Like Riding a What Now? Errand Finished

[font=black jack]21st May 2021 @Dealla Prince You can join Lily if you want[/font]

You walk to the Quidditch pitch. Why? You don't know, but it seems that something is going to happen there. You're curious, you couldn't help but go. Once you reach the Quidditch pitch, you see something that you haven't seen since the last time you were in London. Bikes.
Before going to Hogwarts, you rode your bike almost everywhere. So obviously you know how to do it. You are not the only one who has heard that something is happening because other people are coming into the field. You get closer to the bikes as Dealla Prince, the Ravenclaw prefect says:
-[font=black jack]Welcome, welcome!
Come, pick up a bike over there. If you already know how to ride one, off you go, although I encourage you to help your less experienced friends out if they need it. If you need some instructions, come over here.[/font]
So the idea is to ride a bike. It's simple! You approach the bikes again and choose one, light blue with a basket in the front. It looks a lot like the one you have in London. Passing in front of Dealla, you say to her:
- [font=black jack]It's a great initiative! I'm sure half the people here have never seen a bicycle in their entire life.[/font]
You push your bike a little further before you get on it. It's been almost a year since you haven't done one so you're starting out slow. At first, you take a simple walk around the Quidditch pitch. You start to speed up a bit. In the second round, you slalom between the posts that support the goals. You've never seen them so close!
After doing a few laps and experimenting with several tricks, you return to Dealla and the group of wizards who cannot ride a bicycle. You put the blue bike back in its place and you take another one, an ATV this time. You want to do more than just walks around the Quidditch pitch. Especially since there, you were only on the edge (your bike can not really roll on the grass and the unevenness of the ground).
You get on the bike and accelerate to do two or three tricks. The dewy grass is perfect for little slips so you have fun. That's kind of what the prefect asked!

341 words/800
Without counting the words of Dealla

Mentions | @Dealla Prince
closed for interactions except for | @Kazuo Shimada | @Jack Burnett

Ileen strolled around the bikes after Dee’s short instruction and waited for other people to pick up one of the bikes. It was the first event Dee had organized as a prefect and as the perfectly good friend she was Ileen had shown up to support her.
Another motivation to be here was her aversion to the arrogance of many purebloods that she had developed over the years. She herself - a pureblood as well, but of course totally different in that matter - had ridden a bike countless times at home in New Zealand. Her father had taught her to and together they had explored the countryside and even did some small downhill trails.
A little wistfully, she looked at the colorful bicycles and allowed herself a brief moment of sentimentality. But then she remembered that her parents had abandoned and rejected her, that they had lied and were not worth her missing them.
No. Instead of reminiscing, she would watch the arrogant purebloods fail at riding bicycles - seeing them fail was her second and almost bigger motivation.
Oh, and if someone she actually liked and deserved showed up, she would help them, of course. Additionally, she could probably practice her healing skills if someone got hurt.

She closed her eyes and briefly enjoyed the warming sun on her face before she plopped down in the grass with a sigh. She had exchanged her school uniform for comfortable jeans and a t-shirt with fringed sleeves. She had tied her dark brown hair into a ponytail so that it wouldn't fall into her eyes. Liv, her little mean cat was also with her, curld up next to her and purring - giving the wrong impression of being a peaceful and nice pet.
While she waited for the chaos to unfold before her, she took a shiny apple out of her pocket and bit into it. This whole situation reminded her a bit of the parkour she and Dee had watched and then participated in almost a year ago. A smile spread across her lips as she watched her best friend support people who needed help. It was a really cool idea with a lot of entertainment value for everyone.

Word Count | 339

Mentioning
@Dealla Prince
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Bike-To-Work-Day wasn't something Ruka would have been aware of if it hadn't been for Dealla organising an errand for it. He'd been quick to agree to joining the event, hadn't thought twice about it despite the fact that riding a bike wasn't something he'd ever done before or had ever really had the urge to do. He was perfectly fine getting wherever he wanted to go with his feet touching the ground, thank you very much.

Still, Ruka couldn't find it in himself to stay away when Dealla had personally told him about it. It was her first errand after all and he figured she would like the support, would appreciate some familiar faces.

So when he got to the Quidditch Pitch, dressed in his school uniform, minus the robes, he was quick to offer her a wave and a small chuckle at the sight of her pink flowery bike. She was clearly used to the way it worked, didn't seem to wobble as she pushed the vehicle forward by pushing the pedals with her feet. Ruka couldn't even start to understand how physics worked in favour of staying upright on a thing like that, but he grabbed one of the bicycles anyway. An orange one that had immediately caught his eye, with dark red outlines of flames spread across the frame. There was no basket, but the bell on it was coloured like a flame and it made him smile excitedly.

