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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 21:37:06 GMT -6
There were rumors that the house could close the doors after you and trap you in against your will for some period of time, and Noa didn't really want to run the risk of having that happen to him. Those people presumably escaped, but still.
Noa didn't like the idea of being locked anywhere, but a magic mansion with potentially a will of its own? Absolutely not. He was staying out here, where he had at least a direct path to escape if he found himself needing it.
But on this occasion at least, he couldn't imagine that Nik wanted to go inside any more than Noa himself did. It would have been a tight squeeze for a drake, no matter how spacious the Mansion. The house was still at least keeping up the pretense of having been built with human specifications in mind, and so the doorway still reflected that.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 21:37:26 GMT -6
They had their turn around the grounds, walking from the front courtyard around the house itself until they came to its back yard. Here, there were a plethora of flowers, all colors and types, the likes of which Noa had never seen anywhere else. This, at last, was something interesting to look at, though probably not for Nik, who only snorted, presumably at the cacophony of scents now assaulting his nostrils. They weren't as sensitive as a Vulticus's nose, but Sarane had better senses of smell than humans, at least. Right now, Noa didn't particularly envy Nik that trait. From where he was, the scent of flowers was faint, and pleasant, rather than overwhelming.
It was also probably a good thing that Noa didn't have any allergies. He had other things going on, but fits of sneezes when he had anything to do with flower pollen was not one of them.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 21:49:53 GMT -6
Well, if Nik didn't like it here, they might as well head back out to the front courtyard. Noa had some things he wanted to teach the drake before they headed back, if he could make it work, and he wanted to do it in a place where the drake wouldn’t suffer too badly from distractions and the like. So, with another treat in hand, Noa led the drake back around, and once they had found a good grassy spot to set up shop, Noa decided to start the training in earnest.
Noa started by trying to pick up the drake’s front claws. He thought Nik would shy away from it the way that Dustdevil had when Noa had been teaching him the same trick, but in the end that didn’t prove to be the case. Maybe it was just that Nik had more confidence than the old brown.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 21:55:33 GMT -6
That would make sense, considering their respective histories and their tiers. But whatever it was, while he seemed surprised that this was happening, he didn’t jerk away or anything. So far, so good.
Noa had a piece of wood with him, which he held up. He said, "Rend!" and raked Nik's claws across it. Then he fed the drake a treat. There, that was the initial set-up of the move itself.
But just demonstrating it once provided nothing more than a jumping off point for the rest. Now they had to do it again, and again, and again, until Nik got the idea into his own head and could do it without Noa physically puppeteering his limb through it.
For now though, all he could do was repeat it. "Rend," Noa said, and once again picked up Nik's claws to rake across the wood, before feeding the drake a treat.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 21:58:46 GMT -6
Nik was having a good time at the moment. He was being fed, and wasn't having to do all that much to get it. Noa did this with him a couple more times, then decided to try and speak the command word without grabbing the claws, to see if he could, by hook or by crook, trick the drake into doing it on his own. "Rend," Noa said, and held out the wood.
Nik didn't go for it. It was a shame. But Noa went through it twice more with him and tried again, and this time Nik started to move. "Good! There you have it," Noa said, grinning. Not that the praise did anything, but he was glad to see the progress. On the next attempt, he prompted the drake until Nik clawed the wood on his own, which took a while, but they got there; and in return he fed Nik a bigger treat than usual.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 22:18:06 GMT -6
Nik was certainly not proving to be one to turn down bribes, and snapped down the little goblet of meat as eagerly as any other Sarane Noa had trained recently. And the next time Noa presented him with the board and command, Nikolai tore into it readily, with an enthusiasm that would have been commendable if it weren't also a little unsettling.
Yes, he would make quite the fighter, Noa concluded.
They went through the command a few more times with the wooden board, but Noa was finding that he had a different problem on his hands now. Nik was jumping the gun, sometimes moving before Noa gave the command. They couldn't have that. So the next time around, Noa held up the board, but didn't issue the command; and when Nik inevitably slashed at the board, Noa didn't give him a treat this time, and waited to see how Nik would react.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 22:40:57 GMT -6
Nik wasn't happy about that, and made it known by snarling in Noa's face. But Noa had received too many threats by now to be fazed by the growls of one petulant drake, even if he had just been watching said drake tear into a wooden board repeatedly the past little while. If the drake decided to make himself a problem, Noa had spells at his disposal to make sure Nik didn't cause too much trouble.
But hopefully it wouldn't come to that. Noa began alternating using and not using the command, and rewarding Nikolai only if the drake clawed the wood when Noa had given the command. After enough repetitions of this, eventually Nikolai got the idea, and began only responding to the command word that Noa had given him.
The amount of force that he was using definitely wasn't an issue, that was for sure. Noa's arms didn't feel so great after holding the board for so many attacks.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 22:44:10 GMT -6
But better that than to have the drake's strike be too weak. That was where Nikolai's natural enthusiasm was coming in handy.
