This is a response to the Land Before Time prompt challenge. The prompt I am responding to tonight was from one of the co-winners of the June and July prompt, LBTLover247. His prompt was: One of the gang realizes they have a crush on someone and they try to deal with it (seek advice, tell that someone, etc)
This story is also a prequel/continuation of the previous one-shot story of mine, Reunions. It also is an experimental attempt at writing a short story in a single 3-hour sitting. As always, I eagerly look forward to your thoughts. (:
First Impressions
“So… you’re telling me that you like him?”
Littlefoot had been prepared for many things when Cera had called him over on this bright spring day. He had been prepared for the usual chewing out for some perceived slight at his friend’s ego. He had been prepared for being roped into another adventure. He had been prepared to be futilely told to not recognize her Star Day. He had been prepared for many things.
But giving relationship advice to a threehorn? Specifically this threehorn? Littlefoot was beginning to think that he would have rather been chewed out.
Her horns were in his face in an instant. Looks like I might get my wish.
“Don’t you dare, flathead! I’m just saying…”
The longneck was quick to take the safe route, “...you want to be his friend?”
“Right! Uh-huh exactly.” Cera confirmed a bit too quickly to fool anyone.
Littlefoot suppressed a sigh for the sake of his bodily integrity.
“Have you tried inviting him to our games?”
Cera sputtered. “What? Are you nuts? Do you honestly think he wants to play the pinecone game with a flathead, beak-face, big mouth, and spiketail?”
“Well, you play with us…” Littlefoot answered.
“Just… look this has to be different,” Cera clarified.
Littlefoot rolled his eyes. “Let me guess: his parents think that we are all bad influences.”
The look of surprise from Cera would have made him laugh at any other time. “How did you know?”
Littlefoot snorted. “Lucky guess.”
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“Dalmar, I want you to stay away from those other children. They are a bad influence!”
The little threehorn nodded in acknowledgement, but was still confused. “What’s a bad influence?
Despite the serious subject matter his mother laughed. “An influence is someone who makes you do things you might not otherwise do.”
Dalmar jumped up with excitement at comprehending a new concept. “Like you?”
His mother sputtered. “No.. yes. But I am a good influence. Just like your father… most of the time. But it is the bad influences you’ve got to watch. Making friends with a sharptooth? What insane rubbish! Especially don’t hang out with that longneck - why Topps lets his daughter hang with that lot I will never know.”
“Now where could that longneck be?”
The threehorn’s head popped through a bush, giving him the halo of verdant green to compliment the light brown coloration of his face. As far as his mother knew he was simply going to settle a score with a friend of his.
“Remember never to back down, Dalmar!”
“I won’t mom!”
But roughhousing was not on Dalmar’s mind at the moment. There was no way that he could deal with Cera with the other males around, lest he be drawn into keeping up appearances. But yet he could not seek her out alone due to her constant entourage of assorted bad influences. The ones that the other threehorn kids avoided out of overt arrogance, but there was always the hint of something else under the surface.
Fear.
As much as he did not want to dwell on it there was a bit of fear under the surface with that gang of seven dinosaurs. Five of them had supposedly killed a full-grown sharptooth! And even though the threehorn kids mocked that claim… none of them seemed as willing to bully the seven as they did with others. Their indirect show of respect was noticeable. Even in Dalmar’s ten years of life he was old enough to recognize an unspoken truth when he saw one.
Many of the others kids feared them. And feared Cera by extension. But yet… that only made Cera all the more enticing to him.
Dalmar frowned as he looked above another bush. How could something with a neck that long be so hard to find?
“Looking for something!”
In a scene utterly undignified for a threehorn, Dalmar quickly turned and ran from the purple blob in the periphery of his vision. Thankfully for the sake of the conversation there was a tree to stop his forward progress.
“Darn it! Not again!”
As much as Dalmar tried his horns remained stuck in their prison of roots. It was every threehorn’s worst nightmare: ramming themselves into a spot they couldn’t get out of.
“Uh… sorry!”
With trepidation Dalmar waited for the source of the voice to step around to the forefront of his vision. As soon as it did he held his breath. It was the purple sharptooth. The vicious threat that would one day cause terror in the valley, so his parents’ claimed, due to the Council’s horrible decision. In a frenzy Dalmar shook his crest from side to side, desperate to get free.
The purple sharprooth seemed completely unaware of the threehorn’s distrust as he waved politely in front of Dalmar, dropping several handfuls of sweet bubbles in the process. “Hello! I’m Chomper! What’s your name?”
