Huoxing, Tuxing, Jinxing, Shuixing, and Muxing were quite pleased with a lot of the action that seemed to buzz around Animalia's Chinese New Year celebration. It wasn't something that Americans traditionally engaged in and in some cases, even those that were originally of Chinese descent, they had been in America for so many successive generations that various elements of China's cultural celebrations diluted over time. And Lyre/Animalia didn't really have that, so far as they knew prior to the first outbreak of the Animalia Virus, Lyre's Chinese-American population could have been counted on one hand.
Yet after Animalia was formed, Lyre saw a slight increase in the number of people from China or Japan come, mostly to convert for one reason or another, and with a few deciding to stay as various Animalians got attracted into certain aspects of Chinese/Japanese culture. Things like martial arts tended to be one of the bigger driving factors, which the Elements had agreed was mostly due to the popularity of some martial arts movies. Nate had admitted that much to Shuixing back when they first met. From there, Chinese New Year became a fairly big part of Animalia's year.
Some traditional elements of Chinese New Year were there, but Animalia added certain elements that were all its own. The competitions and tournaments for who would represent the year was the big thing, and often related to Animalians who fit that Animal species for that year. The best guess that Huoxing managed was that because Animalia was populated by anthropomorphic animals, celebrating the year and the animal in question would be a big thing. Especially when there were plenty of Animalians that fit that particular animal, thus for Animalia it wasn't so much about the calendar but about the animal. This year meant the Year of the Rat.
"There are actually more here than I thought would be," Jinxing commented as the five of them came out of the area where one of the preliminaries from part of the main competition.
"Most are probably members of the Piper clan," Tuxing said calmly to her Snow Leopard Animalian sister, "particularly the ones that are a solid brown in color."
"I'd imagine the ones that were some variation of white, black and white, or brown and white were all pet rats that were uplifted," Jinxing commented, noting that while many pet rats often had visual differences from wild rats when it came to their coloration and coat patterns, the species was still the same, the Brown Rat. They'd likely all been uplifted in Lyre's pet stores on in private homes.
"I wonder if that'd help them win," Muxing mused for a moment, "as I don't think they'd be able to match Mary Piper in terms of size and strength."
The others knew that fairly well. While they didn't have much in the way of contact with Mary Piper or her family, the circumstances that lead to her living in Lyre's sewers and avoiding contact wherever possible was well known by now through what had been reported following her arrest during Animalia's second Halloween. Once Horizon essentially "fixed" what had caused Mary's ineffective and incomplete conversion from what had been the precursor strain to what became the Animalia Virus, it was also well known that doing so had also drastically increased the size of both Mary and Jack Piper. Which when comparing Mary Piper to other female Rat Animalians that had been uplifted from pet stores or private homes gave Mary a fairly clear size advantage.
"Well, from what they've advertised," Shuixing spoke with a nod at the knowledge of Mary Piper's size advantage over other Brown Rat (including pet or "Fancy Rat") Animalians, "size and strength won't be the only... or potentially even the biggest thing. There will be some agility, balance, and related contests that may counter her size a bit."
"I wonder what they'll do for the Year of the Tiger," Jinxing said to Tuxing and elbowing Tuxing in the ribs, "see what you'll have to do to win."
"I really hadn't thought on competing," Tuxing said honestly, "I mean there are a fair number of Tiger Animalians, probably because there are many that live outside of Asia that have the Tiger as their favorite Animal... and well... I wouldn't wish to come off as trying to put anyone down."
"It wouldn't be putting anyone done, and people do seem to have fun with the competition," Huoxing countered with a confident smile, "and I'd bet you'd win... Just as Shuixing will win when they get to the Year of the Ox... given how successful she is... boyfriend and everything."
"And you and Nate did get along well after Christmas and the "American" New Year," Muxing commented as she caught up with her sisters, "You might be able to do that as a team... The King and Queen..."
Shuixing could feel her checks blush and hoped that no one would see it through her black fur, though privately she wasn't opposed to the idea. Nate had always been polite, and what had started in a sort of teacher/student relationship into something more, and something Shuixing didn't want to lose, either. She'd actually had a dream or two of her and Nate together saying their wedding vows in before retiring to a secluded honeymoon cottage where they would consummate their marriage and make Nate into bull Water Buffalo Animalian. But she also knew that Nate had to finish college and that for the moment his father had issues on who would inherit his farm.
Now it was possible that Nate's father might end up falling for one of the cows that had moved back to the Bowman farm and the nearby town. Particularly as Nate had commented that they, and particularly Blueberry seemed to have some interest in Nate's father, which Nate had said was fairly common according to some of the articles that he'd read that animals that had lived with closely with Humans, either as pets or livestock often developed relations with Humans after being uplifted that often was taken in ways that could be surprising. In some cases the uplifted Animal would see the owner as a parental figure, similar to how Malice saw Julia Wesley as her mother and JC saw Sophie as his mother after their respective uplifting. In others it was a brother/sister type of relationship, as Malice had with Sarah or Roger with Codey Lightfoot. In others the relationship became romantic, as Abby's had with Samson. So far it looked like Blueberry had fallen into that last category with regard to Nate's father, but there was always the possibility of Nate's father saying "no."
Which would then change some things for Shuixing, as she finding herself more and more in love with Nate the more they talked and were able to spend time together when time and finances allowed. But if his father didn't want Blueberry or one of the other cows, Nate was the only one who would be able to inherit the farm and Shuixing sort of got the sense that if he did inherit, he wasn't going to just sell it to a realtor or some corporate group. That would then mean that if she wanted to be with Nate, she might have to leave her sisters, and while all of them had chosen different Animalians to become and in some ways had different goals and dreams, leaving them wasn't quite on Shuixing's list of goals and thus hadn't spent any time on it. But if Nate's father didn't recognize the affections directed at him and become an Animalian, Shuixing might have to make that decision.
"Shuixing!" came Tuxing's voice snapping her out of her thoughts.
"Sorry... I... I got a bit side-tracked," Shuixing admitted.
"I'm sure..." Tuxing nodded, "Nate Bowman has been most polite to you and you've both seemed to get on quite well. Wanting to be happy isn't a bad thing. Don't let Huoxing and Jinxing's teasing let you feel otherwise."
"Thank you," Shuixing managed a small smile.
"Now, let's go get something to eat," Tuxing commented.