Coach Amelia Pierce

April 29, 2011 10:29 AM
Spring was just beginning. It was still cool out, but compared to the cold it had been during the past months of practice, the Pitch must feel beautifully warm today. It certainly did to Amelia. While she was tempted to go with short sleeved robes, she decided to stick with the longer sleeves if only because it was a bit windy today. Cool air was one thing, cool gusts quite another.

She also tied her hair back in a tight french braid so it wouldn't get in her eyes and block her sight of the game at an inopportune time. Given how Aladren had gone after Teppenpaw during the first game of the season, she dared not risk anything impairing her ability to intervene in a timely fashion when they were up against Crotalus in the Final.

She allowed the captains as much time as they wished to use for their pre-game speeches then called them over when both looked to be finishing up. She realized as they approached that this was a battle of Heads - the Head Girl lead one team while the Head Boy lead the other. As if this match needed another reason to get messy.

"Welcome, everyone, to the Final match of the year," Amelia said, her voice assisted by a sonorus charm. "We have Aladren, lead by Captain Daniel Nash, up against Crotalus, lead by Captain Charlotte Abbott. You all know the rules; please keep to them so we can have a nice clean game today." Though, to be fair, neither Aladren nor Teppenpaw had actually broken any rules in their game and that one certainly hadn't been clean. "Would the captains please shake hands."

They did so, and she sent them back to their teams as she released first the snitch, and then the bludgers from the chest of balls beside her. Once they flew away, she picked up the Quaffle, and began the game with a countdown, "Game begins on my whistle. Three. Two. One." She threw the Quaffle into the air as high as she could, and blew into her whistle, the shrill sound piercing through the air.

She mounted her own broom, triple checked that her wand was ready for emergencies, and followed the Quaffle and the players into the air.


OOC: It's the final, so you've all done this before, but if you have any questions put them on the OOC board. Long detailed posts, and have fun!
Subthreads:
1 Coach Amelia Pierce Quidditch Final: Aladren vs Crotalus 20 Coach Amelia Pierce 1 5


<font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font>

May 08, 2011 10:46 PM
Arnold realized that Miss Stephenson had avoided a painful collision with her own Chasers, but was still ahead when they seemed to be heading in the same direction, so it didn’t bother him. He could beat her in speed any time, so the important thing was, now that it was definitely all right to Seek in earnest, just to stay near her and do that when the Snitch made itself seen.

He was convinced it had, but now that he was where he thought he’d seen it, it was gone. Arnold grimaced, deeply annoyed with it. It had been right there. Where had it gone so fast? He couldn’t see anything remotely Snitch-like anywhere, and that was both worrisome and irritating.

Since ending the game wasn’t going to happen any second soon, he instead decided to focus on keeping the other Seeker from doing so, and himself from becoming bored again. He flew up level with Miss Stephenson. “Your team is pathetic,” he called. “Your Chasers are getting beaten up by a pair of first years!”

It did occur to him that older students could likely use more sophisticated insults than he could, since he was defaulting to the kind of things he used at home with his brothers and cousins and it wasn’t even terribly effective with his brothers. Or even with his cousins, if he didn’t catch them off-guard, and he’d scaled back on trying since Mother had told him that, despite her seeming to just throw it back at him, she thought he might really have hurt Terry’s feelings a few times. But if Miss Stephenson was distracted, even if that distraction happened because she was laughing at him, then that was a good thing.
0 <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font> Just a little bit 181 <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font> 0 5

<font color="red">Marissa Stephenson,Seeker</font>

May 08, 2011 11:24 PM
Seriously? Marissa thought, taking her eyes off the air for one second to give Arnold Carey an incredulous look. She really, really hoped that kids had been a little better at taunting their rivals when she was a firstie.

Of course, when she was a firstie, games hadn’t gotten this nasty. She did not like this new viciousness about it all at all, but she had no idea how to stop it. Catching the Snitch and ending this specific game wasn’t it. The game against Pecari had been pretty tangled, too, and Aladren’s game Teppenpaw, before that, had been out of hand; one more player down, and they could have started a team out of the hospital wing. That, combined with today, made it tempting to blame the trend on one team suddenly being virtually all male and dominated by one family with a…strange reputation, but Aladren hadn’t been in with them when her team had played Pecari.

