October Training

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone
What: Information and Training
When: September 4th
Where: Meeting Hall, the Far Shore
Summary: Training and informational sessions for newly arrived gods and shinki



In anticipation of the latest round of new arrivals, Heaven has partnered with the new gods and shinki to organize a very helpful informational reception.

It seems Bishamon's temple is unavailable this week due to business, although she has generously allowed a number of her shinki to go on with their usual tasks of passing out pamphlets and assisting the newcomers to settle in.

Gods and shinki arriving at heaven's meeting hall are, should they allow it, guided kindly towards a traditional-style dojo and banquet hall towards the back of the meeting hall itself. The gods and shinki are free to take their time during this day to learn about the details of their new life from Amaterasu's shinki or from the many veteran new god and shinki volunteers.




God Training

Newly arrived gods are escorted into a banquet hall for an informational meeting covering the basics of proper god behavior, although the minor deity conducting the meeting is in too much of a rush to take questions afterwards. They are encouraged to discuss the information with each other and ask questions of more experienced gods, as well as instructed to guide their new shinki appropriately.

Shinki Training

Various volunteers are stationed around the dojo, passing out helpful informational pamphlets. There are many shinki, including Bishamon's and Amaterasu's, who will be more than happy to train in using the borderline as well as offering a lecture on the basics of what is expected of a shinki and the importance of teamwork with other shinki and with gods. Shinki are encouraged to work together to practice what they've learned and discuss their perspectives.

The garden is available for borderline practice, and a few of the last training's slightly tattered crayon-drawn borderline targets have been brought back out and pinned to bales of straw to make a practice area. One of Amaterasu's shinki is drawing replacements with a large inked calligraphy brush. His targets are simple but elegant, but somehow, before they make it over to the target bales, they're ending up crayon-scribbled into much brighter colors. Maybe it's the child shinki who are in charge of putting them up? They do seem to be giggling a lot, and Amaterasu's artist shinki is looking more and more annoyed...

Physical Training

The dojo is stocked with a wide variety of practice weapons, traditional and modern, to offer some practice opportunity to gods who, for example, find themselves with a sword shinki but are at risk of cutting off their own toes. It's also useful for veteran new gods wishing to train with their current partner shinki.

There's an additional task that the hosts are more than willing to ask for help with. The Meeting Hall seems to be suffering an invasion of cute soot sprites. Although they're harmless little spirits, they leave smears of ash and soot wherever they go, and the shinki are running themselves ragged trying to keep the hardwood floors and white walls clean! They're handing out cleaning rags and flyswatters to squash the soot sprites flat and scrub the resulting smears away -- and, for the softhearted, butterfly nets: although they implore anyone with a net to be sure they let the soot sprites out again far, far away.

Rest and Refreshments

The meeting hall's facilities are less modernized than Bishamon's: there are rainwater barrels set out by the dojo with fresh towels for hardworking gods and shinki to wash their face and hands. The water is ice cold, so it's very refreshing, too-- brr!

By lunchtime, the banquet hall where the gods' informational session was held has been cleaned out and re-set with cushions to sit on around long, low tables. Gods and shinki who come inside for lunch will be served a plain but hearty meal, with soup, rice, fish and pickled vegetables to refresh them for the afternoon's training.

The hall will stay open even after the lunches and tables have been cleared away, so that those who want a quieter space to talk with their new partners can find somewhere in the room. Hopefully the occasional stampede of soot sprites won't be too distracting.

In Summary:

• Get all the information you can handle
• Veteran new gods and shinki are welcome to volunteer showing the ropes
• Get in some training
• Help catch soot sprite pests
• Spectate if you want
• Have fun~

Comments

[impetuouswind]

Zebras are intelligent?

[That's news. But then, antelope or horses or ponies being intelligent is also news, and very odd. He blinks a few times.]

But I suppose all of those would fit much better into a human building than a dragon.

[letteropener]

Zebras are a very intelligent people. [Don't underestimate them at all.]

Are you familiar with elephants? They appear to be the upper limit of how large I can transform myself.

[impetuouswind]

Yes! [He perks up instantly, mouth watering at the thought.] Elephants are delicious.

[...Which might perhaps serve as an example of what size Temeraire is.]

[letteropener]

...I suspect one reason dragons may not ordinarily prefer to integrate into pony civilization is the fact that we are herbivorous.

[This never occurred to Celestia before today, so thank you for the enlightenment!]

[impetuouswind]

[Temeraire affects a magnanimous tone.]

That is all right. I do eat vegetables as well, sometimes, and I do not mind other people eating plants.

If you do not mind me eating meat, that is.

[Is that why ponies don't get along with dragons? Even if the dragons aren't eating them? Oh.]

[letteropener]

I would be quite understanding, but speaking generally, it is very strange to be in a culture with vastly different dietary habits than your own. [Voice of experience, here.] Also, I have the sneaking suspicion that at least some dragons view ponies as not to be dined with, but rather, on, so there is also that.

[impetuouswind]

Well, I would have also thought that, if you were not intelligent, but I do not want to eat anything that is able to talk to me.

[And besides, horsemeat isn't particularly tasty, being rather stringy and tough--

-- he thinks, and stops, finding himself abruptly distressed that he does know that. Had he not known ponies were intelligent before? Or are horses different from the sort of pony that Celestia says she is?]

[letteropener]

And I very much appreciate that.

[Consider that in Equestria, many animals are perfectly intelligent and simply nonverbal. There's a thought that could keep him up at night.]

[But honestly! Does she look stringy and tough? What a thing to think!]

Still, my experiences from back home certainly don't apply here, where things are so different anyway.

[impetuouswind]

[He has considered the possibility, but if animals are not willing to express themselves even to avoid being eaten, Temeraire will take his risks.

Particularly with the very delicious ones.]

I suppose. I do not know what my home is like, but many things here are strange.

[He eyes her sidelong.]

Including horses that can talk, for instance.

[letteropener]

And dragons that can take a human form. [No eyeing here, but Celestia is certainly not above a tactful reminder that he himself is quite unusual. Fair is fair, after all.] And the Near Shore is stranger than anything here.

[impetuouswind]

Yes, that is strange. But no stranger than a human that turns into a sword, is it?

[Or all of the many other things that he's heard it's possible for shinki to become. He hasn't done much with it, himself.

He makes a dubious face in agreement with her other point, though.]

I have not spent very much time on the Near Shore, but none of it is familiar to me at all.

[letteropener]

I hope your god is well-suited to guiding you in adapting to this new land. I admit I worry a little when both a god and a shinki are totally new to this sort of thing. [Especially if one is not a human, since that... is quite an adjustment, as she well knows.]

[impetuouswind]

[Temeraire brightens cheerfully.]

Alex is very good at showing me around. Besides, she has been here longer than I have, too!

[letteropener]

That's very good to hear. You sound like you're in very capable hooves -- oh, excuse me, hands. [Celestia won't change her generics, but for specifics she'll try to be correct.]

[impetuouswind]

Or claws. [There's mischief in his gaze.] But, in this case, it is hands, yes, as Alex is human.

It has been very nice meeting you, and I am sorry I mistook you for an antelope.

[letteropener]

That's quite all right. [She inclines her head graciously.] I look forward to seeing you again. Maybe in quarters more suited to meet you properly.