A startled little bird on Care of Magical Creatures

Professor Tallec

August 17, 2014 11:03 PM

Do what you Dodo best. by Professor Tallec

Richard took a drink of water from his canteen which, these days, he always seemed to have on him. Arizona was much hotter than the Oregon woods he was used to, but since he was the one that applied to a teaching position in the desert he couldn’t very well complain. As the students filed into the classroom the young professor took some time to roll up the sleeves of his collard shirt. He wanted to look professional, but this was no reason to make himself feel stuffy in this fall heat. He took one more sip of water before standing up from his desk to greet the beginner students.

“Hello, and welcome,” his deep voice sounded throughout the classroom. It was still early in the year, so he wanted to have a fun day with the beginner students before he had to teach the more advanced classes. He walked over to the board and began writing the name of the creature. “Today we will be studying the Diricawl, more commonly known as the Dodo bird. Although Muggles believe it was hunted to extinction, this creature actually has the unique ability to disappear and reappear to avoid danger,” he informed them. He then turned to the box on the front desk that had been cheeping softly for several minutes. He opened it, and carefully grabbed one of the Diricawls. After making sure it wasn’t feeling too frightened, Richard held it up to the class.

In his hands was a small plump chick. “This cute little ball of feathers is a baby Diricawl. You will each choose a chick from the box to handle and observe. I would like you to use this information for an essay due next week on the Diricawl’s behavior, appearance, abilities, and why Muggles would have wanted to hunt them as they did,” Richard said as he placed the chick back into the box.

“Now, please place your belongings on the floor underneath your table,” Richard instructed. Once the students had cleared their desks, he waved his wand to cast a containment charm on the wooden surfaces to act as an invisible cage for the creature. “This charm will prevent the Diricawls from vanishing outside the bounds of the table top, as well as prevent them stepping off of it. We wouldn’t want to be loosing one of these little guys now would we?” He said as he glanced down to the box, they were extremely cute, even if they were a little ordinary.

“Although most of the time Diricawls will only vanish if in danger, Diricawl chicks frighten much more easily than adults. As a result, you are much more likely to see them use their unique ability,” he said, realizing that he may want to repeat his classroom rules. It was only the 3rd week of school, so he wanted to make sure that these rules stuck in their minds.

“Before I send the box around, I just want to remind you all that these are living creatures, and as such, it is imperative to handle them with care. There is no reason that any of you should be purposefully putting these chicks in danger, they should vanish easily without fearing for their lives,” he said imagining the worst. “I will not tolerate any endangerment of creatures in this class, but I trust I won’t have to remind any of you of this rule again today,” Richard said warningly. He really didn’t like the idea of scaring his students, but he knew it was necessary if he wanted both the students and creatures to be safe.

“Now,” he said changing his tone back to a light happy one, “if you are all ready, let the fun begin!” He waved his wand at the box, causing it to levitate. It then began carefully making its way around to the tables, giving each student enough time to pick up a chick before moving on to the next.

“Feel free to choose whichever chick you like,” he said smiling at the levitating cheeping box. “It may also be a good idea to talk to your tablemate about what you observe,” he continued, “They may notice things you don’t.” It was true that especially when observing, two sets of eyes can be much better than one.

“And as usual, please don’t hesitate to call me if you need any assistance,” Richard said as he began walking around the classroom.

Subthreads:

Best. Class. Ever. by John Umland, Aladren with Tobias Reinhardt II, Teppenpaw

Which is evidently not bird handling. by Lionel Layne, Pecari with Ji-Won "Jamie" Park, Pecari

A startled little bird by Araceli Arbon, Crotalus

0 Professor Tallec Do what you Dodo best. 0 Professor Tallec 1 5

John Umland, Aladren

August 22, 2014 3:38 PM

Best. Class. Ever. by John Umland, Aladren

He hadn’t mentioned it to Taylor when they discussed it at the Opening Feast, but reading the Care of Magical Creatures textbook as soon as he got it over the summer had left John with serious doubts about how good the course, which he had been looking forward to since he was nine, was really going to be. The introduction had made him cautiously optimistic – there was talk of a formal discipline, observations of behaviors, attempts at classification – but the text itself had been a disappointment. Some were much better than others, but all of the descriptions seemed, to him, vague at best. It wasn’t a textbook, it was a basic field guide, suitable enough for just recognizing pests around the home but useless for really studying anything in detail. Half the time it didn’t even mention basics like diet and reproduction, and since his older sister Julian’s eyes glazed over as quickly when he talked about science as they did when Mom talked about Thomas Aquinas, he was pretty sure it did not get much better after Beginners.

On the bright side, it did at least make John feel more secure in his sanity. Clearly, the research needed to be done, which made it less of a leap to think he was the one who was supposed to – possibly just existed to – do it.

The class itself had been a little more interesting than the textbook so far; not all he could have dreamed of, but not enough to distract him totally from the sense of having fallen into some very agreeable twilight zone, either. If the tea had been better (for some reason, the kitchens always seemed to send scented or flavored green teas, jasmine and mint and stuff, up to the Aladren table, and even when he could get black tea by visiting Julian, it wasn’t as good as the tea at home), a few lessons just a little more epic, and the community of wizard-scientists a little larger and more influential, and if everyone he had already liked except Julian hadn’t been back home in Canada, he thought he might have been a little worried about this school being a little too much fun. As it was, he still half-expected the other shoe to drop sometime. He had previously expected school to be a necessary evil, a crucible, as his older brothers might put it, and instead, he’d walked into this place full of interesting things to do and study, interesting, agreeable people to talk to, even tasty and reasonably interesting food to eat….He wasn’t complaining, but it was weird, even weirder than having a room to himself after a lifetime of sharing with all his brothers. It made him suspicious even as he usually enjoyed it.

Such thoughts, though, were crowded out of his head entirely when he got to Care of Magical Creatures one day and heard the box on the professor’s desk cheeping. Biology was his favorite science anyway, but birds were what had gotten him interested in the first place and what he still found most interesting in the subject. He looked hard at the box, but since he had neither inherited nor magically induced the ability to see through opaque solids, he just saw a box.

When identifying a new bird, it was customary to look at size and shape, color pattern, behavior, and habitat. Since this bird was in a box, which prevented him from observing the first four, and said box was probably not its natural habitat, he was left with songs and calls, so he listened as closely as he could, closing his eyes to block out visual data that might distract him.

