Hello there, reader! :D I'm super pumped right now! Why? Heheh. This story is a sequel to two other stories and I haven't written for them in months and I really really want to so it's awesome. If you have never read one or even both (if you have why you overachiever oOo whyareyoureadingsomuchofmystoriesaaahh) that's fine! Heh, I'll try to hit everything to make it easier to understand what's going on, but if I'm failing and you're confused, feel free to tell me! You can be as harsh as you want if that's how you work. :3 If there are a few things that don't make sense, don't worry, it gets easier as it goes on, eheh.
So anyways! Welcome to the great unveiling of The Stone Fossil Fighter! The biggest character seen in this story is a wacky red-haired girl named Jkonna, but there are other main characters too that are just as important. X3 I trust you enjoy~
The Stone Fossil Fighter
Chapter 1: The Man Pants Didn't Return
Dino
Sticky glands of heat and moisture combine to make untidy little cracks and chips all throughout my skin, until I'm full of sap and I smell like turd and I just overall feel all gross. It's sweat. Of course it's sweat. You can never freaking escape sweat, no matter how hard you try—and you know whose fault that is?
Yes.
That's right.
It's the sun.
Oh how I hate the sun. Filthy ball of yellow light. Stop making me sweat. Now.
Angrily, I toss a shiny scaled black hand into an orange forehead and it goes schlop. If I was any less solid, I think my body would start melding together like clay. Because this freaking sun hates me so much that it has to force sweat glands to work on overdrive and then before you know it there's sweat everywhere and you smell like turd and it's all, all of it, is because of the sun. The sun is so so evil.
Or, you know, a kindly voice implies, you could always just go swimming or something. Or stop running around when it's sunny outside. But I guess I can't stop someone as stupid as you from doing that.
That is not the voice I was hoping to hear. And no, the sun isn't giving me hallucinations. Droplet the water monster is up to her games again, reminding me of all my mistakes so I'll do better next time only I don't do better next time and she gets to harp on me all over again like a feeble witch who has no soul. Only, I guess if she had no soul, I'd also have no soul, so how about we all shut up and pretend there's a heart deep in that finned body coated in water. No, not sweat: just water. She leaks water everywhere. See, there is a reason this krona is and always will be a water monster. Dino. Shut up.
Yes, yes, but it's true! So why do I have any reason to shut up?
You're hurting my feelings.
A blank, slate-colored glare hits the sad grass below us that would be dead was it not for sweat. Well. Maybe not dead. But not all that green. You have feelings. Wow, I never knew. Why am I only learning this now?
Eeek! And then another voice joins in on the fray until now it's two females and I am outnumbered. Dino, please stop being so disastrously mean! It's scary! What if you and Droplet actually... d-do something stupid and hurt each other and never forgive one another and—EEK! I CAN'T TAKE SUCH A THOUGHT! Twin smirks meet the golden-scaled biped's idiot whining.
Harei, the day that'll happen is the day you stop caring so much about us.
Yes, nicely put, Droplet. See, I'm nice. Harei, on the other hand, is an emotional clay glob of gold who melts at the sight of both cute things and conflict which isn't actually conflict cuz she's stupid and thinks it is. She also melts at the sight of Lone because Lone is both terrifying and draining at the same time and a secret part of me deep inside of my skull thinks that Lone is actually a lot smarter than us and plans to corrupt the universe with her freakish and utter Loneness.
I hope and pray to the almighty Ancient vivosaurs that's just me.
Harei, with her scaly blue outlines and kind, dark eyes and awkwardly sweet face, happens to be the shiniest ourano I've ever met. Also she can dance. Don't ask me why a gigantic, meaty thing like her can do it, but those hips know how to gyrate. And let's not think about Lone right now. Please.
DID I HEAR MY NAME? I HEARD MY NAME. DON'T SAY YOU DI—
NO I DID NOT HEAR YOUR NAME LONE. Please work please work please work.
I DIDN'T EITHER. Droplet I have never loved your krona soul as much as right—
What do you mean, guys? Dino, you said her name twice! Don't be so rude!
...now. Ow. That's gonna leave a mark. Harei's gentle and sweet tone then sears my heart forever as the galumphing thing that is Lone the nasaur screeches as high as her beaked face can screech.
LONE LONE LONE LONE LONE LONE LONE LONE LONE LONE LONE
You bet it's just her name over and over and over again. What stops her? We really have yet to figure that out.
UH, PIPPY? PLEASE STEP ON HER!
My command doesn't do much, but then Droplet asks the same thing and flashes her pearly white teeth and by some incomprehensible way, this makes the brown giant of a seismo, his adorable purple eyes and underbelly gleaming, utter a response and do something. Actually, like, do something. Ah. Ah! Why must the two of you always roam for the similar ending such as this? Oh, cheerio, lad and lassie, I don't want to harm Lone! Not even if she's purple, stick-like, and not only has fur but scales, a beak, and webbed toes too! That is harmful and rude and depressing, you sour puddings! Alas, dear friends, how could I stoop so low? Please tell me I don't have to! I don't want to! I would never! He sighs and lifts the delicate stick figure that should be Lone and places her upon his gigantic back. Droplet puffs angry air for some reason—which she keeps doing, and I don't get why, every time someone else grabs hold of Pippy's attention who isn't her. What, has she gotten spoiled or something? Holy turd. I never thought the day would come that this blue-and-gray-and-white-flecked and -finned thingy would actually begin to act like a little kid any worse than me. I don't even do that when someone else gets in my best friend's face.
