Coach Amelia Pierce

March 30, 2012 9:31 PM
In her 'Quidditch Coach' hat, Amelia Pierce was only responsible for teaching one class: Flying Lessons, which was given only to first years (though older students could attend if they wanted to and signed up in advance). It was generally a popular class among the kids because there were no homework assignments or tests, and half the class was allowed to play broom tag or a pick-up game of Quidditch for most of it while the true beginners were given basic lessons. The rest were only expected to participate to the best of their ability.

As long as everyone spent the entire period sitting on a broom in the air and at least attempting to do as instructed, they passed. It was not a difficult class by any stretch of the imagination. The final exam was flying from one end of the pitch to the other and back without crashing. That got an A. If they could do in under ten minutes it was an E. Under five earned an O. Most kids earned Es and Os in her class.

"Hello," she greeted her new class of first years once they seemed to have stopped trickling in. She allowed for 'getting lost time' the first week, but she'd dock points for poor punctuality later. She was Head of Crotalus and the Deputy Headmistress; it was practically in her job description to be a stickler for rules. "My name is Coach Pierce. I will be your flying instructor this year."

"Now, I know most of you will not view this as a 'real' class, but I can and will take House Points and assign detention if I catch any of you messing around, and I will catch you if you do. I expect you to show up on time. I expect you to behave and show each other respect. I will not tolerate insults or taunting of any form. I expect everyone to try their best."

She did not assert that there would be no exceptions because she had been informed that sometimes there apparently were good medical reasons for some students not to participate. Those students would be seen to on a case by case basis.

There was one reason she would hear nothing about, no matter how much some of the Board of Governors howled. "For those of you with parents who support WAIL, I assure you, they will not disown you for hovering on a broom and flying across the pitch for one hour, once a week, for one year."

She took a breath, and used the short pause to look around the group to make sure they were still listening. "That said, I am aware some of you already know how to fly. I offer those students the priviledge of forgoing the basic lessons and doing whatever you like so long as you are on your broom and flying for the duration of the lesson. I have Quaffles and other muggle varieties of balls available for your use. Later, once I know I can trust you, I'll allow bludgers and Snitches. If you need anything else, let me know and I'll see what I can do."

She waited a moment to let them try to imagine what other equipment they might need for more creative flying games, then added, "Just remember, this is a priviledge and if I have any problems with you fighting amongst yourselves or interferring with my lessons, you will all be down here hovering five feet over the ground with the beginners."

With that threat leveled, she expected not to have any problems with the experienced kids (in point of fact, in her seven years coaching here, she had only once had to follow through with it and she had only leveled the punishment against the single offending student). "Now I'm going to call roll, and then anyone who feels they do not need basic instruction may go play. Please raise your hand and say 'here' when I call your name. Ammon, Liam." She went through the list and marked attendance. "Okay, that's it. If I didn't call your name, let me know. Experienced fliers, you may take to the air. School brooms are over there, if you don't have your own."

She gave a few seconds for unnamed students to make themselves known and for the fliers to get out of the way. "Everyone else, line up here." Her wand flicked out and a white line appeared in the grass. "If you have your own broom put it down beside you. To your right if you're right-handed, to your left if you're left-handed. Everyone else, just stand in front of the line."

Once they did that, Amelia started distributing brooms to those who didn't have one yet. "Put it to your right if you're right-handed, to the left if you're left-handed," she repeated as she moved down the line. Once they all had brooms beside them, she instructed, "Now hold your wand hand out over your broom, like this," she stepped over her own broom, lying in the grass, so that it was to her right. She held out her right hand over it. "Palm down. Now, in a firm voice, like if you're ordering a dog to sit, tell it to come to your hand by saying 'up' - Up!" she said, louder, in demonstration, and her broom leapt up directly into her hand.

"I'd like you all to try that. You may need to try it a couple of times to get it to work. Once it's in your hand, just swing one leg over it like this," she demonstrated climbing onto the broom, "and just hover there for a bit. Try to keep steady and not drift too much. Raise your hand if you have a question or a problem. Barring too many of those, I'll show you how to manuever once everybody gets into a hover."



OOC: Hello and welcome to Sonora. Your character earns points for their House by participating in classes. Long, quality posts earn the most points, so be sure to follow the posting rules. Have fun!
Subthreads:
1 Coach Amelia Pierce Flying Lessons for First Years 20 Coach Amelia Pierce 1 5


Lucille Carey, Teppenpaw

April 02, 2012 3:14 PM
Faced with the prospect of flying lessons, Lucille was nervous, but determined not to show it. She was a Carey, more of a Carey than anyone except her two brothers if you looked at the strange situation with her grandmother the way her mother preferred to, and Careys did not show fear, especially if they were really feeling it.

