Ski and Snowboard Association
All best decisions commence in arbitrary endeavours. They commence in the courage to say: ‘I will try.’
The assembled crowd carried mostly faces of strangers. The majority of them a motley group of first years, and Archer’s eyes would scan each as they arrive, offering each a nod as a silent commendation for their dedication to his niche establishment, supported only by enigmatic posters and word of mouth. Most were faces he had never seen before, and in that, the boy was not quite certain yet if he found the comfort of a clean slate or the anxiety of foreignness. Amongst them were a few odd, familiar figures. The calming figure of Maisie Gemmell, the smudge of fierce rouge of Cecilia Merrick.
And Camille de Varenne. Oh Camille, what excuse would the two narrators spin up to have their characters reunite in such a manner? Through the absurdity of a ski club, of all places.
When most of the group seemed to have gathered and Archer counted their number, he would clap his hands together, and with both grandiosity and formality, extend a greeting. “Alright! Welcome to our first Ski and Snowboard Association meeting.” A smirk played at his lips. His eyes glimmered with an emotion rare for Archer Duncan, growing in scarcity as the days passed. It was something between pride and joy. It was something that almost carried genuine surprise. An acronym he had just coined slipped out from between his lips, “S.A.S.A., if you will.”
He continued. Whatever nervosity had led to the fingers tapping on the side of his trousers had simmered away as all that was left was a steadiness in his tone. “I won’t waste our time with introductions. Simply a roll call. Once you hear your name, please give me an affirmation. Everyone else, take this as a chance to learn each others’ faces. These are the people who will be learning alongside you.” He called out each person’s name, and marked on a clipboard whether they were present for the meeting. “If you’re already proficient in skiing — Paul and Tina, you are excused from this meeting. However, you may stay to enjoy the snacks.”
Archer gestured to the small table he had laid out next to their area of ground. Upon it lay a variety of snacks, starkly populated with protein bars and bananas. If these students were joining a ski club, they ought to get used to the nourishment that was not the overpriced chalet special.
“I have no credentials,” Archer announced. He allowed the ripple of murmurs, if it would come among the first years. He grinned. “But I do have permission and support from our lovely groundskeeper, as well as experience. My skills are mostly in free riding, which is skiing on un-groomed, natural terrain. I have never been to a resort, but I know these Scottish mountains.” His eyes trailed the rise and falls of the peaks’ spine, the paths he had traversed and the natural blanket of snow that would fall over them come wintertime. The snow here would be glorious.
His attention was swiftly returned to the assembled members before him. More knew nothing of skiing than he would have preferred. His voice calm, he laid out the agenda: “Today I will be introducing alpine skiing. This is the sport of sliding downhill on skis — the focus is descent. I will teach you the basics.”
He offered each of the beginners a pair of ski boots. They had been laid out in front of him in order of shoe size, a measurement he had asked for before their first meeting had commenced. He had instructed the to come in ski socks, given out to him to the first time skiers. “These shoes will be heavy and uncomfortable if worn incorrectly. You must unbuckle all of the buckles first, including the velcro strap. You may sit down to put your foot in, and close the buckles and velcro strap to an appropriate size.” He waited until they were ready, and would answer any questions along the way.
In front of where each of the boots had been were skis. He handed one to each of them, emphasising that the correct way to hold the pair was most certainly not like cradling a baby. He gestured to the piece of modified ground below them. “Take care to only stand on this piece of ground. I wouldn’t want you to scratch your skis with a fallen twig. Now, you will put your skis on by lining up your toe with the binding. Step your heel into it. You will hear a click. You may lift up your ski and shake it to check if it is correctly in place.”
Once all were in their skis and Archer had certainly thoroughly bored the experienced Paul and Tina, to whom he offered an apologetic smile that said what must be done ought to be done, Archer could call for their attention. “We will learn the snowplough stance.” He stepped into it to show the beginners. “You must keep the front of your skis close and the end of your skis wide apart. Your knees are rolled slightly inward while your heels ought to be pressing outwards. To slow down, push your skis outward. To stop completely, widen your stance more and push your heels down as hard as you can. To turn left, push down harder on your right heel, while keeping your left heel light. Vice versa for turning right.”
He gave the skiers ample time to try out the positions. “Now, there is no slope for you to try out on, but I hope these stances were informative. Skiing on real snow will be difficult, but I aim to host a trip to Zermatt or another year-round resort if you all manage to find time and convince your parents.”
