Coach Amelia Pierce
June 08, 2012 8:10 PM
Game Two: Pecari vs Aladren by Coach Amelia Pierce
Amelia's midterm had been quite enjoyable but very cold. Returning to Arizona from Boston, Massachusetts had made the school pitch seem downright balmy by comparison, even in January. The fact that it was still below freezing, however, was made clearly evident by the light flakes falling from the overcast skies above them on the morning of the academic year's second Quidditch match.The competing teams represent Pecari and Aladren, last year's finalists. Pecari had come out on top that game, but Aladren had claimed the Quidditch cup for each of the previous three years before that while Pecari hadn't even made it to the finals. This would be a good match-up, and Amelia expected the Aladrens were especially looking forward to trying to prove that last year had been nothing more than a fluke for Pecari. She was also sure that Demelza Eagle and her team would be equally eager to prove it wasn't.
Both teams were flying under new management this year, too, so Amelia was curious to see how that might shake things up.
She brushed a snowflake off her eyelashes - it was only a light snowfall, not nearly enough to for her northeastern sensibilities to even grace the poor attempt with the description of a 'flurry' but there were definitely white flakes in the air - and checked the progress of the captains' pre-game speeches. The wrapped up shortly thereafter and she called the new team leaders to her.
"Today," she announced loudly with the help of a sonorus charm, for the benefit of the spectators, "we have Pecari, lead by Captain Demelza Eagle and the returning Quidditch Cup Champions, up against Aladren, led by Captain David Wilkes and the previous Quidditch Cup Champions eager to reclaim their title. It should be an exciting match, so let's get to it. Captains, please shake hands."
After they had done so, she sent them back to their teams. She released the snitch first. It flitted around for a moment, then shot away, disappearing from sight. Next, she let out the bludgers. The charmed iron balls flew away, gaining altitude before seeking blood. Finally, she lifted out the Quaffle.
"Game begins on my whistle and ends when a seeker catches the snitch. Whistle on three. One, two, tweet!" Amelia let the whistle override the final count, but she mentally completed the final three as she threw the Quaffle high into the air to begin play.
She grabbed her own broom and followed the players into the sky.
OOC: Quidditch rules are available here, but the big ones are follow site rules, no god-modding, and write long clear detailed posts. Any questions, don't hesitate to put post on the OOC board. Enjoy!
Subthreads: And now we begin back toward our rightful place by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font> with <font color="brown">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>, <font color =brown>Jhonice Trevear, Chaser</font>, <font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>, <font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>, <font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>, <font color=brown>Amira Thornton, Chaser</font>, <font color=brown>Sophie Jamison, Keeper</font>
And now I am here to help by <font color=blue>Thaddeus Pierce, Beater</font> with <font color="blue">Arnold Carey, Seeker</font>, <font color=brown>Captain Demelza Eagle</font>, <font color=blue>Thad Pierce, Beater</font>, <font color="brown">Jade Owen, Seeker</font>, <font color="brown">Captain Mel, Beater</font>, <font color=silver>Coach Amelia Pierce</font>
And now I am here to freeze by <font color="blue">James Carey, Alternate</font>
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Coach Amelia Pierce
Game Two: Pecari vs Aladren
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Coach Amelia Pierce
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
June 08, 2012 11:00 PM
And now we begin back toward our rightful place by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
As he stepped outside for the first time of the day, Arthur was startled to feel something cold against the bridge of his nose, then to look up and see snow drifting down from the sky. For a moment, he just stood and looked up at it, white flakes briefly touching his black hair or blue robe before they melted, his expression incredulous. Snow. It was going to snow. He did not think they could have much worse luck than they would if the snow began to come down harder. No matter how often he saw it here – which was not really that often, since he did not stay at school for holidays, it was just more often than he did at home – he had never gotten used to snow, and he did not imagine Arnold had, either.Once he was quite sure the snow was not going to stop for his wish, anyway, though, he began to walk again, his jaw setting with grim determination. They had won in storms, they had won in sun, they had won in pain and through injuries; they could win in snow, too.
He smiled thinly at his teammates as they gathered for the captain’s speech, which he listened to impassively, still seeing Mr. Wilkes more as a barrier to somehow try to remove than as a leader to respect, and then again when he heard what the coach had to say to the crowd before the games began. He had sort of suspected before that Amelia Pierce was not averse to a little bloodshed when Crotalus’ victories were not on the line, and that speech, in his mind, all but confirmed it; if, somehow, anyone had forgotten about last year’s match, she had just reminded them, brought it all screaming back, so that they were all going to be doing their very best to rip each other to shreds from the moment the whistle blew until a few moments after one of the Seekers laid hands on the Snitch.
He flexed his left hand, turned its almost-even fingers. He felt calm today, sharp – a mood he thought fit with the weather, or at least what it would make every breath he took feel like in his lungs soon enough. If it was a bloodbath she wanted, Arthur thought he was more than up to putting in his part of the show.
It was a pity, he thought absently as he mounted his broom, that they could not simply put the Quidditch players on the ground and give everyone a bat and call that a Concert act. There would be at least twenty-four people accounted for, more if the alternates were entered as well, and as the popularity of these games indicated, mock battles were far more entertaining than listening to a dozen queasy renditions of the same set of second-rate songs. Then the whistle blew, though, and Arthur no longer thought of much at all.