The threehorn stopped. He knew that the sharptooth could talk… but to actually hear it…
“I’m… I’m Dalmar.” The threehorn answered with as much confidence as he could muster. His parents had told him to never show weakness. He would face the sharptooth with eyes open and show the bravery that his dignity demanded of him.
He just wished that his legs would stop shaking. And getting his head out of the roots would be nice as well.
Well at least it was only the sharptooth seeing him in this state. No one would believe him.
“There you are Chomper. I was looking for you everywhere, but you were nowhere to be found!”
As if to mock the threehorn’s thoughts the pink Oviraptor emerged through the bushes, her beaked head tilting at an angle as if to ponder the scene that lay before her as she dropped several sweet bubbles to the ground.
“Umm…” Dalmar muttered incoherently as he was now surrounded by an omnivore and carnivore with no easy mode of escape. The only thing that he had now was his confidence and bravado. As his father had often told him ëBoast until you are worth of the boasts you give!’ With that in mind he was going to give these two fiends a piece of his mind.
“I kind of got stuck.”
The threehorn’s confidence fell as soon as the words exited his mouth. How could he try to garner favor with Cera if he couldn’t stand tough when his wits demanded it. As the pink Oviraptor and purple sharptooth edged closer to him he knew the error of his ways. He had showed weakness before a stronger enemy and now he would pay the price.
Suddenly the roots loosened.
“There we go. Just turn your head to the left and then you can go right out of the roots!”
Dalmar blinked at the Oviraptor’s words, taking a moment to comprehend her sing-song voice. Once he did so he found his horned head back in open air. He was free.
“Cera does that sometimes. I guess horns and roots don’t get along.”
“Chomper… remember what we said about threehorn pride? Would Cera like it that you mentioned that about her?”
Dalmar blinked as he watched the conversation before him.
“Right… sorry, Ruby.”
“It’s alright, but first let’s make sure he is alright.”
The threehorn raised his head arrogantly. Trying desperately to regain the dignity that had failed him while he was imprisoned in the roots.
“I am fine.”
The fastrunner and sharptooth did not appear to be convinced, but they wisely said nothing. For the first time in several moments Dalmar had a flicker of confidence. But that was when reality hit him: this egg-stealer and sharptooth had treated him with nothing but support.
And if this ëChomper’ knew Cera enough to know she got trapped in roots too…
“Do you think his head got broke?”
“Shhh… I think that he is just thinking. Like I do in my thinking place.”
Dalmar groaned. I really need to stop spacing out like that.
“My head is not broken, but thank you for your concern,” Dalmar muttered before remembering the sharptooth’s initial question before the mishap, “I am indeed looking for someone. Do either of you know where um...”
Why wait for the longneck? These two seem to know her well enough.
“...I am kind of looking for Cera.”
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“So you decided that you liked this guy when you saw him beat up another guy?”
Cera groaned at her friend’s lack of understanding. Of course a longneck wouldn’t understand the threehorn ways.
“No, Littlefoot. He beat up another guy because he was a jerk to me,” she shifted a bit as she stomped the ground, “He was a jerk to Dalmar too, but still…”
Littlefoot smiled. “So Dalmar isn’t a jerk then?”
Cera snorted. “All guys are jerks! Especially threehorn guys!”
“But you don’t mind this jerk being around you?”
Cera glared at the longneck and his annoying little smile, which grew wider upon seeing her reaction. But she didn’t say a word.
Littlefoot wasn’t wrong.
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“So you guys are getting her sweet bubbles for her Star Day? I didn’t even know it was her Star Day!”
The sound of shushing was almost deafening as both the Oviraptor and Tyrannosaurus tried to quiet the threehorn. It won’t be a surprise if he ruins the surprise!
Ruby leaned in as they walked in the direction where Cera had been last seen. If he could distract her with conversation then that would give them enough time to get the pile of sweet bubbles ready. “Yes, it is her Star Day. But that also means she will be on alert.”
Dalmar looked confused. “Why’s that?”
“Because she knows that we are going to try to surprise her,” the fastrunner said matter-of-factly.
This did not improve the confusion any. “So… why surprise her then?”
“Because forgetting her Star Day is even worse!” Chomper whispered with a laugh. “You know how threehorn are…”
All three of them stopped as both Ruby and Dalmar looked at Chomper. Ruby with both hands on her hips and Dalmar with a dumbfounded expression. Ruby was about to caution her young friend on manners again when Dalmar did something unexpected.
He laughed.
“Yes… I guess I would know, wouldn’t I?”