The rhythm was fairly quick…sounds repetitive, a low sort of whistle, he thought. Low usually meant a larger species. That ruled out Snidgets, which he had to admit were highly unlikely to be brought into a class even for Advanced students. Dying jobberknolls were out, too; they would have been out anyway just because they were tiny, but even more tellingly, the cheeps sounded nothing like a reverse scream. It definitely was not a box of ravens – he had spent a lot of time listening to recordings of North America’s corvids at home, he sort of liked them, so he was confident he’d recognize one now – and he was pretty sure it wasn’t owls. An Occamy would be too dangerous for beginners, so it wasn’t that. The sound wasn’t particularly depressing, but who knew what all the weather charms on the school could do to an Augurey, though there was the possibility of….

”Today we will be studying the Diricawl,” said Professor Tallec, and John sat up straighter in his seat, not quite suppressing a sort of squeaky noise he normally would consider far beneath his dignity. Logically, he knew it was stupid to be excited since Julian’s class had studied the dodo (as he thought he would always call it in his head; he would learn to say ‘diricawl’ around wizards, but he’d heard Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland read aloud far too many times for the word to stick well) a couple of years ago, but her teacher hadn’t managed to get a live specimen for them to look at, and the sounds coming from the box made John think this teacher might have more than one. Unless they really were just pigeons, in which case John was going to seriously consider throwing something at Professor Tallec, at least for a few minutes, but the thing the professor was holding, that didn’t look like any common rock pigeon he’d ever seen or other species of pigeon he had ever seen pictures of, not even some of the more exotic, colorful island ones, and it had quite the distinctive beak….

” This cute little ball of feathers is a baby Diricawl. You will each choose a chick from the box to handle and observe,” continued Professor Tallec, seemingly completely unaware that he was, for the day at least, the second-greatest person ever, even if John was pretty sure ‘baby’ was not the correct term for a juvenile bird of any kind. Handle! Observe! Though how they were supposed to take proper notes with all their stuff under the desks, John didn’t know, but still – Handle! Observe! Dodos! This class was awesome!

He barely listened to the repetition of the classroom rules, which he regarded as unnecessary. How much repetition did “don’t act like an idiot” really need? Admittedly, John wanted to take DNA samples and study them, but for one thing, that could be done without seriously harming the bird, and for another, with magic’s utility slowing social evolution in some ways, the scientific equipment here hadn’t advanced much past burners that had to be manually lit in the Potions room. He didn’t even have a microscope to work with, so taking DNA samples wouldn’t really do him much good even if he could. He had to further admit that he probably wouldn’t have been able to get his hands on decent equipment at home, either, but that was because his parents probably couldn’t afford it, not because it didn’t exist.

Well, maybe that was a little unfair. They did have telescopes - he had a battered student one of his own, even though Astronomy wasn't offered as a major subject here right now. And there were bigger telescopes, mirrored ones, here and there – a memory which made him think he was just missing something, something he should see and put together, but which he didn’t have time to try to ferret out of his subconscious right now because it was his turn with the box.

He hesitated for a moment, then, very carefully, lifted out a bird which he thought was looking at him. “No worries,” he said quietly, in what he hoped was a soothing tone. “No need yet for more energetic remedies….”

He mentally added to his observations, stroking the bird’s head gently, though he felt almost like bouncing in his seat. The current size was about like that of a common rock pigeon, he guessed, but he remembered reading in a Muggle book once that adults were supposed to have been about a meter tall, so it would be much larger later in life. The shape was round, wings small for its size – made sense, since it didn’t use them. Dark gray and light brown feathers, mostly, with a lighter plume of a tail. Four scaly toes on the feet, one extending backward – more like a chicken’s than a perching bird, which also made sense. And then there was that beak….

He slowly leaned forward, trying to get a good look at it without getting pecked in the eye (that would, he was pretty sure, hurt. A lot.) or startling the diricawl so much that it vanished before he got the good look. It was heavy, curved, with a thinner hook extending down from the end – maybe that could split fruit or nuts, a little like a chisel, to get to the meat and seeds inside?

“Is this the coolest thing ever or what?” he asked, talking more to himself than anyone, but said it a little too loudly from a little too close; the bird suddenly vanished from his hands in a puff of feathers, a couple of which he caught reflexively as the dodo bird reappeared on the opposite side of his desk, cheeping in alarm. John winced, knowing it was going to take a bit for it to calm down so he could examine it further, but he decided to make the best of the situation and take the opportunity to take some notes. He shoved his hand in his pocket, dropping the feathers into it and taking out his field book, as his friend Joanie called it at home, out instead so he could write down his observations.

Rnd, sm. wng, d. grey and l. brown (bst, some wing), light tail, beak – open fruit and nut? Chicken feet. He remembered something else he had read in the textbook and added, Conv. ev. w/ph? Disapp. same way?

He paused when yet another thought crowded in on the heels of the first and then turned to the person in the seat next to his. “Hey, lean close to yours and say something,” he said. “I don’t know if mine’s jumpier than most or if that would make them all nervous.” He needed that to comment on the part of their behavior he was going to be able to observe personally in this class for the homework. "And you wouldn't have any berries or nuts or anything with you, would you?" he added, noticing that his bird seemed to be calming down a little and wondering if he might not win its friendship back and get a chance to test his hypothesis about the beak at the same time through a gift of food.

OOC: Basing John’s complaints about the book not being detailed enough for his taste on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which would most surely displease His Pickiness, and the description of the dodo on a painting of one; no idea how accurate said painting is, as some show the dodo like that and others as mainly light grey while still others are more colorful (which would make it more like the extant species of island pigeons thought to be the dodo's closest remaining relatives); FB makes no comment on this controversy, so perhaps there's more than one possible appearance/subspecies of diricawl. “I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies” is a quote from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, ch. III, “A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale,” spoken by the Dodo before introducing the titular Caucus-Race.

