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LBT Fanfiction / Re: Shorty's Dark Past 3.0
« on: April 17, 2024, 09:19:35 AM »Chapter 2: Shorty’s Everyday Life Pt.2 - Relicts Of A Dark Past
Shorty wouldn’t have noticed the kid if the light-gray-colored longneck hadn’t spotted him. Upon realizing who he was, the kid panicked and jumped out of their hideout, prepared to run if they needed to. Shorty jerked out of his gloomy thoughts upon seeing the trembling kid.
The green longneck didn’t even recognize them by name like so many dinosaurs who never bothered to care about him, prompting him to be mutual about it. Usually, he’d come up with a witty way to mock or harass the kid, but he didn’t quite feel like it today. Too heavy were the worries he carried with him, but perhaps some distraction could help him focus later. With this in mind, he opened his mouth to speak up.
“Whatcha’ doing?” he asked the timid longneck boy, who grew more panicked by the minute. Shorty immediately noticed the kid’s shaky knees. “Is this some kind of workout? What part of the body does it strengthen?”
As Shorty chatted casually, the sound of the kids' teeth clattering rang through the air at an increasing volume, even overtaking the screeches of the flyers who roamed the skies above. He knew very well why the child was trembling at the sight of him, but he did his best to address them without malice. Right now, he didn’t want to hurt the boy. He just wanted to chat, maybe play a game or two. But the child didn’t look like they were in any shape to talk or play.
“Sorry, did I interrupt you? What were you doing? Perhaps doing business down there?”
Shorty had to force himself not to laugh out loud. The comment slipped from his mouth out of habit before his brain could interrupt. Usually, he would have said stuff like this at the first opportunity. Only now, as the kid instinctively ducked even lower in his presence, it occurred to him that his question might come across as offensive. Then again, in the back of his mind, he already knew the foolishness of his attempt at peaceful communication with the child.
“N-n-n-n-no, I w-w-wasn’t d-d-doing t-that,” the kid stuttered, giving Shorty an even harder time staying serious. “H-h-hide and S-s-s-seek, y-y-you know?”
“Well, if you shake any harder, you might do business anyhow.”
Shorty couldn’t help but blurt it out, seeing tears pop out of the kid’s eyes as he ridiculed him. But Shorty didn’t do it on purpose, harassing the child instinctively. Like hatchlings who learned to walk without thinking about every step they took, he had learned to insult and mock others. Although he knew it was too late to fix his faux pas, he nonetheless made an offer.
“Hey, how about it? You let me play a few Hide and Seek games with you, and I won’t tell your friends you nearly made a mess? Do we have a deal?”
Unfortunately, the kid was already petrified in fear, unable to move his lips and limbs and trembling so hard that Shorty reckoned a mere breeze would be enough to push him over.
“I take that as a ‘yes’?” Shorty prompted, giving the boy just a little poke, which indeed tripped and fell him. The resulting eruption of hysterical cries quickly alerted whoever the boy was playing with. Before Shorty knew it, another longneck, pinker than healthy for a longneck, stormed into view, yelling as she did.
“Leave my dear Skitter alone, you bully!”
Shorty had never seen the girl before but couldn’t be bothered to correct her presumptuous accusations, for his point had already been proven.
“You can have him; I don’t need a loser who c-c-can’t t-t-talk p-p-p-properly.”
Shorty truly wasn’t in the mood to bully the kids around but didn’t like the thought of the girl having the last word over him. Thankfully, the newcomer didn’t seem interested in a fight, instead patching up the damage he had caused.
“Come, Skitter, don’t listen to this bully, let’s just play somewhere else…”
Right, that’s who I am — a bully.
Resigned, Shorty watched the two children retreat out of sight until he could no longer hear the pathetic chokes of the crying boy. Finally, an audible exhale left his throat. Somewhere deep down, he actually wanted to play.
*
“I try to be nice and play, but what do I get?!”
