New Worlds
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Hey there my wonderful readers, I know this chapter is late but I've been such a disaster recently. Hopefully I can keep up with the weekly updates, because I really don't have an excuse as to why it's taking me so long to get these up, they're already written after all. Anyway, this chapter it gets a little serious, as you can tell from the title, but I still hope you enjoy it! As always don't forget to leave a review and I'll do my best to be on time next week.
Chapter 12 – The Serious Sevens
After the incident with the bipeds, almost everyone was traumatized… except for Una.
The entire night had been hell on earth. Bouncing from nest to nest trying to track Una while the Tyrannosaurs were also hunting, had been a terrifying experience, not just for Rela, but for the whole pack. It had been doubly scary for Rela who worried about the state of her hatchling the whole time.
Una, however, had had fun with the bipeds. She had learned biped words and names. Juveniles were Kellys that grew up into Sarahs. And then there were three kinds of males, Eddies, Ians and Nicks. She wasn't sure what the difference between them was except for how they looked, but apparently bipeds were confusing like that.
She had got to travel with them, got to try their food, which apparently didn't taste good. She learned about the second skins and how to wear them right, and she had allowed the female Rela had left her with to chop off all of her fur.
Una said it made things easier. Her head was less heavy and with it tied back she could see better. It wasn't getting in her face and she didn't get caught on branches anymore.
So far so good right? No major issues, Una wasn't hurt, everything turned out okay in the end.
Except Una had become even more fascinated in the bipeds now. She became the expert in them. She suddenly wanted to dress like them, to act like them, to be more like them and that… well… that was ridiculous.
Una was a raptor, she lived with raptors, being a biped on an island with no other bipeds was stupid.
Rela had told her to stop. But Una refused to listen.
Rela was at a loss as to what to do with this sudden rebellion. She had hoped it would be a phase but she hadn't grown out of it yet. Whenever Rela left the nest to hunt, Una would leave too. She would make her way to the closest biped compound and explore.
So far she had found new second skins to wear, all bright colored and easy to spot in the foliage. She put skins on her feet, which had always been bare. Now that hadn't last long, she couldn't climb with them on her feet so she took them off.
Rela scolded her every time she went into those buildings, demanded that the colorful second skins be removed for any predator could spot her now, but Una had learned to use a new word and she used it all the time.
No.
She had known that word before the bipeds, but they had given her the power behind it.
It was almost like she didn't recognize her mother as her alpha or even her mother. Like because she was a biped that she didn't have to listen to her mother anymore. And Rela responded with anger. She couldn't help it.
How could her hatchling be so… so… ungrateful?!
She tried to never hurt her hatchling, honest, but… there was one day, she had gotten so angry with her, angry that she had wandered off in that bright red second skin she was wearing. Angry that, just as she had said, she had attracted the Tyrannosaur again. She only barely managed to get away, hiding herself away in the larger building that the bipeds had taken her too originally.
Rela had to wait just outside that biped nesting site for the Tyrannosaur to get bored and leave. It took the pack taunting the Tyrannosaur, getting it to chase them, and having them hide in the trees and loop back to get her out.
She had screeched at her little hatchling. She called her reckless, foolish, as stupid as the prey they hunted. She demanded that her little hatchling stop with her defiance, that she recognize her mother's authority but her fearless little Una hadn't bowed to her like she should have. She glared up at her own mother, her own defiance burning brightly in her blue eyes and hurled her favourite word at her.
No.
And Rela had seen red.
When the red finally left her eyes it was because on her claws and her little hatchling was out of her reach. She had climbed up a tree, and then refused to come down.
She was looking at Rela like she was a monster, with such an angry hatred in her eyes that she had never seen before.
It took her a while to understand what she had done. That she had attacked her own hatchling. It was Una's blood on her claws, she had slashed her across the chest.
She was only half surprised when Una announced to her and the whole pack that she denounced them. That she wasn't going to be a raptor anymore. That she was going to leave and never see them again.
But she was surprised by how much those words hurt her heart.
The pack had turned their eyes onto Rela waiting for her response and Rela had only one.
"If you leave you don't get to come back."
"I don't care!" her hatchling had shouted down to her.
"So be it. From now on you belong to the jungle, and I will no longer intervene if it decides to take you."