I don't really know how to classify my vivosaurs, but I actually do have a best friend that doesn't sound like a nonstop voice in my head. No, that's a lie, she sounds like a nonstop voice in my head, but she actually isn't some crazy revived vivosaur with scales and the power to beat up other vivosaurs and that whole package. She just has freakishly long red hair and freakishly big hips.
So, well, that's pretty much the entire gang. There's also Iggy, but he's gay and depressing and so I usually try to leave him alone. Smirking stupidly, I trod around more on squishy mud and grass and wonder, if my sweat could only collect and make gigantic puddles, what exactly I would see. My appearance kind of changed. Black spikes of hair, and an orange stripe of it down the middle. Let's see... orange face, orange elbows and knees... Black limbs... I think my stomach is gray like my eyes... and I have those funny gray markings under my cheeks or something. Oh. And the tail. The black and orange tail.
See, I used to think I was a human but I'm actually this cool thing called a dinaurian, which basically means I look like a human, buuuut I get scales and a tail. A freaking tail. I know, right? That has to be the absolute coolest thing ever. Also when I learned I was a dinaurian, all of my human friends were like oh my gosh he's not an orphan because we all thought I had no parents but it turns out my past self was just a shy ditz and tried to forget about my living dad which makes me a prince and therefore—well. Who cares. I am the coolest prince around because I am the only one.
Really, even though I'm a prince and all, it's not like everything is different now or anything. I still run around in the same dig site of Greenhorn Plains and on really hot days I sweat all over the place. I always have my vivosaurs with me because they are my lovely darlings—NOT. So, uh, yeah, practically, ha ha, the same. Yes, that was a sarcastic laugh.
Why are you sarcastically laughing at yourself?
Droplet. Shut up. Not a good time.
Are you loonely, Din-Diiiiiin?
I'M NOT LONELY, OKAY.
DON'T WORRY MY LOVE. And out of nowhere I'm tossed onto soggy grass filled with my sweat because the sun is evil, only now a weight has crushed my lungs. A weight like no other, even though the voice was kind enough to shrink her gigantic body before flinging out of her fossil medal and trying to hug me. Six fins don't know how to hug. Still, a pointy, finned snout gushes air at my face, and now my hair must be even more messed up. Spikes are soggy, man, this is just gross. Droplet's finned underbelly of white squirms from above me and icy blue eyes pierce my soul. I'm here for you.
Yeah, I know. Trying to act all smug as her sharp voice hits me, my eyebrows raise a little bit, and a fin paws at them in some fumbling effect to make them stop. She results in pulling at scales and nearly chipping my beautiful face, how dare you. Your oh-so beautiful face is not a piece of art to me, okay. Maybe Rosie thinks it is since she wants to kiss it, but dude, really, no. Oh yeah, Rosie's not a vivosaur either. She wears lots of pink though. She's be a pinkosaurus rex. I'm just Dino.
Droplet... When one of our tones hits soft and serious, the other shuts up and pulls out that dusty old mode too. We've... known each other for awhile now. Can we not think about it? I've gotten... really emotional about life as it is, man.. It doesn't help to keep... uh... man-tearing-up. So her fins pat at me and we just awkwardly stay like that for awhile, either because she's too proud to admit she doesn't know how to get up or she wants to be here for me. There was once a time where I'd guess the first one.
But these guys mean a lot to me. Yeah. Believe it or not, I'm not the selfish orphan I thought I was.
At some point Droplet slithers off and yips around like a hyperactive Lone of sorts. She wags her fat, finned tail, and I brush myself off as grass sticks around on my back like harmless spikes. Because I'm a dinaurian and they can do these things, I charge forward in my scaled body—missing—missing, I say—my man pants and all of the sort, because I'm just like Droplet practically—and the wind throws my spiky hair in all sorts of places, and my gray eyes glaze over and make me look happy for once in my lifetime, since gray is associated with sadness—which, get it right, isn't true. I'm not sad. Right now.
Footfalls heave from behind me, and I don't dare turn my back or I'll be blinded by the pure cuteness that comes from huge sauropods whose names are Pippy, which is only one single seismo of hot-cocoa coloring and lilac highlights as in the cutest thing to ever exist that isn't a person. Also, his accent only makes it ever the more impossible to not become Pippy's accidental manservant, so if he wasn't so freaking nice we'd all be turd. But he is. Really nice. Way too nice. Him and his tea and crumpet metaphors and pip-pip cheerios: sickeningly kind that it makes me puke happy rainbows. Oh, hey, that's a thought: has Pippy ever even had tea and crumpets? I mean, he's a vivosaur, so eating food messes up his system and he'll puke somewhere exotic—I know this because it's happened before with Droplet—but still. Tea and crumpets. Pippy. A match made in the eye of lovesaurs only.
That's not a match made in any sort of love madness, grumbles the sass herself. Soft feet plopping against ground and sweat lets me know that Lone and Harei have joined the party too. Lone's probably on Pippy's back by now since she's tiny as it is and shrinking herself only makes her tinier, but then again, everyone can sit on that gigantic brown marshmallow of love at a time, so no big deal as it is.
But Droplet's gone and acted suspicious. Then what is?
Like I'm not worthy or something, my cheeks scorch hot, letting me know those finned, white bits of skin on her have done the same, and she's silent. Weird. Something really must be rattling at her bones on the inside. What the heck happened to you, Droppie? Weirdo. She doesn't even respond to me trying to call her the name I almost gave her when we first met since I'd thought she was a guy and that she didn't have a name—Sharp—so when she still gives no vibes, I let her have some space. What an oddball.
