A/N: Fallen Kingdom has yet to come out in the US and for all I know there's stuff in there that throws this whole fic out the window. But this fandom needs some love and I think Blue was in a rough place after JW.
I'm following the film's canon, in which raptors are said to be smarter than primates. I know that's not how it actually was but let me enjoy my JP raptors.
It was no surprise that they had followed the Indominus Rex, at first. She had given them freedom.
Freedom, true freedom, was something they had not tasted in their lifetime. From the moment the genetically engineered raptors had hatched from their eggs in the white, bright, sterile lab, they had been under the constant supervision and control of humans. Pens, chutes, cages, tranquilizers, collars, Pavlovian conditioning and training.
You couldn't blame them. Owen didn't. When he lay in the hospital bed under InGen's directive (just for a night, Clare had assured him), gauze taped to a graze on his face, heartbeat monitor on one finger, IV drip in one arm, staring up at the white ceiling now grey with the evening's shadows, he didn't blame them. They had been following their instincts, doing what they thought was best with their limited understanding of the situation. Hell, in their skin, he would have done the same thing. Food, survival, and reproduction. That was all they cared about, and the Indominus had guaranteed them two of those. Possibly all three, eventually. The original Jurassic Park had run into some tricky problems with dino reproduction.
Not all of it had been bad. Starvation and disease was never a threat. Neither was predation (the only predators they had to fear were each other, and Echo had the scar and permanently offset jaw to prove it). And Owen was kind to them, treating them with the same respect that he would treat any animal under his care. He had been the first thing they saw out of the egg, and he was the one they saw as their leader, their alpha.
But Owen was not one of the raptors, and nearly every order he gave was contrary to the behavior written into their DNA, stamped on their very being. Don't fight. Pay attention to and obey me, the soft human who never comes down from the raised walkway to eat and spar and run with you. Come when I call. Don't attack the hapless aide who falls right at your feet. Don't run off when you are released from your enclosure for the first time.
So it was no surprise that they had gone turncoat when the Indominus Rex had appeared before them – towering, powerful, blood staining her teeth and claws, the embodiment of the bloodlust and predatory rage they had longed to let loose since they took their first breaths – and spoken their language. She had offered them her assistance and a place by her side if they obeyed her. All they had to do was kill the humans who had oppressed and controlled them for their entire existence.
It had been a mistake. Her motivations became obvious. She did not see the raptors as kin. She had no regard for what happened to them. She had no intention of forming a pack with them. She was using them as tools in her revenge. The youngest, Charlie, didn't even survive the initial skirmish with the humans. Echo and Delta were cut down by the Indominus the moment they ceased obeying.
Blue was the only survivor. With the gift shops and food court in ruins around her, Blue looked to Owen for guidance, her only remaining pack member, her alpha. She chittered at him, asking if she could come along, if he would accept her back. Her sisters were dead. Her home was destroyed. She had nowhere to go, and it was partially her fault. Her sisters would not have joined the Indominus if she had remained faithful, if she had been an example.
He shook his head. No.
Blue was not one to beg. With only the slightest hesitation, she turned and trotted away, directionless. She turned a corner and was gone. Gone to lick her wounds, physical and emotional.
In one evening, Blue found herself alone and free. For the first time in her life.
The first thing Blue sought was privacy. Her battered body ached, and she needed time to think and rest. She found refuge in the landscaping between a café and a restroom, nestling under a large bush. She licked blood from the gashes in her pebbly hide and curled herself into a ball. Hunger pinched at her belly, but she was loathe to leave her hiding spot. Resting her head on the ground, she listened to the sounds of Jurassic World's tenants running rampant. Instinctively, she kept herself small, quiet, and hidden, large yellow-orange eyes open and darting about, on the watch for any potential threats.
She might have gone running into the night to explore, to hunt, to feel the night air rushing in and out of her lungs. If her sisters were not all dead, if her alpha had not dismissed her, if her body did not throb with pain, if her entire concept of the world had not been shattered.
Fear kept her hidden and quiet. In fits, she slept, jerked awake by the primordial shrieks and howls of the island.
She awoke with first light, famished. Her joints were stiff and achy. Flies buzzed around one of the deeper wounds on her flank. She emerged from her hiding place cautiously. Winged dinosaurs soared with the parrots and seagulls, pteranodons and dimorphodons. Bellowing echoed from somewhere in the distance. For a long moment she stood in the middle of the open food court, among the scattered tables and chairs and park memorabilia, peering about, nostrils working. She didn't detect any threats. She did smell scents she had never smelled before. Fried, processed foods and sugared sweets. Old, from nearly twenty-four hours before. But nearby, and possibly edible.
