<font color=silver>Coach Amelia Pierce</font>
July 07, 2012 12:44 AM
Quidditch Final: Aladren vs Crotalus by <font color=silver>Coach Amelia Pierce</font>
Well, Amelia thought as she dragged the trunk of Quidditch balls out to the middle of the pitch for the season's final game, we had one year that wasn't Aladren-Crotalus as the season's finale. She had needed to pit them against each other in the first game of the season to achieve it, but it had shaken things up enough that neither team had won the championship last year.Pecari hadn't made it back to the finals this year, though, which Amelia was honestly a little disappointed by. They had performed surprisingly well last year, and Miss Eagle had been working them very hard in practices. Amelia really hoped it wouldn't negatively impact Demelza's chances of going pro because the Pecari captain really was a very good beater and Sonora Quidditch hadn't boosted anyone into the professional leagues since she started coaching here and she was starting to get concerned about that.
But that was not what was at stake today. Today was Aladren versus Crotalus for the year's Quidditch Cup.
And today was such a beautiful day for it, too. The sun shone, large fluffy white clouds drifted lazily across the sky providing patches of intermittent shade, and a light breeze blew, keeping things cool despite the warming Arizona temperatures. It would probably be unpleasantly warm in the afternoon highs later today, but it was still early enough in the morning that the overnight chill and the breeze kept things comfortable.
"Welcome to Quidditch Finale," she announced when it looked like the two captains were finished giving their speeches. With the weather fine enough that she felt no urgency to start (and therefore end) the game, and a match up that some of the older students might start to find dull soon, she felt inclined to dramatize: "We again have Crotalus in the red robes facing off against Aladren in the blue. Captain Wilkes of Aladren will be trying to return his team back to their winning streak, while Captain Bauer of Crotalus seeks to repeat what Pecari managed last year. The next few hours will determine which team will emerge with Sonora's Quidditch Cup. Captains, please shake hands."
After they had done so, she sent them back to their teams. She flipped open the trunk lid and released the bindings on the bludgers. They soared up into the air, and the snitch soon followed. Finally, she lifted up the Quaffle and raised her whistle near her mouth as she made her final remarks, "As always, game starts on my whistle and ends when a seeker catches the snitch. One. Two. Tweeeeet!" The whistle blew on the final count as she threw the ball into the air.
The final had begun.
Subthreads: Here we go. by <font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font> with <font color="red">Captain Bauer, Chaser</font>, <font color = red>Renée Errant {Chaser}</font>, <font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>, <font color="red">Topher Calhoun, Beater</font>, <font color="blue">Kitty McLevy Chaser</font>, <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>, <font color="red">Linus Macaulay, Chaser</font>, <font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>
Right, and here we go. by <font color="red">Cepheus Princeton, Seeker</font> with <font color="red">Gareth Whitebriar-Beater </font>, <font color=blue>Thaddeus Pierce, Beater</font>, <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font>, <font color=silver>Coach Pierce</font>
Quidditch? Oh yea... by Andrina Thornton, Aladren Reserve with <font color="blue">Jay Carey, Reserve</font>
Making my appearance by <font color="red">Paul Bennett, Reserve</font>
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<font color=silver>Coach Amelia Pierce</font>
Quidditch Final: Aladren vs Crotalus
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<font color=silver>Coach Amelia Pierce</font>
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<font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>
July 08, 2012 5:52 PM
Here we go. by <font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>
Before the Pecari game, David had been afraid he was going to be sick. Being faced with the task of beating the only team which had beaten Aladren in years had been an intimidating prospect to say the least, and being completely and utterly convinced that the team was going to point the finger at him if they lost again had not helped, not in the slightest. He had occasionally thought he was going to go crazy before that game was over with.Now, though, faced with Crotalus for the Championship again, but this time with the captain’s badge on his robes, David thought he knew what true terror was. After this, everything else – CATS, Concert, college, any of it – was going to be small potatoes, he was sure of it. This morning, he had thought about trying to fake sick to get out of it; last night, he had been half-convinced it would be better to go back home, back to people and situations it depressed him just to think about and were soul-killingly boring enough to be around that he understood why so many of his former peers were on drugs, than to get up this morning and play the game.
That thought, though, had been outrageous enough to snap him out of it, and he had found it possible this morning to pull himself together and face the game. There was nothing worse than the prospect of going home; he had yet to have anyone die when he wasn’t there, but since he had gotten good at viewing most of his family less as relatives than as freaks in a show he was forced to view twice a year, he thought he’d cope if and when it did happen a lot better than he’d cope with living there full-time again. There was nothing associated with not going home that he could not get over with time, but he didn’t think he’d ever get over going home again as long as he lived. Going into this game was, in his view, more or less like becoming a gladiator, but gladiators had some chance of survival. Going home to stay, to get sucked into the vortex of life as his family had always known it and expected him to like it when no one in their right mind would even tolerate it, would be the equivalent of cutting his own throat.
