|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 9:57:12 GMT -6
Now it was time to explain what would be done. "In order to teach you two how to feel, interpret, and then react to danger that may have been previously unseen, we need to begin by putting you in a bit of 'danger'. The procedure is as such; I will be tossing these pebbles in your general directions. Admittedly, at first, I will not actually be trying to hit you. Whenever you begin to get better, or feel it coming, let me know. Then, I'll slowly start trying to hit you more with them, and then I'll go faster. This process does not have to be painful; in fact, I'd prefer not to hit either of you two even once." Morgan took a breath, glancing over the two for reactions. "I don't want to hurt either of you, this is simply to help you learn to get out of real danger, if you need to."
Morgan was expecting lash back from Seimei, but it was Ryuusei that seemed concerned. "What if you do hit us? Will it hurt us?" Morgan gently dropped one of the tiny pebbles into the loch to show them. "They are small, and I will be trying not to hit you two until you are both ready." Morgan was sure that Ryuusei was concerned for Seimei more than for himself. Seimei, on the other hand, looked more resigned and then determined instead.
[5]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 10:12:52 GMT -6
After a moment or two of hesitation, Ryuusei finally agreed, and Seimei had already agreed. It was a bit odd to see the dynamic react in a way that Morgan had not really accounted for; Morgan tended to try to guess what was going to happen, and studied the personalities of the individuals around them. It was quite a bit like a hobby, perhaps? Morgan nodded to both of them. "Lets start, then." Morgan said, amicably. It was best if they tried to keep their-self calm and steady around the tat-lungs. There was nothing worse for the development of an individual than having a funky childhood. If one could even call the juvenile stage of a tat-lung 'childhood', and Seimei's childhood was already a bit... Not exactly the best. Morgan felt guilty by proxy, even though they were not the cause of that originally.
Both Tat-lungs appeared to be ready. Morgan scooped up a fistful (tiny amount, seeing as they had smaller hands only offset by long fingers) of pebbles and then tossed one at each tat-lung, in their general directions but not directly AT them. Each tat-lung had seen it coming, and practiced moving away from the general area that they could see the pebbles coming from. It was a start.
[6]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 10:18:45 GMT -6
Morgan knew that it was a decent, start, at least, perhaps because they had spent some time explaining the process that would be expected, and the rules. At some point they would progress to actually using more rocks, more speed, and better aim, but as of right now, this was good enough. Morgan took another two stones and threw them in the general directions of the tat-lungs. Ryuusei zigged, Seimei zagged, it was as to be expected, even though the rocks were not really even going near them. Another repetition, and the two seemed to be getting exponentially better with their speed. That was quite good, Morgan thought, perhaps this would take less time than previously expected? Working with sentient creatures was totally different than the experience of working with usual 'pet' creatures. They tended to be more focused, more understanding of what was going on, despite requiring totally different strategies to work with. "How are you two feeling?" Morgan asked, both curiously and hoping that this would allow them to try to begin working harder.
Ryuusei stopped, and then looked at Seimei. Seimei seemed to be almost bored, about as bored as Morgan was. This was an important lesson, but a boring one.
[7]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 10:32:24 GMT -6
Morgan was sure that now they would be fine enough to up the ante a tad; as Ryuusei then turned towards them and conveyed that it should be fine. They would work up slowly, they figured. The sunshine was beginning to grow hot on Morgan's skin; thankfully they tended to react well enough to sunshine, Morgan rarely got burned. However, as it began to creep towards ten in the morning, the human knew that they needed to get a move on. The sun was climbing in the sky, and the breeze coming off of the loch was not the most enjoyable thing to the human. It didn't smell like how Morgan would have expected; someone must have put a salt tablet into the loch across the water. Not enough to hurt the tat-lungs, thankfully, all the way over here; but it was enough to make the spray smell salty, and Morgan wasn't huge on that.
Morgan scooped up another handful of stones, and then breathed in, before aiming and tossing, gently, the stones closer to the tat-lungs than they would have started with earlier. Both tat-lungs darted in opposite directions, and Morgan continued tossing rocks, 'following' them with the stones, just behind them.
[8]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 10:45:18 GMT -6
The stones being much closer this time allowed the two tat-lungs to begin understanding the 'feeling the danger' aspect of this dodging training; it would appear as if their whiskers were able to feel disturbances around them. Seimei notices it first; in fact, he had noticed it way longer ago, allowing them to dodge the worst of the abuse that had occurred to them in the past. However, he had not been quite fast enough... Now he was determined to be fast enough to get away in time regardless of the circumstances. Morgan would not have noticed the change as soon as it began happening, but it was obvious that Seimei was a bit better than Ryuusei at this, despite him typically being the slower of the two to learn things. Morgan sped up a bit with the stones, throwing more stones, and Seimei dodged between them with relative ease, using his whiskers to feel them even before they hit the water.
