Watching attentively on Quidditch Pitch

Coach Pierce

December 02, 2012 3:34 PM

Quidditch Final: Aladren vs Pecari by Coach Pierce

Frankly, the results of the year's second game stunned her. It wasn't that she had thought the Pecari team was bad . . . inexperienced, certainly, but not bad . . . but she had expected her own Crotali to win. Granted, Pecari had the only seeker in the school who had ever bested Arnold Carey, but there was tradition and five years of history that clearly indicated that the only way Aladren did not face Crotalus in the final was if Aladren faced Crotalus in the qualifying rounds.

There had been a small delay between when Ms. Owen caught the snitch and when Amelia had blown the whistle to end the game, because she had needed those seconds to process, deny, grieve, then finally accept that Mr. Princeton had not been the one to catch it before she could announce Pecari's win. Neither graduating captain this year, then, would be playing in the finals.

And now the finals were here. It was a lovely day in late spring. Warm weather, but cooler than it had been all week (it had reached 85 on Thursday and 91 on Friday before the thunderstorm ran through last night and cooled things down) so it felt refreshing and comfortable in the mid seventies today. There were still a few clouds in the sky, but there were blue patches overhead and she didn't expect to see any more rain today. No, the greatest problem for the players would be the gusting winds that hadn't really gone away yet.

No doubt the spectators would appreciated the air movement, especially if the sun did start to warm things up again (not an unexpected turn of events in the Arizona desert even with the weather charms to protect them from really high extremes), but the intermittent winds were strong and unpredictable, which would no doubt wreak havoc on the Quaffle, probably carry the snitch about in even more unpredictable randomness than normal, and even the bludgers wouldn't be entirely unaffected by the larger gusts. Even just flying in a straight line would prove more difficult than normal with the wind rising and then dying down to nothing only to pick up again with no pattern or regularity.

She almost felt bad for Pecari, with its fairly new line-up, playing against the seasoned veterans of Aladren under such conditions.

The two sixth-year captains were giving their pre-game speeches to their teams and she let them finish before calling them to her. "This is the final game of the year, with Aladren, led by Captain David Wilkes, facing off against Pecari, led by Captain Sophie Jamison. Please shake hands." Neither was graduating this year, so there would be no desperate attempt to reach for a final show of glory this match, but both were no doubt eager to show what their team could do. Aladren had its title to defend and Pecari would surely like to prove that what they could do once, they could do again.

As the captains return to their teams after the handshake, she released first the snitch, which flew up, got dragged to the right as the wind picked up for a moment, then flew off, seeming to disappear between one blink and the next. Next, she let out the bludgers which flew up without interference from the day's weather, and finally she picked up the Quaffle. Standing between the two teams she held the red ball aloft and concluded her usual remarks for any spectators that might be tuning in for the first time, "Game begins at my whistle and ends when a seeker catches the snitch. Three. Two. One. Tweet" The whistle blew and she threw the Quaffle high into the air, thankfully at a moment when no wind was blowing to give either team an unfair advantage.

OOC: Welcome to the final. You should all know what you're doing now, but rules are posted here. Have fun posting!

Subthreads:

Here to win, again by Arthur Carey, Chaser with Russell Layne, Chaser, Asst Capt. Amira Thornton, Pecari, Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari, Waverly Canterbury,Chaser, Mellie Goodwin, Chaser, Captain Wilkes, Keeper

It's undeniably shiny, the thing that I Seek... by Arnold Carey, Seeker with Rupert Princeton, Beater, Preston, Beater, Jade Owen, Seeker, Preston, Beater, Coach Amelia Pierce

Watching attentively by Jay Carey, Alternate with Anthony Carey, Alternate

0 Coach Pierce Quidditch Final: Aladren vs Pecari 0 Coach Pierce 1 5

Arthur Carey, Chaser

December 02, 2012 11:27 PM

Here to win, again by Arthur Carey, Chaser

He was quite sure that if he had bee offered the chance to fix the Final, Arthur would not have seen the benefits of playing Pecari on his own and would have instead picked either Teppenpaw (which they’d never suffered a humiliating loss to) or Crotalus (out of a sense of honor and tradition), but since he had not had that chance and events, independent of him, had occurred the way they had, he was actually very pleased they were going to play the Wild Boars again. Things between him and Arnold, like things in general, really, had not been quite right since midterm, but the closer they had come to the game, the more petty matters of trust and loyalty and illegal spells had seemed to lose their grip on his brother’s attention. He could always count on Arnold to be easily distracted by Quidditch.

He could not say the same of Jane, who he’d been startled to see among the crowd moving into the stands just before the teams gathered, since he knew she never attended the games. There was no mistaking her, though, and that made him a little uneasy, though, careful of the shaky unity once more reigning between him and his twin, he did not mention it to Arnold. Not that he was completely sure Arnold would process it even if he did; he was going to some effort to act like his usual manically cheerful game day self, but Arthur thought he was a little tenser than usual. He had beaten Jade Owen since that one day when she had beaten him, but not in a Final. This, if Arthur was not mistaken, when his brother really planned to decide which of them was better.

It was inevitable that Arnold was going to do something stupid. Arthur did not doubt that for a single moment. He was never reasonable, Arnold, and he was never less reasonable than when he thought he had something to prove, that his honor, or reputation, or whatever term Arnold applied to it, was on the line. Arthur was just glad that the Pecari Beaters were both younger and less experienced than his brother. Otherwise, he thought there was a good chance they would have lost, and that even if they’d won, Arnold would have required more time with the medic than usual afterward, which would hardly be a good way to end things. Better than the alternative, of course, but still not ideal.

He listened politely, if, between his brother and knowing that she was out there and that he probably would not like the reason why, not as attentively as he might have otherwise, to Mr. Wilkes’ speech, for a moment being struck by the thought that the year after next it would be Arnold speaking to them all and wondering how on earth that was going to go, and then looking nowhere in particular while the captains shook hands. He had never really known what to do with his eyes during that moment, when glaring at the other team felt ridiculous but there was really nothing that he was supposed to, or indeed could, do. It presented him with a problem he couldn’t figure out what the best answer to was, and which, therefore, was really uncomfortable for him.

Happily, though, it was a moment which really only did, usually, last for a moment, since the captains were hardly going to stand around and exchange banter. Surely, he thought, even Mr. Wilkes, in his unrivaled sobriety, could not be that unusual. There had to be limits, at least for someone who was capable of getting into Aladren. There just had to be. It would damage Arthur’s entire concept of – well, perhaps not the world, after some of the people who had managed to get and stay in his family – at least his concept of Aladren if that was not so.

When the handshake was over, his eyes went to his broom as he got on it and waited for the whistle, which was obligingly swift to sound and set them all off into the air, Arthur himself getting the Quaffle first. Since he had done that in the last game as well, though, and it had been, if not an outright disaster, at least a tremendous headache to deal with for the Aladren Chasers, he did not feel too energized by that, or too sure, this time, that it was a predictor of what was going to happen in the game. Usually, he thought he was surer of their chances no matter what the circumstance, but in the course of this academic year, he had gone from thinking that he knew what pessimism was and that he possessed exactly the right amount of it to knowing that he in fact had known nothing at all before September and thought that he might still have plenty to learn.

Hard evidence, though, was far more valuable than either optimism or pessimism, and hard evidence from the Crotalus game suggested that while the Pecari girls were not, all things considered, bad Chasers, neither were they on the Aladren team’s level. With that thought in mind, he was careful about it as he looked for an opening to pass, but confident as he did throw the ball toward another blue uniform, aiming, in spite of the wind, for the first really, fully planned move of the game.

0 Arthur Carey, Chaser Here to win, again 0 Arthur Carey, Chaser 0 5

Arnold Carey, Seeker

December 03, 2012 12:07 AM

It's undeniably shiny, the thing that I Seek... by Arnold Carey, Seeker

Arnold was, as he bounced out onto the Quidditch Pitch in his blue robes, in possession of all his usual game day energy and enthusiasm, but this time, it had an undercurrent of anxiety he found both unfamiliar and unwelcome. It was disconcerting, and it had only, after weeks of cheerful predictions of an easy game from him, started the night before, during the thunderstorm. He had been sitting in the Aladren common room, looking out the window, and it had occurred to him that for the first time since he could remember – which was not really as impressive feat for him as for some, since he regularly got mixed up about the order of events from this year, never mind further back, but still – he hoped that the weather cleared up before he had to play. That he had not wanted to face Jade Owen in the driving rain and lightning and other things that, normally, he would have classified as ways to make the game more interesting for everyone involved.

He really, he had finally decided, just in time for the trace of nerves to begin bothering him, wanted to win this one. He really did. It wasn’t like things usually were, when he wanted to win, of course, but thought he could accept losing as long as it was a good game – this time, it was honestly important to him that they won. Maybe it was because of the trouble with Arthur, or knowing that Fae was going to be out there watching as something the whole school knew was a little more than just another of his friends, or the tension from CATS was driving him crazy, or he was just that bothered by the score between him and Jade Owen that felt unsettled to him, but he felt sort of sick, in a way he didn’t think he really had since first year, if then, when he thought about the possibility that today he might lose.

Not much, really. Just a little. But enough for him to notice it, and be bothered by it. He took a certain level of pride in seeing this just as a game and not getting as upset as other people did about it, of just seeing it as something he was good at and enjoyed, rather than as an occasion for cutting people’s throats. He hoped these feelings all went away once he was in the air.

That, he knew, was actually very likely given past experience, which helped with keeping up the cheery smile as he and his much grimmer-looking twin joined the rest of the team for David’s pre-game speech. Everything always seemed simpler and much easier to laugh at when he was in the air. He had been spending almost as much, now that the Fae problem had been replaced by the Arthur problem, time in the air since midterm as he had before it, too, so he knew he was fit and well-practiced in his position even beyond what his captain asked of him, which made it all the more likely that he would win. Once he got in the air, he was nearly sure, all his problems would just go away.

Well, except the Pecari Beaters, but…well, he wasn’t afraid of them, anyway, if he was telling the truth. Of any Beaters, really, but they were really not the most impressive pair that Sonora had to offer right now. That still left Jade, though. He wasn’t afraid of her, either, of course, but…well, she was a problem, anyway, one he was going to have to get around, if he wanted this one to work. She wouldn’t go away when he got into the air; indeed, it was only in the air that she really became a problem of his at all. But his troubles that had little or nothing to really do with Quidditch, those would all go away, and he was looking forward to that, rocking back and forth on his feet a little in his impatience for the game to just start already.

Finally, it did. Arnold kicked off hard and fast and almost immediately, as he rapidly gained altitude, found himself battling with a problem he hadn’t previously considered as a gust of wind took him off course. Gripping his broom firmly, he struggled to get back on course, shaking his head at the eternal truth of how being a Seeker was the only thing being a short person with a small build was any good for, and how it was not always perfect even for that. If they had somehow played in perfectly climate-controlled indoor arenas, then it might have worked better, but then, too, half the fun would have been gone, so he supposed he’d take the strong winds over that.

Once he was where he wanted to be and was surer than usual that he had a good seat on his broom and was not at much of a risk of falling off, since he thought he had done as much of that as he really needed to in his first two years, he began to scan the air below, between him and the green of the Pitch, for some glimmer of the Snitch. The other players, he perceived for the moment just as colorful obstructive blurs. His goal now wasn’t blue, brown, or red, but only pure gold.

0 Arnold Carey, Seeker It's undeniably shiny, the thing that I Seek... 181 Arnold Carey, Seeker 0 5

Rupert Princeton, Beater

December 03, 2012 1:46 PM

A bludger can be quite shiny. by Rupert Princeton, Beater

Being a part of the winning team on his first Quidditch match ever had been such a proud moment for Rupert. Though he'd felt a little bad seeing his brother storm off, Rupert still felt proud. Sure, he hadn't been the one to best his brother in something, that had been Jade, nor had he hit a single bludger in Cepheus's direction, but otherwise, he was proud of Pecari. There was really nothing his parents could chastise him about concerning the match, but Cepheus still wasn't speaking to him. If Pecari won this match, he didn't think Cepheus would speak to him at all until they got back home. For today's match against Aladren, he'd heard Cepheus complain all about the Aladren Quidditch team after losses, but Rup believed Pecari still stood a chance, however inexperienced they were. Today there wouldn't be any mercy on Rup's part.

No matter how good Rupert was as a Beater, he knew no one really took him seriously yet because he was a first year. It wasn't exactly like he advertised his training either, but he didn't think that was necessary. He had a great arm and had great aim, and Rup rarely missed his targets unless, of course, it was blocked by someone. However, he knew he wouldn't be able to make a name for himself until he proved it on the pitch which was exactly what he was going to do. He had held back on the last match, but now that there was no older brother in danger of being injured, he'd be fine letting loose.

When he walked onto the pitch, he was surprised by the gust of wind that nearly threw him off-balance. His blond hair was already tousled, and he frowned. This wasn't the sort of weather he'd wanted for the championship. Bludgers were heavy enough, sure, but if the wind got any stronger, they'd be completely knocked off course. It was unfortunate, but Rupert had been trained to beat in all sorts of weather, so he hurriedly went to join his team-mates, pulling on his Beater's glove and attempting to smooth his hair. It would be tousled once more any way, but he thought looking nice was important for the finals.

Sophie gave her captain's speech, and Rup nodded along, and then Coach Pierce blew her whistle to get the game started. Rupert mounted his broom and rose up with a little difficulty. Once he had an understanding of how strong the winds were, he was able to move better. Bat in his left hand, his right hand gripping his broom, he felt ready. Though he was still only a first year, his bigger build for a boy his age helped. The bludgers, obviously, didn't seem to have much trouble either, and so he went after them quickly.

Rupert had already scouted out which Aladren he was going to shadow. He didn't know if Andri usually liked to go after the Seekers, but he didn't think twice about it before going after Arnold Carey. There was, conveniently, a bludger flying a few feet away from him, and Rupert changed its direction with one, hard smack of his bat. The bludger was a bit off-kilter, and Rup saw it was headed towards Carey's arm more than the centre of his back. Carey's back was to it and Rupert, who hated violence, anticipated the sound of iron hitting against flesh, either back or arm. He didn't want to break any bones, but with Rupert's past track record, he wasn't sure what to expect. His ears were open as he kept his dark eyes open for any bludgers peeled for batting.