Besides, other classes were bound to be worse for unfamiliarity, since she did at least ride horses at home and therefore owned appropriate outfits for riding, so it was good to go ahead and get practice at not showing her nervousness in a situation where she had a reason to think she might not do too badly. It wasn’t so much the class itself here that was making her nervous as it was the person who was teaching it. Lucille had been acquainted with a disowned person before, but that had been when she was just very small, she didn’t remember it at all, and the person hadn’t been disowned then anyway. She should have been, Mother said, but she hadn’t been then. Coach Pierce, however, had been disowned since before Lucille was born. The thought made her uneasy, as though being so terrible that your own mother would reject you was something contagious, like a disease.

Once the first years were gathered for the class, then, Lucille stood a little way away from the teacher, listened to the long speech without ever looking quite at Coach Pierce, and responded quietly to her name when it was read off the roll, rubbing her hands anxiously on the sides of her yellow riding dress for a moment. The pale color wasn’t really the thing to wear when she might fall off and onto the green grass of the Pitch, but she had felt like celebrating her Sorting a little, and she had always thought she looked nice in yellow, even though Mother thought it made her look washed out. She would have to change after this class anyway, and had others if this one got stained, so she didn’t suppose it really mattered anyway as long as she didn’t fall too early in the class, and it didn’t sound as though that would be as easy as it might have, considering what the directions for the beginners were.

As the groups split up and she got over being frightened by the way it was delivered, Lucille thought over the speech and much of it had seemed reasonable like that. She knew her mother was most annoyed that this class was going to last as long as it did, but it was true that she wasn’t going to disown her over it. There were small sacrifices that went along with going to school to meet proper friends and hopefully a proper husband, after all, and this was one of them. Maybe this wouldn’t be terribly bad. She still had to consciously prep herself not to flinch when Coach Pierce got to her in the broom-distribution line, but since she did not immediately begin to want to go wild after saying “thank you,” she thought the interaction had been a success for her.

Still, though, there was one more hurdle to pass before she could begin to relax about this class: actually flying. Looking at the broom, she said, “Up, please,” and it had no effect whatsoever.

She frowned slightly. She had hoped to be polite, but it seemed that the coach was right about this, anyway, especially since she heard firmer voices around her. “Up,” she said sternly, as though she were telling Baby not to do something – Mal was impossible; her voice was more likely to get shrill if she was speaking to him about doing or not doing something, but Baby was still, well, almost a baby, and a little more reasonable than their brother – and she felt her heart leap as she though the broom was going to obey her, but then it just flopped back to the ground.

She took a deep breath, blinking hard to suppress the beginnings of tears. It was progress, anyway. She just had to think about…well, nothing, actually, since trying to make herself feel better always made her feel worse and yet she did it anyway until she remembered because Stepmother always said she though think good things when she started to feel upset no matter how many times Lucille explained that it just made it worse, but she just had to think and then try again. Her nerves were just over-wound because of how strange school was so far, and how stressful it was to be around all-new people, people who weren’t Careys; she couldn’t let that get the better of her. Theresa and Alexandra had both done fine in school last year. She could, too.

Two tries later, she had the broom in the air, though it didn’t so much leap to her hand as halfheartedly shrug its way there, and she was back to figuring out flying. Carefully, she mounted the broom and kicked off as gently as she could, so she only floated a little above the ground. Five feet was taller than she was, and she wasn’t ready to be that far away from the ground yet. She was higher than this when she rode a horse, but part of the horse was still on solid ground as well.

“I’m fine,” she said to herself under her breath. “I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.”

