How interesting! on Care of Magical Creatures

Professor R. Dakin

January 27, 2010 10:47 PM

Beginners 1-3 lesson by Professor R. Dakin

Rowan gathered her beginners around deciding today was the day she would challenge them a bit. For most of the year they had been dealing with smaller creatures today though she brought out something considerably larger. She had known that her predecessor had taken the intermediate students to the Flying Horse Ranch but she trusted the younger kids with a type of flying horse. Of course the ones she had chosen for were only classified as XX (Harmless/ may be domesticated) but they were a bit more exiting then salamanders.

Rowan smiled at her students and like her predecessor she said. “Robes off!” She had quickly learned from the older students that robes were one thing Kiva Kijewski had never allowed in her classroom and Rowan had continued with that rule due to the animals, and one almost disastrous lesson that sent two students and herself to the hospital wing. “Today we will be studying Granians, the gentlest of all the winged horses.” She smiled as she was genuinely excited about this lesson. “Now I ask that you all be on your best behavoir today, or you will be in trouble.” She said as she leveled her gazed at a certain Pecari first year.

With that Rowan returned to her smiling self and said. “Follow me.” They quickly made their way through the woods and into the large pen where the Granians were grazing. “Ladies and gentlemen, these beautiful creatures are Granians.” She said as one came up to the fence and nuzzled her neck. All of them in the pen were grey and about the size of normal horses, just with white wings. “These are the fastest horses in the world; they can go from zero to 80 in about three seconds.”

“Granians need lots of loving and care to thrive. They love to be rubbed and brushed down. They are very gentle unless they feel like your going to attack one of theirs. They are family oriented and become sick and eventually die when they are too long away from another of their kind.” Rowan said as the one by her began sniffing around her pockets. He laughed as she pulled out an apple that was in her pocket.

“My Granians are fed a steady diet of oats, apples, and carrots and the occasional sugar cube. Now once every couple of days I have to take them on runs. Today though they are nice and clam ready for you all to study them!” She said with a smile. “So pair up, yes I know you guys are always paired up, and take a pail of food from over there and a brush so you guys can feed and rub them down. If you need any help or have any questions please call my name!”

OOC: Please identify which house you are in! One more thing you will not be riding nor making the horses run fast. If Rowan sees this you will be serving detentions and be losing house points for your House.

Subthreads:

This has the potential to end badly by Edmond Carey, Aladren with Demelza Eagle, that Pecari nutzo, Edmond

How interesting! by Rachel Bauer, Crotalus with Daniel Nash II

How beautiful! by Jude Normandy with Jethro Smythe

Feels like home. by Tobar Brishen [Tepp.] with Jose Hernandez (Pecari)

*squeals* by Pippa Brockert (Teppenpaw) with Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus)

0 Professor R. Dakin Beginners 1-3 lesson 0 Professor R. Dakin 1 5

Edmond Carey, Aladren

January 30, 2010 11:25 PM

This has the potential to end badly by Edmond Carey, Aladren

Because of the way he had been raised, Edmond cherished an especial dislike of the Magical Creatures rule that forced him to run about without his robes for extended periods of time. He knew it was old-fashioned, that many wizards wore Muggle garb casually, but the awareness did little to keep him from just not feeling right about it. It was like he'd gone to a formal dinner without his tie and was now on the receiving end of a lot of 'you young hooligan' looks.

Not that he'd ever personally done that, of course. Julia would have stopped that cold before he could get too close to the table. He thought the point stood anyway; one set of his tutors had been adamant about how necessary the trait of empathy was for a successful person, which meant, he thought, being able to get in the head of someone who'd either had the bad luck or bad taste to come to dinner not properly dressed and was being embarrassed because of it.

His interest was somewhat piqued, though, when he heard the creature they were going to be looking at. From what he had understood, winged horses were much more advanced material, and he had also understood it to not be standard to put the first years around things that could trample them to death. Even the ones, like him, who had come in with some level of skill would most likely not be able to cope with even a bit of a serious situation. If he was to be perfectly honest on the subject, Edmond was pretty sure he would also be flattened if things got out of hand. Morgaine had seemed to honestly think living to see his thirteenth birthday during midterm was a major accomplishment for his life, but he had greater things in mind; it would be a shame to die now.

He wondered if that was what Professor Dakin meant when she talked about trouble. Some people did use the strangest set of euphemisms. Edmond thought it was usually better to call things what they were; in this case, it would have gotten a lot stronger of a point across.

As the lecture went on, he found himself wanting to ask the professor what, exactly, she meant when she referred to the horses having "families". He had wandered into reading some pages on animal intelligence before midterm, but could not, on his own, decide if she was talking about families in the sense of blood relations or just a need to be around others of their own species. Since they had an activity to perform in parternship with another person, though, he decided that he'd just look it up on his own later. The best thing about school, hands down, was the size of the library; if no book at least alluding to the topic could be found there, Edmond would be very much surprised.

