[Trade] Hazardous Egg Hunting

Silvercloud watched with interest as the dark patches on the grass kept moving around. She crouched over them like a cat, waiting for the right moment to pounce on her prey and seize it. She wasn’t having much success – for some reason, every time she was just about to jump forward, the magical patches would suddenly vanish, leaving her empty-handed. The bewildered female retreated to her hiding place, trying to understand the reason for her failure. This, too, was a challenge for her.

The young hatchling was unable to keep her attention on a single thing for long, so her thoughts quickly changed direction. Feeling a little bored, Silvercloud began to look around, searching for anything that might catch her eye. She found it quickly – her curious gaze, moving upwards along the twisted, ancient trees, fell upon the almost cloudless sky. Against the backdrop of the pale blue sky, she noticed some colourful shapes – were it not for the variety of colours, one might have thought they bore a striking resemblance to the shapes she had been hunting just a moment ago. Could these two things possibly be connected?

The female shifted her gaze back to the grass before her – the dark patches were indeed moving in time with the movements of those strange objects in the sky. Silvercloud nearly jumped for joy at her discovery. The mystery was solved!

The objects circling above her suddenly scattered slightly, breaking their rhythmic formation. Only after a moment of inexplicable chaos did they reassemble into an orderly formation. In a group that somewhat resembled a V-formation of migrating geese, the enigmatic shapes set off northwards, covering the ground at a brisk pace.

Raptor had no intention of losing sight of these intriguing shapes – especially not now that Silver knew of their magical abilities. The female set off with a clumsy run, pushing her way through the tall grass – normally she wouldn't have strayed so far from home on her own, but in that rush of excitement she had completely forgotten the rules that bound her.

The vegetation here grew in scattered clumps, so it posed no obstacle to the young raptor. Unrestricted by anything, Silver ran stubbornly forward, tilting her head upwards so as not to lose sight of those strange shapes for a single moment. In her eagerness, she didn’t even notice that the ground beneath her feet, which just a moment ago had been soft and grassy, had now turned into a stony, downward-sloping track. Her hooked claws clattered unpleasantly loudly against the hard surface.

The female was picking up speed dangerously, in direct proportion to the steepness of the slope. She was completely oblivious to what lay beneath her, taking reckless, erratic steps. Finally, one of those steps proved her undoing – the chick tripped over a jagged stone protruding from the ground and tumbled forward, rolling down the hillside.

As she hurtled downwards, she saw only brief glimpses of her surroundings – she was no longer in the safe clearing, but on a narrow, long rocky ledge, surrounded by numerous cliffs, rocky outcrops and ravines. No wonder she’d been forbidden to come here.

Terrified and curled up into a ball, the female suddenly lost speed, crashing into some unidentified object. The force of the impact knocked the wind out of her – could it be some hard, sharp-edged rock that was fated to end her short life?

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING-” A cry full of indignation, somewhat shrill, filled the entire ravine. Stones don’t really scream.

Covered in stone dust, Prince struggled to his feet, frantically smoothing his feathers that were ruffled by the fall. He’d been prowling the ravine for a good hour now – with a specific purpose. He hadn’t expected anyone to interrupt him so unceremoniously.

Silvercloud looked at this extravagantly looking male, who was clearly older than her – he was truly bizarre. The lower half of his body was covered in tightly packed, yellow-orange down, whilst cream-coloured, longer, speckled feathers grew on his back and limbs. To Silver, the stranger looked more like a strange snake she’d once seen at the edge of the jungle than a member of her own species.

“I was just running after some shapes in the sky… I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry!” Somewhat flustered, Silver began to explain herself haphazardly. Judging by the disgusted look on her new companion’s face, it was clear that ‘scare’ had been an unfortunate choice of words.

Irritated, Prince began muttering something under his breath – the chick understood little of it, apart from a few words taken out of context. In any case, it became clear that, according to the male, these were definitely not random shapes.

