Chapter 1, The Swamp

Nimble had never been able to live up to her name. She had always been more jumpy and frantic, which, in itself, was a rather abnormal trait for a fast biter. Her name, which was now bound to her like a blood sucking leech, had been given to her in hopes that a great name would bring good luck and fortitude. But her birth brought nothing but misery and hardship upon her family. However, hardship was to be expected when living in the humid swamplands near the great floodplains. As hard as life in the swamplands was, it didn't change anything, nor provide any excuses. Her mother, the only one out of the pack who didn't despise her for her struggles, was still gone. All because Nimble had foolishly frozen with fear while her mother shouted at her to flee while being cornered by a sharptooth. Nimble had flinched when she should have scampered, and her mother paid the ultimate price for her own cowardice.

Her father was right to reprimand her. He was always right. She could never hunt, fight or do anything that most fast biters had in their blood, flowing through their veins. There were only two things she knew how to do without fail — freeze in place, and run like a coward. Her father blamed her for his mate's death, she knew he did. After all, he didn't exactly bother to hide how he felt. Nimble couldn't even hold it against him because he had every reason to be disdainful. Had she not frozen in place that day, she could've gotten help, and perhaps, her mother would still be with them. None of it mattered, though. Not anymore.

When Nimble was still a young girl, the sky water came. She'd seen sky water before, but this was different. It rained for days on end, without cessation, flooding the end of the swamp that they resided in. During the commotion and chaos of the pack trying to salvage their nests, she found a window of opportunity to flee and leave her old life behind. She headed towards higher ground, away from the floodplains, remaining close enough that she still had the protection of the murky swamp.

Nimble grew up alone, amongst the tall, moss covered trees whose branches stretched across the canopy like long, winding arms. She grew a silky coat of gray and sage green feathers, with black along the tips. A short but slender light gray snout housed a powerful set of serrated teeth which could rip through flesh. Her watchful eyes were a warm orange, like the color of the sky when the bright circle began to set.

Although she'd never been formally taught how to hunt for food, she was able to learn by watching other fast biters who lived among her. Still, she was small fry compared to these larger predators, and therefore minded herself so that she would not give herself an early sendoff to the great beyond.

It was bitter work, but the results were worth it. She'd gone from cowering at the mere mention of hunting, to being able to track down and find sufficient food for herself. That, in itself, was an accomplishment. She only wished her mother could see how far she'd come.

As the bright circle rose and fell many times, Nimble grew into a capable young fast biter. Even more importantly, she was now of the proper age to mate. Her family, for many generations, had a single goal in mind — to continue the bloodline. To pass on the stories of their elders to their young ones, who would pass those stories onto their own young. This manner of passing on traditions was like tying several vines to form a never ending chain.

Nimble, too, had this same goal, even if she'd severed herself from her family long ago. She set out to find a suitable mate, which proved to be an easy task. When arriving at the mating grounds, she was easily swayed by a prospective male flaunting his flamboyant feathers. After they'd finished, the male left. This was how things worked in the swamplands, and many other places. For many fast biters, the extent of their paternal duty was to mate with a female and leave. There was no need for them to stick around, unless they absolutely wanted to. Nimble was well aware that this was the case with her mother and father. They'd genuinely been in love, and her father had that love, the kind that only comes around once in a life time, stripped away from him. She knew that her father would try to mate again. Not in hopes of finding love again, but to make up for the disappointment.

When the warm time came, and the swamp became humid with occasional showers of warm water, Nimble laid a small clutch of three eggs in her nest of leaves and grass at the foot of a tree. The eggs were tall and oval shaped, covered with brown specks. She laid beside her nest, nuzzling the freshly laid eggs with the tip of her snout. A contented sigh escaped her, and she took a moment to pluck more grass from the ground to shield her eggs from the wandering eyes of any predators. It was imperative that the eggs were well covered, as egg stealers had no use for a nest without any eggs.

Nimble believed that she did everything right. She'd crafted a suitable nest for her unborn chicks. She looked after her eggs and nurtured them like any mother would. But before the cold time could even arrive, she lost her children to the clutches of an egg stealer. She made sure to cover her eggs before leaving to hunt, but somehow, this certain egg stealer saw through her façade. When she returned from her hunt, she came home to an empty nest, where nothing remained but the broken remnants of a few egg shells.

