#unpredictable | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

raz-writes-the-thing · 1 year ago

Text

Unpredictable // Chapter One

Ian Malcolm x Original Female Character / masterlist

Chapter Summary: Lyanna Grant, niece to Alan Grant finds herself working on her uncle's latest dig site.

Unpredictable Tag List: (send an ask to be added to a tag list!)

Palaeontology. It was not an occupation that was extremely popular these days. However, it's always been what Lyanna wanted to do. Ever since she was young and visited the local museum for the first time. She must have been around eight. Her uncle had waited until she was old enough to remember the shock and awe of the things on display. Lyanna could remember gazing up at the razor-sharp teeth jutting out of the jaw of the tyrannosaurus skeleton and she knew. She just knew. This was it for her. Nothing could ever even come close.

Since that oh-so-fateful day, Lyanna became obsessed with the flora and fauna of the past. She read every book she could find, read every article, and found every fact. She collected figures and fossils and studied the subject furiously. It paid off well considering where she was at now, she supposed.

Lyanna was now one of the most well-known palaeontologists in the modern world... although she suspected that part of her reputation may have some due credit to her being the niece of Alan Grant, a professor and world-famous palaeontologist himself. They’d both written a book. His about the evolution of the dinosaurs and hers about the different types of creatures from different eras throughout the prehistoric periods and how ecological changes then impacted the way the animals evolved in turn.

Only a few years ago, Lyanna had finally gotten her Ph.D. certifications in palaeontology and had right off the bat found herself out in the field helping her uncle dig up dinosaurs. Sure, it could be considered mild nepotism but it was great working with family because she didn't feel so alone when she started working in Montana with him. It was a huge leap for her career not having to start at the very bottom of the palaeontological food chain. Alan made sure that the transition was as comfortable as possible. Lyanna really couldn't have asked for a better uncle slash boss...

"You alright there?" Dylan asked, breaking her from her thoughts and redirecting her attention to the task at hand.

"Yeah," she replied wistfully. "Sorry, I was just thinking." Dylan was another graduate from Lyanna’s class. Alan had picked him up too when she’d graduated, claiming that new blood would be good for the digs. And it had been, given that they had a pretty constant trickle and turnover of volunteers as they grew bored with the heat and the sand.

"About what?" He asked curiously, fingering the dust out of a fossilised eye socket.

"Just about how lucky I am," Lyanna replied with a small smile. She really was, and because she was self-aware about it, it made it easier to appreciate just how far she’d come in such a short time.

Dylan snorted and returned to the work at hand. They were currently excavating the skeleton of a Velociraptor. Lyanna was brushing away the few stray sands that were still on the pelvic bone of the creature.

"You know, I'd hate to meet a raptor on a dark Friday night. Look at those teeth- they’d shred through you like a mandolin,” he winced, glancing up at Lyanna quickly.

"Yeah, I completely agree. It would be terrifying. Thankfully, a giant meteor crashed into the earth and prevented that, hey?" She laughed, pleased with her joke. Dylan chuckled and shook his head in mock irritation. “Though it wouldn’t necessarily shred you. See-” Lyanna ran a finger over the teeth worn through with time.

“They’re built to grip and tear the flesh from the bones, so it would be more like…” Lyanna searched for some kind of analogy that would make more sense. “Getting stuck in a bear trap. You’re not going to be able to get out of it without ripping half of your leg off unless you unlatch the jaws.”

"Doctor Grant? We're ready to try again." Lyanna heard the voice say from across the site. She clutched at her hat as a gust of dry wind tried to blow it away.

"I'm going to go check this out, okay?" She said to Dylan while standing up and brushing herself off. He nodded distractedly and kept working. It wouldn’t be long now until they’d be able to get the bones out and shipped off for analysis and study.

Glancing one more time at the partially exhumed skeleton, Lyanna stepped out from under the cover and immediately felt the beating hot Montana sun on her back. If she wasn’t sweating before, she certainly was now.

