11:00 AM
The small herd of 6 continued through the mountains, near a set of volcanoes. Ash fell like grey snow over them, and all of the hatchlings were tired, hungry, and low on morale. Jeffrey, on the other hand, was far different. He seemed to be a lot more energetic than normal, because while the others had to struggle their way up the mountains, Jeffrey effortlessly vaulted on top of rocks and jumped over gaps like he was the master of le parkour. This burst of energy was not just his endurance this time, though. Most of it was because he knew that they were less than a mile away from the valley.
Littlefoot could tell that Jeffrey seemed very excited, but then he looked back at the others, and they seemed exhausted, hungry, and ready to give up. It was then that Jeffrey did his best to encourage the hatchlings.
"Come on, kids, the valley is nearby!" Jeffrey encouraged.
"Come on, you can't give up now." Littlefoot added. "What if the Great Valley is just over the top of these rocks?"
Ducky, Petrie, and Spike looked at Jeffrey and Littlefoot with pitiful expressions, and Cera with a slightly irritated one, but, alas, they got up and kept climbing.
The wind began blowing hard, and it began blowing ash all over them. Despite difficulties breathing, though, the hatchlings followed Jeffrey to the top. When they got to the top, the ash initially obscured the land below, but then the wind blew the ash away to reveal something that made the spirits of the hatchlings plummet.
There was nothing below but ANOTHER barren ravine.
"THIS IS YOUR GREAT VALLEY?!" Cera shouted. "YOU'RE CRAZY!"
Everyone turned to Cera, who was now furious and frustrated.
"I'm leaving!" Cera angrily turned away. "I'M taking the easy way for once!"
Littlefoot, on the other hand, had enough of her attitude, and he rushed out in front and stopped her from going on.
"But it's the wrong way!" Littlefoot said harshly as he got in her face.
"Who says?" Cera mocked.
"My mother!" Littlefoot shot back.
"Then SHE was a stupid longneck too!" Cera snobbishly replied.
That was the last straw. This comment infuriated Littlefoot and Jeffrey, but ESPECIALLY Jeffrey, because he had seen the sacrifice that Littlefoot's mother made, and one of the few times he would ever get truly angry was if a person insulted or mocked someone who had given up their lives to save someone. However, at first, given his anger, his first comment seemed out of place.
"Ya just called Littlefoot's mother a "stupid longneck", didn't ya?" Jeffrey asked.
"Yes, I did." Cera proudly admitted. "She must have been why Littlefoot is so stupid!"
"Ya don't like me, Cera." Jeffrey replied. "Ya don't like my morals. Ya think that I'm soft. A soft person who should only hang out with longnecks because they are the ones closest to me."
"Well, that is what I think of you." Cera responded. "Ain't nothing you can do about it." She certainly did not see Jeffrey's reply coming, though.
"Good," Jeffrey replied, "because I think yer a bratty, stuck-up threehorn."
Littlefoot, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike were surprised that Jeffrey would go as far as to directly insult Cera's pride, because they knew just how much it would anger her. Cera's response was very, very predictable.
"Take that back!" Cera demanded. She didn't like someone insulting her pride directly at all.
"It's the truth." Jeffrey refused. "I cannot take it back."
"TAKE IT BACK!" Cera roared.
"No." Jeffrey firmly said. "I shall not."
Cera ROARED with anger and began directly charging at Jeffrey from about 30 feet away. Littlefoot, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike were HORRIFIED. They feared that Cera could outright kill Jeffrey by knocking him off the mountain. But what happened next made their jaws drop.
Using the momentum of turning his body to face her, Jeffrey caught Cera mid-charge, flipped her upside-down, and pinned her to the ground with astonishing speed. In a split second, Jeffrey had turned the fight in his favor, and now he had her pinned with no way for her to move.
The other four hatchlings were looking on with practical bug-eyes. Cera was around 3 times heavier than Jeffrey, and she was a lot faster. Regardless, seeing him win the fight so quickly and easily satisfied Littlefoot, knowing that Cera would learn her lesson about insulting someone's parents, particularly Littlefoot's mother.
Jeffrey had Cera in a restraining hold, and she was helplessly struggling to try and get away. It was here that Jeffrey spoke, and his anger was in full force.
"Ye are UNBEARABLY naive, Cera!" Jeffrey growled as he held Cera to the ground. "Ya think that my leadership doesn't matter, and that its all about ye! Well, guess what: IT ISN'T. It's about EVERYONE! Ye have been relying on this "Threehorn Pride" for TOO LONG! Now look what ye have done! You insulted me, Littlefoot, and Littlefoot's mother in rapid succession! Do ya feel proud of yourself? HUH?!"
Under normal circumstances, the threehorn could just squirm away, but here, Cera was already exhausted from climbing up a mountain, so she was unable to break free of Jeffrey's grasp.
"Let me go!" Cera whined.
"Not until ya stop trying to fight me, Cera." Jeffrey replied. "I am just exercising my authority over ya, and ye have no right to fight me. At all."
After a full minute of struggling, Cera finally tired out. Unable to struggle any further, she stopped resisting Jeffrey. Jeffrey then pushed her away, and she rolled over onto her stomach, where she lay for another full minute, tired and prideless. She had just been humiliatingly defeated by Jeffrey, a human far smaller than her, in a fight, and this only served to destroy her pride.
Finally, when she had the strength and energy, she got up to her feet. In a last ditch effort to get some of her pride back, she stuck her nose up in the air again.
"Get out of my way!" Cera grunted as she began to walk away.
However, this gesture failed, because a few seconds in, she slipped and fell face on some loose dirt.
Littlefoot, Ducky, Petrie, and Spike were laughing as soon as she fell. Littlefoot almost pulled a shoulder muscle laughing so hard, Ducky nearly keeled over as her sides began to hurt, and Petrie fell over on his back and was laughing so hard that he could barely breathe.
Cera got back up and stuck her nose in the air yet again. This time, she walked right into a large rock, and much to her chagrin, the other hatchlings laughed even harder.
Finally having enough, Cera gave her snobbish gesture one last time and walked down the slope towards a waterfall.
After 30 more seconds, the laughter subsided. Jeffrey gave the four remaining hatchlings some time to breathe before he began talking.
"Alright, guys," Jeffrey began, "Ya stay here. I'm gonna go see if Cera's ego has deflated yet."
"Jeffrey," Littlefoot warned, "You better not do what I think you are about to do." He knew that once Jeffrey had an idea, he wouldn't give up on it, so he was hard to dissuade.
"I can do this, Littlefoot." Jeffrey assured. "I can handle her just fine. It's not like ya just SAW me do it 2 minutes ago."
With that, Jeffrey began following after where Cera had gone. Soon, he found her sitting at the base of the waterfall. Cera didn't seem to notice him, though. As he approached the little threehorn, he saw something that he definitely did not see coming.
Cera was crying.
