(Art by me. I sincerely hope my picture of  Logan doesn't make your eyes bleed, though it probably will)

He stood there, calmly, quietly. He had just been given the go-ahead to enter the nursery, where four little baby velociraptors unknowingly waited for their surrogate father to see them for the first time. Yet a simple action like pushing a door open suddenly seemed incredibly arduous and complex once he realised doing so was going to change his life forever.

His breath was a little shaky- would they like him? He was great with animals, having studied the behaviour of many different creatures- his favourites being birds (especially those in the corvid family, being highly intelligent and mischievous beings). But this was completely different- there wasn't anything natural about the animals he was tasked with raising, being genetically engineered creatures modelled after the fierce dromaeosaurs that once roamed in the past. Their behaviour was likely going to be unpredictable, or difficult to interpret.

Hands gripping his brown coat, Logan sighed. He had done enough worrying for the day- it was time to get this over with. He grabbed the door's handle, and pushed it open using one of his shoulders.

The first thing he noticed was the four little creatures rolling around in the room. His blue eyes quickly flitted over to see a man in a guard's uniform standing by the door, who smiled at Logan- and he, in turn, smiled back.

"They're all yours," the guard nodded, and gestured to the four raptors. Logan bit his lip; they didn't seem to show any signs of noticing him. One was fully feathered, a teal colour with dark and white stripes going down her body- she was the smallest, and was sniffing one of her sisters. The one she was sniffing was a dark shade of green, with thick, dark stripes on her back which looked like she had been painted that way- she had no feathers whatsoever. Next was a dark-brown individual with jet-black stripes; a mohawk of feathers on her head, as well as her arms and her tail- she was the largest. Finally, there was a slightly smaller grey individual, with a blue stripe starting around her eye and ending at the tip of her tail- she had blue feathers in the same places as the brown one.

Logan took a step forward, and the four snapped their heads towards him.

"Do they have names?" Logan asked. "It'll be easier for me to train them if I can use names."

"They do," The guard responded. "Green one's Charlie, teal one's Delta, grey one's Blue and brown one's Echo. I have made sure not to interact with them, so they can imprint on you."

"But imprinting isn't through interaction, it's through sight," Logan explained.

"Well," the guard said. "They have been engineered so that they won't imprint on the first living thing they see, but rather, on the first thing they interact with- not including other young raptors like themselves, of course."

Logan nodded, and began to walk towards the baby raptors. Charlie sniffed the air, while Delta just stared, tilting her head. Blue clicked at him- Echo took a big step forward, watching his moves intently.

"Hello," He said, smiling at them- but making sure not to show his teeth, as this was seen as a sign of aggression among many species- mostly mammals, but he wanted to be sure that the raptors would not feel intimidated by his presence.

He held his hand out- Echo moved forwards, and brushed her snout against his fingers, taking in their scent intently. Carefully, he stroked her head, feeling the contrast of her rough scales and her soft feathers.

In that moment, he silently promised himself that he would give these creatures the best life they could possibly have. They would become a pack- and he, their alpha.