16 John Umland, Aladren Best. Class. Ever. 285 John Umland, Aladren 0 5

Tobias Reinhardt II, Teppenpaw

August 27, 2014 6:37 PM

I'm inclined to agree with you. by Tobias Reinhardt II, Teppenpaw

Coming to Arizona to attend Sonora had been a big decision for Tobi. Not only was it far away from home but his entire family up until that point had been homeschooled. His mother’s side had always been wary of boarding schools and his father came from a line of metal charmers in Germany and as far as Tobi knew hadn’t attended school. He wasn’t entirely sure as his father didn’t like to talk about much else other than his work. He had been swayed, though, from his earlier unsure feelings regarding Sonora by his younger sister, Mattie. He knew that if he didn’t go she’d never be able to and so he had packed his trunk (brand new with specially charmed latches and engravings done by his father and a carefully beaded trunk lining from his mother) and joined his cousin, Liac, as the first two Reinhardts to attend magical school in America. That idea alone hade him laugh a little as his mother and her people had been homeschooling themselves hundreds of years before European-style magic schools had begun appearing in the Americas.

So far it had not been a terribly bad decision and he’d certainly gotten a handle on the Charms courses (which his father had been incredibly proud of him for even if he didn’t explicitly state it in his letters), but the class that he most enjoyed was Care of Magical Creatures. Professor Tallec seemed to be an understanding instructor who cared deeply for the creatures he taught about. At least, this was the impression that Tobi got from the man, and while Tobi hadn’t really talked to anyone at the school other than Liac, he was content to relax and work quietly by himself. Today, however, it didn’t seem as though that would be the case.

He had been sitting there, just minding his own business, when his neighbor began talking to him. It started off harmlessly enough, a small comment on how that day’s assignment was “the coolest ever or what?,” and while Tobi was inclined to agree, being an animal person himself, he just smiled to himself in the quiet way that he always did and kept on working. Besides, the boy’s voice startled his diricrawl enough to the point where it vanished and reappeared on the other side of his desk. Tobi was glad he hadn’t responded, not wanting to disturb his own diricrawl who at this point was nestled quite comfortably in his hands. He looked over as his desk partner stuffed the feathers his diricrawl had left behind into his pocket and resumed with his work. Tobi quirked an eyebrow slightly and picked up his own pencil to mark some notes on his bird. He never did like quills, seeing them as unnecessary use of bird feathers especially since the writing they produced was more often than not uneven and splotchy (in the hands of a pre-pubescent boy, at least).

“Hey, lean close to yours and say something,” the boy said suddenly. “I don’t know if mine’s jumpier than most or if that would make them all nervous. And you wouldn't have any berries or nuts or anything with you, would you?"

Again, Tobi quirked an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. He certainly didn’t want to disturb the diricrawl in his hand like his desk partner had so obviously done but he didn’t want to be rude either. Instead, he just shrugged. And what was with the asking for berries or nuts? The question made him slightly uncomfortable as he had endured some teasing from some of the Anglo-Saxon children of the area in regards as to what he and his family ate. Was this boy just setting him up for more teasing? Instead of entertaining the thought any further, Tobi turned back to his diricrawl and said something softly to it in Onondaga as he tried not to speak in German like his father preferred him to do. The diricrawl didn’t vanish though it did ruffle its feathers slightly and Tobi looked back up to the other boy.

“I couldn’t say,” he replied, his voice still soft as he didn’t want to disturb the peaceful diricrawl in front of him. “Perhaps you just ought to talk to it quieter.” He wasn’t trying to be rude but it was customary in his family to give advice as though it was optional, especially if one thought that was the right way to do something.

10 Tobias Reinhardt II, Teppenpaw I'm inclined to agree with you. 289 Tobias Reinhardt II, Teppenpaw 0 5

John Umland

August 28, 2014 6:13 PM

Excellent! Let's do experiments! by John Umland

John was used to getting a variety of looks, including raised eyebrows, from people before he got answers to his questions, so it took him a moment to realize that the guy he’d picked for a temporary research partner did not seem inclined to respond beyond one. It didn’t help that he was briefly distracted from his own questions and rough experimental designs by the boy beginning to speak to his diricawl in a language John didn’t recognize, either whole words or any parts of that he could hear. He was not overly gifted in languages, but he did find them fun and working hard on them was important to his mom, so that caught his attention almost as effectively as having a dodo in class did.

He was just opening his mouth to ask what language it was when Neighbor Guy began to speak in English again, reminding him of why he was talking to Neighbor Guy at all but still not addressing his initial inquiries. The non-response intrigued him, too, and his head began to feel like it was being pulled in too many directions at once as that inspired yet more questions while he was still trying to keep track of the old ones….

I couldn’t say was a politician’s phrase, indicating knowledge but refusing to offer it, but what kind of people had a rule against talking about berries and nuts or the possession of same? Did Neighbor Guy think he was using slang for drugs or something? At home, Mrs. Murphy, one of the other homeschool moms, always said she didn’t send his colleague Joanie to a regular school because that was where drugs were, but Mrs. Murphy liked to make everything dramatic, so he had never really paid much attention to her. Giving the dodo drugs because ‘berries’ was the new slang for something illegal and he didn’t know it would be bad. Absent-mindedly eating said drugs himself because he thought they were fruit would be even worse. But even then, a flat ‘no’, whether Neighbor Guy had drugs or not, would have made more sense. Which brought him back to what he had originally been thinking….

He wanted, almost needed, to open his notebook and jot it all down, but people looked at him really funny when he interrupted conversations to do that, so he refrained. He took in more data instead: Neighbor Guy was a Teppenpaw and a pencil man. John preferred dip pens himself (the extra weight of the pen holder made it easier to write with, for him, than most quills, plus he could change the nibs to the medium ones he found most comfortable and which made his handwriting clearer and its lines straighter instead of the wide nibs that made all his letters clog or the very fine ones he was too heavy-handed to avoid damaging a lot, an adjustment it was harder to make with quills or ball points), but being a pencil man was perfectly respectable, as was being a Teppenpaw. It also made it seem less likely that Neighbor Guy was being deliberately obscure, though stereotypes were bad, too….

“Eh…yeah,” he said when given advice, trying to pull his thoughts together enough to spare some concentration for anything else so he could state the thoughts coherently. “Got some good data out of it, though, so that’s…good. But why can’t you answer the question? And, uh, hey, what did you say to yours just then, uh, before you said that? What language was that?” he asked, thinking that covered the pertinent points well enough, all things considered.

Immediately, though, another thought occurred to him. “I’m John, by the way,” he added, since most people cared about knowing the name of the person they were talking to. It didn’t bother him not to, but his colleagues assured him that introductions were not optional. “John Umland,” he added, since surnames were also very popular at school.