Chortling like the old man I one day hope to be, well, no, I don't hope to be an old man it's just gonna happen one day, but I smirk and my laugh rattles in my throat and almost, I almost feel worthy enough to call myself closer to that stature of that dignified title, "old man," and the prowling steps and steps of vivosaurs clomping on behind me like their feet eat the grass signifies that I'm not alone, all over again. I'm never alone now. Really, I never was alone: my movement from the orphanage back when I thought I was an orphan to Vivosaur Island also known as where I live and have lived for a ripe time or something, some settlement of time pursued, this all was such a rigid motion that from orphan buddies to vivosaurs, I never stood a chance.
What does it feel like to be lonely?
Whatever. I dunno. Shrugging and chugging on, the tramp of huge footprints following, I march in a saint. Someone chokes on a sob behind me because it was probably painful to hear me compare myself to something so kind and impossibly sweet and angelic. Dina's probably like that—Dina's my sister. And no more thoughts about this mysterious Dina girl. Nah. Rather not.
You know, Greenhorn Plains has oddly sentimental feelings all clamped up inside of it. Feels like a warm breeze on a rainy day, but it doesn't smell like rain, just the wind, because stuff that smells like rain smells like freaking soggy turd. I spread out my arms and flap at them a little as the breeze picks at my scaled body and pricks itself on my spiky hair which, on the inside, is actually made of bundles of... soft spikes. No. I'm not cute. Shut up. It's fierce, and it's natural, and there's a freaking orange stripe to the right side of it, which makes me look tough, cuz I'm not heartfelt, I'm tough. Maybe.
Still, the wind stretches over my skin and swamps me in fresh odors and cool touches, the grass smothering my toes and offering a squeak of laughter because Pippy has ticklish toes and therefore, I do too. Stupid Pippy. The gigantic sauropod in question ducks his brown-scaled head and giggles childishly. His face scribbles crayons of searing red into the flesh too, so, yeah, now my cheeks are about as red as my tongue. If I opened my mouth, there'd be one gouging flame mark of searing scarlet all across one slash of face. Creaking at eyes until they pool shut, the world turns to water around me and fills my being, and memories scratch at the door of my mind, and some of them fly out, and it's a good feeling. Palms outstretched, the weirdos I love in tandem around me, standing and intercepting the feeling of air in the sky turned to water at skin and flames leaping on our cheeks, the earth underfoot and the neutrality of the moment holding it all in sweet touch, we just freaking stand there.
You know... this was where you and Rosie saw that one sunrise in the morning... after leaving Bottomsup Bay, still sopping wet, those diving masks on your faces... and I got to warm you up like a little child~ And we shared such a touching moment... Golden eyelids flutter, and a softly chipper voice squeakily sighs. Oh... how happy it makes me that memories link with the present just in the most perfect ways~!
Yeah, that's great, Harei. Don't remind me of that day. It was creepy. Her breath warmed my skin, clearing off the dewdrops and it was creepy, okay. Like she'd cleared off my fortress of skin and found the little princess inside of me and held it close to her heart—that sort of astronomically creepy thing. Harei. You freaking ourano. Stop holding those sorts of memories so dear and then randomly announcing them.
Because that totally makes sense, the beautifully accented voice kicks in after hers: what, do earth vivosaurs stick together? Dear chap, I believe Harei's words sit with the sugar! Must you feel happy about the times we've had together? And stop calling them creepy, please, unless...
He just trails off. The words leap off of his tongue and he loses them. Pippy.
Yes?
Learn how to finish your sentences. You're millions of years old. How long does it take.
An adorable pout erases the orange-creased forehead frowns. Well, it's not exactly novice of me to act so timely with creatures like you and Lone to wallow with in the same bubbles! Dude. Just go on. Your accent is killing me. Finish the sentence; so finish he does. I just don't want you to call old, happy memories creepy... unless you really don't like them.
Whoa, man. Way to drop a bomb. Of course I like them! Now shut up before you ruin my man points! Droplet mentions something about how all of my vivosaurs are females—it's a running joke that Pippy's a girl too because he just is—and that my man points were screwed to begin with, but still. I have no hope so I have to end with but still. Make it look like there's hope. Inflate my ego some. My nonexistent ego. Nobody understands what a man like me has to go through with four girls.
Please do stop calling me a female! I'm not a girl, Dino! We've been over this! Three girls: one Pippy. Happy? One male. I am a male. Okay, great. Say it, Dino! No. I don't wanna. And we have to leave it there because I'm slightly more stubborn than sopping wet cardboard.
And it sort of... goes on like that. Snide remarks. Laughter. Some creatures made fun of and then redeemed: somehow, someway. It all sort of fits together unlike most puzzles since somebody is always in charge of losing pieces. These strange creatures... finned, scaled, furred, feathered, and in Lone's case, all of the above, all take a strange sort of hold on me, a connection that can't really be put into words, the words themselves used to converse telepathic as it is, linked from mind to mind to hold as... one. I've known these suckers for longer than I planned to, especially for Harei and Droplet—both awkward and interesting stories about me only keeping them for a little while and then discarding them soon as possible—and it's worth it.
Shaking out my head, the spell broken, I double back and whisk off toward the maw-of-an-entrance to where the plains of greenhorn peter off to salty shores and where a lanky boat driver, more tanned than a coconut, patiently waits by his prized, white boat. Shiny and sleek as ever. I learned at some point that Captain Travers has actually owned that vessel of his for years but keeps it super spiffy because it's like his boat, so no matter when I see the shimmering eyesore, it's white and sparkly as can be. Rumor has it the blonde in the tropic getup even cleans up the very bottom of the boat where vessel meets water as deep as it goes. And it's gross; but worth it?
