Chapter Text
In the land of Nublar, where such things as dinosaurs still roamed the land and magic was very much reality and not fantasy, it is quite rare for a woman to be as successful as Claire Dearing, the sole owner of a shop specialising in customised shoes for women.
So it would come to no one’s surprise that she would have her share of rivals, eager to watch her fail by any means necessary.
Though she never thought that she’d be cursed to become a raptor of all things by a witch, the Indominus as they called the albino woman behind her back, who was apparently jealous of not only Claire’s success in business but also of her beauty.
This is ridiculous! the now red feathered Claire thought, as when she tried to speak aloud all that came out where unrecognisable clicking and grunting sounds. She felt furious, and she could see that the fury showed in her new body quite tellingly, her feathers became all fluffed up and poofy. If it hadn’t been her reflection she’d been staring at, she would have thought the sight cute, but since it was actually her, all she felt was dismayed. What am I supposed to do?! I can’t even speak! Then she remembered the fact that her two nephews, Zach and Gray, had just come over to stay at her place for a spell while their parents duelled out about their failure of a marriage. Oh no, the boys - maybe I should get out of here before they find me looking like - like this!
But she had realised too late. “It’s a velociraptor!!” she could hear Gray say in partial awe and fear, and when she turned around she could see that Zach was trying to shush his little brother and trying to bodily get out him out of the shop at the same time, away from her scary looking self.
<Boys!> she said, before she realised that she was now speaking in raptor speak and that the boys, even Gray, as much as he loved dinosaurs, did not understand dinosaur-speak.
Ok, wait a minute. Just calm down Claire. She breathed out, and hoped that the boys didn’t see that action as being threatening. Think. How can I explain to the boys that I’m their Aunt Claire and I have no interest in eating them and they don’t have to go out and yell to everyone that a raptor has appeared in my shop?
Then the thought struck her. She had installed a new surveillance spell in the shop in order to prevent or catch thieves (not that there had been any successful thefts, but there had been enough calls that she got worried enough to invest in the spell). She made her way towards where she knew she could activate the spell, hoping that the Indominus hadn’t tampered with it.
Gray, noticing this, resisted even more from being dragged out of the room by his brother, “Zach look, look, it’s trying to do something!”
Zach did look, if only for a bit, but he was still trying to drag his naive brother out of the shop. “I don’t care what it’s trying to do Gray, we need to get out of here while it’s still distracted!”
But just before the both of them could manage to step out of the shop, Claire managed to prick the surveillance spell with one of her talons and a screen automatically popped up in the middle of the room, startling both the boys enough that they froze. Good thing too, as Claire managed to scroll the footage along to the part that happened just now, when the Indominus had entered the shop even after she was sure that she had bolted the door shut.
She watched herself being turned into a raptor, saw how it had twisted her figure unnaturally into the one she was now, and felt grateful at least that it hadn’t been a painful process. She noticed how the boys’ jaws had dropped opened at that, as they began looking from the her in the footage and the red raptor in front of them, trying to equate their heels-loving Aunt Claire with the feathered raptor in front of them.
They watched all the way until it reached the point where she had activated the spell in order to watch the footage, resisting the urge to tap one of her feet’s talons lest the sharpness ruin her expensive carpet. Then Zach had said hesitantly, “Aunt Claire?” while Gray was less reserved, making his way towards her, his arm reaching out before Zach could stop him.
Claire waited until her younger nephew was within arm’s reach before she leaned her head downwards and met the boy’s hand gently.
“Aunt Claire!!” Gray shrieked, hugging her neck tightly and she tried not to fall on the boy, since she wasn’t used to this body yet and the boy’s unexpected weight on her long neck was putting her off balance.
“Gray, you’re gonna make her fall over!” Zach scolded as he pulled him off her. He looked at her with a look that reminded her of her sister when she was in serious mode. “It’s really you, isn’t it Aunt Claire?”
