Before Iris knew it, the hot season arrived. With the excuse of the rainy season being gone, her mates had to reluctantly accept that their mate would once more want to go outside to play with her friends and their young cubs. Still, it wasn't like they were as busy as they once were. If anything, they had more free time than they had since they met Iris.
During the rainy season, an additional seventy five people had signed up for educational classes. Two classes were taught by Fern while Basil taught one class. Of course, there was also the matter of the makeup classes that Fern hosted at sunrise while others were off doing combat training. This time, a lot fewer people struggled to learn the information and those who did weren't discouraged since they knew they could always sign up for makeup classes in the next season. Still, no one wanted to slack off since there was much excitement about the new Scrabble and other game tournaments.
It had been arranged to be a re-occurring event that happened once a month with both those who successfully graduated and were currently in classes being allowed to attend. After the cold season ended, they were still able to use sweets as prizes for a short while, but that would be changing now that the hot season had arrived. There had been a few harvests now and food was no longer scarce, so Holly's tea house was now back in business, so sweets were no longer as tempting.
Caspian had actually made popsicles for the last game tournament and they had been met with much enthusiasm. However, that wasn't exactly something that Iris could ask him to do every single time. Besides, she had told him that it wasn't something she planned to force him to make and she had hardly changed her mind about that now.
For now, the plan was to spend her own time creating items that could be used for the game tournaments. Things like knitted gloves, scarves, and hats made from thin strips of animal hide and a special crocheting needle she had asked Basil to make for her. These wouldn't be particularly useful right now, but she figured it would be a good idea to practice new hobbies and she could always teach this to Pearl's family, once she perfected it, so that others could also obtain their own set of cold season gear.
However, right now, they were a new product she was still developing and she hadn't tried to crochet since she was little and her grandmother had tried to teach her. She had been abysmal at it and had quickly abandoned the hobby, feeling like it was a waste of her time. However, it wasn't like she had as many things to hold her focus now. She could afford to waste some materials while she figured things out and then she could give the first prototypes away as a reward. This, of course, would only be interesting because no one else could obtain such an item, but Iris was still hopeful that it would be worthwhile to invest her time in.
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Of course, she also had other options for rewards as well. Her mates having more free time meant that they too wanted to try out some new hobbies and improve their skills in regards to their older hobbies. Caspian started working on the handbags and backpacks that he had once abandoned, even roping Fern into it. Iris had talked about how baskets could be woven with reeds and then straps attached so they could be carried on one's back and Fern had immediately wanted to try it out. Caspian had been more than happy to work on the project together, much as they had on the bow and arrows.
Well, Hazel had also helped with that project as well. Fern did the portion requiring sinew to be woven into bow strings as well as working on some of the other potential choices. Meanwhile, Hazel worked on the wooden portion of the bow. Caspian mostly did the negotiating with the Golden Tradesmen and helped with any miscellaneous tasks the two needed help with, but he still seemed to enjoy being included.
That had made Iris feel bad that Caspian had been too busy to be included in things before. He was always supportive of her and the others and he really deserved to have the same opportunities. It couldn't really be helped before, but she was happy to see him so passionate about his current projects.
Meanwhile, Hazel was working on making hair sticks with engravings and finely carved flowers on them. Whenever he made a new one, he would always want Iris to try it on and so she would happily do so, turning side to side while he admired her from every angle. He'd often end up frowning, feeling the need to fix a few minor details, but the final results always ended up being exquisite. Iris personally kept several of the prototypes he made. Those ones Hazel tended to refuse to make any copies of, insisting he wanted Iris to be the only one to have something like it. However, the others would be brought to the workshops as examples for the others to learn from so they could sell them to other females.
Ember didn't really want to work on the sorts of hobbies that the others were. Instead, he decided he wanted to spend more time training Ophelia. The owl familiar already knew quite a few useful things like how to hunt, deliver items and tablets, etc., but Ember still felt that there was more that the owl could learn. Iris didn't really care whether her phoenix husband wanted to teach her familiar useless tricks, how to go to war, or anything else. Instead, she had found her peace with her familiar being more for Ember than herself. Instead of her birthing hatchlings for him, it was like he had adopted the owl and was raising it as his own. She was happy for him.