[Trade] Welcome to the Junk Jungle

Brisket and Moo had made their way to the edges of the dead city—quite a misnomer, if you asked Brisket. The city was far from dead. There was plenty of life… Too much life. Scent boundaries covered every piece of asphalt, and the two young anteos couldn’t seem to go anywhere without accidentally stepping over one and making someone very, very angry. That was why Brisket was trying to lead her friend out of it, and she hoped they were nearly there. They were still on a paved road, but the buildings were growing shorter, and more sparsely placed.

“I wonder what beaches are like,” Moo said to herself.

“With the ocean and sand?” They’d heard about it from a surprisingly friendly flock of tapejaras. “I feel like the sand would just get stuck in your feathers. It’d be a pain to get it all out.”

“But the sea!” Moo danced in front of her, white-and-black tail wagging in the air. “Going swish, swish! Lapping at your toes! Can you imagine water that actually tastes like something?”

“Either way, there aren’t any beaches in cities.”

“Are there?”

“Moo, we’re in a city right now, and we haven’t seen any beaches.”

“But this is just one city. Maybe there are cities with beaches, just not the one we’re in.”

Brisket sighed. This was a ridiculous conversation.

“Oh, hey! We haven’t seen one of these before, either!”

Moo came to a sudden stop, though her tail still swung excitedly behind her. Brisket followed her gaze to the left of the road they’d been walking on. Off in the distance, there was a dividing wall, made out of tall, wavy sheets of metal, brown with rust and dirt. Through a large opening in the middle, Brisket could see all sorts of discarded human trinkets: old tires, wrecked vehicles, and countless other objects she didn’t know the words for. It looked a bit like a mini-city, with towering buildings of decaying things… Although, the city itself was decaying, too, with no humans around to keep an eye on it.

“Wonder what it is!” Without waiting for a response, or a thought, for that matter, Moo ran off towards it.

“Moo! Wait up!” Brisket ran after her as fast as she could. She envied Moo’s zest for life sometimes, but it had gotten them in trouble plenty of times before…

They both ran through the opening in the wall, kicking up dust from the exposed ground. Up close, all of the haphazard towers of trash looked even more imposing. At least, Brisket thought they were; Moo had nothing less than awe in her eyes as she took in their surroundings.

“I don’t know about this, Moo. It looks a little-”

A green head popped out from a pile of tires. “Hi!”

“Hi!” Moo said with equal cheer, as Brisket screamed so loud she was sure the whole city heard her.

“I haven’t seen you two around before.” As Brisket struggled to get air back into her lungs, the head pulled herself further out out the tire tower, revealing another young anteo, with dull green scales and a dusty white underbelly. Her yellow paws set down on the ground by Moo, and she began to circle the two of them. Brisket stepped closer to her friend, ready to bolt, but the green anteo continued, as chirpy as before, “You must be new to the junkyard.”

“A junkyard,” Moo repeated. “I get it! Because it’s full of junk!”

“Exactly!” She looked up at the darkening sky; back the way Moo and Brisket came, the sun was setting over the collapsing buildings. “My name is Liiah. You two should stay here! At least until it gets light out. The city can be scary at night.”

“Oh, we know,” Brisket said dryly.

“It was horrible, Liiah. A suchomimus was chasing us all night long!”

“Oh, you mean Flare?”

“You know his name?” He’d never told Brisket his name. He was too busy snarling and snapping at them.

“Flare’s not so bad,” Liiah continued, “I think he just gets bored. And lonely. There aren’t very many nice dinosaurs in the city.”

“Unlike in the junkyard!” Moo said, playfully bumping her head against Liiah’s. Liiah did the same, and before Brisket knew it, the two were wrestling on the ground, laughing all the while, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

There are two of them now, Brisket thought, distraught beyond belief. Just one Moo was hard enough to wrangle.

She sighed. Moo trusted far too easily, in Brisket’s opinion, but she had a point. It would be nice to get some sleep without having to keep an eye out for danger. They could stay in the scrapyard, if only for one night. “Do you have a den somewhere, Liiah?” she asked, loudly, to be heard over their tussling.