Listening intently as Dee explained how riding a bike worked, Ruka mustered his own new vehicle, smoothing a hand across the handles and letting the bell ring once when Dealla stopped for breath for a second. The sound made him want to repeat it but he held himself back until Dee was actually finished with her explanations. Once she was, he rang the bell a couple more times, giggling brightly at the sound. He had half a mind to just spend the errand like this, standing next to his bike and ringing the flame bell, maybe take it for a little walk around the pitch, but he assumed that wasn't exactly the point.

So against all his instincts, Ruka swung a leg across the bike to try and mimic what Dealla had shown them about riding a bike. The saddle was a little high, or maybe he was just too short, but he couldn't really get himself high enough to sit down, so he tried to hook his foot into the loop on one of the pedals to push himself up on, but the thing gave way under his foot and pushed the bike forward, causing him to stumble along, hands clinging desperately to the handle as he forced the bike to come to a halt again.

"Devil's creation," he muttered, glaring at the bike before ringing the bell again to relieve some frustration. The sound made him giggle with delight.

Taking a deep breath, Ruka tried again, making sure the pedal was all the way down already before he stepped on it and hoisted himself up and onto the saddle. His second foot found the other pedal with some difficulty, kicking against the loop attached to it multiple times before simply stepping on it and pressing down. The bike moved, wobbly but forward, and Ruka let out an ungraceful sound of terror as he watched the front wheel shaking - left, right, left right - as if to indicate its refusal to cooperate with him. It did that for an agonisingly long moment before Ruka could feel the entire thing tilting to his left. He wanted to move his foot, steady himself so he would't fall along with his bike, but he got caught in the loop and his frantic kicking only served his fall to be even more painful that it probably would have been normally already.

With a horrified squeak, Ruka could feel himself hitting the ground, could feel the bike painfully squeezing his thigh as the bell rang cheerfully due to the impact. The sound still elicited a small chuckle from Ruka as he robbed himself away from the killing machine on two wheels. His left foot still struggled with the loop on the pedal but he finally managed to get free from it and pulled his knees up to his chest so he could rub a hand across his sore ankles and over the thigh that had been caught under the bike just a moment before. There were small black stains across the fabric, and he must have gotten caught on a wire of some sort because a hole was starting to form in his trousers, just above his knee.

"Damnit," he muttered as he pushed himself back on his feet again. For the moment he decided to leave his bike in the grass, where it belonged, as he let his gaze drift across the students who had arrived to join the errand. Maybe he was going to find someone who seemed adept at riding a bike, and maybe they could teach him how to tame the wild beast.

Maybe they could do it before he had any chance of further embarrassing himself in front of Dealla.

|Word Count|
864/800

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It was nearly the end of Amelia's first year at Hogwarts, and she had surprisingly never participated in an errand before. She had saw them advertised in her common room and had heard students talking about them in the halls, but had never paid any particular attention to them. That was until today, Amelia didn't want to finish her first year without doing at least one errand, so when this errand popped up, she knew she had to participate. According to the Ravenclaw Prefect, it was International Bike-to-Work Day, which is a strange thing to celebrate, but Muggles like to celebrate weird things.

Amelia knew what a bike was, she had a bike of her own and she knew how to ride on it without falling flat on her face. She honestly didn't understand why wizards didn't use bikes, they were very easy to ride once you got the hang of it, and they were a more suitable alternative to broomsticks if you were afraid of heights or flying.

She did suspect it would be great entertainment to see purebloods falling on their face as they try to move the bike around the pitch. Amelia arrived on the pitch and went straight to the bikes after listening to the Ravenclaw's introduction, her eyes settled on a bright pink bike with white flowers painted all over it, she grabbed it and maneuvered it farther away from the collection of bikes so she had more space. It had been a while since Amelia had last rode a bike, but she swung her left leg over and sat down on the seat with all the confidence of a professional bike rider. She put both feet on the pedals, trying to adjust to the feeling of using a bike again after not using one for an entire year. Once she felt she was comfortable enough, she started pedaling around in circles to get familiar with riding a bike again.

When she had gotten used to the feeling of being on a bike again, she started pedaling faster, enjoying the feeling of the wind in her hair. She kept riding around in circles for a few more minutes before she stopped pedaling and surveyed the people around her. Some were successfully riding the bike but others weren't so lucky, they had supposedly decided that the ground was lonely and needed a few hugs. This was, admittedly, an interesting idea for an errand, but a fun one nonetheless.