Naturally, she had been devastated. She spent the next few days mourning over her lost children, staying within the throes of her nest, feeling sorry for herself. But as the cold time arrived, and the leaves began to change, so did she. Nimble picked herself up off the ground and decided that she needed to live to see the next season, so that she might have another chance.

She did. As the lights from the north shimmered across the sky in many hues of green, blue and purple, melting the ice and allowing new life to bloom, Nimble laid another clutch of eggs. This time, there were six of them. In her mind, this was a good thing. This way, more of them were likely to survive to adulthood.

She watched her eggs diligently, forgoing all of her own needs to ensure their safety. This was something she'd neglected to do when she last laid eggs; more often than not, she would leave her nest unattended to find food for herself. She knew better now.

Many days and many nights passed. Then, one golden morning, the eggs began to move around in the mound of dirt they had been safely nestled in for the past six months. Nimble, catching wind of the rustling leaves, sauntered towards her nest. She lowered her head, sniffing the eggs as they stirred. The frill of feathers on the back of her head twitched slightly as an intriguing curiosity was sparked inside of her.

The first egg began to hatch. The shell trembled as the hatchling struggled to break free from the protective covering of the eggshell as well as the sticky juices that nourished them. Meanwhile, the rest of the clutch was also beginning to poke their snouts out from their eggshells, taking their first breath of the outside air. The tiny hatchlings squeaked and squealed for their mother, who responded with a soft growl while digging them out of the nest. She knew that from this moment on, until they were fully grown, these small, fuzz covered hatchlings would be completely and utterly dependent on her.

Several hours were spent teaching the hatchlings to walk on their own two feet. Nimble demonstrated for them the steps of walking, placing one foot in front of the other. Her six hatchlings watched in bewilderment as their mother performed this seemingly spectacular feat. Nimble walked in a circle and stopped, motioning for her children to give it a try.

The first hatchling, who had been the first to break out of his shell, tried imitating his mother. He placed one foot in front of the other, awkwardly waddling towards Nimble's feet. He got the hang of it for a minute, but tripped over a pebble rooted deep into the soil. He let out a squeak as he fell, losing the balance he had tried so hard to maintain.

Nimble let out a laugh, and used her snout to help him back onto his feet. "Don't feel bad," She crooned, giving him a gentle nuzzle with her snout, "I didn't get it on my first try either."

Teaching her children how to walk moments after hatching proved to be an arduous task, but she managed to accomplish what she set out to do. Once they'd learned how to walk, she arranged them into a single file line.

"Stay close, children," she warned, "You don't want to get lost. In the swamp, if you get lost, you stay lost." A bit blunt, but it was the truth.

Nimble led her children to the stream where there was an abundance of insects for them to hunt. Winged buzzers rode the gentle currents by perching on top of the leaves drifting across the stream, all while searching for fish to catch. The fast biter dipped her head in the stream, taking a sip of the refreshing water.

While she relinquished in the freshness of the water of the stream, a ground crawled steadily approached one of her female hatchlings, snapping it's pinchers. At the end of it's tail was a sharp stinger. The hatchling cooed curiously, tilting her head. She began repeatedly pecking the ground crawler in the head, infuriating the insect. Poised to attack, the ground crawler readied it's stinger and waited for the right moment to strike.

Just then, Nimble came up and snatched the ground crawler up into her mouth, sinking her teeth into the insect's outer shell, squeezing the life out of the creature as it thrashed around in her mouth. When all movement finally ceased, she dropped the crawler in front of her hatchlings, who made short work of the insect.

While watching her hatchlings eat their first meal, she could feel the presence of other sharpteeth weigh heavily on her. From the corner of her eye, she could see a fast biter, covered in gaily colored feathers, watching every movement, just waiting for an unsuspecting hatchling to accidentally stray too far.

Nimble wouldn't have it. She spread her arms, lined with feathers that gave them the appearance of wings, and protectively held them over her hatchlings as she led them away from the stream.

By the time her chicks were three months old and no longer fit the criteria for being called 'hatchlings', they'd already managed to develop personalities of their own, as well as a few amateur hunting skills along the way.

