Dinosaurs.
That was what Samar was sprinting away from currently. Not bad guys with guns or bombs, but dinosaurs.
It was at that point that for once, Samar was regretting her usual cynicism. Reddington had brought them so many Blacklisters in the past, many of which had both the genius intellect and just the right level of being unhinged to achieve things no law enforcement agency ever thought possible before. One would think that by now, if Reddington announced that he knew a guy capable of building a functioning time machine and threatening to use it to go back in time, change the course of history and ultimately, destroy humanity forever... Someone might actually take him seriously.
But no, Samar had thought that particular idea was just a little more farfetched than usual.
And now she was being chased by dinosaurs. Specifically, the kind with blade like teeth who really, really looked like they thought she would make a pretty delicious meal, and had started chasing her from the moment she landed in their time period, practically right on top of them.
All because when the taskforce reluctantly agreed to track down the evil genius in question, and Samar had reached forwards to pick up the flashing, handheld device to place it carefully in an evidence bag, she had apparently touched the damn thing at just the wrong moment and found herself transported into her own personal, real live rendition of a Jurassic Park movie, but without other actual humans... Or any semblance of civilisation at all, really.
She was in the Jurassic era, or the Triassic era, or maybe even the Cretaceous era. Samar wasn't entirely sure. Dinosaurs weren't exactly her area of expertise.
They were Aram's, actually -one of the many random sets of factoids that fascinated him.
Samar only hoped to all things holy or otherwise that he was now madly working on the time machine back in the present, trying to figure out how the hell to bring her home, given that upon touching the device she hadn't exactly grabbed it and brought it back in time with her.
In the meantime, as she ducked past a few more trees and found a small clearing in the wilderness, Samar just had to survive this insanity long enough to get there.
She took a breath as she crouched at the edge of the clearing with her back towards some kind of rocky wall that probably formed a cliff above her head. The vicious looking beasts with the horrifyingly sharp teeth had stopped chasing her finally, and wandered back to wherever they had come from... Now, she was faced with the herd of long-necked creatures that seemed to be peacefully foraging in the lower lying bushes of the clearing.
Samar wondered just how long they would stay looking peaceful once she caught their attention.
But, as she carefully crept through the bushes towards a cave further down the rocky wall for cover, not one of the long-necked creatures paid her even the slightest shred of attention.
It seemed she had reached the herbivorous part of town.
Samar let out another, long, deep breath. That was a relief. She made a mental note to perhaps stick to this herbivorous part of town. She had no interest in trying to fight dinosaurs while she was temporarily trapped in whatever epoch of whatever period she had been transported to, and it would be a whole lot safer if she stuck with dinosaurs who felt much the same way about her. Though, as she caught her breath and her heart rate began to slow back to normal after her sprinting, there was a rumbling in her stomach that quickly presented the next problem;
She was hungry.
Samar wasn't entirely sure what dinosaur meat would taste like, whether it was even safe to eat, nor did she feel like figuring that out any time soon. The tiny, rodent-like early mammals of the time didn't look overly appealing either. From there Samar had assumed she was stuck with salad... Except she didn't recognise any of the plants or see any fruits or vegetables sprouting around either.
That was just a slight problem that her Mossad survival training didn't quite cover.
Samar continued moving along the edge of the rocky wall. The long-necked creatures of the clearing didn't look like they were going to move very far in a hurry and that meant one thing; at the very least there had to be water around somewhere close by... And that was a good start.
It didn't take her long to find it; a narrow but perhaps mid-thigh-deep, quickly flowing stream lined with craggly rocks either side, that sat maybe twenty feet at most from the cave entrance. That it was flowing rather than stagnant was a good sign –it was one of the first indicators her survival training had taught her of water that was more likely to be safe to drink. She would have to find a way to boil it if she wanted to be completely safe, but even though she could build a fire easily enough, she had no vessel to set the water in over the fire that would stay in tact to actually boil it. Dinosaurs weren't exactly known for their crafting of metal pots, and any basket type of thing she could assemble out of the giant fern leaves or tree branches around her would simply burn to ashes and put out the fire when the water leaked out over the top. So flowing, at the very least, was helpful.
