Alyssa rejoined her fellow students up in the air. The insides of her thighs were chafing from the splinters that she knew she was going to find millions of, once she returned to the Girl's Dormitory.

Now she was safely balanced on the cushion and it didn't feel like it was going to slip like it had earlier, she practiced making a turn. She leaned to the left and waited for the broom to respond, which seemed like forever, but it finally steered to the left.

'Gosh at the rate we're moving. I think that I can walk faster.' Alyssa thought to herself. Alyssa then leaned to the right, hanging on tighter on the broom handle because it took forever for the broom to steer to the right, and she felt like she was leaning way over too much, just trying to get it to turn faster.

Alyssa practiced slowing down, which was easy since the broom was moving slow to begin with. She pulled back slowly on the broom handle and managed to keep it hovering in one position.

Five feet...yes...this was a really nice height to be sure. Even if she fell she wouldn't get more than a bruise or two - which wouldn't be nearly as painful as her splinter covered hands. Professor Vindictus should have told them all to bring their dragonhide gloves. He probably forgot...old age and all.

Ahem.

Kurumi looked up and her jaw DROPPED when she saw one of her favorite little Gryffindors waaaaaaaaay up in the air. Granted, Kurumi wasn't really worried per say, Penelope was a more then capable flyer and had proven that time and time again on the Quidditch pitch. But this was different!

Panic written ALL OVER her face, Kurumi pulled up more on her broom's handle, ignoring the pain as more splinters dug into her skin and but butt became a little more, erm, formed to her broom's handle. When she was somewhere around eleven or twelve feet - Kurumi really wasn't paying too close attention now - she evened out the handle of her broom to cease her upwards movement. "Penelope! Pleeeeeeeeeeease come down a little..."

Kurumi's broom wobbled again and she nearly lost her balance but was able to catch herself by literally hugging the handle. When she lifted her body up veeeeeery slowly and looked down, Kurumi gawked when she saw all the little wood splinters that were now stuck to her robes.

Alyssa decided that she was going to head up higher than the current 5 feet that she was hovering at right now. She leaned forward on her broom and pointed her broom handle upwards.

The broom sluggishly moved forward a little before slowly ascending. Alyssa rolled her eyes. 'This is going to take forever.' Alyssa thought to herself. But she knew that she had to be patient.

Slowly but surely the broom rose in the air and finally Alyssa was a few feet higher than she was before. She straightened her broom until she was hovering horizontally above the ground. Then she leaned forward and made the broom fly forwards until she reached the other end of the pitch. Then she leaned to the left, slowly making a turn and when she was facing back in the direction she had come from, Alyssa leaned forward and flew back to rejoin her classmates.

Gideon started out just flying in short bursts, trying to get a feel for the broom that was currently in his possession for the duration of the lesson. It wasn't easy but he gradually warmed up to flying with the medieval broom. At least the movements...He neatly slid his hand to adjust his grip on the handle and wound up wincing as he felt a tiny piece of wood in his palm.

YIKES! Thankfully it wasn't too deep so he could retrieve it out of his skin though it took a stop in the air and a bit of balance to take both hands of the handle. Too bad they hadn't be warned to bring their dragonhide gloves to class. Moving to start back up again Gideon returned his hands to the broom handle and pushed his broom forward, gradually picking up just a little bit of speed. The sixth year careful where and how he placed his hands...making a mental note not to slide them.

Less chance of splinters.

Hearing a yell, he chanced a look and spotted Kurumi yelling at Penelope to come down, the first year having taken a chance and headed up higher then Vindictus had suggested. Gideon discretely moved closer keeping an eye out as he flew around himself. If anything happened, he knew he had a better chance to doing anything then his fellow prefect seeing as Kurumi wasn't as sure of herself on a broom.

Adjusting her grip on the broom, Ella's eyes grew wide. EEP! A splinter! A splinter right in her palm! That really hurt. Frown. Why was it that such little things hurt SO much. It was seriously a mystery to the small blonde, one she would be investigating next time she found herself in the library...Mhm! At least she hadn't gotten any anywhere that would be REALLY uncomfortable... That was something. And so the second year shook her hand to ease the pain and placed it back on the handle, more gently this time that she had previously. Time to get back up in the air.

Kicking off from the ground again, Ella flew up about 10 feet into the air. Her transition from ground to air was smoother this time too, which made her smile. Though her smile faded just as quickly when she once again felt how wobbly this broom made her feel. Was anyone else feeling this way? She looked around, observing her classmates. O__O The second year gasped when The Gryffindor prefect wobbled a little too much and looked like she was going to fall. Yikes! So she definitely wasn't the only one feeling a little off balance.

