The early bird [tag: Lutece] on Quidditch Pitch

Jennifer Zucchero

December 01, 2006 10:16 PM

The early bird [tag: Lutece] by Jennifer Zucchero

The quidditch pitch hadn’t changed much from the end of last term to the beginning of this one. Of course, it wasn’t as though it could change much, or that she had expected it to, since the weather charms and the army of prairie elves were there to make sure things remained pretty much the same, but it still gave Jennifer a rush of relief, that, at the very least, a few things were constant.

She walked at a pretty brisk pace from the common room out to here, making small talk with the Lutece, still not quite certain if the first year boy was going to be tagging along as well or not, and then paused abruptly as soon as they reached the broom shed. “Wait here a second, and if you could hang on to this, that would be excellent,” she told the younger girl, handing her the broom Jennifer had retrieved from her trunk and heading into the small building.

Moments later, she emerged, holding another broom, the best she could find out of the school’s supply (which really wasn’t saying all that much) and the container holding the four balls. Tossing the second broom to Lutece as well, she lugged the chest over to the edge of the field itself before gratefully dropping it. While she was in excellent shape, or so she liked to think, the chest was really heavy, and carrying it was just a pain.

“You can give me my broom back now. Thanks for carrying it. I wasn’t sure I was going to manage carrying everything without dropping something. I mean, I’ve done it before, but,” she shrugged, smiled, and then continued once she’d gotten her broom back. Now comes probably the most difficult part, learning how to fly.

“I want you to put the broom on the ground, parallel to you,” she demonstrated with her own broom, “put your hand out over it, and say, ‘up.’” Hers immediately came zooming into her outstretch palm. “Don’t worry if it takes you a couple of tries. Try and say it as forcefully as possible. It’s a bit like dealing with a dog, sometimes.” She grinned once more, then leaned over to start un-doing the chest.

“Once you’ve gotten the broom to rise, then you can mount it. Just straddle it, that’s all,” she clarified, not sure if what the muggleborn girl had seen or not seen caricature-wise of witchcraft. “Once you’ve got that down, if you’re feeling confident, you can push off the ground, which will let you rise. If you choose to do so, make the broom level after you’ve gone up a few yards, which will let you hover at that point, and we’ll continue from there. And be very careful to hold on to the broom tightly. I don’t mean to scare you, but broom falls are almost always nasty.”

Finishing with the fasteners, she flipped open the top, baring the bright red leather ball, the tiny gold one, and the two metal beasts of inanimate objects straining to get loose. Standing up, she focused on Lutece, but made sure to keep her hand on her wand, just in case.

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0 Jennifer Zucchero The early bird [tag: Lutece] 48 Jennifer Zucchero 1 5

Lutece Anthony

December 01, 2006 10:37 PM

The second mouse (I hope) by Lutece Anthony

The Quidditch pitch was big. And it had what looked similar to her sister Grace's old faerie princess wand stuck up at the ends. Lutece wasn't so much intimidated as interested. These were obviously the goals, and if she wanted to do this Keeper thing, she would have to protect them. Having mostly ignored the older girl's attempts at small talk on the way down, Lutece was a bit surprised when Jennifer began throwing brooms at her.

And then she decided to show Lutece how to ride them. Lutece was unequivocably glad she had decided to wear jeans instead of that skirt today. The first part of the broom thing didn't seem to be too hard, though. Forceful? Lutece could do forceful rather well.

"Up," she ordered the broom, rather like she ordered her brother James when he was being particularly obnoxious. The broom meekly rose into her palm. Lutece did her best to look only mildly smug as Jennifer started opening the chest she had dragged out. Following the rest of Jennifer's instructions, Lutece mounted the broom hesitantly, then pushed off. Too energetically, it seemed, since she shot up about twenty feet and wavered up and down at that level, broom handle tilted at a sickening angle as she tried to hang on.

Right. Twenty feet wasn't so bad. If she had pushed up to get up, pushing down would make her go down. Right? Nervously, Lutece tried to sit more down on the broom. The handle shot up, and she rose a few more feet. She tried pushing the handle down, and she came plummeting towards the ground, barely stabalizing her height at about seven feet in the air by levelling out the handle.