“Before we ski for real though, let us lay some ground rules. One, downhill skier always has right of way. Two, look uphill before starting or merging. Three, only stop at the edge of trail. Four, pass with space. If someone falls, help. Especially if you know them. Still applies if you don’t. Stop by them if someone else is yet to, ask if they are alright, and alert ski patrol if you need to.” His eyes trail the assembled skiers. “Falling is normal. At a beginner stage, or at any stage, you will likely fall. Don’t be ashamed of it.”
A darker shadow passed over his face, and wind tousled long locks. “I can’t say I trust all of here.” The words were especially pointed, and at whom, it did not call for questioning. “But, if any of you do take a fall, I will always help you up.”
His voice brightened. “Questions?”
banner by Adeline Spinks
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Archer Duncan: Alpine and Nordic Skiing, Freeride Skiing
@Maisie Gemmell: Alpine and Nordic Skiing
@Cecilia Merrick: Alpine Skiing
@Camille de Varenne: Alpine Skiing
@Julia Evans: Alpine Skiing
@Dido Bleaklane: Alpine Skiing, Downhill Snowboarding
@Paul Turner: Downhill Snowboarding, Alpine Skiing, Nordic Skiing
Percy Todd Duplenticy: Nordic Skiing [untagged due to this meeting being held at Hogwarts]
@Nick Jameson: Alpine and Nordic Skiing
@Tina Carille: Alpine Skiing
@Maisie Gemmell: Alpine and Nordic Skiing
@Cecilia Merrick: Alpine Skiing
@Camille de Varenne: Alpine Skiing
@Julia Evans: Alpine Skiing
@Dido Bleaklane: Alpine Skiing, Downhill Snowboarding
@Paul Turner: Downhill Snowboarding, Alpine Skiing, Nordic Skiing
Percy Todd Duplenticy: Nordic Skiing [untagged due to this meeting being held at Hogwarts]
@Nick Jameson: Alpine and Nordic Skiing
@Tina Carille: Alpine Skiing
I am not even singed. My wings are untouched. You use them for everything, except flight.
Liliya Starkova| Anthonie Engelbrecht
Liliya Starkova| Anthonie Engelbrecht
Ski and Snowboard Association
Paul jogged to the grounds that afternoon. He was excited about the ski and snowboard club meeting, though he suspected their first meeting would only be about introductions and some basic stuff. Not much to be excited about, admittedly. Yet, even in the little, the boy found a possibility to be excited. At least, he was about to meet some new students throughout the houses.Interaction: @Archer Duncan, @Dido Bleaklane
Place: Hogwarts, Grounds
Time: ???
Actions: Getting a protein bar, helping Dido buckle her boot, talking to Archer
“Alright! Welcome to our first Ski and Snowboard Association meeting.”
Oh, this guy is the Archer Duncan from the poster? I've seen him around! He's straight to the topic. That's my sorta man! Ran through his mind.
Then, he grinned over the acronym. "Blimey, that reminds me of SAS..."Noted the boy, grinning. It was a reference to a special British army force that he remembered from Muggle History lessons. After that, Paul smirked, as he continued: "Imagine how cool parachuting with skiis on would be..."
After that, he lifted his fisted palm to the height of his eyes only to drop it, gradually opening it with a phew sound. When his palm was on the level of his stomach, he started moving it forward in small curves from one side to another, likely mimicking the moves of skiiers and snowboarders.
"Once you hear your name, please give me an affirmation. Everyone else, take this as a chance to learn each others’ faces."
When his name sounded, the boy lifted his hand and replied with yet another smirk-ish, crooked smile: "'ere! In all of m'glory!"
Archer informed him and Tina that they weren't obliged to be there. Paul waved it off. There wasn't anything more interesting for him to do anyway. "Nah, I'll stay. Can give you a hand with this lot." The boy shrugged. Calling his mates "lot" was indeed a hyperbole, nothing more.
"Wait, snacks? Great!" Paul's attention moved to the table that Archer showed, and he moved that way swiftly, quickly. Picking a chocolate covered protein bar, the boy tore the wrapper and took a bite, as Archer spoke about his credentials.
