Friends In Swampy Places

The queen had made her desires clear, expanding the garden to ensure if her people needed to move to the surface they would be comfortable and surrounded by familiar foliage. Powder had managed to lose Brambles in the jungle, an excellent chance for her to catch her breath from the relentless nonsense of her sister. On her way out of the queens hall she found a sad little creature crawling on the floor, a dark coloured tape was moving along the ground, headed out toward the jungle that edged the buildings. “Oh, are you alright little one?” She asked stooping down to look at the winged creature.  

“Uhhh, I… I’m tired.” The tape said as she exhaled dramatically to show her exhaustion. Powder smiled, she had an idea. Her mother had always taught her to be kind to other creatures, even to her prey and so helping the little creature was an easy decision. She sat down beside the flyer and looked over to her, “You can climb on my back if you'd like.” She said with a giggle at the thought of giving someone a piggy back. Cammy was shocked at first but feeling how tired her wings were from walking around she graciously accepted, using Powder’s soft feathers to help her up and onto the cryo’s back. 

“Oh thankyou!” Cammy said as she hugged herself around the back of Powder’s neck to make sure she didn't fall off. “I’m Cammy.” She said as the edges of her beak upturned into a smile. Powder giggled in response excited to be making a new friend. “My name’s Powder!” She announced happily. Energetically jumping back up to her feet. The pair shared some small talk, getting better acquainted as they set off toward the surface, they passed many other dinosaurs on their way through Atlantis, all of which were locals.

“...”

Walking along, the two bumped into something small. To be more specific, Powder nearly tripped over whatever they had encountered. Looking down, she saw a pale purple Theri hatchling, holding a bag of seeds so large it rose over her long neck and blocked her face.

“Oof, sorry!” a muffled voice came from behind the bag. The Theri set the sack on the ground and dusted herself off, craning her neck to look up at the Cryo she had bumped into. Her expression was kind, soothing Alkonost’s nerves as she was worried about offending some tough, burly Atlantean. Instead, a small dark coloured Tape was peering over the Cryo’s shoulder and they both seemed to be worried about her being hurt instead of offended.

Alkonost was about to introduce herself when an Iguanodon interrupted.

“Ah, volunteers I take it?” the Iggy said brusquely, “I’m Sela and I’ll be supervising your mission on the islands. Three of you should be enough for now, let’s get going.” Alkonost exchanged a worried glance with the other two but followed the brown Iggy as she marched to the exit, picking up the sack of seeds and grunting under the weight.

“I can carry that for you, if you’d like?” the Cryo offered politely. The little Theri could’ve cried with relief but instead she nodded furtively and felt the weight of the bag being lifted away from her. 

“My name is Alkonost,” she said as their faces became visible again.

“It’s lovely to meet you, my name is Powder,” Powder greeted warmly.

“I’m Cammy!” the Tape chimed in, “We met five minutes ago!” The bluntness of the flier’s statement made Alkonost giggle, raising her claws to cover her mouth as she did.

“No loitering, we need to hurry,” Sela barked, making all three of them jump. Powder hoisted the seeds closer to her chest and began to follow the Iggy, looking down briefly to make sure Alkonost was keeping up.

After so long down in the dome, the sudden breath of fresh air from the outside was like a rush of blood to the head. For a moment, all they could do was stand at the entrance to Atlantis and soak in the natural sunlight. The wind was rising and falling unlike the steady air conditioning of Atlantis, bringing the scent of the sea along with it. 

“You’re loitering again,” Sela said sharply, coming back to push them along, “You need to be showing me where we can be planting these.”

“We need to?” Powder asked in confusion.

“Yes, you. You live here, you know where the plants grow, don’t you?” the streaked Iggy asked, getting impatient now. Powder looked between the three of them, a carnivore, an omnivore and a baby herbivore. She wasn’t entirely sure if this was the best team to ask, but she supposed it was hard for Sela to know, having been around the strange plant life of Atlantis for what must have been her whole life. She could feel Cammy shifting around on her back like she was ready to take off and knew she had to intervene somehow.

