Selina Skies and Nathan Xavier

January 31, 2015 10:25 AM
Selina stood on the Quidditch pitch feeling less than entirely hopeful… Certainly this year was better than last year, in that someone from her house had actually expressed an interest but she couldn’t help but feel that, even by combining forces with Teppenpaw, they were going to come up short. It was almost worse than if no-one had signed up because now she had someone to be disappointed by the situation… She could only hope that her and Alistair’s efforts to rouse the interest of a few more members of their house had paid off. Children were not known for their tendency to stick their necks out and do something that most of their peers weren’t doing - something they didn’t think they would receive validation for - but perhaps with one person to set the ball rolling, it would encourage anyone who had been on the fence...

Having accepted the reality that they and Teppenpaw would be fielding a joint team (best case scenario), she and Nathan had decided to hold their try outs together. It saved her an awkward hour of putting Alistair through his paces alone, if no other Crotali joined them, and would be more instructive and rewarding for him, in terms of finding a place within the team.

With some interpretation of the sign-up sheets, they had more or less one of everything, once you counted the fact that some people had expressed no particular preference. Of course, the problem lay in that you needed two of something and three of another but it seemed like a good start. With the flexibility indicated, and the possibility of walk ons, the easiest way had been to set up a station for each position - Chasing was a relay around an obstacle course, with some shooting at the end to also cover Keeping. Seekers would have small flying things to chase down, and Beaters would have softballs to bat around.

Once they had everyone they were expecting, and had left a suitable gap for anyone who wanted to give it a go to to join them, they began. Outside of this, Selina somewhat outranked Nathan, but they were both here with their Head of House hats on, and that meant that - in what they were doing today - they were equals. As his house was fielding more candidates, she felt she should defer to him to do the welcoming.

At her slight nod toward him to begin, Nathan straightened his robes - yellow, mostly, to indicate he was here to support Teppenpaw’s interests, but with red trimming to show Crotalus was his House’s ally this year - and cleared his throat to get everybody’s attention. “Hello, and welcome to the Quidditch try-outs for the combined Teppenpaw and Crotalus House Team. Due to the small number of sign-ups, we thought our best chances to get a third team playing in the Quidditch tournament this year was to join forces. For those of you who don’t know me,” which was probably all of the Crotali, seeing as he had no classes and didn’t interact with the student body outside of Teppenpaw much, “I’m Nathan Xavier, the Head of Teppenpaw, and Sonora’s groundskeeper.” He nodded toward his co-staff person, “You should all know Professor Skies, the Head of Crotalus, by now.” Even the first years should have all been taking Transfigurations with her for the better part of two weeks by now, after all, even if they didn’t remember her from their Sorting.

“I’ll be supervising the Chasing and Keeping,” she picked up. “We’ll have you work your way down the pitch as a team, then give you some goal shots as individuals. If we don’t have many Keeper candidates, I can swap in to receive shots. You’re welcome to work your way around as many, or as few stations as you like.”

“I’ll be working with the Beaters and the Seekers,” Nathan continued. He was a half-and-half, so he’d grown up playing baseball with his muggle dad. He’d be using some of those skills today. Hopefully, they weren’t too rusty. “I’ll pitch some balls toward the students trying out for Beater, and you’ll try to hit them at some targets we’ve got set up over there,” he pointed to a couple of dummies flying back and forth on the far end of the pitch from where Selina would be watching the Keepers try-out. “For the seekers, we’ve got some enchanted gold ping-pong balls flying about. Try to catch as many as you can. There are collection bags here.” He pointed to a pile of small courier type bags lying on the ground nearby. There were about twenty golden balls flying around the pitch, plenty for everybody trying out for Seeker to find a few, but not so many that they’d interfere much with the other players on the pitch.

He took a moment to do a quick head count, then asked “Did everyone here sign-up? If not, could you please tell us your name, House, year, and which positions you are interested in before we begin.” Once all additional names had been added to the end of the appropriate sign-up sheets, Nathan asked, “Are there any questions about what we’re doing today?”