And just like that she turned her back on the hatchling she had raised and loved so much and left her behind.
It was like she was grieving her clutch all over again. All that time, all that effort, all her love… wasted. Her little hatchling would be dead by the end of the week at best.
"You're not actually going to leave her, are you?" Roc had asked once they were back at the nest.
Their empty Una-less nest.
He had approached her when she was alone, to have the conversation away from the pack. As if the distance would change the answer.
Except it didn't.
"Of course I am."
"Rela, she won't last past sun down."
"And so what?" Rela snapped. "What do you care? You never wanted her here in the first place, now you've gotten what you want."
That was the end of the conversation.
That was the end of Rela being a mother.
In a few short moons the hatchling she loved so much would be dead, the jungle would claim her, she'd fall to some predator and Rela wouldn't care.
She was determined not to care.
The problem was she would care. She would care so very much.
She was heartsick all over again, but this time she was too proud to fix it.
-JP-JP-JP-
Una was doing fine on her own.
Really.
Okay, maybe not really, but it had been four moons and she was still alive. That had to count for something… right?
In that short time she had moved herself into one of the biped buildings, the main one that the Sarah and Ian had brought her to when they had all been together last. For the last time.
Sometimes she thought about what might have happened if she were to have gone with them. Granted at the time she hadn't wanted to. She waned to stay with her mummy, but now, after being attacked by her own mummy, she wondered if she should have gone.
She was a biped after all. Surely she belonged with them… right?
The first thing she did upon moving herself properly into the biped nest was to find those second skins that the Sarah was always carrying around for injuries.
She found them in a small space, it took her all day looking through everything nook and cranny she could find. Then she spent the rest of the day and most of the night figuring out how to bind it to herself. She had since stopped bleeding, though moving reopened what had tried to heal, she figured that this would help keep the blood in her body.
After that she went in search of second skins for wearing again.
She managed to find, this time this one was a green color, easier to camouflage then the red one she had been in before.
Once she had it on she rolled herself all in the mud outside her building to help cover her better. Not just her colour but her scent. Once she was sufficiently covered she then went looking for food.
Carrying food was hard, so she went in search of one of those pouches that Sarah had used to carry all her stuff in. She found one of those too, and from then on in she had something to carry her own things in. Though she mostly used it for food.
She spent a lot of time around the herds.
They were larger, they ate the same things as her, she figured they'd be useful to have around when she was looking for food.
And they taught her things too.
They taught her which waters were good to drink from, and how to pick food that was ripe and not rotten.
The Hadrosaurs taught her how to swim. Or more aptly she watched them, and taught herself to do it. She did get swept away once, but she bumped into one of the Hadrosaurs and it let her ride it back to shore.
She watched the birds as the dive bombed into the river and came out with fish. She learned to do the same. What she used was a stegosaur barb to impale and then she had fish to eat.
She didn't really like it, but if she ever went back to her pack, she could get them fish. Or at the very least hunt fish for the hatchlings that weren't eating.
Except she wasn't ever going back to her pack.
She didn't belong there.
She did miss them though.
When she wasn't learning how to keep herself alive she was trying to make herself a new nest, a new place to call her own.
She was having a hard time trying to find a comfortable place to sleep. She kept piling leaves and soft materials she could find into corners, or under things to keep warm.
These nests, though big and spacious, had not been made for comfort.
It was filled with things that she didn't recognize, of tiny hatchling dinosaurs in massive see-through pods, floating in a strange thick water that did not taste good. She shouldn't have tried it either. She had been sick for a whole day after tasting it.
The place was quiet and creepy at night and she was always cold.
Then she found this really great big second skin that she was using to wrap herself up in. That kind of helped, except it was hard to sleep at night still.
She was starting to learn that she didn't like being alone. She liked sleeping when she knew that someone was there with her.
But she couldn't go back now.
Something was strange, though, she kept getting this strange feeling.
She'd get it whenever she was out and about. When she was out getting food, or exploring. Sometimes she even felt it while she was sleeping.
It was like something was watching her. Something or someone was watching her.
She felt like prey for the first time in her life and she hated it.
But this was new, all of it, and she was going to have to get used to it because she was the one who chose this path. She was stuck with it now.
-JP-JP-JP-
Rela moved silently and slowly through the tall grass heading towards her prey.
