In the heart of the jungle north of the village sits a ginormous Curtin fig tree. Its roots twisted and moulded into the earth for acres around it, encasing the tree around it into a loving embrace, and providing protection and shelter for all those that choose it, if they treated it with respect. One particular family of weasels had been welcomed by this old tree, as it saw their potential and importance. Trees know more than any other creature, mobile or not. They are connected to each other, and thus are connected all over the world, and grow in wisdom as they grow in size and strength.

It has been thirteen years since the fight against Regal Red and his band of Tyrants. Buck and Lucy have reared their two kits inside the roots of the great Curtin Fig, understanding how much the tree meant to them. The tree watched over the two kits fondly, especially when their Dinosaur Taming Father was not around. The tree felt something for the one eyed male, feeling as if he was an old friend. So, the tree felt it needed to be there for the two kits when need be. He watched both grow in personality, and in their own ways, wisdom.

The small female sometimes reminded the tree of a flame, wild and unpredictable, and however much you thought she would behave, she would twist with the world around her. Normally a tree would fear the burning of a flame, but this small girl may bite, but she did not burn. She may bark and balk, but she did not scorch. The tree would enjoy it when she scrambled high onto its trunk and into its branches, letting her clamber as she adventured and grew. The tree was amused and strengthened by her wild spirit.

The small boy was calm and confident in his own quiet way. He watched, and learned differently. Often times the boy would sit quietly with the tree, witling away at dead wood and turning them into something beautiful. After the excitement of the girl, the tree appreciated a being more like itself, one that was patient and content with being comfortable.

The mother of these two was a friend of plants especially, and often would pat the tree in a silent respect and gratitude, which the tree also appreciated. She was one to get rid of harmful tree viruses when they sometimes appeared on the bark of the fig tree, and taught her children very early not to cut the tree, another thing the tree was thankful of.

The tree would watch the kits go through their stages in life, and another step was just around the corner.

Twelve-year-old Calamity jumped from root to vine to trunk and back to root again. She slid on roots that looped out of the ground and back into it, creating and arch, and she pulled back and slung off ones that stuck out of the ground like spikes, which catapulted her through the air for a short distance. Buck, her father, had told her that soon she would be too big to do that, and it might hurt the tree, so she was taking advantage of it while she could.

Jai was ignoring his sisters adventure around the tree she had scaled a thousand times, and was carving away at another piece of wood, snuggled into a natural chair in the roots. Calamity had tried doing it in the past, but she soon got bored and distracted, and found herself running off and doing something else.

Cal was trying to perfect a trick she'd been practising while her father was gone, so she could show him when he got back. She stopped on a root that had risen particularly high, and prepared herself for another go at the trick. Taking a deep breath, she leapt off the root and started gaining momentum by running along other roots and bouncing off the trunk every now and then. The further she ran the faster she moved her legs, gaining speed and growing more confident.

When she finally jumped decidedly to one of the loose vines she had tested for her purposes, she had gained enough momentum to swing strongly enough to gain height. The vine didn't lag at her weight, but speedily made a huge arch. When the vine was as high as it was likely to go, Calamity pushed off the vine and tried once again, the summersault.

She tucked her head in with her arms out like wings, and curved the rest of her body over her head, until her legs were once again below her body.

She'd done it! She'd completed a full front-flip in mid-air!

There was only a second of celebration when Calamity realised something was wrong. She was too far off the ground, and the momentum of doing the flip was still pushing her forward. Instead of landing on her feet, she'd be landing on her face!

Her throat clenched in fear and she gave out a short panic of a yell, and prepared herself as she ground got closer.

Jai and Cal had been out all morning, Jai carving at wood and Calamity doing whatever crazy thing she was doing. Mostly he tried to ignore her insane fanatics. Luckily she was too busy going off and doing that every day that she never had the time to pester him, like she did when they had still been confined to the burrow as kits. She had adventured and wandered and slithered all through the roots for years as a kit until she had mapped the whole thing in her head. She had found every escape tunnel and hiding place. She'd shown a few to Jai, which he had adopted as his getaway places as a kit. Calamity had always had the nose to find him though.
But now they weren't confined to the burrows, and largely stayed away from each other when their father wasn't home. Cal was great and Jai loved her, but all the same he could only take small doses of her company at a time.