They wouldn’t help people out much with him. His mom’s family had all, as far as they could tell, been English Muggles before they came to Canada, his dad’s a mix of German-Canadian and Irish-American witches and wizards of various degrees, but John wasn’t a blood relative of either of his parents. He didn’t even know if his biological father had been a wizard, or how many of his Other Mom’s ancestors had. Nor did he care - it wasn't important. But Neighbor Guy was welcome to his parents' surname anyway; he was proud to have it.

16 John Umland Excellent! Let's do experiments! 285 John Umland 0 5

Lionel Layne, Pecari

September 02, 2014 12:04 PM

Which is evidently not bird handling. by Lionel Layne, Pecari

Second year, so far, did not much resemble first year for Lionel, and he wasn’t sure that was altogether a bad thing. The most obvious, and obviously positive, difference was that the teachers had stuck around for a while this year, but for him, there was another: this year, with one of his cousins graduated and the other in the intermediate classes, he felt very much as though he were here on his own, and he felt a little bad about not feeling worse about that.

To be fair to himself, he had to admit that neither Isaac nor Alicia had ever seemed that fond of him. Last year, Alicia had let him know, in no uncertain terms, to come to her if anything went wrong, but he was pretty sure she had been more worried about what Aunt Anne might say about her not looking after her own cousin than about him, and from the things she’d asked when checking in with him over those months, that she’d probably cared even more about having someone who would inform on the other students for her than she had about Aunt Anne’s good graces. He did, though, sort of care about Isaac and Alicia both in the way first cousins and people who had known each other since forever were obliged to, and having family was always supposed to be better than not (Granddad was insistent upon that point; nothing mattered more than family, why did Lionel think Granddad and Grandmother still put up with Lionel’s mother?), so it was awkward, thinking too much about being sort of glad that they wouldn’t all interact much anymore, however tiring he found his cousins sometimes.

Most of the times, unless he happened to spot Isaac in the hallways, though, he didn’t think much about it. Now that the teachers were back, it felt like starting over, more like this was first year than second year, and Lionel was looking forward to enjoying it. Care of Magical Creatures was a class he had really enjoyed in the second half of his first year, and so far, he thought he liked Professor Tallec okay, too. He wrote down the name of the creature of the day – diricawl – and was happy to put his things away a minute later. Last year, he thought they had observed more than they had directly interacted with creatures like this, but what harm could a bird really do?

The box of birds came around to him and he lifted out a bird – or tried to. He got it clear of the box, but fumbled it almost immediately, squeezed it a little harder than he meant to as he tried to get his grip back, and with a higher-pitched noise than it had made before, which he guessed meant it was alarmed, it disappeared in a puff of feathers, only to reappear on the other side of the desk, still not looking too happy.

“Well, I guess we get to observe the effect now,” he remarked to his neighbor. “That's something." Always best to look on the bright side, he thought.

16 Lionel Layne, Pecari Which is evidently not bird handling. 283 Lionel Layne, Pecari 0 5

Tobias Reinhardt II

September 06, 2014 7:37 PM

As long as they're not on the animals. by Tobias Reinhardt II

After his response, his neighbor didn’t really seem to be able to pull together enough words to reply back which was perfectly fine with Tobi as he would have rather remained silent for the rest of the class. It wasn’t that he didn’t like people per say, he just preferred to be by himself or with animals- one of the reasons why Care of Magical Creatures was his favorite class over Charms.

“Eh…yeah,” his neighbor said finally. “Got some good data out of it, though, so that’s…good. But why can’t you answer the question? And, uh, hey, what did you say to yours just then, uh, before you said that? What language was that?”

Tobi blinked slowly. He was pretty sure he had answered the questions. At the time he had no evidence going either way as to whether diricrawl juveniles were bothered by human voices or not and so had no way of accurately answering the question. “Didn’t I?” he responded, wondering how his fellow first year had landed Aladren if he couldn’t understand a basic unwillingness to respond with a false answer. Weren’t Aladrens supposed to be the smart house? He paused for a minute, thinking about how to answer the question about language. He highly doubted his neighbor would know the different tribes that made up the Haudenosaunee nation and so instead chose to simply say it was a dialect of the Six Nations as he figured his neighbor would most likely know that name.

“I’m John, by the way, John Umland,” Tobi’s neighbor said à la James Bond. Growing up with non-magical peers on the reservation and having his cousin be a half-blood, Tobi was accustomed to knowing of certain Muggle trends. James Bond was one particular one that the boys his age back home loved to talk about- the idea of such a fearless man overcoming a sad history to be a hero was one that they all wished to grow up to be like. The super spy intrigued them and when they found out that he was being sent away to a boarding school they had all been excited, imagining an English prep school in which Tobi would learn how to fight crime like the famous spy and come back a full-fledged Bond. When they clammered him for questions he had just shrugged characteristically and shook his head.

"I’ll let you know what it’s like when I get back," he had responded before letting them return to their lacrosse game and retreating into the woods. It was against the International Stature of Wizarding Secrecy to say that they were witches and wizards, but before the Americas had been invaded he knew from stories that his family and families like them had lived in peace with the Muggles of their tribes, regarding magic as something special and a gift. They had never had any need to fear the Other. It was because of this everyone knew more or less of the magical stature of his family though it was never outright spoken.

“Tobias Reinhardt,” Tobi replied. He didn’t like using his full name, feeling that adding the bit about being the second kind of made him seem unapproachable but he didn’t shorten his first name, not wanting to be too informal with someone he barely knew as he was certain his father would not be too happy with that.

10 Tobias Reinhardt II As long as they're not on the animals. 289 Tobias Reinhardt II 0 5

John Umland

September 08, 2014 4:27 PM

Got any ideas? by John Umland

Neighbor Guy probably thought John was talking about drugs. That wasn’t good. John had no interest in drugs other than caffeine (he generally couldn’t function in the mornings until he was at least three-fourths of the way through his second mug of tea, which he drank strong and lemon-laced enough that Julian insisted on comparing it to floor cleaner even though he was pretty sure she had never drunk any of that to test it, and usually needed a bare minimum of five additional doses over the course of the day to operate efficiently once he was awake enough to carry on conversations; here at school, without older relatives monitoring him so much, he was pretty sure his average was increasing) and really did not want people to think he did. He didn’t even have an interest in expanding the ways he took in his caffeine supply, never mind in anything else….