Continuing on, the blonde flew straight a ways and then slowly banked left, making sure to ease into the turn. WOOP! She'd survived another turn. She SO deserved some gummy worms right now. Now to try for a right one. Same as before, the badger flew forward a bit and then slowly started turning towards the right. YEAHHH! She did it again! This was actually kind of fun...well besides the whole splinters thing. That part was down right horrible.

Penelope leaned forward a bit, still half-expecting the broom to zoom into action like the other normal ones, but of course it did nothing of the sort. It sped up a bit but not anywhere close to what she would have liked. In addition, she felt a sudden bit of pain in a couple of her fingers. Splinters, probably. She lifted a hand to check and, yep, there was definitely a splinter in her thumb and index finger. She used her other hand to slow the broom's pathetic speed a bit, practically to a stop, so that she could pull the splinters out.

But just as she did, she heard someone calling her name.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie

Panic written ALL OVER her face, Kurumi pulled up more on her broom's handle, ignoring the pain as more splinters dug into her skin and but butt became a little more, erm, formed to her broom's handle. When she was somewhere around eleven or twelve feet - Kurumi really wasn't paying too close attention now - she evened out the handle of her broom to cease her upwards movement. "Penelope! Pleeeeeeeeeeease come down a little..."

Kurumi's broom wobbled again and she nearly lost her balance but was able to catch herself by literally hugging the handle. When she lifted her body up veeeeeery slowly and looked down, Kurumi gawked when she saw all the little wood splinters that were now stuck to her robes.

Looking down, she realized it was Kurumi. Come down? "But it's more fun up here!" Especially considering how slow these brooms were. "You should come up here with me!" Kurumi didn't seem to have the best balance on her broom though, as she was suddenly hugging it instead of sitting up properly. So...maybe it probably was best for Kurumi not to come up thirty feet with Penelope. But that didn't mean Penelope couldn't stay where she was.

So she returned her attention to pulling the two splinters out with a slight wince before putting both hands back on the broom handle and zooming back into action.

Except not really because these brooms couldn't zoom if their life depended on it.

In reality, she simply leaned forward again and got it back to its speed of 12 miles per hour and started trying out the turning by going in little circles, alternating between left and right and feeling a few more splinters digging themselves into her hands. Mehhhh.

He heard a small voice directly underneath him and leaned over to see who he was hovering over. It didn't take long for him to realize he was seeing the top of Kurumi's head. He attempted to speed off quickly and avoid falling on top of her, but he was disappointed to remember how poor the acceleration was. "Welcome back to the air, Kurumi!" he yelled behind him.

Unfortunately for the Captain, this motion proved too much for his old style broom. He lost his balance and went into a nose dive. "Swerve!" he yelled at his broom. For some reason, the broom did what he desired and managed to avoid Kurumi. "Sorry!" he yelled after her, while trying to right his broom. He pulled up on the handle as Vindictus had instructed. Once near the ground, he pumped his legs and was able to come to a stop.

Woah. That is NOTHING like my own broom. He grinned sheepishly at Kurumi. "Guess I need more practice, eh?"

STARE.

Kurumi wasn't sure if she was more terrified at the notion of Penelope being up so high on such a temperamental broom or that the girl had just used the word 'fun' to describe what they were doing.

Merlin if Carter could see her now...his Seeker that had crashed into the stands after the snitch among other things. The one who had taken his words quite literally...

"I'm just fine down here...where Professor Vindictus instructed us to be at," she replied, her eyes narrowing just a bit. SO GET BACK DOWN HERE! Kurumi turned her handle to the right to veer in the opposite direction that she was facing, wincing again as the splinters dug into her skin and...OH! A BUTTERFLY!

o___________________________O

Kurumi didn't even have time to react to Keefer's greeting when he went DIVING towards her. Squeaking loudly, Kurumi nearly lost her balance again as well as eye contact with the butterfly and hugged her broom tightly as it sort of hovered and shook in the air.

Feeling a rush of wind, sort of, when Keefer flew by her, Kurumi opened her eyes to see the Hufflepuff captain grinning at her. "I...I guess so..." she muttered, her face still very much plastered to the handle of her broom.

The broom continued to glide forward sluggishly with her hugging it for dear life, but she managed to eventually lift her head from it and sit back up straight. At least she was somewhat gliding now...but her behind was getting awfully sort despite the cushion.

Calamity averted, the Captain was glad there was nothing injured. Except my pride. But really, Keefer wasn't sure what he was riding even qualified as the same thing he was used to riding. Sure they're both brooms, but I'd like to see even the great Josef Wronski try to ride one of these things! Because really, they were nothing alike.