Lutece breathed deeply and tried to look calmly down at Jennifer. It didn't work too well. It wasn't that she was afraid of heights, but that had been just plain unnerving.\n\n

0 Lutece Anthony The second mouse (I hope) 100 Lutece Anthony 0 5

Jennifer

December 03, 2006 12:09 PM

...I suppose so by Jennifer

Jennifer wasn’t sure what to think as Lutece managed to get her broom to rise on her first try. She was incredibly proud of the girl, of course, but the arrogance that the first year seemed to be showing a bit of arrogance as well. That kind of response never boded well for anyone, but smugness was particularly dangerous for someone just learning how to fly.

Jennifer’s fears proved correct a few moments later, after Lutece seemed to nearly lose control of her broom, wavering around twice the height Jennifer had suggested. Even more frightening, though, was the sudden descent that the eleven year old made. Jennifer’s wand was out, and she was about to mutter a quick impedimenta or something, when the younger girl finally got herself straightened out, literally and figuratively.

Heaving a sigh of relief, Jennifer mounted her own broom after pulling out the quaffle, then rose to join Lutece. “If you couldn’t already tell, the brooms can be rather testy, and making sure you’re not at too steep an angle is very important,” she half-joked, trying to not show her own panic. That would just be wonderful, killing someone while trying to teach them. It would be the perfect way to end her career as captain.

“Now, I want you to fly around the pitch a couple of times, going to varying heights, but being very careful to not lose control of your broom, then head down to either of the ends. I’ll be right beside you, so don’t worry. Once you’ve got the hang of flying, we’re going to try a bit of passing with this thing,” she indicated the quaffle under her arm, “stationary on the broom, then moving around. If you get the hang of that quickly enough, and still think you want to go through with this, then we can have you try blocking shots.”

She waited for the other girl to start moving again, hoping that the excitement had ended, since she didn’t know how much more of that her heart could take.
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0 Jennifer ...I suppose so 0 Jennifer 0 5

Lutece

December 04, 2006 3:39 PM

Hoping to provide less chance of heart failure... by Lutece

Lutece nodded at Jennifer as she was given her instructions, waiting for the fluttering in her stomach to cease. It couldn't be that difficult if so many people came to Sonora able to do it already. And it was a broom, for goodness sakes. It couldn't possibly that much different from riding a horse, could it? Granted, she had only really ridden a horse a couple of times, but it had been easy enough then. To start a horse, you had to kick it...so for a broom...would this work?

Yes. Too well, Lutece thought, as she shot forward. So...maybe...this? Much better. She was now moving along at a fairly good pace. A bit slow, perhaps, but better than zooming forward. Right. Now, if she moved her knee like that...apparently, it turned the broom the opposite direction. So it was more logical than a horse. That was good to know.

Before Lutece was about to start changing heights again, she wanted to know she could control the pace of the broom. Although Jennifer hadn't said anything about it, Lutece decided she would go on her instinct with this one. Her instincts were usually fairly accurate, sometimes disturbingly so. Lutece repeated the sort of forward-thinking movement she had made when she first began moving. That sent the broom speeding ahead again. Lutece quickly slowed it down, although not quite as far as she had originally. She kept repeating the pattern until she felt better about her control. So long as she didn't try to overcontrol the broom, it didn't overreact. A good thing to know.

Time to try for height. Using her newly gained knowledge of the broom's temperment (could it have such a thing? Apparently so.), Lutece moved the handle in mild increments, noting the broom's rise and fall. She quickly became confident that this was no different from varying the speed of the broom. At that point, she realised that she had gone around pitch more than Jennifer had probably wanted her to, so Lutece cut across to stop in front of one of the huge bubble wands. Her stop was slightly less than graceful, causing her to tip to the right and nearly lose her balance, but it was certainly an improvement from last time.

