Jeremy sighed as he went through the work on his computer. His conversion had been perfectly fine and in a way did help him with Heather, but many things weren't fully updated yet. While Horizon was able to get him a chair that could support his new muscular body and accommodate his tail, things like his computer hadn't been updated yet. This meant he had to be careful with the mouse and the power button and actually had to use a stylus to press the buttons on the keyboard has his larger fingers now had the potential to push down more than one key at the same time if he tried to touch type. It slowed him down, but he did manage.
"So... these next volunteers that are coming are nobles?" Heather asked from her seat nearby.
"According to the applications, yes," Jeremy nodded as he looked up to her, "though I can't say on how important or relevant they are."
Heather gave a shrug and a nod and then returned to her present project. Her artwork was getting better and beginning to approach what she'd been able to do back when they were in college, and she had been pretty good back then. It'd also mean that she'd soon be able to put out posters that Horizon could use for advertising and that would help with regard to her probation status, and that actually made Jeremy smile. It was an odd thing finding one's self in love and actually recognizing it, but he really didn't have any complaints on it.
Heather was the first woman he'd ever really had a good relation with outside of his family. He'd never thought their relations would go beyond platonic friendship, but he did welcome the more romantic notions. It'd been a surprise, but over time he'd found it genuine and even worth while. In its own way it helped him get out of the sort of the work obsessed/anti-social habits he'd had in the past and at the same time it also seemed to mellow a lot of Heather's anger at certain things. In that, becoming bond mates was helping both of them, and that helped with the various meetings he'd had with other Dinotopians, which he found his mind drifting back to...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"I'd like to thank you for coming with me," Heather said to Jeremy as they made their way toward Animalia's gym, "It's good to have your company... let's me get through things without feeling overly... pudgy."
Jeremy glanced over to her. While Heather might have put on a little weight during the course of her punishment, which had kept her any sort of regular exercise, it really wasn't that much and by now with more regular exercise, Heather did look rather trim. Of course, Jeremy also figured that a lot of that was also the result of what happened when he gave Heather her second dose when they mated after his transformation.
"You were never pudgy," Jeremy answered.
Heather gave an understanding smile as they walked along, though something told Jeremy that there was more to it than that. However, he figured it best to say anything that would give any indication that he was focused on her weight.
"Well... even outside of that issue... there's also all the things related to the supposed unveiling for Project Mesozoic and all that," Heather answered, "Tyra's signed me up for some sort of dance or presentation that relates to it... total theatrics."
"Well, at least this dance isn't a naked one," Jeremy teased and then chuckled when Heather sighed at that.
The presentation was all part of the planned unveiling of the plans for the sort of colony for the Dinotopians. Earlier, Jeremy hadn't really paid a lot of attention to that, but now with the various changes in his lifestyle and in him, he had checked into those stories. The unveiling wasn't necessarily unveiling the existence of Dinotopians. Heather's attack on Sophie and Roland had been enough to expose the existence of the capability to essentially bring the creatures from the Mesozoic Era back to life. However, the present state that Horizon was in was with regard to researching many of the scaling issues that related to fact that so many dinosaurs dwarfed modern animals in size. Though there had been a lot of progress made in that department. And so long as Horizon kept in a research/development phase, a lot of the conversions to being a Dinotopian would have to include some special circumstances before the Dinotopian strains of the Animalia Virus would go everyone along the standard regulations for conversion. That was expected to last until the coming summer.
The actual colony plans, though were a bit mixed. From what Jeremy had found out, Animalia had been looking at the idea of an island in the Caribbean and on the offers made by a city in Texas that was near various fossil cites and lead to a park that had been established for paleontological study/education. However, as far as Jeremy knew that decision hadn't been made yet. Though, even if the decision had been made, Jeremy was fairly certain that many things wouldn't immediately change. Sophie and Roland were still minors and in school, so even if the Dinotopian colony was established, unless their families decided to move there, Sophie and Roland have to remain in Lyre until they graduated High School. And Heather was presently under probation for her earlier actions and by law couldn't leave Lyre/Animalia until that period of probation ended. Though, even without that, Jeremy was also technically tied to Horizon as a result of his own past misdoings and that unless Horizon established a local office in the new "colony," he would also have to remain in Lyre/Animalia.
