To the Edge of the Sea

Aylene wasn't really the type to get motion sickness. However, riding on the back of an Apatosaurus that was half-walking half-stomping for a few consecutive hours was beginning to make her stomach jostle around and her head spin.

It wasn't just Littlefoot who was walking like that either. Cera and Spike were doing that, too. As for Petrie and Ducky, the flyer got a grip on the swimmer's shoulder's with his feet and were flap his wings in such a way so that she could firmly press her feet into the ground.

This left four trails of clear, deep footprints.

"Ugh." Aylene groaned, feeling her internal organs lurch again as Littlefoot made another stomp.

"You okay, Aylene?" the said dinosaur asked, turning his head to look at his friend.

"Yeah." Aylene lied in a woozy voice. "Just a little dizzy. Let's just keep moving."

"I don't understand why we have to walk like this." Cera grunted in irritation. "It's so stupid."

"We got to leave good tracks for the grown-ups to follow us." Littlefoot explained calmly. "And we better pick up the pace if we want to find any food before they find us."

"Well," Petrie squawked, "me just hope they find us before something else does."

Aylene curled her lips into her mouth and bit them. Petrie just said exactly what she was thinking. Ever since they had left the Great Valley herds, an overwhelming fear had begun to grip her. It gradually grew tighter and tighter the further they wandered away from the safety of the large herd. It was now so tight that it was almost suffocating her sanity.

It was also probably the main reason why she felt so sick. Her high anxiety mixed with the violent stomps of Littlefoot's feet would be enough to make her feel like she was going to vomit.

Finally, she couldn't handle it anymore.

"Oh man, guys we gotta stop!" Aylene moaned, covering her mouth with her hand. "I think I'm going to be sick!"

After hearing that, the Gang immediately came to a stop. Aylene quickly got off of Littlefoot's back and stumbled away for a few feet. She then fell to her knees, shut her eyes, and gripped the hot dirt ground with one hand. Her other hand covered her mouth, trying to prevent anything nasty from coming out of it. She really didn't want to throw up in front of her friends.

Aylene took several deep breaths of air through her nose. Now that she wasn't being jostled around anymore, she was starting to feel a little better. Her stomach began to settle and her head slowly came back into focus.

"Calm down, Aylene," she said to herself. "You're okay. Just calm down."

After a few minutes, the wave of nausea left Aylene completely.

"Are you alright, Aylene?" Littlefoot asked, concerned.

"Yeah, now I am." Aylene replied steadily. "Sorry. I just got a little motion sick."

Aylene opened her eyes and looked down at the ground. What she saw was something that made her blood practically turn to ice inside her veins and her face as white as paper.

There, just a few inches away from her was a deep footprint. But it wasn't a footprint that belonged to any leaf-eating dinosaur. The three toe imprints had sharp points that only belonged to meat-eating dinosaurs.

Aylene had seen this kind of footprint many times in dinosaur field guides and TV documentaries. She knew right away what it was.

"Utahraptor prints!" she squeaked in alarm.

The Gang all looked to where their human friend was pointing at, and they all looked at it in terror. For it wasn't just one footprint, it was a trail of Utahraptor tracks.

This was the first sign of any predator they had seen since they left the Great Valley, and it looked like the creature that made those tracks was here only moments ago.

"Well," Cera said finally, breaking the tension, "whatever it was, it went that way."

The Triceratops pointed in the direction off to their left with her head. The tracks trailed off to the south and disappeared on the edge of the horizon.

"Yes, but what if it come back?!" Petrie squeaked, disturbed.

"Well then it's going to have to deal with me!" Cera replied with a determined scowl.

"Wow, I feel safe." Aylene mumbled sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

"What was that?!" Cera snapped.

"Nothing!" Aylene said quickly, and harshly.

Ducky, who was pretty skittish before, finally lost her nerve.

"That settles it!" she said with worry, throwing her arms up in the air. "I am going back!"

The little swimmer then turned around and began to run in the opposite direction of the tracks. She hadn't gone more than a few feet before Littlefoot bounded after her. He jumped right in front of her, cutting off her line of retreat.

"Wait!" he said in desperation. "Don't you guys see?! We can't go back! It's all up to us now! The only way we can keep the herds together is to find enough food for us all!"

"I don't mind finding food." Ducky whimpered. "I do want to BE food! No!"

"None of us do." Aylene said as she walked up behind them. "And this scares me as much as it scares you, but I have to agree with Littlefoot on this one."

"That's not what you were saying last night." Cera pointed out in a snarky tone.

"Well, I've had some time to think about it." Aylene frowned, shooting Cera an irritated look. "Besides, we can't really turn back at this point. Right now, our best bet is to keep going and hope we find a food source somewhere."

"Exactly." Littlefoot nodded. "Now I suggest we should…"

Littlefoot was cut off by the sound of Spike making sniffing noise. He immediately looked over at the Stegosaurus. Spike was sniffing the air intently. It was obvious to see that he had caught a whiff of a scent that had his undivided attention.

"What is it, Spike?" Littlefoot asked. "Do you smell something?"

Curious as to what the spiketail smelled, Cera began to sniff the air.

"I smell something, too!" she exclaimed.

Littlefoot sniffed the air, too. There was defiantly something in the air that was different from the rocky plain they were walking on.

Although Aylene didn't have a keen sense of smell like the others, she was beginning to hear something. It was faint, but she could just barely make rushing noises from a natural force of nature.

"I can hear something," she said thoughtfully. "It sounds like…"

"Water!" Littlefoot joyfully exclaimed.

"Yeah, you're right!" Cera smiled.

"And where there's water, there's probably…"

"Plants!" Aylene shouted in elation. "We've got to be near a lake or something! C'mon!"

