Catch the Quaffle

[Minoas Stratis]

There was nothing like the sigh of the wind in your ears while flying on your broom. Its soft touch against the skin was filling Minoas with a sense of endless freedom and a pseudo-belief that he could conquer the skies.
He sped up as he saw in the distance wavy flags of the stand towers of the quidditch pitch, his clothes flapping around his legs and arms. He had leaned towards the broom's handle holding it with one hand as the other was holding a quaffle, signed by Stephen Duquette, his favorite quidditch player and chaser of Thundelarra Thunderers. His roommate, Sandalio, had suggested to practise together at the quidditch pitch some time on their free time. A sunny Sunday morning was the best choice to conduct this practice when maybe other students would be there and could also join them.

He zoomed past two stand towers to fly in the pitch. It was empty for now but maybe later it would attract more quidditch fanatics. He made a few laps around the pitch while holding the quaffle as he was steadily accelerating by tilting his body towards the centre of the pitch and away from the stands. The tower stands were buzzing in his ear each time he was passing by them and when his watery eyes distinguished the gloss of the golden goal posts in front of him, he stopped to hover above them. Having a panoramic view of the pitch he could think of different technique and approaches to reach the opposite goal posts and score. In the end, he decided to goof around by tossing the quaffle higher in front him, trying to catch it the last moment before reaching the ground while flying. He kept doing that while waiting for his roommate to arrive at the pitch.

 

[Myuna Kickett]

myuna didn't want to study, she never wanted to study so rarely did. instead she had taken her broom and headed into the grounds. she flew down to the quidditch pitch before landing outside and walking in. she wasn't sure how she had made the slytherin team as a chaser. she had never played quidditch before though she knew how it worked, and she had tried out for beater. she thought she would be better as beater. her stocky build and firm hit had made her think she was better for that position though apparently the team captains had thought not. maybe it was the lack of people trying out. whatever the reasoning for her choice of position she decided that she should probably get a little practice in before quidditch season started.
She had already visited the store cupboard taking a quaffle and was half way across the pitch before she realised that she wasn't the only one who had had that idea. she left the quaffle she had picked up to on the ground and mounted her broom flying up to the sky. "d'you mind if i join you?" she called to the other player flying to try and catch the ball he had thrown presumably to himself. although she knew she would be too slow and would miss it if he didn't get to it first. by now she had realised he was a gryffindor who seemed to be a similar age to her.

 

[Minoas Stratis]

As he was gaining momentum, Minoas developed a cat versus mouse game between him and his quaffle. He started abusing it slightly, knocking it around with his broom's brush or by using his fists. The quaffle was getting higher before ending up in his hands or being hit by a random surface of his broom. Whatever he was doing, he wasn't letting it touch the ground as if it was the main rule of the mini game he had set for himself. That included a lot of diving and last moment saves, something he really liked as he was imagining at the same time that he was grabbing the quaffle before the invisible rival chaser. He almost crashed on the ground in an attempt to get the quaffle in time but he managed to raise up again, leaving behind him pressed grass from the pressure of the air he had stirred. He swung along with his broom and smacked with its brush the quaffle to send it as high as possible. He shaded his eyes with a hand to admire the altitude the quaffle was going to reach. A voice however, destracted his attention and as he looked around to see if his roommate was there, the quaffle bounced straight on his head and ended up on the grass.

He clutched his head to make sure he hadn't injured himself as he was examining the newcomer. It wasn't Sandalio, it wasn't a guy at all. A girl on her broom was there instead asking him to join. He couldn't recall seeing her around so he guessed she was a new face, a transfer maybe like his new roommate. Her broader facial features and darker skin made him instantly think of maori people and their magic he has been reading about a lot lately. "Yeah, sure!" he replied and dove to scoop the quaffle from the ground. Right after, he passed it at the girl, wanting to see if she was generally playing quidditch or she was there for the first time.
"You must be new around here. I'm Minoas. Nice to meet another person who seems to enjoy flying." he introduced himself, not yet fully convinced that she was new to the school. He was selective with the people he was socializing so he wasn't exactly the type of person that would knew most people at school and their names.