“I- yes we do, it’s not here though, only a few things can grow really well on the beach,” Powder explained. Alkonost nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

“Beach,” Sela said, rolling the word over in her mouth like she was tasting it, “Alright, if not the ‘beach’ then where?”

“We could try the swamp!” Alkonost piped up, making the Iggy’s eyes turn to her again. She shrank a little under the scrutiny but forced herself to continue. “It’s wet and warm like the jungle, your plants might do really well there.”

“The plan is to fill the entire island with our plants, not just pockets in far-off reaches, the islands must become our new Atlantis,” Sela insisted.

“There’s no harm in trying the best areas first, right?” Cammy suggested, “If they do well in the swamp then you have a whole base camp of plants to go back to if they fail elsewhere.”

“...” 

Cammy felt uneasy at the thought of the Atlanteans taking over the WHOLE island. It really did seem a bit excessive, after all they had been crammed into the bubble beneath the waves, did they really need the whole island. While Cammy spiralled with these thoughts Powder checked in on Alkanost. She wondered if her little legs were tired as she had fought to keep up with the two larger dinos, it didn’t seem quite fair that she had to run along behind them while Cammy was being carried around like royalty. She looked back to Sela who had already  started to walk off at a brisk pace, not that she knew where she was going but it felt like the authoritative thing to do. 

Powder crouched down beside Alkanost, ignoring Sela as she began to walk off; she would be back soon enough when she realised she had no idea what or where the swamp was. “Would you like to climb on as well?" Powder looked at the smaller creature with warmth and kindness filling her eyes. Alkanost was larger than Cammy and she would probably be a little heavy but Powder was sure she could handle it. Alkanost nodded so eagerly she made her world spin, “Oh yes please!” She said excitedly as she used Powder’s tail to help her up, Cammy shimmied off to the side to allow the little theri to hold onto the cryos neck so she didn’t fall, Cammy then made herself comfortably cuddled up behind the youngster to make her feel more secure. 

“You’re loitering again! Where is this swamp?” Sela snapped, having returned from her directionless wandering. Powder felt both Cammy and Alkanost jump at the stern words of the iggy. Despite the drastic size difference Powder shot her a glare, maybe more sassy than warning as there was no way the smaller cryo would be able to intimidate the hulking iggy but she wanted to make sure Sela knew these two little creatures were under her care and she would protect them. A behaviour she had learnt from her mother who was always ready to defend smaller creatures. 

“The swamp is this way.” Powder said reverting to her usual happy self, the weight of the two on her back was comforting and made her feel like she wasn’t alone and it made her happy to think she was helping them. Her two passengers seemed happy and all three of them were giggling and chatting learning about each other. Powder was so happy to have met them both and she was eager to share this moment with them despite the stern directions from Sela.

“…”

Sela observed the dense foliage around her with an air of familiarity. The Tape had been right, this was similar in a lot of ways to the more watery areas of the dome. She took the bag of seeds from Powder’s hold and began to sift through them. 

“Alright, the green seeds with two lobes are mangrove seeds, start planting those and we can continue on from there,” she ordered. She held one up for the three volunteers to observe and began to dig a hole to plant it. Alkonost used her claws to sort through the seeds and handed them out one by one to Cammy and Powder for planting. They looked at the seeds at a loss and followed Sela’s actions carefully. Neither had done anything like this before but surely if they copied the Iggy they couldn’t go too far wrong. Between the four of them, the thick mud of the swamp soon had a veritable field of mangroves planted by sundown.

“Not a bad day’s work,” Sela said, sounding happier than she had all day, “If we can continue at this pace tomorrow we’ll be on track to cultivating these islands.” Alkonost looked at Cammy and mouthed the word ‘tomorrow’ with a worried look on her face. The Tape just shrugged, unsure of how their newly bonded trio would escape this agricultural nightmare.