But, he has the blessing of Mr. Quintero, that's enough. He must be good at skiing, someone as cool as Mr. Quintero wouldn't just support a dabbler. THought the boy, chewing on the snack.
As his fellows started getting into the skiing boots, Paul spotted @Dido Bleaklane had trouble getting into her boots, so he chose to approach her. "Hey, noticed you're struggling. I can help." Paul smiled, kneeling down on one knee next to her. Though the scene might have seemed to be cut off a Disney fairytale, where the prince was on one knee in front of his princess, it really was merely just a coincidental similarity.
"Push your foot down first. It has to go all the way in." He instructed the poor girl. Once she managed to do it he started buckling the shoe for her. "Tell me if it's too tight." He put the metal buckle behind the third plastic lub, pressing the clip on the other side down with all his force, till it clicked with a loud click sound. "There... this part always requires brute force." Grimaced the boy, as he continued up. In approximately the middle of Dido's shoe, he stopped and looked up. "You can do the rest on your own. Remember, brute force." With that, he winked at her, grinning and standing up to move on.
After they buckled the shoes, Archer moved on to explaining how to plough, so Paul moved to the side, to get into a pair of skiing boots himself. Then he made a step forward to click his heel in the ski. He started to do plough himself carefully, not to scratch the borrowed skis.
Archer smiled apologetically at himself and Tina, so Paul waved it off, showing the Slytherin thumbs up with a supportive smile. As long as there was something to do for Turner, he was good.
"Skiing on real snow will be difficult, but I aim to host a trip to Zermatt or another year-round resort if you all manage to find time and convince your parents.”
"A-a... trip to the Switzerland?! That's super cool! Count me in right on the spot!" Exclaimed the boy, excited yet again. Snowboarding and skiing trips were the best! Never been snowboarding with school mates. We'll have so much fun! Thought the boy. "But... wait. Will someone adult be coming with us? My parents might... uh, insist on it." The boy blushed, scratching his head.
As Archer explained the rules of skiing and snowboarding safety, Paul salutated. "Aye, captain! What's next?"
Y1 Stamina: 5 | Wisdom: 7 | Evasion: 5 | Strength: 5 | ArcPower: 7 | Accuracy: 6
Y2 Stamina: 6| Wisdom: 9| Evasion: 6 | Strength: 5 | ArcPower: 8 | Accuracy: 8
Abilities: Evasive Maneuver, Statistically relevant
Ski and Snowboard Association
@Paul Turner
@Cecilia Merrick
@Archer Duncan
OOC note: Reducio1) While everything written is true for Dido, much is intentionally incorrect (eg: Dido is not in Ravenclaw)
2) also, this was vaguely written at 1am so I'm so sorry for any mistakes!
Dido was utterly disappointed by the sheer lack of flying she had managed to do over the course of her first year.
The occasional flying lesson was nice, of course, but a dreadfully large number focused on theory rather than the thrill of actually riding their brooms. Even the few unofficial broom-sport games Dido had taken part in hadn’t managed to sate her need to get back up in the air. Her desperation had grown so great that, when Mikaela was proving more difficult to find, Dido had taken to walking around and near the Quidditch pitches, just in case a Quidditch player suddenly fell ill and they desperately needed a fill-in.
So, when Tina, Dido’s closest and dearest friend, mentioned joining a club for skiing, one of the most thrilling muggle sports Dido had ever seen, she had many reasons to eagerly agree that they should have a go. For one, Tina was Dido’s best friend. Her best friend. So, of course, she had to go! More crucially though, it would satisfy Dido’s near-addiction to the adrenaline rush she had experienced when she was first lifted by one of those rickety school brooms a few feet into the air.
When the pair of girls arrived and after she had stood, breathless, for a few seconds, in pure awe at the beauty of the Scottish mountains, Dido took the moment to survey the gathered students around her. At the front, there was a dark-haired boy just a few years older than Dido, whom she assumed to be Archer, the boy who apparently had set all of this up. As well as the third year, there were a few other students, most of whom Dido vaguely recognised as fellow first years, though, besides Tina, she couldn’t really claim to have exchanged more than a few words with any of them. She glanced at the red-headed Quidditch captain who had taken part in her unofficial match and flashed a quick, nervous smile at her, hoping they were both there for similar reasoning.
