Fall Prompt Exchange/July 2019 Fanfic Prompt Entry.
FFN Link:
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13381280/1/Boundless-CuriosityDescription: On one ordinary day in the Great Valley, Datum and Axiom’s leaf-eater friends get a little too interested in how the two rainbowfaces have such a wide myriad of knowledge. Deciding to spy on the pair, they’re about to learn that sometimes, one has to rein in their curiosity. Set in Rhombus’ Seven Hunters continuity.
"
To be a leader is to be lonely. It is a lonely journey that will only end with your death or overthrow. It is a journey that you have only begun." — Topps,
The Seven Hunters, Chap. 55
Words in
italics represents character thoughts or flashbacks.
A/N: The events in this spinoff tale are set sometime before the events of
Songs of the Hunters, a part of Rhombus'
The Seven Hunters continuity (with his permission, of course). Preferably, you should have some knowledge of that fic before reading this one to know the characters and settings, but if you haven't read it before,
The Seven Hunters basically revolves around the Gang of Seven turning into sharpteeth. So yes, it is very different from canon
Land Before Time material if you're used to that.
My given fanfic prompt is:
"Write a story about the Rainbow Faces. What exactly it is about is entirely up to you. It can be a new meeting, an adventure, their background story or whatever else you can think of about them. 'Your imagination is the limit', as the Rainbow Faces would say."
Boundless Curiosity"I'm so
boreeeeed, Flip!"
Tricia cautiously eyed her swimmer friend as Malka let out a long whine at an indignant Flip. Being a flyer and all, the young flyer had perched himself on a tree.
The pink threehorn apprehensively narrowed her eyes while taking a good long look at Malka. Though it was a small, almost imperceptible movement, the threehorn had very good reason for reacting in such a hasty manner.
A bored Malka was a dangerous Malka.
She might be small in size compared to many of her peers, but her penchant for mischief was unmatched by anyone in their group. According to Malka herself, her own parents had cautiously labelled her as the problematic one of her siblings ever since she'd hatched.
And right now, the wily gleam in the swimmer's lively eyes was a dead giveaway to Tricia that her friend was cooking up some outrageous idea and soon preparing to make a pitch so that she could rope all her friends into participating in whatever plan she was currently visualizing in her head.
Tricia might be reckless—according to her daddy, she'd almost went over the Thundering Falls by accident as an infant—but she certainly wasn't stupid. And besides, as her daddy oft liked to remind her by bringing up her sister, such reckless and foolhardy behavior runs in the family, for better or worse.
As a family of threehorns, making that assumption wasn't really that much of a far stretch.
It was just too bad that in this case, such rashness didn't stop with blood ties.
"Just what are you up to now, Malka?" Tricia deadpanned, marching up to the swimmer in question. There was no point in beating around the bush with someone like her.
Malka whistled innocently while leaning her body against a nearby tree, her nonchalance eliciting a squawk of annoyance from Flip, who was roosting on a branch atop that very same tree. "What do you mean, Tricia?" the swimmer feigned, a widening smile on her beak. "I'm just stating my point, you know…"
Tricia raised her brow, unable to keep a snort from escaping her. "You can't fool me! I know that enthused face of yours by heart. It's an expression which has been seared deep into my memory… like seriously, I can sense it all the way from the top of Threehorn Peak! A-and don't you give me that look!" she fumed when she saw Malka trying to charm her by shooting a disarming smile. "I know full well that it screams of trouble after you'd somehow managed to trick me into joining you guys on your utterly stupid plan to try and attempt a crossing through the whispering sands."
Malka hesitantly removed the hands cupped over her ears, her auditory senses still ringing from Tricia's hounding. "This again…? I still stand by what I said back then. Wasn't my fault," she stubbornly insisted. "I'm a swimmer… how was I to know that you guys couldn't swim across the whispering sands as well as I could?"
The two threehorns around Malka, Charger and Tricia, could only gape at the swimmer blankly.
"I wasn't affected by that incident as much as you guys," Flip added smugly, flying down to taunt the two threehorns as he wrapped his wing around his body with pride. "I simply flew over the whispering sands!"
"Don't you dare rub it in my face, Flip!" Tricia sneered, jerking her horns in Flip's direction and scaring the flyer back into the air for safety. "Do you have any idea just how lucky we were to survive through that and somehow not get caught by any of our parents? Do you, you dumb beak-brain?!"
It was a very well-known fact that threehorns were very volatile creatures. One could ignite them into a fury very easily.
That knowledge didn't stop Flip. If anything, it emboldened him.
"Yeah, yeah," the flyer snarked. "Sure."
"Gragh! I told you to shut up, Flip! Don't be a smart ass!"
Flip thrust his wingtips to the air in faux frustration, the flyer's over-exaggerated theatrics a clear display of cheekiness on his part. On her end, Tricia could only swear fiery vengeance with her bloodshot eyes, swearing under her breath that Flip always tried to 'mess with the threehorns on purpose' just because he found it funny.
Further credence to that theory was supported by Flip's innateness of flying out of horn's reach whenever things invariably got ugly… which Tricia slowly realized was almost all the darn time.
Well, unlike what that cowardly beak-brain thought, Tricia most certainly did not appreciate what the flyer had misconstrued to be a grandiose gesture to his threehorn pals, and she didn't even need any verbal confirmation with Charger to know that he didn't either.
"Speaking of what happened back then…"
To Flip's relief—though he wouldn't admit it—Tricia dropped her glare and turned to look behind her, the threehorn now warily facing the source of the interjection. "Ahem! What is it, Sauria?" she prompted, an impatient edge to her voice.
"Do you recall that Datum was acting weird during the whispering sands incident?"
Tricia frowned. "Are you sure it's not your bias with that rainbowface talking there? You and Datum seriously banter a lot." She paused. "Like, all the time." Another tentative pause. "Possibly even more than me with Malka."
Hearing her name, Malka piqued up and quickly made an observation of her own. "I agree with Sauria! I distinctly recall that Datum and Axiom didn't go in with us. They mentioned some weird stuff about suction and 'liq-ui-something' and refused to go anywhere near it!"
Sauria nodded her head. "Yeah! How did they know that remaining calm and not panicking by thrashing about would save us by allowing us to float to the surface? It made no sense at all on first glance! That advice sounds so counterintuitive. Remaining still should've made us sink!"
"I'll say," Charger licked his lips, the male threehorn furling his brow as he found himself deep in contemplation, quite the unusual sight for a species famed for its 'act first, think later' mindset. "I hate to admit it, but that was something. I merely tried to charge through it back then. Sure, I did brag that there was no obstacle a threehorn couldn't get through without using strength and horns alone, and yet rainbow-ass still chose to stay back in the sidelines with that impassive smile of his, as if he knew it would go wrong and he wanted to watch me flounder."
"Agree with ya' there!" Tricia concurred, especially considering that her own pride had caused her to join the crusade despite her own misgivings, the threehorn quashing the worry and putting on a show of bravado back then so as to not be outdone by others.
…until everything went wrong.
Tricia still shuddered as she remembered the events of that day. She could still remember the feeling of the sand coalescing around her feet, threatening to pull her entire body under. It was a horrifying experience, and one that she never wanted to go through again.
So now that everyone was pointing out about what Datum and Axiom did on that day, Tricia realized that their actions were definitely suspicious in hindsight.