Still, as long as everyone as having their fun with the Chasers, she thought she could, with just a smidge of luck that put the Snitch a little closer to her than it was to him, beat Arnold. His Seeking was better than his insults, but considering how easily he seemed to fall for feints, she was fairly certain that had been playing Seeker longer than him, Carey or no Carey. She resumed looking for the Snitch without bothering to acknowledge the dig about her Chasers, or try to turn the first year comment back on him somehow. That took a level of concentration, for her, that she didn’t really have to spare while performing her positional duties.
16 <font color="red">Marissa Stephenson,Seeker</font> I'm sure we'll have it down pat soon. 147 <font color="red">Marissa Stephenson,Seeker</font> 0 5


<font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font>

May 09, 2011 1:35 AM
Arnold was, despite knowing it hadn’t been a very good dig, a little surprised when Miss Stephenson failed to react at all to the slight against her Chasers except for a look that implied he was very strange. She was the Assistant Captain, which made them hers in a way that the Aladren Chasers, except Arthur, weren’t his. Daniel was his captain, the face of a group Arnold belonged to, and Russell was his roommate, so their standing did impact his, but he and Russell were equals and Daniel was his superior, not the other way around. Shouldn’t she have looked at least a little bothered by him denouncing what was hers?

Perhaps she just had a very good card face. That was it. She was hiding any feelings she had on the subject so he wouldn’t know he’d won a bit, or intentionally to mess with his head. He had forgotten, used to Miss Fae being a very nice girl and Miss Adair being the female Arthur, that there were sub-species of Crotali that had a very specific reputation.

Still, he wasn’t going to try insulting her anymore, because while he could play long games, he preferred quick, visible results from different moves in the larger piece. Arthur said it was by grace alone that he was too stubborn to be in Pecari, which would have not only been an embarrassment to the family, but would also have meant they were separated, since if there hadn’t been Aladren, Arthur would have almost certainly been a Crotalus. It was as close to an expression of affection as his brother had ever offered him at school, that indication that Arthur wouldn’t have liked it if they were split up, and he had appreciated it, though he’d of course not said so. He had his pride, too, and the only time people other than Mother were allowed to be openly affectionate was when they were ill or – as had happened to each of them exactly once in life – injured badly enough that Mother called an actual Healer in. Father disliked medicine, but he had an excellent bedside manner. Arthur’s was terrible, particularly since he had a habit of eyeing the Healers as though expecting them to pounce on him while he was well because he spent more time with them than anyone else they knew and seemed to think Arnold would actually like to have their lessons read to him in Arthur’s academic monotone while he was stuck in bed for some reason, but he tried.

He dove below Miss Stephenson’s position, then came up on her other side, scanned the surroundings, and sailed out ahead for a moment before looping back to her. Playing against someone with whom he had nothing in common was strange and off-putting, but everyone hated gnats flitting around their faces, and he thought it might help to put her a little off-balance, too.
0 <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font> Positive thinking, that's the way 181 <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font> 0 5

<font color="red">Marissa Stephenson,Seeker</font>

May 09, 2011 1:54 AM
For a moment, Marissa thought Arnold might have given up on attempts to mess with her, but then he started looping around her and going and coming back. She didn’t think it was because he just enjoyed flying – even the most flight-happy of them had to be getting sick of sitting on a broom at this point – or thought he saw anything. It was just to be an annoying little jerk and keep her focus off.

There were some games where the Seekers never came into contact, and it was just sheer dumb luck which one was in the right place and alertness level at the right time and caught the Snitch. There were others where the Seekers engaged in a, to the audience, completely invisible but even more completely brutal game of psychological warfare, watching each other’s every move, analyzing it, and using it to play with the other person’s mind in pursuit of an advantage, despite this actually distracting them from looking for the Snitch as much as it did the opponent, if not more. Marissa wasn’t partial to that, but it seemed Arnold Carey was. He wasn’t old enough to be very good at it, but she was aware that her not taking him seriously because he was eleven or twelve might be something he was counting on – he was an Aladren, Aladrens were smart, and if it typically wasn’t in the manipulative-Crotalus way, well, sometimes it could be – which went right back to why she didn’t enjoy Seeker games that turned into this. Not descending into complete paranoia was nearly impossible.

She briefly considered insulting his brother, but decided that might be going a little far. Not only was talking about people’s families a Bad Thing where she came from, the kind of thing that could get one shot, as much as it seemed to be among purebloods, but they were twins, too, and one heard stories about that kind of thing. Pureblood twins might get very touchy even if she had felt comfortable descending to that level, which Marissa didn’t. Instead of responding, then, she turned and flew away at a good clip, assuming they would either revert to their earlier pattern of avoiding each other or that he’d follow her and start again but that she’d have a minute or two of peace anyway.
16 <font color="red">Marissa Stephenson,Seeker</font> Well, that was more like probability at this point. 147 <font color="red">Marissa Stephenson,Seeker</font> 0 5