A juvenile tree was snapped clean into two as a green tail slammed into it and cut it like a blade. Shorty paid the dying tree no attention as he pressed forward to make room for the anger he harbored in his heart. While playing bully brought him great joy, it didn’t leave him satisfied. Today, he didn’t want to be a bully, yet others seemed to trust their prejudices more than the words he spoke and the messages they carried.
“It truly doesn’t matter, or does it?!” he yelled into the empty jungle after ensuring he was alone, for a stranger mocking him for his outburst would only contribute further to his terrible mood. “Whether being a bully or trying to be nice, others never offer what I truly want from them! Can’t they just do what I want them to?! Can’t they just fucking play along?!”
He had to take in a fresh breath of air before yelling louder than before.
“Can’t I just get it right just once?!”
Quite frankly, Shorty had enough of this. While he’d love to have someone to play games with, such a dinosaur didn’t exist - certainly not within his herd. Shorty hadn’t realized it for quite a while, although he was fully aware of it now. Unknowingly, he had built a reputation over the years that preceded him no matter where he went in these lands. Worried parents who swarmed around their offspring at the first mention of him, oblivious old farts who shunned him by default, and even the youngest of children who shouldn’t know better; it didn’t matter.
Everyone knew his name, and everyone only ever looked down on him rather than seeing his vast qualities as a longneck. They saw a pitiful kid no one wanted, a bitter loser, a rambunctious troublemaker, and a nuisance best to be avoided. No one knew he had feelings, too; no one considered what he had had to live through to become who he was. Just thinking about it made him furious. With no apparent outlet available, he pushed a nearby boulder across the muddy ground until shoving it tired the boy, leaving it far from its original position.
Once he caught his breath, he glanced grimly into the distance. Even if he tried to change his ways, others wouldn’t look at who he was but instead rummaged in their brains until they found the image of him they wanted to see. The little longnecks he didn’t even know were perhaps the best example. Quite likely, they had seen him for the first time today yet their initial reactions had been fearful and contemptuous. Frankly, it drove him mad.
The recognition of his strength filled Shorty with pride but left a taste much more bitter than the sweetness of victory on his tongue. He didn’t feel any happiness as he thought about it. The contradictions between the things he valued and those he desired were alarming, sending him on a spiraling path that never led to the results he wished for. Frankly, it was infuriating.
Regardless, Shorty felt like his point needed further validation. He really desired to play an ordinary game like an ordinary child today and would see to it that he could experience it, no matter the cost. If random strangers got petrified like a mountain at the mere sight of him, what about kids he knew? What about the insufferable hatchlings, for example? Those hatchlings he used to protect? Those hatchlings he particularly liked to bug when he was bored?
Like they’ll play with me… but what have I got to lose?
He knew his odds of succeeding, but he had to try nonetheless. Shorty had a rough idea of where they all lived and knew they often played together. A grim, borderline evil expression briefly flashed across his green face as a plan forged underneath the big bump on his head. If he couldn’t get to invite himself into a game of theirs by playing the nice guy, then he might as well stop trying and keep working on his reputation.
And if, for some reason, his quest failed entirely, he still had a plan B.
*
Although the dinosaurs he wanted to meet didn’t live too far away, it still took Shorty until noon to arrive in the general area where the children would most likely be playing or hanging out. These were arguably the busiest hours of the day, and Shorty knew better than to take the common pathways through the forest. While technically, there was no need to be secretive, Shorty still avoided populated areas and other herd members’ nesting areas, regardless of whether people were at home. He truly didn’t need disdainful glances and hissed insults to send his mood further plummeting today.
Besides, what reason did he have to hurry? The average day just kept on dragging on and on with nothing significant to do. Time passed awfully slowly, with nothing particular to do or particular events to look forward to other than finally growing up and becoming independent. He only ever had a schedule or appointments if Bron took care of that. Consequently, no amount of detours deterred him in any way as long as it spared him the trouble of running into folks he didn’t like.
Shorty began evaluating his chances of success while wading through a waist-deep, gentle-flowing brown soup of a creek that had flooded following a likely overnight rainstorm. The eight hatchlings he used to protect had grown into fine children now. By now, they were likely older than he had been when he started caring for them. As soon as he reached the other side, faint, distant laughter told him they were home today. Grimacing, he shook the water off his scales before following the laughter.
