Who: Ellie MacFusty, Bastian Cavallero, Pip Parkinson & Gwen Miracle What: The new guy meets the people in charge When: October 23, morning (before the Montrose-Ballycastle match) Where: Small conference room, Pride business offices Warnings: None? I think everyone is well behaved.
Ellie arrived a early for the meeting. A point in favor of actually being an adult. Although really she just wanted the best seat in the room. She knew most of the meeting would be details of Pip’s integration with the team, and generally things she didn’t have the temperament for, but she was going to try. For as much as she liked chaos, she liked surprise, especially one aimed at Monrose and Merc. Really at Merc. Which meant there was need for intention and being careful. And that played right into the strong suits of Cav and Gwen.
So Ellie would figure out how to be disciplined for the next two or so weeks. Plus, it was rather brilliant to see one of her ideas come to fruition.
Still, she did have an image to uphold and Elspbeth MacFusty was only just barely an adult. So, set on the table right in front of her was a small moose statue. It usually lived fireplace mantle in her home, and nearly a decade ago in the Canadian camp at Worlds, but today it was going to be front in center. After all she had stolen another Canadian artifact.
Cav showed up about two minutes before the agreed on time, only because he hated being too early, despised being late, and being exactly on time was nearly impossible. He ducked into the conference room and looked at Ellie, surprised that she was the one already sitting there. "What the bloody hell's that?" he said, gesturing toward the moose. "And why's it here?"
Ellie grinned. “This is Yukon. And he is my good luck charm,” she said reaching out to pet the figurine. It moved just slightly with her touch. “Or rather my personal souvenir from 1990 Worlds, thought it might be a good luck for today.”
He rolled his eyes. While a lot of Quidditch players believed in that luck and superstition bits, he never really subscribed to it. (Come to think of it, maybe that was why he never really cut it as a player.) "What d'we need luck for today? Haven't you got this all figured out already?" He grinned at her as he sat, casually, an elbow on the table and turned to face the door as they waited for the others.
While Pip would typically object to be called a Canadian artifact––he wasn't that old, thank you very much––his ego wasn't so small that he couldn't enjoy the fuss made over him. Quidditch was still gaining in popularity in his home country, bolstered by the 1990 World Cup, but the British and Irish League was the gold standard. He walked through the door exactly on time, his ego wasn't so large that he thought he could show up late, a small bag clutched in his hand. "Hello," he smiled at the room's two occupants, his new coach and manager, and held up the bag. "I brought presents."
"Excuse me," Gwen said, edging around the new recruit in the doorway. She wasn't particularly short, but she had to crane her neck to look up at the new Seeker. Which was… not usual for Seekers. Gwen might not want anything to do with the game of Quidditch, but even she knew that. "Merlin, you didn't tell me he was enormous," she added to Cav and Ellie. "Are we sure he's a Seeker?"
She set down her bag next to her customary seat and offered her hand to the new arrival. "Mr. Parkinson. I'm Gwenyth Miracle, the team's PR manager. Welcome to Portree."
"I am most certainly a seeker," Pip's smile did not dim, "but don't worry, I get that a fair bit." Moving to the remaining open seat, he shook the offered hand. "Pip, please. Peregrine if you must, but that is generally reserved for my mother or grandmother." In a move mimicking Gwen's, he placed his bag on the table and began to distribute his tokens of appreciation.
"Butter tarts and maple candy. Not the most healthy of gifts." He shrugged, a sort of mea culpa move. "But it was either this or poutine and that really doesn't survive a transatlantic portkey. Trust me on that."
Ellie leaned toward Gwen, “I’m pretty sure he’s actually part moose.” She place her hands with thumb to temples and lifted them every so slightly approximating a moose call. On the table the little figurine also bobbed its head. “We humbly accept your offer of candy. Ellie MacFusty, coach, former player, possible dragon, pretty sure we’ve spoken in the past, but we’re excited to have you.”
Gwen shook her head at Ellie, though she refrained from commenting. She didn't know what a butter tart was, but she picked one up and sniffed at it. "She is not actually a dragon," she informed Pip drily. "We have to put out a disclaimer every time she claims to be able to breathe fire, for liability reasons. Anyway, you know Bastian Cavallero, team manager. And that's all of us for today. We'd like you to meet the rest of the team tomorrow, but before you dive in, we want to discuss your rather unusual situation."
She bit into the tart and lifted her eyebrows -- it tasted like sugar and butter, as advertised, quite sweet and rather bland. She definitely prefered treacle pie with its slight tang of citrus. "Interesting," she commented politely, and laid the rest of the sweet down on the table. "As you know, we have not yet put out a press release about you joining our team as we normally would. Ellie and Cav have hatched a scheme to keep your presence here quiet -- a secret weapon, if you will -- until the match next month against Portree's fiercest rivals, the Montrose Magpies. Don't boo, Elspeth."
“Zero booing,” said Ellie reaching for a maple candy. Sugar was always a good choice. “I will just quietly take my sweets and imagine Merc mucking dragon pens.”
Pip just laughed at Ellie's moose imitation. If she was supposed to be his coach, this boded well for his decision to come across the Atlantic. Yes, these were people he could work with very easily. "My mother refuses to admit to that fact, so I will have to plead ignorance on being part moose or not." It probably said something that this was not the first time he'd heard the accusation, even done in jest.