Did they somehow know about what was about to happen? They had to, right? It couldn't be that they just got cold feet out of the blue and managed to save everyone from a sandy demise without any grownup intervention. Datum could be as daring as a threehorn should he put his mind onto something, a trait which Tricia begrudgingly respected.
Against her best wishes of quashing the current subject matter before it consumed the gang like a raging inferno, Tricia found herself more and more enamored with the idea of sating her growing intrigue.
…something which she soon regretted.
"How, and more importantly, why did I let myself get hauled into yet another one of Malka's wild ideas!?" Tricia beseeched to the skies above, saying it in a manner that made it seem as though the threehorn was beckoning from an answer from high above.
Sauria turned her head back. "Uh, Tricia. You kinda agreed to it when we were back in the trees," she pointed out. "Operation: 'Spy on Datum and Axiom' is a-go."
"Which again, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about," she muttered as she followed behind her friends. "I don't like this plan."
"Me neither!"
Ironically, Tricia now found herself supported by one of her usual instigators, Flip. The flyer had initially approved on the plan to spy on their friends until Malka had given him a briefing of what she wanted him to do. At that exact moment, Flip had blanched and tried to look away furtively. Even though she'd only caught a brief glimpse, she could see that the flyer's mood had swung a good one-eighty.
"I don't like this one bit!" Flip continued to complain, shaking his head vehemently as he jittered around, likely trying to find any possible excuse clause before Malka locked down her idea with a sardonic grin and the resulting peer pressure from the rest of his friends would make it impossible to protest his way out. "If it goes wrong, the first one who's going to get into trouble is surely me!"
"Bah, nonsense!" Sauria giggled at the sight of the usually brave Flip cowering at the thought of getting in trouble with his mother for the umpteenth time. "All for one, and one for all!" the longneck quoted, extending her elongated neck up to the sky with pride. "We're a group of friends who will stick together through thick and thin to the bitter end!" she rallied the group, perking Flip's mood right back up.
Though Tricia nodded in agreement with her flathead friend's admittedly stirring words, she had also inwardly made up her mind that if and when Flip botched up by revealing the whole ruse to Datum and Axiom, she would promptly disavow all knowledge of having any part of this and leave the arrogant flyer to his own devices.
Surely they'd believe her if she said that the others had coerced her into this silly, absurd plan… it was the honest truth!
Tricia simply sighed, accepting the hopelessness of her position. There was no changing the gang's mind whenever they committed themselves to something… as she would know, and could certainly profess. It was a lost cause, a futile effort.
Of course, she would still snark and complain whenever she didn't get her way. That was, like, threehorn privilege.
"Can someone please tell me why the whole lot of you are acting like mindless lunatics today?" Tricia was ruthless with her remarks, shooting down all of her friends without mercy.
"Since when do we
not act like mindless lunatics?" Charger deadpanned, his two eyes flickering in what one could almost perceive as scant amusement for the briefest of moments.
Flip stuck his tongue out, aghast. "Mindless lunatic? I am of sound mind! Don't lump me in with you threehorns!" Unfortunately, he was airborne while making that remark, so neither Charger nor Tricia could attempt to impale the cheeky flyer.
"Oh, rotten sweet bubbles… you're
all stupid, you know that?" Tricia bemoaned her fate, reluctantly accepting that she was sucked into this as much as the rest of them. "Yeah, I suppose that would mean I'm stupid too," she confessed in a rare bout of self-deprecation, "Why am I even friends with all of you again?"
Malka placed her hand to her hip, looking up proudly. "Because we're an inseparable bunch, and you darn well know it!" the swimmer proclaimed, determination shining in her eyes as the enthusiastic swimmer once again appeased everyone with her words.
"Yeah, we're together," Tricia said fondly, before falling back onto her pessimistic nature. "For better or worse."
"Oh, just relax, you two," Malka consoled Tricia and Flip, beaming at them to ease their concerns. "There's no need to worry about what we're doing. I mean, it's nothing insidious, right?"
The deafening silence which followed her words was very telling.
"To be frank, if someone tried to spy on me and I happen to find out about it, they'll soon be missing a limb. Or maybe even an eye!" Charger forewarned, before looking up at a chortling Flip. "I'll skewer ya' if you even try, don't test me."
"Me too," Tricia concurred, dragging her feet and shooting a glare at Malka, who immediately whistled and feign ignorance as the swimmer hopped again the ground. "So don't get any wild ideas in that crazy head of yours, Malka."
Flip chuckled. "Come on! Surely even an old grump like you—"
"Old grump!?" Tricia flared up as she repeated Flip's words, the pink threehorn's cheeks reddening in anger.
"Su-surely even a
very nice and understanding threehorn like you—" Flip quickly corrected his erroneous choice of words from earlier, flapping his wings to put himself a lot higher than his current flight level, "—have to be curious about how those two know so much about everything."
Tricia took in a very deep breath.
"Of course I'm curious!" she exhaled. "But that same curiosity… also took my sister away from me."
Though the rest of the gang had known about this ever since they were young hatchlings, a twinge of bitterness and yearning still lingered on and permeated their lives even today. "My daddy never let me forget that," Tricia finished, her eyes flicking upwards to the sky, as though she was inwardly contemplating about why the stone that fell all those years ago had led her sisters and her friends down a path no leaf-eater like her could possibly contemplate.
It was also why she had been so apprehensive of the whole affair. She had distinct memories of her elder sister Cera as a prideful yet kind threehorn very much like herself, but also as a vicious fastbiter who bore almost no physical resemblance to her former threehorn self, with the sole exception of her vibrant green eyes.
To have both memories from her infancy contrast and conflict was a stark reminder that sometimes, one would pay the price for their curiosity. She'd heard many horrible tales of hapless leaf-eaters being lured away from their herd thanks to their curiosity, only to be ambushed and maimed in a sharptooth attack.
In a sense, Sauria had it lucky. She had hatched after the battle for the valley, so the longneck would never know or remember her brother as Littlefoot before he became known as Seeker, leader of one of the most feared and esteemed sharptooth packs throughout the entire Mysterious Beyond.
Barring her uneasiness with dredging up the past, her harsh reaction regarding Datum and Axiom's actions of the day of the whispering sands was to hide the fact that much like the others, she too was itching with curiosity to finally learn the answer to a question which had bugged her ever since she'd first known the two rainbowface children.
Just why and how were they so knowledgeable?
Although Datum and Axiom tried to hide it—and relatively well, she should add—Tricia knew that they often had uncanny knowledge regarding, well… a lot of things. A minor slip of the tongue here, an enthusiastic remark there, one or two surprisingly insightful comments which would inevitably be drowned out and balanced by one of Malka and Flip's equally reckless ones…
It all added up over time, the damning evidence slowly piling up like a growing mound of treestars.
There were moments where Datum and Axiom sounded and acted like grownups who'd somehow regressed into kids, rather than… well,
kids. When Tricia let her challenging and brash nature declare that her friends were nuts whenever they had it in their heads to attempt another outlandish idea, Datum (it was usually him instead of Axiom) would usually back the threehorn's argument up with intelligent-sounding facts of his own. A constant trait of Datum was that he tended to act like a spoilsport to the gang, taking charge and responsibly putting a stop—or at least making an attempt at it—to the ideas which were more wild and dangerous, always to Malka's constant chagrin.