He shot up and forward, the air cold against his face, running cold through his hair, and reached out to snatch the Quaffle from the air. It fell neatly into his hands, and he got a more secure grip on it as he turned in the air, rising as he did, and began his run toward the enemy Keeper.
The snow was still drifting down, making the world before him look a bit fuzzy and keeping him from settling completely, but that was, he thought after last year’s disaster, perhaps not the worst thing in the world; anything that kept them from getting complacent could, as long as it did not become overwhelming, be turned into an advantage. He just wished that his exertions would hurry up and warm him, because he disliked the cold. Taking the Quaffle in one hand, he dashed the other across his eyes to have a moment of greatest possible clarity as he looked for an opening to another blue robe and, finding one, took it, passing the Quaffle in a short, clean arc toward his teammate.
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
And now we begin back toward our rightful place
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
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<font color="brown">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>
June 10, 2012 12:36 PM
Er, no. by <font color="brown">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>
Snow wasn't exactly an ideal thing to see on a Quidditch morning, but as she stood, feeling somehow as though she were right on the border of invisibility and yet stuck out like a sore thumb at the same time, among the other Pecari players and listened to the speeches from her captain and from the Quidditch coach, Mellie's optimistic smile didn't waver as she thought about the game ahead. Snow was a little inconvenient, but she was from Illinois, where this would hardly count as a lot of it. She didn't see it as something that was going to really affect their play.Aladren was, she had discovered privately, still sort of terrifying, but not nearly as much as it had been last year. For one thing, she knew for a fact that they could be beaten, because it had happened in last year's final, and for another, their scariest player had moved on to the next phase in his life, which didn't seem to allow for coming back to his old school to wreak havoc among the ranks of the Pecari Quidditch team. The Beaters had been developing more and more of a habit of being a major determining factor in the games, and today, with Demelza, Pecari was the one with the biggest - no dreadful pun intended - advantage in that way.
She had dressed warmly, but not bundled up, since she wanted to be able to move freely in the air, and rubbed her hands together once more before mounting her broom. Here they were. Here it was. The game was about to begin. There was a knot of anticipation in her stomach, building toward anxiety, but Mellie found that her head was curiously empty, strangely distant from everything going on around her and which she knew to be in the near future.
And then the whistle blew.
The world blurred as she shot into the air, but she saw the moment when a blue shape ended up with the single splotch of red on the Pitch today, and as soon as she had her broom under control and her head cleared the tiny amount it needed to for organized action, she followed, neither registering nor caring, at first, which Aladren she was pursuing. Drawing closer, she realized, by size, that it had to be Arthur, but that caused no physical hesitation and only a moment of mental: they can lose, she reminded herself, and pushed ahead, going for what she hoped would be the game's first interception.
She didn't make it, but her fingertips did brush the Quaffle for one second, sending it drifting - it was drifting, more than falling, really, because of the Pennifold charms - off-course. She tried to take advantage of that, too, but had stretched so far to do what she had that her balance was off, and she had to fall back to get it back and stay on her broom, just hoping that she had puzzled the Aladrens enough that one of the other Pecari Chasers would have a moment to work with.
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<font color="brown">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>
Er, no.
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<font color="brown">Mellie Goodwin, Chaser</font>
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<font color =brown>Jhonice Trevear, Chaser</font>
June 10, 2012 8:34 PM
Onward Team! by <font color =brown>Jhonice Trevear, Chaser</font>
Jhonice was ready for her first quidditch game of the year. She was bundled up and ready to fly. First though, she needed to get her broom. It was essential to a Percari victory, if she didn't have her broom, they had no chance at beating these crazy Aladrens. Arriving early at the pitch she started digging through the school brooms to find hers. Without success. That couldn't be right, it had to be here, it just had to be! She started tossing brooms left and right but came up empty. Curses! The game was going to be starting soon, what was she going to do!?She had little choice, grabbing the nearest cursed broom she raced out to her gathered team on the field just in time to listen to the opening speeches. When the whistle blew, she took off with the rest of the players. Or at least that was the plan... her cursed broom just hovered there for a moment while she struggled with it. Finally it moved and she was right behind her teammate Mellie. Her cursed broom was acting stupid, swinging all over the place. All by itself it started veering off track from her teammate and the quaffle.
Mellie must have seen what she was doing, and when Arthur moved to pass the ball Mellie expertly knocked the ball straight to her. She caught it, spun her broom around and shot toward the Aladren goal. Or, once again, that was the plan. The first part went off fine, she caught the ball. The second part, took a little work but she got her broom pointed the right direction. The third part was a complete failure, again her broom did not want to move. Desperately she looked around for a teammate and threw the ball to the closest one.
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<font color =brown>Jhonice Trevear, Chaser</font>
Onward Team!
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<font color =brown>Jhonice Trevear, Chaser</font>
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<font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
June 10, 2012 9:20 PM
Yeah.Yeah. by <font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
Last year they had lost due to Pecari’s luck. Yes, there was no other way to explain how or why they had won over the more experienced Aladren team. Preston saw Pecari’s win as an insult to his teammates and him. Pecari’s win as going to be a one-time thing, because they were going to regain their rightful place on top of the Sonora Quidditch Hierarchy, and no one was going to stop them. The redhead knew that was wishful thinking, because Pecari could have gotten better since the last time they played against each other, but he preferred to squash that small rational part of him. No, Aladren was going to win. They deserved it. They were better. They had a better team.The day of their game against Pecari, the weather was less than favorable for anyone. It was snowing. It was a light snowfall, but it was not favorable Quidditch playing conditions. However, the Vermont native was more than used to extreme cold and this was nothing. Preston just hoped his team mates were able to handle it.
