Kerry O'Shaunasey
December 03, 2011 12:01 AM
Beginner Care of Magical Creatures Lesson by Kerry O'Shaunasey
Kerry had decided to hold his Beginner’s class out in the clearing as well, though the day wasn’t quite as nice. The reason for this was that there were actual animals involved this time. There were what looked like porcupines hemmed in a makeshift pen. Two were rolling around and making little grunting and yipping noises as they wrestled playfully. The animals were surprisingly large, probably weighing between 30-40 lbs each. Kerry watched them with a grin for a moment. He thought they were pretty adorable.Kerry was dressed as he always was, muggle jeans and button down shirt, with a black wizards robe worn open over them. He wore study black boots on his feet. They were very likely a muggle brand, as they clearly weren’t dragon skin leather. His hair was worn long and pulled back in a low ponytail. It was outrageously red, a deep color with no suggestion of brown that would have otherwise made it auburn. Despite the intensity of the color, it was clearly natural as the rest of him would have screamed ‘ginger’ even if he had been shave bald. His skin was pale, with a smattering of freckles scattered over his friendly face, and his eyes were a light blue.
He had small weatherproof cushions for his students to sit on while he gave his brief lecture before the practical aspect. He waited for all of his students to arrived, then turned his attention to them, instead of on the porcupine like animals.
“Welcome Care of Magical Creatures. For those of you who are first years, welcome to the magical world. I hope you’re finding it wonderful and exciting. My name is Kerry O’Shaunasey, but please, call me Kerry.” He knew it wasn’t what other professors did, but he had moral issues with the use of titles. “And I’ll call you by your first names.” He smiled. “Now, today, we’re learning about a native North American magical animal, called a Arrowspine. As you can see they’re nearly identical to porcupines. Arrowspines are where the legends of porcupines being able to ‘throw’ their quills comes from. Ordinary porcupines cannot actually throw their quills. The quills pierce the skin only on contact. Arrowspines can literally launch their quills at a foe from a distance of about five feet. Arrowspines are prized for the venom that is contained at the tips of their quills. This venom in low doses causes extreme itching, and in higher doses can act as a paralytic… that means it can paralyze. The effect of the venom lasts about an hour. Its speculated that short duration of the effect is simply to distract or paralyze an attacker while the Arrowspine makes it’s escape.”
“Arrowspines are also more intelligent than porcupines, and can be trained to guard homes, and retrieve. Like porcupines, they love salt which is what occasionally draws them into contact with muggles, as they go onto farms where there is horselicks and the like. They, like many magical animals are capable of speech, usually short phrases they’ve overheard, rather like parrots. There is no evidence that this is actual conversation, more like an echo of something they’ve heard. My mother has one that does a perfect imitation of a goose honking,” He shrugged, it was weird, but he had a muggle friend who had a parakeet that perfectly imitated the sound of her microwave, which was every bit as weird in Kerry’s opinion. “I haven’t heard any of these ones talk yet, but who knows, there’s always a first.”
Kerry went over to the pen of arrowspines, and picked one up rather like one might pick up a rather rotund cat, and settled it against his shoulder like a baby. “Now, I’d like you to work in pairs or small groups, and first I want you each to take a arrowspine. Don’t worry, they can’t hurt you, they’ve been humanely dequilled, and they are enchanted to nutralize any remaining venom resin and soften any remaining barbs. They’re not soft to the touch, like a cat or dog, but they’re no more dangerous, though if you treat them poorly, they may bite or claw, just like a cat or dog. They’re heavy, so if you can’t lift them, I’ve got some salt pellets in this bucket,” he indicated a bucket suspended on a pole so the arrowspines couldn’t immediately access them. “take a couple, and lead it along, it will follow you happily to get the salt pellets, and stay close in hopes of getting more.” Kerry smiled at his students. “Observe them for a while, and I want each of you to draw a picture of you arrowspine with as much detail as you can manage and write down some observations about their behavior. If you need help, just raise your hand.”