“Not really,” he said, deciding to be as direct as possible. “You just said you couldn’t answer it. Do you not know if you have any – I don’t know – almonds, peanuts, walnuts, cranberries – ” surely they couldn’t all be slang terms for things that were unsavory – ”Because that’s what I was talking about….”

Six Nations didn’t tell him much; he thought he might have run across the term reading about First Nations sometime, but it was generic-sounding enough that for all he knew, it referred to some obscure group in the former Soviet Union, and while his sister said he and she weren’t the only Canadians here, he didn’t know how likely a random person here was to be associated with people he thought - wasn't sure, but thought - were mainly from his country.

"Cool," he said, then felt a momentary pang of homesickness as he was almost able to hear his mom speculating about how a word meaning ‘less than room temperature but generally above freezing’ had also become a statement of approval. He didn’t know exactly what she’d say, just that it was the kind of detail that would catch her attention – she noticed words the way he came up with questions. Drove the rest of the family crazy, but he had always liked listening to her trying to reason it all out. "Are there a lot of dialects?" There were, he knew, a lot of dialects of English, so he didn't consider that a stupid question. There could be three, six, or a hundred and seven different dialects in whatever bigger language the Six Nations spoke. "And - "

He remembered what Julian and Joanie had both said about interrogating random strangers and the proof that they were right he had seen when he'd tried asking Miss Lynch a lot of questions about Australia. He really didn't know how else to make the conversation most people insisted on, much less to learn anything, and didn't really understand why people didn't want to answer questions that weren't personal or even that were personal if they were related to something the person had said or done for general consumption, but Julian and Joanie seemed to get on better with a wider variety of people than he did, so he let it go. "If I ask too many questions, just ignore me," he instructed Neighbor Guy. "I do that."

The etymologies of most names outside his family were things he didn’t know, but the sound of ‘Tobias Reinhardt’ made him wonder if they would have had ancestors from roughly the same part of the world if he had been born with his current name. Instead of inquiring about that, though, he said, “Nice meeting you” and looked back at his bird, which had stopped fluttering. “Win the Caucus-race, then?” he asked it. “I don't think I've got any of the usual prizes….” What was in his pockets could sometimes surprise him, but he was pretty sure he hadn't been anywhere near any comfits lately and that a thimble was out of the question, too, at least here. At home, it might happen, but he and Julian were equally unlikely to mend their own clothes here or be near where mending was done by others. He just didn’t notice the need most of the time, and while his sister didn't approve of asking teachers questions, she was happy enough to let the staff deal with all things laundry-related.

16 John Umland Got any ideas? 285 John Umland 0 5

Tobias Reinhardt II

September 10, 2014 3:25 AM

Not really, I'm not much of an experimenter. by Tobias Reinhardt II

After his neighbor started to list different nuts and berries, Tobi realized that they had been on two completely separate pages. “Oh,” Tobi replied, realizing that perhaps his Aladren neighbor wasn’t actually quite as thick as he previously thought. “No, I don’t have any of that.” Did his neighbor think people just carried that sort of thing around in their pockets at school? Sure if he had been at home he probably would have had some sort of snack on his person while wandering through the woods on the weekends, but he never carried it with him during school as the non-Native Muggle children had always made fun of him for it.

Tobi paused, wondering if he should clear up the miscommunication or not but he decided it wasn’t really a big deal anyway so he stayed silent, not really having anything else to say regarding the non-existent nuts and berries that were not in his pockets. He knew double negatives could confuse people when spoken aloud but he rather enjoyed the sound of them and so used them anyway when thinking to himself.

“Cool. Are there a lot of dialects? And-” his neighbor paused to take a breath, but when he resumed talking it seemed to head in a different direction than he was previously when he started the sentence. “If I ask too many questions, just ignore me. I do that.”

Tobi just shrugged. He didn’t really mind answering questions if they were asked as he liked to clear up any misconceptions regarding his complicated background. He knew he wasn’t just any regular Onondaga and he definitely wasn’t Chinook. “I suppose,” he finally replied. “Calling it a dialect was most probably incorrect. It just seemed easier to phrase it that way than to explain everything.” He didn’t elaborate further, not really caring to go into too much detail. After all, the full grasp of the knowledge went a little bit beyond his capacity of being eleven. He simply knew that his mother spoke Onondaga which was the language of one of the tribes that made up the Six Nations which had its own language family. Other than that he hadn’t really pried any further. “You can ask whatever you like, I suppose.” While his offer wasn’t completely sincere, he also knew that if the boy asked him a question he would do his best to answer it- ignoring someone- no matter how appealing it sounded, was simply rude and Tobi didn’t particularly care for doing it.

“Nice meeting you,” said John and Tobi nodded his head in affirmation. Even though the other first year was a bit too talkative for him he seemed friendly enough and really more curious than mean-spirited so Tobi didn’t mind continuing the conversation if John so wished.

“Win the caucus race then?” Apparently, John did not wish. “I don’t think I’ve got of the usual prizes….”

Tobi regarded his neighbor (who was conversing with his diricrawl) with a slightly raised eyebrow before turning his attention back to his own diricrawl. He jotted down a few more notes and then folded his hands on his desk and placed his head on it so that he could look at the bird more closely. He probably could have stayed looking at the bird like that forever but he knew that sooner or later he would have to return the diricrawl back to the box at the front once the period was over. He was reluctant to do so as this contact with the diricrawl was probably the most animal contact he’d had since arriving at Sonora. He’d noticed that some students brought pets with them-- small cats and, of course, owls, but Tobi didn’t have any pets as he liked best to observe animals in their natural habitat and interact with them if they approached him so he hadn’t brought any with him. To do so, he thought privately, would be cruel.

10 Tobias Reinhardt II Not really, I'm not much of an experimenter. 289 Tobias Reinhardt II 0 5

John Umland

September 12, 2014 1:31 PM

It's fun, you should try it sometime. by John Umland

“Oh,” echoed John when naturally-derived snack foods didn’t prove forthcoming. “That’s too bad. I wanted to see if they use their beaks, you know, the bit on the end? I wanted to see if they use that to crack open food.” He reached into one of his own pockets. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t got anything here, either, but it’s worth a….”