0 Rupert Princeton, Beater A bludger can be quite shiny. 0 Rupert Princeton, Beater 0 5

Russell Layne, Chaser

December 03, 2012 3:54 PM

Excellent plan, my friend. by Russell Layne, Chaser

Russell had been as surprised as anyone, he thought, when Pecari beat Crotalus for the final; he didn’t expect any of them to admit it if Mellie, who had gotten mad at him when he suggested the idea, wouldn’t, but he would not have been at all surprised if the Pecaris had experienced their own moment of shock when Jade caught the Snitch. Pecari beating Crotalus…well, it was like Pecari beating Aladren. It was one of those things that just didn’t happen, until the day that it did.

With that in mind, Russell didn’t assume the game before him was going to be easy. He couldn’t help but think that it would be easier than it would have been if they had played Crotalus again – he was pretty sure that in his seventh year, there as a good chance that the Crotalus and Aladren teams were going to take to the field to play the final game of the year and then just implode sometime in mid-play from the depths of their determination to beat each other – but it wasn’t going to be easy. Pecari was going to want to win this, and all it would take was one lucky Bludger at the right moment, the way it had been the last time these two teams (in name, at least; the Pecari lineup was very different now) had made it to the end here. That wasn’t really his business, since he was a Chaser and really expected his part of the game to be easier than usual since he wouldn’t be surprised if one Pecari Beater just covered Jade while the other concentrated on attacking Arnold, but he thought about it anyway, just to kill the time, he supposed, as they waited for things to get underway. The waiting was always one of the hardest parts.

Not that the captain’s speech was exactly one of the highlights of his life, either, David being David, but as long as the ‘let’s go maim people’ incident was not repeated, he preferred it to the rest of the time that happened on game day before the actual game began. No matter how late in the day the game was set to start, he ended up spending all that time restless and useless, feeling as though he had too much time to just sit around in but not time enough to really do anything else. Having three other members of the team among his roommates did not help, either, though he guessed he should still be grateful that he was not Josh, who got to be stuck in the middle of them all without even being able to really empathize with the anticipation. Bad enough to be, even now, still kind of ‘the new guy’ without having that to deal with, too.

He didn’t see the other fifth year as really the kind of guy who cared much about fitting in with the rest of them anyway, though, and if he was, he had truly done an astonishing job of hiding it for the past two years, so maybe it wasn’t a good comparison to draw at all. Russell didn’t know, and it was only something to momentarily distract himself with before David started talking. Once he did, Russell dropped the matter, along with how the Pecari Beaters were going to treat Arnold and everything else except his role in the game, which was to get the Quaffle as much as possible, keep it moving between him and the other Aladren Chasers, and try to score with it, but essentially just keeping it away from the Pecari Chasers. That was his job, that was his function for the moment, and that was what he was keeping his attention on right now.

Kickoff came at last, after David had spoken to them and then Coach Pierce announced the crucial details for the audience, if anyone didn’t know for some reason, and Arthur caught the Quaffle first. So far, so good. Russell didn’t feel any particular need to be have the honor of carrying the Quaffle first, especially since he remembered more than a few games where the person who had done that had then promptly lost control of it to the other team and never gotten it back for the rest of the game. He just wanted to have it for a while at all, to do his part toward getting them to Sophie Jamison and a triumph for the Chasing group.

Soon enough, he got that chance. Arthur passed the Quaffle, and Russell caught it, and the game kept moving along toward the Pecari goals, as smoothly as things had seemed to go at first, for the maybe five minutes things had gone at all, for the Pecari Chasers during their game with Crotalus. Except, maybe, for the wind; he didn’t really remember the weather conditions from that day except as ‘cold,’ so he wasn’t sure how the wind compared. Still, though, it did make completed passes just a little more impressive, for those who knew the game or were in it.

It also reminded him to be cautious, though, because in the end, though they had lost the game, Crotalus had managed to get the Quaffle away from Pecari in the end and keep them from scoring, or even trying to score. Pecari could very well mimic that move. He didn’t want them to do that. Precision was hard at high speeds in the wind anyway, but Russell did the best he could to maximize the chances of completion as he made his pass toward another of the blue-robed chasers on the Pitch, not wanting to lose the ball to wind or the three girls from Pecari. That, on the second move, would look bad; no one would remember it later, especially if Arnold did his job right and caught the Snitch as usual, but Russell thought that he would remember it, and he didn’t want to do that, either.

16 Russell Layne, Chaser Excellent plan, my friend. 183 Russell Layne, Chaser 0 5

Preston, Beater

December 03, 2012 8:26 PM

And deadly by Preston, Beater

It was time for the Quidditch final, and Preston couldn’t be more nervous. It wasn’t that the Aladren beater didn’t know how to do his job with the bat, but it was more about what this meant: end of year CATS. The redhead had been studying like crazy to excel in every subject available in the school – and some that weren’t – and that was doing something to his mental state. Preston Gerard Stratford was stressed about school for the first time in his life. It was a new feeling that he was having a little bit of trouble handling accordingly.

For the last couple of weeks he had been having late night study sessions that were clearly visible in his fair skin. There were pronounced shadows under his eyes and a little bit of grumpiness in his every day encounters. The redhead still needed to get used to live with less sleep than his body was accustomed to. It hadn’t been a walk in the park to be near him for the last few weeks, especially the last couple of days.

As the day of the final Preston’s insomnia had gotten worse, and he was barely functional. It had gotten to the point where he had to take a sleeping potion to sleep without any problems. However, the Aladren didn’t like to rely on potions to have a good night sleep. It only had been to be prepared for the game and later for CATS. Taking the potion was just a few days thing. The redhead didn’t want to make any mistakes. Too much was on the line.

The day of the final was what one could define as a good day for Quidditch, the weather was warm and the sun wasn’t shining too brightly with the slight misfortune of wind playing against them. Not a big problem, really. They were going to win.

The redhead entered the pitch full of confidence they were going to snatch the title once again, even when Lucky Strike Pecari would try to steal from them one more time. The Aladren team had more experience than the new line-up from that house. They had everything to win and they were going to.

He listened to Captain Wilkes give the custom pep talk before going off to shake the hand of the Pecari Captain which happened to be a girl and not some old girl, but one that came from a good family. It baffled him that Sophie Jaminson played the sport, probably because he wasn’t used to girls playing Quidditch. Something he had to get over once he started at Sonora. Traditionally the females of his family didn’t do it and were sidelined to cheer for them. Little by little he had gotten used to a sort of living he hadn’t foreseen. He wasn’t against it, but he wasn’t going to condone it. People did whatever they wanted with their lives, but the misfortune of dealing with the negative consequences of those actions.

After the handshake and Coach Pierce’s signal for the game to start, the redhead got on his broom and followed the first bludger he set his eyes on. It wasn’t far, but it was getting dangerously close to one of the Aladren players. Preston moved towards it and with a swing connected with the ball and sent it towards the Pecari Seeker. He was going to spend most of his time protecting Arnold from the Pecari beaters.

0 Preston, Beater And deadly 0 Preston, Beater 0 5

Asst Capt. Amira Thornton, Pecari

December 05, 2012 2:12 PM

Not your best plan, though. Was it? by Asst Capt. Amira Thornton, Pecari

Amira had her doubts about the day of the Pecari/Aladren Final Game. Her stomach was oddly in knots. Was the fourth year actually nervous? (If she was, she wasn’t happy about it.)

Merlin’s Beard, whats the matter with me? she thought. It wasn’t that she was untrusting of her team, she trusted them, (well most of them), with her life. We play Aladren… The butterflies inside her stomach took flight so fast that she was nauseated. Ohmygod… I’m going to throw up… She rushed to the bathroom and dinner from the night before exploded into the john. She’d made it just in time. Eww… That was gross! she added to herself as she wiped her face off and gargled some sink water to get the taste of acid out of her mouth.

“Eww…” she muttered softly to the bathroom wall in front of her. I don’t even want to know what I look like right now… Her mind raced almost as fast as her heart as she looked in the mirror. Amira’s red hair stood out even more than usual against her now pale, clammy skin and she groaned. It would be today, wouldn’t it… Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but today…

“Merlin’s Beard…” she said ass he realized the heat that was coming right off her forehead. Damnit… After the game I‘m going to have to go see Medic Bailey, the girls won’t give me a choice… Mir said to herself as she pulled her hair up better, tucking in the flyaways. “I can do this… I can do this…” she repeated to herself over and over again as she slowly got ready for the game as the rest of Pecari House started moving around out of their beds.

The fourth year walked out of Pecari House and down hallways to the front door. The door opened and the air hit her like a ton of bricks. It was warm for late Spring, but it felt like that day was cooler than the rest of the week to Amira’s hands. Her head, however, felt like it was right next to a heater. The heat and the warm gusty wind made Mir a little dizzy and she caught herself on the doorjamb. “Oooh… That was not okay…” she whispered, when she caught her breath again. I have to play… There’s no reserves… I have to… she closed her eyes and took in a deep breath in from her mouth, and let it out slowly through her nose. A tear fell from the corner of her right eye, and she stifled a sob. Why does this always happen when I feel like I’m going to throw up…? she asked herself as she opened her eyes back up again to see the blue patches of sky above her. She hiccupped, and pulled in a deep breath again, letting it out even slower than before.

The wind gusted around her, blowing the door shut onto her. “Ow…” she said, as she moved away from the door, letting it close all the way as it seemed to want to. She walked slowly down to the Pitch and to her team, doing her best to listen to Sophie’s speech and keep her head on straight at the same time. Merlin, I really hope I don’t throw up right now… Or at all during this game… she thought to herself as she wiped sweat off her forehead and another tear from the corner of her eye at the same time. Merlin, they’ll all know soon if this game doesn’t just start already… she thought. She knew she was pale and clammy, she’d only hoped the other’s hadn’t really noticed. Thankfully, Coach Pierce started talking soon after, hopefully before the others could figure out she was sick.

Sophie shook David’s hand and returned to the rest of the Pecari Team as Coach released the Snitch first, then the Bludgers and lastly, she stood between Aladren and Pecari holding the Quaffle. Mir closed her eyes tightly and held onto her broom handle tightly too as she felt a little bit dizzy again. Thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as the first time, but it is what it is. The whistle blew and the Quaffle flew high into the air, both team‘s players flew up around it.

It hadn’t been decided which Beater would take watch over the Seekers and which would take the Chasers, however, it was almost as if Rup had read her mind, maybe Jade’s too. Jade and Mira had never had such friendly feelings towards each other, she wasn’t sure if they ever would. Rupert probably read that. He went after Arnold right after the Quaffle throw, so Amira, in her flight, went right for the Chasers.

Arthur Carey of Aladren, got the Quaffle first, and she was right on him, still pale and clammy, but for some reason the air helped her feel a little cooler at least. She didn’t see a Bludger yet, but that didn’t mean one wouldn’t show itself to her at some point soon. The wind blew her a little bit off-track, but the off-track blow did help her to find a Bludger. Holding up her bat with one clammy hand, she held her broom with the other and with one eye on the black ball and the other on Arthur who looked like he was going to pass the ball. Moments later, he did just as she thought he would when the ball changed hands into Russell’s. It was almost perfect, the way the Aladren Chasers usually were in each game. It didn’t matter who they played against, they were still the same way. But sick or not, its not going to stay that way. It’s not… she thought, anger boiling her temperature up even higher than it already was.

Amira wasn’t stupid, maybe she was relatively new at Beating on a team, just as she’d been relatively new at Chasing the year before. She was flexible, knowledgeable in all areas of Quidditch, she had worn many hats over the years. Even though the one she wanted most was the Seeker hat, she could play anything. I can do this… I can… Being sick isn‘t going to stop me. Pecari can still win…

Russell took the Quaffle further down the Pitch, closer to Pecari’s hoops and Sophie, but Amira, sick or not, wasn’t going to let it get near enough to Sophie to risk anything. Russell made the move like he was going to pass, but before he could even release the Quaffle, the black Bludger was enroute to the spot where the ball met Russell’s arm. She wasn’t trying to hurt Russell, persay. She was more interested in stopping Aladren’s Chaser, whichever one he was throwing to, from getting the red ball. So why not use the black one to hit the red one off course in this wind…? she thought, as her bat hit metal, sending it right at the Quaffle, knocking it out of the line of the Aladren Chaser who was trying to catch Russell’s pass, hopefully into the hands of one of Pecari’s Chasers…

It didn’t matter to her if Mellie, Ann or Waverly got the ball after that, but she hoped beyond all hope that one of them was able to get it in the wind…

0 Asst Capt. Amira Thornton, Pecari Not your best plan, though. Was it? 0 Asst Capt. Amira Thornton, Pecari 0 5

Arthur Carey, Chaser

December 05, 2012 8:41 PM

It still seems to be working to me by Arthur Carey, Chaser

In spite of the wind, which he knew could be even more of a problem for him than for his brother in spite of his greater weight because of what it could do to the Quaffle, Arthur was pleased to see that he and Russell were working together as well as ever, working around the stumbling block the environment was trying to put before them and keeping the Quaffle in Aladren possession. Another move or two, and they would be able to threaten the Pecari goals, and then things would really begin….

As Russell began to pass the ball back toward him, though, Arthur heard a whistle that didn’t exactly match the wind a second too late to do anything about it, and was in the middle of swearing when it clipped his elbow as he pulled the Quaffle in, the half-furious, half-resigned exclamation cutting itself off in the middle because of the impact. In addition to the usual pain, the exact spot hit meant that unpleasant, almost tingling and at the same time almost numb, shocks went both up and down the rest of his arm, nearly making him, as he twisted his shoulder instinctively in an attempt to shake off the feeling, drop the Quaffle as he tried to pull it closer to him at the same time.

