While the real festivities in February wouldn't be officially beginning until next week, there are those people who prefer to come in early to "stake their claim", "camp out", etc., in order to get the best seats, so to speak. However, there were a few who were arriving early for other reasons, most of which had nothing to do with the upcoming events.
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The most well-known of these was Miss Zhen's arrival with a group of old ladies with "lotus foot syndrome", as it was politely called. While Horizon didn't turn them away, the fact that they were all 70+ years old put them on the "watch list" for RHS. Also, Miss Zhen was introduced to the other members of Madge's 'cabal' and didn't mind adding her astrology knowledge to the group.
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Another thing that wasn't tied to the festivities next week was another group of "refugees" from California, though not from war or prejudice. It was because California is, once again, getting hammered with rain due to an atmospheric river. While it wasn't as bad as it was last time, there were still a lot of problems necessitating evacuations, and Animalia was willing to shelter them for a bit. If anything, the newest atmospheric river was showing which neighborhoods could be "renovated" into Animalia neighborhoods.
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Another thing that was going on was actually due to Miles having an exclusive Animalia Ambassadoria Press Pass, which he could use for access to a VIP room for his coverage of the Super Bowl, specifically the Animalians in the Halftime Show, and the Animalia Cheer Squad, Of course, this would result in some people, especially girls, trying to mooch a "free pass" to the Super Bowl, especially with how expensive tickets can get. Unfortunately, but hilariously, all these attempts would fail since the pass said, very specifically, that only members of Animalia Ambassadoria were allowed such a pass.