They had no idea that she was sneaking up on them, ready to pounce for the kill.
Except she didn't have to, she simply snuck up behind them and nipped at their shoulder.
Roc jumped, hissed yelped even, and then both of them ducked into the tall grass.
Una might not have been a raptor, her senses might not have been as fine tuned as theirs but even she would have heard that.
Rela had been checking in on her little hatchling and her progress as she lived on her own. Which meant she knew when her little hatchling was out gathering food.
She had been playing this smart, like the raptor that Rela had raised her to be. She did a lot of her gathering with the herbivories. They seemed to just allow her to walk among them, they seemed unafraid of her presence. She wasn't awfully close but they let her follow them around, and never seemed to mind her walking around or through them while they grazed.
Today, however, she was at the mango grove, and none of the herds ever really went there so she was on her own.
Except for Rela… and now Roc who had also, apparently, followed her there.
They watched through the grass as Una looked around. She dropped the mango into some sort of pouch she was carrying around and then scampered up into the trees.
Yes, smart girl.
They waited until she disappeared, until all was quiet again, to stand up and then Roc turned on her.
"What are you doing out here?"
Rela glared at him. "What are you?"
Roc stared at her for a moment before lowering his gaze. "Watching her… same as you."
Rela snorted. She couldn't help it. That was ridiculous.
"You never liked her, Roc," she reminded him. "She's not one of us… remember?"
"Well she isn't… and I don't… but… she… she's… I mean you like her and… I mean… she's just… little… and… she doesn't have a good sense of smell and… and…"
"Oh just admit you like her."
"Fine! I like her. She's gritty, and tough and smart… so very, very smart."
Rela inclined her head in agreement, he was right about that. She was very smart… for a biped.
"She has lasted a lot longer than I expected her to on her own."
"She learned to swim… and to fish… she changed her second skin to a green color… she's rolling in mud to blend in… she spends a lot of time in the trees…"
Rela couldn't help but be impressed. Her hatchling, though young for her species had very much learned to survive on her own.
"How often do you check in on her?"
Roc lowered his head again. "Only when I know she's about… and I know that you're not already out watching her…" She glared at him and he shot her a knowing look. "I know you visit her at night…"
Una had always been notoriously bad at night. She was prone to sleeping imaginings that would wake her up in fear. Rela had been checking in to make sure she was sleeping, which she was. Though she did have to find and then conveniently drop a large second skin to help Una stay warm as every time she went visit her hatchling at night, the little girl would be shivering.
She dropped that large second skin where she knew Una would find it. She then made sure that she found it. Then made doubly sure that she was using it.
But that didn't mean she care what happened to her hatchling.
Okay… she did care.
She cared a lot.
But her hatchling was determined to be a biped now so… Rela was going to let her.
"You could… talk to her maybe?" Roc offered and Rela snorted.
No her hatchling had turned her nose up at them and that was that. She could come back, Rela would welcome her back, but she wasn't going to chase after her hatchling, make her come back.
Roc understood right away what that snort was. "It was just a suggestion," he snapped. "Sooner or later a predator is going to set its sights on her. She can't be on her own for much longer."
"She's made her decision, now she must accept the consequences."
Except she was young, and Rela knew this. She no doubt didn't understand what his meant, but Rela was determined to teach her the way life was supposed to be.
She was certain she could intervene when needed, she just had to hope that she was near-by when the jungle tried to claim her hatchling.
-JP-JP-JP-
Una had been doing a lot of exploring.
Searching out different biped nests to see if there was one that they picked to be more of an actual next where she could be comfortable and sleep.
All the other buildings were far apart. She had to leave the territory she knew to be her mother's to get to them.
Had she still been a raptor in her mother's pack she might have been a little more cautious, but she wasn't.
Plus she had figured out that the best way to move through the jungle was through the trees. Where the trees were thicker, the braches were all interconnecting. She could easily move from one to the other. So she usually used the trees to get form one place to another.
But the new place she had found wasn't a nest. It was something else entirely.
This stuck contraption that the bipeds rode in was sunk in the water. It didn't have trees around it.
It was sunk in a little lake, a swamp type hole that attracted a lot of bugs. But it had an opening, one that took a while for her to pry open, but once she did she found things inside.
She didn't know what anything inside it was for, but it had a little area that was soft so she was thinking of moving her nest into this thing.
