Koi Pond

Long, winding tunnels had led her to the dense jungle under the water, following the reversed tracks of little Oviraptor claws all the way to their entrance. The structure was visibly human, their metal slabs were everywhere and nothing in this dome smelled natural, not even the plants. At the very least, she assumed it was a dome, the little she could see of the ceiling had curved gently upwards, implying some kind of rounded shape to the structure. The humidity was unbearable, making her feathers frizzle out and leaving her exposed to the cloying heat of the jungle. Her heavy steps were enough to crush the writhing plants beneath her, but on occasion she had to use force to break through a wall of living greenery that hissed and spat poison at her. By the time she reached a clearing, she was covered in pale green fluid, gluing her feathers together and making her arms stick to her torso. To her relief, she saw a quiet pond, out of the reach of any of the nearby plants and made a beeline for it to clean off.

The pond itself seemed to radiate peace, enough to make her suspicious, wondering if one of these strange plants was putting out some kind of pollen to dull the senses. Peering into the water, she saw the familiar rigid metal of human craftsmanship, making a solid scoop or tub to house the water. At the bottom she could see pictures of stones instead of an actual lakebed with dirt and rock. The plants here were typical pond fare, rushes and floating plants of many different kinds, she could recognise duckweed and lilypads off-hand. The only difference was the colour, instead of the normal browns and greens she had seen above ground most of these plants had vibrant flowers that looked almost glowing under the overhead fluorescent lights.  It wasn’t deep enough for a proper wash but she still dipped her head into it and took a long drink. The water was cool and clear, refreshing without any debris floating in it like a lot of the water above ground did. She had never tasted such pure water in her life, and she wondered if humans had made a way of cleaning it. 

She pulled back to start cleaning the plant sap from her feathers when she noticed a flash of white under the floating foliage. Her hackles raised instinctively, ready for the ambush of whatever strange animals lived in this artificial environment. She stayed perfectly still, like a hunting stork, and watched in amazement as a fish swam curiously out from under the lilypads. It was mostly white with a large splotch of orange on top of its head, shaped like a carp but with longer barbels and its strange colour. The fins trailed more too, long gossamer things that made its calm swimming look even more graceful. She watched in amazement as more began to venture out from cover, mouthing at the surface of the water to see if anything had been dropped from above for them to eat. She settled on the edge of the pond, tucking her sticky arms under herself and shuffling her legs until they were comfortably supporting her large body. Her sharp red eyes darted back and forth, finding new fish to follow across the painted bottom of the pond. Further into the deeper part of the pond, the painted stones were joined by depictions of the fish above them, shorter and stumpier than the ones that currently circled the pond.

She wondered how long the fish had been down here. Carp could live a long time, but she didn’t think they could live long enough to have seen the fall of the humans. She glanced along the edge of the pond where large grey slate stones lined it in a uniform pattern. If she squinted she could almost see more paintings, but having been more exposed to the jungle than the bottom of the pond had been, they were already mostly worn away. She rose to her feet, sending the fish scattering, to resume her original plan of cleaning herself. She felt a little guilty, tainting the water that these fish were trapped in, but she knew she could bear the feeling of sap no longer. She tried to crouch a little, letting her arms dangle into the pond and soaking the sap from them. Just from a precursory clean, she already felt better. She sat fully into the pond, most of her upper half sticking up out of it and began to watch the fish again, letting the water soak into her feathers. The fish came back to the surface after their initial fright, curiously nibbling at her to check for edibility. It tickled slightly, but she let them investigate and they quickly abandoned the idea of food being found on their new intruder. She looked curiously at the water that rippled even with her completely still and the fish far away from it. She leaned in and saw a hole in the wall of the pond, covered in a metal grate and expelling water at around the force of a small stream. The humans had built even the flow of water into this place, she noted, fresh water so it wasn’t being drawn from the sea above them. She supposed this was how the fish had survived and how the pond looked so clear. 

With a groan, she rose from the water and shook herself off. She stepped carefully from the pond, not wanting to flatten any of the innocent little carp swimming around in their gilded cage. She would have to dry off before venturing back into the jungle and the humidity in there wouldn’t make it easy. She glanced back to the peaceful pond and decided to rest here, not knowing when she would get the chance to rest again. With a soft sigh, she lay down on the flat, square rocks that covered this clearing. Their surface was hard but smooth, and she wasn’t a fan of the idea of sleeping on a bed of plants like she usually did, so this suited her just fine as a place to rest. As the fish swam their circular patrols, the ripples of the water lulled her into a peaceful sleep.