Hey everyone.
So I joined the GOF awhile back, but quickly became swamped with work, school, and playing the lead role in the musical. I had no time to post. Well Rhombus recently informed me of an upcoming writing prompt contest and I will be entering it.
Furthermore, I'm writing my own LBT fic called 'This Is Growing Up'. It's basically my own tale about our favorite group of dinosaurs going through the pains of puberty while dealing with the consequences of mating, the herd, hormones, love, and much more. It's on fanfiction but I know many of you are not on there. So I also decided to post it here to get more feedback.
I hope you all enjoy. I'll be posting a chapter every few days as I currently have 10 up at the moment. It most likely will be around 17-18 chapters long.
Thanks again!
Can't wait to hear what you all think.
Chapter 1. Witnessing 'Nature'
“Pass the rock! Over here!”
“Come on, I’m open!”
It was another magnificent day in the Great Valley. The leaves were green, the sky a bright turquoise, and the sun shone far and wide over the land of the largest and most fantastic creatures on the earth, the dinosaurs.
To Littlefoot, the now teenage Apatosaurus, life went on much as it had for the past 14 years of his existence. He had his grandma and grandpa along with his father Bron, whom he still saw once a year when his herd made its way to the Valley. There was plenty of green food to eat, water to drink, and mud to jump in. Above all, he still had his friends, Petri (the Pteranodon), Ducky (the Saurolophus), Spike (the Stegosaurus) and Cera (the Triceratops).
He was bigger now, much bigger. His worries about not growing had all but vanished. Littlefoot, though only a juvenile, was well on his way to becoming as big as his father and grandfather before him. He could reach parts of trees he couldn’t before and was gaining in strength every day. Indeed, they had all reached a considerable size for each of their species.
However, despite the maturity of their bodies, Littlefoot and company still loved their relatively carefree life. They ate and drank as they pleased. Games were still fun and a great way to pass the time. They went about their days as they had when they were barely out of hatchling-hood.
Of course, even for dinosaurs, nothing ever truly stays the same.
The rock skipped passed Petri and into Cera who hit it with her forehead towards Spike. Running along the edges of the trees, they were doing their best to keep along the path and avoid having to search among the heavy vegetation.
Ducky laughed, “Spike pass it to me!”
Unlike when they were younger, she was now large enough to use her own tail. She caught the pass and tossed it over to Littlefoot.
“Hey guys watch this!” he said catching the rock with his foot. “My dad taught me this trick last year.”
Using his head, he flipped the rock in the air, landing on his neck, upon which it slid to the end of his tail. Littlefoot then fired it with such speed, the others were forced to duck to avoid impact. It soared into the underbrush and out of sight.
“Yeesh, glad me missed that one” Petri muttered.
“Great job, Littlefoot” Cera said rolling her eyes. “Not much a trick since you almost took out an eye.”
“Sorry, guys. Don’t worry, I’ll find it.”
He walked into the bushes to begin his search.
“Don’t get lost, lest I have to save you again” Cera called after him.
Littlefoot chuckled to himself. He was more than used to Cera’s ribbing by now. She still had her headstrong nature (typical among three horns) but was far less obnoxious in her attitude and more playful now. Besides, he had gotten her out of tight spots at least as much as she had for him. She knew this as well as he did.
He checked the bushes along the edge without any luck and decided to push further into the trees. The underbrush was especially thick this time of year so he needed to search more thoroughly than usual.
After a couple of more minutes he was beginning to slightly regret his little stunt. So were his friends apparently.
“Littlefoot! What’s taking so long?” Cera called from afar.
“Hold on! Just give me a sec!”
He searched around with more urgency, going yet farther into the trees until he saw a lump of gray near the base of a large bush.
“Gotcha” he said with satisfaction.
Just as he was about to grab the rock and head back towards his friends he heard the strangest noise. A loud, grunting sound that was somewhat similar to Mr. Threehorn’s dismissive growls. Only this was much more guttural, and dare he say it? Animalistic?
Taking note of the direction of the sound, Littlefoot’s natural inquisitiveness got the better of him, as it usually did. Poking his head through the bushes, he came upon the edge of a clearing within the forest.
What he saw defied his own comprehension. In the middle of the clearing stood Mr. Clubtail but he wasn’t alone. Another clubtail was with him, and he was standing in an awkward position on top of it. At first glance, they appeared to be fighting, but as Littlefoot watched more closely that did not appear to be the case. Come to think of it, when had he ever seen two dinosaurs fight like that before?
