Ferocious Flora

The tunnel before us is not what I was expecting. It’s see-through, and surrounded by all sides with water. It goes through the ocean. Not what I was expecting to have to go through to go to the homeland of the Oviraptors so I can get Duststorm to make up for what he did.

By “human-tunnel,” I just expected a tunnel through a mountain or something. Not this.

A nudge against my shoulder takes me out of it. Duststorm.

“So, do you still want to go through?” Duststorm is still not that excited for this. You’d think by now he’d have given up on trying to change my mind, but he’s nothing but stubborn. He’d get bitten by a rattlesnake to prove a point. He’s apparently used to it, for some reason, but still.

“C’mon, we’ve spent a good amount of time just to get to this point. And you still have to make up for what you did to that Oviraptor. Don’t think that I’ve forgotten about what started this whole thing. This is your fault.” I nudge him back playfully, before starting through the tunnel.

It’s honestly pretty amazing that humans, when they were still around, were able to build structures like these. How does it not collapse? How did they make glass? I know that stuff like the jars that Duststorm has aren’t that rare, but it’s still unknown how it was made.

Anyways, time to go through this tunnel!

---

Following Lilac, I’m confused how she’s still happy. I do not like this. I’m surrounded by water on all sides, and I don’t like water. I’ve lived in a scrubland my whole life, and one so dry it’s more like a desert. Large amounts of water is just unnatural for me. Especially since it’s suspended around me while I’m inside what amounts to a glass tube.

Again, I don’t like it.

Still, I follow Lilac through the seemingly stable glass tube.

“So, we’re really doing this? Walking through a glass tube to go to the home of the Oviraptors? Just because I scared an Oviraptor a bit?”

She turns around and glares at me. “You pounced onto him!”

I look back. “Well I didn’t hurt him. I consider it a favor. Now he knows to be more aware of his surroundings in an unfamiliar environment. It could save his life.”

She grumbles a bit, but doesn’t respond.

The stupid tube starts getting more overgrown. Luckily, they’re not the dangerous flora that the Oviraptors plant, like the ones by the entrance to the building. I don’t think that Lilac could handle more pain like that. She hasn’t got bitten by enough rattlesnakes to build tolerance to venom and piercing pain. Softie.

Back to the growing flora. It’s actually pretty pretty. There’s a lot of nice flowers, and ones that aren’t poisonous. Probably.

I go to touch one and, yes, they’re not poisonous. Or at least the poison isn’t enough to affect me. Good. We can continue.

We make our way through the tunnel. It’s getting darker. The tunnel might be sloped slightly downwards. Not enough to really notice, but enough to make a distance this far down. Finally, we reach the entrance.

It’s a sealed entrance, made of the same stuff that the buildings the humans made on the surface. Lilac murmurs a bit. “Are there multiple tunnels? I don’t know if this is the right one. I mean, from how you described them, Oviraptors don’t seem that strong. I don’t think they could open or close something like this.”

I shake my head. “Those plants came from somewhere. At some point, this opened. Maybe…” I look closer at the metal gates. They’re dented, like someone threw a big rock at it.

“This is going to hurt…” I run at the gate, head first. I ram into it, hurting my head a little. Okay, a lot. I’m pretty sure my crest is still intact, though.

Lilac looks at me like I’m crazy. “What are you doing!?!” I look at her. “Trying to open the gates? It looks like they bashed it open.” Lilac walks by me, and digs her claws into the crack that’s along the center. She then pulls the gates open.

“I realized while you did your stupid thing that you shook it open a little. So I opened it.”

I just look at her blankly. At least my efforts helped, I guess? I look beyond the gate we’ve just opened.

“Um, wow.”

---

I look at what Duststorm is seeing. It’s a lot. Duststorm thought the forest around the city was a lot. This is the biggest forest I think can exist. The trees seem to stand as high as mountains, with canopies for the sky. Growing on the branches are smaller plants, trying and failing to choke out the tree. On the ground, the grass is twice as tall as us. Flowers as large as we are are also here.

They smell nice. I want to get closer…

---

I watch Lilac. She seems to be acting weird. I speak to her. “What are you doing?” She mumbles to me, while still walking to the flower. “So pretty… Smells nice… Must touch…”

I watch her as a growing sense of worry creeps down my spine. “Maybe don’t-”

She touches the flower and it completely envelopes her. She starts screaming, obviously. Whatever happened to her, the hold placed upon her has been broken.

I quickly run to her, and start biting the flower. I’m a carnivore, so I don’t really like the taste. Still, I need to get Lilac out of this predicament.

“How are you doing?” She screams at me. “I feel like all my flesh is burning. Besides that, I’m feeling GREAT!” I stop biting. “Really?” “No!”

I take that as a cue to continue biting the plant. The disgusting juices continue filling my mouth, and yet I continue. Lilac is fighting the plant from inside, ripping it apart. I’ve never seen Lilac fight like this, but then again she’s never been eaten by a plant before. I imagine that changes things.

Finally, I reach the stalk of the plant, and bite it in half. It falls, and then spasms before stopping. Lilac then gets out of the flower mouth things, and shakes the juices off. She’s a little red all over, probably from the digestive juices.

She looks at me directly. “Never. Again.”

I try to make her feel better. “Um, you fought well?”

She ignores me, and starts walking deeper into the forest at a fast pace. I follow.

Pushing through the undergrowth, we eventually reach a river. Lilac then jumps into it, covering herself in cool water, as I can tell when some splashes onto me. After a few minutes, she reemerges.

“That feels much better.” She looks at me. “That was horrible! I was, like, in a trance, and then I got eaten by the flower! I think I was starting to get digested!” She shakes just from thinking about it.She looks to the forest, and I look at her. “So, do you still want to continue? Even after dealing with that?” She turns to look at me. “I’m not going to have been getting eaten by a plant, and then not finish what we came here to do. We’ll continue.”

She runs into the forest, with possibly further dangers ahead.