The redhead entered the pitch a few minutes before the game started. He was obsessed with punctuality, and he preferred to be there first, even when he got annoyed when people made him wait for too long. It was a vicious cycle, really.
Preston was slowly getting ready while he waited for people to arrive. By the time everyone was ready to start the game, he was already fully clad in hi Beater garments. Every piece of clothing he was wearing was charmed to keep him warm in this climate. It was a way to keep him focused on his task instead of what his body could feel. The only part of his whole body that would be in direct contact with the cold would be his face.
The Aladren blinked as an evil snowflake landed on his eye. The uncomfortable feeling was there for a few seconds and thankfully it was time to start the game. Captain Wilkes’ speech was over and Coach Pierce was ready to start this. Preston smiled as he mounted his broom and began swinging his bat to warm up.
The adrenaline took over his body as soon as he heard the whistle. It was game time. It was time to show Pecari that they were nothing more than lucky players.
Preston instantly flew up looking for one of the bludgers. He swung his bat at the one he was chasing and sent it towards the Pecari Chaser that was currently in possession of the quaffle. However, Preston was a little too slow and sent the bludger when she had passed the ball.
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<font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
Yeah.Yeah.
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<font color="blue"> Preston. Beater </font>
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
June 10, 2012 11:00 PM
Now, let's get back to what I was saying before.... by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
A hand appeared in the air between Arthur and the teammate he had meant to pass to, a hand where no hand should have been, and it did not take him long to notice the brown robe on the arm attached to it. He spared Melanie Goodwin one slightly irritated look before swinging in to try to collect the ball again…only to discover that he’d apparently taken one second too long, because, with a flash of her typically wildly erratic-seeming luck, Jhonice Trevear had gotten there ahead of him.Turning quickly, he flew after her, and saw Preston heading back, too. This was either going to go very well or go very poorly, and he had only a fine margin to work with, he suspected, to make it go very well for him; either way, Arthur supposed the audience on both sides would get some thrills from it. He wasn’t as interested in them as his brother sometimes seemed to be, but had to admit that winning in an exciting way could be better than just winning, if they could manage to be exciting without being injured too much.
He’d seen that Jhonice was having difficulties with her broom, so he had been careful in following her, but even so, the abrupt stop caught him off guard, and he fumbled the Quaffle as he cut in from below to keep it from falling into the hands of another Pecari Chaser. He frowned at the lack of style, but recognized, as he used his right elbow hard enough to hurt a bit even through the robes to knock the ball out ahead of him and then followed to get a proper grip on it, that he didn’t have time to worry about something like that, not when the Bludger was coming, heading for the girl he’d just stolen the Quaffle from.
Getting the ball back, the first thing he did was tilt his broom downward, heading into a not very steep dive before turning around and, fairly sure that he’d gotten the timing of that right and not drawn the Bludger to him, began heading back toward the goals, this time moving further and further right, off the exact line of flight he had used before.
His face was still cold, but he was beginning to feel warm through the shoulders, and noticed, from what felt like a distance, that he was humming tunelessly in the back of his throat from the tension of the not entirely successful, if still very much not failed, stunt. Doing things like that made him more nervous than it seemed to make Arnold, at least early in the game, before he lost all semblance of concern for the preservation of himself or any others who were not his brother – he had never yet, he thought, gotten so into the game that he did not mind if Arnold were injured, but he supposed it was hypothetically possible….But the nerves were what made it entertaining, of course. Being in control was its own sort of fun, but so was playing the odds.
Now, though, he could afford to be safe – needed to be, really, since theatrics in a recovery were really just a cover for the failure of the previous pass. Overly dramatic passes were just, in Arthur’s mind, unnecessarily risky if there were other options. He was aware of running a little too hot on confidence backed by the surety of needing to win, dimly, and knew he needed to get it in check, or he was going to wear out long before this game was over, because even if the Snitch was obliging, he didn’t see the Pecaris letting Arnold get to it quickly unless luck truly was on their side to a freakish degree today. There was, though, always the question of what was overly dramatic and what was just guarding against interception.
Taking a deep breath, he kept moving forward and right a little further, then pulled left hard and fast enough to feel a somewhat painful jolt from it while passing that way with one hand. The other hand, though it made him wobble on his broom for an alarming second, he sent out to the right, hoping it might confuse any overly-excited Pecari he hadn't noticed on his tail into going that way if they weren't thinking clearly enough.
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
Now, let's get back to what I was saying before....
