Logs:Model Teacher

Model Teacher
Dramatis Personae Dallen, Horus, Tok
In Absentia Jax, Dawson, Quentin, Bryce	2024-09-03 "Do many birds want hats?"
Location <XAV> Lake - Xs Grounds
Bright, bright, bright; the lake glitters wide and expansive here, stretching off into the distance. Sunlight, moonlight, starlight, it catches them all. Lapping at the rocky shore, its deep waters are frigid in winter and cool even in summer. A stone pier stretches out a ways into the water, wide and smooth, though often icy in winter. The water teems with life nevertheless, home to myriad species of fish that provide for ample fishing or just lazy watching on a slow summer day, for those who want to take a boat from the boathouse out to the center of the lake, or perhaps lounge on the pier and try their luck. School has recently let out in a tumult of first-day-back energy. Out at the boathouse this afternoon there is a very (very) large bird that also seems to have found a lot of restless energy. At least, he's been flitting for some time between the treeline and the roof of the boathouse -- back into the trees -- back to the boathouse. For now the bird seems to have settled, more or less in place, just beside a chimney on the boathouse roof. There's a hat perched on a spiked chimneypot up there -- a strange sort of fedora thing with an oddly flat wooden brim, several feathers and porcupine quills stuck into its hatband, and the bird is busily poking an extra feather delicately in with the rest. Poke, poke, poke. His head bobs excitedly from one side to the other as he admires his handiwork. Dallen is heading down the hill toward the lake, dressed in a green t-shirt, gray hiking pants, and green-gray hiking boots. It's only a small step toward color-coordination, but a step is a step. That shade of green does not work for her skin tone, though. She's grown her hair out to a sort of ambiguous length that isn't exactly a pixie cut and not exactly...anything. Probably, she just told her barber to cut it less short than usual. If she's worried about how to gender correctly though, it doesn't show, or maybe it's just been pushed entirely out of her mind by the sight of the very (very) large bird. As she gets closer to the boathouse she slows and frowns, then works her way down to the shoreline and out onto the pier for a better gawking vantage point. The Audubon app on her phone is not helping her identify this bird at all, just showing a sad "No Matches Found" despite her diligently entering all the correct information. She snaps a picture now and appeals to a different app. Tok is, suddenly, sliding down one of the pillars of the boat house they’d been sneakily attempting to climb, claws digging into the wood as they slowly, quietly, slide back down. When they spot Dallen, their ears perk up, and their tail begins excitedly waving back and forth. They wave to her, and immediately join her further down the pier, “You see that bird?” They’re stage-whispering in way of greeting, “It’s huge!” Tok’s horns have grown over the summer, their hair a little longer and wilder too, although their actual height has remained the same. Their shoes are off, abandoned somewhere on the shoreline, and they wear a faded oversized yellow t-shirt (already sporting some dirt) and cargo shorts. “Was trying to climb up there to get a better look, but couldn’t reach around to grab roof edge—what’s it doing?” They shade their eyes with their hands to peer up towards Horus again. What the bird is doing currently is gripping the wide flat brim of the hat with its very large beak, and turning it carefully one way to inspect the feather-and-quill arrangement with a large eye, head pulling back faaar on his neck to give the hat a proper stare. Then turn the hat the other direction for a similar aggressive staring-at. After this, the bird shoves his head up beneath the slanting edge of the chimneypot, shaking his head until the hat sits at an angle atop it. His chest feathers fluff out triumphantly and he does just a small strut along the rooftop. Dallen nods several times, looking back up from iNaturalist, which has also failed to identify the bird. At least it's trying, however badly, showing Dallen a long list of birds that do not look anything like this one except in that they have feathers, some of which are brown and gray and white. "I've never seen a bird like that before." She's shaking her head very firmly. "I've never seen a bird put on a hat, either." Her head keeps shaking, and then as if the rest of her body has picked up the momentum, she twists gently from side to side. "It put feathers on the hat. Then put on the hat." She snaps another picture and tries to feed it to a reverse image search, still doing a lazy full-body head shake. "Stylish bird. Big stylish bird." Tok leans in to look at the list of birds Dallen shows, then stands back upright to look at Horus again. “Yeah me neithe-” Their eyes widen as Horus finishes assembling the hat and puts it on. “-Whoa!” This comes out louder than the stage whisper, and laughter bubbles up watching him strut. They hop a few times in excitement, looking between Dallen, and back to Horus. “Think this is like Sugar the dragonfly?” They ask as they begin inching closer to the boathouse again, “C’mon I could boost you up! I’ll stand you on my shoulders-Maybe you just need a closer photo!” There's no need for any of this standing on shoulders now, because the bird is swooping down from the rooftop with a screeching cry to alight much nearer the children, perching on a nearby stone post along the pier. He flexes his (enormous) wings, then resettles them just-so along his sides, raising his head up and turning it at a dramatic angle against the water. He is definitely fixing a large fierce eye directly on