After a minute, she started to believe it. Now she just had to figure out how to get as high in the air as she was supposed to be, instead of as high as she was. It looked like a longer way down than she thought it was, but she was still sure she wasn’t more than her own height above the ground right now. Maybe half of her height, maybe, but not even her full height, never mind more. That was her problem now.
0 Lucille Carey, Teppenpaw Well, there's one step out of the way... 0 Lucille Carey, Teppenpaw 0 5


Lucrezia Renaldi, Crotalus

April 02, 2012 5:06 PM
Lucrezia had always loved flying. There was something about being on top of a broom flying through the sky that gave the little Italian a sense of freedom and purpose. However, liking flying was not the same as liking Quidditch. No, it wasn’t. The little Crotalus thought that Quidditch was just barbaric and horrible, and she couldn’t understand why her older sisters liked it. They didn’t play it because well-raised ladies didn’t, but they loved watching it. They even made bets about the Italian league and liked to invite famous players to some Renaldi Social Functions. It probably had to do with the fact that their father owned one of the greatest Quidditch team Italy had seen, Il Azzuri Tornado. The youngest Renaldi couldn’t care less about that.

But flying definitely had its charms.

The dark-haired first-year listened without interest to what Coach Pierce had to say because she knew how to handle a broom. It wasn’t out of disrespect or anything, but she just wanted to fly and enjoy the day. Her first days at Sonora had been quite exciting and filled with awesome people, and she wanted to continue with that excellent streak of friendliness. She hadn’t encountered anyone or anything that made her frown. She hoped it stayed like that.

Once the Coach gave the signal she flew away. A smile formed on her face as she heard the wind pass and made her robes fly with it. There was no better sense of freedom than flying. It had become a habit of hers to fly whenever she felt pressured. The Renaldi household could be somewhat smothering and from time to time Lucrezia liked to get lost in the vast forest in her backyard. However, she wasn’t feeling smothered or anything, but the elation of flying just made the normally happy girl be happier about life, especially since she missed her house and parents.

Being so far away from home was causing a little bit of sadness in her, but she didn’t want to be the sad girl from her year group and flying helped her with that. Right now there was nothing that bothered her.

She flew around for a few minutes before heading back to hovering with the rest of her class like she was supposed to do. Lucrezia found herself besides a girl that seemed to be quite terrified of flying. Sporting a bright smile she put a hand on her shoulder, “Are you alright?” she asked in her very accented English. Her Great-grandfather Ignatious had told her she needed to work on her English. Lucrezia didn’t see the point, since everyone understood her perfectly, or so she thought.
0 Lucrezia Renaldi, Crotalus How about the next? 0 Lucrezia Renaldi, Crotalus 0 5


Lucille

April 02, 2012 5:54 PM
If she hadn’t already had both hands on the long handle of the broom, Lucille was sure she would have fallen off when a hand fell on her shoulder and she jumped a little, surprised. Blanching, she shifted her weight, trying to keep her balance.

She succeeded finally and looked over at the other girl, the one speaking to her, the color coming back into her face with a little interest as she made her mouth smile while she pretended that the whole embarrassing incident had never happened. It was the only way to handle it, she knew. She just had to keep going forward and pretend that the past had never happened, whether ‘the past’ referred to something as distant as her parents’ divorce or something as recent as the incident just now with her broom. It hadn’t looked as bad as it had felt, she was sure. It never did, when she felt like she was going to panic but looked in the mirror and saw that she still looked okay. If she kept going forward and didn’t mess it up again, then the past wouldn’t matter, and people would forget about it soon enough.

“Oh, yes,” she said after a slight pause, during which she was getting her breath and working through the other girl’s accent to the question about her welfare. “I just don’t quite know what to do next.” She gestured to the small amount of air between her boots and the ground. “I got up all right, but I’m not sure how to go the rest of the way up, up to five feet, from here. I’ve ridden horses before, but they usually go forward, not up.”

She had jumped before, but that was a secret. Mother would throw a fit if she knew Lucille had ever done it, much less that she’d first talked her riding teacher into showing her how even though she knew Mother wouldn’t approve and then sworn the teacher to secrecy. Besides, a broom wasn’t the same thing. It was just…there, a small little thing that hardly seemed like it ought to be able to hold her up at all and which she knew nothing about the workings of. She didn’t think there was even a broomstick in her whole house at home; if there was, she had never seen it.