"Very funny," Heather answered as she opened the door to the gym and let Jeremy go in first.
They then quietly entered and made their way past the front desk and to the locker room. Jeremy found it a bit odd that it was essentially a uni-sex locker room, but he did note that there were posted rules of behavior that were expected to be followed and that the gym had the means to make sure that sexual assault could be prevented or at least that no one could get away with it if they tried it. He supposed that so long as the system worked it would be tolerable. As far as he knew they hadn't had a problem, but then Animalians generally seemed to be rather agreeable to following those sorts of rules and edicts and that nearly every instance of those things being broken was due more to either a human being overwhelmed by the animal instincts, as Heather had been, or the Animalian in the course of being uplifted was in a state of confusion that lasted through the transformation process.
They'd just opened their lockers when both Syntixisaurus Rex Animalians heard a near uniform "hello" come from deeper down the row of lockers. Jeremy turned to see another pair of Dinotopians, both female and both had become the same species. Their height was about on par with a human's height, despite their digitigrade legs, which gave an indication that they'd become one of the smaller dinosaurs. As while there were plenty of large dinosaurs, that didn't mean that there also weren't small ones and it was soon pretty obvious as to which species these two were. The first indicator was the feathers. While their hands, muzzles, and feet had a more scaly appearance, the scales/skin was closer to that of birds then reptiles.
The rest of their bodies were covered in feathers and it almost looked like the feathers on their arms spread out to look like a wing. They had long grayish-brown feathers that looked like a bird's wing feathers with the area around their elbows having some brownish orange coloration. However, these "wing" feathers didn't look like they would impede their four fingered hands in any way. Both wore an ensemble that included a black tanktop and black shorts, which covered up a lot of their body, though Jeremy could notice that the feathers on their head, neck and going toward their body looked more like down feathers as if to help them keep warm. Their heads were covered in a whitish-cream colored feathers, that also ran down the front of the neck and onto own impressive Dinotopian breasts. The down feathers on their legs also looked to be of a creamish-white color as well. Their shoulders, however, were more of a golden brown. Behind them their tails swayed slowly and were covered in what was closer to a bird's tail feathers, with much of it being of the same greyish brown feathers to match their arms with the edges being a more brownish orange in coloration.
The clues didn't stop there. Their muzzles were of a decent length for a theropod but was lower than their forehead was in terms of height. The biggest clue, however, was with their feet. There were three visible toes, though there was a fourth that was a small dewclaw on the upper interior side of their feet, but unlike Jeremy and Heather where all three of their main toes touched the ground, the middle toe on these two was raised and held a longer sickle shaped claw. Jeremy wasn't a paleontologist by trade, but the recent de-extinction projects had inspired some needed research and he had learned enough to know that dinosaurs and particularly the theropod dinosaurs would give rise to modern birds and that only two groups of dinosaurs were known for carrying a large sickle shaped claw. And from what Jeremy could see, these two were raptors of some kind.
"Hello," Jeremy said slowly to them, "and you are..."
"I'm Yuki," the first spoke, "and this is my twin sister Sora."
"They're raptors," Heather said from behind him.
"Velociraptors to be precise," Yuki nodded, "Velociraptor mongoliensis. Not the human sized beasts seen in Jurassic Park, but the actual theropod. Small... sleek... more bird like."
Jeremy slowly nodded, "So... what made you two join?"
"HIV... AIDs," Sora said weakly, "Our family got on the wrong side of some drug lord and to get revenge... he drugged our mother and it turned out the needles he used used were tainted. Our mom got HIV as a result and we were born with it... and we got AIDs as a result."
"And through Project Phoenix and Dinotopia we got a chance at a new start in life," Yuki said with a bit more enthusiasm, "So... hooray! Mom joined too, but she became a Red-Crowned Crane."
Jeremy gave a small smile before nodding. Though he didn't know on what else there was to say, as he was still really learning about these sorts of things. The fact that he was new was also something that left him a bit uneasy as to what to say. Things didn't get any easier when he heard the main door open.
