Oh, thank goodness, Pangaea thought when Littlefoot announced that they had reached the edge of the Great Valley. Ahead of them, he could see the gap in the Great Wall through which one of the valley’s rivers flowed out into the Mysterious Beyond. If it was indeed the same river that Littlefoot and his friends had followed in the ninth movie, then presumably it would only be two or three days’ journey to the Big Water (maybe less if they managed to travel faster than the gang). Although he was apprehensive about being outside the relative safety of the Great Valley, Pangaea couldn’t deny that he was excited for this trip. It would be his first real look at the Mysterious Beyond untempered by the mortal terror of imminent death by sharptooth (though that scenario could very well present itself during their trip, he considered). Of course, the most important thingósecond to avoiding death, obviouslyówas to get Ozzy and Strut to their new home and make sure that they were satisfied with it; otherwise the egg stealers might very well return to the valley, and they would be back to square one.
“So we’re here? Does that mean that we can take these things off now?” Ozzy asked impatiently, picking at his blindfold.
“Not yet,” Pangaea told him firmly. “We’re not fully out of the valley yet.”
Pangaea turned to the group’s three escorts. “Thank you, Littlefoot. And you, Mr. Threehorn, Rob. We’ll be back in a few days, we hope.”
“And don’t worry, we’ll be careful,” he added to Rob.
Pangaea then surveyed his group of traveling companions: Sparky, guiding Ozzy and Strut on their vine “leash” like they were her pets (Living the dream, Pangaea thought wryly); Daniel, still perched on Sparky’s head like a winged hat; Nana, silently following along; Miles, in his newfound Amargasaurus form; and Guido, awkwardly waving goodbye to Rob, Littlefoot, and Mr. Threehorn as they left. And the gang of five thought they were a weird herd on their first adventure, he thought amusedly.
Pangaea took a first hesitant step towards the mouth of the canyon. He didn’t feel like much of a leader, though this whole crazy trip had been his idea, so he felt that he should at least take some responsibility. In any case, he hoped that they would travel in as tight a group as possible, to run the least risk of any one of them running into danger.
“Uh…all right, guys,” he said timidly. “I guess we oughta get started.”
--------------------------------------------------
Screech ground his teeth in frustration. He couldn’t argue that Thud was right; if the two of them abandoned Red Claw, the deranged sharptooth would surely view it as a betrayal, and consider them yet another pair of enemies to obliterate. Even without his vision, Red Claw would have no difficulty hunting the two fast biters down by scent, probably killing them in their sleep. “All right,” Screech growled, I’ll admit you do have a point there. Red Claw probably wouldn’t react to it well…”
But Screech wasn’t ready to give up his argument just yet. “But at the rate he’s losing it, how long before he kills us out of sheer craziness, whether we’re still with him or not?” He paused, trying to think of how to argue his point further. “If we left him…we could go far away, find another territory. What do you think he’ll do: follow us right away, or try to get his revenge on the leafeaters first? What are the odds he’ll even survive that? We could live in a cave, or up on a mountain, or somewhere else he wouldn’t be able to reach us. It couldn’t be worse than having to keep following suicidal orders like this, right?” Truth be told, Screech wasn’t entirely certain himself.
