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"Normally, yes. However, participating in a public event waives that right in return for publicity," Jack replied with the sort of practiced ease that could be seen in either a professional or a repeat offense bullshitter. Or both. "You are correct, though: it's just for the school newspaper."

Despite the icy reception, he was quite interested in the history lesson. Wolpertingers themselves he only knew about through some brief internet searches, a footnote in his casual obsession with cryptozoology and all manner of the paranormal and supernatural. Mentioning the human circulatory system in particular piqued his interest, and he more closely inspected the worm with genuine curiosity.

"Hey, Connor. I was just about to ask that," he said without looking away. "Second question, then: what's corrosion casting?"

Thorne's eyes flicked from the sweet shop caterer to Autumn and back, and he took the bill slowly, mouth quirked into a questionable expression that said he was either scheming or about to scheme. Adjusting himself so that Autumn was balanced on his shoulders properly and he could drop one hand, Thorne tugged out his own wallet, tilting his head at Dawson in consideration.

"Basically," he hedged, his voice dipping raw and amused, "everything without raisins. We're shameless, apparently. Or at least the queen on my shoulders is. But also a ******** of those pretzels."

And then a girl appeared asking about fair trade chocolate. That was interesting. Thorne had watched a documentary once on how cocoa was obtained (it had disgusted him, but he'd still eaten the entire bag of discount valentines chocolate he'd bought) but nothing more. He turned to watch the exchange in mild appraisal, but tapped Autumn on the knee and looked up at her.

"Bet I can eat more chocolate than you can in under five minutes."

This was certainly a radical change of scenery.

When Maeve had moved to Ashdown to open shop, she'd planned a quaint little wine bar and a farm where her daughter could play with the cows and learn to ride ponies like every little girl dreamed. But the job fair had been a good chance for promotion, so here she was, looking every inch the pin-up poster model she had planned to look.

Whine and Dine's cheese booth (and wine, for appropriately aged men and women - be responsible, children) was set up to look every inch the elegant mini-model of its flagship shop, promoting small farm businesses, cheese, delicious wine, and looking to hire. Maeve knew a thing or two about improvisation, and this was a masterpiece. She was also a masterpiece with her red hair an graceful work of coils over her right shoulder, bright against the white of her dress and the rim of her over-sized sunglasses. She looked half business woman, half pin-up model, and honestly, Maeve was alright with that.

Handing out another cheese sample, Maeve laughed and explained the simplified process of what went into making their own products to another faceless guest passing through. She had called on Bentley to come and man the booth for a while later so that she could mingle, but the man had yet to appear, and Maeve was starting to starve for some fresh scenery.

But until then, she had to wait.

Temperance watched in dawning horror as the ball missed her intended target and hit someone else instead. And then, to even more horror, he crumpled. She flew out from behind her booth, her mind flashing to hyper-mobility, arthritis - different joint disorders.

She slowed as she got closer to the two men. "Ah, um. is he alright? I'm sorry! N-nasir, right?" Nasir got only a cursory glance as her nurse eyes stared at Wil for possible physical sign of injury. It was clear that the tips of her ears were burning in embarrassment.

Preacher grinned amiably up at Mercer. She saw that hand-hold and the detective's S.O. was pretty cute. Good catch, Jeremiah. She made some pointing hand motions between Algie and Jeremiah as soon as Algie turned away, ending them with a thumbs up.

Then, as if she hadn't just commented on his man choice, she continued. "Wellll, it depends if anything works for me, job-wise. Can't ever have too much money, you know?" She tried to look over to the police department's booth and only saw a girl she didn't recognize. "So who's stuck with the booth? Did you pick somebody hot - that'd be a good draw."

Huxtable grinned as the salty chocolate goods were passed his way- especially when he came to the realization that it was much more than he expected. He stuffed a few of the pretzels into his mouth, making sure to swallow them down and run his tongue over his teeth before giving the Sugar Spot representative another happy grin. "Thanks, mate." He said, licking a bit of ganouche off the tip of his thumb and tossing another couple down the hatch.