He would have been much happier if he could have gone and gotten started on the search, but that was one of the not-so-wonderful things about school: he wasn't allowed a lot of control over how he went about covering material. With that control, the amount of time he spent on school would be cut more than in half. But, for now, he needed to find an partner. Spotting a candidate, Edmond went over. "Have you found a partner yet?" he asked.

0 Edmond Carey, Aladren This has the potential to end badly 0 Edmond Carey, Aladren 0 5

Demelza Eagle, that Pecari nutzo

February 03, 2010 10:17 PM

With me around, that a definite possibility. by Demelza Eagle, that Pecari nutzo

If it weren't for that fact that Demelza was probably failing this class, COMC would be close to her favorite class. She loves animals, and she has learned about magical creatures her whole life, her mom being an explorer and stuff. It wasn't the smarts that got her, it was her behavior. She didn't mean to be bad, in fact she wasn't, she was just nuts. She was a crazy monkey, who was extremely clumsy and had the tendency to mess things up easily. It also didn't help that she was raised in a way so that she could practically do whatever she wanted, with her brothers practically raising her, for her mom had to constantly look over her little sister with cerebral palsy. So, as a result, she was C-R-A-Z-Y.

But COMC class was a class where she got the most hyper. She got to take her robe off, and she felt so much less formal, which made her want to have fun and jump around. She may not want to admit it, but she has some major ADD and ADHD.

So when Demelza [A.K.A. that Pecari nutzo] walked into COMC today, she got really excited. Winged Horses, she said! Demelza grinned wildly at the professor, but was slightly taken aback when she gazed carefully at her. Demelza felt her stare as sorta awkward, so to loosen the tension, she waved her hand at Professor Rowan, which brought a few laughs to people around her. She then went back to her normal smile, so Demelza did too.

Happily, Demelza followed/skipped over to where Professor Rowan was leading them. She stopped abruptly as she saw the horses. They wee beautiful! But in Demelza's eyes, they were no longer pretty little ponies when the Professor said how fast they can go! Demelza wanted really badly to ride one! It would be even better than riding a broom!

When instructed, Demelza grabbed a pail of food and a brush, and tried to keep the temptation from her mind. She really didn't want to lose house points! She was loyal to her house! Guess she'll just have to be a good little girl...

She was going to go find a partner when someone asked her, "Have you found a partner yet?"

"No. Let's partner together then, shall we?" she asked/more like stated. She figured that this was a second or third year because 1, she didn't know him, and 2, he didn't know her obviously, if her asked to partner with her. Honestly, who would be crazy enough to do that?

Demelza walked over to one of the grey horses not yet taken, and brushed it's fur with her brush in hand. It really was a beautiful horse. "Beauties, aren't they?" She asked the boy. "I'm Demelza, by the way. And you are...?"

0 Demelza Eagle, that Pecari nutzo With me around, that a definite possibility. 0 Demelza Eagle, that Pecari nutzo 0 5

Rachel Bauer, Crotalus

February 05, 2010 8:01 PM

How interesting! by Rachel Bauer, Crotalus

The first few weeks had been difficult. As smart as Rachel was, she had never used a wand before, and there had been kinks to work out once she started. After that, though, she had only really had one problem in her first semester at Sonora.

She had been bored.

Momma, in the two days of midterm Rachel had actually seen her, had seemed to think it had only been to be expected. They had thrown her in with second and third years on the first day, with largely the same tasks to perform. It would have been against her nature to not push herself toward meeting their standard as quickly as possible. Since she didn’t believe in giving exceptions for inexperience, it had never crossed her mind that her professors might feel differently; this had gotten her a lecture on not being quite so sure she always knew what was going on without concrete evidence in front of her. She had also been asked to at least try to avoid the temptation to attempt to show up older students and draw the wrong sort of attention to herself. A show of a certain kind of confidence might be fine in her mother’s world, but actual confidence was definitely seen as a bad thing, especially in a young lady.

After two weeks minus two days with Dad, Rachel was less inclined to think of this as expediency than she was to think of it as pandering to a bunch of sexist idiots. That was why it was dangerous to see her real father; with the best of intentions in the world, he was likely to ruin her life.

Assuming she didn’t ruin it herself first. She couldn’t help doing well; the only way, at this point, not to do so was to perform spells and procedures wrong on purpose, and that was both stupid from a safety point of view and something her pride wouldn’t allow. Rachel had made finding out what her best was and then surpassing the mark a fairly professional strategy even before her parents got divorced; now, she did it without even really thinking about it, especially when the challenge level was low.

Care of Magical Creatures was an area where the challenge level was pretty consistently low. As they dealt only with safe creatures, appropriate for flighty eleven-year-olds, it would take a special kind of stupidity to actually get seriously injured, so there wasn’t even the worry that something would blow up violently that kept her on her toes in Potions. By December, she’d been largely attending the class on autopilot, and expected to do more of the same until June right up until she processed what Professor Dakin was planning to do with them.