With that, he turned them loose to form groups or pairs and pick an arrowspine to observe. The animals were playful and sweet for the most part, though they didn’t put up with too much mistreatment. Kerry wasn’t too worried. He’d handpicked each of these arrowspines, and all of them allowed themselves to be handled, rolled over, and have their feet and paws touched. A few of them even played fetch.
(Site rules apply to posts. If you need Kerry, say so in your tag, happy posting!)
Subthreads: Not what I was expecting... by Ephanie Lucore, Aladren with Waverly Canterbury - Pecari, Ephanie
Is class over yet? by Attoria Covington, Crotalus with Paul Bennett, Crotalus, Attoria
The difficulties of trying to be a lady.... by Theresa Carey, Pecari with Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus, Theresa
I feel indecisive right now... by Alicia Bauer, Aladren with Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren
... by Angel Shield - Teppenpaw with Jade Owen
Do they bite? by Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus with Alexandra Devereux, Crotalus
I prefer my nature this way. by Mellie Goodwin, Pecari
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Kerry O'Shaunasey
Beginner Care of Magical Creatures Lesson
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Kerry O'Shaunasey
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Theresa Carey, Pecari
December 08, 2011 1:23 AM
The difficulties of trying to be a lady.... by Theresa Carey, Pecari
Theresa gave the cushions on the ground a dubious look before, reluctantly in both a skirt and the presence of people who weren't her brothers and cousins, pushing her hat back further on her head and taking a seat, trying carefully to mind her dress. What she knew about other girls could be summed up quickly, but boys were a different matter, and she knew that the worst thing that could happen to her today would be for things to go wrong with her dress somehow. Just wearing one was enough to make someone seem like a better target for teasing, so not wearing it with as much dignity as Grandmother at least was just asking for it.Looking around at the boys in the class, and the girls who didn't wear skirts, Theresa felt a stab of envy even beyond the lingering disbelief that there were parents who really allowed their daughters enough leeway that the girls could not only get their hands on unsuitable clothes (easy enough for anyone with brothers, at least in her experience) but were bold enough to wear them out in public. The girls, at least, were being improper, but they all looked to her like they had an easier time with the cushions than she did.
She was distracted from that, though, by the strangeness of the professor and his speech, which she spent the duration of with one eyebrow slightly up, her expression puzzled, but also waiting for the funny part, as though she were listening to Arnold. Welcome to the magical world? Well, where did he think she had been for the past eleven years? True, coming to school was a sort of induction into society outside the home, but four -five, now-siblings, three close first cousins, an endless parade of tutors and business friends of Father's and such, and the corners of Grandmother's parties meant she had hardly been isolated before this. Call him Kerry? She could just imagine how Grandmother and Mother would react to hearing about that. They'd send her to a girl's school in Siberia just to get rid of her, if they could find one, and then marry her off to some old Russian so no one would ever be able to understand a word she said ever again.
Well, maybe it wouldn't be that bad, under the circumstances, but she just didn't think she could quite get her tongue to say a professor's real name. He was a sort of servant, which was why he should at least call her Miss Theresa, but a strange kind she had to defer to in some ways. That being one of them. You learned etiquette from a teacher, who hadn't done his or her job right if you could step out of your place with your other teachers, however hard they might try to be friendly. The last thing she wanted were more remedial etiquette lessons.
To her relief, a solution occurred to her almost immediately: she just wouldn't call him anything at all. Feeling better, she paid attention to the lesson.
She made a bit of a face at the instruction to do a drawing - she was no better at drawing than she was at embroidery, and it was a little silly in lessons when there was already a perfectly good drawing in a book somewhere that she could go look at or trace over - but didn't really find anything else in the lesson to object to. She decided, in all the bustle, to get a partner first and a subject second and found someone.
"Good afternoon," she greeted the person pleasantly. "Would you like to work with me?"
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Theresa Carey, Pecari
The difficulties of trying to be a lady....
