fandomhigh | Advanced Bird Haberdashery, Wednesday, period 2

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bird haberdashery

Advanced Bird Haberdashery, Wednesday, period 2

Octavia was right; Duke absolutely should have just stayed home and cancelled class. But it was the first week, and everyone else seemed to be doing just fine with the whole "we got kidnapped by a monster and held in a volcano" thing, and Duke was determined to push through and be normal, too.

As normal as anyone could be, teaching a class on how to make hats for birds.

They were in a regular classroom this time, rather than the Danger Shop, which Duke was pretty sure meant they'd be dealing with actual live birds, which was just -- awesome. Sure. At least class one seemed to be porgs, judging by the flock hopping around the room. That worked out well, since Polly Lobster had followed him all the way to school.

There was also a wide array of bowls, baskets, buckets, and other small objects that could conceivably be placed on a small head that maybe didn't start with the letter B. So . . . improvised hats, then. Good to know.

"Hi." Duke waved to the class. "I'm Duke. This is --" He winced. "Advanced Bird Haberdashery. The moral of this class is 'don't piss off the moose'. You all look like you've been here awhile, so I'm not going to bother to explain that further." He looked at the porg sitting on the teacher's desk. "These are porgs. You've probably seen them around by now. They're friendly. Kinda judgy. No sense of boundaries." He was wandering off topic. "I guess . . . give them hats."

He picked up a small, brightly colored bowl, flipped it over, and put it on the porg's head. How was this his life.

He looked up at the class again, wishing he'd brought himself a cup of (heavily doctored) coffee. "And . . . tell me your name or something. I don't really care."

He really should have cancelled class this week.

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And maybe introducing yourself too, sure.

The porgs and objects-to-be-improvised-into-hats are totally moddable. I expect at LEAST one lampshade, though!

"Sabine," she said, already drawing on a piece of paper that would become a hat. "I don't know how I ended up in but I might love it?"

Today's class in particular was bad when she was about to redo her armor because it might end up with a porg on her pauldron now?

Duke flicked his hand in what could charitably be called a wave. "Yo. Glad to hear it."

The narrative said "porg pauldron" like it was a bad thing.

"Uhhhm, so I guess I am in this class." Awkward! "Hi. Again."

He was trying to make a porg wear a small flower pot upside down on its head, while he said both those things. For the record.

"Of course you are," Duke said, sounding deeply resigned. He had officially offered to sell one of his students pot. He was pretty sure that was on a bingo card out there, somewhere. "How ya doing."

"Like I shouldn't be here." Ulysses didn't care that it was rhetorical, no. "And neither should you, probably."

It wasn't even any personal concern for Duke, more just Uly's continued bafflement at being two for two for having teachers who'd been dangling over a lava pit yesterday and were still somehow showing up for ther job today.

Duke let out a somewhat choked laugh. "Yeah. My girlfriend says so, too."

He should maybe have talked with Octavia before calling her his girlfriend. Ah well. It was more of a short-hand, anyway. "The woman who I make out with regularly and who I'd rather spend time with than most other people on the island, but who also makes out with the guy who looks a lot like me while I go sleep with random ~~NPCs~~ other people" was a bit of a mouthful.

"So . . . why'd you show up?"

Ulysses was translating 'girlfriend' back out to 'that brunette with the sword who made a hideous Christmas sweater look intimidating', anyway.

He opened his mouth to answer, but clearly got stuck trying to think of one.

"I don't know."

"Desperately reaching for normal?" Duke guessed.

That was why he was here.

Re: Porgs and Improvised hats

amitragic - 2020-01-08 19:54 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Porgs and Improvised hats

betterthanaplan - 2020-01-08 19:59 (UTC) - Expand

"S'up?" said Prompto, sparing a sympathetic sort of smile toward their poor, beleaguered teacher, when it got around to his turn and he paused his bottle-cap (hey! Still started with a B!) gathering for a moment. "I'm Prompto, and I loooove birds, and I loooove hats, so odds are? I'm gonna looooove this class, too!"

At least he tried to keep the bounciness down? Out of respect? But come on! It was PUTTING HATS ON BIRDS CLASS!

Duke just kind of blinked at him for a long moment, then nodded.

"Sure. Cool. Bet you can . . . take pictures of the cute birds in hats or something, too. Good times."

"Like...a little...bird-hat fashion show!"

Just go ahead and put those ideas in his head! Sure, he'd have likely come around to it on his own at least a few classes in, but now it was definitely happening.

That response sort of dampered his reaction a bit, though, and he was now frowning at Duke. "Dude," he said, "you sure you're okay? I mean, birds with hats is pretty awesome, but it's not, like, that awesome..."

Considering how the last several days had gone, Duke rather thought he was doing pretty well.

"I'm fine, kid. This class assignment was weird even before the island got attacked by Creepy Goat Man."

Someone was going to have to tell him Krampus' actual name at some point.

Yeaaaahhhh, Prompto was a big, biiiig fan of the whole 'something traumatic just happened to me, so I'm gonna need to duck out for a wee bit' approach, so he was eying Duke a bit skeptically, because it had to be bad when you couldn't even get excited about BIRDS IN HATS.

"I mean," he said, "but the weird classes are some of the best ones. I, for one, don't think I could have asked for a better on for my last semester."

Paaaaause.

"But, I mean, like, you gotta...look out for yourself, man. I'm pretty sure 'attacked by Creepy Goat Man' falls pretty in line with the 'acceptable reasons to cancel class.' Not that I've actually read, like, the rules or anything, but I'm just going to call that a hunch."

Duke sighed. He was already here, Prompto. What was he going to do, leave in the middle of class?

That was just inviting even more people to ask him if he was okay.

"I'll keep that in mind for next time Creepy Goat Man attacks," he said dryly. "Thanks."

Re: Porgs and Improvised hats

hashtag_chocobro - 2020-01-08 23:32 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Porgs and Improvised hats

betterthanaplan - 2020-01-08 23:58 (UTC) - Expand

"I'm Shuri," Shuri said with a little wave, holding her porg with the other arm. "Do headdresses count as hats for you? Because I can make something with cloth that would look amazing."

"Don't see why not," Duke decided. "Go nuts."

It was not like he was going to be grading any of this stuff.

Nigerian gele weren't part of Wakandan culture, but Nakia had showed Shuri how to fold the fabric after her time undercover in West Africa.

So, here, porg: look fabulous.

Duke pointed at it.

"Holy shit."

Okay, so. Bird hats. He was maybe seeing where that could be a thing.

"Juillenne," she introduced herself. "And this is Camden," she indicated the large mountain cat currently sprawled lazily in the aisle beside where Jules sat.

"She... probably won't eat any of the birds. I hope." Couldn't promise anything though. Sorry. Cats gonna cat.

The porg in the cereal bowl squawked and hid behind Duke. Duke looked nonplussed. “Can you, like, give him a big breakfast first or something? Kind of defeats the purpose if your hat models always get eaten.”

“She’s a familiar, not a pet,” Jules informed him. “I don’t actually dictate what she eats. I can ask, but I make no promises.”

Duke let out a long suffering sigh. “Okay. You’re getting where your familiar eating the birds in the bird hat class is a problem, right?”

“I did also say she probably wouldn’t,” Jules pointed out.

"Which is great. Glad to hear it," Duke said. "Kind of would rather not have a 'probably' on there."

If the cat ate the birds he'd have to, like, think of a punishment or something. He really didn't want to have to do that!

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