Chapter 8:
Alone No More
It was mid-day when Cera awoke. She'd passed out from the pain of her hurt ankle and surprisingly, she slept well. As good as one could sleep with an ankle that was sprained, and possibly broken, anyway.
The threehorn groaned when she opened her eyes. Her ankle wasn't feeling any better than it had been last night. Of course, Cera didn't expect it to get any better either. She knew it was only sprained or else she probably wouldn't be able to stand up at all, but that still didn't mean Cera would make a quick recovery. It had been quite a fall into this cave after all. She was lucky the fall didn't kill her, Cera realized, looking up toward the hole in the cave's ceiling.
This cave reminded Cera of the one near Threehorn peak where she and her friends found Ducky while looking for the "stone of cold fire". Except Cera hadn't been as lucky as Ducky had been, for the hole she fell through to be right over the nearby body of water. Still, Cera couldn't exactly complain either. She was alive even after that fall and that was all that mattered right now. It wasn't easy to move around, but at least there was enough green food and water for the threehorn to survive on until her leg got better.
When will that be, though? Cera thought. Right now, she could hardly stand up, let alone walk, as it was. Sure, there was green food and water, but Cera couldn't stay here forever. Her reason for being out here was still on her mind. She had to get to…wherever it was she was going and soon. The sooner she got there, the sooner she could get back to The Great Valley. It was becoming too dangerous for Cera to be out here on her own. Much more dangerous than she had expected it to be, even considering all of the possibilities of bad things that could happen in The Mysterious Beyond.
"Eh, forget about it," thought Cera. "A few minutes more of sleep won't hurt."
The threehorn rested her head on her front legs, closed her eyes, and was asleep again within minutes. Her snores were quiet, not even loud enough to echo through the cave. As opposed to Cera usually being a loud snorer. Cera figured it would be better not to snore loudly if she could help it. She didn't want to attract the attention of any sharpteeth to the cave, even if they usually didn't hunt in caves due to all the bodies of water they contained.
As she slept, the threehorn was unaware of a set of eyes that had begun watching her from the darkness of a tunnel leading out of the cave. Whomever the eyes belonged to stayed in the cover of darkness. Having heard Cera's screams as she fell into the cave the day before, it came to investigate the source of the screaming. But now, it seemed hesitant about interacting with the hurt dinosaur. Most likely since she'd been hurt.
Cera awoke with a groggy look on her face. She wasn't sure what time of day it was, being in the dark of this cave. There'd been light shining through the hole in the cave's ceiling when she fell asleep, so she disregarded it now. While she was asleep, Cera had the oddest dream that felt so real. She'd seen another threehorn, a male, tending to her hurt leg. Where it got odd was Cera thought she'd felt something actually tending to her leg, but there was no one else in the cave with her that she knew of. Looking about, Cera saw nobody. Then things got even stranger when she looked down at her leg…
The threehorn gasped. Her hurt ankle was coated with a mixture of crushed leaves and mud, when it hadn't been when she went to sleep. (Whenever that was.) Cera would have noticed if her ankle had been coated in this mixture when she fell asleep. There was only one explanation and, to an extent, it worried Cera. She wasn't alone in this cave. Obviously, whoever it was may only intend to help her, but who was it? Better question was, what was it? A dinosaur obviously, but Cera was a little concerned about what kind of dinosaur. She was in the middle of The Mysterious Beyond after all.
Cera couldn't get up, but she was not about to go down without a fight regardless if there was someone in the cave. In the Mysterious Beyond, she knew she couldn't trust anyone even if he or she'd done one kind act for her.
"Who's there?" Cera asked. "Show yourself." No answer. "I'm not afraid of whoever's there when they aren't brave enough to show themselves!" Still no answer. The only thing in the cave Cera heard was water flowing somewhere deeper in the cave and ground crawlers chirping. "I must be going crazy," she said to herself. "Or I'm sharing a cave with a coward…" She laid back down and decided to rest a little longer without giving whoever it was another thought. If he or she did show him or herself, then fine, but obviously it wasn't a sharptooth. A sharptooth would have attacked Cera by now.
But before she even closed her eyes, Cera heard a voice. "Hello?" someone asked. It belonged to a male. Cera looked up in the direction where the voice came from and gasped. It was another threehorn, no order than she was, and Cera couldn't believe her luck. Of all the dinosaurs she could have encountered in The Mysterious Beyond, she never could have predicted one of them would be another threehorn. (Cera would have been fine with any species other than any sharptooth, but she obviously had a greater bond with threehorns than other species since she was a threehorn.)
Cera was so thrilled that she had someone else to talk to she forgot her ankle was sprained or broken until she stood up and felt a sharp pain that brought her to the ground.