But as it appeared he needed more practice... he took off once more. And you could safely bet 37 golden Galleons that he was going to rehearse his braking and turning again after his little... incident. And so he did. More turns left and right, left and right. Accelerate and brake, accelerate and brake.

After a little bit longer, he was definitely beginning to get the hang of this... 'broom'. He could, generally speaking, turn, accelerate, and brake in a fairly smooth way. While I may be proficient, I certainly know which era of brooms I prefer. Modern.

Penelope was continuing her circle exercise, sometimes turning a liiittle too much and temporarily losing her balance on the broom before managing to right herself again, and each time she felt several more splinters dig into her hands, but she ignored them for now. She could spend time pulling them out in a few minutes. Right now she just wanted to fly, even if it wasn't very fast.

It was as she was making another right turn circle that she heard Kurumi speak again, and the first year stopped her circle and her pace, turning again only so that she could better look down at the prefect. "He said we could stay at ten feet to be safe," Penelope replied. See, she could remember some things. At least when she wanted to. "But safe is boring." So she was up here. And would continue to stay up here until they were told to land.

"Today's task is simple yet it will be challenging," Vindictus began as he set up a row of metal buckets on the grass. "Anyone can sit on a broom and throw or hit something. Retrieving objects is another matter. The first step is to swoop down and collect a bucket. Here's the catch: you can't use your hands to pick it up - you have to slide the bucket's handle onto your broom handle."



"You'll want to loop around the pitch and gradually descend as you make your approach. If you're flying too fast when you reach the bucket, you will probably flip yourself off your broom as you try to pick up the bucket. My advice is for you to be at the slowest speed possible when collecting the bucket: focus on what you're doing."

He stepped out of the way. "Come get your buckets!"


OOC: If you haven't posted your 3 warm up laps (at least 3 separate posts) on the medieval brooms, please continue to do so before collecting your bucket.

Keefer just stared at the old man. They were supposed to collect the buckets... with their broom handles... while in motion.

BLINK.

The boy could think of a few reasons why that may be a bad idea. And a painful one at that. But he dutifully pulled up on his ancient history broom handle, coming to a jogging stop. The Captain's new favorite charm was definitely the Braking Charm.

Artifact in hand, Keefer winced his way over to where the Professor had indicated and picked up a bucket. Now what? he wondered. While waiting for further instructions, the redhead eyed the bucket, searching for nonexistent weaknesses in his opponent. "Alright bucket, now you've met your match. Prepare to be caught!"

Alyssa listened as the Professor gave out his instructions. They were supposed to collect the bucket using their broom handle instead of their hands.

'Piece of cake.' Alyssa thought to herself as she leaned forward and flew towards the rows of buckets arranged on the ground. She decided to head for the one at the end of the row. That way she only had two buckets to work with instead of three.

She kept her eye on her target as she swooped down towards it. As she got nearer to the buckets she kept an eye on the one she wanted, as well as the other students that were headed in the same direction as her. She didn't want to accidentally collide with one of them vying for the same bucket.

Alyssa started slowing down her broom as she got nearer by pulling back on the broom handle while making sure that the broom handle was pointed straight at the bucket in front of her. She was getting nearer....nearer....and just as she had managed to slow down the broom enough for her to hook its handle over the bucket's handle, the broom wobbled like it was going to stall and she had to quickly lean forward to prevent herself from flying over the broom. This caused the broom to fly straight back up and Alyssa missed hooking the bucket handle by inches!!

Beware of butterflies flying faster than you? Did he just say the Butterflies flying faster than them? Darn. He wonder what's the old people thinking when they created this broom. Honestly flying slower than butterflies, that's just ... Man!

Nevertheless, Messer positioning himself on the cushion he put in the broom earlier and made sure that he was comfortable but that's kinda hard because even with the cushion it still felt so weird. He kicked off from the ground. He was flying with a medieval broom! Now let's hope he doesn't catch any butterflies while he was flying this ancient broom.

No more than 10 feet Nerida was perfectly fine with this she did not want to fall on the medieval broom! Nerida had been a bit slow when the Professor told them to start warming up honestly she did not trust the broom but she trusted her professor so she would give it a try. She stood next to her broom and made sure her hand was in the right position and said "Up!" After the broom decided to go up she mounted the broom and tried to position herself onto the cushion. Than she pushed herself off the ground.

