I – The Fantastic Rock River Game

The Bright Circle must pass over us many times. That was what Mother and Father had both said. And indeed the Bright Circle had passed over them again and again, but never had Shanda expected the long journey to lead them to where they were now. She'd heard talk of the supposed Great Valley, certainly, but never had she dared herself to think of it as a real place. To her, it was nothing more than silly grown-up talk. After all, the grown-ups had never seen the Great Valley either, despite speaking of it as though they had. How could they know it was real if they'd never seen it? It made no sense. No sense at all.

And yet, it turned out the grown-ups had been right all along. Even now, Shanda still did not understand it, and likely never would. But in the end, it didn't matter. It only mattered that the Great Valley was real, and it was everything they could ever have hoped for. Warmth, shelter, fresh running water, and delicious tree stars and tree sweets to munch on all the time.

Shanda lay there contentedly in a lush field of green grass, soaking up the sun's rays. Nearby, Pyra had perched herself at the base of a tall tree and stared up at it curiously, probably trying to figure out how to reach the tree stars way up at the top. Meanwhile, Nova strained herself to push a big dead log over the side of a hill. Shanda watched Nova go at it for nearly two whole minutes. Then, finally, the log tilted and shifted and began to tumble down the hill. Nova looked on with gleeful satisfaction as the log began to splinter, and then smashed to pieces upon colliding with the side of a rock wall.

That was the best thing of all about the Great Valley; there were lots of logs and boulders and other things to practice ramming. It was something Shanda did every day, and every day she was getting stronger, faster, and better! Already she'd gotten better at ramming things than both Nova and Pyra, even if they each claimed they were the better ones. Still, Shanda enjoyed using every chance she could to compete against them and show why she was the top dino.

She yawned and stretched and stood up. Seeing Nova exert herself with the log was enough to put Shanda in a competitive mood.

"Hey! Nova! Look at this!" She pawed the ground a few times and burst into an energetic run. She unleashed her battle cry, and then SMASH! The boulder in front of her didn't stand a chance. She sat down on her hind legs, tilted her head up high, and gave a "Hmpf!"

"Oh yeah?" said Nova. "Well, watch this!" She pawed the ground, went running, and let out a battle cry which was almost certainly intended to outdo Shanda's. And then BAM! She collided with the boulder and bounced back, shaking her head.

"Hah! See? I am better than you," said Shanda. "I completely smashed my rock, but you only dented yours."

"That's only because my rock was so much bigger. Let's see you smash one this big."

"Oh, I can. I can, and I will!" Shanda searched around eagerly for another nearby boulder of suitable size. As she did, she caught sight of Pyra, lying there with her head resting on her forepaws and watching them both with an amused grin.

"What? You think you can do better?" asked Shanda.

"Come on," said Nova. "Let's see you give it a try."

"I don't need to." Pyra yawned, stretched out, and stood up. "I just learned a trick that's cooler than that. Wanna see?" Without waiting for the others to answer, she sauntered over to a nearby tree, the same tree she'd been sitting and staring at earlier. "Now… watch this!" She pawed the ground and went running, let out a mighty battle cry, and then THUNK! The big old tree swayed, and then some appetizing tree stars drifted down towards them. "Hmpf! See? Now is that cool or what?"

"Pft! Big deal," said Shanda. "Anyone could've figured that out." Deep down, however, she was impressed. She was very impressed, in fact. This was a trick she'd need to remember.

The three of them snacked on yummy tree stars. After lunch, they went down to the river bottom to goof around and be rambunctious. It was Nova's idea for them to play a game where they each head-butted smaller rocks to see how far they could launch them across the water. From there, it soon turned into a competition to see which of them could launch rocks further than the others. Pyra had the lead in the beginning, but Shanda and Nova soon caught up. From there, it became hard to tell who was actually winning. Across greater distances, it was difficult to accurately compare which rocks were landing the furthest. And, perhaps more importantly, each of the sisters was quick to insist that it was her rocks who were beating out the others.

Still, they kept at it, for it was a fun game, and it was oddly satisfying to hear the rocks splash into the water. Competition aside, the girls all wanted to see if any of them could fling a rock all the way across the river to the shore on the other side. No luck so far.

The bushes behind them rustled, and out came Cera. She said nothing, but watched the other threehorns with intrigue.

"Hey Cera, come play with us! Come see how far you can hit rocks across the water," said Pyra. "Who knows? Maybe you'll even beat my record," she added smugly.

"You mean my record," said Nova. "But yeah, come. I wanna see how well you do."

Shanda, however, was curious for a different reason. "Where were you today?"

"What do you mean?" Cera responded lightly, though her eyes narrowed.

"Actually, yeah, you were gone all morning," Pyra chimed in.