So here he was, facing the game, thinking that calling in sick, at least, would have been a really bright idea, the kind that won him a Nobel Prize for Sheer Genius-Levels of Intelligence. It was too late for that, though. There was nothing, David thought, quite like procrastination to make up for cowardice; if he waited long enough, he got pushed into a position where he had to just get by as best as he could, because running away wasn’t an option anymore.
“Okay,” he said to the team. “Here we are. Crotalus.” He didn’t know if they were expecting another long-winded and borderline hysterical speech like the one before the Pecari game, but if they were, they weren’t going to get it. He thought he was doing well to speak clearly at all. “The final. We’ve never lost to them, and I don’t want to start now, yeah? Being the team that always makes it to the final and never wins is their job.”
He bit the inside of his mouth to keep from laughing at his own weak joke. Not funny. Seriously not funny. “So let’s not do that. Let’s just go beat ‘em into the ground, okay? Nice and quick and then we’re home free.” Well, they were, anyway; he would be studying for CATS, but that was not their concern. Thank Merlin they did not have any seventh years; next year would be Samantha’s last year, which he didn’t like, but pretty much, he would be able to carry this team, the winningest-ever or whatever they said about them these days, to the end of his Quidditch career. That would be good. “And we’ll be back in the House Cup,” he added as an afterthought. “Seriously, guys, Teppenpaw? Not allowed to win the House Cup. Fawcett will cry himself to sleep over old pictures of the thing all year if we let that happen. I prefer not to think of that.” And now that he had given them that wonderful mental image to contemplate, he looked toward Coach Pierce, assuming she would interpret this as him being done with his speech so they could get this show on the road and he could avoid saying anything dumb…er.
He winced slightly as she tried, again, to get him killed by emphasizing the importance of the game, but he kept it in his head, his face frozen into an expression he thought was neutral but feared was more just generally strange as he shook hands with Sam Bauer. “Hey, dude, you fail,” he very cheerfully blurted out, then backed away before this could cause immediate damage to be done to his face. It wasn’t the most aesthetically pleasing one ever, but it was his. He was still debating the merits and flaws of his nose when the whistle blew and it was time to run for the goals and hope the Aladrens were fully up to backing up his claims that they possessed unquestionable superiority.
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<font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>
Here we go.
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<font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>
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<font color="red">Captain Bauer, Chaser</font>
July 08, 2012 6:50 PM
...Straight toward your sudden, yet inevitable defeat. by <font color="red">Captain Bauer, Chaser</font>
Sam had no family there, no significant connections to any part of the entity at all, but when Aladren had played Pecari for the second time in as many years, he was sure he had been pulling for the Wild Boars as fervently as any wealthy old alumnus who donated money and broomsticks ever could have. He had wanted Pecari to win so much he had almost deluded himself into thinking it could happen, because Demelza Eagle or no Demelza Eagle, he would have infinitely rather played Pecari for the Championship than Aladren, again. He thought, at this point, that it was very likely that the Aladrens had started to get into his team’s head, and it would have been great to beat a comparatively easy opponent before they tried their hand against a demystified Aladren again.It hadn’t worked out, though, and so here they were again, the two of them, one against the other. At least this time, there was absolutely zero chance of sexual tension between the captains. Not only was Sam reasonably sure that he preferred girls, but Aladren guys tended to be lacking a certain something in personality, sanity, or all of the above as well, and David Wilkes wasn’t an especially handsome specimen of the whacky breed to begin with, which reduced the chances of anything weird going on between the Aladren captain and Sam’s Assistant Captain – though Sam had heard some rumors that made him think Renee might be his companion in disdaining the dudes when it came to considering potential romantic partners. It wasn’t something he could just ask about, but he didn’t mind if it was true; it was something which would make the matter of Aladren-Crotalus romantic tension further irrelevant, which was, in his opinion, all to the good.
He was also pretty sure he was the first Crotalus ever to take a stance on that whole issue strictly on the basis of what was less likely to make his team lose to Aladren, but Sam had never claimed to be driven primarily by moral concerns. At least not where Crotalus and Aladren were concerned. He just wanted to beat them and be done with it, so he could take his RATS in peace and leave Sonora with at least one Quidditch Cup under his belt to bolster his college applications. If he got that, he didn’t care if the entire two teams then promptly began to resemble a show aimed toward thirteen-year-old girls.
“Welcome to the arena,” he said to his team as they gathered before the game. “Hope you all got a good night’s sleep, because I don’t feel like losing today. We can beat them, and we’re going to beat them.”
He looked around, making to meet each player’s eyes, ending with the most important one. “Cepheus, Arnold Carey is annoying,” he said. “Really, really annoying. He’s good at getting in people’s heads. Don’t let him. Gareth’s job – “ he glanced toward the other second year – “ is to try to knock him off his broom before he gets a chance, but if he starts running his mouth, or flying tricks, or anything else before Gareth can do that, do not let him get in your head. He can only beat you if you let him.
