fandomhigh | Tracking: Urban v. Wilderness; Thursday, Period Three [ 09/02 ].

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tracking

Tracking: Urban v. Wilderness; Thursday, Period Three [ 09/02 ].

Well. This was it, she supposed. Time to teach her...class.

The thought was still weird, okay? But Angua was there, at the front of the classroom, ready to address her...students. She was dressed no differently than if this had been a regular station shift or street beat, in her thankfully modified Watch armour with the badge at her collar, looking over them and trying to exude an air of confidence. But gods, there were a lot of them. And she couldn't even really smell them all yet because the stench of vampire overrode almost everything else.

"Welcome to Tracking, Urban versus Wilderness Environments," seemed a good place to start. "As the title of the class indicated, we will be exploring a variety of different methods of tracking and learning how to apply them to an urban setting as well as the more traditional uses in the wild. I am Sergeant Angua, of the Fandom Troopers, so, as you can guess, this class will be taking on a certain crime-fighting bent, although I promise. No capes or funny outfits."

See? See that? It was a smile. Sort of. A bit toothy, but that couldn't be helped. At least she made the attempt.

"Now, today we're in the classroom, but we won't always be, don't worry. Once I get you all copies of the syllabus, it will indicate where we will meet. Until then, just assume its the classroom. Today's actually going to be easy; I'm fairly certain I don't know most of you, which, in my line of work, is probably a good thing. So, as sick of them as you may be getting, I'd appreciate going through the introduction drills. I'd like to know your name, age where applicable, your interest in the class, and what experience you have in tracking and in what sort of environments, so I know where we'll all stand in future classes."

"And once Introductions are finished, I'll have a little activity to get us started that should hopefully be fun." And not at all translate into something she'd whipped up out of no where in a panic about not having any clue how to stretch introductions to fit into one hour.

"Also," excuse her while she paused a moment before actually saying the name, "Maladicta? Jacob? It looks like you two are my assistants for the class, so I'd like a moment afterwards."

Actually, it was just Maladicta, but Angua was going to be damned if she was going to have a vampire for an assistant without backup.

"And I suppose if anyone needs anything and I'm busy, they're the ones to go to. Any other questions before we begin?"

[[ ~~Wait for~~ the OCD ~~or get bitten, my friend~~ has had its distemper shots, so it's good to go! ]]

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Name, age where applicable, your interest in the class, and what experience you have in tracking and in what sort of environments.

"Let's start with you, then."

And please note in narrative if there is anything in particular Angua could smell off of your character (be it about species, emotion, thought process, what they had for breakfast...) as they introduce themselves; she most likely won't say anything, but will file away to be noted later.

"Makita, from Bahamut, sixteen, and my tracking experience is mostly in cities," Maki chirped. "Three years working in various cities under siege, but mostly stationed out of Bahamut."

Angua nodded. She really didn't need to know much about Bahamut or what it was or even where to glean from the girl a more significant perception of meaning there. "So plenty of experience," she mused with a nod. "It'll be good to have you in class, Makita, thank you."

"Blysse," Firekeeper introduced herself, pointedly ignoring the age part of the question. "And Blind Seer," with a nod to the rather large wolf by her side. "We grow up in woods, and hunt for food there," she explained. "We also know a little of how to track human trails," she added with a grin. "We take this class because we would both like to know more of tracking in places other than forests."

The last time Firekeeper and Blind Seer had run in to Angua, they'd all been small childr- er, puppies. But they'd certainly noticed the scent of another wolf around Fandom, and Blind Seer quietly commented to Firekeeper on how it was good to finally put a name and a face to such.

[ooc: Angua is, of course, welcome to understand any exchange between Firekeeper and Blind Seer.]

Edited 2010-09-02 15:15 (UTC)

Funny, Angua was feeling quite the same way. She very rarely could forget a scent even when she tried and it was good to have one mystery of that particular weekend a bit more solved.

And, even more importantly, she felt she could trust Blind Seer to keep his jaw shut on the matter.

"It's good to have you both in class," she said with a faint smile, trying to sound not nearly as biased toward the wolf as she felt. After all, she did probably mean it more than when she said it to the others. So many other canine types made her feel much better about all the bloody bloodsuckers.

"Jacob Black. I'm sixteen," Jake introduced himself. There was only the slightest pause because his interest in the class probably shouldn't be that it was taught by a werewolf.

"I've had to track bloodsuckers before, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to get some more experience. Not that they're all that hard to follow." What with the whole stinking up the place. Still, there were two of them for whose benefit he was happily saying this out loud. With a cocky smirk, of course. "And I've tracked them through forests most of the time, sometimes urban areas, but mostly in the woods."

Angua's palm just narrowly avoided her forehead and deftly ducked back to rub her neck a little.

Thank you, Jacob Black, for making even Angua feel that she had tact.

"Well," she said, trying to maintain what little tact she did have, "hopefully in this class you'll get some experience of tracking a lot of other things as well." Her voice, or at least her look, seemed to convey that she understood that nothing else they could be tracking would be nearly as satisfying, of course. True, she didn't have anything near the sort of mindlink Jacob may have with his brothers and sisters, but there was still a certain ability inherent in almost any canine...

"Either way, it's...good to have you in class, Jacob."

Even if she had to struggle not to call him 'Pup.' Didn't matter than he was bigger than even Carrot.

"Ender Wiggin," Ender provided, rattling it off easily. He did his best to still seem into it, but underneath, he was a little irritated. Not that Angua could help it, he knew that. "Sixteen. I thought it might wind up useful later on in my life, that's all, and I have little to no experience in tracking."

The irritation caused a little bit of an eyebrow quirk, but that didn't mean Angua couldn't be sympathetic. How many times did they have to go through this drill this week, after all?

"Hello, Ender," she said, nodding in greeting. "Good to have you in class. Did you have a particular field you're going into that you think it'll be useful in, or do you simply mean that it's a fundamental preparatory skill for anything that could be thrown at you?"

"Tahiri Veila," she introduced herself. "Seventeen."

She wasn't nearly the sort of babbler she'd been at fourteen.

"I've done a lot of tracking in both sorts of environments, actually -- and been tracked -- but it's something I can always stand to do better." She wrinkled her nose slightly, with a wry smile. "Especially that second bit. The more I know about how other beings might be tracking me, the more ways I can come up with to shake them."

"Good answer," said Angua with a faint grin. "Good to have you in class, Tahiri. I hope it proves useful."

"I'm Ben Skywalker, I'm sixteen, and my tracking has generally been limited to finding members of my family across great distances through the use of the Force."

Star systems great.

"I also picked up some more useful skills when I was doing work with one of our police squads," he skipped the part about them being secret police with a bent towards intimidation and assassination, "but that was mostly in cities. I'm not great in the forest or anything."

The Force definitely got a lift of Angua's eyebrow, especially in the context of family, because tracking down family members in the von Uberwald clan just meant messy business.

"Well," she said, leaving it for now, "hopefully the class will have a good balance of both, especially since it seems we've got a lot of diversity in experiences. Good to have you in class, Ben."

"Hey! I'm Zack Fair," and it was just force of will that kept Zack from tacking his rank onto his name, which was a bit of a habit when he introduced himself, "and I'm sixteen years old! But I'll be seventeen in a couple of weeks."

That was important information, okay?

"I'm... not really an expert tracker, or anything. In the work I do back home, generally we get the location of our targets handed to us by somebody else, and then it's mostly just a matter of flushing them out, but I've worked in all sorts of terrain, urban and natural."

If there was anything of note to smell about Zack, it would probably just be a vague sense of being not quite human. Something that had maybe started out as one, but had slipped somewhere along the way. Genetically, after all, he was indistinguishable from the monsters from home.

Angua had gotten fairly used to not quite human scents that were almost utterly impossible to disciple, but Zack's here was all...swirly. She had to rub her nose a little.

"Well, happy birthday in advance, Zack," she offered. "Hopefully, we can up those skills a little more to make you more effective in future assignments."

It didn't take a werewolf to tell that there was definitely something soldier-ish in the way this guy held himself and spoke about targets and the wonderful ladder of command.

"Dana Scully, fifteen, I'm interested in not having the outdoors eat me," Scully said, determined. "Which it has tried to do several times. I'm more familiar with urban tracking of people through crowds. My wilderness experiences have been ... problematic."

What with the trying to eat her and all. There might be a faint tinge of secretiveness to this; Scully was trying to be better about not giving away how muchh experience she *did* have already. The lingering antiseptic smell was probably a dead giveaway that Scully worked in the Clinic today, and wasn't a patient.

Edited 2010-09-02 22:35 (UTC)

Re: Introductions -- Tracking, 09/02.

colourfulscents.livejournal.com - 2010-09-03 13:48 (UTC) - Expand

"My name is Kurt Wagner, and I am seventeen!" Kurt answered excitedly. He was actually a little disappointed there wouldn't be any funny outfits. "I don't really have any tracking experience, but I thought it might be useful?"

The fact that Kurt didn't smell entirely human could probably be explained away by the blue fur and tail. The vague smell of burning sulfur, however, was another matter entirely. It was faint enough at the moment that a normal nose would be hard-pressed to detect it, but it clung to Kurt pervasively.

Re: Introductions -- Tracking, 09/02.

colourfulscents.livejournal.com - 2010-09-04 00:24 (UTC) - Expand

"'M George Cooper," he said easily. "'M fifteen. My experience in trackin' is mostly in th'cities. I don' know much about th'forest and th'like."

Re: Introductions -- Tracking, 09/02.

colourfulscents.livejournal.com - 2010-09-04 00:25 (UTC) - Expand

"Roy Harper, I'm eighteen, and I'm interested in this class because...it seemed useful. I have some recent experience with, ah, urban tracking, and as a child I learned how to track in the desert, but that skill set's pretty rusty."

Re: Introductions -- Tracking, 09/02.

colourfulscents.livejournal.com - 2010-09-04 00:27 (UTC) - Expand

"I'm Jason Todd, I'm fifteen, and I, uh, I don't have much tracking experience," he said, trying to lie as smoothly as possible. His initial Robin training had involved a lot of tracking to follow criminals through Gotham, of course, but he wasn't sure how to explain his experience without explaining where it had come from too, and Bruce was sitting right there, oh god oh god. Maybe Angua wouldn't notice that he was a little nervous as he quickly moved on. "It seems like a really useful skill though."

Edited 2010-09-03 00:18 (UTC)

Re: Introductions -- Tracking, 09/02.

colourfulscents.livejournal.com - 2010-09-04 00:30 (UTC) - Expand

"Bruce Wayne, age sixteen, no significant tracking experience outside of some practice while camping. Plus whatever's come up since being in Fandom," Bruce said, honestly. Look, he was only sixteen, there was only so many useful skills he could learn up to this point. "But I figured this would be a good place to learn."

If he were even more honest, he would admit to being anxious about getting to learn something that was going to prove absolutely crucial in his future.

Re: Introductions -- Tracking, 09/02.

colourfulscents.livejournal.com - 2010-09-04 00:33 (UTC) - Expand

"I'm Dru Anderson and I'm seventeen. My Dad was a hunter," Dru said when it was finally her turn to speak. As always she flinched the tiniest bit at the past tense, even after all these months, she still missed him. "I used to help him. We went just about everywhere. A swamp after a voodoo priest that was raising zombies, an old abandoned house that was infested with cockroach spirits, so I've had some experience in different environments but more training can't hurt."

Re: Introductions -- Tracking, 09/02.

colourfulscents.livejournal.com - 2010-09-04 00:35 (UTC) - Expand

"Cara." She skipped over the age question, since that way lay more questions she wasn't willing to answer. "I have experience with tracking in the wilderness, I studied under a highly skilled woodsman." Not that she'd ever admit she'd just called Richard that.

Re: Introductions -- Tracking, 09/02.

colourfulscents.livejournal.com - 2010-09-04 00:37 (UTC) - Expand

"I'm called Andros," Andros said, "I'm eighteen and I'm taking this class because I thought it would be useful, I've had only had some basic experience with tracking, mostly in the wilderness,"

Re: Introductions -- Tracking, 09/02.

colourfulscents.livejournal.com - 2010-09-04 00:43 (UTC) - Expand

Crap crap crap. Jacob as TA?

Did we say crap yet? Because crap.

"My name's Alice Cullen, I'm 19, and my experience in tracking is mainly in wilderness areas, though I've done some urban tracking as well."

Not quite as smooth as her usual cheerful self, but seeing Jacob had thrown the vampire for a loop.

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