Summer
(One month after the breakout at Lockwood Manor)
The Stygimoloch—'Stiggy', as Owen Grady had called her during their brief mission to disrupt the auction—ran through the pine forests of northern California. She liked this place much better than Isla Nublar. It was cooler here; there were no nagging mosquitoes and no pressing heat from the sun. In fact, the forest was a wonderful retreat from the sun. And best of all—no compies. How she hated those ankle biters!
Another upside; less competition for food. And the food here was very good, especially for an omnivore. A squirrel here, some berries there…it was good living. Pleased by this place, Stiggy made her home in an old foxes' den, near a clearing where she could bask in the sunshine when she tired of the shadowy forest.
A wide river cut on the west side of the small patch of land she called her territory. She had tried crossing it once to chase a beaver that escaped into the water. She had never seen a river before; she was only familiar with the little creek that had crossed her home on Isla Nublar.
The deep river with its slippery rock bottom had almost drowned her. Only a convenient log had given her something to leap onto.
This was the first of many things Stiggy put into her memory.
Big water hurts. Big water is bad. Do not go into big water.
Another time, she had tried to catch a bear cub. She didn't know it was dangerous to harm a cub. She didn't even know what a bear was.
Stiggy had just bowled the cub over, listening for and hearing the crack of a rib, when a terrific growl echoed through the forest. At first, Stiggy thought it might be a compy. She had nothing to fear from them, though she hated how they nipped her ankles—but then, there was something big and brown, covered not in scales but in something she didn't recognize. As one great paw sent her crashing into a tree, she noticed it was soft—except for the slashing claws that cut her vulnerable belly. That had been a terrible experience and she had narrowly escaped death; the cut, fortunately, had not been deep enough to kill her.
Do not harm the little soft-paw. The big soft-paw will try to kill you.
This new life in an alien forest had many teachable moments. She learned to sample berries before eating them up.
Those berries that smell too sweet will make you sick. The green berries in the clearing will hurt your throat. Those black berries by the big water are good to eat, though.
Not all the stygimoloch's time was spent experimenting and learning; she also liked to play. One of her favorite activities was running headlong into rotting logs and dying trees. She had found, during the breakout at Lockwood Manor, that there was something satisfying about smashing things. Thus, her territory (bordered by the big water, the clearing, and a small stretch of larger trees) was full of crumbled logs and shattered trees. She liked the feeling of rushing through the forest and rendering the wood into bits.
This is fun, is what she thought.
Summer passed into autumn and autumn into winter. Stiggy's life in a tropical environment not so long ago felt like a distant memory…
Plink…plink…plink.
As she was hunting before dawn one morning, looking for rodents in the clearing, Stiggy felt something wet and unpleasant hit the sensitive skin around her nostrils. She did not understand the concept of cold, since she'd lived almost all her life on Isla Nublar. She did, however, know she did not like it. It stung her nose and made her sneeze. She looked up and saw pale white specks falling from the sky. With her face turned up to the sky, the flecks got in her eyes and she had to blink rapidly.
After a hasty meal of berries and mushrooms, the Stygimoloch retreated to her den, where she fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning…
The light seemed different when our little, bumpy-headed dinosaur woke up.
Something's not right. The sun isn't right.
She paused at the entrance of her den.
Am I safer in here? Should I stay here?
She snorted and stomped the ground. If she could, she would have laughed at herself. If she could break down walls and help a human free the terrifying Indoraptor, she could see what made the sun look different. It was silly to be afraid of light. She stepped into the forest and looked around in astonishment.
Clumps of something white were scattered between the trees. It was snow, of course, and it had fallen through the gaps in the tree canopy, but it was something alien to the curious dinosaur who, up until now, had only known steaming jungles, damp and warm and close.
Yes, this was different, but it was a pleasant sort of different. There was something beautiful about the stillness that even Stiggy, in her limited understanding, found soothing in more than just a sensory way. She stood still, sniffing the air and looking all around her before marching curiously to the 'white stuff'. She poked it with stubby toes, scraped at it with her claws, nibbled at it with her beak-like mouth.
Yikes!
That hurt to eat…but it was fun to touch. Stiggy stomped on one of the mounds, enjoying the way it crunched under her feet.
I wonder if there's any more of this stuff.
Something in her funny dinosaur mind told her to go to the clearing, where a stunning sight met her eyes; nothing but the 'white stuff' all around the clearing, great heaps of it in some places. Impulsively, she took off at a full run and ran into one of those heaps, skidding as it sprayed everywhere. Stiggy's nose and eyes burned again, but she didn't care this time. She ran into and through the snow until it was all a muddy mess, sometimes falling on her face but always getting up and starting all over again. This was fun!
Her old home on Isla Nublar had been nothing like this.
She liked this much better. She was here to stay.
A/N: I wrote this under Jack Horner's theory that dinosaurs might have been warm-blooded which is why Stiggy didn't freeze to death. Also, Stiggy is my very favorite JW dinosaur. I even have a Stiggy (an action figure,of course, though I wouldn't say no to the real thing.
