f l y i n g |hufflepuff team|

[violethorses]

Azzurra had scheduled a team practice for the first Saturday that she could get, but it had seemed to take a long time in coming. She was already exhausted from a combination of schoolwork, her job, and trying to keep up the "I'm fine" act. At least Quidditch would give her some relief, she hoped.

She levitated the box of balls with her wand, as it was too heavy for her to easily carry by herself. Once at the Quidditch Pitch, she allowed the box to plop to the ground. Azzurra checked her watch; she was ten minutes early. Figuring that she might as well fly around a bit before the others arrived, she mounted her broom.

Azzurra pushed off hard from the ground, forcing herself into the air. A cool breeze passed by her face and Azzurra smiled, suddenly feeling quite a bit better. She circled the pitch a couple of times and did a loop-de-loop to get the feel of flying back before she spotted a familiar figure beneath her. She flew lower to see who had come early.

[doodle]

Blaize came by first, quite fittingly as he was the co-captain. He had been doing a lot of practicing on his own, bewitching Quaffles to fly at him so he could block them. But now he would be practicing with actual people. Blaize nodded his greeting, keeping his broom shouldered. He looked around, not minding that he was early.

[julie]

Julie came next, broom in hand and hair pulled back into a tight braid so it would not get in her face. She was looking forward to Quidditch serving as a distraction for her, so far homework and her job still didn't keep her mind off of... certain things. She was plenty busy, but she needed to be entirely exhausted in order to sleep at night. "Hello," Julie said, keeping up her usual act of cheerfulness, even if she knew that Azzurra would never believe her charade.

[kaia]

Kaia finished putting her hair up into a ponytail just as she arrived at the Quidditch pitch, broom under her arm. She smiled toward Blaize and Julie, but waited until Azzurra landed near them before speaking. "Hello," she said, glad that she had arrived early. The Hufflepuff team tended to be punctual.

[violethorses]

"Hello!" Azzurra said cheerfully as she landed on the grass beside her teammates. She glanced at all three of them, but her gaze lingered on Julie a split-second longer to see how she was doing. Julie seemed to be keeping up her cheerful act pretty well. "We can all just fly around for a bit until everyone arrives and then we can discuss practice," Azzurra said. She placed her leg back around her broom and prepared to take off once more.

[julie]

Julie nodded, throwing her leg over the side of her broom and kicking off. She urged her broom as fast as it could go, and once she was content with that, began working on feinting. Julie had always wanted to perfect the Wrongski Feint, it was difficult, and its uses were better served in professional Quidditch, but that wasn't going to stop her. Julie dove, taking her broom as close to the ground as she could before spiraling out of the dive and going right back up.