With this newfound motivation and hope, the Gang all set out running toward the sound where the waves were coming from. Spike picked Ducky up with his mouth and tossed her onto his back before he set out running after the others. Even Aylene, who was the slowest of the bunch, somehow found the willpower to keep up with them at a decent rate.

The ground underneath them slowly began to change from rock to sand as they drew closer to the source of the noise. They eventually came to the foot of a large sandy hill. Although the slope slowed their pacing down a pit, they still pressed onward to the top as quickly as they could.

"I told you this would work!" Cera grinned. "We'll be heroes!"

"Me can just hear the grown-ups now!" Petrie laughed.

"Yes!" Ducky said, straightening herself up and lowing her voice. " 'My goodness! How in the world have you children finded so much…!' "

Before Ducky could finish her little imitation speech, the Gang reached the top of the hill and stopped. All at the same time, their mouths dropped open and they took in large gasps of air.

At the bottom of the hill, laid before them in a sparkling wonder of awe, was the largest body of water any of them had ever seen. The beach below them stretched from the northern to the southern horizon as far as their eyes could see. The water was just endless. It extended all the way to the western horizon. The waves, large and long, were rushing towards the land, as if wanting to meet up with it as soon as it could in a whirl of blue and white colors.

"I don't believe it!" Aylene whispered in astonishment. "We made it all the way to the ocean!"

Aylene had been to the ocean at least twice in her life. Each time she saw it, she was captivated by its amazing and mysterious appearance. It was both beautiful and terrifying.

"The ocean?" Littlefoot asked. "Is that what you call this?"

"Yeah," Aylene nodded, "it's the largest body of water in the world. Where I come from we have four oceans."

"Four?!" Cera's eye's widened in disbelief. "Then you must not have to worry about running out of water!"

"Oh!" Aylene jolted, suddenly hit with a cold, hard reality.

"What is it, Aylene?" Littlefoot said with concerned. He had seen that look on Aylene's face often enough to know what it meant.

"Guys," Aylene said, despair slipping into her voice, "we can't drink this water."

"What do you mean?!" Ducky asked, shocked.

"Sea water is salty." Aylene explained miserably. "It's not meant for drinking. I'm sorry, but I think…we've come at the end of the road."

This made everyone's spirits plummet. They had done this for nothing.

Littlefoot hung his head sadly as he walked down the hill toward the sea with the others. When he reached the bottom, he sat down, completely disheartened.

"I guess we have gone as far as we can go," he mumbled.

"Aw, cheer up, Littlefoot." Cera said, trying to sound optimistic.

"Our parents will find us soon." Ducky pointed out. "They will."

"Ducky right." Petrie added. "We leave good trail."

"Yeah," Littlefoot clenched, "and then we'll be right back where we were. No food and our families about to split up forever."

Tired, miserable, and devoid of all hope, the Gang all stood there with sad faces. Aylene took off her sandels and walked a little ways off to stand on the shore of the sea. The cool water lapped up against her hot feet and splashed against her ankles. The salty air of the ocean gently whipped up into her face, swaying her hair lightly in its breeze.

Tears began to rise up in her eyes as she stared out over the never-ending water. For a moment, she forgot about her fear of meeting up with vengeful predators. All she could think about was the fact that she and her friends had failed in their quest. Any moment now the adults and her brother would appear over the hill behind them, and they would be even more cross than before. The herds were definitely going to split up for good this time.

"Derek is going kill me when he finds us," she thought miserably to herself. "And we have nothing to show but our failure. If only…"

"GREEN!"

Aylene jolted when she heard that word screamed out in a voice of jubilation. She whirled around and saw Ducky standing on top of Spike. They were both standing on a formation of rocks that rose up above the waves. The little swimmer had a huge smile on her face and was waving her arms wildly about to get the others attention.

"There is green!" she happily shrieked. "Spike finded it! Come and see!"

Immediately, Littlefoot, Aylene, Cera, and Petrie rushed over and climbed up onto the rocks. When they saw that Ducky and Spike were looking at, the hope that they had lost before suddenly rushed back to them faster than the speed of light.

About a mile or two out to sea, directly under a patch of light like a sign from heaven, was a large island with a mountain rising up out of the middle of it. All over the landmass were large areas of forest green blotches. This meant that there was vegetation growing on that island.

"I don't believe it!" Aylene laughed, completely overjoyed. "Our luck hasn't run out after all!"

"Way to go, Spike!" Littlefoot said to the spiketail, who beamed with pride.

"Mmmm, it all looks delicious." Cera said as she looked at the island ahead of them. "But…how do we get there from here."

Petrie looked over to his right and noticed something. Wanting to get a better look, he flew up into the sky just a little ways above the others.

"I know!" he screeched. "You can walk!"

"How?!" Cera shouted back up at him.

Petrie pointed with his wing. The rest of the Gang turned to where he was pointing and saw the last thing they were expecting.

"A land bridge!" Aylene exclaimed.

Indeed, it WAS a land bridge. It was about four feet wide and was raised just a little bit out of the ocean. It curved around gently as it got further away from the mainland. The end of the path met up with the base of the island.

"Well, what do you say, guys?" Littlefoot asked, turning toward his friends. "Should we go?"

"I say yes." Aylene nodded. "It'll do us no good just to stand around here. Especially since we're going to need to replenish our strength. I'm willing to bet that there's fresh water on that island, too."

"I agree with Aylene." Cera said. "I say we go for it."

"Me too." Ducky replied eagerly.

Spike gave an approving grunt.

"Petrie in!" Petrie shouted from above.

"Okay then." Littlefoot stepped towards the beginning of the bridge. "Let's get going."

With that, the Gang all set out along the path that would take them to the mysterious island ahead of them.