During her short time working with her uncle, Lyanna had acquired a golden tan that covered most of her body except the parts of herself that were shielded by her clothes. It was almost like she wore tan gloves and thigh-highs. It was a good thing she didn’t get about much without a longer-sleeved shirt or shorts on. Lyanna made a mental note to try and get the rest of herself tanned up the next time she hit town.

Before she came to the desert wasteland that she now called home, Lyanna was quite pale. Many of her friends constantly joked about how she was probably a vampire because of the paleness of her skin and because of how she spent most of her nights studying deep into the early hours of the morning. That was, of course, before she made it out to Montana and was dead asleep by ten in the evening most nights from all the hot sun and hard labour during the day.

Lyanna started jogging when she felt and heard the soft lead pellet enter the ground over by the scanner tent. She wanted to see how the new technology worked, given that this was likely the future of archaeology and she’d need to know if she hoped to run her own digs someday.

She reached the area just in time for an image of a Velociraptor to pop up on the computer screen. Damn. She missed it. There was always next time, she supposed.

"This new program is incredible. A few more years of development, and we won't even have to dig anymore," Danny, working at the computer said. Lyanna did not miss the tone of barely contained glee in his voice.

"I hope not," Lyanna spoke, making her presence known to the group gathered around the computer. “I only just joined this circus.”

“Absolutely,” Alan turned around and grinned at her knowingly. “Where’s the fun in that?”

"It looks in good shape," Lyanna said, gesturing to the image on the screen and leaning in for a better look.

"Chip off the old block you are,” Alan smiled slyly, quiet pride shining through his features. “Yes, it looks about five maybe six feet high. I'm guessing about nine feet long," he reached up and accidentally touched the screen, making the image distort and flicker.

"What'd you do?" He asked Danny, pursing his lips disdainfully.

"You touched it. Dr Grant isn't machine-compatible," Ellie said with a laugh. Lyanna nudged at her shoulder and tried to contain her laughter. If there was one thing Alan hated above all else- it was technology.

While Ellie wasn’t a blood relative, Lyanna still considered Ellie her aunt. She basically was her second mother, considering how she’d been around since Lyanna was quite young. She’d taken her on and supported Lyanna when she needed it, and was a huge source of motivation for her to finish her studies when she’d struggled and hit hiccups along the way.

"Hell, they've got it in for me," Alan added in agreement, touching the top of the makeshift dust shield over the monitor screen.

The image corrected itself and Alan continued assessing the skeleton.

"Look at this," he said, turning to the group of volunteers behind him. "It's no wonder these guys learned how to fly." The group chuckled, not seeing the similarities between the two types of skeletons. It wasn’t a popular opinion shared amongst the scientific community, but knowing Alan as she did, Lyanna knew he wasn’t likely to soon give up on proving it.

"No seriously,” Lyanna piped up, “he's right. Do you see the pubic bone, turned backwards like a bird?" She asked, backing him up.

"It's true. Dinosaurs have more in common with modern-day birds than they do with reptiles," Alan bounced off her comment, turning to face the group. Ah, here is where they got the scientific benefits from their volunteering.

"Look at the vertebrae, full of air sacs and hollows, just like a bird's and even the word "raptor" means ‘bird of prey’."

Lyanna could see that Alan was going to get into one of his infamous rants, and she noticed a couple of volunteers back up a step as if to wander off and do something else.

"That doesn't look very scary. More like a six-foot turkey," they heard a kid's voice from the back of the group call out. Lyanna sighed before rubbing the sand and sweat from her forehead. This was the downside to having volunteers. She would be lying, however, if Lyanna said she didn’t laugh after seeing Alan's reaction.

"Here we go,” Ellie chuckled, knowing what was about to happen.

"Okay then, imagine yourself in the Cretaceous period," Alan began, walking forward and fishing out his raptor claw that he had acquired back on his first-ever dig right out of university. Lyanna could remember many days in his study when he was home between digs fiddling with it and imagining the beast that used to be connected to it. She considered it an heirloom and secretly hoped that Alan did, too.