She automatically rolled her eyes before she realised that maybe she couldn’t now as a raptor, only to find out that amazingly yes, she could still do so, a signature move that the boys knew their Aunt Claire did especially when she was exasperated.
That seemed to have finally convinced Zach, as he reluctantly let Gray go from his hold enough that the younger boy was free to pat his totally cool raptor Aunt Claire, oohing and aahing over her red feathers, not worrying about the fact that his aunt was stuck in this non-speaking, non-human form.
“What’re you going to do now Aunt Claire?” Zach asked. He at least seemed to have realised the seriousness of the situation.
I need to go find the, what was it called again? Claire tried to recall the gossip she’d hear Zara and her employees exchanging earlier that day when that moving castle that had only appeared recently passed by near their town.
“Ohh look, it’s the Moving Castle of Raptors!” one of the younger employees had said excitedly to the weird looking building that was trying to pass itself off as a castle but looked more like an overly big Mosasaurus as it trudged along in the far off distance amongst the hills.
“I hear the Lord’s a handsome one,” another young employee said, wiggling her eyebrows as she continued to work diligently on the customised shoe she had been assigned to make for a customer.
“I hear,” Claire was surprised that Zara would join in this exchange of gossip, but when she heard what came our of her mouth a moment later, she understood immediately why she had joined in. “That he picks up girls and brings them back to his castle so that he can feed their hearts to his raptors.”
The tactic seemed to have worked and the two newbies immediately shut up, looked at each other in horror, and once more the shop was free from unnecessary chatter as the soft melody of the shop’s music spell filled the silence instead.
Realising that she definitely was going to need to be away from the shop until she found out how to turn herself back to normal, she decided that she needed to tell Zara to take over for her for a while.
She head-butted Zach’s shoulder (because she was afraid her talons might wound him, even if only a scratch - she felt her sister would never let her see them again regardless of the circumstances) to get his attention. Once she had it, she pointed with a talon to the moving picture of her and Zara in front of the shop. Then she curled her talons the best she could in an attempt to imitate the hand signal one would do in order to convey making a phone call.
Zach’s eyebrows furrowed. “You want me to call Zara for you?” She nodded. “Do you want me to tell her what happened?” he clarified. She quickly shook her head, horrified at the thought. If that happened, the first thing that’d be going through Zara’s mind would be that the boys were playing a prank on her but that she’d immediately come by to check anyway just in case anything had actually happened, which was the furthest thing from what she wanted right now.
“Tell her that Aunt Claire decided to take that vacation she never takes to Kingsbury!” Gray suggested excitedly. “And that she’s taking us with her!” he added excitedly.
<What?!> Claire squawked. <No I’m not! You two are staying here with Zara!> she said even though she knew they had no idea what she was saying, hoping that her no-nonsense tone still got her message across.
Zach crossed his arms, in a way that was reminiscent of her when she was being firm. “No way, Claire.” Oh no. Him calling her directly by her name was a sign that he was being serious. “You can’t even speak! How’re you supposed to explain to anyone that you’re not a dangerous raptor? Everyone’s going to want to hunt you down if you leave the shop without a human escort to tell them that!” He pointed to the photo frame of her Zara. “And if you don’t let us come with you, I’m going to tell her about everything!”
“Please Aunt Claire!” Gray was practically begging. “Let us stay with you! We don’t want you to get hunted down!”
Dammit, this is why she didn’t see them that often. She was totally wrapped around their fingers. She sighed, which still showed apparently even in raptor form, because the boys exchanged knowing looks and knew that they’d won their case.
.-.-.
The boys, Claire thought, were far to competent in repairing that old broken down jeep she had parked for what seemed like forever now in her shop’s garage for their age. The jeep was just nice, she could climb onto the opened back easily while Zach drove (which they were probably going to get into trouble with her sister for, once they went back and told her all about this mini-adventure anyway) and the three of them made their way to the Wastes where the Raptor Lord’s moving castle was usually seen prowling about.
