Frisbee-Growing Tree

[François Laffont]

Apparently, some of the students took advantage of the beautiful weather they’d been having the past few days to play outside with a Frisbee. That is, until said Frisbee got caught in one of the trees and no one wanted to climb to get it, failing to pull it down by other means. It was the logical conclusion to what happened to Franck that day.

The boy too wanted to take advantage of the beautiful weather although he must have done it another day or at another time of this day than those students for he saw no one with a Frisbee as he walked around. He had a whole other kind of activity in mind for himself. He went running around the school grounds, music playing in his ears. He always loved to run. Almost as much as he loved to swim. Keeping in shape was important and it was always much more pleasant to jog when the weather was nice.

He allowed himself a break and chose to sit by one of the trees in the courtyard. He turned off the music and pulled the earplugs out. Resting his head against the tree, he breathed deeply. A small smile appeared on his lips as he looked around. He really liked it in here. The breeze barely affected him. He seemed aware that the hair on his arms rose from it, probably because of a light chill, but he had no problem with it. And then, just like Newton and the apple, Franck was hit to the head, although not by a red, round and delicious object but by a yellow still round one made of plastic. The wind must have moved it enough to fall down and Franck became the lucky receiver of the Frisbee.

“Ow,” he let out, quite against him and although he might not have hurt all that much. He still touched his head before looking up and then down. He saw the toy and held it in his hands. He looked around for a group of people missing their primary source of amusement but there seemed to be nothing fitting that description around him. He looked up at the tree again. Did that come from here?

TAG: Gemma Dove

[Gemma Dove]

This wasn't the first time Gemma had found herself in a tree and unable to get herself down. Her target, the frisbee lodged beween two branches, was annoying high up; The younger students, one of whom was a member of the newspaper, had asked if she knew a mutant with the ability to fly in order to retrieve a lost frisbee; Gemma frankly saw little need in bothering someone else when she could easily climb the tree. At least, that was her first driving thought, which had led her to her current precarious position. Scaling the tree hadn't been the difficult part... It seemed to have branches ideally placed for climbing, and with her athletic background she managed to reach the lost item with little effort. The problem arose when it came to descending.
Gemma was straddling a large branch, holding on tightly, the retrieved frisbee in one hand; She bit her bottom lip, looking down through the thick mass of newly opened leaves to the ground below, before quickly averting her gaze at the slight queasiness that came upon her... The soft, lush grass felt so very far away.
Climbing the tree wearing a dress had also not been her brightest choice.
"Right," She mumbled to herself, furrowing her brow in a determined manner. "Can't stay here all day..." She risked another glance downward, a smile breaking out across her lips as she spotted someone sitting at the base of the tree. "HEY! Would you min-" She then gave a yelp as her grip slipped, clutching the branch in a vice like grip as she let go of the frisbee, which fell and landed surprisingly accurately on the young man's head.

Gemma remained still for some moments, her eyes clenched shut, before she dared move again, peering down through the leaves to the man below, who didn't seem to have spotted her outright. "HEY! OH- OH SORRY, DID THAT HIT YOU?!" She called out, casting him an apologetic smile, although it was highly unlikely he'd see it from where she was. "ARE YOU OKAY?"

[François Laffont]

You would have thought Franck noticed the girl before but no, he did not. Whatever feeling he might have picked up from her, he could easily believe it came from others he passed by while training. He was slowly growing used to this constant reminder of his ability. It was like just some weight on his shoulders he would have to always carry around. He didn’t want to be pitied for it. There was no reason to pity him. After all, if he acted up on something he picked, that meant someone lived that for real. This was the person in need of help, not him. Going away to some place he’d be alone and meditating was usually enough for him to be back to the person he normally was. Or he could just go to someone with emotions he wanted to have at that moment. It was like cheating but he knew fully well some people came to him to confide in him because they knew they would feel better afterwards. It was not all that different.

Then came the noise and the Frisbee. And the hit to the head and the ouch that was said despite it not hurting all that much. His first thought had been someone playing with it, maybe warning him of it coming his way but he didn’t move out in time. But after seeing there was no one running to him in apology, he looked up. And he saw the cause of this. A girl was up there, straddling a branch. And she was wearing a dress or at least a skirt, making his position very inappropriate. He blushed, looking down before he might actually catch a glimpse of something he didn’t want to. It was not like she could know he was gay and was not interested in the vision she might offer him.

“It’s okay, it did not really hurt,” he assured her after he stood up on his feet and tried to find a better angle of view. It was hard because of all the leaves but he thought he had a fairly good idea where her eyes should be and tried to look there. “I’m fine,” he reiterated, his French accent sowing through. “How about you? You can climb down there?” Franck had not climbed trees often in his life, or anything else for that matter other than what they would ask them to during gym class. He never would have been able to climb up there. Or maybe he would. But going down was a whole other matter.

