Ginger had been named Assistant Quidditch Captain for Teppenpaw - a title that kind of took her by surprise since half the team was older than her, but when she counted out who was in what year, she realized she was the next oldest after Liac, so she guessed it made sense since she'd be oldest after he graduated and that was kind of the point of the assistant.
So as her first act as Assistant Quidditch Captain, Ginger was putting up the sign-up sheet for Liac. She may have put more effort into it than she had her transfiguration homework last night, which she hoped would translate to another year of having a full roster. She had the rest of term to make up for one bad homework.
In calligraphic letters (coming from a family closely tied to Renaissance Faires, old style letters were her default for fancy posters), she had written "Teppenpaw Quidditch" and below that, in her neatest handwriting, she had continued, "Sign-up below to join the Triumphant return of the Teppenpaw House Team to Sonora's Quidditch Pitch! Include your name, year, and desired positions."
She figured just fielding a full team was a victory after years of not having one at all or sharing one with Crotalus, so there was total truth in calling it a victorious return even if they lost as much as they had as the Teppalus team.
On the first line of the list she had included herself as an example:
Ginger Pierce, 4th Year, Keeper
On the rest of the sheet she had drawn little prairie dogs flying on brooms and passing a Quaffle around and animated the drawing with a charm, so the were flying all over the page and hopefully gaining the attention of passers by and making them smile at the cuteness and encouraging them to join the team.
Subthreads:
Eager Beaver/Prairie Dog by Nat Varth
It's basically like being a dragon by Gabe Valenti
Joining in. by Joseph Umland
Woooo!! by Jake Manger
1Ginger PierceQuidditch Team Sign-up Sheet302Ginger Pierce15
Natalie had had a fairly rough homecoming during the summer. She had missed Sonora and her friends right away but she was comforted by the fact that she’d be with her family. Though her sisters were much the same, her brothers had both been strange. So had Marigold. It was not the welcome she expected. Apparently Marigold had had some news, news she didn’t share with Nat. The whoel summer they’d danced around each other’s toes, trying to avoid conflict with the other. Summer had ended before Nat found out what was bothering her, and now she was back, where she was always excited to be but worry ate at her. Now was the time she most needed distraction.
As she came down from the second year girl’s Teppenpaw dormitory, her new bed picked out and trunks haphazardly placed on top and under it, she felt a little bit lighter. She had two homes and she had misses Sonora more than she thought she would. She hadn’t seen Gabe at the Opening Feast but would during class if not sooner, and so didn’t dash off to find him. Instead she went to the Common Room to play meet-and-greet with some of the first years. That had been the plan until she saw it.
It was here. It was finally real, finally happening. Natalie was going to be, even if practice just a glorified bench warmer, a Quidditch player. The Quidditch Sign-up sheet was UP! She and Gabe had practiced so often, so hard, so diligently last year and their hard work had paid off, as well as it could have (better than, in her opinion) for two eleven year olds who’d never ridden brooms before that year. Given the situation and her house’s propensity for acceptance, she doubted she and Gabe wouldn’t be welcomed. Maybe Teppenpaw could have its own team this year! She would be part of a team at her new favorite place!
She quickly read over it, highly amused by the flying prairie dogs, and reached for the quill attached to the parchment and quickly signed her name proudly:
Natalie Varth, Second Year, Chaser (preferably)
She was glad she and Gabe had had a discussion about what positions they’d prefer as it had helped solidify her preference. Though Seeking did sound fun and she thought Gabe would make a great one when the position opened (maybe it was already?) she knew it wasn’t for her. Chasing sounded perfect. Luckily it also had the most positions available, so hopefully that would work out. Keeper was her second choice, and being a Beater last. But, despite her preferences, had she been assigned any position she’d play it to her fullest potential.
It's basically like being a dragon
by Gabe Valenti
Gabe darted down from the second year boys’ room and into the common room, where he was met by the poster he’d been waiting for practically ever since he started the school. Quidditch tryouts! He’d been practicing all first year for this, and then as much as he could last summer, and then pretty much as soon as he landed when he arrived at Sonora. Sitting his bag on a nearby armchair, he dug through his backpack, in search of a pen. Luckily, it was the beginning of the year, and the bag was in a state of organized chaos, as opposed to the usual state of chaos it was sure to be in within the week.
