A/N: For best results, listen to the OST from The Land Before Time, and covers thereof, while you read this story. It's what I listened to over and over for hours while writing it, and it really helped get me in the right mood.
Somehow, against all the odds, the five young dinosaurs who were separated from their parents and set out to find the Great Valley on their own reached their destination. But although they were reunited with their families, those families were no longer whole. Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike had all survived the long journey, but there were many dinosaurs who did not. And so, the day after they arrived in the Valley, they left their herds again, just for a little while, and turned to each other to fill in the missing pieces in their hearts.
The Bright Circle slowly crept over the mountains ringing the Great Valley. Its light, stained a deep red by the clouds of ash that hung over the Mountains that Burned to the East, swept down the western slopes and across the valley floor. Here and there, sleeping dinosaurs started to stir. Flyers in particular liked to get up early, and their calls rang out across the valley along with the faint grumblings of a few ground-dwellers who would have preferred to sleep longer, but had been woken up by the noise. Longnecks also often rose early, to drink the morning dew from the treetops. But there were only three longnecks in the Great Valley, and that morning they were too tired for such things. Two of them, once the elders of their herd and now the only two surviving adults, rose to feed once the shadow of the eastern cliffs retreated, but not even daylight could rouse the youngest, and they let him sleep. But the wind stirred in the morning as well. A gentle breeze blew across the valley, with occasional gusts strong enough to pick up fallen leaves. Eventually, one was carried into the air above the young longneck, and when the breeze quieted it floated down, landing on his back with a touch as light as a feather. He woke with a start.
"Aah! What?" Littlefoot leapt into the air himself. He spun around, nearly tripping over his own legs as he tried to see what had hit him. Nothing. There was nothing around him, and there should have been. There were impressions in the grass on other side where his grandparents had been, but now they were gone. Panic seized him. "Grandma! Grandpa!" he called frantically. "Where are you?"
"I'm right here, Littlefoot," his grandfather's voice replied calmly, and there was a similar answer from his grandmother. Littlefoot looked, more carefully this time. Sure enough, they were there, but far enough away that his eyes, still blurred with sleep, hadn't recognized their shapes. Both the old longnecks had kept an eye on him as they browsed, but it hadn't occurred to them that he might not have seen them. "Is something wrong, little one?" his grandfather asked, padding closer. "Did you have a bad dream?"
"No... well, sort of," Littlefoot said. "It didn't wake me up, though."
"Was your mother in it?" his grandmother asked softly.
Littlefoot shook his head. He tried to remember what the dream had been about. His mother had been in his dreams every night since... every night since she died. She had been there, unseen, as she promised, with her voice guiding him. But at the same time, he had seen her without her being there. Sometimes he would see her, or her shadow, in the distance, but as he got closer she would vanish - just like when he'd mistaken his own shadow for her - and be replaced with Sharptooth. Sometimes, he just relived the Great Earthshake, with the ground breaking apart under his feet and his mother disappearing down, down, into the darkness, while Sharptooth's booming footsteps and hissing breath drew ever-closer behind him.
But tonight was different. Tonight, his mother wasn't in the dream. The others were, though. Cera, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike. And Sharptooth was there, too. He remembered Petrie screaming for help as he disappeared into deep, dark water that turned into sticky tar when Littlefoot tried to jump in to save him. He remembered the ground crumbling under Ducky and Spike's feet and swallowing them whole, and fire and smoke and lava spewing from the crater where they used to be. And he remembered himself screaming at Cera to turn around, that she was going the wrong way, but she'd ignored him and marched straight into Sharptooth's waiting jaws.
Littlefoot wondered if the others had dreams like that. He didn't think Spike did; Spike always had a carefree smile even in his sleep, and occasionally licked his lips. Petrie, probably; he kicked and beat his wings in his sleep, and had even scratched Ducky once by accident.
Then he remembered. He'd promised to meet them that morning, by the bent-over tree. The Bright circle was already well into the sky, they were probably all waiting for him.
"Grandpa? Grandma?" Littlefoot asked.
"Yes, little one?"
"Can I go see my friends?"
Littlefoot's grandparents looked at each other silently. Littlefoot wondered what they were thinking. Surely they wouldn't say no? Not too long after the Great Earthshake, they'd told him, many of the herds of different kinds had banded together out of desperation. But there were no other longnecks among them. The valley was more than Littlefoot had ever dreamed, but there was one thing missing. There were no others of his own kind to play with. And even if there had been, he'd still have wanted to see the rest of the little group that had somehow, miraculously according to all the adults, made it to the Great Valley a day after the joined herd. To his relief, they agreed, as long as he promised to return before dark.
As it turned out, Littlefoot needn't have worried about being late. After many days of walking, with meals few and far between and not enough sleep, all five of the young dinosaurs were exhausted. With the threat of Sharptooth gone and their families by their sides, they had all slept far longer than normal. The only one at the bent-over tree when Littlefoot got there was Petrie. He still hadn't mastered flying upward, but he was practicing, climbing up to the lower branches and launching himself from them, then circling and keeping himself aloft as long as he could before he got tired and had to land. Ducky and Spike arrived together. None of the few spiketails who had come to the valley with the children's families said they had lost an egg, and none of them had children for Spike to play with, so Ducky's parents had taken him in as their own.
Ducky was so happy with her new brother, and Petrie with his newfound ability to fly, and Spike with... well, he couldn't tell them, but it certainly didn't seem like anything was troubling him, that Littlefoot decided to wait to tell them about his dreams, and they simply played and compared their parents' stories of the journey. At least, until Cera showed up.
Littlefoot could tell from the moment he saw her that she wasn't in a good mood. That wouldn't have been unusual for her, he thought, but she didn't look like she was in a bad mood either. She didn't walk with her usual confident swagger, but not with the angry stomping gait he'd seen either. Instead, it almost looked like she was trying to make herself appear smaller.
"Hey, Cera!" Littlefoot called.
"Hiya, Littlefoot!" she shouted back. "Ducky, Spike, Petrie." Now she lifted her head and tail, and looked at Littlefoot and the others with a good impression of her normal smirk, but something still seemed off.