So they had their different activities. Jai could go a whole three days without seeing his sister, because she would be up in the tree somewhere, probably trying to see if she could walk on a single tight-vine a hundred feet above the ground.

Buck had taken them into the jungle on trips, but he still didn't allow them to go without himself or Lucy around, much to Cal's annoyance.
Jai was content with staying where he was, carefully making another small statue to give to his aunty Sasha-

"Ahhh!" came a short burst of a cry from Jai's left. He immediately recognized it as his sister's voice, and dropped his carving knife and project, and raced across the roots to see what his sister was yelling about.

He launched over a root just in time to see his sister try and twist body, and she managed to bring her legs forward. She hit the ground with a scream of fright and tumbled, then slid, her body kicking up dirt around her. Jai's heart was thumping in his chest as he waited for her to move, but her body remained a crumpled form.
Jai eventually ran to her, and kneeled beside her body.
Her eyes were closed. Jai shook her shoulder.
He gave out sigh of relief when Cal groaned and lifted her paw to her head.

"Ergh, I screwed that up." She said, frowning.
Jai was too shocked to say anything at first, but it soon subsided.

"What the hell Cal!? I thought you'd died or something!" he yelled, and stood in a rage.

"Yeah, but I didn't." she said with a pained chuckle. Jai scrunched up his face and kicked her in the back.

"Ouch Jai! Jeez, I'm sorry okay. Who knows, I could have died." She said, sitting up.

"I almost wish you had." Jai growled. Cal laughed at that. "I'm telling mum what you did!"

"I'm telling mum what you did!" Cal imitated in a high pitched voice. She stood, holding out her arms for balance, and waited to see if her legs gave out. When they didn't after a few moments, she stood straighter and dusted herself off. "Don't worry. I was fine."

"Whatever." Growled Jai. "What were you doing anyway?"

"Something cool."

"Something stupid it looked like."
Calamity gave him a dark look, before saying, "I'm trying to get a new trick, but the vines around here are connected too high. I'm going to have to go further in."

"Fur-further in? In the jungle? Further into the jungle!?" Jai stammered. Cal looked at him as if he was quite an imbecile.

"Yes Jai. Where else? Further into the dirt?" she snorted sarcastically.

"You can't do that." Jai said immediately, ignoring her tease. Cal groaned.

"I bet you're going to tell me that dad would be mad and blah blah blah." Cal opened and closed her paw in the shape of a beak, again trying to imitate her brother.

"Well yeah! What if something goes wrong!? What if you break something, or worse, come across a dinosaur? No Cal, I think you should just stay here."

"Nothing's going to go wrong." Cal waved away the rant casually.

"It just did." Jai deadpanned, and he saw a change of thought flash across his sister's turquoise eyes.

She thought about it for a minute, then clicked her claws. "And that's why you have to come with me!"

"Okay that's good -What!? NO! I'm not going in there! Not without mum or dad. Why don't we just go get mum and-,"

"Mum's not gonna let me do this stunt. Come on, we'll be in and out like a flash. I just need to find a place where there's better vines and try this. Please Jai." Cal looked at her brother pleadingly.

Jai stared at her sceptically, mulling it over. He knows that she was going to do it either way. If she just ran off, he might be able to go and get Lucy before she did anything stupid, but on the other hand, Cal would just either be difficult and not obey, or would take her revenge on Jai later. Jai had been victimized by his sister's simmering rage in the past, and it was never something he looked forward to.
After a few long moments, Jai relented. He dipped his head with a sigh.

"Fine. Ten minutes max, and then we come back."

"Deal!"
Cal grabbed his paw and dragged him away from the clearing where their tree sat, and Jai felt his confidence thin with each running step he took. Immediately he started to doubt his decision, and the only thing that kept him going was the superior strength of his sister's grip. At this stage in their lives, Calamity was still physically superior to Jai, which he sometimes got bullied about in the village. But he knew he was growing, and could feel his own body maturing.
Jai let himself be dragged through the jungle, twisting his head side to side to try and see anything that might be potentially dangerous. Every story his father had ever told came back to him in a flash, no longer being great tales of adventure, but lessons that Jai tried to pick any tips out of.

