After what Rylee thought was a decent amount of time at the Beaters station she flew back down towards the ground dropping the bat into the trunk once again. Turning around she headed off in the other direction for the Chasers station.

Joining the small group that was already gathered there she wasted no time catching a quaffle that was tossed her way. Zooming a little ways across the area then suddenly pulling her broom downwards she flew towards a center pole tossing the quaffle through the goal. Turning her broom around she headed back to the group for someone else to take a turn while she passed the quaffle around a bit more.

Rylee did a few more laps around this time, blue eyes scanning the area. When a quaffle came flying her way from a fellow chaser she zoomed off to catch it, having to lift both hands off her broom in order to make the catch, causing her broom to swerve a bit. Quickly pulling the quaffle to her chest with one hand, her left hand found her broom once more to redetermine the balance she had momentarily lost. Without slowing down or thinking about how bad that could have been had she not have been able to correct her balance so fast, Rylee flew for the goals once again.

This time rather than just toss the quaffle through the goal she flew around the goal posts. Back and forth weaving her way between them as fast as she could. After one of her turns around the left goal she toss the quaffle up the goal before speeding back towards the other Chasers.

If there was still time left maybe she would give another station a try.

Emma had WANTED to tryout for the seeker position. IT WAS HER DREAM POSITION AND SHE WAS MEANT FOR IT. The third year had trained ALL SUMMER and the thought that she wouldn't be able to share the position with Abey was SAD but maybe, MAYBE, she would make a good chaser. It's what she was trying out for now since she wasn't strong enough to be a beater and she wasn't still enough to stay in the goals and be a keeper.

ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMING around the pitch she went back and forth passing around the quaffle, giggling gleefully while her and the others wizzed around every (namely her on her NEW BROOM) and tried to score a goal.

Truthfully, she wasn't BAD. And it was FUN.

Maybe she did want this position????

It was a good job Abra was a skilled flyer, you know, otherwise this whole situation with taking notes on the clipboard while in the air might have been disastrous. As it was, he was just about managing to balance the tasks of watching those trying out, taking notes, and staying on his own broom, though he wondered just how much use these notes were actually going to be. Perhaps it would have been better to just watch and then rely on his memory later... not that his memory was so excellent.

Well, either way, it probably didn't matter. This was going great so far. Abra turned his broom in the air again after keeping an eye on the Beaters and watched what the Chasers and Keepers were doing for a while. Chase was looking a little... well, it was hard to tell from this distance, and from this angle, but he seemed maybe a little unsure of himself at first. Perhaps. Or maybe Abra was just projecting, which seemed pretty likely. Either way, the third year put on a good show of skills in both his approach and his scoring, so Abra tried to give the other boy an encouraging smile - difficult though it was to communicate like that from so far away.

Beau, by the way, had apparently not lost his enthusiasm or his energy on a broom, and Abra was glad to see it - as a Chaser, that kind of energy was invaluable, whereas in the position of Keeper, a kid like that could easily bounce between the hoops. Abra chuckled to himself as he made a note or two on his clipboard and reflected on the fact that he was actually enjoying himself doing this, even if it involved actually writing actual notes. Looking up again, Abra watched Chase and Beau pair off to go practice their passing, trying to get a good idea of how well they communicated and all that fun stuff, before turning his attention over to the Beaters' station again.

Given that it had been his own suggestion, he had been curious to see how Rylee was faring over there. She was small, of course, but that didn't necessarily mean she wouldn't fit there; Abra had been tall but thin all through growing up, and he'd always loved to blast bludgers around when he'd had the chance (probably because of his brother's influence). Anyways, Rylee looked like she was definitely holding her own around the targets. The kid packed a real punch too, that was for sure, just proving that looks could be deceiving. When she moved across to the Chasers' station, Abra was pleased to see her doing a pretty good job over there too, which was to be expected, after having spent time honing those skills.

Over at the hoops, Faith was certainly on fine form. She'd taken Abra's words to heart, apparently, about not being afraid to show off her skills - like using her broom to block the shots? always impressive, especially when a Keeper could bat the balls away and directly into the hands of their own Chasers - and maybe she wasn't blocking a hundred percent of the quaffles (yeah, he'd caught that one miss), but she was rocking those hoops all the same. Emma seemed to be having the time of her life as well, flying around the pitch like she was born to do it (and maybe she really was), handling the quaffle with ease, and... did he hear giggling coming from her direction too? Excellent. Brilliant. That was actually really, really good to hear, totally not partly because he still felt a little guilty about taking a shot at Seeker away from her as well. Nope. Totally not.