Ryuusei was a bit less practiced it would seem, and was having trouble dodging the rocks for the first fourteen minutes. However, he slowly began to improve as well, using those whiskers at a less practiced rate than Seimei, but just as deftly.
[9]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 11:03:15 GMT -6
Morgan was beginning to grow confident in their abilities; which had been slowly worked up to over the last forty minutes. They were really running out of time this morning; seeing as the two still needed to learn a couple more things before they all went home, and they just hardly had the time for it, if they only went up to this hour. Morgan stopped throwing the pebbles suddenly, prompting the two tat-lungs to stop. Both of them appeared to be respiring at an increased rate; that was a good sign. Morgan allowed them a moment to calm, waiting until their gills appeared to move at a normal rate. "How are you two doing?" Morgan asked, genuinely. The psycho-social effect was seemingly working the opposite way today, as well.
They were fine, so Morgan started them back up, this time throwing multiple rocks directly at each one. They dodged well enough, and Morgan continued, finally picking up speed and actually trying to hit the two of them. They were doing quite well, Seimei with his fluid and stark movements, and Ryuusei with his powerful and dramatic ones. Eventually, Morgan was quite pleased with their progress, and felt like they could move on from the training of the danger dodging.
[10] - [END of 'Danger Sense']
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 11:15:12 GMT -6
Time to get started on the next thing, Morgan thought, as they considered the options. They only had two other bits and bobs that were going to be doable today, since the individual with the 'scary' creature had backed out on them yesterday, and would not be coming at all. Morgan was going to have to find another individual with an intimidating creature so that they could work on the whole not being scared of other creatures thing. That was overall much easier to teach than the danger-dodging thing, since overall it was not as involved as the danger dodging thing was.
As for today, the first option was the searching thing. Morgan figured that if the two learned how to search for things, that it would teach them to find their own answers to questions, and it may also help them forage for food if they absolutely needed to in dire situations. Hopefully, that would never happen, but perhaps it was best to cover all of their bases. The second option was the 'follow' signal, which was supposed to be used in conjunction with the 'stay' signal that would perhaps help them in dire situations as well. The difference is that the follow signal absolutely had to be taught to them as youngsters, in case they refused to work with Morgan in menial ways as adults.
[1] - [START 'Follow']
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 11:34:44 GMT -6
Morgan had a slight assumption, though it would probably prove to be true (at least that was what Morgan thought) about the two being less amenable as they got older. Tat-lungs were quite a bit more intelligent than humans, and as adults they would be able to learn about the world without being confined to the bodies of water around the Labs. This would allow them to see first hand what the world of humanoids was like, what the Labs City was in all of its rather abnormal glory. Morgan planned to let them know sooner rather than later about the importance of staying in the Labs city. Outside of the Labs city, the country was practically lawless for all intents and purposes. Just thinking about it made Morgan worried for the tat-lungs.
"Alright, onto the next lesson. This one is another signal; a signal for letting you know that you can follow me. This would be done in situations were you were previously asked to stay, or perhaps even in situations where it would be very important to follow me." Morgan was beginning to push their luck, they knew, with their wording, but they were pleased to see that the two tat-lungs seemed quite fine with it.
[2]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 11:39:59 GMT -6
Morgan pushed the rest of the rocks off of the pier and into the water at their feet, which was far enough away from the two tat-lungs that they were not alarmed. "We will be using the whistle for this one as well, just in case you two were left further on back. You will both be much bigger than me when you grow, I am very sure of it. It would be much easier for me to scout ahead of you two, since I am spry and small." Much easier to not pay attention to a human, too, than a couple of big dragons. They were not exactly inconspicuous, actually. "We can go over the commands a few times, and work it into a routine, if you two would like to practice them?" Morgan was sure that they would not indeed want to waste time practicing, teaching sentient pets was like pulling out teeth it seemed. They seemed to understand things as soon as they could tell the differences between noises and other such things.
"I don't know if we will ever need to use this, but I think it would be prudent to have it down anyway." Morgan added, in both common and through the ring.
[3]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 11:47:17 GMT -6
Dragging out the training process usually made it much easier for regular pets to understand things. In fact, repetition was key to understanding for anyone to some degree, but it was an absolute issue when it came to creatures like Tat-lungs, that were naturally far more intelligent than humans, and which tended to grow bored with too much repetition. Morgan knew that this sort of thing was really pushing it, but was glad that the two didn't seem too off-put by the otherwise insulting subject matter. If these were not absolutely required lessons, Morgan would have skipped them in favor of the more intellectual pursuits. However, names and knowing when to come home would be important, in the long run, and difficult to teach to mature tat-lungs.
Morgan pulled the whistle up to their lips and then gave a quick double-tap of a note on it, like a quick rest was between a single note, splitting it in half. "This is the signal we will be using for following me, in case we need it." Morgan once again repeated the call, to make sure that it was going to be remembered well enough by the two. The human could already tell that they were quite bored by this.