"You get your first look at this ‘six-foot turkey’. He moves like a bird, lightly bobbing his head.” Alan moved slowly towards the kid, Johnny, Lyanna thought his name was. “You keep still because you think that maybe his visual acuity is based on movement like a T-Rex and he'll lose you if you don't move.” He shook his hand, imitating movement.

"But no," he paused, "not Velociraptor. You stare at him and he just stares right back." By this point, all of the volunteers and workers were captivated by Alan's words, hasty escapes forgotten. Lyanna was too, to be honest. But then again, she’d been enraptured by Alan’s words since she’d been a tot, so it wasn’t all that different to usual.

"And that's when the attack comes," he raised his hands, bringing his two pointer fingers up side by side to show that raptors didn't hunt by themselves. "Not from the front, but from the sides. From the other two raptors you didn't even know were there," he and Lyanna both smirked. Alan stood up straight.

"Because Velociraptors are pack hunters... they use coordinated attack patterns and he attacks you with this," he raised the claw to show Johnny, whose eyes widened comically.

"A six-inch retractable claw, like a razor, on the middle toe," Alan placed the claw between his index and middle finger, showing him where the claw would have been situated. "He doesn't bite your jugular like a lion, no. He slashes at you here or here," he said, raking the claw along different places of the kid's torso.

"Or maybe your belly. Spilling your intestines," he then smiled, crouching down again so that his eyes were level with Johnny’s. "The point is... you are alive when they start to eat you," he grins, satisfied with the reaction he had elicited.

Even Lyanna thought he might have gone a little far.

Johnny nods and hurries off. Alan turned and chuckled after seeing the look on Ellie's face. She didn’t look particularly impressed, but she also looked amused, so Alan must have known he wasn’t in too much trouble.

"Johnny is probably going to have nightmares now, Alan," Lyanna snorted, crossing her arms playfully.

"There's nothing to be afraid of. They've been dead for 65 million years," he said factually.

"It's the power of the imagination," she responded, tapping the side of his head. He smiled down at her and patted her shoulder affectionately.

The three of them started walking up the hill that separated them from the rest of the camp.

"You know, if you wanted to scare the kid you could have pulled a gun on him," Ellie laughed, pulling the brim of her bucket hat down to shield her face from the beating sun.

"Yeah, I know. I can't believe you want to have one of those," Alan replied, gesturing back towards the scanner area where the volunteers were wheeling the new equipment out of the sun.

"I don't think she wants that particular kid," Lyanna laughed, wiping another layer of sweat from her forehead.

"Exactly. I mean, a breed of child would be intriguing. What's so wrong with kids?" Ellie asked, squinting at Alan.

"Oh Ellie... they're noisy, they're messy, they're expensive," Alan listed, trekking up the sand dune.

Ellie and Lyanna both laughed but she could see where he was coming from. Life was becoming more expensive by the day. One or two probably wouldn’t break the average person’s bank, though.

"They smell," Alan added after a second of consideration.

"They do not smell!" Ellie laughed, shaking her head at the audacity.

"Babies smell," he reasoned, pointing an accusatory finger at her. He had her there, Lyanna supposed.

Before Ellie could answer, there was a loud rumbling coming from the sky.

"Is that a chopper?" Lyanna asked, shielding her eyes from the bright midday sun.

"We aren’t due for another inspection,” Alan replied just as the black machine came into view. Then he thought about it for another moment. “Are we?”

"I don't know but let's find out,” Lyanna thought out loud as the chopper started to come down towards the ground. And not on the dedicated landing strip either, she noticed.

“Oh shit,” she exclaimed suddenly, bolting into motion. “The dig!”

#unpredictable #Ian malcolm #ian malcolm fanfic #Ian Malcolm fanfiction #Ian Malcolm imagine #jeff goldblum #jurassic park #jurassic park fic #jurassic park fanfic #jurassic park fanfiction #ian malcolm x ofc #ian malcolm x original female character

30 notes · View notes