Defying Gravity

It became clear to Quentin last year that he was positively infatuated with the Montagnard beater. Not the grumpy one, but the sweet yet intimidating, fairy princess like one. He adored Paige's enthusiasm and she always had a way of smiling that made him feel like she was expecting seeing him all along. The only problem with his crush was A. he never talked to Paige nearly enough and B. when he did, he got nervous and spent more time stuttering than impressing her or telling her how he felt. He was absolutely positive she didn't have a clue as to his affections for her, but he was okay with that for now. For now he just wanted to get to know her better.

It was evident that Quidditch was one of her main interests, along with candy, so he figured if he was going to invite her out to do something, it might as well be something she enjoyed. He had written up an invitation for her to join him on the Quidditch pitch for a little friendly flying practice, their differences of teams put aside. He didn't exactly consider it as fraternizing with the enemy, seeing how the captain previous to him, his beloved cousin, was good friends with Montagnard's captain. No, this had nothing to do with Quidditch and only having to do with being with Paige.

The boy flew loops in the air as he waited nervously for the girl to show up, he stomach seeming to be doing the same anyway. He had been practicing a few different flying tricks to use during the game to throw off the opposing chasers. Though while he flew, he threw glances towards the grass of the pitch every now and then as to make sure he didn't miss the entrance of Paige.

When first starting her first year at Beauxbatons someone gave Paige the idea of joining quidditch, at first she was sure it wasn't a sport she'd be any good at or like. It turned out she couldn't be more wrong. She had always known that she was very strong and defensive when she needed to so the position as beater sounded like the perfect position, she could channel that defensiveness she had to help others and make other happy. With the excellent coaching and role model, Osmund, as her captain for many years she learned how great she was and now she loved the sport and look forward to all the matches. However she was starting to realize that she never went flying when it wasn't an official practice or a match, so when one of her best friends sent her an invite for some friendly quidditch practice she was more than happy to accept.

Paige never did seem to spend as much time with her blue haired mate as she'd like to so a bit of practice would be fun, and they got to hang out more. It would also be nice to be in the air with him and not being trying her hardest to cause him harm with a large iron ball and wooden bat. The excited, young, blonde bounded out to the pitch and before going out onto the field she stopped by the quidditch storage room and grabbed a broom and beaters bat, she assume Quentin already had all of the balls they would need for their mini practice.

With all her equipment in hand she walked out onto the beautiful grassy pitch and looked around for Quinn. She spotted a figure flying around and assumed it was him, though the sun made it hard to see from the ground. She looked around the ground to find the boxes for the balls but she couldn't find them so she simply waited for her mate to come down.

The loops seemed to have made Quinn feel a bit better, giving him the chance to take his mind off of things and to enjoy himself before he had gotten to the scary part. He wondered if this was considered a date. More importantly, he wondered if he considered it a date, if that would make it a date. Did he have to ask Paige specifically if it was a date to constitute it as a date? With all the questions Quinn ran through his mind, the word 'date' was starting to make no sense to him.

Finally he saw exactly what he had been waiting for; the blonde having arrived on the pitch. He did one more flip, in order to make sure Paige had seen one of them so she could be impressed, and then flew down to meet with her. His feet landing on the ground and in a fluid motion, he hopped off of his broom and walked the rest of the way.

"Thanks for coming," He said, and then spent a fraction of a moment staring at Paige with a grin on his face. Suddenly, he remembered he was expected to do things and snapped out of his blissful daze. "Ummm, why do you have that?" He asked, eyeing the club in her hand. He would feel much safer if she wasn't flying around with a weapon in her hand, so he reached for the bat and gently pried it from her grip. "No weapons. We're just gonna fly, okay?" He said, and then replaced the bat with his own hand. "You can hold that instead, if it makes you feel more comfortable to fly with something in your hand." His cheeks turned a slight shade of pink at the contact. If she was okay with the hand holding, then he was just one tiny step closer to the important stuff, like cuddling and nose nuzzling. Maybe, if he was super lucky, she'd even let him kiss her on the lips someday.

Paige didn't have to wait long, with one more flip her mate started coming down to see her. She smiled amazed that he was able to do such a thing that high up. She knew there was no way she would ever be able to do such a thing but then again as a beater it wasn't exactly her job to try to avoid the bludgers. With that thought she suddenly realized that it was because of her and her fellow beater that he even had to learn those kind of maneuvers. There was always going to be beaters so it wasn't her specifically but she knew she had hurt her friend during a game before, in the heat of it she didn't think twice about smacking one of the huge iron balls his way, now that she reflected on it she felt bad. But today she wasn't here to smack those at him so that wasn't important at the moment.

