New Worlds
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Hey there my wonderful readers. Are you ready for more adventures?! Cause we got a fun little chapter coming up. We're gonna get introduced to a character that I know my OG readers will recognize from the original series. As per usual don't forget to tell me what you think and I'll see you guys next week!
Chapter 14 – The Naughty Nines
They were silently stalking their prey.
A heard of Gallies were grazing, they already had their eyes set on several weak ones. They were hoping for multiple kills today, more food for their growing numbers.
The hatchlings had all grown, they were now active members of the pack, had joined others or had gone off to make their own pack in their own territories.
But many had chosen to stay, and many had survived to adulthood thanks to Una's help. This meant more hunting, and the need for greater amounts of food for everyone to eat their fill.
At the current moment the whole pack was waiting for Rela's mark to move.
Rela was waiting for something else.
There came a crash and something dropped out of the trees, landing right beside Rela.
The two raptors around her hissed in distress and then anger, but Rela wasn't phased in the least.
She knew when her hatchling was near-by. She knew when Una was up to mischief.
She turned patiently to Una. "What have I told you about doing that?"
Una bared her teeth at her in that happy-biped way of hers. "Not to startle you while you're hunting."
"And yet you continue to do so."
"Well… you weren't startled."
That was true.
Rela had sensed her hatchling's closeness and once she had she had looked for the signs of her. They weren't hard to spot once she was looking for them.
"You startled the others, you could have startled our prey. I keep telling you to stop, if you interfere with the hunt the others will be angry."
Una huffed and then sat down at her mother's feet. "But I'm bored mummy, I'm bored."
Yes, Una was frequently bored. The nest she was supposed to stay in was empty, since they were hunting more, Roc wasn't available to accompany her on her biped adventures and there were no hatchlings for her to watch either.
Una had been very well behaved, despite her boredness. She very kindly stayed close to the nest, and didn't go off exploring any of the biped facilities without a companion. If she strayed too far from the nest it was only to find Rela, and Rela was okay with that, so long as her hatchling stayed off the ground when possible.
She had been very obedient which made it harder for Rela to really scold her when Una got into her mischievous moods.
She really only liked to startle them.
She'd drop out of trees beside them, or pop out of bushes. Normally they could sense her coming if she was on the ground, but if she was above them… it was easier for her to get the drop on them. No one had lashed out yet, but Rela could tell that their patience was wearing thin with her.
She kept trying to tell her hatchling to stop, which she usually did… until she forgot. Then it would start all over again.
But it was clear the more bored she got the more she acted out.
Rela was clearly going to have to find her something to do.
She pinned a look on her hatchling, who was sitting down in the grass by her leg, plucking blades out of the ground to weave together in strange patterns.
She was always calmer when with Rela. To be honest, Rela was starting to think that bipeds were clearly pack animals. Like their prey they didn't do well alone.
If only there was a raptor she'd trust to leave Una alone with all the time, who didn't need to help with the hunt. Then Una could run off to her hearts content and Rela wouldn't have to worry.
And no. She did not trust Roc's new found interest or love for her hatchling.
A hiss from the others meant that she should have given the cue to launch the attack by now, but she rarely did so when Una was around.
After all the hunts Una had been on it had become abundantly clear that she didn't like the act of hunting. Her sensitive little girl didn't like to hear the death cries of the prey. So Rela had been separating her from the hunts.
"Go on back to the nest little one," Rela ordered. "I have a hunt to finish and I know you don't like to watch."
Una turned her blue eyes up to Rela a groan falling from her lips. "I will personally take you out exploring once we're done, okay?"
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Una then got up, skipped to the nearest tree and began to climb. Rela waited for her to be properly gone before giving the command to start the attack.
And my what a glorious successful hunt it was.
-JP-JP-JP-
Una was bored again.
She couldn't help it, without any hatchlings for her to mind, there was nothing for her to do.
She wasn't old enough to wander too far away without taking someone with her. She kept asking when she'd be old enough, but her mother never gave her a straight answer. She was starting to think that her mother would never think her old enough to be on her own and that was silly, because Una was pretty good at being on her own.