While there was certainly some dented threehorn pride involved—
best at everything, the echoes of that quote she could perpetually hear in her head whenever Datum interjected in a debate—Tricia had to admit that the gestures were appreciated.
Even if she did get jealous of him at times… many times, actually.
How does that not-so-dumb rainbowface know so much more than he lets on, anyway?Despite everything, Datum wasn't always one to listen and be a good boy. There were plenty of times where he and his sister did relent and surrender themselves to the mania around them, but those moments tended to be outnumbered by one of his many, many brilliant wisecracks.
What bothered Tricia was that while she was usually motivated to steer her horn away from trouble due to the watchful eye of her strict father, Datum had no such obligation. His parents… never really punished him or Axiom.
Why can't I have gentle Chronos and Logos instead of Daddy and Mommy dishing out my punishments whenever I get into big trouble? My punishments always suck… those two rainbow-brats have it easy compared to a threehorn in a strict family like mine!But that also meant that Datum had no apparent reason to always take her side whenever she staunchly insisted that one of their plans was bound to end in disaster.
Why was he acting like this…?
"Pssst! Everyone quiet down and get into positions!"
Tricia was jolted out of her inner introspection by Malka's cautionary cry. The swimmer had ducked under a treestar bush, and even Sauria, try as she might, lay her head down almost parallel to the ground below, making it appear as though she was sleeping as she lay camouflaged under the bushy undergrowth.
The only reason for such an abrupt moment was clear as day.
Flip must have spotted either Datum or Axiom and gave Malka a signal to hide.
Tricia lay next to a grumbling Charger and peered through the holes in the bush. Looking to the sky through the gap between the treestars, she could see Flip making a lopsided loop, signaling to the others on the ground that he was about to descend and carry out his assigned task. Soon, he disappeared from Tricia's eyes. Being pressed to the ground made it impossible for her to see the flyer which he brought himself to a lower altitude.
And then, a familiar voice hit her ears.
"You're too slow, brother!"
"It's Axiom!" Sauria whispered in excitement. "And from the sound of things, it looks like Datum's with her as well!"
It was almost too good to be true. While Tricia had seen them talking amidst themselves before, she had never managed to hear an unrestrained conversation between the two siblings before. They usually lowered their voices or changed to a mundane topic should anyone in the gang approach them whenever they gave one another 'that' look.
She knew the look. It was an expression that conveyed undiluted seriousness. Whenever both rainbowfaces locked eyes with an expression devoid of humor, Tricia knew that they were up to some secretive stuff.
No one had tried to decipher it before now, but in hindsight it was clear as day that the siblings' secretive talks had to have some correlation with how smart they always were. And now, hidden from view and with the two rainbowfaces having no reason to hide or censor anything, she and her friends were finally about to discover the secret behind their incredible knowledge.
Tricia had to admit that she was looking forward to this. Malka's enthusiasm was certainly contagious, and the threehorn's own innate curiosity was causing her to grip the grass below her with fervor.
She tilted her head left as she felt movement, only to feel Malka grip onto her leg. The swimmer propelled herself upwards and landed in Tricia's frill. Evidently the short swimmer was upset at being blocked due to her height and wanted to get onto Tricia for a better view.
And thus, the gang lay prowling in the bushes, almost like a group of sharpteeth hungrily eyeing their prospective prey. But instead of meat (yuck!), what they craved was knowledge.
Could one really blame any of them? All they had for now regarding Datum and Axiom's uncanny knowledge was gut feeling, with tenuous hypotheses and leads at best. To finally receive a definite answer to this puzzling enigma, no matter how unscrupulous the means, was certainly tempting.
"Datum? Where are you, brother?"
Tricia frowned when she saw Axiom looking around in a confused manner. It appeared like she was waiting for her brother, who for some reason hadn't made his way into the clearing where any of the hidden dinosaurs could see him. Having a flyer's eye view, Flip would be able to see if Datum was being held behind or lost track of his sister, but he had no way of communicating back to Tricia and the rest like he normally would if he wanted to maintain his cover.
She gnashed her teeth, darting her eyes left and right to see Sauria and Charger just as clueless. Even without being able to see Malka because the swimmer was perched on her back, Tricia knew that the seeds of doubt had already been sown. It manifested as a "Where's Datum?" that Malka whispered into her ear.
"How am I supposed to know?" she shot back, a feeling of dread slowly accumulating inside of her. For the first time since Tricia had hastily agreed to follow through with her friends' plans, she realized that their simple spy mission might not go as planned. Truth be told, it had almost slipped her mind what horrendous repercussions entailed them whenever she agreed to follow through with one of the gang's outlandish ideas.
Almost.
Well, it was too late to back out now. Her threehorn pride virtually demanded that she stay to the very end, consequences be damned.
"Sorry, sis. Had to take care of something urgent for a second there."
Tricia licked her lips, a wide smile stretching across her face as she heard Datum's sheepish voice reverberate across the clearing, originating from some point outside of her narrow field of vision. Ugh, finally. That stupid rainbowface had come at last.
It was time to get down to
business!
"Well, it's about time!" Tricia and her concealed friends weren't the only ones who were annoyed by Datum's tardiness. To nobody's surprise, it turned out that his sister Axiom was as well.
The threehorn gazed on as Datum mischievously placed his hands to his sides. "But I'm here now!" he stated rhetorically before raising his voice. "Anyway, I think it's time to talk about secretive stuff!"
Axiom furrowed her brow, looking quizzically at her brother. "Uh, what?" she muttered, eyelids twitching sporadically.
"Remember, sis?" Datum prodded with a twinkle in his eyes. "Dad said—"
"H-Hey! Not that!" Axiom hissed, lowering her voice to a whisper as she leaned towards Datum. Though it was soft, Tricia was still able to hear the rainbowface due to her close proximity to the two siblings. "You don't know who might be listening in!"
Tricia jolted upwards, almost blowing her cover in the process due to the fact that Malka had squeaked at her sudden movement.
It didn't matter to Tricia though. Her head was spinning at the revelation. There was something suspicious about those two! She knew it all along!
"Midclaw…"
Everyone present cocked their heads in confusion at Datum's next word.
"…Midclaw?" Malka mouthed.
"Sounds like some sort of scary sharptooth name or something along those lines," Charger countered. "Didn't Pterano's stories make it sound like sharpteeth have weird names?"
Much to everyone's surprise, Axiom snorted and smiled serenely at the cryptic name. "I see, brother…"
The sudden shift in tone caught everyone by surprise. One moment Axiom was fuming at her brother, and the very next she backed down without complaint.
"Uh, what just happened?" Sauria whispered from below Tricia, the longneck straining to lift her now-horizontal neck at a very slight angle off the ground so that she could get a better view of her rainbowface friends.
"How should I know? They acted all mysterious-y with no warning whatsoever!" Tricia retorted in frustration. "Datum said one word and Axiom went like 'ohhhhh'. What the heck is this!?"
She would have continued her rant, but the threehorn immediately held her tongue when she heard Datum continuing to talk.
"Dad told me that in less than one Night Circle cycle…" Datum paused and raised his arms in the air, building the suspense up to a crescendo before bringing his limbs down with exaggerated emphasis. "…another one of those fabled stones will fall, slamming back into the Great Valley once more!"
Tricia almost lost her footing upon hearing the rainbowface's startling proclamation. Her jaw hung open.
What.
In less time than it took for a flustered flyer to flap their wings, the shrubs in the clearing burst into a flurry of hissed whispers.
