Lilac's New Promise

I ran into the thick cover of vegetation, away from Duststorm. You’d think that after being eaten by a giant predatory flower and being covered in digestive acids for a few seconds, I’d want to get the heck out of here and back to our home in the scrublands, but we haven’t achieved my goal. I haven’t seen Pokie and Duststorm still hasn’t apologized to him for pouncing on him, nor did we find out why a species called Oviraptors are planting dangerous flora on our island. We don’t even know who ordered them to do so.

And so I run.

However, Duststorm is faster. He does the hunting, and there isn’t much big and slow game in the scrublands, so he’s sprinting after birds and rabbits almost all the time so we have enough to eat. Even in an environment with way more dense vegetation than he’s used to, he gets to me after only a dozen seconds.

He bumps into me lightly, and grumbles. “I get that you want me to apologize to this dinosaur and find out what the Oviraptors are doing, and are hyped up about it, but calm down.”
I bump into him back, slowing down while doing so. “Yeah, yeah… You know me.”
Duststorm grumbles again, like usual when I’m like this.

Duststorm, from what I know from what he has told me, was born alone. He lived in a harsh environment, the scrublands, for years, and survived. That has left him interested in little besides survival. It also means he’s just generally not used to talking. He’s especially not used to talking to someone as energetic and chaotic as me. Still, over the last few months he’s kept me alive despite having no real reason to. He’s grumpy, but has my best interests at heart.

He speaks again. “We need to rest. You just got eaten by a flower, and then just rinsed off. I know you’re feeling at least some pain.”

I am indeed feeling a lot of burning from the plant’s stomach acid on my skin. Not extreme, thank goodness, but it still stings. “Fine, we can rest…”

“Then we’re turning around back to that river. We’ve traveled all the way here from my burrow, and you’ve been burned. We should rest up. Drink some water.” He then starts walking back to the river where I rinsed myself earlier. I follow.

---

I rip off some of the giant leaves from the trees for bedding, as Lilac said her parents did before she met me when the ground was wet. The ground is wet, and I would prefer not to rest on such a surface. Lilac seems fine though, happy even. She was raised in less arid environments than I,and has always been a bit whiny about living in, according to her, “the hottest and driest place I’ve ever been.” Still, she hasn’t pushed me to move. I don’t know how to survive in a more humid environment, and despite being born in one, Lilac is not much of a survivalist.

Piling up the leaves in a circle with a radius of two of my strides, I lay upon them. Lilac cuddles up next to me soon after, as she has done whenever stressed since the thunderstorm where I almost drowned in quicksand. My feathers are comfy for her scaled hide, apparently. I still feel weird about it, but it’s not harmful or annoying, so I allow it.

I look up, up at the ocean suspended above as if held by an invisible being of incredible strength. Now that I’m not running around or saving Lilac, I can appreciate the true scale and beauty of it. Shoals of fish swim hundreds of my body lengths above me like storm clouds, shifting in shape and position wildly. I can see an individual creature among them. That in of itself is incredible. From this distance, for it to be seen in such detail must mean it’s large, larger than a Crylophosaurus like I.

It’s blurry, but it looks like a snake mixed with a turtle. It has a main body with flippers, but at the end it has a neck and head like a rattlesnake I would find in my territory. It darks among the shoals of silvery fish, probably feeding on them, before swimming away as if satisfied.
Eventually, over time, everything becomes dark. Darker than a normal night. I know from looking at rivers that under water things get darker. I’ve never been under that much water before. Despite the visible moon, it’s as dark as a night without one.

At this point Lilac is sound asleep, with her slow breathing the only sound coming from her. Still, I stay awake. I’m used to sleeping in my burrow, with only one direction a predator could enter my sleeping area. However, all the travelling over the course of the day has made me tired. Eventually, I fall asleep.

Some time later, the snap of a branch wakes me up. I jump up onto my feet and look around. I see an Oviraptor looking at me, shivering but held in place in fear.

It’s Pokie, the Oviraptor I came to get answers from and apologize to.

Oviraptors are a dinosaur species, having a crest made up of the stuff in my claws on its head. Its arms look like a hybrid between arms and true wings, which is also odd. Pokie is mostly black and grey, with bands of white. Some of the red markings rubbed off last time I saw him, when I pinned him to the ground. I have realized since that that could be explained by rubbing pigment on himself. Weird.

I look at Lilac, still asleep. For someone so energetic, she’s a deep sleeper. I lightly slap her side with my tail. I do not hold these… Social skills she seems to have. Her eyes open slowly. “Five more minutes…”

Her eyes open wider once she sees the Oviraptor, still shivering in place from fright. I guess I traumatized it. I look over at Lilac.

---

I realize from context clues and how Duststorm described Pokie that this must be him. The dinosaur he attacked to get information.

“Um, hello. We’re here to find some answers to our questions and to apologize.” I look at Duststorm. He sighs and says what I told him to say. “Sorry for attacking you. I wanted information, but I should have done it in a less violent way…”

I nod happily and look back at Pokie. He seems a bit more relaxed. Still frozen in place, but not shuddering.

“Now, we still have questions. Why are you, and possibly others of your kind, planting seeds that will grow into dangerous plants? What is this place? And finally, who is your leader?”

Pokie shifted nervously, before nodding. "I can tell you now. A lot has happened in the short time since I last saw this Crylophosaurus." He gestures towards Duststorm.

Pokie then starts explaining everything. How the dome is ruled by Queen Rhys, an Iguanodon who rules over all denizens of the dome called Atlantis. He also explains what Iguanadons and Euoplocephalus are, much to Duststorm's and I benefit. After explaining the basics of the way life works down here, he starts on why he and other Oviraptors were planting plants that were dangerous.

"We live with them, so we're more resilient to them, you see. Queen Rhys had the idea of planting this flora on the islands above to push away other denizens."

Duststorm and I both blink. There's another island...?

Pokie seems to understand. "Um... There's two islands. Isla Pera and Isla Kela. Judging from which side we're on, you came from Isla Pera. Unimportant for the conversation.

Anyways, the reason for this biological warfare is because there is a leak in the dome. There is a crack that's letting saltwater in, which is killing the plants and making the soil useless. The Treaty of Thorns, made after Queen Rhys was convinced by those above Atlantis, means that we are now allowed to leave. Atlantis now even has territory on Isla Kela. The change is hard for some, however..."

I have an idea in my head. New dinosaurs needing help? I could help them!

Duststorm can notice my plan, and sighs. "Fine. I know I don't have a choice, and I'm also

interested in another island. Our home is getting too hard to live in, now that we're both adults, anyways. Maybe we can look into a new territory..."

He looks at Pokie. "Is there a dry area that would still have enough food for us?"

Pokie responds , obviously still a little nervous to be talking to Duststorm but more scared of displeasing him. "There's a place called the Blooming Desert. From what I've heard, it fits your description of where you would like to live..."

I turn to him. "No reason to say no, then!"

I look at Pokie. "Pokie, I promise to help the Oviraptors, Euoplocephalus, and Iguanadons who are losing their home by helping them settle in!"