[BoT] Artistic Flying Club Info Stand [open]

There was an artistic flying club at Durmstrang now and Zhenya had been made club captain. It was an honour, there was no other way to put it and Zhenya felt grateful, she really did. She wanted to live up to the task given to her by the school and wanted to prove herself worthy of her family's name and her recent European title. However, she felt like, maybe, she wasn't quite up to it. Being European junior champion in artistic flying still felt somewhat wrong – she wasn't really that good now, was she? She hadn't won any of the two competition parts, hadn't performed her best, probably simply wasn't the best even if her title indicated something else.

Her family had always criticised that Durmstrang did not support artistic flying the way it should and so, when the news of the new founded club had spread, her family had talked to her for many many hours, explaining her how important this was, what a great chance for her, the family, the flying school and the sport per se. After a while the girl had simply nodded along, feeling unable to take everything in. What was perfectly clear to her though was that it was up to her to make the club a success, get people interested in the sport and represent her family. Representing her family was tough though.

Her family was always professional and Zhenya felt like she was way too emotional and weak to be a proper part of it. Of course they had a reputation to live up to, they were the inventors of the sport, they ran the artistic flying school, they created the best artistic flying brooms, had the best athletes in their rows and yet the girl wished that they'd give her a break once in a while.

As Zhenya settled into her info booth which she had hurriedly prettied up a little displaying moving pictures of her older relatives' performances and also showing one of the brooms that her family had sponsored to the school, she was nervous. She knew that her siblings and distant cousins would mostly be there to support her and that, likely, not too many students would actually be interested in joining the club anyway, but that did little to comfort her anyway.

She was ready to answer any questions about the sport (that were not about the recent championships or the drama in her family, that is) and wondered if it would be discouraging for interested students if she told them that they would likely never reach a skill level to allow them to compete at championships. After all, those who'd sign up would very likely never be professional athletes and it would be unfair to pretend otherwise. All artistic flyers she knew had been given their first artistic flying broom before they could even read and write. However, the sport was lovely and she felt sure that others could enjoy it as a hobby. She'd do her best to get them all interested, show them easy moves that still looked amazing and just give them a chance to get the best artistic flyer they could become at their respective age.

Zinaida was grateful to be back at the school. She could now enjoy training without too much pressure on her and have lots of studying to distract her when things didn’t go so well. Of course, no amount of studying would console her from the disappointment of her performance at the European Junior Championships, or distract her from the wild rumours circulating about Aglaya. The Drakonya Krov student was extremely pleased to have something new to sink her teeth into in the form of the Artistic Flying club. She hoped it would distract her enough from worrying about everything.

Though Zina was glad that Durmstrang had created the club, she couldn’t help but be a little disappointed that she wasn’t the club president. It, obviously, made sense for her older sister to be the club president, she was older and more experienced and more talented too. Zina knew this, but it still stung a little. However, the prospect of being able to try her hand at coaching some beginners made her excited. She loved the idea of being able to share her love for the sport with others and help them achieve their personal goals. Of course, they would never be able to be at the level she and the rest of her family were, but Zina didn’t believe that people had to be good at something to be allowed to enjoy. As long as her friends enjoyed themselves, who would care that they couldn’t even do a needle? And, Zina would be able to train with her family too, which she hoped would be fun and not anxiety-inducing.

After the announcements were finished, and the students had completed setting up their little info stands, Zinaida strolled over to the refreshments table up front. She picked up two glasses of water and made a beeline for Zhenya over at the Artistic Flying club stand. “Zhenya!” Zina greeted her sister with a grin as she held out one of the glasses of water. “I thought you might want this at some point,” she said as she gazed at the decorated table. “How is it going? I’m signed up already, right?!” Zina laughed, gently picking up one of the moving pictures on the table and instantly recognising the thick and curly red mane of hair and the light purple catsuit. “Is that Nastya?” She asked, even though she already knew the answer. “She’d be happy to know her picture was here promoting the sport.” Zina half-smiled as she put the picture back down in its original place, the smile fading as the junior artistic flyer worried if the younger Tikhomirova sibling was okay after her sister had been poisoned.

Maybe starting at Durmstrang wouldn't be so bad after all. Ruslan had been thrilled to hear there was going to be an artistic flying club starting at school and had talked tirelessly at his siblings about how fantastic it was going to be. Naturally he'd assumed he was going to be one of the most important members and had initially been rather disappointed when it was explained that most students wouldn't want to learn something from a new first year. Ruslan had almost sulked about that, before remembering Zina's words about dealing with disappointment. This must be the sort of thing she was talking about! So he had switched to offering to help with the gymnastic side of things rather than demonstrating his skill on a broom. Surely they'd all want to learn how to do a backflip from standing!

Of course, now he was at school there was rather more to think about. While Ruslan wasn't sure he wanted to join any of the other clubs, he felt it would be a good idea to visit all the other stalls in order to check out the competition. Zhenya and Zina would be too busy signing up everyone who wanted to fly, so talking with the rest of the club organisers would be his responsibility. Besides, it made sense for a new first year to be finding out as much as possible about his new school.

There was another reason he wanted to go and talk to other people, though. Nobody apart from Zhenya had said anythng to him about it, but Aglaya Tikhimorova was ill and he didn't want to accidentally mention it. Not that he could say very much, because all he'd seen was the newspaper headline before it had been taken swiftly away from him, but it had been at the back of his mind ever since they'd found out. Now though, the boy was following Zina over to the most important stand, a big competition smile on his face. He was about to say something about how great it all looked when Zina picked up Nastya's photo. Was there a reason that it was her photo and not Aglaya? If something...really bad had happened Zhenya or Rodion would have told him, wouldn't they?

Realising his own smile had slipped, the new first year whispered to Zhenya "Have you heard anything? You're not using Nastya's picture because..?" he gulped, unable to finish the question and feeling far too grown up all of a sudden.

“Zinochka,” Zhenya said, sounding relieved that her sister was joining her. “Thank you so much!” she said, truly grateful that her sister brought her a drink. She could already now feel that her mouth was becoming dry and nobody had approached her yet.

“Of course you're signed up already,” the older Shishkina reassured her sister. “I need your support more than anything. You know that.” She was grateful that she had family members to rely on for the artistic flying club. If she had to deal with all the responsibility all by herself she knew she'd freak out and hide somewhere instead of being at her stand smiling hopefully at every student who passed, hoping to get them interested in her sport.

“Yeah,” Zhenya confirmed, “it's Nastya. I thought a moving picture of her split jump sequence is a good advertisement for our sport...” her voice trailed off as Ruslan, who had followed Zina, reacted to the photo. She could see her youngest sibling's smile fade and wondered what caused this sudden change of his mood.

“What? No, no, Rusya!” Zhenya was quick to react although her face had turned rather pale now. “I'm not only using Nastya's picture anyway,” she reassured him, pointing at a small poster behind the info stand that showed Aglaya performing a sequence of two back flips. “See?” she said, hoping that this would soothe her little brother. She didn't know if there was a real reason to worry. She had no information on their distant cousin's condition either and the situation was clearly affecting them all. “I also have pictures of Veronika and Anatoliy here,” she pointed at two moving pictures of the size of postcards.

In a much lower voice she added “I haven't heard anything new. I really just hope nobody will ask about it. I don't think I could stay cool then. Honestly, why do they leave us in the dark?” her voice was trembling slightly now and she tried to force a smile on her face as she saw another student pass the artistic flying stand.