fandomhigh | Keeping Your Advantage: Terrain and You [Weds, 3rd Period]

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keeping your advantage

Keeping Your Advantage: Terrain and You [Weds, 3rd Period]

Each of Ghanima's students had ~~handwavily~~ received a hand-written letter telling them to meet at the main campfire today - with a map, for the new students - and as people arrived, they'd find their teacher tranquilly sitting on a log, playing with a praying mantis that was climbing all over her fingers.

"Well now," she said, her voice carrying effortlessly as she set down her little friend. "Many new faces! How very exciting! And for those of you that I've seen before... welcome back."

Ghanima was not sure if it was a mark of approval in her choice in subject matter, or if her students were simply masochists. She was not ruling out either option.

"For those of you that are new, I am Lady Ghanima Atreides, and this is Keeping Your Advantage. If you have not had one of my classes before, you may call me Lady Ghanima, Miss Ghanima, or Miss Atreides, whichever you are more comfortable with. The first person to call me Lady Atreides gets detention," Ghanima announced, smiling. "Lady Atreides is my grandmother, and I will not answer to it."

"This is a class intended to give you a basic grounding in the varying types of terrain you may encounter, and how to survive it. The simple fact that you are at this school is testimony to the fact that you never know where you may find yourself."

"From cityscapes to icebergs, each week we will look at a different type of terrain, and one thing you can do to make your life easier. Please be aware that there is no syllabus to this class, because I don't want you to have time to prepare for each scenario. Many times you will have to work with only the things you have on you during an emergency, and learning to keep your wits about you is important."

"Today, we are going to start with the most basic skill you can have: making a fire, and some basic cooking skills. I'd like you to work as a group to get this fire started, and then we'll make some hot dogs, s'mores, baked potatoes, and grilled cheese."

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Once students got the fire going, Ghanima brought out a large box of foodstuffs. Potatoes, apples, hot dogs, a tin of coffee, bread, cheese, and ingredients for bannock and s'mores.

"Help yourselves," Ghanima said, putting the box down. "But there's no tinfoil, cups, or other cutlery. You'll need to find sticks or get creative. If you want coffee, you need to find something to use as a cup."

"Once you get cooking, I'd like you to take turns introducing yourselves, since we have so many new faces. Tell us your name, and what you are most interested in learning about. What is it that drew you to this class? Feel free to start up conversations with each other."

Anders put together a sandwich of bread and cheese; he wasn't feeling either hungry or ambitious enough to cook.

"I'm Anders," he said, once the sandwich was half-done. "I can't say there's any one thing I want to get out of class. I just want to be well-prepared for whatever the world throws at me, that's all."

"That's a good philosophy to have, Anders," Ghanima replied as she stuck an apple on the end of a stick and stuck it over the fire, slowing turning it to roast it lightly. "Do you often find yourself in situations where you need to think on your feet?"

Face was eyeing a hot dog warily and trying to figure out if it actually had dog in it when his turn came.

"My name's Garik, but I prefer Face since that's what most people call me anyway," Face said. "I don't really have a lot of wilderness skills, so that."

Hey, her name meant 'spoil of war,' Ghanima didn't judge what people wanted to be called.

"Do you anticipate needing a lot of wilderness skills, Face?" she asked curiously. "Or are you simply a 'be prepared' type of person?"

"Well, neither of the planets I've spent the most time on are what you'd call wildernesses," he said. "But you never know what's going to happen."

Face realised he was rubbing his scarred cheek and lowered his hand with forced casualness, he thought he'd trained himself out of that tell already.

Elsa... took an apple. Because her cooking skills were utterly nonexistent, and she didn't particularly trust herself not to accidentally kill the fire somehow.

"I'm Elsa," she said, once her turn came around. "I..." Didn't actually sign up for this class. At all. But now that she was here, best to make the best of it, right? "I could use the chance to get out and about some. I lived a pretty sheltered childhood, and if I'm going to be going to school here for any amount of time, being prepared for different environments will probably come in handy."

"Going to school here, being prepared for different environments - physically and mentally - is never a bad idea," Ghanima replied, laughter in her tone. "Fandom never ceases to keep its residents on our toes."

