Fibrous membrane. Right.

What?

Receiving his pod...he eyed the Professor...So, they were supposed to crack this thing open to get to...that thing she'd said, right?...and the actual seed would be in it?

Dylan rubbed at his face, giving the pod eyes. When in doubt, look for Odessa. Spying him getting comfortable at a station and casting looks in peculiar directions, the Slytherin Captain sidled up to the one right next door. Herbo-neighbors.

"Psst." While waiting for Odessa to address him, he began working at the pod, gloves in place. As a rule, he liked to keep them on when in the Greenhouses. There was no telling what was lurking in these buildings...He seen what Professor Bentley had meant, though. The shell was terribly brittle due to lack of moisture. In fact, he was positive if he tugged and pulled at certain areas of this thing..."Do I just bust this thing apart with my fingers?" Had the Professor mentioned that?

Oh, wait. West was using his hands. Right, then. Hands it was...

Seeing a minuscule opening...One that perhaps his fingers might be a perfect size for...Dylan jammed them in, using both hands to hold the pod...He flexed his muscles, putting a great deal of the strength he had behind the motion...

Okay, so this thing was NOT gentle or delicate...

After several more minutes of pulling, all Dylan had managed to accomplish was breaking off a long sliver of shell with a resounding SNAP!

Dude...What even...

West wasn't rushing into the next part, instead he turned the pod over and examined it, wanting to get a good look at the fiber bits and how they connected together and how it all worked. Would it be easier to pull all the fibers out and then try harvest the seeds, or to do it while it was actually in the pod? Also it was a bit like unicorn tail hairs wasn't it? With the sharpy sharpness.

So maybe he could pull them out...

Oh hmm? He looked at Dylan.

"Try cracking it against the bench. Like push it against that while you pull the sides down and back, then you'll crack three parts at once." West suggested. "Its what I did and it worked real good."

With a final tug, the whole ball of fluff pulled apart, loose strands and stray seeds flying from the force of Mo's efforts. He clambered on the floor for a few minutes to pick up all the seeds and as much of the fluff as he could find. The seeds went into the pile, and the fluff he added to the broken pieces of seed pod shell set neatly off to the side.

As for the rest of the fluff, Mo spread it out in a thin layer across the surface of his work station and carefully combed through all the strands. Mostly, the seeds created a dense lump in the fibers, but sometimes the lumps were just more fluff, and sometimes the seeds hid inside thicker parts of the layer. Still, it was more efficient than fishing around blindly.

Not that there was anything wrong with how his classmates were doing things. Mo finished combing through the fibers and pulling out the seeds, and when he felt satisfied he'd found all of the seeds, he began to clean up. The fibers were rerolled into a smaller pile and set near the discarded seed pod shell. And now they waited.

She felt like clapping with excitement when she saw the fluff come apart for her Claw friend - but she didn't. She just sent him a quick smile and continued to tug and pull at the fluff thing in her hand. She had pulled off so far one tuft of fluff from her pod.

Yep.

That was awesome. She definitely needed to try a little harder. So she did, she began to twist and pull at her fluff in an attempt to loosen it. Ngaargh she groaned as she continued to pull.

She didn't even care if she had sounded like a hungry dragon. Because people would know the difference right? She was human not dragon. Her glove covered fingers were already sore from pulling at the fiber.

"So, get leverage?" Dylan eyed the opening he'd just successfully created in the shell and then eyed the edge of the workstation bench. Perhaps if he used the pressure of his own body weight against it to hold the thing in place...and then just broke away at the pieces with his hands...Ugh. Okay. ".....I think I got it."

He stood, positioning his body directly over the pod, while he stood just behind the bench. Keeping it in place with his hands and body weight, he grasped both edges of the shell and got an extremely focused, concentrated look on his face. Did they see this look? That meant business.

Shell, prepare to be VANQUISHED.