"I-It can't be!"
"Datum's talking about the Stone of Cold Fire!"
"You think I don't know that, Sauria!? Everyone knows about that story! I've lost track of how many times have our parents have told it to us before lulling us to sleep!"
"Oh man, oh man, oh man! This is some fantastic gossip! Do you think that Flip managed to hear what Datum said from wherever he is hiding up there?"
"Hold up, didn't your sister—"
"Say one more word and I'll lock horns with you, Charger!"
Frankly, it was amazing that neither Datum nor Axiom had noticed anything amiss yet from the ruckus that they were making.
"Great. Just great." Axiom grimaced, the vexed rainbowface slamming her hand against the trunk of a tree. "This is
huge, brother." Her eyes darted about as she said that, causing all of the hiding dinosaurs to keep as still as they possibly could. "Does anyone else know about this?"
"Of course not!" Datum frantically shook his head, appalled by the very idea. "We have to keep this knowledge secret, remember? Can you visualize just how the valley will react if we tell them that we can predict the trajectory of a star falling from the sky?" His voice slowly crept higher with every subsequent word until it had almost become a shrill shriek by the end. "They'll think that we've gone crazy! We'll be a laughing stock!"
Axiom gazed towards the evening sky, basking in the warm glow of the setting Bright Circle. "So this is it, then. When the Stone of Cold Fire rains its fiery vengeance down upon this land once more, history will repeat itself unless the new generation is able to learn from the mistakes of the past and endeavor not to make the same errors."
Tricia's head was spinning as she heard them talk, and it wasn't just because Malka was tightly gripping onto her frill from where she was perched.
What was going on? What sort of crazy conspiracy had she uncovered?
Most importantly, why didn't either of them tell their friends about this?
An eerie silence descended upon the area as everyone took in the ramifications of what they'd learned.
"What can I say? We always were different from the rest, Axiom."
"You think I don't know that, Datum? We've had to live with that for many yea-Cold Times now!"
Datum shifted slightly at his sister's retort. Taking a closer look, Tricia noticed that the rainbowface's eyes were glazed over. "I hate it, sis. The loneliness… it's crushing…"
Axiom turned away, but not before Tricia noted that her eyes were clouded over, a misty sheen covering their surface as well. "Ohhhhhh, I hate it when you're right. But Datum, you and I know why we have to maintain this divide currently between us and our friends…"
"Yeah, yeah." Datum rolled his eyes at his sister's nagging tone. "We can't let any innocent minds explode."
"You were going to add 'unfortunately' to the end of that sentence, weren't you brother?"
"Aw! You know me so well, sis!"
Axiom clicked her tongue at her cheeky brother. "Datum! Now's not the time for fun and games."
"Heh! Don't worry, I am very well aware, sis. And despite all I've said, I still stand by my choice. It is a pragmatic approach! Knowledge is power, and to have it fall into the wrong hands…"
Tricia shivered. The seriousness in Datum's voice highlighted just how drastic the situation must be. A part of her wanted to reveal herself and yell at the two rainbowfaces, but panicked faces from the others all around her forced the pink threehorn to remain still for now.
"By the way, I thought I should tell you something." Datum turned his head towards Axiom, the serious expression never wavering since it had first appeared on his face. "Sorry for going off topic, but it looks like Pterano's come back to the valley again. Wonder what kind of wacky stories he brought from the Mysterious Beyond this time?"
P-Pterano?All of the hiding dinosaurs looked at each other in alarm, now gravely concerned about Flip, who had slipped their mind in light of all the surprises that they'd received. They all knew that he was an avid listener of the wandering flyer's tales. While that was normally a good thing as Flip could listen in person and then repeat the stories to the others at a later time, at a critical moment like this such a distraction could prove calamitous for the mission.
"That bloody flyer better not have left his post! He's supposed to be keeping a lookout!" Tricia seethed. Her daddy had told her many stories about Pterano, and every last one of those rants would without fail have at least one nasty expletive laced in it, a rather humorous pattern which always caused mommy to scold him without fail. Apparently her daddy used to be more bitter about it and he was now actually comparatively calmer whenever he was talking about the subject matter as compared to the past, something which Tricia found hard to believe.
It was a bittersweet irony. She'd heard countless times that her stepsister Cera was left an only child because of that disastrous mishap. It was because of that flyer that her daddy had lost three children of his own, three siblings who Tricia would never get the chance to know as they had prematurely left for the Great Beyond.
But ironically, it was also because of those very same turn of events which had led to her being born. Daddy wouldn't have gotten back with her Mommy if her sister's mommy was still alive, after all.
Such was fate. The circle of life turned on.
At least he had atoned and is willing to change… somewhat, Tricia told herself. Being a messenger who had direct contact with her sister, she had occasionally asked Flip if any of the incoming news involved Cera. While it was mostly rubbish like,
"Do you young'uns remember Cera, or Stern Claw? Why, I heard that her mate's latest prank completely backfired on him! So, wanna hear the tale?", there were occasions where Pterano did bring up constructive tales which allowed her to rekindle a faraway bond with her long-lost sister by listening to a snapshot of her new life.
That didn't change the fact that Pterano was going to ruin everything. If Datum or Axiom happened to see Flip scurrying away from wherever he'd perched himself at, their recce mission would be in shambles.
"I still remember one of Pterano's more hilarious stories," Datum continued, "Many Cold Times ago, he'd been forced to kidnap Ducky when she was still a swimmer because she happened to be eavesdropping on an important conversation."
Tricia had to physically stop herself from snorting.
Oh, what irony!"And as I said earlier in this conversation, history loves to repeat itself," he continued, a wide grin breaking across his face. The cheeky preamble set the tone of things to come, causing a feeling of uneasiness to sweep across the dwelling.
W-wait up! Datum's acting as though he's talking to…One by one, the hiding dinosaurs found themselves being flabbergasted, caught so off guard by the shift in the conversation topic that they couldn't even say a word of their own.
"Nice try, guys."
Axiom mercifully put the spying dinosaurs out of their misery, mischievously shaking her head as she let them realize without a shred of doubt that their cover had been blown. "We know that you're here. You all can come out, there's no point in hiding anymore."
And just like that, the barrier between observer and observee was shattered.
Tricia was the first to pounce, the movement so turbulent that Malka fell off the threehorn's back and landed on the ground with a yelp. Paying little heed and running directly at Datum in less time than it takes to blink, Tricia shot the docile rainbowface a glare.
"I'm going to give you until the count of five to explain. So. Start. Talking."
Datum raised his hands up in a placative manner as the other dinosaurs gathered to listen intently to his answer.
"It was Sauria."
Tricia narrowed her eyes in befuddlement, pressing the tip of her horn against Datum's body in confusion.
"Her freakishly long neck gave you guys away," Datum stated bluntly, taking a few steps back to prevent the sharpened point of Tricia's horn forming a scar on his belly while making certain to grin vitriolically at the longneck in the process.
"Datum!" Sauria cried, outraged.
"What's wrong, Sauria?" Datum challenged, chuckling when the longneck in question snapped her head towards him in a visibly agitated manner.
"Hey!" Tricia interjected, glaring at Datum, "Don't try and squirm your flashy little snout out of this! Your reply to Sauria had absolutely nothing to do with what I was questioning you about!"
Datum let his shoulders sag. "Well, you never specified, Tricia."