Luckily, Cal seemed to remember her father's lessons as well, and managed to avoid stinging trees, a hidden Giant Ants' nest, duck away when a pterosaur flew over, and slide past on all fours a sleeping troodon. When Jai saw the sleeping dino, he froze for a time, and watched to see if his sister would do anything stupid, like try to wake it. There seemed to be a moment where she was considering it, and Jai prepared himself to run, but to his relief she dipped her head again and moved on.
Eventually they came to a fairly dense part of the jungle, with vines dangling and flowing across and down from branches. The deep green was no longer a sinister sight as when they were younger, but a comfortable calming one.

"This place is perfect!" Cal said, gazing around in wonder. The canopy was so dense that the light from the above-ground world barely filtered through, and the ground was completely covered by head-height ground-plants with huge leaves that Jai and Calamity had to crawl under to not get their eyes poked out by the edges.
Slithering under low plants was an advantage at best, but Jai would sometimes poke his head up and/or around to check for anything else that might be thinking the same thing.

They came across a tree that looked as if it was made of many trees combined. It was huge! It spanned a whole two Triceratops' across, and was at least three of those thick. It wasn't a solid trunk, but looked like the roots and vines and branches had twisted up and down, sewing themselves through the ground to create a maze of timber and leaves.

"Whoa!" Cal gasped at the sight of it. She grabbed onto one of the thinner vines dangling down, which was detached from the ground and hung loose. "This is amazing!" Both siblings gazed around and saw there was more of these same trees, every few dozen metres, large tangles of root and trunk.

"They're Banyan trees." Jai whispered, remembering his mother's description and the sketch she'd done in the dirt.
Calamity didn't say anything in response, but instead started to climb it. As soon as she started to, Jai felt an uncomfortable feeling in his chest, and wanted to immediately call her down, but he only realised that she would ignore him and do what she was doing anyway. Jai stared at the tree, and didn't feel as mesmerised by it. It seemed wrong. This tree -all these trees- were strangers to them. They didn't know how they worked. It was one thing for Cal to try her trick on the Grandparent Curtin Fig that they'd lived in their whole lives, and another thing entirely to try it in trees neither of them had any experience with.
But it was far too late. Calamity was already trying to find a good vine.

"Cal," Jai whispered harshly, "I don't think this tree likes us." He stepped away from the trunk, and felt stupid for saying it. But he thought it was right at the time.
Cal's head popped from further up the tree, and she smiled. "I know. Look," Cal pointed out across the tree, and further along the dense area. Jai turned his head to try and spot what she was pointing at. At first he didn't get it, but then he saw movement and stopped.
A slight breeze picked up, and Jai wasn't sure where it would come from. He continued to watch, as the leaves and branches rustled, swaying and lurched across the area.

The great tree above him groaned, possible from temperature change or the breeze was moving it more than Jai could see. The other Banyan trees further down
groaned as well.

"It's just the wind." Jai said to his sister, trying to convince himself.

"Do you feel any wind?" Cal said matter-of-factly, her back turned to him as she continued her search for the perfect vine.
Jai looked down to his arm, his body, and even paid attention to the fringe and hair on his head. Not a single piece of fur or hair moved, and the ground plants surrounding him didn't shift either. He felt a shiver go down his spine, and crouched low to the ground.

"They're swaying…they're swaying on their own." He said quietly, scared that maybe he was going crazy, and terrified that maybe he wasn't.

"Mhm." Calamity said from above him. The tree seemed to loom above Jai, and he shuffled backwards in fear, staring at it. His rear end came up against the trunk of another tree that he'd sworn wasn't there before. The jungle around him seemed to close in, the darkness becoming darker and trying to swallow the few bits of light. Maybe it's just under-ground clouds going overhead, Jai thought to himself. But there hadn't been any in sight when they'd set off, but Jai tried to remind himself that clouds could move very fast. Not as fast as that. Jai shook the thought away.

"Uh huh!" Came a triumphant statement from the Banyan. Cal gave one of the vines a few good tugs, then nodded with satisfaction. "Hey Jai!" She called down. "This one's the one. I'll just be a minute, and then we can get out of this creepy place."