Even more helpful was what suddenly darted past her in the water.
Fish. None that she recognised, naturally. But they were all different shapes and sizes, and they were plentiful. Surely, some of them had to be safe to thread onto a twig and roast over a fire.
The water was crystal clear, and nothing below the surface looked dangerous. Samar crouched by the water's edge, ready to scoop one or two fish out of the water just as her training had taught her... Then she paused.
Assuming she caught a fish, what was she going to put it in to carry it around with her until she built a fire?
Furrowing her brow in frustration, and trying to tell her growling stomach to wait just a little while longer, Samar quickly yanked a few of those larger fern leaves from the plant next to her, and then used the knife concealed at her waist to slice a few thick vines from a neighbouring tree. She lashed them together –all the while wondering why on earth she had ever been so cynical of Mossad teaching that particular skill in survival training- finally ending up with a small basket, of sorts. It was wonky, and not exactly neat, but then again there were no Mossad trainers examining it either. So long as it could hold a fish or two –which, it could- it would be just fine.
With her stomach rumbling as much as it was, now was not the moment to be a perfectionist.
Back to the water's edge she went, basket ready in hand. The first few initial swipes at the water proved fruitless. She was out of practice, and the fish were quicker than she expected.
An intense feeling of victory swept over her as she finally caught one, blatantly ignoring the fact that once upon a time she had been able to catch a fish first or second try. After all, until now she hadn't used that skill since training, not even once. The fish promptly went in the basket and Samar reached back into the water ready to catch one more.
Then the little hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle, and the faint sound of footsteps –or rather, dinosaur-steps- echoed in her ear. Samar turned on the spot, quickly rising to standing and ready to fight, and the sound suddenly stopped.
Perhaps all of six feet away, directly in front of her, was another of those long-necked dinosaurs, apparently just as stunned to stillness by her movement, as she was by his.
This one was distinctly smaller than most of the others Samar had seen earlier, but still larger than the tiny, baby ones that she had noticed stumbling about the feet of the fully grown ones. At perhaps two times her height, the dinosaur right in front of her was somewhere in the middle.
Perhaps it was a teenager, assuming dinosaurs went through a teenage stage. That was Samar's only real frame of reference for it anyway, and the main point was that it was still two times her size, no matter its stage of development.
She raised her hands in a gesture of peace and reassurance, and cautiously stepped backwards. Assuming that this dinosaur was as herbivorous as the others, it wasn't planning to eat her. That meant the only reason it might attack was if it felt threatened.
The creature blinked, tilting its head slightly to curiously study her movements. Cautiously, Samar reached sideways for another of those fern leaves and held it out to the creature, as yet another peace offering. It took a second, but then the dinosaur bounced forwards, taking the leaf from her and gobbling it down all too happily. A second later again, and it was back to staring at her expectantly.
'You want another one?' Samar asked warily, then internally berated herself for talking to a dinosaur, of all things. The dinosaur blinked once, twice more, and Samar took that as assent to her question. She quickly plucked another leaf from the fern and held it out, and in turn it disappeared from her hand again just as fast. She paused, studying the creature in front of her for a moment. It was longer than it was tall, with a blue-ish grey hide, and one of those long, skinny, flexible necks. If she correctly remembered any of Aram's ramblings about dinosaurs, it was an Apatosaurus, or a Brachiosaurus, or something.
She was leaning towards an Apatosaurus, for some reason.
Either way, it definitely wasn't fully grown. It lurched forwards with the bouncy enthusiasm of a small child or perhaps a puppy, suddenly nuzzling its snout or nose, or whatever she was supposed to call the end of an Apatosaurus' face, into her cheek. Samar winced at the giant tongue leaving a trail of dinosaur drool dripping from her face as it shuffled back again, completely unaware of the force of its own body weight.
