Chapter Two: Part Five
Lost Innocence
Soundtrack: Sad Emotional Guitar Backing Track in a Mirror
You stand there, just staring down into the suddenly obscenely dark depths of the river. The once soothing bubbling of the moving water now more a chilling melody. You can feel yourself shiver, frightened by the the monsters that lurks in its mysterious darkness. Looking back out to the deep water, you finally notice more of the water-based beasts. One breaks the surface not even a Grown's length from where you fell in. Another breaches the water by tossing it's head back, a gory chunk of limb falling into it's throat.
Lightly, you chuff, much to the consternation of Mother and the rest of the pack. As you chuff, your body shaking, your siblings huddle around you with worry laid out plain for you in the silent-language your are still learning. Light Gray Blue Brother, his worry manifesting in his vocal tones, warbles, "Pebble Brother, why are you chuffing?" You stop chuffing, only just managing to because you do not want to worry him or anyone else, and reply, "I do not know." You move far away from the water and curl up, still shivering, you do not want to be anywhere close to those monsters. You feel cold right now, too cold.
Mother leans her snout down and inhales your scent, interpreting what her sense of smell tells her of your well-being. Father lays himself down beside you, reaching out with the claws on one hand and gentling pushing your body closer to him. Slack-Jaw and Scar-Snout huddle around you as well. You are unable to pay attention to too much else. Your mind just keeps flashing back to how that grazer died, and placing you in its place. Your too fixated on the fact that you had been in that water, had been who knows how close to those sets of jaws...and death.
Mother, Father, and the other Grown have always, always, told you stories of the larger hunters in life. Had placed emphasis on just how brief life was, how dangerous the life of a hunter could be. Stories like the Great Dying were shared to convey just how short life could be, how even the smallest dangers needed to be watched. You knew that they told these stories to you and your clutch to remind you to enjoy your lives to the fullest, to enjoy every moment as if they were our last since they might be. Enjoying life has never come hard to you or any of your siblings, so this that had never been a hard lesson to learn or apply. But, but you had ignored, maybe on purpose, maybe not, the primary lesson they focused on, that Precise-Claws (raptors) are not the meanest things out here. That Precise-Claws aren't unbeatable, that Precise-Claws are in fact quite killable.
Of all the Hunters, Predators, Killers your pack knew of in your territory, your kind were among the smallest. The Two-Crests (real life Dilos), the Hidden-Jaws (Early Gen Carnotaurs), the Two-Claws (Rexes), all of them so much larger than you and the Grown of your kind. Even with all the warnings and stories, you had never really understood just how dangerous your life would be. You had made light of it, imaging and playing out scenes where you would succeed in the face of every danger. You were, are, the excited and bold hatchling, the one always raring to go and do something new. To do something that the others had never done before. You are just now realizing that new doesn't always mean good, that being you doesn't translate to invulnerability.
Father nudges you lightly with his snout, sighing. He looks you in the eye, his gaze carrying some uninterpretable, knowing, ancient something. He chirps, "You doing okay? I know it is not easy seeing death that closely, especially so when you were the one that could have been grabbed instead." He looks back out to the water and the feasting monsters, the falling-water slowing to a drizzle as the Sun finally breaks the cover it was hidden behind.
"Life is a harsh mother, and as much a Hunter as we are," he caws. You look up at him, cocking your head to signal confusion. He chuffs for a moment, before continuing, "Life gives us so much, much like a mother does. The grass, the trees, the shade and the water. Life grants us the ground we walk upon and the sky to live under. These things provide for the Grazers, the mammals, the birds, and all other prey that we can, and do, hunt and thrive off of." He pauses and you can see his slit pupils narrow at the water monsters, "Yet, Life is also stern. Life births Hunters such as Precise-Claws, like you and I, the Jade-Hunters (compies), the Two-Claws, the Frilled-Rattlers (JP movie dilos), the Unseen-Jaws (Later Gen Carnotaurs) and whatever those things are. Each one so different, each one unique in comparison to the others. But even in the differences, we have similarities; we all live off of the death of another, stand on our feet, have jaws that bite, and limbs that move. We are all Life's hatchlings, from the greatest Tree-Beast (sauropod) to the smallest Jade-Hunter."
"Life gives, offering sustenance to her young and she hunts us, taking us away." He looks back down at you and warbles, "Life punishes foolish actions, like swimming in too fast water or hunting a Tree-Beast alone, with a scare, an injury, or death... Just as a mother punishes her hatchling for doing something foolish like disobeying her or ignoring her warnings," his look becomes an accusing stare. You scratch yourself, feeling suddenly bashful at the attention paid to the fact you ignored Mother's warning. "But just as Life punishes," Father turns back to his impromptu lesson, "she blesses and rewards her offsprings' smart actions and choices. She rewards good planning with a swift kill at the end of a hunt, and blesses mercy to the prey with mercy from our foes and enemies." You jump when Scar-Snout and Slack-Jaw remind you of their presence with reaffirming caws, supporting Father's words. The two Boulder-coloured sisters chuff good-naturedly at you, before getting up and joining Mother, the Seconds, and Scar-Scales, helping them in corralling your siblings and preparing them for the journey back the to Nesting-Clearing.
