The Art of Almost Falling
Sunday, 16 November 2025
Shortly before dinner
Dee was floating in mid-air, hanging upside down from her broom with her legs hooked around the handle the way she might have done as a child, dangling from the bars on a playground near her home. Her hair was tied into a ponytail, fanning out below her, and she stared down at the ground a good ten metres below. The height was dizzying, but she'd gotten better at handling it. Had forced herself to become better at it, really; you couldn't be a broomracer without being, you know, decent at flying a broom.
With a sigh, Dee pulled herself back up, reaching for the handle, then swinging the broom around until she was once again sitting upright on it. It was getting late, nearing dinner time; she'd skipped lunch earlier, having only grabbed a sandwich on the way to the Quidditch pitch. Which was, technically, enemy territory. Quidditch was the one sport she hadn't tried yet, even when Dealla Prince, duellist had gone up in flames, and Dealla Prince, broomracer had risen from the ashes, and she'd been very vocal about how silly she thought the game to be. Still, she figured there might be something to learn from watching them fly, and if not, it was just as good a place to train as any other. It was slowly starting to empty now; this time of year, the sun set early, and most would be eager to return to the warm interior of the castle.
Turning her broom, she straightened up and flexed her fingers slightly before wrapping them securely around her Starsweeper's handle and leaning forward. The speed was definitely something she enjoyed about flying; duelling just didn't offer anything comparable. What had been scary to her initially, the danger of falling, being utterly dependent on something as flimsy as a broomstick, outside your own control, had begun to feel like freedom over the past year and a half. Since she'd left the duelling team, and decided to conquer the skies instead.
Stretching out along the length of her broom, Dee sped up even more, then wound herself into a tight corkscrew. Closing her eyes for a brief moment, she tried to keep her orientation during the dizzying manoeuvre without the luxury of her primary sense, then threw herself upward at the right moment. She spun skyward, her broom continuing forward without her, both of them carried by their momentum and nothing else. A moment of true weightlessness as she reached the apex of where the upwards force would take her, where gravity would take over. Then she twisted around in mid-air when the ground started pulling at her again, bringing her hands and feet into the right position to grab hold of her broom at the right moment, hooking one hand and her feet around the handle. It allowed her to spin around once to soften the impact, then pull herself back into a sitting position, wind-swept and laughing, breathless. It was a stupidly flashy manoeuvre, with barely any practical application, but Merlin, it was exhilarating.
Still at breakneck speed, she wove around the goalposts on one end of the pitch in tight curves, slipping past them by mere centimetres, before turning back onto the open pitch and finally slowing down. She'd only wanted a bit of a breather, a break from studying for her N.E.W.T.s, but once she'd come down here, she'd found excuses to stretch out the time. Make it last, the feeling of freedom she'd been chasing in so many ways lately.
But maybe it was time to head back to reality now.
@Archer Duncan
"One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar."
The Art of Almost Falling
Archer Theodore Duncan was never much of a flier. Ironic, considering his mother was a falcon animagus. Or perhaps not, considering she was dead.
Despite his aspirations to be just like her, he had never fancied setting off into the sky on a rickety broom. Never had he enjoyed a single flying class, and a boy at the time of reckless teenage failed to even appreciate the thrill. He had dropped his flying lessons as soon as second year swept by, and with that burden off his shoulders, he somehow felt freer than flight could ever grant him. It was an august thought, that word—flight. Brooms, such a trivial item meant for the sanitation, was almost an insult. It simply did not live up to what the notion required. It did not deserve to sweep through the sky for something made to sweep at the floor. There, after all, was a difference between entrusting one’s life to a piece of unstable wood and a bird spreading its glorious wings in flight.
But Archer was no bird.
He was but a chick, still squawking for food, waiting for a mother bird that never returned. Helpless, stuck in a nest that swallowed his minuscule body whole, dependent entirely on someone else without a single bone to hunt grown in his body yet. Not a single bone to fly. As the thoughts swirled about his head in an ever-growing typhoon he groaned and pushed himself up from where he lied supine in the shade, rays of sunlight that barely hit through the clouds spilling before his eyes. Now sat, he placed his hands behind him in the wet autumn grass, leaned his head back, and looked towards the bitter, unforgiving sky, with its howling winds and its treacherous clouds.
But, Archer steeled himself, the only way chicks learn how to fly was to get pushed down.
And so Archer found himself, as always, somewhere he did not quite want to be. Whether born out of necessity or masochism, he seemed to have been stuck in this quagmire of a predicament. This almost seemed to be the nature of his life. Hands raking through his hair absentmindedly, he walked in long, swift strides towards the centre of the training grounds’ fields. His eyes flicked around him, hooded by lightly furrowed brows. He knew, however, the only place to look was up. He glanced up at the sky again, this time to a very different scene.
Up in the sky, a good thirty feet off the ground, was a girl. Now, considering his location, this would have been no surprising sight—if not for her position. Hanging upside down on a broom that looked like it could fall at the wrong snap of a finger, hair precariously fanning over her eyes, Archer wondered how she wasn’t dizzy, or how she wasn’t dead yet. “You’ll break your neck you know,” Archer murmured, not to anyone in particular, and certainly not to the girl. In fact, she scared him with her impossible fearlessness.
