Chapter XIX: The Yellow Flower Returns

"I have to pee." Lying beneath what Leaf deemed "the filthiest pile of anything anywhere," she expressed her dilemma poignantly. Her face bore neither a look of anger nor depression; she just- looked.

Serene flew up and landed just behind her head and look down sympathetically. "Then that is what you'll do," she replied sweetly, wiping bits of food off of her face as she began shifting the leaves to get the little fastbiter on her feet.

Any pleasure in Leaf's mind was simply nonexistent. She did feel tired and weak, though, as her vulnerability to the cold wasn't insignificant. As soon as the pile was cleared off, Serene took one of her hands and pulled her up.

"This day is only going to get worse," Leaf explained undoubtedly to everyone as she was led away from the boys like a baby, to her dismay, to relieve herself.

"Just tell me when you finish, okay?" Serene asked, flying back from behind the tree.

Leaf looked up and down the tree before deciding that if the stupidity of this situation was a plant as well, it would tower far above it. She got her business done, but she wasn't the only thing pouring around here. She glanced up slowly with no genuine interest as a bolt of sky fire flashed through the air, and the rumbling echoed through the ravine. The impatient sky water began descending to the land below, not even slowly at first, but instead a heavy downpour at the very beginning. None of the kids could really be surprised; they had all noticed the darkness of the sky puffies previously. The wind picked up, swaying the trees, and the quietness of the area slipped away like a thief.

"Leaf, come on!" Serene shouted over the noise of the weather. "We need to get you out of here." There was no reply. "Leaf?" Serene flew back behind the tree where her fastbiter friend was and gasped. Leaf was lying on her side with her arms wrapped around herself shivering violently as her teeth chattered. She coughed several times as Serene hurried over. She had been in much colder weather, but it was quite a shock to switch from warm to freezing and soaked in nearly an instant.

"Hang on now," Serene coaxed as she landed on Leaf's shoulders.

"Carrying me would be a pain for the both of us," she whispered through the involuntary movement of her jaw.

"Hush now," the Serene said gently as she looked up and took to the air with Leaf in her grip. "It's actually a good thing that you're so small. I don't think I could carry a regular-sized fastbiter your age."

The only things Serene heard in response were shivering sounds and moans. She flew as fast as she could, beyond where the boys were still eating, unfazed by the storm, but when they saw her flying to a safer location with Leaf in her grip, they stopped eating, wiped their mouths, and followed from below. Serene was much easier to keep up with while having a passenger, but combined with the slipperiness caused by the sky water, her hold was slowly but surely loosening. She led them all towards a far end of the ravine, passing several grownups that merely cuddled against their children for warmth. As they neared one end, however, Serene's grip finally gave out.

Leaf was probably the only dinosaur who ever lived that could simply cross her arms in silence with merely a mild look of agitation as she fatally plummeted to the ground. The flying sharptooth, however, had no interest in letting harm come to her friends. In an expedient dive, just before Leaf hit the ground with a splat, she managed to catch her by the tail. Her life saved but her dignity brutally murdered, she gave a very tiny yelp of pain as she hung upside down as Serene pressed on to the place she had in mind. All the while, Leaf kept her arms folded in a "whatever" attitude.

"I t-t-told y-you this wou-would be-be a p-p-pain," she whispered.

"Sorry about that!" Serene apologized quickly while keeping her eyes focused ahead. Though she did glance down for a moment as she smiled and added, "And it's no trouble."

"Maybe for you…"

"We're just about there. I can see it right now." Just up ahead, a giant of a tree with dozens of branches filled with large leaves was standing tall in the weather, not even swaying. "We can get shelter under that. It's the driest place I know." Calling down to the boys as she decreased her altitude, she said, "Quick, under the big tree! I need everyone's help." She landed softly on the ground after setting Leaf down. The little fastbiter still had her arms crossed and didn't even bother standing up. "Alright now, everyone lie on top of her."

"Come- again…?" Leaf asked in disbelief, finally ending her continuous blank stare into nothingness with a backwards glance at the flyer.

"All the leaves here are wet now; they can't keep you warm. We, however, can." Turning to the sharptooth, she instructed, "Slash, get the main part of her body. Dez, cover her face but watch her nose so she can breathe. I'll take care of her feet." Everyone quickly but gently got into position to keep their friend warm throughout the storm.