“Gareth, Topher – keep Cepheus in the air first, and then pick off any Aladrens you get a shot at around that, okay? Topher, you especially keep Stratford out of it, if you can. If you see his girl in the stands, hit a Bludger at her or something.” He expected Topher was level-headed enough to know this was a joke, but frankly Sam thought Nic was good enough now for a foul to be a triviality if it ended with Preston Stratford being too distraught to play his best game.
“Nic – me and the rest, it’s our job to keep you from having to do anything, but if they give us the slip, just keep doing what you’ve been doing. You can beat ‘em, and Chasers – we can beat Wilkes. Bear in mind he wasn’t even their first choice for anything, they just got stuck with him because Sam Hamilton dropped out for a year or two.” He noticed after the fact that he’d called her Sam Hamilton out loud, but ignored it. “Renee, Linus, we’re going for goals. Let’s knock some of the arrogance out of them.” A task which would be much easier if Renee could avoid personally antagonizing them until they wanted more than anything to beat her, but which he could not call her out on in front of the whole team. She was the Assistant Captain; she had to be seen a certain way by the rest.
“Okay, let’s go, team,” he said, wrapping it up. “Try to walk intimidatingly.”
He did his best to follow his own advice as they approached the other team and listened to the rules. During the handshake, David Wilkes suddenly spoke up, and for a second Sam just gave him a strange look before saying, “hey, dude, you’re weird.” He walked back to his own team and gave Renee a look. “Dude is weird,” he remarked in an undertone, just before kickoff.
He ceased to think much about the eccentricities of the Aladren team as everyone sailed into the air, his mind latching onto the Quaffle as his goal. It was just there, loose in the air, drifting back down, free for the taking. With a jolt that gave him an unpleasant, swooping sensation in his stomach that he had gotten used to ignoring a long time ago, he flew forward and snatched it out of the air, then turned to fly for the Aladren goals, keeping his eyes moving between the ground and the other players around him until he estimated he had covered a bit more than a third of the distance there and that he was not just handing it to an Aladren, anyway, which meant a straight, strong pass was in order.
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<font color="red">Captain Bauer, Chaser</font>
...Straight toward your sudden, yet inevitable defeat.
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<font color="red">Captain Bauer, Chaser</font>
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<font color = red>Renée Errant {Chaser}</font>
July 09, 2012 3:17 PM
Yep. by <font color = red>Renée Errant {Chaser}</font>
Milk and nutella. Renée was fairly sure she didn’t need anything else in life. It slid down the back of her throat, soft and thick, sticky and satisfying, washed down by a cool flood of white. She wiped off the corner of her lips with her fingers, slipping them between her lips, sucking on them, flushed and excited for the upcoming game. It was the only beautiful thing she had at Sonora. The one moment of perfection, even when they didn’t win, even when they didn’t score, even when the eyes that passed along her form were filled with sparks of disgust, hatred, distrust, even from her own teammates, for reasons she learned to have fun imagining.She was a sleepwalker; she rolled out of bed, eyes shut, breathing steadily, blindly finding her wand and pointing it at whomever passed by, curses slipping between her gently parted lips, and what felt like a dream was really her cutting someone open, torturing them, strangling their throats and dropping heavy blunt objects on their chests, smashing vases against the back of their heads.
She shared the body of a demon; when she wasn’t looking it popped out of the back of her head, rudely sticking its tongue out at people, whispering insults, giving crude gestures, popping back inside her body, so by the time she turned around she was looking at the lingering effects of her demon’s mischief.
She was the anti-veela; a rare being who begins giving off pheromones of hate the moment it reaches puberty. It draws people in, the chemicals emitting from its skin inhaled by surrounding victims whose negative parts of the brain spike up, electrocuted and heightened.
Anything was better than the alternative. The idea that she was simply un-likeable. No, that was okay. She found her classmates boring, oversensitive, each of them indistinguishable from the other, faded colors of brown and grey, with rare splashes of color like herself and few others, most of them who disliked her too... but it wasn’t dislike she felt, it was real hate. And that was interesting, and that was scary. The fact that she could inspire so much... feeling was powerful, was delicious, but was confusing, thoroughly bewildering, and alienating.
She almost liked, almost enjoyed the idea that she was alone on this little island of sonorans. Almost felt honored by the hatred crashing over and over and over again, trying to drown her, pull her down all the way to the bottom of the sea. Flattering and the drama of the moment was something she thrived on... except she wasn’t thriving, she was flattening, sunken deeper inside herself, lips sealed, and when she wasn’t quiet her voice was soft, unwilling to be accidentally thrown into yet another bad interaction with another person. The words she used were never the right ones. Easier not to speak. Easier to slip into fantasies where she could control the reasons for why she was so alone. She didn’t want friends, she didn’t want to be liked, she didn’t want to be not hated - she just wanted to be control of why.
‘I’m in control now.’ She wiped her fingers on the crimson robes she wore, draping her form, stepping away from her goblet of milk and small shallow bowl of nutella. ‘Let this game last forever. I never want my feet to touch the ground.’ Cascade Hall, walking down steps, outside to the pitch, a few stray clouds but not enough to block the sun greeting her dark skin, a soft bronze tone illuminated in the light, and in the open air environment she could let her lips spread into a smile, she could imagine she was beautiful, she could really believe it was true.
