Kaori sneezed violently into her pink paws. She sniffled. How she hated this time of the year.

It was not that the Striped Acara hated spring. She loved spring. Spring was beautiful, with so many flowers blooming and decorating the fields and meadows all over the Neopia. Shenkuu looked especially beautiful in spring, with soft pink cherry blossoms adorning the towns and landscapes. Kaori really truly loved everything about spring. Well, almost everything. She deeply despised her allergies.

The problem was that even though her calendar told her it was spring, the weather told her it was not.

A wintery chill ruffled Kaori’s soft and silky fur. She shivered.

Kaori did not usually mind the cold–she did quite like winter too. Winter meant playing in the snow, making snowmen, having snowball fights and skiing down the mountains.

Right now, it felt like it was neither spring nor winter, Kaori thought disgruntledly to herself. It was the in-between. A very ugly in-between. It was cold, but the slushy snow was now more a mixture of water and shards of ice than fluffy white powder. Flowers had not yet started to bloom, as the frozen earth was still thawing. Somehow her allergies were already acting up, and the frosty air made her sniffles worse.

Kaori gazed out into the distance. The steep peaks of Shenkuu looked absolutely dreary on this foggy and rainy day. They were still covered in patches of greying snow. Areas where the snow had melted away revealed the dead grass that had been hidden beneath layers of white during the winter.

With a huge sigh, Kaori trudged on. She had gone out despite the bad weather, in hopeful search of flower buds, or anything else that would give her a sign that spring had arrived. She had found none. She lived halfway up on one of Shenkuu’s many mountains, so spring would arrive later at these high altitudes, compared to the valley below.

Suddenly, Kaori felt the ground beneath her tremble ever so slightly. She stopped cold in her tracks. Had she imagined it?

There. She felt it again, stronger this time. Kaori pricked her ears and heard a strange rumbling.

What was happening?

Then, a terrified scream pierced the air…