Here's the next chapter. I apologize for the delay.
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The female fastbiter groaned as she slowly picked herself up off the ground. Her vision was blurry. She shook closed her eyes and shook her head. She could still feel the blood from the assault drip down her side. She reopened her eyes. Her vision had sharpened, but still remained somewhat blurry.
Her head ached as she tried to remember what had happened. She wasn't even sure how long she had been out of it. The last thing she remembered was being with her babies and...then it dawned on her. Her eyes went wide as she searched around for her babies. Upon not seeing them, memories came flooding back, of the large scaly nofooter, a blow out of nowhere...
She let out a few loud screeches of anguish and looked around. She could make out the tracks of the scaly nofooter clearly on the ground, but another pair of tracks were present, following close beside the scaly nofooter. The tracks were not of a sharptooth, but of a leaf-eater.
The mother fastbiter was perplexed. She would have expected a sharptooth to take her babies, but not a leaf-eater. Those types of dinosaurs would rather run than invade a sharptooth's nest. Then she recalled something else; the blow from behind came from a leaf-eater... What made this leaf-eater so different, so bold...?
But she knew now wasn't the time to think about why this happened. Doing her best to ignore her own physical pain, she began to follow the tracks, growling softly. Whoever took her children were not going to get away with it.
Meanwhile, the scaly nofooter and the sharptail were continuing towards Rona's home. They had just reached the edge of the forest where the sinking sands were located. They didn't know the exact location, so they took great care in avoiding the middle part of the forest. It was a relief to them knowing that Rona's place wasn't far from here.
The only sound they could hear, aside from their own breathing, was the baby fastbiters screeching loudly for their mother. They were biting the scaly nofooter's tail, but their attempts had no effect on the legless sharptooth.
The scaly nofooter quickly turned her head towards the kids. “I have been nice to you during this whole journey by not eating you. But if you continue to bite my tail..I can't hold any promises...” She hissed, squeezing the children tighter. The babies chirped in pain.
Immediately, the sharptail intervened. “Don't squeeze them so hard, Mad.” He said. “You don't want Rona to find out you killed them before she gave the order, do you?”
Mad hissed again and slightly weakened her grasp on the young ones. “I'm not afraid of Rona. But I will do as you say, for now.”
The sharptail narrowed his eyes. “You should consider yourself lucky that Rona allowed you to join her.”
Mad looked down at the sharptail. “And she should consider herself lucky that I honored her by joining. The only reason I decided to join her in the first place was because of those...unusual promises she made. If she breaks those promises...”
The sharptail looked angry. “How dare you speak of Rona like that! She is the one who gave you a purpose! And she offered you the chance to get revenge on that fastbiter for what it did to you in the past!”
Mad recalled how the fastbiter had gone into her nest and took her eggs while she was away. Not long after she met Rona, she was given the chance to hunt this particular fastbiter, and she had no objections to it. “Still, Gast, I see no reason to remain loyal to any leaf-eater unless there's something in it for me. What am I going to get when this is all over?”
Gast growled softly. “Impatient, now are we? You'll get what's coming to you, don't you worry.” He paused for a moment as he looked forward. “Ah, we're here.”
Out in front of them was a large, lone hill with a large boulder at the top. The two started to make their way up the hill. In a few minutes, they reached the top. Mad used her head and thick neck to push the boulder off, revealing a large hole in the ground.
Down below, there was a large, cavernous room. But it wasn't empty; it was populated by several dinosaurs, most of them being sharpteeth. At least one flyer was present, but its wing was broken. As soon as the dinosaurs found that there was light coming through, they looked up and began to make a commosion when they saw the scaly nofooter glaring down at them.
“We've brought some newcomers for you all!” She said as she held the baby fastbiters above the hole. She released them and watched as the babies fell down into the deep hole and landed on one of the leaf-eater prisoners, a small longneck.
When the boulder was pushed back over the opening and the light dimmed, the prisoners could hear the scaly nofooter and her partner make their way down the hill. When they were sure they were gone, they turned their attention to the babies.
The babies were frightened and immediately ran off into the corner, shivering. The prisoners remained quiet, watching the babies, most with saddened expressions. The dark room remained quiet, the only sounds being heard were breathing.
After a while, the longneck the baby fastbiters landed on spoke up. “Hello there...” The longneck was female and didn't look very old. She slowly approached the babies. “..it's all right. We're not going to hurt you.”
Another prisoner, the flyer, spoke as well. “We're all in the same predicament together. There's no reason for us to fight..unless we want to doom ourselves faster.” The flyer said in a masculine voice. He moved his wing and winced. “If only those scoundrels didn't break my wing...”
“Not like it would have made a difference...” Another young longneck, a male, said in a low growl. “They have flyers on their side as well..they would have stopped you.”
“Now there...” The female longneck said. “Don't be so negative.”
“Well what do you want me to say” The male longneck said, narrowing his eyes. “Our families don't know we're here. None of us have eaten in days. Who knows how long the sharpteeth in here will last before turning on everyone? And we've already tried to escape.”