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
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<font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>
June 11, 2012 5:22 PM
Dropping in with your captain's speech, Aladren. by <font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>
When, in tedious little elementary-school social studies lessons, he had been asked questions about his neighborhood or his hometown, David’s response had always mostly been to shrug, unable to come up with a decent answer. None of his people lived in towns; his parents’ neighbors were all their relatives, and while his maternal grandmother did have neighbors, she maintained that they were all drug dealers polluting the loop of road which had been left over after the new highway went toward the city and they did not have anything to do with them. Her country, where David had spent much of midterm, consisted mostly of flat expanses of highway, surrounded by high, grassy banks created by the DOT when it built the highway and littered on either side with junk car lots and empty stretches of grass still marked by rusting signs announcing the names of former sellers of mobile homes and peeling billboards with nothing on them. The city, twenty miles away, had stores in it, and the town ten minutes from them had a pretty main street of third stories and Corinthian columns and gleaming shop windows, but where he could actually say he was from, there was, when school was out in the winter and there were no clubs or camps or enrichment programs, nothing to do and no pressing reason to do it unless one happened to be an adult, driving to either the town or the city every day for work and then home to complain about how miserable everything was; it was increasingly popular, he had noticed over the past few years, to do this over fast food one had driven fifteen more miles to the jumble of chain and franchise restaurants and neon-sign motels and factory outlets – all presided over by the brooding bulk of a Wal-Mart Supercenter – which sat, for no particular reason anyone could discern as far as David knew, on what was otherwise just another anonymous stretch of highway just over the county line.Where he actually lived, about forty miles from Grandma’s and two counties over, there was more of interest, at least if one could follow all the intricacies of the feuds between and within the various families, all of whom were so intermarried as to make everyone involved practically second cousins anyway, and even a sort of beauty, there in the hills as they really began to rise and suggest that they might in a hundred miles become mountains and half the land was still woods, but there still wasn’t much to do. The young people were generally either leaving or in dazes, while their fathers and grandfathers ran for sheriff – so many, in fact, that last summer, they had been forced to rerun the race twice, because there had been too many candidates to get a clear winner the first time around. Houses were scattered there in little clumps, mainly of close relatives; David lived directly across the road from his uncle, who lived on the property right next to his grandparents, while his grandfather’s brother had the next house down from them and David’s aunt was across the road from them and his first cousins, his uncle’s two eldest kids, bracketed either side of this arrangement like lookouts.
That was not much company, the houses spaced out over a few miles because of how much land everyone seemed to own in what his sister Annabeth, who seemed happy as a clam in her new internship, insisted was purely God’s country for anyone with more of a brain than Grams, but since they had never told the family exactly why he went away to school every year, it was still enough for practicing Quidditch to be almost as risky there as it was at his other grandmother’s. He did not, after all, want the entire county to find out and then possibly be just bored enough, now that the sheriff had finally been determined to still be the same guy it had been for the past twenty years, to decide to start up a special local version of The Crucible or something. Unable to get the coming game off of his mind, though, he had instead spent most of midterm reading.
His parents had thought he had gone nuts, raiding the bookstore, the library, his aunt’s meager supply of things that nominally qualified as books, even, for volumes about sports; since he had never bothered to tell them that he was on a team, much less the captain of one, they saw this interest as something sudden and bizarre, as though he had announced that he was going to carry a piece of bread on his shoulder for the rest of his life and name it Bob. He had even watched a few movies with a sports theme, his eyes glazing over almost as often as they had during the really technical moments about state university football in the books, all for the inspirational speeches by the coaches. He had topped it all off by reading the first few hundred pages of his mother's battered copy of The Prince of Tides three times and had, by the time he finally got back to the aesthetically pleasing and often entertaining grounds of Sonora, a pretty good idea of what to say to the Aladren Quidditch team before they went back up against Pecari.
The key, he knew, was to show them no fear. If they knew he was nearly sick with nerves over all this, they would rip him to shreds and then not have any homicidal energy left over for Pecari. He had to convince them that now, in the pinch, he was as fond of balancing on the fine line between sociopathy and psychosis as they were.
“We,” he announced boldly, far more boldly than he really felt, “are going to win this game.”
After he announced this, he looked around at them all. “It's cold. It's overcast. But it's Pecari. That should be enough to make everyone want to beat them more than anything, much less something like getting out of a few snowflakes. You all remember last year.” He happened to look at that moment at Jay, who didn’t, but he didn’t correct himself. For one thing, he would lose all his momentum if he did that, and for another, he was pretty sure the guy had heard about it, anyway. “You know they beat us then. You know what that felt like.” He put his hand over his heart at the memory for a moment, feeling like an utter fool but hoping that his flush passed for excitement and cold. “Are any of you planning to let that happen again? Didn’t think so,” he continued, without pausing for breath to allow any of them to actually answer that. “You lot are the toughest Quidditch players in this school, bar none, and you are going to obliterate that team over there.” One of the fun things about being an Aladren was that he could use big words in a sports speech. “I don’t want to see a Pecari walk off the Pitch – I want them all in the medic’s tent at the end while we do the Tennessee Waltz. You all know what you’re supposed to do. Let’s go dismember people!”
Having hit the high point of his speech, David bit the inside of his mouth hard to keep from completely shattering the mood by adding an order to pray, though he did so himself, briefly, in his head. Either way, it wasn’t going to hurt anything, because if the Pecaris didn’t need it by the end, then he would even more than he already did just on account of nerves, and either way, the souls of the rest of the team would probably need all the intercession they could get by tomorrow. As they headed for the center of the Pitch, he wished, for the thousandth time, that he had figured out a spell to play music, as that was something to do instead of really listening to what the coach was saying, lest it make him throw up on her shoes. That wouldn’t go a long way toward getting things to go his way in the event of a dubious call. He forced himself to smile through the handshake with Demelza Eagle, he thought he sort of blanked out for a moment after that, and then they were all in the air.
