The Feast Part 2

With Agnus' declaration the doors to the side of the hall opened and a line of Oviraptors hurried out. Each one carried a platter of food, some open to the air and others covered in cloches to conceal their contents. Kaiwi watched with interest as the Iguanodons' gangly servants placed plate after plate onto the long table, loading it to a degree where the table looked like it should be groaning under the weight. When they had crammed as much food and drink onto the dining table as possible, they began to fan out and tend to the outer tables, including the one Kaiwi was sitting at with his chaperone. An Ovi rushed to their table, did a quick sweep over the attendants and called for another of their comrades. Between the two of them they laid out three platters, two covered with a cloche and the other being a leafy arrangement that mimicked a salad. Celena poked her head over the side of the table and began to pull leaves into her mouth, leaving Brunhilda and Kaiwi with the other two.

The Oviraptor lifted the cloche from the platter sitting in front of her and was pleasantly surprised to see a seared trout with fruit garnishes, laying on a bed of leaves. Kaiwi lifted his and found a similar bed of grasses lying under three cuts of marbled meat, the pockets of fat gleaming under the light of the sconces on the wall. His mouth instinctively watered, the meat was raw and the smell of blood filled his nostrils quickly. It smelled heavenly, better than any bull elk he had managed to hunt in his life. He was about to sink his teeth in when a thought occurred to him.

"You do farming down here?" he asked Brunhilda, "I didn't notice any animals running loose around the jungle. Probably pretty hard for them to, what with all the freaky plants."

“I mostly do farming, yes. I have also been scouting some on the surface but tending to crops is probably what I do best.” the oviraptor shuckled.

"I need to stretch my legs," Kaiwi said suddenly, pushing his seat out from the table and standing up. He was about to simply turn and walk away from Brunhilda and Celena when he smelled something artificial in the air. He looked over his shoulder and ducked his head back down when he recognised the bioluminescent glow of that Pachycephalosaurus. 

"Do you know them?" Brunhilda asked loudly, oblivious to his attempt to hide. He could hear a snort from behind him that sounded familiar and didn't raise his head to respond until he could no longer smell the stink of Alpha Labs in the air.

"Eh, fellow prisoners," he winced, "They have some herbivore versus carnivores mentality, not my biggest fans."

"Aren't they right?" Brunhilda asked, "Wouldn't you eat them if you had the chance?" Kaiwi shook his head.

"Not me. My personal philosophy is to not eat anything that can talk back to me," he told her. He glanced back again, finding his way clear and jumped up from his seat. "I'll be right back, I see some familiar faces," he assured her, cutting off the Oviraptor's protests.

“Please behave!” Brunhilda groaned as the utah inevitably disappeared into the crowd.

Kaiwi wound his way through the crowd, finding Oswald and Pancake sharing a seafood platter by splitting the fish and the garnishes between them. He saw a perch especially for fliers, including Bassoon and Oboe who both nodded at him when they spotted his bone-white face in the crowd. He even found his former jailor Mantell standing guard at the door. 

Brunhilda did her best to shadow the purple raptor, just to make sure he wouldn’t cause her any trouble by being a nuisance to the iguanodons. She felt a bit powerless, considering his size. She couldn’t wrestle him into submission even if she wanted or needed to, so she just had to hope for the best at this point.
The utah looked happy with the crowd he had gone to, which made her relieved. A happy captive is less of a risk to cause trouble, after all. She always intended to let him socialize so he wouldn’t have had to escape her, but she never had the chance to tell him that before he left the table. He likely thought of her as one of the so-called bad guys, which she didn’t blame him for, but it did make her a little sad when people thought badly of her.
The oviraptor returned to her seat while still keeping an eye on Kaiwi. Her atopo companion couldn’t care less what was happening, she was happily munching on her seaweed salad and Brunhilda smiled as she looked down on her.
“At least you are behaving, Celena. For the most part.” she chuckled and Celena looked up at her, wagging her long tail slightly. She was happy down here, despite the chaos from the iguanodons bossing everyone around. Sure, the topside was more free, but she didn’t have to look for any food down here, it was served to her. Celena saw that as a big win.

Brunhilda kept glancing over towards Kaiwi as she was slowly finishing up her meal. She wanted to be ready to get up and haul him back in case Agnus or Guerilla came and told her to do so, or preferably before to avoid a scolding, but so far, all iguanodons seemed busy enough with the feast to be bothered by anyone who wasn’t directly bumping into them. She wasn’t too worried at this point, as the purple utah seemed to behave perfectly fine among his assumed friends.
“Do you want to go for a walk, Celena?” the oviraptor asked as the two of them were finishing up their meals.
Celena nodded with excitement and happily rolled around a bit before barging through the crowd to find Kaiwi.
“That’s not what I had in mind..” Brunhilda sighed as she watched the small marine creature disappear between the legs of all the dinosaurs in the room.