If his stomach could purr, he'd imagine it would've been doing so now. The pretzels were good. Real good.

He eyed the woman that stood at the ready behind the bakery's booth; the owner, he guessed. "I've only got a dollar in my pocket right now, but... your business is around here, right?" He brushed his hand off onto his jeans, reaching for one of the flyers on the booth and flipping it around so he could see the map. Sure enough, the bakery wasn't too far away. Ashdown sure was a small town. He waved the flyer at the plump woman before folding it up small and stuffing it into the back pocket of his jeans. "I've got a trio of brats that'll love to visit." He said, giving her a flirty wink. "I'll see you then."

Not wanting to linger around too long- especially since the booth seemed so busy- Huxtable wandered to the next location that had something for him to consume. He smiled at the woman currently occupied with handing out small bits of cheese. "Got any samples of wine?" He asked, showing off his white teeth in a flashy grin.

The job fair had reached a fair amount of bustle, and thankfully most of it was away from Leila's information desk, and she'd taken the precaution of wearing her shades (no matter how much of an a*****e it made her look) so she could avoid looking at people without raising any ire or suspicion. It was turning out to be a fairly evenly-paced day, with occasional waves and greetings at familiar faces -- and a bickering match at Algie's table that she was intensely curious about, but had the good sense to watch from a distance.

Another volunteer had come to watch the pamphlets and do the greeting thing, so she was free to get up and walk around the space for a few minutes, and it was a welcome break after catching glances of people enjoying samples from some of the businesses. Naturally, she ended up at Maeve's table eventually.

And she caught the other woman's face -- vision blurring, freeze frames of a moment taking place of the real world -- and it was a damn shock to see her own face in it along with Eve's. After giving a shaky hello, and clumsily grabbing a bit of cheese, she fished her small notepad out of her back pocket and scribbled something down, passing it across the table to Maeve:



Thankfully writing it down was as good as talking for making the budding headache subside.

The stranger responded to his affronted response with one that circumvented the issue he raised. he wasn’t certain how legitimate the excuse was, but since he was on school property and the photographs were for a school newspaper, it sounded plausible enough to believe. It wasn’t in his interest to go pawing around Google trying to prove the man wrong - that only necessitated prolonged interaction.

Fine, then. He could have his picture of a wolpertinger.

Unfortunately for Alois, the man’s presence spawned another gawker - this one spoke in a much more lax composition, which left Alois slow blinking. Informal english was never his strong suit, but he ascertained the gist of the question. „It depends on what I’m doing,“ he started as he perched elbows on the table. Fingers latticed together to form a bony knot beneath his chin. „If I have a simple project, like mounting a duck, skinning and fleshing, plus washing and drying takes about three hours. Mounting is about an hour. The grooming is dependent on how pin-feathery the bird is, but it takes a long time. Fish I find are more work, because you can’t really mount a real fish - I have to sculpt and replicate the fish, then paint the individual scales with iridescent paint depending on the fish.

„Insect taxidermy is comparatively much quicker and easier - these centipede here has a hard exoskeleton so all I needed to do was pin it down with pine needles and dissect the head in the manner I needed for the resin cast of the lung circulatory system.

„Which leads into your question - corrosion casting is a tricky method where you first flush the corpse’s vascular system with phoshate buffered saline, which drains blood and prevents clotting - a serious impediment to completing your resin cast - and then followed up with Batson’s 17 resin injections for the targeted veins, capillaries, what-have-you. 17 cures fairly quickly, about two to three hours, and then the unwanted parts of the corpse are dissolved away with potassium hydroxide, whch leaves the resin untouched. Afterward it’s a matter of painting to taste.“ He glanced between the two momentarily, pausing for additional questions.

„Comparatively, the wolpertinger took about thirty hours start to finish for skinning and fleshing, arrangement and mounting, then grooming the final parts. This insect piece, including corrosion casting, took about six. Really, hours just depend on the animal and project assigned.“

At least, he thought to himself, he could be thankful that they questioned him on a topic of interest. And they weren’t asking stupid questions or insisting that his work was gross.

Small improvements.