Just before I continue the story, I'm going to respond to this review quickly:

Korrasami 88: Indiscriminate killing of carnivores will only harm the ecosystem around the Great Valley

Well, you know, Tormod's worried about other things, like his own survival (since every carnivore he took out had threatened him or otherwise posed a danger to him in some way), the survival of the Great Valley Herd, and taking out Sharptooth, a particularly crazy carnivore who is committing the equivalent of GENOCIDE against flatteeth. Actually, what was really harming the ecosystem around the valley was the presence of too many carnivores (as should be hinted by the abnormally large fast biter pack back in chapter 5, since fast biter packs are usually 20-30 at the max), and some of those carnivores had picked up on the habit of killing just for the heck of it. This killed off all the flatteeth around the valley, and caused the survivors to flee into the valley. So Tormod is unwittingly balancing it back.


Yesterday...

"Longneck?" Littlefoot narrowed his eyes. This was the first time he had ever been called that. Naturally, he was puzzled about it.

"Mother, what's a "longneck"?" he asked.

"Why, that's what we are, dear." Helen, his mother, answered as her son climbed onto her head.

"Oh." Littlefoot answered rather flatly. He slipped the treestar his mother had retrieved for him back over onto his back. "But why can't I play with that threehorn?"

"Well, we all keep to our own kind." The female longneck explained casually. "The threehorns, the spiketails, the swimmers, the flyers...we never do anything together."

"Why?"

"Well, because we're different. It's always been that way."

"Well, why?"

The young longneck wanted to know the reason why different herds refused to do anything together. To him, this separation of different kinds of dinosaurs didn't quite sound right.

"Oh, don't worry so much." Helen smiled reassuringly. "When we reach the Great Valley, there will be many, many longnecks for you to play with."

Littlefoot sighed again. He wished that they were there now, but there was also one thing he wished for more than anything.

"Littlefoot?" Helen asked when she noticed his sudden mood change.

"Well," Littlefoot told her, "it's just...I wish I had a friend."

"Don't worry, Littlefoot." Helen reassured her son. "You'll make many new friends when we get to the Great Valley."

"Still," Littlefoot shrugged (if a sauropod could even do such an action), "I just..."

But he was cut off as, suddenly, an unexpected golden light flashed before the herd of longnecks that was Littlefoot's family. It was so bright that it lit up the entire area and caused the herd to turn their heads away to shield their eyes. As it slowly faded, Littlefoot peeked at where the light had been, and could just barely make out a shape inside it. When the light finally disappeared, the herd stared in surprise and wonder.

Face down on the ground was the oddest creature that any of them had ever seen.

"Mother..." Littlefoot gasped in utter surprise, "what IS it?"

"I don't know." The adult female uttered, just as surprised as her son, as she bent her neck down towards the creature.

Littlefoot slid off of his mother's head and bent his own neck down towards the creature as well. Indeed, it was the strangest creature, or thing, for that matter, that he had ever seen.

The skin appeared to be in several different colors, with some parts of it seeming baggy. The creature also had some thin brown reeds growing out of the head. Its arms were unusually long and had five dull things that looked like claws on each hand. In one of them, it seemed to be holding some sort of curved stick with a thin vine holding the two ends together. The legs were also very long and had very odd-looking feet. On the back, there seemed to be some kind of blue bulge with black markings on it, and around the waist, there was something filled with what looked like sticks with some weird stuff attached to the ends of them.

"Is it alive?" Littlefoot asked.

Helen sniffed the creature. It had an unfamiliar scent that was unlike anything she had ever smelled before.

However, she could tell that the creature was still breathing, so it was definitely alive. The longneck then cautiously nudged it with the tip of her snout.

A small green glint on the ground attracted Littlefoot's attention. He looked over at the creature and saw that there was a green stone around the neck. He couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like the stone was glowing a little.

Suddenly, the creature groaned and winced.