The task, it had to be admitted, was far more geared toward the class description than it was toward being interesting. She did enough chores while she was at Dad’s, where the term “work ethic” was used as a euphemism for “too poor to hire a housekeeper”, and the cynical side of her was more than happy to suggest that Jacob Bauer and Rowan Dakin were both exploiting the system to get free labor out of her and her sisters or classmates. Despite this, though, she was intrigued. Normal horses were dangerous enough; these could probably trample the entire class into pancakes without even thinking about it too hard. As much as she’d like a little more excitement in her life, Rachel wasn’t sure that was the kind she was after, so she hoped no one was really running away with the idiot ball today.

She made a mental note as they were ordered into pairs: if at all possible, avoid Pecaris.

To make it more possible, Rachel decided to take the initiative and go grab a non-hostile, non-Pecari classmate straight off. Since the only non-Pecari she concretely disliked at this point was Raines, this left her with a fair bit to choose from. Aladren purebloods were best, as she had two standards to live up to and was so too paranoid to slip up and admit to doing things like playing Monopoly when she was little, but they were by no means a hard and fast rule. Making up her mind between two targets, she walked straight up to the first. “Want to work together?” she asked, in her brightest, friendliest voice. That voice took effort, but everyone had to make sacrifices. That was practically the family motto.

16 Rachel Bauer, Crotalus How interesting! 154 Rachel Bauer, Crotalus 0 5

Jude Normandy

February 06, 2010 12:57 PM

How beautiful! by Jude Normandy

Jude Normandy had a pretty chill Christmas. They had free trade tea and chocolate by the fire, just him and his parents. It was peaceful, and the next morning he had helped his dad create another painting. It was tradition; on Christmas morning Jude and his father always made something together, and then hung it up in the foyer. Their house was very streamlined—all windows and whites and metals—and the paintings helped give it a sort of neo-hippie gallery feel. Jude loved his house, and his parents, and he was kind of disappointed to go back to Sonora. But at the same time, he had loads of friends at school, so he hugged his mom and dad goodbye and went without complaint.

And now he was here at Care of Magical Creatures, and he was rather excited. Horses! Jude wasn’t too familiar with the animals, but he’d always thought they would be great fun to interact with. His parents had never believed in petting zoos, though, or circuses, or anything like that. Or pets. It was demeaning to animals to keep them as pets. Instead, his mother worked for the Park Service and helped keep their natural habitats safe, and his dad sometimes donated paintings for good causes.

But he thought it was pretty cool that they could help to take care of these beautiful animals, so he looked around for a partner. Jude wasn’t really picky. He was friendly, and he liked making new friends as well as working with old ones, so it was all the same to him.

Once his blue eyes alighted on someone who looked as though they wanted a partner, he walked up to them. “Hey,” the Californian said with a friendly smile. “Would you like to work together? The Granians are so beautiful, it’s almost weird that we’d be allowed to care for them.” Jude smiled again, watching the horses. They truly were beautiful. He couldn’t imagine what a fantastic time his father would have painting one, or maybe even trying a sculpture.

0 Jude Normandy How beautiful! 0 Jude Normandy 0 5

Daniel Nash II

February 11, 2010 2:23 PM

Depending on your definition of interesting. by Daniel Nash II

Daniel was still bitter that too many of his classes were clumping the third years in with the first and second years. He'd been ready for intermediate lessons last year. He'd hoped, obviously in vain, that the midterm would lend itself to a restructuring in his schedule so that he only had intermediate classes now, but that had proven far too optimistic, and he was supremely disappointed in himself for the shortcoming of his normal cynicism.

Worse, as soon as Holly heard about this lesson, she was going to be insanely jealous, and his sister was hard enough to deal with lately without adding in that he got to handle horses and she didn't.

He sighed tiredly and removed his outer robes at the order to do so (and not a moment earlier, because a school uniform made being in school so much more scholarly, even in outdoor classrooms like this, and Daniel didn't want to give that up an earlier than he had to). His clothes underneath may as well have been a part of the uniform though. The slacks, vest, shirt, blazer, and tie were nearly exact replicas to the school uniform at the private school he attended in West Hollywood, before coming to Sonora. He'd modified a few things to make it more appropriate to an Aladren rather than a West Hollywood Academian - changing the tie to an Aladren blue, and turning the lapel school badge into the Aladren emblem - but, overall, it had the same preppy uniform look.

It was his little rebellion against the Care of Magical Creatures teachers who made him take of the Sonora robes and consequently infect him with less scholarly casual clothes. When he played a role, he liked his wardrobe to be appropriate to the character, and a dedicated student required a uniform. It helped keep him on track, and he couldn't understand why a teacher would encourage students to shed that appearance, regardless of how unwieldy robes were around animals.

Though, he supposed, it was possible that other people who were not him did not change their personality based on what they were wearing. He couldn't wrap his mind around how that could work, but the evidence he'd seen over the past few years at Sonora supported the theory.

But Daniel was in uniform, and his personality did reflect what he was wearing, so he dismissed his misgivings about the class and the lesson, and looked around for a partner. The first person who met his eyes was a first year. He couldn't recall having worked with her before, but he was fairly sure she was one of the more intelligent underclassmen. He could do worse. He could get paired with a Pecari.