But his eyes were captivated, his attention rapt.
Archer’s eyes followed closely, if with reluctance, as the girl pulled herself up and swung into an upright position. Clinging onto her by vision, he watched as she leaned forward in preparation to race. She sped up, going at breakneck speeds, then did the impossible: a corkscrew upwards, but it did not end there. Spinning skyward, Archer squinted as he could no longer properly see her. Then, her broom continued while she was left behind. Archer could not help but let out a sharp gasp, yet what was almost a morbid curiosity left him squarely in place. He would still stand there, frozen, when the girl would inevitably fall. But she didn’t. Still careening upwards through momentum, gravity would soon stop her and violently bring her back down again. Yet she twisted suddenly, and landed squarely on her broom as if she had never left it in the first place. She spun downwards, but still she wasn’t done.
She laughed. She laughed. When she was risking her precious young life she was laughing. Archer certainly did not laugh with her.
This girl must have had a death wish.
Then, as she weaved through the Quidditch goal posts, Archer scoffed at himself. It was not as if he had not done anything as perilous before. Hr had sat half out of windows with his legs dangling precariously and the open air beneath him, on the astronomy tower no less and certainly without a broom to catch him. He had given plenty of people heart attacks before.
Part of him was loving it. Somehow, he found himself clapping.maybe this sport was for him after all, no matter how deep in denial he was of that fact.
@Dealla Prince
Despite his aspirations to be just like her, he had never fancied setting off into the sky on a rickety broom. Never had he enjoyed a single flying class, and a boy at the time of reckless teenage failed to even appreciate the thrill. He had dropped his flying lessons as soon as second year swept by, and with that burden off his shoulders, he somehow felt freer than flight could ever grant him. It was an august thought, that word—flight. Brooms, such a trivial item meant for the sanitation, was almost an insult. It simply did not live up to what the notion required. It did not deserve to sweep through the sky for something made to sweep at the floor. There, after all, was a difference between entrusting one’s life to a piece of unstable wood and a bird spreading its glorious wings in flight.
But Archer was no bird.
He was but a chick, still squawking for food, waiting for a mother bird that never returned. Helpless, stuck in a nest that swallowed his minuscule body whole, dependent entirely on someone else without a single bone to hunt grown in his body yet. Not a single bone to fly. As the thoughts swirled about his head in an ever-growing typhoon he groaned and pushed himself up from where he lied supine in the shade, rays of sunlight that barely hit through the clouds spilling before his eyes. Now sat, he placed his hands behind him in the wet autumn grass, leaned his head back, and looked towards the bitter, unforgiving sky, with its howling winds and its treacherous clouds.
But, Archer steeled himself, the only way chicks learn how to fly was to get pushed down.
And so Archer found himself, as always, somewhere he did not quite want to be. Whether born out of necessity or masochism, he seemed to have been stuck in this quagmire of a predicament. This almost seemed to be the nature of his life. Hands raking through his hair absentmindedly, he walked in long, swift strides towards the centre of the training grounds’ fields. His eyes flicked around him, hooded by lightly furrowed brows. He knew, however, the only place to look was up. He glanced up at the sky again, this time to a very different scene.
Up in the sky, a good thirty feet off the ground, was a girl. Now, considering his location, this would have been no surprising sight—if not for her position. Hanging upside down on a broom that looked like it could fall at the wrong snap of a finger, hair precariously fanning over her eyes, Archer wondered how she wasn’t dizzy, or how she wasn’t dead yet. “You’ll break your neck you know,” Archer murmured, not to anyone in particular, and certainly not to the girl. In fact, she scared him with her impossible fearlessness.
But his eyes were captivated, his attention rapt.
Archer’s eyes followed closely, if with reluctance, as the girl pulled herself up and swung into an upright position. Clinging onto her by vision, he watched as she leaned forward in preparation to race. She sped up, going at breakneck speeds, then did the impossible: a corkscrew upwards, but it did not end there. Spinning skyward, Archer squinted as he could no longer properly see her. Then, her broom continued while she was left behind. Archer could not help but let out a sharp gasp, yet what was almost a morbid curiosity left him squarely in place. He would still stand there, frozen, when the girl would inevitably fall. But she didn’t. Still careening upwards through momentum, gravity would soon stop her and violently bring her back down again. Yet she twisted suddenly, and landed squarely on her broom as if she had never left it in the first place. She spun downwards, but still she wasn’t done.
She laughed. She laughed. When she was risking her precious young life she was laughing. Archer certainly did not laugh with her.
This girl must have had a death wish.
Then, as she weaved through the Quidditch goal posts, Archer scoffed at himself. It was not as if he had not done anything as perilous before. Hr had sat half out of windows with his legs dangling precariously and the open air beneath him, on the astronomy tower no less and certainly without a broom to catch him. He had given plenty of people heart attacks before.
Part of him was loving it. Somehow, he found himself clapping.maybe this sport was for him after all, no matter how deep in denial he was of that fact.
@Dealla Prince
I am not even singed. My wings are untouched. You use them for everything, except flight.
Liliya Starkova| Anthonie Engelbrecht
Liliya Starkova| Anthonie Engelbrecht