And then there were three on Aladren Commons

Captain Daniel Nash II

January 18, 2011 12:05 PM

Quidditch Sign-Ups by Captain Daniel Nash II

He had known he was supposed to put up a sign-up sheet well before the Coach's letter reminded him, but his summer had been far too busy to have time to make one before he left home and now he was staring a blank piece of paper. After a few minutes of doing that, he decided that it did not reflect poorly on him as a person or a captain if he was not visually creative. After that it was much easier and he just wrote out in his cleanest handwriting:

Aladren Quidditch Sign-Ups

All parties interested in being a part of the Aladren Quidditch Team should sign up below by providing their Name, Year, and desired position(s). Try-outs will be held next Saturday (that's the second Saturday of the term) at 10 AM. Signing up prior to that time would be much appreciated for maximum efficiency.

Below that, he added his own name, as an example sign-up.

Captain Daniel Nash II, 6th Year, Chaser

Subthreads:

Making it official by Edmond Carey

And then there were three by Arnold Carey

Four by Arthur Carey

Five. by Russell Layne

Six by Samantha Hamilton

Seven by Preston Stratford

Eight, who do we appreciate? by David Wilkes

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Edmond Carey

January 22, 2011 1:38 PM

Making it official by Edmond Carey

Since he was aware he was Assistant Captain of the Quidditch team, and had the badge to prove it, it didn’t occur to Edmond right away that he still needed to sign up, but after checking on the sheet and noticing it was still empty, he also noticed that he wasn’t directly mentioned on it. It would be…awkward if the Assistant Captain wasn’t actually on the team, very awkward, and while he doubted they would ever get such an influx of new prodigies that he’d be displaced, well, it was still better to handle things. Besides, anyone signing up would make it look more like the team was worth joining, which might help out those who were hesitating.

The next two years were going to be interesting enough, between juggling actual school duties with his correspondence with his tutors and his family's ambitions and maintaining a semblance of relationships with the people he had those with, without having to try, as Teppenpaw had before, to win a game with only six players on the field - or, worse enough that he preferred not to think of it, forfeit the season because they couldn't get enough people for even a skeleton team. That would be embarrassing, very much so, especially after they'd won the Championship last year, and he didn't like the thought of that.

He would, if it came down to it, go out and start persuading people to join, but he hoped he wouldn't have to do that. For one thing, it was awkward, trying to make people think they wanted to do things they hadn't originally wanted to do, and for another thing, the best chance he'd have would be with the first years, who might have enthusiasm but most likely had less talent and included his relatives. There was always Cassie, too, but she was off-limits if they did have to go out with six. If she joined the Quidditch team, then almost every waking minute of his day would involve both competing with her and being helplessly attracted to her, and he expected it would induce either feelings-proclaiming insanity or an aneurism.

Assistant Captain Edmond Carey, Fifth Year, Beater or Chaser

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Arnold Carey

January 23, 2011 8:53 PM

And then there were three by Arnold Carey

It was all right, playing the Virginia team during family reunions, but one of the things Arnold had been most excited about coming to school for had been the prospect of Quidditch teams which had reasonably consistent rosters and met more than once a year. Since Virginia was the only branch large enough, with sub-branches, to field its own team, the South Carolina team was always composed of a mishmash of anyone both able to fly and remotely in the right age range, with girls – one now dead, the other both the daughter of one of the family’s bigger recent embarrassments and thrown out of his house by the woman he’d tried to kill – even playing on their side for one of the more serious games at the last Five Years’ Reunion. The in-family political divisions between its players were, Arnold believed, one of the reasons why his team usually lost, but a House team shouldn’t have that problem.

Not much, anyway. The assistant captain was Edmond, but since Arnold’s only option when it came to Edmond, so long as the fifth year wasn’t directly countermanding or acting against Anthony IV, was to do exactly as he was told without complaint or more questions than were necessary to understand the specifics of what was to be done, he didn’t think Edmond essentially being a Virginia Carey was going to be a problem for them. Not if nothing changed from the way it had been for Arnold’s first few days at Sonora.

It was strange. He had watched Edmond as closely as he could while still being discreet, but as not-closely as that was, he was still struck by how normal the head of the Savannah Careys seemed. If not for the girl around whom he invariably had a daft look on his face, he could have been an older, less pretty, slightly more cheerful Arthur. This did not square well with Arnold’s image of the Savannah Careys, and now he had to decide if Edmond was a very good liar, if everything he knew was wrong, or if something had just gone wrong in the blood and caused a family of rabid lions to produce a house cat.

Since it didn’t really matter if Edmond were really a genius sociopath or not so long as he was smart enough to not meddle with the older brothers of the South Carolina heir, though, his presence on and power in it was no reason for Arnold to not join the Quidditch team. In fact, he thought he had been successful in twisting it for his brother so it was a reason for them both to join the Quidditch team. He might not know until the day of try-outs if Artie signed up or didn’t, but if he did, then Arnold would have one of those rare moments where he felt he might have actually been born into the right family.

