North Star

It must have been raining on the surface. Click did not know for certain, he was too far into the cave to hear the pitter-patter of rainfall, but it was a fair enough assumption. The water levels of the narrow underground streams, rivers, pools, and lakes always raised when it rained. The water was always clean and clear underground, but it took on a different taste when more of it poured in from above. A little sweeter, sometimes, or a little more earthen. It was a pleasant change, more often than not. Something barely interesting to anyone else, but a bright spot in the cave dweller’s life when much of what he saw was monotonous, shadowy colours of stone.

He dipped his muzzle into the surface-warmed water as it rushed on by, tasting it. This time… Click snorted and shook his head lightly. Metallic, tar-like, and unpleasant. There must have been an upwalker structure where the water had fallen - a considerably sized one, to spoil the rainwater like this.

The stream here would taste off for a long time before it would again taste clean and fresh, he would have to move on to a different stretch of the cave, or maybe a new system altogether. It was unfortunate; he had spent a lot of time learning to navigate this cave and all of its stalagmites, stalactites, columns, ribbons, straws - the tip of his muzzle, so sensitive to touch in this darkened place, brushed against something hard that he had not been expecting. Touch told him it was a stalagmite whose place he hadn’t learned yet.

Maybe moving on wouldn’t be so difficult after all, then.

He started to push through the cave, gently brushing his muzzle along the cave wall as he knuckle-crawled through the relatively tight space. More water was trickling in, washing over his claws. It was almost pouring over his claws now, actually, which was… starting to raise some amount of alarm. A little bit of rain should not raise the water levels this much.

Terror gripped his heart and froze him in place when he heard stones shifting ahead. It was a horrific, grating sound that echoed through the tunnels he had been navigating and familiarising himself with as he grew up. He moved faster, squeezing through tunnels narrow enough that they scraped at his hide - and smacked his muzzle abruptly on a solid wall with rough, sharp edges that he knew was not supposed to be there. He felt around the edges with his claws and muzzle, mind racing faster and faster. As good as the cave had been to him, giving him food, shelter, and water as he grew, he knew as much as any dinosaur that the surface was the source of it all. As much as this tunnel was his way out, it was also the food and water’s way in. What if it dried up? What if he ate all the fish in here and he couldn’t get any more?

Click tilted his head, listening as hard as he could. More water, echoing around the cave tunnels as it poured in from somewhere. He turned and sought it out, crawling through passageways he had not yet fully explored in search of another exit, only to reach more and more dead ends. Water that rushed in from a hole in the wall that he could barely fit his snout into, a full-bodied stream that poured in through a crevice that he could never hope to squeeze through. Everywhere, there was water pouring in but no way for him to get out.

Leaving the growing seed of worry of the very real possibility that the cave would fill up - and he would drown.

Click retreated the way he had come, following more familiar paths to his one hope: a pond at the back of the cave, with salt-scented water. The scent was heavily obscured now by the metallic reek of the water that rushed into the cave system from above, but… he had hope. Blind, fearful hope. If the saltwater pond ended in a hole too small for him to squeeze through, he would truly be stuck here.

This might be his end.

Filling his lungs with air, Click dove into the pond. It was as dark as the rest of the cave, leaving him no choice but to feel his way along the sides of the pond to the bottom of it. Deeper and deeper he went, finding no bottom.

Fear pushed him on, even when the tunnel - for he had dived deep enough now that this was definitely not just a pond - started to narrow out, the walls growing tighter against his body. He clawed, kicked, wriggled, forced his way through even when the smooth stone passageway was too narrow for him to freely swim.

Finally the walls started to open up and fall away, leaving him alone in the dark with nothing to guide him. His body ached from swimming for as long as he had, and his lungs were starting to burn. He had spent almost his whole life leading up to this point living freely in the cave systems that criss-crossed the islands. He had little need to build up his lung capacity or be able to swim for long periods of time.

The fear of drowning trapped in a cave had subsided, but now he was facing the very real chance that he might drown trapped by… nothing.

He thrashed his head through the water as he tried to look around, to see anything that might point him towards air, but there was nothing. No light, no sign of something moving. Nothing. It was all dark.

But even when he stopped moving so frantically in the water, he realised he could hear movement. Crashing, roaring sounds that rumbled dully through the water like some far away, great beast. Waves.

He clawed through the water, his tail thrashing behind him, pushing him towards the sound. He held no love for the land outside the caves but for once in his short life, he hoped desperately that it was the surface he was swimming towards.

---

Polaris beat her wings in long, powerful strokes as she fought against the wind that threatened to knock her out of the air and send her careening down into the churning water below. She had been out stretching her wings on a straining expedition when the storm rolled in - and it was a nasty one, the worst that she had ever seen.