Practice time again, and for yet another year, Abra was despairing at just how cold a Scottish Highland winter could be. His practice robes and boots and leather fingerless gloves were well-equipped with warming charms but it just never felt like enough - wearing coats and non-Quidditch gloves and scarves out to practice just didn't work out, they were cumbersome and hindered progress and it wasn't like they could wear them in the games, so he put up with it. Grudgingly.

After lingering in the locker room for a few minutes to brace himself, Abra stepped out onto the cold pitch a few minutes before they were due to start, carrying his broom with him. At the middle of the pitch, he stopped, set his broom down, and started doing some star jumps. It was cold enough that he could see his breath appearing in front of him as he jumped, and again as he switched to running on the spot. Abra knew he probably looked like a bit of an idiot but... you know... a slightly warmer idiot than before.

But yes, he was willingly doing some exercise. To try to warm up and stay warm while he waited for everyone to appear, you know? Get the blood moving, make sure it was still reaching his extremities; it had nearly cost them a bunch of points in their last match when his fingers got so cold he could barely close them around the snitch.

Anna had jogged her way to the locker room and kept jumping on spot as she changed into her winter practice uniform. She then went ahead and jogged her way to the pitch also a few minutes before practice was supposed to start so she could be nice and warmed up.

It seemed like her captain had the same idea because he was already there when she arrived. "You're fast!" The girl pointed out the actual obvious - not only was he already there and all, but he was their seeker.

Anyway, she was pretty fast TOO and was running on spot as soon as she stood near-ish Abra, her broom on the ground next to her. "I can't WAIT for our next game!" Anna said enthusiastically as she did some high jumps. Yeeeah, small talk. 'Twas her thing. She knew her captain and that it wasn't necessarily HIS thing but SHE WAS EXCITED ALREADY and she was going to TALK, yes, alright, yeees. YES.

If there was anything to be surprised about today, it was not Zoryn's mood. The old Zoryn can't come to the phone right now. Why? 'Cause she's dead (on the inside).

The fifth year didn't do anything obnoxious as she walked up to the field and towards her teammates. There were no hellos, no waves, no screams of delight over their recent victory, and she was not excited to be here. The only reason why she came was a) practice was mandatory and b) being in the air with a beater's bat was just about the only thing she could do under school rules that helped clear her head.

And if anyone mentioned how violent she had been in the last match, they would take a bludger to the head immediately. Zoryn didn't want to talk about it.

So instead of making small talk, the Gryffindor immediately began stretching. Lowkey, she was keeping an eye out for Faith because unlike the usual routine the two hadn't been walking to practice together lately. Zoryn would've waited, but she was still upset that Faith had ditched her in the dormitory a few days ago.

So basically, there was a LOT of angst on this pitch right now.

It was practice time!! Yes he needed to clear his head and not think too much about mistletoes and girls and snogging. It was all so complicated. He needed a mate to talk about it with.... But then again maybe those kisses meant nothing to those people and he was just helping them out..... Yes, he’d go with that. Maybe that would help his manic mind.

He slipped into his practice outfit and then headed to the pitch with broom in hand. “Heya guys,” he said with a raise of his hand as a wave as he joined the group.

It probably wasn't good that Abra was starting to feel winded before most of the team had even arrived, right? It wasn't like he was devastatingly out of shape or anything, not with how much moving around the castle he did, but it also wasn't like he was as fit as some of those kids who ran in the mornings and worked out all day and bench-pressed the giant squid or whatever they did. IT WAS JUST THE COLD AIR, OKAY? Something about the cold air made it much harder to brEATHE, that was all it was.

And if anyone asked, he'd just say he'd been here, jogging on the spot, for about ten minutes longer than he actually had. Nobody needed to know.

As Anna arrived, Abra grinned at here - a mistake, because the air was shockingly cold against his teeth. "Thanks Anna." Jog, jog, jog. "Same. That last game was excellent." Of course, it was mostly excellent because they'd won, but that was neither here nor there.

Hm. Now what to say? It was hard to... really think of the right thing to further the conversation, which meant it was a relief when the others started to arrive. Except that one of those others was Zoryn, and her apparent mood quickly swept the relief from Abra's mind and replaced it with anxiety. There was something going on, he'd realised that, and it was something that had affected at least two of his teammates. Abra hadn't had the first clue of what to do about what was going on, if anything, so he'd decided to just not get involved and to let whatever was going on work itself out. And try his best to ignore the anxiety that came from being around others in a bad mood. That too.

