Editing Leape (section)

== '''5''' ==
''In which Penn discovers herbivores eat plants''

The air whistled by Penn’s ears as he felt he was falling. A shriek was heard beside him.

“I HATE THIS SO MUCHHHHHHH–” with that Lethia disappeared within a layer of clouds.

''I am SO dying, TERRIBLE LIZARDS, I’m so DEAD,'' Penn thought, not questioning the “terrible lizards” part, because he fully trusted the Narrator.

''ARGH'', thought Penn with a grunt of annoyance glaring at the pinkish-orange clouds as they passed him, or rather, he passed them. ''I have GOT to get rid of you, weird space alien!''

He paused. ''… Space alien?''

With that, he slammed into the ground at full force. But it was… soft? A strange sound echoed through the air, not unlike the roar of a chainsaw. But… it sounded more animal-like.

''Dragons!?'' Penn wondered, eyes clamped shut, the scent of pine wafting up his still-touching-the-ground nose. With a groan, he raised himself up onto his knees, brushing pine needles and debris off his face, noticing a very still Lethia standing beside him out of the corner of his eye- in changed clothes, once ''again''.

“Lethia, what ''is'' this pla–” he was cut off by a strong grip on his shoulder, and looked up to see Lethia, feet planted firmly on the ground, safari-like boots coming up to about mid-shin, a khaki boy scout-looking uniform replacing the black ninja suit she had worn earlier.

“Shh,” she hissed to him, eyes watching the trembling bushes and ferns just a few yards from the two. They shivered, a sure sign something would come out of them, and Penn felt a chill of fear.

It was stifled quickly by warm, moist, air being breathed down his neck. Lethia’s eyes were locked on the bushes, and it seemed like she wasn’t paying any attention to anything else– including their surroundings.

“L-Lethia?” Penn croaked, voice shaking, waves of fear replacing any calmness that may have resided in him.

“Shh, Joe! I’m working on making sure we don’t get ''eaten'',” she growled back, still at Penn’s side.

“Too late,” Penn whispered, slowly turning around, the warm air coming down his throat still. It tousled his hair, warming, and then chilling, him to the roots. He was already sweating— a side-effect of wearing heavy winter garb in an otherwise humid environment— but it was a cold sweat now, as if he had just woken up from a nightmare.

His gaze caught on scales. They were a muted sea-green color, the chest of the thing slightly paler, a shade lighter than the overall color of the creature. As his eyes went up the thing, he realized it had no wings; it wasn’t a dragon. ''An overgrown lizard?'' He wondered, staring at the thing in awe. The creature’s head was elongated, a crest at the back, sort of like a horn, but much less sharp, and more curved, arching towards its back. Penn’s breath caught in his throat as he looked up at it, and as it looked down at him, its large, dark, eyes blinked slowly, as if trying to register him.

“HI,” the voice came from on top of the lizard thing. Lethia screeched, whirling around in a panic. Penn jumped backwards. “Oh, c’MON, I’m not THAT scary,” the voice said, wich Penn registered as the first time he had ever heard someone roll their eyes via their voice. A clicking of the tongue came from the voice, and the creature squatted, almost, and off got a small human.

She was wearing khaki clothes, not unlike Lethia, with boots that were a bit big for her and were tied tightly, coming up over the half-way mark on her shin. “I’m Maizie! I’m eight years old,” said the girl, giving a toothy grin, pulling her baseball cap off and giving a bow, as if she were in the middle ages.

Penn blinked, surprised at the gesture. ''She’s eight…? And she’s riding a… what is that thing?''

As if answering his thoughts, Maizie grinned, gesturing to the creature beside her. Upon closer inspection, it was striped with light purple, giving a sort of prehistoric rainbow zebra vibe. “This is Partricia! Well, her name ''was'' Parcy– she’s a parasaurolophus after all– but then she had her kid so…” Maizie trailed off, and the bushes rustled again.

Lethia inched closer to Penn, close enough that if Penn were to move an inch right, their shoulders would be brushing. ''She was never this scared in the arctic world! What’s wrong with her now?''

Out from the bushes came a small creature, not unlike his mother, Partricia. He was small, and his horn-crest wasn’t as developed, but was growing straighter than his mother’s. “Oh, THERE he is! Party’s been looking for him all afternoon.”

Penn looked up at the leafy foliage above them, the pine trees reaching up into the pinkish sky, the fluffy clouds tinted pale yellow and orange, a sure sign the sun was to set soon. The sound of a crunching of pine needles brought him out of his thoughts, and his eyes wandered over to Partricia the parasaurolophus, who was munching on the brownish-red needles on the ground. He felt a nudge on his leg, and looked down to see the small parasaurolophus bumping against it, as if he were a dog begging for food.

