These Easter Eggs Have Money In Them Right?

Here we go again. Another festival. In Magnolia Town no less. Those two together generally meant nothing to most people. Well, maybe it meant fun and joy or something positive that could be turned into some motivational cheer of goodwill, sunshine, and rainbows. For Aliarey, it was terrifying. It brought on the memories of that Christmas festival that turned weird the last time the blonde visited Magnolia Town during some fun time social gettogether. It had to have been some weird fluke though. Aliarey liked Magnolia Town in general. That was why she was even there again. During a festival. It was worth the risk, right? Surely nothing weird could happen with egg painting and four-leaf clover hunts. The same thing could have been said for the Christmas festival of the past really, but the requip mage was ready to not think about it too much and just forget that detail. This time things would go great. It'd be awesome. It'd be normal. Or as normal as things could be when living in a world of magic.

As has become habitual and routine, Aliarey had contacted Diana to hang out. It was a good excuse. It had been a while since they last saw each other and festivals seemed to bring the two together since for some reason the both of them never had anything else planned. Shocking as that was in current days. The Ishgar Symposium was the last time they did anything together and that ended up being a complete waste of effort that would have taken their lives if they hadn't been lucky enough to finish their job and got out of Felidae City before it... evaporated? Aliarey didn't know what to call it. It was depressing keeping up with all of that and Aliarey didn't like anything depressing.

She and Diana hadn't really talked all that much since then. The continent, after all, was changing. There was a war going on. Aliarey didn't know much about what Diana was doing about it, but as for herself, she was staying far away from it. The money that could be made sounded good and all, but facing off against Pergrande was not something she was taking lightly. The worst of the worst monsters sounded like safer opponents than that country and their oblivium. If things got too bad Aliarey and her family already had plans to bail. For now though, Fiore was still pretty safe and the day-to-day life was pretty much the same. A cheery spring festival going on was proof of that. Some people might have viewed it as silly to have such laidback fun when there were major things going on a few countries over that could inevitably reach Fiore, but those people could go run into the nearest volcano as far as Aliarey was concerned. She wanted at least one more laidback event with Diana before things got worse or she left entirely. If she were lucky, there'd be even more down the road because the war didn't reach home. It was probably best to assume that her times of luck were rare. The whole Felidae incident probably took what was left for her entire life. Oh well.

Aliarey sat on one of the park benches waiting for Diana to show up. Normally she would have entertained herself by participating in one of the activities while waiting, but this time she just figured she'd wait on her friend for once. Besides, listening to the music playing on her iLac was good enough. With her earphones in she couldn't hear much of anything else, which worked well to drown out the annoying combination of noises from the festival. It'd be easy enough for Diana to find her even if she was a bit distracted while jamming to her music. Aliarey would be wearing a different outfit than usual, but it was pretty similar and still allowed her to be recognizable from the rest of the crowd.

(Word Count: 660)