AS0429 Floral Studies • Open

He hadn't expected all of his students to come out of the same mould, cookie cutters with long blond straight hair, or a traditional teenage boy cut which was shaggy and long. Yet after even his years of travel there were things which surprised him, and intrigued him. Could he be the professor knowledge? Teaching everyone how to learn more and gathering information, moulding their minds to tug and pull at strings until the ball unrolled, spilling its secrets into your palms. This was one such moment, a banquet of ideas, information thoughts and emotions, his mind was active once again, a frenzy of exchanges and changes. All caused by a simple student entering the classroom looking like no creature he had laid eyes on before. With a bird like beak as a face bright red blood seeped out from behind it, he hadn't looked up at first until the student had spoken his name. Sususmu, Su-su-smu the bloody bird boy. It sounded like a rather horrid thing to think yet he had trouble remembering names sometimes, "Ah, welcome. You're a little early but don't worry about it, choose a desk and get set up.. That goes for you so Ms Vuldotter." Two students down, both of them seemed a little quiet, the second more awkward than the first who was just reserved. Perhaps she was only awkward due to the floor decorations, he would have to clean that up in a moment. Yet the thought slipped his mind as the male once more dove back into his bag of teaching materials to retrieve an array of eleven whiteboard markers for the board behind him. They varied in shades yet he mourned the loss of a light blue marker, for it had gone missing on his second day here.

Night and Day. Ocean and Desert. There were many contrasts which existed in his land, the starkness of jungle bound avian species compared to that of the earthy and camouflage toned wild mice. They also existed in personalities, Juho Yoon and Theo Silversong, neither of which he disliked, Theo who he held in close regard as perhaps, a friend. Juho entered as one might expect a student to, when a young child thinks of college students he was likely to come to mind, quiet and polite attitude, respecting and respectable in both manner and attire the bag at his side hinting that he was well prepared for the lesson ahead. "Mr Yoon, well, Jin it is. Please correct me if I ever slip up." With fluid pronunciation the brief letters of 'Jin' were marked next to the bearers legal name. He would likely have to be doing that a lot, noting down notable characteristics or pronunciations lest he make a fool of himself. Speaking of, he stumbled in, familiar tracksuit slightly dusty from the slip which he had endured. Theo was one of the more ah, relaxed faculty members around, the ages of the two dark haired professors couldn't have been much different so there was something in the other man which kept him amused and interested. "Mister Silversong" With a raised brow and a slight chuckle he made an effort to calm the other. "Fear not, the class does not require human sacrifices. Not of your life although I suppose you could call this a sacrifice of your time. Class has not started, another, five to ten minutes I guess." There was not a clock within view yet he figured it wouldn't be long.

The ink settled quickly as the names were broken down into their phonetic spelling, indicating how the two students in question had introduced themselves. Atiqtalik and Chrishendia had both been named which were rolled around in his mind multiple times due to their rather odd spelling on paper, yet now he had a sound to match with it. "Welcome take a seat you two, and Morgan, it is nice to meet you all I'm Lester Sakuramori, Professor Sakuramori or Mister Sakuramori during class times would be preferable." With a side glance at the floor he moved a stack of home made booklets forward to the side of his desk. Hand made with care, two pages for today. well the first copy was hand made and the others were copied. "Could a student or two please hand these notes out to everyone? I'll just clean this up. It can also act as a lesson I suppose." His talent awoke, a vine plant close to the door started to grow, its leaves growing larger and root tendrils snaking towards the red pools of blood on the floor which had started to stagnate. Hungrily with aid from the Kirin the plant started to absorb the blood, an odd phenomenon yet not unheard of for the process was the same as absorbing water, simply sped up by his talent. "Blood used infrequently can act as a good fertiliser for plants, you see Plasma makes up about fifty five percent of blood, and ninety five percent of plasma is water. Ontop of that blood does contain three main nutrients that plants adore, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Although it is important not to over fertilise your plants too often, I would recommend about once a month for plants similar to this vine." It had finished drinking, colour slightly darker than before the vine shrunk back to its natural size, revitalised by the powers which had been channelled through it and the fresh nutrients. "Before we start learning about healing plants, and while these notes are handed out are there any questions?" A little more centred, he felt relaxed and calmer than when he had first awkwardly tried to unlock the door to this room

How that he was calmer and had recovered from his spill, he turned his eyes on the seated students. Grinning, he waved at the ones he knew from his own class he offered, noting that it may be weird to take a class with your teacher, but he didn't think much of it beyond that. It wasn't like he would be competing with them for top of class. In fact, without an enrolled transcript, grades didn't matter at all to the niffler. He was simply here to learn some valuable knowledge to aid him in his travels.

