Found Family

Brook had been alone since he left his nest, surviving, thriving even, on solo hunts and scavengery. Whatever part of the island he had found himself in was noticeably lacking in the dinosaur population and he mostly found himself managing to live alongside mammals instead. A lot of them were still slow from the retreating winter and their hibernation, as long as he didn’t make himself a threat they never seemed to see him as one. He tried to ignore the pang in his chest every time he remembered cuddling up with his siblings and his mother. Companionship wasn't his number one priority though, he had enough to worry about when it came to just surviving as a hatchling out on his own. He had to admit, the herbivores had the right idea about traveling in herds. They always seemed to have an unbreakable wall around their grazing fields, to the point where Brook had never once tried to pick off even a hatchling from the particularly large herds.

His territory of sorts had never contained many other carnivores, most of them were far too big to even have him on their radar. He had very few enemies, so while lonely he could be thankful for that. So, when he emerged from the solitude of his leafy home he wasn't expecting to come face to face with another dinosaur. His gut instinct was to threat display, hissing loudly at the intruder as she hissed in return. Suddenly, she stopped, tilting her head curiously at him while he continued to growl and show his teeth.

"Cryo?" the smooth dinosaur asked. Brook stopped hissing and stood up straight, blinking in surprise.

"Cryo," he confirmed, "you are like me." It wasn't a question but the other dinosaur nodded anyway.

"I am Drift, a cryo from Kela Pond," she introduced herself.

"I am Brook, a cryo from... I'm not from anywhere right now," Brook admitted. Drift sniffed in his direction, her eyes flickering, like she was trying to figure out a puzzle.

"You are like me," she observed.
"I know, yes, cryo," he said in frustration.

"No, no," she interrupted, "You are like me. Like kin." Brook eyed her warily but he couldn't deny the similarities. They both had similar colours on their skin and feathers and while different in colour their stripes matched pretty closely. Drift had many differences, but something about her told him it was true, they were kin. He stepped

Brook let out a low chitter as he observed the other cryo. She had a thick plume of feathers running down her neck to about her shoulders, but the rest of her body was scaly skin instead of the feathers that covered him completely.

"Why are you bald?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

"I am not bald!" Drift screeched, flapping her bald little arms, "Mine haven't grown in yet! Stupid!"

"I was born with all my feathers," Brook bragged, preening a little.

"Liar," the other cryo sniffed, "All babies are born bald." He turned to her with a confused look and began to doubt himself. Was he born fully feathered after all? He glanced down at the soft down feathers covering his body and shook his head.

"Not lying! I've always remembered having feathers," he shot back defensively. "Maybe you're late from living too warm, I've been living in snow." Drift looked contemplative at that, scratching her belly as she pondered.

"Maybe," she said slowly, "I followed the river when the snow melted, maybe staying cold would make my feathers grow faster?"

"Not much snow left any more," Brook said regretfully, "I can take you to where I saw it last. If you want?" he added in a hurry. He didn't really want to land himself with this weird bald cryo permanently. Drift seemed to think long and hard about whether she wanted to join him too. Her expression remained skeptical until a sharp breeze blew through the valley and she shivered as his feathers ruffled.

“Yes, show me where, please,” she assented. Brook was at a bit of a loss then, not sure how he would find snow with another dinosaur following him when he had drawn a blank by himself so far.

"I don't know where," he admitted, "I've been looking for a while." The other Cryo looked deflated at that, suddenly seeming a little self conscious about her lack of fluff. "But we can find it together, we're both looking for it so we should be a team," he finished confidently. Drift still didn't look completely convinced but she stepped closer to him again, nudging his shoulder.

"Let's go fish a little then, can't walk on an empty belly," she said.

"I can't fish," he admitted and she gasped in a fake scandal.

"Silly feathers, I'll teach you how, you're my brother after all!" she said cheerfully. She grabbed hold of his arm and began to pull him towards the river that he had conspicuously avoided his entire life. He wondered if this had been where she was living all this time, if a family member had been just out of his line of sight. “Fish are easy, don’t worry,” Drift reassured him, mistaking his silence for nerves. “You just stand still for a while, you snap, and you either miss or you have dinner! Nothing as scary as actually hunting something!”

“You don’t hunt either?” he asked curiously, 

“Nope!” She admitted confidently,”Even if I did and I managed to kill something I’d have it stolen from me by a bear or wolves or something else I couldn’t fight off. So, I fish!” She paused for a moment as they continued down the hill towards the rushing meltwater stream. “I’d like to hunt when I’m bigger, though. Maybe we could try together now that there’s two of us?” For the first time, the idea of hunting live prey didn’t seem entirely out of reach for Brook. Drift wasn’t much bigger than him but she had figured out how to fish and that certainly counted for strategy. Maybe he could apply his scavenging knowledge in a way that could help them hunt? How strange, that he was already thinking of them as a combined unit. 

“We could try,” he agreed, enjoying the way Drift lit up. “We can try after we grow your feathers, I think it’ll be fun!”