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Theresa Carey, Pecari
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Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus
December 09, 2011 3:43 PM
The difficulties of being proper... by Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus
When Cepheus arrived to class, he was slightly appalled at the cushions on the ground. Especially because they looked, well, used and worn. Were they expected to sit on these things? Apparently so, and Cepheus sat down and made himself comfortable. He was dressed in the standard school robes as always with slacks and a morning dress shirt. It was slightly uncomfortable in the heat, but he was getting a little more used to it. His bright blonde hair was combed nicely as always. He had to make sure he looked presentable at all times.As he listened to his professor speak, he was disliking him a little more. First, he hardly looked fit enough to teach--who wore jeans to class?--and then he wanted to call them by their given names? Family names would do fine, Cepheus thought. Perhaps he'd tell him he liked to be called Princeton. It was the truth. He was proud of his family background and their English roots. He didn't want people to start calling him Cepheus without his permission. He'd call Kerry "Professor" and hope that his Professor extended the same courtesy with his family name.
The Arrowspines were cute enough. He couldn't remember seeing one before, though he was sure he probably had sometime during his tutoring. His dear English tutor had made sure not to leave one thing out of his primary education, as boring as it was. The result was that Cepheus had a lack of interest in all subjects, except for potions. Care of Magical Creatures was one of the subjects he'd been disinterested in, except for that one time the tutor brought in a crup that became the family pet.
Now they had to have partners, and Cepheus had not yet turned his head to look for someone he knew when someone greeted him. She looked respectable and she was dressed nicely, so Cepheus knew he wouldn't have a problem with her. Unless she turned out to be a lazy and unhelpful partner. And anyway, he always got along better with the ladies than blokes.
"Good afternoon," he said, greeting her with a nod. "I'd like working with you very much." He smiled. "Cepheus Princeton, from London, England." If his strong accent didn't give away his origin, then he hoped his popular family name did. Not that many Americans were aware of it at all, but that was hardly his fault. He wasn't going to be in charge of the family for a very long time, if his father and grandfather didn't die of a sudden illness.
"I'll get an Arrowspine and meet you over by that tree over there? You can sit on one of the roots like a stool." He pointed to the tree with red and yellow leaves. It was a large tree, one that he wouldn't have thought would grow anywhere near a desert. He knew how difficult it was to wear a dress, though not from experience. Emma had complained about it a lot now that she had to wear dresses. He smiled at the girl and went to get one. It was a good thing he'd practised a bit of Quidditch, or he wouldn't have been able to carry the heavy creatures at all. As it was, he could hardly carry it the few feet to the clearing, so he put the creature back down and lured it the rest of the way with salt. The thing was friendly enough, but Cepheus was still a bit wary of its quills. He sat down next to the girl and pulled out a pad of parchment and a quill.
"I'm rubbish at drawing, so forgive me if mine looks like two spiky circles," he said, half-joking and half-honest. "If only my tutor had taught art in a more interesting manner." He had no idea how to start drawing an Arrowspine. The creature was crawling around, sniffing at their shoes. "I hope you're better at this than I am."
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Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus
The difficulties of being proper...
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Cepheus Princeton, Crotalus
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Theresa
December 10, 2011 5:09 PM
I know them well by Theresa
When she met a new person, the first thing Theresa usually found herself looking at was what that person was wearing. With other girls, ‘usually’ was almost ‘always,’ but she noticed boys, too. You could tell a lot about a person by looking at their clothes, as even a cursory examination of her twin cousins in third year would show anyone who looked. Arnold and Arthur looked different enough for anyone to distinguish one from the other, but she imagined it would have been easy enough to tell them apart if they had been identical, just on things like how Arthur would never go around even a bit wrinkled, never mind with his collar loose and no tie on, unless it was an emergency when that was just his brother’s normal way of dressing, at least, as far as she’d been able to see so far, at school.Looking over the boy in front of her now, Theresa liked what she saw. His clothes were not remarkable, boys didn’t have a lot of choice, but his whole appearance was neat, and the impression this gave her was backed up by the way he replied to her inquiry. She did not know much about London or England except that her very distant ancestors had lived in the latter before Anthony the First moved to France and Anthony II to first Scotland and then America, but it seemed to have produced at least one polite person. She smiled and made a slight curtsy.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she replied formally. “I am Theresa Carey, of the South Carolina Careys.”