Unfortunately for the trio the laughter carried far enough for a certain threehorn to hear.
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“Darn it, Littlefoot! What have I told all of you about Star Days!”
Littlefoot tried to move his legs as fast as he could in order to delay his rampaging friend. He had to give the others at least a fighting chance to prepare the surprise despite Cera’s interference.
“Oh come on, Cera… what makes you think that we are going to surprise you again?”
The longneck barely had time to skid to a stop as his friend’s horns appeared in his face as if to point at him for emphasis.
“It was either a surprise being planned by all of you, or one of them listening in to our little conversation.” She dragged her front foot against the ground in a charging gesture, “You had better hope for their sakes it was the surprise.”
Littlefoot allowed himself a smile. “Don’t want Dalmar to know you like him, hmmm?”
Cera growled. “Don’t you start, longneck! I can still make your head a bit flatter!”
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Ruby clung to the small branch as if her life depended on it as Chomper dangled in one of the vines hanging off of the tree like an overripe sweet bubble. The accumulated sweet bubbles, meanwhile, had been placed on the ground in a hastily prepared pile. Only Dalmar remained on the ground, standing in front of the pile in question.
“Cera and Dalmar sitting on a hill…”
“You’re pushing it, longneck!”
“Just buying some of our friends time…”
“Darn it! I knew it! I knew it! You can never trust other kinds to keep their word!”
“Sure you can! We all said that we would never surprise you again. We kept that promise. Now that you know about it, it won’t be a surprise!”
The sound of a scream was followed by the sound of thunderous footsteps. The slightly louder footsteps of another followed shortly thereafter.
“Here she comes, guys!”
Dalmar could only stare transfixed in the direction that the sounds were coming.
“Oh is the surprise already happening? I think we got enough, I do, I do!”
From the same direction as the oncoming chaos came the form of a young spiketail, his back overflowing with sweet bubbles and a small swimmer. They did not see Dalmar until it was too late.
Dalmar only had time for one final thought as he was sent tumbling backwards.
At least the sweet bubbles are here to break my fall.
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Ten years later:
“Me have message from everyone!”
Cera groaned. Petrie was a good friend and a valuable asset to the combined herds. But she wished that somewhere along the sands of time he could have learned normal grammar. Keeping the herds organized into something organized was hard enough as it was.
“And what is that?” She asked neutrally. The herd leader had granted her mate a leave of absence from normal duties today and, much to her annoyance, he refused to reveal why.
“Well by everyone me mean everyone. Me check on where we come from and where we going, and Ruby and Chomper still far away from the herd. They doing well.”
Cera could only mutter a pleased snort in response to that. After all if Chomper was doing well then that meant some poor leaf-eaters obviously weren’t.
“And they want to send you the same message as Dalmar and the rest of us.”
Cera blinked. Something was off about this. “What?”
Petrie smirked. “You ready for your non-surprise?”
The threehorn quickly rose to attention as she nodded for the third-in-command to take her spot. She suddenly realized what was going on as she glared at her herd leader who merely smirked back.
Petrie paused for dramatic effect as he opened his wings triumphantly. “Happy Star Day!”
“Oh no he doesn’t!”
Several longnecks turned their heads as the threehorn sprinted past them, her horns aimed in an attack position. In something between bemusement and respect the longneck herd parted in order to allow her to go through.
Only a certain green longneck had the nerve to say anything.
“Don’t think you’re fast enough, Cera!”
“Bite me, Shorty!”
Cera ignored the laughter from the impossibly tall longneck as she passed the hadrosaur herds and the amused squawks of the flyers. She should have known something like this would have happened if her band of friends ever got back together.
And with Dalmar in the picture it became an absolute certainty.
She sped past the last of the swimmers as her target became visible in front of her. The brown longneck’s bulk stood out against the blue sky like a tree in the barrens, as the tell-tale sight of Ducky and Spike appeared on either side, The sudden sensation of weight on her back only confirmed that the stage was set.
“You too late!”
Cera growled as she pushed herself faster. The scents of the massive beasts in front of her filled her nostrils as she prepared to strike. Only the slight slowing of her body at the last moment confirmed it was for show.
That was when the dinosaurs parted to reveal their surprise.
An adult male threehorn completely covered in sweet bubbles. She barely had time to react when Dalmar nuzzled her, causing sticky sweet bubble juice to cover her face.
“Just like old times, huh?”
As Cera proceeded to chase her mate back to the threehorn herd against the backdrop of her friends’ laughter, she couldn’t help but laugh.
It was good to have everyone back again.