To let him know I think I'll be heading back to the main island soon, I raise a shiny rough black hand, and somewhere behind me my tail rattles.
CHOMP.
AAAAH! LONE! I told you to stop doing that!
BUT IT'S WAGGING AND EVERYTHING.
IT'S. A FREAKING. TAIL. TAILS DO THAT. YOU HAVE A TAIL. YOU KNOW.
Purple face goes erect. I HAVE A TAIL? The next some minutes are spent dragging tiny ditz into shiny vessel and practically locking her on squishy, white chairs. Somehow she folds into position, and as my other vivosaurs conveniently shrink into their medals—the one with the blue rim Droplet, the two of yellow rims Pippy and Harei, and Lone, of course, sitting in her purple knot—a boat growls like something fierce, and we hit waters with a hiss.
The blaring shriek of the engine cuts at my ears, but it's not too bad. Just louder than usual. I wonder why. As if to apologize for the noise, a tan face turns around while his hands are the only things monitoring the wheel, and twinkling eyes stud me. "Yo, Dino! How ya been? Ya been eatin' your vegetables, right?" Like I haven't heard it for awhile, ol' Travers's voice comes off as scratchy and parched to my ears.
"Whaaaaaat? Who eats vegetables?" Yeah I did.
"You do, m'boy!"
"Naaaaaaaahhhhh." It's funny; as far as I can remember, he's never asked me about nutrition junk. Before I know it, he'll make me do jumping-jiangos. No. Travers. I'm begging you. Don't make me do jumping-jiangos. Just thinking about it brings to thought the meaty, blue quadrupedal vivosaur it's named after. Because alliteration reasons, I don't know.
For a moment, the boat dude with a little too much sun in his diet leaves off, but then like spring his seasonal self comes right back up to the surface again. My gray orbs sort of stare at his shiny eyes right back. They match his freaking boat, those eyes of his. He didn't accidentally pour boat-cleaner-whatever into his eyes, did he? Don't go blind on me. I'm not sitting in a boat with a blind driver, man. "I see ya've grown a bit taller!"
"Then it's a success!" I still feel like I gotta shout. Everything is yelling at me all at once and Travers's narrow face gets kinda pinched at the fact that I'm raising my voice, but dude, aren't you raising your voice too?
"Ya keep at it. Ya keep at it, Dino!"
I'm going to assume he can see. Another good pointer is the rock sitting in the water that almost is torn into until swerved at the last moment. This guy probably has some boat skills in him if he's tamed this majestic beauty. He seems a lot more reluctant to wreck it than me with Droplet, even.
Don't even go there. And there's the sharp counter.
Yeah, but it's tru—
Dino the dinaurian prince son of King Dynal, I said, DON'T EVEN GO THERE.
Okay. Geeezzzz. Just to sound a little more cocky. Why? Because I can. Which basically translates to no real reason. Because. Somehow, Travers hasn't even started eyeballing my red face which is flushed against because vivosaurs because Droplet and her antics and she makes me feel like her young daughter—yes, her young daughter—who's dumb and irresponsible. Oh, hey, being irresponsible might explain why I'm never worrying about the krona's health. As if it was needed...
Not like I worry about her anyways. What. No. Awww, Dino, you're so adorable when you try to hide how much you care about us from others! Harei. The fact that I never mention it is a pretty big indicator that I don't like to talk about it. Crease your night blue eyes closed and please try to keep this all low-key. But, Dino! Stop acting so resilient! It's so sweeeet! She's scarring me. I thought I meant something to this horrid ourano.
Oh, hush now, Harei, dear. There's no way this nut will crack just yet. You know how embarrassingly blunt he is when it comes to romantic relationships! Do you not recall the two girls that fell in love with him and how it took the reaction of the 'mouth-thing' to make him realize these feelings of insight in the first place?
Now isn't the time, Pippy.
Oh, silly lad! If only you realized sooner what an enticing, magical entity that love is, so that perhaps your life could have been flourished with more buds of romance! And kisses! Ah, so many kisses from dear Rosetta—Rosie herself! Oh, what heaven would I be in if the two of you only came together! Although I admit that Duna was a fair lass herself; if only you had chosen betwixt them!
STOP!
But romance!
STOP TALKING ABOUT ROMANCE MAN THAT'S JUST CREEPY AND GROSS AND—OHHH, YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS GROSS?
This always gets everyone to state their opinion. NOBODY CARES, LO—
DINO'S TAIL! DINO'S TAIL IS GROSS!
Yeah, I grunt, cuz you bit it.
NOOOOOOOOO! That's a word purple freaks usually don't come up with. She energetically agrees with like everything and then tears down another plot hole within the space-time continuum. Freaks of nature don't know how to say no. Once again, the softhearted cocoa seismo tries to voice little baby words against me, but Lone of course shatters her own defense like the loose cannon she is. I BIT THE WEIRD THING!
Because she probably is smarter than everyone else, six fins intervene. I actually think she's right for once. There were pine needles in your tail. Didn't you feel them? I sure as heck felt them. Lone probably did, too. And that, my friend, is why she forgot about said tail: it got too numb to remember.
LONE LONE LONE! Is that her approval call or is she bored? I dunno. Hard to keep count. Too many things can be taken from a bunch of "Lone"s.
Sunset streams behind us, and Lone's knot of herself bleeds into the coloring as her scales and furs and beak and webbed toes bedazzle themselves until yellow dots hit the purple spots and cyan beak and stuff. The engine blazes again, and a tan silhouette salutes beneath the folds in his straw hat, which flutters in the wind. As much of a creepy boat driver as Travers can get, I think I got used to the guy or something, because he's not so creepy anymore. His voice still has that tiny hint of nasal in it; such a clean slate though. He tries to hatch some other boater joke to which I blink and don't answer because how does one answer a boater joke, and hop off to dirt and gravel roads that crunch under scaled toes, and to the grass beyond. To my right beckons a wooden booth dressed in pink, manned by females. Two females.
