#imprintedtrainer

>>  i had an idea

Bobbi shuffled the stack of papers against the countertop until the edges aligned - almost - except that one - dammit - her eyes flicked to her watch.  Dammit again.  She stopped and nudged the final rebellious page with her fingertip.

“Suck it,” she crowed as the page went into place.  The entire stack went into her bag, her bag went over her shoulder, and she swept the thermos off the counter.  “Phone, wallet,” she muttered to herself.  Keys.  She scooped them from their dish, flipped the lock into place, hip-checked the door shut, held the thermos away from her body on the off chance it decided to unseal out of pure spite, and - didn’t check her watch.  No point now.

❝ you said something about diving, right? ❞  at least, she thinks that was him. it was diving or swimming or scuba or something. or maybe that was the taller one. the one endlessly dragging bodies back being the iron curtain. but no, she’s almost entirely certain it was this guy.  ❝ wanna go for a swim? ❞  the very last thing she wants to do is get in the water. every inch of her is screaming at her to stay on the beach. where it’s safe. but this isn’t mexico. and there might be sharks, yeah, but she’s not alone.  ❝ we have a lot of mouths to feed and i don’t think anyone wants to bargain on which berries are poison or not right now. ❞  they need fish. they need food. and luckily for them, the ocean is pretty much an all you can eat buffet. they just have to figure out how to catch them.

Sometimes ( okay all of the time ) all it took was one look from Owen and she knew what he was thinking. Even though the two of them had never spoken about that connection she was just as positive about knowing what he was thinking that she was sure he did the same thing when he looked at her too The only difference now was that she didn’t want to look at him because she knew the look he would be giving her and well... she already felt guilty enough.

After a long, still moment, the velociraptor hopped out into view. From a distance it looked like a dog-sized pheasant. Slender, agile on its hind legs, balancing with a stiff tail, and covered in a fine coat of speckled, gray feathers. Cautiously it padded over to where the new Keeper stood, sank down on its hunches in front of him, and, opening its jaws wide, produced a series of inarticulate screeching sounds. Then it shook its head, snorting, seemingly frustrated, and screeched again. Only this time the screeches sounded almost like human words.

The raptor went on screeching at the burly Keeper, bringing to mind the many ridiculous online-videos of dogs barking out short garbled phrases like “Hello” (“Rehroo”) and “I love you" (“Ahh rooo uuu!”).  

After each failed screech, its feathers ruffled and its wing-like arms flapped angrily. At one point its tail thumped the ground with embarrassment. And still it went on screeching, concentrating on forcing its lipless, reptilian mouth to form the right syllables.  

“Grrrrraaaad?” A little better, getting there. “Grrraddeee? Grady?”

Now the raptor’s tail wagged excitedly. It had managed to deliver the first word of its greeting without failure. But would it be able to speak the rest?