First Meeting

Ever since she donkey-kicked her way out of the egg, Cassidy's mothers knew she was trouble. Neriya and Bandit watched in bemused disbelief as the pale pink hatchling fought her way out of her shell prison. She turned her equally pink eyes to her parents, scowling accusatorily at them like they had been the ones to put her in there. Which, to be fair to the brand new hatchling, she wasn't entirely wrong. Struggling to her feet, she managed to knock over one of her sibling's shaking eggs and send them tilting out of the nest. Bandit caught the egg in one claw and placed it back gently.

"This one's the troublemaker then?" she asked her partner, who laughed fondly. 

---

The two raptors couldn't have predicted how right they were. The quiet swampside nest they had built was thrown into chaos by the hatching of their clutch, and primarily by the firstborn. The abandoned town became Cassidy's preferred playground and any chance she got the hatchling would sneak away to explore its buildings. She avoided the ones that had sunk into the mire with time but picked her way into the other buildings through any means necessary. She was rummaging through the debris of what appeared to be a source of fabric for the ancient humans when she heard a small voice above her.

"What are you doing?"

She shrieked and fell back, making the owner of the voice scream and retreat too. She barely caught a glimpse of a white face before the interloper fell off the other side of the cardboard box and vanished behind it.

"Who are you?" Cassidy snapped, making her tiny crest feathers stand on end to make herself look bigger. The white face peeked out around the box, pale eyes watching her cautiously as the figure stepped out with its hands raised in supplication. It was another raptor hatchling with a ghoulish appearance, the aforementioned white face and dark purple body were unlike anything Cassidy had seen before.

"My name is Kaiwi," the small raptor introduced himself, "You're a raptor like me, I didn't know there were any around here." 

"Cassidy," the pink raptor responded bluntly, beginning to circle the other raptor, "It's just me and my family out here, I think, I haven't seen anyone like you around." She sniffed the air, like his bizarre colour would have some sort of olfactory explanation but he just had the same powdery scent her siblings did. "I only hatched a few days ago," she clarified.

"Oh, that makes sense, I've been around for a week and my parents said no one else lived here. Though," at this he looked around, "I've gone a little farther than I usually do, I might be pretty far from where they made their nest." Cassidy perked up at this notion, a fellow explorer?

"Can you show me where you live? I can show you my nest too, so we can play together whenever we want," she said bluntly.

"Don't your parents want you to stay around the nest? I know mine do, I have to sneak away," Kaiwi said anxiously in lieu of answering.

"I have to sneak off too!" Cassidy chirped excitedly, "We're like, the same!" Kaiwi looked taken aback by her enthusiasm but gave her a cautious smile.

"So we're friends now?" His nervousness left the question hanging awkwardly but Cassidy barged through any sense of tension by lunging forward and grabbing him in a headlock.

"Yeah we're friends! We can be best friends too, since we like all the same things, we could even make a pack together when we're older," she rambled as Kaiwi tried to reclaim control of his head. Cassidy released him and turned back to the pile of fabric she had been sorting through. "I'm nearly finished here, then we can go see my moms, they're not too far away so I can introduce you first and then we can go find your moms."

"I just have one mom, one mom and one dad," Kaiwi told her like it was an interesting tidbit. It was, to be fair to him, Cassidy hadn't met anyone that didn't have two moms before.

"That's weird, I don't believe you," she said abruptly. Kaiwi's feathers ruffled and he puffed his chest up.

"It's true! I swear!" he protested, flapping his feathered arms at her, "I'll show you, my nest first!" He grabbed her claw and pulled her to the door of the building, sloshing through the swamp water in the opposite direction of Cassidy's nest. She extricated herself from his grip but followed along at the same speed as before, only not overtaking the other hatchling by the sheer fact she had no idea where they were going. Even the swamp sludge couldn't bother her when the thrill of adventure filled her veins, completely oblivious to the way it soaked her feathers and would now make it apparent to her mothers where she had been all day. She had never been this far into the town before, having been clearing the rooms she could reach methodically in rows starting from where her nest was. She had barely even made it down the street in the few days she had managed to sneak away from home, and here Kaiwi was confidently leading her through brand new sights and sounds and... definitely some new smells.

"It smells gross here," she noted, making Kaiwi laugh.

"It does! It's really gross for a little while but it gets better soon, trust me." And for some weird reason, Cassidy trusted him. Her mothers had told her since she was born to be cautious of strangers but this guy was hardly a stranger at this point. Plus, he seemed really easy to beat in a fight, she wanted to have a fight just to prove it. Her siblings whined and complained to her moms whenever she play-fought with them, but Kaiwi wouldn't do that, he was way cooler than her siblings were. She felt fizzy at the thought of their future adventures, it was already exciting enough that she was discovering somewhere new, who knew how many places they could find with two of them at once?

Kaiwi stopped in his tracks and peeked around the next corner of the town. Cassidy tried to peek around with him but he put a hand on her face to push her back. She grumbled in protest between his fingers and shoved his hand away and was about to complain when he shushed her.

"Don't shush-" she started but he clamped his claw around her snout again and looked back at her, his pale eyes wobbling in fear.

"We have to go back," he whispered. Cassidy stopped struggling and gestured at him to step back and let her look. He didn't protest this time, just stood back and clasped his hands anxiously as he waited for her to take a peek. She craned her neck around the corner, her enthusiasm dampened by Kaiwi's obvious fear, and she soon saw the source of his anxiety. In the deeper flooded streets of the town, an enormous dinosaur was laying in the mud, visible only by the top of its head, snout and back. She had never seen one like this before, had never seen any other species before, and the size and enigma of it frightened her deeply. This type of fear was new too, shaking her to her core. Something in her brain was screaming at her to run and not look back, despite not having a clue as to what it was. She withdrew from the peeking position and flattened herself to the concrete wall.

"We have to go back, you can stay at my nest," she said, her heart hammering in her chest. Kaiwi nodded and began to creep slowly through the water back the way they came. Cassidy wondered if her moms would be amenable to taking in someone else's hatchling for the night, but there was no way she would let Kaiwi face that monster alone. She also wondered if his parents would panic about him not coming home tonight.

It turned out, she didn't have to wonder about any of that, as waiting for them as her nest was two sets of adult Utahraptors. After a thorough scolding from both families, Kaiwi was led home by his parents, waving back to Cassidy as they disappeared into a different street in the town. While her moms berated her some more for sneaking off, she was already planning her next outing, figuring out what path would be best to take to try and meet up with her new friend again. If nothing else, having someone to chuck at big scary dinosaurs would be useful now she knew how scary things got out there. She made her usual apologies, already a master at them despite only being alive for a week, and took herself back to bed. She settled in between her siblings and pretended to go to sleep, instead she stared at the sky as it turned from blue to orange, bleeding purple streaks. New colours, new friends, new monsters. She had always known that venturing beyond the nest would lead her to something great and now she had proof.