She looked at the other girl, who seemed much more comfortable on her broom. Maybe she could help her, but anyway, whether she did or she didn’t, it wouldn’t do to not introduce herself. They were going to know each other for seven years at least, and maybe longer for all she knew, so they needed to know each others’ names, anyway. It was important to learn the rest of her classmates’ names as soon as she could, she knew, so she wouldn’t make a fool of herself speaking to them the way she would if someone learned her name and used it and she didn't know theirs. “I’m Lucille Carey,” she introduced herself. “Of the North Carolina Careys. I’m sorry I jumped like that – it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
0 Lucille It doesn't seem to be going as well 0 Lucille 0 5


Lucrezia

April 03, 2012 9:23 PM
Lucrezia giggled. She wasn’t laughing at the other girl, no. She was quite amused about the horse comment, especially because she understood it. The Italian rode from time to time with some members of her family, but flying was a better hobby than horse-back riding. “Some horses do go up,” she said with a friendly grin on her face. Her family owned a few palominos. Lucrezia loved them. They were nice but scary at the same time. She even had named one herself. “Don’t worry, it was my fault.” It had really been. Lucrezia had unsuspectedly touched her. It had been somewhat rude, and she was really sorry for startling her.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I am Lucrezia Renaldi, from The Randolph family. Though, I actually live in Italy. ” Her Great-Grandfather Ignatious had told her to always add her American family because most American families didn’t know the European ones, after she had written them about her encounter with Heaven. American Pureblood society was somewhat different than the one in Europe. Lucrezia needed to get used to it, especially about the long formal introduction. In Europe people didn’t add a branch, because if your family was important the others instantly recognized you by the name, but they were just different ways of handling things. And since she was in their turf it was only right to get used to the way people moved around her.

Lucrezia would curtsy, but it would be detrimental to her physical well-being.

“May I help you? I have some knowledge about flying, and I would love to help.” The grin on her face was friendly and inviting. The little Italian had a mission and that was befriending every decent person at the school. For some reason her family wanted to have a better understanding of Pureblood society in America and sending her to an American school had been the next move. She didn’t mind, not at all. There was something exciting about starting a new life in a foreign, exotic place. The USA was so different to Calambria that she learned something new every day.

If she was honest with herself, Lucrezia missed the food more than anything. Food had always been a source of comfort for her, but the Italian food served at Sonora wasn’t as good as the one made by her house-elves.
0 Lucrezia I can help! 0 Lucrezia 0 5


Lucille

April 04, 2012 7:21 PM
Lucille smiled at the comment about how some horses did go up. “Yes, but I’m not allowed to do that,” she said, then really hoped she hadn’t sounded like a completely prim little miss, a snotty little person no one would really like to talk to. She had heard what her mother said about other people behind their backs, and sometimes even what others said about her mother behind Meredith’s back, enough to know that sounding anything like that was nearly an unpardonable sin. There were distinctions, with some people being jealous of a girl who was well-behaved and that being no reason for her to misbehave, but there was behaving properly and then there was carrying it to the degree that it was somehow, paradoxically, impolite itself.

This, really, was the thing she had been dreading about leaving home as much as she had been looking forward to leaving it for most other reasons. She knew all these things, about what was proper and what was not, but not always how to recognize them here, outside, in the real world. There were so many ways to mess up, and sometimes it might not matter, but another time, it might make just the wrong enemy, and then you were disowned and in disgrace before you knew what was happening.

At least jumping wasn’t being held fatally against her. She smiled as she learned the new name, which she thought explained the accent. Lucrezia Renaldi. It sounded so exotic. So unlike her own, very boring name. The only person she’d met so far at school with a name as ordinary as hers was Melanie.

It was a little strange, too, the girl introducing herself as being from the Randolph family – had her parents died and left her to relations, or was she in some situation like Alexandra’s, having to associate herself with her mother’s family instead of her own? Though even Alex didn’t really introduce herself as a Carey, it was just quietly understood that she was really more of a Carey than she was a Devereux, because there wasn’t much of a reason to be a Devereux. It would, though, be terribly impolite to ask, she knew that, so Lucille said instead, “Oh, how lovely. Do you like it here in the United States so far?” because that seemed safe.

Once she worked through her accent on the longer statement again, Lucille looked over at the other girl gratefully when she offered her help with this awful thing Lucille was being forced to try to maneuver. “I would appreciate it,” she said. “I think I’m all right with being in the air like this now, but I can’t figure out how to go any further now that I’m here.” It made her feel foolish, which she didn’t like to do, but that was the problem, anyway. She had to figure out how to do this thing, which always seemed so easy when she saw boys do it but which was proving incomprehensible, or she would fail, and she could not fail.