When he considered how they would always goof around with no worry in the world, he couldn’t help but feel envious of their carefree lives. Many years had gone into these lands, but Shorty still often caught himself remembering things he’d rather have forgotten from his early childhood — things that would make many a folk’s blood freeze in shock if he told them he’d seen and experienced them at such a young age. Shorty was accustomed to the trauma, but situations like these made him wonder…
Could he have been a carefree child, too, if things had gone a little differently?
Shorty suddenly had second thoughts about wanting to play with these kids. As he gradually got closer to their playgrounds, he spotted a group of adults who stood in a circle a little distance away, seemingly engaged in lively chit-chat. Their mere sight reminded him brutally of several reasons that led him to hate these kids with a deep passion. Had Shorty already grown to their size, he would immediately give them a piece of his mind. Unfortunately, they still towered above him tenfold, prompting him to brood silently over his misgivings.
If he looked at the bigger picture, he could only conclude that the eight females were the main culprits behind Shorty’s many setbacks in his recent life. When Bron had offered him and the hatchlings for formal adoption, they had taken them under their clutches, each of them adopting one of them. On the other hand, he had been left behind in the commissary care of Bron, who, thanks to his duties as a leader of their newfound herd, rarely had time to spare for him.
To this day, Shorty couldn’t fathom how anyone could decide to love a constantly crying hatchling that wasn’t even their own. Bron hadn’t been able to love him like that, even though he had been so far above them then. Why couldn’t there have been a ninth female taking him in, too, loving him just like a parent, encouraging him for the silliest nonsense he did…
Alas, neither of these females was interested in taking him in. Shorty reckoned his life could have seen significant changes, taking better directions. He may be a very different longneck today. Maybe he’d have friends instead of sending everyone running in fear; maybe he’d be popular rather than a hermit avoiding others; perhaps he’d even have a girlfriend looking up at him. As he thought about it, Shorty couldn’t help but wish for all these things, wished he didn’t have to play the tough guy to get any kind of recognition and attention.
He could have a very different life right now. Therefore, he was very passionate about holding that grudge, spitting in their general direction from a safe distance. He knew their decision wasn’t the only reason for being who he was today, but he felt too bitter to consider that his troubled past likely had a role to play, too. Regardless, he had more than one reason to hold them accountable, for they had not only offended him personally but denied their children knowledge, which was so crucial that it made his blood boil just thinking about it.
Shorty hated these little pests with a passion. The laughter the light breeze carried to his location instilled fury into his hurt heart. He wanted to laugh too and enjoy himself. They were adopted into families he could only dream of, enjoying their childhood while he was just waiting to outgrow his. Regardless of his deep hatred for these kids, he still deemed it unfair that nobody had ever told them.
They were all siblings. They didn’t know they were family.
Only Shorty and Bron knew about it, and Shorty knew that Bron had told them all about it, too. It couldn’t be a coincidence that they all ended up building their nests in close proximity, that they all decided to be buddy-buddy with each other, or that these kids always played among themselves.
When Shorty thought about it, it honestly made him sad. Siblings, for better or for worse, were something special. To withhold such crucial information from these kids was truly cruel. Even if he lost his memory today, he’d want someone to tell him he used to have siblings long ago. But that was a story he didn’t want to bring up right now.
One could argue that it was just as cruel of him not to tell them, and they would be right. Even Shorty couldn’t deny such a thing. He had tried telling them several times. They just wouldn’t believe him. Shorty had many reasons to feel hatred towards these kids, but the great ignorance of their ancestry truly tested his limits. They essentially denied him the credit for keeping them alive all this time, and Shorty did not appreciate being denied the credit he deserved.
Had he made a different decision back then, they wouldn’t be so carefree today and possibly not even alive, but how could they know about all of this? Child amnesia was scary; they had been too young to remember, just as he couldn’t remember his mother. However, that was also a story he’d rather not reminisce about right now.