Well. This was not something he would have liked to see happen so early in the game. Injuries were inevitable and he regarded them as such, but so early in the game…that was not things going well. Trying to force his face out of the twist it had gone into after the impact, he focused on covering ground, aiming to let one of his teammates have the first shot at the Pecari goals. He would be all right, he thought, but at the moment, he was also sure that Sophie Jamison would best him in the one-on-one contest Chasers and Keepers engaged in, and a failed goal would both do nothing for the team and would possibly earn him a negative response from his teammates later if he tried it, and rightly, since only phenomenal arrogance on the level of what Edmond had accused him of would make him try to shoot so soon after getting hit when there were other options….

The thought of his distant cousin made him grimace again, for a completely unrelated reason, as he looked for a good opportunity to pass and then, once he thought the way they were all moving was about to present him with one, made the extra effort to feint in the direction he did not plan to go before he passed in the one which he did, hoping to throw off any Pecaris who thought they might smell blood in the metaphoric water. Then, of course, all he could do was hold his breath and stop just short of crossing two fingers as he saw whether or not the tactic was going to work out as he wanted it to.

0 Arthur Carey, Chaser It still seems to be working to me 0 Arthur Carey, Chaser 0 5

Arnold Carey, Seeker

December 05, 2012 10:30 PM

I'd prefer to live by Arnold Carey, Seeker

Arnold had noticed that Preston didn’t really seem to be his best lately, but he was still glad to see that his roommate was going to be the one watching his back today. It was nothing against Thad – the younger guy, despite his most famous Quidditch-related moment at Sonora most likely being a Keeper-related one, was turning out to be a pretty good Beater – but Preston was larger and more familiar, both because he was his roommate and because he had red hair, which Arnold associated with his first protective Beater at Sonora. That Edmond had recently turned into, in his imagination, much more menacing figure couldn’t affect what he thought on the Pitch, at least not yet.

At the moment, Preston seemed to be saving him from a Bludger, which meant that Arnold didn’t think his opinion on redheaded Beaters was likely to change any time soon, either. Lifting a hand, as he turned and saw what was going on, in acknowledgment of the save, Arnold moved in the opposite direction from the Bludger just to make his position a little safer before resuming his hunt for the Snitch. He didn’t intend to get hit any more than he could help today; he knew now that it upset Fae, and that wasn’t a good thing.

Looking down, he didn’t spot the Snitch, but he did see Arthur catch a Bludger and winced, seeing her point for a moment. What was between them was, of course, a completely different thing than what was between him and Arthur, and always would be, but the basic idea, that he didn’t enjoy seeing someone he cared about get hurt, even if he had thought about throwing something heavy in that person’s direction himself more than once in the past few months, was there, he thought. It was just the game, so it didn’t bother him too much, since he understood the game and that no one was going to get really hurt, but still, he would have rather have not looked down just then.

Looking away from the Chasers was the next best thing he could do, so he did that instead, instead training himself back toward seeing them all as anonymous blobs and focusing his attention on seeking something that glittered, moving to near the middle of the field, since for one thing the game wasn’t in his way there right at that moment and for another he could see a good bit of both sides of the Pitch from it, as long as no one was exchanging insults with him or hitting Bludgers at him or anything like that. Since no one was, yet, that meant he had a moment to take a good look around.

He still didn’t see anything, though, so he flew toward the Aladren goals, looking in the areas he hadn’t been able to see clearly from the very middle of the field, and then, faster, back toward the Pecari end, reasoning, after a look up showed to him that it probably wasn’t there, either, that the Snitch was most likely somewhere down there, and he needed to be there before it moved away.

Sure enough, as he reached that end, he thought he saw a flash of gold, but before he could react, someone moved and obscured his view, and when he moved again, he couldn’t find it again. Making a face, he flew higher, to avoid the Chaser game Bludger if there was one of those in play right now, and went to look in another section of this half of the Quidditch Pitch.

0 Arnold Carey, Seeker I'd prefer to live 181 Arnold Carey, Seeker 0 5

Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari

December 06, 2012 2:25 PM

Think again... by Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari

Amira’s forehead felt slightly cooler thanks to the wind, but she was sure that when she went back inside her fever would jump up even higher than it ever had been before. Amira’s normal core body temperature is below the normal 98.6 degrees. Generally, hers sat somewhere near 97 and at this time, she was sure it was somewhere over 102 by the feel of it. Her clammy hands were starting to slip on her Beaters bat, so she switched hands fast, wiped her clammy one on her robe and switched back, doing the same thing with the hand that held the broom handle as well. Her back hurt and it felt almost like she had been hit by one of those 18 wheeled trucks she used to see out in Oregon on the highways.

With both her hands now slightly less clammy and the air blowing through her hair (thankfully), cooling her head and neck, she spotted the first Bludger which she hit right towards Russell’s passing Quaffle. Her hope was that Mellie, Ann or Waverly would get the Quaffle from there, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen.

Arthur Carey got in the way, AGAIN. However, Amira didn’t find that a problem at first. When the Bludger hit, it hit his elbow and a weird smile was etched on Mir’s mouth. When she realized that whether he was hit or not, he still had the ball pulled into him, she cursed herself for not hitting the black ball harder than she had. Damnit! she thought to herself as she flew faster towards the Bludger (and Arthur), wondering where her Chasers were.

Arthur tried to cover ground and get back towards Sophie again from what seemed to her like mid-Pitch. Oh no you won’t… she thought as she flew faster and faster than she really should have being sick and all. But she wanted to win this game, and if she wanted that win she was going to do just about anything to get it!

Amira flew below the Chaser, and just behind him for a few feet, then flew out in front of him to startle him, hopefully enough to drop the ball into waiting hands of one of Pecari’s Chasers. She didn’t hit him or touch him in any way, so that was not, nor could not be considered anything bad, could it?

When Arthur passed the ball anyway, just before she flew upwards, right towards her, the Quaffle hit off her arm that held her bat and her clammy hands almost dropped said bat. Almost. Thank goodness she caught both the bat and moved the ball downwards and away from Arthur (hopefully from Russell and Kitty too…), at the same time, but she wasn’t too sure just yet.

0 Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari Think again... 0 Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari 0 5

Waverly Canterbury,Chaser

December 06, 2012 5:34 PM

Trying not to be too flustered by Waverly Canterbury,Chaser

Quidditch had been a whirlwind since Waverly's first match in which Pecari won. She had been dizzy with excitement and disbelief. It was clear that she hadn't expected Pecari to win, though she had definitely hoped for it. And now they were in the finals against Aladren.

If she was completely honest with herself, she was a little bit afraid of playing against Aladren. Aladren seemed to win the cup every year and, besides being sick and tired of them winning, it almost felt like a tradition now. However, they had beat Aladren before and Waverly didn't doubt they could do it again. Hopefully.

Lucky shoes on, though worn and somewhat muddy now from practices, and her Quidditch uniform, she rushed out to the pitch and arrived a few minutes early. She walked onto the grass with her teammates and listened to Sophie's speech as she took several deep breaths, nodding to show that she was listening. It was much windier than she had expected, though she was used to the Arizona weather since she had grown up here. She redid her hair from a ponytail to a bun, satisfied with it not getting into her face.

Finally, the whistle was blown and she watched her teammates all fly up into the air. Tentatively, Waverly rose up. She was much more comfortable on a broom now, but she still didn't expect the gust of wind to throw her off course already. She held onto the broomstick for dear life, trying to push her way back to a comfortable position. Though the gust made its way through, she was still a little shaky. Waverly finally rose a little higher, but the other players were already up and doing things. This was already frustrating.

Waverly rose up higher and kept her eyes on the other Chasers. She had watched many a game to know Aladren's tactics and feints. Of course, it was very different being on the pitch instead of in the stands. Things were going really fast already, and Waverly had to rush to keep up. Arthur had the quaffle, and then Russell, and then Arthur again. Well, that wasn't fair. The Pecaris hadn't even had a chance to get it yet. She flew over, but found she was too late when Arthur made to pass the opposite way. Waverly slowed down, put out, waiting to watch a good pass to one of his teammates, but was surprised when she saw the quaffle heading straight for her instead. Apparently that had been a feint she hadn't expected.

She flew forward quickly and snatched the quaffle up quickly and headed over to the Aladren hoops. Her grass green eyes were bright now with the adrenaline running through her blood and her heart was beating quickly as it did every time she had the quaffle in her arm. She was close to the hoops as she dared, but didn't want to be a ball hog. Besides, she was kind of afraid of making the first throw into the hoops.

Waverly remembered, suddenly, one of the moves they had worked on in practice. She looked out for one of her teammates as she neared the hoops and threw it towards the right hoop, watching, hoping, and praying for her teammate to kick it into the middle one. They had practiced this move before and she really hoped it worked.

0 Waverly Canterbury,Chaser Trying not to be too flustered 0 Waverly Canterbury,Chaser 0 5

Arthur Carey, Chaser

December 07, 2012 12:31 AM

Just keep trying to get yourself flattened instead by Arthur Carey, Chaser

At the last moment, when it was already too late to do anything about it, Arthur saw the brown robe, but he was prevented from thinking through the words he would have liked to use to express his opinion of that when he looked again and saw which Pecari player it was. The surprise of seeing a Beater there was enough to startle him.

Once that moment was past, though, his expression went from blank to furious as he turned his broom around and contemplated whether or not he could persuade or manipulate anyone in his family into petitioning the Magical Sports people about a rule change. There was a clearly defined rule about how no one but the Seeker could touch the Snitch without a foul being called, so why should Beaters get to interfere with the Quaffle? Or, if the Snitch was to be special, why couldn’t he and the other Chasers have bats in one hand as well? It wasn’t proper, not at all, and he disapproved heartily. If she could hit his Quaffle, he should be able to hit her hea…Bludger, he quickly corrected himself. Mother would definitely disapprove of his first construction.

Still, as they flew down much of the Pitch and Thaddeus woefully failed to damage Miss Canterbury, Arthur entertained fond fantasies about the idea of the Aladren team coming to a game all carrying bats, and then using those to great effect on any available portions of the other team. Perhaps if it were raining; Pecari brown or Crotalus red could look very close to black, wet, as could many hair colors. They could mistake many things for Bludgers. It would be wonderful.

At last, they had covered the whole damn Pitch – if Mr. Wilkes did not have the nerve to have a word with their Beaters about this kind of thing, Arthur vehemently hoped that Thaddeus’ friends would make his life, anyway, deeply unpleasant for a few days for allowing it, since Preston seemed to be with Arnold and that was a bit more important than the goals, he supposed, as emotional as he could get about them in these moments of such great stress – and Miss Canterbury looked like she was going to shoot. Arthur judged that he could probably not save it. He would have to trust Mr. Wilkes.

Evidently, the universe felt like a comedian today. He doubted even a completely unintelligent cosmos could have failed to notice how well Arthur liked that idea, especially in the Final.

0 Arthur Carey, Chaser Just keep trying to get yourself flattened instead 0 Arthur Carey, Chaser 0 5

Rupert Princeton, Beater

December 07, 2012 7:14 PM

Pish posh. by Rupert Princeton, Beater

It was rather unfortunate that, as soon as Rup had hit the bludger it had been batted away. Getting rid of the Beater would be his first line of defence, or going after the Chasers. However, it seemed like Amira was taking care of them which left Rup here. He flew after one of the bludgers that was now making a swing around to get at somebody else and bat it back towards the Seeker, though not enough to make it reach them. The bludger swung around to try and hit him and Rup bat it gently away again towards his target. It looked like Preston was planning to protect Arnold, so Rup had to think quickly whether he wanted to bat it over at Preston directly or get it at Arnold.

Decisions like which person he should plan on hurting was not normal in Rup’s mind; violence was only allowed on the pitch. It was ironic that, of all the positions Rupert could have chosen to play, he’d chosen to be the Beater. He didn’t call himself a pacifist, per say, but he was certainly not one who enjoyed violence. Having grown up with a family who made their fortune off of the family hospitals, he was the sort who watched healers do their work, not watch his pure-blood family torture or hurt people. In fact, those sorts of pure-bloods were the kind that the Princetons looked down upon. However, it was on the pitch that all of those things changed and Rup was very aware of that. In fact, he rather enjoyed the change in morals occasionally and, having grown up in and around hospitals, he had seen his share of disgusting injuries. Mere Quidditch injuries didn’t faze him too much. Rup himself had had bones broken before thanks to Quidditch.

He still needed to decide which player he was going to hit the bludger at. As he got closer, Rup finally decided batting it at the Beater’s arm would do. At least that way he could stun Preston temporarily and get a free short, if all went ‘well,’ at Arnold.

With that plan in mind, Rup smacked the bludger at Preston’s knee with a sharp crack, keeping in account the gust of wind. Thankfully the bludger was too dense to be affected too much by the wind. Even if Preston tried to avoid it by rising, the bludger, as it was known to do, would swing around and hit him on the other side. At least, that was what Rup was planning on. He stayed close, dark eyes on the iron ball to make certain that he’d be able to catch it and bat it straight at the Seeker and throw him off course.

If things didn’t go as planned, Rup would have to either get to the bludger before Preston did or chase after it if Preston somehow reached the rocketing bludger before it hit his knee or his broom and hit it away. It was definitely going too fast for Preston to hit it directly back. Unless he got a lucky shot.

0 Rupert Princeton, Beater Pish posh. 0 Rupert Princeton, Beater 0 5

Jade Owen, Seeker

December 09, 2012 4:33 PM

Joining the party by Jade Owen, Seeker

The game today was not, as far as Jade was concerned, Pecari versus Aladren. That was merely an aspect of the much larger picture: Jade Owen versus Arnold Carey. The first time she had come against Sonora’s Seeker extraordinaire she had beaten him, hands down. The second time they had played together, Arnold had, sadly, won. However, it had been snowing, and the Snitch had rather unfairly decided to appear right by Arnold at the only point in the game the two Seekers had been separated by any considerable distance (Jade still suspected some sort of meddling – Aladren’s were smart, if anyone could pull of a cheat like that then it would be the Hawks). This game would be the clincher, in Jade’s mind; the deciding vote cast to determine which of them was the better Seeker. In her heart, Jade knew it was her. She had less flying experience and a much lower standard of broom, and she still gave Arnold a decent battle. If only they could switch brooms for one match… but no, there would be no fun in playing a game that easy. She didn’t need to take Divinations to know who would win such a competition. Clue: It would be her. Regardless, that wasn’t the question for today, as fate enjoyed screwing with her and had lumped her with the useless end of the bargain, as usual. So on her school broomstick, Jade would whoop Arnold’s ass with gusto, and take victory for Pecari into the bargain.