One in sour lemon yellow; the other's a fresh onslaught of oranges. Beth; Sue. Boring Beth; shaky Sue. Fairly simple to remember. Lone almost forgets to move from the boat until Harei's squeak echoes, and then, nope, the blur of purple's off. Her medal clatters and sinks into my hand. Somehow, the sunset on my back feels heavy too, like it's forcing me to carry bricks. Well, that's too bad, sun, because I'm not your slave, and I'll never let you do this to me, even when you do. Stepping up to the girl donning her casual-as-it-goes sunny jumpsuit, her brown hair falling in a limp line I hadn't seen before to somewhere below her shoulders, those dark eyes of hers casting a shadow upon my entire soul and her lips crushed together like she hates me, though I don't think she does, dull lips allow sound to pass through:
"Wow, I never thought the day would come where I'd see eye-to-eye with you again." Is it just me, or does Beth sound freaking livelier than usual? What, did she get a boyfriend? A new vivosaur?
"Why the heck do you look so happy?"
She grunts, chewing her lip in more. Oh, hey, she's wearing natural-colored lipstick today. Utter miracle. "I don't know why you'd see something on me that happened ages ago," out comes the mutter, "but I broke up with one person only to learn that the feeling was mutual with someone else..."
Aaaaand moving on. Beneath the folds of a pink umbrella rests ol' shaky Sue, who, just like Beth, has undergone some tiny change that I for some reason am seeing. Then again, Travers looked less creepy, the sun felt hotter, and now everything just seems to have changed. Sue has her orange hair pinched in little wing-like bends that go all the way down past her thighs or something that long I don't care to check. Wide orbs sort of shine at me, try to stab at me, then decide they can't really do that and poke at the girl to her right. "I-I'm doing well, Dino." Wow. Why the heck are you both doing well? What happened here? Is there... what is...
I stick my tongue out to the side and wave a scaled hand at them before being forcibly dragged by four watery white fins as the other two wave off my buddies at the booth. Ignore this ignorable idiot because he's stupid and doesn't notice much thanks great to see ya bye. And out goes the sharp voice as I nearly trip and fall and bonk into gravel a few times and get dirt kisses all over me, but Droplet's surprisingly good at not falling and holding me at the same time. We leave our buddies at the booth behind and enter a round, glassy, classy building straight ahead, and a turn to the left leaves me right in the way of this one guy who I'm really recognizing. But wait—wait. I glanced him out the freaking window, so I latch onto the left wall and tear up some window junk and pop through. The voice of a female in a green jumpsuit tries to stop me, but you can't stop me nothing can stop me. Droplet rolls her eyes and pops through behind me. Her size sorts shrinks to fit and not break anything. Vivosaurs can do that.
Black scales jab at dark skin and turquoise hair and then a hug happens. Fraying ends of a white coat cloak me, as do tropical shirt and short pair and dangling glasses that clock me one and freaking mess up my spikes until they're almost as bad as that short-spiked hair. Blue-green orbs shoot at me like plants. "Dino."
"Daddy Diggins!"
"Why do you still call me that if we figured out you have parents?" Dark cheeks get all red and it's funny. His sunny and smarty and hearty tone dive right at me. "I mean, your mom is dead, but still! Why me?"
I blink like he's stupid, because he's sure acting like a scatterbrained ditz right now. "Because I care about you. And you'll always be Daddy Diggins to me, duh." I'm not really puncturing his face with my eyes, but for some reason the dark hands hug me tighter. "Does this mean I have two dads?"
"You know I'm technically not your dad, right?"
"Yeaaah, but you kiiinda aaare."
"I'm not, Dino."
"Yeah you are."
"How many times have we been over this?"
I smirk and reply happily: "Never!" Cut-off rays of sunset graze me, and they give Diggins a fantastic outline which makes me want to call him rainbow man, but he's not rainbow man, he's Daddy Diggins, so I let this one slide.
A blob of scaly green, burly with meaty, quadrupedal form, slips around the corner and sticks out the red spines chasing its hunched back. Oh, hey, that's Diggins's very so very prized stego that he loves for some reason. His first vivosaur, or something. I know not everyone keeps their first one around, but man, he and I... And just like I actually said her name, a minimized krona flips around her watery figure and advances at the other female.
Sup, Morrisio! Has the Doc been any kinder to you, or will he feed you vivo-cakes at all? Or does he STARVE you?
Oh, my gosh, Droppie. Shut up. We've been other this. If vivosaurs eat food, we puke it up later. We can't digest it. I thought you'd recall, silly! Remember that time Dino made you eat those moccasins and you puked them up in the Fossil Center, and does anyone remember who had to clean those up at all? That thing has sass. Oh my gosh. I always forget that the tall doc has such a zesty thing when he's, well, him. Not that he's a bad dude. More like one of the coolest guys in the world. I've known him for awhile, so that's easy to say. Still. I don't get it.
Another funny thought is how young Morrisio acts in comparison to the older dude who's had her for however long it's been. I mean, Droplet's maturity basically totals mine: of course, this all forgetting the fact that all vivosaurs are millions of years old. Well, I guess they somehow make it work in the end. And then, of course, Diggins has his huge flying vivosaur, his weirdly red-feathered aopteryx which is mostly a tiny bird of white feathers but man, this one his huge and red, so I don't know. I've borrowed it a few times... For some reason, he only has two vivosaurs, and that's really all he needs.
