Washed Away

Well... heres another chapter. Just for you SJ. Merry Christmas.

Disclaimer: Good grief... this is like the nightmare that never ends, isn't it? Do I have to spell it out? I S N O T M I N E. There. All Done.

SJ could not stop staring, no matter how hard she tried. All around her the city bustled with activity as the inhabitants of Sauropolis went about their daily business. The sight of sixty foot dinosaurs strolling down the street was something that she had never dreamed of, and were she not currently riding a walking giant she might have thought that her eyes were still playing tricks on her.

So wrapped was she in trying to take in everything at once that she did not notice that they had stopped until Redcliffe leaned down. She slid off obediently and took a moment to study the building in front of her. It rose high skyward, and, like everything else in the city, was a masterful piece of architecture. As she studied the front of the building she noticed what appeared to be writing, and pointed.

"What's that?"

"What?"

"On the side of the building there. It looks like writing, only its shaped like foot prints."

Verel had dismounted from Sandstone, and now he stepped forward, running his fingers along the wall until they encountered the writing, and he traced it with a finger thoughtfully. "It's footprint. You'll learn to read it."

"Oh..." Now SJ looked at it eagerly, curious. She had always loved languages. "What does it say?"

"It is one of the codes of Dinotopia. It reads ' Observe, Listen, and Learn.' This is one of the Record Buildings of Dinotopia. The largest and most important Record Building is in Waterfall City, along with the Great Library. You'll have a chance to visit it. All dolphinbacks visit Waterfall City."

SJ followed him in through a small door set in one of the giant doors. "Why?"

"Because that is where the official Registry is. And because it is a place of learning."

"Back to school, again." The blonde grumbled, but her voice lacked any real conviction.

Verel laughed and held up a hand to stop a passing dinosaur. The Saurian stopped and listened politely as the human hooted at him before hooting in return and trotting off. SJ watched the whole exchange with interest.

"Did you just talk with him?"

"Hmmm... " Verel turned back to face her. "Oh, yes. Not all saurians can manage human language. You'll find a knowledge of the dinosaur common tongue, Saurian, very helpful. Most humans can't even come close to mastering the wide variety of sounds and tones that dinosaurs use to communicate with one another, but we can manage enough to make ourselves understood and get by. I asked him if a friend of mine was in. He replied that he believed so, and that he would go attempt to find her for me."

"Cool. So what we do we while we're waiting?"

He brushed pale hair back from his face and smiled at her. "You can look around if you want. Just try to stay out of the way. They'll tell you if you are underfoot."

SJ smiled in return and wandered off. Every time she turned around there was something new, something wonderful, to see or experience. The giant typewriter used by some of the recorders fascinated her. The keys were foot pedals! The reading machines empowered by moving dinosaurs looked like overlarge treadmills. She paused at the edge of a huge sandbox surrounded by various saurians and watched as the hoots, grunts, and chirps were translated into footprint script by a scribe. Resigned to the fact that she could not read the writing, she turned away, filled with a renewed determination to learn to read the new language as quickly as possible.

Back in the main lobby she found Verel conversing with a small dinosaur. The pair finished their conversation, than Verel turned to face her. "This is Burra. She's a protoceratops."

The dinosaur raised a foot. "Breathe deep, seek peace."

SJ blinked in surprise as she studied the beak and frilled crest. "You can speak our language."

Verel laughed. "Protoceratops have excellent linguistics skills. Burra can speak over sixteen languages, some of them human, some of them saurian. She has agreed to let you stay at her home until we can get you on a caravan to Waterfall City."

"Oh..."

"Don't worry. I'll visit you again before you leave. The last caravan left yesterday, so there won't be another one leaving for at least a week. You'll have plenty of time to look around." With a wave Verel was gone, out the hall and through the door.

Burra twitched, her tail wagging slowly in amusement. "Humans can be so amusing at times. I have a few things I need to get before we leave, then we can head home for the day. I'll just be a minute."

SJ's second walk through the city was as captivating as her first entrance. Now she was experiencing the daily dance of the city not from the safe height of Redcliffe's back, but at ground level with the rest of the cities smaller inhabitants. Now that she was not elevated above the crowds she found that she was noticed much more quickly and was rapidly becoming an object of curiosity. Many times she was stopped in the street by well wishers and welcomers.

"It is just how we are. We are curious about the outside world, and Dolphinbacks are our only source of information. Besides, it always fun to meet new people." Burra explained. "Here we are." She stopped in front of a door which appeared perfectly normal except for the fact that the latch was a level easily accessible to a protoceratops. The small saurian pushed the door open and stepped back. "Be welcome in my home."