Jai nodded, feeling his concern shift from the trees to his sister. What if it did go wrong? Jai tried pushing all his previous fear out of his mind, and quickly scaled the tree, trying to be careful not to dig his claws in too much.
Cal was just about to jump off the branch when Jai stopped her.

"Hey, maybe you shouldn't." Jai said, eyeing the ground suspiciously, as if the ground had any influence over her sister.

Cal groaned. "Seriously? Just let me do this." She replied, taking steps backward to give herself a run up.

"But the trees don't like us!" he repeated in a harsh whisper.

"They don't know us yet, that's all. I'll make them like us."
Before Jai could yell, or jump forward and grab her by the scruff, Calamity had raced forward and leaped through the gap in the branches, gripping the chosen vine. Jai involuntarily reached out after she was gone, and swore (flinching at himself because he knew his mother would be disappointed at his use of bad language: swearing was Calamity's bad habit.) He then slid down the trunk and ran after his sister.

He obviously couldn't keep up with her on foot, but he could at least keep her in sight. She was whooping and grinning wildly while her vine made a huge arch downwards, her tail almost brushing against the high ground-plants. Speeding along on all-fours, Jai had to constantly flick his eyes and ears up to keep track of her.
When the vine finally came to as high as it was likely to go, Cal once again leaped, and did her flip again. Jai stopped running and watched in hope, in shock, his heart caught in his throat. What if something goes wrong what if something goes wrong.

But nothing went wrong. Calamity hit the ground feet first and tumbled like she'd seen her father do a thousand times. When she came up, she stumbled a bit on her feet, but otherwise had succeeded. Her eyes were wide and a gaping smile on her face as she tried standing as steadily as she could, her arms still out a little for balance. She looked up at Jai, and the grin only got wider. Then she leaped into the air and laughed.

"HAHA! I did it! YEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH! Wahoo!" she started running around and high-fiving bits of plant, then came at Jai. "Holy shit did you SEE that! Oh my god I did it! Just wait till dad sees."
Jai was still recovering from his complete and utter thankful relief to the universe and all things powerful that his sister was fine, that he didn't really have the thoughts to respond. Cal started dancing on the spot, pumping her fists into the air and trying to make a beat as she hopped from one foot to the other. "Damn straight, I did it." She kept saying.

Jai found himself smiling, but a little jealous, too. He was never really as brave as his sister, but adding another thing to the list of things that Calamity could do and Jai still couldn't, had a little sting.

Jai was lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice at first that Cal had stopped dancing. When he did, she was staring behind him with her eyes wide and her strangely pointed ears pricked forward. Jai's ears flicked up too, and he turned slowly. There was nothing behind him…yet. They could hear something making its way towards them through the underbrush, nothing huge like a Spinosaurus, and not small enough to be one of the tiny bug-eating raptors like Oak-eye.

Jai turned around to look questioningly at his sister, but she was gone. Panic gripped at Jai, and he spun around once more to check if-

It was right there.

A snout, poking out from some larger bushes only a foot away from Jai, who was close enough to see the pointed edges of teeth lining the scaly lips. More and more of the mossy green and brown snout protruded from the bush, until two slitted eyes emerged. Once both eyes settled on Jai, frozen on the spot, the scaled lips pulled back into a triumphant grin.

"Jai? Jai where are you!?" Cal was yelling from a way away. She must have thought that he'd been following her when she ran off.
The raptor flicked his eyes in the direction of her yell briefly, then settled back on Jai. It's head then rose and pulled back, before launching towards him. Jai screamed, and then turned and ran. He knew he only just avoided the snap of the jaws, but he couldn't think now. He was running through the ground-plants as fast as he could, panic making the hiss behind him seem far closer than it probably was. He could hear the plants being crushed beneath the dino's clawed feet as it followed close behind. Eventually, it would get closer.

Jai ran for too long, he knew. He knew he should have tried to climb a tree earlier. The rock-climbing raptors from the Plates of Woe had the ability to climb, on the hand of stronger fore-arms and more flexible spines and legs, but the jungle ones only had the ability to climb for short distances before they'd have to give up.
So when Jai's brain finally kicked in and told him to climb, it occurred to him that it was far too late. He wasn't sure how far he was up before his claws screamed in pain, his arms grew taught and his tail was being pulled mercilessly. Jai let go of the trunk of the tree, and let himself be thrown back onto the ground.