Softly ruffling my hair, aquamarine orbs peer at me through glass. "How was your day?" See, I said he was a Daddy Diggins.
"Uhhhh... hot. And weird. Really really weird. The sun was really hot so I shouted at it a lot, and my vivosaurs were themselves as usual, and then for some reason Captain Travers isn't so creepy anymore, and Beth and Sue look really happy for some reason. Your staff girlies are changing on you... Say, has Wendy changed, too?" She used to wear green jumpsuits and her blonde hair in a tight flowery bun, hobbies consisting of green tea-drinking and making fun of me, but who knows what sort of transformation she's gone through now.
Glasses flash closer up on a stubby nose, and Diggins shrugs around his lab coat and me. "I don't reckon she has. She still complains about annoying people: you, especially."
"But I'm not annoying!"
Coy smile. That's reassuring. Diggins, I thought we were on the same team. He just tousles my hair again and chortles softly, those warm-creek orbs of his watching over me. For the most part, he's always done that, except when his crazy fossil studies junk takes an emotional turn and he goes sort of crazy and the only living thing in existence that can tame him is vivo-cakes which aren't alive but kind of count. Well, and a couple of his well kids, kids like how I call him dad, trying to tame him. It's like telling a krona to sit down and act like a nasaur. Well, the fierce kronas to be all cute and hopping like docile nasaurs.
Droplet acting like Lone is the stuff of my nightmares.
We stay like that for a while, Diggins and I, Droplet and Morrisio chasing and loping childishly around us in a tight-knit and warm circle. Sharing touching moments feels fuzzy on my heart. I hope I don't choke on all this fluff, but it's worth it either way. Oh yeah—yeah, I know Diggins. In case he for some reason started looking fictional, nah, I've just known the doc for a while. Ever since I... came here. We didn't meet because I opened a window, but it was in this area, in the Resort Area of the island, on the grass and gravel with just about only Beth and Sue looking out at us.
Night stars poke out at us, and then the brown-skinned fossil studier guy releases me, chuckling in that soft sort of chuckle to himself as Morrisio jumps up in that smaller form and chews at his lab coat. "Hey, stop that! I told you to stop that!" He swats carelessly at the gray-chinned head as pink eyes glare a little fiercely at him. Morrisio. Stop eating my lab coat. I never knew such deadpans were still out there.
What does the teeny stego have to say for herself? Not much. It's a mite easier to get your attention this way.
What? I kind of stupidly stand there as Droplet grows in size and then tackles me to the ground. Her white-bellied fins stick at me and man, I need to teach her how to properly hug. This is bad. Six fins just shimmy and her tail slaps at the gravel and her pointed snout face, streaked at the top in blue then gray, breathes salty air on me and tries to kick in a gag reflex.
Out of the corner of my eye, I think that tiny green heap of scales shrugs. Her red spines all across her back flex. Because. I wanted to make sure you hadn't forgotten me.
Morrisio, I would never forget you!
Okay great. I think Tramp has escaped again. While Diggins checks a loose, white pocket, he groans. That creepy red aopteryx of his is gone again. Well, I don't know if I'll be much use here, so maybe I should get aw—wait.
Droplet. What did you do.
Nurfin.
Droplet.
NURFIN.
SPIT IT OUT, DROPLET.
NUR. An awkward probing at her throat feels so weird that out pops a slightly-chewed, white-rung fossil medal, the image of a red-feathered and large bird hunched in on it. Lots of slobber pools around it until the island slithers in place and dark brown legs saunter over as their matching hand plucks up the fossil and wipes it somewhere, scolding my idiot krona all the way. While she pretends the words aren't happening, as do I, because Diggins's lectures are emotional and weird, I ask her myself:
What the heck is wrong with you? Why did you nab the medal and eat it? Do you want to kill the vivosaur?
Nah. I just wanted to eat it. I wasn't gonna swallow or anything. I just wanted to eat it.
Why do you make no sense.
A long, slow chortle draws out of her long, thin snout and it makes me feel self-conscious. Or maybe he asked me to, just to tick off Diggins. Head bumps up toward the tall dude himself. But I think my height might be starting to gain on him. Unless I've stopped growing. See, some vivosaurs enjoy teasing their Bonds. Don't you feel oh-so delighted that that's not me?
Droplet. Look at your attempt of a hug. My hands don't get all that far, so I decide not to try and pull them out and pat at the problem, as in the squishy krona, but my tail twitches beneath layers of her dripping-wet fins: always dripping wet. Why always dripping wet, I don't know. Just look at this attempt of a hug. I'm trapped and you're... I don't even know. Are you laughing at me, Droplet? Do you feel proud of what you've done? I kinda lost what I was trying to say at some point.
Dino, you stopped making sense somewhere. I just wanted a hug.
"DIGGINS!" He's knocked out of his stupo—no wait, he's been trying to knock me out of my stupor. Oops. His face scrunches up a little, all worrisome and junk about me. "WE—" Let's not get all shouting. "We need to teach Droplet how to hug sometime!" Much better. Immediately he swipes at the krona who doesn't budge because he's only a little stronger than me, and that's not enough. Smirking, she does shrink into her aquamarine medal. Thank gosh. I think my entire back is drenched; my front sticks under the influence of lots and lots of gravel.