In the early morning, it was the obnoxious noise of hoppers leaping from pond to pond that woke Nimble from her blissful slumber. She opened one eye, and awoke to the chirps and cries of various creatures across the swamp. As sleep wore off, allowing her to awaken fully, she took the liberty of grooming her feathers before standing up.

Underneath her warm feathers were her chicks, sleeping peacefully. She tilted her head at an angle as she peered down at them, rousing each chick with a gentle nudge.

"Mama," one of her chicks mumbled groggily, "Stop it..."

"Wake up, Tula," she said firmly, urging her forward, "You know the early morning is the best time to find food."

Nimble watched as each of them slowly stumbled out of the nest, murmuring their names in order to keep track of each individual child. Once they had all been accounted for, she stood to face them.

"Alright, I'm going to go find us some breakfast. I want you all to stay here, and to stay hidden. Don't draw too much attention to yourselves. I'll be back soon."

As soon as their mother disappeared into the shadows of the trees and bushes, the chicks immediately dropped their act of obedience. Tula pushed one of her siblings into a puddle of mud, cackling and pointing.

Tui, the faint hearted male who had been pushed, spit out the mud that he'd swallowed on his way down. In an act of defiance, he grabbed his sister by the leg and dragged her down with him.

"Ha!" Tui laughed, pointing a finger at her the same way she had done with him.

Tula narrowed her eyes, spitting some mud onto his face. Then, from above, she could hear the familiar voice of one of her other siblings.

"Mud pile!"

Both Tui and Tula glanced up to see the shadow of their four other siblings looming over them as they made a nosedive for the mud puddle. They quickly tried to move out of the way, but in the end, their siblings were piled on top of them like a pyramid.

It was then that Nimble returned with her kill. She surveyed the area, searching the area for her children. When she heard squealing and laughter from a nearby puddle of filthy mud, she set the meal aside somewhere safe and went to investigate, although part of her already knew it was her own young in the puddle.

She peered inside, frowning when she saw that all six of her children were bathing in the mud. She wasn't shocked nor appalled, just disappointed. One of her chicks spotted her, and squeaked to say hello.

Nimble could only sigh and lower her tail into the puddle, allowing the little ones to latch onto the tuft of feathers at the end of her tail. Once all six of them were safely on her back, she headed away from the mud.

Tula scampered across her mother's back, climbing onto her head. "Where are we going, momma?"

"Well," Nimble began, "First of all, you lot are going to take a bath."

"A bath? But momma, we don't wanna take a bath!"

"That's too bad," Nimble said wryly, "You should have thought of that before you decided to jump into the mud."

She led them to a pond under the shade of a canopy of conifer trees. The water was clear, patches of green mass drifting about in the current. Nimble then lowered them into the water before climbing in herself, deciding that she could do with a bath.

Tula turned her back towards her mother, giving a huff. She watched as a brown hopper landed on a rock mostly covered with small patches of moss. Grinning, she waved towards the rock, opening her mouth wide.

"Don't even think about it, Tula," Nimble warned in a no-nonsense sort of tone.

"Hmph." Tula's glance bounced off of her mother as she rested her elbows on the rock, not even bothering to watch the hopper jump away to another pond.

Tui, on the other hand, was thoroughly enjoying getting cleaned. He giggled as his mother's hands gently poured water over his mud covered body, washing away all the dirt and filth. Once he was clean, he shook the wet piece of moss on his head.

"Mom, did you get something to eat?"

"Yes, love, of course I did," Nimble replied, scratching him underneath his chin.

"Will we still get to eat some?"

"What sort of question is that? You all are my children, I would go hungry if it meant that you children didn't have to starve."

Tui shrugged his shoulders as the rest of his siblings gathered around their mother.

"Oh, by the way, you all are grounded to the nest for a week."

"Aww! But mom!"

"No buts."

It was now six months since her children had hatched. More importantly, she'd laid a new clutch of four eggs. The warm time was off to a good start.

At the current moment, Nimble was doing exactly what she was doing six months ago; nestling her eggs into the nest, covering them with blades of grass and various leaves. The only difference was that this time, she was not alone. Her chicks watched her closely and intently, each having a different perception of what their mother was doing.