He headed for the Aladren goals, blinking snow out of his eyes and shivering for the first time as he made the turn so he could hover in front of the goals while facing the action, causing some cold wind to go up his sleeves. He looked out, with the best seat in the house, over the Chasers, who quickly managed the first back-and-forth, and up to the Seekers, who seemed to have the Bludgers flying already – why was Thad with the Seekers, again? He was too little, he and Arnold were both going to have pureblood parents coming after David when they were scraped off the Pitch in sections, Demelza was there, and while she hadn’t looked that tough when they had Edmond playing on their side, now that they didn’t she looked pretty damn big and bad after all – and crossed his fingers as best he could while continuing to wear his gloves that things were going to keep going Aladren’s way, as far as they had been so far. He did not think, somehow, that if they lost, they were going to blame Arnold, not when half the team was either related to or rooming with him and they had this handy-dandy Muggleborn scapegoat on hand to use while they gave the old boy one last chance in the name of the club.
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<font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>
Dropping in with your captain's speech, Aladren.
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<font color="blue">Captain Wilkes, Keeper</font>
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<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>
June 12, 2012 9:21 PM
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. by <font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>
The snow falling over the Quidditch Pitch wasn’t, in Russell’s estimation, very much of a snowfall, but it was enough to make him need to blink and refocus his eyes every now and then. He had always found snow a little disorienting to look through, and though a level of prior experience, in the park, made him think that maybe it wouldn’t be quite as bad playing Quidditch, adrenaline and all, he didn’t think, either, that he was going to be on top form today. It wouldn’t have a good thing any day, of course, but he thought it did make it rather worse that not only did he have to worry about Arthur and Preston if he screwed up, but also, by the sounds of it, about David, who had apparently decided that today was the day to come out and admit he was a complete and utter fanatic.As his eyes came down from another glance at the sky, taken in the hopes that the clouds would look like they might go away soon, he gave the captain another look, too, as he shook hands with Demelza Eagle. Of all the people he might have thought would turn out to be crazy and unbalanced, David Wilkes was…well, okay, he could have bought the guy being crazy, but not crazy like that. Dismembering people, really? That was going a little far even for Preston, at least while they were still on the ground.
Then, though, it was time for the kickoff, and he didn’t think about it anymore. Whatever anyone did, they would certainly (well, almost certainly, anyway) do it after the game, and if the game went well, then he wouldn’t have to worry about being murdered in his bed at all.
Once in the air, he felt lost for a second in the madness of the first moments, but then squinted and realized that Arthur had the Quaffle and all he had to do was fly forward and be ready for a pass. Which, in the end, he wasn’t, or at least wasn’t well enough, because as he saw the ball coming his way, there was Mellie, of all people except maybe her roommate with the broom problems, and the Quaffle was moving toward David, the newly-revealed-as-a-possible-Quidditch-serial-killer captain of Russell’s team.
That wasn’t going to work. Apparently, Arthur didn’t think so, either, because he got the ball back on its way between Mel and Jhonice, ignoring the risks of the move the way he did it, without crashing into either of them or running into a Bludger, and the game was moving back toward Sophie Jamison. He wondered for a split second, as he flew that way, too, if it was at all weird for Preston to play against his girlfriend’s roommate, or if Sara was in the crowd and, if she was, which side she was supporting today, anyway, but the thought was sort of distant, as though girls and dating them and the complications that came with that came from another world.
Air rushed by, and the snow seemed sort of distant, too. He thought Arthur was going to try to pass to Kitty, rather than him, which he supposed made sense after he hadn’t been on the ball last time, but then his roommate changed directions rather abruptly and Russell found himself in possession of the Quaffle. That must have twinged a bit, but it had worked, which was the important thing. Russell covered more ground, then attempted a less elaborate pass, hoping that the next carry would take them all the way down the remaining Pitch to Sophie, and then that she would miss and Aladren would emerge from this sequence of plays with their first goal of the game.
First, not last. They had, as David had pointed out, lost to Pecari last year, which really had been kind of pathetic. To get back to the level of respect they’d had before, especially now that they no longer had Edmond looming in the nightmares of rival Seekers, he thought they were going to have to utterly crush Pecari today, in both the Seeker and Chaser games. But it was better, he thought, to take it one goal at a time.
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<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.
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<font color="blue">Russell Layne, Chaser</font>
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
June 13, 2012 7:45 PM
Which will soon involve a goal by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
His balance caught, Arthur felt a momentary, weakening sensation of relief as he realized that his pass to Russell had been successful. It had been, he thought in retrospect, a moment after it was too late to do anything about it, too elaborate, too messy, but it had worked, and now they were moving on, on further down the Pitch, without another complication. At least not in that one moment where the Quaffle had been in the air, up for grabs and all but completely impossible to fully defend against the Pecaris without risking a foul.It didn’t really matter, of course – nothing did, except whether or not Arnold could both survive Demelza Eagle and outwit and outspeed Jade Owen – but it felt as though it did. The group nature of hysteria, a dim corner of his mind chimed in; that was all he could think of that could account for it, when he tried to analyze why it was that he felt it necessary to continue to fly back and forth over the Pitch, catching and throwing a ball, becoming angry when other people took it when he didn’t intend for them to have it, feeling relief when he got it where he wanted it to go and away from what he wanted it away from – this was all illogical, and by rights he should have announced so a long time ago, but instead, he voluntarily began to do it at all and then quickly worked his way over to thinking of how to be more impressive about how he did it. That he was in a group which was moving very fast and imagined it had something worth mentioning on the line had to be the key to it, because he surely never would behave so if he were on his own, or even in Arnold’s position, up against only two other people.