The two professors looked around, ready to make any clarifications necessary for their instructions. Once there were no more, Selina declared, “Let’s get started.”


OOC: Welcome to the Try-Outs. If you did not sign-up, thank you for coming! Just answer Nathan’s question about name, year, House, and positions, and join everybody else. Anyone trying out for beater may assume Nathan is throwing softballs toward them with semi-reasonable aim. They may need to fly for it a bit, but that’s almost on purpose to test their flying skills.
Subthreads:
0 Selina Skies and Nathan Xavier Crotalus and Teppenpaw Try-Outs! 26 Selina Skies and Nathan Xavier 1 5

Jake Manger

February 07, 2015 6:53 PM
After including his name on the sign-up sheet, Jake would check it for any additions as he would happen to pass by. Every time, he felt a pang of disappointment to see no one else had joined. If some upperclassmen would just take some initiative, he felt, this time could actually be pretty great. The fact that the kids even younger than he was cared enough to sign up when there was no clear leadership spoked volumes of their passion. He had signed up for them, and he wished some others would do the same.

But by the time tryouts rolled around, no one had. The third year took a deep breath and, new broom in hand, headed down to the Pitch. He wasn’t really sure why he had even been sent a broom; it felt a bit preemptive, really. All he had done was mention signing up in a letter to his father, and soon enough, the broom had arrived. Arnold seemed to understand, but Jake didn’t really get it. Or maybe he did, just a little, but he preferred to shrug it off and account it to his dad just being nice.

Please let there be enough people there, he hoped silently as he stepped onto the Pitch. He could see a small gathering of students around two adults--the Teppenpaw and Crotalus Heads of Houses, he was certain--but couldn’t really tell if it would be enough. The dark-haired boy decided it would be best if he avoided actually counting at all costs.

After the adults had spoken, Jake followed instructions; he wanted to seek, so he scooped up one of the collection bags to which his Head of House had alluded and tied it onto his broom in a way he felt would be most accessible mid-flight. He wasn’t the best flier, but he also wasn’t the worst, and because he had been the oldest person to sign up, Jake wanted to at least try to present himself as somebody the others could look up to.

He mounted his broom and took off, trying his best to focus exclusively on one of the gold balls around his end of the Pitch. There were just enough to keep his eyes whizzing back and forth for a bit, but he soon managed to actually narrow his focus to one single ball, which he zoomed after with surprising grace. In flight he gained a sort of nimbleness that was only possible because of his tight frame. A bony arm extended as he crept up on the ball, and before he even knew what was happening, he felt it beating against his palm. “I got one!” Jake exclaimed happily, tucking it away in his bag. The rush he felt inspired a grin and the underlying urge to do it again, so his blue eyes zoned in on another target, and off he went.
12 Jake Manger Seeking seeker 280 Jake Manger 0 5


Uzume Shinohara

February 10, 2015 5:12 AM
When the younger Crotali boy had originally approached her about joining the team, Uzume bluntly declined, internally mocking the boy for wasting her time with such trivial matters. In another life, she might have been tempted to join the team for a matter of upholding the honor of her house, however those days were far behind her. Instead, the sole reason she was standing on this poor excuse for a pitch was because she had heard that Jamie Park had signed up for the Pecari team, and as Seeker to boot. Upon hearing the rumor she supposed her face must have looked similar to an Oni in the way her smile stretched from ear to ear. Jamie may have upstaged her at the ball, but if there was one thing she could do it was play Seeker.

It’s not that I really miss him, I just might enjoy the competition is all, she told herself the previous week when trying to decide whether or not to join the team. She had rustled with the thought all the days prior to practice, and in the end decided not to go at all, until a twitch of something inside of her urged her to go to the pitch.

