Once school was over for Christmas Break, several humans and Animalians came home to find several surprises. The biggest surprise, in a matter of speaking, was that a really heavy rain, followed by an intense cold snap, had glazed Lyre/Animalia with a good sheen of ice, causing all kinds of slippery shenanigans.
Fortunately, not everyone was taking annoyance at this. There was one entrepreneur who was making rubber horseshoes with metal studs especially for Horse Animalians, which was actually quite appreciated. There were a few other surprises that weren't tied to ice, to keep things interesting.
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When Abby and Samson arrived back at the Brown Farm, Abby, in particular, was surprised by the new buildings that were on the property, especially the "communal barracks" for the farms hired hands, who were mainly either horse or cattle Animalians. She was significantly less surprised that Sylvia was still on the farm, due to the stallion Animalians. She was intrigued to learn that her mother had "a surprise" for her but wouldn't share it until Christmas morning. Though Abby did notice that she was eating a little more than usual.
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Maggie was almost floored by her surprise. When she came out to interview a new teacher, she was stunned to see a massively muscular Great Dane Animalian with an enormous puppy bump. In fact, not only was it large enough to make her wonder how Rox was still standing, but it also seemed to be... moving on its own.
"Sorry if I'm a little underdressed for this," apologized Rox, "The pups are just really active today."
"I can see that..." replied Maggie, mutely.
Fortunately for both sides, the Interview passed rather normally, without too much trouble. Maggie was certainly looking forward to working with Rox, especially with the ex-show dogs that would be coming to ASM.
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The final surprising thing came from the GGAC when they arrived at Heiya Island. By this time, they were fluent in both Chinese and Japanese, so they were able to avoid the usual tourist faux pas, but they were still wrong-footed about a few things, especially about the fangirl/fanboy mob they were expecting once they arrived.
While they had expected their group to develop a fanbase, they never expected it to be quite as large (or handsy, in the case of some of the Animalians) as what they encountered. Peter's parents also "got in on the fun" and several girls cooed over how Peter's new siblings were "so kawaii", much to their polite confusion.
Fortunately, Aiko was able to keep things under control enough to get them settled in. After they got settled into their "first-class rooms" at the hot springs inn they were staying in, Ami was able to show them the map of Ryouiki Island, as well as the archaeological sites they'd be helping with and the location of the Thousand-Year Peach Tree. There was also the map of the third island (unofficially called Zach Island on the website, the name still officially undecided), but that was still in the planning stages.
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The final surprise actually came from Claw Coliseum. It officially announced its first Animalian football match, though due to Animalians unique physicality, it was more like a rugby match. While the match would be waiting for warmer weather, there was still a lot of hype being generated about it.
One of the reasons why it had taken so long to get professional sports to come to Animalia (apart from designing gear for them) was the simple fact that an Animalian's increased strength (whether male or female) had an unfortunate habit of damaging/destroying things. Ever since Animalia began, there was literally no counting the number of balls (no matter the sports) that had been punctured by claws, wrecked by hooves, unintentionally flattened by Animalian rumps, etc., though some of the memes that resulted from these accidents were kind of funny.