Word Count: 412/800

Kazuo stood just outside the doors, eyes staring up at the gray sky with trepidation. Growing up in Tokyo, he knew that ominous colour all too well. The threat of rain was a solid sign to turn around and find a cozy nook to read in, not venture further away from comfort and shelter, risking a drenching. Yet he had agreed to meet Jack out on the Quidditch pitch for another questionable errand. He'd missed the fire safety errand, too busy to bother - and besides he wasn't particularly interested in the topic; he'd gotten the fire safety talk from his parents. He wasn't interested in this topic either but Jack had insisted, some annoying arguments about lazy pureblood and kidnapping. He had relented, begrudgingly, when Jack had pointed out that toddlers could ride bikes but couldn't help the growing ominous feeling that he was about to be the target of much embarrassment.

His gaze cast about the pitch, taking in the setup Dee had prepared for her students. He paused near the bikes, looking around for Jack but not seeing him. He did spot a certain annoying Knight, though, and that just made this whole errand ten times more annoying. No doubt she would mock him. Best to avoid her altogether. The last thing he wanted to deal with was Miss Superiority Complex. He examined the bikes, giving a small wave to Dee as she explained their parts and how to ride, wondering if there was a difference between any of them. The bikes he had seen in Tokyo were street bikes, for travelling on pavement but some of these looked different. They had fatter tires with aggressive treads and some sort of lever on the handle near the brakes. He frowned, looking at them with indecision, then finally settled on a simple looking street bike with a red frame.

Bike chosen, he drew it away from the rest then straddled the bar, keeping his feet firmly planted. He glanced around at the other kids attempting to ride, noting that some seemed to simply be taking advantage of Dee’s lesson to access the bikes, happily riding around the field and even tackling her little course. Others, like a certain firefox, were just as incapable as he was and that brought a small grin to his face. If Ruka didn’t know how to ride a bike, surely it couldn’t be that strange that he didn’t know either. He winced slightly when Ruka went over though. “それが私に起こらないことを願っています (Sore ga watashi ni okoranai koto o negatte imasu - I hope that doesn’t happen to me)” He murmured as he carefully shifted so that he was seated uncomfortably on the oddly shaped seat. Superior in comfort to a broom but still awkward, precarious-feeling. One foot found a pedal yet when he put his weight on it, the damn thing shifted, pushing the bike forward unexpectedly. He hopped along awkwardly until the pedal hit the low point and he was able to stop the bike. Well. How was he supposed to gain some sort of balance on it if it moved every time he tried? Maybe Jack would have some advice.

Word Count: 535/800

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OOTD

@Jack Burnett
@Ileen Knight
@Dealla Prince
@Ruka Burnett-Tân

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Interacting with @Dealla Prince
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Samantha's thouhts

Samantha had never been to an errand before, but this errand just seemed made for her, so she had to go. She loved biking, mainly because she grew up with it. Every weekend she and her dad would go biking, so you could say Samantha was pretty experienced at it.

If she didn't know how to bike she would never have come here, why would anybody make a fool out of them self by trying to bike. The fact that some of the children at Hogwarts didn't know how to bike was really weird for Sam, growing up all her friends knew how to bike. She had to remind herself that she didn't know how to ride a broom when she first arrived at Hogwarts, and that was a normal thing for wizards.

The young raven was one of the first to arrive to the quidditch pitch. After listening to Dee, Samantha ran to the bikes that seemed to be in every possible size and colour. "Nope, to big," she walked past the rows of bikes: "Ugly, to big, to big again. Ewwh, no way, never, way to girly. Samantha looked at the pink bike with the most disgusted look on her face, she was never going to sit on that bike. The bike had pink and white flower all over the front of the bike. Letting her eyes roll away from the pink bike, over the other bikes she spotted a green one, it looked like it was meant for a boy, but she didn't care. As the girl got closer she saw that the seat was a little to high for her, nothing she couldn't fix. She had seen her father placing the seat higher all the time, so the only difference was that now it should be lower.

After she had lowered the seat, Samantha went off, in the distance she heard a bell ringing. She biked around the whole pitch, the wind trough her hair and her feet on the pedals, going as fast as possible. She loved the feeling of freedom, being able to just bike, not having to think about anything. The young girl had missed biking a lot every day at Hogwarts. It couldn't hurt to ask to the organizer if she could keep the bike.

The grass made it a bit harder to bike, but she didn't mind. The grass was handy for the inexperienced students, to break their fall if necessary, maybe there should even be helmets for the people who can't bike yet. Of course any kind of injury could be fixed with a bit of magic, but an ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure.

After biking for about 10 minutes Samantha decided she should see if anybody needed help, she was happy to help those less experienced then her. One of the reasons being to show of how good she was at biking. The girl drove back to the bikes, hitting the breaks just in time to not hit any of the other bikes. She stepped of her bike and walked to Dealla, Ravenclaw prefect and the organizer of the errand.