Her stomach seemed quite a bit better, too.\n\n

0 Lutece Hoping to provide less chance of heart failure... 0 Lutece 0 5

Dolan

December 06, 2006 7:29 AM

I didn't think to check here... lol by Dolan

Dolan caught up with the girls in time to see Lutece gaining confidence (as well as speed and altitude) over the quidditch field. He allowed himself to grin openly; after all, no one was looking at him. Jennifer was watching her pupil with an anxious eye, and Lutece was QUITE focused on her broom.

He hurriedly straddled his broom (the newest model of course, and though he wouldn't admit it to a single soul, he had also named it) and shot into the air with ill-concealed joy. He took a fast spiral onto the field, loosing himself in a rapid, tight spin, glad for not the first time that he a love for speed, heights, and Quidditch- and the iron stomach to go with them.

One thing he knew he had to work on though, was his hand work. And some muscle. He'd not had the chance to exercise that much. His family wasn't particular athletic and frowned on sweating like a common person. But here he knew he'd welcome the workout. And that he needed it.

He wheeled around in the air and looked for Jennifer. He braced himself carefully on the broomstick, and then cupped his hands around his mouth.

"Oi, Jennifer! Care to drill us at all?" He grinned at Lutece. "How's the magic? Getting used to it?" He didn't seem to realize that his somewhat reserved personality was gone on the Quidditch field. Either that, or he didn't care. \n\n

0 Dolan I didn't think to check here... lol 0 Dolan 0 5

Jennifer

December 09, 2006 5:34 PM

Checking generally helps by Jennifer

Well, we’ve got the hardest part over with, Jennifer thought to herself as she watched Lutece fly around the pitch. It was an interesting experience. She could actually see the other girl pick up the subtle nuances of her particular broom. She was also doing it fairly quickly, for someone who’d never seen anyone flying before. And Jennifer had no illusions about her skill as a teacher. No, besides the most basic instructions, everything this girl had figured out was her own doing.

Jennifer wasn’t sure how that made her feel, when she figured out how superfluous she had been in this particular lesson. Sure, she’d found the girl, and convinced her to try, but she really was just there in case something went wrong. There wasn’t any purpose to her being there. Just like being captain on the quidditch team.

Shaking her head to clear herself as soon as she realized she had gone down that path again, she flew over to Lutece, who looked to be stopping by one of the goalposts. She was going to stick it out at least one more year. If things went poorly still, then she would resign, and that would be that. There was no use worrying about it now. Nothing would be accomplished by that.

She winced slightly when she saw the younger girl’s actual stop. Yes, it was amazing for a beginner, but it still something that needed to be corrected before the girl got hurt. Stopping could be the most dangerous part, if one didn’t know what one was doing. Of course, that could be said for almost any part of playing quidditch.

“That’s a big improvement on the initial try, in just about everything,” she began encouragingly as soon as she had reached the goalpost as well. “You might want to try not leaning quite so much when stopping, though, if you hadn’t already figured that out for yourself. Falling off the broom is never good, and even just getting off balance a little can make it more difficult to regain it, which can be critical in a goal-scoring situation.”

About to ask whether Lutece was ready to try catching and throwing in addition to just flying, she was interrupted by the arrival of the boy from the common room, asking if she was planning to drill them. She sighed inwardly, though tried as hard as possible not to let either of them see that. Yes, she had said that he could come along, but her main focus was still trying to get Lutece ready.

“Well, next on the agenda was working on passing and catching, so if you want to join in for that, that would be fine. However, right now, that’s pretty much all I was planning to focus on.” She scrutinized him carefully. She’d reconsidered holding tryouts, even within the last 20 minutes or so between mentioning it to Lutece, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to need players still.

“I have the feeling, even if I don’t hold tryouts, that I’m probably going to put you on as a reserve beater, since chasers generally are a dime a dozen,” she grinned, knowing that if Liz was here, there would have been hell to pay for that last comment. “I would give you some beater drills, but I really don’t want to have to deal with bludgers flying around when Lutece has never been on a broom before. If you want to just do some core stuff, that’s fine too, though. I can give you a basic work-out if that’s what you feel you need. It’s up to you. Oh, and I don’t believe I caught your name earlier.”