The juvenile utahraptor, having shaken off this sudden surge of irritation, looked at the rather pitiful-looking hatchling standing before him. Well, perhaps it was an uninvited guest, but why should it be immediately dismissed as a nuisance? In fact, when Prince noticed her slender, clearly quite agile body, an idea occurred to him. He’d been sitting here for an hour now, making no progress, so a helping hand would be welcome.

Prince also spotted those strange shapes – tapejaras – in the sky. In fact, the sky was teeming with them. Intrigued, the utahraptor decided to follow a small group of these unusual flying reptiles. It turned out they had good reason to be circling above the gorge.

The higher, steep cliffs towering above the rocky ledge where the male was currently standing were densely covered with dark, birds' nests. Prince had no idea what species they belonged to, but one thing was certain – neither the nests themselves nor the eggs hidden within them were small. If only he could somehow get to them before the ravenous tapejaras had completely cleared the cliffs of those tasty, nutritious eggs… Prince himself was, after all, incapable of climbing the rocks, or so he believed – climbing was far too exhausting a task. It would certainly be better if someone else did it for him. Besides, young hatchlings have much more flexible bones, don’t they? If the young female fell, she wouldn’t come to much harm…

“You see, those shapes in the sky, they’re dinosaurs – tapejaras, do you understand?” The male began his explanation with a feigned, benevolent smile. Silvercloud listened intently to his words. “Their nests are on the cliffs. Tapeja eggs are a real delicacy! Here’s what we’ll do – you’ll climb up there and knock a few eggs down, and in the meantime I’ll cover you and distract the flying ones so they don’t attack you. What do you say?”

Silver, though somewhat overwhelmed by this sudden flood of information that completely contradicted everything she’d believed up to that point, had to take a moment to analyse the juvenile's words. She didn’t know what to make of it, but after all, Prince was older than her and surely more experienced… He must know what he’s talking about, right?

Prince, exceptionally pleased that he was apparently going to manage to wriggle out of the hard work, looked expectantly at the young chick. Ah, that youthful naivety – completely oblivious to the fact that the so-called tapejaras' eggs are half the size of their flying parents.

It took a moment, but after some thought, Silver agreed to the arrangement. The female approached the rough rock face, looking uncertainly at the first ledge in it – even that was too high for the hatchling to jump onto easily. For the first time (and, he hoped, the last), Prince intervened – he gave her a lift onto the stone ledge. Once the female had scrambled up there, she looked at her companion. The male had already stepped back in the meantime, but he made eye contact with her. He smiled encouragingly, urging Silvercloud to climb higher.

Silver clung tightly to the rock face, carefully choosing spots that gave her a foothold. She was moving slowly and somewhat sluggishly, but the climb was progressing.

Meanwhile, Prince was putting on quite a show, darting all over the cliff, flapping his wings wildly and making strange noises, supposedly to scare off the ‘terrifying tapejaras’. It has to be said that he was thoroughly enjoying this antics.

After a few incredibly long minutes, Silver finally reached the first cluster of nests. She paused for a moment to catch her breath, then looked down at the utahraptor standing some three or four metres below her. Prince gestured impatiently, urging the young female on. The exhausted chick marched over to the nearest nest, trying hard to ignore the shouts of the tapejaras above her. No matter how much she tried to believe in Prince's efforts, she didn’t feel particularly safe.

In one swift movement, she knocked down the three eggs she could find most quickly. The oval shapes rolled to the edge of the cliff and then tumbled down, barely missing Prince. The delighted male immediately rushed to lap up the runny contents, smashed against the rocks. Watching from above, Silver had to admit that the eggs did indeed look quite appetising.

She dropped a few more oval-shaped treats, making sure that she and Prince would have plenty to share, and then walked over to the edge of the cliff herself. She looked down, uncertainly, sending a few small pebbles tumbling into the abyss with a single careless step. The female swallowed her saliva nervously. The view was far worse than the one she’d seen on her way up. Silvercloud whimpered desperately, feeling a sudden surge of fear and helplessness.

Prince, torn away from his meal by the whimpering, looked up. He instinctively scratched his chin with his finger at the sight of this unfortunate scene. Chicks, with their supple bones… if she jumps, nothing will happen, will it?

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