He curled up there, on the ground. He covered his face with his paws and tried to make himself an invisible ball. He was shivering all over, and could hear the raptor let out a series of warbles, as if it were laughing. He felt the clawed foot place itself near his head, the huge snort the dinosaur let out as it sniffed at him. Jai whimpered, just wanting it to be over. He couldn't help but feel a few tears flow down his cheeks.

Then, there was furious scream, and the sound of wood *whack* against flesh. Jai flinched away from the sounds.

There was hissing that followed, and terrible screeches, then angry yells.

"You bitch of a thing! Bugger off!"

Cal?

Jai raised his head, almost afraid to look. What he saw would have been laughable, if Jai hadn't almost been a snack a few moments ago. Cal was ducking and rolling and sliding and running, around, under, and occasionally jumping onto or over, the raptor. The scaly creature was twisting and thrashing in rage, screaming and screeching. Cal had a long stick on her hand, hitting at the raptor in random places, but as often as she could in the face, and occasionally when the raptor opened its mouth to screech, poking it in the teeth and tongue.

"Jai get up!" Cal yelled, after sliding under the raptors neck and jabbing it fiercely, making it jump back and make cough-like sounds. Jai wiped his tears away and stood.
"Go dumbass! Go! Jeez."

He nodded, found himself watching cautiously. He couldn't leave his sister. He couldn't leave her behind. She was fighting pretty well right now, but she couldn't fight forever, and they weren't used to this. She would get tired, and eventually she would slip up. So Jai stayed, backing up against the trunk of a tree.
Find something. Find something to throw, to distract him. He can't fight both of you.
Jai nodded to himself, and looked around. The ground was too good to be rocky or dry, so there was no pebbles or collections of hard dirt. There was, however, discarded fruit from dinosaurs and birds, and possibly small village mammals. Mostly it was just the pits left behind, so there were stone-fruit seeds as well. Jai gathered what he could, and started throwing.

The first two missed, but the third hit its mark. The raptor didn't feel it, so Jai threw another.
It took three more, and quite a powerful throw for the raptor to stop, half in shock and half in confusion, before it turned its slender neck to face Jai once again. Jai had run this situation in his head before he threw his weapons, so he knew now was the time to run. He dropped the remainder of his seeds, and turned for the nearby tree, this time making it high enough to get out of the way.

But the raptor had barely given him a second of his attention. It hadn't been long enough for Cal to run, and now Jai was safe in the tree while his sister was still on the ground, with the raptor still trying to get at her. And Calamity didn't have too long before she would start to lose her strength.

Calamity was thankful for the brief moment where the raptor was distracted. She could feel her muscles weakening with every swing of her stick, and when jai grew a backbone and started to throw seeds, she felt a little lighter, a little stronger. But when her brother turn tailed again, and the raptor faced Calamity, she felt her fatigue return. She started hitting the raptor harder than before, desperate to try and scare it off.
But she had long noticed its attitude, its anger issues, the levels of irritation in its eyes. This raptor was young, and as cocky as Cal was herself. So she was at a stalemate.
She hit again and again, dodging each attack.
Her luck had to run out eventually though.
The raptor snapped, and she dodged it as usual, but something behind her tripped her up. She fell flat on her back, her breath rushing out of her. She was quick to try and roll away, but something stomped down on the arm which gripped the stick. She screamed out, feeling a claw digging into her flesh. She opened her eyes which were filling with tears, and saw the raptor above her, grinning cruelly. Then, the creature started to open his jaws, Jai cried out 'No'. Cal closed her eyes and started to scream.

Okay, so this got waaaaay more complicated and extensive than I first planned it to be, but oh well. This whole story was just meant to be about how Cal made her spear and maybe how Jai made his bow and arrows. They were meant to go on a huge adventure like I mention in the actual story, and it will be that. Just a short story on how they did it as twelve-year-olds. Hope you enjoyed and please leave reviews.