[Gift] Whisp's Journey: Rotting Fruit

Whisp woke up to the sound of the prison cell being opened, two club tailed guards close by to watch over the hatchlings. A furry creature darted over his body and did something to the locks, while a pair of oviraptors heaved off the rusted chains that held him in place.

 

A different iguanodon waited outside. “The queen will now see to the trespassers,” they announced. “Come quickly, come quickly, we do not want to keep her waiting.”

 

“I would, just to get some more sleep,” Magpie commented angrily.

 

A short while later, they arrived inside of the center of the kingdom. An oviraptor stood close to the throne, and cleared his throat.

 

“Announcing to the court the ruler of Atlantis, Queen Rhys, first of her name, and the commander of the kingdom!”

 

Queen Rhys stood out amongst the other iguanodons in the court with her blue hues and white pristine feathers, the odd furry creatures by her side. Golden armor shone in the morning light.

 

One of the club tail guards nudged the cryo hard. “Bow to her, unless you want another night in the cell,” they gruffly suggested. 

 

Still sore from the chains, Whisp did as they suggested. Tilly followed his example, though Magpie didn’t want to do the same.

 

“You there, the cryolophosaurus,” the queen spoke. “What do you call yourself?”

 

“Um, Whisp,” he answered. One of the guards grunted. “Um, your majesty.”

 

The blue iguanodon stroked one of the furry creatures. “I see you made the wise decision to stay the night in the cell for your transgressions.”

 

“What’s that mean, Magpie?” Tilly whispered to her friend. 

 

An oviraptor cleared his throat. “Do not interrupt her majesty,” he instructed, before turning to his queen and politely bowing.

 

She gave a mild nod of approval to the other dinosaur before looking at the hatchlings. “Hmm, I do not see any resemblance between these hatchlings and yourself, guardian. Why do you tend to them?”

 

Whisp looked confused. “They were on their own on the surface. I-I couldn’t just leave them to fend for themselves.”

 

“Hmm, and did you command the hatchlings to attack one of my lieutenant’s monkeys the day prior?”

 

“No, I didn’t know she would do that, but they did threaten to take Tilly’s bucket.”

 

“Tilly?” The queen asked.

 

Whisp politely pointed his tail at the sunny carnotaur. She held her bucket in her jaws, though this time she looked a bit shy about attention being drawn to herself.

 

“And what about… the other hatchling? The one that hurt the monkey?”

 

“Magpie,” Whisp answered, pointing his tail at the styra. She gave the queen a tiny huff.

 

“Well… seeing that you did not instruct the hatchling, I am willing to forgive you, as well as Tilly.”

 

“However,” she continued, stepping down from her throne, “I am not so willing to let Magpie go easily. You see, the monkeys and other primates of Atlantis are our treasured companions. To harm one is seen as a crime in itself. So, tiny hatchling, you will be serving my court to make up for the harm you caused the poor thing.”

 

“What?” Magpie stated.

 

“You will be tidying the tables after my court members finish their meals, and clean up the royal hallways. My esteemed attendant, Colubrid, will help guide you through your duties and ensure you do not cause any trouble.”

 

“Certainly, your majesty,” Colubird, the oviraptor, answered, bowing to the royal.

 

“As for you, Whisp,” Queen Rhys said, gaining the attention of the cryo. “You and Tilly won’t be allowed to roam Atlantis freely until you gain the respect of my court members. You will be attending a gardening session. Tilly, meanwhile, will take a music session with my esteemed musician, Lady Bluebell.”

 

Tilly, seemingly alarmed, shrank down and hid between Whisp’s feet. 

 

“Um, w-with all due respect, your majesty,” Whisp started. “I don’t know if Tilly wants to go alone.”

 

“Hmm,” the queen paused. “Well, I suppose she could spectate your gardening session, and you her music session. And what about Magpie, does she require her guardian to be watching her?”

 

“I’m fine alone,” Magpie argued. The last thing she wanted right now was to be further humiliated in serving the stupid court.

 

“Wonderful!” Queen Rhys smiled. “Colubrid, take the hatchling to the banquet field! Whisp and Tilly, you’ll follow my lead to the gardening session.”

 

Tilly crept out from between Whisp’s feet and glanced at Magpie. “Are you sure you want to go alone?” She asked.

 

“I’ll be fine, Tilly,” the styra insisted. “Besides, she was probably going to make Whisp choose between me or you. I got in this mess, I’ll get myself out, okay?”

 

Tilly tilted her head in confusion. “But you’re not even covered in mud.”

 

Magpie sighed. “When you grow a few more inches, you’ll know what I mean. Just stay near Whisp and everything will be okay.”

 

“Oh, okay! Bye Magpie!”

 

With Tilly now following Whisp’s footsteps, and behind the bigger footsteps of the queen, Magpie now turned her attention to the oviraptor, Colubrid. Or at least she tried.

 

“Come now, miss Magpie,” Colubrid said. “The banquet field is a walk away.”

 

⚜···—–—⚜—–—···⚜

 

“Now the nobles are finishing up their meals, which means it will be time for you to come and clean up what they’ve left behind,” Colubrid stated. 

 

“All manner of vegetables and flora will be put into one pile, while the remains of meat, bones, and fish will be placed into another pile. Don’t mix them up! We take all of the vegetable and flora remains to the garden for compost, and we wouldn’t want anything scavenging our beloved gardens.”

 

“Of course not,” Magpie replied with an eyeroll. 

 

“You will refer to everyone remaining at the table as Lady or Lord, and should they request you to do something, complete it,” Colubrid continued. “I shall be spectating from the entrance to ensure you do not leave the area until you are done. You won’t be completely alone as there’s other servants around the banquet fields doing their own tasks.”