"Hello, Cera!" Ducky slid down off Littlefoot's back. "You are late. You are," she teased.
Cera snorted. "Well, my Dad spent all morning telling me all the places in the valley I'm not allowed to go, and making me say them back until I got them all right."
Littlefoot grinned. "Sounds like your dad." From his grandparents' account of their journey to the valley, it sounded like they'd disagreed with Mr. Threehorn almost as much as Littlefoot had disagreed with Cera.
"He told me if I was going to play with you, someone had to be the responsible one."
"Come on, Cera." Littlefoot rolled his eyes. Did she have to act like this all the time? He wondered if Cera had told her father how she'd gotten the group lost in the Mountains That Burned. He doubted it.
"Good thing Littlefoot here then," said Petrie. "Tell him what bad places are and he help you not go into them."
Littlefoot had to stifle a laugh. He wasn't going to say anything, but he wasn't going to complain if Petrie did either.
Cera glared at both of them. "Oh, yeah? Well- well, I didn't make you guys follow me!"
"You didn't help them when they were in trouble, either." Littlefoot tried to keep his voice level. He didn't want to talk about yesterday anymore. He didn't want to think about yesterday anymore. But if Cera wanted to keep bringing it up, then he wouldn't let her keep acting like it was everyone's fault but hers.
"I told you, I didn't know they were in trouble! It was noisy, and there were earthshakes, and I was worried about the ground opening up under my feet like it did to Sharptooth, and I wasn't thinking about listening! Are you happy now?"
"Cera! Littlefoot! Do not fight again!" Ducky ran to position herself between them before Littlefoot could open his mouth to reply that he'd heard them just fine. "Cera was wrong about the way to the Great Valley, Littlefoot was wrong about Sharptooth. Can we be done being mad at each other?"Spike said nothing, but covered his face with his front feet.
Littlefoot shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. It was what his mother always said to do if he was angry, before he said something or did something... rash was the word she used. It helped, but only when he remembered to do it. Ducky was right, he thought. Why was he even arguing about yesterday when he didn't want to? He opened his eyes again and stepped back. "You're right... never mind."
"I no mean to start a fight," Petrie said from his tree branch. "Me not know you still mad, Cera. Only teasing."
Cera sighed. "I'm not mad... at least, not about that." She stared straight at the ground, and swallowed hard. "Like Littlefoot said... never mind."
"Yeah... sorry I bring it up." Petrie laughed nervously. "So, uh, want to race over to that rock? I bet I can fly whole way over without touching the ground!"
"Actually..."Cera pawed at the ground, but the anger had vanished. It was like before, when she was heading up the hill to their meeting place, like she was apprehensive. "Littlefoot, there's something I wanted to ask you..." She lay down, but stopped short of resting her head on her forelegs.
"What is it?" Littlefoot felt his pulse quicken. Was it about the dreams? Was Cera having them too?
This time it was Cera's turn to take a deep breath. "I was wondering... is your mom okay? I haven't seen -"
"What?" For the first time, Littlefoot understood the expression about having your jaw hit the ground, which was quite a long fall for a longneck. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He thought after everything they'd gone through - after she'd saved them from Sharptooth, after they'd discovered the Great Valley together, after they'd all promised each other that they would still be friends now that they were back with their own families - that she'd changed. "Cera, is this your idea of a joke?"
"What? No!" Cera jumped to her feet again. "What's with you? I haven't seen her since we got to the valley, so I was wondering if... you know..."
"Cera, my mother is dead!" Littlefoot shouted, advancing on her. "Sharptooth killed her during the Big Earthshake!" For a moment, he was ready to fight the threehorn, not caring whether she beat him again as long as he made her regret ever... what, pretending to be his friend? But the look on Cera's face stopped him. It started out as confusion, then surprise, and then turned to absolute horror, the same expression she had when Littlefoot, as the head of the 'tar monster,' had lifted her into the air by her tail.
"What?" Cera's voice was so faint it was almost a whisper. "But - I - No! She was okay when Sharptooth fell, and she saved us! He couldn't have-"
"Well, she wasn't okay," Littlefoot said bluntly. "You - you really didn't know?" It had never occurred to his young mind that anyone could have not known. His mother was the most important creature in his whole world, and when she was so violently ripped from it, he couldn't imagine how the entire world couldn't have felt the shock the same way the Great Earthshake tore the physical world apart and its effects were felt far away from the rift itself. Meeting Rooter had, in a way, confirmed this belief for him. In truth, Rooter had simply heard the noise of the battle from miles away, and Littlefoot's words allowed the old dinosaur to guess its outcome. There were only so many longnecks around.
"I didn't!" Cera shook her head violently. Her eyes had widened to the size of eggs, and darted frantically around the clearing without meeting Littlefoot's, Ducky's, Petrie's, or Spike's. "You never told me!"
"He never tolded me either," said Ducky. "But I still knew. Did you not see the way he kept the tree star safe, because his mommy gave it to him?"
"That right! Littlefoot very careful to not hurt tree star!" Petrie added.
"I - I thought he just missed her!" Cera yelled, pawing at the ground again. "We all got separated from our parents! Admit it, if your moms had given you a tree star you'd have carried it around 'til it dried out too!"
"...I might," Ducky admitted with a shrug. "But if I was as hungry as I was I would have eated it before it got dried out, unless it was very special. I would."
"What about you, Cera?" asked Petrie. "Would you carry mother present around?"
"I... well..." Cera stammered. Abruptly, she shut her eyes and turned her head away from the others. "None of your business!" she screamed, and bolted off in a different direction than she had joined the group from.
"Cera, wait!" Littlefoot started after her, but she had already vanished into the ferns. For a while, the air around the children was still again, apart from the buzzing of insects and the sound of Petrie's wingbeats as he flew from the tree to rest on Littlefoot's back. Ducky and Spike padded up beside him.
Petrie finally broke the awkward silence. "That was weird... was it something I say?"
