On the outskirts of Victorian Edinburgh, at the crest of Calton Hill, there is a large dinosaur enclosure and a single raptor living within it. The raptor is a slight creature and stands at only five foot high. While it hasn't used its razor-sharp teeth on living flesh since it was a youth, in recent years it has been fed and raised by a dinosaur tamer. Living out on the hill and never daring to travel into the heart of the town itself, its tamer is lucky to see more than a handful of living souls per year - other trainers, of course. People with common sense tend to avoid dinosaurs in this day and age.
"Snowflake!" she shouts, her broad Scottish accent revealing that she is not from this town. "To me, love. Over to me."
The raptor turns its head towards her, where she stands by the edge of its enclosure with a large woven bag in hand: the bag that usually means dino-treats. After a reptilian head-tilt, it bounds towards her.
Focused upon the killer dinosaur that is eating scraps of meat from her hand, Eliza Von McDoogle fails to notice the swift, sleek figure that is cutting its way behind her towards the warm straw nest where she is incubating a dinosaur egg. The egg is mottled and is as large as a human baby at least - and such items are incredibly difficult to come by. To date, Eliza has only successfully raised a single dinosaur, and that is Snowflake in front of her.
Now, it seems as if her second dinosaur might be slipping through her fingers.
Slowly, carefully, the thief hefts the egg out of its nest. Hiding the item in a bag or behind any convenient item of clothing is impossible: she can only rely on her hard-won skills to get both her and her prize away from Calton Hill without discovery.
In this, the thief is incredibly unlucky.
She is nearly past the fence when a lucky glance from Eliza brings a gasp - Eliza's blood freezes and she darts forward, able to see her most precious possession being carted away.
"Wait right there!" she booms as she dashes forward to meet the intruder.
Thinking on her feet, the thief meets Eliza's eyes. If the scars born by all dinosaur tamers phase her, she doesn't show it at all. "I'm sorry," she says. "I was only trying to move it somewhere warmer. It looked to be far too cold in that nest of yours."
"It was fine where it was," Eliza snips, taking back from her. She returns it to its rightful place, but she buys the story. It's so rare to have a visitor up here; the only reason someone would come would be if they had a true interest in the beasts.
"I just really like dinosaurs," says the thief. "I think it's amazing, what you do."
"Aye," Eliza murmurs. "It takes a good bit of talent and a fair bit of courage. People think they're fearsome creatures, but they're not so bad, not once you get to know them." She has claw and bite marks from her early forays into taming Snowflakes, but she can't blame the creature for that. "Once you get used to them, they'll do just about anything for you."
"Really?" the thief asks, while trying not to eye up the exit too obviously. "You wouldn't be able to show me that, would you? I've never got to see it myself before. I'd love to."
Eliza rarely gets any visitors, and when she does it's usually all business. How rare and delightful to have a real fan to show her skills to. "Of course. Make sure to stay out of the enclosure yourself - it's not safe for civilians."
"Yeah..." the thief agrees, walking with Eliza back to the dinosaur pen. Eliza squares her shoulders and steps inside, indicating to Snowflake to come over to her.
As the dinosaur begins to jog to her, Eliza whips around as she spots movement from behind her - and she sees the thief, hands on the enclosure, closing the gate to lock her in. Eliza darts forward, slipping through the closing gap just before she can be caught.
"What the hell d'you think you were doing?!" she shouts.
The thief can only cringe. "Well." She pauses. "I was planning on stealing your egg. Since that didn't work, I thought I'd lock you in and make a run for it."
Eliza stares at the thief and tries to comprehend how she can live on such a vile planet with such unlawful people in it. It's terrible. It's rude. It's the reason why she lives out here on the outskirts of the city, far away from outside interference, far away from people like this unlawful young woman.
Eliza's eyes glaze over. She reaches out to her dinosaur with her mind, through a skill cultivated through years of training to bend the dinosaur's will to her own - a way to teach this thief a lesson, to chase her from the hill and make sure that she's too frightened to ever think of stealing the slightest scrap again. She pulls Snowflake's mind as she wants it, and sends the beast flying at her enemy - in theory, in any case.
In reality, Snowflake realises that no treats are forthcoming, and calmly trots off to examine a more interesting part of the field.
"What are you doing?" the thief asks. "You look like you're in some kind of trance."
"I," Eliza announces, "was trying to set my dinosaur on you."
The thief stares at her as if she is quite mad, but then draws a knife and holds it between them. "I'll be leaving now. Don't try to stop me." She brandishes the knife menacingly, so that it is quite clear what will happen if Eliza tries to intervene.
A knife isn't enough to stop Eliza from calling for the police. "Police!" she shouts at the top of her lungs. "Police, help! There's a thief!"
The answer, isolated as she is, is a very resounding silence.
The thief smirks at her, tips her hat, and makes a run for the exit.
Eliza grabs for the dinosaur-training whip that she keeps at her belt. An antique, it is well-used, well-maintained, and she is very well-trained with it. A flick of her wrist is all it takes for the whip to lash out and wrap around the thief's ankle. With a firm tug, she brings the thief crashing to the ground.