[4]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 11:55:16 GMT -6
They wouldn't spend too much longer on this 'command' then. Thinking of these as commands was really making Morgan feel odd. It was hard to think of creatures that could adequately communicate back and forth with you as being pets to be commanded. Morgan hadn't been planning on thinking of it that way anyway, but it had a lot to do with the fact that the human had lived their entire life in the Labs City, where it was quite well known that the labs produced these creatures with the intents of them being pets, and even slaves in the case of the tat-lungs, from what Morgan was able to glean from the outside looking quite worriedly in.
Morgan proceeded to go over the command again. "This one is for following me." And then another one, the one for 'come'. "This one is to come to me." One more; "This one is to stay where you are." Morgan nodded. "These are all just in case we get into trouble or need each other, okay?" Morgan hoped that the two would be fine with it. After this, they spent ten minutes working on what all three of the commands meant, and after they were done, Morgan knew that they needed to move on to the last thing; since follow seemed to be fine now.
[5] - [END of 'Follow']
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 14:09:17 GMT -6
There was one thing left to work on today, and Morgan was already ready to go home; just a bit longer, they told their self. It was hot and uncomfortable outside, and the dock was both dry and hard on their hind end. Morgan stood up, and stretched, trying to get the blood flowing again, since they had been sitting for so long. "One more lesson, you two, and we'll go home for the day." Morgan was hoping that this concept would be pretty quick, because Morgan was absolutely exhausted and ready to get the rest of the day going. "Are you two ready?" The bespectacled human asked.
Ryuusei seemed to have began picking up Morgan's habits already, nodding a bit, as if he understood already through gleaning that this meant the affirmative. Seimei seemed to be past the snarky remark stage, and was simply watching Morgan sullenly, as if he wished that he could be doing something else. Well, at least he wasn't really hiding anything, Morgan knew that Ryuusei had to be also frustrated with the lack of exciting things today. The most exciting bit had been the danger sensing thing, and the dodging practice. The rest of it was a bit beneath them.
[1] - [START of 'Search']
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 14:19:28 GMT -6
Morgan tried to think of a good way to explain this concept. "We are going to work on a concept that I refer to as 'search'. To 'search' means to look for something. It really doesn't matter what; in the future we can learn to specify what thing to search for at what time. But it would be good for you all to learn how to search for things, so that you can find out your own answers to issues, or questions." The human explained, in both common and through the ring. This way, they would get used to the common language, they were already beginning to pick up bits and bobs, at least in understanding. "In this case, we'll learn to search by looking for something shiny. I want you two to find me a shiny thing and bring it back, anything you want from the bottom of the lake bed, and we'll do this a few times until I reckon we've got it." Morgan was serious; and figured the two tat-lungs were going to cause some kind of an issue with it, since this was by far the most menial-sounding thing they had worked on, yet.
[2]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 14:32:51 GMT -6
Ryuusei was, surprisingly enough, visibly excited about the possibility of finding something neat, and conveyed so much himself. However, as expected, Seimei was beyond insulted. Once again the assertion that he would not be treated like a dog was made; and Morgan shook their head. "You know I don't mean that." Morgan said, stressing this. "I don't want to treat you two like dogs. If I wanted a dog, I'd get a vulticus. I want to give you two a home and offer you both enrichment. Nothing you don't want to do will be forced on you. Would you two rather go home?"
Seimei looked stricken, for a moment, because Ryuusei turned toward him with the absolute closest expression to the 'stink eye' that Morgan had ever seen out of a fish like creature. It would seem that Morgan did not have to actually say anything. After a moment or two, Seimei looked resigned, and instead looked up at Morgan. "Are you two ready to get started? We can keep whatever you find if you want, and if not, we'll just throw it back in." Morgan conveyed and spoke at the same time. The two tat-lung looked sure of themselves. Would they make a game out of this?
[3]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jun 18, 2019 14:42:44 GMT -6
This was what Morgan had been hoping for! The two tat-lungs were waiting for the signal. Morgan hadn't really thought about a signal for long distances, but figured the simple word would be fine for it, since it wasn't a really serious lesson anyway. "Search!" Morgan called out. The two tat-lungs seemed to understand what was being asked of them, because they shot off towards the bottom of the lake quite quickly. Morgan was a tad worried; but sure that in the long run, they could take care of themselves. The area was blocked off anyway, so it wasn't like anybody's killer pliathor was going to get into this area. It was good that most of the areas were mostly blocked off; people were not exactly the best about keeping their monsters from doing whatever they wanted. It was almost odd; how the City denizens acted.
Morgan sat back down on the pier, trying not to sweat too hard, already feeling the sun on their skin. Thankfully, they did not often sunburn. It would be horrible if they did; their muscles still were sore from mount training Michiryuu... After a bit, Morgan saw a streak of pale white. It appeared like Seimei had found something first.
[4]
|
|