"I am not happy with this," Leaf told everyone, but it was very redundant, as both her face and her tone said the exact same thing.

"How long do we have to stay here?" Dez wanted to know, having positioned himself poorly so already getting a cramp.

"Until the sky water stops. Well, maybe a little after that too. If the bright circle comes out and makes things warmer after the storm, we can get off sooner," Serene answered.

The four friends (though Leaf would dispute the existence of such a word if asked) lay there for several minutes in silence. Serene was justly exhausted, Leaf couldn't find anything else to complain about yet, Dez was trying to ignore his cramp, and Slash noticed all of this so thought it best not to strike up a conversation. They all looked rather silly lying there in a pile like that, but the warmth and comfort could not be denied. The wind whistled through plants and branches, the rain drops pitter pattered against rocks and foliage, and thunder provided the occasionally echo, but together like this, at least three of them found the ambiance to be enjoyable. At least until a bolt of sky fire struck the big tree, setting it ablaze and causing it to start falling over with splintering crackles.

"Move, now!" Slash screamed as they scrambled to their feet. Well, most of them.

Slash, Serene, and Dez hurried to get away from the landing target of the once-great aspect of nature, but Leaf, being too cold and weak to get up, did not budge, nor did the prospect of getting crushed seem to peek her interest in the slightest. Serene quickly tried pulling her away but couldn't get a good enough grip from the water which was now hitting them all again. Slash jerked his hands down, grabbed Leaf by her tail and Serene by a wing, and dragged them out of the way just before the tree smashed onto the ground. A few splinters of wood struck them, but they weren't even enough to cause a scrape, were just mildly annoying.

"Woo hoo! Go, Slash!" Dez called out, cupping his wings over his beak just a few feet in front of them.

"Could you yank my tail any harder?" Leaf asked him coldly.

"Heh heh," Slash replied sheepishly, raising one hand behind his head.

"Thank you, Slash," Serene told him breathlessly, giving him a big hug.

"Don't mention it. It's the job of a friend to look after his own," he said in return. For a few seconds, they just stood there in silence (save Leaf who just continued to lie on the ground) until Serene had a sudden realization.

"Oh! Almost forgot about Leaf! Let's get her under another tree." She scanned the area quickly, having to place a wing over her forehead to keep the water out of her eyes. "Mm, there's a good one," she said at last, looking not far beyond them. "It's in the old creek bed."

The creek that flowed through the sharptooth nesting area split off near the center, and both parts went on far beyond the confines of their home. The dry section of the fork was on a gradual incline that led up to a dead end the kids had all seen before. Due to a damming of rocks that had accumulated over time, no water from the stream reached it anymore, thus why it was dry. Because of the slope it was on, even when it rained, it never got more than a foot high, and only at the place where it split. When the sky water would stop, the small quantity of liquid would simply remain as a puddle until the earth absorbed it. A tree had grown near the edge of the ravine, far from where the water would ever begin to build up.

"Um, big sis?"

"Hm?"

"ARE YOU CRAZY!" Dez exclaimed, jumped up and flapping his wings in frenzy. "We nearly got squashed by a tree, and now you want to hide under another one?"

Serene sighed patiently and smiled. "Sky fire hitting a tree is extremely rare. This is the first time we've seen it in a long time. I'm sure that we won't see it twice in one storm. Now, we need to stop talking and start warming. Leaf can't take much more of this. Slash, would you please…?"

"On it," he replied.

He scooped the tiny fastbiter into his arms without asking, knowing what her general reaction would be anyway, and carried her, followed by Dez and Serene, to the tree growing in the old riverbed. Leaf's expression was as if they were attending the farewell of someone who had died. When she was set down, she expected the irritation of being covered by the others again, but she was saved from any further humiliation. Still, the others would argue that the new scenario was much less preferred.

"Do you guys hear that?" Slash wondered aloud, craning his ears to listen above the roars of the storm.

"Hear what?" Dez asked.

"Water…" he replied slowly.

"Of course we do, silly!" Dez replied. "We're in a storm."

"No, wait," Serene added in a hushed tone, raising her wing for silence. "I hear it too. It sounds- different- than sky water…"

"What could it be?" Slash continued in frustration, having no clue.

Leaf finally got to her feet and squinted far beyond them. She quickly had the answer that everyone wanted though wasn't very helpful in terms of sharing.