With the green bike in her hand Samantha said:"Heyy, first off all, I love this errand, you did an awesome job! And secondly could I help you with something? Maybe helping the students who have never biked before or something like that?" Samantha being her talkative self started to ramble to the prefect: "I though maybe you could use some help and I can bike really good, it's like walking for me. And I also wanted to ask, can I keep this bike?," Samantha nodded her head to the bike she was holding,"Just for here of course, because at home I already have a bike, but I wasn't allowed to take that one with me to school from my mom. It would be the same as the brooms really, you know, of course it would be really my bike, but I would just use it."

After having all that said she waited for the answers on all her questions. Instead of being a normal human being and asking one question at a time, she had asked multiple questions at ones.

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Sam's outfit (without the bag and belt):

Word count: 706
Post I ~ Post II ~ Post III

It had been quite a while since Jack had participated in an errand with as busy as he had been regarding his studies and everything else going on in his life. This particular errand, however, didn't seem as much like an errand as it seemed like a leisurely activity to do in order to relax - at least for a muggleborn kid such as himself. It also promised to provide a decent amount of entertainment.

Somehow, something he had said had managed to convince Kazuo to attend the bike-riding errand. Jack had no idea how the pureblood boy would fare, but he was willing to bet the high-and-mighty Shimada would taste the bitter flavor of failure more than once that day before sipping the sweet nectar of success. Of course, that was provided he didn't give up from frustration first.

Upon making it to the designated area on the Quidditch pitch, Jack picked a bike. He wasn't choosy and just grabbed the first one that seemed a decent fit for his height. Once obtained, he slipped a leg over the side and sat astride it before beginning to push the pedals. Like the other kids who had ridden before, it had been quite a few months since his last bike ride, so he was still a little rusty. However, as the saying went, once you learned how to ride a bike, you never forgot. It was in his muscle memory and it didn't take him long to get the hang of it again.

Just as he was eyeing the obstacle courses, a few familiar faces caught his attention out the corners of his peripheral vision. He hadn't paid much attention to them before due to having been lost in his own thoughts while getting used to the bike, but now he couldn't ignore them. Ruka, of course, stood out to him first and foremost; particularly because he couldn't seem to stop ringing the bell on the bike he had borrowed. Jack smiled slightly at the notion.

When he noticed Dealla, however, that smile was wiped away and an impassive expression hid suppressed jealousy. The Welsh boy was not fond of how close the two had gotten since he had first learned they had met which had been after the first meeting between Dealla and himself. Whether he was more jealous of Ruka or Dealla, he wasn't sure, but he knew he had no right to be and was thus ashamed of his childish feelings. Irritated with himself, he turned away - only to notice Ileen, Dealla's (best?) friend, by herself. He wondered if Ileen felt similarly about Dealla's friendships with others as he did with Ruka's.

Then there was Kazuo. The redhead outright grinned upon spotting him and he waved him over before heading toward Ileen who was near the other bikes. If he remembered right, Ileen was a pureblood, too. Did she know how to ride?

"Hey, Shimatta!" Jack called, purposefully mispronouncing the Hufflepuff's name. "Get over here! We should get you a bike with training wheels first!"

Word Count: 508/800

@Kazuo Shimada, @Ileen Knight, @Dealla Prince, & @Ruka Burnett-Tân

Winnie was seated cross-legged in the Ravenclaw section of the bleachers. It was a beautiful day outside for someone as fair-skinned as she was, so she wanted to soak up some of the non-existent sunshine and reread a few pages of 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' by the ever famous Newt Scamander. So was so engrosses with her book she barely noticed the small crowd starting to gather until Dealla Prince and Lily Cooper started talking and explaining the errand.
She, of course, knew who Dealla was, given that she was a Ravenclaw prefect, but had never had the opportunity to talk to her. She raised her brows as she watched the bikes being paraded in. Growing up with a Muggle mother and a wizard father who refused to use magic unless necessary, she already knew how to ride a bike. Watching seemed like it would be fun, however.

Being an introvert, part of her had no desire to go down and join in, but Winnie had also hardly made any friends at Hogwarts, despite it being May of her first year. Considering she was also highly empathic, she also didn't want to see people get hurt, especially if she could help them! Another part of her, however, saw the chocolate frogs and couldn't help but want one. Eventually, her stomach won the internal argument.

She carefully placed a bookmark inside of her book to keep her place, then closed it and placed it securely in her bag. She swung the bag over her shoulder, stood up, and made her way down the bleachers. She slowly walked through the soft green grass until she was standing nearby the other students, anxiety rising in her throat. She cleared it and tried to smile, "excuse me... If anyone would like some assistance, I'm pretty well versed in bike ridin'." She said with a light Irish accent.

Word Count: 316/800.