"Feeling better," Father asks. You chirp out an affirmative, just wanting to leave the whole incident behind. "It is alright to be scared of your mortality, son. Everyone goes through it, everyone feels the chill wind of death upon realizing that they are not invulnerable to dying. I experienced it just after my First Hunt... I was reluctant to hunt, to kill or do anything for a time after. The pack cared for me then, just as we care for each other now. I thought through what I knew back then, and came up with the realization I just told you. I have told it to each of my hatchlings when they first came to understand death and their vulnerability to it and I am going to tell it to each of my hatchlings when they first understand such. Hopefully, my hatchlings will tell their hatchlings this line of thought and so on."
Father pauses, looking at the setting Sun and huffs. "I didn't have anyone to help me understand this, and I was the first to experience this fearfulness of death in our pack. I won't let my young experience the feeling of hopelessness that I felt back then," Father warbles before getting up and stretching a tired leg. "Come on!" He exclaims! "We might want to join the pack before they leave. You do not want to be left behind, right?" You look to where the pack had been to see them disappearing into the underbrush. You take off, answering Father's question with a flurry of motion towards the pack. "That's my boy," you hear him chuff softly as he catches up to you.
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The Moon has dominated the sky with his helpers by the time that your pack is almost home. For most of the way back, you and your siblings played a new game that Scar-Snout introduced you to. Eye-Spy was a game that was more intellectually stimulating than any other game you and your siblings had played before. Your smarter siblings, like Dull, Dark Gray Brother and Light Gray Brother, excel at thinking up hard to guess things to spy, while introducing to those siblings that were physically inclined a more challenging game for them to figure out.
Your siblings had not kept count of just who was winning the most, so you had no clue who was winning. As it was, you were mostly quiet for the majority of the trip to the nest. Your closest siblings check up on you, making sure you are alright. You do your best to reassure them and convince them that you are okay, and to convince them that you had just been shocked by how big those water predators were. You did not want to worry your siblings with thoughts of their own vulnerability to death. You want to enjoy them as they are now, carefree.
Your pack is almost to the clearing when the bushes rustle with movement. The Grown of the pack pause, readying for whatever might come even as your siblings all go quiet and prepare to make a run for the nearest tree. A large, dual crested head pokes through the bushes at a Grown's head height. It immediately notices your pack, and looks down at you and your siblings. Suddenly, it hoot-warbles and a replying trill echoes out from the patch of forest behind it and wanders into full view. It is the same height as a Grown, but much longer. In the silver light of the Moon, the Two-Crest's (real life dilos) hide almost blends into the flickering shadows of the branches and leaves that fall from above. The only thing that gives the creature away is the warm, yellow colour of the majority of the being's scales and it's dual, red crests.
Father and Mother bugle a warning at the Two-Crest together, which is automatically echoed by the pack. The Two-Crest takes in the warning and slowly backs back into the bushes. Only when it is out of sight do you hear it turn around and run. Still, for the rest of the trip home, you can hear faintly echoing hoots, trills, and other Two-Crest calls. You fall asleep to the warm, staccato comfort of Mother and Father's heartbeats, and under the reassurance of your pack's sentries' watchful gaze.
Choose Two
[X] Play Pebble Sister's new game.
[X] Play Fight against your rival Stone Sister.
[X] Play with Light Blue Gray Brother.
[X] Nap with Light Gray Brother and Dull, Dark Gray Brother.
[X] Watch the two 'First' Sisters play fight.
[X] Be Introspective
Ponder about what happens after death
QM Note: Alright, that rounds up your trip to the river. Sanity Slippage or Break the Cutie moment, you decide! Smugraptor was right, I was inspired by The Lion King for this moment, but not in the way he expected. I took Mufasa's Circle of Life speech, melted it down into unrecognizableness, and remade it in my own Image. Anyways, here's hoping the next part isn't so sad. I touched on the subject of this part mainly because I wanted to get it out of the way. I figured that it was going to come up eventually, so why not get it out of the way now. We are a smart hatchling, so I figured making the connections between big crocs snatching things by the shore, and us having splashed around and fallen into the deep water was an easy enough thing to put together as a might have been situation. Have a feel and get ready for more cuteness, next part is fluffy to make up for the Feelz this chapter had.
Roll:
Glitchrrr36 rolled a 8 for Random Encounter.
Vote ends Saturday, July 24, 2015 at 3:00pm (EST).
As always reviews, comments, help with grammatical errors, omakes, and advice are always accepted. Hope you enjoyed!
