"Why do I do this to myself?" Katy asked the grey sky wearily.

She lay flat on her back staring up at the sky, getting her sweater wet with morning dew.  It was early on Sunday morning, meaning the Quidditch Pitch was empty.  Thank Heavens, too.  Otherwise someone might have witnessed her embarrassing and ungainly fall.  Katy with a wince and looked around the field near her for the bat she'd brought with her from the shed.  It was lying some ways away, surprising considering she'd only been five feet off the ground when she'd tried flying one-handed with a beater's bat in the other. 

She was hopeless, she really was.  Art and sports; two things she would never be good at.  So why did she even try?  She wasn't sure herself.  She only knew that there was an allure to the sport.  It relied on the swift actions of every single teammate to win and a part of her longed to be a part of a system like that.  Competent and vital.  Katy dejectedly leaned down to pick up the school broom and the stab of pain in her spine reminded her that she was far from competent and likely would never get much better.

"Oh well, there's always Charms homework to practice," she comforted herself.  At least her performance was acceptable in that.

It was another grey, cloudy morning and mornings - as a rule - happened to be when Raine woke for her exercise routine. There were no exceptions: not even Sundays, as her Quidditch players knew well enough during the lead up to their match earlier in the month. Only now the match was over and so Raine had long returned to her customarily solitary habits.

The redhead was dressed in layers; riding trousers, her house sweater over a thermal camisole. No robes... Merlin knew why anyone flew with those at any rate, they were much more aerodynamic without them. She was just emerging from the locker room, on to the quidditch pitch, when she saw it happen.

What in the name of Godric Gryffindor was that girl trying to do? Raine halted as soon as she stepped foot on the green, staring at the figure that had just been flung off a broom with alarming gracelessness. A Beater's bat had gone spiralling in one direction, the girl in another. It was almost spectacular.

That must have hurt terrifically. Raine crossed the pitch towards the younger witch- she held her broom in one hand and flying goggles in another. Drawing closer, it was easier to recognize who it was. Evans... no, Bevans. Huffie. Most certainly not on their team, she was sure.

"Are you alright?" the prefect called out when she was close enough, noting that the fourth year appeared to be moving fine. "I'd advise learning to sweep with that broom. You might have better success," she smiled down at her, wryly, before offerring a hand. "Come on, get up... and tuck in your stomach. Your back will hurt less."

"I'd advise learning to sweep with that broom. You might have better success."

Katy blushed from the roots of her hair to the tips of her toes. At least that's what it felt like when she found that she'd been caught out.  How could she be so stupid as to lose track of time?  The serious Quidditch players always practiced in the off hours.  And the Gryffindor Keeper was a serious Quidditch player.  She had special goggles and trouser and everything.  How incredibly, stupidly embarrassing.  She hated it.  The fire in her gut began to burn.

She ignored the offered hand and heaved herself up.  She gasped involuntarily at the twinge in her spine but did as the older girl said about tucking in and grudgingly gave her points for being right.  "I'm fine," Katy growled.  She tugged her hair back into a pony tail because she was suddenly overheating with the anger and shame roiling together in her stomach like angry rats. 

Katy walked over to her broom and picked it up.  She busied herself with straightening and plucking the bent straw from its collision with the ground.  Although ostensibly she was seeing to the borrowed broom, she was highly attuned to Raine Almasy's presence.  Katy shuffled off towards the broom shed, hoping she hadn't been recognized.  Surely the whole school would know by lunch that she was a ridiculous fool.  She'd never come out here again, that's for sure.  How embarrassing.

Well, wasn't she a feisty Hufflepuff.

Raine smirked as she fourth year struggled on to her feet and began tending to the mess of a broom. It was one of the weathered models that they kept for the first year flying classes or players who had broken their own. Not perfect but certainly flight-worthy.

For some, anyway. Not everyone took to flying all that easily... you needed to have good balance and, of course, some adaptability. She pulled on her goggles, letting it stay loose around her neck; and then, watching Bevans begin to leave the pitch, Raine narrowed her gaze thoughtfully.

"Was that it?" she called after the retreating back, a purposefully disappointed note in her voice. "You fall off your broom and give up?" Some tenacity might have been expected from someone so disgruntled that they wouldn't accept a helping hand up. The prefect tilted her head, a hand on her hip.

"That won't get you anywhere, even off the field."

"I beg your pardon?" Katy snapped, whipping around.

Give up?  How dare she!  Katy strode back to face the Gryffindor Captain.  She glared up at Raine, her face twisted in an angry pout.  What in God's name did this girl know about her and what she could do? 