"I don't know." Littlefoot slowly shook his head and sighed. "I don't think it was just you. Something's wrong, but I don't know what it is."
"I think maybe she feels bad about us getting lost, and the fire river, and the bubbling black goo," said Ducky. "And... what she said was not all wrong. It wasn't. I wanted to take the easy way too."
"She was acting weird even before we said anything, though," Littlefoot replied. "I don't think it's about that. But..." He gritted his teeth. The idea of apologizing to Cera went against his sense of justice. She'd never apologized for leading them the wrong way, or for Petrie and Ducky and Spike almost dying, or for insulting his mother, or for being rude and bossy and annoying the entire journey. He'd admitted he was wrong about Sharptooth being dead; it wasn't fair for him to have to apologize to her for blaming her for things she'd done wrong, too.
Ducky rested her hand on his foreleg. "I do not think we should have laughed at her after we saved her from the domeheads. Oh, no, no, no..."
That settled it. There had been a nagging doubt in the back of Littlefoot's mind that he'd done the wrong thing for a while now. He'd come up with the idea of the tar monster as a way of get back at Cera for not helping them when Petrie was trapped in the tar pit. When they realized she was in danger herself, they'd used the disguise to scare away the domeheads attacking her instead, but he was still angry at her. And it had seemed so funny at the time, so ironic and ridiculous that Cera would be scared of them, and then that she'd lied about it. But now, Littlefoot just felt guilty. He'd never seen the tar monster from the outside, but it was so scary that three grown domeheads had run for their lives at the sight of it. How terrifying was it to Cera? As brave as she tried to pretend she was, Littlefoot knew she was just as afraid of Sharptooth as the rest of them, maybe even more afraid. He knew that story she'd told about meeting Sharptooth in the great rift in the earth was a lie. At first, he'd thought she lied and pretended she wasn't scared to act like she was better than him, or Ducky, or Petrie. But now, a different thought occurred to him. What if she did it because she thought they'd laugh at her for being scared? If that was the reason, he thought, she was right. They had laughed at her for being scared. She deserved an apology, for that at the very least.
"I'm going to go talk to her," Littlefoot finally said.
"Uhh... I no know if that a good idea..." Petrie said nervously. "Maybe it safer to let Cera calm down first..." He carefully tapped a bruised spot on Littlefoot's hip.
Littlefoot winced. "Yeah... I see what you mean." They'd all had their share of scrapes and bruises over the journey, some from falls, some from near escapes from being eaten by Sharptooth or trampled to death by the starving herd at the little grove, but Littlefoot was sure the worst had come from his fight with Cera. His head and neck were still sore, and it hurt a little just to walk. He barely remembered the fight itself; everything was lost in a fog of anger. All he knew was he'd hit her as hard as he could, kicking and biting and beating her with his tail and slamming her against the rocks, but she'd somehow hit back even harder. He wondered if she still hurt too.
If she did, Littlefoot thought, maybe that was another mistake. Cera deserved it, he knew that. And his mother didn't deserve to be called a 'stupid longneck.' But he also knew that if his mother had seen him, she wouldn't have been proud of him for defending her honor, she would have been disappointed. Long ago, so long ago that Littlefoot could barely even talk yet, he'd been angry at his grandmother. He couldn't even remember why anymore - maybe some rule he thought was stupid, or something she did to keep him safe - but he'd slapped her foot with his tail, as hard as he could at the time. It probably only tickled her, but he'd meant for it to hurt, and his mother had told him:
"Littlefoot, there's nothing wrong with being angry, but you can't let it control you. You might be small now, but one day you'll grow up to be big and strong, and if you hit somebody because you're angry you could really hurt them."
She'd told him only to use his strength against another creature to protect himself, or the ones he loved. He thought that was what he'd been doing, but had he really? Even if his mother had been there, had been... still alive... would Cera's words have hurt her any more than he had hurt his grandmother's foot? No. If she had seen him, she would have grabbed him by his tail and pulled him away from Cera, and scolded him in the gentle way she always did. She was never angry when he disobeyed, just sad.
But he couldn't bring himself to apologize to Cera for fighting her. Not unless she apologized for everything she'd done and said first.
Littlefoot, Ducky, and Petrie all agreed that if Cera didn't want to talk to them, following her would only make her angrier. For a little while they waited by the bent tree in the hope that she would calm down quickly, but as the Bright Circle climbed higher the tension in the air slowly evaporated. They started to explore their new home, although they gave the adult dinosaurs a wide berth. They joked and played and ran in the manner of all children, and sampled the lush undergrowth (Spike especially enjoyed this activity), and in the hottest part of the day slept in the shade of a tall tree. Littlefoot meant to tell the others about his dream, but it never seemed like the right time to darken their mood again, and eventually he forgot about it.
The sky started to turn red-orange again as the Bright Circle descended towards the mountains at the far end of the valley. It felt strange to Littlefoot, seeing it and not memorizing its direction for the next morning. It was no longer his guide, only a marker of the passage of time.
It was nearing time for them to split up again and return to their own herds for the night. Littlefoot assumed Cera had already done so long ago. The rest of them made their way slowly back towards the area where their families had nested the night before, not wanting to separate until the last possible moment. Littlefoot could see the vague shapes of his grandparents' necks off in the distance. Ducky's family were by the lake that lay against the cliffs and was fed by a great waterfall, although Ducky said her parents would probably move to a less popular watering hole soon. Young swimmers were perfectly colored to blend in with lush ferns and reeds, which helped them hide from sharpteeth, but also made them very hard for any other creature to notice. Being stepped on was a real worry.
"Here we are!" Petrie announced, hopping down from Spike's back.
"Where?" Littlefoot looked around.
"Up there!" Petrie pointed to a needle-leafed tree, much taller than the others around it, but with plenty of branches close to the ground. Littlefoot squinted at it. He could make out several pairs of eyes staring back at him.
"I thought your kind of flyer nested on high rocks."
"Mostly. But brother hurt wing on way to Great Valley. Can't fly or climb rocks until night circle all the way dark, but trees easier."