...and then he was pushing down as hard as he possibly could...which was pretty hard...JUST IN CASE anyone was wondering. He didn't train like a BEAST for quidditch reasons to be weak. So, yea....He unintentionally flexed as he continued to push, though...Lots of pushing...Dylan must have pushed for like ten minutes or so...

SUDDENLY!!!...There was a resounding CRACK! as the resistance in the shell gave away, collapsing under his pressure, pushing backwards onto the bench surface.

"Wait...I think I got it..." He finished pulling the jagged pieces away and also set them to the side, as West had done. That was smart. There was no telling if they'd be used for something else or not...

She sat the pod back on the table and stretched her fingers in her gloves before trying again. Her hazel eyes sized up the pod, looking for weaknesses in its structure, possible soft spots, anything that might make it easier for her bust it open. She wasn't all that strong, so logic would be her weapon.

It looks like there's a small fracture right abouuut....there, she thought and pressed her thumb firmly into the shell. And as she suspected, it dented at her touch. Excellent, she thought, grinning and worked her fingers into the cavern she'd created in the shell. She pulled piece by tiny piece until it was large enough to grip. Once she had a better hold on the thing, she pulled with all might - and POP! Her hand flew back with a large piece of the shell along with it - and went straight into her own mouth, hitting her lips forcefully into her teeth. "Oomf!" was all the let escape from her now aching and swollen lips. Her eyes darted around the room, hoping no one had seen that tiny disaster and she tried to suck the blood from where her teeth had cut her lips.

So much for brain power, Eliza. She felt her cheeks grow hot and her eyes getting a little wet, but she sucked in a deep breath and pushed forward. Surely her lips would be puffing up by this point, but she tried to act normal. Who needs botox when you can just be a complete idiot and punch yourself in the face by accident?

She sighed and easily removed the remaining parts of the shell, which were loosened by that final blow.

Now she was moving right along. Six seeds, she wondered how many seeds were in the pods. There had to be more then six, right. Thumbing threw the pod she found another seed, smiling she gently pulled it out of it's hiding place.

So now she had seven seeds. Was that enough? Could she be done? She so wasn't a green thumb. Taking a bit of a break, Minerva watched the others doing their pods. They were making it look easy, so why was she having such a hard time finding the seeds.

Looking back to her pod again, Minerva decided she needed to go fishing for more. There had to be more in there. Moving the insides around and still being very tempted to touch it without the gloves just to see exactly how it felt, she came to two more seeds. Clutching one with her gloved fingers she pulled it out of the pod and then went for the next one, but losing her place the seed went hidden again.

Finally there were enough pods severed from the plant for harvesting and he could feel productive in class again. Not that he had minded all that much.. there hadn't been enough for him to do, so he could sit back and let some of the other students do the work. Getting to relax a few extra minutes in class wasn't so bad.. but he was looking forward to working with the pods and he sat up straight as he was given one.

Ethan pulled on his dragonhide gloves and set to work on peeling off the shell. He had worked with these plants only once before at Beauxbatons so he did have some reference, though that had been some time ago. He started tugging at the ends.. they really were tough. He pulled and pulled, managing to break of small bits at a time. He didn't remember it being quite this tedious and difficult last time..

He continued tugging at the shell, his eyes glancing around the room as this was taking forever and he was growing bored.. which sort of shocked him, thinking about it. And his head turned at the sound of someone seeming to struggle. "Eliza..? Are you alright?" Ethan glanced at the younger Claw as he noticed her expression looked rather distressed.

Given that his gloves were good quality and fit... well, like a glove, it'd probably be easier to finish this task without major problems, right? He spent a bit longer examining the pod and then reached inside, staying near the pod casing as he felt around to see where the fibres actually connected to the inside of the pod.

