Welcome to Gaia! ::

Sagara looked once more at the signs outside the classroom before entering - by the sounds emanating from within it was definitely a classroom and she wasn't the first on here - but she wanted to make sure it was the right classroom before she went in "You spend entirely to much time dithering about" Kail told her told her before zipping into the room ahead of her, his current choice of Coyote form letting him slink about pretty well. "Kail" She hissed at her wayward daemon before sighing and following him inside, pausing inside the door to study those already gathered for a few moments while Kail circled excitedly about one of the seats. "here, lets sit here!" Kail impressed upon her with a few yaps before settling underneth it."Alright, Alright" She muttered as she made her way over to the second seat and set her things down.

(( Sagara will take seat number 2))

A wave of students entered the classroom all at once; the hour of instruction must be fast approaching! The colonel was aflurry, shaking hands and taking down names. "Right! Lockwood, Cobb, Sangreal, what's your name Miss?, O'Reily, Farrel-Porter, and Sasaki! So glad you could all make it! Welcome to Biology! Feel free to mill about the room; Elizabeth, the python in the back, is quite awake now, and seating is your choice!" As the students milled about the room in the early morning chaos, the colonel sat back and looked at the newcomers. What had Cobb said her first name was? Jack? No matter, he always called students by their last names. Years in the military had ensured his preference for that. However, while some of them would look right at home in a regiment, some of them seemed to have a flair for the individual. The first thing the colonel noticed about the two girls who walked in last was their hair. Both of them had rather interesting colors; one, a light purple and the other, grey. He wondered, briefly, if the girl with the purple hair used a murex dye- spiny murex, besides being beautiful snails, had that peculiar pigmentation to their shells. Would it be that bright on hair? But the one thing that seemed to reign supreme in this class was their curiosity about the room. This was good; they'd all excel in experiments if they kept this up! And he did love it when people got over that nasty prejudice society seemed to have about reptiles.

Elizabeth, to her credit, was moving her head and tongue, flicking the deep blue muscle at each student in turn, trying to catch and remember their scents.

But as he watched the students, a few seemed a little off. Warren seemed a bit unsure; of course, this probably stemmed from being blind. Still, he was sure the boy could overcome. Lockhart seemed far more timid than the other boys, but that was probably due to the newness of the situation. And Sasaki, that last girl who hadn't presented him with a first name. Something about her seemed frightened, scared, like a cornered animal. He glanced around the room, seeing if it was in reaction to a particular person.

Cilla had stopped writing and was staring at the wolf as it turned to stare behind her. The noise of a desk squeaking behind her cause her to turn around in her seat. She tried to appear as if she was just looking around but it was obvious that the noise behind her had startled her. A blush rose on her face and she was about to speak but a girl came and sat next to her. Trying to see both at the same time she smiled warmly and nodded in greeting before turning around in her seat.

The almost wisp wolf smiled sheepishly with his tongue hanging to the side with a grin spread across his maw. Almost like he was enjoying all this too much.

[[ Ben will take seat eight, and Sam would like eleven, please! ]]

Samantha Carmine trotted down the corridor, glancing at each classroom she went by. She was quite certain of where her classroom was; this wasn't a problem in the least. However, she was lost in her own little world, not even minding that she was running far later than she usually would. It wasn't until that voice in the back of her head spoke up that she broke from her daydreams.

"Maybe we should hurry, Sammie... We are cutting it a little close, don't you think?"

The tall, red-haired girl merely nodded as she picked up her pace. Quite true, she had taken her time finishing up a short story over breakfast this morning. And being late wasn't exactly a great first impression! Samantha squeaked nervously, but at last she made it to the door. Luckily, the bell hadn't sounded off yet, but that didn't stop her from grabbing at her old green scarf and cutting her eyes to the clock right before she entered. The tiny, blurry mouse-like shape on her shoulder actually quite matched the way she scurried into the classroom, head down in an attempt to avoid eye contact. Coming into a room always felt so strange; like she was being stared at. After setting her supplies down upon a desk at the back of the classroom, she took a deep breath and approached the teacher. She had to at least check in before she could claim that nice seat in the corner.

"Um, hello, sir. I'm Samantha Carmine... I'm here for the biology class." With an almost awkward smile, she mustered up the courage to look the Professor Callahan in the face. It wasn't quite eye contact, though, as she was looking more at his eyebrows than anything else.