"Oh. Well..." Littlefoot wanted to make some excuse to stay with his friends a little longer, but it really was getting close to dusk. Petrie was already home, and the lake was in the opposite direction he needed to go to return to his grandparents. "I guess I'll see you guys tomorrow. Same pla-"
"Aha! You! Longneck!" a deep voice growled. Littlefoot jumped, surprised. He turned his head to the direction of the sound, and instinctively scrambled backwards, tripping over Spike's tail in the process. A fully grown threehorn, and a large one at that, was barreling towards him!
Littlefoot ended up flat on his back. Spike narrowly avoided falling himself, and Petrie was briefly airborne as he scampered away. The threehorn stopped his charge about half his length away, and looked down at Littlefoot, fuming. Littlefoot realized he recognized him. "Uhh... hi, Mr. Threehorn!" he said as he picked himself up.
"Hello, Cera's daddy!" Ducky added. She was still slowly backing away.
"Don't 'Hi' me!" Mr. Threehorn snapped. "This morning my daughter left the herd telling me she was going off to play with you!" his eyes swept across all four of the children, but returned to Littlefoot again. "She should have been back a long time ago, and now with the Bright Circle nearly gone I find the four of you alone and Cera still missing! I demand an explanation!"
Littlefoot was so surprised, confused, and even afraid he could barely speak. "Huh? I, uhh..." he stuttered. Cera hadn't gone home to her herd? That meant she'd been missing for more than half the day. Before, his only real worry was that Cera would still be mad at them the next morning, but now he was concerned not only for her safety, but for his own when her father found out she'd stormed off on her own before midday. Should they have told a grownup? He'd hardly ever played with other children before the Great Earthshake, only a couple of times illicitly with Cera. Nobody ever explained what to do in a situation like this, and after the time the group had spent relying only on each other for survival, the idea that he could tell a grownup took some getting used to again.
"Is Cera in trouble?" asked Ducky.
"It's none of your concern whether she is or isn't. The rest of you are definitely in trouble, and you'll be in bigger trouble if you don't start telling me -"
"Topps? What's going on?" a scratchy female voice called. A shadow swept by silently, followed by the beat of wings as a blue flyer swooped low over head and lit in the branches of a nearby tree. "Is there a reason you're interrogating my son?"
"Yes there is!" Topps repeated what he'd told Littlefoot.
The interruptions from Ducky and from Petrie's mother gave Littlefoot time to get his thoughts in order. Ducky was right; Cera would be in trouble too for going off on her own without telling anyone where. He wasn't quite sure where the idea for his next words came from, but he said them as he heard them in his mind, knowing the longer he hesitated, the less believable he would be. "Actually, uhh... we were thinking we'd all spend the night... together, and Cera told us to ask our folks permission while she looked for a good cave or something, and ask you for her." He struggled to maintain eye contact with Cera's father as he spoke. His mouth felt dry, and his heart was as fast as Petrie's wingbeats during his attempts to fly. Littlefoot had never intentionally lied to an adult before, much less one so intimidating.
"So can we? Pleeeease?" Ducky added. Littlefoot tried to hide his sigh of relief. She'd taken the hint and gone along with it.
Petrie's mother's eyes widened. Littlefoot couldn't tell if she looked worried or sympathetic.
But Topps's eyes narrowed further. "Then go tell Cera the answer is no, and I want her back to the herd this instant! The time to ask would've been midday, not now when she should have already been home!"
"We all supposed to be back by nightfall," said Petrie. "Me no know Cera have to be home earlier."
"It is nightfall! The sky's already turned red, see?"
"The sky's been red half the afternoon from all the smoke," Petrie's mother said dryly. "The Bright Circle hasn't touched the mountains yet, and that's the rule most of us use, so the others probably misunderstood."
"Yeah." Littlefoot nodded vigorously. "We didn't hurry because we thought we had time. Sorry..." He mentally thanked Petrie's mother for giving him a second chance.
"Huh! Well, my answer is still no! It's dangerous, and now that we're in the Great Valley it's high time the herds split up again!"
Petrie's mother rolled her eyes - unseen to Cera's father. "Oh, come off it, Topps! I've searched half this valley, and trust me, there's no sign of any sharpteeth, or even eggstealers or bellydraggers."
Topps snorted. "I know that! That's the only reason I let her out of my sight at all. But that doesn't mean the valley has no dangers! There's Sinking Sands, Fast Waters... even a smoking mountain in the valley itself!"
"None of those are going to attack the children in their sleep. And they found a way through the Mountains That Burn, all on their own, and all five of them made it here. Even us adults weren't so lucky..."
"No thanks to your idiot brother!" Topps interrupted.
Petrie's mother visibly tensed, but she kept talking like he hadn't spoken. "After what Petrie's told me about the dangers they all faced, I trust him to be careful. Are you saying you don't trust Cera?"
"Well... no, I trust her, but..."
"Besides..." Petrie's mother's expression softened, but her voice was like a sharp stone underneath a bed of sand. "Given the circumstances, it's not surprising the children still need each other's company."
The effect on Topps was immediate. His anger vanished, and for a moment the expression on his face was uncannily similar to how Cera had looked that morning. "Oh." He gave Littlefoot another, even stranger look, without hostility, only curiosity and perhaps even... sympathy. "Oh. Yes, I see what you mean." Then the sternness was back. "All right, tell Cera she can stay out tonight... but don't expect to make a habit of it. And tell her if she wants me to continue to trust her, she'd better be back before midday." With that, he plodded off through the forest.
Littlefoot breathed a sigh of relief. If it hadn't been for Petrie's mom, the lie would have fallen apart. But what she'd said... why had it convinced him? He didn't understand any of it.
"Thanks, Momma!" Petrie called. "That means you say yes, right?"
"Yes. But be careful if you're looking around in caves. Some of the rocks here fall easily."
"We'll be careful!" Littlefoot said. "We should go, Cera's probably wondering what's taking us so long!" Another lie. It felt extra bad lying to her again after she'd helped them, but now Littlefoot was even more convinced that it was the right thing.