"I wasn't made aware of that fact beforehand." Pip frowned slightly, a wrinkle forming between his eyebrows. "I'm afraid the Canadian press know I've transferred teams, so there's no guarantee the news won't make it over here, especially with Anaïs having transferred too." He could probably ask his father to lean on any contacts he had in the British press to ensure the news didn't get out. "At the very least, we'd need to come up with a reason as to why I'm here."
Cav was quiet through most of the exchange but that was pretty much because he had tasted his first maple candy and, quite possibly, fell in love with it. The way it melted on his tongue, coated his mouth - was it possible to fall in love with a candy? Cav put it out of his mind and grunted a bit as he reached out to shake Pip's hand. "Call me Cav. Everyone does." It was not really negotiable, either.
He flashed a grin over towards Gwen and tipped his chin up. "I'm excellent at creating distractions, so no need to worry about that. As for the reason you're here? Doesn't really need to be perfected if I'm out there taking bludgers to the face and such, yeah?"
Pip was glad that they at least appeared to have given this some thought, truth be told he was a little annoyed at being told to keep everything quiet, but he understood the optics of keeping his joining the team a surprise. He would just have to be sure to tell Anaïs the plan. They weren't exactly shoving their relationship in the faces of the British people, but it was a well known fact in Canada. It wouldn't take very much brain power to connect the dots. If the Brits even would bother doing said research.
"Hello, Cav." Pip shook the man's hand and looked at the three members of the administrative team. "You just tell me what what you need and I will do my very best to come through."
Gwen nobly refrained from sending a narrow-eyed look Cav and Ellie's way at the news that they hadn't thought to check with the man himself before deciding on this scheme to tweak Montrose's nose. Honestly, she worked with children. But, of course, Pip was so politely Canadian about it all, which smoothed it over.
"I would like your face in good condition for the press," she told Cav tartly, "so please don't invite bludgers unless there's an immediate need. From you, Pip," she went on, summoning her ubiquitous notepad and Self-Writing Quill from her back with a flick of her wand, "we won't ask too much, except that you refrain from talking about your transfer until the kneazle is out of the bag. Our advantage here, of course, is that our British press is much less likely to recognise you on sight than their Canadian counterparts. If your name does come up and questions are asked, we can keep the vultures busy with multiple lines of gossip and rumour. Maybe you're here on business from one side of your family or the other. Maybe you're here on business with our own British Parkinsons. Maybe you fancied a Scottish holiday when the lovely Ms. Bolduc took that contract with the WWN. Maybe you're scouting for native British talent to take back across the pond. Maybe you're here to promote the American League. I welcome other suggestions."
She actually had a list of rumours to anonymously feed to certain press outlets in her notepad. Never let it be said Gwen Miracle didn't do her homework. She slid the page across the table for Pip to peruse, and folded her hands in front of her primly.
Cav shook Pip's hand. "Welcome to Portree," he told him. "Despite this circus, we really are looking forward to having you on the team. It's just that when there's the opportunity to one-up Montrose … well, you understand I'm sure."
Cav couldn't help but grin over at Gwen. He would never admit it, but he liked to rattle her. "I can't help that bludgers are attracted to my face," he said innocently.
The list of potential reasons were rather helpful, including ones that he hadn't even thought of. He and Anaïs were keeping their relationship quiet for now, letting the public get used to them separately before they were seen as a pair. No need for others to think they were taking advantage of the other's position. "My grandfather still brings up how the Dunstans cut him out of a deal for the Falcons in favor of the French," he suggested. "Which I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to tell you, but it's nothing new."
Pip shrugged. Money and business were others' forte. He was here to play a good game. "And any time I can promote Quidditch back home, I will. The 1990 game did a good job of it, but it's an untapped market."
Reference to the 1990 Worlds of course elicited a rather colorful swear in gaelic from Ellie along with what could only be described as a dancing motion from the moose on the table. “Brutal. Brilliant. And a total PR nightmare in the aftermath, Gwen’s probably glad she didn’t have to manage the Scottish side, manage me really, in the fall out.”
Ellie was still rather pleased and amused with her showing in that match. “Anyway, use what excuse you see appropriate. I want to introduce you to the team tomorrow, start training with us, and see how we fly, which as you will learn is quite literally with dragons on the occasion.” It was the sort thing where if you didn’t know her, it might be seen as a joke, but Ellie absolutely never joked about dragons. Except, of course, when she bent the truth a little.
Gwen shook her head, summoning back her notepad and flicking her fingers at her quill, which obediently scribbled down the note about Falmouth. That was an interesting tidbit. "I was fresh out of school in '90, and just starting out as an assistant with the League," she remarked. "Not to remind anyone present of their advanced age, of course."
She smiled up at Pip. "We'll all be present when you meet the team, and I'll impress upon them the importance of keeping their mouths shut. If you have any other questions about the arrangement, please feel free to call on me. I'm here to help."
"And my door's always open too," Cav said, popping another piece of the maple candy into his mouth, punctuated by a moan. "These haven't got drugs in them," he said warily, but maybe not so warily that he'd stop eating them, "because they can't possibly taste this good and not."
The meeting was clearly wrapping up and considering all the contracts had been signed, there was really nothing left for him to do at this point, except to play quidditch. Pip gave the three members of the admin staff a wide grin. "Maple is a flavor all it's own." He addressed Cav's comment first. "And I promise there is absolutely nothing illicit about them. As for everything else," he nodded to Gwen and Ellie in turn, "I really just look forward to start playing."