 

[Myuna Kickett]

Out of Character:

sorry i didnt see there was a reply here and sorry it sucks

myuna missed the ball like she knew she would. chaser really wan't the position for her. at least not yet. the crimson ball landed with a soft flump on the floor. she scowled at herself. this boy would think her stupid or something. thankfully he didn't or at least didn't show he did. "Awesome" she said as she followed the ball to the ground however he got there first and passed it to her. she caught it to her chest flew a few feet before passing it back. "yeah, i just transferred this year. good to meet you Minoas, I'm Una" she said her australian accent strong as she introduced herself. "I enjoy flying though I would must say i prefer surfing." she said she didn't care what he thought about that. she missed the sport. Quidditch was good and everything though she though it wasn't the same. it just sucked there were no decent waves at the castle. she flew forward and got ready to catch or fly after the ball as she looked at the boy. he certainly seemed a similar age to her. had he been one of the people in her classes she couldn't remember. he was almost certainly wasn't in her house. "you're not a slytherin are you?" he asked. she wasn't house-ist, at least not yet, she was just curious.

 

[Minoas Stratis]

Minoas thought that girl was going to catch easily his pass. Judging from the way she was flying on that broom, he thought she had it but instead the quaffle fell down. "I'm sorry." he apologized, thinking that maybe he had overdid it with his pass. "Nice to meet you Una." he said as she returned back with the quaffle and he grabbed her pass. He had picked up an accent in Una's words but he wasn't the right kind of person to say from where it was coming from. He was the one that had a heavy accent in the past when his family first moved in New Zealand. Now it sounded less thuggish, getting some elements from kiwi accent.

Minoas was having first impressions for people he was meeting for the first time. It wasn't something he was making consciously. It was just occuring without realizing it. He was the type of person that he was going to instantly like someone or dislike them. Una looked nothing like most girls in the castle. She looked like the athletic type not like the girly girls that had taken over the school and she was really reminding him of his sister Briar. Minoas started liking the girl even more when she mentioned surfing as her favorite activity. He wasn't the best surfer but he enjoyed the sport as well. His older cousins had introduced him to this taming of waves and while his dominant element was water, he instantly fell in love with it. "Surfing? Cool! I do surf when I'm away from this school. Not as much as I would like but it is definately a way to bond with my older cousins." he said clearly more excited now that he had found a common interest with Una.

"I'm a Gryffindor." he replied to her question. "I reckon you have been transferred to Slytherin house." he presumed from her question. After five years it seemed to him that there were two kinds of Slytherins. The rich bullies and the strangely interesting though the last ones seemed to be an endangered species. Apart from Una, Minoas had found another interesting Slytherin at Artemis Jackson. Well maybe this particular Slytherin was more interesting than what he had thought. "Have you ever tried to fly surf-style?" he asked remembering trying this style of flying with his sister in this same pitch year ago when she was teaching him how to become a good chaser.

 

[Myuna Kickett]

myuna smiled when he apologised for the pass. "no worries." she said. flying slowly along the pitch. back home she had flown in the vinyards of her mums friends who were thankfully magic and she had played on the school basketball team but she hadn't combined the two much in a game of quidditch. other than hitting random bruised apples with a baseball bat with her brother. hence why her normal preference to beater. "when im at home a try and go every day. i wish there were decent waves here. i do it to get away from my parents not bond with anyone" she said. the only decent body of water was the lake and there were not really waves in that only ripples. she was glad that she had found someone who was interested in similar things to her. her dorm mate had thought her mad when she had found her swimming in the lake. though come to think of it it may be more due to the fact that it was the middle of winter at the time.
the boy said that he was a gryffindor. she had nothing against gryffindors on the whole, only those who put gender fudge on their table for halloween. "a lion awesome. and you are right, i am slytherin. though thank god not one of those stuck up ones like the kids at my las school." she said rolling her eyes. her last school had been a muggle school and a privet school so many of the kids there were stuck up, or rich pretending not to be. either one they weren't really her kind of people. at the suggestion of flying surf style she looked at him as if saying fly, surf style, how? "nah mate, I'm not that great on the broom as it is." she said though she wasn't sure what surf style was she was sure it would be harder than normal way. "where abouts are you from. your accent isn't from round here is it? she said. it had been bugging her a little, it sounded slightly familiar though she couldn't place it anywhere