"Say... who's the new guy?" came a male voice from behind him.
Jeremy looked back over his shoulder to see two new arrivals. One was a male, clearly based off of an Ankylosaurus with his scales largely black in color and the larger armored plates being a blackish-gray. Beside him was a female Parasaurolophus coming in beside him. Heather seemed to recognize them, likely having met them at her own earlier sessions, and soon moved on to actual introductions, since Jeremy hadn't actually gotten to that with Sora and Yuki.
"Walter, Candace, Sora, Yuki, this is Jeremy," Heather introduced him, "He's my bond mate and recently joined Dinotopia for me."
Jeremy thought there was a rather giddy tone in Heather's voice, but he didn't say anything on that. He did manage a response as Walter and Candace approached and moved to their own lockers.
"Hello," Jeremy spoke, "Uh... you're here for a workout too?"
"Yeah!" Yuki nodded, "hopefully to win a nice man over in some of the classes..."
"We heard that some humans come to the gym too... as Lyre doesn't have anything quite like this," Sora nodded and sounding a bit less excited then her sister.
"For me it's training," said Walter with a confident smile, "I'd had rather brittle bones all my life... but it got worse in my old age... but now... not only are my bones stronger, I have some extra armor! Perfect protection to dominate the Mesozoic Fight Club."
Jeremy nodded at that. Animalia, while they took a rather pacifist stance when it came to things like war and pretty much forbid any sort of fight to the death between Animalians, they did seem to be okay with the various combat sports. Things like wrestling, boxing, and MMA were actually rather popular in Animalia, he'd found. He figured that that would enable Animalians to have an outlet for any and all "aggression" and to serve it in a way that would be aimed for a sporting competition rather than true conflict. Though, Jeremy was only there to stay in shape and be there for Heather.
"I'm just here to stay in shape," Candace answered, "I joined Project Phoenix to deal with Leukemia... and picked Project Dinotopia because... well... I'd actually found the Parasaurolophus to be rather beautiful. And as a kid... I always figured it was rather musical with its head crest..."
"I take it isn't?" Jeremy asked curiously.
"Not musical... it can help me amplify my voice, but it's not musical in the sense that it would function like a musical instrument," Candace answered.
"Well... it is nice to meet you," Jeremy said to them before turning to prepare for the morning workout session.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And of course meeting those that were at most of the workout sessions that Heather had was interesting. Jeremy found that the new Dinotopians actually seemed to be far less "judgmental" around Heather as some of the humans in Lyre and the other Animalians had the potential to be. Perhaps it was they had all become dinosaurs as well and thus had some measure of acknowledgement that Heather and Tyra had had the gene that enabled the transformation to work and perhaps that since Heather hadn't attacked them before their conversion they didn't have the uneasiness that others had. The fact that they were friendly was enough to give Jeremy some comfort that even on days when he had work, Heather wouldn't be "alone."
"From what I heard they might even donate their land for an Animalian colony there," Heather said slowly.
"I think that was part of the selling point," Jeremy smiled, "which, I suppose would give Animalia some comfort in that they'd get an opportunity to expand and share what they have to new areas..."
"Do you think it'll work?" Heather wondered.
"The uplifting process should work fine," Jeremy answered, "Project Thylacine has had fewer difficulties than either Cenozoic or Mesozoic."
"No not that... the colony thing," Heather asked.
"That I really can't say," Jeremy shrugged, "THAT would depend entirely on how well they accept Animalians. The British would have the potential to be very welcoming... Though I really don't know on Spain."
Heather didn't answer and simply stared into her easel.
"They give you an official advertising assignment?" Jeremy asked.
"With regard to the potential colonies there... yes," Heather answered, "I have some ideas for the artwork... but I need something more for the slogan that would be attractive to people in the area... and my high school Spanish is a bit rusty."
"Spanish in Spain is a bit different from Spanish as it's taught in the US," Jeremy answered, "I think it's a dialect sort of thing... and English in England... is... also different... in a way. Maybe you could talk with them to get ideas on what sort of slogan they think would work best and give you the phrasing you need."