Nathan Xavier
June 12, 2021 9:21 AM
Beginners: Magic Beans by Nathan Xavier
Nathan welcomed the beginner class to Greenhouse One from well inside of it. It was cold outside and he wasn't wearing his heavy robes. Inside the greenhouse, it was quite comfortable in his normal ones. He returned the essay from the latest homework assignment - it was much easier to keep on top of his grading now that the kids were getting a bit older. Otto was still small, of course, but he was past the sleep deprivation stage, and the boy had an obvious preference for his Mama that Isis was only all too happy go along with. Nathan would have liked to be able to help a little more but there was an obvious division of labor when one of them could make the toddler's cries stop just by walking into the room and the other only made him scream louder because he wasn't Isis.But it did mean Nathan could get his papers graded.
He returned them with the personal comments he normally accompanied such returns with, and told the students to go find a seat around one of the two long work tables that ran along the center of the greenhouse. In front of each seat there was a tray of dirt about three inches deep and a cup full of beans. It was a lidded cup. The beans inside were not all sitting still like good little beans, and the lid was there to keep them from escaping. "Don't touch anything yet," he cautioned, though that was mostly so nothing got lost before the lesson began rather than because anything was remotely dangerous.
Once everyone had arrived and taken a seat, he stood between the two tables and began the day's introduction. "Hello, class, in front of you there is a cup full of magic beans. Has anyone heard the story of Jack and the Beanstalk?" he asked. When several hands raised, he smiled at them, and let them down as gently as he could, "That tale is, unfortunately, entirely fiction. We will not be getting beanstalks into the clouds by morning just from throwing these out of a window. There are no magic beans that do that." Sometimes it was best to clarify these things. So many muggle fairy tales had at least a grain of truth to them, and Jack was no exception. There were giants. There were magic beans. They just weren't remotely related to one another. Also, giants don't live in the sky.
"These magic beans, you'll notice, are several different shapes, sizes, and colors. That is because there are several species of beans that qualify as 'magic beans', all of which do something a bit different than the others. The most famous real magic bean is, of course, the jumping bean. There are a few varieties of jumping bean, and not all of them are even magical, but the ones in your cup today are. They can jump much higher and farther than the ordinary muggle variety. You will need to be careful to not to let them get away from you. Once they're in the dirt, though, they should stay there. Those will be the easiest ones to identify in your cup. They're the ones that are moving around the most."
"Another one that moves is the climbing bean. That one will probably be at the top of your cup. You may also need to replant that one several times before it stays down. It has a tendency to climb back up to the surface of the tray."
"Others seem like normal beans but will grow much faster - those will give you a full grown beanstalk by morning, just not up to the clouds. Some have other magical properties when ingested or used in potions. Some of you will have a large purple bean in your cup that is one of the ingredients in the sorting potion we use here at Sonora. If you eat it by itself, it will turn your skin a different color based on your mood. Please don't eat the beans. We're just planting today."
"The magic beans unit starts on page 312 in your text. You're job today is to identify the beans in your cup, plant them in your tray, and label where you planted each type." He'd be lenient on the grading for wrongly labeled jumping beans and climbing beans, as those were not guaranteed to say where they were planted, but the rest would stay put. "Gloves are optional as nothing here is toxic or dangerous. You may, of course, talk amongst yourselves as you work."
OOC: You can assume a cup with about twenty beans of various kinds. Feel free to make up additional types of magic bean. Not every cup will have every kind of bean. Some cups may have multiple beans of the same type.
