Dinosaurs - [Veronica]

[plntfood]

Three weeks on the island now and Mathias thinks he's ready to leave the Compound without assistance from alcohol. He stands near the front steps, watching the trees with a faintly wary gaze and waiting for Veronica. He'd asked her a few days ago to show him the dinosaurs, thinking that he'd need those few days to prepare mentally, but even with

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[neptune_sleuth]

"You come prepared," Veronica observed, stepping out of the Compound with a faint smile. She'd brought a small pack herself, wanting to keep it light in this heat but knowing all too well they'd need plenty of water. After what Mathias had told her, she hadn't thought he'd be ready so soon. It was an unlikely story, sure, but so were most of the tales people told when they arrived here. So was arriving here, for that matter.

Besides, who am I to deny anyone the chance to see a dinosaur? Better I take him than him ending up lunch to some raptor in the middle of nowhere.

"Still ready to do this?"

[plntfood]

Twisting toward the sound of her voice, Mathias drops his hands from his pack and offers Veronica a smile in return. He's faintly embarrassed by his supplies, but there's no amount of embarrassment enough to make him leave them behind. Maybe in another few months, but not yet. It's still too soon.

"Yeah," he agrees, gesturing behind him at the Compound. "It's just trees and flowers, but I have to see them for myself to really believe that." His smile grows just slightly before he adds, "And there are dinosaurs."

[neptune_sleuth]

The island had become a home to Veronica, more than Neptune had been in the years before she'd left. She didn't trust it not to mess with her or to let her keep the people who mattered, but she was at least sure of the plants. That much security, at least, she could help him find, too.

"All kinds," she agreed, glancing over with a sly smile. She started to walk, hands in her pockets. "Some of them don't even eat people. I can't actually tell which are which yet, but it doesn't matter on the right side of the line."

[plntfood]

"I think the ones with the pointed teeth are the ones that eat people," Mathias tells Veronica with a secret smile, as if he's sharing some great knowledge she's somehow missed out on. "And the ones with the flat teeth don't."

That said, he hopes that they don't get close enough to see the teeth. Mathias figures if they're seeing teeth up close, they're probably going to get eaten either way, flat teeth or pointed teeth. "How far are they?" he asks, casting a glance up at the trees as he walks alongside her.