Regardless, Shorty had played a vital part in their lives, and unless adequately credited for it, he would continue to exert revenge for their ignorance. However, today, he had different plans. Sighing after making sure the adults hadn’t noticed him, he followed the hearty sounds of laughter and chatter until he found the source.
Well, here goes nothing…
*
When Shorty broke through the foliage, he wasn’t surprised to see only seven kids; one of the eight was a bit more… unique and rarely hung around the others. His sudden entry was met with varying levels of shock, fear, and surprise on their faces, their laughter dying faster than he could blink at them. Shorty had already anticipated such a reaction. While slithering through the jungle earlier, he had prepared his mind for the conversation to come, lest it escalated too.
“Relax,” he said, wiping his mind clean of all his hatred and masking his disdain with a cloak of laid-backness. “I’m not here to trouble you. Today, I just wanna play a few games.”
Even though Shorty made his best effort to look unsuspecting and act honestly, his offer fell on deaf ears. A trio of three girls all wearing varied shades of subdued pink hues, were the first to recover. Shorty didn’t even remember their names, for they were of little interest. Though, back when he still led them around the deserts, he called those “the troublesome pinks” and he hadn’t been too far off with that name choice.
“Oh no, guys, look!” the first one shouted.
“It’s him!” the second one added dramatically.
“You know what that means?” the third girl prompted.
“Green loser alert!” they announced together as they shared brain cells, prompting everyone to shake out of shock and begin laughing.
The nerve…
Shorty could feel his brow twitching, but he knew better than to cause a scene where the adults were close enough to hear them cry if he made them.
“Ha ha, very funny,” he mused, attempting to keep his hatred in check. “I didn’t call you “troublesome pinks” for nothing when you were still soiling the nest, that’s for sure.”
Shorty couldn’t help hinting at these past times, but, just as always, they wouldn’t even give it a thought.
“Oh, you and your delusions again!” a kid in grayish color patterns complained, nudging his brother wearing the same colors but with dark and light tones inverted instead.
“Yeah, stop spilling nonsense that never happened, you freak!” his sibling added, nodding back at his brother.
“Go play hero somewhere else and stop giving us these weird nicknames; they’re not funny,” another boy in pale green demanded.
Oh, you little shits…
Shorty had expected things to fail, but he hadn’t expected that they would also begin to gang up on him when they were all together like that. As a matter of fact, he was on enemy territory, and these pests knew it. Whenever he caught any of them alone or far away from their parents' reach, they weren’t nearly as brave.
Stupid brats, don’t get cocky just because your mommies are around!
He wanted to lash out and smack their faces, but he knew that wouldn’t solve anything. If they didn't even give him a chance, he would use one of the comebacks he prepared for this occasion.
“So that’s a “no” from you? Not even some good ol’ Hide and Seek?” he prompted.
“Y-you’ll just shoot rocks at us again when we’re n-not looking!” the last of them, a completely white, rather skittish boy, accused. The entire group huddled together and resolutely nodded at that statement.
“Yeah, like I’m gonna do that with your mommies right around the corner; I’m not that stupid,” Shorty retorted, growing more angry by the second, but instead of making room for it, he decided to try to play his last trump card.
“Alright, what if I promise to leave you alone if you let me play for a while today?”
The offer should have sparked their interest, but he underestimated their distrust and the fact that they were starting to be old enough to use their brains instead of being gullible like they used to be. After a quick moment of hushed conversations he couldn’t catch, one of the pink girls announced their reply.
“If you’re oh so desperate to play Hide and Seek with us, you’ll have to play by our terms instead of making empty promises you won’t keep anyways.”
Listen here, you little shit…
“Chant, ‘I’m a loser with no friends,’ three times while chasing your tail or try making us play with our mommies around.”
Shorty deadpanned. They had him, and he knew it the moment he realized it. Lashing out at them and making a scene would mean he had never been serious about it in the first place, and accepting their terms would just be a free humiliation ticket - one he’d never hear the end of if the tale spread among the other youngsters. A violent clash ran its course in his brain for a few seconds. Declining would mean defeat. Accepting would mean losing face. Neither option was an option, but he had to choose regardless. Defeat or loss of pride? Which was it?