In preparation for her triumphant performance, Jade had, naturally, been practising hard. For a girl who had spent her life perfecting the art of laziness, the catalyst that ignited her enthusiasm surely had to be phenomenal. The chance to one-up one of Sonora’s (and society’s) ups was as sweet as it sounded. She worked hard for her Captain (though that might change if Amira was promoted the following year – Jade would work just as hard, but it certainly wouldn’t be for the benefit of her Captain), as well as for herself, and her House, and the championship game was the ultimate platform to demonstrate her superior skill. Honing her talents had not been her only pre-game preparation, of course: Jade had also consumed a hearty breakfast of two slices of toast, a banana, three chocolate chip pancakes, two rashers of bacon, and a large mug of hot cocoa, guaranteed to keep her energy levels high during the match. She would also need to keep tabs on her patience, and ignore any jibes that Thad or Arnold might throw at her. It would be foolish of her not to learn from past mistakes, and in her most recent clash with Aladren, the taunting had been a key factor in her deviating from her opponent’s path (that, and the Bludger that had been heading for them both), and consequently being nowhere near the Snitch when it presented itself to him. Hence, she would not allow any verbal assaults to influence her game.

Listening half-heartedly to Sophie’s pre-game pep talk, Jade kept most of her attention of Arnold. He didn’t seem his usual cocky self this morning, and she took that as a sign that he was worried. He ought to be. She had more determination than any other person she had ever met, and currently her goal was to make Arnold look like a fool. Even with her school broom and her ill-fitting joggers, and her hair pulled back into one messy braid (she hadn’t yet cut it off, despite her repeated assurances to herself that she would do so), she would best him. She was sure of it.

When the whistle blew, the third year Pecari kicked off hard from the ground and soared upwards, her stomach feeling as though someone was trying to suck it out from the other end. She smirked against the breeze, her fingers clenching the handle of her broomstick tightly, whitening her knuckles under the threadbare gloves. She forgot about her schoolwork, she forgot about being poor, she even forgot about the spot that was threatening to break on her forehead, and she just focussed on being Seeker for the Pecari Quidditch team. She had already made the decision to stick close by to Arnold, at least to start with, though that plan didn’t go down too well with the Beaters. Little Rup, one of the teeny firsties on her team, brashly decided to aim for Arnold while Preston was in the vicinity. She had to admire the kid’s guts, but not his tactics, as they resulted in her having to avoid an Aladren-hit Bludger far too early on in the game. The brunette ducked out of the Bludger’s way, knowing that her broom didn’t have sufficient swerving capabilities to save her. She felt the metal pass over her head – if she hadn’t seen it coming it would have taken her out of the game for sure; that Stratford was getting too good at his role – mercifully without touching her scalp, and she knew she had to get on the move again before Preston, or Thad, for that matter, could fly round and send the Bludger back for another go. Jade set off at a more rapid pace than she’d originally planned, keeping her eyes peeled, looking left and right for any sign of the Snitch or any more Bludgers.

It wasn’t long at all before Arnold strayed once again into her field of vision and, not having identified their prize anywhere yet, Jade took to tailing her opposition, instead. He could fly faster than her, that was true enough, but if she continued to follow him there was the chance it would annoy him sufficiently to distract him from the Snitch search. She called out to him, “Hey, Carey. A bird’s left you a present on your back. Is that a new trend? It sucks.” It was a complete falsehood, too, but he wouldn’t know that for sure until the end of the game...which would potentially be something else to take his mind from where it ought to be. Jade certainly wasn’t above trying whatever she could, so long as she remained within the rulebook, to catch the Snitch and claim the championship.

0 Jade Owen, Seeker Joining the party 0 Jade Owen, Seeker 0 5

Arnold Carey, Seeker

December 09, 2012 7:23 PM

Welcome! The more the merrier by Arnold Carey, Seeker

Arnold was alarmed for a moment when he saw that the Pecari Beater was swinging again, but then he saw that the Bludger seemed to be directed more toward Preston than toward him and didn’t think about it anymore. Preston could handle a Bludger; it was sort of his job out here. That was why he had a bat in his hand and spent a lot of time learning how to most effectively swing it into flying objects so they went where he wanted them to go. He would get rid of it, and hopefully hit Jade Owen with it.

Proof that he hadn’t yet managed that appeared behind him not long after. Surprised, having not fully processed that she had changed directions while he was scanning the ground below him for the Snitch, Arnold didn’t immediately make sense of what she was saying to him and decided not to worry about it, since there was almost no chance it was anything other than the usual trash talk. He waved cheerfully, if distractedly, at her.

“Good to see you, too,” he called back. “Looking forward to another bitter defeat?”

What did it mean, he wondered, that she had spoken to him first? In their first game together, he hadn’t spoken to her at all, and he had lost; in the second, he had done what he always did and said something to the other Seeker early in the game, and he had won again. He had never, as far as he could recall, had one of them talk to him first, though. How did that affect things, if his superstition about how he won games and how he lost them was in fact not a superstition, but an accurate observation and a necessary condition for an Aladren victory? Losing to a girl on a school broom would be bad enough, losing to Pecari would be just awful, but losing because he had been spoken to instead of being the one who did the speaking? That would be….

Arnold couldn’t really think of the words for what that would be, he decided after a few seconds, but he could picture it in his head well enough, and it was hideous. No, he was not going to do that. No way in hell was he going to do that. He had to win this one just to disprove it to himself, or at the very least, keep himself from being sure that it was true. Uncertainty, under the circumstances, sounded like it would be far more desirable than certainty, since the only way he could think of to be sure of anything was to lose this game and then at least two more, which he had no intentions of doing. It wasn’t just him, or his family, or even just the rest of the team to think about anymore; it was the whole House, or so he thought at times, which was counting on him not to do that.

A second later, though, such weighty thoughts were dismissed from his mind as a back corner of his mind finally put together what Jade had said to him and immediately forced indignation to the fore, ahead of other concerns. “Hey!” he started to exclaim, though he managed to lower the volume in the middle of saying it while glaring at her for the second it took him to remember that Quidditch was not personal. If her House had had a bird mascot, he might have thought of the same thing.

Still feeling irritated even after he went over that with himself, and needing an excuse for that exclamation, he finished with the famous last words of many a person with a little more confidence than sense before him: “Watch this!” He began to fly around in a series of the most complicated loops he could think of off the top of his head, aiming to completely circle her in all directions and keep her annoyed wondering which direction he was going to pop into her vision from next if she refused to be really awesome and try to copy him and fall off her slow old broom so he had some obstacle-free hunting time.

0 Arnold Carey, Seeker Welcome! The more the merrier 181 Arnold Carey, Seeker 0 5

Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari

December 09, 2012 8:08 PM

She won't be flattened. by Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari

Amira watched the Quaffle fall slightly and Waverly rose up almost as if to meet it. It was amazing the way it worked. She knew it was almost even like an accident, but she wasn’t going to say anything of the sort out loud! She believed in Waverly, in fact, she believed in her whole team. Even Jade.

Jade may not be her favorite person in the world, but she had grown to be able to tolerate the girl. After all, how can they work together on the Pitch if they refused to talk to her. How could Pecari win without real teamwork? And, for Jade’s ability, it grew better and better as she worked towards this game. Amira actually had real faith in the girl’s ability to win the game. Sure, she didn’t say it to the younger Pecari, but after the game when she helped to win it for them, Amira promised herself that she’d tell the younger girl she was proud of her.

Amira grinned when Waverly caught the Quaffle and wanted to cheer for her little friend, but also didn’t want to lose her own sense of equilibrium. As it was, she felt warmer and warmer as the game went on and the Pecari chanted in her head, Come on Jade… Catch that Snitch! You can do it! Catch that Snitch! Althewhile, she was watching as Waverly headed towards Aladren hoops. Amira followed her younger teammate to be sure that no Aladren Beater would get her with a Bludger in the process.

Spotting one heading right for Waverly as she reached near the hoops, she flew faster and hit it in the opposite direction, towards one of the blue robed players. She didn’t care which Aladren it was, she wasn’t too worried about it hitting her sister. Andri was on the bench, thankfully not playing first string in this game.

Waverly looked around her, like she had an idea of what she was going to do, and Amira waited as well, with bated breath and an eye both on Waverly as well as in the hunt for Bludgers. Waverly threw the Quaffle towards the right hoop and finally Amira realized what she was doing. She was hoping for Ann or Mellie to kick the red ball into the middle one. It was something they’d practiced at team practices, and Amira hoped it worked in a game too!

She’d seen the look on Arthur’s face when she’d ended up hitting the Quaffle. It wasn’t what she’d originally planned to do, it was just an after effect of it, but she didn’t want anything to go wrong in this game. The look on Arthur Carey’s face told her he could kill her with the anger he felt. She wasn’t afraid of him, but she didn’t want him to stop the game over it all. If he was going to throw a fit, Let him wait till after. See how scary he truly thinks he is… she thought as she glanced around towards the other Pecari Chasers, hoping they understood what Waverly was doing!

0 Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari She won't be flattened. 0 Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari 0 5

Preston, Beater

December 12, 2012 6:05 PM

Yepyep by Preston, Beater

Preston was normally a really peaceful guy and the violence that came out of him during Quidditch was just his competitiveness. The Aladren wasn’t one to bully people with his physical state out of the pitch. It was quite obvious that he didn’t just sit around and read books while he was in school or at home. The redhead had taken his beater position very responsibly. Sometimes it was too much to handle, but he was making it work. At least he hoped he was. His grades were excellent, he was a pretty great player – modest too – and had a good relationship with his girlfriend. The day didn’t have enough hours to fulfill his various commitments. Then again, sleep wasn’t that important.

He was tired, very tired and playing Quidditch after weeks of no sleeping and forcing it by taking a potion didn’t seem to be the best combination ever. The Aladren was a bit distracted.

And then he yawned.

The first thing he saw after opening his eyes was a bludger coming straight at him, and he had no time to swing his bat to sent it away. However, Preston did try to dodge it, but it was too late. The murderous ball collided with his shoulder blade. “Crap!” he cursed as the pain soared through his body. It was going to bruise. The redhead moved his shoulder to see how bad it was. Thankfully, his scapula wasn’t broken or anything serious, but it was going to bruise and hurt for a while.

And making swinging his bat a tad bit more troublesome. Nothing he couldn’t really handle, though.

The redhead glared at the little beater that had outsmarted him, for the first and last time, and soared through the sky looking for a bludger to send Jade’s way. His first job was incapacitating the Pecari Seeker and going after the little beater for doing his job wasn’t very professional. Quidditch was about winning, after all.

After a few seconds of looking for a bludger, the ball came to him, and Preston swung his bat with some trouble at it. The ball went towards Jane, but it hadn’t been his most efficient or strong pass. He just needed to the pain to dwindle and as long as Arnold was caught the snitch without being mauled to death by bludgers then everything would be all right.

0 Preston, Beater Yepyep 0 Preston, Beater 0 5

Mellie Goodwin, Chaser

December 13, 2012 1:41 PM

I might be soon... by Mellie Goodwin, Chaser

Over the summer, Mellie had had a long argument with her cousin Alison over whether she was a realist or an idealist. She hadn’t been too clear on what they were talking about for half the conversation, or even really after she looked it up in the dictionary later, but she thought now, starting the Quidditch final, that she might be finally starting to get it. She was trying to be realistic, assuring herself that she was not going to get upset if they lost because the odds were definitely not in their favor in any way, but at the same time was feeling optimistic, thinking that, well…The odds had been against Pecari when they played Crotalus, too, and see how that had worked out.

She really wished, as she got ready for the game, that she could pick a side and stick with it, because this feeling of being of two minds was not comfortable and she did not like it. She felt it, in different contexts, a lot this year, about one thing and then another, but it never seemed to grow on her at all, not even like mold. It was just awkward.

She listened to Sophie’s speech, smiled politely while the captains shook hands, and was almost relieved that it wasn’t her or Waverly or Ann who had gotten the Quaffle first. That was, considering how long and vicious any game with Aladren was probably going to be and how good of a Keeper Sophie was, really not that big of a deal, and any of the three of them – especially, she thought, Ann; Waverly was only a year younger than Mellie, but Mellie found herself feeling a little protective of the first year Chaser – might have gotten crushed in the scramble for the ball, because the Aladrens were not known for really worrying too much about who got injured. The Aladrens kept it nearly to the goals, but then Amira and Waverly managed to get it away from them, inspiring Mellie to put her hands together quickly in applause as she turned to get things moving toward David Wilkes.

Waverly moved the ball all the way down the Pitch, something that Mellie would never have had the nerve to do, which she guessed was a good thing since there was an extremely good chance they would have lost the ball if they had passed it around more on their way down, but then she looked at Mellie and Mellie had an idea of what she wanted to do and winced. Trying to kick the ball twenty feet higher was hard enough for her to do without overbalancing even when they were just in practice; with the Aladren Chasers and Beaters around, too, just to add to the pressure….

But here they were, edge of the scoring area, so she gave it her best and hopefully distracted the Keeper further with the roll she went into, kicking while astride a broom being complicated and the effort she had put into it being greater than her balance. She gripped her broom hard with both hands as she worked to get upright again, her heart pounding while she had no idea whatsoever what was going on with the Quaffle even after she did pull herself up again, since her bangs had come loose from her ponytail while she scrambled – how she hated having such fine hair; there was almost no way to make it stay in place indefinitely, much less while upside-down – and had fallen into her eyes, forcing her to take a second to stick them back behind her ears.

16 Mellie Goodwin, Chaser I might be soon... 206 Mellie Goodwin, Chaser 0 5

Rupert Princeton, Beater

December 13, 2012 4:13 PM

Being a hero. by Rupert Princeton, Beater

There wasn't much Rupert could do as he watched his bludger make its way to Preston, but he took satisfaction in seeing it slam against the Aladren beater's shoulder blade. As soon as he saw the bludger making impact, he moved quickly to shadow Jade. If Preston decided to hit the bludger at Rup as some sort of revenge or wanted to hit it at Jade, either way he'd be there to deflect it.