Choosing a seat closest to the door out of instinctual habit to have a quick escape route, Theo sat down and hastily got ready for class. All that required was mumbling into the mic of his audio recorder about the blood-eating plants and then placing it on the table for easy access. He brought no pen and paper, and even displayed some discomfort as the booklets were handed out. After receiving one himself, he pretended to look it over, as if he could actually read. See, that was the problem here. It wasn't that he feared pen and paper, but that he couldn't read anything on it. It seemed like the letters just jumbled, not registering at all to his brain. Too long without oxygen could do that. Once of his closer dances with death had robbed him of his ability to read a good number of years ago, and he was still ashamed about it. Surely his students had wondered why he required no note taking supplies, only an audio recorder for homework and such. What good would it do to give them normal written assignments if he was unable to grade it?

Letting his mind wander from that unpleasant topic, his brows perked up in question. "Oh! Will we ever receive cool plants to care for ourselves?"

Theo seemed to be enthusiastic enough, that was good at least. He could always go over the content later on with his friend, after all there was nothing like a Sunday brunch and revision. "Yes, although they'll start off being more ah, simple plants so you don't jump straight into the deep end and wind up killing some greenery." He would have to think further on that, perhaps start off with a type of aloe plant, that was both useful and incredibly easy. Perhaps too easy? No matter, "Alright, if there are any questions feel free to chime out! The notes in front of you will have pictures of the plant as well as some basic information but feel free to take your own notes, in um, whatever format you want." He sounded awkward, perhaps it was from seeing a students notes book a few days ago for math. Instead of using a traditional blue or black pen she had used a neon purple, decorated the page with glittering stickers and written lyrics of songs in the margins. The dark haired male failed to see how anyone could study properly with notes like that, however it was of little concern to him.

A neat bookshelf a few steps away was filled with riled up paper, kept in containers the ends were marked in tiny writing with what they were. Dandelion, the plant so often stepped on, ripped out of garden lawns or plucked up by small children. As he spoke the professor started to unroll the school, sticking the large drawing of a dandelion onto the board behind him. Oh they thought this would be a simple lesson? plants were so much more in depth than they knew. "Let me start off by saying that if you are ill or sick you should make sure to get to a doctors when you can. But sometimes you won't be near a civilization, so lets start with the golden child Dandelion. Starting with the roots, dandelion roots are often added to teas and stews, not eaten directly. they work to detoxify your body, so those of you who enjoy the night life and come back to the dorms a little hung over I suggest having dandelion tea. Along with cleansing your body of alcohol, drugs and toxins it can aid with balancing your blood sugars, cholesterol levels and high blood pressure. If you squish it into a pulp the root can be good for eczema, acne and rashes." That was quite the long speel. Perhaps this was too boring of a one to start with, that being said teenagers mostly thought about drugs, alcohol and acne so in that way it was perfect.

"Eat the leaves. They are bitter, quite a big change from the sugar that I do not doubt you're always surrounded with. mainly they clear your skin, helps majorly with digestion and will reduce sugar cravings. If you are tired or stressed for class in the mornings then they are even better, because the leaves calm and relax your nervous system. Just one or two leaves every hour though, please do not overload your body." Likely there would be some fool who was stressed for exams, eat an entire bucket of them and end up shocking their body. Eating too much of anything was bad.

The flowers were pretty, well he couldn't just give that as a reason but honestly dandelions were actually more useful than many people realized. "Dandelion flowers can be used whole or turned into oil. The oil can be rather good for massaging into your muscles before and after exercise as well as if you are injured. This superb plant can be used as a tasty snack. Eat fresh, not dried for the best benefits. Dandelions contain nutrients such as potassium which many people are deficient in." That had all been a lot of information over a couple of minutes, so he gave them a moment to breath, finish up any notes and collect their thoughts. "We can move on to the next plant if everyone is feeling okay with it, is there anyone with a specific plant they want to know about? If not we can move onto Aloe where I'll give you a small potted aloe vera pup and teach you about how not to kill one of the most basic plants to care for. perhaps following that you would like to hear about the benefits of marijuana when used correctly" That would have gotten a few heads turned, he was finding this just a little amusing, was this how teaching was supposed to go? Did he just talk to the air for an hour and hope that the students took something in.