It was a pristine sunny day in the rolling meadows of Mireh. "Inner peace… Inner peace…" Aeon shut his eyes, breathing deeply and moving internally to trace the paths of his chi energy. His mate, a golden iridescent rook sat beside him, guarding his sacred space. A hop, skip, and a jump away across the hill, a striped soluno named Zeru was foraging through the rabbit dens, searching for hidden items.

"ANOTHER DAMN GRASSY HILL!" A loud, screaming complaint fell over them. It was none other than Skritch, a four-armed tsabhua. He might've been a runt of his species, but he had a huge attitude. "Why did we even stop here in the first place?" He cried, his stomach growling loudly.

Sharkbait, a black and blue belemoid at his side, gave an exasperated sigh. "We didn't–" he answered, "You crashed the submarine, remember? You said we couldn't afford the second buoyancy tank, and now we're stuck here in the highlands!"

Aeon gave a frustrated groan. It ushered his mate upwards from where the common rook had been sitting. The blue soluno's small bear ears flicked too, and he followed the triumphant Dorian up to the loud intruders. "My lord must not be disturbed!" Dorian called out to the two, "I kindly ask that you two finish your conversation elsewhere."

Sharkbait bit his breath as Skritch went into a rage, yelling, "REEE!" and flying at the golden rook. Zeru watched on in shock as the two turned into a whirlwind of fighting fury. "Do I have to fix everything?" Aeon sighed, standing up. The Moonwatch monk took one lift of his magical staff, and bonked both the violent offenders on the head.

"Now, you two cut it out!" Aeon demanded. Zeru cringed at the growing welts on the two's heads, feeling more concerned by the moment over the growing dispute. "But he attacked me!" Dorian complained, earning him another smack.

"We don't want to be here any more than you want us here!" Sharkbait stood up for him and his captain, "We just need to gather some food, and we'll be on our way! He's just hangry!" Skritch growled again like a feral cat, lashing his claws out at Dorian.

"I'm searching for eggs," Zeru agreed, "Why don't you two look with me, and then you can feel better?" Skritch's eyes softened lightly, feeling redemption. "I'm a monk," Aeon's eyes brightened, "If someone is hungry, we must work to feed them. There must be some plants around."

Dorian sighed but nodded, agreeing with his mate. Sharkbait watched on, impressed. "T-Thank you," he bowed his head, entirely grateful. "We'll really be out of your hair then, promise!" Skritch tried to grumble something else out about making money, but the belemoid clapped his paws around his mouth.

"I've found one so far," Zeru smiled as he padded through the rolling wild grass, admiring the red kittenkiss flowers in the distance. The Mireh hills were a series of high altitude plateaus with a speckling of old trees. In the warm season, shepherds often lead their flock through here, and if you were lucky, you could find bits of wool in the wind, not to be mistaken for the native cotton. The sun seemed to shine perpetually here, rising early in the morning and setting late into the pink-hued sky.

"In… Here? I don't see anything!" Skritch raised an eyebrow at the abandoned rabbit's burrow. A bit of discarded grey bunny fur tickled his nose, causing him to sneeze. "Don't be so dismissive," Sharkbait shook his head at his captain and reassured the soluno.

"Let's look inside." While they poked into a hole searching for eggs, Aeon and Dorian nearby were admiring the ripe, red fruit hanging from one of the pink trees. "Grumberries," The monk remembered keenly from some old tome or another. "From the Encyclopedia Plantica."

The burrow was deep but empty, all except for some moss flowering with small mushrooms. "Well, no eggs," Skritch scratched his head with one of his smaller arms. Zeru looked at him a bit oddly, surprised by his number of limbs. "These are mossrooms!" Sharkbait eagerly plucked one of the pieces. "We can cook these."

Zeru's frown grew, though--another den without any of the painted eggs. Had another soluno already searched the hills and collected them all? Aeon, high on his tip-toes, plucked one of the grumberries. He reached it out towards Dorian, who jumped into a quick solute. "Yes, my Lord!" He declared, then accepting the fruit into his protective grasp.

Zeru tried to hold back his disappointment–but it was clear in his big, blue eyes. "I-It's okay," he mumbled, "I already found one." Even Skritch, with greed and hunger that could outweigh a god of coin, couldn't help but feel an ounce of empathy. "I declare–" he jumped up onto a smooth boulder, "We shall not stop searching until we find Zeru another egg!" Sharkbait blinked at his bizarre captain.

"That's what we're doing," he mumbled, glancing off after the iridescent kukuri pair. They turned towards the trio with four grumberry between them. "Surely fruits can sustain you?" Astara spoke emotionlessly.

"Sustain me? Forget about that, I want to sell–" Sharkbait covered Skritch's mouth with a grey paw. "We'll take all the help we can get," he answered for the Captain, "But there's more of us–our whole colony crash landed together." His eyes followed after Zeru's striped, mermaid-like tail as the standard soluno scrounged through the tall grasses.

"How many more?" Dorian breathed, feeling an unusual anxiety for his typically composed self. "There's fourty of us!" Skritch shrieked, only to be shut up again. "Four. There's four." The Lord Aeon gave his mate a concerned look. "I'll keep gathering," Dorian grumbled, not wanting to disappoint his lord. "Maybe we'll even find some of those eggs."

The washed-ashore submariners, the soluno, and the two kukuri spent the next warm hour foraging through the overgrown meadows. Eon held a soft moment wherein a blue butterfly landed upon his nose. Dorian smiled even as his hands were burdened with kittenkiss, grumberries, and angelberries. Skritch and Sharkbait made ridiculous banter, entertaining the crowd with their stories of undersea domes and kelp sandwiches. "I'm glad we aren't eating those," Zeru stuck out his tongue as he leapt out from a rabbit tunnel.