He nodded in answer to her question. "Fine with me." He looked toward the winged horses that they'd have to care for today. Manual labour. Dirty manual labour. Holly could have dismissed that as irrelevant once horses became involved, but Daniel was not a fanatic like his sister was. His attempt at suppressing a grimace was half-hearted at best and did not meet with success.

He shook his head after a moment and turned back to the girl, remembering his manners. "Daniel Nash the Second," he introduced himself, with a small courtly bow. He wasn't trying, exactly, to fake being a pureblood, but the cut of her clothes and her House designation of Crotalus made him suspect she'd be easier to work with if she thought he wasn't a muggleborn. He was House stereotyping again, but it rarely failed him and he was about ready to give up the fiction that people couldn't be judged by their House affiliation.

Besides, he wasn't acting. This was how he'd been taught to introduce himself. Daniel had been raised to believe he was a prince every bit as much as Holly was given to think she was a princess. It was not his fault that his parents' wealth and status gave him more habits and traits in common with the purebloods of the wizarding community than with the other muggleborns. He didn't even have to try in order to give purebloods pause as they wondered if maybe there was a Nash wizarding family that they weren't familiar with.

If he could use that to his advantage, he was not above doing so. He wouldn't lie if questioned directly, but he felt no compunctions against intentionally misleading.

1 Daniel Nash II Depending on your definition of interesting. 130 Daniel Nash II 0 5

Edmond

February 11, 2010 6:45 PM

I must work to minimize that possibility. by Edmond

A second look at the girl he had approached brought up a flicker - a slight flicker - of memory, but she seemed a practical enough sort for him to doubt it. He had never, after all, had much in the way of success in remembering most of his classmates. He thought he had most of his year down, but even they didn't hold his interest to any great degree. Only those he saw as challengers could often do that.

Of course, his partner also seemed to be on the bossy side, so he would have to be careful to pay attention to what she actually said so he didn't obey automatically and end up in an awkward position. Edmond was aware of his own abilities, and one of them was usually knowing what was going on and - if applicable - where in the book to look to fix it. A year of exposure had taught him that he couldn't trust others to possess the same talent.

"They do have some level of aesthetic appeal," he said. "I am Edmond Carey, of Aladren." Demelza. He tried to fix the name to the face, but expected he'd forget the latter. The former, he wanted to look up the origins of, as he'd never heard it before. Names were interesting, especially in his family. His and his father's were both weirdly appropriate for family leaders, for instance, and Morgaine...Well, she did live on an island, and she came off it to see him, so, in a sense, she was a woman from the sea. He found all the little connections of that sort highly amusing.

There were, he thought, schools of thought that believed a name had power. Another thing Edmond found interesting was the variety seen in global magical practice and belief. It was not, however, something he was authorized to study for the present.

"I must ask your forgiveness if I do this wrong," he added, making a stab at brushing the horse with a gesture like the one he had seen Julia use on Jane. He must have done it too hard, though, because the creature made a nose and moved in what he thought was an irritated way. "Manual labor was not deemed necessary for me to learn before Sonora, and I still haven't gained much proficiency in it."

0 Edmond I must work to minimize that possibility. 0 Edmond 0 5

Jethro Smythe

February 12, 2010 7:32 AM

They have wings. by Jethro Smythe

Care of Magical Creatures was sometimes easier than the other classes because they rarely had to do any written work in the class itself. Also the professor liked to ask the younger students to work in pairs, so Jethro quite often had someone to help him with the work, which was nice. He sometimes petted the animals too, and he thought that could be nice, especially if they were fluffy like puffskeins. He didn't like petting salamanders.

Today they would be petting animals, but they were much bigger. they were horses, horses with wings, but the teacher called them something that sounded like granules. Jethro thought he must have heard wrong, because granules were like a powder, or like sugar when it wasn't in a cube. It definitely didn't mean a horse. Or wings.

The assignment - Jethro was pretty sure he heard it all - was to brush the horse and feed it and rub it down (but he wasn't really sure what that meant). It did not involve riding it, or flying it, or writing essays about it, and Jethro didn't hear anything about the granule being able to breathe fire so he thought it must be an okay class. All he needed now was a partner.

Sometimes Jethro worked with Marissa because she was in his house and he could remember her name. Sometimes he worked with Andrew, especially in potions, because Andrew didn't mind telling Jethro what to do. He had worked with Demelza once, too. Sometimes Jethro worked with Jose, who was in Pecari, and knew that Jethro often needed to hear instructions more than once. But Jethro knew he could be a burden as a class partner - his sister told him so, and she was always right. So when it wasn't a difficult class he thought he would take his sister's advice and work with somebody new. He was looking around for a suitable new someone when a first year came right on over and asked to work together.

"Yes, I would like that very much indeed," Jethro replied enthusiastically, nodding his head to support the truth of his statement. Coupled with the fact that Jethro was wearing odd socks - one green, one red - that poked out from underneath the hems of his over-priced and over-starched gray pants with his striped cotton shirt that was only half tucked-in, Jethro probably didn't portray a picture of complete sanity. The second year was oblivious to this, naturally, and the old saying that 'ignorance is bliss' didn't fade away for good reason.