“Bored without Quidditch?” she asked softly, ignoring the obvious idea that the Quidditch captain probably was able to practise whenever she liked, as part of a real team. As the thoughts hit her, Dido’s cheeks reddened and she looked down and away before turning back to Tina and hastily whispering, “This’ll be fun! Right?” in a cheerful voice, hints of a gnawing sensation not quite slipping into her tone.
Dido quickly turned back to the boy at the front when he began to speak, attempting to listen intently despite every fibre in her muscles willing her to either begin skipping down the slope or cower into a corner. Dido anxiously responded to her name with a shaky, “Here! Yes!” before smiling again, a little less nervously this time. At the suggestion of Tina leaving, her eyes instantly widened and she frowned at the girl, pleading in her heart that Tina would stay. But she definitely would, right? There was no question about it. Tina was Dido’s best friend. And Dido was going to be fine. She wasn’t going to fall. She wasn’t going to die.
When Archer presented the boots, Dido quickly moved towards them, unwilling to let her previous display of slight fear cloud the rest of the group’s judgement of her. She held out a pair for Tina, hoping that they were the right size, before quickly grabbing the boots that would fit her feet. Dido bent down, beginning to push her foot in but, as she tried, the shoe wouldn’t bend to her foot and she quickly concluded that sitting would be easier. Or, at the very least, the undignified small tumble down into a seated position caused her to reconsider how to put the boots on. “Come on!” she hissed, trying to pull the tongue of the shoe away from her in order to widen the gap, “Almost there! Just-“
The shoe slipped to the right, hitting the ground at ninety degrees. Dido groaned.
Just then, the other student Archer had allowed to leave, Paul, came over and offered to help Dido with her boot. Fighting her immediate urge to reject the offer, Dido swallowed before nodding and saying, “Thanks,” with a higher-pitched voice than usual. After Dido managed to finally finish pushing her foot into the boot, Paul succeeded in clasping down the first of the buckles. With unexpected force, he had pushed the buckle down and, finally, it clicked.
“Is that meant to be so tight?” Dido asked, shifting her foot slightly.
As Paul stood back up, leaving Dido to finish off the buckles and her other boot, she grinned at him, smiling so much more widely than the previous attempts, genuinely grateful, which was an unusual occurrence. As he walked away, Dido moved to nudge Tina and, whether she was there or not, would giggle quietly as she herself got up onto the heavy boots, ecstatic to be about to ski.
Following Archer’s instructions and repeating the mantra, “I will not fall,” in her head, Dido managed to fit her boots into her skis after only one or two failed stamps down and turned to look at the other students, hoping that she would be ahead of them in this simple action. Seeing even anyone slightly behind her, Dido would turn back to Archer, widening her eyes and tilted her head, just to prove she was listening. As he spoke, about something, she tilted her head to the other side, wrinkling her brow slightly to show her great concentration. Tossing her short dark braid, which she was pleased to see had not even a single hair out of place, over her shoulder, probably messing up a large section of it in the process, she shuffled her feet, trying to copy the third year in front of her. She lifted one heavy foot, placing it down in a diagonal line, lifted the other and-
Like one of those marionettes, Dido fell immediately to the side, overbalancing. She broke her fall with her hands, narrowly avoiding a broken, or just cold, nose, and quickly pushed herself back up. Dido quickly glanced from side to side, checking to see whether the others had noticed.
Either gripping onto Tina’s shoulder or holding her hands out to the sides to balance, Dido eventually managed to fix her feet into a sort of reverse pizza wedge and back again to a more parallel standing position. She stood still as Archer delivered the rules they apparently had to abide by.
One, downhill skier has right of way. Which did make sense, Dido supposed, but, in a group of newbies, what if they were all hurtling down out of control? She wouldn’t be able to wait and give precedence to the skier in front of her!
Two, look before you start, basically.
Three, stop when- Stop? How were they meant to just stop? Dido shook her head slightly, clenching her jaw to stop herself from worrying too vocally. Maybe she would have known had she actually listened.
Four, pass with space. She could do that. Hopefully.
With some final only vaguely comforting words, Archer reassured them that it would be ok if they fell. Dido laughed nervously in response to this. It would be fine. She would be fine, right?
“Good luck, guys!”
-Dido Bleaklane |
Ski and Snowboard Association
”Song quote….”
”Song Quote”
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"A wise girl knows her limits; A smart girl knows she has none."-Valentina Carille