Arnold Carey, First Year, Any

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Arthur Carey

January 23, 2011 8:55 PM

Four by Arthur Carey

Arthur loved his twin brother, but he also usually thought of him as too impulsive and too emotional and too unrefined in his actual, as opposed to public, most of the time, tastes for Arnold’s success in life to be something he was prepared to predict favorably. He knew, too, that it wasn’t just his lack of experience and supposed inability, at eleven, to judge situations talking, because he’d heard Father talking to Grandfather, and they had both been concerned that Arnold would end up in Pecari. The last Carey to go there had been Morgaine, and while she had been successful in a way, it was because she had stepped completely out of her place. And since Arnold stepping out of his place would almost certainly involve violence against their younger brother’s person…

With all that in mind, Arthur had always taken it as his duty to keep Arnold in line, at least to a certain extent, until they were adults, when Arthur would be the model son and Arnold would find a marginally acceptable life that allowed him to channel his aggressive side productively, like joining a company or working for a bank or playing professional Quidditch or something. Every now and again, though, Arnold would do something that impressed him very much and made him wonder if they weren’t all underestimating his brother a little. Maybe it was just his interrupted sleep schedule making things hazy, but within a few days of arriving at Sonora, Arnie did exactly that.

Arthur was very sure that Arnold could hardly care less for politics and was really only in this for the broken bones and glory (possibly, and to Arthur disturbingly, more for the broken bones than for the glory; most of the time, Arnold simply didn’t seem to care how badly he got hurt, but at other times, he almost seemed to like it), but he had managed to make a fair argument for why it was in their best interests to join the Quidditch team together despite the dangers of being overly associated with Edmond before they were sure he was not unstable in some way. If they were closely associated with the current Head Boy and the likely future Head Boy, then not only would one of them be more likely to take the Quidditch captain’s position, but they’d be better off when the time came for prefect and headship selections.

It was a fair argument, and it tied in with Arthur’s long-term goals. Arnold must have known that, and played on his brother’s desire for power and recognition to get him to do what he wanted. Arthur didn’t think Anthony IV could have done it any better. At least part of why he signed up was just to please Arnold in payment for Arnold impressing him so much.

Arthur Carey, First Year, Any

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Russell Layne

January 24, 2011 12:12 AM

Five. by Russell Layne

Be involved in everything, Tessa had told him, her tone earnest and friendly, her expression betraying that she was reciting platitudes for the benefit of the adults around. That way, you can make lots of friends. And school is way more awesome when you have friends, trust me.

His cousin had only offered the advice because she’d been forced to – he knew for a fact that Tessa had never wanted to attend an actual school, just go on learning from Mrs. Ballard with the other local girls her age, and that she would never use that kind of vocabulary if she were being remotely sincere – but Russell had taken it to heart nevertheless. He was never going to find a place here, or make friends, if he kept to himself all the time and never did anything with other people. He loved his books, more than even his parents always seemed to think was fully healthy, but they were even better when he had someone to discuss them with.

Quidditch and flying weren’t really things he couldn’t live without, just that he’d gone along with so other people would continue to tolerate his tangents on random subjects which interested him or which he just happened to know something about in kind, but the Quidditch team would mean regular meetings with people even if he was an alternate, which meant another chance to make friends. Possibly even with his roommates, since Arnold and Arthur had already signed up. Russell was a little intimidated by the other Aladren boys so far, but the only way to get over that was to get to know them. Rich people who’d somehow learned more than he had – an impressive feat; he might not have had private tutors, but he did have a private library – were people, too.

Plus, he had done some research on the school before he came, and had been surprised to see his surname a few times, with first names he wasn’t familiar with from the family tree, on the lists of old Quidditch captains and Head Boys and Girls. A little more research had revealed that all these other Laynes were, with one random Muggleborn exception from San Francisco, actually his distant relatives in South Carolina. A brother-sister pair, Geoffrey and Helena, him a Head Boy and both of them Quidditch captains, had graduated recently enough to still be in college, if they’d gone. It seemed to have been about a hundred years since there’d been any contact between his family and their family, but he still had a feeling of having something to live up to. Beyond Tessa, anyway. Tessa’s brain scared him. It sounded awful, so he never said it and tried not to think it, but Russell wasn’t used to dealing with people who were smarter than him, and Tessa was the main exception to the rule.

Before he could do any of that, though, he had to start volunteering for things, and getting involved, as awkward as he might feel about it, and the Quidditch team was as good a place as any to start.

Russell Layne, 1st Year, Chaser

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Samantha Hamilton

January 25, 2011 11:10 AM

Six by Samantha Hamilton

Last year Samantha hadn't played on the Quidditch team. In her first year she'd signed up just to see what Quidditch was all about - as a Muggle starting magic school for the first time she'd been eager to join in with everything. Quidditch had been okay, a little scary if she was honest, but fun. She'd also been on the soccer team, a sport that hadn't been revived since. That was okay, because Samantha could player soccer at home with her brothers anyway (or at least do shoot-outs in the yard) but Quidditch was ongoing. It so happened that last year she wasn't sure at the sign-ups whether or not she wanted to play, and as Aladren had a full team she thought she'd sit it out for a year. She'd kind of missed being on a team, and she'd taken part in the choir in the oncert at the end of the year, but it wasn't the same.