It was not an easy broom to ride. It was awkward she kept sliding up and down on the cushion and she could feel the wood on her thighs. Splinters were probably clinging to her skin as her things gripped the broom. She decided to practice flying forward. She leaned forward on her broom and then stopped by pulling the broom upwards slowly. She repeated going forward very slow until she felt like she had accomplished going forward which was pretty hard since she kept on sliding on her broom she even screamed a couple times because she thought she was going to fall off.

Wisteria contemplated this new obstacle. She was right though, retrieving is a bit different. After the buckets were laid out she mounted her broom and made her way up into the air. This shouldn't be too hard, a piece of cake really, she mumbled to herself. After making what looked like fifteen feet she focused on a bucket and gradually made her way in that direction and... missed. Darn! Really? So much for easy. She tried again. Fifteen feet in the air and glided towards the handle. It knocked over.

Frustration started to take over. She didn't understand why this was so complicated. She knew she was a good flyer and this concept isn't hard. She rose twenty feet in the air and flew down towards the bucket and SMASH! She face-planted the ground and everything was dark and spinning. She went to stand but the only thing she could move at the moment were her hands. She just needed a minute...hopefully.

Sure there were a few close calls but each time the first year seemed to manage to keep herself aloft. Gideon himself doing small manuevers with his own broom as he watched out of the corner of his eye. After a while everything seemed to be going better with Penelope however so gradually Gideon resumed his full attention on his own flying. No doubt if he continued simply keeping on eye on his housemate someone would catch on whether student or teacher.

The prefect was soon turning through another lap and a few turns trying to adjusting his timing to the downfalls of the older style flying equipment. Then upon noticing Vindictus trying for their attention, he flew closer so he could make out what he was saying.

Whoah... so this is gonna do quite a bit of foresight flying isnt it? The Ravenclaw mounted his broom as he continued to listen to the Professor explain and give instructions. He furrowed his brows, even still on the ground he can feel how unwieldy these brooms are, sorta gives him some appreciation of the school brooms even if they arent quite Nimbus-level performers.

But right now for warm ups. He sat himself on the pillow-- which felt weird and vastly less comfortable than the standard cushioning charm-- and kicked off, flying into the air. Or maybe that was more floating....the Professor sure wasnt kidding when he said these things go slow.

There was no way Wisteria was going to give up. Luckily her Comet 180 wasn't broken, not even dented...odd. She remounted her broom, and balanced. She eyed her target and before the end of the day this challenge will be nothing. she rose again into the air and had her game face on. She swooped down analyzing every feature and closer, centering, concentrating and... "YES!" Witsy yelled allowed. She didn't care, she accomplished her goal for the day. A little more practice would hurt though...well not much anyways.

Vindictus winced as Wisteria did a face-plant. So far, no one had managed to collect a bucket. He DID say that it was going to be tough!

"After you get your bucket, you are to pick 7 lollipops and place them into your bucket," he said and he used his wand to lift the disillusionment spell on the pitch. Stretching from goal hoops to goal hoops, the grass was speckled with lollipops of various shapes and colors.



"The seasoned Quidditch players might be thinking that this is easy - but it's not! These brooms do not have a hovering charm on them, so you'll have to approach picking a lollipop the same way you did collecting your buckets with the exception that you get to use your hands to pick the lolly."


OOC: If you're just joining the lesson, please refer to these posts 1 and 2 (yes, I'm allowing late arrivals to play catch up!) This task of lollipop picking isn't supposed to be easy on these brooms - it should be difficult, frustrating, and challenging. You should have at least 4 posts for this task (no more than 2 lollipops can be picked per post).

Vickers was leaning forward on his broom, trying to will it to go faster. Strange to think that when on the school broom he would sometimes begrudge that it was moving too fast for his skills, now that he actually had a broom that wouldnt out pace a jogger he was getting the same kind of begrudging feeling. Nothing would ever satisfy him would there?

But now he had to remember about testing the steering on this museum piece. Whilst still near the the ground he tried to turn it right.

It barely moved in that direction.

He was mostly leaning, partly swinging his entire body weight on the right side when finally the broom started to inch its way around the pitch. Sheesh this was a lot of work just for so little results. The Ravenclaw tried to steer left this time, practically hanging by the left side of the broom just so he can sway it to move when he wants it to move. It was still paaaaainfully slow but indeed it turned left.

After Messer successfully made the ancient broom turn, he leaned forward to make it fly faster but it doesn't. This broom definitely ancient! So flying faster was out of the question while using this broom then. So the Hufflepuff just fly around and practicing turning his broom. But after a while, he felt he was going to flip. Yikes! Maybe he need to land, fix it then he could go back to air after that. Yup.

