Dance!

Haze stumbled through the jungle, he’d strayed down here after following an Oviraptor. He’d never seen a place like this before and the blue light filtering down from above set him ill at ease. Looking up he watched as fish danced around sending shimmers toward him. Returning his gaze to the thick jungle around him he gulped. He was lost, the panic of being in a strange place and not knowing how to get home began to set in. Flustered now and stumbling around he bumped into a sharp vine, the poke he received sent him rushing forward and into some more vines that reached down from the canopy. Their thorny tendrils hooking into his skin painfully. As he thrashed around he had managed to get himself tangled to the point he could not free himself.

Breathing heavily he continued to tug and pull his body in various ways, fighting with all his strength to break free of his captors, but it was no use. His frantic battle with the vines had caused such a ruckus that it had surely drawn the attention of anything nearby. A new fear manifested in his chest, what if there was something more dangerous than him down here? He was a large creature but he had seen bigger and meaner topside, what was to say there wasn’t something like that living down here. His noisy attempts to free himself became hushed tugging at his restraints. Pushing into the thorns as he did so he gritted his teeth so as not to groan from the pain. The more he fought the tighter the vines became until he was no longer able to fight them, surrendering to them he accepted his fate. 

“...”

An odd pair of carnos slowly made their way through the underwater tunnels. To the left, there was the hairy Agatha, she could almost be described to look like a striped mop that had been dragged in mud, with a splash of white thanks to her appaloosa butt. On her right was the lab freak, Drift. She was not nearly as hairy as Agatha, almost looked like she had mange in comparison, but she was also covered in a hard exo skeleton from head to the start of her tail. Below that, as well as on the tip on her tail, was a glowing yellow and pink stripe. Her mouth glowed the same way. It made for a very vibrant contrast in comparison to her mostly white and black body.

The two of them hadn’t known each other for long, but they had quickly become friends and shared a similar type of humour.

“I do wonder what’s down here.” Drift said and giggled a bit. “It for sure cannot be worse than Nidhogg, that was a force to be reckoned with.”

While Agatha herself had never seen Nidhogg, she had heard about the terror he caused in others, so she laughed along with Drift, knowing he was thankfully no longer around.

“It sure would suck if something even worse would appear. The worst we have got to deal with so far is all these wicked plants. I doubt they will gain sentience and chase us.” Agatha chuckled as she kicked a thorny vine away with her foot.

Their laughter came to a halt as they heard some noise up ahead that they couldn’t discern what it was. They stop in their tracks and look at each other before Agatha slowly walks forward, towards the tumultuous noises. As she rounded the corner and looked in the room the noise was coming from, she saw another one of her kind, a carno, tangled up in a bunch of vines. Agatha nodded to Drift to approach, so she quickly caught up and stood behind Agatha to look in as well.

“Worry not, we shall help you out!” Drift exclaimed as she swiftly dodged the thorny vines spread around the floor as she ran up to the tangled up carno. “Agatha, I need you to free up their face, I will take the chest for now so they can breathe.”

Agatha ran up to help her friend, who was pushing her shielded back against the thorns. They served as great protection and allowed her to quite easily chew up the vines without getting harmed. Agatha didn’t have that thick protection herself, but her feathers served as enough protection to mitigate most of the thorns from stabbing or cutting her.

After some time struggling, the two girls finally managed to get the other carno out of the tangled mess and they could all breathe out in relief.

“Are you okay?” Agatha asked the stranger with her usual warm and kind voice. “I’m Agatha, and this is Drift.” she added and nudged her neon light friend.

“How did you end up in this mess?” Drift asked, both curious and concerned.

“...”

Having been freed from his entanglement he took a short fall to the ground, Haze was still panting after he was released, his bare skin was cut all over and blood trickled along his full body. His little face had been scratched up pretty badly as well. Struggling back to his feet clumsily he stood to look at his saviours, there was a distinct height difference between him and the others, a sign of his younger age. He gave them both a shy smile as he looked them over, unsure of what to say. Deciding they couldn’t possibly be a threat as they had been so kind as to help him he began to speak. “I-I’m Haze…” He looked to the ground embarrassed, "Thank you for saving me.” His words were soft and it was difficult to hear him however they understood the message.

Being prompted for an explanation of what happened sent him further into his nervousness. He began to stammer and ramble about the events leading up to his predicament. “I…Well… There was a poker! It jabbed me in the rump!” He turned to show the girls his assailant, gesturing with tiny arms to a particularly thorny vine that reached out toward them. “I… I got spooked and tried to run.” He turned himself around to look back at the vines that had held him so firmly. “And I got caught… T-tangled in those.” Again he gestured with nubby arms. His ordeal had left him shaken and so he was not mindful of his volume, while not shouting he was speaking quite loud. 

