It's not polite to stare

“But what do you have for us? You walk in here blindly in a pack and expect to just be allowed wherever you want to go? I’m not sure where you came from, but your sharp teeth mean nothing here.”

                Relic glanced over at Blight as Guerilla, the gray and black Iguanodon before them, said with a wicked smirk. The three other Iguanodons around him laughed at the sheer thought. The audacity of the two Acros and the single Carno!

                Neither male had been expecting anything big to be living in Atlantis after they’d met the Oviraptors and then the Euoplocephalus and they weren’t entirely sure if their adopted sire knew the extent of their current situation.

                The pale colored Acrocanthosaurus did not give any hint as to what exactly he was thinking as he stood and ‘stared’ directly ahead of them. Just past the Iguanodons which made them even more amused as the younger two in the group moved around and kept their attention locked on the blinded Acro, giggling to themselves as it appeared he had zero idea where they were. Relic and Blight knew far too well that the older Acro knew exactly where all individuals of the group were.

                “I have my first adopted son to offer you.”

                The Carnotaurus’ eyes widened in surprise as he quickly flicked his head back around to look at the gnarled Acro. The man motioning carefully, as elegantly as he could with his small arms, towards Relic. Even Blight raised his brow ridges in a slight display of shock as he caught Relic’s attention. The two brothers having a whole confused conversation between each other with just their eyes.

                ‘Did he really-?’

                ‘You’re an offering!’

                Blight’s expression changed to subtle amusement as he looked back ahead at the Iguanodons. Guerilla laughed once, not expecting the reply he had been given as well and looked over at Relic then back at the Pale One.

                “I hear you entertain guests by holding feasts. And the feasts have their own forms of grand entertainment. Relic is exceptional when it comes to fighting. I highly recommend you place him in the arena.” The Pale One said, rumbling in what the herbivores thought was amusement. Guerilla and the few with him listened quietly as the Acro offered up his apparent ‘son’.

                Topsiders. Pah! Why should something at the top of the food chain adopt something less than them? No Iguanodon would even consider adopting an Oviraptor as their own! Or even a Euoplo, no matter how useful and smart an individual could be!

                “And what about your actual son? Hm? What will he give us in order to stay in Atlantis? To behold all of the Atlantean beauty? You know if your ‘son’ goes into the pit to fight, he might not make it out.” Guerilla asked with a low chuckle, walking over to stand directly in front of the quilled Acro.

                “I’m aware. He can hold his own. If anything I am more concerned about the dent in your fighter numbers he’ll make. I don’t have the funds to pay you back for however long you had to train your fighters. As for my other adopted hatchling…” The Pale One said, tilting his head and turned it as if to eye Blight.

                Blight stared right back into the sunken in eye sockets then quickly over to the leader of the gang in front of them. He could almost feel Relic laughing at his misfortune at having to pick his own humiliation.

                “Has my father secured entrance into one of your feasts with you being permitted to fight my brother?” Blight asked and looked between Guerilla and the other three Iguanodons, though he didn’t care for the thoughts or opinions of the younger two. The final say seemed to come down to Guerilla and the oddly colored merle and Siamese quilled Iguanodon, Soraya.

                “I think it’s funny how quickly their father ditched the smaller son. We’re doing him a favor by weeding the weak out. I think he’s fine.” One of the younger ones replied with a laugh as he looked at Guerilla.

                “There’s another Carno we found recently! Scarred and quilled like you, Soraya! I would love to see two Carnotaurs fighting. Imagine the brutality!” The second said.

                Soraya and Guerilla listened before catching each other’s eye and were silent for a moment before Guerilla gave a nod and looked back at Blight.

                “We will permit him into the feast. It’s the least we can do for a father about to see the death of his child.” The male replied.

                Relic just snorted, shaking his head a bit but returned his attention to Blight as well.

                “Then I will offer my services at the feast. Someone should be there to comfort our father in case anything goes wrong. And you will surely need someone to help clean up after you all.” Blight said and lowered his head into a semi-bow.