Wind whipped the ocean waves into the sky as they crashed against one another, blowing the white caps off the crests and sending sea spray into the air to join the water as it cascaded down from the clouds. Rain and salt water stung her eyes, making it even more difficult to see much beyond the curtains of rain.

Lightning flashed overhead and thunder clapped and roared as it rolled over the sky, loud enough that she could feel it in her bones. Whenever she tried to climb higher into the air, to escape the reach of the waves, heavy winds pushed her back down. She was becoming exhausted, fighting against it like this, and was thankful in that moment that she had abandoned the materials she had found. It was hard enough flying back with heavy rope when the skies were clear but trying to bring it back, the wind whipping it around and getting caught by a wave that could then yank her into the roiling blue depths? She would not have survived.

She might not make it back to Steelwater even as it was. The wind was constantly pushing against her, trying to force her towards the island, and even though she was almost certain she could make out the faint edges of the outline of the ship, she was half-inclined to just let the wind take her. Let it carry her back to the island so she could find a ledge to shelter on and rest while the storm blew itself out.

Movement caught her attention, something disturbing the water’s surface. She thought at first that it was just another white cap of a massive wave breaking, but a second glance told her it was not. Some poor unfortunate was caught out in the storm with her, a small, pale suchomimus that was battling against the currents pulling it around and the waves smashing against its body.

In the same moment, as Click gasped for breath to fill his aching lungs with air once again, a flash of light in the sky barely caught his eye. A flyer, of some kind, out in the storm. He frantically called for help, a raspy and ragged sound which barely escaped his jaws before he was battered by another wave which threatened to push him back beneath the surface of the water.

The debate that Polaris had with herself was brief. This was the job of a strainer, was it not? Of course she went out to find materials to bring back to Steelwater but that was not a strainer's only purpose. The otheer half of it was to find and recover fellow flockmates that have been washed overboard - and all others who might be lost at sea.

Normally this was done after the storm had passed, for the safety of the flock members, but Polaris was already here. She did not have much of a choice.

“I’m here!” she called back when Click resurfaced. She was now trying to find the precarious balance of being close enough for the sucho to see her and far enough from the water that she would not also be pulled in. “Follow me, I’ll get you somewhere safe!”

Steelwater was closer than Pera’s shore. She was not sure he would actually make it to the island’s shore if she tried to fly him back. He already looked like he was struggling in the water - unusual, for a suchomimus, but not something she could afford to ruminate on at the moment.

She had to fight to stay within his view, not moving ahead too quickly or falling behind, but even as hard as she was focusing on the path, she still had to pause to scan the waters for Click from time to time when the currents ripped him away from her, or the waves pushed him under once again. Each time Click resurfaced, he searched desperately for the bright, white hide of the tropeognathus that was so heroically guiding him to what he hoped was somewhere safe. Their progress was slow but finally, the ship and the rocks it was beached upon loomed ahead of them, towering over the ocean’s surface and creaking quietly as waves pounded against its metal sides. No member of Steelwater was in sight - they were all wisely sheltering from the storm.

Polaris guided Click to the cavernous opening at the bottom of the ship’s bow, where he could finally crawl onto something solid and rest, which he did so gratefully. Polaris, herself, flew just ahead so she could perch on a crooked cargo container.

Even though his feet finally touched solid ground - metal, he realised - he crawled in even further into the ship, eager to get away from the grasping waves of the ocean which still washed into the ship’s hull, until he could crawl no further. He collapsed in a soaking wet heap against the floor of the ship, his head lolled to one side as he gazed almost sightlessly into the dark interior of the ship. His limbs felt so heavy that he thought he might never move them again. His eyes, nose, throat, and lungs burned from the salt water that he had swallowed, breathed in and coughed up.

Polaris looked down at him as he struggled to breathe and coughed again. It was… strange, looking at this small suchomimus and knowing that if she had not been out in the storm, he might have been pulled away and lost to the sea. She risked her life to stay in the storm longer to save him.

Or maybe she was being presumptuous and he would have been just fine without her.

She got to her feet, her wings and legs shaking slightly with the amount of effort she had expended to get here, and she was about to find her way up the ship to find Matriarch when the suchomimus made another sound. It was not quite a cough, but it was a rough sound all the same. His voice was quiet, almost paper-thin from disuse yet roughened from the sea water. It sounded… like thanks. A sincere sound, whatever he said. She felt a bit of pride, having successfully strained her first survivor, which was a feeling she immediately tried to push back down.

Polaris looked at him for a moment longer before she dipped her head. “Someone… someone will come down to check on you,” she replied, almost equally quiet. Her voice was just loud enough to be heard over the waves.

They would make sure that he was uninjured and fed, and when the storm passed, he would be given the same choice that every other strained soul was: join Steelwater, or be escorted back to land.