-------

Around the same time, another pair was strolling slowly down the hallway toward the biology room. A young man, sporting a somewhat raggedy outfit of tattered slacks and a white dress shirt that had seen better days, seemed to be taking his time getting to wherever he was going. The daemon alongside him, shifting between a goat, an otter, and some kind of wolf in some indistinct mist, wasn't exactly hurrying him along. She was, however, not entirely convinced that he had bothered to check that they were going the right way.

"So, you sure you know where you're goin'?" the daemon asked, a rather indelicate and gruff female voice echoing throughout Benjamin's mind.

"Nah. Think it's on this 'all, though... Yeah. That one over there." Not at all deterred by his uncertainty, Ben sauntered into the room and looked about. A skeleton with a snake on it? Plants? Cages? He was pretty sure it was the right place. "Told ya we'd find it eventually. We ain't even late!"

"Yeah, yeah." She sounded unimpressed, but it was more out of curiosity than anything else. "Check out the snake, Ben!" The daemon, by this time focusing on the form of an otter, led her human over to look at Elizabeth, without any thought to checking in with the professor.

A tall, thin, serious young man strode into the room, followed by a small owl daemon, who hooted worriedly. The colonel turned around to see Timothy Whitehall, his wayward assistant, carrying a stack of books. Timothy himself was in training to one day be a biologist; were it not for his delicate constitution, he probably would have already joined the Army Exploration Corps from hearing how much the colonel talked about it. Timothy was here today to observe and help facilitate demonstrations, but the colonel would be doing all the actual teaching.

"Ahh, Timothy! Welcome! Don't quite shut that door; there are a few stragglers, I think. Probably first-years who got lost." Although the room wasn't hard to find, the building it was in could be if you weren't sure which direction you were going. Timothy left the door open a crack and took his seat in the corner of the classroom, Bunty nestled against his shoulder.

"Attention, students! Please take your seats; it is time for class to begin!" He smiled widely at them as they took their seats. There were three empty desks, and two more names on the list. He hoped the other two students would come! But for now, he had to start the class. Standing in front of his desk, he cleared his throat and began to speak.

"Welcome, once again, to this year's Introduction to Biological Sciences! My name is Colonel James Callahan, former Army Exploration Corps. You can call me Colonel Jim- old Army habits, I'm afraid, have made me quite attached to my rank. I joined the army at age eighteen and was stationed in northern Afrikaanis, where I was injured in combat a year later. That is when Ambalapad, my daemon, manifested. She is a Barbary lioness, and while she's a bit grumpy, she's the best friend you could ever have in the heat of battle. I put in a transfer for the Exploration Corps upon my recovery, and served in the Corps until five years ago, when I was bitten by a poisonous serpent in South Kavata. I was a recruiter and lecturer for about a year and a half, and then I found employment here. I have a passion for the world around us and all its creatures, great and small. It is my life's work to make people understand why we should have a great sense of awe and wonder for the natural world; Woman and Man attained not dominion, but stewardship over the earth by our biological advancement, and it is my duty as a biologist and explorer to share with civilization just how wonderful life really is. In this class, you will see and interact with many forms of life unknown to Eurlakian science before the Corps brought it back. You will experience the wonder of experimentation and the the thrill of discovery. And, perhaps most importantly, you will learn what it truly means to be an organism that fits into the ecosystem. Our world is a vast, complex machine, and each creature, down to the smallest insect, is a part that ensures the balance and maintenance of daily operations. But first, some housekeeping to get out of the way.". Taking a sheaf of paper from his desk, he began to hand out the syllabus. "I trust you to read this on your own time, but I would like to point out the safety instructions, specifically the first three. We will be working with animals today, and you will be handling your first dangerous creature when we go outside. You will all be perfectly safe if you listen to my instructions, but if you do something... unwise, you might end up with a nasty rash. Also, does anybody have any plant, animal, fungal, or mold allergies? Please inform me of them so that I make sure that you are never given an allergen as a subject!" He paused for a moment, thinking. "Really, that is all I have for housekeeping. This first meeting is an introduction to the course and to the mechanics of biological sciences, but I'd much rather show you than tell you. So now, I think we should get to know each other a bit, then we will talk about the scientific method and perform our first experiment! We'll go around the room, and you will introduce yourself with your name, first and last, your daemon's name, your age, your favorite animal, one thing you'd like to learn in this class, and anything you'd like to share. Who wants to go first?"