The group headed downhill towards the watering hole. They still needed to ask Ducky's parents, and Littlefoot's grandparents, for 'permission,' but Littlefoot hoped it would be easier with two 'yeses'. As soon as he was sure they were out of earshot, he turned to Petrie. "Circumstances?" he said under his breath. "What circumstances?"
Petrie shrugged. "Me no know. Because us all almost die together?"
"Littlefoot?" asked Ducky. "How is lying going to help? I know you do not want Cera's daddy to be angry with her, but the grownups will find out in the morning when she does not come back with us. They will."
"They won't find out if she does come back with us. This gives us all night to look for her, and when we find her, well... the only part that'll be a lie is that it was her idea."
"What if we not find her?" Petrie flapped onto Littlefoot's back.
"We'll find her. We have to..."
At first, despite Littlefoot's assurances, finding Cera seemed an impossible task. The Great Valley was not arbitrarily named, and while Littlefoot's lie had bought them time, it also prevented them from searching anywhere close to the other herds while they were awake. But in a way, this was a blessing, because it led them to realize that if Cera wanted to be alone, she would avoid the herds as well. After briefly and fruitlessly searching an uninhabited path of forest, Littlefoot knew there was no way they could possibly come close to searching the entire valley. But by returning to the bent-over tree and following the approximate direction they remembered her running off in, they were able to narrow their search further.
Cera had gone towards the valley wall. It wasn't close to either the pass they had entered the valley by or the ones the adults' herd had taken, but it was the loneliest part of the Great Valley. Even before the cliffs the land rose sharply enough to make climbing the slopes more effort than it was worth for most hungry dinosaurs if other food was available, and most of the other children stayed close to their families by force of habit.
Even so, by the time they found her, night had long since fallen and the Night Circle was high in the sky. They were cutting sideways along a steep slope dotted with bushes and tall trees, not far below where it steepened further and the vegetation was replaced by scree and boulders.
"Stop!" Petrie hissed under his breath. "Petrie hear something!"
Littlefoot froze. His first instinct was to turn to see if they were being followed by something. Buzzers chirped, but nothing moved. The night air was still, with no wind to rustle the leaves and branches and make shadows move ominously in the Night Circle's light. He relaxed again.
Then he heard it too. A sharp thwack from somewhere further above them and farther along the ridge, then another around a dozen heartbeats later. Silently, the four of them crept closer to the sound, and the smaller noises in between the thwacks resolved themselves. Scuffling footsteps, the clicking of pebbles bouncing down a rocky slope, and a fairly small creature breathing like it was being chased by sharpteeth. Littlefoot recognized the voice.
"It is Cera!" Ducky whispered.
"I know!" Littlefoot whispered back. He winced at the sound of another impact. What was Cera doing, slamming her head against a tree? He scampered up the hill, past the last of the scrub, and finally saw her. She really was slamming her head against a tree, he realized. A short distance up the rocky slope, about as high as his grandparents were tall, a tree stump, blackened by long-ago lightning strikes, jutted from the ground. The hill above was so steep it was almost a cliff, but there were roughly horizontal paths leading along it, with places where it would be easy to scramble up. Cera was on one of those ledges, the same one as the tree stump. As he watched, she charged the stump, her forehead hitting the unyielding wood with a sickening crack. Then she got to her feet, backed away a few paces, and flung herself forward again, and again, and again. He was briefly amazed that she could hit it that hard without hurting herself - no, she was hurting herself. She let out a grunt of pain each time she hit the tree, and afterwards she got up and backed away like a hatchling who was too young to walk properly. Littlefoot looked down at Ducky, Spike, and Petrie beside him. Their mouths hung open in horrified confusion.
"Why she doing that?" Petrie whispered.
Cera backed up extra far and pawed at the ground, her eyes fixed on the stump with a hateful glare. Then she looked down and backed up even further until she could brace her hind feet against a small step in the rock. This seemed to satisfy her, and she launched herself along the narrow path again, shouting: "Break! Just break, you stupid-"
Littlefoot knew why she was doing it. There was no real reason to want to destroy that particular dead tree. There were no leaves to knock down, and it was at the end of the ledge, so it wasn't blocking her path. There were times, especially when he was younger, when he'd been so sad, or angry, or hungry or tired, that he wanted to cry, or scream in frustration, but he couldn't. Even before other traveling dinosaurs had warned his family of the Sharptooth, the one whose name was spoken with terror, there had been others like him following the herds searching for the Great Valley. Most sharpteeth knew better than to challenge three grown longnecks, but some of the smaller, faster ones would wait for a chance to pick off a young dinosaur. It was safer, his mother and grandparents told him, not to advertise that their small herd had a young one with them, and he had to be as quiet as he could when they passed through their territories. But sometimes, like when they came to a stream or watering hole and found it dry, or the grove of trees that promised food turned out to have been stripped bare, the bad feelings had to go somewhere, and he resorted to kicking pebbles, or snapping the twigs off of bushes. It was the same for Cera, he imagined.
But this was crazy. He had to stop her, or he was afraid her head would be what broke. Littlefoot stepped out from behind the bush that partially hid him and the others. "Cera?" he called, loud enough to be sure she could hear him.
Unfortunately, Littlefoot spoke at precisely the wrong time. A few heartbeats earlier, and Cera might have had time to stop. A few heartbeats later, and she would still have hit the tree, but at the angle she intended to. Instead, she heard him just as she made the final leap. She turned her head slightly toward the sound of his voice, one foot slipped on the gravel-strewn path, and she smashed into the tree stump facing slightly the wrong way. She bounced off it the wrong way too, and slid off the ledge. She started to scream, but was cut off when she landed hard on the rocky slope and tumbled the rest of the way down. Ducky, Spike, and Petrie got out of the way in time, but Littlefoot was too concerned with her falling to think about whether she was coming towards them until it was too late. She crashed into him, knocking them both into a cycad.
The impact knocked the wind out of Littlefoot as well, and for a brief moment all either of them could do was lie there, just trying to breathe. His nose was hit with the smell of blood. He could see Ducky, Petrie, and Spike's worried faces, blurred and upside down, crowd around them. He wanted to move, but Cera's weight pinned him down. Then she pushed herself off him and shakily stood up, letting him roll back onto his belly.
