"Excellent," Richard replied. "I took the liberty of setting up a couple of new brooms for you; I'll see how they suit you, and fine tune them after you've wrung them out a bit."
He couldn't help but laugh. "Look a little daunting when you come at them cold, don't they. Don't worry. By the time you've filled up all those pages in between with your own work, they will make much more sense."
"Well, that's the thing, young sir. I seem to have the devil's own luck when it come to getting hurt. Just doesn't happen to me. Give you an example. Did they have the big cross-country broom race in Sweden in your day? Goes through the Dragon Reservation? No matter. There's a big, sweeping right-hander around a church steeple in one of the small towns the course runs through. Low down, about 150 per because it isn't that tight a turn. Two blokes got a little adventurous, tried to cut the corner. They got to rubbing shoulders, and the one on the outside skidded out into me. Took the twigs right off my broom, which promptly quit doing anything useful. I went tuppence over teakettle into the town square, too fast and too low to do much of anything but hope I hit something soft. Went through two treetops, stuck into a third tree, and bounced from branch to branch all the way down. Landed on my... backside, sitting on the fourth side of a blanket that had a picnic lunch on it, and three Swedish girls on the other three sides, there to watch the racers go by. Covered in leaves and twigs, not a scratch on me. Fellow who hit me ended up face-checking a roof, broke a lot of stuff. By rights, he should have recovered, I should have hit a statue or something."
"Now, mind you, a lot of it is the protective equipment we wear when racing these days. But a lot of it was pure luck. Which reminds me, I do have a set of racing leathers and a helmet for you. Once they're tailored, you'll be a lot more comfortable at speed than you would with robes flapping about. Ready to go?"