"This day hates us," came her monotone voice.

"Come on, Leaf, things aren't that bad," Slash reasoned.

"If it turns out that the dam broke and we're all about to die from the return of the river, will you agree with me?" Leaf asked.

"Uh, I guess so, sure," Slash replied with a shrug.

"Then you agree with me."

Serene quickly flew up and looked in the direction of the dam. Her eyes widened in horror when she noticed the nonexistence thereof, and she screamed, "Get out of there! The water!"

Dez flew up immediately beside his big sister, and Slash grabbed Leaf by her wrist and started scrambling out of there. Serene was terrified when her brain immediately calculated the distance of the water, along with the speed of it compared to her friends. Slash and Leaf would never make it.

"Stop!" she ordered. "Grab onto that tree!"

Slash didn't hesitate and leapt onto it, clutching one of its lowest limbs while still holding onto Leaf. The flowing water smashed into the tree, violently ripping it from its roots as it came crashing down to its side, and it began floating down the river with the two children lying on top.

"Hang on, you two!" Serene called to them as she began following from above, her brother keeping up as best as he could. The adamant winds blew harder, causing the log to teeter back and forth and rise and fall with the waves. Splashes of water pummeled their faces, getting in their noses and making them choke and cough.

"You saw the water coming and didn't say anything?" Slash asked Leaf in disbelief over the near-deafening noise. "Why?"

"We're all going to die someday. Who am I to get in the way of our time?"

Slash grunted but didn't press her any further. What was important right was getting out of this mess- alive.

The creek water continued splashing all over the two of them violently as well as the heavy rain, soaking them to the bone. Add the blowing air, and they knew well enough what it would be like to be encased in a block of ice. It was getting harder and harder to hang on, but Slash managed to keep a good enough grip. Leaf, however, might have, but she was so cold and tired that she lost hers entirely and fell from the log. Not that she cared, though. She went under the water, totally submerged and lost to the fate of nature, but Slash's strong arm would have none of that for more than a second, quickly reaching down and pulling her back up. However, he didn't have the strength left to bring her fully back onto the log with just one hand, and letting go of the other would cause them both to drop.

"Serene, Dez, help me!" he called out them. However, the noise of the weather was too great. They didn't hear him at all. Serene saw Slash was holding her, but from the distance, his grip appeared to be just fine. Focusing on how to save them, she did not see his mouth moving, and Dez was simply following her, believing she'll figure something out.

Serene bit her beak in apprehension. Even if she got them off before they smashed into the end, being soaked in this freezing weather would be fatal to anyone if not stopped soon.

Slash continued to scream, but his voice was carried off be the winds. Both of his arms were in agony. They felt like they were being ripped out of their sockets, and in reality, they slowly but surely were. His breathing intensified as his heart rate sped up to meet the extra demands of his body. Yet, he was not getting enough oxygen to supply it. With the constant splashes of the water, he had to time his breaths to avoid taking any water in and drowning. He began to get dizzy; he was about to pass out.

Leaf felt his grip loosening slightly as well as seeing his eyes close. Did she care, however? Nope.

Dez, on the other hand, finally looked down and saw Slash slipping away in both senses of the word and knocked into his sister. When she turned to him sharply, he pointed down at once. She squawked in terror and dive down at them with her brother on her heels. They each took hold of Leaf in their feet and pulled her up onto the log to safety, but they were just too late. The log jerked to a temporary stop when it struck a narrow space between two boulders in the riverbed, and the flyers barely managed to keep Leaf on. As the current continued to push, the log was steadily squeezing through the gap. Slash, however, no longer conscious and with no grip, had slid off on impact, his face peaceful, into the depths.

Serene and Dez screamed at once when they could take their eyes off of Leaf to have noticed, but they knew they could not fight the river at all. They would be dead if they ever submerged at a time like this. Leaf watched him sink slowly, her expression dull, as his image began to fade. His arms hung up limply while a few tiny bubbles popped up then finally ceased.

Leaf glanced at her wrist. It was still red and warm from the powerful grip Slash had employed to hold her onto the log. It had been so intense that there were even some implants, a big one from his palm and tiny nicks from his claws. Nothing stirred in her brain, however. Still, that did not stop an involuntary action that she didn't understand at all.