"Sorry!" Littlefoot said as soon as he had the breath. "Sorry I made you fall! I didn't mean to- are you okay?"
At first, Cera was silent. Staying on her feet seemed to be taking all her strength, and her chest heaved in and out like a hopper's throat. "I'm fine," she finally said.
Ducky crept closer, eyes wide and hands clasped together. "Cera, you are bleeding."
"I know..."
"You do not look fine. No, no, no..."
That was an understatement, Littlefoot realized. He hadn't seen it from far away in the dim moonlight, but her forehead and frill were a bloody mess of torn skin and broken scales. Blood was smeared all over her face, and cuts and scrapes covered her legs and flanks. Some were fresh enough that he guessed she'd just gotten them in the fall, but some were old enough that they'd scabbed over, and while they'd all gotten a few little wounds like that, he didn't remember her looking this bad that morning. How long had she been throwing herself against that stump? He felt guilty for the older wounds as well. Scaring her was his idea. Laughing at her was his idea. How badly had it hurt her inside that she could ignore everything she'd done to herself? "You're not fine," he said. "Cera, if this - if this is about yesterday, with the domeheads -"
"What's it to you if I'm fine or not?" Cera interrupted. She turned on her heels and started to walk away, but she was limping, one of her forefeet held in the air. Her tail was close to dragging on the ground, and Littlefoot caught a glimpse of gritted teeth and eyes full not of anger, but of pain before she hid her face from him again.
He ran to catch up and get ahead of her, blocking her path. "Because we're worried about you!" he half-shouted. "Because we're your friends and we don't want you to be hurt!" Cera tried to change direction to go around him, but he moved again to stay in front of her. "Cera, I'm sorry I scared you with the tar after we saved you from those domeheads! And I'm sorry I laughed at you! It... It was mean, and I shouldn't have still done it after I saw you were in trouble!"
Cera stopped in her tracks. She stared at Littlefoot with her eyes wide and her mouth hanging open.
"I sorry too!" Petrie flapped up to stand beside Littlefoot. "After we get out of black goo, I mad at you for not helping. Littlefoot right... after domeheads run away it wrong to let you think we were monster. Me no thinking..."
"We were bad friends, Cera!" Ducky sounded on the edge of tears. "We were, we were..." Spike nodded contritely.
Cera sank to her knees, then to her belly, her legs trembling. She looked almost like she were trying not to cry. But even though Littlefoot knew that deep down Cera was just scared, just as hurt, just as much a child as the rest of them, he was so used to her swaggering, confident demeanor that it was hard to imagine her really crying. "Just go away..." she said, so softly it wasn't much more than a whisper, and put her forefeet over her face. "You don't deserve a friend like me..."
"What?" Littlefoot felt a chill race along the length of his spine. If she'd said it any other way, he'd have thought she was saying she didn't forgive them. But the bitterness in the last two words. Like me... Like she was the bad friend and they all deserved better. Littlefoot realized he'd misread at least part of what had upset her so much. "Why are you saying that?" He asked, lowering his voice to match hers. He didn't want to make another assumption that could turn out wrong, and although he certainly wasn't going to say so to her face, she had done enough things worth feeling guilty about that it was hard to know which ones.
"Because I'm an idiot!" Cera screamed. She jumped to her feet again and lunged at Littlefoot, stopping just short of running into him. He stumbled back, partly from surprise at the sudden change, partly because he was afraid she really would knock him down the hill. But they were close enough together now that he could see the glint of tears in her eyes, and running down her face. "Because this morning I - I was so stupid not realizing about - about your mom - when she was on the same side as us, and she'd have been there, and I called her a stupid longneck and ruined everything!" Cera continued, getting more and more frantic. She took a deep breath, or at least tried to, but it ended up as more of a gasp and a strangled sob. "This morning I - I didn't know, and I was worried, but I didn't know what to do after - after my mom - and I thought maybe if you'd lost yours too, you'd understand, and you could help me figure out how - how to keep going - but I just hurt you even more!" She stamped her forefoot, the one that wasn't hurt, against the ground, but put weight on the other one in the process, and let out an involuntary squeak of pain.
"Too?" Littlefoot repeated, stunned. He thought he'd heard her right, but there was so much to take in at once, and all of it changed what he thought he understood so much, that the meaning hadn't quite sunk in yet. He'd thought the reason she ran away that morning was embarrassment at being wrong. He would never have expected Cera, the dinosaur who boasted and lied to avoid showing any weakness, and never apologized for anything, to be driven to nearly split her head open against a tree stump by guilt. Only in a way, she had apologized. Not directly, but she'd as good as said it was unforgivable, that it was why she was such a terrible friend that they shouldn't even bother with her. As far as Littlefoot was concerned, that counted.
"Cera? Did something happen to your mama?" Ducky said what Littlefoot was still processing.
"She... she never made it to the Great Valley. Neither did my sisters. Dad - Dad won't tell me what happened."
Littlefoot felt a chill as Cera's words finally hit him, like an ice-cold stone in the pit of his stomach. He thought he hadn't seen Cera's mother in the valley, but he hadn't ever seen more than brief glimpses of her family. "We didn't know," he said, remembering how close Cera's words that morning were to his own. Should he have known? She'd never told anyone, but neither had he.
"Oh..." Ducky whispered. "Oh, poor Cera..." she tiptoed closer, as if afraid she would startle her, and wrapped her arms around Cera's foreleg. Cera made no attempt to push her away, but lowered herself to her knees and elbows.
"I was going to tell you..." Cera sniffed. "This morning. I just... how did you do it, Littlefoot? How did you keep going? How did you not give up?"
Littlefoot didn't quite know the answer. In a way, he had given up. He didn't know how long he spent wandering through the wasteland in a daze. He knew what happened that brought him back from that dark abyss of despair, but how could it put it into words? All he could do was kneel beside Cera and lay his neck over her shoulder. He felt her shivering despite the heat of her body, and the smells of rock dust and blood filled his nose. It wasn't that bad of a smell on its own, but it made the memories even stronger. It was what his mother smelled like when she died. He felt tears well up in his own eyes as Spike and Petrie joined the embrace.