He gave it a tug and was pleased to find it came free pretty easily, so started grabbing handfuls and pulling it free from the pod. West tried to keep the fibres together though, not wanting to have bits floating about given what the professor said about them. He looked over at Alice again for a quick moment then went right back to tugging all the fibres free, not bothering with getting at the seeds just yet and generally taking it slowly, carefully, steady, and firmly. Yup, all of those things.

The fluffy bit on the inside of the pod intrigued Alice more than anything else taught during the lesson had. It was almost like a miniature nest, making it seem like a tiny hippogriff would fly out any minute now and land on her head or something. She prodded at it with a gloved finger curiously and scrutinized it for a couple of minutes and watched other intriguing things- more intriguing than the fibrous membrane, too- before moving on to comb out seeds.

She pushed a bit of the fluff out of the way and dove into the shell-less pod, digging into it to find her first seed. It was rather difficult to close her fingers around it, seeing as there was FLUFF there, and she couldn't coax it out of the way. She poked at it a bit more before giving up on being gentle and ripping some fibers out of the way as nicely as she could. And then Alice had a seed. Where was she supposed to put it? It was set down next to the bits of shell before she returned to the membrane.

Which wasn't being cooperative. FINE, then, two hands in.

She hated it. These plant pods were like large torture devices invented to make them all go mad. And really, it clearly was going to work. Because she did not want to be in class - and she didn't want to be here with her hands in the fibbery-fibber stuff.

It was just annoying and hard to pull at.

It had given up some of its resistance a moment before - but that alas, had proven to be a lie. The seed was a lie. She would never get to her seeds they would forever be stuck in a tangled mess of fibber.

Now that the (evil) pod was stripped of its (evil) shell, the fluffy white ball sat on the workstation ready to be harvested. She began to remove her gloves when she remembered Bentley had said the fibers inside the pod were sharp as well, so she pulled them back on.

All right then fibers, let's see if you're as mean as the shell was. She ran her tongue over the gnashed inside of her lip and winced at the sting of it. Her gloves were a bit bulky, but like Bentley had said, they were necessary if you didn't want to hurt yourself needlessly. Which she'd already done anyway, but no need to take it one step further, right? She was just starting to pull bits of the clingy fluff away when she heard her name and looked to see where it'd come from. She managed to extract about three seeds while she gathered her thoughts and set aside some of the whiteness before she responded.

Shoot...how can I hide my lip? He'll think I'm so incapable. As if he doesn't already. Ugh. She turned to him and tried to smile, but Ouch! Okay no smiling, that hurts. She let her mouth fall back down, trying to minimize how red and full it was. "I um...yeah. I'm all right," she said. It wasn't exactly a lie. She wasn't going to die or anything, but her mouth was throbbing a bit when she talked, making her pronunciation slightly off. She sighed and blinked hard. "I just sort of clunked myself when I was taking the pod apart." She rolled her eyes and shook her head at herself to show how silly she thought she was. And was that a trace of blood on her front teeth? Maybe.

Minerva felt like she was close to having all the seeds, she hoped she was close at least. Moving through the pod she found another seed.. That made eight, she searched for more as she felt her fingers growing tired from all the fine motor skills it was taking to sift through the pod.

Scrunching her fingers, she tried to get the restless feelings out of them. It would be done soon, just a few more spots on the pod she hadn't checked. Looking closer, she found yet another seed. Pulling it out, she set it with the rest and then started looking again. Just as she thought she as done, Minerva came across a last and lonely seed. Pulling it out of the pod and setting it down she looked up to see what the next direction would be.

Scooting her stool toward a work station and sitting down, Peyton waited not so patiently. She wanted a seed nooow. She was curious as to how the inside looked. As the professor passed by and left her an umbrella seed, Peyton bounced in her seat energetically.

GRIIIIIIIIIIIN.

The fourth year studied the seed before actually peeling the shell off. "Hmmmm." How was she going to peel it off? It was rock hard. Not exactly rock hard, but it was the only thing she could compare it to right now. She knocked the sturdy shell with her knuckles. It was hard all right.