Arthur was not sure if the idea that his brother simply enjoyed getting hit by Bludgers more than he saw a point to Seeking made him feel better or worse about it all, but he was confident that it was better not to think about the matter too much.
The pass which came back to him lacked theatrics, but it got the job done, and Arthur felt his hands close around the Quaffle again for a moment before he tucked it under one arm and used the other to ensure that he remained steady on his broom as long as possible. Falling was one of those things it was hard to think properly about; it didn’t matter, the coach was unlikely to let a Carey, or anyone, for that matter, die simply because she wanted Crotalus to have a better chance of winning the Cup, but it was something he imagined would be enormously jarring and unsettling, and might lose them the Quaffle besides, and at the speed he was moving now, he imagined it would be all too easy to do.
On, on. And there were the goals. He was going to be the first one this time to attempt a goal. It was ridiculous to feel nervous, but he almost did – only almost, of course. It was just a matter of speed and aim. Two goals were lower than the third, but she had the lead of seeing him coming – he was the largest of the Chasers, which was of course something that slowed him down, but he could move fast, particularly in a dive. He came toward the scoring area slightly higher, as though aiming for the center hoop, and then angled down sharply, as fast as he dared, extending both arms to give the Quaffle as little space to cover as it was within his ability and the rules to do.
Later, he knew, he would think of a million ways he could have done it better, and berate himself for not thinking of them, but that was the thing about Quidditch. After just a few minutes of moving, a back and forth or two, it got hard to think clearly over the noise of his pulse in his ears, not to mention the other noise on and around the Pitch. In that state, when it came, it was just a matter of doing the best he could, especially now that there was the added complication of his face feeling like it was going to freeze off at any moment above the heat in isolated patches of it.
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
Which will soon involve a goal
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
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5
<font color=brown>Amira Thornton, Chaser</font>
June 15, 2012 7:21 PM
No it won't... by <font color=brown>Amira Thornton, Chaser</font>
Amira was still very sore at Mel for making her Chaser instead of Seeker, giving her coveted position to the rotten second year who’d stolen it the year before. Even after her hard work over summer and winter breaks. Snow didn’t scare the Oregonian. Neither did the wrath of her Captain. She wanted to win, sure. But there was a person inside her who wanted Aladren to win also. Not even because of her sister being a reserve. Her desire for Aladren to at least get the Snitch was purely for her need for Jade to lose. But, as a Chaser, she had the chance of getting enough points to win even when that Carey Seeker caught the Snitch.Jade was going down, but that didn’t mean Pecari would too.
Amira’s short red hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt were on under her robes, ready for the game. She was to play Chaser and she was not happy with that, but she would do it thanks to her desire to win. She wouldn’t let not getting her spot back ruin her chance to win, regardless. She wanted Pecari to win, but she wouldn’t say no if someone bet on the fact that Carey would catch the Snitch. There was something about that kid that irritated her. Perhaps it was the fact that she’d just stolen her spot, AGAIN? Or maybe because the younger Pecari just gave her such an attitude that the third year couldn’t take? Whichever the reason was, Amira just couldn’t decide. Oh well. she thought. Doesn’t matter anyway.
She walked onto the Pitch and over towards the other brown clad players. She looked around at her teammates, conveniently skipping over Jade altogether. If I don’t look at her, maybe she’s not really there? she thought as she glared at Mel quickly (hopefully before Mel saw the glare) before turning her gaze on Mellie, Jhon and Sophie. Mel started her Captain’s speech and told the lot of them that they worked hard this year and that she, Mellie and Jhon were to be rough and not afraid to give someone a nudge. Be rough, don’t be afraid to give someone a nudge… a large grin escaped her mouth. She didn’t say don’t be afraid to give your own teammate a nudge… Amira thought as Mel finished her thought by telling them not to foul or kill anyone.
“Aw man, why not?” she asked under her breath. She wasn’t sure if anyone heard her, and she didn’t care. Mel put her hand in and then up as she shouted Go Pecari! Amira didn’t join in the hand thing, and Mel went to shake hands with David. Once the Captains shook hands, the game balls were released and players were up in the air. Almost at once there was a Bludger headed to Jade and Mir couldn‘t help but stifle a giggle. Mel hit it out of the way, right towards Arnold Carey who dodged it. And the second one (when she spotted it) was heading right towards her roommate! “JHON!” she screeched. What the heck is the matter with her broom?! she thought as she flew fast towards her. Hopefully I can beat that bludger… I haven’t got a bat, but I have my broomstick handle… she thought, searching her mind for something that could save her roommate if she couldn’t get there in time!
Automatically, (and somehow) she lost her knowledgebase on what she was supposed to be doing in the hopes of saving her roommate. She forgot she was supposed to be a Chaser and trying to get the Quaffle down the OTHER side of the Pitch instead of their own. Her goal of the game was to get the Quaffle through to DAVID’s side of the Pitch and through his hoops, not towards Sophie at the Pecari ones. But her need to save her roommate changed that altogether. She got to Jhon (thankfully) before the Bludger did and pushed her away from it causing the black ball to catch on to her. That’s fine, let it try me… she thought as she flew fast and far away from Jhon and towards the Aladren Chasers by Sophie, dodging the Bludger at every chance. The look on Arthur’s face told her everything she needed to know. He was going to shoot at Sophie’s hoop. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Sophie, in fact she trusted Sophie and her Keeper talents almost more than anyone else on her team, but she wasn’t going to let Aladren ruin her chances.