Snake-fast reflexes put the thief on her back, and she uses her knife to lash out at the whip. The knife, razor-sharp, slices easily through the leather of the whip and the weapon falls into two pieces.
The thief vaults back to her feet, fists raised for combat -
But all she finds is Eliza on her knees, clutching her whip, with frantic tears in her eyes. "You broke it," she whispers.
Uncertain of whether or not this is a trick, the thief comes forward. "Are you alright?" she asks.
"No," Eliza says, struggling to hold back sobs. "You broke my whip."
"I'll get you a new one."
"It was my grandma's," Eliza says. "You can't just replace it."
"I'll get you a new one! Better than fighting with that old thing. C'mon. Tell me where to get one and I'll lift it for you."
"You can't steal anything!" Eliza insists, pressing her hands against her forehead as she tries to think. She is still on the ground, looking down at the split halves of the only family heirloom that she has held onto for all these years. "You can work it off."
"Excuse me?"
"I need an assistant. Someone to muck out my dinosaur's enclosures."
The thief stares at her in disbelief. "...Is there anything else I could do? Any quick way of earning money?"
Eliza's mind is blank, but the whispers she had heard from the other trainers that occasionally visited her began to come back to her. "There's a rare breed of dinosaur living in the woods out beyond Arthur's seat. A beast like that, an egg even, it would make a fortune in certain markets."
"So all we'll need to do is go and retrieve it?"
"You make it sound so simple."
"Then let's go."
Eliza insists on packing before they left, and she saddles up Snowflake and rides on his back as they start to come down the hill into the town. The streets are familiar to the thief, but not to Eliza. To her, they are as strange as a foreign land, a place to be avoided as much as possible. Few tradesmen are willing to climb the hill to deal with her, but they will deliver to her at the base of the hill.
The thief walks at her side, looking suspiciously at Snowflake from time to time. "I still don't even know your name," she says resentfully.
"Eliza Von McDoogle," Eliza recites. Even after all these years, it feels wrong to say her name without the family title before it.
The thief snorts in amusement. "Nice name," she mutters.
"Fine. What are you called?"
"Roar," the thief answers.
"That's hardly much of a name."
"Aurora," the thief says resentfully. "But don't even think about calling me that."
"It's a lovely name."
"My name is Roar. You'd better not call me anything other than that, especially not out on these streets. My reputation knows me to be a man, and I'd like it to stay that way. No one gives you hassle that way. Don't tell anyone anything."
"Who on Earth do you think I'm going to tell?" Eliza asks.
By now they have reached the end of the street and are able to stroll along the bottom of the town. Pedestrians leap out of the way at the sight of a raptor ambling towards them. It is a sad sign, Eliza thinks, of the prejudices that the world has against dinosaurs and their trainers.
"Oi now," a constable says, coming out of a local coffee house. When he catches sight of a well-dressed woman astride a dinosaur and a ragged young thing beside her, he calls out. "Everything alright here, ma'am?"
Eliza hasn't been questioned by someone in authority for many years. Her eyes widen. Her cheeks pale. "Fine, sir."
His eyes narrow and he glances between the pair. "You sure about that? This lad isn't bothering you, is he?"
"No..." Eliza says, still trapped on the spot.
"Well, then, d'you have your dinosaur-keeping license on you? You know you can't be riding one of those things without it."
Eliza looks as though she may start crying again. "No, it's - I left it in my other coat."
"I'll have to be taking you to the station to write you up for that infraction, ma'am."
She doesn't get the chance for another lie. Roar takes matters into her own hands. She pulls her knife from her belt and backs away while the policeman is trying to get some sense out of Eliza. Raising her hand, she slams the dagger into the policeman's head - the handle of the knife rather than the blade. It connects with a satisfying thunk.
"Oh my Lord!" Eliza shrieks. Snowflake shifts restlessly beneath her.
The constable, enraged, grabs his truncheon and swings it at Roar, but in his wild haste he misses her altogether, grunting out his anger as he does. Eliza shrieks and the dinosaur beneath her shifts again in agitation, this time reversing backwards several steps.
The police officer swung at Roar again, and this time connected, a harsh crack around her upper arm.
The sight of her ally in pain is enough to finally spur Eliza into some useful action. She spurs Snowflake forward once more, clears her mind, and pulls the dinosaur's will towards her own. She loses all expression on her face and trances out: and a moment later, Snowflake roars into the constable's face, all of his sharp teeth on show, his meaty breath blowing against the constable's cheeks.
He stares in blank, dull shock, and drops his weapon in alarm.
"Come on," Roar says, already taking a few running steps. "Come on."
At Roar's bidding Eliza comes out of her trance and spurs her dinosaur onwards. Jogging once more, Snowflake takes off after the thief.
"You're the most useless person I've ever met!" Roar yells as they run together.
"What?" Eliza asks, riding her dinosaur at a trot that matches Roar's running. "I have a dinosaur!"
Running out of town, they rush onto the next leg of their journey.
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