Even though the threat of war is still fresh, only barely averted at best, nature carries on, and so do the many inhabitants of the world Above. The spring festivities are in full swing in all but the smallest of villages, filled with all manner of happy noises from both companions and dragons alike, and the growth spurt of many plants provided ample and varied food for the wildlife and the inhabitants, bringing new life with it as couples welcome new additions to the family. It was almost as if the war never was, and it was a very refreshing change of pace from it.

Or, at least, Fenek thought it was. He felt so sore and drained, yet as if he hadn't contributed much to the effort at all. Even though the matriarch had sent him off on this festivity as a reward for doing his part, it felt like he didn't deserve it at all. Still, he'd be hard pressed to refuse or contradict her, so he at least tried to enjoy his stay, snooping around the many food stands and small fair games. Nothing there really caught the male's attention, not until he found himself in front of a large board that clearly had some sort of signup on it, but he didn't know the common script enough to read what it was about and was too embarrassed to ask around.

The wyvern sat down near it and watched as a couple of dragons and companions wrote their names down, or so he assumed, and there was no bad gut feeling in the thought of joining, so he awkwardly approached to sign himself up. Of course, he still wasn't sure how to write his own name in properly, but figured just writing in Below script would work... well enough. When he tried to do so, however, his nose bumped into a large, very vibrant armored claw.

"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to nick you.... Did I nick you? I can't see my belly well propped up like this." The sapiere female was quick to apologize, but Fenek's mind barely registered it over the pretty sight in front of him. If he thought Ramaia was pretty, this drakaina was beauty incarnate. Every scale on her body shone a thousand different colors, and yet they managed to come together in even more intricate patterns on her body, wings and flowing frills. It took her basically flicking him down on his bum for him to snap out of it, and the male dropped down in a confused daze.

"Huh, what, yeah... wait no no! You didn't nick me, don't worry." was his not very dignified response at all, and the female began to giggle, extending her claw to him so he could pull himself back up. Fenek felt incredibly bad for being sort of rude though, trying to not look at her as he scribbled his name onto the list. She, obviously, noticed, and waved her claw at this "Oh, don't worry! I'm used to folk staring at my colors, it's normal for me. I'm Calypso by the way, and you are..." the female squinted to see the writing on the list, but found she could not understand it at all. "..Not around here I see..."

"Y- yeah, I'm sort of on a vacation. My name's Fenek." He tried to keep the conversation going while at the same time trying not to stare. Calypso saw her cue and continued, frills up and about as ever.

"So, what makes you sign up for the Egg and Seek?"

"Egg and Seek? Is that what it says?"

"Wait, you can't read that? Why'd you join up then?"

"It seemed interesting enough...?"

This greatly amused the sapiere, who let out a rumbling below equivalent to a booming human laugh. "You're silly, I like that." His feathers immediately perked up at that "The Egg and Seek is this new event the empires are holding: You sign up and get assigned to a huge area with a couple of others to find dummy eggs over a course of a couple of days. The winners of each lot then get pitted against each other. The rewards are a secret, but I hear they're incredibly good!"

It certainly gave him something to do for the remainder of the leave, so he wasn't about to complain. They made some more small talk, mostly on where they each live, and parted ways soon after. Two days later, Fenek got a knock on the door of his room, and a familiar colorful face pushed its way inside. "Finally found you! The results were out yesterday, but they couldn't find you on account of your writing so I nabbed the list for you. We're on the same team!" The male was quite a bit surprised, but then remembered that he did sign himself with the Below script.

"Thanks for telling me, I guess I'll see you there then? When's the competition starting?"

"In two hours!"

"WHAT."