Liiah’s head sprung up immediately. “Of course! Follow me!” She and Moo unraveled themselves, somehow, and then Liiah was off. Moo followed just behind her, and Brisket behind Moo.

Liiah walked confidently through the junkyard, with all the effortlessness of a city-slicker through back alleys. She must have hatched here, Brisket thought, or arrived here when she was very young. She seemed to know the area like the back of one of her forepaws.

“Are these are other dinosaurs that live here, Liiah?” Brisket asked her. She hoped that no one would interrupt their rest.

“A few,” she said, hopping over a rusting water pipe. “But most of them come and go. They’re here for a few days, they have their fun, but then they set out again, into the city or somewhere far away…” She slowed, her claws dragging in the dirt. She turned to look back at them, her carefree smile a bit tighter, a bit more uncertain. “Um, how long are you two going to be here?”

“We were thinking just the night,” Brisket admitted.

“Were we?”

“Oh.” Liiah stared at the two newcomers for a moment, scrutinizing them, as though she was trying to commit their appearances to memory. “Well, that’s okay! It’ll be a good night for all of us!”

With that, she picked up her pace again, but Moo didn’t run to catch up right away.

“Brisket,” she whispered (loudly, Moo didn’t know the definition of quiet), “We can’t leave in the morning.”

“I thought you wanted to see the beach.”

“I do! But she sounded so sad and lonely!”

That was true… Brisket had been all alone, too, before she met Moo. She couldn’t imagine having to be on her own for as long as Liiah must have, if she was the same age as them. At the same time, Brisket was getting dizzy, seeing so many tall buildings and towers of garbage. The dump was too claustrophobic for her to stay any longer than one night.

“Are you two coming?” Liiah called over her shoulder, seemingly too lost in her own thoughts to hear their conversation.

“Yes!” Moo picked up her pace, but not before sending a pleading look towards Brisket.

“Let me think about it, okay?”

Moo nodded, and the pair continued following Liiah through the scrapyard, as Brisket contemplated their predicament.

#

“Here we are!”

At long last, the trio arrived at Liiah’s den. An old sheet of metal was propped up against an overturned car, making a simple lean-to. A shallow hole had been dug into the ground, with a blanket spread across the bottom, so old that its once-vibrant pattern was completely inscrutable.

Liiah sat at the edge, bowing her head to invite them inside. Brisket followed Moo’s lead under the metal roof.

The old blanket was dirty, and the corners were caked with mud, but the center had been kept carefully clean. When Brisket laid down in the middle, the ground was surprisingly soft; there must have been a few pillows sitting underneath to cover the ruggedness of the earth. Brisket absentmindedly kneaded it with her paws. It was comfortable, and Liiah had clearly taken pains to keep it that way. It almost felt like a waste if Liiah was the only anteo living in the scrapyard; there was no one around to appreciate her efforts.

“So cozy!” Moo buried her nose into the padded fabric, tail wagging.

“Really?” Brisket looked back at Liiah, still sitting on the rim. Her face was positively glowing.

“Very cozy,” Brisket agreed, making the scaled anteo’s tail wag as hard as Moo’s.

Liiah was still grinning wide as she joined them on the blanket. It was a tight fit with all three of them, but that wasn’t a bad thing. All of their bodies pressed together kept them warm against the encroaching night’s chill.

“I didn’t know anteos could have feathers!” Liiah’s back paw brushed Brisket’s stomach. “You’re both so soft!”

Moo, meanwhile, was closer to Liiah’s face. “And you’re so smooth! And green. I didn’t know we could be green.”

“I didn’t know we could be white or red,” Liiah said.

Brisket laid her head down on her paws. “We’re all learning a lot, but I think I’ve learned enough. I’m really tired after running around all day.”

Moo yawned, loud as always. “Brisket’s right! I think it’s bedtime.” Her head fell to the blanket with an audible whump and just like that, she was out cold.

Brisket smiled, her affection for her friend as warm as the makeshift nest they were in. “She’s such a heavy sleeper. I’m a little jealous, to be honest.”

“It’s nice that you two have each other,” Liiah said quietly. She was smiling, too, but her voice held an unmistakable melancholy that made Brisket’s heart ache. A plan began to form in her mind.

“Liiah, have you ever heard of beaches?”