"Eighteen contestants." River said, joining the group at the table. This time all of the otters had arrived early and gotten a booth at the now busier Ka-pi farmhouse deck. It was still more than warm enough to drink comfortably outside. "And you've got three weeks. The food contest kicks off just after this years crop of children complete school, right on time before the whole societal events get into the swing of things," Sam said, downing her Ka-pi mug and holding it out for the serving mouse to notice before she placed it on the table. Once again, Chip eyed his friends. "Alright, and now we need to see if any of those are really good, because what... we only have to beat most of them?" Chip said. "Ah! Well there's the first and second place who will get the blast furnace privileges, but also apparently there is a crowd favorite who will get the third," Sam said, "One of the mice? the one in the corner furthest from the stairs? He's won crowd favorite three years in a row with his sweet rolls. Each person who comes for the festival gets on chit that they can put in their favorite stands bucket, at the end the stand with the most chits wins the crowd favorite." Chip smoothed his whiskers, patiently waiting to hear if there was more. "He makes sweet rolls, Fish-daddy," Sela said, leaning in, "They're exceptional." "Hmmm. I wanted to keep the menu short so I wouldn't have to make that much but thinking about it now?" Sam said. River nodded. "There aren't many foxes proportionally, and there might not be many birds, if you intend to win the crowd favorite we'll need some real crowd pleasers, or something unfortunate to happen to the sweetrolls guy." River flashed the raven equivalent of a grin. "You keep saying things like that, and I'm going to call you unkindness," Sam said. "Every time one of you otters mistake me for a Kindness, you know ravens do other things beside become priests and priestesses and join the cartel, right?" River said. The airsucked out of the room. "The cartel?" Sela said. "Ooops." River said, "Forget I said that." "You can't just give us such a juicy detail and not expect followup questions, River," Chip said. "Well...listen you otters have your secrets, and we have ours. We all decided to leave the aviary long ago and make our own path. I'm friendly with them because I'm a druid but a lot of my friends back home? They're disown me for associating with these birds," River sighed, grabbing her headband to inspect it, "Sometimes this is heavier than the weight of my families expectations." "If you're not really a friend to the rest of the aviary, then why are you here?" Sam asked, accepting the mug from the serving mouse, "Thanks!" "I'm here because I'm apprenticed to a mouse druid and she has me tending to sick mice, rabbits and others who come to the circle. The other day she had me meet a midwife to do an assessment of a mouse and see if the mouse would be viable for a pregnancy.." River said. "Again, with the juicy details, River." Sela said. The group giggled.