At the thought, her hand pressed down on the broom handle, and she dropped back toward earth with a startled “Oh!” before, instinctively, she pulled the broom level and recovered her balance. “Unless that’s how you do it,” she added to Lucrezia, looking at the broom handle and trying to work up the nerve to try pulling it up a little. “Is it always that…sudden, when you move a broom?” It occurred to her to wonder how the other girl knew how to fly, but that was another thing she couldn’t ask. If Lucrezia’s knowledge helped her not make a fool of herself in public, she didn’t think she would even care, either.
0 Lucille Please do! 0 Lucille 0 5


Lucrezia

April 06, 2012 7:42 PM
Lucrezia was trying to stifle a giggle, but failing miserably. Lucille was funny, and Lucrezia was already thinking of her as a friend. There hadn’t been anything going horribly wrong in their friendly exchange. The little Italian landed and got off her broom to help Lucille. She liked feeling useful, and she loved that her thick accent wasn’t making communication harder than it should probably be. She needed to practice her English in order to become better. His Great-Grandfather had told her that if she wanted to be part of the American Pureblood society she needed to learn to speak English flawlessly without any tinge of an accent.

She crossed her arms and began circling Lucille trying to come up with the best explanation she could provide about flying. “Well, you seem to have the gist of it, but you are too afraid of what happens with the slightest moves. The broom knows when you aren’t ready to fly,” she said matter-of-factly. “Or afraid of it.” The eleven-year old didn’t want to sound condescending or bossy, and she hoped Lucille didn’t take it that way. She was just trying to help.

“Yes, the broom will move depending on your hands. If you want to go up, you just use your hands to move the handle up. To go down you move the handle down, it is the same for any given direction,” she smiled and hoped that her simple explanation helped Lucille see there was nothing to be afraid of, though people being afraid of flying was something rather common. Back at home she was the only one that actually flied, since her friends were afraid of it or their parents had prohibited it. Thankfully, her parents had been more lenient with her on that account.

The Crotalus hopped on the broom she had left by her side, “Yes, movements are sudden, but you get used to them.” Lucrezia couldn’t understand why Lucille seemed so jumpy about flying. There was nothing better than feeling the air play with your hair. “I think there is nothing better than flying. My parents gave me permission to learn it after my older brother took me out once.” She smiled as her broom hovered at the same height as Lucille’s. “Are you ready to go higher?” she smiled, “I won’t leave your side.”
0 Lucrezia Glad to! 0 Lucrezia 0 5


Lucille

April 07, 2012 6:48 PM
Lucille bit her lower lip for a second when Lucrezia giggled for some reason she didn’t really understand, but it seemed like it was all right, so she didn’t ask. Giggling wasn’t what most people did when they were offended, so it probably meant that, so far at least, she was doing well. Or at least not so terribly that she should never be spoken to again and shunned by all of polite society.

She nodded to the statements about the broom having some sense of the person riding it. “I don’t feel afraid,” she said. “Not now, anyway – “ and really, the feeling she’d gotten when she realized she had gotten in the air had been more of a really overwhelming relief than fear, relief that she wasn’t going to fail, but she supposed there could have been some fear under that she had been too distracted to think about, since Lucille more or less regarded being afraid of making a mistake as a constant background event in her life – “just like I don’t know how to make it do much. I thought I wouldn’t go very high at first in case I was afraid of it, but we’re supposed to go higher, and then I couldn’t figure out how to get there.”

Figuring it out was completely accidental and more than a little scary by itself, but it turned out that she had gotten the idea right in the end. Carefully, thinking it might be less abrupt if she was doing it deliberately, Lucille pulled the broom up and returned to her previous height with only one wobble, which she could tell felt bigger than it had looked. Her stomach had lurched with it, but she couldn’t help but feel a little proud of herself at the same time. She was doing it. She was staying on the broom, she was starting to work it out…she wasn’t completely incompetent, at least in this respect.

She smiled when Lucrezia said she thought there was nothing better than flying, and that she’d gotten permission from her parents to learn. “You’re lucky,” she said, supposing perhaps the rules were not as strict in Italy. “My mother would never allow my brothers to show me.” She knew Mal knew how, at least a little and more than she did, but it had never even occurred to either of them, that she knew of, that he might show her. It simply wasn’t done.

She smiled again when Lucrezia asked if she wanted to go higher, refusing to feel nervous about the idea. She was not going to look weak and silly in front of another girl. “All right,” she said. “Thank you, Lucrezia.” She pulled her broom up a little higher, keeping an eye on Lucrezia, and steadied out after a way up.

