Flash Flood

Swavelli and Seffe both loved the beach, though she knew it was for different reasons. Swavelli was built for diving and fishing, and would spend hours at a time wading and swimming, sometimes hunting for fish but other times just for pleasure. The water slid gracefully off of her scales when she came back onto land, which combined with the hot sun meant she got dry almost instantly.

Seffe was another story. He was up for splashing around in the shallows, and investigating tide pools when the tide was low, but his thick coat of feathers kept him from joining Swavelli on her underwater adventures. When it rained, he stayed in their cave hideaway, because if he got wet it would take plenty of concentrated preening to get all the water out.

Still, Swavelli knew he was happy. She often found him chasing beach tiger beetles (and occasionally eating them, much to her disgust), or conversing with the atopodentatus that sometimes came to shore. And even if he couldn’t do that, she had the sneaking suspicion that he’d be happy anywhere, as long as she was there.

And when they watched the sun melt into the sea together every night, she found herself thinking the same thing.

#

One morning was dull and grey, the sky filled with dark clouds ready to burst.

“I think today’s a ‘stay in the cave’ kind of day,” Seffe said. “Looks like it’s going to rain.”

“I’ll try and find us something to eat first.” In her experience, fish were easier to catch in the rain. Maybe the higher water made them bolder.

“Good luck.”

Seffe went back into cover while Swavelli set out.

After a while, she realized that there was more than just the sky to be wary of. The ocean was unruly, the natural ebb and flow of the waves felt much more “flow” than usual. When the rain started, it only got worse. Even standing with her feet firmly in the sand, she was slammed by waves that were taller than she’d ever seen—sometimes even taller than her.

For the first time in her life, she wasn’t very happy about getting wet.

As she looked at the beach, she realized… she wasn’t actually sure where the beach was. The water level had risen significantly, and she could hardly see the sand.

Their cave was on the beach.

Her legs were moving before she could even think about the implications. The water was at the awkward height of being too shallow to swim in but too deep to comfortably walk in.

Then everything suddenly seemed several shades darker. As Swavelli looked up, she saw the biggest wave she’d ever seen in her life.

And then it crashed right into her.

The wind was completely knocked out of her and saltwater filled her lungs. She was sent tumbling through the ocean like a helpless hatchling, completely losing track of where was up and where was down. A chunk of driftwood smacked her in the face.

Lungs burning, Swavelli kicked with as much force as she could muster, praying she was swimming to the surface and not to her doom. Miraculously, she felt a burst of air against her snout, and managed to snort out a bit of water before she was plunged under the waves again.

“Seffe!” Swavelli struggled to break her head through the raging water. “SEFFE!”

But she heard nothing but the swirling water and wind whistling in her ears.

Focus on yourself first, a voice in the back of her head told her, a voice she hadn’t heard since she left her float. But she listened.

She pushed her nose, then her eyes to the surface, trying to reorient herself, take control back from the waves. It wanted to wash her out to sea and drown her, but she wasn’t going to go down without a fight. She could see the shore several meters away—it was barely above the water now, but just a few minutes ago it was the cliff overlooking the beach. That was her destination.

One stroke at a time, she swam towards it. Her nostrils at the very end of her snout let her breathe even when most of her head was swept under. The ocean tasted strongly of decaying meat, other unsuspecting creatures being washed away.

But eventually, painfully, she managed to haul herself onto land. She caught her breath and shook herself off, though it didn’t do any good with the rain still coming down.

Now that she was on solid ground, her mind could only think of one thing: Seffe.

Frantically, she ran up and down the cliff, shouting his name, but still she got no answers. She was beginning to feel nauseous with worry. What would she do without her little feathered friend by her side? Who would wake her in the morning with warbling songs? Who would show her all the tiny beach-dwellers she never would have noticed otherwise?

There! A flash of dark feathers poking out from the surf. Her heart raced as she tried to keep up with him as he was swept down the coast. Her legs already ached from swimming, but she refused to stop.

With her long snout, she reached out as far as she could and grabbed Seffe firmly by the scruff. He was heavier than she remembered him being, and all the water his feathers soaked up certainly didn’t help. But she managed to heave him onto relatively dry land.

“Seffe?” The soggy lump she’d dragged out of the swell looked more like a big clump of moss than a utahraptor. She prodded him roughly with her snout, her panic rising again. “Seffe! Get up!”

After several agonizing seconds, Seffe started coughing, hacking up bursts of salty water. She wished she could do something to help him, but she just had to hope that he could get the water out on his own.

“H-Hi, Swavelli,” he managed between coughs.

“Hi,” she said, lamely.

Eventually his breathing settled, but he was shaking like a leaf, and his wet feathers clinging to his body made him look even smaller than he already was. He looked very much like he did when Swavelli first met him, when he was a soaking wet hatchling who’d just taken a dive in the marsh.

“Come on,” she said softly, crouching next to him. “Let’s see if there’s anywhere around here that’s still dry.”

He crawled onto Swavelli’s back (having much more difficulty than usual), with Swavelli pushing him up with her nose when he needed it. Once he was settled, she began moving inland, as carefully as she could while still making progress. It was still pouring rain, and if she was going to get Seffe dry, they’d need some kind of shelter. Their cave was useless to them now.

She ended up returning to the scrubland that they’d passed through on their first journey to the coast. The ground was naturally dry, and the tall bushes provided a bit of protection from the downpour. Higher ground, it seemed, was a wise place to be during a flood. Carefully, she eased Seffe off of her back, letting him slide down into the yellow grass.

“Seffe, are you awake?”

A sunset eye looked up at her. “I think so.”

“Good,” she said, with no small amount of relief. “Let’s get you dry.”

Seffe shook his head wildly, any droplets he threw off lost in all the others that were still coming down from the clouds. He looked more like he’d gotten rained on, not nearly drowned. A good start.

Together, they combed through his feathers and tried to squeeze out as much water as they could. At least the rain had washed out most of the salt; it made all his feathers stick together in big clumps if it was left in.

With no sun, time lost its meaning. They sat there for what felt like days. The rain kept coming down.

Until, at last, the torrent stopped. Clouds still covered the whole sky, but they were lighter now, having spent all their extra water. Seffe gave himself another quick once-over before getting to his feet.

“Where are you going?”

Seffe looked at her like that was a silly question. “Back to the beach?”

“You want to go back there? After what happened?”

“The beach is our home.”

“Oh.” Some part of her had thought the raptor wouldn’t want to go back. He’d nearly died out on the beach, from something they could have avoided entirely if only they had made their den somewhere else. But the sparkle in his eyes hadn’t faded; he still loved the ocean just as much as he had before. “Well, then. Let’s go home.”

Seffe’s smile bloomed and he pranced all the way back to the shore.

#

The beach was littered with debris; driftwood, seaweed, other animals that hadn’t been so lucky. Which, for the survivors, meant food to last them days, if not weeks. When they finally found their cave, the depressions where they always slept had turned into shallow puddles. For the time being, the pair decided to stay up on the cliffs, where it was drier; hopefully, the sun would do its job to clear out the remaining moisture over the next few days.

If Swavelli stood on the tips of her toes, she could see the setting sun, just barely visible over the blanket of clouds. And next to her, Seffe was curled up, asleep and safe.

The beach may have been a mess, but that could always be cleaned up; what she was really happy about was that her friend was still with her.