"Hey, are you okay?" Littlefoot asked the creature. He didn't know if the creature could talk, but there was a chance that it could. Then, the creature spoke.

"I...I think so." The creature wearily answered, her voice giving her away as a female, trying to open her eyes.

"Mother! She can talk!" Littlefoot told his mother about his.

Clearly confused and disoriented, the creature raised up on her knees, apparently trying to look at Littlefoot. Then, though, she shook her head, and then her eyes went wide, and her jaw dropped when she saw Littlefoot. This reaction concerned the young longneck.

"You sure you're okay?" Littlefoot asked the creature again.

But him speaking to her had an effect on the creature that Littlefoot didn't expect or want.

"AAAUUUGGGHHH!"

Littlefoot jumped back in surprised as the creature let out a screech and scrambled away. Her bright blue eyes were wide with terror and Littlefoot was very sure of himself that he saw her face turn white.

"D-D-D-Dinosaur!" she stuttered in a panic while pointing at him with one of her dull claws. "D-D-Dinosaur's TALKING!"

Helen brought her head around to push Littlefoot away, but as she was about to do so, she noticed that that hadn't exactly make things better, for the creature now fixed her attention on her. Then, Littlefoot's grandparents, who were Helen's mother and father, came around as well to look at the creature, and they also frightened her.

Seeing that his mother and his grandparents were not helping the situation, Littlefoot decided to jump back in.

"Mother, Grandma, Grandpa, wait!" Littlefoot told them. "You're scaring her!"

Helen and her parents were surprised by Littlefoot telling them what to do, but they did so. Once they did, Littlefoot came closer to the creature.

"Who are you?" Littlefoot asked.

"Uhh...I...I...I'm..." The creature stumbled over her words as she seemed to be trying to find a response.

Seeing that she was nervous, Littlefoot tried to find a way to calm her down. He did so by wrapping his neck around her to get her to stop wandering around and help her speak.

"What's your name?" Littlefoot asked again.

"A-Aylene." The creature shakily answered. "My name's Aylene."

"And what kind of creature are you?"

"I...I'm a human."

"Well, it's nice to meet you." Littlefoot told her. "I'm Littlefoot, and I'm a...what did mother call my kind...a longneck."

"Uh...nice to meet you too." Aylene awkwardly responded.


Earlier Today...

A huge frog leaped from the spot it had been sitting on to right in front of a sleeping Aylene and Littlefoot in order to catch a large dragonfly, which it did. But this woke up the two of them, and they were treated to the absolutely horrifying sight...of the large frog's lack of manners, that is, chewing with its mouth open.

"Ugh, that's GROSS!" Aylene grimaced at the not-so-pretty sight.

Then, the frog began hopping away.

"Hey, hopper, come back!" Littlefoot called out at the frog as he ran after it.

"Littlefoot, wait!" Aylene also called out, but quietly, as she didn't want to wake up the sleeping adults.

Realizing that Littlefoot wasn't paying any attention to her due to being distracted by the frog, Aylene quickly grabbed her stuff and ran after him, trying to put on her bag and her quiver at the same time. She soon found Littlefoot by a cluster of rocks that lead into a decayed tree.

"Littlefoot, wait up!" she shouted at him as she ran after him.

Suddenly, though, a voice came from inside the log. But it wasn't directed at Aylene. It was directed at Littlefoot.

"You again?! Go away!"

Aylene stopped dead in her tracks when a little yellow Triceratops ran out of the log and up towards Littlefoot with an angry face.

What struck Aylene was the fact that there was an Apatosaurus AND a Triceratops together at the EXACT SAME time. According to her research, the Triceratops would have come AFTER the Apatosaurus. What exactly were they doing together in the same time frame?

"That's MY hopper!" The young triceratops hissed at Littlefoot, flicking her tail and holding her horn high in the air as she turned away from him.

"I saw him first." Littlefoot stated, quite annoyed.

"Well, he's in my pond." The Triceratops claimed as she slid down a small slope into what seemed to be some rather mucky water that bubbled.

