New Worlds

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Well hello there my wonderful readers! I am so glad that you guys are enjoying the continuation of this story. In this chapter we get to see a little more drama and a lot more mommy-raptor love. I hope you guys are continuing to enjoy this, don't forget to leave a review and I will see you guys next week!

Chapter 4 – The Fearful Fours pt. 2

Una loved the hatchlings.

It was so much more fun in the nest with babies to watch and play with. Her mummy had been worried, the last time they had eggs the hatchlings had chewed at Una, cause she was little and they were little and they didn't know better.

No one had been chewing on her now though. And every day she woke up and they would all run around and play hunter. Though normally they hunted her, they never actually hurt her. Not on purpose. Sometimes they forgot that their talons were sharp or they nipped her a little too hard, but they always apologized and licked her better.

Some of her little hatchling friends hadn't made it. First it was eggs that didn't hatch, then some of the smaller ones got too sick and died.

Her mummy said that only the strong lived in the jungle, but that didn't seem fair. Una wasn't very strong which meant that she shouldn't have survived in the jungle. The only reason she had was because of her mummy. So when the other's weren't looking she'd take pieces of meat from the hunt, hide them in her second skin and feed them to the small babies that weren't getting enough food and then would stand watch to make sure the bigger ones didn't steal from them.

Everyone deserved a chance, she thought. Especially since the pack had given her one.

This day had been no different, except for it was the first time the grown-ups had gone hunting. Everyone had been at the nest for a while, then some of the males went to hunt to bring back food for the little ones and new mummies. This was the first time they had all gone together.

That meant Una was in charge. She wasn't allowed to leave. She wasn't allowed to make any executive decisions, she just had to make sure that all the little hatchlings stayed in the nest and behaved. Easy enough because all they wanted to do was play anyway.

They were chasing her about when she noticed it. The strange sort of silence that had come over the jungle. This awareness that crept up her spine. Fear was coiled around her stomach but she didn't know why.

"Run Una!" "Chase Una!" "No stop Una!" their little voices all clamoured around her and shushed them.

She listened. But nothing came. She frantically looked around, but she couldn't see anything. But she felt something. A tremor coming from the ground and shaking all the way up her little body. Then a pause. Then another tremor.

That awareness was getting heavier on her. But she had been quiet too long without giving the little hatchlings any reason to be, so they slowly started to chatter and run around. She tried shushing them again, because the feeling of wrongness was so strong, she was certain it was suffocating her.

Then she saw it, green tree trunks moving towards them. She knew what that was. It was the giant monster that took Terra away.

Una stripped herself of her second skin immediately, laying it flat on the ground. "Sh, sh, come here, come here," she whispered to all of them. "We have to leave, we have to leave now."

The ones that were well behaved, sensed the seriousness and fear in her, and did what they were told. The braver ones continued to run around.

"Not allowed to leave," they chided at her, or different version of that anyway.

"Please, it's dangerous, we have to run."

Some scampered to the second skin, others refused to listen. There was a deafening roar, and the head of the great monster broke through the branches above their nest. Una scrambled away so it couldn't get her, wrapping the hatchlings she had up in her second skin to carry them.

"Come to me," she cried to the others. "Go around the edges."

But not all of them could make it to her, and the monster was eyeing her now. Probably because she was biggest.

She scooped up the second skin, carrying all the little hatchlings that she could and took off with them. Running through the dense trees, listening and feeling the footfalls of the great creature giving chase. Sooner or later the trees were going to thin, it would be able to get her then.

But she had a plan.

Just before the trees thinned out was the stump. She put the babies in the hole, told them all to stay there and then did something she knew her mummy would call stupid.

She rushed right out of those trees, waved her arms and shouted at the great big monster to get his attention and then ran in the complete opposite direction of the nest and the babies.

-JP-JP-JP-

There was this deafening roar, and then they heard the barking of their hatchlings.

Their hunt had been over, they had eaten their fill and were in the process of taking back meat for the little ones, and round brown nut for Una when the sounds of chaos reached them. A scouting party was sent ahead, a party that was headed by Rela herself.

They got first to the nest where there were very few hatchlings. Only a handful were still alive, shrieking of a big giant predator, others lay squashed, though by the shrieks of the reamining hatchlings she had a feeling that some had been eaten, but surely not all, and sure not Una.

"She left us! She left us!"

Una had run away? Had run away and left the babies?

The others in her pack turned angry eyes onto her but she held her ground. Una was just a baby still and they all knew she was very, very afraid of well… everything… and besides, what was little Una supposed to do against a predator?

One raptor stayed behind with the little ones left at the nest, the rest went with Rela to follow Una's scent. It took her through the trees to the stump.

Already Rela could see the second skin of Una's sticking out from the roots. But when she tugged it out, the second skin wasn't attached to Una. It was holding all of their missing hatchlings.

Una must have gathered up all the ones she could and carried them there for safe keeping.

Now that, that was mightily brave of Una. But where was Una now?

"Una ran away!" the little ones were all saying. It took some questioning but she eventually got them to tell the tale.

A tale of giant beasts with big gnashing bloody teeth, chasing Una away. Una crying out and waving, roaring and gnashing her own not so sharp teeth at the creature before the two of them ran away.

Now it sounded like Una was leading it away from nest and the hatchlings she saved. But she was just a single Una with not a claw or tooth to defend herself. Nor was she fast enough to outrun basically any predator, so where was she? What had happened?

MUMMY!

She was still alive.

Rela barked back and was rewarded with another screech of her hatchling's accolade for her.

"She's that way," Roc said. For a moment Rela was confused, she had been so worried about finding Una that she hadn't realized that Roc had followed her. Why was he always with her during these search missions?