"I suggest you stay off that leg for a while," the other threehorn said. "It isn't broken, but you still hurt it pretty bad."
"Thanks, but I really need to get going," Cera said. Her mind had already gone back to her reason for being out here again. "It's important…"
"You can't honestly expect to get very far with a sprained ankle, can you?" he asked. "Do you not realize where you are?"
Cera didn't like his tone. She hated being talked to so strictly and like she was a child. "I know where I'm at," she spat. "The Mysterious Beyond. Who wouldn't recognize this wasteland?" She decided to change the subject before it went any further. Cera wasn't in the mood to argue over something stupid. It just made the pain in her leg worse. "What's your name?" she asked. That was all she could think to ask.
He seemed to hesitate at first, but then he answered. "Thorn," he said. Then he asked her to the same question, claiming, "It's only fair, I told you my name."
"Cera," she said.
"If you don't mind me asking, Cera," Thorn said. "What are you doing out here that is 'very important', as you put it?"
"I don't mind," she said. "Well, my mother and sisters died somewhere out here in a fast biter ambush-" Thorn gasped at that. "My father had known since it happened and never told me until a few days ago. Of course, I was upset and ran off, but I decided I must search for where they died to have some closure. If that makes any sense," she added. Thorn let her know that it did. "I also decided I must do it alone, that I can't put any of my friends or relatives in danger, even if I know they would want to come with me." Then a sad look came over Cera's face and voice. "But I don't think any of them even know where I've gone…" She suppressed the tears, not wanting to be seen crying, let alone in front of someone she'd only just met.
"That is brave of you," Thorn said, "and it must have been a difficult decision for you to make."
"I've been so lonely," Cera said. "You're the first dinosaur I've encountered out here that hasn't tried to kill me. First fast biters, then a sail-backed sharptooth…and not to mention the stinging ground crawlers. I don't even want to think what will happen next." Then she suddenly asked: "What are you doing out here all alone?" That question seemed to hit Thorn like a rock. "Should I not have asked that?"
"No, you're fine," Thorn said. "I had a feeling it would come up son, with what we've talked about so far." Cera tried saying he didn't need to tell her his story if it would upset him, but he seemed to believe it was right that he tell her. "I was barely able to find food for myself when it happened. There was a terrible earthshake that split the earth in two. The worst part of it all was the exploding fire mountain sending a river of fire rock right through our nesting ground. The last time I saw my parents, my dad ordered me to flee into this very cave…when it was all over, I must have spent the rest of the day looking for them…only to never find any sign of them having ever been there. The fire rock had wiped the entire area clean of all plants and life…"
Cera's eyes were wide. She couldn't believe a dinosaur had to go through such a terrible event so early in his life. And to think Cera had thought what she went through at that age because of Sharptooth and the earthquake was terrible. What Thorn just told her was the worst story she'd ever been told in her life. Cera didn't need to ask Thorn what he thought happened to his parents. His words, "the fire rock had wiped the entire area clean", answered that question without it being asked. Without saying a word about it, Cera and Thorn both knew his parents perished in the rivers of fire rock just like anything else caught in its path. Cera couldn't think of a worse way to die.
The thought of someone dying that way brought Cera back to when she and her friends found Bron, Littlefoot's father, trapped on an island of rock in the middle of a fire-river about to be over-flowered with fire rock. Cera still had nightmares about what Littlefoot would have done if he'd witnessed Bron perish in that fire-river before they could have saved him, especially after how he'd already witnessed his mother's death and almost lost both of his grandparents.
Thorn asked, "Cera?"
Cera shook her head. She'd gotten caught up in her thoughts. "Yes…?"
"I was wondering: could I join you on your journey?" he asked. "We've both been along, me for so long, and I think it would be good for both of us. And maybe after, I could come back with you to wherever you came from. I have nothing here that gives me reason to stay any longer, but never had the opportunity to leave."
Cera said, "I came from The Great Valley."
Thorn gasped. "The Great Valley!" he said with disbelief. "I've heard of The Great Valley from my parents and after the great earthshake, and always hoped that I would meet someone from there who could lead me there. None of my family knew how to reach The Great Valley."
Cera relented. It couldn't hurt to let someone come with her, could it? Especially if that someone was desperate for a better place to live and Cera could bring him to such a place. There wasn't a place in the world, Cera believed, that was better to live than The Great Valley.
"You can come with me," said Cera, "and back to The Great Valley with me when my journey ends." Then she added, "Once my leg is better anyway…"
Author's note: Figured it was about time I introduced the OC listed in this story's description with Cera and Littlefoot.