She went into the lockers only to get her broom, the Nightingale thin, dark, sleek, and she missed her old broom but this one was nice too. Different, alien, a twin soul on this little island she was stuck on. ‘Not for long. Blow the whistle. Let me rise. Let me be free.’ The team marched out onto the pitch, Samuel gathering them up, ready to make a speech. She stood off a little to the side, trying not to fidget, shifting from one foot to the next, aching for freedom. She gave a little attention to his words, to his instructions, but she knew she would never do the same. She was given the title of Assistant Captain, the inevitable promise of Captain, because she was a good chaser and would be soon the oldest player on the team. But those weren’t good enough qualities. Charlie had been fearless, respected, admired. Marissa had been... not hated and Sam was, Renée thought, liked just enough. But she didn’t know her team, didn’t really want to know her team, their faces and names jumbled in her mind while stuck on the ground. And when they flew she knew them as Beater, the other Beater, Seeker, with Nicodemus, Samuel and Linus as the only ones she was actually familiar with.
‘Linus,’ She nodded her head automatically as Samuel mentioned her name, not listening. ‘He can be Captain when Samuel leaves.’ She made a mental note to suggest it (through a small note, she knew better than to approach Samuel outside the pitch, better to leave him alone, all of them alone, and delve deeper into warm fantasies) after the match. Then she could just enjoy being free. Left alone, her and the Quaffle and the hoops, the variously colored birds flapping their wings beside her, all of them passing, intercepting, chasing after the goal.
Crotalus and Aladren started moving toward one another, the Captains finishing their speeches, extending their arms, shaking hands, and Renée blinked as Samuel briefly spoke to her, his voice low. “...okay.” She swung her legs over the Nightingale, bending her knees and kicking off, and she hadn’t even noticed her liberation, the conversation running over and over again in her head, the dialogue stretched in neon red across her mind. ‘Was that what I should have said? How did he want me to respond? Should I be doing something with that information? Okay, so he’s weird, he’s weird, wait - who? Oh! Right, the Captain. The Aladren Captain. His name? Um... oh! No, that’s not it. He’s the Keeper though. Wilkes! Okay, so, he’s weird. And... so, Samuel told me, so I’m not weird? Does he not think... ah, here he is, here he is, and we’re in the air now, and we’re flying now, and he has the...’
He had the Quaffle tucked in his arm, and Renée was fast forwarded, shoved into the present, blinking rapidly as warm air blasted against her dark face, pulling up alongside Samuel and he was turning, his body angled toward her. Slap she had the Quaffle in her palm, an easy pass through the air, and they were flying somewhere... they were flying toward Aladren, right, and Wilkes, who was weird, and maybe that meant Renée wasn’t since it didn’t make sense to tell a weird person that another person was weird. Unless that was a suggestion on Samuel’s part that maybe if she wanted someone to be weird with then there was Wilkes, right up ahead, a little way down the pitch. The pitch that she was... flying through, right, and needed to pass through, pass the Quaffle through, her mind jumbled and confused while her body worked on instinct.
A flap of crimson robes at the corner of her eye. Her arm raised, body turned, a quick chest pass through the air, a little ahead of her teammate, enough room for them to fly into the catch. Her mind had yet to register the other opposing chasers. Her world felt very small, only a few people occupying it. She wasn’t much aware of the wind rushing through her form, carrying her along, the space between her and the ground. Maybe she was walking, she couldn’t tell, maybe this was a dream. She was torturing someone in real life, just didn’t know it. ‘Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.’
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<font color = red>Renée Errant {Chaser}</font>
Yep.
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<font color = red>Renée Errant {Chaser}</font>
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<font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
July 09, 2012 7:22 PM
Nananaaananaaaa by <font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
Preston had been focused on three things for the last year: Quidditch, Sara and studies. Not necessarily on that order. It had come to a place where the Aladren was quite stressed about things, because he felt he had no time to do what he wanted and needed. Preston had started sleeping less hours at night to be able to spend his time catching up with his studying. The fourth-year was taking every class available, except Muggle Studies. There was no way in the world that would make Preston Gerard Stratford take a class that would demean his status as a pureblood.The redhead had come to realize that has thought wandered more often than not into Saraville. Little by little Preston had become a tad bit dependent on his time with his girlfriend. There was something about Sara that made the Aladren relax a little bit about life and that was something that in the long run helped him focus on what really mattered. Sara had become his relaxation compass, and he was glad for it. Otherwise he would be hardly sleeping with bags under his eyes to show for it and his roommates would probably have evicted him for his nocturnal wanderings.
He yawned as he entered the pitch. He was tired, but he was sure that as soon as he went up into the air the adrenaline would wake him up. He was glad for the optimal weather conditions for the season’s finale. Once again they were up against Crotalus, and he wanted to crush them. Last year’s loss to Pecari still lingered in his mind, because he was sure they had the better team, but Pecari had a struck of luck. It couldn’t be anything else.