He approached the board with the pen and grinned. Nat had already signed up! She was going to be an awesome Chaser, he was sure of it. They had worked so hard for so long.
Gabe Valenti, 2nd Year,
The chubby second year paused. Like Nat, he had been listed in the yearbook as a Chaser on the Teppenpaw Quidditch team last year. But that had been in name only, because there had been no Quidditch. It was really kind of the Yearbook People to include them though. Was that really the position he wanted to play? Not that there was anything wrong with Chasing, actually it was so much fun. And he was already used to working with Nat, who he was sure would make the team. But he loved speed, to do anything daring on a broom, and thought maybe Seeking was more up his alley. And ever since the challenges last year, Clark Dill was kind ofna hero of his, and Clark played Seeker. It would be really cool to go up against someone as good as him. Though, wasn’t there already a Seeker on the team? Gabe didn’t want to challenge them or anything. And maybe having an older Seeker around was a good thing! Gabe had been practicing with Nat and on his own for over a year now, but he hadn’t had any formal training. It would be an excellent opportunity if he could learn from a more experienced Seeker during practices. With a grin, he made his addition, and darted off to breakfast.
Seeker or Chaser
0Gabe ValentiIt's basically like being a dragon330Gabe Valenti05
The movement on the Quidditch sign-up sheet was the first thing that caught Joe’s eye and accomplished its goal of making him smile when he saw what it was. When he combined the image with the calligraphy and punctuation, it reminded him of the coloring books he’d had when he was younger (one of the minor downsides of having a former academic for a mother and main teacher for years: educational coloring books) and how Dad had sometimes animated them for him after Joe finished coloring them in. He just watched the animation for a minute, trying to figure out if the prairie dogs were using any real maneuvers or if they were just tossing the Quaffle, before he remembered to open his bag and look for something to write with.
When he found something, he quickly wrote down Joseph Umland, 1st year, Chaser – and then paused, trying to decide if he should add anything else. He’d practiced Seeker with his brother some last year, but he wasn’t sure if he should mention it. For one thing, John was way too involved with the school’s two existing Seekers, one of them not in a good way at all, and for another thing, Gabe had already volunteered as Seeker.
He decided to leave his sign-up there and put his pen away with another glance at the playing prairie dogs. Ginger really was cool, he thought, and wondered if he should reconsider whether or not she was totally out of John’s league for the prefect’s dance at the Ball. He’d thought she was too pretty and too popular to bother suggesting when John inevitably remembered that Julian had been required to find a dance partner and panicked over the fact that his social circle was completely made up of guys, but Ginger was also really nice and didn’t seem to be racist and Joe thought he could possibly use this sign to convince John that she might know something about illuminated manuscripts and was therefore interesting enough to spend literally three minutes with before he found Clark for one last nerdy argument before they were tragically separated by international borders for two months. The ‘pretty and popular’ parts would probably land Ginger a real date before Christmas, but she still wasn’t as unlikely to work out as the first person Joe had thought of….
Jake bounded up to the Quidditch sign up admittedly pretty excited. It was starting to seem like this year, Crotalus and Teppenpaw would be fielding full teams. While he had liked his Crotalus teammates, it was going to be cool to have an actual independent team. And, perhaps a little selfishly, he was pretty sure that would mean he’d actually get to play; Jake was a team player and was fine with whatever needed to be done, but he had rode the bench in favor of Uzume Shinohara, who was admittedly a better player than him, for a few years now. With a separate arrangement, this could be the year he actually made it into the fray.
When he got up to the sheet, though, he noticed that Captain Liac had yet to sign his own name. Which was weird, he thought, given that the Captain was the one who was supposed to post the thing, so he would have thought Liac’s name would be the first. But it wasn’t. And upon further inspection, Jake realized he knew that handwriting, but it wasn’t Liac’s. Instead, it belonged to the person whose name was first on the list, accompanied by “4th year, Keeper”.
Ginger got Assistant Captain! Oh, he was so excite for his more than a friend that he just about burst out of his skin with joy. How great! He was a little surprised she hadn’t mentioned it to him, but then again, they hadn’t been back to school very long at all, so she probably hadn’t even known long herself before setting to work on the signup.
He scanned the other names on the list, all belonging to younger people who seemed to want to be Chasers (one had put “Seeker or Chaser”, but, well, sorry kid, but Jake kinda had some dibs), before adding his own beneath theirs: