fandomhigh | Creature languages, 1/16, period 4

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creature languages

Creature languages, 1/16, period 4

There is no spider or other animal in view today as Dream stands to address the class.

"Hello. I hope you all enjoyed speaking with Aunt Nancy last week. That was an attempt to acclimate you to the kind of experiences you will have in class.

She told me, by the way, that she quite enjoyed your questions. And she thanks Mr. Gavin for the coffee.

Today, I want you to take a step back from this subject and recognize something you already know: humans can speak Creature languages, at least on a primitive level. Think about the near-telepathy you might have experienced with a pet, for example. Or a time when you knew an anumal was dangerous. Even if it did not say "I would like to bite you," odds are you could tell what it was thinking.

Creature languages is really just about taking that intuitive communication and expanding it a level, so you can converse as readily with, say, a garden slug as you can with your pet cat, and so you can communicate more complex messages across the species barrier. It is physical and emotional as well as vocal, and I trust you will keep that in mind.

In class today, I want you to write a paragraph discussing a time when you feel you communicated with an animal."

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Turn in your paragraph.

In my world, communication with animals is not uncommon. There are proper etiquette rules for communicating and interacting with many animals, like unicorns and hyppogriffs, but the most common communication is one almost every witch or wizard engages in on a daily basis. We talk to our delivery owls. It is common to exchange greetings with the owls, who are generally affectionate when they deliver mail and packages, often nipping gently at your finger and asking for food treats. They communicate when they are not happy with the weight or distance of the delivery, and they can get disgruntled if you go long periods of time with paying attention or visiting them in the owlery. The owls that deliver subscriptions effectively communicate the fact that they expect payment in return for your paper. And when sending mail out, we communicate through body language and tone of voice the seriousness or urgency of the outgoing parcels.

I suppose you could chat with Mr. Neilson all you like about the many ways I try to communicate with him and he understands but ignores me. Not all animals do however, and I generally find them very playful. Like the time I went on a picnic with my friends Tommy and Annika (they are people you know); Mr. Neilson wandered off (of course, because I told him not to) and we split up to look for him. Tommy met a bull who wanted to play, but bulls play rough and Tommy was wearing his good white suit. So I had a chat with the bull and gave him some fashion advise, but all he wanted to do was play (http://www.livejournal.com/users/strongestgirl/8271.htm). You wouldn't believe how that bull could tickle! Then he indicated that it was his naptime, so I left him alone after that.

[[OOC: Grrr! Make that

"...all he wanted to do was play." (http://www.livejournal.com/users/strongestgirl/8271.html)

There was the incident where I made my frog a crash helmet, I guess. Purely out of concern for his safety! Well, also out of the end of a Twinkie. They're soft and spongey and tasty, so I figured if he didn't like wearing it, at least he'd have a nifty snack. Jeremiah's fashion sense does not match up with mine, apparently, and I misinterpreted all the ~~completely obvious to anyone not a moron~~ verbal and visual clues, like the loud croaking, rolling of his eyes, and the really disgusted expression. It was kind of hard to misunderstand the message when he peed on my hand, though.

~~Um...~~I have not had many experiences communicating with actual animals. I have, however, had a few experiences with animals acting under demon possession. On one memorable occasion, my (now ex-) boyfriend, Xander Harris, became possessed by a demony hyena. Out of respect for Mr Harris, I will not give all the details of his possession, but suffice it to say that I definitely had some communications with a hyena ~~ew, not like that~~. ~~Or there was the time that Xander tried to hook up with the praying mantis. I bet they did a lot of communicating.~~ Also, one time this girl I went to school with turned into a rat.

Other than those odd cases, aided by magic and demons, the only communication I have had with animals is of a pretty basic kind: angry dogs or squaking birds.

*snickers*

I'm not sure I've done much communicating with any real animals before, but there was the time last semester when my boyfriend turned into a wolf puppy for a week or so. I Mean, I already knew how to communicate with him as a person, so that helped, but I still had to try to figure out what he meant by barking or yipping or moving his head around. We mostly managed to get the important points across, even though he had to try to talk in wolf, I guess.

~~I don't suppose it counts if I was an animal at the time...?~~ I communicate with my parrot, Fish, on a regular basis. This can be rather difficult, as Fish doesn't exactly say what he means. Fish knows words in more languages than I do, but he utilizes them differently. I've figured out that when he says, "Polly want a cracker?" he is bored, and when he says, "Qingwa cào de liúmáng," (pardon my Chinese) he's hungry. In this way, Fish and I manage to live in something like harmony.

So long as he doesn't start in on that, "ARE YOU MY MUMMY?" business in the middle of the night again.

Well considering I rarely have... a chance to interact with animals not somewhat ... 'different' in the first place, some communication with them isn't all that unusual. I've yet to have a straight-up conversation with any of them yet...
Sakura ponders.
Well, I have a ... well he's not exactly a pet, and he's not exactly an "animal" either, but I can talk to him just fine.
She frowns, hoping that somewhat suffices. She wasn't entirely sure if she should go into detail about her relation with Kero, but if it was necessary, she'd do so.

Back at Xavier's, one of the teachers had a pet dragon ~~which is so not Lockheed, for sake of FH rules~~ that I used to see every once in a while. It never spoke, but I always felt like we had an understanding. For example, whenever I'd see him, I'd always wave, and he'd raise a claw and wave at me back! I'd stick my tongue out at him, and he'd to the same. And one time I was trying to start a campfire for this weenie roast thing my class was having, but I couldn't get the matches to work. Ms. Pryde's dragon was flying around and noticed that I was having trouble, so he blew fire on the wood for me! I hope that I can learn how to communicare with creatures like this again, because he was a really cool creature to be around.

Where I'm from it is not a strange thing to communicate with animals. Owls are our way of sending out mail and we speak to them frequently. Even though they don't actually speak they understand what we are asking of them and will show affection. They will also tell you when they are displeased.

Other animals like nifflers and unicorns cannot really work with wizards towards a common goal but one is able to tell when they are happy or when they are afraid.

I have a friend who likes to hunt in other than human form at times. When he's a hellhound, we can't just chat normally. However, it's not too difficult to understand his intent when he leads me in a particular direction, or his hackles stand up, and the howls? Those are impossible to misinterpret.

"I talk to my rommate's cat," Lisa writes, vaguely.

"I don't have a lot of experience with this, but ultimately, I think we should communicate with animals just like we do with other people. I think. Like I said, I am still adjusting to the idea, but I think you can share the same feelings you would with a human that would would with a pet, or animal, or... etc. So you should speak to them in the same way, or weigh your conversations equally."

Lisa still is a little weirded out, communing with animals.

My old roommate, who disappeared, had a parrot. It talked for him. I tried to talk to it, but it never made much sense when it tried to speak English. It used to glare at me if I disturbed it, and it always made it very clear when it wanted to be left alone. Flapping wings and squawking, things like that to show it was upset. Usually if I apologized to it, it would nod and stop acting so upset, so I'm sure it understood me.

There was a time in Jordan when the house we were staying at didn't have enough rooms, so I slept in the barn. One night I got very cold and went looking for a blanket and pulled one off the door of a what I thought was an empty stall. But there was a stallion inside and it got very antsy and started kicking at the door. I was afraid to put the blanket back, but I could tell it was angry at me because I had taken it. I explained that I was cold and I was shivering and soon the horse stopped kicking and just stared at me, I tried to put the blanket back on the door but it sorta huffed at me and bumped the door and I felt like it wanted me to take the blanket. So I guess we communicated pretty effectively.

I'm not really around animals much - believe it or not - but I met Angel's dog Sean here the other day, and I think he was communicating "I want to play and be petted", which I didn't want to do at the time, because I was holding a coffee cup, so I communicated back, "No." and then the dog went to play with someone else.

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Creature languages, 1/16, period 4

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