“I’m a loser with no friends,” Shorty said as neutrally as he could while beginning to chase his tail half-heartedly. “I’m a loser with no friends.” Shorty began to feel terrible, his voice trembling as his mind continued to fight his decision, but he forced himself through a third lap anyway to get it over with. “I’m a loser with no friends.”
Shorty honestly just wanted to disappear at that moment, but the heavy surprise on the children’s faces meant at least that they never expected him to do it in the first place.
“Not it,” he added quickly. Their hushed voices immediately exploded, and the whole group suddenly fell into disarray. The boy could vaguely retrieve mentions of a plan B before everyone tried to beat each other, repeating after him.
“F-fine, we’ll play with you then,” one of the pink girls announced, who also happened to be ‘it’ for this round. “I’ll count one hundred treestars; you better be hidden by then!”
*
Little later, Shorty cowered underneath a blanket of large-sized ferns he had chopped down to build a failure-proof hideout. He still felt a hotness in his face, which had nothing to do with the sweltering heat that came with the early afternoon. When was the last time he had done something this embarrassing? He honestly couldn’t remember.
Shorty felt terrible, but he got them to play with him, although he no longer felt the urge, thanks to his embarrassment. Still, if he wanted to appear any more trustworthy than he was commonly seen, he needed to stick to his words and keep playing until he was found. As such, he waited. And waited. And waited some more. He waited until he was certain of it.
They had ditched him.
*
The small longneck stood perfectly still, her emerald eyes intently observing her target as she waited. The mossy smell of damp wood and wet greenery that usually hung in the air in the dense jungle she lived in was replaced by a flowery scent sticking to her snout. She had seen her target indulge itself in the huge, vibrantly orange-colored petals of a pleasant-smelling, fairly sizable flower, so the girl had decided to rub her little snout in this type of flower as well.
Now equipped with its heavenly perfume, the child hoped her target would find her snout just as enticing as a natural flower. Seated on a nearby log, it rubbed its many tiny legs together while preening its delicate, two-rowed wings. The child attempted to edge a little closer, hoping that such creatures had a poorly developed sense of hearing, as the fallen leaves and the many twigs crunching underneath her toes were sure to give her intentions away otherwise.
Suddenly, the air brimmed with the sound of the insect taking to the skies. It had noticed her! The noisy, buzzing sound these impressively large but ultimately harmless insects made led to the origin of the name everyone called them: Thunderflies. Of course, their noise couldn’t even compete with the booming, crashing, or rolling thunder frequently carried through the air by storms in these lands. Regardless, folks called them Thunderflies, for they lacked a better term to accurately describe the large variety of these often overlooked and underappreciated creatures.
The young girl could hardly contain her fascination, following the insect's fast-paced air maneuvers with her green eyes and forcing her little legs to remain where they were lest her illusion of being a flower be ruined. For a few moments, it seemed as though the insect would take its ultimate leave. The young dinosaur already felt the familiar emotion of disappointment knocking on the fence of her fragile mind, but then…
Oh, it is coming back!
The child rejoiced when the insect abruptly changed its flight course, heading directly toward her. Excitement replaced the fleeting disappointment she had felt before. Would it actually touch down on her snout? Had she finally discovered a foolproof technique to attract these wondersome creatures?
Yes! Just a little closer!
The insect now loomed large in her vision as it hovered mere centimeters from her nose as if double-checking its decision. The insect’s confusion came hardly as a surprise. While she gave off the smell of a beautiful flower, she certainly didn’t look like one. The Thunderfly in front of her belonged to one of the larger kinds. It grew to the size of an average treestar, and, provided it decided to land on her snout, its lengthy, stick-like body wouldn’t even fit entirely onto the platform that her snout provided. But then again, she could still count the cold times she’d lived with her forepaws…
While she wiggled six of her eight forepaws as if to remind herself of her age, the insect decided as it lowered the speed at which its fragile wings were humming. It landed on the tip of the child’s nose without creating a sound.