Littlefoot followed the Triceratops, and Aylene, in return, followed Littlefoot. While the young Apatosaurus clumsily slipped down the slope and landed almost directly on top of the Triceratops, the human girl slowly and carefully made her way down so that she wouldn't slip and fall, unlike Littlefoot.

As the young Triceratops turned to glare at Littlefoot, she then noticed Aylene.

"What are you supposed to be?" She asked in a quite rude tone.

"I'm a human." Aylene answered as calmly as she could. "My name's Aylene. Who are you?"

"Name's Cera." the Triceratops answered with snobbish pride.

Littlefoot was about to say something when, suddenly, Cera saw the reflection of the hopper she was chasing earlier appear in a large bubble. She jumped on it, and it almost instantly burst right under her. Soon, more bubbles rose up, all with the images of hoppers in them, and Littlefoot joined in on pouncing on them.

Aylene giggled at the sight of the two playing together in the water. She had to say, it was rather cute to watch.

"Hey, this is fun!" Cera admitted as she and Littlefoot continued with their little game.

But their fun would not last long.

Soon and suddenly, the ground began to shake hard under Aylene's feet, enough to make her gasp, for she knew that this meant that SOMETHING was coming, and it was big.

Littlefoot and Cera felt it as well, and all 3 of them searched frantically for the source of the shaking.

Then, Cera turned in the direction that the tremors were coming from, and screamed this in absolute terror:

"SHARPTOOTH!"

Littlefoot turned around in the same direction and let out a shriek of his own.

There was no mistaking this dinosaur! The most feared dinosaur above any of its kind, the one that gave meat eaters their name among the leaf eaters, was heading in their direction! And if his kind was to humans, then he was to Attila, Timur Lenk, and Joseph Stalin put together!

Aylene herself couldn't help but shriek in terror, for what was approaching her was the biggest Tyrannosaurus Rex she had ever seen! Even worse, this one had SKIN on it, and it was ALIVE!


Aylene and Littlefoot trudged through the heavy rain towards a cave, broken, demoralized, and frightened. They were both still reeling over what had happened today.

Yesterday had gone alright, for although Littlefoot's first meeting with Cera hadn't exactly gone well, Aylene's appearance, although sudden, made up for it, for Littlefoot had managed to befriend the young human very quickly (although that was because Aylene was pretty much stranded here).

Today, however...was an utter disaster, to put it mildly. The two of them met Cera again, but this time, it had been going better. Well, HAD been, anyways. As Littlefoot and Cera had been inexplicably playing together, suddenly, a huge T-Rex by the name of Sharptooth had shown up, and proceeded to attack the three. After a short chase, Littlefoot's mother had stepped in, driving Sharptooth back briefly, and managing to hold her ground against him, giving the three time to escape from him. But that's when things got worse, because while Sharptooth was being held back, a MASSIVE earthquake suddenly struck. It was massive, and it opened up many, many cracks in the ground, including a particularly huge one that seemed to split the land in two. Worse still, this earthquake had distracted Littlefoot's mother, allowing Sharptooth to brutally attack her and tear pieces of flesh off of her back. Though the force of the earthquake soon made Sharptooth fall off of her and into one of the cracks, presumably to his death, the damage was still done, and she now had several huge wounds on her. The earthquake eventually split Littlefoot and Aylene from the former's mother, and then they proceeded to spend most of the rest of the day looking for her.

When they finally did find her again, Littlefoot's mother was dying from her horrific injuries, and even as Littlefoot begged her to get up, there was not much that either he or Aylene could do, for she died soon after they found her, with her last words begging Littlefoot to let his heart guide him.

Now, as they stumbled towards the cave, Aylene's tears had run dry, but she wanted to let them fall again, for she felt that it was her fault . Littlefoot's were still falling.

But as they came to the entrance of the cave and looked in, Aylene was shocked silent when she saw something that she DID NOT EXPECT AT ALL to see here in this world of dinosaurs. Littlefoot saw it too, and was so floored by what he saw that he stopped audibly crying.