She turned back the Lutece and asked, “So, do you feel you’re ready to try staying on the broom without using your hands?” As soon as Lutece made some sort of motion of assent, Jennifer gently lobbed the quaffle towards the younger girl, just to see what work would have to be done with this aspect of training.
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0 Jennifer Checking generally helps 0 Jennifer 0 5

Lutece

December 10, 2006 4:22 PM

Just a bit by Lutece

Lutece prevented herself from beaming with pride at Jennifer's praise. She couldn't wait to write home to Grace and James about how a fifth year was teaching her to play a game more difficult than soccer. And how said fifth year thought she was making large improvements. Jennifer probably even had a boyfriend, and she was the captain of the team! It was amazingly cool. Lutece waited on Jennifer's next set of instructions eagerly. Unfortunately, Dolan arrived at that point. Not only that, but he made a big deal about how she was new to magic. She nodded shortly at him, then refocused on Jennifer.

Throwing and catching drills? That could be bad. Lutece wasn't quite so good at throwing per se. Or catching, for that matter. She could block very well, but even as a goalie in soccer, she had always used her feet and knees more than her hands in keeping the ball out of the goal. She could head pretty well too, but she didn't want to try that with this ball; it looked considerably harder than a soccer ball. She nodded anyway, though, then turned to Dolan to say something appropriate in terms of greeting.

"Yes, thank you, Dolan," Lutece answered his query about magic coolly. Then, she noticed a large red ball coming towards her at an alarming rate. Apparently, when Jennifer had said 'throwing and catching drills', she had meant they would start immediately. Which meant that Lutece ought to make at least a token attempt to catch it. Drat. She moved abruptly to the left, removing both arms from the broom, as she made a grab for the ball and barely missed catching it. Unfortunately, Jennifer's comment about regaining balance while on a broom was correct, and Lutece slipped sideways and off the broom. Luckily, her right knee managed to get entangled in the handle, and she was saved the indignity and pain of falling off the broom. Lutece began to contemplate the best way to get back on the broom as she watched the red ball fall towards the ground.\n\n

0 Lutece Just a bit 0 Lutece 0 5

Dolan

December 10, 2006 10:47 PM

shucks by Dolan

Dolan caught the ice in Lutece's voice and flinched. How could anyone possibly be CROSS on a Quidditch field? He couldn't understand women, he supposed. Well, more like girls, he amended to himself. Ah well.

He caught a flash of red from the corner of his eye as the ball flashed towards Lutece, and watched the girl's awkward flip. For a split second, he considered helping her, but decided her pride likely wouldn't let him, so he went after the ball instead, pulling up hard near the ground. He sat up on his broom and shook his arms. They felt rubbery after a summer of disuse behind books. He grimaced.

"Jennifer," he called, purposely ignoring Lutece and giving her time to solve her problem and regain composure, "If I'm to be a beater, I need to get my arms stronger. What do you suggest for practice?" He lobbed the ball back at the captain and slowly elevated in a leisurely but controlled circle, trying to control the broom with his body and not his hands, which he would need for being a beater.\n\n

0 Dolan shucks 0 Dolan 0 5

Jennifer

December 11, 2006 5:02 PM

Are we being too mean? by Jennifer

After a moment of surprise when Lutece had so much more difficulty with trying to catch the quaffle than with anything that had gone on so far, Jennifer realized at least one potential problem with her plan, and wanted to hit herself for her own stupidity. While similarities existed between the two sports, soccer and quidditch were different still, and one of the bigger things was that goalkeepers often did not seem to catch so much as block. She'd even asked someone at the embassy about it over the summer, who'd explained it to her, yet she'd still forgotten.

Panicking for a second as Lutece lost her balance, Jennifer began to move towards the girl in case she did fall, then stopped when the first year caught and started the process of righting herself. Stupid, stupid, stupid Jennifer thought self-detrimentally. If you give them something they're not ready for, than things aren't going to turn out well. Stupid!