0 Jethro Smythe They have wings. 146 Jethro Smythe 0 5

Rachel

February 13, 2010 10:34 PM

What's yours? by Rachel

Judging people based on appearances was shallow and stupid, but it was often effective when Rachel was trying to figure out how well she needed to behave around a person. Daniel's dress code meant that it was highly likely he was the exact kind of person Momma would approve of her knowing and would act as if he was even if he had picked up progressive ideas somewhere along the way.

She had picked up that he was displeased about some aspect of the situation, either the horses or her, but she thought that only made things better. It meant the chances that he would jolly her off her guard were much lower. The biggest potential problems she could foresee were possibly being called out for actually trying, pushed around like a firstie, or him suddenly revealing that he was from a huge pureblood clan centered in Phoenix and was perfectly aware that there was no such thing as the Arizona Bauers.

Right. Unless he asked, she was offering no state name, and if he did ask, she'd lie. It wasn't as if Momma had painted Dad's family as the Careys or something, she'd just made up a story where being related to it didn't give Rachel Muggle great-grandparents. There were lots of microscopic families that claimed nominal purity, after all, and being a well-to-do member of one was no worse than having divorced parents, a mother who'd remarried to someone more than ten years her junior for money, or being related to Helena.

"Nice to meet you," she said. "I'm Rachel Bauer."

Etiquette said she ought to curtsy, but that was kind of hard to do when she wasn't in a skirt, so she swapped it out with inclining her head and hoping it came across as polite instead of arrogant. Though she didn't keep it up nearly as well as she had before the divorce, her mother still usually tried to come up with a logical reason for asking Rachel to do things, and even she had admitted it was impractical to sit on the ground or run around after animals in a dress. She'd made a decent argument for one during Defense (in the real world, Rachel would probably suffer any attacks in a skirt, making it practical to be able to defend herself in one), but not Creatures.

This did not, however, excuse her from dressing well and otherwise maintaining her appearance during the lessons as best she could. Rachel didn't know much about horses and their grooming, but was already planning out her post-class wardrobe change. For the present, though, she pushed up her sleeves in a hopefully-competent-looking manner. "Have you ever worked with flying horses before?" she asked. "I can't say I know much about them."

16 Rachel What's yours? 154 Rachel 0 5

Daniel

February 15, 2010 1:06 AM

Does not involve manual labor? by Daniel

Rachel Bauer. Right. Daniel tried to imprint the name into his memory banks. For someone who was as good at memorizing school related trivia, he was deplorably bad at remembering names. He just hoped he'd remember Rachel's through the remainder of the class period.

"Pleasure," he returned politely after her introduction, because even if he did manage to forget her name, at least the remainder of his manners ought to be flawless.

At her question about whether or not he'd ever handled winged horses before, he shook his head. "My sister has a normal horse, but no, I haven't had to care for a Granian or other winged horse before." He looked at the brushes and the feed that they were expected to use. "I can't imagine it's terribly different than caring for Wendy, though." He paused a moment, wondering if he should clarify who Wendy was, then decided he maybe should. "Holly's horse, I mean."

Which, unfortunately, identified him as Holly's brother, which had more than a few detriments associated with it, the largest being Holly herself. Maybe, if he was very lucky, Rachel wouldn't recognize Holly's name. Or, if she did, maybe Holly wasn't seen as being as insane as Daniel knew she was. His sister had, after all, somehow convinced the Ladies of the Fifth Year Court that she was worthy company despite being a muggleborn . . . and completely out of her mind.

It was perhaps wise to allow as little contemplation on Holly as possible, and Daniel liked to think he was pretty wise. He redirected attention back to the horses and the lesson at hand. "It should be fairly straightforward. Brush their mane, feed them oats, and don't do anything to startle them. I know every time I've gone out to see Wendy, I had to approach from the front so she knew I was there." He grimaced a little. "But I haven't done that in years. The horse barn was always my sister's domain and I did my best to avoid it."

That was particularly easy given that it was at the Greer house, and Daniel hadn't been there in over a year. With their mother's wedding plans taking precedence over all their time this midterm, Christmas had been at Mom's this year. That had been fun. Luke's dad, Holly's dad, Daniel's dad, and the new step-father-to-be all in the same house at the same time around the same table. Dad and Paul Greer got on well enough with each other - both having moved on gracefully after their respective divorces with Mom - and they could both usually tolerated Luke's father, but Anton had no idea how to deal with his fiance's exes so the holiday had been extremely tense.

But it was best not to explain any of that to anybody unknowledgable of Hollywood's marriage trends, or it would sound like Daniel came from a disreputable family. Consequently, Holly was his 'sister' here at Sonora instead of his 'half-sister' and the less mention of Daniel's current custody arrangements, the better. If he had to imply the horse barn was on the property he called home, he could do that.

1 Daniel Does not involve manual labor? 130 Daniel 0 5

Tobar Brishen [Tepp.]

February 16, 2010 6:35 PM

Feels like home. by Tobar Brishen [Tepp.]

