burning up [wendy]

After a whole morning of competing, JR spread his arms wide and let himself fall backwards into the grass, his bum hitting first before he was fully flat on the ground, with a huge smile on his face. He was a little sweaty and his skin was warm with the summer sum, and his feet were sore from all the running and obstacles and sprints, but he was happy. JR had been surprised at much fun was turning out to be. Especially on days like this.

He hadn't been super excited when he had heard about the camp competition, mostly because both Benny and Tomie were on the Blue Team while he was on the Red team. Luckily, it had turned out better than he expected. And he was even more surprised that Wendy had been a really big help today too. The morning had been full of head to head challenges, some more physical, some requiring a lot of teamwork, and some more knowledge based. JR had excelled in the physical challenges like sprinting back and forth to get all their flags into their bucket. He had noticed Wendy, on the other hand, had played a huge role in some of the more academic based skills. There had been one challenge where large letter blocks had been spread out in the grass, their team all standing around them and they had to spell out the six of the ten core values of the camp. One of the counselors had said that the values were on camp banners, but it's not like he had paid attention to those. Wendy knew all of them though and was able to quickly figure out which ones they had enough letters for. They had definitely given them the edge over the other team.

Now he was staring up at the blue cloudless sky, his face painted in team colors with two lines under his eyes, his team armband still tied tightly to his arm. He had even gone all out and worn his red shorts with red socks. His tshirt that had been plain white this morning was now covered in his team members names and little messages and illegible scribbles. Markers had gone round and round in circles throughout the day so his shirt was more memories of today than utility. JR turned his head to where Wendy was sitting beside him and he smiled up at her, covering his brows to block out the sun with one hand as he appraised her. "Good thing you were on Red Team today, Willbond," he said appreciatively. "Don't think we would have gotten past the anagram challenge otherwise."

@Wendy Willbond

Initially, Wendy was quite hesitant when she found out that while Tomie and Benny had been put on a team together (those two really seemed the have the best of luck!) JR had been placed on the Red Team with her. After their last little tiff, Wendy worried that things between them would change dramatically but in all honesty, it wasn’t as if the two had been very close friends to begin with. She was still a little too young to understand the dynamics of her circle of friends but it was obvious that some relationships within that circle made more sense than others, some were bound by memories or shared interests or location.

When the competition was announced to begin with, Wendy wasn’t even sure that she’d be good at any of the challenges. JR was very good at any of the outdoor things, even in her reading time she had noticed him off in the distance participating in activity after activity that dealt with physical strength. The young Willbond had some experience with physical activity, she had lived on a farm and for a better part of her life had helped around with chores. She could lift a full bucket of milk, even if it took her an eternity to take it to the house, she was also good at chasing down the chickens or even riding horses. But the witch often gave up easily, finding it difficult to feel invested in an activity if there was no immediate award to it, and by award she didn’t mean things like physical fitness or prizes. Wendy wasn’t as competitive as her friends, she didn’t feel any particular way about being the best.

But sitting here beside her teammate she felt a little better about the whole world of competitions. In the end, Wendy had done alright and had even felt helpful when her teammates were stuck. It helped that she had pretty good memory when it came to things that had been written down, Wendy had always been automatically attracted to letters and the words they spelled. “Thanks, JR, I'm really proud of us! The whole team did a great job," she said, giving him a bright smile as he complimented her, she certainly hadn’t expected that. “Maybe not but you carried the whole team with all the physical stuff! I feel like my legs are about to fall off with all that sprinting,” she added. “How do you run so fast anyway?” she asked, a little exasperated as she thought about it.

He smiled more widely when she smiled at him. At least better than the crying he had caused last week. But she really had pulled her weight today. Plus she was giving him compliments and they had won so it put him in a much more generous mood. He shrugged lightly as if it wasn't a big deal even though he liked the nice things she was saying. "It's a good thing Benny and I have been doing all the outdoor activities since we got here," he explained. It seemed like it had given their team a leg up, but the thought did make him wonder where their Gryffindor friends had gotten to. He drew himself up to a sitting position as he pulled at the grass around him, pulling it out in clumps merely out of boredom. He knew Tomie could be just as competitive as him and she probably didn't like the idea of losing.

"Hmm?" he asked looking back at Wendy before he replayed her question in his mind and nodded. "Years of practice," he told her, shrugging again like it was no big deal even though he sat up a little straighter with the compliment. He almost felt like doing another little sprint down the green just to show her, show everyone, how fast he could go. "My da trained with me a lot before this year," he recalled, the memory of doing daily training sessions with his da brought an onslaught of good memories mixed with some not great ones, but there was no doubt that he seemed to help him today.

"So what are doing for the rest of today?" he asked, casting a curious glance in her direction.

“And good thing that the both of you are on my team as well,” Wendy added with a grin. She was curious to see how they would react if they had to face each other in Quidditch, though she would bet that JR would win by a longshot. Not only was the boy good at sports, but she figured that the Quidditch superstar genes had to play a part in it in one way or another. It hadn’t surprised her that JR had been great at all the outdoor stuff, but she had been impressed by Benny, who she saw as more of a bookworm like her than a sporty person like JR. Then again, maybe that’s why people thought Gryffindors were so impressive, they came in so many different varieties.

“That’s pretty cool,” she added, “the only training I ever got was on how to milk cows and feed the chickens and pigs, things like that,” she added a little sheepishly though it was much easier for her to talk about her life on the farm now than it had been when she had first started Hogwarts. Though by the time she had arrived there, the Willbonds and their livelihood were already common knowledge to so many. Wendy supposed it paid to have so many siblings, in some ways more than in others. “Probably won’t be joining any Quidditch teams, but I might try it out sometimes, like the running,” she continued. Wendy was not really the type, but the entire activity had been fun, and as a member of the winning team, she was starting to make promises, she probably didn’t intend to keep.

“I’m going to the stables to take care of the horses,” she offered. “I volunteered there since it’s like my area of expertise,” she added with a small laugh. “You wanna come? It’s pretty fun, and the horses are so nice here, much nicer than the ones back at home.”

"Yeah, we lucked out didn't we?" he said with a grin, still reveling in the win. He'd probably still be talking about it for the next few days, maybe longer, especially if it annoyed Tomie. He almost laughed, wanting to see her reaction to all of it. She was just as competitive as he was, maybe more so, and if winning gave you bragging rights, why waste them?

JR gave her a wry smile as she mentioned lots of.. farm animals. "Oh right, yeah," he said with a nod, having forgotten for a moment that she came from a big farming family or whatever. The Slytherin honestly couldn't even imagine what that was like. He had never been to a real farm or lived on anything even close to a farm. He had never had animals larger than a house cat. He didn't even really do many chores at home. He guessed it was a lot of work, but it somehow made him glad that his dad was a quidditch player and not a farmer. An errant thought flitted through his mind on whether or not her clothes always smelled because of being around pigs and stuff? Weren't farm animals smelly? But running was cool. "Maybe we could train together sometime," he offered, selfishly thinking of another outlet for winning sprints and such.

He kept pulling out more clumps of grass, raising his hands to watch the blades twist on the air to the ground absently before he glanced up at her with surprise at her offer. "To the stables?" he asked, his thoughts immediately tracking back to the probably-smelly farm animals she hung out with at home. Except Wendy didn't look like what he imagined when he thought of a farm girl. He wasn't exactly sure what he did expect, but she seemed different. "Sure," he agreed as he stood, but mostly because he viewed it as another challenge, something else he could win at. "But I don't have to, errr, clean out their stalls or anything, right?" he said as they started walking down that path, the sun beating delightfully on the back of his neck.

/end