The reason she hadn't yet because if she shut the hatch it was pitch black and she didn't like it being that dark. And she didn't want to sleep with it open in case something found its way in.
She did find some interesting things to wear, including some for her legs that were too big right now, but she might grow into later. She figured she'd put them in her back pouch and save em for later.
She had painstakingly pulled herself up and out of that opening and then heard a hiss. A hiss she recognized.
A raptor hiss.
She knew, even before she turned around that it wasn't her mother because she was far out of her mother's territory. But she turned anyway and found that she was right, it was a completely different raptor, and she wasn't anywhere near a tree to get herself to safety.
"Ah… look at what we have here. A little lost biped…"
They were all on the water's edge. Four in total. Either this wasn't the whole pack or it was a smaller one. Not that it mattered, she was completely out numbered.
"I… I'm not…"
But she was.
That was the whole point of her not being with her mother's pack. She wasn't one of them, she wasn't a raptor.
If they were surprised a biped was speaking their language they didn't show it.
"Oh… we heard about you…"
And that would be why they weren't surprised she understood them.
"The little biped taken in by raptors… the abomination…"
Oh that wasn't good.
The leader of the little group, no doubt the alpha, made a big show of puffing her chest out as she looked around.
"You're very far out of your territory… does mummy know you're here?" she asked. When there was no response she moved, shifting closer to the water's edge. "You're all alone… aren't you?"
See, she could jump back into the space she had just come out of, but a raptor would be able to open it.
She couldn't jump into the water because it was scummy and dirty. The kind of water that stuck on you and made you sick.
She wasn't close enough to any trees to climb up… she was… she was in a lot of trouble.
"Mummy…"
"Your mummy isn't here!" the raptor snapped. "And she should have known better."
"Mummy!" she cried a little louder then before.
"She broke all the laws of the jungle taking you in. She should have left you to die."
The raptor hopped onto the first of the metal cages that were also sunk into the water that stood in between her and the stuck metal mover.
Una climbed back up and onto it, hoping to find something to hide behind, or in. But as she backed up the Alpha jumped onto a different metal box, now nothing stood between her and Una who was still precariously perched on the mover stuck in the water.
"I'll enjoy ripping you up… and leaving what's left of you… right where your silly mummy can find you…"
It launched itself at her and Una slipped down and into the water, screaming for her mummy as she fell. Once she hit the water, which felt silty and so much like mud, she stayed still. Resurfacing when she didn't know where the raptors were was not smart.
She also couldn't see where she was going, the water was too murky, but she kind of knew where she should head.
The best she could, she swam underwater until she couldn't hold her breath anymore. She popped up, realized the coast was clear and then bolted as quick as she could to the closest tree.
The problem was the raptor was just as close to her. So as she managed to get up the tree, the alpha jumped, her mouth slamming down around Una's foot and ripping her to the ground.
Una had screamed, both in pain and fear but that scream was cut off when she hit the ground. Hitting the ground knocked all air out of her chest, and the Alpha stood back, watching as Una coughed and groaned and eventually rolled over.
She looked up at the creature that was going to bring about her demise, she had been standing above her, watching her, cruelty in her eyes.
She had only been a biped for a full moon and it was going to be what killed her.
Or so she thought.
There was a terrible shriek, a raptor war cry, and then a completely different raptor burst out of the bushes behind her. She'd recognize her mother's blue stripes anywhere.
She tackled the other alpha head on, taking her down to the ground, her mouth ripping up the neck, struggling to keep her down.
Una tried to get up, though her foot hurt her to do so, and something grabbed a hold of her second skin and dragged her back.
"Come on, come on," Roc said trying to drag her away.
"Wait… but…"
"If you can't walk, hop up," he said lowering himself enough for her to climb up onto his back.
"What about mummy?"
"She can handle herself," he said and then he took off, racing through the trees and back to her mother's territory.
Once they were safely back in the territory she grew up in, Roc slowed down, eventually stopped and let her hop off.
Una hit the ground though, she was unstable on the one foot, so she just fell right over the second she wasn't on Roc's back. Also, now that she wasn't in the situation, her legs had basically turned to jelly. Roc bent down licking at the wound around her foot.
"You taste funny… you weren't… in that pond were you?"