Tobar made his way down to the CoMC class without his robes glad to be in cutoff pants, and button down shirt that exposed his olive chest. His long black hair was braided and intertwined with a few strands of bright unicorn hair. The unicorn was a pet of one of the men in his caravan and had given the hair to Tobar as a gift. It was to bring him good look. His feet were adorned with a pair of leather sandals his mother had made and he knew to other students he would also savage but CoMC was the one time of day he felt like he was in the caravan again.

When Professor Dakin announced they would be taking care of Granians today, Tobar got excited. At home, they had a whole herd of Granians and it was one of his main jobs to look after them. The young Roma practically became giddy with excitement at the though of doing something so ‘Gypsy’.

Once the Professor had released them he rushed and grabbed a pail before looking around for a partner. Finally, he saw someone standing by a Granian but with no partner. He walked over to them smiling. “Good afternoon!” He said with a smile. “Would you mind if I partnered with you?” He asked hopefully ready to work.

0 Tobar Brishen [Tepp.] Feels like home. 0 Tobar Brishen [Tepp.] 0 5

Rachel

February 16, 2010 8:34 PM

That's a broad category. by Rachel

Rachel shrugged slightly at Daniel's admission that he had left the horses to his sister for years. "The last horse I was near was at a fair," she said, grimacing slightly at a sudden memory, "and it was Dad who thought he was a cowboy that day, so I'll take your word for it."

Yet another of Dad's poorly-executed attempts to acclimate her to Muggle Culture. Momma had still liked him, then, so that episode hadn't gone as poorly as it would have just a few months later, but Alicia really did not realize how lucky she was to have been three when Momma remarried. Having their mother as the most present figure in her life no doubt meant she'd lost something, but at least she knew exactly where she belonged in the scheme of things.

Of course, her being six could have a lot to do with that, too. Rachel couldn't remember being six, but she felt reasonably sure that it didn't involve a lot of speculation about the nature of the universe and place of the rich half-blood in it.

"I suppose we should get to it," she suggested, though not overly enthusiastically. Part of this was the charade, and part was just distaste for the equivalent of housework. It seemed to her distinctly unfair that she had to follow all of Momma's societal rules and then got saddled with having to perform unsavory tasks in addition to faking viewpoints she had just as little use for. "Do we need to feed him or brush him first?"

16 Rachel That's a broad category. 154 Rachel 0 5

Jose Hernandez (Pecari)

February 19, 2010 1:25 AM

Horses where I come from don't have wings. by Jose Hernandez (Pecari)

Jose's favorite part of Care of Magical Creatures was the lack of school robes. No, that was wrong. His favorite part was the animals. No, that was wrong. His favorite part was that every week it was different. No, that was wrong. His favorite part was . . . well, he pretty much like every part and most of it took a turn as being his favorite part. Today, he decided, it was the horses.

He was vaguely aware that they were supposed to be finding partners and collecting stuff to help them do the brushing and the feeding and all, but he found his feet walking toward one of magnificent beasts and putting a reverent hand on the animal's neck, stroking at the shorter hair that was a little lighter than the longer strands of the mane. "You're a handsome devil," he told it, fully impressed by its size and wingspan.

He didn't even notice the other student coming over to join them until he spoke. Jose looked over and gave him a bright grin. "Sounds great," he agreed immediately to the offered partnership. "I'm Jose," he added, on the off chance the other kid (he was pretty sure the guy's name was Tobar) didn't already know it. Despite the obviously Hispanic name, Jose's voice carried no trace of an accent beyond normal American.

Giving the Granian another fond pat, Jose added, "I was just introducing myself to our friend here. I've handled horses before, at the Renfaire tourneys, but none of them ever had wings." Despite growing up in a mixed magic-muggle family, he was pretty sure he wasn't any less awestruck by seeing a real live flying horse up close and personal than any muggleborn.

His clothes, too, reflected a more muggle like heritage than his family had claim to. The worn blue jeans certainly didn't suggest they belonged to a member of the wealthiest Pierce branch, and the black (at least, it used to be black, now it was more of a dull gray) t-shirt he wore sported the logo of the Beatles and at least two holes in the fabric. Both were notably too large for him and completely defeated the purpose the Professor had attempted to acheive in not requiring the students to wear robes.

Between his wide eyed wonder and utter fascination with the Granian, the oversized clothes, and a height that was average for people a year younger than him, the second year Pecari also looked every bit the first year he had told Jude that he was back in September, when he illegally moved into the first year boys' dorm. (Nobody had yet forced him back to the empty second year dorm, and he honestly wasn't sure if McKindy even realized Jose wasn't a first year. For that matter, since he often introduced himself as Jude's roommate, he wasn't sure if most of the first years might think he was one of them, especially since he was taking flying lessons again for the sole reason of furthering that impression.)

Rubbing at the Granian's flank, Jose addressed the horse again, "You're awesome. This is awesome. This is the best class since . . . since I don't know." Looking over at his new partner again, he asked, only half seriously, "How much trouble to d'you think I'd get in if I tried to get on this guy's back?" He widened his eyes into his most innocent look, "So we could reach his mane better when we brushed it, of course."

