Where the Stream Bends

Minnow’s stay with Creek’s family had been short, but sweet. She had really liked having someone to play with, and somewhere warm and safe to curl up at night in, but was afraid that ultimately… something bad would happen to them if she stayed. And then… something bad did happen.

Or maybe not bad, not forever, but it was still traumatic.

There was a boom. Strange dinosaurs that Minnow had never seen before came from far away, another island, and had worked with the Twins to destroy the dam that was holding the lake together. They freed the water, which rushed through the collapsing structure and scoured the dry riverbed downstream. It had carved a gorge into the earth until the land flattened out near the island’s shoreline, and the lake water had stretched far and wide into a floodplain. Fish, plants, and animals still in the lake had been swept away with the rush of of the flood, leaving behind a thinner river bordered by tall, soggy valley walls that wept stored groundwater for weeks afterwards. Where the earth was so heavy with water that it could no longer support its own weight, there had been collapses. Mudslides which reshaped the sides of the valley, building even more new bends and encouraging the creation of waterfalls where the debris blocked the river’s flow entirely. It was chaos.

Fortunately, the atopos dwelling within the lake had been alerted ahead of time by tapejaras flying overhead and other dinosaurs that had voluteered and to notify any atopos that they found in the lake of the plan to break the dam. Minnow, Creek, Saukko, and Froth had watched the water drain a safe distance away from the water’s edge. It had been then that Minnow decided she needed to leave to keep them safe, because she didn’t doubt that there were at least a few atopos who had not been so lucky to get the warning to flee. This was the closest that she wanted to get to seeing tragedy strike the family that had been so kind to her.

So, when the small family had been sleeping, Minnow took her leave of them before the next bad thing could happen. She traveled the waterways of Isla Pera as she had since she was a little tadpole, keeping to the murkier ponds, lakes, rivers and streams so that she could blend in and hide if she needed to. When one area got too busy with the presence of other dinosaurs, or food became too scarce, or the water levels got too low like they were now, then she moved on.

Minnow had learned that much of the time, there was more water downstream when a waterway started to dry out, so she didn’t need to find somewhere totally new - she just had to move down a little further.

Except this creekbed was really dry. The pebbles and stones that crunched under her webbed paws were dry underneath, and she hadn’t run across more than a shallow puddle. She continued scampering along, but she was going to have to stop and rest at some point. She paused, panting lightly, and looked around. The banks of the creekbed were pretty steep here, with loose earth. Not ideal for digging out a spot to hide and rest… but there was a tangled snag of old tree boughs, branches, and roots up ahead. That would work. She was small enough that she could probably squeeze in there at least somewhat comfortably and be safe from a lurking predator’s prying eyes.

She bounded across the stones towards the snag, only to squeak in alarm when she jumped over a log and landed on nothing but thin air. The creekbed was much lower on the other side of the snag. Not a place to hide, but a place to fall - and sprain her paw when she landed roughly on the loose stones. She squealed in pain as she crumpled and hit her jaw, and squeaked and cried as she curled into a miserable feathered ball. She was in danger here, but it hurt to move and she was dizzy from the impact.

Wisp raised his head, curious and confused. He had been looking at his reflection in a shallow, murky puddle in a dry creek bed when he heard something small crying out. The realisation that his horns were getting longer and the flash of blue that was developing on his neck (and even inside of his mouth! He was afraid he was getting sick, he would need to talk to his mother about that) was moved to the back of his mind. If someone - or something - was in trouble, he wanted to help.

He stood up on long, skinny legs and turned to head upstream, his slightly-too-big feet crunching pebbles and making stones clack together with every step.

Minnow quieted when she started to hear not-so-distant footsteps. Something was coming. Something that sounded quite big. She uncurled herself and tried to run off, only to squeal and fall again when the first step sent pain shooting up her foreleg. Even worse, she realised that she was trapped. The snag was too high up to climb, the walls of the creekbed were too tall to climb, and whatever was coming was coming from downstream. She had nowhere to go, she was going to be trapped and - eaten!

Wisp came into Minnow’s view from around the creek’s bend and the young atopo squealed shrilly, making him pause. He looked over his shoulder and tilted his head in confusion, but he didn’t see anything too scary. The poor little thing in the creekbed though… she looked scared to death, and was holding her paw to her chest as she pressed up against the bottom of the dry fall like she had hurt it. Wisp’s heart bled for her, nevermind that she was something he was probably supposed to eat. He would help her! She looked like she was stuck down here, maybe she had hurt herself trying to climb out.

Minnow shrieked in terror and squeezed her eyes shut, accepting her fate as the gangly carnotaurus stepped forwards and bent down, his jaws opening to reveal jagged teeth and a pale blue mouth - only for something to land on the stones in front of her first. Wisp jumped back with a pained sound before he could close his jaws around her.

Minnow’s eyes shot open to see another atopo standing in front of her, back arched with quills raised threateningly. Some of those quills had broken off and were stuck in the carnotaurus’s muzzle, which he was trying frantically to shake and scratch off with one of his back feet. It took Minnow a moment to realise - she recognised the patterns on this atopo! It had been so long since she had seen Creek, but there wasn’t anyone else that it could be as Creek made wailing screams, growls, and snarls at Wisp. She made short hops towards and away from Wisp, daring him to try it again.

“You okay?” Creek asked between threatening growls, not looking over her shoulder. Minnow didn’t even know if Creek knew that it was her that she was coming to the aid of, but all the same, she stared up at Creek with awe and amazement. She was squaring up to fight against a carnotaurus, and she was winning.