W-whoa, it worked! It really landed–hey, that tickles!
Immediately upon taking perch, the insect began working on every bit of her scaly skin with its many legs. A set of stick-like extensions at its face simultaneously began to probe her skin for anything edible. The girl felt overwhelmed at the sudden influx of stimuli and barely managed to stay still as the actions of her little friend tickled quite a bit. From up close, she could see things that usually escaped her eyes.
She already knew from previous observation that Thunderflies — or most insects, for that matter, sported eye-like features that often covered large portions of their faces. But only now did she discover that they were split into countless segments, each appearing to be an independent, if unmoving, eye. The creature crawled a little closer in its search for food, exposing the grotesque details of its mouth. Had these creatures decided to grow a few magnitudes larger, they would be material for the scariest nightmares she could think of.
From a distance, most kinds of Thunderflies appeared black, but up close, she could tell that, when interacting with the light of the Bright Circle, the surface of their bodies shone with a multitude of shiny colors. Green was especially prevalent in her little friend. Still, some parts of their segmented body also had a bit of orange and blue mixed in, resulting in a colorful display that matched the beauty of a flower - except these creatures weren’t pretty at all but grotesque in every sense.
Grotesque, despised and ignored. Just like me, huh?
The girl sighed as she locked her two big eyes with the countless small eyes of her little friend. Creatures like these were commonly overlooked by the average longneck she knew. These simple-minded folks only cared about anything edible and those things that could eat and harm them. Some had a family, children, or lovers to worry about. They didn’t care about the beauty of the world and the many plants and creatures that populated it, though. They only cared about things they found helpful. Frankly, it saddened her.
Things like you and me are not deemed valuable, huh?
The girl had kept these words hidden in the depths of her mind, yet she felt as if her little friend understood her. The Thunderfly stopped looking for the food that didn’t exist on her snout, tilting its head, its wings vibrating as if warming up for take off. The little longneck felt a stinging sensation as she realized the crime she had committed. Deceiving others wasn’t an act of kindness. The insect had turned around hoping to find a meal, but instead, she had fooled it by the smell she had stolen from a flower.
I am very sorry for being a bad girl. You can take off now if you want, Mr. Thunderfly.
Again, she hadn’t spoken these words in any way the insect could have heard or understood, yet the moment her inner voice spoke them, the insect took off, hovering shortly in front of her face as if to say goodbye before leaving and gaining altitude. The girl followed her little friend with her eyes, wistful yet knowing that she couldn’t ever be friends with a creature like it.
That is right. Go! Fly back to your family if you have one or to Ms. Thunderfly if you have one. Thank you for being my little friend, even for a brief while…
Suddenly, the girl’s emotional landscape changed rapidly. Where excitement and joy realm just moments ago, now only a crippling sense of melancholy remained. The size of the world she lived in and the multitude of life it harbored exceeded her ability to imagine and picture it by many magnitudes. Its beauty dazzled her, and its mysteries tickled her curiosity, and yet… even though the world was so big, beautiful, and lively… she was alone.
All alone.
*
Well, it was a stupid idea to begin with…
Shorty had returned to his feet upon realizing he had been abandoned by the little longnecks in his hideout. Despite the atrocity of the act, he didn’t feel nearly as angry as he thought. If anything, he regretted humiliating himself in front of those losers instead of showing them their rightful place. Indeed, he wouldn’t be able to show his face around them for a good while now. Not until he re-installed the fear and restored his dignity, anyway.
Honestly, what was I thinking? If a bully suddenly started playing nice, I wouldn’t trust them either. I’ve been there many times and even made this mistake several times while still with my family! This sucks, but it’s on me…
Dinosaurs just couldn’t be trusted. From earliest childhood, Shorty knew that trusting others was a telltale sign of weakness. Trust yourself, not others. Today’s events had reminded him just how much truth these words held even though they had been installed into him by someone he hated a lot more than those stupid brats who were likely brimming with a sense of victory just about now, laughing their asses off imagining him waiting all day to be found when in truth no one was looking for him to begin with.
