The Pond

When the foliage of the Atlantean jungle finally parted, it felt almost like it was spitting the three raptors out. They trudged, feathers laden with moisture into a clearing, finally free from the constant gripping and groping of the lively plants in this strange new world. Piper laid on her back, spread out on the short grass with her feathers splayed, hoping the heat of the lamps above her would help dry them out. She didn't speak, too exhausted to even bother snarking at her brother and Cassidy for not joining her. Cassidy had stayed walking, wanting to check the perimeter before she even settled down even as her muscles ached to rest. From the second she had entered Atlantis it felt like her head had been on a swivel, between the patrolling Euoplo guards and the vicious plant life, they hadn't had a moment's peace. Her leg stung from where a vine had grabbed her like a snare, its thorns twisting and burying themselves into the flesh like barbed wire. Hazard had quickly severed the vine with a brutal snap of her jaws, but it had caused enough damage to leave Cassidy with a hopefully temporary limp.

While Cassidy checked the perimeter, Sparrow found himself drawn to the centre of the jungle clearing. The artificial lights above reflected off the surface of a pond, a gently moving current making patterns on the grass around them. Stone slabs lined the edge of the pond, neatly placed in a singular row, no possibility of them having formed naturally. Something about that revelation made the feathers on the back of his neck stand up. Human-made things were never a good thing, and they tried to avoid their strange contraptions wherever they could. A flicker of movement caught his wary eye and he jumped back from the pond, his claws at the ready to strike. 

Sensing her brother startling at something, Piper lifted her head from the grass to look at him. She never knew how she managed to sense these things, Cassidy called it 'weird twin shit' once and Piper had bitten her for it. She was never wrong though, and she saw Sparrow bristling at something in the pond. She grunted as she rolled onto her front and hurried to join him, shaking her feathers out. When she reached his side, her eyes also locked on to the movement in the pond. Beneath the glare of the overhead lights, she could see large fish swimming in lazy circles around the water's edge. They dove in and out of the thick vegetation planted in the sandy ground beneath the water, disappearing when Piper's snout touched the water. 

"Food?" she said out loud.

"I think so," Sparrow replied, a slight smile tugging at his mouth. They would wait for Cassidy to finish her sweep of course, she never held it against her gang if they ate without her but it only felt fair to reward her vigilance with the first taste of fresh fish. That, and Piper wanted someone else to try the fish first in case they were some kind of poisonous mutant that humans had bred into existence hundreds of years ago. She imagined the poison in their flesh growing with each generation and had to repress a shudder at the thought. Cassidy could have the first bite.

The gang's leader was thorough in her perimeter patrol, only noticing the twins leaning over the pond when she was finished. Curious, she joined them and immediately spotted the potential source of food under the water.

"Nice fat fish," she remarked, "Strange colours though. They mightn't be safe to eat."

"They must be safe," Sparrow objected, "Or otherwise the Oviraptors would be eating nothing but fruit and leaves down here."

"Maybe that is all they eat, and they only got a taste for the good shit when they came up to the surface," Piper argued. With Cassidy already suspicious of the fish she knew there was little chance of getting her to try it first so she switched tactics to avoid her brother being the taste tester instead. 

"Piper's right, being omnivorous might be new to them, and if it is when there's a plentiful supply of fish down here then there must be a reason why," Cassidy said, scratching her chin the way she always did when she was deep in thought. She looked into the pond again, stirring the water with her claws and watching the way the fish fled at the disturbance before circling back. She felt sorry for them, there wasn't any stream coming to or from this place, it looked like water was pumped into it from one of the walls of the pond. Nowhere to go but around in circles, being eaten would probably be merciful. Still, those splashes of orange and black made her wary, reminding her of the speckled poison frogs that lived in the swamps above the surface. Her belly gnawed with hunger, but she knew there would be hell to pay if her judgement was off and the three of them ended up incapacitated. She knew Hazard was reliable, but the idea of leaving her and Wisteria to lead the charge to rescue Cath frightened her more than the thought of being poisoned did.

"Take a drink, take a minute to relax, then we'll move on," she said firmly, both twins turning to look at her.

"When will we get to eat?" Sparrow asked indignantly.

"We might not get to until we get back to the surface, we'll just have to suck it up unless Cassidy finds us something edible," Piper sneered, glad to pass the blame of the decision onto their fearless pastel leader. A cold look from the pink raptor quelled her smugness a little, but she still felt a tinge of victory as she dipped her face into the pond to get a drink of fresh water. Sparrow joined her while Cassidy stood guard, her eyes scanning the treeline for any signs of danger.