"Is she keeping them warm?" Tui asked, offering an inquisitive tilt of his head.

"No, you idiot," Tula replied with her usual abrasiveness, "It's obvious she's hiding them so the sharptooth doesn't eat them!"

"You're both right," Nimble intervened, mostly to get Tula off of her poor brother's back, "The eggs need to be kept warm, but it's also important that they remain hidden so that egg stealers don't find them."

"Do you think they'll like us, momma?" One of her daughters asked, leaning against her mother's foot while being careful to avoid her lethal toe claw.

"If you're nice to them, I don't see why not," Nimble answered, using her snout to distribute the grass evenly across the nest. "Why do you ask? Are you excited?"

"I don't know. I'll have to see."

"Fair enough," Nimble said with a chuckle.

The months continued to fly by like the breeze that came with the start of the cold time. Nimble's litter of young fast biters were almost a year old, meaning that the time to give them a taste of the real world was quickly approaching. As her chicks would slowly become more independent, she would be able to dedicate more time to nurturing the unborn hatchlings growing within her eggs, which were due to hatch any day now.

"Mom," her son complained, tugging at her tail feathers, "Come on! Let's go!"

Nimble didn't even cast him a glance as she positioned her eggs neatly underneath the cover of the grass. "I thought I made it clear to you children that we won't be going down to the stream this evening. There's too many sharpteeth, and I can't go too far away from the nest."

"But we want to hunt," Tula said, cutting in on the conversation, "You promised you'd take us!"

Nimble's tired eyes wandered up towards the sky as she breathed a sigh of exasperation. As a mother, she knew well enough how this would end. Even if she said no, her children would still most likely wander off while her back was turned. If they were going to go either way, she might as well accompany them.

"Very well," she relented, beginning to rise. "But only for a short while. And we are coming home straight after, understood?"

When all six of them nodded, Nimble added more grass to her nest as an extra precaution. She then stood expectantly in front of her chicks, waiting for them to get lined up. As soon as they had, they were off.

Upon arriving at the stream, Nimble chose to sit by the water's edge, watching as the bright circle's light made the water shimmer, as if the stars had fallen from the sky and were now floating ceaselessly in the stream. The gleeful squeals of her children faded away as she pondered on her life. Perhaps it was too soon to jump to conclusions, but as of right now, leaving home was the best thing that had ever happened to her. It allowed her to find her own path, rather than wandering one that had been chosen for her.

As she returned to reality, she turned around to check on her young ones. Her eyes widened at what she saw, and she scrambled to stand up and run to the rescue. "Tula, no, don't eat that!"

While leading her family home, Nimble turned to her daughter, raising a brow as they became concealed under the trees.

"Tula, what did I tell you about creatures with brightly colored markings?"

"That they're poisonous," Tula replied begrudgingly, her words followed by a sigh. "But mom, that hopper looked so good!"

"It may look good, but I can guarantee that you won't feel good after you eat it."

"I guess so...but no one else stopped me!"

"I know, and I will talk to your brothers and sisters about that," Nimble assured her, directing a glare towards her five other chicks, who purposely avoided their mother's gaze.

The rest of the trek home was made in silence. Nimble continuously sniffed the air for the scent of any predators, while her young stuck close to her side. When she saw her nest come into view, she could see the small bumps of the eggs hidden within her nest. She felt a huge wave of relief, and could not repress a sigh of delight.

"Last one home is a rotten egg!" Tula called out, making a dash for the nest.

Nimble shook her head at her daughter's antics, but suddenly froze in place. Her eyes wide, she sniffed the air. The blood seemed to run from her face as a strange rigidness overtook her body, her form resembling that of an unmoving rock.

Tui looked up at his mother, his face contorting with worry. "Momma...? What's wrong?"

Nimble's pupils, as thin as narrow slots, darted from left to right. "That...that smell," she gasped, breathless. A moment passed. A silent moment, full of suspense and unpredictability. Then, in the blink of an eye, she swept her children underneath her with her tail. She zipped over to the nearest tree, crouching down against the bark, shielding her chicks with her feathered arms.

She was completely still, the only barely visible movement being that of her chest rising and falling slowly as she breathed. Her neck was arched, her claws sifting through the dirt, as if poised for an attack.