He waved at the Aladren congregated team and listened dutifully to Captain Wilkes’ speech. The joke about Crotalus at the end made him smile. It was funny because it was true. However, he couldn’t deny that they had a good team and the competition between the two houses was legendary. He loved being part of the legend, but he still had to make a name of his own as a fearless beater.
Preston nodded to David and got on his broom to start the blood bath. As soon as he heard the whistle, he zoomed into the air and looked for the bludger. He located one and sent it directly towards Renée. The sound of the bat colliding with the metal ball made him grin to no one in particular. Preston felt powerful, and he liked it. It was a feeling he didn’t really feel at home.
The Crotalus chaser was one of the best players in the Crotalus team and she needed to be thwarted on her attempts to score.
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<font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
Nananaaananaaaa
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<font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
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<font color="red">Topher Calhoun, Beater</font>
July 12, 2012 12:05 AM
Oh, that's mature. by <font color="red">Topher Calhoun, Beater</font>
For a moment, right after waking up, Topher had had a feeling that there was something he was supposed to do that he wasn’t remembering, something that was the reason why he was waking up this early on a day when he didn’t have classes, but then it had come back to him what it was. Then, as he’d gotten up, the only thought he’d been able to muster was here we go again.Once he’d had it, though, he’d shaken his head to clear it. No, here they did not go again. Here they went for the first time after the program had been abruptly shaken up last year, with Aladren losing the final game to Pecari. Admittedly, they had come back strong from that loss, but that wasn’t the important part. The important part was that they had lost - and that now, coming back, they didn’t have Edmond around anymore.
That alone was enough to raise Topher’s mood about the game, anyway; the Beaters weren’t people the non-players, or even the other players, usually thought of as endangered by the other Beaters, but his shoulder still nearly ached in memory when he thought about some of their more memorable interactions. In the Pecari game, he had noticed that Thaddeus Pierce, a second year, had been covering Arnold; while a second year was no one to disregard completely, since Topher had been the same age during some of the craziest games they’d ever had, he still wasn’t the same thing as having to deal with Edmond Carey. At worst, he and Gareth would be an even match and the Seekers would emerge from the brawl unscathed; at best, Aladren would completely lose control of the Bludgers.
Hopefully, hopefully. There was no predicting what would happen, though, until it started happening, and he had to be ready when it happened. So he stopped thinking about strategy and started thinking about finding his gloves.
He made it down with plenty of time to spare – a good thing, he thought, for his chances at becoming Assistant Captain after Sam left; he knew it wasn’t much, but every little bit would help – and nodded when he came up in the speech, smiling grimly at the suggestion that he hit a Bludger toward Sara Raines. It wasn’t something he could do, not under most circumstances, not least because she was tiny and would be hard to see in the stands, but Stratford having a meltdown right there on the Pitch was not an unamusing visual.
The whistle blew, and Topher swooped around in a wide circle, seeking a Bludger and an Aladren to hit it at. And, of course, Preston’s position on the Pitch, so he could keep him out of the Seeker game. Of those things, he spotted the other fourth year Beater first, just as he hit a Bludger toward Renée. Topher flew forward, intercepting it not too far from its target and changing the direction just a little, toward one of the Aladrens. He didn’t even really register which one it was, or care; off the Pitch, Russell was a friend, he didn’t know Kitty, and there was something about Arthur that rubbed him the wrong way, but out here, it wasn’t like that. It was just what did or did not help Crotalus in the game.
Pretty nice, if he said so himself. The Aladrens were pretty accomplished at avoiding the Bludgers, but he thought he had a good shot at a hit – something he badly needed, after the Amazing Untouchable Thornton Girl last game slightly hurt his credibility.
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<font color="red">Topher Calhoun, Beater</font>
Oh, that's mature.
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<font color="red">Topher Calhoun, Beater</font>
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<font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
July 12, 2012 4:39 PM
Very much so, yes. by <font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
Preston knew Topher from clases, though the redhead had never actually had a full conversation with him about anything. Now that he thought about it he knew nothing about him, which was something that needed to change if he wanted the headboyship in the near future. It would be a lie if Preston said that he wasn’t nervous about the Prefect announcement. The idea of losing to someone other than Arthur – Preston only saw Arthur as his direct competition – was just embarrassing.It was an understatement to say that the Aladren was competitive. He liked to win; he was used to win, especially since his immediate family made it kind of easy for him to think of his superiorness. His relationship with the other Aladren boys was based on that and friendship, but he wanted to top them all. Part him told him that it was irrational to think like that, but the greater part of him propelled him to find his own path and the only way he knew was to excel in what he was good at.
However, it wasn’t time to think about things he couldn’t really control while in the middle of the Quidditch final. The air was refreshing him, but the sun was impairing his already bad eyesight. Preston squinted and saw that Topher had sent the bludger away from Renée. The redhead narrowed his eyes and dived into the bludger’s path. He was not going to let his team be hit by a Crotalus Beater.