Deciding that, with the slightly awkward position Lutece was in, it would be difficult even for someone who knew what they were doing to get back on properly, and almost impossible for a muggle-born first year who'd never flown before, the fifth year made her way over to the younger girl, braced herself on both her and school's brooms, to try and keep them steady, then grabbed Lutece's arm and hauled her back up.

"Don't worry about that," she said as she did so. "That was entirely my fault. I had thought, since you were picking up on things so well, that- nevermind, not important. I rushed you. Sorry about that."

Once it looked like Lutece had regained her balance for the most part, Jennifer let go of her arm and informed her "You can chose what to do now. We can keep trying this, or we can try passing and catching closer to the ground, or we could just try blocking, and not catching at all. It's up to you."

Then, she dived down to grab the ball the first year boy had tossed up. She couldn't resist making her dive steeper than probably wise, or ending it more sharply than expected, but it wasn't showing off. During practices, she was sometimes too busy with watching over the team to practice her own position properly, and part of the fun of being seeker was pulling ridiculously foolish stunts.

Once the ball was safely back in her arms, she studied the first year boy. There were lots of drills that one could do to make arms stronger, but none of them were particularly enjoyable. Still, this might give her a way of figuring out how serious this kid was, since he still hadn’t said his name, and she felt slightly awkward to ask a second time. “Well, there’s always push-ups,” she said, half-joking. "And, if you want, I can charm one of the bats to be much heavier than normal, and you could work on trying to fly holding that thing. Up to you.” Making a mental note to ask Lutece who this boy was once she got back up, unless he remembered that last part of her question, she wished silently for there to be two of her, or at least another member of last year’s team out there as well. Trying to juggle two different first years with two different positions was probably not going to be conducive to helping either.
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0 Jennifer Are we being too mean? 0 Jennifer 0 5

Dolan

December 11, 2006 6:53 PM

Mean to who? by Dolan

Dolan realized with a guilty start that the captain was quite busy with Lutece. Despite the leaps and bounds in progress the girl was making (hey, earlier that day she didn't believe in magic, now she was flying on a broom, for crying out loud!) he could see that the captain couldn't divide her attention. And he knew the basics, at least. He sighed and lowered himself to the ground and slipped from his broom. Taking a deep breath, he began the utterly mundane chore of doing push ups. Mentally he resolved to do this kind of strength training when he was away from the field, so he could practice aerial maneuvers when he was on the field. Of course, he should have thought of that sooner, he grumbled to himself. From now on, he should do push ups, sit ups and chin ups before going to bed and when he woke up.

For now, he blocked out the drill going on above him, and focused on making his weak arms and back continue the exercise. A drop of sweat rolled into his eyes and he shook his head to clear them. He focused on the sky and the exhilaration of speed and power in the the air. He'd do it, of course. An Everwyld never gave in once they decided on something.\n\n

0 Dolan Mean to who? 0 Dolan 0 5

Lutece

December 14, 2006 6:16 PM

Is that a no, then? by Lutece

Lutece set her jaw in annoyance as Jennifer apologised profusely. It was her own stupid fault she hadn't been able to catch the ball, not Jennifer's. Lutece didn't have very much hand/eye coordination, granted, but she had never really tried to develop it before. If she really, truly gave it a shot now, maybe she could get to play this awesome game. It was uber intense, from what she had gotten from Dolan and Jennifer, so she would enjoy it. And if one stupid thing like hand/eye coordination was going to get in the way, it should be prepared to go down.

"No, it's fine," she said, looking at Jennifer quickly. "Let's keep throwing and catching up here. I'm not very good at it, so I'll need all the practise I can get." She wanted to play, and to play meant drilling your weaknesses. Her coach had gone over that times uncounted for soccer, and there was no difference, no matter the sport. The harder you worked, the better you got. That was why Grace could swim so well, and why James was such a genius at schoolwork that he could do hers, even though she was older than him. So Lutece would work at throwing and catching until she could do it, even on a broomstick, high up in the air. At least if tried to fall off again, she would be pretty certain that Jennifer would catch her.\n\n

0 Lutece Is that a no, then? 0 Lutece 0 5