The gust of wind wasn't very cool against Rup's face and he wished that it were. He was starting to sweat in his uniform with the sun beating down. Even all the flying around he was doing wasn't completely helping. Living in the desert hadn't been Rupert's ideal, but that was all Cepheus had told him. Arizona was a wasteland, desert everywhere, and Rup had believed him. It wasn't completely true at all, and Rupert had come to like Sonora if not because his parents and grandparents weren't around, then because he was free to play Quidditch whenever he liked. Being on an actual team was worthwhile and Rupert had decided he wanted to go professional already.

Rupert found Arnold's antics to be slightly annoying only because it meant that Rup couldn't find a strong angle to hit him. If that Seeker continued on, then Rupert would have to trust luck and the bludger's tendency to try and bash the closest person without mercy to hit him. Hitting the bludger Arnold's way would have to be his best bet. It wasn't a good one, but he hoped it worked nonetheless.

The bludger Preston hit came hurtling towards Jade and Rupert was ready to bat it away to Arnold. However, he wasn't completely prepared for the lack of power it had. That meant the bludger had hindered his opponent at least a little, enough to give Rup the upper-hand for a moment. He took the opportunity to smack the bludger right at Carey and away from Jade, though he wasn't sure if the bludger was going to hit Carey or not. If it didn't, he hoped the metal ball would be close enough to scare him so he would stop making those loops. It was enough to make Rup dizzy.

Rup flashed a smile at Jade. "Rup's got your back," he said before turning his dark eyes back to the match, making sure that no other bludgers were near their vicinity. He was determined to upstage his brother this year at least in terms of Quidditch and determined to be the best Beater ever. If he was going to be a professional player someday he had to get started on those championships. And according to Sonora history, it wasn't at all impossible for Pecari to win.

0 Rupert Princeton, Beater Being a hero. 0 Rupert Princeton, Beater 0 5

Captain Wilkes, Keeper

December 13, 2012 5:37 PM

Get on with that, won't you? by Captain Wilkes, Keeper

Now that he was captain, David had learned some interesting things about his own psychology. Two, in particular, stood out to him, and he guessed that those two things were going to be the main benefits he was ever able to assign to the whole captaining experience, as he thought he would eventually be able to generalize them to other things he might have to do at some point. They boiled down to two different facets of a sad fact: he was just not one of nature’s leaders.

One of the things which had given him a hint in that direction was that while he had been perfectly comfortable at the beginning of games when he was just a nameless guy at the back of the crowd, he always felt anxious before they went to play now that he was the face at the front of the group. Even against opponents who, in theory, they would be able to scatter like matchsticks put in front of a bowling ball, he was nervous and worried and sometimes even a little sick. He was worried that if he was the person shaking hands with the enemy at the beginning, he’d be the one they blamed things on if they should, through some freak of nature, happen to lose.

Logically, as he tried not to pace while the team got together before their second final against Pecari, he knew that the person they should blame if a game was lost was either Arnold or, if they really had to pin it on a teammate, maybe the Beater covering Arnold, but in his heart of hearts, he was always sure it was going to be him they took it out on if something went wrong. David found life much more pleasant when he wasn’t being blamed for anything at all whether he had done it or not, but he knew his status in this world, and knew he especially did not want to be blamed for something, whether he had done it or not, by, say, Preston Stratford when the other guy looked like he was about ten minutes from going into fully-fledged coffee withdrawals not too long before half the team took the CATS. Just a fact of life, that. And he had to act like it wasn’t a fact at all, which made him that much more worried about it, which made it that much harder to act like it wasn’t a fact at all….

He tried to reassure himself, once they were all there, that none of them had ever decided it would be fun to beat him up yet, but his brain took malicious pleasure in echoing the word yet after he did, and he gave the attempt up with alacrity, instead trying to concentrate on his carefully prepared and memorized speech.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, trying for his most grandiose tones. “Great to see you all, great to see you.”

The other half of what he had learned from two years of captaining, the other key hint that he was not, despite the best efforts of the county Gifted programs of his old school and the camps he’d attended most of the summers of his life and then the highly competitive atmosphere of Aladren House itself, one of nature’s leaders, was that he sucked at giving speeches. If the sense of embarrassment he had when he did it had been even a little less vague, he would, when going through the motions of leadership, have felt very like an actor who had stumbled onto stage without knowing his lines while wearing nothing but an oversized overcoat which turned his gestures into parody and was not, in fact, actually supposed to be his costume at all. He got by somehow, and guessed he must have looked a little more impressive than he felt because no one had rebelled yet, but he felt like a straight-up fool putting on these shows.

“Out there, right now, the enemy feels like he’s on top of the world,” he continued, barreling his way through the embarrassment taking the place of the nerves by sheer willpower, or at least something he guessed would pass for it. The phrase he would have used, if he were being precise, ran something more along the lines of ‘knowing the piranhas will eat me if I don’t manage to call their bluff, so here’s me doing a song and dance to keep them confused for as long as possible while I figure out how to run, as these piranhas inexplicably have legs,’ but he thought ‘sheer willpower’ sounded a lot more snappy, so he stuck with that. “They beat Crotalus, and now they think they’re going to beat us, ladies and gentlemen. We aren’t going to let them. We will play them near their goals, we will play them in midfield, we will play them near our goals, we will play them right up to the last inch of turf – and we won’t have any of that being annihilated stuff.” Churchill, according to his hazy memories of the World War II special he had watched over Christmas, had gone on, but that part wasn’t really, as far as he could parse it, applicable to Quidditch without taking a tone he didn’t want to, and so he started improvising more. It wasn’t like his almost entirely pureblood audience was going to notice.“We will do the annihilating. Thad, Preston, really work on that, huh? Especially on their Seeker. Annihilation, that’s what we’re looking for. Everyone else, too. Go all-out. Play like you mean it. Because we will never live it down if we let these pipsqueaks win.”

On that cheerful note, he led them out, humming the Imperial March to himself. At some point, he had also figured out that once he just started going as far over the top as he could, it helped with the anxiety, which was coming back at this point.

He smiled and shook hands with Sophie Jamison, the game began, the whistle blew, and he reached the goals, turning as soon as he did to face the game, though he was hovering close enough to his goal hoops to have trouble seeing much but that the game was moving in the direction he wanted it to. For a moment, anyway. Then one of the New Girls got the ball and started back toward him, clearly meaning to reverse things.

David didn’t consider this a problem at first. Sometimes, the ball was lost; then it was regained, and since they had a long way to go, he expected it to be regained long before he had to deal with it. Then, though, the New Girl just kept coming, with no sign that his Beaters were carrying out their commission about what to do to idiots who did that, and David began to curse under his breath. Seriously. Annihilation. That was not what he considered a big word. Admittedly, most of his relatives didn’t know what it meant, but that was why he was in the nerd House. They were not supposed to consider annihilation a difficult word. They were just supposed to annihilate anyone who hung a great big sign on her back that said ‘Please, bash my brains in!’

He saw her looking around as she neared the goals, and then throwing, and then, for some reason, Goodwin kicked it, upending herself in the process. David had a feeling he was supposed to be the butt of some kind of joke, but changed course enough to grab it anyway and lob it back toward one of his Chasers. “Jamison’s that way!” he offered, pointing helpfully toward the other end of the Pitch.

OOC: David badly paraphrased Winston Churchill's 'We shall fight on the beaches' speech during his captain's speech. He is running from Winston's ghost very fast, but not half as fast as I am.

16 Captain Wilkes, Keeper Get on with that, won't you? 169 Captain Wilkes, Keeper 0 5

Arthur Carey, Chaser

December 13, 2012 10:56 PM

Yes, please do by Arthur Carey, Chaser

Arthur frowned as he saw the one Pecari Chaser move, then blinked when he saw what the second girl was doing. Was that deliberate, or…He shook his head. The fact that all the goals were not the same height would have kept him from trying something like that unless it was trying to kick the ball from the highest middle hoop down to the forty-foot one, but since it would be very easy to cross the line into the scoring area and land his team with a stooging penalty anyway, he thought he would just as soon not try that, either, unless he was feeling very arrogant or very desperate.

Of course, he reflected as Mr. Wilkes saved the shot, it was possible that the Pecari team was feeling one or the other. Arrogant, because they had beaten Crotalus, or desperate, because, well, they were playing Aladren. He was not sure if it was possible to feel both at once, and so concluded that some members of the opposing team must feel one way while others felt the other way. That was the thing that made the most sense, at least to him.

The Quaffle sailed back into the game, along with helpful instructions about where the opposing Keeper was; Arthur, catching the Quaffle with one hand, raised the other in acknowledgment of Mr. Wilkes’ attempt to be of service even as he rose higher in the air, hoping to avoid Pecari interference as he turned to move in the indicated direction. Getting there, he sped up until the stands and the ground below him were just blurs, though he tried not to look too much at the latter. Getting dizzy was the last thing he wanted to do.

Well, he amended a moment later, as his arm twinged unpleasantly again, almost the last thing he wanted to do. The real last, at the moment, was probably getting hit by another Bludger, or the same one over again, and this time in the head. That would be worse than getting dizzy, since he would not be able to shake that off after a moment and get on with it. He continued on course for a few seconds more and then, with that thought of a Bludger to the head in mind, looked for a fellow Aladren to pass to so the target would be less on his back for a moment, anyway. He was not going to trust to the same kind of luck that the other teams seemed to have in spades; he didn't trust it at all.

0 Arthur Carey, Chaser Yes, please do 0 Arthur Carey, Chaser 0 5

Waverly Canterbury, Chaser

December 13, 2012 11:03 PM

Why don't you get on with it? by Waverly Canterbury, Chaser

Waverly watched the quaffle soar through the air with big green eyes after it left her hand. She was grateful that Mellie had caught her eye and kicked it up, but she had to have expected David Wilkes to catch it. Waverly said, "Drat!" before biting her bottom lip from saying anything else. She didn't want to let the Aladrens see her upset, at least not on the pitch. Though she knew Wilkes was a good Keeper, it still didn't stop her from being greatly disappointed. She watched David throw the quaffle at one of his Chasers, feeling too inadequate to try and intercept it. She didn't think that she'd like being in charge of the quaffle, but after holding it she kind of wanted to try snatching it again. But she held back.

Waverly knew she had been a ball-hog, though, and after making it across the pitch unscathed, she felt a little proud of herself. She felt bad too, but that was secondary to the victorious feeling she had. Waverly flew around, a little higher to watch everything that was going on.

Since she had joined the Pecari team, she had gotten used to all the training and practices, but she knew she was stretching herself a little too thin. With harder classes, the Baking Club, Quidditch, Book Club, and her homework, she hardly had enough time for herself. She knew she would have to give one up. Waverly took a deep breath as a gust of wind nearly knocked her off balance again.

"Darn it!" she said as she tried to right herself on the broom and tried to fly after the person who currently had the quaffle. The wind was getting slightly stronger, and a particularly strong gust pushed her to the side once again as she flew. She was a little too close to the stands to be comfortable, and once it died down for a moment, she pushed once more to the quaffle. Now that she felt less bad about being a ball hog, she wanted to get that quaffle. She looked to see who had it and flew after them.

0 Waverly Canterbury, Chaser Why don't you get on with it? 0 Waverly Canterbury, Chaser 0 5

Arnold Carey, Seeker

December 13, 2012 11:31 PM

Girls do like that sort of thing.... by Arnold Carey, Seeker

He knew it would never get him taken seriously, the way Arthur’s marathon study sessions did, but Arnold did put a lot of time and care into practicing his position on, between use of the real Pitch and use of the MARS Pitch, a near-daily basis. He agreed with his family that maybe it would have been better if he were good at something else, but he was good at this, and that meant he ought to be as good at it as he possibly could be. Plus, it was great for stress relief. It was hard to think too much about his other problems when he was trying to fly upside-down.

This year had been more stressful than most of his life, so he had spent more time upside-down than usual since September, focusing on his game because he had just not known what to do about the objectively bigger issues associated with The Fae Situation and the looming threat of his ever-closer date with the CATS. In light of that, he was even angrier with himself for adjusting his grip on the broom at exactly the wrong moment than he thought he would have been anyway, because really, at this point, he should have known better. Even anger, though, briefly became secondary to just hanging on as he went sideways while tipped over sideways, getting a view he didn’t think he had ever had of the Pitch in previous games or practices, as he reoriented himself and concentrated on getting upright again.

Once he did, he took a breath, glanced down his sleeve to make sure he hadn’t pulled off a very unusual catch by sheer dumb luck, and made another loop, hoping it would make it look more like he had meant to perform that sideways acrobatic trick if anyone had noticed that it had really just been a loss of control on his part. He wouldn’t want Fae or his relatives to worry, or the Pecaris – or, for that matter, any Teppenpaw and Crotalus players in the stands – to think he was losing his edge.

As he came out of that loop, thinking of whether or not to go back to regular moves that weren’t quite such dangers to his health for a minute or two, he saw the Pecari Beater he was against as much as Jade, in this instance, hit a Bludger toward him. He darted away, swerving to and fro in the hopes of distracting it until Preston could catch it and hit it back toward Jade, or at least away from him.

He sort of missed the days when he had been able to get hit as much as he liked without anyone thinking anything of it, so long as he caught the Snitch at least five seconds before he dramatically lost consciousness. Now, it not only made him look less good at what he did, but he had to worry about it worrying people besides fussy parents, too. That was tough. He sometimes thought about, well, what if he kept winning through school and then got asked to play for a professional team someday, if that could be something the family could be okay with, but those factors would make it a lot harder. Pro Beaters would be even more of a challenge than pro Seekers would, he suspected.