She began by pulling back one of the brown sections. Peyton could hear the stretching crackling of the peel. It cracked, snapping her arm backward due to the force she had used. Luckily no one had been standing behind her or they'd have receive a Baltazar knuckle sandwich.

Honestly West didn't get why so many people seemed to be having trouble. He got the fibrous membrane free and pulled it carefully out of the pod, immediately noting that there were a few loose seeds in there so he put the cottony looking stuff aside, and scooped out the three seeds that were in the pod. The last of the pod went aside of course and the seeds into a new pile.

He picked the fluff up again and again noticed some seeds had come free... strange. So they weren't actually attached they were just in there? That gave him an idea and West gently began shaking the stuff, so that the loose ones would fall on the workstation and he could sweep them into a pile with his free hand.

With another triumphant tug the fluff's resistance had disintegrated. This, was wonderful. She really rather like the fact that she could easily pluck at the seeds in the center - well, most of them that is.

She beamed some more when she realized that she could easily - well, more easily pull apart the inner fluff bits and grab the seeds that were clinging to the sides of it. Yeah, she had the heart of the pod opened and the seeds in a bowl in front of her but she wanted to collect as many as possible.

So she plucked meticulously at the fluff and pulled the straggling seeds out of the fluff. Putting the straggling seeds into the bowl she quickly collected the pod shell shards, the fluff bits and every possibly discard-able thing from the class into a little bowl. She didn't know if they would need it for Potions later this term.

It was a good thing she was wearing gloves. There were numerous of times Peyton had dug her fingers on the edge of the shell in attempts of yanking it off. She did though, want to take her gloves off to touch all the fluff, BUUUT Professor Bentley said they had to have their gloves on. And Peyton wasn't stupid enough to do in front of other students.

Eyebrows knitted together and her bottom lip between her teeth, Peyton tugged at the last piece of shell. Despite her face expression, she was really giddy to brush out the seeds. If she could, she'd just pluck them out with her fingers.

CraaaAAAAACK!

The last bit of shells snapped off, sending smaller pieces of shell into the air and--

"Oww!" Peyton giggled as a piece hit her cheek. That was soooo not part of the plan, but she was in too much of a good mood to complain. SMILE.

Ethan really wasn't making much progress on this shell.. surely it should be easier than this? He kept pulling at it, breaking off small pieces of the shell, still the majority of it was still left. He needed to rethink his strategy here.

He looked around the room a bit to see everyone else's progress. And he caught sight of Eliza again. Nodding slowly at her words, he said, "Looks like you got a bit of a fat lip." The shell must have really gotten the best of her, but she did seem to be alright.. and she was making better progress than him. He gave her an encouraging smile and continued with his own work. Ethan hit the shell against the edge of the table, creating cracks in the shell. He stuck his gloved fingers into the cracks and tugged it apart, able to break off much bigger pieces.

As he made better progress taking apart the shell, he glanced to his side. Minerva was really doing such a good job on her pod.. looked like she was almost done even. She really was doing so much better in this class and that made him happy. "You're doing a good job," he said with an encouraging smile for her as well. Then he removed the last few pieces of the shell.

Searching with two hands was much easier for Alice. It was so much simpler when she could hold aside the fibers with one hand and pull seeds with another. Of course, she'd only picked a seed out so far, but that was PROGRESS, right? Kind of. It just took so much effort, having to stick her fingers ALL the way and then push stuff away and pick out seeds simultaneously. Like, she just wasn't that capable. Really. In all seriousness.

She prodded another seed and tried to grab at it.

And missed. AGAIN.

Alice obviously was paying more attention to other things that seeding, so she concentrated as hard as she could on the shell-less POD and just the shell-less POD and not on things that were not shell-less PODS. And, look at that, focusing meant like three more seeds were out. Great, that was like four in total. Only 272929292 more to go, no big deal.