‘Sporty’, was not a word Uzume used to describe herself. Perfect, brilliant, or cunning maybe, but never ‘sporty’. Like many Japanese Purebloods, Uzume learned to play Quidditch at a young age. After all Japan loved Quidditch. It was almost annoying how her country was so quick to ‘humbly’ boast about being one of the first eastern countries to start playing the game. Even in the mountainous city of Nikko, it wasn’t uncommon to find wizards and witches partaking in the sport. However, the effort she had put into judo and Quidditch was to honor her family, not to feed an adrenaline desire. Although Quidditch and judo had a bloodthirsty appeal, her lack of strength compared to other boys posed a major problem that ultimately resulted in her feeling bitter about both sports. In truth Uzume really had no idea why she was consciously placing herself into a situation she knew she would hate. She thought about it one last time as she joined the other students on the Pitch, finally deciding that ‘spite’ was an appropriate term for her actions. Smiling to herself, she imagined the moment when her team would crush Jamie and the rest of the Pecari brats. Indeed, she supposed she could be, on occasion, a little spiteful.

Raising her hand, Uzume introduced herself to Xavier-Sensei in a rather polite manner, contrary to the blunt tone she used with her classmates. After all, today it was not him that she was trying to show up. “My apologies Sensei, but I have not,” she responded, preferring to use the term sensei as she found it more fitting to his title than professor, or coach. Additionally, the more she learned English, the more words she discovered distaste for. ‘Coach’ was one of them, something about the -oach sound just bothered her, and she refused to allow such sounds to grace her lips. “My name is Shinohara Uzume, Crotalus house, 2nd year. I am interested in the position of Seeker,” she said clearly and calmly. Her eyes only twitched to her own Head of house for a moment before falling back onto those of Xavier-Sensei. She never anticipated her ‘fun policy’ to affect her life in later years, and in the long run her days spent at Sonora really wouldn’t matter. However, she was still in the present, and recently she had not done more than the bare minimum in Skies-Sensei’s class. Although she felt a rush of relief when she realized that Skies-Sensei wouldn’t be overseeing the Seeker position, Uzume knew there would be no real rest until ‘the obese lady sang’.

After getting a broom, Uzume headed towards the snitch bags, keeping an evil eye on the back of her competition. A small scoff of annoyance sounded from her throat as she picked up one of the bag, and with a hard kick, her broom was off. It felt a little funny for the twelve year old to wear a romper while playing a sport. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much of a choice since it had been such a last minute decision. She never considered asking Kaede to pack her Quidditch clothing, as it wasn’t even a passing thought during summer that she might try out. She felt rather idiotic wearing the lavender outfit, but there was nothing she could do now.

After she leveled out to a good altitude, she eyed the pitch, trying to get a feel for her surroundings. The thing she liked about Seeker the most, was that she could play the way she wanted to. She had tried Chaser once during a school festival, but her inability to throw the ball long distances only served to bring her team down. Her friend Daisuke assured her it wasn’t a big deal, but she disliked him having to pick up the slack for her lack of skills. Uzume hated the bitter feeling of being dead weight, and as a result never again ventured outside the solo positions of Keeper and Seeker.

Narrowing her eyes, she looked around the field for sparkles of gold. Although there were glimpses of light here and there, Uzume wanted a closer target to get warmed up with. When she saw a ball that seemed close enough, she started after it right away. She hadn’t played Quidditch in three years, and the last time she was on a broom she had been pretending to be a novice. As a result, she felt very out of touch with flying, and the maneuvers she used as a child were rusty at best. She figured once she got some more practice in, the flying would come easier, but for now she just had to keep her eyes on the faux snitch. Unfortunately, the exclamation of her competitor shattered her concentration, causing her eyes to dart momentarily towards the fool. Quickly looking back to the ball, she noticed it had veered left and was now headed towards the other end of the pitch. With a grunt, she swerved after the ball, this time it wouldn’t get away.
0 Uzume Shinohara Two is company 292 Uzume Shinohara 0 5