Oviraptors? In MY lava tubes?

“So, this is where you saw them?” Alula asks.  She stands next to a grey and white utahraptor in front of the open maw of a tunnel.  Her sources had been mentioning sightings of a new kind of dinosaur, acting strange and leaving things behind, but the newcomers had proven quite elusive.  As such, she’d been spending quite a bit of time on the wing, chasing all over the islands to find a lead that was freshest.  Alula’s inquiries had led her to Rapture, a utahraptor that inhabited these tunnels and could claim to have spotted no less than two of the newcomers, which some claimed were oviraptors.

Rapture nods.  “Sure is.  Sneaking about, acting all suspicious.  They seem to like where the cave ins happened most, and wherever they visit, weird plants start growing soon after.  A styra got sick after munching on one of them, and some thorny vines have even blocked off some of the tunnels,” she replies, shaking her head in annoyance.  “I think someone nearly got trapped.”

“Interesting,” Alula says, staring up at the entrance to the lava tunnels.  She is not eager to go in- she’s a tapejara, a creature of the sky, not meant to be crawling around underground.  But to get the story, she must do this.  She straightens up, preparing to walk into the darkness.  Rapture’s voice startles her.

“Would you like to ride on my back?”

Alula glances up at the utahraptor.  Her expression is sympathetic.  “I’ve never seen many fliers in there,” she continues, “so I figured you might not be comfortable.  That’s why I offered to come with.”

“Oh….how kind of you,” Alula replies, taken aback.  She realizes she would much rather be sitting on a speedy raptor’s back than walking around by herself, especially if one of those infamous cave ins happened.  “I think I would like a ride, yes.”

“Of course.”  Rapture crouches down, allowing Alula to clamber up onto her back, clinging carefully to the white feathers adorning her shoulders.  Once Alula is situated, Rapture returns to her feet and trots forward, the bright sunlight overhead quickly vanishing into the cool shadow of the tube.

While outside had been rife with birdsong and the rustling of trees and undergrowth, the sounds fade after they pass the entrance, replaced with nothing except the soft click of Rapture’s claws on rock.  Alula realizes with a shiver that the breeze she felt, the wind she relied on, was gone.  Rapture glances back at her.  “It won’t get too much darker than this,” she explains.  “A little further on is a collapse, then one of the crystal tunnels.  And past that is our destination.  I saw one of those new dinosaurs there yesterday.”

Alula only nods, trying and failing to push down her discomfort at being surrounded by rock, rock, rock.  Her crested head darts this way and that, hoping for a hint of the light that Rapture promised.  The entrance is far behind them now, and the beautiful green that she could still see when they first walked in is long gone.

Just as slowly as it had darkened, the lava tube begins to lighten again, and soon Rapture is stepping carefully over rubble from the ceiling as light shafts dapple her and Alula’s feathers.  Alula breathes a sigh of relief at seeing the sky again, and then gasps: just ahead, points of light sparkle off the walls, ceiling, and floor like thousands of stars.  She gazes in wonder as she and Rapture begin to pass among them, and it feels as though the night sky is wrapped about her, instead of a dark and dangerous cave.  Alula’s shoulders relax and her grip on Rapture’s feathers loosens, the edges of her mouth tipping up into a small smile as she watches reflected flecks of light play across her wings.  She does not see it, but Rapture glances back at her, a knowing smile on her own face.

This tunnel does not get as dark as the previous one, with much greater quantities of light pouring in from up ahead.  After a moment, the source is revealed: a large collapse has left a massive hole in the ceiling, with piles of dirt and rubble littering the floor.  Grass and vines lean over the lip of the hole, and while leaves from overhead trees can be seen around the edge, the break is too big for the forest canopy to completely cover.  On the floor of the cave in, where soil has spilled down from above, are plants.  Plants of kinds Alula has never seen, plants with pink stems and foot-long thorns and leaves striped and spotted in bright yellow, reminding her of frogs her mother told her were poisonous.

Rapture crouches down and Alula immediately slides off, galloping over to the weird foliage, already plotting how she would describe them in her next article.  “Careful!” Rapture calls after her, “Some of them will hurt if you touch them!”

Alula nods back.  “I’ll only look,” she promises.  Leaning in close, she examines the base of one of the thorns where it sprouts from a vine that looks too thin to hold it.  “You said the newcomers visit these places, and then the plants sprout up behind them?” she asks.

Rapture scratches at her chin with one of her claws.  “Yeah, they grow unnaturally fast, too,” she replies.  She glances around as if to check that they’re alone, and then adds more quietly, “Almost like they were engineered to do so.”

Alula immediately perks up.  “Morpheus’s doing?”  Anything to do with Morpheus was always big news, always something dinosaurs wanted to hear about.  She could have quite the scoop in her talons if Morpheus was the source of their latest problem.

Rapture only shrugs, however, not sharing Alula’s enthusiasm.  “It’s just what people are saying.  They are weird though.  Not natural plants,” is all she has to say.

“And you saw one of the newcomers here yesterday?” Alula presses.

“Yeah, it’s a nice shortcut to get home.  The plants were here already, have been for a couple weeks, but I saw some kind of dinosaur looking at them.  Small thing, long legs, had a weird crest on its head, sort of like yours.  Ah- not that yours is weird or anything, it’s real pretty, just strange to see something like it on something other than a tapejara!” Rapture explains, then scuffs at the dirt, embarrassed.  Alula huffs a little laugh.  A reporter couldn’t be offended at small slip-ups like that.

Satisfied with the information on preceding events, Alula returns to poking about the plants, looking for other hints or clues as to what could be going on.  Something big was happening- she could feel it.  And it was her job to find out what, and bring that news to the people.  Just then, something catches her eye- a different shade of green and yellow, amidst all the other green and yellow.  She carefully picks it out of the undergrowth with the tip of her beak, and then tilts her head to examine it: a feather.  She picks it up, showing it to Rapture.  “Do you know any dinosaurs around here that have this coloration?” she asks.

Rapture leans in, giving the feather a careful examination, then a sniff.  “None like this, no, but it matches the dinosaur I saw- green and yellow, with a red face,” she answers.

Alula’s own feathers puff up in excitement.  Here it is, tangible proof of the strange happenings!  She has to tell others.  “Excellent, excellent!” she exclaims.  “This will be great for my article!”  Rapture tilts her head in confusion, but Alula continues, “You’ll tell me if you spot any more of these newcomers?  We have to gather as much information as possible….even interview one!”  Rapture’s confused expression remains, but she nods in agreement.  “Wonderful,” Alula adds.  She turns, looking over the strange plants one last time.  “Something big is coming.”