~Falling~ Closed

"Alright!" Edith ran and picked up her broom. Her heart was pounding and her knees were shaking, but she trusted this girl. She took her hand. "My name's Edith. Edith Woods. What's yours?"

"Zoe Reijanna Wheatcraft." Her voice, previously a little bored, flat, and angry, became a little more interested and light. Blond hair waving and curling in her face, she held Edith's hand with her own pale one. She started to slowly ascend into the sky, gently pulling Edith off the soft dewey grass and into the slightly cloudy, bright sky. Edith's small shoes brushed the grass, lifting off the ground lightly. "But you're going to call me Reij." She leaned back hard on the pale polished broom and concentrated, feeling the pull of gravity and lure of the sky, the cold wind and slight humidity that made the air a little wet. Suddenly, the broom rushed past the tall bushes, rocketing up into the canopy level of trees, faster and faster into the blue of the sky. Still she grasped onto Edith's small hand, pulling the short girl into the beautiful privilege given to those with magic, the privilege of flying and soaring into the sky. They rushed forward, first 20 feet above the ground, 35, 40. At 50 feet above the ground, she stopped abruptly. She flicked her wand again and looked down at Edith who was dangling and holding onto her broom. "Arresto Momentum. Okay. I'm going to let you go, ready?"

"R-ready as I'll ever be!" That was a lie of course. As soon as they had started to ascend, her heart started to beat faster, and her teeth were chattering. The ground became smaller, and too soon was it time to get on her own broom. Edith knew she wouldn't let her fall. Gripping the handle of her broom, she got on. She didn't fall. She surely wasn't flying, but she was hovering. It was shaky and she was unbalanced, but it was a start. Soon she realized that the world had begun to rotate, and she soon she was upside-down. She was staring at the ground in terror until her feet slipped off and she was hanging by her hands. "What now?" She asked in a small, quivering voice. Her grip began to loosen, and she squeezed her eyes shut as she awaited her instructions.

"Get. Angry." Reij tilted her broom do the nose was pointed at Edith, giving Reij a full view. "Some people will tell you to channel your zen or some crap. But that's not true! There's multiple ways to skin a ray, and there's multiple ways to cast a spell. Command the broom! Yell at it! Feel everything and twist it to your wants and desires." Reij's face contorted, her eyes hardening and her mouth becoming an angry line. "Everyone has things deep down inside them. They have emotions and thoughts and feelings buried real deep down in their souls. They have things they repress and bury and hide because its too hard, because its uncomfortable and they don't want to see those things. They don't like them." She calmed down slightly, and her eyes became less angry, and more focused. "Look down deep and feel those things in yourself and use them. Use them to control the broom. Use those emotions as a sword to bend the will of the broom. Control it! Tell it that it must right you, spin till you sit on top. Make it fly and turn." Reij got her wand pulled and grasped it in her hands, ready to stop her from falling. "Do it."

Nobody had ever told her to get angry. Had she ever really gotten angry before. She lived by bottling her feelings up and then crying in secret. But it sure did feel good to get angry. She squeezed her eyes shut and thought about everything that had gone wrong since she came to this school. For one, she had made no friends. Both of her hands were now gripping the broom. She was made fun of for being a mud-blood, why couldn't she just be like the other students? She swung her feet up and the broom turned into neutral position. The single thing that made her the angriest was herself. She was still the sniffling doormat she was before coming to this school. The broom leveled. She didn't fall. In fact, she didn't even waver. Her broom was completely level. Opening her eyes was easy now. The ground below didn't scare her. A smile spread across her face and she actually laughed. She hadn't laughed in a long time. Her life was finally changing, she could sense it. And it all started with today.