The threehorn was now quaking in anger, the trembling of her body so perceptible that many of the others close to Tricia slowly backed away from her out of caution. "Oh, you'll pay dearly for that one, you smart-a—"
"Okay, that's enough of that, brother." Axiom rolled her eyes at her brother's antics, hastily intervening before her threehorn friend blew her top. "To be honest, what really gave you away was something completely different. Datum happened to catch Flip in the act."
Wait… what? Flip!? Th-that's it… that was what Datum meant when he said he had to deal with something urgent!"While Flip's flying skills are acceptable, he crashes completely when it comes to hide-and-seek," Datum wasted no time in slandering the flyer, one of his favorite pastimes. "When I caught him trying to hide in the treetops before making my way to Axiom, Flip flipped out and completely squealed on you all."
Tricia felt her eyes twitch as she was doubly assaulted with the knowledge of the flyer's betrayal and the horrible pun that Datum made using Flip's name, the threehorn seeing red as a result of the double whammy. "F-Flip sold us out!? That little—"
The rest of the sentence devolved into profanities.
"He's listening to Pterano tell his stories by the old outcropping right now, so I don't think any of your profound cursing will reach his ears. In fact, when I told him that Pterano had arrived after he confessed everything, he completely ditched the whole lot of you without a second thought."
"That dirty, double-crossing flyer better watch his back," Tricia pawed the ground with her front feet, imagining Flip in front of her as she jabbed her horn upwards. "He could have at least pretended not to know and bought us time to escape!"
Malka pursed her beak, deep in contemplation. "So if Flip told you everything…"
"…it means that you were putting on a show, weren't you?" Charger accused, his body going stiff as he concluded Malka's line of thought. "You knew we were here from the very start and played along so that you could make all of us look like complete fools."
Datum chuckled. "Well, when you put it in such an eloquent way… yeah."
His blunt admittance to teasing his friends was met with outrage, though a single individual remained unfazed.
Sauria shook her head, clearly bemused. "That is
so like you, Datum."
The others didn't react as cordially as Sauria did.
"So in other words, every single word that you sprouted from beginning to end was complete and utter garbage," Tricia spat, briefly contemplating whether she should charge at Datum or begrudgingly concede that his on-the-spot thinking had actually led to something that was kind of a well-crafted plan.
Eventually, the threehorn resorted to emitting an angered grunt. "Gah, I can't believe you!" Tricia raged, stomping her feet against the soft ground. "Damn you, Datum! You're such an infuriating smart-ass!"
Datum bowed his head, though it wasn't out of shame or to make an apology. One could still see the amused smirk on his face. "What can I say in defense? I
am a rainbowface, after all."
"Nope. You're a freakin' rainbow smart-ass!" Charger blared, adding on to his fellow threehorn's ruffled remark.
"Since you and Axiom were both talking out of your butts, at least it means that stupid Stone of Cold Fire isn't coming back and turning anyone else into sharpteeth… right?" Tricia hedged cautiously, warily looking at Datum and Axiom to gauge their reactions.
"Yeah. No stone is going to fall from the sky," Datum affirmed. "Knowing that, I trust that you guys are not in too much distress?"
"You trust
what!? E-excuse me?!" Tricia sputtered, her entire frill gaining a clear red tint that complimented her body's pinkish hue. She had to inhale sharply before continuing. "Don't worry," she shifted her head downwards so that she could aim her center horn dead ahead. "I assure you, I'm perfectly calm," Tricia said in a voice which was laced with so much sarcasm that her own daddy would be proud.
"I'm as calm as Tricia," Charger growled, carefully phrasing his insult in a way that made it sound innocuous. "Was Axiom in on it as well?"
Datum laughed. "Totally! Though she didn't know that it was you guys, my sister had a rough idea of the situation as soon as I told her 'midclaw'." He flashed his teeth as he eyed his sister. "That is a secret word used between me and my sis."
"Hey!" Axiom chided, shaking her head in exasperated despair. "It's not going to be a secret anymore if you blab and tell everyone!"
Tricia seized the chance to prompt Datum further before the rainbowfaces could shut down the conversation or divert attention away from the topic. "A secret word?"
"That's right! A word with a hidden meaning behind it…" The corners of Datum's lips curled upwards as he leaned in towards Tricia, lowering his voice to a mere fraction of its typical amplitude, "…a
codeword, you can say."
Huh… now this explanation was getting interesting. And unlike everything that Datum had said earlier, it doesn't seem as though it was made up on the spot."I should probably elaborate to clear things up, huh?" Datum finally murmured after the awkward silence that ensued. "S-So, uh, Tricia…" he stuttered before trailing off, causing Tricia to arch her brow in apprehension.
Sensing that Datum was about to ask something on a more personal scale and internally preparing herself for such a request turned out to be the right call.
"…your older sister… um, may I bring her up? With your permission, of course."
Datum edged cautiously, only continuing when he saw Tricia gave a silent nod of consent to continue the touchy topic. "Anyway, everyone here probably knows that your sister Cera is together with the beguiling fastbiter who goes by the name of Taunt—"
"—I've heard quite enough about that sharptooth from Pterano's stories," Tricia narrowed her eyes, before exhaling an exhausted breath, "the many ridiculous ones which Flip repeats to me."
"Your sister loves that guy, huh?" Datum muttered. "How does she put up with his antics without blowing her top the same way you do, Tricia?"
"If only Cera were here right now so she can object to what you just said in person. I might not remember much about my sister, but she still has the heart of a threehorn no matter what species she is now! You think she'll be a pushover and remain calm? Hahahaha! That's something even more far-fetched than your exaggerated 'falling stone' story!"
Axiom chortled at Tricia's snark-filled retort. "Putting aside their personal relationship together, if you've heard all the hilarious prank stories Pterano told the valley then it's reasonable to make the assumption that Mr. Taunt loves to offend others using his middle sickle claw. It's practically his trademark! And since he loves sneaking around to perform his pranks on his hapless packmates, we decided to make the word 'midclaw' have a double meaning behind it…"
Malka pouted in realization. "Aha! You
were playing dirty! That's how you guys knew that we were here well ahead of time!"
"Yep!" Datum confirmed. "Between us two, we both think of Taunt the prankster when one of us says 'midclaw', and when we think Taunt… we think of sneaking around." He tilted his head at Axiom's direction. "Sis knew that there was someone was eyeing our conversation the very instant I said that word, and after that all I needed to do was establish eye contact for Axiom to realize the full situation."
"I'll say… that's actually quite smart." Tricia eyed the two carefully. Perhaps, in their efforts to conceal the scope of their mental abilities, Datum and Axiom had unintentionally revealed a glimpse of their true potential, at least to a certain extent. She wouldn't have pegged the two as being that sneaky, but coming up with something like this was definitely not something to be trifled at.
As distasteful as it was, Datum and Axiom had managed to fool them all.
Personally, she would have gone for something more direct, but she was a threehorn, so there was certainly some degree of biasness to her mindset.
"So you think I'm smart? Well, I can't exactly refute what you say without any solid evidence pointing to the contrary…" Datum moped disappointedly, a tired smile on his face. "Maybe you can just accept that I am so smart relative to y'all just because I happened to be born under a lucky star?"
Tricia's eyes came alit with malevolent glee. "You wish." Everyone could hear the taunting, mocking drawl laced in her voice.