Resting against the wall inside the cave was ANOTHER human!

And almost immediately after they spotted the human, they watched the human get up from where he was resting, the irritated, low-pitched voice and the short hair revealing him to be a guy, and judging by that low but still young-sounding voice, he was either an older teen or a young adult.

"Really, right now?" The human male muttered, his voice having an odd accent that sounded like a Scottish accent mixed with something else. "You do realize, whoever you are, that I have just been trying to..."

But as the human turned around and saw them, he seemed almost as startled as they were, as he likely hadn't been expecting to see another human either.

"Sacrebleu...another one here, too?" The human male asked himself in disbelief.

The two sides stared at each other in awkward silence, neither Aylene nor Littlefoot being able to put words in their mouths to speak, and the human male seemed to be unable to do so as well. This continued for a short while.


Finally, after a minute, the silence between Tormod, the Apatosaurus hatchling, and the girl was finally broken when the girl finally said something.

"You-You're another...human...right?" The girl nervously asked, her voice giving Tormod the impression that she was a younger teenager.

Normally, if it was a dinosaur, Tormod would have responded to that question quickly and confidently. But around humans...well, Tormod didn't exactly have the same level of confidence around humans as he did around dinosaurs. So his response now was...rather awkward.

"Err...o-oui...I...I am another human." Tormod stuttered briefly. Then, though, he noticed that the girl and the hatchling were now soaking wet. "Erm...why exactly are you two still standing out there in the rain? You...you're both soaking wet. You...do realize that both of you can...come in...right?"

At that, the two of them came in, their shocked expressions giving way to sad, depressed, and traumatized expressions.

"Who...who are you?" The hatchling choked out with an tone of fear.

"My name...my name's Tormod." Tormod managed to introduce himself. "And...you two?"

"Littlefoot." The Apatosaurus hatchling sniffed.

"Aylene." The girl sadly replied.

It didn't take Tormod very long to determine that something was terribly wrong with these two.

"It...looks like something...terrible has...happened to you two." Tormod pointed out. He then stretched his arms out to them. "Come here."

Aylene and Littlefoot both seemed very hesitant about coming closer to him, and, initially, didn't move.

"Come here." Tormod encouraged them. "I...I won't harm you. I...promise."

After a bit of nervousness, the two of them began walking towards him, albeit slowly. When they both got close enough, Tormod suddenly wrapped his arms around them and pulled them into a badly-needed hug. Aylene and Littlefoot seemed surprised by this, but they were too exhausted to resist, and they let him do so. In fact, they seemed to appreciate it after a few moments.

Tormod continued embracing the two of them for another minute, and then, after that, he sat the two of them down against the wall, with Aylene resting on Littlefoot's side. Then, he knelt down beside them, and decided to ask them what happened.

"So...what exactly went wrong today?" Tormod asked. "Did...did you two get...separated from someone?"

"That's...putting it lightly..." Littlefoot groaned.

"While I was watching Littlefoot playing with a little Triceratops named "Cera", this...giant... called "Sharptooth"...attacked us." Aylene fought through her tears to explain what had happened to Tormod. "He...he was chasing us and trying to kill us and...eat us! Then, Littlefoot's Mother...she stepped in to try and save us from him...but then a huge earthquake struck, and Sharptooth...he jumped on her and...tore pieces off of her back before falling into the crack in the ground. And then, when we found her next, she was...almost dead...and after she said a few words...she...she...she...died!" Then, she said something that made it clear that she thought that she was to blame for the death of Littlefoot's mother. "And...it's all my fault because I had a bow and I could have shot the monster...but I didn't!"

Tormod was both angered and saddened by what he heard. Angered because, well, it was SHARPTOOTH, and he had murdered yet ANOTHER dinosaur who did not deserve her death, and saddened because Aylene blamed herself for something that was not her fault.