 

[Minoas Stratis]

For some reason Minoas could imagine Una carrying a surf board in a beach where the waves were lapping on the shore. There was a stroke of homesickness in him that was reenforced when she said something about her parents but he didn't let it show. Instead, he realized that he was holding the quaffle for too long in his hands and he decided to pass it to her. "Catch!" he warned her this time, flying along with her a lap of the pitch.
"It's true. No real waves in this lake but you can definately kite surf or sail surf." he suggested. It was actually an idea he had developed at his first years at Hogwarts. The use of a sail or a big piece of cloth attached to strings, a wind spell for propulsion and a board to stand on. It sounded like fun in gryffindor's head and it was the kind of stuff that he would definately try out. The reason why he hadn't materialized yet this idea was because there was no other daredevil around to join him.

He wasn't sure what she was meaning by mentioning her last school. He knew that different students had received different education prior to Hogwarts attendance. He was home-schooled like most magical kids but his tutor was a centaur, something that most people in this parts were finding odd but it was completely normal in his country. He hadn't heard before of other magical schools offering education prior to Hogwarts so he asked her.
"You mean muggle school? What was like?" he knew quite enough about muggles, his own mother being a muggle-born but he had no idea how their schools were operating. He guessed that she was probably a muggle-born as well. Most children of wizards and witches were confident on a broom as they were experiencing flying from a young age. Una was doing fine while flying alongside him but there was a certain flaw in her style. "Oh you should try it sometime. It really feels like surfing. Nothing like the real thing of course but I guess it is something." he suggested her as it was indeed pretty similar to surfing. It was the same feeling of freedom at least. It seemed that eventually Una picked up his own accent and she was bolder to ask him. "You got me! I come from Greece but I moved here at the age of nine." he answered to her question, now ready to ask her back. "You don't sound Kiwi either. Let me guess." he said and had a better look of her features, getting a tropical, Polynesian vibe. "Hmm, maybe Samoan?" he made a wild guess out of the numerous Polynesian islands on the Pacific Ocean.

 

[Myuna Kickett]

myuna moved through the air and easily caught the quaffle that had been thrown to her. feeling bad that se needed the warning in offer to get it. thankfuly she managed to shake it off and not glare at the boy. it wasn't his fault she had missed the pass that wasn't even aimed at her. the idea of kite surfing was a food one. "I never thought of that. maybe i can see if i can get a kite and board for christmas" she said. thinking. if not she would be working and maybe her wage could go on that. she had nothing better to spend it on. her grandma bought most of her clothes as she wanted her to dress like a proper girl so she bought her anything she liked that was classes as acceptable. and thankfully surf wear generally did. she would buy what her grandma wanted then go back and change some of it for what she wanted.
"yeah, i went t muggle school. it sucked, like big time. muggle school in the day then magic classes at night." she replied to his question about school it had gotten worse wen she had been sent to perth, compared to that margaret river had been almost pleasant. at least they had some fun classes not quite so boring ones. "I am not sure what you mean by flying surf style but f it is what i think it is i would probably faceplant" she said it would be funny to watch, but not the most pain free experience. she passed minoas the ball with a short "incoming" before flying off in the other direction slightly. when minoas said he was from Grease she nodded. she thought some kind of European but wasn't sure what. "ah, so yous a wog boy then" she said. in some contexts this could be seen as racist, una didn't mean it like that. it was just a way of identifying people, she was aboriginal her mum was a pomme and he was a wog. when he asked if she was samoan, it was an unusual guess. "close, well not really. I'm australian." she said. simply not specifying more than that unless she was asked.