Wisp had taken several steps back and was making miserable sounds. His face hurt! He didn’t know why she was so mean!

“Why did you do that?” he cried as he sat down heavily on the pebbles. The quills bounced from the impact and stung even more fiercely. He looked sadly at the two atopos, the feathered one no longer looking petrified and the quilled one looking… confused, but still hostile.

“Because you were gonna eat her!” Creek accused.

“Was not!” Wisp protested. The pain around his nose made his eyes water, and tears streaked down his cheeks. Even talking hurt. “I just wanted to help!”

Creek wrinkled her muzzle. A likely story, coming from a carnivore - but this carno was still very young, and Minnow did look like she needed help. She looked over her shoulder properly, unconcerned about the carnotaurus sitting ahead of them as she kept her quills raised and ready. “Heya Mini. You left before we could say goodbye.”

Minnow gave Creek an apologetic look. “Yeah… sorry about that.” Could they talk about that later though, when there wasn’t a carno cornering them in a dry creekbed with nowhere else to go?

She cautiously peered around Creek’s shoulder to look at the carno, who was still sat upon the stones. He looked much less menacing sitting there with a bunch of quills poked into his muzzle. He was still crying, he hadn’t moved an inch. And even though he was a lot bigger than them, he looked… a lot smaller than a normal carno. He was still very young, wasn’t he? Maybe he truly did mean well. Maybe he hadn’t developed an appetite for other dinosaurs yet.

Creek followed Minnow’s gaze with a doubtful look. He looked like any other carnivore to her, he just hadn’t grown into his teeth yet. Minnow hesitantly touched Creek’s neck to get her attention, then nodded towards Wisp. 

Creek dragged out a sigh. Okay, fine. He maybe didn’t look that deadly. Yet.

She inched closer towards Wisp with her back still arched and her quills still raised. Wisp sniffled and made another pained sound when the motion made the quills in his muzzle bounce and twinge painfully.

“You were really gonna help her?” Creek asked, her fiery orange eyes focused accusingly on Wisp, who made a sad sound of agreement.

“... Lean down, I’ll get them out for you.”

Wisp looked at her with big, pitiful eyes, worried that she was going to poke him again. Creek lowered her quills and sat on her haunches in front of him, and motioned with a paw for him to lean in. “I’m sorry. I won’t poke you unless you try to bite me,” she promised.

Wisp hesitated a moment more, then brought his muzzle down to where Creek sat. “This is going to hurt,” she warned. But she would get the quills out. She wrapped her paws around one and Wisp whined, and he yelped when she pulled the first one free. More tears fell, and there was a little bead of blood where the tip had stuck into him, but it was gone.

Only… a handful more to go.

By the time she was done, there were several more beads of blood on Wisp’s muzzle, and his eyes were still watering, but it hurt much less for them to be all gone. He sniffled again when Creek sat back, satisfied with her work.

She also… felt bad about poking him now. He really hadn’t tried to bite her even one time, despite how much the quills stung. “Sorry… again. I heard squeaking and I thought Minnow was in trouble, and when I saw you… ”

Wisp gave her a tearful look. “I just wanted to help her get out,” he said sadly. He turned his gaze towards Minnow, who had settled down under the shadow of the snag and had been rubbing her aching paw while Creek helped Wisp.

“I’m okay,” Minnow squeaked. “You just scared me was all.” And her paw hurt, but she could limp the rest of the way to somewhere safe to rest. She wanted to do so sooner, rather than later. There was no telling what sort of attention all their ruckus had caused.

“I’m sorry,” Wisp replied. He looked genuine about it, too, which made Creek feel worse. She reached up with a paw and tapped his knee. She had the same idea about finding shelter that Minnow did. “Maybe you can still help! We gotta get to some water, have you seen any nearby?”

Wisp’s eyes immediately brightened. He sniffed again and pointed his head over his shoulder. “Yeah, there’s some this way!” He got to his feet and started off towards the muddy puddle that he’d left behind.

Creek hopped back towards Minnow and helped her up, and stuck close beside her with her quills smoothed down flat to her hide as they followed towards where Wisp had run off to. As she limped along, Minnow could scarcely believe that she was following a carno somewhere.

He did lead them to water, just… not as much as either of them had hoped. Enough to roll around in and get a nice soak, but not enough to find food or hide under the water if they needed to. Wisp looked so proud of himself though that Minnow felt bad at the thought of telling him this wasn’t good enough.

“This is perfect, thank you,” she squeaked as she looked up at him. Wisp looked at the water and back to the atopos and beamed at her thanks. This was much nicer. He was glad he could help, it made up for scaring her earlier and he didn’t even think his nose hurt anymore.

They sat and chatted for a while until the reflection of the sky in the murky water turned into a rich orange - sunset. Wisp paused mid-sentence, hearing his mother call for him in the distance. He said goodbye to his new friends and left without a second thought, happy and totally oblivious to the strangeness of the encounter.

Minnow sighed. They still had to find somewhere quiet and secure to rest for the evening, and this wasn’t a good spot.

“Cheer up, Mini,” Creek teased. “We’ll find somewhere.”

Minnow hurried to protest. “Oh, you don’t have to stay - “

“But I want to,” Creek replied easily. “You’re not gonna get anywhere fast while that paw heals up. I’ll keep you safe in the meantime, I don’t mind. Besides, we got some catchin’ up to do.”

Minnow felt her excuses and protests die in her throat, and were replaced with a warm feeling of acceptance and even cautious happiness. She wouldn’t mind a little company, if Creek really wanted to stay.