She let go of the log, and her friends did not have the strength to supply one hundred percent of her weight under the circumstances. She fell beneath the surface of the water, and Serene and Dez flapped hard above the rocks in stupefied silence. Torturous seconds went by that began crushing every bit of their sanity. They nearly jerked in midair when someone resurfaced. They were relieved and surprised, but their main shock was that instead of Leaf pulling Slash up, somehow, it was he that was holding up an unconscious her. The illogic did not matter, though. They swooped down and helped them back on just before the log broke through and continued flowing upwards.

Serene knew something needed to be done. Both of them were blue from the cold and exhausted beyond comprehension. "I'll fly ahead and see what I can do," she told them all. "Dez, keep an eye on them."

The winds started to pick up even more. The trees' branches began snapping off from both sides, and the splashing of the river intensified to the point that very few instances were safe to take in air. Dez began to really struggle to stay in flight, let alone on the same course and speed as the log. He flapped harder and harder, but the gusts finally started to push him back.

"Ah! Stupid wind!" he cried as he started to lose altitude.

"Dez! Try and land on me! If you fall into the river, I can't get you!" Slash called up.

Dez tensed his wings as much as he could and started to near the flowing log. He was just about to land on Slash's shoulder when a sudden gust of wind knocked him back, and he plummeted down toward the water. Slash pushed his body back onto the log while keeping his hold on it and quickly reached his arm out to grab Dez before he submerged. He missed.

Fortunately, Dez clung to one of the remaining branches and held on for dear life.

"No!" Slash screamed. "I'm not losing anyone again. Leaf, can you hang on for just a bit without me?" No answer. She was still out like a light. "Argh!"

He began inching his way back with his legs, one arm holding onto the log however he could and the other keeping a firm grip on Leaf. The water made the surface nightmarishly slippery, but he struggled with every bit of strength that he could muster. He was getting closer, but Dez's strength was nigh gone. Now clutching the branch with only one wing, he fluttered about in the wind like a flower. As his fingers finally lost all connection to the log, he was grabbed by the strong hand of a sharptooth. Still, this was too much. Now Dez, too, was unconscious.

Slash could not believe this was happening. Everything felt so surreal. This was the second most terrifying moment of his life, only beaten by his father's death. This was, though, the most physical pain he had ever endured before. He was about to close his eyes, drifting out again himself, but movement in the sky got his adrenaline going enough to jerk them back open. Serene had returned.

"Don't worry!" she called down to them. "It ends soon."

"So we're safe?" Slash managed to call up.

"Yes," she assured him. "I always come through for my family. I have a vine ready just up ahead. When you get close enough, I'll bring one end to you to have tied on one of the limbs of this log. You can all pull yourselves along it to the shore. There's plenty of time to do it before the collision or the vine just snaps from force; it's extremely long, and it's wrapped around the tree so the slack won't be underwater."

Slash, however, was still worried. Her plan would be almost full proof if his friends were awake and therefore able to move themselves, but she clearly did not realize that. How was he going to get all three of them to safety by his hands alone…?

"Can't you carry Leaf like before?" Slash shouted up as another bolt of lightning flashed across the sky with an almost-immediate auditory accompaniment.

"I'm sorry!" she called down. "You're all too wet. I'm afraid of dropping her." She turned her gaze back ahead of them for a moment then shouted, "Alright, you're all about in range now. I'm going to grab that vine. Hang on." With that, she flew on ahead.

"Like I have a choice," Slash thought to himself.

Serene returned quickly, holding the end of the vine in her mouth. She swooped down just over the log so Slash could grab it. He tried tying it to a limb, but it was hard with his slippery hands that were holding two others. He had to temporarily hang onto them by clutching them between his forearms and torso, and finally, he managed to get a strong knot and began pulling himself across. He had to hold his friends beneath his arms to free his hands, and he had no idea till now that anyone could be this tired.

"Hurry!" Serene called down to him. Every second, the vine's distance between the log and shore increased as the slack was being released, and Slash was barely moving faster than it was being produced. She knew he was trying hard but also that he needed to try harder. The vine was quickly losing slack, and when all was gone, the log would be disconnected again with no time to try once more. At the end of the river lay a wall of rocks. When the impact occurs, the log will be reduced to splinters, and she hoped with all her heart that that would be all that shatters.