From there... The only other thing Noa wanted to do was to have Nik try the move on things other than the board. He led the drake to a tree, and gave him the command. Nikolai seemed a bit confused at first, but with a little more prompting, he did it. Once he got a treat for his troubles, he began clawing at the tree with more confidence when Noa gave him the command.
They tried a few other things - other trees, a stick Noa found, bushes, and even a few pocketpets that got too close. Nikolai didn't manage to catch them, but they sufficed for getting the idea across.
At the end of it, Noa felt pretty good about their progress. Nikolai had an attack under his belt.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 22:47:15 GMT -6
That meant he would be ready to take on other drakes, just as soon as Noa felt up for taking him to the pit to... do that. Noa didn't think Nikolai would be his entry into the upcoming tournament, just because there wouldn't be quite enough time to get him ready, but maybe the gauntlet...
Gods, he didn't want to go through the gauntlet. A more tedious task he couldn't really imagine. And if he wanted to play it safe, he'd have to desensitize the drake first, and also teach him how to fly... Hmm, nope, that was a problem and a consideration for another time. For now, this was good enough.
He wanted to finish off on a happy and relaxed note, so he decided to meander back to the flowery part of the yard again. This time, the drake didn't need any treats to prompt him to follow along.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 22:49:38 GMT -6
That was funny, and also interesting. If Noa didn't know any better, he might have been duped into thinking that the drake really had grown fond of him. But Noa knew better than that, having worked with enough of the creatures to see the truth for what it was: Nik was just hoping for more treats. "No more for you," he said in a sing-song voice. "I don't have anything left to teach you right now. Oh, but you can have a flower if you like." Noa picked one off the ground and presented it to the drake, who took a cursory sniff and then huffed and turned away.
Noa laughed. "You look like a date I pissed off," he said. Not really a statement he ever expected to be making to a drake, especially one he didn't even have a telepathic connection to, but life was full of fun surprises like that.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 22:52:43 GMT -6
The flowers really were nice. Noa wondered if he ought to start cultivating some at home. Or, more accurately, if he ought to be asking Briar to do it. He didn't really have the time to tend to the gardens on his own anymore, which was why he had outsourced it to Rabbit, and then to Briar when Briar came along. But some flowers would be nice, and he had a feeling Rhys would like them.
And if the flowers could be useful, so much the better. A few specimens did come to mind, now that he thought about it. Maybe if he could put it down as a side project...
"Hmm, I think we had best get going," Noa said, glancing up at where the sun was in the sky. They had spent quite a bit of time here, almost more than Noa had been planning when he had come here.
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Post by Noa on Mar 31, 2021 22:56:08 GMT -6
It used to not matter, but these days sometimes Briar heckled him when he showed up ridiculously late for whatever thing he was supposed to have shown up for. It was funny, actually... Or maybe he ought to say that it was fun. It was different from the relationship he had had with his parents, and despite the fact that he knew Briar didn't like him at all, it felt warmer. At least the dislike was a straightforward, honest sort of dislike. Thinking of his family still filled him with the cold, empty feeling that had been his constant companion growing up.
"Yeah, I think we had better go home," said Noa, but he was smiling, and there was a spring in his step as he led the drake back out to the front, and then through the gates and onto the path toward home. It had been a good day.
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Post by Kadin on Apr 3, 2021 16:24:39 GMT -6
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Post by Noa on Aug 12, 2021 19:56:39 GMT -6
Noa couldn't remember if he had ever ventured to the mansion in August, though now that he was getting a good look at what the layout was for the month, he was beginning to think that perhaps this was why. It wasn't as if he hated water, of course. He wasn't afraid of it, though swimming was somewhat unpleasant; it left him cold and hungry and aching when he was done, and it robbed him of all warmth when he was in the water, so he generally avoided it if he could. He didn't particularly care for being damp either. But one didn't have to swim here, at least not in August. The yard was filled with sand, and shallow pools where the water was warm, much too shallow to do more than wade in up to one's knees at most. In that sense it ought to have been pleasant: all the best things about the ocean without the parts he couldn't stand, namely the actual body of water itself. But the trouble was that he wasn't much fond of sand either. It got everywhere, and you couldn't get rid of it very well after it had gotten onto you. 1
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Post by Noa on Aug 12, 2021 19:56:49 GMT -6
Still, he was already here, and it would be a shame to waste the trip out in all this sun. Besides which, Rhys was looking at the view through the gate with an air of great expectation. Even the little feathered creature that Noa had brought with him, riding in his pocket, seemed excited by the prospect of going where they were going now that it was getting a good look at what the destination had to offer. That was sort of funny to think about, since Noa didn't think this kind of creature looked as though it was adapted to a coastal life.
But then, he was no great biologist; it was possible that he was outright wrong about that. Or maybe it was just the novelty of it. He had gotten a good refresher on the value of novelty to a creature's enrichment with the Nebuli he had picked up from the trader's, and so the thought was on his mind more often these days. And it was true enough that the little feathered creature had never seen the ocean itself, so all of this was novel to it, at least on a conscious, memory sort of level.
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