The try, though, did not produce results. John scowled at his unhelpful pocket. “Not my day to live up to the organizational motto,” he muttered. He had always thought it was backward, telling Scouts first to share and then to do their best and only then to be prepared – he didn’t really think the other two were possible if one wasn’t prepared, as this demonstrated – but he was currently getting bottom marks no matter which motto he was talking about, so he guessed it didn’t really matter. “Add that to the list.”

It would be a good idea to carry something fairly durable and edible around with him anyway. No telling when he might get lost in the Gardens for a while, or have his blood sugar drop unexpectedly during the day or in the library – when he was working, he’d eat any food left within arm’s reach, but he usually didn’t think about going to get any if there wasn't a bowl of something not too messy where he could use it without looking up, so that had happened to him before. Supper was usually non-negotiable in his house, his parents insisted that he join the family then whether he wanted to or not, and everyone having different schedules had yet to stop Mom from insisting he consume something besides tea in the morning, but lunch was usually light and highly informal, and he sometimes put off grabbing a sandwich until his eyes crossed and then he started to feel sick if Julian (it was almost always Julian who took pity on him; for the past few years, he had remembered to go to lunch a lot more often when his sister was away than when she was at home) wasn’t around to put food down beside him sometime without bothering him. A blood sugar drop wasn’t pleasant, and a pack of nuts might have value beyond preventing just that, so he really should add it to his basic school daily carry-around provisions….

The idea of someone not explaining everything he knew about something confused John. If they had been running from or battling against bears, dark wizard, the law, or whatever, then it would have made perfect sense, and lying by running with a general idea to give people the wrong idea was okay when it came to Statute of Secrecy kind of stuff, but right now, he and Tobias weren’t in any danger. They were in class. Class was at least half about showing off as much as one knew. Admittedly, the subject was only loosely related to diricawls, but still! Class. Showing off. The two went hand in hand, if only because the teacher wouldn’t know he really knew what he was talking about unless he demonstrated. An answer was only correct if all the information was included, and unless the Statute of Secrecy was involved, he wasn’t sure why anyone would want to be incorrect. Julian said it was similar to how he didn’t care enough about whether or not people liked him to try to fit in most of the time, but he still didn’t get it. He didn’t care much about what other people thought because it…didn’t really matter. It was nice when he met people he could be friends with, but even if he had never had a friend or never obtained another, he had two parents and four siblings who could easily, between them, meet all his interpersonal needs and would have done so even if they had all found him excruciatingly boring, which they did not anyway. Facts, though, those mattered.

“It’sall right,” he half-mumbled at the unenthusiastic permission to keep asking questions, smiling awkwardly for a few seconds. “Er, thanks…yeah.”

He decided he should probably stick to what he was good at and examine the bird further. Soon, though, he found his enthusiasm over the subject moving his jaw again. “This is fascinating,” he said, watching the diricawl give a brief flutter of its near-useless wings. “The – non-magical people, they think they didn’t fly because they didn’t have a lot of predators originally – but it’s magic that made them not need wings. But what did they need to disappear to get away from – “

He tapped his fingers on the edge of the table, biting his bottom lip and staring past the dodo. He was missing something. He could tell. Magic, efficiency, natural selection – there was something in there, something important, and he was missing it. What was it? What was he missing here? It was like if he could just turn his head fast enough, he'd see it, but he couldn't quite catch it -

16 John Umland It's fun, you should try it sometime. 285 John Umland 0 5

Tobias Reinhardt II

September 18, 2014 10:27 PM

We shall see. by Tobias Reinhardt II

His neighbor seemed disappointed in the lack of food that Tobi had squirreled away in his pocket and Tobi gave him a sympathetic smile but didn’t apologize his neighbor also didn’t have food in his pockets and Tobi didn’t think he needed to be sorry for not having something that no one else really seemed to have either. However, his neighbor’s reasoning behind wanting the food sounded interesting to Tobi and he found himself wishing that between the two of them they had been able to find something for the diricrawls.

“It’s all right,” the other boy replied. “Er, thanks…yeah.”

The Aladren didn’t look too happy about Tobi's unenthusiastic response and even smiled rather awkwardly at him which made Tobi feel bad but before he could say anything further, the Aladren introduced himself as John Umland to which Tobi responded with his name. John then went on to mumble to himself about various things including a caucus race his bird was supposed to have won as well as musings on the disappearing of the diricrawl and what it had to do with Muggles.

“This is fascinating,” John said, the diricawl fluffing its useless wings. “The – non-magical people, they think they didn’t fly because they didn’t have a lot of predators originally – but it’s magic that made them not need wings. But what did they need to disappear to get away from--” John began to tap his fingers on the table and stare off into space.

Tobi, on the other hand, began to wonder about the sanity of his desk mate and worried that perhaps he had caused it by rudely refusing to answer any questions about himself beforehand. It was too late now though to more enthusiastically offer to answer questions because it could have been construed as showboating his heritage, something Tobi didn’t particularly like to do. He was used to questions, living amongst Chinooks, as the Onodaga people traditionally were found across the country in the New York area and therefore there weren’t many—if any Onodaga, other than his mother, siblings, and himself in the Washington area. John’s quest to figure out why the diricrawl needed to disappear from Muggles though made Tobi quirk a brow. The answer, it seemed to him, was rather obvious. It was the same reason there was a dwindling population of Native Americans. The same reason why there was a next to nothing population of Buffalo. And, the same reason why most witches and wizards had also needed to go into hiding. Tobi figured there were a lot of other things that belonged on that list too but he didn’t have the energy to think further than that.

“Probably to get away from hunters,” Tobi replied, picking his head up from his desk to answer John. “If only the buffalo were as lucky to have developed magical abilities then perhaps their number would be up.” Though neither his tribe nor the Chinooks actually hunted buffalo, Tobi sympathized with tribes in which buffalo was tradition, mainly because he knew of certain Northwest tribe’s struggle with not always being allowed to fish in their usual and accustomed places*-- a term that he didn’t fully understand but always caused much tongue clicking and head shaking amongst the adults in the community.