Upon further inspection he saw that the second clubtail was female. Littlefoot couldn’t be sure, but were they both…enjoying whatever this was? All he knew is that the longer he watched, the more uncomfortable he became and the more he wished he hadn’t stumbled upon the two clubtails.
He removed his head from the bush and attempted to back away slowly as to not get caught eavesdropping, when he tripped on the very same rock he had been searching for. He fell hard on his back with a mighty thud. In the past he might have gone unnoticed, but he wasn’t exactly small anymore. He must’ve made quite a noise as he heard Mr. Clubtail exclaim,
“What was that?”
“I don’t know dear” a female voice replied soothingly.
“Someone’s out there”
“Relax dear, I’m sure it was just a fallen tree branch of some sort.”
“I’d rather check it’s not some sharptooth lying in wait…”
“Really you’re being paranoid hun. Come back and snuggle, after all it’s so rare we get any alone time.”
“Well alright then…” and he heard the clubtails giggling to each other.
Not wanting to wait around for a repeat performance, Littlefoot took off running as fast he could in the other direction, all concerns for the rock left behind in the dust.
When he finally made it back to his friends he burst through the bushes, panting like mad, trying to formulate words to what he had just witnessed.
“You guys! You guys!”
“Littlefoot, what is the matter?” Ducky asked, quite perturbed.
“Yeah you look you just saw sharptooth,” Petri added.
“No it’s not that it’s…something else.”
Cera walked forward and tried to console her friend.
“Alright Littlefoot, relax and take it easy. Now what exactly happened back there that made you so shaken up? You don’t exactly scare easy.”
Still slightly panting, the young longneck attempted to explain.
“Well I was looking for the rock, and I finally found it. But then I heard weird noises coming from in front of me. Like this weird grunting, growling sound.”
“When me hear weird noses I just fly in opposite direction.”
“Yeah, so I’m guessing you just had to know what it was you heard,” Cera remarked.
“Well yeah, I mean I had to make sure it wasn’t anything bad.”
“But was it anything bad?” Ducky asked.
“Obviously not or he wouldn’t be here right now,” Cera said with her trademark sarcasm.
Spike simply grunted as he turned his attention to some grass nearby.
“Anyway, so I poked my head through the bushes to see what it was and well…it was really weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Well I saw Mr. Clubtail and he was with another clubtail, a girl one. And he had his front legs on top of her back bumping against her.”
Totally perplexed, the other juvenile dinosaurs didn’t seem to have an answer for this.
“You said they were making weird noses? Growling at each other?” Cera asked.
“Kinda but…”
“Well that’s it then, Mr. Clubtail was just fighting another one of his kind, no big deal.”
“There’s more to it than that. They seemed to like it.”
There was a slight pause in which only the sound of Spike eating could be heard.
“What do you mean ëlike’?” Ducky inquired.
“Of course they liked it. All dinosaurs like fighting” Cera said dismissively.
“Me thinks threehorns like it too much,” Petri muttered, but not quietly enough.
“What was that?” she turned on him aggressively.
“Nothing!” he said quickly.
“Anyway Littlefoot you’re making this into a big deal. We fight, we play, we wrestle, it’s how things work. Nothing to be alarmed about.”
Littlefoot wanted to believe her, but he was not at all convinced that this was a simple case of a territory dispute.
“But the position they were in, he was mounting her.”
He even put his front two feet upon a nearby rock to demonstrate. The others laughed at the show, much to his annoyance.
“Guys come on.”
“Sorry, Littlefoot, but you look funny, you do, you do,” Ducky giggled.
“Littlefoot forget it. We got a whole day ahead of us and we’re wasting it by standing here, quit mounting that rock and let’s go do something fun,” said Cera. “Anyone want to play pinecone bowling?”
The suggestion was met with enthusiasm, even Littlefoot found himself wanting to join in.
“Alright, I’m in.”
“Yes!”
“Me call Spike’s team!”
“You’re always on Spike’s team Petri.”
“Yeah cuz me no throw rock well.”
“That’s not our problem…”
Littlefoot laughed inwardly at the antics of his friends. However, even as they ran down towards the deepest part of the valley, he couldn’t help but wonder just what those clubtails were up to. The images were simply too vivid in his head not to.
