Kela Crash Course Part 2

Talos and Korppi were somehow pulled away from their prime directive of planting by the promise of knowledge from their native guides. The concept of seasons where their plants might be able to grow had thrown them for a loop and now they were eager to absorb any scrap of knowledge they could in order to improve the chances of the Queen's orders. They couldn't imagine returning to Atlantis to tell Queen Rhys that her only plan to save the Atlanteans was going to be impossible because a quarter of the year would be spent under the cruel thumb of this so-called 'winter'.

"So, where we are right now is where winter is the harshest," the young Cryo Drift explained, "When plants get scarce, so do herbivores,which means that food is scarce for carnivores too."

"We often have to go ice fishing during the winter to keep ourselves fed," Brook added.

"What does that mean?" Talos interrupted.

"You break a hole through where the water has frozen and find the fish hiding beneath the surface where the water is warmer," Brook elaborated. Talos nodded solemnly before looking back to Drift.

"So, when food is scarce, a carnivore has to take food wherever they can find it y'know?" She finished awkwardly.

"I don't know, please explain, why can't carnivores just eat plants like the Oviraptors do?" Korppi asked. The three looked at her dumbfounded for a moment.

"Carnivores can't do that, if they eat anything other than meat they can get pretty sickly," Tony explained gently, like he was speaking to a hatchling.

"Out of curiosity, have you ever been hunted before?" Brook asked bluntly. 

"We are not familiar with this concept, but I gather it is being eaten by another species," Talos said, his voice flat and unaffected.

"Exactly!" Drift sighed, more excited than she meant to be, "That's one of the reasons why it's so dangerous here in winter, carnivores get hungrier then." Talos looked at Korppi who returned her worried look with an ice cold stare. As she was looking, his eyes darted over to the bag of seeds. The idea clicked in her immediately. Within the seeds lay some of the more hardy and toxic plants of Atlantis, picked to go on this journey for that exact reason. If carnivores were already prone to sickness when eating plants, this could be an efficient way of poisoning them.

"Ah, we should get back to work, we can keep talking as we're planting," Tony said, noticing them looking at the sacks of planting equipment. 

"Let's go to lower ground, we'll find better soil down there," Brook suggested kindly. With a groan at the thought of loading up their packs again, the Euoplos reluctantly agreed to walk further into the valley. When the snow began to clear, the ground seemed far more amenable to be dug, and Tony and the Cryo siblings set to work straight away while the knights unpacked.

"I feel bad we kept them so long with all that talk of seasons and carnivores," Tony admitted to the other two as they worked on making pits equal distances apart along a winding wooded path.

"Nah, they need to know this stuff," Drift said confidently, "Imagine coming up here and not knowing what winter is? Or what being hunted feels like? They wouldn't last a year without help."

"I wish we could repair the dome," Brook lamented, "That seems like the simplest solution, the Atlanteans stay safe and no one has to share their land up here." He grabbed the seedling Korppi offered him with a quick 'thank you' and dropped it into the nearest hole. Using his legs he carefully scooped dirt around the stem and tamped down the earth until the sapling sat firmly in the dirt. 

"Nice work," Korppi praised before moving on to offer a plant to Tony, "You guys are naturals at this, have you done this before?"

"Not sure about the other two but I helped some Ovis do some planting when they first came to the surface," Tony said, planting his own sapling. 

"We did too, uh, what was his name, he had really bright colours," Drift pondered, already distracted from her digging. A gentle nudge from Talos' club set her back working again, though her brow was still furrowed with the effort of trying to recall the name of their acquaintance. The white Euoplo dropped his seedling into the hole when she was finished and covered it over himself, using his surprisingly dextrous club. 

"Paradise," Brook said finally, already finished with planting another, "I'm pretty sure that was his name." Tony nodded.

"I've met him, but not until I was down in Atlantis, Varpunen and Lahna," he remembered, "They were really nice, you lot did a good job picking ambassadors to meet the islanders for the first time." He walked to the sack of seeds to grab one when Korppi darted in front of him.

"Let us handle the seeds, they're more delicate," she said quickly, laughing nervously like it was a funny inside joke. Tony gave her a wary look but returned to digging holes. He wouldn't share his concerns with the Cryo siblings just yet, but how cagey the Euoplos were being about these new factors had put him on edge. He knew their plight and sympathised with them, but at the expense of his own home? He hadn't been able to identify a single plant species that they had brought to the surface, not knowing if they were growing poison in the highland soil or not. He felt like the Atlanteans as a whole were sticking their heads in the sand about the reality of predation on the surface. Avoiding a stationary carnivorous plant was an entirely different scenario to avoiding a hungry pack of Albertos stalking you while you freeze to death in the snow. Still, he wondered, would it be all that bad if the Atlanteans were brought down by their own hubris? Maybe their conquesting ways would be neutered by the harsh reality of life on the islands. He just hoped for their sake that much blood wouldn't have to be spilled before they threw in the towel.