On their way, of all things, a T. Rex started following them.
“Faster! Faster! FASTER!” Gray was screaming that last ‘faster’, tugging his brother’s shoulder backwards and forwards out of sheer panic while said brother was trying to shove him off him while he floored the jeep as much as he could, screaming back just as loudly, “I AM! Stop tugging my arm!!”
Claire meanwhile, was preoccupied with contemplating whether she should jump out of the jeep and lead the T.Rex away from her nephews, since it seemed like it was her that the old T.Rex was interested in.
The benefit of being turned into a dinosaur she discovered, was that she could understand dinosaur-speak.
<Red!> the T.Rex was saying. <Wait!> she was calling.
Claire knew that many men had found her fiery red hair had attractive, but this was the first time she knew of an animal that was interested in her because of it. And of all things, it was a freaking T.Rex. Of course it was.
The sound of honking, of air gushing out of steam pipes and stomping of the earth could suddenly be heard, along with the appearance of the Mosasaurus-looking castle that made those sounds, looming over them like a promise of either hopeful salvation or ominous ruin, especially when they noticed that it had a ramp that looked suspiciously like one just suitable for a vehicle to drive up into it towards what seemed to be the entrance to the castle’s garage.
Zach made the decision for all of them. “We’re smashing through the door!” he warned. “Hold on!”
And then he sped up even more if that was even possible, and not waiting to see if the castle was going to stop with their sudden approach, smashed right through the door into a decidedly garage looking area.
“What the hell?!” they all heard someone curse. A black man appeared through the side door of what must lead to the main portion of the castle, “And who the hell are you lot?”
He sounded French, Claire had the time to notice absently, before he seemed to have noticed her in the backseat of the jeep and his eyes seemed to have softened. “Oh.” He turned to look at the boys. “You know, you could have just knocked if you needed help.”
“A T.Rex was chasing after us,” Gray said seriously. The man looked out over the hole their jeep had made through the garage door, down to where there was indeed a T.Rex looking dolefully up at them, out of reach.
“I see.” He let out one last sigh as he surveyed over the damage, rubbing the back of his head as he motioned them to come over. “Well, what’re you waiting for then? Come on in.”
“Name’s Barry,” he introduced himself once all three of them entered what seemed to be the living room. “I take it you’re looking for the Raptor Lord.” Both boys nodded, Gray more enthusiastically than Zach - though both of them had their hands protectively on their aunt’s feathered neck. “He went out for a ride with the pack - but he should be back soon. You guys can wait until he does.”
“You sure that’s a good idea Barry?” a new voice said from somewhere seemingly hidden. All three of them looked confused until Barry went to seemingly stoke the fire, except he was merely speaking to it.
“You were the one who wanted to check out what was making that racket Lowery,” Barry retorted as he stared down on the fire, which shockingly had a pair of eyes, a mouth and even glasses, of all things.
“Oh right, just blame it on the lowly fire demon!” the crackling fire complained. “Like I’m not being useful by continuously moving this Mosasaurus about!”
“You could stop anytime and go back to being stuck in the middle of that islet where we found you if you want.”
“Do you need some hot water? I could totally heat some up!” the fire demon said hurriedly. “Maybe our new guests want to take a bath??”
A bath sounded like such a lovely idea, Claire thought personally. But how was she supposed to enjoy one in this form? And what kind of bathtub was going to fit a raptor?
The boys seemed less enthused about the idea of taking a bath and they decided instead to go about making breakfast.
And then the door opened and in came the man she had only recently been on what must have been the worst date in history, riding astride his bike with four full grown featherless raptors on his sides.
Owen Grady, of all people, the last man she ever wanted to see again, was the Raptor Lord?!
On second thought, maybe staying stuck as a raptor forever sounded like a smashing idea right about now.
.-.-.
To be continued