---

Oleander had managed to sign himself up as a student at the dojo without any problems. Lucky for him, his simple plan had worked out brilliantly and his mother was none the wiser. When they day came, Oleander snuck out of the nook during the early afternoon using his usual method and excitedly ran to attend his first lesson.

Upon arriving, he spotted several other wynglings that looked to be around his age. Ten of them, in fact, none of which he recognized. Oleander let out a sigh of relief. He decided not to make conversation with any of them just yet, as he didn't want to draw too much attention.

A few minutes later, once the remaining students had arrived, a tall, red wyngro with black hair and intense yellow eyes stepped out from inside the dojo. He had a broad smile on his face and held some sort of padded weapon in his hands. Oleander felt something like a mixture of nervousness and nauseating excitement bubble up from within him. This was Suvash, the man who could teach him everything he wanted to know.

"Hello everyone!" he greeted, standing proudly before the group. "Hope you are all eager to learn, because this will be the last class before we take a bit of a break! So let's make this class super awesome, ok?"

Some of the wynglings reacted to this with enthusiasm, while others didn't have much of a reaction at all. Oleander guessed that the more excited ones were returning students. He felt it embarrassing to cheer loudly with the others, but allowed himself a tentative smile in response to Suvash's words as to not appear uninterested or bored.

Suvash rose a hand to his face and looked at them mischievously. "Usually I'd make you guys warm up, but... who needs to do boring stretches?"

The wynglings looked at one another with confusion. "What do you mean, mister Suvash?" one of them asked, clearly baffled at this statement.

"That's because I have a better idea."

Oleander tilted his head questioningly.

"...LET'S PLAY A GAME!" Suvash yelled enthusiastically. A loud cheer erupted from the group, with whoops and hollers abound. Oleander involuntarily leaped up and he swore his tail began to wag on its own. A game for his first lesson? What a way to learn!

"Now," Suvash continued, "I like to call it 'Keeper of the Floaty Fruit'. The game is played with ONE wyngro sitting on the floor, blindfolded with a padded sword." Suvash held up the sword in his hands to show the crowd, then returned it to his side. "The keeper's job is to make sure the other players, who are not blindfolded, do not get the floaty fruit. The Keeper has to listen with their ears and gut feeling! You cannot stand or be to close to the floaty fruit. The others win by getting the floaty fruit away from the keeper without getting hit. Make sense everyone?" 

Oleander nodded, eager to get on with it. This was something he felt he would be good at.

"Then let's play!"

---

The world had turned black. Or at least, that's what it felt like for Oleander wearing the blindfold that Suvash had provided. By this point, the class had already played several rounds of Keeper of the Floaty Fruit and he had really gotten a feel for the game. Now, it was his turn to play keeper.

Oleander held the padded sword in his mouth, which was surprisingly light. His ears twitched as he listened for approaching footsteps.

Creak!

Oleander whipped around and felt the sword make hard contact. Yes! He heard one of the wynglings cry out in frustration and there was immediately a frantic shuffling of feet as the others attempted to get close, now that someone had drawn Oleander's attention away from the fruit. Oleander, however, quickly snapped his head back making contact with another wyngling, and another. The room became quiet once again.

Eventually, someone managed to nab the fruit from him after several minutes, but Oleander felt that he had done a pretty good job as keeper. He hadn't held them off for the best amount of time, but he had one of the higher scores and was proud of that. He placed the padded sword at his feet on the floor and removed his blindfold, laughing along with the others from all the excitement. He stepped away from the center of the room and let the next keeper come into play.

Oleander was more than ready to go again.

---

Ollie's having fun with his first lesson at the dojo! He seems to do well with having his vision cut off and is pretty proud with how long he managed to hold the others off >:3c

4/502 wyns