"Speaking of smart," Axiom intoned, "I'm surprised that you guys followed through with your reconnaissance even though you had Flip." Though Tricia let out a 'hmph' when she realized that the rainbowfaces were trying to divert the topic away, she decided to let it go.
"I mean, just having Flip would be enough. Why go above and beyond? That was the point where I realized something…" Axiom looked at the short swimmer disapprovingly. "Malka. Spying on Datum and I was your idea, wasn't it?" she teased.
To absolutely no one's surprise, Malka appeared to be scandalized by the suggestion. "Nonsense! Axiom, how could you think that of—"
"Yeah, it was her," Tricia and Charger said simultaneously, cutting off Malka's attempted plea of innocence with dual smirks.
Malka folded her arms, appearing fairly distressed when she realized that she was surrounded by treason on all sides. "I-I'll deny involvement to the very end!"
"Okay, okay," Axiom finally decided to cool things off, kneeling down to make eye contact with Malka. "I forgive you, Malka. And as for Datum and I, we're both sorry for tricking you guys—"
"—well, sorry to a certain extent at least—"
"—and I hate to agree with Datum here, but he's kind of right. It wasn't right for you guys to spy on us without our knowledge. So I will confess that once Datum signaled the true extent of the situation to me, we both decided to have a bit of fun at your expense as payback."
Datum cut in at that point, a look of genuine apology adorning his rainbow snout. "What sis is trying to say is that we're sorry if our joke got out of hand." He shot his sister a knowing look. "You guys were curious, and we… understand that." The male rainbowface paused momentarily, seemingly like he was mulling his words over as though any single one of them could set off an irreversible chain reaction that he would be unable to contain.
He could only nod melancholically at his friends' inquisitiveness. Needless to say, them splitting off from their parents would have been a dead giveaway that what they were doing wasn't likely to be approved by the grownups, even if he hadn't received explicit confirmation from Flip himself.
"But if you're interested about stuff, we can relay things that our parents told us." Datum's grin grew so wide that it was almost creepy. "Perhaps I can tell you about how eggs are made."
"—and THAT is the end of this conversation!" Axiom hurriedly cried, hastily interrupting her brother before he could proceed to mortify her further. "We can keep that one to ourselves, thank you!"
"Come on, sis! I want to mortify our friends the exact same way Dad did when he talked to me one random night!"
"No means no, Datum!"
The aghast expression that was plastered on the face of every single member of the gang, who had all backed away from Datum in unison, slowly subsided.
"I swear, Datum," Charger said impassively, "If I wasn't saving the bulk of my anger for Flip, you'll be nothing but a flattened mess by now."
"Ah, thank you," Datum beamed, almost like he completely missed the whole point of his words. "I aim to please. The path of one who aims to discover is fraught with risks, after all, and I wanted to enlighten you guys with the feeling that not everything you learn with be smooth and advantageous."
"And with that, I think that it's time for us to take our leave. Come on, dear brother. Let's get going."
The two rainbowface younglings slowly walked away, leaving a bewildered gang behind to contemplate and reflect on the very weird exchange that had just taken place between them.
"So, Malka…" Charger started, "…did you ever get the answer to your question?"
"Nope, nope!" she responded. "But I got something better from that conversation!"
Sauria nodded, concurring with the swimmer. "It was an admission, maybe a slip of the tongue but we have confirmation that Datum and Axiom
are keeping some hidden knowledge to themselves, even if it's nothing to do with what they said earlier and it doesn't answer the question on why they're so intelligent."
Tricia, however, opted to remain silent, musing to herself.
Ever since they had struck up a friendship as young hatchlings, Tricia felt as though the two siblings kept to each other more than the gang at times. Secrecy shrouded the two of them like the dense fog swirling around the Land of Mists.
And now, with the two of them walking away from the gang, she could feel that feeling triple.
Like it or not, there was a subtle divide between Datum and Axiom with the rest of the gang. It was very subtle, but it was there, and today's meeting only made it more blatantly clear.
She knew more than anyone how being excluded due to one's species or some other arbitrary factor could affect one more than anyone… how could she not after a chasm opened up between her infant threehorn self and her sister Cera, now turned into sharptooth fastbiter Stern Claw.
But what bothered her was that Axiom and Datum had always voluntarily excluded themselves.
Tricia didn't want a barrier to form between the two rainbowface siblings and the gang. Despite Datum's relaxed behavior when he had been talking to them, she could spot the telltale marks of defensive behavior. No matter how nonchalant he had acted about them spying on him and Axiom, she knew that deep within him Datum had to have been troubled about Malka leading her friends to attempt to discover the truth, and that would explain why he had been extra vindictive today.
The threehorn knew that Datum and Axiom would be wary around them for a while, but in time she hoped that it would pass and everything would be back to status quo. While she was still intrigued about them, she wasn't about to let that curiosity destroy their friendship.
She could still investigate them, but within limits. And one day, Tricia hoped that she could get to the bottom of their hidden knowledge and hopefully put this matter to rest by bringing the source of it to the forefront.
When the truth is finally revealed, Datum and Axiom will no longer carry the burden of secrecy around their shoulders. Then, and only then, would the two finally feel included, with no more secrets interfering with their relationship with the gang.
But until that day arrived…
"Let's not push them anymore, guys." Tricia specifically directed her statement at a haughty Malka. "They're both clearly uncomfortable about it. And before you say anything, them knowing more stuff than they should doesn't change anything between us. When they're ready to tell us everything, I trust that they will."
…she would just have to hold out that Datum and Axiom will one day explain their uncanny knowledge to them on their own terms.
Tricia strutted off, glancing up at the descending Bright Circle, which almost seemed to shimmer as the trees filtered the reddish light.
Datum and Axiom's oath of secrecy was akin to the treestars obscuring the light from the Bright Circle. While the light still came through, the treestars still blocked the Bright Circle itself. Tricia could only trust that one day, her rainbowface friends would unveil the truth and lay everything they were keeping secret bare… and finally let the walls come crashing down to forge an even tighter bond to their current friendship.
Yes, the payoff to that hypothetical scenario would be sweet.
As sweet as a majestic, unobstructed view of the setting Bright Circle.
"Now, children. What's this I hear about cultural contamination?"
"Wasn't my fault, dad." Axiom immediately said. "I just played along and helped out with damage control."
Chronos sighed as Logos went closer to her mate to give him a massage. "I repeatedly emphasized to you about the nature and importance of preventing cultural contamination before, Datum." His face softened as he saw his son tense up. "So just tell me… what happened out there?"
Datum inhaled sharply. "Alright, I admit it. While I was chatting with sis earlier, I happened to let slip a few nuggets of truth in a sea of nonsense. My friends assumed that everything I told them was untrue, but that's not exactly true."
"Hiding a fresh treestar in a pile of dried ones, eh?" Axiom shut her eyes, sighing at the mental picture she'd pieced in her head. "Sneaky… reaallllll sneaky. Subconsciously sprinkling a few seeds of truth within a web of lies so that our friends won't be too jolted if the real thing ever came to light."
"Datum…" Logos warned, sternly looking at her son. "Even if they think of it as tomfoolery, you know that all it takes is one blip before a domino effect starts, consuming everything in its path."
"Mom's right, you know. What you did was basically an admission of guilt, minus the reverse psychology part."
"Don't say too much, Axiom," Logos chided, wagging a finger at her daughter. "You could have stopped Datum as well, right?"