"Can you talk to dad?" Petrie asked.
Cera shook her head. "I tried! He won't tell me anything. I don't think he knows what to do without her either. Before the Earthshake, when there was thunder and lightning, or when there were sharpteeth roaring, I knew it'd be okay because he and mom weren't scared, but..." she paused. "You have to promise you won't tell anyone else this."
"I promise," said Littlefoot. Ducky and Petrie promised too, and Spike grunted in agreement.
"He's scared too..." Cera whispered. "He'd never admit it, but... he said - he said I'm all he has left, and I have to be extra, extra careful."
"Is that why he no want you play with us?" asked Petrie. "We too dangerous?"
"You know about that?"
"We saw him earlier," said Littlefoot. "He was looking for you. He was really mad - but I guess he was really worried too." He explained about his and the others' lie to their parents.
Cera breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you... really, thank you. I'd have been in so much trouble if you hadn't said that!"
But Littlefoot's pulse quickened. He'd been too worried about Cera himself to think about it until then, but if her father thought the rest of them were a bad influence, her coming back injured wasn't going to help matters. But they would ford that river when they came to it, he thought. "My Grandma and Grandpa said something like that to me," he said. "Like you said, he's probably just afraid of losing you."
"I know... but... I can't tell him anything! He just says I've gotta be strong, like he was when he was young and his dad died and he had to lead the herd! But I can't! I can't do it! I can't keep acting like it doesn't hurt because if I don't it hurts him even more because there's nothing he can do about it! I just want my mom back! I want Ida and Hortense and Dusty back! And... I want my Dad back!"
Littlefoot was horrified. He knew nothing in the world could be like those days and nights all alone, wishing his mother had kept her promise of still being with him - before he knew what it really meant, before he heard her voice in his heart, when he was still desperately hoping he would feel the comforting embrace of her tail around him again. But in a way, it sounded like Cera was alone too. Littlefoot's grandmother and grandfather missed his mother too, he knew. The night before, they'd told him stories about her from before he was born, and they'd all cried together and sometimes laughed a bit too. He couldn't even imagine being afraid to tell them he was sad, or lonely, or afraid.
Ducky stifled a yawn, reminding Littlefoot how late it really was. Somehow, without a word passing between them, the five young dinosaurs agreed that they had spent too long on that lonely hillside, and start to climb back down towards the valley floor. Cera was still limping, still not putting weight on one foreleg, and she choose every step carefully.
"Is your leg okay?" asked Littlefoot.
"It's not broken."
Despite the difficulty she was having, Cera refused Littlefoot and Spike's help keeping her balance, and it took them a while to reach their goal, a flat spot sheltered by a grove of small trees that they had passed before. The ground was firm, but smooth, and certainly a better sleeping place than they'd had for most of their journey. Cera collapsed as soon as they made it there, but she wasn't crying anymore - she'd been so focused on not falling that for a little while, she forgot everything else. She pressed herself against Littlefoot and Spike as they settled down next to her, and Ducky and Petrie nestled between their forelegs. Even in the Great Valley, nights were chilly for small creatures.
The silence gave Littlefoot time to clear his own head. "Cera?" he began.
"Yeah?"
"What you said, about how I kept going..." Littlefoot thought back to his mother's final words to him, the ones Rooter had echoed some time later. Immediately, his eyes swam in tears. "Before... before she died, my mother told me she'd always be with me, even if I couldn't see her."
"My mom never said anything like that. And, well... dead is dead. I know they're never coming back."
"That's not what I mean," said Littlefoot. "I didn't understand at first, but I think what she meant is... they loved you, right? And you still love them, even if they're gone. So a part of them's still in your heart."
"That like what my mama say too," added Petrie. "Not all Petrie's family get to Valley either." He hestitated. "Petrie and Cepie both get lost after big Earthshake... but only I come back." He sniffed, and buried his head under Littlefoot's neck. "Cepie could fly, but maybe rocks fall and hurt wings, or maybe she no have Littlefoot to show her way to Great Valley. Either way, there still empty spot in nest!"
"Two of my brothers and sisters got losted too," whispered Ducky. "Egg-stealers..." she curled herself more tightly against Spike. "And Spike's old family didn't want him..."
For a while, silence fell again. The five of them just lay there, huddled together for warmth and comfort alike. Littlefoot closed his eyes, and listened the others' breathing gradually get slower and more rhythmic. He was tired enough that sleep should have come easily, but it never did. Something kept gnawing away at him, a thought that he couldn't get rid of. At first it was vague and uncertain, at the edges of his consciousness, but it grew clearer. There was something he'd promised himself he would do, and until he did, his mind wouldn't let him sleep.
"Cera?" he whispered. "You still awake?"
"Yeah..."
"I..." Littlefoot hesitated. He meant what he was about to say, but it was hard to make himself actually say the words. But he knew he had to. He wasn't sure if Cera would ever apologize for calling his mother a stupid longneck. He hadn't been sure if she even remembered what she'd said, and he didn't want to bring it up again. But he was wrong. She had apologized, even if it wasn't directly, and against Littlefoot's expectations, she felt horrible about it. He couldn't keep letting her be angry at herself, especially not with everything she was already going through. "I'm sorry I pushed you," he said softly. "And hit you, and bit you, and..."
"You mean yesterday? Don't worry about it," Cera whispered back. "I pushed you and hit you too, and... I deserved it anyway. It was my fault we fought."
"No it wasn't. I was mad, but letting my feelings control me, and trying to hurt you because of them, was wrong. That's what Mother used to say."
Cera let out a short puff of breath, like a stifled giggle. "There's another thing my parents never told me."
Littlefoot stopped himself from laughing, afraid the movement would wake Petrie up, but he smiled. There was another thing he still had to say, though. And it was even harder to work up the courage. There was still a part of him telling him not to, but this was his chance to make peace with Cera, and with himself, once and for all. "I forgive you. For everything that happened."
