APPROVED [Insert Dam Joke Here]

The ‘dam’, as it was called, was massive. Bastet felt almost painfully small as she craned her head back… and back… and back… and still couldn’t see the top. But she could smell water on the air - crisp and clean, and making her all-the-more aware of the dryness of the world around her. Brittle, brown sprouts with no leaves crunched beneath her talons, and every twitch of her tail puffed dirt into the air. Each breath rasped dry over her tongue, and she would have salivated at the scent of the water if it weren’t for the lack of saliva in her mouth.

There was a flock of dinosaurs, panting in the heat, making their way up to the top of the dam to investigate. And Bastet, while many things, was curious as well. And there were hatchlings in the group, trailing behind or toddling at their parent’s feet, and what kind of dinosaur would she be if she left them to, maybe, get lost? Get separated without anyone to help them find their parents again? So she nodded - quite certain in her decision - and kicked off the rock she’d been sat on, leaping down and kicking up a cloud of dust as she began to sprint after the crowd, for a moment glancing over it with some sort of hunger but she was better than that, slowing to a nice walk before she could alarm them with her approach. A few of the herbivores eyed her warily, and so did some of the carnivores — this wasn’t the time for hunting, they seemed to say, and she bobbed her head in acknowledgement before melding into the pack.

At the top, well, she wasn’t quite sure what she was looking at. An expanse of tan that felt odd beneath her feet and she was quick to get off of it, not caring for the feeling, and there was… something… pinning it but she couldn’t make it out, not from the angle they stood at, stones maybe? dirt, logs? but wait, something gleamed? She shook her head, listening as the others whispered - “Is that debris?” and “how is the water held back?” wondering what would happen if they all got together, went down, and shoved against it, but the way it was set up that wouldn’t be possible unless they piled up on top of each other and even she could say that wouldn’t work.

She’d never heard of Sulfur before, not until the Twins told them about it, but it sounded almost magical. A stone able to make a hole in a ‘dam’? That sounded… not realistic. But it would help, and it wouldn’t harm her to go looking, and would help her learn the lay of the land besides, 

Bastet stopped only for a moment to dip her mouth in one of the pitiful trickles of water, barely even a mouthful, just enough to run over her tongue and wet her mouth, before picking her way down the dam, skidding into a Styracosaurus’ butt and hurrying off with an apology called over her shoulder.

She left other dinosaurs behind — Pachycephalosauruses who took to ramming their heads into rocks and trees to try and split them, hoping to find sulfur inside, Carnotauruses using their great height to prop up smaller dinosaurs, ran with a pack of Utahraptors as they slowly dispersed, a mated pair heading off to explore a cave that seemed promising, the eldest of them splitting off with the youngest to scrounge through some shrubs (the youngest, naturally, was quickly distracted, and began to snap at the bugs that were sent running as the eldest used his talons to split them). It wasn’t long before she was running at the head of the thinning pack. A trio of females called their farewells as they began to pick their way into the trees, vanishing quickly into the treeline, marked only by the crunching of needles beneath their feet and the rustling of leaves as they past.

Soon the last two — a pair of young males — decided a grove they passed in the forest seemed promising, and slowed to start digging at the roots of the trees, but not before wishing her well, one of them even giving her a waggle of his tail goodbye before butting his head against his friend’s side, guiding him to start digging in the hollow of a rotted tree trunk

A flock of Tapejara flew overhead, startling Bastet as Bastet startled them, bursting from the treeline and right beneath them. One of the hatchlings - or maybe just older than that, considering it was able to fly - jerked and smashed into one who looked just like it, sending them both tumbling and she lurched as though she could help somehow though how she wasn’t sure, but one that might have been their mother (or father?) with how similar it looked to them swooped down and corrected them with a smack of their wing to her relief.

She was less relieved, however, when it turned to her and started to snap very offensive language. “There are hatchlings present!” and she was called one last, foul name, before it returned to its position in the V shape of the flock.

For a while she ran beneath them, ignoring the randomly called awful names of the parent, scanning the Tapejara as they slowly separated from the flock as they found places to search, the parent scooping up their twins to examine a lava flow. Great parenting, really, taking your kids to play near something that sizzled. A+.

She had to leap over a fallen, crumbling log and when she looked up half the flock was gone then, while trying to pick her way around a trickling lava stream, there was only one left, the one who’d been at the point of the V, the leader, she assumed. It was a pretty Tapejara, almost grey with striking, splotched markings across its wings - almost like eyes, she thought, only to have to dig her claws in and skitter around a lava pool. The flier dove down, landing next to it, and gave her a dirty look as he began to scuff at the burnt soil with beak and claw.

This area, she thought, was well-covered, as were most of the ones she’d passed considering the numbers of dinosaurs she’d seen digging and seeking and taking moments to graze. So she kept running, looking for somewhere that wasn’t so crowded or overrun, sending a tiny little lizard skittering in fright to tumble into a lava flow that she was careful to avoid — she was happy to help, but not so happy to risk her life like that little lizard had. She was very mindful of her feathers, in particular her feathered tail, for fear she’d dip them in the lava without thinking or as she took a turn.

Bastet hummed when she found an area that seemed less crowded, in fact there were no dinosaurs that she could see aside from some far off Tapejaras twisting in the air, jumping up onto a rock and peering around. Dust to dust, ash to ash, then dust to dust again. Some glowing red of flowing lava, less glowing red lava that hardened slowly. Cinders sparked in the air and she curled her tail close for fear of the feathers being set alight, leaping down from the rock as she began to stalk slowly through the Ashlands, eyes keen for the slightest motion of prey put to good use in search of… well, she wasn’t quite sure what.

What is sulfur, anyways?

Something glinting gold, apparently, because that did not look normal. Or natural. Maybe yellow actually, she couldn’t quite tell, a massive rock cast a shadow on it. So she nosed at the stone with her — well, nose — nudging the ash off of it so she could see better, wrinkling it at the rough texture of the sulfur. It was well and truly wedged into the ground under the stone and so she began to dig at it, putting her long, thick, sharp talons to good use. After a time - in which she dug a hole enough that the rock wobbled alarmingly - she moved to brace against it, holding it away from the hole and out of her way, one foot digging into the ground, the other working at unsticking the sulfur. It was a painstaking effort, she wasn’t exactly built for digging, but finally the earth gave up the ghost and she managed to shove the rock up and out, tumbling away and dusting it with ash as leaped aside, the stone thudding down in a cloud of ash and rolling to land half into the hole.

 

She sneezed, clearing her nose of the dust and ash, and carefully approached the sulfur as though it might explode. How was she to know if it wouldn’t? It could, after all, break the blockage in the dam. So could it explode? But she had to bring it somehow, so she carefully took it between her teeth and set off back for the dam, throwing up a cloud of dust in her wake.