"M-Mom...?" Tula whimpered, her tiny body shaking like a leaf.

"Quiet, Tula," Nimble whispered. "Don't move, don't talk. Just...be completely still..."

On the other side of the tree, a crested sharptooth quietly moved across the swamp floor. His breath was soft, and yet, the swamp was so quiet that it was the only thing that could be heard. As the beast dragged his cumbersome body forward, each footstep caused the earth to tremble with powerful vibrations that shook anyone who felt them.

There came a point at which the crested sharptooth came to a halt and sniffed the air. It's eyesight was rather poor, but it's sense of smell was a great ally when it came to tracking prey. There were creatures here, and the sharptooth knew it. It was only a matter of time before these creatures would unwittingly reveal themselves. All the sharptooth had to do was bide his time.

Tula cried softly as she slowly backed away, right into her mother's sharp toe claw. She squeaked in pain, reflexively flinching and jumping backwards. Her siblings all looked at her, eyes wide with dread and fear.

Nimble's breath hitched, her eyes frantically moving from side to side, caught in a fearful unnerving, unflinching stare.

The sharptooth suddenly turned his head at the noise, locking onto his target. Letting out a warning roar that scared the flyers from the trees, the predator's footsteps quickened, turning into thundering, fast approaching stomps.

In their terror, the chicks squealed and fled from the protection of their mother's arms, running frantically towards the nest.

The sound of squealing chicks gave the sharptooth a direction to follow. He advanced towards the frightened dinosaurs, not expecting to find Nimble, who'd leapt in front of him so that the only thing standing between him and the chicks was her.

She was fuming with anger, the feathers on her frill pointed upwards in defiance. She flared her nostrils, roaring ferociously.

The sharptooth roared in response to the retaliation, not missing a beat as he quickly overpowered the fast biter, knocking her to the ground and trapping her under the weight of his foot.

Nimble thrashed around violently, desperately trying to escape from his grip. She stole a quick glimpse of her children, who remained where they stood. She wanted to yell at them to run, to run far away, but the breath had been knocked out of her.

When the sharptooth loosened his hold on her moments later, Nimble rose up and latched onto his leg. Unfazed by this attack, he slashed his claws against her flank while forcefully removing her from his leg, throwing her against the trunk of a nearby tree.

The back of Nimble's head hit the rough bark with a deafening thud. She doubled over, her field of vision narrowing to reveal nothing more than what was directly in front of her. Sounds vegan to lose clarity and it seemed that she was slowly slipping away.

"MOMMA!" A warbled and nearly indiscernible voice cried out, failing to reach her.

Nimble couldn't even make sense of it. Her eyelids began to droop, and she found herself losing all feeling in her body. Too tired to even think, she succumbed to the overwhelming urge to close her eyes and fall into a deep sleep.

When she came to, it was dark. The night circle was high in the sky, while the bright circle was slowly setting. The sky went from a lovely shade of lavender to a warm golden yellow. But none of that mattered, not to Nimble.

The swamp was totally quiet as she slowly tried to recollect her thoughts. Her head throbbing, she struggled to make sense of whatever had transpired. She leaned back against the trunk of the tree, wincing. A sharp pain was radiating from her side, intensifying with each passing moment. She glanced downwards and saw three gashes near her left leg, red and still fresh.

Suddenly, she remembered. She remembered everything. Letting out a soft gasp, she used the tree trunk to support herself as she made an attempt to rise. She kept her left leg off of the ground, unsteadily ambling forward.

"T...Tula?" She called, her voice lacking confidence that her daughter would answer. However, part of her was hoping against hope and wanted to believe that she would. Her legs shook as she took another step, calling each of her children's names, silently begging for any one of them to answer. There was no response.

As blood trickled from the wound in her leg, falling onto the earth in small, red droplets, Nimble doubled over in grief and pain. The pain of bleeding out paled in comparison to the hurt of losing her children for the second time.

"No..." she murmured, hot tears blurring her vision as she stood hunched over, "NO!" In a fit of rage that exploded inside of her, she leapt up and smashed a bare berry bush to pieces with her tail, causing the flyers perched in the branches above to flee in surprise.

Nimble collapsed to the ground, hyperventilating before letting out one loud sob, followed by several more spine crunching sobs. Each sob physically hurt her, creating the sensation of a pounding headache.