Well, it’s not like this is the first time no one bothers to look for me when I run off. If it didn’t make me so mad, I’d even get a bit nostalgic!
Now that the thought had crossed his mind, memories began to hammer in — memories of a time when things were a lot worse than they were now… but also a lot less lonely. Faces flushed past his inner eye. Some he wanted to punch with his tail, some he just wanted to forget, and one face he wished he could still look at today.
Shorty exhaled sharply as a moment of weakness overcame him. He had never once truly regretted running away from that place, but moments like these made him wonder if it had been the right choice. Those brats wouldn’t have upset him because they’d be either dead or living shitty lives, and he’d never have found that useless Bron thinking he could replace the things he had lost. But, alas, some things were beyond recovery. Some things couldn’t be undone, and his running away was one of those things.
Even if he wanted to meet with HIM again and see HER again, he’d have to find them first. In other words, it wasn’t going to happen nor worth the effort. Life wasn’t great, granted, but his circumstances didn’t warrant such drastic and reckless actions. Going on a journey like that would just get him killed. Even Bron hadn’t found what he had been looking for. What were the odds when Shorty didn’t want to find 80% of what he sought? Shorty wanted to see the day he’d grow up and escape this hellhole, finally able to depend on himself. Maybe then he could give it a try. Or perhaps they were long dead by then.
Another sigh escaped his throat. Ultimately, they were mere relics of his past now, for good or for bad. Shorty knew he should have graduated from having these thoughts, but he also knew that there were a lot of things that couldn’t be erased from one’s mind once engraved into it. There were things one couldn’t escape from no matter how hard they tried. His past trauma was one of those things, his bottomless restlessness another.
*****
Time is a scary thing, especially if one has to split it up between various interests. I had hoped this wouldn't happen but other interests and my job soaked up more time than I anticiated. Ducky falling into old habits again, huh? Oh well, here's another chapter anyway
![:rhett_smile by Rhett&AliTogether770 :rhett_smile](https://www.gangoffive.net/Smileys/gof/Rhett_Smile_small.png)
While the first chapter dealt with Shorty's relationship with Bron, this one explores his relationships with his environment. He's a bully and disliked by many, and he has no friends. He's avoided, feared, looked down on. Shorty has always been distrusting of others and very proud, which led to him not having the best social interactions. Now, he is isolated and he is beginning to realize that things may be beyond repair once again just like the family he abandoned for reasons that will remain unknown for a while longer. He's frustrated, angry and sad. A dangerous state of mind that can quickly deteriorate if one isn't careful.
I felt that this never really came across in the previous version of the story. The 10th movie only vaguely hints at Shorty being a bully and one could only speculate if he's a loner. Considering the many things the movie forgot to consider, any side characters from Bron's herd naturally wouldn't have fit into the story anyway so I've been wondering how Shorty may have spent his daily life. Shorty is a largely misunderstood character both canonically and within the narration of this tale. I hope the chapter shows some of that. Even Shorty doesn't always understand himself, one time being a horrible bully (even if he didn't do anything here) and then craving love and affection like any normal dinosaur would. It's his complicated history that leads to all these desires counteracting each other and worsening his situation over time as his priorities antagonize each other for the most part.
The story starts in a fairly introspective sense but worry not for there will be more interactive scenes soon (however soon that will be, lol
![:bolt :bolt](https://www.gangoffive.net/Smileys/gof/bolt.gif)
I'll leave the mysterious scene uncommented for now. Some of you may be able to tell who it is, everyone else will find out in a chapter or two
![:exactly :exactly](https://www.gangoffive.net/Smileys/gof/exactly.gif)
The next chapter will possibly be posted with less of a break as it's actually mostly done and might see completion if I have a good writing session later today. It'll cover the sleepstory thematic in more detail and contribute more to the worldbuilding of the place Shorty and Bron live in. Please look forward to it
![Smiling ducky :duckyhappy](https://www.gangoffive.net/Smileys/gof/ducky_smile.png)