She perched on a tree root without thinking much about it, since she did that kind of thing all the time at home and it had been his idea, and got out her writing things while she waited for Mr. Princeton to return with the arrowspine. When she saw him leading it along with salt, she couldn’t help but laugh at the sight, and was still smiling as the pair of them reached her again.
It wasn’t very good, though, to hear that he wasn’t much good at sketching, either. “I had to learn important artists, and time periods,” she said uncertainly. “We were never really taught to draw more than a few things. I did have to learn my stitches, but I’m not very good at those, either.” She didn’t think she knew anyone who could stitch an especially accurate picture of the creature examining her shoes, anyway. She patted the top of its head absently. “I suppose we’ll just have to try our best, and hope he’s…generous when he’s grading.”
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Theresa
I know them well
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Theresa
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Cepheus
December 12, 2011 7:44 PM
As do I. Practising it is difficult in itself. by Cepheus
Cepheus was glad that his assumption of her blood status had been correct. He didn't know where South Carolina was, nor whom the Careys were, but from her appearance, they were prestigious enough to be noted. Father would be proud. Once he had adjusted himself beside Carey, he began to draw, unsure of how to begin still. Carey pat the Arrowspine, and Cepheus smirked at her remark."Yes, let's hope so. Otherwise I'm going to have to do some real sucking up to the teacher to improve my grade. And I most certainly don't want to waste my time doing so." Cepheus frowned at the two circles he'd drawn, and crumpled up the parchment, the ink staining his hands. "Blast," he muttered, and dropped the parchment at his side. The Arrowspine was quick to investigate it. "This is more difficult than I thought," he admitted. He quickly began to draw again, this time succeeding in getting the body shape. The ears looked horrid, and the eyes were off-centre. Cepheus almost groaned.
"Horrid, my drawings are," said Cepheus. "Perhaps we can draw it together? As a sort of add-on game. See if we can draw it better together than apart." He and his cousins had done drawings like that before, though most of them turned out to be monstrous. Part of the reason was because they weren't drawing anything in particular. Now, their grade depended on their artistry.
"We could do it twice, one for each of us." He didn't know if the professor would mind, really, as long as there were two drawings between them. And besides, they were working as partners anyhow. Cepheus brought out a fresh sheet of parchment and said, "I'll go first." He drew the head and made sure to make the eyes better as well as the spikes surrounding on its head. It still looked like it had spiky hair. That couldn't be helped, he supposed. "Want to have a go at it?" he asked, holding out the parchment for her.
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Cepheus
As do I. Practising it is difficult in itself.
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Cepheus
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Theresa
December 21, 2011 3:39 PM
We'll learn it all someday, I suppose by Theresa
Theresa smiled at the mention of sucking up to the teacher to get a better grade if he was not inclined to forgive their lack of artistic skills. And here she had thought, after listening to her cousins and adults and anyone she could, really, that none of the lady skills Mother and the other women wanted her to learn would ever be of any use. Even having some experience with painting china, as Mother did, would have been helpful with this.“I’d rather not have to bother, either,” she said, not thinking it was terribly unusual to speak of such things between themselves. She and her brothers and cousins frequently discussed how best to handle various tutors, how to handle adults in general, and aside from that one party where she’d met Mr. Pierce, they were all the society her own age she’d ever had. Children had to stick together, or else adults would run them over. Always. “So here’s hoping for the best.”
She was familiar enough with the idea of the outside world, though, to not ask what she wanted to, which was whether or not he had ever been in a big group like this, if he knew anything about how to even get an adult’s attention in all of this. How on earth the teacher was ever to figure out who they were for them to even be able to suck up to him if they wanted to.
