Kalon Link: Sandra
Chosen Prompt: What is their favorite scent?
Prompt Response:

The ocean!
Token Worth: 14 (fullbody =4, shading =2, color =3, background =5)
Previous Responses: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
LostInTheEcho wrote:K'atini would say that they liked school, at least their version of it. Which most likely wouldn't be what most people would think of when thinking of school. They had admittedly been in a more normal school. It is more normal in the respect that they (hopefully) had a licenced teacher and a syllabus to follow. But not fully normal since it was for remedial classes made for people who was missing something for higher education. Considering K'atini hadn't done any school after fifteen before this, they definitely would need it for higher education. (Not that they'd ever end up attending that in the end, but still.)
They had only attended the normal school for a couple months though, before throwing in the towel and admitting to themselves that it wasn't for them and that they were good at other stuff instead.
What was it that they liked about school then? It was fun to learn for one, and yes, K’atini did enjoy learning, which for some reason didn’t seem to be the case for kids in normal schools. Secondly, all the other kids, their friends, were there, so they could spend time with them and play during the breaks. And that’s pretty much it. It’s simply fun to be there and everyone is nice, food is great and they always have something to do.
In their school, all kids are divided up in two groups, the small kids and the big kids. The small kids are all those that can't really pay full attention to a teacher yet and need much of play in their learning coupled with frequent breaks. The big kids, the group you join when you're somewhere like seven, eight or nine years old depending on your maturity and willingness to learn i a structured manner, is where you have to be able to listen to the lessons, follow instructions and work somewhat independently. Of course less pressure is put on the younger kids but if they're distracted by other things as soon as the teachers back is turned, then maybe they're not ready yet.
Due to the fact that they're different ages, they're also on different difficulty levels. So while they all might be working on the same thing, the expected standard of your work differ.
Additionally the younger among the big kids start and end the day earlier than the older kids, who start later and then stay later in the afternoon. This split meant that subjects that were more in need of being taught separately at different levels, like math, could be and with the smaller class size at those times, the teachers had more time to help each student.
K'atini had been relatively early to join the big kids. They can't remember what age they were, only that they were younger than average. Or well, they had, but then they’d moved back due to a small problem. That small problems name was Kat. She was younger than K’atini by a bit more than a year. She was a small thing with sharp teeth and a head full of curly hair. Kat wasn’t truly a problem. She was kind to others, listened during class and did all her work.
The problem is that Kat is a largely emotional kal so when she's sad, frustrated or confused she'll cry or almost cry if comforted quick enough. Which isn’t a problem in and of itself, the problem is that no one can console her except K’atini (well, her parents could but they weren’t in the school obviously). No one knew why, it simply was the truth of it all. The teachers had wondered if she simply wanted to spend more time with her friend and this was a clever ruse to get it. It hadn’t been a problem while they were in the same age group and sat next to each other, but with K’atini in another room, it was.
They had tried to make it work but the more they tried to comfort her, it seemed that the more upset she got. Miss Sunny had a bit more luck than anyone else and could actually calm her, but ultimately, it never went as smoothly as when K’atini was the one to comfort Kat.
They’d tried to talk to her about it since it wasn’t really doable to fetch K’atini all the time and it wouldn’t be fair to them to make them go back to the younger class. This also upset Kat, because she didn’t want to be the reason why K’atini would fail at school and she felt like an awful friend.
In the end, K’atini decided themself that they’d stay in the younger class, until next year when Kat could could go up as well. And with time she’d learn to control her reactions better even if she’d always be a person with strong emotions
Kat was one reason that K’atini liked school, she was their best friend and while they couldn’t get up to any mischief during class time, breaks were fair game. Other fun things with school that they’d then thought was true for all schools but they’d realized later in life was probably mostly theirs, was how they were taught and their ability to choose and the flexibility of the schedule.
For one, if they’d didn’t like a specific assignment, they could argue for why they should rather do another, similiar, assignment instead. Like that one time they were supposed to write about old, dead, powerful kalons of the past, in other words rulers and kings and queens. K’atini found that incredibly boring, there were so many fun dead people you could write about instead! So K’atini had made their case to write about an important magical scientist who had made found the connections between places and magic and how these magical places were connected with each other, that was a lot more fun (since K’atini was in the wow-magic-is-so-cool phase at the time).
Secondly, their schedule could change if there was something that gave reason to it and all (or most) kids wanted it. For example when the first real snowfall of the winter came and everyone just wanted to be out and play and go sledding. Then the usual classes for the day would be cancelled and they’d bundle up to have an outdoorsy day. It might be important to learn stuff in a classroom but it’s equally important to get excercise and it’s not like they’d be able to focus fully that day either.
They also don’t always have classroom learning. In autumn they’re often out in the forest, learning about mosses, trees and mushrooms. First they’ll gather in The Clearing where the teachers first talk about what they’ll be doing that day and handing out age appropriate assignments as well as field flora and mushroom books. They’ll be split into mixed age groups so that the older kids (teens) can keep an eye on the younger and make sure that they don’t pick anything poisonous. They’ll then walk around in the forest and complete their assignments, which might be to identify different plants you find and their main characteristics.
Since their teachers aren’t actually truly real teachers, they can’t grade them themselves. Their grades are given by tests that the government send out to them, which they then send back in to be graded. But their teachers want to know themselves how well they’re doing and grade it themselves first to give the kids a prelimineary grade. And say what you will about them, so far no one had failed a subject so they must be doing something right.