'Thanks for that...' Samar muttered to herself, trying to wipe away the drool with the back of her hand. The dinosaur, however, seemed all too pleased with himself. His long, whip-like tail thumped happily against the ground in response to her voice, and those wide eyes blinked again. The snout came back to her height once more, and Samar braced for another round of drool... Until the snout continued on past her, over the craggly rocks and dipping into the water's surface. It stayed there a moment, leaving Samar wondering why on earth the herbivorous creature would do such a thing when he didn't appear to be drinking, until the creature quickly grasped a fish between its teeth and whipped his head back out from the water. The snout returned to just in front of Samar's face, the wriggling, flapping fish now dangling by the tail barely inches from her. Samar furrowed her brow, and the dinosaur gently nudged her once, twice more against her cheek. Samar winced at the fish flapping against her face but didn't protest.
The fish was for her.
Warily, she took it from the Apatosaurus' mouth, and set it in her leaf basket with the one she had caught earlier. Just like that, the dinosaur thumped the ground with his tail happily again, nearly knocking her over... But Samar stood her ground. She glanced him up and down once more, finally struggling to stifle a laugh.
Really, he was just like a gigantic puppy.
With a grin, Samar lifted her basket back off the ground and began heading back along the edge of the rocky wall towards the cave.
Just as quickly, the young Apatosaurus followed, close on her heels.
Samar paused, glancing back at him with a wry, raised eyebrow.
'Are you following me?' She asked, still wondering why she was still talking to a dinosaur. 'Really?' The dinosaur blinked, tilting its head curiously to the side again in response to her voice. Samar furrowed her brow in thought; it was interesting just how expressive the dinosaur's face actually was. It couldn't speak, but she could certainly gauge just from the crinkling of its eyes or the way it bobbed its head, exactly how it felt. For the moment it was curious about her, and determined to follow. 'Alright then...' Samar sighed to herself and started moving again. 'Where are your parents, anyway? Or your herd? Shouldn't you be with them?' She glanced sideways at the dinosaur still ambling along beside her, head bowed as if listening carefully to the words he didn't understand. The snout bobbed up again in surprise as she stopped talking, and if the Apatosaurus had a brow that could furrow, Samar would have sworn it did. 'Ok then,' she murmured softly, and with a wry smile, 'you don't want to talk about it. I get it. I don't always like talking about things either.'
It was nearly dark by the time Samar reached the cave again. She made quick work of setting up a small fire for both warmth and cooking out of nearby branches, then using her knife to gut and scale the fish, before threading a twig through each one and setting them over the fire like a small spit.
The dinosaur, having probably not seen fire before, stood further back, watching the flickering flames with a clear sense of uneasiness. Once cooked, the fish didn't last long, and neither did the fire. Samar's belly stopped rumbling, and her putting out the fire had the dinosaur darting quickly back to her side once more. He nipped at her sides, not sharply to bite or cause pain, but just enough of a tug at her shirt and arm to catch her attention.
'Now what do you want?' Samar asked him, notably unimpressed. Regardless, the dinosaur nipped at her again... And again.
A second later, and an all too familiar sound –albeit louder than she was used to- echoed in her ears.
The sound of a hungry, rumbling belly.
Samar shook her head with a mixture of amusement and exasperation, jumping off the rock she was sitting on and taking the few steps over towards another fern by the cave's entrance. She sliced down a few more leaves with her knife, and handed them over. They lasted about as long as the fish and the fire did.
'Surely,' Samar began, still shaking her head, 'you could have figured out how to get those for yourself, buddy.' The dinosaur made no response besides awkwardly nudging the ground and avoiding her gaze –clearly, another topic he didn't want to talk about. With that out of the way, Samar turned and entered the cave. By now, darkness filled the sky, dotted only by a few twinkling stars and shred of moonlight that she could only just make out through the dense collection of trees. She was tired, and the cave seemed the safest place to sleep –on the edge of the clearing, but not quite as open in case any of the larger, carnivorous dinosaurs came hunting through the night.