This year, when she returned to school, Samanhta knew what she was going to do. When she saw that sign-up sheet posted, she only took the time to find a pen before adding her name to those already on there:

Samantha Hamilton, third year, Chaser or Keeper.

She had played Chaser before, but she wouldn't mind giving Keeper a go, either. She didn't really have the build or mentality to play Beater, and Seeker wasn't really her idea of fun - she wanted to feel like a part of the team, whereas seeker seemed much more like playing on your own. Just to see whether she'd be likely to get her place on the team, Samantha checked to see who else had signed up. A lot of the people she'd originally played with seemed to have graduated - Daniel was the captain now. He'd been captain of the soccer team so Samantha thought he'd do okay with Quidditch. She didn't know a lot of the other people who had signed up, because they were frist years. It would be fun not to be the youngest player on the team this time round. Also, Aladren had won the Quidditch Cup last year, which Samantha thought was a good omen in their favor.

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Preston Stratford

January 26, 2011 5:06 PM

Seven by Preston Stratford

Preston Stratford had always been of the idea that Quidditch was useless. To him, it was just a bunch of brainless dweebs flying around getting hurt. The sport never had a lure for him. Yes, he knew how to fly, and sort of enjoyed it, but after a rather illuminating talk with the Head Boy and awesome Aladren, he had decided to give it a shot. Not once in his rather short life, had he thought about the sport the way Head Boy Nash did, their small conversation had opened a whole lot of possibilities to the first-year. To be honest, he was kind of mad at himself for never seeing the game as a political game. Now that he analyzed every bit of information given to him, he had to accept that Daniel was right and he as wrong. It had left a rather bitter taste in his mouth…he had never been wrong before! Or maybe he had been, but nobody had corrected him. Needless to say, Preston now saw Daniel Nash II as a role-model. He wanted to be like him when he grew up: An awesome Head Boy.

With that in mind, he made up his mind and went to the common room to sign-up. For some unfathomable reason he was feeling ashamed about it. He had spent the better part of his life ranting against brainless Quidditch players, and now he was about to become one of them. The only thing that eased his mind was the fact that he was doing it for political and academically reasons, instead of just playing it for a passion or something stupid like that. No, he was better than them, and would always be. He just hoped that Daniel thought he was good enough to be part of his team.

The green-eyed Aladren used the self-inking Quill he in his hand to write down his name and desired position below everyone else’s. A small smile graced his features when he saw the name of the Carey twins. Yes, this had been a good decision. A good way to make connection worth having.

Preston Stratford, First year. Any position

Preston went back to his room feeling quite smug with himself. It was the first step to become Head Boy, like Daniel.

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David Wilkes

January 28, 2011 11:59 PM

Eight, who do we appreciate? by David Wilkes

Sports had never really been David’s thing. He didn’t know if it was an effect of having two sisters, one very girly and the other very academic, or of his parents holding the rest of the species in faint contempt, or just something intrinsically solitary in his nature, but he’d never felt that urge to belong to a team and go outdoors that drew other people to baseball and football and basketball and the Boy Scouts and whatever else. He’d learned to play a little golf because a few of his mother’s cousins credited being able to play golf with making the connections that got them out of a ten-child household on welfare, but that was about it.

He had, however, discovered in his first year that he liked flying. It didn’t give him the feeling of accomplishment that mastering a new spell or succeeding in impressing Professor Fawcett a little with his essays did, but it was fun just the same, and he’d been disappointed to see that second years didn’t still have flying lessons. He could have signed up to take them over, but that would have been weird and made him look weird, or at best like a showoff, since he’d passed them very well the first time and was in no need of remediation. And he really did need to get out more. People here were interesting – more than people at home, anyway – and he was getting tired of discussing everything with himself. The points of view were never quite far enough apart for it to work right.

The obvious solution to both problems was to join the Quidditch team, but that was already full, and he didn’t really know how to play it, anyway. He’d attended the games last year because it seemed the right thing to do when it was his House and his House was supposed to be a bit like his family here, but he’d ended up reading through most of both games. What was the point, really, when there was a Seeker? Even the books on the subject agreed that it was statistically unlikely, even in professional games, for everything besides the catching of the Snitch to really matter in the outcome of an individual game, though it could bear on how a team stood in the rankings, for those who cared. Here, he supposed that translated somehow into how House points were handed out for winning.

So instead, he signed up as an alternate. That way, they’d still maybe be able to operate even if something happened to someone – and he didn’t think having three players from the same family was any better of an idea than hiring relatives to work together was in the Muggle world; if someone’s grandmother died at just the wrong time, they’d be playing with four people while the Careys went to a funeral – and he’d get to socialize and fly a bit without actually probably having to play the game.

It seemed like decent logic to him, anyway.

David Wilkes, 2nd, Alt.

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