[Gemma Dove]

Gemma was frankly far more concerned with needing to get down from her lofty position then if the boy below her was trying to catch a glimpse up her dress; Gemma had always had an innocent thought process when it came to sexuality, so while she did not know the boy below her's orientation, she wouldn't exactly leap to the idea that he would try to look somewhere inappropriate. She sighed with relief when the boy announced that he was fine, although she still felt guilty at having caused him some small manner of distress. He then presented her with a question, one which she wasn't exactly certain of the answer of; Could she get down from where she was...? Gemma gave a quick glance around her initial surroundings, trying to calculate the best method of descending.
"Um... Well," She smiled, still desperately holding onto the branch. "Would you mind bein' my safety net? I'm going to go a little freestyle."

Very slowly, Gemma gingerly reached out a leg, managing to rest her foot on a branch below, before following it with her other foot; She then took a deep breath, and with a small squeak let go of the branch she'd be clutching onto for dear life and grabbed hold of the new lower one. She had her eyes clamped shut, slowly opening them and giving a wide grin of victory when she realised she had made it. "Ah HA!" She declared, giving a punch to the air, only to nearly slip off and having to make another desperate grab for the branch. Sheepishly, she looked down to the boy below. "I don't mean to put you under any pressure... But how good are you at catching? As in, I let go, I land oh so gracefully in your arms?"

[François Laffont]

Franck figured she had climbed that tree before he got there because he did not remember seeing her around as he chose this tree to stop by. He had not climbed a lot of trees in his life so this seemed to him as no small feat to accomplish. The fact she was now caught up there did not diminish said accomplishment in any way.

“Sure,” he answered her before even thinking about what it implied. He just allowed her to fall in his arms and from her height, he was likely to fall on the ground if she did so. But it was better than let her fall on the ground directly and risk hurting herself. All this for a Frisbee he assumed, since he got hit by one. That would really suck if she were to break her ankle for that.

From below, he watched her try to go down. He was stressed as he looked at her putting a foot on the branch and then the other. He feared the branch would just break under her weight. It would be hard for him to catch her then, as he would be hit by the branch also. He sighed of relief as she got it. His heart skipped another beat though as he thought she was about to fall. He was looking for other branches she might go down to. He wanted to see what could be the best route so she’d be as close to the earth as possible before jumping.

He had to stop though as she talked to him. “Uh...” It was as he feared. He would likely have to catch her to make her landing less hard. “I’ll be able to catch you, don’t worry about that.” He was to worried about her breaking something after falling to think about that himself.

[Gemma Dove]

This really was quite the predicament; Thinking on it now, it seem seem like a silly thing, risking her life for some other student's plastic disk. But when Gemma had been asked to help retrieve it, she hadn't even hesitated; But perhaps she really should have tried to locate a winged mutant or mutant with the ability of flight... It would certainly have prevented the current dire situation.

Gemma bit her bottom lip, blinking down at the young man below, awaiting his answer with tentative breath; She could feel the branch bending slightly under her weight, threatening to break if she remained it's unwanted limpet for much longer. His reply came, a quick assertion that he would indeed catch her; That was all the confirmation Gemma needed. He struck her as being an honest guy, and sounded concerned for the fact she was attempting to get down from the tree, so she hoped he wasn't going to pull some cruel act and step out of the way when she let herself fall. "Okay!" She called out, casting him an upbeat but slightly nervous grin. "Let's do this!" Gemma took a deep breath, before giving a confident nod. She slowly moved to drop one leg down from the branch, then her other, holding on with a vise like grip to the tree's branch with both arms wrapped firmly around it, her legs dangling.
"Oh... Oh damn..." She spoke, looking down over her shoulder at the boy. "I'm so sorry about this-" She then gave a small yelp, as the branch gave a sudden bend, the journalist letting go and falling downward towards the poor young Frenchman below.

[François Laffont]

Franck could see the branch slowly bending under her weight. The thought that it was a god thing he was not the one up there for it would probably have broken already crossed his mind but Franck shoved it away to focus more on the girl. It made him want to tell her to jump but it might still be a little too high so he tried to find some branches she might not see as well as he did from her angle so she could maybe go a little further down. In case she could not however, Franck also made sure to position himself in such way that he was pretty sure he would catch her. It was all guesswork and he knew he would not have a lot of time to move if he was wrong. But judging by where she was standing and in which direction, he thought he was at the right spot. He could not be directly under her or he would be hit by the branch as it falls down and that would make his whole action useless.

Let’s do this, this was what she told him. He didn’t had the time to ask her what she wanted them to do that she was already trying to drop down from the branch. She was going to jump, wasn’t she? He never did the whole catching the damsel in distress as she fell down thing. In the movies, it seemed so easy and they always fell gracefully in the man’s arms. In reality, he sort of realised she was more likely to hit him hard.

And hit him she did. He caught her alright. But the shock also sent him on the ground. His breath was pulled out of his chest and his eyes grew wide. Did he just die? Maybe he did, but before finding out if he did he wanted to know if she did too.