Four had spent enough nights eating stuff roasted over lit-up trash bins (Dauntless made its own fun) to not even blink twice before toasting up a couple of hot dogs on a stick.

"I'm Four," he said. "I just want to be prepared. I'm used to urban setting survival stuff, but I don't want to be caught unaware on other things."

"Ah, another member for my 'always prepared' club, then," Ghanima replied cheerfully. "We'll be doing some urban terrains as well, but I'll see if I can't find something you haven't encountered before to keep it interesting."

"Jalian d'Arsennette y ken Selvren," Jalian answered as she speared an apple on her longest knife and held it to the fire. She took a bit of cheese, too, but she was ignoring the rest of the food, since she didn't recognize most of it.

"I want to be ready for anything I can," she continued with a shrug. "Any advantage is useful."

"Any advantage is useful, so long as the other person doesn't know you hold that advantage," Ghanima agreed, blowing on her own now-roasted apple to cool it down. "Or rather, you still have the advantage, but not as much as you would had the other person not expected it."

"Do you go by your full name, Jalian d'Arsennette y ken Selvren, or is there a diminutive or other title you prefer?"

Jalian thought about what she'd said, then nodded. That made good sense.

"Just Jalian," she answered. "The rest is..." she frowned, trying to think of the word. "Not titles, not names. Family and clan descriptions? The English is Jalian of the Fires of Clan Silver-eyes."

"Ah, but family and clan descriptions can weigh us as much as titles sometimes, and name us truer than names," replied Ghani of Sietch Tabr ruefully. "My people love to describe things, sometimes to their detriment."

"How is describing things bad?" Jalian asked curiously. "Unless you're describing them in the middle of fighting, I suppose."

Re: Cooking!

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Re: Cooking!

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Re: Cooking!

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Re: Cooking!

kenselvren.livejournal.com - 2014-08-28 22:45 (UTC) - Expand

Kira had never made grilled cheese over a fire before, but it didn't seem like a difficult task with enough sticks, so she was using two sticks to keep her sandwich steady by the fire when it was her turn. "My name is Kira Yukimura, and I didn't pick my classes, but this one seems like it'll be a better fit for me than some of the others," she said. "I'm used to cityscapes, so anything that's not that would be awesome to learn about."

"Well, while we'll do a few cityscapes, there will be plenty of new vistas for you to explore," Ghanima promised. "Although I must ask... if you do not choose your classes, who does? I hope not the moose."

"No, my mom picked them," Kira said with a laugh. "This is my first full term here after being here for the summer, and she wanted to make sure I got off to a good start or something."

Eleanor considered roasting a hot dog, but chose to grab an apple and some cheese instead.

"My name is Eleanor Lamb," she said. "I've seen ... in the past, I've been in situations where one needs to adapt rather quickly to one's surroundings. I'd like to be better at it."

"Aspiring to always improve ourselves is a worthy goal," Ghanima replied. "Welcome, Eleanor."

"I'm Andros," Andros said, looking up from studying a marshmallow as if he was trying to discern its true purpose. "No relation to him," he added, gesturing toward Anders with the marshmallow. "I...don't know what the future holds for me, and I'd like to be prepared for as many possibilities as possible."

"Another for my 'always prepared' group," Ghanima laughed. "It seems I have a number of high achievers this semester."

"I'm Marasiah, or Sia if you'd rather, and my galaxy's at war, so I'd rather be prepared in case I end up in an unfortunate situations," she said. She was totally going for s'mores, by the way.

"War seems to be a perpetual unfortunate situation, I'm afraid," Ghanima said. "Forever starting, and never really ending."

Uhhh... Yeah, the South did backyard barbeques like no one else, but there were always kitchens and grills involved. The last time she'd roasted marshmallows was years ago.

She was just going to eat an apple. Those didn't need to be cooked.

"I'm Evangeline--Evie--Greene," she said, trying to cover up how awkward she felt with a smile and good old Southern charm. "I hate to say it, but I didn't choose my classes, so I'm not quite sure why I'm in this class. But a little bit of learning how to survive is a good thing. I like real close to a bayou and it can be dangerous. Sometimes people just up and vanish into it and are never seen again."

Like, oh, her dad.

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