First Alliance

"What are you doing here?"

The voice was loud and gruff. He had been staring at a shelf of specimens for a little while when Dirch turned towards the direction he had heard the noise. "Excuse me?"

"How do so many of you get down here?

Looking around frantically, he focused on a large skeleton of a huge carnivorous dinosaur with a long snout, powerful claws and a looming sail. Glancing at the broken off nameplate below the exhibit showed that it was a Spinosaurus aegyptiacus.

It was then that he realised that the voice belonged to a very, very colorful creature. Behind the skeleton you could see the large head of a suchomimus peeking out, staring intently into Dirch's face. It had very bright colored bands that wrapped around its body, with a lot of confusing spots. It hurt to look at him- there was likely a reason that he was so rouge. Perhaps it was to look pretty and flashy, or maybe it was to warn off other dinosaurs. Like me right now.

"Oh, sorry. The name's Dart." he found himself being nice to this stranger, even slightly flustered. "I'm only here to snoop around for a little bit, and then i'll be gone."

Whatever this sucho wanted, he sure didn't want to eat Dart because he would have tried already and not given away his position just like that. It didn't look particularly happy to see him at all however, as soon as he spoke those words it moved out from behind the skeleton and moved to pose in front of it. He's…protecting it?

"I don't care what you want, just don't take any of the bones." it huffed and puffed like a fluffy hatchling."My lord is very precious to me."

At this point, it felt like a giant rock had fallen onto his crest. What did he just call it? Does he…have a relationship with this skeleton? Why would be protect this one?

"I'm sorry erm….Mister Sucho. I don't want your bones. They are of no use to me."

"The name's Raoul." and with that it made a deep bellow, clearly deserving of a name that sounded like a roar. "My lord was there for me when I was born, and he appeared again in this very building. He was my father."

It looked so sure of what it just said, it stretched its jaws wide in a yawn.

Dart couldn't stop thinking about what he had just gotten himself into. Does this sucho really believe that he is a spinosaurus? For a minute he knew he shouldn't provoke this sucho, but on the other hand he was dead curious. He did have more specimens to look at.

"You do realise you aren't…the same?"

Raoul immediately scoffed. "Of course I do, you dumbass." he was smirking now, "If you use your eyes however, you can see that we share similarities." He pointed his long snout towards it's skull.

"We have the same face, same claws, same tail. I may not have a very large hump but I can recognise we look similar."

"Wherever I came from, He came from too. We are of the same blood." Raoul turned away for a second until he muttered, "The closest blood that i've ever had."

"There's no blood here, just bones." Dart immediately noticed how Raoul whipped around angrily, so he tried to contain the fire. "I apologise again. I don't mean to offend. What about your family?"

"I don't have a family!" at this point, Raoul was clearly incredibly pissed off. Dirch moved back slightly trying to make space between them. 

"I was born alone, all alone, in some stingy old building. Every sibling I meet shuts me down for my colors." It's head lowered in sadness once again. "I'm too bright that they don't want it to pass to our children, saying that they wouldn't make it past juvenile. All it does is keep things away." It looked like it was about to cry, as if it had the tear ducts to do so.

"I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to do anymore."

Dirch realised he was dealing with a bit of a drama queen. Sure, he could relate too, he didn't have any family either, only a few passing friends. However he wasn't rapidly switching between being depressed and angry, so this guy clearly has issues. This sucho really hasn't had any normal interactions- it was clear it didn't know how to act. For this he felt really sad for it.

"I have no family also. I was born in a building just like yours, probably better kept because it was a long time ago," the sucho opened his eyes and looked up, listening intently, "I was cared for once, then discarded. After that I was too left on my own."

"What I'm doing here is trying to find out more about our origins."

Raoul seemed very interested, and he looked happy now. 

"Could you tell me anything about what is around here?"

Immediately after saying this, he realised he probably shouldn't have asked. It started to beam at the thought that someone might be interested in this place. It was clearly it's home, maybe it knew a lot about it.

"Well well well, we have a tourist in you I see." It's eyes went wide as it stared at Dirch. "I can tell you about what's in here, I've lived here for years. I went through every nook and cranny I could, but maybe you could find something else with your little claws."

"This, of course, is my Lord; Spinosaurus." Looking proud, almost as if it had made it, it posed with its arms out towards the skeleton.

"I know that. I'd like to look at any paper or objects you've found." Raoul looked almost offended, as if he hadn't tried to bite Dart's ear off about not touching it earlier.

"Paper? Why would you…Ugh whatever…"

It started to move around the room, looking like it was trying to remember where everything was in its head. Dirch could see it's large claws moving in the air with purpose, like he was drawing something in the air. It then clicked it's tongue three times and moved towards the far end of the room.

"In here. There is a lot of soft paper and hard paper in here." He pointed towards a broken door that was barricaded with a large display case. Inside was several jars of specimens of small creatures, including one with quills on it's tail. Dirch didn't want to think about how similar it looked to his own quills. "You're gonna have to remove the door if you want to get in, I barricaded it a long time ago."

"Why?"

"Didn't really ever have any reason to go in there. Also it's full of rats, stinky little things." Raoul snorted, curling his lip in disgust.

Once they were in the room, they realised there were also specimens in here. It looked more like a storage place than a display area, like the large hall they were in previously. The walls were mostly covered in what Raoul referred to as "hard paper" (Dirch knew them to be books) In the middle of the room were rows upon rows of shelves stacked with preserved jars and bone cases. There were several desks surrounding the room, most of them with cabinets.

"So what you said about the Spinosaurus skeleton... Have you seen anything in here that resembles me?"

Raoul stopped to ponder for a second. "I have seen several in jars of small creatures with quills like yours,

"I don't recall seeing any with your horns, though."

He took this to mean it hadn't seen any styracosaurus specimens around. That's a good thing, I think. I wouldn't like to see them like this.

Dirch began to search through all the books and desks while Raoul looked for specimens to show. It wasn't long before the sucho came back and proudly displayed what looked like a lump of rock.

"Hey, look! I found something. It kind of looks like you."

Dirch felt offended until he looked closer. He could see it now- it was a skull. He could see its nostrils and eyes. It wasn't until he noticed the tag on it that he gasped: Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum paratype.

A deep, deep memory came back to Dirch's mind. On occasion as a hatchling he was allowed to roam around the lab in a small pen. He would focus on all the small details like papers strewn about and posters on the wall. He remembered seeing poster of a tree diagram of Styracosaurus and other similar looking dinosaurs. Pachyrhinosaurus was in that graph. 

This was a cousin. 

It brought up a new possibility to Dirch's mind: what if there are more creatures out there like this? Where are they, and have they gone through the same things that we were made to do? He could only wonder.