Subthreads: For real? by Xavier Lundstrom with Augustine Reed-Fischer
I've heard of these... trouble. by Iris Cobb with Isla Brockert
1
Nathan Xavier
Beginners: Magic Beans
28
1
5
Xavier Lundstrom
June 12, 2021 11:04 PM
For real? by Xavier Lundstrom
Xavier entered the greenhouse, feeling less than stellar. He’d spend the previous day’s afternoon in the infirmary. It had been time for round number four of ‘will this magic potion help Xavier’s migraines?’ He had to admit that most of them took the edge off a little, compared to the remedies he’d been given at home, but the strange blue potion he’d ingested yesterday had come with some pretty weird dreams when it finally won out and knocked him unconscious. And today his head felt fuzzy and raw. It was like the migraine had somehow carried on while he was sleeping, and now he was dealing with the after-effects of it banging around inside his skull.He slid into his seat, wondering what Miss Katey was going to say to his Mom. Mom had been worried about the fact that he seemed to be having more migraines, although he thought she might be just as likely to write to Professor Skies or Professor Carter-Xavier as she thought he was stressed by his lack of academic progress. Which he was. He just wasn’t sure there was a link with his migraines. They’d never really seemed to be triggered by stress in the past.
Still, it was time for a class he didn’t suck at, and question one was weirdly relatable, so he raised his hand when asked if he’d ever heard of a common children’s story. And then was promptly told not to think about it because it was nonsense. Well, okay then. That was a fun way to play things… He crossed his arms in front of himself on his desk, trying not to feel resentful. Professor Him was usually a pretty chill, nice guy, and probably wasn’t trying to make them feel like idiots. It wasn’t his fault that Xavier felt like an idiot without much extra help these days. Or that he felt like his head had been run over with a steamroller.
At least the class task sounded do-able. He didn’t need to use magic, just his eyes. They’d had days when they were in better working order and more connected to his brain, but he trusted them more than he did his wand.
He started by grabbing the obvious jumping bean and ramming it firmly into the earth without much further analysis, hoping it would stay there. He figured the climbing bean wouldn’t really be able to go much further than the rim of the cup, and if it did it would just fall onto the table, where there wasn’t much to climb, whereas if he put it in the earth, he’d need to worry about whether it was escaping again.
He opened up his book to try identifying the rest of the beans. There was a very vivid blue one, which matched only one of the pictures.
This bean is used in its diluted form in some pain relief potions, especially those to do with the head or brain. In its raw form, it is used in some traditional Native American rituals to aid with entering trance states.
Well, that explained the side effects he had experienced. He added it to his tray, just as his climbing bean toppled its way to freedom.
“Hey, back you go,” he stated, picking it up and popping it into the earth this time. “The bean, not you,” he added to a neighbour, noticing they had looked up at him when he spoke.
13
Xavier Lundstrom
For real?
1529
0
5
Augustine Reed-Fischer
June 16, 2021 7:19 PM
For real. by Augustine Reed-Fischer
Gus never raised his hand in class, often because he wasn't paying full attention anyway, but he was pretty sure he could actually have said something about the question Professor Xavier asked today. He'd read fairytales at home, although they weren't all the ones that his peers were most familiar with because he also heard fairytales from his mom's home country. Also, fairytales had been a bit hush hush since everything came out with Jezebel anyway. His mother had always been hesitant to include any mention of magic in their lives just because it went against her beliefs but it had only increased since it turned out Jezebel basically was a fairytale, if a sort of bummer one. Now it was Gus' turn and he was determined to be a hilarious side character in an awesome adventure fairytale. Today, that adventure was about magic beans, which were apparently nothing like the magic beans most people knew and loved, and Gus was about to go hard in the comic relief trope.When his neighbor reassured him that his comment thus far was about the beans and not Gus himself, Gus took it as his first chance to be hilarious and he totally nailed it, he was sure. Backing up in a robotic, dance-like fashion and then rewinding himself forward, he grinned at his classmate. "I'll stick around then," he said. He thought of asking whether Xavier was going to stick around since he was pretty sure the dude was out of class like all the time, but he didn't really pay enough attention to be sure of that and he didn't know him well enough to think it was his business. Maybe he had some personal problems; that wasn't Augustine's business. Instead, the Pecari just grinned and then glanced in his cup. Moving past the obvious jumping and climbing beans, he grabbed another one that was making itself known. "Marching bean!" he said before humming his best John Philip Sousa impression as the little gold bean marched across the table when he set it down.