The female longneck sighed and looked over at one of the prisoners, a bigclaw, who was leaning against the side, most of his large claws broken from the attempt at digging an opening out of here. She then looked at the sharpteeth, most of which were young fastbiters. They looked starved, but they hadn't yet tried to eat anyone in the room. The flyer had told them the sharpteeth were currently more interested in leaving than eating, but she knew they couldn't control themselves forever.
Before she could speak, the flyer spoke up again. “We aren't doing ourselves a favor by being pessimistic.” He said.
The male longneck glared at the flyer. “And you have some grand scheme to get us out of this?”
The flyer paused. “I've been through worse.”
The male longneck didn't look convinced. “Yeah right. What could be worse than being stuck in a dark hole in the ground and not knowing if you'll survive or see your family?”
The flyer was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Being physically able to see your family but having that stolen away from you due to being banned because of a mistake you made.” He turned his head away.
The male longneck's expression softened a little. “Oh. I'm sorry.”
The female longneck turned her attention back to the babies. She lowered her head and said, “As I said, no one here is going to harm you. Please come on out.” The babies remained where they were. She sighed. She couldn't blame them. Who knew what horror they had went through before they came here?
“We should be preparing for another young sharptooth soon.” The bigclaw, craning his small head up as he glanced up at the roof of the cave.
“What makes you say that?” The male longneck asked.
“While I was being taken away, I overheard one of them speak of a sharptooth their leader was interested in. A rare sharptooth that can speak leaf-eater.” The bigclaw said, swaying his short tail from side to side. “I imagine they reached him by now.”
It didn't take long for the two little longnecks to realize who they were talking about. They gave each other nervous looks and spoke at once. “Chomper..?”
Meanwhile, Tric had reached one of the entrances to the Great Valley. He had gotten a little lost on the way back, but was able to find his way to the valley. He walked into the opening, which lead into a large, sweet-smelling canyon filled with delicious fruit. But he knew he couldn't stop to eat now. He made his way towards the next opening and found himself in the Great Valley.
Him being a leaf-eater was the perfect disguise, or almost perfect anyway. He hoped the swimmer that got away didn't see him, or described him to anyone in the valley. To be on the safe side, he kept to the sections densely covered in foliage. His green body blended in almost perfectly.
He looked around, trying to think of where a sharptooth could hide in the valley. If Rona was correct, there was a small sharptooth residing in the valley. How she knew this, he didn't know, but he didn't question her about it. The last thing he wanted to do was give her a reason to be upset with him. Besides, how hard could it be to find one sharptooth?
Then he heard a familiar voice. He turned his heard towards one of the meadows in the valley. He slowly approached, taking care to get as close as possible without revealing his presence. He saw what looked like an old longneck talking with someone he couldn't see just yet. He moved in closer and when he saw who the longneck was talking to, his eyes went wide.
“Oh no...” Tric said, his voice low. He slowly frowned angrily, baring his teeth. “Not him... He'll ruin everything.” Before the dinosaur could see him, Tric immediately turned around and left. He had more important things to worry about anyway. He decided to look for some mud so he could disguise his coloration. That should make it easier for him to explore the valley without catching the eye of that little swimmer that got away.
The old longneck, who turned out to be Grandpa Longneck, continued to talk to the dinosaur before him, black and white skinned. The dinosaur reminded him of the mysterious dinosaur that the flyers had described, except this dinosaur had a clearly broken leg, fastened to its side by sticks and vines. Another difference was this dinosaur was clearly a four-footer, not the two-footer the flyers had described before. He decided the stranger was an unusual type of longneck.
“Well I hope you enjoy your stay here at the Great Valley.” Grandpa Longneck said, smiling softly. “Stay as long as you like while your leg heals.”
The black and white dinosaur smiled gratefully. “Thank you, sir. I'll try not to get in the way of things.” He said in a male voice. He paused for a second and continued, “And I'm sorry to hear that you are having trouble lately. I hope a crippled dinosaur like myself won't be much trouble.”
Grandpa Longneck shook his head. “No trouble at all.” He pointed his head towards one of the watering holes. “Now why don't you go get yourself something to eat and drink? You don't look very good.” He said, noting how hungry and thirsty the dinosaur looked.
The black and white dinosaur smiled again. “Yes, I shall do that.” He turned around and started to walk away.
Grandpa Longneck spoke up. “Oh, I didn't catch your name!”
The black and white dinosaur paused. “My name is Ateo.”
Grandpa Longneck smiled. “Welcome to the Great Valley, Ateo.”
As he watched the dinosaur leave, he turned his attention back to other matters. It had been a few hours since Tator had given them the information. The sharptooth hadn't left the Great Valley yet; he was confined to one of the other watering holes so that he wouldn't potentially cause trouble, either deliberately or by mistake.
He was unsettled by the disappearance of the dinosaurs as described. He thought back to the threehorn Ducky had talked about. Could the threehorn have something to do with the disappearance? And if so, why? Why would a leaf-eater, or any dinosaur for that matter, capture all these dinosaurs? Not even sharpteeth behaved in such a way.
Even Topsy had to admit that such behavior was abnormal even for a sharptooth. This was one of those rare times the stubborn threehorn had actually agreed with the old longneck on something. But that did little to comfort Grandpa Longneck. Knowing that didn't do much to explain why dinosaurs were suddenly acting in such a way. Could it have something to do with Sinking Sand Flats?