All in all, K’atini’s school experience and been, good, fun and educating and even if it was nothing like the schooling in the normal school they’d attended later, they prefered it and would not have wanted to have it any other way.
LostInTheEcho wrote:Kat would describe themselves as a rose bush. A rose bush with pink and fragrant flowers with large, velvet soft petals. This rose bush would have the most vibrant green leaves you’d ever seen. It would have the perfect shape with just the right amount of branches, making it not too dense but also not scraggly looking.
It would be such a bush that you just couldn’t help being drawn to. You just had to get closer. To touch the delicate flowers, smell their sweet scent and perhaps even pick a flower or two. You’d reach in, distantly surprised by the fact that you have to reach into the bush. There were so many flowers that there must be one closer to the surface, but perhaps your eyes set on the ”perfect” one.
It’s here, with your arm stretched in, that you find yourself trapped. The thorns had taken their grip. The thorns that of course were there, but you had been distracted by the beauty you thought that you’d seen. Yet with your hand trapped in the thorns of the bush, you realize that the beauty you’d seen was but a mirage or perhaps a wish. You’d seen the first pink rose and then imagined the rest were you thought they should be. But the truth is that the rose bush with the enormous amount of flowers only held a few. And those few are well guarded behind thorns and branches so dense only one with intimate knowledge of the bush and it’s temperament would be able to reach them.
With the thorns digging into the skin of your arm you realize your mistake. There had never been a perfect rose bush, with perfect pink flowers, with the sweetest scent. It’s the false expectations of someone who only see what the wish to see until push comes to shove and the thorns come out.
In reality, the rose bush is but a simple rose bush. The flowers are still pink but they don’t hold the perfect shape, they’re slightly lopsided and smaller than one might wish and with petals that are slightly torn in the edges. Their smell is still sweet but far subtler, with earthy undertones from the bush itself. The bush itself is both too dense and too scraggly. It’s core is almost nothing but branches while further out they grow wild in a wide tangle of thorns and leaves. Leaves that are not extraordinarily green but rather a muted earthy green that knows itself and knows it’s lands.
As you see this, still with your arm trapped in thorns, the bush asks if now, you’ve learned your lessen. If you can see the error of your ways. Tightening it’s thorns in threat as it asks if you’ll promise to remove your hand at once if released. You promise to retreat, to leave it alone, and the thorns let you go with one last rasp of its sharp thorns.
As you leave, you do best to remember.
Rose bushes have thorns for a reason.
LostInTheEcho wrote:Okay, so there’s like a million creation stories. Some might be almost identical with the exception of one little detail, while others are /wildly different. Like the creation story with the turtles versus the one with the frozen world. Those are however irrelevant and are mostly jokes (at least Kat really, really hopes so).
Kat’s favourite creation story however is rather fun and also rather old and this is how it goes:
”” In the beginning, there wasn’t really anything around, like the blue screen of death. Then in this vastness of nothingness, a pebble moved.
Where did the pebble come from? Why did it move? No one knows! And no one was there to study it so no one will know either, but it did move and that’s the important part.
Now in the ocean of nothing, there laid a pebble. And then that pebble laid there for an indeterminate amount of time, since time wasn’t yet. Then the pebble eventually had enough. It was bored. It didn’t want to be in nothing anymore so it decided to move and see if it could find something that wasn’t nothing.
So the pebble traveled. Yet everything looked the same if it was even possible to look since there was nothing. Everything looked the same, so it was as if the pebble never moved. This the pebble though was boring, so with a spark it created something.
That something was the stars in the nothingness. (One version has there being clouds of stardust first that then, after another indeterminate amount of time, forms into the stars. Where the clouds came to be when the pebble moved the first time. This isn’t that version though.)
With stars out in the world around them, the pebble could now move with purpose. The pebble moved towards a star. It’s unknown if it was the closest star or another, but it got there eventually. The pebble moved close to the star and since it’s a pebble, it couldn’t feel it’s heat.
Now, since it’s an old story, the star was said to have the appearance of a preacious gem, like the most spectacular crystal you’d ever seen. The pebble was mesmerized and moved ever closer. It moved closer and closer until it moved to close and was engulfed by the star.
The pebble was gone.
It was gone but yet lived on. Because in the star the pebble transformed. The pebble was given a conciousness, it was given feelings, senses and dreams. The pebble was given a shape that was not that of a small stone but that of a shimmering ethereal being. Previously it had been small. An insignificant speck in the universe. Now it was vast, the being was on a whole different scale and now didn’t see the stars as such large and imposing creations anymore. It’s appreciation for them stilll remained, however and the being wished for them to have purpose.
The being then, from it’s own form, gave small grains of earth into the previous nothingness which would now create something together with the stars. These small grains formed together over millenia to create large rocks up to the size of planets. These the being then set to spin around the stars so that they could feel the warmth of the stars and be mesmerized by their brilliance yet made to spin around so that they can’t make the same mistake of getting too close.
Now the being was happy and proud of itself. It could remember being a pebble and it had now created many pebbles, but larger, to share its existence. It lived on in this existence for a long time but eventually it felt that something was missing. The being was not a pebble anymore, after all, and it wished for forms which shared its sentience and lust for life.
The being then started creating lifeforms. In the beginning they were simple and did not look very pretty. The lifeforms were placed on the big rocks around the warm stars to give them a home. As time went on, the being got more confident and created more lifeforms.
And that’s how kalons and everything else was created and so on and so forth. And that’s the everything-from-a-pebble-that-suddenly-moved creation story. ””
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