Datum chose this moment to step in.
"I wasn't trying to blow their minds! I wanted to gauge their reactions," the rainbowface tried to justify. "I mean, they don't fear the unknown. One day, they'll probably have at least an inkling that we're different from them. I mean, they already had their suspicions about us. Why else would they attempt to do something as sneaky as that?"
Axiom relented, sighing when she realized that she couldn't win against Datum's argument. "To be frank, even if our friends did suspect that not everything you said earlier on was false, all their evidence is purely circumstantial, a gut feeling at best."
"Bah, they all know that I'm kind of weird. My unusual behavior is so entrenched in their heads that they weren't completely blown away by my little show as a result." Datum looked down at his feet, wiping a tear. "But I must confess, I'm really happy with how they reacted today. I was paying close attention to their whispering before we blew their cover. They weren't actually all that well hidden in the foliage, so I got a pretty good look at their expressions when I bamboozled them all with my warning and confusing jargon. And frankly, they didn't seem all that disgusted or betrayed, just puzzled and confused."
Finishing his thought process, he wistfully looked at his parents. "Honestly, I think they already understand."
Logos clucked her beak. "Dear…"
"Our friends will be cognizant of our secrets one day, mom. But it is how I intend to ease them into the truth that will either make or break our friendship. How would they feel if they found out I've kept things from them ever since the day we met? That is why I attempted this little controlled experiment today by making them think that they were discovering a side of me they had never seen before."
Chronos sighed, the elder rainbowface looking as though he had aged multiple Cold Times.
"This is entirely your fault, dear," Logos murmured in a soft voice to her mate. "You and your constant 'don't worry, they won't know what this means' you kept on telling me in front of those kids. Of course, those were the children who would eventually become Seeker's pack."
"Ah, those guys!" Chronos beamed at the memory, as he faced his two children. "Do you two remember what I told you about the Seven Hunters, and how Seeker's pack first came to be in the first place?"
Axiom snorted. "Like we could ever forget that story, dad! What's your point?"
"I get it…" Datum bowed his head, his reaction a stark contrast with his sister's. "You're telling me that tale as a warning, aren't you?"
"Quite right!" Chronos affirmed.
Logos sniggered at her mate's jovial reply. "Alright, children. Listen carefully to your father."
"Tonight, I would like to focus on the
Stone of Destiny," Chronos paused tentatively, bowing his head down in reverent respect before continuing on, "also affectionately dubbed as Fastbiter Rock by the residents of the valley after the bloody battle with Redclaw and his cronies."
"Please don't tell anymore horror stories about Calin again!" Axiom whined, covering her ears with her arms.
Chronos bit his tongue. "Ah… don't worry, I won't!" he reassured before heading back on topic. "But as I was saying, that stone… it changed our lives, children. If it never landed on this land and that inquisitive, heavy-hearted wish hadn't been made, the valley wouldn't exist today. It would have been nothing but a barren wasteland, a crimson reminder of Redclaw's revenge. All the peace and tranquility that its residents take for granted would not exist today."
"And…" Logos cut in, winking at him seductively, "…we wouldn't have made the choice to settle down here."
Datum and Axiom had the courtesy to avert their eyes away, the two of them grossed out as their parents embraced each other.
After what seemed like an eternity, Logos broke free from the grip and continued addressing her son and daughter. "No dinosaur on this planet will ever know the full truth about us, I'm afraid. The full enormity of it is an incredible burden, and it is a secret that your dad and I will carry to our deaths."
"With great power comes great responsibility," Chronos seamlessly took over from Logos. "Some of the things that we know… we have to keep to ourselves. The balance of this world may be irrevocably shifted should the knowledge we hold be allowed to spread unchecked. It will ravage the Mysterious Beyond… I should know, it's already happened once."
Logos shook her head. "Petrie… sorry, Spotter," she corrected, making sure to use the correct name, "he saw something he shouldn't have a long time ago. But what can we do?" she bemoaned. "While it was for the greater good, combat between sharpteeth was never the same again after they found out about the 'pointy sticks'."
Axiom perked up. "Petrie did that?"
"He spotted something he shouldn't have," Logos muttered, nudging a chortling Chronos. "I still blame your father. I specifically warned him about the possibility of someone eyeing the technology, and less than a minute after Spotter came spiraling in and we unintentionally gave that cunning flyer the idea to plagiarize it for himself."
"I suppose my friends and him more similar than it looks, dad…" Datum mused. "Chasing after getting a sniff of the nascent scent of an unsolved mystery, the tantalizing allure and pursuit of knowledge…" the young rainbowface bowed his head, worry written over his face as he gazed contritely to the ground, "…if my friends are anything like their predecessors, sooner or later, Axiom and I won't be able to keep the truth from them. What would they think of us then?"
"You can do what you want, Datum. I leave the ultimate choice of how you wish to settle the dispute of knowledge within your circle of friends to you," Chronos said as he ambled away, beckoning Logos and Axiom to follow him and give Datum some space to dwell on his thoughts.
"But remember, my son, sometimes ignorance is bliss…"
It was only then, when the young male rainbowface was left by himself, that he let himself reflect on what his parents were telling him… and what his heart was telling him.
Despite the fact that he and his sister were descended from Star People, despite the difference in verbal jargon, despite the difference in their technological advances—or what was left of it after his parents' permanent immigration here—and despite the astounding difference in his knowledge compared with even the wisest and most experienced dinosaur here… it mattered naught.
He and his sister were accepted unanimously by his friends. He had been accepted despite their wildly differing mindset and species.
It felt… good.
After all, when his parents had told him and his sister the truth behind his heritage, Datum had been mentally prepared to be alone, a lone dinosaur secluded from the others.
"You mean there's no one else here from where you and mom originally came from, dad?" Datum had asked with wide eyes as he confronted his father, waiting with bated breath for his answer.
"I'm sorry, Datum. Please don't tell Axiom until she's older," Chronos finally replied in a quiet voice. "I'm afraid to admit that your mother and I are the only Star People here, Datum. We are indeed a rather lonesome bunch. My bosses referred to our job scope in this planet as 'a permanent appointment'. But to be frank, it was just a rather discreet way for those officers to tell us to get the hell out of do-yowch!"
"Language, Chronos!" Logos berated as Chrono rubbed his jaw, trying in vain to soothe the pain spreading across his cheeks. "How can you swear so blatantly in front of Datum! He's a child! He doesn't need to learn colorful language befitting our species' iridescence namesake."
Datum wisely opted to keep silent, not having the heart to tell either of his parents that he and Axiom had long known about the multifaceted part of dinosaur language before his father's slip of the tongue, courtesy of one very vulgar Charger.
"Mmmppfftthh! Did you really have to slap my colorful beak with your tail…?" Chronos pouted.
Datum shifted his foot in mild embarrassment. "Um… Dad?"
"I swear, dear, I'll do it again if you keep up your pitiful whining." There was not a hint of sarcasm in Logos' threat.
Chronos cowered, protectively placing his hands in front of his face. "No! Please, I beg you, not the tail! It hurts even at slow speeds!" he insisted as Logos stifled a giggle at his terrified state.
"Uh, Dad?" Datum hung his head before the rainbowface admitted what he quickly hypothesized from his father's seemingly innocuous-sounding words. "You do realize that force is mass multiplied by acceleration, right?"