She managed to take maybe all of five steps inside before a soft, warning growl erupted from the dinosaur's throat. Samar paused for a moment, glancing back at him, then took another step in. Another growl erupted. She took yet another step, and yet another growl came. Shaking her head yet again, Samar pulled her cell phone from her pocket. There was no cell service or internet naturally, but it certainly made a good enough flashlight once she turned off all the service-searching functions. Light filled the cave, and Samar was forced to duck. Some three dozen pre-bat-like creatures came screeching and soaring towards her and out of the cave, all in a flurry, angered by the sudden interruption of their darkness.
Somehow, the dinosaur had been able to see or sense their presence, even when Samar herself couldn't.
She switched off the flashlight function of her phone and set it back in her pocket. She waited for the split second it took for her eyes to re-adjust to the darkness before stepping further into the cave again. This time, the dinosaur made not a single noise of protest. He also seemed far more relaxed, and as Samar glanced back at him again –this time, gratefully- he was right on her heels once more.
'Thanks, buddy,' she murmured to him, genuinely thankful, 'I don't like bats either... Or whatever those were.' A snout came to bump softly against her cheek once more. Samar bit her lip, tentatively reaching out with her hand. The dinosaur had nudged and nipped and nuzzled her plenty of times already, but she hadn't yet reached out to touch him. She wasn't sure how he would feel about it, or where exactly one was supposed to touch a dinosaur either. Nervously she made a guess, gently scratching the side of his snout where it hovered close to her shoulder, scratching under his chin, and back behind where she imagined his ears would be, if only an Apatosaurus had ears. The dinosaur seemed to enjoy it, nuzzling further and further into her hand, wanting more...
...Just as a puppy would.
Samar shook her head again; she never would have thought, when she woke up that morning in the comfort of her own apartment back in the present, that she would spending the evening in a cave, petting a dinosaur.
Though, on the plus side, at least she had found herself a dinosaur who was friendly, despite his apparent species confusion. Her accidental transportation back in time could have gone far worse.
'Do you have a name?' She murmured, breaking into a shiver as she continued scratching the dinosaur's imaginary ears. The cave was cold, not as cold as the air outside of it, but still cold nonetheless... And her usual, lightweight, khaki jacket did little to break the chill. She curled up towards one edge of the cage, wrapping her arms around her knees and pulling them in close to keep herself warm as she dozed, but that didn't help much either. The dinosaur lowered himself down until his belly nestled into the cave's soft, sandy floor, and his legs curled up underneath, still not far from her at all. He watched her shivering for a moment, his face contorting into another of those strange expressions that Samar could only have described as confusion or concern, or somewhere halfway in between. A second later, and his long, whip-like tail curled around, nudging against her knees a couple of times, before finally curling all the way back into himself. Samar blinked, not quite sure what to make of the gesture... And then the dinosaur's even longer neck stretched out towards her in turn, nipping at the shoulder of her t-shirt and trying to pull her closer.
Samar got the hint.
She shuffled over across the cave and curled up again, leaning into the dinosaur's side around his own shoulder of sorts. His tail wrapped gently across her ankles, and his long neck across her knees, until his head came to rest somewhere just past her shoulder. Samar let out a breath of relief at the body heat that warmed her in an instant; she was wrapped up tightly enough to stave off the cold, but not at all too tight for her to clamber away if need be. Her hand rested gratefully across the stretch of the dinosaur's long neck that she could reach, softly stroking it.
'Would it be too ironic of me to call you Fido?' She chuckled softly to him, 'because I think I'm going to.' The ridiculousness of the cliche amused her, anyway.
Fido's only response was to nudge her ankles with his tail again, the gesture of either agreement, or 'shut up and go to sleep.' Samar wasn't exactly sure which it was supposed to be but assumed it to be both, just to be safe. She watched Fido's eyes flicker closed and felt his breathing slow with slumber, until her own did the same... And she too, fell asleep.