Blue followed her nose through the shattered glass door of a food kiosk. The fleeing guests had left their meals on the tables or dropped them to the floor in their haste. Most of it had been picked over by the flyers, one of which remained in the building, picking at a stale hot dog. Blue screeched, sending the dimorphodon flapping out the window. She lapped up a few half-eaten burgers and a scattering of cold fries. Leaping over the counter, she snuffled and dug around, tearing open a bag of buns, which she couldn't stomach.
She detected the faint scent of meat around the handles of the large walk-in fridge, and fidgeted with the handle for several moments before she worked out how to get the door open. The rush of chill air sent her skittering back, and the roar of the fan gave her pause. How cowed she had become, with her sisters and alpha gone. As she hesitated near the door, fingers twitching, head lowered, the refrigerator alarm began to beep. Blue jumped back, then bounded into the fridge with a snarl. She dragged boxes of thawing patties and hotdogs out of the fridge, and gorged herself while the refrigerator continued to fret.
She slaked her thirst in a decorative fountain outside the kiosk. The water tasted of chemicals.
Blue sniffed at an abandoned tyrannosaurus plushie flecked with blood and, to the best of her ability, pondered what to do. Owen had always been there to take charge and give the raptors direction. He was gone now. The walls and pens had been confining, but they also meant safety and security. They were gone. Her sisters were gone, no one to watch her back. A mistake out here could mean death.
She'd killed for food before. Chased down little squealing pigs inside her run with her sisters. That had hardly been hunting, killing soft and defenseless creatures a fraction of her size. She had never faced anything like the beasts she had seen since being released from her pen. She was far from the largest or strongest thing roaming around, she had learned. There were things out here that could kill her as easily as she had killed pigs and goats.
The old way of life, of being near the top of the pecking order and filling herself on as much tender pork as she needed, was over. She had no pack, and she had no home to call her own.
She needed to hide. She needed trees, bushes, cover. Blue ran along the pavement at full speed, hoping she would be too fast for any sort of ambush, and after several twists and turns bounded over a low railing and into the rainforest. Panting, she tucked herself against a tree trunk and listened. No pursuers.
Water was not of much concern. She didn't need to drink much, it rained often, and she knew where the fountain was if she grew desperate.
Food was more of an issue. She needed a lot more food than water. Without a pack, hunting would be a challenge. There had to be creatures out there smaller than her, surely. If there were, she would find them.
As far as creatures larger than her went… she was fast. She just had to hope she was fast enough.
And day by day, Blue survived. She was a shadow of the terror she was with her pack, but she was alive. She moved around, never sleeping in the same hollow or bush twice. She took shelter under thick tree cover during the frequent tropical storms, then emerged to lap up the puddles left behind. She hid when large herds came by, ever watchful for a straggling hatchling that she could safely snatch off. She raided unguarded nests and scavenged kills. Twice she ate meat so putrid she vomited precious calories into the grass. The wounds from her battle with the Indominus healed into pinkish-purple scars and one of her ribs didn't set quite straight. She earned a few new scars too, in her battles with protective mothers and prey that was a little too large to take down with one bite.
Days slid by, then weeks. Blue's ribs were faintly visible through her hide. She got mean. Meaner than a prehistoric killing machine would naturally be. She also became afraid, took on fear as part of who she was. This Blue would not have hesitated to kill the clumsy feeding assistant because Owen said not to. This Blue would not have eagerly followed Owen atop his metal roaring monster into a strange forest. This Blue would not have fought the Indominus to protect her alpha and his kin – she would have run. This Blue wasn't living, she was just surviving, a genetically engineered ghost from the world's past, dug up from the earth and dropped into the jungle without the tools necessary to thrive. No pack. No older raptors to teach her.
Blue's eyelids twitched when she dreamed. Her lips jerked back and her nostrils flared. Sometimes she dreamed of the Indominus leading them astray and killing Delta and Echo in front of her; of coming across the smoking remains of Charlie in the dark jungle; of tearing the Indominus' pale, spiny flesh and seeing that monstrous thing leap out of the water and drag her out of sight. She dreamed that the T Rex came for her, lumbering footsteps shaking the earth and roar bellowing through the maze of trees and no matter how much Blue tried she wasn't fast enough. She dreamed of being crushed beneath a herd of panicking herbivores in a hunt gone wrong. She dreamed of chasing gun-toting humans in night-vision goggles and body armor.
But mostly she dreamed of before. She dreamed of Charlie and Echo and Delta, their petty squabbles and races around the pen. She dreamed of gorging herself on soft pig flesh. And she dreamed of Owen with his bucket of chicken and his clicker and his gentle hands and his soft voice and his calm, firm assurance in every situation. Sometimes, she dreamed that he came back for her.
That's my girl, Blue.