Maizie’s eyes wandered over to the tiny dinosaur, and she gave another of her contagious grins. Pushing her glasses up onto her nose and running her fingers through her chin-length pine-colored hair, she gave a little laugh at the creature as he foraged about the ground. Penn plucked a leaf from a low-lying shrub and held it out to the dinosaur. With a happy chortle that was not unlike a bird’s, it tromped over and grabbed the leaf out of his grasp scale-coverd, bill-like mouth brushing against Penn’s hand, the soft tongue of the adolescent parasaurolophus lapping all the leaf-scent up.

Penn glanced over at Lethia, who was looking around, a strange look on her face. She wasn’t paying attention to Maizie or to the dinosaurs or to Penn, and was instead searching for something, as if she had left something important behind.

“Hey, lady!” called Maizie, who was casually leaning against Partricia. “You good?” The simple question from the eight-year-old brought Lethia back to reality.

“Yes. Very much so. Now if you’ll excuse my companion and I, we should be going.”

“Well, thataway is where the brachiosauruses hang out, and then that way is carnivore cove, where the baryonyx like to hang out– wouldn’t recommend going over there, they might mistake you for an overgrown fish–” Lethia’s face was rather stoic, to her credit, although a slight glimmer of indignation showed in her eyes for a second “--and the choppers live over there, so…” Maizie trailed off, once more adjusting her pink glasses.

Lethia, at the mention of the “choppers” looked as if an electrical impulse had passed through her. “Choppers?”

“Oh yeah,” said Maizie with a shrug, slipping a harness over the small parasaurolophus’s head and situating it on him so he couldn’t get out of it without help, “they came from another planet. Said they needed lumber. What they ''didn’t'' say was that their planet only has vegeterians—which, like, eugh, why would you be only a vegetarian?— and they figured they’d take back some dinosaur meat for them.” A deep sadness passed over her face, an emotion Penn hadn’t thought the sparky eight-year-old could feel. “They’ve already gotten a lot of the iguandadons, and I would bet they’re gonna go for the protoceratops next.”

Penn’s heart started beating faster, an excitement filling him. ''That’s new,'' he thought to himself, wondering where the sudden emotion had come from. He knew he shouldn’t’ve been feeling it, after what Maizie had just said… but still….

“So wait,” Penn said, making fast hand motions as he spoke at a million miles a minute. “You’re saying that this is a planet of… dinosaurs!?” He tried to quench the excitement in his voice as he spoke, but he was already consumed with it, almost like a burning fire.

“Uh, ''yeah!''” Maizie said, eyes brightening up, face once again happy. Penn wanted to do… ''something'' in delight. He didn’t know what, but there were ''dinosaurs'' and they were ''alive'' and they were ''adorable.''

A buzzing sound filled the air, sounding dangerously close to the group. Maizie’s eyes widened and her brows furrowed, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“We gotta go– the buzzers are coming!” And with that, she started running off as fast as she could, followed by Partricia and her dinoling, leaving Penn and Lethia no choice but to follow.

The blonde looked at Penn just as he looked to her for advice on what to do. Penn shrugged in response to Lethia’s blank stare. “I mean… do we really have a choice?” he asked, starting off after Maizie, looking back to make sure she was following every once in a while, leaving the sound of the buzzing as quickly as possible.

Soon, a structure loomed up in front of the group, the two dinosaurs sticking close together, Maizie leading the way, and Lethia tromping through the last of the underbrush to where Penn stood, near huge, wooden, doors.

“What ''is'' this place?” Lethia asked, looking the doors up and down, inspecting from afar the neatly-kept shrubbery at the sides of the walls.

“This,” said Maizie proudly, turning around to the two and spreading her arms as if she were unveiling some great feat of artwork or opening a new building, “is the care center!” She mumbled something under her breath, something unhearable by the hooting of the smaller dinosaur to his mother– a sound almost like a brass instrument, coming from his small crest. His mother hooted back, the sound richer and deeper than her son’s.

Penn, who had been caught up in the two’s strange conversation, was pulled out of his thoughts by Maizie announcing the doors were open and that the five had better get in there before the night fell over the planet.

“What happens when night comes?” Penn asked, looking around the compound-like-thing, where dinosaurs milled about, most heading towards shelters, which were made of leaves and wood. The night was indeed coming, darkness beginning to shroud the compound, small clusters of oversized berries and high-tech lamps emitting soft yellow light, the dinosaurs heading off to bed. ''It looks like a mixture of'' Jurassic World ''and a kid’s book,'' thought Penn, who had read the original book the movies were based on.

