What are your names? Cleric asked after the male raptor unpinned him. The two adults exchanged glances yet again.
We have no names. We've never needed them, the female stated simply, and the male bobbed his head in response.
It's only ever been the two of us; no need for names in a pack of two. Cleric craned his head to peer at them.
But what will I call you?
That's a silly question, leaf hopper, the female growled, and lowered her head to Cleric's level. You'll call us Alpha.
Cleric stepped back from the female's head, arching his neck. She was at a convenient biting distance, and he didn't like it. The male looked pleased with the female's response. The female glared at Cleric a moment longer as if challenging the tiny raptor to argue, then resumed normal posture, perching almost precariously on a sturdy branch.
Well, as fascinating as this is, I'm hungry, said the female, as if the male had been presenting her with boring conversation. I think I'll go bring in a few compys.
Save me one? the male asked hopefully, cocking its head and leaning forward on its thick toes. The female snorted at him.
As if. I'm not about to carry food back here for you so you can sleep. Her chest rumbled lightly beneath her cold, warbling speech. The male looked downcast for a moment, but then its gaze snapped to Cleric.
Take the hatchling with you. He's just big enough to carry a compy. The male's eyes grinned, and the female gave in.
Fine. Leaf hopper needs to learn how to hunt anyhow.
The female raptor- Femrap, as Cleric referred to her later- jabbed the youngster roughly in the flank with an only slightly blunted claw as if to tell him to follow, making him wince, but not cry out. He followed her as she bounced lightly down through the foliage, barely making a noise. Cleric had a harder time. The branches Femrap used were too widely spaced for him to traverse without leaping as hard as he could. He was constantly struggling to find alternate routes that kept the quick moving Femrap in sight, but were comfortable for him to dash along. Femrap made no sign of slowing down, either, so by the time they reached the mineral coated floor of the forest, he was panting for breath, while she was still breathing lightly.
Femrap raised her snout, taking a deep echoing whiff of the air. Then, she froze, jaws working slightly. Cleric, curious as to what she smelled, took a deep breath himself. He thought he knew what she was so interested in- a pungent, sour odor that he didn't recognize masked the more tolerable scent of ocean salt. With it came the iron reek of blood, though he didn't recognize that scent at the time either.
Do you smell it too, leaf hopper Cleric? That is the smell of a human. It's probably injured. Femrap glanced down at Cleric, who was memorizing the smell and pinning the name to it. I thought the Carnotaurs had finished the last of them off… she added, almost to herself. She took another lungful of the air, and bobbed her head this way and that, following the scent. Cleric watched confused for a moment. Couldn't she tell that the human was off past that cycad somewhere? Maybe she couldn't. Perhaps her senses had dulled with age.
Cleric chirped up at her, gaining her momentary attention, then darted forward like only a small animal could through the ferns and trees. After only a moment, though, he found himself dangling in Femrap's jaws. She transferred him roughly to her forelegs.
You click your claws like a rat when you walk! She elevated her toe claws just enough that they didn't clack on the stone floor of the forest, illustrating her point. Cleric squirmed in her grasp, and wriggled free, falling to the ground. He landed easily in a slight crouch on his hind legs, then bounced up to his normal posture. Shooting an uncertain glance up at Femrap, he raised his own claws and took a few steps forward. Apparently Femrap was pleased with the improvement, because she didn't stop him when he continued tracking the scent.
Prowling among the trees, Cleric led his elder forward, pausing when the birds went silent or insects rapidly abandoned their bushes. The young raptor snorted lightly, letting his nose lead him… right into a tree. He stopped right in from of a thick tree, which had parasitic ivy climbing up the bark. Light filtered through the canopy more easily here, as the tree was dying from its poison of vines and didn't sprout many leaves.
Femrap peered up into the tree, astounded that any human would think they were safe up there. Surely they realized that the trees were raptor territory… Cleric leaned forward, snout only an inch from the tree, and took a huge breath that rattled lightly in his throat.