Dinner was excellent, though a vegetarian lifestyle after a lifetime of eating meat was going to take some getting used to. At least Dinotopians considered fish edible. She might have gone insane otherwise. Burra had some work to do after the evening mean, and informed SJ that she was free to look around the house and settle herself in the guest room. They could go out and find some new clothes and shoes for her tomorrow.

Taking her at her word, SJ wandered from room to room in the small flat, studying the artwork lining the walls. She eventually found herself in a small sort of study, complete with a large map of Dinotopia on one wall. Tracing the glass covering lightly with a finger, she found Sauropolis on the southern coast and grinned. Standing back and looking at, she almost thought it could be a map of Australia.

Running a finger up the map, she located Waterfall City, her next destination. Further north were marks with odd names, like Volcaneum and Pooktook. To the east the landscape changed, from swamps and forests to desert and plains, and the map showed a small out island to the far east. As she studied the map though, a slight feeling of unease blossomed in the pit of her stomach, and grew the longer she studied the finely crafted piece. Suddenly, the realization of what was wrong with the picture crystallized, and a small whimper escaped her throat. Something brushed against her hand, and she jumped.

"What's wrong?" Burra asked, moving around so that SJ's hand rested on her crest.

The girl swallowed. "On the map... This is an island. And... according to the map, there are reefs all around the island. How does anyone get here? How does anyone get away from here?"

Burra chirped in distress. "Come into the kitchen and make some tea, and we will talk."

SJ obeyed, following the small ceratopsian into the kitchen and setting the water to boil. As soon as it was done she poured some for herself and set a shallow dish on a lower table for Burra before settling on a cushion on the floor that allowed her to rest level with the protoceratops head asthe dinosaurlay on a couch. The saurian took several sips of her tea and cleared her throat.

"I am sorry that I am the one to tell you this. I had assumed that someone had already explained matters to you. We are not sure how all dolphinbacks arrive on Dinotopia. Some are brought by the dolphins themselves, as I believe you were. Others simply wash ashore alone. Occasionally one or another will arrive in a small rescue boat intact, but those are few and far between. I believe years ago there was a freak accident during an exceptionally terrible monsoon where an entire ship was washed ashore with most of her crew aboard, but that it the only time I have ever heard of that happening.1"

"As for leaving... Had you ever heard of Dinotopia before you came here?"

SJ shook her heard. "No, It's like this place doesn't even exist outside of right here. I... I keep expecting to wake up and find myself in the hospital or something, and finding out that this entire thing is a dream."

"Many new comers feel like that at first. It takes a great deal of time for some of them to come to accept their fates, and some never do. The reason that you have never heard of Dinotopia is simple: Leaving the island is impossible. There are razor reefs that surround the entire island. Any ship that tried to be leave is shredded. There is a rumor that the dolphins know of a way to the outside world, but if this is true, they keep it to themselves, which is for the best2."

"So you're saying.. that there is no way for me to leave here? I can't go home?"

Burra shook her head. "Like I said, I thought that someone would have already explained this to you. No one mentioned it?"

SJ bit her lip. "No.. I thought... I thought that I could leave whenever I wanted. I just assumed that it was my choice. I have a hard time believing there is no way to get away from here. And how can something exist without the outside world knowing about it. All of the satellites and everything that we have in space... We have pictures of the entire earth. There's... there's just no way. This isn't possible."

"The last dolphinbacks to come also mentioned these things that you speak of, these satellites and photographs. They could not explain why or how this happens either, but they all came to accept that it does. What you believe, though, is something that you must decide for yourself. No one can determine it for you."

Burra could see that the girl was exhausted and suffering from a severe shock. She nudged the humans hands gently. "Why don't you go off to bed now. " She suggested "You are tired, and there will be time to speak in the morning, when you are better rested. And when we go out tomorrow you can decide for yourself whether or not we are real."

SJ nodded and rinsed out her cup, leaving it in the sink and wandering off to the guest room, still in a daze. In the kitchen Burra sat quietly, listening as the door to the guest room shut. In her heart she cried in sympathy for the young human who had just found out that her entire world had been ripped away.

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Like I said, this one is a Christmas present for SJ. Hope you liked it!

1 This takes place in a story written by Alan Dean Foster titled Dinotopia Lost. Like I said, I'm drawing from pretty much anything Dinotopian that I have been able to get my hands on, so this is not really going to follow one specific story line. I know that Foster wrote another book The Hand of Dinotopia where Will and Sylvia found another way out of Dinotopia, but I a writing from the angle that they and everyone who was with them kept what they discovered to themselves.

2 If you read the juvenile series there is a story where the dolphins show a boy a passage to the outside world, but I can't remember what the exact title is or who the author was off the top of my head.