the students, though the sharp raptor curves of his face make it hard to tell if this is playful or aggressive. This is more or less decided in the next moment when the armless configuration of his body necessitates a very awkward ungainly repeated upward flaring flex of his wings in order to bap his hat just so at an angle before he can resume his pose. Ah. There. Puff-puff. "Oh! Maybe." Dallen is still staring but has switched from shaking to nodding. "Maybe. Maybe there's something in the water." She does not look at Tok but frowns at their suggestion in a very concerted way, as if trying to be sure that she got the expression correct. "You are smaller. And better at climbing. Oh!" Her eyes go very, very wide when Big Stylish Bird swoops down, and dart between him and Tok. "Oh. Oh, wow." She's stage whispering, now. "Hello. Wow." This "wow" comes in response to the posing, and she mouths "wow" several more times as she raises her phone and lines up several shots. "You are a very pretty bird. Your hat is very stylish. Thank you." “OHOH! Maybe you boost me up and pass your phone to m-“ Tok ducks a little downward as Horus swoops down, shoes scraping against the wood of the pier when they take a step back in surprise. They don’t break eye contact with Horus’ stare, ears first pinned back and tail fluffed, but after a pause their tail begins twitching back and forth, hesitantly curiously. A crooked smile pulls at one side of their mouth, “Sick.” They say, in agreement with Dallen’s ‘wows’. Their eyes squint, briefly, at Horus as they take him in now that he’s closer. Once Dallen gets her pictures, Tok reaches into their pockets, and out come various rocks, buttons, a shiny bracelet that’s perhaps a bit too fancy to be convincingly theirs, gum wrappers, all of which get shoved back in when they pull out a granola bar. “Do you think birds like granola bars?” They ask as they unwrap it and hold it out at an arms length as a sort of offer. They make some whistling sounds, like a greeting—although in bird speak they could be swearing. Horus adjusts, one way and then another, turning to show off his feathers and Very Fine Hat to best effect against the lake backdrop as Dallen snaps her pictures. He chirrups in a bright pleased stream at the compliments, tipping his head to the side (which makes one of his hat's larger feathers fall at a goofily lopsided angle). He pulls himself up very sharply, though, at the whistling, all the feathers on his head sloooowly raising themselves outward as he turns his head at a sudden drastic angle to stare with one large eye at Tok. His talons scritchscritch at the stone post. He takes off, very suddenly, hovering for a moment behind the students and peering down at them before vanishing into the trees. Dallen isn't a very skilled photographer, but she is a prolific one. Probably a couple of the dozen-plus pictures will turn out alright. She looks at Tok when they start whistling, then looks at the bird's reaction, tensing up herself though she has no feathers to raise. Maybe she should duck when a riled up giant raptor suddenly launches into flight that close to her, but she just rotates to follow him, raising her phone to snap a burst of pictures at his hovering. "Wow," she whispers again as the bird disappears from sight, then turns to her roommate. "What did you say?" Tok startles and yelps, ears pinning down, and turns to watch Horus fly away as well. They whistle again, this time in an impressed way. Their grin does turn into a slight apologetic wince once Horus is out of sight, “…No idea. Sorry though—for scaring it off.” They squint off to where Horus disappeared, quiet for a prolonged moment, before whipping to look at Dallen, “That was super weird right? It was totally posing for you! Fixed its hat! You ever see a bird fix its hat before?” They gesture with their hands in the shape of an invisible hat, one hand still holding the unwrapped granola bar. Their tail whips side to side in silence, before they’re speaking up again, “Literally- it put on a hat!” They say with a mixture of excitement and incredulousness, “That was so cool. You see how big the wings were?!” They’re spreading their arms out to mimic, then spinning on the spot to look back towards the trees, shading their eyes with their hand. “..Wonder where it flew off too.” Wherever he flew off to, the bird is coming back soon enough. Horus is still wearing his Very Fine Hat, but now he has a slim tablet in a slender harness strapped around his neck. He lands back on his perch on the stone post, plucking up the stylus that is clipped at the tablet's side, and after some fiddling and some tapping the tablet speaks (in a deep, rich voice): every - every - every bird is very stylish but some birds do not have even a single hat. Unfortunate tragical world we are in. He is warbling as he swipes this message out, low and soft, perhaps to emphasize the very woeful reality of life for many birds. His sadness does not linger long, though. He is bobbing lightly in place, adding on after this. Do you like to take photographs. Big big big world. So many pretty pretty pretty pictures. "Super weird," Dallen agrees. "Supersized falcon. Superfalcon. Too bad my brothers weren't here." She flicks back through her photos, nodding. "Very good posing. Moab has hats. She doesn't put them on herself, but we could probably train her to." She looks up from her phone, smiling brightly to see the bird returned. Is she confused or surprised by the technology? Unclear. The only emotion she is capable of projecting at the moment is excitement. "Do many birds want hats? I guess most of them can't wear regular hats, they would need small ones. Moab," she adds, to Tok, "has parrot-sized hats." She's bobbing along to Horus's bobbing, though