She had wandered off on her own again.
She knew to stay close to the nest but sometimes she went farther than she was supposed to.
She liked to dinosaur watch.
She'd climb up into the trees and watch them as they moved. She was trying to learn what they were all saying, because really she only understood raptor.
Her mummy said when she was younger she knew triceratops and she sort of, kind of, a little bit remembered, but it was hard to bring it back to her mind.
So as she watched, she learned about their habits, and she learned some of their words that she could mimic but she didn't quite know the meaning off. And it was kind of fun to try, to pretend that she was having conversations with them like her mummy and the pack could.
And that's what she was doing that day. Travelling through the branches looking for a herd to watch.
Her favourite were the brontosauruses, cause they always let her climb up onto their very large heads. Sometimes they'd straighten up while she was on them and she'd end up all the way in the clouds, so close that she could touch them. And they weren't soft like she thought they would be, they were cold and wet and you couldn't hold onto them like she wanted to.
Her mummy hated it when she did that because she'd have to wait for the brontosaurus to lower its head again to get off, but she loved it. She could see the whole island from the top of a brontosaurus.
They were, however, out on the plains today, which meant she wouldn't be able to play with them today.
The stegosauruses were mean and didn't like her following them though. They were prone to knocking into the trees she was in to shake her out.
The ankylosaurs were boring.
There wasn't anyone she really wanted to tail today.
Except her mother who was hunting and well… she was still rather squeamish around the hunts.
So she was practicing her jumps and her climbing trying to make herself faster, and to jump higher and farther.
And then she heard the sound of raptors.
Una was immediately excited, thinking about jumping down out of the trees to try and startle her mother.
Her mother was notoriously hard to startle, in the sense that nothing Una did every scared her. Unless she was in a life-or-death situation… or getting stuck on the top of a brontosaurus's head.
But just plain old startling her mother, never worked.
She moved silently through the branches until she was just on top of the little band of raptors but as she got closer she realized that it wasn't her pack. It was a completely different one.
A different pack had crossed over into her mom's territory.
Her mom said that sometimes other raptors came into her territory but never for very long, and only because they have to, for hunting purposes mostly.
She should warn her mother, but to do that she'd have to leave them alone. And she didn't want to because she wanted to know what they wanted.
She followed them through the branches listening to their conversation.
"Is it wise to come through here?" one of the males asked.
"No, but we're not staying long," the alpha replied.
She was smaller than the others, and a red color with blue stripes like her mom. All the males were red in color too, all with more vibrant red stripes, they even had little spines on their head. None of the males in Rela's pack had spines.
There were only four of them, so either this pack had had a lot of casualties recently, or they were fairly new.
"What happens if she figures it out?"
They were talking about her mom. Because her mom was a very feared and respected Alpha. A fact that made Una very happy to call her her mom.
"She's too busy with her abomination to care. So long as we stay away from her nest, and don't steal her hunt, she won't care that we've crossed through. She probably won't even notice."
A second male snorted. "Raising a biped as a raptor. Disgusting," he spit out. "We should go to the nest. Get rid of the fake raptor."
Una found herself frowning. They were talking about her and not nicely.
She didn't really understand why it was that the other raptors didn't like her, except that it had everything to do with her being a biped. Her mother, when asked about it, would tell her that it was because it wasn't the way of the jungle, and by saving her, Rela had broken that law. She just didn't care because she loved Una, and her pack was stronger because of her.
But it still hurt to think that the other raptors on the island thought of her as something that needed to be destroyed. Simply because she was different.
She knew that, when something like this happened, her mom wanted her to stay safely up in the trees. She told her over and over that was what she wanted.
But Una didn't want to stay up in the trees.
Sooner or later her mom was going to have to trust her to be on her own, so she might as well start proving to her that she was fine on her own. And she figured why not start now?
She waited until they moved closer to where she was and then she dropped down in the middle of them with a roar.
None of the raptors were expecting it. In fact they all skittered away with varying degrees of yelps.
But they regrouped quickly.
"Oh you little…" the Alpha started and then she rushed Una.