0 Jose Hernandez (Pecari) Horses where I come from don't have wings. 0 Jose Hernandez (Pecari) 0 5

Demelza

February 23, 2010 7:08 PM

I doubt even that will work... by Demelza

OOC: I'm really really really sorry for the delay!!!

BIC:
This... this Edmond, as he named himself, was a bit too prim and proper in Demelza's eyes. He talked like a man from the 19th century! It made Demelza want to laugh at him, but she knew that would be rude. Maybe it was just the way purebloods talked? whatever the case, Demelza wasn't really particularly concerned about his manner because he seemed nice, so that was good enough for her.

She smiled and shook his hand when he introduced himself, taking her eyes off the magnificent horse for a moment. Demelza loved this class. She could be side tracked with out really worrying about missing something: what more could a girl with ADD ask for?

But today was a bad day for Demelza and the whole paying attention thing. She started thinking about other things besides the horse, like Edmond. why was he so... weird? But not in a Demelza-like kind of weird. Like the momma's perfect little boy kind of weird. Demelza liked the fun and spontaneous better.

But then he started to talk to her, and she excitedly answered. "Oh, well my mom used to study about magical creatures, and I live on a farm back at home with tons of magical and regular types of creatures! Although, I think some of the magical ones are illegal, but I still get the experience to learn from them, which is really cool. And the whole manual labor thing is really easy to get the hang of, I think. You just gotta be gentle, you see, with animals that can be agitated, which is, well, nearly all of them. But once you learn their soft spots, you should be okay!" She said, really fast, showing her ADHD that was also really active today.

She took a deep breath after she rambled on, and then blushed. Opps, she had done it again... she talked the micky out of someone! Only Demelza... she then went back to stroking the horse (or whatever it was really called), and hoped Edmond wouldn't think she was totally crazy.

0 Demelza I doubt even that will work... 0 Demelza 0 5

Pippa Brockert (Teppenpaw)

February 24, 2010 5:59 PM

squeals by Pippa Brockert (Teppenpaw)

Unlike some of her classmates, Pippa didn't really mind being in the Beginner class for some subjects. It wasn't so much that she didn't think she could handle the harder class work,it was just that she didn't feel as comfortable around some of the older kids. Even though her own sister could be just awful to her, Pippa was way more comfortable around the younger students. Besides, there was always the possibility that she could help them and that would make her feel good.

Besides, if she was in the Intermediate class, she wouldn't be able to work with the Granians today. Pippa had always loved animals and this was her favorite class so she was extremely excited to work with the beautiful horses. She would have been terrified to ride one, given how fast they went but other than that, they were just so gentle and the idea of taking care of them just really appealed to her.Pippa really did enjoy taking care of animals-and people too. Not that she had a chance, aside from her puffskien and helping Whitney with Duncan occasionally on holidays.

Now, Pippa was going to have to find a partner, which, once again, was why it was good to be with the Beginners. Most of her own yearmates were intimidating as well, aside from Nathaniel.

She started to move to look for a partner when someone approached her. Pippa smiled at the person and said, "Hello, do you want to work together?"

11 Pippa Brockert (Teppenpaw) *squeals* 132 Pippa Brockert (Teppenpaw) 0 5

Edmond

February 25, 2010 4:55 PM

It can't hurt to try. by Edmond

It took Edmond a moment to sort through everything Demelza said. She spoke far too fast, and he knew it wasn't just a regional thing, because he'd had tutors from up north, the west, and at least two from out of the country. Maybe more than two, but he couldn't be sure about Davids or Tennant. That had been a long time ago...

He reminded himself sternly not to drift off into memories. Jane called him 'Professor' when he did that, and if he had a degree for every time she did it, he would easily outrank every actual professor at Sonora. Enough information was in his head that he could see almost nothing without tying it, if only in his head, to something he'd seen before, and the associations kept going from there until he sometimes found it hard to focus on whatever had set the chain off, or even remember it. "I see," he said politely. "Thank you for the, ah, advice, Miss Demelza."

Edmond resumed attempting to brush the Granian. It looked at him, but did not seem immediately inclined to violence against his person. This allowed the back of his brain to occupy itself with the question of whether or not he'd be out of order to offer a bit of advice of his own. It was, generally speaking, a bad idea to tell strangers that you thought your mother was involved in the illegal transport of magical creatures. He had put together that he was far more sheltered than his sisters, and he still knew that a good many of the world's people saw no problem with being blackmailers. He wasn't, but he didn't think Mora, for one, would have any problem with it if she thought it would help her family.

"I believe you're a first year," he stated. If there was a perk to his mind, it was that he could, if he focused, run two or three things it in almost simultaneously. "How have you liked your first months at Sonora?" An inane topic, he knew, but it was impolite not to make an attempt at polite conversation and he didn't know anything else to say. He'd made some headway in speaking to other Aladrens, but their interactions even began with his scripts if he didn't have some idea of their academic caliber beforehand.