As expected his loud story telling attracted the attention of a pair of prickly, short set waddlers. Two Euplocephalus came rumbling through the foliage and into view. “HALT!”  a fiery female with glowing bronze armour barked at the trio, “What business do you have here?” Her dark crested companion followed up. Haze stumbled, moving himself away from the clubbed creatures as they approached, nearly sending himself back into the thorny grasp of the vines. Steadying himself he moved to stand beside the two larger females and face the smaller creatures before them. Not wanting to be the first to speak he shyly looked away, concerned of what they would think about his bloodied body, for the Euplos this was nothing new however. Being familiar with the native flora they had seen many the youngster return scratched up beyond recognition. 

“...”

Startled by the two armoured herbivores, Drift didn’t know what to do and in a panic, she struck a pose and started flailing her arms and blinking her bioliminescence as if following a beat that no one else could hear. She started shuffling to the right, and then the left, as if dancing, all while still flailing her arms and stretching up real tall.

Agatha looked at her in horror for a second before ultimately telling herself that why not? They had nothing to lose. So the much less flashy carno joined in in the dance, flailing her arms just like drift and shuffling side to side, much like a crab. Neither of them were very gracious, but they did their best.

The two euouplos were stunned, not because they admired their performance, but because they were just shocked at what they were doing.

“What is this supposed to be?” the bronze armoured euouplo asked them, with an almost offended tone.

“A dance performance!” Drift huffed as she tried to focus on her sick moves, now spinning around as best as she could while also bobbing up and down with her upper body.

“Yeah, a dance performance, you will totally let us go if we impress you, right??” Agatha added as she did her best at mimicking Drift’s moves, but ultimately she decided to freestyle and do her own thing, which ended up in some chicken looking tap dancing.

“This is absurd!” the crested euouplo scoffed. “Who would come up with such an ignorant idea?”

Agatha was nothing if not persistent, she looked over at the young male, Haze she recalled his name was, and nodded as an invite to join in.

“Come on little one, surely your moves will impress them, you should be even more agile than us!” she chuckled as she made a scuffed attempt at a somersault.

“...”

Haze’s jaw hung open in shock and confusion, what was happening? Why was this happening? He watched the other Carnos for a moment before he too began to feel the silent beat. Stretching his neck up and straightening his back he stood as tall as he possibly could, even pushing himself further by getting up on his tippy toes. 

Looking back between the two females and the two Euplos he began the awkward motion of wiggling his tiny arms around, his moves were far quicker than the other two and it seemed as though he was trying to take flight. The two guards watched the ridiculous scene now having fallen silent, whether it was from being impressed or furious none of the three could tell but still they danced! 

Haze, having gotten into a bit of a groove, began to spring from side to side leaning his whole body into the motion like a wave, so invested in the motions he even started to hum out a beat to which he timed his moves. “Ba dum pa tsss ba dum DAH!” Went his song and on the final DAH he did a 360 spin and landed with his arms outstretched and mouth open in a sort of tadaa. 

Panting he looked at the two older females, impressed by their stamina then he turned to see the Euplos, his stomach dropped. Neither looked pleased or impressed and the darker of the two swung their club around aggressively. “ENOUGH!” the crested Euplo barked, bringing everyone to attention. 

“...”

The carnos came to a halt in their performance as they were yelled at by the short statured euoplo,all curious what they had to say. Agatha was nervous but hopeful, while Drift just wanted to move along without trouble. 

The brown and striped euoplo let out an annoyed sigh as she looked between the three misplaced carnos. 

“Look. We would rather not have outsiders interfere with our business. But after seeing.. Whatever this was.. I highly doubt either of you have any malicious intent. You may pass, for now. But if we find out you've caused any trouble down here, we will not be so kind.” she huffed as she and the crested euoplo both stepped aside to grant the trio access to the path behind them. 

“Thank you so much, we promise we will behave.” Agatha replied with a calm and gentle tone as she took the lead out of the room with the others in tow behind her. 

Drift sighed in relief as they left the two grumpy guards behind. Their demeanor and clubbed tails felt very threatening, especially considering they had the upper hand by knowing the layout of the place. Running likely wouldn't have been an option if they did get enraged by their sudden show. 

Now, all they had to do was to cautiously explore the place to hopefully get an answer to what was happening to their island, and how they could fix it. 

2021 words