(Warning for a mostly obscured dead animal on this page, though no visible blood)
The raptors have dialogue again!
And yes, the little ones have been there, too, they've just stayed hidden (though you can spy Sunny and Dawn in the 4th panel of page 15 if you look closely, right behind Skye). I say little ones, but actually none of the raptors are very small anymore, even the babies. They just look tiny next to their parents, who are pretty big birbs. Sunny probably could have been quite dangerous to Sam just on her own, if she had to. Right now she'll stick to screaming menacingly and doing her best to be very scary.
Speaking of Sunny, her pin feathers are growing fast, and she'll get her proper juvenile plumage soon. You can see some of the pins beginning to emerge in "Cold" (and in "Visit", which is not part of the main storyline, but I still figured I'd draw the kids looking how they look at the time I drew that comic), and the flight feathers are well on their way to fully grown now. Still no fluff on Dawn, but he's already got scales, so he'll manage.
Also finally another appearance from the Indoraptor in this comic. Was it misleading to show him first, and did some readers then expect and hope to see him being scary some more? Perhaps. I kind of hope so, as subverting that expectation ties into why I made this comic (past tense though it's not over yet, but it is starting to be, a couple of pages to go).
Another expectation that I think merits subverting I mentioned already, about Blue being friendly and harmless. I wanted her to be the scary and dangerous raptor in this, partially because of the whole "good raptors and bad raptors" problem the JW movies have that I've talked about before, but also because I think this division of nest protection duties makes sense. Blue is the leader of the pack, and has shown herself before to be both very protective of her packmates and very unafraid to be violent about it. That she doesn't hurt the humans in this case is because she just wants them to go away (of which her body language during her confrontation with the humans is a hint, as based on an observation I've made about how JP/W raptors seem to use their hands as a warning, but it's a hint that's lost on the human characters who understandably are unfamiliar with the nuances of raptor communication), but that doesn't mean the humans were in no danger because it's "just Blue" that shooed them. Had biting started to look necessary, she would have done so, as Sam found out too late. Good thing they had a car as barrier when she decided to make sure they're actually leaving and not just staying where they'd stopped.
I think the official stance on the Indoraptor prototype's temperament is that he's this hyper-aggressive battle machine interested in nothing but looking for things to beat up, and while the data available is not a lot, since we don't see him socializing much, funnily enough I do see his one interaction with a potential peer in the movie - his fight with Blue - to not exactly support that official stance, even though it's a fight? Because instead of deciding Blue is as good a target as any, the Indoraptor is trying to get out of that fight, while Blue is the one attacking him - as soon as he's able to, he just runs away from her. He has a high prey drive, but that's not the same thing as an animal necessarily being aggressive in, for example, a social situation, which Blue on the other hand has shown herself willing to be with her interactions with her sisters and human parents, though she does prefer resolving social conflicts by communication rather than violence if she can. But my point is, if you're not on the menu, which as established Blue and the Indoraptor have at this point in the timeline decided humans are safer to keep out of, and if you're seen as a potential peer to talk to, which to Blue humans might also be due to her imprinting, I'd say out of the two of them Blue is the one you need to watch out for.
Wild animal individuals more comfortable around humans usually are, vs individuals that don't like us all that much. Indo is just going to keep his distance and wait for you to go away, thanks.
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