“Oh no you don’t…” she said, feeling her anger boil up inside her and she shot down faster and faster, knocking the Quaffle away from the hoops and dove after it, catching the red ball in her arms. Mir wasn’t above doing anything crazy to get what she wanted, she never had been before and wouldn’t start now.
Amira flew back the opposite way, back towards Aladren’s hoops and looked for Mellie or Jhon to pass. Seeing one of the brown clad Chasers, she sent the ball at them fast and with not a sign of dramatic flair. The faster Pecari got points the better.
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<font color=brown>Amira Thornton, Chaser</font>
No it won't...
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<font color=brown>Amira Thornton, Chaser</font>
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
June 16, 2012 1:43 PM
Yes it will by <font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
To say he was pleased to see the new girl - Thornton; he found her family mildly interesting, as they had chosen precisely the opposite tactic to deal with really being closer than siblings generally were from the one he and Arnold tried to use, but he did not think the group would ever be particularly useful to him off the Pitch, where he had noticed that they were emotional enough during Quidditch games that he was sure he could use their tempers against them if he ever needed to - sweep in and intercept his shot would be to lie, but Arthur chose to look on the bright side, where at least things became more interesting for a moment. He did not, personally, enjoy it when games got too interesting, he tended to get more bloody-minded than he felt was healthy when they did, but it was good for Arnold.He had not, of course, told Arnold, but Arthur had begun to make plans for his twin after Arnie became Assistant Captain. He had examined the records of students who had made it to the NQL in comparatively recent history, and so far, he thought his brother, even with his one loss, was the equal of any of them; a few more wins, and he would be one of the best. As far as Arthur was concerned, there was no reason why Arnold should not someday Seek for America, perhaps even win and end their half-lingering reputation as a second-rate Quidditch nation, particularly if the loophole in a certain rule worked the way he thought it would.
For the ball to begin to roll, though, Arnold had to play exciting games, preferably ones more exciting than ever and less injurious to him than ever at the same time, and he had to win them. Winning was, of course, all in Arnold and today Thaddeus' hands, but the rest of them could certainly help make his brother's games exciting. And so they could both make a killing without the family needing to make work for them and Arnold would even be a valued member of it, someone who had helped them with the...image problems...he had heard the adults discuss how the whole family was to work on getting rid of, giving speeches to youth leagues and other such nonsense they would have to find a good manager to deal with. That could work, of course, if Arnold merely won a lot on the national level, but Arthur saw no reason his brother shouldn't be pointed toward the heights.
The one trouble might be women. He did not think Arnold might have the problem he might have in that position, one which resulted in such odd thoughts as how fetching Miss Parker would look in her friend Derwent's hat when he didn't think he even favored dark hair, but of course Arnold would marry in the normal way, and from what he had found out about it, Coach Pierce's organization might object to that as much as they would to a Carey who hadn't been disowned giving the diabetes-inducing speeches to young people. Publicity was publicity, of course, but he could see, all too clearly, it bothering Arnold, who would then say something disastrous. There was also the problem of how he thought of his brother and Fae Sinclair as all but a done deal and of her as too sweet for that sort of thing - almost too much to even marry a Carey who was no Grandfather, so to speak. But that was even farther in the future and out of his control than the need for exciting winning games was, so he didn't think of it often.
He followed the Quaffle, as always, and was newly appreciative of the things that came as a result of an abundance of softly clinking money as he considered what Miss Thornton's options were. They tried hard, and Arthur did have a certain respect for that, but he could outfly Miss Goodwin or Miss Trevear, he very much suspected, with at least one of his mid-level headaches, and Miss Thornton, like her flock of sisters, was, as he'd suspected before, too emotional; that little stunt with Miss Trevear and the Bludger proved that. He thought it was a pity she hadn't broken her broom or at least her arm, but it was enough to prove to him that though she might have the technical skill to get in the way every now and then, she was not a serious problem.
Sure enough, she passed and he intercepted this one from above, turning his left shoulder at a slightly uncomfortable angle to come out of the move - one tricky enough for him, anyway, to pull off without kicking someone in the head and it being an actual accident that his accustomed blank expression had vanished, his face bending itself into a look of concentration; he should, he knew, have switched positions with Thaddeus, since he was getting too heavy for this one to be as easy as it once has and Thaddeus was too small for his, but Mother had been absolutely against it, both because of the stress on his bad arm and because of that time he'd gotten carried away and hit George III in the head more than strictly necessary with a bat; he didn't know why Mother was still upset when Georgie himself had shaken it off, but there it was - with the Quaffle on the tips of his long fingers, hanging there vulnerable for a long moment before he cleared the two Pecari Chasers and pulled it up into a more secure position. Then he turned back toward the Pecari Keeper.
Air rushing by him, tugging at his robes and hitting his face uncomfortably, making his eyes narrow, as he flew fast to outdistance the Pecaris. His arm bent up in angles around the Quaffle. His shoulders curved defensively inward. The process of covering distance was, without a doubt, Arthur's least favorite part of Quidditch. It passed quickly, though, and soon the goals loomed before him once more.
