strange to feel that twist of recognition. She wasn't sure what to say in response to Niamh's confession, but she made a sympathetic hum of understanding.
"I have never known my sister to do anything she doesn't want to do," Aurelie said with a sort of fond exasperation in response to Niamh's assurances. One corner of her mouth crooked up in a smile. No, Lilliana Steerpike felt no obligation to anyone but herself, as far as Aurelie knew. The passive drew her hand back and folded them awkwardly out of sight while trying to downplay her own discomfort at the state of them.
Although--Ana hadn't come to see her, to say all of this, until... Aurelie's mind still skittered off lingering on the knowledge. She had to wonder at that. Why wait so long? Would Ana tell her, if she asked? Or would she lie, the way one lied to a child who had asked a question you thought they were better off not having the answer to. Given her attitude when they spoke, Aurelie thought she knew the answer.
"I suspect my... parents... Er, I don't think they'd be... pleased. If they knew. Which I guess is why she--" Aurelie cut herself off, shaking her head. That was far enough in that line of thought. She turned to fix her attention on Niamh's face instead, weighing what she saw there.
"No, Ana... my sister... She said... I don't know what she wants from me," Aurelie admitted softly. That was the closest she could come to it, at this moment. In the space of time after her admission, awkwardness drifted up in her. This wasn't--she didn't need to say this, not to Niamh, not to anyone. Maybe someday. But not today, when she felt scraped raw inside and out.
"...I do hope he's alright in there," Aurelie said suddenly, casting a glance to the washroom door. The subject change was managed with her usual grace. It was just--if she talked about this anymore it would suffocate her. She might start to cry again, an eventuality she would rather avoid. Crying in front of Fionn had been hard enough. That had proved somewhat steadying in the end; she didn't think having Niamh see her break down would have quite the same effect.