0 Arnold Carey, Seeker Girls do like that sort of thing.... 181 Arnold Carey, Seeker 0 5

Jay Carey, Alternate

December 14, 2012 12:04 AM

Watching attentively by Jay Carey, Alternate

Jay stood quietly near the back of the Quidditch team as they gathered together for the captain’s speech, trying not to fidget too much but moving his hands too much anyway. He wasn’t really sure what he should do with them, so he kept switching it up, first holding them at his sides, then moving them behind his back, then clasping them in front of him, all of this while he was holding his broom in one of them. He knew there wasn’t much of a chance than he would need it, but it was just one of those things; even the alternates brought their brooms. Or at least, he did. If they needed him, he would be there.

Listening to Captain Wilkes talk, he really hoped, though, that they did not need him, especially not in one of the key positions. The speech was intense, and while he thought he could meet it, he found the thought made him a little uncomfortable. He didn’t want his first game, the one that would, if his cousins’ examples were anything to go by, establish his reputation on the Pitch and the Aladren team forevermore, to be the Final.

To him, right now, it was just another game, but he knew it wasn’t like that for those who played in it. For them, this was a big deal; for Arnold, he thought this game might really be the highlight of the school year, if not just the year. Even Arthur, he thought, though Quidditch wasn’t the thing he thought of as almost defining that cousin, took the Final seriously, even now, when it was against Pecari, which he had gathered was not ordinary and that everyone thought they could beat pretty easily. This was a big deal in the Sonora calendar. Jay felt all out of place in it, hovering as he was between being a player and an observer.

That wasn’t, though, very important, and he recognized that it wasn’t very important as he went to take a seat on the bench while the game got underway. Propping his broom beside him, he used his hands to grip the edges of the bench as he bent his neck back to look up, watching as Arthur flew away with the Quaffle, passed it to Russell, got it back – and lost it then to a combination of a Pecari Beater and Chaser. He winced at that, glad he wasn’t one of those players; they played around at home, and often, Arthur sort of threw things off by taking it all too seriously, getting too intense about everything and having the desire to win – which Jay didn’t see anything wrong with on its own; it was a very properly Carey thing to feel, and they all felt it, to one degree or another – turn him a bit nasty when anyone posed a real challenge to him. It wasn’t, Jay thought, that he held it against them so much; it wasn’t personal, the attempt to, to borrow the captain’s word of the day, annihilate whatever was in his way; it just got over the top.

Luckily, there were more rules here, so hopefully he’d just try harder than usual to get the ball away from that specific Chaser if she got it again. As the action drew near the goals, Jay leaned forward even further, trying to see what was going on and if the captain of his team was going to be able to counter it. This, he was pretty sure, was when the game really began, with the first goal attempt of it. After this, everyone would know one team outdid the other at something, so the other would really want to prove itself, so it would fight back...Unless, of course, one of the Seekers caught the Snitch before the cycle could really get going, but where was the fun in that?

0 Jay Carey, Alternate Watching attentively 0 Jay Carey, Alternate 0 5

Russell Layne, Chaser

December 14, 2012 9:24 AM

Or at least stay out of the way. by Russell Layne, Chaser

One minute, things had been going pretty well, Arthur taking a minor hit from a Bludger aside, and the next, they hadn’t been. Russell groaned in frustration as the Pecari Chaser – Waverly, he thought, the one who was involved in everything; she had enough drive, anyway, to be an Aladren, which was more the pity, really – crossed half the Pitch at once and then just kept going, relying on the one strategy that pretty well guaranteed they couldn’t get the ball back without running headlong into a penalty for accidentally touching her while trying to wrestle the ball out of her hands. The only flaw that strategy had was that it could very well involve getting hit by a Bludger, and Beater Thornton seemed to have her covered.

Well, it was a known fact that if luck existed (normally, he thought that it probably did not, but on the Pitch, reality tended to seem to work a little differently in his head than it did in the regular world) all of the Aladren team’s luck belonged to Arnold. The rest of them just had to get by on skill, so that the Snitch would always favor their Seeker, which was, after all, the important part. Sometimes, it was a little bitter, being pretty sure he’d get pummeled into a smear of the House colors if he tried any of the flashy moves that served the Pecaris and Teppenpaws so well, but it was a small price to pay, in moments of superstition that came with Quidditch craziness, for always winning the actual game.

The Pecaris made a play on the goals, which David blocked before passing the ball back to Arthur, who ran with it. Russell followed, not sure if his roommate was going to try to replicate anything crazy, since sometimes he thought Arthur seemed almost crazy enough to do that himself, but in position to keep the Quaffle in Aladren possession if it was passed.

Soon enough, it was, and he pulled it back out of the air easily, smiling grimly now that things were getting back into shape. Here they went. It wasn’t as great as it had been, when they had been one move away from a goal, but they were moving in the right direction again, anyway. Now they just had to keep it going that way…for a really long way, anyway, but he was choosing not to think about that part. They had, after all, done less likely things as a team, not least of which had been winning those first two games back when he was a first year. Aladren, from all he could gather, had not been known as much of a Quidditch-playing House before they came along and changed everything up.

It was weird to think of how they had gotten from there to here, really, when he thought about it. They had bludgeoned their way up from being the underdog team, the gaggle of first years that no one thought much of, to being one of the most often-winning teams, from what he’d been able to glean from records, in recent school history. And now they had to keep it up, nonstop, until they graduated. He didn’t think anyone really expected things to stay like this after that, but until then…He couldn’t really imagine what it would be like if they didn’t, and he didn’t want to find out if his half-ideas were right or not.

With that in mind, he looked for an opening to pass and took it when it didn’t look like it would get any better than it was at that moment.

0 Russell Layne, Chaser Or at least stay out of the way. 0 Russell Layne, Chaser 0 5

Mellie Goodwin, Chaser

December 14, 2012 9:39 AM

Some people don't want to. by Mellie Goodwin, Chaser

She had held out a smidgen of hope, as she shoved her hair back, that things might have worked out, but honestly, Mellie wasn’t very surprised to look and see that the move hadn’t worked and that the Aladren Keeper was passing the ball back to one of his Chasers, along with some advice about where Sophie was. That, at least, made her smile; that, to her, sounded like the Aladren captain was a little frustrated with how things were going so far, which meant they had to be doing something right. If they could frustrate the other team and keep them off-balance, then maybe they honestly did have a shot.

Of course, that depended mostly on whether or not Rupert and Jade could keep Arnold Carey and Preston Stratford more off-balance, in two different senses of the term, than Arnold and Preston kept them, but Mellie would feel they had done something noteworthy if the Pecari Chasers just managed to keep the Aladren ones from having a pleasant afternoon out with nothing bothering them whatsoever. The Seekers were above her level, both metaphorically and generally literally as well. Her game was with the Quaffle.

It really, she thought, wasn’t fair, the way the Seekers made the rest of the game irrelevant. Yes, they played an exciting part of the game sometimes, but generally, they just hovered up there looking around while everyone else…essentially just entertained the crowds until they did their thing, and then ceased to matter. She and Waverly and Ann could score all day long, and it would almost certainly make no difference whatsoever if Arnold Carey caught the Snitch. Bowman Wright had really not been a friend to Chasers and Keepers. Couldn’t they have figured out when the game ended just as well with a clock?

That, though, was also above her pay grade, so she got on with being a temporary distraction. Flying after the Aladrens, she waited, watched, thought, predicted – and then, getting it right, intercepted.

She flushed, though it was hard to tell when the wind had already reddened her face so much, with delight as she wrapped her hands around the Quaffle and dropped lower in the air to avoid the Aladrens. Then, once she wasn’t too worried about being crushed, she turned and began to move back toward David Wilkes for a little way before she got uncomfortable and decided to attempt to pass to one of her teammates.

16 Mellie Goodwin, Chaser Some people don't want to. 206 Mellie Goodwin, Chaser 0 5

Russell Layne, Chaser

December 14, 2012 10:01 AM

That's what's known as 'their tough luck'. by Russell Layne, Chaser

When the Quaffle disappeared, Russell was momentarily confused, until he looked down and saw a familiar brown-robed figure with it. Mellie. He wasn’t sure if she had just gotten lucky or if that had been a calculated attempt – if she had hung back and then sped up or something – or what, but he did know that he had to get the Quaffle back from her. He knew her well enough to think that, unless she was susceptible to Quidditch craziness to a greater degree than he would have ever guessed, she was going to try to pass rather than to play if she could, so he just had to keep an eye open for that.

It was, he thought, kind of funny, really. At home, they all tossed a Quaffle around in more or less perfect harmony during the summer, and during the year, he and Mellie and probably Topher, too, all used what they knew about the others from that exercise against each other whenever they happened to be on the Pitch at the same time. There was something in that, he was sure, something about life and how it was kind of rotten and not generally a very good deal for most of the people who got caught up in it, but now didn’t seem like the time to think about it. Right now, he had to keep his eyes on her hands so he knew when she was about to throw the Quaffle toward another Pecari but really back to him so that the game could go on the way it was supposed to, back toward Sophie’s goals.

That was how it worked, too, in the end: she passed, and he intercepted it. It wasn’t quite as easy as he had expected it to be, that was for sure, he had had to stretch to reach it and then get it out of there before one of them took the chance to try to snatch it out of his hands before he got a good grip on it, but he did get the Quaffle back and got turned around and started heading back down the Pitch with it. He considered yelling thanks to Mel, but decided not to, both because it was a little different, taunting just another player and taunting someone he knew outside of Quidditch, and because he didn’t want to waste that much time and give the Beater Thornton a chance to get him in her sights. He wasn’t too sure about her taking him out or anything, since Arthur still seemed to be playing well enough, but he would rather not get hit. That slowed him down, distracted him, and generally just made it harder to play right.

He made up the ground Mellie’s interception had cost them, then gained a little more, beginning to move back and forth at random to make himself harder to aim at as he did, before settling into a straight line again long enough to set up a pass to one of his teammates. Ball hogging, after all, even when he was really starting to feel the adrenaline kick in, was bad, not smart at all, and he did not want to get injured.

This time, when he passed, he feinted one way before making a backhanded pass the other way. It strained his hands a little, and was harder than most of the things he did with both of his hands off his broom, but if it kept the Pecaris from intercepting the ball again, that would be worth it. They had to keep going in the right direction.

16 Russell Layne, Chaser That's what's known as 'their tough luck'. 183 Russell Layne, Chaser 0 5

Arthur Carey, Chaser

December 14, 2012 12:17 PM

Why, so it is (wotw) by Arthur Carey, Chaser

Now, Arthur sensed, the game was really getting into its stride. The Quaffle moved quickly from him to Russell, was intercepted by Miss Goodwin, was intercepted from her pass by Russell again…This was Quidditch when it was enjoyable, he thought. The ball was changing hands quickly enough to be hard to keep track of, but things had not devolved into complete anarchy and it had not been going on for so long that anyone was exhausted or desperate or just about ready to try to cut someone else’s throat. This, he could work with.

He glanced up at the Seekers for the barest fragment of a moment, willing his brother to catch the Snitch soon. This, he could work with for now. He would not, he knew, find it too pleasurable to deal with indefinitely. After a while, going back and forth, no matter how amusing it was to all the others in the stands, got terribly dull for those of them who were stuck out here doing it with no end in sight, and then, after too long without any kind of real resolution, the pleasure that came with interceptions began to dwindle. People began to get frustrated. The play got first dirtier, and then dirtier still while also becoming increasingly inept. And then people started falling, and then it got really unpleasant….

No, sometime in the next ten minutes, he would say, would be the perfect time for Arnold to catch the Snitch, at least as far as he was concerned. The rest of the Pitch might object, they might not think the game had gone on quite long enough to warrant being ranked among the finals, but since the House would be celebrating and he wasn’t forced to live with the rest of them, he was not much bothered by that. He would be even less bothered by it tomorrow, when he was able to move without wincing, which was not always the case after the Quidditch final. He still winced at the memory of what he’d felt like after the one in his first year.

Russell passed the ball again after engaging in some diversionary tactics, and once Arthur caught it, he engaged in some of those himself as well, both for the practical benefits – shaking off Miss Thornton, perhaps making Miss Goodwin or Miss Canterbury or Miss Pierce become dizzy, if he were unusually lucky at the moment – and just because it was pleasant to work through the more complicated moves. He would never be the equal of his twin on a broom – a matter of both practical physics, with Arnold atavistically obtaining a short, light frame more like their great-great-grandfather’s than like their rather tall parents’, and, frankly, of practice as well, since Arnold just plain old cared more about being an excellent flier than Arthur did – but he was not bad on one, either, and it was sometimes enjoyable to show off skills just for the sake of letting others know he had them.

Once he felt he had done an adequate job of that, though, Arthur began looking for an opportunity to get rid of the Quaffle. He did not want to draw the kind of irritation from the Pecaris that he had felt toward them not long before, as that led to more pain and he was not feeling masochistic at the moment. He looked around, trying, as best he could when everyone was a blur on a broomstick in high winds, to place the other players around him before trying to line up with another Aladren and then feinting twice before passing in the direction he had originally planned to all along.

0 Arthur Carey, Chaser Why, so it is (wotw) 0 Arthur Carey, Chaser 0 5

Anthony Carey, Alternate

December 14, 2012 12:29 PM

Doing the same by Anthony Carey, Alternate

Anthony tried not to let it show, but he was feeling almost sick as he got ready for the day, torn between excitement and nerves. This was really it! The Quidditch final! That he was just an alternate didn’t really, he had discovered over the past few days, mean much to him. He was going to be on the team that won the Quidditch final at school!

With that in mind, he had taken extra care with everything, carefully brushing his pale brown hair – almost a dark blond at the moment because he had been spending so much time out in the Arizona sun since the weather warmed up – until it was neat and flat on his head, making sure that his blue robes didn’t have a stain or a wrinkle anywhere on them, and taking extra time to polish his shoes and his broom’s handle until the shone – well, nearly like new, anyway, he wasn’t that good with a shining rag yet, the house-elves had usually done it at home. He was, after all, representing more than just himself today; being part of a team, he figured, was rather like going to a big family event, where he was just a visible portion of something bigger and more abstract than he was, though this was a lot more fun than those tended to be. He had envied his brothers a lot of things over the years, but high on the list of things that made him a little jealous of them was that, not being Anthonies, they hadn’t gotten dragged out as much as early in life as he had.

