The Dinosaurs Are Armed

With the tickets from the plane ring toss, Cassidy hurried over to the stands and bought two brightly coloured drinks for herself and Kaiwi for them to sip on while exploring the rest of the festival.

"What the hell is this?" Kaiwi wrinkled his nose, his claws holding the plastic cup gingerly like he was afraid to get it on his feathers.

"No clue, thought it would be fun to try," Cassidy shrugged, taking a tentative sip for herself. The taste hurried across her tongue, coating the inside of her cheeks too and hitting the back of her throat as it went down. It tasted like berries, but ones that weren't quite ripe enough to eat. She wasn't a fruit connoisseur the way Wis and Cath were, she couldn't narrow it down any further than that. Kaiwi also grimaced at the taste but both of them returned for another sip, less abrasive now they were braced for the taste. They held the cups close to their chests as they wandered around the festival, taking note of the different games and attractions that tried to pull their attention in. An inflatable pool held floating oranges being chased around by a pale red and tan Acro while a pure black one circled it from the outside to catch the stragglers. A trio of raptors were trying to pin a skull to a picture of a skeleton taped to the large walls of a passenger plane, yelling instructions to the blindfolded one to the middle. All this while music played loudly from the far end of the museum ,the festival was in full swing but nothing really piqued Cassidy's interest.

"Hey! Kaiwi!" A voice called from one of the stands. A slate grey Cryo stook wrangling some kind of contraption secured to the front of some kind of game, "Come help me out with this would ya?" Kaiwi instinctively went over to the booth, he must know who this stranger was.

"Drift! Lookin' good, kid, your adult colours came in kinda dramatically, huh?" the purple raptor asked, tilting his head and examining the dark feathers.

"Sure did, molted into a brand new me," the Cryo, Drift, preened.

"I almost didn't recognise you, did Brook change this much?" Kaiwi asked curiously.

"Nope," Drift grinned mischievously, "And he's fuming." The two laughed and Cassidy stepped forward a little, taking another sip of her drink and waiting for a moment to interrupt. Any of Kaiwi's friends were her friends too, it was just how they did things.

"I think the goal is to hit the holes," Drift said, her brow furrowed, "Is that right?"

"That's right," a small voice replied from under the counter. The two raptors were briefly confused about why the worker was hiding under there but a quick glance back at the way Drift was wielding the firearm was enough of an explanation.

"So how do you two know each other?" the pink raptor asked.

"Kaiwi helped me n' my brother learn how to hunt big game, saved our asses a few times," Drift nodded.

"Man, how many kids are you keeping around this island?" Cassidy teased.

"They're not my kids, I just helped them out sometimes," Kaiwi snapped, his feathers bristling with indignation.

"Please, Kaiwi's an uncle at best. You're more of a father figure than my old man though, not that that's a high bar to clear," Drift snorted. She jiggled the thing resting in her arms like she had just remembered it was there. “Anyway, you coming to help me with this?” Kaiwi looked up at the game for the first time, giving it a proper evaluation. It was a short gap between the stand Drift was leaning on and a large poster stuck to a wall. The poster showed a small airplane from above with red dots all over its wings and tail. He squinted at it and looked back to the shiny metal stick in Drift’s arms. 

“Yeah hand it over, let me figure it out,” he held his claws out and let Drift drop it into his arms. He began to tip it back and forth, looking down the barrel with one eye closed and ignoring the panicked yelp from the carnie. He began to open his mouth to grip the wooden handle in his teeth but the attendant spoke up verbally this time.

“Wait, wait! Not with the mouth, health and safety,” they insisted.

“Ah, it’s a gun then?” he asked.

“I would’ve told your friend that if she had asked instead of swinging it around and pointing it at me,” the attendant huffed. Drift huffed back and seemed ready to argue. 

"So, who's your old man?" Cassidy asked, sipping her drink but not breaking eye contact with the gun still lying across Kaiwi’s arms. Drift was distracted from whatever tirade she had planned to inflict on the attendant and turned back to her, looking mildly surprised.

"Khan," she answered simply, gesturing towards her midline, "For my sins." The black stripe along her side did seem somewhat familiar, though Cassidy couldn't put a face to it.

"Aw c'mon, without that shitheel you never would've ended up with Brook," Kaiwi nudged her. Brook, Brook, Cass wracked her brain and finally landed on a pale brown Cryo; Drift's brother. It was rare to see the two of them apart, though it was rare for the two snow lovers to cross Cassidy's path at all.

"Oh, hey, you know I love the guy, he's my best buddy, just wish we'd shared a mother instead," Drift shrugged. Cassidy felt her stomach flip a little at this. Would her future kids feel this way about her? That she was a waste of skin and only their father had ever cared about them, that she was incompetent or wilfully neglectful. Her thoughts ground to a halt with the sound of the gun going off, a sharp crack that sent a pellet into the poster. It embedded itself in the plastic and the attendant nervously stepped forward to assess where it had landed.

“You got it!” they said, sounding almost surprised, “Hang on let me get your tickets.” They picked the pellet out of one of the marked holes and returned it to a bin near the counter before rummaging in the basket of tickets and handing a fistful over to Kaiwi. He turned back to the others with a wide smile, the tickets a bright crimson in his claws. Ignoring his smugness, the women returned to their conversation.

"I can tell the girls he's on the shitlist." Cassidy offered.

"The girls?" Kaiwi asked, "Poor Sparrow, that guy can never catch a break."

"Ah he's a gentle soul, he'd tell you that himself," Cassidy brushed him off, "Now his sister, there's someone who I could trust to put the screws to someone. Can do that to your old man if you'd like, kid?"

"Not worth the effort," Drift rolled her eyes, "You wanna try at this?" She gestured to the gun and Cassidy set her drink aside. Kaiwi made the effort to push it to the far end of the stand, well out of the range of the long barrel of the gun.

"Sure, looks fun and I want those tickets," she grinned, flashing her teeth at the poor carnie who returned to cowering under the stand. She took the gun carefully from Kaiwi, as he handed it to her with equal care. The pink raptor laid her head sideways to line her eye up with the barrel of the gun and tried to spot one of the holes along its length. She could see the scattering of targets on the left wing of the cartoon plane but the gun's muzzle swayed back and forth with each breath. She laid the gun on the table and used the extra arm to hold it steady against the wood. She clicked the trigger and watched the pellet bounce off instead of lodge into it like Kaiwi's had. She let out a growl of frustration and dropped the gun to the table.

“This is impossible,” she grumbled.

“Literally isn't, you just saw Kaiwi do it,” Drift retorted, grinning widely. She lifted the gun too, jamming the handle end into her chest to keep it steady and instantly squeezing the trigger. Her pellet bounced off of the wall instead of anywhere near the picture and skittered across the wooden floor, disappearing into the crowd. The dinosaurs watched the crowd part as someone squawked and fell over.

“Stand's closed,” the attendant said sharply, pulling a shutter down from above their heads.

“Well,” Drift said eventually, “it was good seeing you two, I've got some tickets to win.” She hurried into the throng and left the two raptors behind, leaving the gun resting innocently on the floor at their feet. Cassidy leaned in and knocked on the shutter with her claws.

“Hey, can we get our drinks back? Please?” she asked sweetly. The shutter cracked open just enough to slide the two glasses through, along with a single red ticket.