Ultimately, Abra nodded a greeting towards Zoryn, then waved over at Chase who'd arrived, and kept jogging on the spot until he had a good amount of people gathered. Then he stopped... and tried for a moment or two to get his breath back. Oh, Merlin.

"Okay... everyone..." Breathe, breathe... "Okay. First of all, I wanted to say great job to everyone who played in our last game. Really excellent playing, and great flying." He was mega proud, actually, but didn't want to get caught up too much in saying all about that... mostly because... well, it was best to limit the public speaking thing if possible. "Today, I want us to focus specifically on special tactics. Sloth Grip Roll, Bludger Backbeat, Starfish and Stick... those kind of moves. As much fancy flying as we can perfect, to really give us the edge. Some moves are sort of dangerous, so we'll probably need to be careful-" or something "-but I trust you all to be safe and know your limits." Like, practicing nearer to the ground if they were trying something particularly risky for the first time, or not attempting something they didn't feel confident with, things like that. Just... don't Gryffindor too hard, maybe.

Abra called his broom to his hand and mounted it, waiting for the others to do the same. "Let's do some quick laps, just to warm up, and start thinking about which moves you want to work on. I can help with ideas if you're not sure." Or, you know, if they wanted to make up some super special secret moves that their opponents wouldn't know about, that would be great too. Abra was often trying to think up ones that hadn't seen done before. "Then I'll release the Quidditch balls and we'll get started."

Tempting as it was to be the first off of the ground, Abra waited for the others to kick off from the ground first before he joined them in the air.

Emma didn't pick up on any sour moods or dislike of the cold because IT WAS QUIDDITCH TIME and that was her MOST FAVORITE TIME OF THE DAY. How could it not be? Sure, there was breakfast time with Beau and Alanna, and more Beau time, and time dedicated to thinking about Sylvie, and FLYING TIME, and passing notes to Al in class time, and ALL THE OTHER FUN TIMES, but Emma always looked forward to this the MOST.

Now more than last year because she was ON THE TEAM.

Her very own custom broom was already between her legs when Abey (the CAPTAIN) said for them to do laps -- he said a bunch of other stuff too, but Em was only waiting for the words that let her FLY -- knees bent at the ready.

With a big "WHOOP!" She was kicking OFF and making herself the first one in the air.

Rylee was here as always when there was a practice. Joining the team she gave everyone a bright smile. There was no time for talking right now, they were already getting started. This was just fine with her. More time in the air flying.

Lightly bouncing on her heels which was the typical Rylee thing to do whenever she was standing around, she listened closely to what Abra had to say. There last match had been awesome! It was all so fresh in her mind, flying around the pitch, hitting bludgers as hard as she could. Oh, yeah, it had been amazing and she was never going to forget it!

Ooooh, they were focusing on special tactics today. Rylee grinned. She had worked on some of these a little over the summer... not that she had accomplished many.

No time was wasted in mounting her broom and kicking off to join her team up in the air for some warm up laps first.

Once everyone was up in the air, Abra went ahead and followed suit. He found a spot that was on a different level from everyone else, put on a burst of speed, and zoomed his way around the first bend, flattening himself to his broom. He didn't need to think too much about what he was going to work on today, given that he'd already known what they'd be working on and therefore had had the time to think on it. Sloth Grip Rolls were sort of his specialty, but there was no such thing as too much practice, and he also wanted to dedicate some time to the Wronski Feint... and now was his chance.

Round and round the pitch flew Abra, trying to keep a perfect racing line around the entire circuit, even though that didn't really matter. They were only warming up, but Abra quite simply wanted to go fast. Always. All the time. Fast fast fast.

Once they'd all completed a few laps, Abra veered off into the middle of the pitch. Hovering there, he stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled to get everyone's attention.

"Okay everyone!" he called to them all, looking exhilarated and windswept (and extra extra cold) after the laps they had flown. "Time to get started. Everyone decide on your moves, group up if necessary, and let's get practicing. If anyone needs any ideas or other help, I'm right here." It was sort of what he was there for.

Abra flew down towards the trunk that held all the Quidditch balls. Giving it a kick, he opened it up to free the practice bludgers, threw the Quaffle up to be retrieved by whoever got to it first, but left the snitch where it was. His own chosen moves didn't actually require an actual snitch grab, but he'd be sure to try a few catches in the latter half of their session on the pitch, because it seemed unwise not to practice catching it at all.