Since his year was full of girls, Anthony had elected to eat breakfast – a good breakfast, appropriate for someone who was going to play, since, well, you never did know what might happen to members of the team who weren’t his brothers – with Jay. Since his cousin had seemed much calmer about everything, Anthony tried to keep his own excited chatter to a minimum, not wanting to bother him, or to look like, well, an overexcited first year, but he had been unable to keep his foot from bouncing nonstop under the table during the meal. The time before the match had just seemed to stretch on indefinitely, like it was never going to end. Finally, though, time had come around, and now, here he was, right along with everyone else, listening to the captain give his speech.

It was a very…passionate speech, he supposed, but he didn’t think that his rhetoric tutor at home would have liked it. The way he started talking to the Beaters about working on the annihilation thing after the more high-flown tone of the rest of it was a little jarring, at least to Anthony’s ears. It didn’t flow well. As long as it got the point across, though, Anthony guessed it would do; he knew that not everyone had the advantage of the kind of tutors that he did, and since he had also heard that Captain Wilkes was really a Muggleborn, it was almost certain that he had not had such advantages. Anthony applauded politely once he had finished until he realized no one else was doing so and then, a little embarrassed, went to join Jay and Andrina Thornton on the reserves’ bench.

“Do you think it’ll be as exciting as Arnold always made it sound?” he asked Jay, who shrugged as the whistle blew and things got underway.

Anthony’s neck started to hurt almost at once from the way he was bending it back to see what was going on in the air high above him, but he ignored that and kept looking this way and that, watching the players soaring through their move. The Quaffle went this way, then that way – he gasped when Arthur, or at least he thought that one was Arthur, got hit with a Bludger, but was quickly distracted by the game moving on, until he groaned when Pecari stole the Quaffle. His hands were clenched in his lap as Captain Wilkes saved the Quaffle, which Anthony had been silently willing him to do from his seat.

He didn’t know what he’d do if things got much more interesting, until he looked up a little higher and saw Arnold and the other Seeker and their Beaters all starting to get into it. He had to bite his lip hard not to cheer. This was even more exciting than the first game he had attended since he had come to school, when Aladren had played Teppenpaw in the fall; the stakes, he knew, were higher, so even if everyone wasn’t really playing more wildly, it felt to him as though they were. He waited with bated breath to see what was going to happen next.

0 Anthony Carey, Alternate Doing the same 0 Anthony Carey, Alternate 0 5

Russell Layne, Chaser

December 14, 2012 1:07 PM

That's just the way it goes. by Russell Layne, Chaser

Russell was a little amused when Arthur decided to imitate the way he had been weaving back and forth a moment earlier to avoid Bludgers, wondering if it was for that or just for the look of the thing. Or, possibly, both. He guessed they were all getting old enough now to worry about more than one thing at the same time. Maybe not three at once – that was seventh year territory and beyond – but two seemed manageable, he thought he could handle two, and that the rest of them could, too. Two was a good number of things to think about when doing something.

He began to think seriously, for the first time, that they might make it all the way back down the Pitch without the Pecaris managing to interfere and then get to take a shot at Jamison when Arthur feinted, then turned out to be feinting again when he then turned and really did pass the ball to Russell again. Since Russell had decided to reach out as though to catch it even when he thought Arthur was planning to go the other way, this worked out well, and he was able to get the ball without that moment’s hesitation that sometimes came with feints, which could result in losing the ball or at least fumbling with it in a really inelegant manner for a few seconds while trying to get a better grip on it. This way was much better. Tucking the Quaffle securely under his arm, Russell kept up the push toward the Pecari goals, crossing the center circle and getting back off their own territory.

As he flew, he looked for a way to make sure the order in which the Aladren Chasers were flying was mixed up, this time weaving in and out of his colleagues instead of just back and forth in general. He had been on the outside of the formation when he had caught the Quaffle this time, so if they went on as they were, that only left him with one option for passing, which let the Pecari Chasers know just where to go and the Beater Thornton know just where to aim. None of those were things he considered good. The less warning they had about who was going to be where when he passed, the better.

Finally, with the hairs on the back of his neck feeling like they were beginning to stand up from being the one holding the Quaffle for so long, he stopped weaving in and out and passed toward one of his fellow blue robes, taking the moment the ball left his hands to take a breath for the first time in what felt like far too long. They were going to do this. It was going to happen. They were going to make it down there this time, or very nearly this time, he’d allow for maybe one hiccup happening, and score, and then it would be smooth sailing from there.

16 Russell Layne, Chaser That's just the way it goes. 183 Russell Layne, Chaser 0 5

Mellie Goodwin, Chaser

December 14, 2012 2:03 PM

I don't think so. by Mellie Goodwin, Chaser

Mellie saw the flash of blue before the Quaffle was stolen, but not in time to do anything about it. She only really scowled, though, when she saw that the person stealing it from her was the same person she had just stolen it from. Russell’s surprise about Pecari even being in the final, about how much of a surprise it was that they had beaten Crotalus, were coming back to her with astonishing clarity at the moment. Yes, it had surprised her as much as it had surprised anyone, frankly, but still. That had been no reason to say it.

She was not made any happier by the next few minutes, where Arthur and Russell passed the Quaffle back and forth between them seemingly effortlessly, as though the game were just a show the two of them were putting on – either for the crowd at large or just for each other, to revel in their own cleverness or something, she didn’t know. She just knew that it irritated her, and that if she was going to break it and get the Quaffle back, she was going to have to be smart about how she did it.

Here, knowing the enemy, or at least half of it, did help. She knew, for example, that Russell always slowed down a little before a pass. That didn’t completely solve the problem of which way he was going to pass, since he could change things up, but it did at least give her notice of when to put a little extra effort into getting in there and trying to get the ball back. Making her decision about what he was going to do when she spotted that, then, Mellie urged her broom forward as fast as it would go, picked right, and came out with the Quaffle in her hands.

The happiness of that moment was great; she looked at the ball and felt her whole body go light with relief as she put it under her arm and turned to head back toward Wilkes. She covered some ground, then decided to take the chance, once again, of trying to pass, figuring it was better to lose the ball than to get taken out of the game when they had no alternates. Aladren had three behind them, they didn’t have to be that careful, if they weren’t worried about themselves just for themselves, but Pecari didn't have the same luxury.

Plus, Mellie was really not in favor of having every bone in her body broken, even for a cause. She supposed that lack of dedication might be considered a character flaw by some, but it had it's advantages.

16 Mellie Goodwin, Chaser I don't think so. 206 Mellie Goodwin, Chaser 0 5

Arthur Carey, Chaser

December 14, 2012 2:26 PM

I do by Arthur Carey, Chaser

Arthur grimaced, his eyebrows drawing down almost as they did when he had a particularly nasty headache, when he realized that Miss Goodwin had stolen the Quaffle again. He had assumed that the last time she did that was nothing more or less than pure dumb luck, considering how poorly she had performed at the goals, but stealing twice…well, that implied something about skill, though he was not completely sure if the skill it implied something about was hers, Russell’s, or some combination of the two. He thought they knew each other, in the mysterious realms of the world outside of Sonora; he supposed that could have something to do with it, and was something they would need to work on countering.

Later. After they got the Quaffle back. She had intercepted twice, but been intercepted against once; he was aiming to make her record even up, so the numbers were equal, at least unless the number of interceptions made against her could be made larger than the number of those she had successfully pulled off. He thought it better to leave her books balanced, since the only way to make them uneven in the way he could tolerate involved one of the other Pecari Chasers successfully getting the ball away from them, and Arthur didn’t want to see that happen, either. The less time the ball spent with Pecari, the better, especially now that they were getting closer and closer and closer to the goal….

He watched her closely, and when she went to pass to one of her teammates, Arthur swept in from above and carried the ball away with the tips of his fingers, momentarily getting a bit fancy again as he went nearly vertical while turning around to begin making up the ground she had taken back for her team. His arm protested the frippery, but he ignored it, happy that the ball had been reasonably easy to get back and that the game still wasn’t inspiring him to want to do great violence to either his teammates or his opponents. That was much more than he could say of some occasions when the Quaffle had left Aladren possession during a final.

He made up the ground, then covered more again, just to make a point. He did not know if anyone would get the point, but he had made it. He imitated Russell’s scheme of changing the flying order a few times – full of ideas which later he would at least be able to say sounded good at the time, Russell was today – and then passed the Quaffle again, this time overhanded, keeping things moving along toward his goal.

Back and forth, forth and back, around sideways every now and then. That was the plan. That was what they had to do. Arnold, he knew, seemed to think they had some responsibility for putting on a good show for the crowds, and he supposed they were doing that so far, but he wouldn’t mind, at this point, if it were as boring as watching the second hand on his watch the rest of the way down the Pitch. He doubted it would be, but did hope they could at least keep the basics of that plan going and make it work well enough. He knew Miss Jamison was supposed to be a decent Keeper, but he thought they had a very good chance against her, if they could just get there to test their skills against hers. Getting to the goal, to Arthur, was as much of a goal for the game as scoring was.

0 Arthur Carey, Chaser I do 0 Arthur Carey, Chaser 0 5

Russell Layne, Chaser

December 14, 2012 2:52 PM

Well, I agree, obviously. by Russell Layne, Chaser

When Mellie stole the ball from him, Russell’s first reaction, even beyond being surprised or angry about it, was to get a little worried. This was on its way to turning into another incarnation of that weird thing which had gone on between Arthur and Renée Errant in that one game, with two people going in a constant circle, first one stealing the ball from the other, then that one stealing it back, then again, and again, and again…He thought being old friends might keep it from getting quite as snarly as that had, and without the crash he thought had been the final result of that, which he still figured one of them had initiated on purpose, but still. He did not want to get caught up in that kind of mess.

Luckily, Arthur himself was around to add at least a little variety to the picture. Not too much, though. He figured the only reason they were getting away with passing to each other so much was that everyone else had to assume they were going to knock it off soon, unless it was just that everyone else couldn’t keep up with them and so had no choice about watching it. He wasn’t sure which it was, but either way, he was glad it was working for them. He was glad of anything that ever worked out for them on the Pitch, except maybe, sometimes, rain. It could help, against players who were already at a marked disadvantage, but he didn’t like getting rained on. He had spent too much time in his formative years around overprotective grandparents who made sure he heard all about all the horrible health disasters that could occur if one stood out in the rain to ever really want to.

Arthur retrieving the Quaffle, though, that was all-around good. He had no complaints about that happening whatsoever. He had wanted that to happen very much, and put his hands together briefly in celebration when it did, only to use one of them to catch the Quaffle again shortly afterward.

That, he thought, was a pretty neat trick; he was half-tempted to hold the pose for a moment, just because he was sure that it must look at least kind of cool. Doing that, though, seemed like a good way to make Beater Thornton think he was just asking her to try to break his wrist, so he got a better and less prominent grip on the Quaffle directly and kept flying, drawing ever closer to the Pecari goals.

The thing wasn’t, after all, about showmanship, no matter how much fun that could be, especially since the school didn’t even have a commentator and the audience was just watching whatever they could catch onto without that crucial bit of help. For a Chaser, like him, the thing was about getting from Point A to Point B and putting the ball through the hoop, preferably while getting as few injuries as possible. Showmanship came in, if it did at all, second.

16 Russell Layne, Chaser Well, I agree, obviously. 183 Russell Layne, Chaser 0 5

Russell

December 14, 2012 3:16 PM

Left out a bit, sorry! by Russell

Feinting before passing didn't, however, count as excessive showmanship most of the time in his book, but rather just as sound good business sense in moderation at the right time. It was there for a purpose, namely, throwing off one's opponents. Or at least, that was the point he had in mind as he did it.

16 Russell Left out a bit, sorry! 183 Russell 0 5

Arthur Carey, Chaser

December 14, 2012 3:31 PM

Moving along by Arthur Carey, Chaser

When Russell completed the pass Arthur had begun, Arthur was pleased to see it, but he almost felt uneasy at the same time, somehow. It was beginning to seem too easy. He didn’t want it to get harder, of course, to have to run back and forth over the same small piece of the Pitch again and again to no avail or to have Bludgers raining down on him like hail or any of the other things that could be reasonably called ‘difficulties’ during a Quidditch match, but…it just felt subtly wrong, somehow, that it wasn’t anyway. The enemy did not generally just let you have such an easy time during a game; he – or she, he corrected himself, very properly; the girls out here were in fact the people in the greatest position to cause problems that could hold up his plans – went out of his or her way to make you have to rapidly learn the skill set of the contortionist if you were to get anything done. Why weren’t they fighting back more, anyway? Merlin knew they had to be capable of it, they had put on a good show at the beginning of the game….

Even as he thought it, Arthur tried to squeeze the thought out of his head, to banish it from his consideration. No. That was not what he needed to think. For them to get some spirit and start fighting back was the last thing in the world he wanted or needed right now, and thinking about it might just make it happen, and then he would have to curse himself. He was not even going to think about it anymore. He was just going to be glad for the break they had gotten and move on with the game, keep riding the wave of good fortune they seemed to be on for as long as he could and then just be on his toes when it eventually started to slip on downward, so he could pull himself upright out of the wreckage. That was the only thing to do.

Russell feinted again before passing the ball, and Arthur caught it with a little difficulty, even though his arm, between a distance of time from the injury and very probably just adrenaline distracting him as he went along, was not really having any very sharp pains, at least for the moment. It still hurt, and noticeably, but constantly and evenly enough that he could get around it more easily.

He wondered – for completely unrelated reasons, he was sure; he really did think that having a little trouble getting the ball out of the move was not why he thought of it – if they were perhaps using misdirection too much, until maybe soon the Pecari girls would begin to call their bluffs and assume they were not going to do what it seemed that they were going to do. Deciding to test it out, since they had plenty of time to recover even if he was wrong and he felt comfortable with their position at the moment, he made his next pass attempt a straightforward one.

