Painted Rocks {Story}

                The Shimmering Cove. Home to beautiful rocks, her son and daughter, and apparently odd creatures that looked sort of like the local shopkeeper.

                Kallista had heard about the sightings of the odd creatures from Frankie first and had been quick to dismiss what he’d said to her at first. The raptor had always been excitable to some degree, and very much over the top. If he had been fighting an ant it would’ve turned into how he’d been fighting a monstrous beast that had almost killed him six times. So, when Frankie had talked about a massive bird-dinosaur that ran around planting seeds and that also looked like the shopkeep but wasn’t Magpie himself, Kallista doubted.

                She doubted up until Cleric had brought it up as well. And then Apocrypha had said that she’d been hearing rumors as well.

                So, there Kallista sat. Perched up on a rock and watching the locals come and go from the local. Of everyone she had seen some through, none of them looked odd. None of them looked like Magpie or could’ve been mistaken for the same species. Kalli had stayed for as long as she could before she had taken to the air and had gone to find something to eat.

                From her vantage point in the sky above the Cove, Kalli stuck to the air currents and used them to glide without needing much energy from her part. It helped in keeping her in the sky to look for any schools of fish in the local area but also for anything else that would be of interest. She didn’t think whatever mysterious creatures were running around would do so out in the open. No. They’d be sticking to the nooks and crannies, and possibly not even traveling during the day.

                Kallista swooped down, tucking her wings against her body as she splashed down into the water of the coast nearby. She managed to scoop up two fish from the school she’d spotted before coming up to the surface with the remaining momentum from the dive and took to the air again. She glided over to the beach nearby where she landed and shook herself off, fish still aggressively trying to escape her maw.

                It was then that the first curious artifact came to her attention, as she snapped her beat to quickly dispatch the fish and then swallow them.

                There, among the multicolored rocks of the cove, two feathers threatened to dislodge and take to the air. Kallista galloped over, bringing one of her wing-hands up and trapped a feather against a rock just as the other came loose from the ocean breeze and was taken out to sea. She watched it go before looking back at the feather she’d caught.

                It didn’t feel like anything a bigger dinosaur would have. It was too finely veined, undamaged, though that was pushing the facts. It could’ve been a belly feather from a bigger dino, or a bigger wing feather from a smaller dinosaur. There was no way of knowing just based off of the size or the look. The thing had a nice green and yellow tinge to it. Kalli brought it up to her face, inhaling to try and determine what it could’ve been from scent.

                There was no distinctive smell of blood, or rot. If anything…Kalli inhaled again. It smelled good? Like flowers, grass right after the rain, greenery. So what had made her take such an interest in it? Why had she felt the need to investigate a random feather that could’ve been from any dino?

                Kallista flipped the feather between her fingers, holding it up to the light and then saw it again. At one end of the feather was a blue substance. She had mistaken it for a blue-teal marking that tipped the feather, but as her claw had passed over it, it had caught on the substance and peeled it away slightly. She brought the feather back up to her face and inhaled but didn’t smell anything off. Kallista put the feather on the ground again, using a claw to carefully scratch at the stuff on the feather and then brought it back up to her face. It smelled of berries, faintly. And other things that she wasn’t sure of.

                The Trope opened her wing-hand and let the wind take the feather, watching as it fluttered away before her attention turned back to where she’d found the feathers. Kallista made her way over and started to peel back the rocks where the feathers were and was instantly rewarded with more of the blue substance.

                It was the same teal-blue that had been on the feather, but plastered on the rocks as if something had spilled over there. Claw marks could be seen through the paint, as if the dino that had spilled the substance had been trying to use as much as they could but had given up before they’d run off. Kalli’s attention quickly turned to the area for any sort of footprints but found none. The paint like substance on the rocks was dried, and had been for some time, the sun baking the paint onto the rocks and making it hard to even scratch off.

                Paint was the only thing that had come to mind when she saw the stuff on the rocks. It was the same substance that the humans used on their homes and buildings. But none of the paint had been good enough to use on the skin or feathers of dinos around the isles. Time had not done good things to paint cans that had been left open in the rain or weather. The unopened cans had separated into various disgusting looking substances that no one wanted on them, or even near them. But this stuff? It looked new. And didn’t smell half as bad as whatever chemicals the humans had been using. This paint was made of berries primarily, Kalli assumed.

                She flopped back to sit, her hands on the ground in front of her as she stared the substance down. Something like this would’ve taken to the isles like wildfire. If a Utahraptor had figured it out, Frankie would’ve heard about it and coated himself in the paint. If anyone else had found out about it, there would be other dinos with the stuff all over them. But Kalli had never heard of paint on a dinosaur before, nor had she heard of anyone trying to sell anything like it.

                Kalli tapped her fingers on the ground in front of her, trying to think of what exactly she was seeing. It could’ve been anything, honestly. A random feather from a Utahraptor who had been messing with berries. A feather from a passing by bird that had spilled…some sort of berry based liquid food? There were more reasonable explanations than a new dinosaur showing up on the isles and painting themselves.

                That was just stupid.

                But then what was it?

                Kallista sighed. She should’ve kept the feather. Instead she looked through the rocks she’d moved around and found a smaller one with paint still on it. She’d bring it back to Apocrypha and show her, and then she’d need to ask Frankie what exactly he’d seen. Maybe his story of some sort of painted Magpie wasn’t as far fetched as what she had originally thought.

                And maybe when Cleric had talked about seeing Magpie but covered in soot or ash, she hadn’t been too far off. No matter what, however. She and Apocrypha would need to go and speak with Magpie and see if he’d seen anything or knew of whatever was going on. He had to have come from somewhere. He’d never brought up there being others of his kind before, but had anyone ever actually asked him?

                Was it possible he thought he’d been the only one of his kind? Did Morpheus deal in single prototype dinosaurs?

                There were too many questions right now and not enough answers. Kallista gripped the rock in one of her feet and took to the air again, gliding off to go and find her Albertosaurus. Apocrypha needed to know first and foremost, and from where they’d figure out a plan.