His bat made contact with the deadly ball, but he almost missed due to the sun annoying shining directly in his face. Thankfully, he didn’t, but the bludger had an odd path.
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<font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
Very much so, yes.
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<font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
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<font color="blue">Kitty McLevy Chaser</font>
July 12, 2012 9:08 PM
You two are great distractions by <font color="blue">Kitty McLevy Chaser</font>
The tiny third year giggled under her breath as she bounced with glee. All was right in her world. Her friend Laurie was her friend again, and they made it to the finals! Thank goodness they managed to defeat Pecari. That just proved that last year was some sort of weird fluke due to the Coach messing up their mojo by making them play Crotalus first. But now everything was right again, the sky was a brilliant blue that perfectly matched her eyes, there were white fluffy clouds that Kitty’s fingers itched to touch, and there was Laurie.She didn’t know if her friend was watching or not, but she hoped so. While his family was horrible and mean, Kitty knew she’d do whatever she needed to do to stay friends. Even if that meant hiding her friendship with him. The Aladren didn’t want Laurie to get into trouble just for being her friend, something she still had a difficult time understanding, and she hated having to sneak around just to see him. But, she still hoped he was watching. We’ll win!
David would never be Daniel. It was hard for Kitty to forgive him for that. With Daniel, Kitty felt like he was a grand leader guiding his team into battle. But David was more like an awkward accountant who’d been tossed into the general’s spot by mistake and it was too late to take it back. He just wasn’t very inspiring. Then again, Daniel had been a seventh year, a TV star, and basically amazing. He’d been the first person she’d spoken to when she entered the Magic world and Kitty highly doubted anyone would ever live up to him as captain in her eyes. Still, even if David wasn’t the best for the position, it didn’t matter. She could feel it in her heart, today was the day that Aladren returned to their coveted position as the best!
The whistle blew, and Kitty leapt skyward. A small growl escaped her pink lips when she didn’t quite make it to the Quaffle in time, and again when it was passed off the wrong way and she couldn’t intercept. She tilted her head slightly as she watched Renée. The girl was one that Kitty secretly envied, her flying skills often outstripped Kitty’s as well as her other team mates. It was hard to keep up with her and she didn’t often take the direct route in her plays. She was delightfully hard to predict, and it added spice and challenge whenever she got control of the Quaffle. But, something was off about the older girl’s movements. She seemed almost sluggish in the air, and Kitty nibbled her bottom lip as she followed, keeping a bit higher and a tad behind, trying to stay out of sight. On a normal day Renée probably would have noticed such a tactic and shaken her off, but today didn’t appear to be a normal one. Kitty found it worrisome, but now was not the time to worry about rivals. Instead, when the red orb parted from Renée’s fingers Kitty dove down from above and snatched it out of the air. She continued the dive, ending in a frightened barrel roll to the left when she heard the sharp crack of bludger on bat.
By the time she righted herself and was headed in the right direction, Kitty found that Preston had come between her and the dark ball. Huffing a small sigh of relief at being saved, though slightly annoyed at having to depend on others to do the saving, Kitty pushed her broom faster towards the red goals. The spot between her shoulder blades began to itch painfully and Kitty twisted slightly to the right before shooting the Quaffle towards the blur of blue she saw out of the corner of her eye.
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<font color="blue">Kitty McLevy Chaser</font>
You two are great distractions
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<font color="blue">Kitty McLevy Chaser</font>
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5
<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
July 13, 2012 6:13 PM
They're very amusing, yes, but let's focus... by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
Various muscles across his shoulders and down his left arm were aching slightly, the by-products of another night when he had not slept as well as he would have liked, but Arthur did his best to ignore them except for occasionally opening and closing his hand, hoping this would work out the kink near his wrist, as he got ready for the game. As long as his head did not hurt, which today it did not, he did not have a serious problem, and it didn’t really matter even as far as, with the entire game riding on his twin’s shoulders, what he did in the games usually did.Arnold seemed to be in good spirits, which Arthur, though he grew tired of it on a personal level before they even left their dormitory for the morning, was pleased to see. He had been quieter than usual, off-balance, before the Final last year, and they had lost that one. That could not happen again. It irritated him that there was even one blemish on his brother’s record, one place where Arnold hadn’t excelled, and two losses would be much worse than one. That couldn’t happen; he’d have to switch positions with Thaddeus next year if that happened, and that, Arthur had seen enough evidence to be convinced, would not end well.
At least, if the pattern held, there wouldn’t be a decent Beater anywhere near Arnold during this game. And Arnold did not much mind Bludgers, either. It occurred to Arthur that he was nervous, and he was not sure why.
Mr. Wilkes’s attempt at a speech was, if nothing else, a useful distraction from that. Arthur looked at him, his face perfectly blank, for the length of it, trying to figure out if it was meant to be an actual speech or if the actual speech was yet to come. He did not like Mr. Wilkes because he considered him a poor representative, but after a year of seeing how he lead a Quidditch team, Arthur thought he would also be wise not to trust him. Clearly, the man was hovering on the border of some kind of psychological break; he was not coherent, nor consistent. Last game, his main priority had been mutilation, and now he was babbling about the House Cup and Teppenpaw.