Such passes, to some extent, lacked the artistry of more complicated moves, but Arthur liked them, too, in a different way. Simple and straightforward, as furniture could show as well as Quidditch maneuvers, didn't necessarily mean poorly-made, and there could be an elegance in straight lines. On the rare occasions he had ever had to decorate anything, symmetry and straight lines had made up most of Arthur's style, in fact. He hoped, then, especially that this one worked as well as the more elaborate means of passing the ball to and fro had for them.

0 Arthur Carey, Chaser Moving along 0 Arthur Carey, Chaser 0 5

Russell Layne, Chaser

December 14, 2012 3:56 PM

We shall. by Russell Layne, Chaser

Russell saw Arthur had a little trouble getting the Quaffle secure after the pass was made, and was a little concerned about that, but the ball didn’t fall, and that was the important part, at least for right now. They had established a pretty good rhythm here, moving the ball back and forth, moving forward in adequate but not extravagant increments, getting the ball back every time Pecari got it before Pecari had time to do much of anything with it…If they could keep it up just a little further, they’d get to the goals, and then….

Well, technically, then, they would have a reprieve that would only last a matter of seconds before the game was back on, but, well, maybe they’d let Pecari have it back for a play or two, give them a sporting chance, since surely no one would be crazy enough to try to run the whole length of the Pitch, from their own goals to the other end. Waverly had come close to it with her play, but she hadn’t gone the whole way. There was a term for that, the way Quidditch was played at this school these days; Russell wasn’t completely sure on this, but he was pretty sure that term was ‘suicide’. They could probably, unless one of the other two decided they could not, afford to let Pecari have a fighting chance before they got the ball back and started this whole process of advancing on the goals and trying to get a goal over again.

Honestly, he didn’t know what the guy who had designed the first modern Quidditch Pitch had been thinking, making the thing quite this big, unless he just expected every single game to involve a struggle in the middle of the Pitch where neither team really made much ground until one of the Seekers got lucky and caught the Snitch. Actually going from one end of it all the way to the other, keeping up with about seven other people all at the same time to follow and make plays both big and small, was hard, it was something that could make a guy feel kind of tired before it was done.

He tried not to think too much about that, though, as he passed the ball again, focusing on what they had left to cover, which was less than what they had already covered. He was pretty sure that, at the end of the game, that was the only way to go about it.

16 Russell Layne, Chaser We shall. 183 Russell Layne, Chaser 0 5

Arthur Carey, Chaser

December 14, 2012 7:17 PM

On and on and on by Arthur Carey, Chaser

Arthur smiled, a small, not entirely pleasant but undeniably pleased little smile, when the simple pass did, indeed, work as well as the more complicated ones they had been using. He felt like grinning, but he found using big facial expressions uncomfortable even when he was having a completely appropriate emotional response to the event at hand, which in this case he did not; he thought he was far happier than the situation really justified, and that it was better, therefore, not to grin like an idiot so that half the Pitch became convinced hat he was utterly mad. He had no objection to the idea of the Pecaris questioning his sanity, since that might make them get out of the way faster, but he would prefer for his teammates not to think he had abruptly fallen out of his tree. They might not give him the ball anymore.

So far, it seemed he was still succeeding in his quest to be granted more than his fair share of the ball time, because it came back to him in short order. As much of a risk as there was, as soaring very fast over longer distances became less of an option, of the ball being stolen back, Arthur liked to use a number of short, abrupt passes as they drew closer to the goals, to make it harder for the Keeper to guess ahead of time which of the Chasers coming toward her was actually going to carry the Quaffle forward to challenge her. The formation-changing trick, he very much expected, was going to help with that, too. Hopefully, when the time came, she would be looking left while one of them went right and the ball would soar right past her and into a hoop.

Soon. That would happen, if it was going to happen, soon. They would try their best at that play, and then things would fall out as they fell. He didn’t think much beyond that, not when he wasn’t planning to take a shot in the next move and didn’t even know if he would be the one who brought the current plan to its end. That didn’t matter much to him at the moment, either. It was just about getting there.

He passed again, once again in a short, neat move, crossing one set of fingers that it would work as well this time as it had last time because he still found it amusing to both try the move and to anticipate its results. They were in the home stretch now. It was not impossible that something could go wrong - Arthur was smart enough to know never, ever to assume there was ever a circumstance where nothing could go wrong - but he did think, at this point, that it was pretty unlikely.

0 Arthur Carey, Chaser On and on and on 0 Arthur Carey, Chaser 0 5

Mellie Goodwin, Chaser

December 16, 2012 1:15 PM

We should be approaching the end now. by Mellie Goodwin, Chaser

"Oh, no," Mellie muttered, or tried to mutter around getting her breath back as she started turning to follow the ball again almost as soon as she noticed Arthur Carey had stolen it again. It was, at this point, almost an instinctual response. Her brain wasn't too involved in the process, her body just doing what it was supposed to do under these circumstances without needing much of her input on the matter. The game was not something she had to think about after a while, it was just something that happened.

She didn't know, really, if that was better or worse than when she was thinking in the game. On one hand, thinking could help with planning moves that were the most effective against the opposition. That could make things work for them every now and then. On the other hand, though, thinking too much could first sometimes make her over think it and get it all wrong and it could also just lead to thinking herself into great frustration. Especially at the moment, against Aladren, which was being frustrating. They were flying fast and they were now keeping the ball which they had stolen and she couldn't do anything about it. Under those circumstances, it felt a lot better not to think about it too much. Just to keep going and jump when - if - she got a chance.

Despite not thinking, though, she saw that they were getting close to Sophie, and it added an element of urgency to the state of not thinking. It was more urgent that she react to things. And so, when she did see a chance, she jumped forward and intercepted the Quaffle.

Doing that jolted her back into thinking, and she nearly dropped the Quaffle in her surprise over having it again. She didn't think she had ever touched the Quaffle this much in one game, or at least couldn't remember another occasion when she had right now, with her attention pretty narrow. Getting the ball under control, she turned again and, risking the wrath of the Aladren Beaters, streaked forward as fast as she could for longer than she would have liked, getting away from Sophie. Still, the center of the Pitch and the way back to David Wilkes was still a long way from her when she finally did pass toward one of her teammates.

16 Mellie Goodwin, Chaser We should be approaching the end now. 206 Mellie Goodwin, Chaser 0 5

Ann Pierce, Distraction

December 16, 2012 9:24 PM

Keeping Thad Busy by Ann Pierce, Distraction

There had been some argument over who got to play in the Final. Annette had gotten to play in the first game and so she argued that meant she had earned the right to advance to the final. Annabelle had not gotten to play in the first game and so she argued that meant it was now her turn, especially since Annette had gotten hurt and Annabelle had no desire to see that happen again. They settled it the same way they settled the decision regarding who played in the first game: a competition between the two twins.

Annette won again.

There were two ways to take this repeated victory. The one Annette was going with was that she was just a better Quidditch player than her sister. The one Annabelle believed was that Annette got lucky. Twice.

Annette's strategy this game was simple. She was not a fantastic chaser. She tried, of course, and was vastly improved from the try-outs, but she was still the smallest player on the pitch and she didn't have very much arm strength so her passes were always short and didn't always make it as far as she thought they should go. She had no doubt this failing would be far more pronounced in today's windy conditions. So she didn't really plan to get the Quaffle much at all. Mellie and Waverly would have to handle the Aladren Chasers themselves.

Ann's greatest advantage this game was that Thad wouldn't hurt her. Thad wouldn't even risk hurting her. She was his baby cousin and she'd seen how badly it had shaken him when she'd been hit at the end of Pecari's last game. There was no way he could live with himself if he thought he might be the one responsible for damaging her.

So she joined the other players for Sophie's pre-game speech and kind of leaned against Mellie a little so she wouldn't get bowled over from the stronger winds, which seemed strong even here on solid ground. Ann did not have a lot of mass and did not expect that her flying would look at all agile or graceful today.

After the whistle blew, she felt this was clearly demonstrated as she kicked off and lurched into the air with as much ability to fly in a straight line as a drunken broken-winged bumblebee. The one stroke of luck she had, though, was that it looked like Thad was assigned to the Chasers. Perfect.

The first run toward Sophie was spent mostly trying to get used to flying in the wind. When Waverly intercepted, Ann got between her and Thad and urged her to keep going because there was no way Thad would hit a bludger at the Quaffle-bearing Pecari if his dear cousin wasn't letting him get a clear shot at the older girl.

That even worked. Waverly made it all the way over to Mr. Wilkes and even if the shot was unsuccessful, it at least wasn't next to Sophie anymore and the Aladrens would have to traverse the whole pitch all over again before they could take their own shot at the goals.

Unfortunately, they made a goodly amount of progress on that end, if not entirely uninterrupted, but the other two girls never quite dared again to test Ann's theory that Thad's family loyalty trumped his Quidditch madness. As the game progressed and Aladren was clearly dominating (although not scoring) she honestly wasn't sure the veracity of that would continue either, but doggedly kept herself between her beater cousin and the other Pecari Chasers.

So far, though, it seemed to be working. Thad hadn't even touched a Bludger yet.

0 Ann Pierce, Distraction Keeping Thad Busy 0 Ann Pierce, Distraction 0 5

Arnold Carey, Seeker

December 17, 2012 12:44 AM

Me, I really like this one by Arnold Carey, Seeker

It wasn’t, Arnold thought, that he had really liked getting hit with the Bludgers all the time. He didn’t think he enjoyed pain, for its own sake and on its own terms, any more than anyone else did. He sometimes enjoyed playing against the odds that way, sometimes, but he didn’t actually like being in pain, or having to catch the Snitch with his left arm because he had broken his right one again, or one time not remembering that he’d caught the Snitch when he woke up in the hospital tent…That stuff, he had never liked so much, he was sure. It had just been part of the game.

Now that it wasn’t so much, though, he found the game could be harder than it had been then, because he had to look all around for both the Snitch and the Bludgers. That took more time, more concentration; the games weren’t as fierce now as they had been when he was a first year, but they were fierce enough, and he knew there were probably other members of the teams and the audience who saw the Snitch when he didn’t and were all but screaming for him to end it while he was busy watching for the Bludgers, but that was how it went. The game had moved on that way, and he would have to deal with a possibly angry – or worse, teary – Fae after the game if he just left the Bludgers completely to Preston and decided that a move was worth getting hit by one too often and that sort of thing. So he looked.

Most of the time, he didn’t think of that as the best thing, but this time, it worked for him. Because when he looked for the Bludger, he saw the Snitch.

He held still for a moment, hardly believing what he saw. It was a very short moment, though. Then, he was after the Snitch, flying fast off to the side, after it. He was on top of it before it knew what was happening, his hand closing around it all in a rush, ending the game and, hopefully, settling the Pecari-Aladren question once and for all.

He kind of doubted that last part, as he ran from the returning Bludger which at least let Pecari be spared him gloating too much about the victory, heading for the ground with one hand on his broom while he waved the Snitch around with the other in the hopes Coach Pierce would see it. He kind of doubted it a lot. But he knew it was a bit much to hope for it to be perfect. Things never were, somehow.

0 Arnold Carey, Seeker Me, I really like this one 181 Arnold Carey, Seeker 0 5

Coach Amelia Pierce

December 17, 2012 9:28 PM

Aladren wins! 150-0 (nm) by Coach Amelia Pierce

1 Coach Amelia Pierce Aladren wins! 150-0 (nm) 20 Coach Amelia Pierce 0 5

<font color=silver>Coach Pierce</font>

Quidditch Final: Aladren vs Pecari by <font color=silver>Coach Pierce</font>

<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

Here to win, again by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

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

It's undeniably shiny, the thing that I Seek... by <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font>

<font color="tan">Rupert Princeton, Beater</font>

A bludger can be quite shiny. by <font color="tan">Rupert Princeton, Beater</font>

<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

Excellent plan, my friend. by <font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

Preston, Beater

And deadly by Preston, Beater

Asst Capt. Amira Thornton, Pecari

Not your best plan, though. Was it? by Asst Capt. Amira Thornton, Pecari

<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

It still seems to be working to me by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

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

I'd prefer to live by <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font>

Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari

Think again... by Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari

<font color="tan">Waverly Canterbury,Chaser</font>

Trying not to be too flustered by <font color="tan">Waverly Canterbury,Chaser</font>

<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

Just keep trying to get yourself flattened instead by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

<font color="tan">Rupert Princeton, Beater</font>

Pish posh. by <font color="tan">Rupert Princeton, Beater</font>

<font color="tan">Jade Owen, Seeker</font>

Joining the party by <font color="tan">Jade Owen, Seeker</font>

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

Welcome! The more the merrier by <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font>

Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari

She won't be flattened. by Asst. Capt. Amira T., Beater, Pecari

<font color="blue">Preston, Beater</font>

Yepyep by <font color="blue">Preston, Beater</font>

<font color="brown">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>

I might be soon... by <font color="brown">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>

<font color="tan">Rupert Princeton, Beater</font>

Being a hero. by <font color="tan">Rupert Princeton, Beater</font>

<font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>

Get on with that, won't you? by <font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>

<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

Yes, please do by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

<font color=tan> Waverly Canterbury, Chaser</font>

Why don't you get on with it? by <font color=tan> Waverly Canterbury, Chaser</font>

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

Girls do like that sort of thing.... by <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font>

<font color="blue">Jay Carey, Alternate</font>

Watching attentively by <font color="blue">Jay Carey, Alternate</font>

<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

Or at least stay out of the way. by <font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

<font color="tan">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>

Some people don't want to. by <font color="tan">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>

<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

That's what's known as 'their tough luck'. by <font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

Why, so it is (wotw) by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

<font color="blue">Anthony Carey, Alternate</font>

Doing the same by <font color="blue">Anthony Carey, Alternate</font>

<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

That's just the way it goes. by <font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

<font color="tan">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>

I don't think so. by <font color="tan">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>

<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

I do by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

Well, I agree, obviously. by <font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

Russell

Left out a bit, sorry! by Russell

<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

Moving along by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

We shall. by <font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>

<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

On and on and on by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>

<font color="tan">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>

We should be approaching the end now. by <font color="tan">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>

<font color=tan>Ann Pierce, Distraction</font>

Keeping Thad Busy by <font color=tan>Ann Pierce, Distraction</font>

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

Me, I really like this one by <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font>