                The offer didn’t go the way either he nor Relic expected. Guerilla and the rest of the group broke out laughing, Guerilla shaking his head.

                “Please! No! You? That’ll be worse than letting a drunk Euoplo into a china shop! You’ll break everything with your massive tail. There will not be room for you to just wander around and clean. If you even know how to clean! But I can see your point. You’ll come to a feast of ours, but you’ll be a bouncer. You know. A person that chases off others that are troublesome. You’re a brute, and brutes are good for tasks that don’t require that much thought or precision.” Soraya said on behalf of Guerilla as the younger two Iguanodons turned and trotted off, laughing as they headed back into the heart of Atlantis.

                “We will send for you when we are ready. There are so many of you topsiders turning up. It’s starting to become a problem.” Guerilla said and snorted before he finally turned as well with Soraya and the pair walked after the other two.

                Relic watched them all go before looking at Blight and Hunter, the Pale One. His not-father.

                “I’m more than just raw meat to throw around.” Relic said and stomped his foot, smirking slightly to mess with his sire a bit. “Besides. We didn’t even tell them we were looking for our friends. For Ghast.” He added, far less playful in his tone by that point.

                “Indeed. We’re now stuck here, at the entrance to Atlantis. We’re no closer to finding anyone than we were six hours ago when we left.” Blight murmured and started to walk after Hunter as he followed his nose as well as the sounds of running water to the small fountain that was somehow still running nearby. The massive pale Acro groaning as he knelt down and finally came to a resting position beside the fountain.

                “And you know, if you keep making all these old man noises, they’re going to think you are helpless and…well. Old.” Relic said as he came to a stop beside Hunter and glanced down at him.

                “We’re not going to get answers immediately. We are strangers. Why should they tell us where they hold their prisoners?” Hunter replied before turning to ‘look’ directly at Relic and snorted in amusement. “So long as I can see, I don’t care if they think I’m old.”

                Blight shook his head a bit. The older Acro had a point. He and Relic were playing far too impatiently. It was more important to let the Court think they had the upper hand. Let them believe they were dealing with an old, blind, Acro and his two oddball sons. But even then, Blight tilted his head.

                “What is your plan for the feast, whenever it may be?” He asked.

                “Ask questions. Get a feel for people. Let Relic get beaten to within an inch of his life, or make them believe that, and then play the pity card. Ghast spoke with such fear about this Court. And I have no doubt there may be some we need to keep an eye on. But right now they seem incredibly arrogant. The young ones we will suck up to. Win favor, get rumors. Someone is bound to spill useful information on where Ghast is. Or if they’ve seen Argent. We are in a different sort of jungle here, dear sons of mine. Patience and cunning will get us a long way here.” Hunter replied, dipping his snout into the pristine water of the Atlantean fountain.

                “Dad. None of us here are very good with the whole subtle game.” Relic said and frowned.

                Blight watched as Hunter finished his drink and turned back to face the pair before stretching out and rolled onto his side to get more comfortable. It made him furrow his brows a bit. Ever since they had stepped foot onto the cool stone pathways of Atlantis, the pale Acro had seemed guarded. On edge to some small degree. He was far more cautious than he would’ve been normally.

                Did the cut stone remind the Pale One of his time in Alpha Labs? He couldn’t see what they saw, after all. He could only feel things, and hear the vibrations of sound bouncing off of things around them. It might provide a mental image of where they were to the male, but it couldn’t show just how beautiful it really was there.

                “We’re going to have to fake it real well then, aren’t we?”

                Blight wondered if their sire was offering more than just his two sons to the Iguanodons. He was giving them control over the situation, no matter the degree. Blight, and even Relic, knew that the elder male hated that. To have a situation be completely out of his control was something neither men had ever seen from the quilled Acro.

                To various degrees, and in their own way, both dinosaurs felt worse for the Pale One. They could only hope that everything would go smoothly and they’d find Ghast soon enough, as well as Argent.