[Trade] Taking Shelter

The weather had taken a turn for the worst. She could feel it in the air; how the pressures shifted, the birds seemed to hush and wildlife on the islands became scarcely seen outside of thick wood. Lym had learned from her mother that it was wise to listen to her own senses. With the light down growing across her body, perhaps the wind chill wouldn’t be much of an issue–however, it wouldn’t hold well against the violent downpour rolling in on the breeze. 

Figuring it would be better to get started sooner than later, Lym rose from the warm rock she’d nestled down upon and headed towards the nearby thicket. Her mother had been well to keep their shelter mostly maintained; when she traveled further across the island, Lym had stayed behind in the comfort of her hatching site rather than pursue the rugged journey. Besides, mother would return next spring–she promised as much. The shelter was a mix of fallen logs and dried branches, woven together as well as a short-statured dacentrurus could weave. Most of it had built itself by ways of nature: trees falling into one another, thickets growing between them over time with brambles and vines knitting branches together to form a blanket against the elements. Lym’s mother had patched holes, shored up decaying walls and ensured that the structure wouldn’t collapse on her young while she was away. Lym had watched as she worked, and now that she was alone, it only felt natural to go through the process on her own. 

The adolescent learned how heavy fallen branches could be–too eager and ambitious, she had gone for one of the sturdiest-looking branches in the thicket. After a few moments of helpless struggling against what was surely the heaviest of them all, Lym decided that maybe smaller is better. She traipsed across the little clearing with twig after twig, arranging them in various spots along the outer walls to patch little holes that felt a bit too breezy. Once all of the gaps had been accounted for and covered, Lym knew it was time to have a little fun–the mud was her favorite part. It wasn’t too far to the wetlands; after a short trot, she had enough mud on the end of a broken branch to drag back to the den. Using her forelimbs, Lym pressed mud across the structure where older patches had become too dry and crumbled away. 

Soon enough, the shelter looked like a proper den. The only thing she could think of that’d be sorely missed during a long storm was a meal, so Lym trotted into the surrounding forest, ripping up roots and plucking small berries, carrying back little clumps until she deemed her snack pile sufficient. The den wasn’t hard to fit into by any means for the young dacentrurus, although she was still intent on making sure that none of her spines caught on the entrance. After all, mother had to fit in there with Lym and her clutchmates somehow. She settled down to rest, worn out by the laborious affairs of the afternoon–nap time couldn’t have come faster. 

A soft noise made its way to Lym’s ears; a subtle scraping of something on dirt, small footsteps and noisy huffs of breath entered the clearing near the den. The sound of wood clattering along the outside of the den’s walls, before the footsteps faded and silence settled once more. Moments later, the patter of footsteps returned. A little grunt, followed by a thump and a plomf. Her first thought was one of wariness–had something else come to claim the den? Would she have to defend her mother’s den on her own for the first time? Her second was much more amused–what is that small thing, and why does it sound so off-put? 

Lym slowly poked her head out of the entrance to the den, eyes wide as she took in the silly sight before her. Sitting in the middle of the clearing was a shockingly small therizinosaurus, surrounded by a few sticks. Lym had met one before, in her juvenile days when everything looked scary, but she had learned better now: a therizinosaurus was no true threat unless you stood in its way on a bad day–especially not one of that size. It couldn’t have been more than an early juvenile, with soft gray down and puffy feathers covering its little body. Lym stayed still in the den, watching it with great curiosity. Her observation rewarded her with an adorable sight: the therizinosaurus rose to its feet, shook off its feathers, gathered up the sticks in its arms the best it could, and stumbled over to the den to pile the sticks at the base of the wall. Upon closer inspection, she saw that most of the sticks that were brought over had some amount of mud on them. However, the sticks weren’t the only recipients of a muddy coat; its feet and tail had a decent amount of mud caked on various spots, as though the therizinosaurus took a little trip into the puddle to douse the sticks in the first place. 

Trying her best to not startle it, Lym gave a soft snort and shook out her spines before moving a bit more out of the den. The sound not only startled the small thing, but made its feathers puff up as it scooted away from the den. It almost looked.. Guilty?

“Oh, hi! I thought you were sleeping, I tried being quiet,” the therizinosaurus said. The dacentrurus gave a small smile in return.

“Well, I was gonna take a nap, but that’s okay. I’m Lym. What’s your name? Did I miss a spot on the wall?” She inquired, shuffling outside to take a look at where the small sticks were haphazardly piled at the base. The therizinosaurus took a few steps back from the den, raising its head to look at her. 

“I’m Spectre!” The therizinosaurus–Spectre–chirped, and as he spoke, his little claws fluttered with a blossoming personality. “And, well–I saw you patching it up and I thought that maybe I could help! It’s a really cool pile of sticks and stuff, and I thought maybe you’d like a few more–not sure what the mud is for, but I put some on there just in case.” He gestured to the pile, then to a muddy spot on the older branches above it. Lym giggled a little, and while the sticks didn’t do much, they did lift her spirits and for that, she appreciated the therizinosaurus’s work. 

“The sticks stay on the wall with the mud, and the walls make a cozy spot out of the wind and rain, which might be coming soon. I think I got all of it covered.. Where’s your mom? You shouldn’t be out when a storm is about to roll in like this,” She said, looking towards the darkening sky. As if reflecting the weather’s shifting demeanor, Spectre’s smile slacked and his expression became downtrodden. 

“Mama.. hasn’t been back in a while. I saw you near the swamp and thought maybe you’d know where she was,” Spectre mumbled, staring at his little claws and feet. Lym felt particularly guilty about dragging his mood down, and moved to nudge the smaller dinosaur. 

“I’m sorry. I haven’t seen your mom, but if you need a place to stay you can always hang out with me? The storm might be pretty nasty. I’ve got snacks–berries, roots, even a weird little bug that wouldn’t get off of a pretty big root I found,” Lym offered, gesturing to the entrance of the den. “It’s just me, but you look like you need a nap as much as I feel like I do. Whaddaya say?”

Spectre lit up once more at the proposition; with a small, “Snacks!” cheer, he skittered through the entrance to the den, beelining for the vibrant berries. Lym chuckled to herself and followed him inside, happy to have a new friend and feeling a lot less lonely without her family.