she doesn't have nearly his impressive head stabilization. "I like to take photographs. Most of mine are not pretty. But some of them are." Her eyes widen and her bobbing turns into a very light bouncing. "Do you take pictures too?" For once, Tok is stunned into silence, eyes splayed wide. Their jaw visibly drops as they take in Horus, and the tablet speaking. The red spidering veins scattered across their skin maybe seem to brighten momentarily, but the glow doesn’t make it to their eyes before it fades all together. They begin to bounce on their heels, “We should-“ their voices catches in their excitement, “We should make so many tiny hats to fix this.” They say to Dallen. They immediately mimic Horus’ warble—It doesn’t sound exact, but it does still carry an animalistic sound to it. They make it again, before cutting themself off. They look quickly between Dallen and Horus, nodding along to her questions, unable to stop the excited rush that leaves their mouth, “Oh my gosh you’re so cool- WAIT do you go here? How fast can you fly?” Many many many pictures, Horus agrees, and then perks up a little brighter, his feathers fluffing out as he adds: pictures is my job job job. Take pictures teach pictures. Teach pictures here here here. Horus horus MR. Horus I am Mr. Horus Photography teacher very very very nice to meet you. This time his chirrups are quick and cheerful, and he's adding: Photography teacher. That means the job is making pictures better. job job job job He's bobbing lightly in place as his tablet says job, chirruping low and pleased along with it, but stops this abruptly with a rapid flattening of his feathers so he can add very seriously: I think you would have a hard hard hard time hard time putting tiny hats on birds. No wings no flying and your bird speaking is not so fluent not so fluent at all I am sorry sorry sorry to say. "Hello, Mr. Horus." Dallen has a script for this kind of interaction and she seems bound and determined to follow it no matter how much she probably wants to ask bird-related questions. "I'm Dallen Allred. It's very nice to meet you, too." She looks down at her phone. "Is it too late for me to change my schedule? I signed up for drawing class with Mr. Jackson but he isn't here. I would like to take better pictures." She considers his feedback very seriously, though she has no feathers to flatten. "We could design hat distribution stations with...donning racks so that underprivileged birds who want hats can put them on. The way you do it is very clever, Mr. Horus," she adds hastily, "but it might be hard for passerines and other small birds." Then to Tok she says, "I can do woodwork, but you would have to make the hats. Maybe you can teach me. I don't think there's a hat-making class here." “Hi Mr. Horus.” Tok is echoing, still bouncing on their heels, “Oh please can I take your class too? I wanna learn pictures! Oh- Sorry I’m Tok!” They hastily introduce, before steamrolling again, “Do you like math too? We’re missing the math club advisor and you should sub in it would be so so cool.” Their ears flick downwards, in a way mirroring Horus’ flattened feathers, and they smile sheepishly, “Sorry sorry no more bird speak—unless you also teach bird speaking! I’d totally take that too.” They look at Dallen, and nod along excitedly, “We could make uh… Auto-Hatters! I bet I could figure out how to make a hat—‘specially tiny ones!” Horus's bobbing slows, and then turns to a small sway, his chirrups shifting to a low and somewhat musical warble. He shifts just a little -- a tiny fidgety hop on the pillar, his feathers resettling with a quiet rustle. Silly silly silly question why would anyone like math. On your phone is the calculator that is where the math goes. When you are an adult you will not not not once need the math unless you drop the phone or make bad bad bad life choices and become a teacher of math. He's pausing, considering the two students in front of him from one thoughtful angle and then another, head tilting sharply. I teach the pictures I teach teach teach I am not the gatekeeper of class-taking. I think that is the computer's job job job job job maybe probably maybe. If you learn how to take the class I will teach the class. We will learn so many pictures. He spreads his wings but then pulls them back in again, briefly, to add: I knew Allred very good Allred very fast Allred. Very very fast built me many perches many roosts. Very good bird. He tucks his stylus back in its place, and with a powerful beat of his powerful wings, he is swiftly gone across the lake. Dallen looks very much like she wants to answer the probably rhetorical question about liking math, but seems to think better of contradicting a teacher she just met. She perks up, though, at the praise of Dawson. "That's my big brother," she says reverently, and waves to Horus as he takes off. Turning back to Tok now, she deploys her well-practiced frown again. "Usually I'd ask my advisor how to change my classes, but Mr. Jackson is also my advisor. All the office people seem really busy, too. I think," she decides, "I will ask Quentin. He's so smart he'll definitely know how to do it. You should come too. Then we can brainstorm about bird hats." She nods once, and heads back up the hill, composing an excited string of texts to Bryce as she goes. Tok giggles a little at Horus, “That’s what I keep saying! Cant believe I gotta take so much math.” They wave goodbye to Horus as he flies off, and immediately turn to Dallen, “So cool.” They follow quickly behind her, making soft whistling sounds similar to the ones Horus had been making, “Good idea! Hey maybe Quentin will join us on our Bird Hat Operation! Or swap into photography with us! Or both!!” They hop excitedly, “We’re gonna learn so many pictures.”