A really old thing I did for  ElCid in May 2019.

At 18, South African high schooler Everalda had the idea to start a band with her best friends. After pitching it to them and discussing it, the friends began practicing and did their first live performance a few months later. Everalda was the lead singer and guitarist, the dwarf crocodile Anika played bass, the Nubian ibex Othelia played keyboard, and the rock hyrax Helouise was on drums. Word of them spread as they played more often and improved their sound, soon reaching outside of Johannesburg and attracting a new girl to them, and penguin named Noelline who ended up playing saxophone for the band, providing just the touch they'd felt they were missing all along. A little over one year after Noelline joined and two years after the band started, Everalda met and recruited the final member of the band, a bonobo named Mienke, while she and the others were enjoying a stay in Port Elizabeth. Everalda herself is a friendly, charismatic, upbeat, and fun-loving leopardess with pretty good business sense to the boot -- but not so good that she doesn't need help from the more business-minded Othelia. These traits contributed to the formation and the success of the band. Now 24 years old, Everalda has achieved her dreams of stardom in the music world, and she's happily brought all of her dear friends along for the ride, making sure they all receive as much credit and love as her for what the band does. Her selfless behavior and persistent inclusion of everyone makes it all the more fitting that the name for the band is Eenheid, Afrikaans for "unity"!