Slash's body generously opened up its final reserves of adrenaline to him, and his speed increased. Approaching the shore, all seemed well. There was enough vine left to make it, but all the friction of being dragged around the tree was tearing through it. Just as he reached the very end, just a foot away from dry land, the vine snapped completely. He fell straight down into a murky grave.

Suddenly, an abrupt burst of force from below him shoved them all just barely to the land. Slash had to grab a strong weed to keep from falling back into the water. Serene, back aching from her stunt, still managed to get onto the shore and helped pull them up. When they were finally out of the stream entirely, they were still in grave danger. They were going to freeze to death if they did not found warmth right away.

Serene landed on his shoulder for support, and Slash somehow found the strength to carry all of them to a huge tree nearby with a hollowed-out bottom. All inside, almost entirely protected from the wind and rain, all four of them went limp, and the only noise was that of nature and their worn-out bodies.

"He can't be dead!" Slash screamed, his hands scraping at the flesh on top of his head. "My father is the greatest sharptooth of them all. No one can take him down! NO ONE!"

"I'm so sorry," Serene replied, going into tears and resting a wing on his shoulder. "But he's gone, Slash."

Slash's eyes took on a frightening, deathly glare. "Who did this?" he asked breathlessly.

"It took several of them, and I'm not sure who they were. I've never seen them around before."

"If you saw them again, would you recognize them?" Slash wanted to know, his voice still chillingly icy.

"I think so, why?"

"When I'm older- I'm going to hunt down- every last one of them- and kill them- slowly. When I do it- they still won't experience the pain- I do n-now," he finished, and with that, he began to cry uncontrollably as Serene rocked back and forth while holding him in a warm embrace.

In the late evening, just shortly before the bright circle had vanished completely, Slash's eyes jerked open as his body convulsed every bit of meat he'd consumed earlier. The other three scurried out of the tree trunk to avoid the vomit. He fell onto his knees and hands and continued hacking up his food. It sounded disgusting, and he was clearly in horrible pain. Along with the half-digested morsels were bits of his own blood. Heaving so extensively, he began to sob as well from how horrible he felt. When his body had nothing left to remove, Serene and Dez came to each side of him and hugged him tightly. They sat there in utter silence for minutes.

"So pathetic, Slash," they heard a voice say. Glancing up, they saw Leaf leaning against a tree with her arms folded and head down. She kicked off of her position to stand up straight and added, "No one else puked."

Slash grinned to the flyers' utter bemusement. He got up, wiping off his mouth, walked over to her, and landed a kiss on her tiny cheek. Her eyes widened in shock and anger, and she slapped his face with surprising strength.

"Why would you do something so stupid?" she asked him, aghast.

With a large red mark on his cheek, he explained, "You came in after me when I nearly drowned. Thank you."

Leaf grinded her sharp teeth angrily but still managed a contrived voice when she replied, "Your stupidity is the greatest of all. I just fell in, that's all."

Slash looked away, but his smile did not fade. He knew what had awoken him in the depths. A tiny arm had wrapped itself around his before its owner had fainted from the cold.

Without warning, Leaf bolted away, and fearful for her health, her friends chased after her. She wasn't fast to begin with, but still weary from the earlier ordeal, she may as well have just been walking. It wasn't long at all before she fell to the ground, her body again having been pushed too far. Her vision blurred before she passed out completely.

No one said anything as Slash cradled her in his arms and brought her back to the tree. When they had returned, he placed her in the back of the opening where the least air blew, and the flyers piled on top of her for warmth.

"She looks so peaceful," Dez mused. "How unusual." All three of them chuckled a bit.

Before Slash joined his friends in returning to slumber land, as the long nap they'd just had had barely rested them up, he spied a tiny, yellow flower, came over to it, and plucked it. He smelled it twice, enjoying its fragrant aroma mixed with the aquatic scent in the air, and he was about to set it aside when he found a better place for it. Smiling gently, he returned to their nest for the night and placed it on Leaf's ear. Maybe it was the comfort. Maybe it was the warmth. Maybe it was something else entirely. But just for a moment, as Leaf slept, she smiled.

Chapter End

"Hey, guys. You can call me Slash but nothing else. Well, it's finally time that I left to avenge my father. I won't sit around and do nothing anymore as my dreams continue troubling me. When I find the ones responsible, they will suffer- ten times over. I will hunt that filth down until my thirst for blood is satisfied. That is my life's purpose. Next time on Familiar Love, I set out on my journey, and I need to do it alone."