 

A bell sounded from the fields. “The banquet session has concluded,” the ovi concluded. “You may now enter inside.”

 

The way that Colubrid talked about the banquet fields made it sound very grandiose and fancy. What greeted Magpie instead was the exact opposite.

 

The air was thick with the sound of laughter from the nobles. Large rinds of melons and pumpkins were scattered about the tables, as well as on the faces of a few dinosaurs. Some smaller dinosaurs, ones whose species she recognized from the surface, were carrying large plates on their backs or in their talons.

 

Magpie’s stomach rumbled. She hadn’t realized until now how long it had been since she last ate, and that was practically a day ago.

 

‘Maybe I’ll try sneaking a bite of one of the leftovers,’ she thought, making her way under the table.

 

The nobles, all iguanodons, started leaving. Two of them were still at the table, laughing about like they had heard the funniest joke in the world.

 

“My good lord, I never heard of such a joke,” Magpie heard the first one say underneath the table.

 

“A-And that’s not all of it,” the other said. “He then told the waiter, ‘Fetch the donkey some raisins… to go with the grapes!’”

 

Both of them bursted into further laughter, one of them dropping a fruit. It looked intact, but it was hard to tell in the darkness. 

 

Magpie made her way over, but before she took a bite, she paused. Something about the fruit smelled… weird.

 

Unconvinced, she prodded the fruit open with her foot. It was a bit slimy. “Ewww,” she whispered to herself, and continued with cleaning up the remaining scraps and leftovers.

 

It definitely wasn’t the most pleasant experience in her life. The air was buzzing with flies, and the fruit juice made her all sticky. Even with the help of the other dinosaurs nearby cleaning up, the two iguanodons still hadn’t left.

 

And they were really annoying.

 

“Look at that one,” the first pointed out at Magpie. “She looks absolutely tiny.”

 

“Bigger than a young boar, not big enough for the table,” the other joked.

 

The styra groaned. Just when would these two leave? Their jokes weren’t even funny. 

 

“Servant- hic! - ‘nother basket of fruits,” the first asked an oviraptor.

 

“My lord, I-I apologize, butI-I believe you’ve overdone your stay,” they stuttered.

 

“Nonsense, I- hic -am right as rain!” the iguanodon insisted. He tried standing up, but seemed off balance and fell down. Right on a pumpkin, squeezing all the pulp onto Magpie.

 

“EW!” She screamed.

 

“Dear me, I believe we must leave,” Colubrid said, helping get a large pumpkin rind off of Magpie’s head. “I suppose I misjudged this lord’s appetite for fermented apples, not the most pleasant sight around hatchlings. We’ll get you cleaned up in the palace halls, and then I suppose we’ll move on to cleaning the halls too.”

 

⚜···—–—⚜—–—···⚜

 

“Now that’s more like it,” Colubrid said as he finished cleaning up Magpie.

 

She was in a bucket, one more likely used to clean the halls than tiny hatchlings, but it wasn’t like she could complain about it. Not more than the two stupid nobles at the field.

 

“I apologize again for not paying more attention to who was at the banquet fields,” the oviraptor explained. “I understand myself what it’s like to have unpleasant encounters in the fields.”

 

Magpie looked at the dinosaur with confusion. “I thought you had the job of being an advisor all this time.”

 

“Oh, no no no,” Colubrid started. “I had to work for the position. Everyone who isn’t an iguanodon does. It’s been this way since we first roamed beyond the confines of the labs ages ago.”

 

“But why?”

 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Colubrid asked as he helped Magpie out of the bucket. “My kind is far too small to even think about challenging the iguanodons for power. And the euoplocephalus? They’re not that maneuverable, they’d be tossed onto their backs before they could strike their tails down.”

 

He tossed the dirty water into the drain, grabbing a towel and drying the hatchling.

 

“Haven’t you thought about… leaving?” Magpie asked.

 

“Of course,” the advisor answered. “I had the thought a few times in my youth. But the royals have remained strong for so long, and even with the chores they task me, I doubt I could even abandon her majesty.”

 

Pleased with how dry the styra was, the ovi refilled the bucket with water from the unusual root, and dunked the used towel a few times before handing it to Magpie. “You will clean this part of the hallway, from the end till here. Come back when the towel gets dried, or if it gets too dirty. I know the guards sometimes leave tracks of mud from the jungle.”

 

Magpie went to the far end of the corridor and began the long process of cleaning up. While doing the monotonous task, she thought of her experience in the court so far.

 

‘I can’t tell if this place is good or not. They’re surrounded by a jungle that eats anything and anyone inside. Then they locked us up for a night. They’ve got monkeys, who seem to grab anything on command.’

 

She went back and forth between cleaning and bringing the dirty towel to Colubrid to clean up, then went back again to clean the halls some more.

 

‘But they’ve got all the iguanodons on the top. Ones who don’t have to work hard to get their spot in the kingdom, and then act like they’re so high above everyone else.’

 

“-Quiet! Quiet everyone!”

 

‘Wait… is that the queen?’

 

Magpie paused from her cleaning duties, and investigated a pillar. It sounded like the queen’s voice was coming from there, but how? 

 

A few gentle prods, and suddenly the pillar turned around, revealing a tiny nook for a hatchling to fit inside. Magpie went right inside, and the pillar turned around, leading her right into a new room full of iguanodons and a few small oviraptors.

 

“What is it now, Frederick,” the queen asked in an exasperated voice to an oviraptor.

 

“We need to talk about the dome, your majesty, it’s leaking!”

 

“WHAT?!”