Best Defence [Thurs, Period 2]

[wrongkindofsith]

Unlike the last two weeks, Cara had told her class to met her in the Danger Shop rather than the salle, which probably should have been their first warning. She also didn't throw dye balloons at any latecomers, largely by virtue of not being there, which should have been their second warning.

The Danger Shop itself was set to look like a deserted village square, with quite an assortment everyday objects that could potentially be turned into improvised weapons laying about the place, which...look, honestly, if at least some of them hadn't figured out this was a set up by now, Cara was going to be highly disappointed.

And then the ninjas attacked.

Japanese Art, Friday, Period Two

[shiroi_tiger]

Today, Algren, who was taking the fact that he'd been stained an alluring shade of paint-rain blue pretty well in stride, had his class meeting in the danger shop. Why? Because he wanted to do this the traditional way, even if it was next to impossible to find the proper equipment for it, and so he was willing to compromise. Just this once.

Even if he was mostly convinced the danger shop wanted nothing better than to humiliate him at every possible moment. For the time being it seemed to be cooperating, creating a spacious room for them with a large mortar on a stand, a mallet with a long handle propped up beside it.

"This week," he said to the class, crossing his arms and smiling, "we're making mochi, a small cake made out of rice, traditionally eaten around the New Year. Apparently these days, mochi is generally just made using the flour from glutinous rice, but traditionally, people would soak the rice overnight, steam it, and then place it in the usu - the large mortar- and beat the figurative tar out of it using the kine, or mallet. The usu and kine provided for you today aren't real, mostly because locating them on the island is... something of an errand. But the rice and the resulting mochi that you'll have when you're finished is absolutely real. So our task for today will be taken in two steps. We'll all take turns pulverizing the rice into mochi paste, and then, provided your arms still work after all of that, we'll be shaping the mochi however we please, generally into palm-sized pockets that can be shaped around a filling of your choice."

Maybe not what generally came to mind when people thought of art, no, but was that going to stop Algren? Absolutely not.