He blinks through shiny glasses as he helps me up. "So that's her attempt at a hug." Yeah, you likey? "She needs some help. Certainly." Oh my gosh, this deadpan just might be better than the last one: where do these things come from. We saunter together into the bright-lit glassy doors that beckon into the Fossil Center, where Diggins both lives and works on... whatever he works on while his assistants—I think there's two or three, counting Wendy-at-the-purple-booth—sort of watch over him when he gets all emotional. If we take a left here, then he can return to his room and I'll eventually get to the basement of the center, where the teleport thingy to the starship, as in where I live with my dad and other dinaurians as in our species. But it's a long walk to the basement. Ugh.
We bypass Wendy, whose pinched, pale face bites at me, and then he takes his leave at the messy, paper-strewn torture chamber of books that is his room. Turquoise hair and a white lab coat tail off and disappear as the door clicks shut.
It's a long stroll, but a quiet one, when I take my way down the first set of purple-carpeted and steel-inlaid stairs. Like a spy in a labyrinth, all of my steps have to matter or I'll fall over and like die or something. Well, no, there's a lot of guard rails over the multitude of forks in the road and dead ends and chambers that aren't the basement and stairs, stairs, stairs, and one little ramp for people on wheels, but just one. So it... my chances are pretty good. They continue to be pretty very good. I mean, I've only taken this path a few times, including the two or three I needed to access this basement in the first place, back when things were still kinda simple.
Time to think. Either I think or succumb to the voices in my head. I'd rather think, right now. They'll always be there for me. It's funny to think about them, about how... just about every fossil fighter starts off with their vivosaurs in battling, but not everyone stays in the digging-fossils-and-fighting-other-vivosaurs business. Diggins, for example. He's a master fighter and all, but he hardly ever actually battles, and Wendy and her posse don't use their vivosaurs in battle anymore. There's a lot more in there, and now I'm kinda starting to breach that bubble too.
Timb, timb, timb timb timb timb timb, timb, timb. Timb, timb, timb timb, timb. Feet sound weird on metal, even if the metal is slightly coated by fluffy purple. I wonder why the Fossil Center has so many purple carpets and walls in spots. What made purple the "it" color? I don't think Diggins mentioned it anywhere. Blinking dully, I decide maybe it's—oh my gosh, it is.
See, there's this girl that I really want to get together with him, and her name is Vivian and she wears a lot of purple and her hair and eyes are turquoise too. And it'd be so perfect. TurquoiseShipping for the win, please. So anyways, maybe that's why. Well... they haven't known each other long enough for that. Maybe Diggins just knew in his heart that one day he would meet his soul mate and that soul mate would love purple. Or maybe the guy in charge of the Fossil Center before Diggins was around, or the guy who started it in the first place, whenever that was, just liked the color purple.
Or maybe it was the only kind of soft fuzz he could find out there. Whoa, that just hit something deep. Real deep.
Eventually I wander into the huge and thick, fat clutches of the gigantic basement encased in metal and touched up in purple in random places—oh, no, those are tapestries on the walls, my bad. And there, in the midst of the junk and stuff and things being worked on, to the far left, on a turquoise mat—you bet it's turquoise—sits a thick, metal staircase-like structure, sort of a small honeycomb on the top and larger ones as you go down: six in total, all connected together, the bottom ones red and the top ones silver, and the very top one white. I dash over and pop up the rungs of the ladder: dang dang dang dang dang, dang. A resounding DONG fulfills the fat chambers and wisps of stars and bright colors space out into my vision. A cottony pad tucks into my toes. Then my knees hit it. Then my head. I think drool splatters on there too. Ew, gross, stop drooling—I SAID STOP DROOLING.
I don't stop drooling. Just great. My body's kinda detached and there are stars everywhere but then it all ends and I stand and shake myself on a rainbow-like surface of shiny silver. My feet lead me off into the northern edges of this here starship, and I enter a literally rainbow-inlaid flooring with shiny shiny walls, silver too, and there casually stands a male turned and facing the stars out of the windows. Four brown doll-like creatures called sub-idolcomps that are actually my dolls in disguise sit around him. The ruby horns on his head twitch and long, long white locks of straight hair twist as the man's dark violet orbs penetrate me. I awkwardly wave a black-scaled hand. He tentatively raises a more violet one and then just sprints over and crushes me in a hug.
"Hi, Dad," I squeak weakly in some attempt of greeting, bu then I hug him too. Man, it pays off having two dads: I get lots of gut-crushing hugs.
His orbs roll over me and pink-studded but mostly purple arms hug me tighter into his deep blue chest. "Hello, Son," comes his response softly. He's got authority everywhere but also a bit of melancholy, and a very small sense of humor that tends to pop out when Lone's around. I could never understand why, but by dad likes Lone. He actually finds her cute. Cute. "Did you see any of your friends while you were out today?"
"Uhhh..." Well, I saw Diggins and I guess Travers counts as a friend. "Yeah. Remember the guy with the big lab coat and the dark face?" His soft laugh tells me yeah, he remembers that crazy guy. He was super scatterbrained on their first meeting; it was pretty great. "Well, I saw him some and his vivosaurs. Droplet tried to eat one of them because she's stupid, but it's all good. And I... mostly just ran around on Greenhorn Plains. It was hotter than I remember. Everything looked... different." I pull a face at him. Maybe he knows why.
Ruby wings flutter slightly and that's how I know he's thinking. Because my dad is royalty and all, he gets wings and horns. Apparently I'm supposed to get them when I'm older or something—but I'm technically an adult... Ugh, I want wings now.
"Things appear differently to the naked eye when undisturbed for a time. You have not seen your others for this time, so it would be understood that they shift under your older eye in comparison to the fuzzy images you had prior to today." Oh, okay. That makes sense. I think.