At the last moment, he made as though to pass to the right, then instead put on an extra burst of speed and lunged for the left hoop, throwing the Quaffle as hard and fast as he could and whirling in the air to head off any interference, on what he viewed as a slim chance indeed that any of the Pecari girls had been able to catch up with him. If anyone got in his way this time, he planned for it to be the Pecari Keeper.
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
Yes it will
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<font color="blue">Arthur Carey, Chaser</font>
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<font color=brown>Sophie Jamison, Keeper</font>
June 18, 2012 4:59 PM
Not so much by <font color=brown>Sophie Jamison, Keeper</font>
As soon as Sophie became aware of the weather, her first instinct was to go back to bed. She was used to cold, but that didn’t mean she was a fan of it. Still, the excitement of having a Quidditch match was enough to keep her from resuming sleeping, even if she hadn’t gotten as much rest as she might have liked.For this particular match, the fifth year was both excited and utterly nervous. Quidditch always an exhilarating game, the adrenaline rush most enjoyable, but at the same time, there was a lot riding on ta victory. If Pecari didn’t win, then it would be the last game she spent as Assistant Captain.
Being Captain, while a huge responsibility, was something Sophie had dreamed of since she first learned the rules of the game at a young age. She loved playing, plus she felt she had the potential to be a great leader. The thing was, she didn’t want to hold that title just yet. The blonde wanted to go to the finals, and she wanted to win. Captain Mel deserved to go out on a high note.
Pecari was totally ready for this. Some of their practices—to some of the players—might have seemed a bit extreme and tough, but Mel Eagle knew what she was doing. All of it would pay off in this game and then in the finals, Sophie was sure. She planned to continue the “harsh” practices next year.
With a bit of sadness at such a great leader having to graduate, the sixteen year old yelled, “Pecari!” with her team and took the field. In no time at all, she was floating in front of the goals, ready for anything, her blue eyes set diligently on the Quaffle. This was going to be a Pecari victory.
The ball traveled and soared through the air, back and forth amongst players. The Aladren Chasers kept creeping closer, and Sophie tightened her grip in her broom. Arthur Carey moved like he was taking a shot at the center, and she positioned herself there. Then he dove off to the side, and she tried to follow but probably wouldn’t have been able to stop the Quaffle if Amira knocked it out of the way.
It was literally no time at all, however, until Arthur was at it again. He was quick, but Sophie just made it to the hoop at which he aimed. The Quaffle bounced against her fingertips, and for a moment she juggled with it a bit before finally gaining real possession. A self-satisfied smirk warped into her lips, and she tossed the red ball to the nearest Pecari Chaser. “Take it the other way now, okay?” she called.
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<font color=brown>Sophie Jamison, Keeper</font>
Not so much
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<font color=brown>Sophie Jamison, Keeper</font>
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<font color=brown>Amira Thornton, Chaser</font>
June 22, 2012 12:15 AM
How's this? by <font color=brown>Amira Thornton, Chaser</font>
Amira had flown towards Aladren territory with the Quaffle and she watched Arthur Carey turn his left shoulder at an odd angle to come out of the move and almost laughed at him.Almost.
Until she realized that he’d stolen the ball back from her.
The third Thornton had decided not to waste any extra time. She still wanted Pecari to win, though she wanted Arnold Carey to catch the Snitch. It would be hard to do, but there was something about the possibility of Jade catching the golden ball that she didn’t want to happen. I’ve gotta get it back. she thought. It hung there vulnerable, but she couldn’t reach it. DAMNIT! she thought as he pulled the Quaffle back towards Sophie again. The space between the two Chasers got larger for only a moment before she was flying fast and hard after him. You will not do this to me. she thought as the air rushed into her face. Her eyes squinted through the cold air and the snowflakes and locked onto the red ball she was supposed to be paying attention to. She was right next to Arthur now and she saw his arms bend around the Quaffle and his shoulders curved inward. It’s not going to work. I WILL get it back. she thought as they reached the goals once more. The red-head was right next to him and she wasn’t going to let him get the goal. She’d be there to help Sophie keep the Quaffle out of Pecari goals. Aladren wouldn’t get any points other than the Snitch if it were up to her.
He made to pass to the right, but then put on an extra burst of speed and lunged for the left hoop. It had come as a complete surprise to the third year Chaser and she froze in midair. Come on Sophie… I have faith in you! she thought as Sophie made it to the left hoop and the Quaffle bounced against her fingers. “YES!” she called out in a cheer to her teams’ Keeper. “ATTA GIRL SOPHIE!” she called to the blonde haired Assistant Captain as she saw a smirk sneak onto her lips.
Sophie tossed her the ball and told her to take it the other way. “You got it Sophie!” she called and turned fast in the opposite direction with a happy little flip to hopefully confuse Arthur and the other Aladren Chasers.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want her sister to win, it was more along the lines of the fact that SHE wanted to win, but not for her team’s seeker to get the golden ball. Either way, she zig-zagged part of the Pitch and glanced around for other brown robed Chasers to throw the ball to. She didn’t want to think that she could go the whole distance without Mellie or Jhon, but she wasn’t sure where either of her roommates were.
Thankfully, one of them pulled out from the pack and she smiled at the Chaser with a wink of her eye and mouthed, ‘you can do this!’ to whichever of her roommates it happened to have been. She practically handed the ball off to her friend and roommate and flew beside them to get a pass back if they needed it.
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<font color=brown>Amira Thornton, Chaser</font>
How's this?
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<font color=brown>Amira Thornton, Chaser</font>
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