They followed a trail that reeked of Tyrannosaur. Not sure which one, possibly the same one that had taken out Terra. They never really came this far into the jungle, trees were too dense, so something had to have brought it there. But she didn't have time to worry about that. They ran towards where the Tyrannosaur was roaring and Una was screaming.

When they got to where Una and the Tyrannosaur was, Rela could see that it was a massive buck and it was circling a tree and huffing. It took some squinting but Rela figured out the reason the Tyrannosaurus was circling that tree was because Una was atop it. Literally the highest she could possibly go. She was out of reach and staring down, watching the Tyrannosaur as it paced circles around her tree clearly sizing up its next move.

Mummy!

But Rela didn't know what to do. Her whole pack couldn't take on a Tyrannosaur, and right now she only had three of her pack with her. Only three of raptors definitely couldn't take on a Tyrannosaur and win.

The Tyrannosaur threw itself against the tree and it shook. It was going to try and knock her down.

A fearful bark came from Rela but Roc and her other pack mate kept her from running forward.

MUMMY!

And though Una cried, and her grip on that tree stayed true, the Tyrannosaur was heavier and eventually the whole tree fell over, the top half landing into a deeply cut ravine or sorts, where it then slid down and out of sight.

Rela watched, horrified, wondering if she'd hear Una again. But after a long silence of nothing, where the Tyrannosaur plodded over to the tree, they had to watch as it kicked it father into the ravine and then, for added measure marked the territory. Spraying it's scent all over the branches before roaring to the whole jungle and storming off.

They all watched it leave and then they all carefully approached the fallen tree. Rela went slowly, that same sadness that had taken over her when she lost her clutch was creeping up on her now. To lose them and now to lose Una who had been her little light for so long.

The three raptors peered over the edge of the ravine and down at the tree that was mostly upside down now.

Roc kept glancing back at her and after a moment of silence he barked out Una's name. And then they waited again. To see if something answered. But nothing did.

Disappointment tugged at Rela, the welling terrible urge to roar herself, so the whole jungle could hear her sorrow, building up in her chest.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry she's gone."

That came from Roc. But seeing as how he never liked her in the first place, she had a hard time believing it.

She turned to tell Roc that she didn't want his apologies she wanted Una back. And she wanted him to top pretending that he liked her when he never, ever did. And then…

"Mummy!"

They all turned back to the ravine and like a little rodent Una's head popped out from the branches. She looked up at them and smiled.

"Una!" Rela cried down to her little hatchling. Already she could big scratches down her face and there would probably be more. "Can you climb up?"

"I think so!" Una called back and then there was a whole painstaking process of watching her climb up the tree trunk. She hadn't had her second skin so she was bare as she was when she was younger, but that semi-protective layer hadn't been there to keep her somewhat safe. That meant her whole body was covered in giant bruises and big scratches, some combined. As she as she got close, both Roc and Rela put their heads down to her, Una reached up, put a hand to both their heads and together they pulled her up from the ravine.

"She reeks of Tyrannosaur."

But Rela didn't care. She covered Una with her saliva trying to quell the many places of bleeding and to help heal the scratches and welts. She could taste acidic tang of the Tyrannosaur but still she didn't care.

Rela crouched down to the ground. She had avoided doing this before but now, she just wanted to get her little hatchling as far away from this place as possible. "Get on my back."

Una hopped on and Rela stood up, and together the little pack made their way back o the nest where Rela dropped her little hatchling right into the river.

"And you're going to stay there until you stop smelling like the Rex."

Una just splashed the water around with her little hands. She didn't look upset with her mummy in the least.

-JP-JP-JP-

The smell had not come off of Una, so she had stayed in the river, splashing around until her browned skin turned wrinkly. The others had brought the babies back to the nest and they all took turns running to the water edge to call to Una before retreating back.

After a long while, when the smell still hadn't left Una but she was getting tired and wanted to go to bed, Rela made her way to the water's edge to sit down beside her hatchling.

"What you did today was either very brave or very stupid," she told her. "Now, you tell me what happened and don't leave anything out."

Una blinked her tired eyes up to her mummy and then nestled into her side. A strong whiff of Tyrannosaur hit her nose and it took all her willpower not to run in the opposite direction of her own hatchling.

"The big monster came back. And I tried to get them all in my second skin so I could carry them away but some wouldn't listen and then… then it broke through the branches and I ran away. I couldn't get all of them to come with me."

Una sounded sad at that. Or that she thought Rela would be mad but Rela wasn't mad. Raptors were stubborn, it made sense that the braver ones wouldn't listen.

"Then what happened?"

"I took the ones I had to the stump, to hide them, but I was worried that the big monster would break through and we couldn't all fit so I left them there and… and I got it to chase me so it would leave the little ones alone."

Rela had a feeling that was what Una did. "Then I climbed the tree, really, really high even though I was scared. And it kept trying to get me and knock me down but I held on really, really tight…"

"I know, I watched," Rela said and then nuzzled her little hatchling again. "Why didn't you save yourself?"

"Because… because… you'd be sad if you lost me and I thought the other mummies would be sad if they lost their babies too… and… and… you always say to do what's best for the pack…"

That was true. She said those things to the grown ups not to her little hatchling. It worried her that her little hatchling had heard her and internalized that and applied it onto her very uncapable self.

"Well… while that was very dangerous and very stupid, but I'm also very proud of you. What you did was brave and very well appreciated."

"You think so mummy?"

"I very much do."

"Good… does that mean I can come out of the water now? I'm really, really cold."

She still smelled of Tyrannosaur and that meant the two of them were going to be sleeping away from the nest, but still Rela told her it was fine. And together the two of them got out of the water to make Una a nest a little ways away from the others.