The trail goes on up the tree, he chirped, and leapt clumsily at the vines and ivy a couple feet off the ground. His hind claws snagged easily, but his forearms didn't even reach the bark. He fell back onto his back with a squeak of surprise, and tried again. This time, his forelegs (which were longer and more heavily muscled than those of his purely terrestrial raptor cousins) connected with the vines as well as his hind legs, and he began to scamper up the tree, tail swaying behind him. Femrap, as if to show off, crouched back on her powerful haunches, and rocketed up above Cleric by feet, landing an easy ten feet up the tree and skidding down six inches before her claws held. Her dense claws left gouge marks in the relatively soft mineral bed that coated the ground. Cleric squealed in alarm as she slid down towards him, and almost fell off the tree again. She glanced at him over her dark shoulder, silently warning him to stay quiet. He snapped his mouth shut with the hollow thump of air and teeth getting sealed behind leathery skin.
Together they scaled the tree, stopping at the first limb large enough to support their combined weight. Glancing around, Femrap spotted a larger branch of the same tree nearby. Seizing Cleric in her mouth, she squatted, shuffling her feet until they were sufficiently braced and a good distance apart, and then made another astounding leap. She smacked against the limb with a thud, and clambered with all four limbs to get up on top. She used her extra large claws in addition to her sickle claws to grasp the tree, then swung up onto it and released her ward. There was a scurry of motion and a grunting whimper from the base of the limb, and both raptors swung their heads around to look. A strange white creature had pulled a sheet of ivy from the tree and had wrapped itself in it, as if the green leaves would hide it from Cleric's nose.
Cleric trotted forward on the limb towards the creature, ignoring Femrap's warning- Humans are dangerous, you imbecile! It will kill you! Cleric doubted that this human was dangerous. It looked afraid, not aggressive. The young raptor eased closer. It smelled male, and had sparse black fur sprouting from its head and face. He wore a white lab coat, although Cleric didn't know what it was, except that it was covered in dried and flaking blood.
Is it hurt? Cleric twittered, and Femrap snorted uneasily from where she perched.
I don't think it is. The blood isn't fresh. But it hasn't attacked, so we can't be sure. Maybe it can't move. You have to be careful with humans, leaf hopper- they're very aggressive and dangerous. Truly insane beasts.
Something glinted gold on the man's chest beneath the leaves. Cleric, attracted by the glimmer, cocked his head. It was a brass name tag, engraved with the words "Greg McDonowa" and in subscript below it, "Hatching Supervisor."
The man suddenly shifted, and grunted at Cleric incomprehensively. Its vocal range was far lower than Cleric's, much closer to that of a Carnotaur than a raptor.
"Stay away! Get away from me!"
Femrap lunged at the sudden ruckus, stepping completely over Cleric, who had frozen on the branch and arched his neck in an "S" shape.
Die, human scum! The man fumbled with something under the vines that Cleric hadn't noticed before- a metal box with rocker switched and dials on it. He punched a red switch with his thumb, and a horrible supersonic siren filled the air. Femrap shrieked in pain, and leapt farther up the tree to escape the noise. Cleric clutched at his head with his thin arms, and screamed with the sound that echoed and shook in his hollow bones. The man scooted forward, eyes glinting in terror behind the scratched and dirty lenses of his glasses. A brown booted foot connected solidly with Cleric then, and he was aware of falling through empty air. Was this what the microraptors felt like when they swooped from tree to tree? He collided with a thin, whippy branch which both slightly slowed his fall and left an angry bruise across his back. Before he hit the ground, Cleric experienced several similar collisions with branches of various sizes. Nearby, the angry roars of Carnotaurs filled the air, and Cleric smacked into the ground. The man, startled by the close proximity of the Carnotaur bellows, dropped the noise machine. It tumbled down as if in slow motion, bouncing once from the tree trunk, then crashed into the ground next to Cleric. As the noise faded, so did Cleric's vision, and all was quiet.