0 Edmond It can't hurt to try. 0 Edmond 0 5

Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus)

February 26, 2010 8:54 AM

I know, right? by Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus)

Charlotte liked learning about animals - this had been true before she came to Sonora, but on the discovery that dragons and unicorns were real, and such creatures like Puffskeins and hippogriffs existed in her world, Charlie simply adored the subject. She looked forward to each class with zeal, and she was still more likely to do her care of magical creatures homework before any other, regardless of due dates. She had always liked the porfessors teaching the subject, too. As she settled down near the front of the class - especially large today, as first and second years were there, too, Charlotte became increasingly excited as Professor Dakin explained they would be working with Granians.

Surely winged horses had to be every young girl's dream? Even though she was more comfortable by far in jeans and sneakers than a floral frock, Charlie couldn't deny she loved dancing ballet, her favorite color was pink, and she would love nothing more than to pet a flying pony.

Eager to begin the assignment, Charlie approached the first person she saw who looked as delighted with the task as she felt. It happened to be Pippa, a girl in Charlie's year she didn't know all that well. When Pippa asked if she wanted to work together, Charlie replied with a smile of her own. "Yes, that would be great," she enthused. I can't believe we get to groom Granians! Which shall we start with?" The Crotalus eyed up the horses like a small child eyed the shelves in a candy shop.

0 Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus) I know, right? 0 Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus) 0 5

Pippa

March 15, 2010 7:10 PM

Right! by Pippa

Pippa grinned at Charlie's response. "I know!" she exclaimed happily. She was so excited about this and she could tell the Crotalus was as well. Pippa had never expected to have something in common with one of the popular girls in her class. Not that popularity was the most important thing to Pippa but it was nice to know that they weren't completely different. It made Charlie seem less intimidating. Maybe they’d hit it off and even end up as friends.

"Let's take that one." Pippa suggested, gesturing to a beautiful creature nearby. She walked over to it and pet its muzzle. She was not the least bit afraid of such a gentle creature, like she might have been of others. “Oh you’re beautiful, aren’t you?” She said to the Granian.

She turned back to Charlie. “Have you ever worked with Granians before? I haven’t really had much experience with them, but I’ve always wanted to see one up close. “ Even though Pippa was a pureblood and her grandfather’s cousin Frank owned a ranch with many magical creatures, she had never had the opportunity. She’d never even been to Frank’s ranch. Even most large Brockert family functions were not held there. Instead they usually took place at the grand estate of the family patriarch, Clifford Brockert, who was Frank’s father. That was where they’d gone for Adam’s graduation party last summer.

It had been the grandest, most impressive party Pippa had ever been to. Of course, she’d never been to many beyond family events. Her parents considered her and Tawny too young to go to adult balls. The school ball that was coming up would be her first chance to go to a real one and she was rather excited about it, especially as she had a date now. Pippa had never been on a date before of course. Things tended not to work that way in pureblood society especially considering she was only thirteen. She wondered what it would be like, what she would wear, how she’d do her hair.

But for now, Pippa had other things to focus on, like the Granians. “Which do you want to do, feed it or brush it?” When they worked in partners, she usually gave the other person first choice on what part of the assignment they wanted to do. “Or we could each do both.” Pippa suggested. She really wanted to both feed and brush the Granian.

11 Pippa Right! 132 Pippa 0 5

Charlotte

March 16, 2010 10:18 AM

Woot! by Charlotte

Pippa selected one of the Granians and started to pet its muzzle without hesitation. Beaming herself, Charlie stroked the creature's flank and gave it a gentle pat. She was in her element, and Pippa looked just as delighted to be there. She asked if Charlie had any previous experience with Granians.

"No," Charlotte replied, "I've never even seen one before. Aside from pictures, I mean." Stroking her fingers carefully through the Granian's mane, Charlie considered that even though she was a pureblood, she had been brought up as a Muggle. She'd rode a horse when she was younger, and she rode a broomstick once at her Uncle Raymond's place, but as soon as her parents had found that out she had been forbidden to visit. Granians were as new to her as they would be to any other Muggleborn.

"Which do you want to do, feed it or brush it?" Pippa asked. "Or we could each do both."

Charlie only needed a second to decide. Brushing the Granian sounded like good fun - much more like playing than doing any real work. But Charlie wouldn't want to stop Pippa from doing that just so she could have a go herself. Plus she liked the feel of animals licking food from the palm of her hand. It tickled. "Both," she replied to Pippa with a smile. Within moments, Charlie had gone to collect a couple of grooming brushes. She passed one to Pippa with a smile. "Here you go."

Without any further hesitation, Charlotte began to groom the gorgeous Granian. She was talking to it softly as she brushed its flanks, telling the creature how beautiful it was. She paused every so often to share a grin with Pippa. It was occasions like this when transfiguration classes seemed like torture in comparison.

"So," Charlotte spoke out loud after a couple of minutes. "Are you going to go to the Midsummer Ball?" Everyone was talking about it at the moment, and Charlie has never had a problem with doing what everyone else was doing.

0 Charlotte Woot! 0 Charlotte 0 5