[DTA] Do you even LARP?

Another howl ran through the forest and spilled out as an eerie echo over the glade.

The first one alone had Cozy’s feathers bristling and her nerves on edge. She might be fully grown now, but her encounter with one ferocious wolf in her youth was enough to burn that memory into her mind. Horrid growls, piercing eyes, and snapping teeth.

More hollow voices join the canine chorus of wailing howls.

“Five,” Cozy grumbled. She was the only one holding her head high, and her eyes locked on the edge of the woods that surrounded the herd. Squinting at the shadows, as if she could extract an answer from the underbrush itself, she reviewed her counting. “Maybe six.”

Her herd kept on grazing lazily on the clearing and picking at the still-blooming flowers and shaded ferns. They were used to Cozy’s complaints ever since she was a hatchling, and they were within their right to act utterly unbothered by her.

“Someone should really do something about those pests. What if they get bold after all and attack one of us?” Cozy turned towards the closest of her herd mates, who clearly wasn’t ready to be part of this conversation.

“Who, what? The wolves? We’re Parasaurs, they don’t dare to attack us,” they reply with bits of fresh herbs spilling out of their beak mid-chew.

“I was attacked before!” Cozy was quick to counter.

“It was just one lone wolf, and you defended yourself just fine even when you were a child,” the herd member retorted and shot her a dubious squint. They managed to look as if they scrunched their nose in irritation, even with their crest of solid keratin. With a sigh, their brows twitched up before they felt the need to elaborate. “If a pack of wolves comes after the herd, be it five, six or twenty of them, I think we have enough mass to chase them away, Cozy. What are they gonna do? Bite your ankles?”

“Exactly!” Cozy exclaimed, one hoof stamped to the ground like punctuation. “If they’re hungry, they’ll try to bite a chunk out of us anyway.”

The other Parasaurolophus gave her a slow blink. And, they turned away from her, clearly unimpressed, unconvinced and not interested in continuing the conversation. This wasn’t a debate they could win, so they would much rather resign and focus on breakfast instead.

Cozy gaped at them with a frown that crept onto her face and stayed there. She was inclined to let her indignation show and confront the nonchalance they—and the rest of the herd, for that matter—took on whenever she had a real issue at hand. This time, she clamped her beak shut.

“Fine,” she muttered to herself. “You know what? I am not going to stay here for wild canines to circle us.”
With that decision, she trotted past the other Parasaur and, most importantly, away from potential wolves.

Her herdmates pay her little mind as she makes her way through the masses, her head held high. They were long past coddling her for being naive or too young, so they let her walk. One would hope she would know better by now, but once again, they watch her waddle away from the safety of the herd. And all that just because some wild canines make her nervous.

She had marched away on principle, but principles made poor company. Eventually, a few paces away, she slowed. With a stiff pride in her shoulders but a quiver in her legs, she’d walked just far enough to realise the ever-increasing distance to the herd. With just a glance over her shoulder, she saw the herd wasn’t too far. They were still in earshot and line of sight, but left as small shapes sprinkled across the glade.

Before she could sneer at the fact that not a single soul followed her with worry, movement in the bushes caught her attention. Her silky feathers stood on their ends, a shiver rippling down her back to the tip of her tail. She saw a wolf, a giant one, she was sure of that.

The bush shifts, and she tightens her stance. She knows what’s in there, and she’s dead set to keep it at bay. “Eeek! Stay away! Stay away!” she yelped, rearing up to flail her hooves in a volley of haphazard kicks. 

“Hoh, easy there, tall lady,” replied the wolf?

Stumbling back a few steps, she realised this wasn’t an absurdly wide wolf at all! It was… She wasn’t sure what exactly he was.

Stunned, her yelling stopped. Still propped up on her back legs, she hugged her limbs close to her body and looked down on the yellow eyes meeting hers. She opened her beak, once, twice, three times, but her words died down before she could voice them.

The stranger stepped out of the underbrush and simply waited for her to stop hyperventilating. His coat was deceptively wolf coloured, but the shape wasn’t right with his wide stance and the pale spines adorning his back. He looked up at her with part amusement and unwavering patience.

“What… are you?” Cozy finally managed, unmoving from her stiff, upright posture.

The stranger perked up at the question and inclined into a polite flourish of a deep bow. “I am Lobo, an Euoplocephalus warrior, sworn hammer of Her Majesty and guardian of the splendid realms of Atlantis.”

For a long beat, she just stared, caught somewhere between confusion and awe, before letting out a weak, “Oh… Okay?”

She didn’t catch any of that except his name. Eyeing the stranger, she slowly lowered her body again to stand on all fours. Her head held low and tilted, a poor attempt to mirror his gesture, she gave her introduction in turn. “My name’s Cozy. Uhm… I am part of the herd over there.” She nodded her head towards the small clearing she came from, but that’s when her words faltered. There’s nothing more to her.

“Well met, Cozy, tall lady from the glades,” Lobo accepted her reply freely. “Herd or no herd, it takes courage to walk apart, tall lady. There be wolves about these woods.”

“Wolves. Right. I thought you were one,” Cozy admitted. She crossed one leg over the other, scraping the edge of her hoof down her shin in a slow, absentminded motion. ”Sorry about, well, nearly kicking you in the head.”

“Don’t fret for your quick judgment, it is of importance to stay vigilant as such. I am equipped with a hide hard as stone, you see, and I take no offence at your fast thinking,” he reassured her, while standing a little prouder. “It’s admirable to act that swiftly, dear Cozy.”

She let out a breathy chuckle in return. Who even talks like that?
She leaned in a little to look the strange dinosaur over. He wasn’t small, but so close to the ground, he might be the shortest fully grown dino she’s ever seen. Led by curiosity, she double-checks. “Where did you say you come from again?”

“Atlantis! Hidden paradise. Timeless gem cradled by dense jungles only reached by secret tunnels, and- Oh, you must simply see the grand gardens of the court.” His club swayed side to side as the topic made him wag his tail in sluggish, wide arcs. “You’d fit right in the court's midst. I am certain they’d appreciate a radiant sight as yourself.”

“Uh-huh. That sounds just… lovely,” she replied, the words carrying more sarcasm than she wanted to. Although the tone didn’t seem to reach Lobo, she was quick to cover it up. “Ah, if it's such a paradise, why are you out here? Won’t you like to go back home, back to your, er… queen and court and everything?”

“I must not! I am on a mission by the court's command,” he stiffened in his posture, adamant not to clarify his purpose in the same breath.

“Oh. Well… I think I need to do that, though. Return to my herd, I mean,” she decided. This was all a little too weird for her. With one last ill-practised bow of her head, she said her swift farewell. “See you around, uh, Lobo the warrior.”

With that, she pivoted to walk past him. Looking over her shoulder to glance at him, she eventually tore her attention from him and sped up to a half-hurried trot.

All things considered, maybe it’s wiser to tell everyone she fought off one overzealous canine rather than retell the whole Atlantis tale he dropped on her. Even she knew no one would believe her if she told them she encountered a whole different kind of dinosaur, never seen before on the isles, who was a warrior of some sort of kingdom. 

No, she’ll keep it simple.

[1462 words according to Google Docs]