He smiled very slightly at Coach Pierce’s attempted dramatization of the event, which covered for needing to bite the inside of his mouth to keep from telling Arnold not to be an idiot and Katrina to calm down, and then they were in the air. Mr. Bauer took the Snitch, and then Miss Errant kept it when Arthur was too slow, but then, in what momentarily felt like a hail of Bludgers, Katrina emerged victorious, the ball bright against her small hands. Arthur was mildly surprised, but as long as they had the ball, he did not care how they came to have it, and when Katrina passed, he pulled it from the air and continued the rush toward the Crotalus goals, holding the Quaffle securely beneath one arm and ensuring his seat on his broom with the other. On, on, keep an eye on the Beaters, they seemed to be having a good time today, on….There!
He turned and passed, the ball a reddish blur in his vision as it arched away from his hands and toward another blue robe. There it went. There they went. They were going toward the goal. They’d have it in just a moment. It would happen again and again this game. He was sure of it now, in this moment. Optimism was often strangely easy in the moment of a pass, even for him.
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
They're very amusing, yes, but let's focus...
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
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5
<font color="red">Linus Macaulay, Chaser</font>
July 19, 2012 5:25 PM
Focus on this! by <font color="red">Linus Macaulay, Chaser</font>
As he’d experienced them so far, Quidditch games had the tendency to make Linus regret breakfast – at one point or another he’d always been convinced his morning meal was going to repeat himself on him. Therefore, for the first time in his life, the Crotalus third year had chosen a meal based on what it might be like in reverse. Oatmeal, he decided, wouldn’t be too bad partly digested, as it was of a relatively fluid consistency to begin with. Pushing that disgusting thought to the back of his mind, he piled on the sugar and maple syrup to give himself a sugar boost. He rarely ate this way apart from on special occasions, so he took the opportunity to enjoy himself on an unrestricted diet for once. It was in the name of sports, after all, and House pride, and these seemed to be too perfectly acceptable reasons for a frivolous mealtime. It did have the effect, however, that he was feeling more of a buzz than usual before a game, which was undoubtedly due to the high level of carbohydrate he’d recently consumed, and not at all to do with facing Aladren in the championship game. Linus hadn’t been a Quidditch player the last time this had happened, as he’d only begun to play in his second year at Sonora (this being largely to do with the fact that, due to his Muggle upbringing, he hadn’t even heard of the game at the start of his first year). He had watched the championship in his first year, and had heard about previous years, and he actually wasn’t all that keen to experience the madness of a championship game for himself. Not that he didn’t want to win – of course he wanted his team to win – but Aladren were, well, crazy, and there was surely nothing like a championship final to bring out the madness.Regardless of how he felt, Linus was a member of the Crotalus team, and as such he would stride out onto that pitch with his head held high and do the best he could to help bring about victory for the rattlesnakes. So he strode out with his teammates, and listened diligently to Captain Bauer’s speech… which seemed to Linus to be downplaying the importance of the game. That actually helped the third year to feel better about what history suggested would be an abysmal performance on his part. He just didn’t seem to be all that exceptional in a game scenario, despite his dedication during team practises. Perhaps this game he wouldn’t suck quite so dramatically as usual. As someone who was not accustomed to sucking at anything, Linus had found it very difficult when the sport hadn’t come as naturally to him as he’d have liked, but he was a fast learner, and the previous two years of playing had already offered him a wealth of experience. Lessons had been learned, and Linus was eager to demonstrate to the rest of the school that he could be competent on a broomstick, despite a hefty amount of evidence to the contrary. He had selected a decent school broom in preparation and took a moment to size up his opposing Chasers. On his own he knew he’d be no match for them, but accompanied by Sam and Renee, Linus thought Crotalus probably had the edge. Time itself would soon tell, and Coach Pierce was just at the end of her elaborate introduction, calling the captains together to shake hands.
Anticipating the start of the game, Linus swung his leg over his broomstick. There wasn’t much breeze, the sun was shining brightly, and there was no chance of rain. All they would have to do was play well, because they certainly couldn’t blame any poor play on the weather, and they ought to beat Aladren. Linus wasn’t at all convinced that the blue-clad players had a better team. Admittedly, they had a more experienced Seeker with an exceptional track record, but he’d been beaten last year by a less experienced Seeker, so maybe the same thing would happen again. Captain Bauer had seemed to think this was a possibility, and Linus had no reason to doubt his team Captain. So with hope and determination, Linus took a deep breath when the whistle blew, and kicked off hard from the ground.
