FINTAIL

𝘛𝘞𝘌𝘕𝘛𝘠 𝘍𝘐𝘝𝘌

Speck...

The longsnout opened his eyes. A lush of green had enveloped his vision, forcing his pupils to dilate in and out until finally focusing on the first strand. Foliage, though not one he had ever seen before. Whatever this plant was, it wavered like the thin hairs of an underwater mammal, though it smelled no different from seagrass. Grass -- the name picked itself up from a void in his head, but his lips had never uttered that word before. He didn't even know where it came from... or what it stood for. 

    Spectacle...

    His head perked. Beyond the veil of grass, and that uttering voice, came the blur of a figure. It appeared to crest over a hill of this waving plant, tall and masculine, though the light from the sun seemed to distort most of its features. There was no scent, so Speck relied only on his eyes, and what they told him was that this thing approaching him was a longsnout. Speck watched quietly as it lumbered toward him, the ground softly shaking to the deep thuds of its feet, and the weight of its body compressing the soil. The fin briefly cut off the sparkle of the ancient sun, and its breath sounded broken and labored.

Riptide?

Speck wondered this name with hope, turning his body just enough to gaze upon his lost brother. But, as the figure began to unblur, Speck's joy quickly resounded into fear, and panic. He tried to move, to run -- he could not escape it. The poor predator could only watch as the skeletal frame of a dead longsnout quietly leaned toward his eyes, opened its torn jaw, and whispered.

    "Speck!"

    The longsnout jolted, gasping as the air rushed back into his lungs. The grass was gone. The sun had vanished, as had the creepy dinosaur that stood above him. Cora and Ripple had now taken its place, staring down at him with tears in their eyes, and only exhaling when they saw his eyes shine for the first time.

    "You're alive!"

Alive? That was a confusing thing to wake up to. But it wasn't out of vain; Speck groaned, shakily rolled a claw to his chest, suddenly feeling a smooth indent from a strange new scar. No questions were needed then; almost immediately, a million memories resurfaced, reminding him of that beast he and Ripple were forced to fight. Reminding him of where the beast's horns had impaled him. Reminding him of how he died.

What the-? He sat up quickly, brushing off Cora's attempt to nuzzle him and raked his claws over these scales a second time, the ones that didn't belong to him. He should have died; he remembered bleeding out, and Ripple was watching him. Even the pain was still there, like a dull aching throb... but nothing more than that. Of course, the painful feeling made his heart wrench, but it was this scab alone that made him shudder. His body was not capable of that... so what healed him?

Or, more importantly, what was he fighting?

"Guys," Fossil's voice suddenly joined the mix, alerting the three grouped dinosaurs to their albino brother. "Those things are back."

    Cora and Ripple took a step to the outside, allowing Speck to fully stare upon two familiar black spikes standing at the entryway of their prison. Fossil hissed, taking the center stage of the family while the others sunk back in worry. They remained stilled for a time, until the two shapes started to twitch and rumble, distorting from their grotesque shape to something more formal.

Their spikes drew in, and their rounded shape began to unravel like the petals of a flower, reshaping their flesh and expanding their bodies outward until their limbs became recognizable. Fossil took a step back, dumbfounded as he stared between the two manifesting aliens, each equally towering above their dinosaur captives like conifer trees. Only after their change did they recede back to Fossil's height, their four limbs crossing and four yellow eyes a piercing gaze at the longsnouts in their vicinity. Ripple spoke first.