Building Teamwork

Slowly, painstakingly, the felled tree trunk began to rise higher and higher into the air. Litho grunted with the effort, the muscles in the pale shunosaurus's neck bulging and straining against the weight. A the lower end, Düster braced his forelegs against the trunk to hold it down into place. And overseeing it all...

“That's it, just keep on going. Now just a little more to the left—no no no your other left!!”

The log jerked briefly as Litho swung his head in one direction and then the other, then slid and fell, shaking the ground with a large thud as it hit.

“Great, nice going,” Sandar said irritably as he flapped down from his perch to land on the log, looking about. “Here's hoping that didn't knock over anything else.”

Litho simply glared at the tapejara.

“Easy for you to say, we're the ones doing all the hard work, here.”

He glanced at Düster for backup, but the purple anteosaurus just shrugged with a grunt. Well, it did sound like an annoyed grunt, so there was that, at least. Litho returned to glaring at Sandar.

“If you really want my help, maybe actually try being a little helpful?”

Sandar finally paused in his fussing over the stones and branches that were already in place, looking up and puffing up his small yellow-flecked chest as best he could.

“I am,” he replied, in a tone of utmost self-importance. “I have the very important, critical even, job of making sure this gets built right. I don't have time to deal with people who can't even follow the most basic of instructions.”

For a moment, the shunosaurus looked like he was very seriously considering giving the tapejara a good, solid kick, or maybe a sweep of the tail. But after several seconds of glaring so tense one could almost see sparks in midair, Litho turned away, stomping his feet in irritation.

“Fine. Go ahead and do it without me and see where that gets you, cloud for brains.”

The ground shook once again at his heavy footfalls, jostling the log and causing Sandar to lose his balance with an indignant shriek. A shriek that soon turned to a string of criticisms and less than witty insults, as the tapejara launched himself into the air to follow after. Düster let them both go, the anteosaurus's attention momentarily occupied with trying to make sure that the log in question did not, in fact, roll into the rest of the partially-built structure. But after several minutes and rolling a few stones into place to better brace the log and still no sign of the other two returning, he sighed and turned to trudge after them.

Perhaps thankfully, the duo wasn't at all hard to find. The loud bickering could be heard well before they could be seen, all Düster needed to do was follow the continued shouting.

“You wouldn't know the first thing of what to do if not for my instructions!”

“What instructions? You didn't even know how to give proper directions!”

“What would a musclehead like you know?!”

“More than you, you little scaredy bird!”

The insults continued to fly freely, until suddenly a third voice cut through the conversation.

“Listen.”

For as low as it was, the single word still clearly carried, with a sharpness in tone to it that quickly shut the other two up. Düster strode up to the duo, his downy coat bristling with irritation.

“We had a deal, right? Litho helps with building the house, then we share what we've stored up when the weather turns.”

He looked from the shunosaurus to the tapejara, staring each in the eye until he was met with a nod of agreement before continuing.

“So. We can't lift the big logs without Litho's help, and Litho and I can't get them positioned right without someone giving directions.” Düster paused to glance at the tapejara again. “Sandar, you need to be careful what you're telling us, we can't see what you're doing.” Then back to the shunosaurus. “Litho, some of it's gonna be tricky and we'll probably have to make adjustments as we go, just be patient.

“Now, let's go get back to work already.”

And with that the anteosaurus turned and marched on back to the building site, leaving the other two glancing sheepishly at each other. Litho fidgeted, shifting his weight self-consciously from one foot to the other as he tried to think of what to say, while Sandar shook his downy feathers and coughed awkwardly.

“So—”

“I—”

Another awkward pause, then Sandar rushed to speak up, words spilling out quickly.

“Sorry. I'm sorry. I just really wanna get this done, but I guess I shouldn't've said all that.”

“Right, uh. I guess I kinda lost my temper, too.”

“So... Back to work now?”

“Yeah. Yeah!”

The two of them hurried back to where Düster was watching a little impatiently for their arrival. Upon seeing them, the anteosaurus walked over to the problematic log and waited. Litho joined him, taking a moment to find a good position where he could nudge his snout under the log for some lift, and Sandar flapped up into a nearby tree from which he could see the whole construction.

“Okay. So. It's moved a bit from where we had it before, but I think we can work with this. Get it moving and I'll see what we can do from there.”

Litho nodded and Düster grunted and assent, and the got to work. Slowly, painstakingly, the felled tree trunk began to rise higher and higher into the air. The anteosaurus braced his legs against the end, leaning his full weight into it to hold it steady in place, while the shunosaurus strained to lift the heavy weight.

“Looking good, get it a little higher... Okay, now try to get it a little more to the right—Düster, you're gonna have to push the bottom a bit more for this—yeah like that. Just need to get it a bit higher now and start pushing it forward... Okay okay let go!”

The log fell into place against the partially-formed structure of propped and piled up stones and branches and... held. The three dinosaurs heaved a collective sigh of relief.

“All right! That was great! Okay so now that that's done, next we need another log, but it doesn't need to be quite that big this time, and...”

As the tapejara excitedly chattered on, forming plans for the future shelter in his words, the shunosaurus and anteosaurus simply looked at each other, and sighed once again.