[* * * * *]
Blue isn't happy when Alpha puts Delta and Echo onto the metal thing's flat back.
She's even less happy that they don't wake up while he does it.
She's extremely unhappy that the prey helps Alpha move them.
It's the familiar prey, the prey that sometimes touches her and has been around the pack since the nest, but it's still prey. Prey-with-fang. Blue stalks him when he edges into the nest. Alpha stands from checking the toothmarks on Delta in order to put himself between the prey and Blue, but she drops into a crouch, her chest low to the ground and foreclaws spread wide. Her mouth slowly gapes open, and she rolls her tongue in a low rattle-hiss combining threat and eagerness to pounce.
Alpha uses the calm-cry and 'Back off' signal a lot, keeping between her and the prey. It's very frustrating. Blue snarls her anger that he's in the way and trumpets, calling him to hunt with her. The prey's eyes are round and white against the dark of its face. Alpha's hand is up in the flat, strict tenseness that's bared teeth and snapping. She lashes her tail and steps to the side, eyeing him angrily as she attempts to go around him. He sidesteps to follow, never breaking eye contact.
'Back off.'
'Back off.'
'Back off.'
The prey doesn't look away from her for a second as it bends to fumble for the skin-and-sticks thing Alpha dropped. Blue doesn't care what it's doing with the thing, shaking it out and laying it flat on the floor, but she cares quite a bit that the prey's doing it beside Delta. She mock-charges, angry and frantic to scare it off, to make it run so she can chase it down and kill it, but Alpha gets in her way. He steps right over Delta, eyes narrow as he steps into the path of her charge.
She either breaks off or confronts him. It doesn't feel right, she doesn't want to, but claws scratch ruts in the floor as she stops, screeching her frustration at him. Attacking Alpha feels more wrong than letting the prey touch her sibling, but just barely. A tiny niggling doubt gnaws on her rage toward him. This is a familiar prey. It has touched them before. It hasn't hurt them, even though it's a prey-with-fang. It often stands beside Alpha. It sometimes feeds the pack.
It's prey, but Blue is an intelligent predator. She looks at it and hesitates.
Alpha waits. The prey sweats, crouched down beside Delta.
Blue hisses and claws the air, threat-displaying, but they don't react. She's bluffing, but Alpha doesn't flinch. His hand stays up, his eyes steady. He's not giving her an opening, and without a weakness to bulrush, she's left with nothing but teeth snapping at her until she's the one who backs off.
The blue-marked raptor bares her teeth but turns her head away.
Alpha doesn't turn his back, but he sinks down, hands sliding back to work under Delta's limp body. The prey cautiously reaches forward to grab her as well. Between them, they roll her over onto the sticks-and-skin bundle. The prey never looks away from Blue. Blue shrieks a hunting cry, tensing to spring.
"Blue!"
Her head jerks up. Alpha's up, the flat of his hand warding her away, the other hand chitter-clicking, 'Eyes on me.' She curls her lip. His hand cuts the air - 'Back. Off.' - and she sullenly subsides, turning her head away again.
"Blue."
There's bared teeth in how he growls her name. He's glaring at her when she gives him a brief glance, and her head ducks slightly.
That's the opening he was waiting for, and she knows it. Alpha straightens from his tense crouch, hand going down and tension leaving his foreclaws. He resettles, standing with his feet together, and looks at her evenly over his hand. He's in control, here. He's telling her to stand down, and she can't get to the prey unless she goes through him.
Reluctant, she takes a step back and purrls. Fine. She won't attack the prey, but she's not happy about it.
He waits a minute, then happy-barks, 'That's good, that's damn good.'
She grumbles, whirling to pace. Her killing claws click along an invisible line on the floor, a line she won't cross. Big gold eyes watch the prey sidelong. It stares at her and sweats, fear-stink wet on its skin. So easy to run down. She remembers that.
Alpha eyes her just as hard as he steps to the side and kneels down to reach back to pick up the sticks. The prey eases around, careful to keep Alpha in the way as Blue snorts, head jerking about. Alpha clears his throat. She peels her lip up but stays where she is.
When they stand up, Delta swings between them, and Blue blinks. They hold the sticks and back toward the metal thing carrying Delta on the soft skin.
Blue follows them, ready to dart past Alpha and bring the prey down the moment Alpha blinks.
He doesn't blink.
They slide her sleeping sibling onto the flat back of the metal thing. Blue growls, jigging in place. She doesn't know what to do. The prey reaches onto the metal creature's back and slides another bundle of sticks and skin off it. Alpha chatters to him, and they chitter continually as they walk along the wall, always facing Blue. She sees what they're doing, but Alpha stays in the way. She shifts her weight, tail stock still for once as she tries to decide if she should jump up onto the metal thing's back with Delta or advance to hiss threat at the prey daring to touch Echo. It's helping Alpha roll her sibling on onto the skin.
Blue can't make up her mind, so she ends up standing there in the middle of the nest growling, torn between her choices. She's not as surprised this time when they lift her sibling between them and take her to the metal creature. She doesn't like it, but it's vaguely comforting that at least now her siblings are sleeping near each other again.
The prey backs out of the nest and toward the snout of the metal thing, eyes on her. She champs her teeth at it. Alpha closes a door on the metal thing's flat back like the ready-cage doors, only shorter. Blue can jump over it.
She would, except Alpha is calm-crying at her. He knows what to do. He is pack. She is pack. They are pack.
Blue whines uneasily.
The metal thing roars, startling her. She jumps back, across the nest, and squalls threat-to-pack.
But Alpha is by the roaring metal thing. He isn't hurt. Maybe it isn't a threat. He's calm-crying at her, not warning her of danger.
She's used to the loud noises from metal things. She's just easily surprised. Smart as a raptor is compared to most animals, she's still an animal. Right now, she's an animal running on not enough food or rest, strung out from caring for her wounded siblings, and hiding in dangerous territory. Blue stays across the nest, eyes dilated and foreclaws flexing. Her eyes flick from Alpha to the metal thing.
Her nostrils flare.
A raptor's sense of smell outstrips any other dinosaur on the island. She smells prey, prey-with-fangs, Alpha, Alpha's fang, the metal thing, her siblings. She smells meat and blood. She smells the water at the end of the street.
She smells Other. She smells Other, and even as she smells her, a roar shakes the walls up and down the street. Alpha whips around, barking panic, warning danger with his tone even if she doesn't know what he chitters. The prey outside yell, and fangs crack.
Blue screams a high descending snarl of attack and sprints out of the nest in a blur of blue-marked rage to defend the pack.
[* * * * *]