At first Cera was quiet. Her breathing speed up a little, and it seemed like she was trying not to cry again. She leaned more closely against him. "Thanks, Littlefoot. I... I'm really..." she paused. "That makes me feel better. I... I had a bad dream last night."
"A dream?" Littlefoot's eyes flew open and his pulse quickened. All day, he'd wondered if the others had them too.
"Yeah. We were back in the Mountains That Burn, and, I forget if you were leading or I was, but we were crossing those tar pits, and an earthshake made the ground break and I fell in. I screamed for help, but you all just stood there and laughed at me. And then... you told me that I wasn't your friend, and you turned and walked away, and Ducky and Petrie and Spike followed you, and I kept sinking deeper... I was scared that you really did hate me."
Littlefoot nuzzled what he hoped was one of the parts of her face that wasn't cut or scraped. "We don't hate you, Cera. None of us do. We're up here, aren't we?"
"Yeah... I guess you are."
Littlefoot took a deep breath. Ever since he woke up that morning, he'd wanted to tell the others, because they were the only ones who would truly understand. So now, why was it so hard? Was it because Ducky and Petrie were asleep? No, he and Cera could still ask them in the morning. Was it because he was afraid Cera would make fun of him? No, he'd been afraid at first, but certainly not now. Perhaps, he thought, he was a little bit like her. Maybe he had a little bit of a proud streak too. But if Cera could put her pride aside and be truly honest, then so could he. "Actually..." he began, "I had a bad dream too."
Littlefoot and Cera soon fell asleep as well, and all five children slept better than they had since before the Great Earthshake. Littlefoot had the nightmare again, and again he awoke with a start in the middle of the night. But it was easier waking up with them all right there beside him, and it was easier knowing that he wasn't alone. When Cera woke up trembling all over, and told Littlefoot only a little reluctantly that she'd relived Sharptooth's first attack, only it was her sisters and her mother in place of Littlefoot's and his, and that she'd watched her mother tumble away into the abyss and looked up to see Sharptooth's bloodstained jaws close around her, she knew Littlefoot understood what it was like, and that he didn't care whether it was 'The Threehorn Way' to let stories your own mind made up affect you. And when Petrie woke up screaming and kicking and clawing after dreaming of being caught by Sharptooth and dragged into the icy depths of the water, and when Spike started to groan and whimper in his sleep, and when that morning Ducky told them with tears in her eyes that she'd dreamed of Littlefoot and Cera's fight carrying them off a cliff into a river of fire, the five of them were able to comfort each other as only dinosaurs who'd all been through the same dangers together could.
That morning, of course, the problem of explaining Cera's injuries to Mr. Threehorn resurfaced. But, in the end, Cera resolved to tell her father the truth. Not the whole truth - not the part where the others lied, or where they hadn't seen her all day, but the important parts. And when the five young dinosaurs returned to their families, they knew for certain that they would see each other again soon, and that the friendship they'd formed on that journey through the wasteland would never be broken.
Author's Notes:
Over 2-1/2 years ago now, after watching Jurassic World, I wrote If We Hold On Together, the first fanfic I ever actually posted. The title came from me rewatching The Land Before Time after seeing JW, and having the idea of Owen Grady being a fan of the movie and singing the song to his raptors. So it's kind of fitting that when I saw the trailers for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, it caused me to watch LBT yet again, and even watch all the sequels including the ones I never saw as a kid, and then watch the original at least two more times because it's just that good... and that ended up inspiring me to finally write an actual Land Before Time fanfic.
See, watching the entire series for the first time, I realized something. Cera's mother and siblings appear early in the film, but are absent in the scene when the kids are all reunited with their families. They never appear again in the sequels - so presumably they're dead - and the only time in the entire series that any of them are mentioned again is in the eleventh movie. Cera's dad is getting back together with, uhh, an ex from presumably before Cera was born, and Littlefoot asks Cera if she's going to be her new mom. And Cera freaking charges at Littlefoot, and was close to seriously attacking him. I don't think Cera EVER lost her temper at Littlefoot like that in all fourteen movies - even in their fight in the original, Littlefoot was the one who escalated to physical violence (albeit justifiably). Honestly I don't know if the writers were going for this on purpose since the rest of that movie's plot is, well, bad, but the impression it gave me was that even years later, the subject was still incredibly painful. How bad must it have been when it first happened?
From there, thinking about it, I really felt like something was missing between the original film and the first sequel. Great Valley Adventure timeskips probably a couple weeks or months to where they're all just playing and acting like normal children. But realistically, they'd all been through a horrifically traumatic experience, and would still need time to adjust to life in the Great Valley. And even looking at fanfiction, this really isn't covered much. I think I saw one good fic which was set shortly after the original's ending but didn't really mention Cera's family, and one that was about Cera searching for where her family died in the Mysterious Beyond to find closure but it was a long time later. There wasn't anything that covered Cera's response to her mother's death in the moment, and there wasn't anything that really covered the transition in Cera's relationship with the rest of the gang, especially Littlefoot. At the end of the original, I think she'd gotten past the idea that she shouldn't need anyone else, and that she couldn't be friends with longnecks and spiketails and swimmers, but she could have drifted away again and mostly stayed with her own kind. But by the first four sequels, Cera's primary conflict is with the prejudices of other dinosaurs risking splitting the gang up, and was willing to openly defy her father, despite her love and respect for him, to stay with her friends. And I'm not willing to chalk this up to bad characterization - I think it's character development that never made it into the films because it was too dark for the tone of the sequels.
All the pieces fell together: Cera being devastated by the loss of her mom and siblings, and the others helping her through it in a way that her dad couldn't, and Littlefoot and Cera finally having real closure after all the conflict between them in the original movie. I knew I had to write this.
There's too much other supplemental information for this fic to fit in a reasonable Author's Notes section. So, since I'm also posting this story on the LBT-specific Gang of Five Forums, I'm going to put all that stuff in the thread there for anyone who's interested.