Awkwardly, a thin girl with shoulder-length dark hair stumbled into the classroom, her chest heaving in and out trying to catch some air. She grasped the door jam and her face turned a bright red as she scanned the classroom. She was one of the last students to arrive! She straightened up, holding her breath, and attempted to straighten out her hair and clothes.

"I-I'm sorry, sir. I got lost on the way to class," she mumbled as she quietly slipped into the fourteenth seat. She looked around and sighed, hoping no one would start staring as she continued to breathe heavily. She looked at the syllabus on her desk and sighed, hoping she hadn't missed too much.

She'd managed to catch the last of what the Colonel had said and looked awkwardly around the room. Speaking to the group. Wonderful. She shyly raised her hand after Alette had finished her turn. Might as well get this over with. "W-well, I'm Falen Wyndham, and I'm seventeen. I. . . My Daemon. . . his name is Barky. And well, my favorite animal is the polar bear, or maybe it's the okapi. I'm not really sure to be completely honest. I'd. . . Well, I'd really like to learn about animals mostly, I don't know a lot about them. And uhm, I'm going to stop now before I say something dumb." She lowered her hand and crossed her arms across her chest, lowering in her seat.

After the handshake, Samantha nodded, slid back to her seat, and scooted her chair in, the smile on her face growing more genuine as Colonel Jim described his life in the Exploration Corps. Honestly, she didn't know too much about the military beyond the family stories that her uncles and father used to ramble on with. However, it was that reminder of her family - namely, her father - that illicited her giving her full attention to the introduction. That, of course, and he fact that he was her teacher! She crossed her legs and looked down at the syllabus, deciding to read over the safety instructions like she was told.

The mouse daemon, meanwhile, shifted into a longer, more slender shape as it continued to balance on her shoulder. He chirped cheerily, albeit quietly, at Samantha's slowly growing comfort level. Watching happily as she thumbed through the syllabus, paying special attention to the safety instructions, he climbed down onto the desk. 'Sam. He's asking for introductions... Why don't you go ahead?'

Right as she was pondering what the scarlet macaw did that made it into the safety rules, Sam glanced away from the packet and towards her daemon. Of course, she had also been listening to the teacher and the introductioins of the other students. 'No,' she thought, 'I think I'll wait for him to call on me. I don't want to interrupt anyone else that wants to go first.' The excuse even sounded lame in her head, but her smile persisted. She had no objections to answering the question, but she wanted a moment to think on it. There was a much smaller chance that she would trip over her own words that way.

-----

Benjamin, somewhat reluctantly, parted his gaze from the snake and headed to a seat in the approximate center of the room. He sat down in it and leaned back, his feet forcing the chair to balance on its two back legs. The professor's life story didn't exactly fascinate him, but he'd heard things that were far less interesting before. Instead of watching the speaker, he decided to cast his gaze on the plant he was instructed not to touch. If it wasn't for the paper being flopped onto his desk distracting him, he might have decided to prod it or something. The syllabus didn't interest him too much, as he was listening intently to the other students' introductions. After Zarek was done speaking, Benjamin ceased staring at the plant on his desk, sat up in his chair, and spoke up. "Me name's Benjamin Burrows, and I'm about eighteen er so," he started off, somewhat loudly. "My daemon hasn't told me her name yet. She's bein' stubborn about it. But I like sharks, rays, an' dolphins. Gulls're fine too, I guess. They make them nice noises."

He paused, looking at his daemon, who had taken a seat at his feet and flopped down as some sort of freakish seal-goat. The boy had to stifle a laugh. A bleat later, she flashed into a laughing gull, arranging her wings in what he perceived to be a shrug. 'Go on, ye ain't finished yet.'

"Oh yeah! I like ta be out on the water an' such, so I guess you'cd say that any animal out there's good company." Ben clicked his tongue, looking about at the folks around him. He didn't really expect to get anything out of the course, despite the fact that it had the abilty to be quite useful. Quickly, though, he strung together a reason for signing up other than it looking like something he wouldn't sleep through. "Bein' able to know more about animals seemed like a good idea. I've seen a right lot of 'em that I didn't know what was before I came here, and I guess this class'll help t' fix that. Heh. Just seemed like fun, too."