The magical autumn had broken and in its place... spring! (well, Auster spring.) They'd missed the whole damn season of winter entirely and Zephyr couldn't be more thrilled about it. The land was still cold, but not unbearably so. It was serendipitous how it all worked out, especially as he was originally intending to ask permission from his parents to spend the cold season in Boreas instead.. up until he'd had new siblings to love and play with. There wasn't much that could convince him to willingly remain where it was frigid and awful, but the raptor's inclination toward family was unmatched, he was certain.

With spring came responsibilities and among them, the need to clean stuff up to prepare for summer and Zephyr quickly volunteered his wings where they would be the most useful - cleaning up the fallen leaves of autumn in the grove. With the odd change of seasons the leaves would take longer to decay naturally on the ground, and Zeph had decided to push them together into piles where they could be taken away or hidden and reveal back the grasses and brush of the grove. With heavy wingbeats he flew just above the earth, using the strength of his wings to blow tornados of air into the loose foliage and watching as they scattered and floated away. The work was as fun as it was necessary, and while his goal had been to be neat and efficient about it, the excitable bird got lost in the amusement more than once, blowing leaf tornados onto berry bushes and trying to see if he could impale any of them on thorns. Maybe this was why the adults recommended supervision...

"Zephyr"

With the shift in seasons and the sudden return of Auster's spring, Briar found herself in a bit of a hurry to prepare the berry plants to make sure that they would have the best chance to produce a lot of berries for her wine making efforts. With he odd events that had taken place, the strange shifts in weather and seasons, and of course taking care of her new children and giving family she hadn't had the time she would have wanted to prepare the grove before spring came. Now she had to play a bit of catch up, but that was just how things went. Luckily, Artorias had agreed that the castle and its surrounding lands were in need of some sprucing up as well so having the whole of their pack focusing on that did help. The gardens close to the castle were looking much better and the grape vines she had put there with the help of Gwynevere were growing well. Now that just left the grove on her list and after gathering a few supplies she went out that direction to start cleaning up some leaves and pruning the bushes.

When she arrived she saw a flurry of browned leaves dancing and falling through the trees and she blinked with surprise and confusion while also having to dodge clumps of them that went flying toward her on occasion. Eventually she found the source of such commotion when she found Zephyrus fanning the leaves around with his massive wings, seemingly having a wonderful time moving the piles around and throwing them every which way. Briar chuckled under her breath as she slipped past the trees and put the bundle of tools she was carrying down at the base of the closest one before walking over to where her son was playing. Just before she she was able to say anything, a clump leaves landed on her head, making her sputter a bit and toss her head about to shake the leaves away from her face. She didn't notice the leaves that were still caught up in her antlers as she looked up to Zeph, grinning up at him. "Having fun?"

"Briar Carpathius"

His mother's arrival brought a sheepish smile to Zeph's beak, his beating wings slowing in rhythm until his talons found the ground. The bird shrugged and then nodded, unable to hold back his youthful grin. "I think cleaning up is more fun than making the mess is!" He declared. A few of the tornado'd leaves had found their way to Briar's antlers, and Zeph strutted forward to reach for one, cleaning her mutation free of foliage.

While he had intended to help actually clean, somehow the grove seemed more covered in leaves then it had been when he started. They formed large piles against the tree trunks and covered the well-worn social trail that had formed through the woods. Zephyr lifted a talon to find his toes had impaled a few more, and he shook them off gently. "Leaves are fun! What other fun things are there to do in the leaves, mom?"

"Zephyr"

She smirked when he told her that the cleaning up was more fun than making the mess and she glanced at the leaves that his beating wings had scattered around, clumping them together in places and spreading them out in others. She couldn't be certain since she wasn't here before his fun with the "cleaning" but she was pretty sure he had made more mess than not. "I'm sure it is," she mused with a little grin. Bringing her turquoise gaze back up toward her avian son as he began to shuffle closer to her, her ears perked slightly with surprise as he leaned down to pluck the leaves from her antlers that had gotten caught up in the tines in the leaf storm he created. Briar grinned up at him gratefully, chuckling softly as she said, "Thank you, darling. It's hard to know what's above my head."

While Zephyrus pulled a few leaves off of his large talons, he questioned what else they could do in the leaves, mentioning how fun they were. "Well, I can think of a few useful things to do with them, but I don't know how fun those are," she replied, looking up at him with amusement. "We could turn them into compost to make fertilizer for the garden or maybe collect a bunch to make garland and wreaths to decorate the castle." Neither of those sounded very fun for a huge, youthful bird though. While she wasn't usually a fan of making a mess or causing more work later, she did make a lot of exceptions when it came to having fun with her children. "Ooooor, we could push them all into a pile to jump into," she suggested with a slightly mischievous smile.

"Briar Carpathius"