Tobi slowly reached a hand out towards his bird and waited until it came into his hand willingly before scooting his chair back and lounging slightly to make a comfortable place in his lap for the bird to sit on. He didn’t know if it was allowed or not but he enjoyed spending time with animals and putting the diricrawl on his lap seemed like a good use of his limited time with the creature. “Their feathers are incredibly soft,” Tobi observed. “Do you supposed they stay this soft as they grow older or would they shed this layer for more coarse feathers as ducks do?” While Tobi didn’t consider himself a bird person, preferring instead to quietly watch deer from the trees or rabbits playing by themselves in a peaceful corner of the forest.

*OOC: Just a side note in case anyone reading is interested:
“Usual and accustomed places” refers to the United States v. Washington 1974 court case commonly known as the Boldt decision. This court case was monumental for Native rights across the country because it allowed Native tribes the right to fish in places their tribes had historically and traditionally fished in for centuries. However, the right for landless tribes such as the Duwamish to fish were denied because they did not have treaties and were therefore not federally recognized as a Native American tribe. More information regarding the Boldt decision can be found by watching the documentary Usual and Accustomed Places produced by a Makah tribal member and her film company, Upstream Productions, which is based in Seattle, Washington. The Chinook are not currently recognized as a tribe, their status having been taken away only a year after initially being given in 2001.

10 Tobias Reinhardt II We shall see. 289 Tobias Reinhardt II 0 5

John Umland

September 22, 2014 1:20 PM

For Science! by John Umland

He was missing something. Just barely, but ‘close’ only counted with things that exploded. He was close, but missing it anyway. It was right there. What was he missing?

He frowned slightly at the theory about hunters and remark about buffalo from Tobias. “Yeah,” he said. “So you’re thinking they…might have only had, uh, had that selected for after humans showed up….”

He had read that genetic mutation was a shot in the dark – one book had said, memorably, something like that it was like shooting a gun into a car, and about as likely to make the organism survive better as the bullet was to improve engine performance. Separate ways of doing the same thing – like making fire. Magic, flint and metal, light and glass, rubbing two sticks together, it was all just causing a transfer of energy. Solar energy, kinetic energy – Flight and the ability to just disappear. Could the dodo have as easily evolved working wings – a freak mutation that allowed the dodo with wings big enough to support its weight, or the dodo with a combination of bigger wings and a smaller body, to fly, so it left more little big-winged dodos around than the ground ones did? Bees getting bigger or smaller in climate changes. Buffalo. Beavers. Human interactions. Magic and mutation, Squibs, Muggleborns –

“There’s endangered magical creatures, too,” he began, seizing onto the first line of the pictures in his head that he thought he could put into actual words. “Golden Snidgets – they were hunted like buffalo, beavers, but they had – they’re magical. Somehow?” The book didn’t mention any actual specific properties of the Snidget – stupid book – but it said their feathers and eyes had been prized, and maybe their speed was part of it – the wings in the hand drawing had not looked large enough to support the weight, or like they should have rotational joints to him, so maybe that was it. “They hide and they’re fast, but – “

His words ran out for a minute and he gestured impatiently as he tried to get them back. “I can’t figure out what I was trying to say,” he said. “But, the dodo – diricawl – if it was the change, people coming, if it was that that made the ones who could disappear survive? Then before, when they happened before? Then that was selected against,” he wrapped up, relieved to have completed a sentence – it was hard to get through one when he was excited like this; he sometimes wished everyone was a telepath so he wouldn’t have to anymore – but also a little confused by his conclusion. Even if disappearing wasn’t necessarily…necessary, it wasn’t a harmful trait as far as he could tell, unless dodos had a much more complex society and ability to think abstractly than he thought they did and had knocked the earlier disappearing dodos on the head to disable them long enough to burn them at the stake or something. Which seemed unlikely. It was even a useful thing to be able to do even if predators weren’t around, just for quick travel – if this tree didn’t have enough nuts on it, they could go to the other side in a flash and find some. So why would it be selected against? “And – I wonder if there are ma- magic mutations in other things every now and then? The whole world could be taken over by sentient mutant cats someday!”

He was nearly bouncing in his seat, now, and his voice rose in his enthusiasm, re-startling his unfortunate diricawl. He winced. “Sorry, sorry – “ this was why he didn’t usually have other people along when he watched his birds – he got distracted too easily. That, and his family found it really boring and he saw no reason to try to convince them to do something with him when he knew they wouldn’t enjoy it and would just make him not enjoy it by reluctantly participating. Everyone was much happier when he climbed on the roof or up the tree by himself, at least as long as he came down when and how he meant to instead of in a way which made Mom worry about his life expectancy. “Yeah, no mutant cats, that was, uh, that was kind of exaggerating. But there could be…nearly anything, every now and then, anyway. I wonder what they all do?”

The dodo had to be related to phoenixes somehow – maybe. Could there be more than one way to disappear into thin air? How did it relate to human Apparition? Magic, energy, inheritance – he needed a gallon or two of really strong tea, a typewriter and the paraphernalia to use it, and about ten hours of uninterrupted time in the library, all right now. Brain downloading from his future self sounded good, too; he knew some (most) of the books on the subjects he was thinking about would use a lot of words he hadn’t learned yet, which would be defined by other words he hadn’t learned yet, so a way to get all the knowledge he’d have in ten years without actually living ten more years first was one of the things that didn’t exist that frustrated him most by its failure to exist.

Despite his needs and frustrations, though, it was an effort not to become over-enthusiastic again when Tobias brought up ducks. John smiled broadly, delighted at the thought of another bird person. “You know, I don’t know,” he said brightly – if quietly. “They’re not from the same order, I know that – ducks are Anseriformes – “ he wasn’t sure he’d ever forget that one; Julian had found it out for him, looking up everything she could find on ducks after being hexed to sound like one for a while last year, when she’d had nothing better to do but write long letters she couldn’t send to him and the rest of the family – “and dodos are with the pigeons, in Columbiformes…I don’t think they’re water birds, so there’s probably a lot of differences,” he concluded. “But I’d be surprised if they’re always like this. These aren’t very…useful.”

Now that he thought about it, Snidgets looked kind of like some pigeons – round body, bright eyes. The beak was more like a hummingbird’s, though. The picture in the book had shown the feet, but not distinctly enough for him to even tell how many toes it had, never mind how it used the feet. Feet were important for identification. Chickens didn’t fly very well, either – they could fly, a little, but they weren’t all that good at it. Was that related? He couldn’t remember what order chickens belonged to, or even remember if he had ever known what order chickens belonged to, he had never read that much about chickens, he needed to do that sometime….

