Cook this.

"Did you hear about Flambé? She's cooking food, out of the back of an old building." the herbivore asked between bites of delicious red and blue berries. The second herbivore, taller and wider, was eating the leaves from the top of a tree. She curled her neck, dropping her head more to her friend's eye level. "What is...cooking?" she asked, her brow furrowed, a bit of leaf hanging from the corner of her mouth. "Oh!" the first one laughed, "she puts strange dusts on food and holds it over a fire! It gets crunchy and good!" Gourd's attention perked up at this. The carno, who had somehow managed to find a leaf pile deep enough to hide in, was listening from the shadows. She stretched up from her hiding space with a low grumble and stepped into the light.

 

"Where can I fi--" she asked, not even able to finish her sentence, before the parasaur and shuno hurried away, leaving nothing but half chewed berries and leaves in their wake. Gourd frowned, some help they were! Didn't they know she wanted to keep her belly empty for this crunchy cooking? With a heavy sigh, Gourd headed the way the two dinosaurs had originally come from, hoping she could retrace the smaller one's steps.

 

It did not take long for Gourd to find the dilapidated old building Flambé had declared their kitchen, Gourd didn't know what a kitchen was. There were dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes standing out front with different items they wanted cooked. She saw some with fish, others with berries, and even a couple raptors fighting over an entire deer carcass.

 

Gourd got in line, dragging her prize behind her through the grass. Luckily for Gourd the line went faster than she expected, likely due to some of the dinosaurs showing up with things that could not be cooked without burning and ended up turned away. "Next!" Flambé shouted from inside the building and Gourd ducked her head down to enter. Flambé stood behind an unpolished silver counter, an assortment of strange vegetables and other weird dusts spread out before her. On the floor was a roaring fire contained in a huge metal bowl that crackled, giving off the smell of the things previously cooked. Gourd's nostrils flared, it smelled good, whatever it was.

 

"Cook this," Gourd said, lifting up her prize and dropping it unceremoniously on the table in front of Flambé. The theri gave a curt nod and smile, clicking her long claws in anticipation of whatever meal she'd been brought to prepare. Though Flambé was an herbivore, she knew that she would be brought meat. What she wasn't expecting was what Gourd had brought her.

 

A theri leg.

 

Flambé's expression dimmed and she nervously looked up at Gourd who was grinning, her tail idly weaving behind her. Gourd noticed Flambé's hesitance and took a step forward. "I want to eat this," she nudged the leg further toward Flambé, "cook it." The irony (and how uncomfortable the theri was) was lost on Gourd, her thoughts only with how good the meal would be. The closer Gourd got the more of her teeth Flambé could see, and the way they glistened in her glowing mouth.

 

"Of-of course!" the Theri said as she quickly began to clumsily pluck the remaining feathers from the leg, trying not to acknowledge how close the color was to that of an old friend. Gourd sat down with a thump, the room shaking as she did, and leaned over the table for a closer look. "Pass me the pepper please," Flambé requested and Gourd stared down at the red and green peppers. Her arms were far too short to help but she nudged it along the table with her massive nose. The leg was difficult to cut, both physically and emotionally, for Flambé but she did it. Placing the bone-in steak in the remains of a large restaurant sized wok along with peppers and other seasonings that Gourd didn't understand. Or try to.

 

Gourd watched as Flambé placed the wok over the large flame and watched the meat sizzle and burn. "It's rotting," Gourd said with a snarl, she'd never seen brown meat before. The theri shook her head and explained, or tried to, to Gourd that she was searing the meat. Gourd huffed but the smell got better and better, and with each increasing second her gaping, tooth filled mouth got closer and closer to Flambé and the fire. The theri continued trying to ignore the teeth until they were right next to her, drool dripping from the carno's mouth.

 

"It's done!" Flambé exclaimed, her voice strangely excited, likely at getting the carnivore out of her kitchen and far away from her. Gourd stood up wordlessly and grabbed the leg in her waiting mouth. As she turned, her tail knocked over some things on the table. However, instead of leaving Gourd retreated to the corner of the room where she thumped onto the floor and began to gnaw on her cooked meal. "No, please not there!" Flambé said, only to be met with an angry growl from Gourd. Flambé sighed and looked back to the open door, "Next!" she called.