"Oh, FOUTRE!" Tormod muttered rather loudly, burying his face in his right hand. "Not again."

Once he un-buried his face, after a short period of silence, he finally spoke again. But this time, he wasn't stuttering or pausing, like he had been doing earlier due to his lack of confidence around other humans.

"Look, lass, the death of Littlefoot's mother was not your fault." Tormod bluntly told her. "You see, when a human, or a dinosaur, or any creature, for that matter...when they experience something scary that they haven't ever experienced before, do you know what they do? They run. That's what happened with both you and Littlefoot, and you just happened to forget the fact that you had a bow on you. You wouldn't have been able to stand a chance against him anyways, because neither of you are strong enough, fast enough, big enough, skilled enough, or let alone brave enough to be able to last against someone like him for more than a few seconds. So perhaps it was better than you two ran." Then, he turned to Littlefoot. "And yes, lad, that also means that the death of your mother was not your fault, either."

"However," he added, speaking in a more serious tone now, "you were right to call Sharptooth a monster, Aylene. Thing is, Sharptooth...well, he's the most messed up dinosaur of his kind that I've ever seen. Not to mention the most evil. You see, while most meat-eating dinosaurs hunt only out of the need for food, Sharptooth hunts and kills because it gives him pleasure. And it gives him pleasure because he seems to hate every single living being that isn't him, and wants to see them suffer. And just because of that, he wants to kill, kill, and kill even more. I've also noticed from afar that Sharptooth also seems to be incredibly arrogant and vain, as he seems to believe himself invincible, and whenever someone slights him in any way, like damaging his sense of invincibility by striking him in self defense, he just wants to kill them even more. In general, what you need to know is that Sharptooth is out there. He can't be bargained with; he can't be reasoned with. He doesn't feel pity, remorse, or, as of yet, fear. And he absolutely will not stop, EVER, in his quest for bloodshed...until someone forces him to by killing him."

Then, after a brief pause, he finished up what he was saying.

"And killing Sharptooth and ending this enormous murder spree of his is something that I've been focusing on for a long time." Tormod almost growled, clearly angered by what Sharptooth had become. "I've focused on it almost ever since I first came here. Now, I know that you know this already Aylene, but Littlefoot, this is something you NEED to know: in any being that has sentience, that is, any being that has the ability to talk and think like a human, or a dinosaur, in this case, there is always the capacity for evil. Individuals who are evil EXIST, and there are many among my kind, humans, alone. Let me give the names of a few of the worst ones: Elizabeth Bathory, Talaat Pasha, Josef Mengele, Reinhard Heydrich, Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Heinrich Himmler, Adolf Eichmann, Maximilien Robespierre, Kim Il Sung, Ayatollah Khomeini, Nero, Caligula, Attila The Hun, Timur Lenk, Leopold The Second, Tomas De Torquemada, Mao Zedong, Ivan The Terrible, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Vlad Dracula. And the thing is, Littlefoot, Sharptooth is just like them. Sharptooth IS evil. And he needs to go down. And he will go down, for I will make sure that your mother did not die in vain. I promise you this."

At hearing this, Littlefoot laid his head in Tormod's left hand, and Tormod gently stroked him with his other hand. Then, Tormod looked at Aylene, who, after a few seconds, slowly nodded her head at him. This told Tormod something that he was glad to know: Littlefoot and Aylene both trusted him, and they were willing to put their lives in his hands so that he could help them survive.

After a while, Aylene and Littlefoot eventually fell asleep, despite what Tormod was expecting. Once they were asleep, Tormod wrapped Littlefoot's tail around Aylene, and then did the same thing with the young Apatosaurus' head and neck. He then put Aylene's right arm around Littlefoot's head. Once he did that, he stepped back and looked at the pair. Now, they looked like they were comfortable.

Satisfied, Tormod then laid down himself near them, and after a few minutes, went to sleep for the night, knowing that, starting in the morning, he would begin the journey back to the valley with these two, which would likely take a few days.