She had, after all, been in a large group before. At the Reunion. Where no one had a clue who she was. There were so many people, most of them from Virginia, and while she was theoretically at least somewhat important because she was the great-great-granddaughter of Anthony IV, in actuality she had been a ten-year-old girl and the daughter of a second son, both of which combined meant that most of the adults not only did not know who she was, but that they did not care, either.
And for the first time in her life, she had been…free, almost. She had been surrounded by other people constantly, but there had been a complete absence of adults paying attention to them. Maybe everyone had assumed someone else was doing it, or maybe they just hadn’t cared, there, surrounded entirely by their own family and with nothing to fear – well, at least until the day the Aurors showed up, and Thomas did not come to breakfast, and Mother and Father and Aunt Lorraine had kept them all close until the danger, whatever it had been, was past. But that was all in the past now. There were adults here, paid to watch over them, if still not quite so bad as at home generally.
Unfortunately for him, his drawing really wasn’t very good. Hers didn’t look quite so bad – the head she had would do, if she wasn’t too concerned about it looking just exactly true to life; it was close enough – but she was going slowly, as she usually did when forced to draw things; she guessed it was just having to see so many sketches of Brandon and Diana’s that made Cepheus look like the greatest artist to ever live. “All right,” she said, when he suggested they share the work. “I only have a head, anyway.”
He drew the head on his, and then she took it and giggled at the impression of spiky hair on the arrowspine’s head. “All right,” she said again. “I’ll try to make a body.”
She drew carefully again, but not quite as carefully as she had before, not wanting to take up too much time when she was being watched and someone else was waiting for her to finish. She stopped in mid-pen stroke as an idea hit her and she proffered her own drawing of the head. “Do you want to work on this one, while I do this body?” she offered. She knew she’d hate to be sitting there, looking at her shoes and trying not to fidget and feeling like she should be doing something but not having anything to do. She hated it more than anything where there was nothing to do.
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Theresa
We'll learn it all someday, I suppose
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Theresa
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Cepheus
December 27, 2011 11:31 PM
I suppose I should hope so. by Cepheus
Cepheus was glad that she had warmed up to his idea, and handed his sad drawing over to her. He was a little put out by her giggling, but even he had to admit that it did look slightly ridiculous. As she began to draw the body, he fidgeted a bit, wanting to walk around or something. He looked at the Arrowspine and touched its forehead--or at least where he thought its forehead ought to be--and the Arrowspine made a little sound. Unsure if that was a good sound or not, he pulled his hand back, content to just look aimlessly at the sky and prepare for boredom.Then Theresa looked over and told him to draw the body on her attempt, which was far better than his. He nodded. "Sure. It'll give me something to do. Thank you." He didn't want his artistic skills to terrorise her art, but it seemed like he had no choice. Either boredom or this. Either way, they were in this drawing thing together. He was plain rubbish at this, that was for sure.
"I thought this was a magical creatures class, not an art class," he muttered under his breath, and began to draw an oval-shaped body that attached to the head. He was satisfied with the shape, but it was getting the spikes to look natural on the thing that took a bit more effort. Stubbornly making, or trying to make, every spike perfect was difficult, and halfway he decided to just make careless pen strokes. The end product was a much better looking Arrowspine body than anticipated.
Cepheus had to be a little proud of this, though he didn't want to admit it yet. He still had the white underbelly to draw. It was a little shaky, but done, and he smiled at it. Overall, this one was a much better version of his previous attempt. And when he looked at the Arrowspine, his face darkened. The creature he had envisioned had been much fatter than this Arrowspine they had, and not nearly as many quills. It looked comical, and Cepheus decided he had been drawing a cartoon all along.
He looked over at Theresa to see if she was finished, and waited for her to look back at him before speaking up. "I'm all finished with the body on this one. Pathetic little tail and all. Turned out like a cartoon more than a portrait, but that's all there to there." He smiled and handed it over to her for inspection. "I'm rather proud of it as it is. Should we colour it red for our professor?" He smirked, then looked at her drawing. "How'd you do?"
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Cepheus
I suppose I should hope so.
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Cepheus
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