fandomhigh | Care for Magical Creatures; Friday, Period 2 [ 02/20 ].

If Minsc was the type to notice coincidence, he would most likely find this very funny indeed. But, that morning, when he expected to wake up and go to class to teach about unintentional transformations into animals, he found himself...

...unintentionally transformed.

He'd probably laugh about this a lot come Monday.

As it was, though, the class would find themselves gathering in the classroom, Minsc already there, as a giant black bear. Of course, the purple tattoo on his head was still somehow there, and Boo was nestled quietly between his ears, so, if the students didn't recognize that it was him, he was very disappointed in them and would be convinced that they must have all had one too many hits on the head (that said a lot, from a man like Minsc) and were all terribly stupid.

On the board, Minsc had still trying to scribble something with chalk, using his paws, and got about halfway through something that looked vaguely like "Unintentio--" but gave up.

He roared at them a little, hitting his paw a few times on a space at the desk in the front of the room. Paw, paw, paw. This is where you papers I assigned last week go. And then he stalked over to the board, going up on his hindlegs, and started pawing the board too. Unintentio--. Unintentional transformations. It was on the syllabus. It was happening to their teacher right now. Discuss.

And then Minsc settled down, blinking his bear eyes at his class and waiting.

[[ ~~wait for the~~ OCD ~~please~~ is up! ]] [[ Class Syllabus and Roster ]]

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Reno nodded and pointed to the red marks on his cheeks.

"Sure did! These ones didn't show up too great, 'cause it was a red bird I was turnin' into. But there was a blue one, showed up in my tailfeathers, yo."

He wasn't going to explain what that other tattoo was, no. The class didn't need to know about that drunken night in Mexico.

Leto did not feel the need to enquire further about that. "So, did being a... chocobo teach you anything?" he asked.

Reno paused for a moment to think that one over.

"That if you're gonna get turned into somethin' against your will, pray the island makes you big and ugly, because your friends'll play dressup with you if you ain't."

It seemed like an important lesson to Reno, anyhow.

Laughing softly, Leto shook his head. "I will keep that in mind. So what did they dress you up in?" He assumed that a chocobo was not big and ugly, but he might be mistaken of course.

"Some kinda cross between women's jewelry and a scarf thing," Reno replied with a shrug. "And I'm pretty sure my girlfriend got pictures and sent 'em to my boss."

Really, it would have been a difficult temptation to resist.

"I was just a young chocobo, anyhow. Big enough to carry, yo. If I was an adult one, they'd have had a hell of a time gettin' me through doors."

"Oh." Leto still didn't know what a chocobo was. "Are these animals common where you are from?"

"Pretty much, I guess," Reno replied with a shrug. That probably wasn't too helpful, really. "Think of a bird version of a horse, and you're kinda on the right track. People on Gaia ride 'em, now more'n ever, because shit went bad and most people don't wanna use cars no more for fear of wreckin' the environment more'n it already is." A beat. "I got pictures?"

"Ride them?" He raised an eyebrow, interested. Perhaps they could be imported? "And yes, if you have pictures I would like to see them."

Reno held up a finger and then went digging through his pocket for his phone, flipping through until he found a picture with a couple of chocobo in it. "They're vegetarians, too, so it ain't like you gotta worry about 'em bitin' your arm off or somethin' stupid like that for dinner. Breed 'em right, and they can handle damn near any terrain you wanna throw 'em at, too."

He passed the phone over, a picture of a chocobo on the screen. "They're pretty heavy-duty birds, zoto."

[The picture is from a different game, so the people are dressed weird, but the bird is the same. Focus on the bird, please. :D]

"Do they need a lot of water?" Leto asked. "And can they survive a desert climate?"

"People ride 'em in and outta Edge all the time, yo," Reno mused, and then gave a shrug of his shoulders. "And the badlands outside of Midgar are about as 'desert' as you're gonna get on Gaia. I think a chocobo could probably handle that sorta thing, sure. I mean, it might not be ideal for 'em, but they're survivors, yo."

Leto smiled. "I ask because my home world is all desert and water supply is extremely limited. We use ride the sandworms, but they are becoming rarer."

"If your sandworms are anything like the land worms where I come from, that'd be one hell of an interesting ride, yo." He mulled that over for a moment, and then shrugged. "You got any kinda agriculture at all, where you're from? I'm sure I could look into seein' what kinda greens from my world grow the best with the least amount of water, and we can maybe figure somethin' out from there. Not havin' a way around sucks, and it ain't hard to tame a chocobo."

"Land worms? And we have hardly any agriculture at all, so feeding animals have never been an option. Without the worms, we rely mostly on 'thopters." Which didn't mean any available species should be considered.

"Thopter?" Reno blinked, headtilted, and then shrugged. "A land worm is this big-ass brown worm thing that lives in deserts on Gaia. Causes sandstorms and earthquakes. Damn near fireproof, but a good ice spell can take 'em down. They ain't exactly friendly, yo."

"They sound... a little similar." Leto confessed, curious. "What is your homeworld called?"

[bedtime soon!]

Edited 2009-02-20 21:46 (UTC)

"Gaia," Reno replied. And then he shrugged. "I ain't too surprised if they sound kinda the same. I met a few people since comin' here that have stuff we got that other places don't. Gryphons and Chocobos and stuff. Monsters, mostly."

"Sandworms are not quite monsters," Leto replied, because he felt this was important.

"Creatures," Reno amended, "I dunno. Maybe the terminology is different on different worlds. People on Gaia kinda lump everything together if it wants to eat you, yo."

"A lot of the time things want to eat you. That means you are part of the ecological balance." He smiled at Reno. "But I do find these chocobos interesting."

"Get in touch with me sometime. We'll see if we can't take a trip out to Gaia, and I'll take you to the stables or somethin'. If your planet needs help half as much as mine does, it'd be the least I can do, man." He held out his hand for a shake. "Name's Reno."

He shook his hand. "Leto Atreides. Thank you."

Care for Magical Creatures; Friday, Period 2 [ 02/20 ].

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