But Una was quicker. She scampered up a tree and moved away from them through the branches. She figured that would be it, she got away, but when she looked down they were following her.
"When you get down from there, we're gonna slice you up!" the Alpha called up to her.
Una shook her head. Fine. They wanted to play that way, she could do that too.
"You gotta catch me first!" she called and then she was scampering through the trees, swinging and jumping from branch to branch.
She knew where she was going too, knew exactly where she was leading them.
When she got closer to where she was leading them she dropped to the ground.
The raptor pack had kept up with her no problem, so when she hit the ground they were ready to converge on her, but she had a plan for that.
She charged into the clearing startling the herd of ankylosaurs that were grazing there. They all bellowed but it was the one she was closest to that she was concerned about.
Ankylosaurs were batterers as her mummy would say. With their hard scaling they like to crash into whatever was chasing them, and their favourite move was to lash out with their very heavy and very spiky tale. So the fact that she was running right at one, particularly, the lower end of one, was a very dangerous idea.
But Una knew this particular ankylosaur, and it always swung left first. So when she got close to it she dove, right over that swinging tail, rolled when she hit the ground and then turned and watched the tail hit the raptor that had been closing in on her.
She scampered away from the ankylosaurs and up the closest tree, watching as they moved into a defensive position to combat the coming raptors.
The one that had gotten hit, the biggest of them all, was struggling to get back up. Yelping as it struggled to move.
Oh.
It was super hurt.
The rest of the pack, all quickly realized that they were out numbered and they left. But the injured one, he couldn't keep up, hell he could barely get away from the ankylosaurs.
Una shouldn't have cared, they had been trying to kill her after all, but she couldn't help but feel like this was her fault.
Cause it was.
They hadn't be there to hurt her, or her mother, they were just passing through looking to hunt and she had decided to play a trick on them. And now, now one of them was really hurt and all alone.
She didn't want to be the reason something else was in pain, she didn't want to be the reason something died.
But she didn't know what to do, and she knew she couldn't just approach it. It would probably try to kill her.
So she went off in search of the only creature on this whole island she knew could help her.
-JP-JP-JP-
"Mummy! Mummymummymummymummymummy…"
The second her hatchling came running at her repeating her name over and over like that Rela was on high alert. Her hatchling was distressed she could tell by the tone of voice alone.
She halted the pack and turned in the direction her hatchling was running at her from. Watching as she crashed through the bushes altogether too loudly. Her hatchling was usually very good at moving through the jungle without making a sound to draw attention to herself, but for some reason she didn't care.
She couldn't see a predator chasing her hatchling down either, so that meant she had done something that she knew was bad.
"What?" Rela said as she got closer to her. Out of habit she lowered her head to her hatchling, sniffing at her, try to suss out if there were smaller injuries to worry about that she hadn't noticed.
"I did something bad and someone got hurt…"
She had hurt one of the pack? That wasn't like her at all.
"Who? Who did you hurt?"
"I don't know!"
That too didn't make sense, because Una knew all of them by heart.
"He's not… I unno who he is… but it's my fault he's hurt and… we gotta help him, so come on, come on mummy!"
"Wait a second," Rela said reaching down for her hatchling's second skin and sinking her teeth in it to stop her from rushing away. She pulled her back temporarily taking her off of her feet and sending her crashing to the ground at Rela's feet. She then spit out the second skin. "You tell me what happened… from the very beginning. Right now."
Una didn't want to stop though, Rela could tell by the way she was bouncing, she was clearly very agitated about this. She had gotten up right away and just started bouncing, shifting from foot to foot, moving to her tippy toes and then down again, constantly looking over her shoulder like she was nervous about something.
"They… they weren't supposed to be there," she said quickly. "They were too far in and they were hunting a think…"
A rival pack? On her territory?
"Hunting you?"
"No, just in general," she said.
Okay so they were just looking to cross through territories, maybe looking to steal some of hers. Her territory was getting larger, but she had the numbers to back that up.
"I… I unno… I thought I'd… just play with them a little… and… well… I took them into the herd and… and… he got hurt. Like really hurt… and his pack left him behind and…"
So this was a raptor from a different pack that got hurt and because Una was instrumental in that, she felt bad.