He did not need a gallon or two of really strong tea, a typewriter and the paraphernalia to use it, and about ten hours of uninterrupted time in the library, all right now. He needed four or five gallons of really strong tea, two typewriters and associated items, and about ten hours of uninterrupted time in the library with an obedient clone of himself right now. Short of that, he would more than happily see one of his colleagues from home walk into the classroom right about now; getting one of them to work with him on a problem was the next-best thing to duplicating his consciousness so he could work on two things at once. He thought, though, that he was out of luck either way. Neither option was any more feasible than skipping the next ten years.

Not relevant. He searched for the original topic and found it. “I wonder if we could ask the professor about a longer project – watching their development,” he said, eyes gleaming as he gingerly patted his dodo again. The bird cheeped, maybe a little warily, but allowed it. Maybe it was getting used to him. “That would – that would be awesome.”

OOC: The science book John refers to is Campbell and Reece’s Biology, 7th edition, p. 459. ICly, however, it should probably be assumed that John got it somewhere else, as that’s a textbook used in Advanced Placement/first-year college or university biology survey courses.

16 John Umland For Science! 285 John Umland 0 5

Ji-Won "Jamie" Park, Pecari

September 24, 2014 8:22 AM

Did you want to be a bird handler? by Ji-Won "Jamie" Park, Pecari

Jamie usually liked Care of Magical Creatures. It was a doss. You mostly had to look at an animal, not kill it during the period (easy enough, as most liked to be left alone) and sometimes do a drawing. The new professor didn't seem to be threatening this easy grade with his approach, so that was ok. The biggest challenge sometimes was getting through the hour without being bored and today definitely looked to be in that vein as they would be staring at small grey birds, which would be contained in a magical environment that prevented them doing the only thing that made them remotely interesting. He swung his legs whilst the professor droned about not wanting to hurt the fuzzy little ducklings' feelings or whatever, pulling one out at random when the box came past.

Apparently this action was enough to upset it and it cheeped and vanished. Rolling his eyes, he began to search, not sure how he was supposed to tell it apart from any of its mates who had felt similarly threatened by being picked up. At that moment, a puff of feathers appeared on the desk in front of him.

“Right,” he nodded, when his classmate piped up about observing their effect, not sure whether the guy's interest was sarcastic or not. “This is super thrilling... Is that one mine or yours?” he nodded at the bird on the desk. At the moment, he noticed something scuffling at his foot.

“Guess it doesn't matter... We've got two between two right,” he picked up the chick and either he was a little more gentle or it was taken slightly less by surprise this time. “So,” he mused, hesitating over putting it into the magical prison of enforced dullness, “We're meant to check out their vanishing skills right? What. makes. you. scared?” he asked the chick, holding it up to eye level and tapping its beak on the last word. Having a large hand bop it on the nose was enough grounds for the chick to flee and suddenly Jamie's hand was grasped around empty air . “And,” he added, glancing around, “how far can they get with that trick?”

13 Ji-Won "Jamie" Park, Pecari Did you want to be a bird handler? 284 Ji-Won "Jamie" Park, Pecari 0 5

Araceli Arbon, Crotalus

September 27, 2014 6:24 AM

A startled little bird by Araceli Arbon, Crotalus

There was one place in the whole of Sonora where so far Araceli felt comfortable; the music room in MARS. There, she could do the one thing she felt remotely good at and she'd even managed to have something of a conversation with one of her classmates. Tobias was really nice and she hoped she'd managed to say enough to make him like her, even though she'd got panicky and tongue-tied part way through their conversation. He'd liked her music though, and that was something. Someone here liked something about her.

Although she still felt scared and vulnerable, the Care of Magical Creatures classroom was rapidly becoming her second favourite place. Professor Tallec was very handsome, even though she wasn't sure what his lineage was, and she liked the way he spoke to and about the animals. He treated them gently and respectfully, trying to make sure nothing happened to them. Araceli also liked the outdoors in general. She often went for walks at home and, when no one else was around, she talked to the animals she met. She could be free with them about how she was feeling in a way that she couldn't with people. Sometimes, in Care of Magical Creatures, she felt close to being able to speak. She talked to her cat, Honey, whenever it was just the two of them, and the idea of uttering soft words to the animals in here wasn't nearly so intimidating as the thought of striking up a conversation with her neighbour. The only thing that stopped her was the fact of her neighbours' presence which she still found stressful enough to stop her from talking. The animal they would be studying today appealed to her very much, being delicate and easily frightened... It was easy to see why it struck a chord with her, and why she liked Professor Tallec for wanting to nurture it.

As the box came around, she peered in, choosing a chick that was sitting in the corner, anxiously ruffling its feathers. She lifted it as gently as she could out of the box, before transferring it fully to one hand, using the other to softly pet its head. When she had first touched it, she had felt it freeze up, as if considering whether or not she was a threat but as she handled it softly, it seemed to relax.

“It's ok,” she whispered, only just loud enough for the chick to hear, a smile spreading over her face as she realised the step forward she'd made. She leant forward, her hair screening her face from her classmates. It made a few soft cheeping noises and she tried to work out whether these were qualitatively different to the noise the chicks had been making in the box or whether it was just the fact of it only being one little voice on its own.

She stroked its head again, thinking that she should put it in the safe space on the desk soon. She was reluctant to though, as she wasn't sure she could talk to it once it wasn't cradled in her hands any more, and it wasn't like it was distressed here... On the contrary, it seemed quite happy. She was still mulling this over when a voice beside her spoke, causing her to jump in fright. The chick, sensing her distress, promptly vanished.

“Oh no!” she squeaked, too anxious about the little bird's whereabouts to remember to be shy of the person next to her. She looked up, casting left and right to try to see where it had gone. She turned, ready to ask the person who had startled her whether they could see it and that was when the realisation and the reality of speaking to other people caught up with her and she found her mouth empty when seconds before the right words had been on the tip of her tongue. She bit her lip, hating herself for her inadequacy. Not only was it going to give her classmate a bad opinion of her but she couldn't even ask for help on behalf of the little lost Diricawl.

13 Araceli Arbon, Crotalus A startled little bird 290 Araceli Arbon, Crotalus 0 5