[Comm (RB)] An Accident (Knot and Finch)

In hindsight, Knot understood that this was a bad idea. He’d also known that when Finch first asked him. But he’d gone along with it anyway, because if he didn’t follow along, his cousin would have gotten herself into even bigger trouble.

…Though, it was hard to imagine any trouble bigger than the kind they were in right now.

“How was I supposed to know there would be so many crows around?” Finch hissed at him, her spittle close to his face thanks to their tight quarters.

“Because it was a crow’s nest!” Knot hissed back. “Obviously they wouldn’t just leave it!”

“I would have, if I was them. Their stupid babies are so loud and annoying-”

The flapping of wings outside made her mouth snap shut. Their view of outside darkened as a night-black form landed in front of the hole. Knot pressed himself flat into the earth, hoping the bird didn’t have as sharp a sense of smell that he did, because their little burrow reeked of their fear.

Outside, the crow cawed, and others called back. Finch gave her cousin a nervous glance, but he shook his head. The crow hopped around on its stick-thin legs, its shadow drawing nearer and nearer to the hatchlings…

But a caw sounded somewhere above, and it flew away. The two dinosaurs let out sighs of relief.

“Should we go out now?” Finch whispered, much more subdued than before.

“I don’t think so. They’re probably still nearby.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“I was right, wasn’t I?”

Finch grumbled, but she settled down next to him.

Knot kept his eyes on the opening above, which was currently clear of crows. But they’d come back to that spot several times now, and he felt like it was luck more than anything that they hadn’t been spotted and dragged out by their tails yet. They were a bit bigger than the crows, but they were severely outnumbered. Not to mention that Knot and Finch had never properly hunted anything before, much less something so angry. He didn’t want to risk venturing out.

That morning, the adults in the pack had gone out to hunt. They usually didn’t leave the two all alone, but they’d had bad luck on their hunts lately, and didn’t want to leave anything up to chance. So with promises to their mothers that they would be good little dinosaurs and stay put, Knot and Finch were left unsupervised for the first time in their lives.

It had gone well, at first. It was still early in the day, and the two cousins were sleepy, so they stayed put, as promised. But as time wore on with no word from their parents, Finch grew restless. She wandered around the nest in loose circles, getting further and further out every time.

For his part, Knot was too nervous to do anything. The open air felt fraught with danger now that there were no great, hulking cryolophosauruses there to protect him. He suspected that Finch’s rambling was borne of that same anxiety. It was her own way to keep her mind off of the shadows that seemed to dance between every blade of grass.

“Knot!” She suddenly came running up to him, her tail lifted proudly. “I have an idea!”

Knot narrowed his eyes, but she continued on.

“Everyone’s out hunting, right? So that’s what we should be doing! Hunting!”

“Hunting what, exactly?”

She grinned, like she’d been waiting for him to ask. “Birds! They have babies this time of year, too. If we can get into a nest, we can eat all we want and the grown-ups won’t have to share with us!”

Knot wasn’t the greatest believer in her plan. Sure, baby birds weren’t nearly as self-sufficient as baby dinosaurs, so they weren’t the worst idea for prey. But there were plenty of things that could go wrong. There was the trouble of finding a bird’s nest, to start with, then they would have to actually reach it, and get down before the very angry parents caught them…

But sitting around was making him crazy. And he had a feeling that Finch was going to go through with her plan, with or without him.

So that was how they ended up where they were now, with a pack of vindictive crows hunting for them. They weren’t very happy to find two dinosaurs climbing up a tree to get into their nest, where their own clutch was waiting for food.

Time passed in their hiding spot, and things were quiet for a while. Finch’s head nodded a few times as she jerked herself out of sleep. Knot was about to say that they were probably safe to head out when a shadow covered the entrance again. Both hatchlings went perfectly still, not daring to breathe.

Then a beady, black eye was peering right at them.

There was an explosion of noise from both sides. The hatchlings yelped in fear, the crow started cawing wildly, and they heard wings flapping outside as more landed around the would-be thieves.

The crow reared back and shoved its thick beak into the shallow burrow, snapping at Finch. Before she could scramble away, it gripped her sandy forearm and started to drag her out!

“KNOT!” she screamed, her feet desperately kicking up dirt as the crow dragged her towards the outside.

Knot knew that he had a choice. He could hope that the crows had only noticed Finch, sitting closer to the entrance, and would leave once they were finished with her. Or he could rush out into a flock of angry crows in a foolhardy attempt to rescue her.

In the end, it wasn’t much of a choice. He couldn’t let her go alone.

With the fiercest growl he could muster, Knot launched himself at the crow’s head. It was an awkward pounce; he didn’t have any experience outside of play-fighting, and there was barely any room to flex his legs. But he leaped, and caught the crow just under its beady eye.

With an undignified squawk, the crow let go of Finch and backed out of the burrow, but it took Knot with it. Now he was fighting to keep a hold on the bird while it jumped around, trying to shake him off, and as the rest of the flock heckled him, darting in to peck at him as the flopped around like a fish in a tapejara’s beak.

It was terribly difficult to see what was happening around him, but he thought he saw Finch’s brown form running around, trying to fight off some of the other crows. It was a hopeless fight. Two hatchling cryolophosauruses against a half-dozen grown and experienced birds.

And then the ground shook with a deafening, angry roar.

As Dove came charging towards them, the crows took to the air in a flurry of feathers and panicked caws. In his shock, Knot let go of his crow, and it followed the rest of its flock, disappearing into the branches above.

Knot rubbed at his sore jaw and he saw Finch standing next to him, her head and tail low and her body flecked with little cuts where the crows’ talons and beaks had nipped her. He knew he couldn’t look much better.

He looked up at his aunt, who looked equal parts relieved and furious to see them. “You two have a lot of explaining to do.”