Maizie cast Penn a serious look as the five headed into a large building which was also made of wood (something she later informed the two was “iron wood”, which was very hard to come by and was stronger, in fact, than iron), with long hallways and the echoes of dinosaurs coming from various alcoves, where the creatures rested. “When night comes,” she said ominously, as she kept walking, “that’s when the buzzers comes out.”

“What’s a buzzer?” Penn asked curiously, unaware what she was talking about.

“Did you hear the buzzing sound as we came in? The thing that sounded a bit like a swarm of bees?” Penn nodded, and saw Lethia doing the same out of the corner of his eye. “Those are buzzers. They’re actually humans, but thanks to ‘new, advanced, super-cool technology’—” said the brunette, rolling her eyes and doing air quotes “—they’ve used up all the resources on their own planet, and now there here to take ours.” She scoffed, a scowl on her face. “They wouldn’t’ve ''chosen'' this planet if they knew there were dinosaurs here– in fact—” she said, face turned slightly red at the enraging thought “—they’re not even ''allowed'' here, but they put all their fancy-shmancy tech here, and their leader is a stuck-up allosaurus, so they’re still here. Trying to harvest the ironwood trees.” She gave a bitter laugh, a triumphant grin gracing her face. “S’not as if they’ll be able to harvest them. Takes special equipment for that.”

A silence hung in the air after Maizie’s explanation. ''If we’re in different book dimensions… this must be the plot of this one. ‘An eight-year-old saves the dinosaurs from alien humans trying to harvest trees’. Now'' that’s ''a book I’ve never read.'' The thought came and went and the silence stretched on. Penn took the moment to drink his surroundings, the interior of the large place was well-lit, and the several alcoves where the dinosaurs lived seemed to have adjustable lighting. Small screens were near the enclosures, which told specifically what type of dinosaur was there, what its name was, and seemed to adjust the lighting. Several different species of the creatures were there, ranging from small triceratops-looking-dinosaurs—the label said “protoceratops”, the type Maizie had mentioned earlier, which was basically a small triceratops without the horns and a frill that was about as long as its snout— to larger, more odd-looking dinosaurs, like the “oryoctodremeus” who had smallish spikes on its back, and long arms and legs, and stood at about six feet. And his name was Ham Sandwich.

By the time Penn started to tune back into reality, he found Maizie and Lethia having a civilized conversation about… fashion. Maizie nonchalantly opened the door to a large room which housed several bunkbeds, with windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling and a view out onto the courtyard where the dinosaurs had been before, milling about.

“We’re back! This is the bunkroom, and over there, in that nest—” Maizie pointed over to a bed in the corner, where blankets and pillows were scattered about the unmade “—is where I usually sleep, and y’all are welcome to any other beds you see. Also, Penn, there’s a separate bunk room for dudes, which is, like, just the room over from here, on the left, and there’s some extra clothes, so you can get out of that… coat? I think it’s called a coat. So. Yeah. Anyways.” And with that, Maizie disappeared into another room within the girls’ bunkroom, to do who-knew-what.

Lethia blinked and turned to Penn. “I think… it’s probably time to sleep?” she said questioningly, a different air than the accusatory one she had worn when she had first met Penn surrounding her.

“Probably,” said Penn with a nod, starting to head out of the room. Lethia glanced around the bunkroom, with its neatly made beds, before coming closer to Penn, and whispering in his ear.

Penn’s eyes widened, and he looked around the room. “You mean… when you first got here this was…?” He trailed off, gaze catching on the different beds and randomly scattered furniture.

Lethia gave a nod. “It wasn’t here. So I have no idea what the plot will be… so please, for the sake of ''both'' our lives, consult with me before you do something overly idiotic?” She held out her hand for a shake, to seal the deal.

Eyeing her hand, the boy hesitated. '''Well, what are you waiting for?''' The Narrator’s voice sounded through his mind, not audibly, but clearly not himself asking the question. Finally, Penn spoke: “Only if it’s the same for you— no risky stuff before we talk first.” Lethia hesitated, but nodded, and Penn gave her hand a firm shake.

“It’s a deal then,” said Lethia, and then after a moment, she stepped back, nodding once more in a final way. “I’ll be off to bed, then. Goodnight, Leapus.”

A smile crossed his face. “‘Night, ninja lady.” A chuckle escaped Lethia’s lips as she walked off towards the window and Penn shut the door to head to the boy’s bunk room, the snuffling and hooting of dinosaurs a comforting, exciting, sound that vibrated through his very bones, and indeed his joints as well, an exhilarating feeling coursing through his veins. ''I can’t wait for tomorrow,'' he thought, as he opened the door of the boy’s bunk room and chose a bed.