Velociraptor

Velociraptor was not impressive alone. It was small — barely taller than a

man's waist, light-boned and fragile compared to the armored giants of the

Dominion. A single Velociraptor was a nuisance. A pack of them was a death

sentence. They hunted with a coordination that unsettled even the gods. One

would feint. Another would flank. A third would strike from behind, sickle

claw finding the precise spot where armor thinned or muscle softened. They

communicated — not with words, but with calls and gestures and a shared

understanding that none of the great brute predators possessed. Sophia

noticed them. She watched these small, clever hunters solve problems together

and felt something stir that she had not felt since the first sparks of

thought emerged from the meeting of life and death. It was not intelligence.

Not yet. But it was the seed of it — the faintest suggestion that survival

might one day depend not on size or strength, but on the ability to think.