She couldn't believe this had happened to her. Again. It was so much worse this time around. When she lost her mother, she was inconsolable. When her first clutch of eggs fell victim to an egg stealer, she was devastated then as well. But this, this hurt like nothing she'd ever known. Having her children, her own flesh and blood, hatchlings whom she'd grown to love more than life itself ripped away from her so brutally was so, so painful.

"Why," she sobbed, "Why did this have to happen to me? I did everything right. How could this happen? I-I loved them, I took care of them, they were going to meet their new siblings..." A realization hit her. She lifted her head and gasped. "The eggs!"

In too much pain to try standing up again, she crawled and practically dragged herself over to her nest. Her face crumpled at the sight before her. Not even the eggs were salvageable. The first egg had a gaping hole right through the middle, and the one beside it was completely squashed. The third was dented, and it would never hatch. The last egg looked unharmed, but when Nimble picked it up, she found that there was a hole in the bottom where all the juices had leaked through.

She drew in a quivering breath, eyes red and bloodshot with dark circles underneath, all stemming from her tears. She'd lost everything. She'd lost all her children. More tears budded in the corners of her eyes, rolling down Nimble's face as she drowned in her grief.

Nimble cried for a long time. At that point, she was simply waiting for a sharptooth to come and get her. Truthfully, she wished that she had been the one killed, rather than her children. They were innocent. They had their whole lives ahead of them. She let it happen. She let that sharptooth take her children. She'd failed as a mother.

After crying her eyes out, Nimble didn't feel any better. Her entire world had come crashing down, and she had let it. As she shifted her weight, she heard the growling of her stomach. She looked at her thin frame, and then at the eggs. She was not stupid. She knew that the life inside of those eggs had long since died out.

Having made a decision, she sat up to the best of her ability, digging her teeth into the first egg shell. After biting away at the protective covering of the eggshells, she sucked the juices from inside each egg, heeding her body's desperate plea for nourishment. In her current state, she was in no position to hunt. Ultimately, she was left with little choice.

For the first time, she took no pleasure in her meal. When she was done, she looked at her bloodied hands. She clenched her fists, taking a deep breath to calm herself as her heart thumped loudly against her chest.

What she needed was a bath. She needed to wash herself down, and think with a clear mind. So, she tried her luck at standing. It took several failed attempts, but she finally was able to get back on her feet again. However, with her injury, she was relatively slower. By the time she reached the nearest pond, the bright circle had set completely. Nimble was unfazed by the passage of time. It wouldn't make a difference if she never returned to her nest at all. She no longer had anything to protect.

Breathing through her nose, letting out puffs of air while flaring her nostrils, she limped towards the pond. The trail of blood that she had left was well hidden by the thick chutes of grass. First, she dipped her injured leg into the water. The blood pooled into the water, turning it a deep red. Initially, the sharp, stinging pain made her wince, but the cool water helped to take the pain away. Nimble breathed out, slowly immersing herself into the pond.

She allowed herself to relax, and allowed the calming water to wash away all the dirt and blood off of her body. As rejuvenated as this made her feel, all she could think about were her deceased children.

"How miserable," she mused, speaking to no one in particular, "I knew it was a bad idea for the children to go to the stream so late in the day. But, I gave in. And now, I'm to blame for their fates." She let out a heavy sigh. "Father was right. They all were. I'll never be able to protect anyone, I can barely protect myself."

Wading in the water, she sat in silence for a few moments. She then gazed up at the night sky, covered with countless stars. The great night circle brought her the seasons, and the seasons had brought her change. In turn, this change had brought her happiness. Maybe, with the passing of the seasons, her happiness would return to her. And maybe, next time, the seasons wouldn't take that happiness away.

Hey, guys! I know the last time I uploaded something was in May, but between breaking my arm, having surgery, and starting school in a few weeks, I think it's safe to say I've had a bit of a writer's block these past few months. :,)

But I finally started something while I continue to procrastinate on finishing up my entry for the June fan fiction prompt,,, This is going to be another major story like The Heart of the Great Valley, which I hope to update sometime soon.

Also, just a note, the main fast biter in this story is a Deinonychus. :)