"So… since I'd swung my tail at you slowly, you're basically implying that my tail is largely sized by that remark." Logos let her grin turned savage as Chronos looked at his son with an expression that screamed of betrayal, before slowly turning to his mate with an expression of dawning horror.
Backing away turned out to be a prudent move when Logos looked at him with an eerily wide smile. "Well, I think someone's snout needs to turn an even redder shade as punishment for that insinuation!" she declared with a singsong-like voice, closing in on him with a ferocity befitting a sharptooth zeroing in on their target.
"Here it comes, Chronos! Prepare yourself. For. The. Tail!"
"L-Logos!" Seeing that any attempt of apology wasn't about to pacify his teasing yet agitated mate for a while, Chronos quickly made a run for safety. "Gahh! Datum, Axiom… oh wait, you're not here," he trailed off at his folly, realizing that he'd forgotten that his daughter was absent due to the fact that Datum had requested for a personal conversation with him and his mate.
As the rainbowface's thoughts drifted back to his mate in question, he glanced back before yelping in a most undignified manner, ducking his body to dodge Logos' tail swing.
"N-never mind!" Chronos cried. "Somebody help me! I'm being pursued by an angry predator who's out for blood!"
"You bet I am, Chronos! Grragghhh!"
Datum could only exhale a sigh at his mother's mock sharptooth cry, his eyes trailing his father as Chronos ran out of the cave with his mate chasing him. "Daddddd…" he shook his head in a mix of pity and resignation, knowing that the conversation was most definitely over now that his parents have left the elusiveness of the valley's caves.Though he had been mildly amused and shocked to see his mother chasing his father in a most earnest manner, the feeling of emptiness had stuck with him until he first met with his friends, many Cold Times ago.
"Hahahaha! Your nose looks funny! You look sooooo stupid!"
Datum whirled around, glaring at the source of said disparaging remark that had been thrown his way. "He-Hey! I take offense to that!" he muttered disappointedly. "I'm a rainbowface… my nose is supposed to look like that, all rainbow-like and sparkly!"
"Ohhhh… I see." The speaker, a female pink threehorn, bashfully lowered her gaze. "Well then, who are you? I don't think I've seen you around before."
"My name's Datum! Chronos and Logos are my daddy and mommy!" he replied with a smile.
The girl blew a raspberry with her saliva. "Oh, I think I know them. Daddy always complains that he has to constantly argue with someone called a 'Chr-onos'."
Well, that was intriguing. Datum made a mental note to question his father about the dinosaurs he'd regularly argued with. "And you? What's your name?" he decided to ask.
"Hmph! I'm glad you finally asked! I'm Tricia, and I'm going to be the greatest threehorn who's ever lived! Hee hee!" she bragged with an extravagantly proud smile, "Wanna meet the rest of my friends? You seem like a nice guy, and last I heard Sauria wanted to recruit as many different dinosaurs as she can into our little group. Maybe if the others like you, you can be a part of us?"
Datum couldn't keep the excitement out of his face upon hearing the threehorn's tentative offer of friendship. He was practically shaking with an intensity that could only be matched by earthshakes. "You bet! I would love to! Just wait a moment, lemme get my sister here first!"
"H-Hey!" He heard Tricia grumble. "I didn't say that you'll definitely be a part of the gang! I said 'maybe', so that's only if Sauria, Malka, and Flip all like you."
"I dunno…" Datum winked, grinning at an annoyed Tricia. "I bet they'll love me! You liked me on first glance, didn't you?"
"Shut up! It was the flashy colors that caught my eye!" Tricia spluttered. "Don't put words in my mouth!"
"Well, see you soon!" Datum waved. "Axiom and I will come looking for you, and then we'll take up the offer of friendship with your friends!"
Jogging away from the threehorn, Datum squealed excitedly when he was out of earshot. "Oh boy! I'm going to have friends! I'm finally going to have others to talk to who won't think that I'm a weirdo!"Okay, maybe that last part wasn't exactly true, but Datum had at least learnt not to have the insult hit him as hard as it did in his early childhood.
Sure, there were times where his friends called him a 'weird rainbow-ass', but it was always meant in jest, even when the crass remark in question came from resident threehorns Tricia and Charger.
In a sense, no matter how different he and Axiom were from their friends, there was one aspect where the group of them were unanimously united as one, despite being separated not only by species, but covertly in culture as well.
"Chronos!" A fuming Topps had confronted his father once. "Your children are an atrocious influence on my Tricia! I refuse to have a repeat of what happened to Cera befall my one remaining daughter, so I advise you to tell your son to stop filling her head with all those wild, outlandish stories!"
"I think that in that regard, you should worry about the other children as well, Mr. Threehorn…" Chronos had thrown his head back at Topps' growl to let out a laugh, but when he recovered and eventually resumed speaking there was a somber melancholy to his words.
"Besides, Datum is someone who is positively brimming with curiosity. For that matter, so is Tricia. Loath as I am to admit as a protective parent, there is nothing one can do to stop another in their eternal pursuit for answers. It is but an inherent risk we must accept…"Yes, his father was right.
What ultimately drew Datum and the gang close together was curiosity.
It was boundless, unfettered, and limitless, just like the sparkling stars in the sky high above them.
And it was Datum's hope that despite being so different from his friends, that earnest desire for knowledge would keep them together as one gang.
Or as Sauria had ardently said to him and Axiom after readily accepting the siblings into the gang all those Cold Times ago, "
as a group of friends who will stick together through thick and thin to the bitter end!"
Author's Note:July's LBT Fanfic Challenge is the inaugural Fanfic Prompt Exchange, where participants have to complete a randomized prompt from another participant. So, fun fact — last year's Prompt Exchange challenge's amazing stories was the catalyst that spurred me to finally try my hand at LBT writing after dwelling on it for ages. Assuming you didn't know, now you do, and I hope I didn't disappoint with my entry now that I finally waited a year to enter myself!
The successor leaf-eater gang are relatively minor characters in
Songs of the Hunters and
Mender's Tale, but I did like their sparse appearances in
Songs of the Hunters because there they highlighted the divide between sharpteeth and flatteeth, serving as a subtle reminder of who the Gang of Seven once were and who they are now as a fastbiter pack, while also being interesting enough to stand as characters in their own right.
I've never written a fic based off another story before, so that's kinda new, and also exceedingly rare to find in the archive in its own right. But what can I say…
The Seven Hunters was one of my—and many others, no doubt—biggest inspirations to try my hand at writing to begin with, so I sincerely hope that I did Rhombus' series justice. Once again, thanks to Rhombus for allowing me to borrow his settings and characters, because whenever I think of those eccentric rainbowfaces after reading
The Seven Hunters, my mind is locked onto Chronos and Logos.
Inspiration for this story came from the final chapter of
Songs of the Hunters in a scene shared between Datum and Axiom with the rest of the gang where they argue and debate about the necessity of learning hidden knowledge which were never meant for their ears. And yes, I
had to sneak Taunt in some form because would it really be a Hunters fic without Taunt?
And I should be honest — I wasn't prepared to receive the prompt that I eventually got at all. I haven't had much experience with anything outside of the standard stock dinosaur species the movies focus on, so getting a rainbowface-related prompt was something that I just had to acclimatize to.
Once again, thanks to Rhombus for allowing me use of his setting and characters! I hope it's a worthy (if non-canon) interquel between
The Seven Hunters and
Songs of the Hunters.