He flew up fairly quickly, but he wasn’t first to the Quaffle (which was probably just as well, as he didn’t know whether he’d recover from the shock of touching the Quaffle so early on in the game in sufficient time to do something sensible with it). Sam had the Quaffle, and it only stayed in Crotalus possession briefly before transferring into Aladren hands amid a short battle of Bludgers. Luckily Topher was on form, and kept the metal balls away from Crotalus players. Unfortunately, the Quaffle had escaped them, and Linus set off in pursuit of it. He thought, in terms of matching up opposite teammates, that he would best be paired with Katrina. Therefore he would have been more confident in making an interception of one of her throws than of other of the other Chasers, but she had already passed the ball by the time Linus caught up with her. This then meant he had to attempt to retrieve the ball from Arthur Carey, and he lacked confidence in this endeavour. Yet with determination on his side, and it being so near the start of the game that exhaustion had not yet set in to slow his reactions, Linus actually made his efforts and stayed close on the tail of the Chaser currently in possession. The ball was in the air, and the third year surged forward, surprising himself (and no doubt everyone watching) by actually catching the ball.
Such was his lack of expectation to maintain his grip on the Quaffle, Linus flew a few more feet towards Nic before he reacted to the fact that he now held the coveted Quaffle in this hands. Replacing one hand rapidly on his broom, he tucked the ball under his free arm and began to circle back away from the Crotalus goals. He rarely touched the ball this early on in the game, and even less frequently did he make a successful interception. Perhaps his practise was paying off after all.
Convinced that at least one Bludger was still in the area, Linus didn’t hold onto the Quaffle for a great deal of time. It felt to him that the ball had barely made it away from the centre line, being carried first a little this way, then back the other, only to retrace its steps once more. It couldn’t be a very interesting game to watch, but it was far less stressful to play than when the ball spent the majority of its time near one set of goalposts. Linus only hoped he would remain relatively anxiety free as he saw a decent passing opportunity and took it, sending the Quaffle once again towards a red robed player.
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<font color="red">Linus Macaulay, Chaser</font>
Focus on this!
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<font color="red">Linus Macaulay, Chaser</font>
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5
<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>
July 19, 2012 5:57 PM
What, you flying toward your own Keeper? by <font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>
Mentally, Russell was feeling good about the game today, but he had noticed that his foot was bouncing beneath the table the whole time he was at breakfast, eating banana pancakes. He was hoping it was a positive kind of energy, the kind that would work once he was on the Pitch and playing the game and would hopefully even get them a goal or two. That would definitely be better than the alternative, which involved a lot of Bludgers and Renee Errant on a streak and a lot of disappointment all around the House.As he warmed up for the game, he worked on relaxing, and remembering that whatever happened, it wasn’t the end of the world. If they won, that was great, but then there would be tomorrow, and tomorrow, and so on until they got to next year and had more games to win or lose; if they lost, the next few tomorrows would be a little less pleasant than they might have been, and they’d have to deal with disappointed Housemates instead of happy ones, but they would still keep going on until exams and summer break and then, next year, more games to win or lose. Whatever happened, it, too, would pass; it would impact their team reputation (he was starting to notice his mind providing arguments against his stances; it wasn’t a completely unpleasant sensation, and he thought it was safe to blame Fawcett’s papers instead of being crazy, but it was a little strange to think about) and he’d prefer for it to be impacted in the way that meant the Aladrens kept being known as the crazy team that won, but there would be another day.
He thought that if he were David, he would be even happier to have that thought about how time would march on, because that would mean other chances to make speeches. Russell thought that the one from the Pecari game might have worked a little better here, but well, he wasn’t the captain, and he did get in some notion of the game being important and stuff being at stake because of it. Russell was resolved to try to keep the things in his life in perspective, but he had to admit, he was annoyed by how Aladren was doing in the points competition so far this year, and there was the thing of them versus Crotalus. They had been consistently beating Crotalus for so long that if they ever didn’t, then they would never live it down, ever, as long as they lived.
Crotalus did get the ball first, and got it from Sam to Renee, but then Kitty intercepted it and got it to Arthur. Russell grinned, but then, when the ball came his way, Linus came in there and stole the ball. So it was going to be one of those games, where it just kept going back and forth without ever getting anywhere. Well, game on. Russell turned to follow the ball, and –
- Found Linus just Not There. Russell blinked, confused for a moment, not sure what was going on, but then the Crotalus Chaser reappeared, now flying in the correct direction, and he dismissed it as just having a better broom and turning faster, without needing as much room to make the swing. It wasn’t important, anyway; the important thing was going after him and getting the ball back before it got anywhere near David.
He kept his eyes on the red ball and little else, counting on the Beaters to stay tangled up with each other so he could focus on being a Chaser. It moved, going up into a pass, and he put another burst of speed to his broom to get in and steal the ball and pull away from the Crotali before anyone could hit anyone. Once he was clear, he turned and headed back toward Nic Sawyer, making up some of the ground before passing back to another blue-clad Chaser and hoping they weren’t about to go into a new pattern, one where the team holding the Quaffle changed with every pass instead of even staying in the same court two moves in a row.
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<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>
What, you flying toward your own Keeper?
183
<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>
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5
