Song of the Swamp

The thin, mewling creature whose life had almost been claimed by the swamplands and animals that prowled its murky waters, knobbly trees and floating islands was no more. No more was the suchomimus pathetically thin, pleading for food and waiting for salvation on a leaf that floated on the water.

Instead, Osa returned to the wetlands healthy, and considerably larger.

The wet, spongy ground squelched under her knuckles and claws as she crawled along the ground on all fours. She started knuckle-crawling when she was young and tired easily. Her legs were short, likely some byproduct of her rough start to life, which made walking upright awkward. She tired quickly and Duck liked to travel, so knuckle-crawling had been her solution to keeping up. Now she did it not because she was tired, it was simply more comfortable than trying to walk upright. It had served her well when she needed to cross over land for any length of time, but soon, she would have less need to crawl across the earth.

She had been considering it for a while now - returning to the swamps and making it her home. It had been weighing on her mind for at least the length of a cycle of the moon, and then at least one more before that, if not longer.

Her earliest memories of the swamps were hazy at best, if she managed to remember much of it at all. The first time Duck had brought their small family group back to the wetlands she had been averse to it, though she couldn’t exactly identify why. They left not long after, staying only long enough to rest and find food, but it would not be the last time that they visited the wetlands. She had learned that all things filtered to the wetlands, eventually. In part it was because of the location - it cut through Isla Kela between the mountains, making it a passageway across the island, if a difficult one for most to cross.

The swamp also held as much fresh water that anyone could need or desire, fed by rainwater from across the island. That, in turn, meant that there was plentiful prey to take, even when prey across the rest of the island was scarce due to drought or disease.

What had ultimately made her decide to return to the swamp was the realisation that she couldn’t continue travelling the land with Duck and June. She wasn’t built for the long walks that left them sleeping in a new place almost every night, and she had no yearning in her heart to see every corner of the island like he seemed to. Duck wouldn’t be alone, at least, because  June was still too young to leave his company.

Osa, though, would be alone. She didn’t mind it. Isolation meant that whatever resources she acquired - food, water, and shelter - would belong entirely to her. This would be her territory. She would not be hungry, or thirsty, or cold again. She had the strength, size, knowledge, and youthful arrogance to believe that she could be sure of that now.

When she stepped over the last solid bank at the edge of the swamp and into the water, she was greeted by a welcoming coolness compared to the summer heat that settled over the island. Her feathers slicked to her body, but it didn’t bring the strength-sapping cold that it did when she was young. Now, her feathers repelled the water and kept her warm.

The water was the only place she had ever been able to move with any amount of ease and grace as she grew older and larger. Swimming had become her favourite thing to do when their travels took them to a large enough body of water. On land she was slow and clumsy but when they stopped, when she could swim, she was agile. Weightless. Walking was a chore; swimming was effortless.

There was more than enough water here to allow her the freedom she desired. Rivers that fed into the swamplands would allow her to travel across the island as she pleased, if she pleased, but this, the wetlands that lie between the two great mountains of Isla Kela, would be her home.

Her home-to-be was bountiful. She had never been interested in attacking and hunting other dinosaurs - they had mostly been friendly enough when she, Duck, and June had encountered them on their travels - but the animals, birds, fish, turtles, and crustaceans that lived in the swamps or frequented the edges were free game, and they were abundant here.

Which she intended to pick from, and soon. She dipped down, translucent eyelids protecting her and providing her with semi-clear vision beneath the water. Fish darted away from her, but when she held still, watched, and waited, they forgot that she was there. Her dark colours and water ripple markings blended her perfectly into her surroundings. When a large enough fish of her fancy swam close enough, she struck - an effortless catch, far easier than anything she’d tried to go after on land.

She swam lazily beneath the water’s surface, moving far with little expenditure of energy. It made her happy to move so freely, so effortlessly. She was made for this place.

Once she had eaten her fill, she made her way through other parts of the swamp - only to pause briefly when there was debris in the water that blocked her path. It would not stop her for long.

If this was to be her home, she would forge it to how she wanted it, make it fit her needs. She would carve paths through the water so that she could swim wherever she wanted, quickly and easily. Sticks and branches could be broken and moved, reeds and water plants could be torn and ripped out of the way, mud could be dug out and put to the side.

She moved as deep into the swamp as she desired, reaching out and cutting pathways through the water that she could easily travel along. She returned occasionally to a point that she felt safe and comfortable at, only to branch out again when she wanted to see more of this place that would be hers.

Occasionally, as she was swimming, she snapped her jaws at the surface of the water. It produced a sound which carried across the swamp as a wordless warning to anyone that might be listening and thinking about moving in as well. She growled, and sung, and bellowed to announce her presence, to say that this was to be her place. She would fight ruthlessly to defend it. There weren’t many that braved the wetlands, as difficult as it was to traverse for dinosaurs other than suchomimus, but there were still some, and she intended to make a point.

It was as she was digging out yet another pathway that she realised that she could reconstitute these materials to make… something she had not considered in a long time. The branches and twigs could be a sturdy foundation atop an island, the reeds and mud could be piled atop the branches and shaped. On top of that, she would pile leaves and moss until it was comfortable and would keep the chill of night away. A nest.

She had no need for it for now, and would not for some time yet, but it felt right to have. A heart, the center of her territory. With no eggs, and no intent yet to have any, it was as much a memorial to the siblings she couldn’t remember as it was yet another marker that she was staking her claim.

And, as if more was needed, she sang again as she slipped back into the water. Her bellow was a deep, rumbling growl that made the water near her body vibrate and dance. It wasn’t just the pathways that she cut through the swampland that made her claim evident, but her claws had left deep gouges in trees as well.

Her song, as she bellowed once again, would carry the message even further. It was as much a warning as it was a claim - this stretch of wetlands was now hers. As far away as her voice could be heard, it was hers. And she would now defend it.