Once he'd shaken as many seeds free as he could, West started methodically rolling the fibres in his fingers, loosening more seeds and letting them drop free. West swept them into a pile and peeked over to see how other certain people were doing before going back to it.

Just rolling the fibres and being patient loosened almost all the seeds, which were easy enough to spot given they were black and the fibres white. The last few he picked out with a gentle brush of the finger, then double checked he had them all.

Cool.

West put his pile of seeds together, and put the fibres aside so that he neatly had three piles: broken pod shell, inner fibres, and the seeds.

Done.

Peyton stared at the fibrous membrane, rubbing her gloved hands together as if she was about to dive in. She poked at the fluff and then wiggled her fingers and submerged her hand into the fluffy membrane.

Naturally the term membrane would have Peyton thinking about goo, but this was fluffy stuff she could deal with.

Raking her fingers through fluff, her fingers bumped against several objects. She curled her fingers around them and slowly pulled them out.

Ooooooooooooooh! :3

SEEDS.

With sparkly eyes she grinned down at three seeds in her palm. This was good. Extremely good. ^____^

It would have been so much more interesting if it was a snargaluff pod. Alice delved a little deeper into the pod this time, pushing the fibers further out of the way so she could gdt to the middle, because there were probably loads of seeds hidden in there. She shoved a bit more of the nesty bits away and to the side to see a ton of them waiting in the center for her.

Success! Alice started grabbing for them immediately, pulling handfuls out at a time until only little ones still nestled into the fibers remained. She was grinning ear to ear, mostly because her pile was getting bigger and she was almost finished. The majority of them had been gathered, right?

With the shell broken away, Dylan was free to give the pod a careful once over. He'd never dealt with anything like this before. So, there was more to learn...Like why the inside was so...fibrous...Even with gloves on, the substance felt weird to him.

It was kinda making the Slytherin...cringe...

Digging his hand down into the pod carefully, he began feeling around...was he suppose to detach this membrane stuff and remove it was a whole? It all felt like a big mass of mush in his hands. Deciding to try, though, Dylan gently ran his hand along the inside, around the belly of the pod. Surprisingly enough, the membrane came loose easily, parting ways with the sides and bunching up.

Keeping the actual pod steady with one hand, he gathered the fuzzy-feeling blob and tugged it out.

Could he set this thing down...on the workstation?

Right. Activity time.

Kat went to get her stool and found a place to work. She needed her space and everyone had their own little station. There was no need to actually steal another place to work.

After Professor Bentley had given her a pod, Kat gave the woman a polite nod and smile. Sort of her way of saying thanks for giving her a pod. With her hands wearing gloves so that she didn't have to worry about those... burning sensation and irritation that the Professor had been talking about, Kat examined her pod. It was definitely hard. She even tried knocking on it. Yep.

It was like a coconut.

The sixth year then started peeling the shell. She struggled trying to take it away. PULL. She was putting so much force into it. Okay, it wasn't going to exactly open...

... But was that a crack? Oh yeah, she was on the right track now, wasn't she? Maybe just a little bit more peeling and pulling yeah?

This was all about collecting seeds...So, Dylan just set the stuff carefully on the workstation surface and went about picking seeds. First and foremost, he checked the pod. It was kinda like popcorn in comparison. Sometimes kernels stuck to the bag...whenever you were trying to get the popcorn out after microwaving it. The melted butter would stick them in place...

He wasn't disappointed either.

Several seeds were gathered at different points in the bottom, stuck in place by mush. The Slytherin ran his fingers across the area, carefully and gently breaking them free. Once they'd all been loosened, he tilted the pod to the side, causing them to gather in the curve of it's middle.

With the other hand, Dylan scooped them up, moving the few seeds to the counter of his workstation. His pile had been started. Checking and double-checking the pod, he deemed it cleared out and focused his attention on the membrane stuff now.

Surely there would be seeds stuck in that mess....