"Yeah, so?" said Cera. "Surely you didn't stay at the nest all morning, did you? What did you all get up to?"

"We were having fun smashing rocks and pushing logs around," said Nova. "And we discovered a really cool trick where you can bump your head against trees and make leaves fall down."

"Hey, it was my trick!" said Pyra. "I'm the one who found out about it."

"Oh, whatever," said Nova.

Shanda kept her gaze firmly on Cera, waiting for an answer.

Cera matched Shanda's gaze. "Well, I was out for a walk."

"Where did you go?" asked Shanda.

Cera hesitated only a second. "I went along this very river earlier today until I got to some trees. Then I went into the patch of trees and wandered around in there. Then I came here and found you." She stamped her front feet and smiled. "Now, show me this game you're playing."

It was later that night when Shanda awoke in her family's nest. She yawned, stretched, and blinked. The rest of her family were still sleeping, and she herself was still tired. She almost certainly would have gone back to sleep… yet something seemed off. It took her a moment to figure out what it was. All of her family was still in the nest…

…

…except Cera!

Shanda glanced around, still half-asleep but quickly waking up. She soon spotted Cera standing a short distance away. Cera looked back at the nest – and at Shanda in particular – with wide, nervous eyes.

"What's wrong? What are you doing?" That was what Shanda almost asked. Something stopped her. Instead, she pretended to go back to sleep; she forced a yawn, closed her eyes, and rested her head back on her front paws. She waited about ten seconds before reopening one eyelid, just in time to see Cera heading into the nearby bushes and disappearing from sight.

Shanda's heart raced. I knew it! I knew it! Cera was trying to sneak away unnoticed. Back at the river, Shanda had suspected Cera of hiding something. The question was… what was she hiding? And why?

Whatever the reason, Shanda was going to find out. That was a fact. As careful as she could not to wake anyone else, she slipped away and took off in the direction Cera had gone.

The Night Circle was out in full, giving Shanda enough illumination to see in front of her. Unfortunately, she still couldn't see far because of all the thick bushes. And it was hard to navigate through them without making noise. She worried that either Cera would soon realize she was being followed, or else that Shanda would lose the trail entirely.

Thankfully, the dense foliage cleared away and Shanda was able to regain sight of Cera, who continued forward and seemed oblivious to Shanda's presence. The longer Shanda followed behind, the more her curiosity expanded. Just what was this all about?

The flat terrain led to a steep hill that Cera started to climb. Shanda did her best to maintain a comfortable distance, but her curiosity was so overwhelming that she was probably following too close. If Cera were to take a direct look behind her, Shanda would almost certainly be seen. The good thing for Shanda was that Cera seemed too fixated on whatever her destination was to take much note of her surroundings.

At the top of the steep hill, it leveled out into a flat, circular area surrounded by rocks. It offered quite an expansive view of the valley below. Cera climbed up over the rocks and sat down in the flat area, beneath the starry night. Shanda came to a stop on the other side, half-buried in the grass, and peeked through a gap in the rocks.

Was this all that Cera had come here for? To have a nice little lookout? Already Shanda felt disappointed. She'd been hoping for a more exciting explanation for Cera's secrecy. And yet… why would Cera be so secretive about something like this? Did she want to have a cool hideout of her own that her sisters didn't know about? Surely there was more to it than that? Indeed, Cera seemed to be waiting for… something. But what?

Soon enough, Shanda found an answer to her question. An answer which led to more questions. So, so many more questions…

From somewhere on the other side of the hill came rustling noises and footsteps. And then they emerged. The spiketail, the swimmer, the flyer, and the longneck. They sat down beside Cera in a semi-circle formation. Then, they began chatting amiably amongst themselves.

Shanda stared and she stared, and still she couldn't believe it. She recognized the other dinosaurs, although she'd thought little of them before. They'd all been part of the other herds which arrived in the Great Valley. But what was Cera doing hanging out with them?! Was Shanda dreaming? Surely this was just a weird dream of hers that she'd soon wake from.

"I should show you this trick I learned from my family," Cera said to the others. "Tomorrow we should go find some nice trees. Then I can ram them and yummy tree stars will float down to us."

Shanda watched, captivated. Her breath caught in her throat.

"Or me can just fly up to the trees and bring down tree stars," the flyer said with a wide grin.

"Eh. Yeah, I guess." Cera seemed mildly disappointed.

The longneck chuckled. "Cera wants to be the one to do it. She likes ramming things."

"Well… yeah, that's true," she said.

Rather loudly, Shanda released the breath she forgot she'd been holding.

"Something else I want to do is…" Cera's sentence died away. She glanced around. Within seconds, through the gap in the rocks, Cera and Shanda's eyes met.