 

[Minoas Stratis]

"Hmm, maybe I could lend my cousin's kite if I'll manage to be persuasive enough." he said as his pass got secured in Una's hands. He could possible just get it without asking, his cousin would probably never notice while he was busy with his job and his r ecent team transfer. "To be honest, when I first got here I wondered the same thing with you, if I could surf in the lake. I even considered creating artificial waves with some sort of spell but until now I know no spell that could do that." he admitted he had that though as well before.
"Then while learning a wind charm the idea hit me but I haven't tried it out yet. Maybe we could try it together next time we have the appropriate gear." he suggested, preferring to share the experience along with someone else than alone.
He wasn't sure if Una was objective about muggle school but she made it sound somewhat dull.
"It might not be that different from homeschooling. I was studying two different languages in the morning with my mother along with maths." he said and grimaces slightly while mentioning maths. He was bad with numbers, the main reason he had never considered to sign up for arithmancy. "At evenings I was studying herbology, astronomy and some other arts with my centaur tutor. A full time job if you ask me." he chuckled. He had still time to play with his siblings or do other extracurricular activities like learning with his father how to fly on a broom.

Whether or not Una had an idea of what he was talking about surf flying, he was going to show her. It was a long time since he had last time attempted to fly this way but he believed he still got it. Carefully, while his broom was still flying with out governor, he stood up with bent legs and arms away from his torso for balance.
"Like this." he said and stood upright on his broom during freefall, tilting the handle of the broom downwards to generate a forward movement. The rush of air brushed his light brown hair and his heart leaped as he wobbled stood up to keep his balance. When he was closer to the ground, he reversed his direction with one smooth fluid move and he stooped slightly to hold with one hand the handle as he was ascending towards Una. On his way to her, he grabbed with his free hand her own pass. It was admittedly a really strong pass. The kind of passes that Briar used to perform. As he got back next to her he sat down on his broom again not risking it with any extra acrobatics.
"It feels so nice but yes I faceplanted loads of times when I was practising this." he said recalling in his head all those funny moments when his face was ending up on the grass while flying close enough to the ground to practise skysurfing.

He didn't know how to react when Una called him something that he had never heard of before. Actually, if he had heard her correctly. "Why you would call me a hog boy?" he asked puzzled, not sure if he had to feel offended or if she was meaning something else. He had been experiencing similar situations in the past when his english weren't fluid yet. He decided not to give any further attention to this and not commenting anything else about where she was coming from and focus on quidditch. She had a strong arm and that made him wonder if she was playing for Slytherin and what could be her post.
"Say again what post do you play?" he asked as he reached the goal posts and passed the quaffle to her.
"Try to score. I'll be the keeper for this." he said and hovered in front of the golden rings, defending them.
He had got taller, usually a disadvantage for a chaser so he was thinking that maybe he could try as a keeper next year if he was going to perform poorly as a chaser this year. He fixed his grey eyes on her, waiting for her move.

 

[Myuna Kickett]

the impression myuna was getting from this boy was that he talked a lot, but he was friendly. "so magic waves are a no go." she hold said half asked confirming his statement. "i think it seems to get windier in the afternoon, i does the same at home. something to do with the land being warmer than the sea." she said. even though she wasn't know for paying attention in class she was pretty smart especially when it came to things that interested her. as he explained that he had been home schooled she listened. that curriculum sounded a lot different to hers. "at muggle school we do boring stuff like maths, science, english, soce. as well as phys ed and other stuff. then in the evening my mum or gran would teach me spells and magic curriculum. there was no school holidays really. though over the summer i worked as well" she said. "you said your teacher was a centaur? really? i met my first one the other week. she seemed nice, though i don't know how good a teacher she would be" she said, aspen seemed to be more into having fun than she expected centaurs to be.
as the boy fly standing up she was pretty amazed. she tried but as her feet reached the broom and she was hardly more than a crouch she wobbled and she slipped back to sitting. "maybe that's for another day" she said watching as he caught her pass easily. he was good.
he asked why she called him hog boy she laughed. "not hog boy, wog boy with a double you. A wog is someone from the Mediterranean, usually italy, Grease" she explained. flying towards the goals catching the quaffle before she answered his question. "I wanted beater, but I ended up enlisted as chaser" she said. she wasn't particularly good in that roll but she as she had played a bit of basketball she would probably get better. "alright" she said when asked to shoot. she flew to the goals and threw it as hard as she could into the left hoop.

