Accepting the Sunset Solo Finished

✿ Backdated ✿
September 5th, After Dinner

After the chaos that was her summer camp, remembering what it was like to be a muggle, what is was like to be a daughter, a friend. There were nights when her thoughts became foggy and overwhelmed. This was one of those nights. She had spent dinner feeling disconnected and lost in thoughts that seemed to plague her thoughts more than normal. Quidditch practices would be starting up again soon, and she dreaded it. Something that used to bring her so much joy, so much freedom, now felt constraining and suffocating.

The "Whomping" Willow Anderson, First String Keeper of Hufflepuff found herself wandering to the Quidditch Training Pitch after dinner. It was almost like she had been drifting in a daze, her feet carrying her more than her own intention was. When she came to, she was standing in the middle of the pitch. Somewhere you generally end up when you've been knocked off your broom. Her body slowly lowered itself until she was splayed out on the grass. Kind of like the Starfish she failed to be in the Durmstrang game. She had only played a whole two games in her Quidditch career since she didn't become the first string keeper until late in her first year. It was the game that won them the ticket to being the representative for Hogwarts. She had blocked a goal, caught her captain Saskia, and then it was all over. Serena had always been the real star of the Quidditch team, always seeming to catch the snitch to end the game quickly. Willow's adrenaline and hope for the next game were high.

The Durmstrang vs Hogwarts game was supposed to be an honor, a privilege to be the team to play against them. But instead, they showed up for a slaughter. It was a miracle that they had won, especially with Willow failing time after time against the chaser on the other team. No matter what she did, she couldn't succeed. She even stooped to their level and cheated and earned herself a penalty lap in front of her friends and school that she was working to make proud. The crowd eventually felt like a nuisance rather than a joy. Hundreds of eyes watching them struggle and sitting by watching member after member of the Hufflepuff team plummet to the ground. Not being able to fly down to her friends, her teammates, destroyed her. She wanted to call off the game, demand they were seen to immediately. But no, the game had to go on. The game always has to go on.

It was becoming something she couldn't handle, she wanted out.

The deciding factor came when she watched them all break down in St. Mungo's. The boy who had laughed at her attacking her captain, her blind fury as she ran in to tackle him, her co-captain pulling her off. The sickening crack of a slow and steady broken bone by her gentle giant of a captain. Pushed to the edge because of this stupid game they had all volunteered to play. The horror in her face, the feeling of Aaron and May's hands in hers because they also couldn't believe what they had just seen. That was the moment she knew she needed out. A game that could push her to act like that, for others to act like that, was not one she wanted to be involved in. Especially since she was an incredibly useless team member in the first place.

Steady hot tears had started to flow down her face without her realizing. That was the last game she would ever play and that would be her last memory of playing. That moment would be the one that would stick in her head about her team. The bad seemed to scream over the good in staying, and it didn't seem like that would change. This pitch that had become a center of excitement and thrill now just make a shiver go up her spine in anticipation of someone falling to the ground. It felt like she was falling despite laying flat on the ground.

The sun was slowly setting, painting the skies with beautiful purples, pinks, and oranges. Willow attempted to memorize the pattern of the sky at the moment of this decision, the moment of recognition that she would leave the team with a single owl to her captain once she returned to the castle. This moment of utter sadness and bitterness contradicting the softness of the sky.

Her time on the team had set, and it was time for her to accept it.

Slowly she sat up, wiped her tears on the sleeve of her robe. Eventually she stood all the way up and lightly dusted herself off. Robotic and stiff moments dragged her off of the field. There was no point in staying there to second or triple guess her decision. On the edge of the pitch there was a final look over her shoulder at the melted greens under an ever blurred sky. A deep sigh escaping from her lips. An ending to a chapter that had barely been started.

With that final look, she turned back and left the pitch for the last time as a player.