April showers

Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.

It was noon, but the weather still wasn't as hot as it was last afternoon: Connor and Abby found themselves sweating not too heavily and the urge to walk around practically naked wasn't so strong either.

Admittedly, the luxuriantly green plants – prehistoric-looking tree ferns and giant horsetails, as well as more modern looking conifer and broadleaf trees – could have to do something with that: they provided plenty of shade and cover from the hot Cretaceous sun overhead and the sunstroke that it could cause, as well as from more down-to-Earth threats...hopefully.

Right now, though, it appeared that some of those potential threats weren't as threatening in practice as Abby has thought: the herd of the horned dinosaurs was impressive, physically speaking, but when it came to mental processes, all that they were concerned was, was grazing.

"Those animals just eat and, um, defecate," Abby groaned as she and Connor continued to observe the dinosaurs in question from deep within their impromptu hideout. "I swear this is just as boring – or exciting, if you want to get picky – as working at the zoo at some of the big enclosures. That is why, by the way, I prefer to work with lizards, with them any expectations are already low, and-"

"Hush, Abby, please – I'm observing one of the juvenile males," Connor was clearly enjoying this more so than his girlfriend. "See the one that still has faint stripes on his sides and back? I think that he's feeling macho-"

With a pronounced, snorting cry the male that Connor was pointing at approached one of its cohorts that was one of the top males in this herd. By standards of Connor or Abby (or any other mammal of this time) the huge dinosaur was moving quite slowly, but as it came closer and closer to its rival, it picked up speed until the two dinosaurs practically slammed into each other with some clearly resounding slams!

"Amazing," Connor muttered as soon as his teeth stopped chattering from the spread-out impact of the blow. "Simply amazing, isn't it Abby?"

Privately, Abby thought that when two male giraffes in the zoo decided to fight for dominance they did it with much more elegance and style – here the two dinosaurs just pushed against each other with their snouts and horns, trying to overpower each other through muscle force alone. Frankly, Abby couldn't understand what Connor was so excited about, besides the fact that those were live dinosaurs that were acting the way animals in a zoo, or in a wildlife park, or in a-

Abruptly, the horns of one of the dinosaurs slipped past its opponent's guard and stabbed the dinosaur's frill. Immediately the wounded victim squealed loudly, broke-off the struggle and fled as fast as it could from the scene of battle.

"Oh boy, oh boy, that was fun," Connor spoke in a rather excited tone of voice. "And to think that you thought that dinosaurs were boring! If Nick was here-"

Something cracked underfoot – but it wasn't Connor's foot and it wasn't just a stick, but an entire dry log, dry enough not to endure the full weight of a T-Rex as it charged from less than 9 meters away from the two humans, fortuitously less interested in them than in the horned dinosaur.

Naturally, that was a good thing: the poor dinosaur didn't have a chance: the tyrannosaurus's monstrous jaws clamped on its back and shoulder and half-ripped half-pulled him downwards. Already tired and wounded, the horned dinosaur had no chance to escape – it fell and the carnivore began to dismember it mostly live.

"Better it than us, right?" Abby muttered to Connor, who, however, was ignoring the procedures but was rather noisily sick into some flowering shrubs.

"OK, then," Abby said slowly, biting down the tasteless remark that they almost went off to visit Nick in the afterlife instead. "Let's leave now before the scavengers arrive."

And that's just what they did.

* * *

When the temperature surrounding you averages 26 degrees Celsius a dip in a river sounds like quite a pleasant idea – and it is. Considering, however, that giant carnivores during the Late Cretaceous lived in fresh water as well as land, this idea was also more risky than how it first appeared.

"You know, one good thing about us being the only people in the world at this time is that we don't have to worry about our clothes being stolen while we bathe," Abby admitted after a while, when Connor's shock at seeing his first T-Rex kill has faded somewhat and he no longer stank of fear (probably, she couldn't really tell). "What do you think, Connor?"

"Well," Connor finally found his voice, "I guess that since you've been constantly complaining that you didn't see any similarities between dinosaurs and birds, it was only a matter of time before we ran into a dinosaur that was similar, you know?"

Abby blinked. "T-Rex is similar to a bird?"

"Mostly in its feet, but there's a reasonable theory that T-Rex chicks were feathered in downy feathers as well, eh? You see, Abby, the tyrannosaur branch of the dinosaur carnivores' family was quite far away from the birds, but because both birds and tyrannosaurs had ancestors related to the raptors' ancestors, they are cousins..."

"What about those small guys?" Abby interrupted Connor's rumbles and pointed his attention to a herd of small (well, human-sized actually) plant-eating bipedal dinosaurs that were grazing on river-side's vegetation. "Are they related to birds?"

"No; in fact, I suspect that these guys have gotten here from the Jurassic, via a conveniently located time anomaly, and adapted to life here," Connor shrugged. "Then again, it's the little guys who always adapt quicker than the big ones."

"Connor, around here, we're the little guys," Abby said, rather bemusedly. "Especially when compared to such horned train engines as those," she pointed to herd of the horned dinosaurs that had recovered from the tyrannosaurus's attack and were now approaching the opposite end of the river bend to drink. As their heavy feet trod the ground, several small animals, no bigger than a dachshund or a beagle fled from them.

"Abby? I think those were prehistoric mammals," Connor said in an awed tone of voice. "They may have been the first primate ancestors! This is biological history in the making and we're witnessing it!"

"Yeah, well, Connor, honestly? I would rather we'd be witnessing it with a way to get back to our time or even with some more people from our time, 'cause these guys? They look less like us and more like some of the rats that the bigger lizards used to feed upon!"

Unfortunately (or fortunately, it all depended on one's point of view), Connor had ignored Abby's latest statement and instead was focusing his attention on some of the bipedal dinosaurs which have separated from the main herd and have wondered closer to them in order to secure better places to drink.

Whoosh! A massive wave swept Connor and Abby aside, flinging them onto the shore, even as the bipedal herbivores fled inland, leaving the territory... to a huge crocodile whose massive jaws were snapping in vain, and its small but evil eyes gazing around... focusing on still prone Abby and Connor...

"How lovely!" Abby muttered as the deinosuchus began to move towards them and they hastened to join the dinosaurs into fleeing from the river. "It has not been yet full day yet and we've been in mortal peril twice already!"

TBC...