The Hufflepuff pull back on the broom as he descend and slowly the broom slowing down. He hit the ground in a light jog. Time to fix the cushion. When he was done with the fixing, once again Messer kicked off from the ground.

Alyssa turned her broom around and flew back the way she came towards the buckets. This time she decided to fly even lower than she had earlier. Still aiming for the bucket at the end of the row, she began slowing down her broom she approached the bucket by pulling back ever so slowly on the handle. This time she made sure that her broom was still flying even as she was slowing down.

Alyssa continued to keep a close eye out for her fellow classmates and as she neared the bucket, she made sure that the broom handle was positioned so that it was flying towards the center of the bucket handle. When she got near enough, Alyssa pointed the handle down low enough that it was in position to hook the handle. The bucket got closer.....closer and the moment Alyssa saw that the handle was properly centered with the broom handle, she leaned forward moving the broom forward and....the broom handle hooked the bucket handle.

The moment she saw that the bucket had been hooked, she immediately pointed the broom handle up and leaned forward scooping the bucket up and over sliding it on. Alyssa punched the air in victory.

Then she heard what the Professor wanted them to do next. She watched as the Professor revealed what he had been hiding all along. Lollipops littered the entire Quidditch pitch and they were supposed to pick them up with their hands.

Alyssa shook her head. At least they could use their hands this time. The only problem was that these lollipops were placed very close to the ground. Getting them was going to be tricky.

Kurumi bit down on her lip and sort of continued to try and steer her broom to finish off her last lap after hearing what Penelope said. Safe is boring...how very Gryffindor of her. Kurumi honestly wondered sometimes why she had been sorted into Gryffindor instead of another house like Ravenclaw as Professor Vindictus had mentioned to her on several occasions.

"O-Okay..." Kurumi called back with a feeble wave of her hand. As long as Penelope was...happy? Or something like that.

No hands? Merlin Professor Vindictus really was trying to kill them. He should get on a broom and demonstrate all this instead of just guiding them from the ground, no? That seemed to be the way that every other professor seemed to do things. You know....demonstrating.

Pushing down on the handle of her broom, Kurumi somehow managed to guide it down from ten feet to about 5 as she rounded the bend and her eyes focused on one of the buckets. It would probably take her a try or two to get this right, especially seeing as her depth perception was more than a little off without her reading glasses.

Approaching the bucket now, Kurumi pushed down a bit more and lowered herself further to the pitch, enough so that she could actually put her feet down and run should she so desire. Could they do that? He hadn't said specifically that they couldn't...just as long as they didn't use their hands to pick up the bucket. Right?!

Getting closer now, Kurumi pushed the handle right...only to find that her broom went left sluggishly and she tried to correct it by pushing it left and finding it rather difficult to return to the straightish flying she had had a moment ago.

She was close now...and Kurumi held her breath as the handle of her broom approached the handle....*CLANK* it collided with the bucket and sent it tumbling backwards a few inches, thankfully landing right side up so she could try again.

Once she doubled back and made another small circle that is.

As Kurumi was making another large circle to loop back around and make a second attempt at grabbing her bucket, she looked over her shoulder when she heard Professor Vindictus giving the next set of instructions.

LOLLIPOPS?!

Kurumi's eyes lit up when she saw the ground become covered in the sugary delights and she couldn't help but smile. Slow brooms. No real change of serious injury. Flying low. Lollipops! That was by far the best lesson ever.

Kurumi rather enjoyed lollipops, licking them slowly and enjoying their flavor. Especially strawberry ones. She could never get enough of licking those ones and it looked like there were plenty of them on the pitch. Yep, she would for sure try and collect those.

Eyes back on the bucket as she slowly approached it Kurumi's brows furrowed in determination with the promise of strawberry lollipops on the horizon. Holding her breath again, Kurumi gripped tightly on her broom and once again ignored all the splinters that were digging into her skin. Smiling triumphantly, Kurumi squeaked when the handle of her broom slide easily under that of the bucket.

Now...to collect strawberry lollipops!

Ohh, it looked like the professor was talking again, so Penelope did lower her broom's altitude a bit down, winding up far closer to Kurumi's boring preferred ten feet. So they had to get a bucket with their broom handle now? This should be fun! And then, before she could start trying, Vindictus continued talking and had waved his wand and-

HOLY MERLIN THERE WERE LOLLIPOPS GROWING OUT OF THE GROUND.

BEST. LESSON. EVER.

They had to collect seven of them and put them in their bucket? FUN. But there was one question Penelope needed an answer to as she turned and angled her broom to prepare herself to get one of those buckets.

"Do we get to eat the lollipops we collect at the end of class?" Pleeeeeeeeeaaaaase say yes.