 

[Minoas Stratis]

In the past, Minoas wanted to join the muggle school of the village he used to reside along with his family. Upon hearing from Una her own experience from her muggle school, he felt grateful that his parents insisted on early homeschool. The worst part of her experience was the lack of school holidays. He couldn't imagine having lessons all through summer for instance, used to spend his summer days with the muggle kids of the neighbourhood. He had missed this last part from the time they moved in New Zealand. His family had chosen an isolated location for their new home in the middle of nowhere, not providing neighbours for new friendships.
He got a feeling of uneasiness when he noticed crouched on her broom, wobblying dangerously. He didn't want to be the reason of her ending at the hospital wing so he nodded, agreeing with her that she could try it maybe another day.

It turned out that Minoas had misheard the nickname that Una had given to him. He laughed along with her when he realized it.
"Okay that's cool. I would call you then 'dingo'. It reminds me of the indigenous people of australia." he decided to give her a nickname as well, guessing that she was an aboriginal after all from the moment she told him she was coming from Australia.
"You have a strong hand, you would do a nice beater." he agreed with her that she was more suitable at that post but he could help her put her advantage into the chaser's post. "Oh so you're going to play for Slytherin at the upcoming matches. That's interesting." he smirked as he was flying around with an opponent. He couldn't care less. He was going to help her anyway and have some fun time with another quidditch lover regardless of the team she was going to play. So he focused on her attempt to score. His attention was fixed on the red ball in her possession but at the same time he was reading as much as possible her movements.. Like a dragonfly, he zoomed to his left to block her shot. He had managed to decipher her intention from her body language but he wasn't expecting her shot to be so powerful. Minoas used his palms to counter the ball with a thud before securing it in his hands.

His palms tingled a bit after the impact of the ball but he didn't show. Instead, he took a mixed expression of admiration and surprise, not expecting such a hard shot from a girl. "That could have actually knocked my off my broom." he said amazed, imagining how hard she would send a bludger to her opponents. "You definately have the technique but you need something else in order to score." he said and passed to her the quaffle, offering her another shot. He was pumped with energy now that the first shot was attempted and he wanted more.
"Feint. Deceive the keeper with a feint. Try not to let your body show what your mind is processing. This could increase the odds for scoring." he suggested, drawing this from the experience he had gained from the five quidditch matches he had took part. He had more aces up his sleeve, like using the weather conditions to your advantage but feinting was much more important.
"I'm ready. Bring it on." he invited her to give another shot.

 

[Myuna Kickett]

Myuna certainly felt more comfortable sitting on the broom than standing on it. she heard him call her dingo and smiled. the name was pretty fitting. "you know Dingos aren't actually native to australia don't you" she sallied as she flew. "the first settlers, I mean Aborigines brought them over when they came" she said "you have a good pass too" she said when he said she had a strong hand, she had played basket ball so she knew what a confident pass and a weak one felt like though it wasn't necessarily the same with the quaffle. "yes, that's the plan. what position do you play for gryffindor" she asked assuming that the boy on the quidditch pitch was a member of one of the school teams.
she took her shot wasn't wasn't really surprised that he caught it she was not used to having a specific goalie, more people in the way. however she did laugh when he said she could have knocked him off his broom. "Sorry. I will try harder next time" she said catching the crimson ball and mock throwing the ball hard at him but not letting go.
she took his advice. "okay so this time i will have a go at deceiving you" she called. this time when she aimed she flew for the centre hoop the ball was in both hands and she went for a powerful chest pass for the centre but didn't let go instead she brought it back up to her right shoulder and threw it hard diagonally towards the left hoop. before turning to the left as if she was continuing to the goals before turning and heading towards the open pitch.