"I fell in," Una admitted and he hissed at her. "It wasn't on purpose…"
There came another crash and then her mother was in the small clearing with them. She said nothing, but instead nudged Roc out of the way to lick at her hatchling's inured leg.
Her mother had her own wounds. Bleeding scratches down her flank, and bite marks along her neck. But she was clearly the victor.
"Why did you leave the territory? Clearly you must have known you were far out…"
"I was exploring… and… I didn't think that…"
"My god, girl, you still have to use your head!" Rela chided. "With me or not, my territory would always be safest for you."
Una was quiet for a moment.
"I didn't think you cared."
Rela straightened, allowing Roc to lick her own wounds as she appraised her hatchling.
"… You are my hatchling, of course I care."
They all stared at one another. Una forced herself to her feet and tried to walk, only to stumble into Roc who had lurched forward to stop her little body from hitting the ground.
"I should go back…"
"Why?"
"Because I have things there that can help me," she said.
Rela's eyes narrowed at her but Roc stayed by her side.
"I'll take her."
Rela didn't want to let her go, Una could tell, but she got back on Roc's back and he took her back to the compound she was now calling home.
-JP-JP-JP-
Later that night, after she had washed the murky waters off of her, after she wrapped up her leg, she wrapped herself up the large second skin to keep warm and tried to sleep.
But even in the large second skin she was cold. She couldn't help it. This place was drafty, it was always cold.
Not to mention it was filled with a million little things that scurried in the night. Of shadows that played against the walls.
But tonight's shadows were raptor shaped, and the little scurryings were louder and larger than usual.
"Do you always sleep under?"
Una poked her head out of the little den she had made out the wooden structures. She didn't know what they were for but they were great for sleeping under.
She looked up to her mummy before nodding.
"Doesn't look comfortable."
"It's… it's not that bad," she whispered though she was lying.
"How's your foot?" her mother asked and Una stuck it out of the second skin wrapped around her. "What are those?"
"They're healing skins," she said. "I wrap it around it stops the bleeding."
"Did you do that for your chest too?"
Una nodded, lifting up her second skin to show her the scars. "See, look how well they healed!"
Her mother's snout moved towards her, sniffing at the scars that she had left on her own hatchling. She then slowly lowered herself down to the ground.
"I am very sorry I caused you pain, my hatchling," she eventually said and Una was floored because her mother never apologized. It was a show of weakness. "I did not react well to your disobedience. I am Alpha, you showed me great disrespect…"
"I only wanted to know more of where I came from."
"You disobeyed, you put yourself in danger and I was afraid for you. And you responded with hostility and rudeness…"
"You don't know what it feels like," Una cried. "You belong. I do not. I'm not a raptor. Or a biped. I'm neither and I feel so very alone, and out of place. I was merely looking for where I belong."
"You belong with me," Rela said right away. "Yes you are different. Yes you are not a raptor but you're not a biped anymore either. You are your own you. My Una. My hatchling. So with me is where you belong."
Una avoided her mother's eyes as she stared down at her. They were quiet a moment before saying: "You need to come back with me. No more sleeping here where I can't see you."
"I don't want to."
"Nonsense, you can't like sleeping her alone in the cold. Who will keep you warm?"
"I…"
"You can bring your new second skin, and your pouch," Rela continued. "You can continue to explore if you'd like, but I'd prefer you stay close to me and the territory, if only to keep you safe. If you'd like to wander out of it, you can take Roc with you."
Una's nose crinkled up at that. "Since when does he like me?"
"Since you left," Rela admitted. "Maybe if you're lucky he'll admit it to you."
Una smiled softly and then stared at her mother. "You mean it? I can keep exploring?"
"Of course," she said. "Though, you will start getting training, hunting training that is. I figure we can do both. Since you are both, I mean."
Una smiled. "Okay. I'd like that. But uhm… I'm all wrapped up, can we go home tomorrow?"
"Sure."
"Uhm… are you going to stay… with me?"
"Of course."
"Do you want some of the second skin?"
"No, I'll be fine here," she said as she wiggled herself backwards into the space under so she could nestle closer to her hatchling.
There wasn't really a lot of room for her, but since Una wanted to sleep right up against her mummy she didn't mind.
Already Una felt better and for the first time in a long time she got a good night's sleep.