22
Augustine Reed-Fischer
For real.
1509
0
5
Xavier Lundstrom
June 16, 2021 8:03 PM
But why? by Xavier Lundstrom
Xavier laughed as Gus pretended to have taken his words literally. Xavier didn’t know his neighbours super well, but ‘fun’ seemed like a good word to describe them. Occasionally ‘loud’ as well. He was pretty sure there had to be some solid soundproofing (soundproofing magic?) going on because he was basing this more on what he saw of them in daily life than on ever having been disturbed by them, even though he was pretty sure they didn’t instantly become model citizens the second they went into their room.Gus then put one of the beans down and hummed the president music for it. Xavier was starting to get used to the idea that, when people knew the same cultural touchstones as him, that most likely meant they were Muggleborn too, but this one didn’t really register. It was the president for crying out loud. Everyone knew who the president was, and it was too big a leap for him to think there might be more than one. The only person he would have expected to not know might have been Alexei – it felt much more like a foreign vs American difference than a magical vs non-magical one.
“Why does that exist though?” he asked, watching the bean. It was funny, sure, but what was the point? “Like, what’s useful about getting a bean to march? Surely it just makes them easier to lose?”
13
Xavier Lundstrom
But why?
1529
0
5
Augustine Reed-Fischer
June 17, 2021 12:37 PM
That's not for us to know I don't think. by Augustine Reed-Fischer
Xavier's laugh basically counted as a success for Gus, so he checked that off his mental to-do list for the day (he tried to make someone laugh everyday but it wasn't usually too intentional because he was naturally hilarious and didn't have to try very hard or anything) before getting into the work. The younger student brought up a great point about the bean though and Gus cocked his head at it."Yeah, I've got nothing," he finally decided. "Maybe if you get a bunch of 'em together, you can put a big chair on top and ride around like a king on a tiny sea of marching beans?" It didn't seem like a terrible idea. Way better than walking all over this giant friggin' mansion, although it was a pretty dope mansion so he wasn't all mad about it.
He glanced at his now partner's work and raised his eyebrows. "Woah, that's a cool color," he said, pointing at the blue one on Xavier's tray. "What is it?" He dug around in his own cup only to find he didn't have that one. "I've got a little white one that looks like a bone, and a fat green one, but no blue ones."
22
Augustine Reed-Fischer
That's not for us to know I don't think.
1509
0
5
Xavier Lundstrom
June 23, 2021 6:48 AM
But I have the Bean of Perception by Xavier Lundstrom
“That is what my life has been missing,” Xavier supplied dryly when Gus talked about being carried on a chair borne by tiny marching beans. “Maybe they’re useful in some kind of movement potion?” Were there even potions to do with movement? That seemed more of a charms thing. And the properties of potions ingredients didn’t always seem to relate to what the mixture did. But thinking laterally, and trying to answer the ridiculous questions this school posed seemed easier for him than anything with waving a wand. “Though which came first… They bred the bean to get the result, or they made use of a naturally occurring property? Maybe they’re just like that.“It’s… got a bunch of names,” he gestured to the open textbook when Gus asked about his blue bean. The book had the Latin name as well as the default Western name, but having been used in rituals, the Native American name and a rough translation (‘The bean of perception’) was also given. “We smush it up and put it into headache cures. Other people use it for like… seeing stuff I guess? It makes you hallucinate like crazy basically, even when it’s diluted down in medicine,” he added, his tone having just that slight note of over confidence that suggested personal experience. “And it’s moderately effective on migraines,” he added, definitely sounding like he wasn’t reading from the book any more. He pushed the bean into the earth, labelling it with ‘Perception Bean.’