"Your friend Jkonna is waiting in the room still..." Dark orbs scrutinize at something faraway. "Does she ever leave this compound..?"
Uh... huh... "I think she leaves every once in a while, but basically mostly all of her time is spent here."
"She is a wonderful friend of yours."
"Yeah. She's more than just a friend, but she's not a girlfriend. Like a... really really special best friend or something. Even that sounds weak. Ugh."
A soft chortle. Why do you resemble Diggins so much, actual dad. "Some things are too great in this world for feeble language to attempt and explain." I didn't realize it earlier but... wow... this place has a kinda sweet smell to it. Homey. It's kinda weird to call a ship floating around in space a home, after all I've been through, but it also somehow kinda works.
My wanting to see my best friend kind of starts to show or something, and he releases me and I dart off into the hallway that leads off and around to two nicely-cut doors: the left represents my dad's room and the right's mine. There aren't doors but purple-ish waters to step through like a door, so I pull in through and land on a very messy pile of overturned sheets. My gaze pokes around, and the large bed sits further out, virtually untouched but its sheets. To the left shows some inlaid colors and rainbows, the tiny tea table of wooden texture to the side currently barren, and the small bundles of storage holding units to the right half-full of small things. The lamp further out is off. Then the thing I'm sitting on lets out a high-pitched, watery sneeze.
"EW!"
I bolt and slam first into that wooden chest-plate of the bed then scramble on it. Still fluffy and soft, without its multiple covers. My dad gives us way too many like he's worried we'll get cold. Shaking myself, spikes of black hair trembling, I turn and face the bundles of reds and oranges and silvers and purples of fabric until a fiery-colored head of bangs pokes out. Icy blue orbs search at me, then blue-touched cheeks and a smirk inch out as well. Dark skin frames the whole thing. "You're not diga-dead! It's a miracle!" she cries out triumphantly. The short girl spurts out of the sheets and barrels into me, her sort of tunic dress of brown rubbing at my scales and the beads along the edges rattling silently. That had to be the third hug today. No, wait, Droplet gave me a total of three: that'd be... the sixth hug? Yeah. The sixth.
"Geeez, Jkonna, I thought you trusted me!" My gray orbs force into her and try to get answers but there's way too much sparkles in there. "How was I supposed to die that quickly, anyways, you freaking digadig?"
Her cheeks puff out and she pouts. Long strands of fiery hair, longer than my dad's, litter all around her. See, they go to her feet by themselves, so who knows where they'll get tied up when not so... neatly aligned. If that's neat at all. "You never knoowww... But—but you're not even allowed to diga-die! I won' let it." That's great. "I. Won'."
"Pfft, did you say that on accident?"
"Yes. But now it sounds kinda funny, diga."
"I won' let it!" I cry out at her, and she tumbles over, all fits and giggles. "But I won', Dino, I won'! You can' stop me!"
"Oooohhh..." Her voice takes a chill. "But I WILL!" She careens into me and both of us topple off the bed, hitting carpet and her hair hitting me. "See? See? Aren't I scary, diga-Dino?" Her eyes brighten like this is when I'm supposed to tell her how great she is.
But she... but she's not. "No."
"Meanie." Another pout.
"I can't tell something that's adorable that they're scary. Geez. Get it right, Jkonna. Don't make me call you that name." I mean when I first tried to pronounce her name it came out as "Jay-kay-ner," and man, did she hate that.
Her eyes quickly cloud over from the memories and before I know it she sneezes again and shudders. Not really sure what I did, I reach out to hug her, and you know what, she shies away and bounces back on her bum, her toga splitting around her. Her huge thighs come up like a wall and she sighs softly. "Oh... Did diga-Dino say an uh-oh?" I squeak.
A shake of the head.
"What did I do?"
A shake of the head.
"Is it hard to think about?"
Hesitant nod.
"...What is it..?"
A quiet sigh. Icy orbs flicker back at me. "It's just hard to remember back before you... You always stay in here now, and you hardly diga-do anything... and on most diga-days you're a sulking mess... and it's hard when you feel a little better cuz I know it won't be the same tomorrow... When diga-does it stop, digadig?" Oh...
She brought the thing up. I don't know how to respond to the thing. I don't know what I'm supposed to say to support the thing or try to make it sound better when it simply is, now. "You a-almost never go outside, diga... and when you diga-do, you talk about how much it's changed when it hasn't, you just have, and it's killing me. I want to help you, digadig... diga-Din-Din..." She used the nickname and she's talking about the thing. It's serious now. It's... it is serious. It's a serious thing, whatever's happening to me.
Because I don't know how to respond with this crazy lump in my throat—I don't wanna cry again right now—I step over her, retrieve the blankets, and pillow them over the huge, canopied bed as my vivosaurs spill out upon it happily, their eyes a little dull and sad. Jkonna stands too and lets hers fall: one earth, one air, one fire, and one water. She's more balanced than my two water and two earth. Diggins once asked me what if I have to fight a bunch of air and fire vivosaurs together who go for my vulnerable ones, and I told him they were just as bad as me.
It's kind of hard to think about that now. I don't think she meant to, but Jkonna really sobered the mood. Not like either of us are leaving, though.
Our eyes share a glance, and I can't help but wonder what the heck went wrong with me.
Me: there you have it. Dino almost never goes outside anymore... this is where Jkonna really plays in. :3 It's kinda sad but... you'll have to see the story around all of this that happened and find out whether or not Dino will recover in the end~
Plus, there are two other main characters that'll be first seen in the next chapter. Yay! Heh, oh my gosh I'm really somber on the inside now... is sad thing...
Welp. There you have it. Chapter one. Thank you for reading this far x3