“It’s not so bad,” she said after glancing around her for a moment. “You don’t have to wait around for me, though, if you’d rather go play with the more experienced ones.” Which she supposed was half-code for asking if Lucrezia played Quidditch, but she did mean it. She didn’t want anyone to go to trouble, stay away from something they wanted to do, on her behalf, that was just horribly embarrassing to even think about.
0 Lucille That is wonderful to hear 0 Lucille 0 5


Lucrezia

April 10, 2012 5:39 PM
“You are welcome,” Lucrezia responded with another smile. She didn’t mind helping Lucille out; especially because she remembered how afraid she had been the first time she had done it by herself. Having Carlo fly her around was infinitely different than doing it herself. Her parents had been nice enough to hire a flying tutor for her and her older brother had been with her throughout the whole experience. Carlo was nice like that. Alana and Aimee had taken bets on when she would injury herself and how severe. Her older sisters were the epitome of brats and it was worse because there were two of them. “I really don’t mind.”

She looked over the more experienced fliers and saw then playing a game of Quidditch, “oh no, I don’t play Quidditch. It is horribly brutal and dumb.” Lucrezia went a tad bit higher on her broom, “never liked it. My father owns a team in Italy and for the love of Merlin I have never seen what people like about it.” The Italian spent a lot of her days stuck inside a box in the stadium cheering for a team she didn’t even like. It was a family thing, and she couldn’t say no. Father, Mother, Carlo, the Twins and she were supposed to be there. No matter what. There were a handful of times were they couldn’t make, but they were life and death reasons, like important parties and events. Some of the players had been drafted into the Italian team. Her father loved his team and usually spent a lot of time and money on it.

“Do you like Quidditch?” even when Lucille couldn’t fly, she may enjoy the game from time to time and if she did, Lucrezia would respect it. She couldn’t impose her over the top dramatically life choice to everyone on her path, even when she knew she was right. It was rude to point the mistakes of other so directly. The best way was by doing it subtly. The Crotalus had seen her family do just that, she hadn’t experienced it, but she was quite certain it would be easy to pick it up. It seemed so easy.

A gust of wind played with her long ponytail, small strands of her hair were ticking her face. She looked up, “How about we go higher? Just a little bit?” Lucrezia extended her hand at Lucille.
0 Lucrezia Lets fly, then! 0 Lucrezia 0 5


Lucille

April 15, 2012 9:48 PM
Lucille was never sure if she should take people at their word about what did or didn’t bother them, but right now, she was going to do that, because she really didn’t want Lucrezia to leave her. She was not stupid or superstitious, she knew she would not magically fall off because no one was with her, but she just felt safer because someone who did seem to know what they were doing was with her. At the very least, Lucrezia might not, if Lucille fell or something, panic and instead do something useful, like yell ‘help!’ really loudly instead of sitting there frozen, as Lucille imagined she would.

She followed her new friend up a little almost by reflex as Lucrezia talked about Quidditch and why she didn’t like it, but did have an investment in it. Lucille nodded, too, to that. She didn’t think her family owned any Quidditch teams, or at least she didn’t know if they did, but she did know that owning things and working with property and money were things that men did, and they didn’t necessarily have to like or even know about them for them to still make money keep appearing when the seamstress came, or a party needed to be held, or she went to visit relatives somewhere. That was how it went. That was why you were supposed to have a father and uncles and, eventually, a husband, to take care of those things. Lucille didn’t know who was doing it for her family, but she assumed someone was.

“I’ve never seen it,” Lucille said honestly when Lucrezia asked if she liked Quidditch. “It does sound very violent, though. My brother’s told me about it, he always sounds so excited, but I don’t know why. I don’t understand why you’d want to see someone get hit in the head with something heavy.” Lucille didn’t object, she thought, to the idea of that woman being hit in the head with something, but she didn’t think she wanted to see it even so. Pain bothered her, it upset her when people were upset, she just didn’t want to deal with it.

She smiled, then, hoping to mask her own unease, when Lucrezia suggested that they go higher. It was always, in her experience, easier to do as she was told, as others wanted her to do, so that was what she was going to do now. She had to fly higher for the class anyway, so it was just better. “All right,” she said, and pulled up the broom again.

She meant for it to be gently, but the broom jumped, taking her higher and faster than she’d meant for it to. She caught herself, though, and steadied up again, glancing around for Lucrezia until she found her. “I think I’m getting the hang of balancing, anyway,” she said cheerfully, looking for the best. There were some things, she was firmly convinced, there was just not much good in, but most things weren’t like that, and this fell into the category of most things in her mind.
0 Lucille Here we go! 0 Lucille 0 5