"I'm not giving up," Katy insisted.  "It's not giving up if you're just not meant to fly.  It's smart."

It was, she told herself.  If kept going, if she pushed herself too high then she might get hurt or killed.  She wasn't good enough for the risk to be worth it.  Her back hurt, her head hurt.  All she really wanted to do was slink back to her dorm and crawl into bed.  She wasn't giving up, she was just facing facts.

Apparently she hit a sore spot. Raine's fiery eyebrows went up both in surprise and amusement as the slightly shorter witch marched up to her, indignant. To be honest, she might have had very little respect for anyone who reacted differently.

"It's not giving up if you're just not meant to fly.  It's smart," Bevans explained.

The redhead held her broom upright, leaning against it as she looked down at the other girl.

"No," she said, deadpan. "Smart is learning how to balance on a broom before picking up a Beater's bat. Smart is never trying to learn something like that without anyone else around to catch you."

It was her Captain's tone speaking now; critical and serious- though not particularly harsh. With Mairead and Erik on her team, harsh wasn't a good approach.

"You could have been a lot higher when you fell," Raine made a gesture skywards. "And it might have been hours before someone found you..." she trailed off and nodded at Katy's broom. "If you ever want to try that again: both hands on the broom."

Katy deflated and stared at her scuffed sneakers.  All of her anger vanished and she was left with a deep, gnawing sensation that was so much worse than embarrassment.  Shame, horrible and justified. Raine's steady and informed tone of voice instantly reminded Katy of her mother and the way she'd admonish Katy for getting in a fight at school for her best friend Bryn.  It was that you-should-know-better voice that really got to her because she did know better.  She was intelligent and she ought not to have let her fear of being laughed at make her doing something so dangerous alone.

"I'm..."  She looked off at the far end's goal posts, took a deep breath, and looked at Raine.  "You're right," she admitted finally.

And then she did something she hated to do more than anything, more than failing.  She asked for help.  "If you ever have time, could you, possibly, give me some pointers?  I don't really know what I'm doing."

Oh, Merlin, she was starting to sound like her Governess. Raine did not enjoy getting lectured... and if she was honest, being on the other hand of an admonishment was not a terribly good feeling either. But Katy wasn't one of the frivolous, chatty fourth years and she didn't take her words as further challenge.

"If you ever have time, could you, possibly, give me some pointers?  I don't really know what I'm doing."

Well that was apparent enough, what with Beater bats getting flung into the air in erratic directions. She considered the request briefly: there wasn't enough hours in the day to complete her existing responsibilities much less this but...

"I'll tell you what," Raine replied: "If you catch me here again, I'll give you some advice about how to balance on that stick without throwing yourself off. That's all you really need to know before picking up a bat or a ball."

Perhaps little Bevans was going in for a badger Quidditch match. Amusing.

"You would be better off asking someone from your team about anything more..." the prefect trailed off as she swung her own broom up into position; she lithely mounted it, tips of her boots barely scraping the ground. "And maybe issue the rest of us a warning before you kick off?" Raine flashed her schoolmate a fleeting smile-- much more good-humoured than it had been at the start.

With a quick, forceful push, she was finally up in the air; glancing back down only when Katy was a tiny blotch against the green pitch.

Katy sighed as she watched Raine fly away.  She'd been asked to join the Quidditch team, merely because she'd shown the slightest interest in it by coming out to fly early in the morning about once a week.  Anyone who'd seen her fly, though, would know she would never be good at it.  Why they would ask her to join was beyond her.  The only thing she could think of was that the team was desperate to put players of any kind on the pitch.  Didn't they care that some of them might get seriously injured? 

While chewing on her lip in concentration, she crossed the pitch and left the beater's bat by the stands.  Raine was right, she ought to work up to that and just be comfortable on a broom first.  She kicked off and hesitantly began to circle the pitch, nice and wide and slow.  After five minutes or so, with the wind ruffling her hair and her balance much more steadied, she actually began to enjoy herself.  She leaned forward a tiny bit and increased her speed just a bit.  This wasn't so bad.  Not really.  The grass whizzed by about five to six feet beneath her. 

Large, gently circles were unlikely to resemble any kind of pattern she'd be required to fly in an actual game.  The more she thought about it, the more her patience wore away.  She didn't want to embarrass herself or her house.  Katy began to cut the circle in a little closer in order to test her balance.  Then she resolutely turned her broom to the center of the pitch to try a figure 8.  As she began to curve in the opposite direction, her broom wobbled from side to side.  Her heart raced, she over-corrected and sailed to the outside.  She landed with a huff  but got back up, retrieved the broom that was hovering patiently a short ways away, and got back on.  She'd could do this.