13
Xavier Lundstrom
But I have the Bean of Perception
1529
0
5
Augustine Reed-Fischer
June 24, 2021 5:32 PM
P E R C E P T I O N by Augustine Reed-Fischer
OOC: CW Vaguely dirty joke left mostly unsaid. BIC:
Augustine grinned. He agreed wholeheartedly that his life had been missing bean thrones more than almost anything else, but he was pretty sure Xavier didn't actually mean it. Clearly the kid had his priorities wrong but not everyone could have a bean throne so maybe it was for the best if not everyone wanted one either. Xavier had a bunch of other questions though and he suddenly reminded Gus more of Jazz than anything. They were the sort of questions that Gus didn't mind thinking about but he just . . . didn't think about. Even now that they were posed, his mind was mostly wandering to the possibilities of movement potions more than the breeding history of marching beans.
"Maybe they're smashed up into shoe polish," he suggested with a shrug. "Although I guess magic people don't have to march as much as us huh? Or as much as non magic people," he corrected himself; as much as he had accepted the wizard world as totally dope and way cooler than anything else he'd seen, he still forgot sometimes that he was part of it. It was like getting backstage passes to Disney World and then finding out once you got there that you were a cast member.
He glanced cursorily at Xavier's open textbook before nodding. Another grin crossed his face, this one more mischievous. He wasn't supposed to know about the non-magical blue pill that came to mind so he didn't say anything about it but he did chuckle some at the idea of a magic blue bean pill. His eyebrows came together in confusion though a moment later.
"Wait, these people have literal magic and they can't cure headaches without a bean that makes you hallucinate?" he asked, incredulous and disappointed. "What the heck? No one here has heard of Advil or something?"
22
Augustine Reed-Fischer
P E R C E P T I O N
1509
0
5
Xavier Lundstrom
June 26, 2021 7:21 AM
Yeah, that by Xavier Lundstrom
OOC: CW illness/vomiting (passing mention) BIC:
Gus was like him then. He’d had a vague idea that was the case but, seeing as he hadn’t been totally sure where he’d gotten that from, it was good to have it confirmed.
He laughed a very bitter laugh at the mention of Advil. The first sign of people not understanding what the heck he was going through was when they told him to take one of those. Not that Gus fell into that category, because right now they weren’t discussing Xavier specifically – or, if they were, Gus didn’t know it.
“Not all pain can be conquered with Advil,” he sighed. “I’m sure they’ve got a pretty close magical equivalent. Don’t worry, if you end up with a headache, they won’t start you off on the hallucination juice.” Only when it was your fifth time visiting and nothing else had worked, and you were minutes away from spiraling into mind-bending pain where all anyone could do was leave you completely alone in absolute darkness and absolute silence. At that point, it was worth risking making you a little loopy. Worth giving you medication that… He wasn’t even sure. He knew the images had been vivid, but they had been hard to cling to. He didn’t remember anything truly mind-bending, like.. out of this world imaginary. He was pretty sure people from school had been involved. The one image that stuck out clearly was Oz Spellman with his shirt off. That was… confusing. Not in that he was thinking about boys. His parents had moved churches because of his tendency to say other boys were pretty. And not that he knew whether he meant anything by that, but they hadn’t wanted other people telling him what he ought to think about it before he even knew what he was thinking. But apparently, his subconscious had decided they were at the point where other boys with their shirts off was a thing they wanted to think about, though he wasn’t sure why it had honed in Oz when a lot of other boys were cuter than he was.
“You got any others that might escape?” he prodded Gus back towards his pot of beans. He was never sure how to deal with the subject of his migraines when it came up. He generally preferred that they didn’t. He didn’t want to discuss what it was like being physically sick either because the pain in your head was so bad or because the rest of your body had decided to join in on the act of trying the pull you apart from the inside, or the fact that no one could ever quite work out which of those was what was happening to him, much less how to make it stop. When other people started talking about this, it was so much harder to forget that this kept happening, that there was no way to stop it, and he didn’t know if it would ever get better. He also didn’t want to discuss that apparently when he got pepped up on bean juice he thought about ogling Gus’ roommate.
13
Xavier Lundstrom
Yeah, that
1529
0
5