It wasn't too long after the huge holiday tree had vanished from the main entertainment hall, when other things started happening in the Healing Den. There was a tiny spat of hearts and flowers - Valentine's day came and went with some lovely chocolate treats and 'enough for the whole class' passed around valentines cards (some were really, really naughty, and some were the most adorably cute 'my 5-year-old made these in kindergarden-without-knowing-how-to-spell). Baeris liked Valentine's day. It was an excuse to get the lump, er, Kalkin, out of the labs and into a nice suit, and herself into a snug dress, and time to go out on the town.

Such as the 'towns' were - they could hit Talon City, Crescent, Star City, Ablan... They chose the Zekiran city of Ablan, to wine and dine and play like they were rich Breeder folks there. No one would say otherwise, they had all the right appearance and attitude, after all. Plus, with some of the people who had dragonries there, they didn't need to worry about whose money they were actually spending on each other's extremely expensive imported non-Ablan non-cherry wine.

When they got back the next day, literally the next day, the Healing Den had undergone another rather abrupt transition into a weirder holiday. It was Spring somewhere, or getting there. And there were bright bouquets and tall lillies and baskets with fake grass in them everywhere. And eggs.

Oh my goddess, the eggs.

"Buzz killer," Kalkin muttered, and Baeris echoed the sentiment.

"I'm not counting them," Baeris announced in general, of the eggs, which normally she did compulsively count and record. They were vast in number, and very small in size. Not as tiny as the normal flitters eggs, which could only mean they were some other very small dragon eggs. There were very small dragons in great supply here in the Healing Den. There were ... what, Terigons, Rukels, Turkeys, Rabbits... All manner of weird mixy dragon genes scattered through the spaces of the Den's halls. Baeris suspected that the bunny-dragon and some of the other small (more edible) dragons had done something - half of the eggs smelled of chocolate, while another half give or take, seemed extremely bright and shiny. They weren't painted, but they were all gaudy as getout.

One of their kids sprang through the big room, followed by two more Ivo-offspring, and a spare xeno-shifter to boot. "Wheeee!" Kali giggled, "we learned about Easter today at school - it's an old Earth custom, about rebirth and renewal and no more snow!"

Her brother Baelin came shuffling in, "I liked the snow," he muttered. "Stupid eggs, they'll probably all just be hard boiled."

"You like hard boiled eggs!" Yavin (one of the Ivo brats) said when he shifted into a halfway human form. "I like playing with em, they're not fragile like those blown ones..."

So it went. The Den would be having its own holiday festival this year, for Spring. Well it stood to reason. There had been plenty of darker, dimmer Autumn holidays celebrated here (and lots of moody emo skull-loving dragons to prove it). So why not a bright and happy rebirthy kind of festival!

"I'm really not going to like what comes out of these eggs, am I?" Baeris muttered, looking at the basket of them which her daughter (most recent) had gathered. The grinning black-haired gap-toothed girl shook her head madly and laughed, knowing perfectly well exactly how to make her mother the most frustrated. She'd obviously be keeping whatever was in the eggs, herself. "What are you doing?!" Baeris snapped when she saw Kalkin doing the same.

"Well... basket... grass... peeps!" He tossed a marshmallow Peep at her, which bounced off of her shoulder, and was gobbled up by Striker who was happy to see his mistress again. Dulath welcomed her rider, cheerfully - everyone was always so damn cheerful.

Baeris was always so darn moody - but everyone knew that. Including the Den. It had spared her own office and rooms the redecoration, but almost all the rest of the wandering asteroid's halls and offices had. Plastic eggs, cutouts of bunnies and chickies and flowers.

Baeris was halfway tempted to steal one of those gruesome crucifixes she'd seen in another universe, just to balance it all out... It had something to do with when they celebrated this thing didn't it?

Instead, she settled herself by chomping the head off a white-chocolate bunny and getting back to work.

There was a distinct moment when they knew that something odd had occurred - even odder than the redecorated interior of the Den. There was a huge thump, as though the Den itself, bodily, had been hit by something. That was impossible - none the less, Baeris sent Dulath out to discover if anything wandering around Outside had really hit the place. She half expected the greeny-gold dragon to come back saying someone's starship had lodged itself in the Den, but that didn't happen.

"Nothing," Dulath commented, with a shrug, "but we all felt it."

Things had even fallen, few enough broken bits, but some disarray especially in the labs. It was when Baeris went out to tour the place and make sure for herself that nothing particularly had really broken when she noticed something quite strange. About the eggs. At first she hadn't even bothered looking at them. Within mere hours of their return, she'd blotted them out of her mind with studies of genetics and poisonous plants, and that kind of thing. As she'd walked through the main hall though, she did feel a little strange. It was quiet, no one was watching the big plasma tv - but then her kids were asleep still, and Kalkin was wherever he was at this hour.

"I didn't do it!" Said Ivo, halfway still puffed up, for some reason, his tail poofy but most of the rest of him human enough to speak. "I swear!"

"I wouldn't have - wait... what.... is that?" Baeris' gaze landed on one of the eggs. They were hidden, halfway around things. Behind potted plants, in the corner of stairs, on the tops of wide doorframes.

But they were different. There were the same number of them, and they were all in the same gaudy colors (and still smelled of chocolate). But - there was something just downright odd about the whole thing. Maybe it was that it was around four in the morning, and she was half asleep. She sighed, "well, whatever. When these things hatch there'd better be enough people around to claim whatever comes out of them." She staggered back into her sleep den, while Ivo puttered around.

Normally he'd be asleep too. But there was something odd about the eggs, and he summoned Zkoth so he could clear out for the time being.

Of course, he left his kids, but that's what he usually did, and they were asleep themselves somewhere up with Kali and Baelin. He didn't think they'd be in any danger, he just... didn't want to stick around for the moment. He too liked the snowy tree filled room a little better than this.