"Wouldn't miss this." She responded to his greeting of sorts with a sweet smile. They stood there for a moment not saying anything, in that moment the sun shone brightly on his hair drawing her attention to the bright color, she always did love that and couldn't imagine him without blue hair. Paige forgot about when he said something more, she was confused though by his question. They were here for practice and as a beater her practice meant she needed her bat, why would she not have it. "We're practicing and my position uses this." She said confusion obvious in her tone. She had never truly thought of her bat as a weapon until he called it such, though to him it probably was that since it had probably caused him many injuries. She let him take the bat from her though it felt odd to be on the pitch without it, but she nodded when he said they were just gonna fly. The blonde didn't expect him to replace her bat though with his hand, not that she objected. In fact she smiled a bit and felt a bit of heat rise to her face, that bit was new to her. She hadn't held anyone hand since she was little and needed her mums hand when they were out. While she didn't need to have something in her hand to fly she didn't want him to let go so she simply kept quiet about not needing it. His hand was so much bigger than her own but somehow that seemed perfect. Once she realized she hadn't said anything yet because she had been thinking about holding hands more than she probably should she spoke up, "So, uh, just flying then." She said more to her own benefit to remind herself that was what was going on not hand holding. "If we're flying like this you just can't let go." She said with a grin.

She was smiling as he approached and Quentin liked to have believed it was because she had just seen how amazing his maneuvers on a broomstick were. He returned somewhat of a goofy smile.

The smile was negligent to fade when he put his hand in Paige's. Her hand was absolutely tiny and her fingers nearly disappeared between his long, slender fingers. There was a silence in which neither of them spoke for a moment, one which Quinn hardly noticed because internally he was freaking out that Paige was letting him hold her hand, but eventually it was broken by a reminder.

"Yep! Just flying! Unless you want to do something else?" He added, then when he realized that could be taken a different way, he quickly added. "Like, erm, loops! I could teach you some loops or maybe you could show me a thing or two?" His face turned a deeper shade. "I promise!"

He did his best to mount his broom without letting go, not exactly used to having to hold onto anything that wasn't round and could be clutched beneath his armpit. Once he succeeded, he made sure Paige was ready to take off as well. "Ready?"

He found this type of flying to require skills he wasn't used to using. For one thing, he had to fly close to Paige's side, or else risk letting go of her hand. For another, he had to make sure he was flying at the same speed she was. Once he realized this, he brought it to words. "Hey! This is a really neat practice!" He started. "It requires so much detailed control of the broom! Maybe Cerisier ought to do this in practice!" He relayed with much joy. "Thanks for doing this with me!"

After the initial silence that fell between the two when the intertwined hands nothing else seemed off. For now just flying sounded like fun, in order to learn those loops they would have to break away so those could wait till later. Paige easily mounted her broom without risking letting go of Quinn's hand, she was used to having her arm to her side holding something so this wasn't too much different. Meaning by the time he was ready she was already prepared to take off. She quickly found that while mounting a broom might be pretty much the same flying was not. Even kicking off the ground proved to be difficult, Quinn being bigger with much longer legs took off from the ground with much more force but she caught up quickly.

"Yeah, its not so easy flying like this. This would be a cool exercise for a team, it would force them work together or they'd break apart." She said with a small smile. "No problem, but I will suggest this to Marie-Laure so don't think you're getting the upper hand here." She said teasingly with a giggle. Paige lightly tugged Quinn higher, she never got very high during the games and she heard the wind felt better up there. "The pitch is so pretty when you stop to look at it, and there's not the crowds and win crazed teams." She said more to herself than Quinn as she looked around as they rose.

Quinn ascended with Paige as she lead them upwards. Being a chaser, he never really got the opportunity to fly up that high. Usually the quaffle stayed quite level with the goals, give or take a handful of feet, and when he was required to fly higher, his mind was too wrapped up in the game to really look around. It certainly was different now that he didn't need to focus on getting the quaffle and then avoiding everyone and everything that wanted to get the quaffle away from him.

However, he wasn't looking at the scenery. Neither the ghost town of stands beneath them nor the trees touched with the warm palette of a coming autumn were any sort of awing sight compared to the way the sun lighted up Paige's blonde hair. He smiled as he stared at the halo of gold upon her crown and hardly heard her when she commented on the peacefulness. "Yeah," He replied, dazedly. His hand was sweating as he clung to hers, "It's beautiful" he commented.