The Universe's Mixer

"Great Scott!" Peggy breathed, watching the large, avian-like thing flying about as if it were perfectly normal. What the creature was, the agent wasn't quite sure. She had never seen anything like it where she was from and she had witnessed a good many things. Her time was still considered ancient, vintage even. If she heard "retro" or "vintage" one more time, though, someone was going to get a fist to the jaw. She couldn't stand what was now labelled as "throwback". What in the bloody hell was that?

That was a good question in itself.

Shopping no longer seemed an important task.

Peggy had left her apartment with the hope that she would be out, free from the burden of her nice but strange room mate (who did bring a goat to live with them) and to clear her mind of the stress sharing brought. She wouldn't kick Siggy out, she couldn't do that to the woman. But it was a tad bit frustrating having to deal with a lifestyle much more primitive than her own. The agent did her best to be understanding and patient, but there was always a line and Siggy was slowly approaching it.

The agent stepped up next to a skinny, awkward looking man whom seemed about her own age and she placed a hand on his forearm. "Do you see that?" Peggy inquired, her British accent ringing out stronger than ever in the question itself.

She had to make sure she wasn't going absolutely bonkers. Being a nut wasn't an attractive feature though she had an idea that Steve would support her despite being locked in the looney bin for seeing strange birds. "Fascinating," Peggy breathed next. Her eyes finally pulled from the bird-thing to look over at the man she had asked the question of. The fact that he might be as clueless as she was did cross her mind, but she still had to be sure.

"Crow! Flank!"

The black Church Griffin, small as it was in comparison to the hadrosaurs, did a remarkably good job of spooking them. He skimmed the left side of the small herd, turning them right, while Alex pedaled behind on a bicycle.

The first thing Alex was going to do after this, he vowed, was to get a street motorcycle. He knew that he looked less than formidible with his backpack dangling from one strap, wearing his work khakis and nametag clip, and pedaling like a lunatic on a blue bike after eight hadrosaurs (probably Edmontosaurs given their size) and yelling at something that either looked like a mutant bird or a flying cat.

The mutant bird/flying cat circled back around to pace his bike, for once cooperating with Alex's directions. Together the two worked to herd the giant herbivores into the park.

Once they were properly corralled, Alex got off of his bike, sweating and panting. He fished around in his backpack for a spare dead rat to toss the Church Griffen as a treat for a job well done. Crow caught it in midair and flew with it to a tree, growling as he ripped into it with his sharp claws and beak.

Alex sighed, staring at the now placid Edmontosaurs. Now what?

The easiest thing in the world for Alex Price to do was to settle into a research environment. Preferably one where he had steady access to weird animals, with reptiles and cryptid reptiles a plus.

Being appointed the keeper of the City Zoo's brand new dinosaur exhibit was therefore right up his alley, and he ignored that it was mostly done since he was really the only one with the relevant experience. Not the most experience with the dinosaurs of the people who had come over from the weird island filled with dinosaurs, but the most in terms of sitting around with a notebook observing their habits and dissecting the carcasses instead of eating them. And he was fine with that. In the end, it still meant that he got to continue his research and tweak their habitats to make sure that they were healthy and mentally active and give the occasional necessary lecture to visitors about the representatives of the various species that now lived here among them.

He was glad that he rarely had to give the lectures. Public speaking wasn't his thing and he'd been told that he lost crowds very easily, what with slipping into academic speech instead of people-speech.

There wasn't much in the way of a crowd today, which Alex was also very thankful for. He was blessedly alone in the Nemicolopterus enclosure. Sort of. You couldn't consider yourself that alone with that much harsh tiny squawking as the little brightly colored pterosaurs did little brightly colored pterosaur things. He watched them the way that some people watched tropical fish, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

The weather in the City was pretty much always perfect. There were days with rain, but they were still mostly warm. But there were still seasons. In fall the leaves fell (the trees were never bare, though), in winter there might be some snowflakes (never anything like the one great storm where the City had gotten carried away), and summers were warm and sunny and nobody had school.

Still, this year, the City felt like celebrating spring. Not any particular holiday. Just spring in general. There were new people around, there were couples in love, and it wanted to have a great big party for everyone.

Overnight, it set up the great festival. Streets all around the park were closed off so that people could walk around without issue. The park itself was expanded to over twice the normal size. A great clearing was made in the center, stretching from one side to the other. There needed to be lots of room.

Through this clearing the City placed tents, stands, and tables. These were filled with food and wares of all types. There were representatives for all the popular shops, as well as some that nobody had ever seen there before. There were stands for balloons for the kids, too, free of charge. And flowers absolutely everywhere. Woven into the stands themselves, laying on tables, set up in vases, growing in every patch that the City was sure nobody would accidentally step on them. Colorful ribbons, some as large as crepe streamers, also decorated everything. The City wanted as much color as it could possibly get.

At one end of the clearing the City placed a small carnival. Rides, games, everything it could think of. Even a petting zoo, though some of the animals within weren't typical farm animals that usually went in petting zoos. At the other it placed a few stages for performances. Concerts, plays, musicians. The stages were all contained within their own invisible sound barriers, as to not disturb one another, but the noise from all could be heard on the main promenade.

It put signs up all over, put notices in mailboxes, ads on the radio, commercials on television, and even made Candy and Frank talk about it on the morning news.

The celebration would go from sunrise to midnight. At sunset, the City would have a bonfire, complete with a pig roast and s'mores. At that time, it would move the park closer to the water, creating a beach between for the bonfire to settle on.