No raptor would have felt bad, this must have been a biped reaction. Silly creatures that they were.
"Una, this is the law of the jungle. His care should have been up to his pack, and they chose to leave him behind. There's nothing you can do."
"But… but…"
"No, this is how things are. It's the way of life, of our life, and the sooner you accept that the easier it will be for all of us."
Una blinked her eyes up at her but said nothing else. She clearly didn't agree but she didn't say so in front of the others, something she no longer did.
It was a deal they had. Una was allowed to disagree, but she wasn't allowed to voice it in front of the others. Instead she could bring up her concerns in private and Rela would listen to her. She didn't promise to change her mind, but she did at least promise to listen. And that worked for them.
She would no doubt hear about it later. But for right at that moment Una seemed to be listening.
"Okay," she said softly after a while.
"Good, now go back to the nest and stay there until we're done hunting."
"Can I go to the mango grove?" she asked instead. "I… I'm hungry."
That was a strange request, so soon after she shut down her first request, but maybe she actually was hungry.
"Alright. Mango grove and then straight back to the nest."
"Okay mummy," her little hatchling said brightly and then she turned around and scampered off.
Rela would give her the benefit of the doubt for now, trusting that her hatchling would do the right thing and stay safe.
-JP-JP-JP-
Una knew what her mom wanted her to do, she just didn't think it was a good idea.
So when her mummy was busy hunting again, Una went back to the biped nest to look for something to help the other raptor, instead of going to the mango grove like she said she would.
She had to lie, of course, because if her mother realized she hadn't gone back to the nest right away she'd get scolded. At least now she could pretend that she was going to get food, so if her mother found her in the completely opposite direction of the nest she wouldn't get in trouble. But she'd have to remember to bring mangos back to the nest, lest her mother realize that she was lying.
She found a large second skin, the vines made of something else that were used for tying, and a whole bunch of healing skins to use. Then she went to find the other raptor.
He hadn't gotten far from where she last saw him. He was struggling to walk, dragging the one leg behind him as he hobbled through the jungle, he had actually gotten close to the biped nest she had been frequenting as it had the most amount of stuff to go through and it was closest to her mom's territory. He was bleeding too, from the same injured leg.
Maybe it wasn't completely broken, maybe the leg was just badly cut. She kept herself up in the trees, waiting for him to stop hobbling, waiting for him to just lie down and sleep, but he wouldn't sleep, he wouldn't rest.
He took way too long, she had to go back to the next and wait for her mom to come back, pretending her biped pouch wasn't filled to the brim with rescue items. She pretended to make up her nest, pretended to go to sleep when the night fell, then she waited for everyone else, except the night watch to sleep too.
Once everyone was sleeping, and she figured her mother distracted on the night watch, she scampered out of her nest, being sure to puff up the second skin to make it look like she was still sleeping there, before rushing back to the part of the jungle where she had left the injured raptor.
When she found him, which wasn't hard because he was leaving a trail of blood everywhere, she was worried that he had died. The puddle around his leg was a lot larger than it should have been, but he at least looked to be asleep.
Deep asleep too.
Still she carefully snuck around him. She carefully tied that vine around his one good leg, and then not so carefully dragged him through the jungle the short way to the biped nest
To be honest, she was surprised that didn't wake him up alone, because holy was that hard work.
Still she got him into the biped nest, which was a feat all in itself, though it did get easier to drag him once she got onto the shiny slippery surface inside the nest. She then untied his foot, wrapped up that injured leg best she could, then shoved him in the under space beneath one of the wooden caves she had been sleeping under when she was there.
And it literally took all her strength because he was big and muscley and she was just a little Una. When she was done she was all sweaty and panty and sore, but he was safely under, at least for then.
The last thing she did before she snuck back out to get back to her mother's nest before someone noticed she was missing, was to get one of the metal water catchers. She filled it with cool water and then walked very carefully back to her injured raptor and left it there for him for in the morning.
As soon as she could she'd go fishing, get him something to eat then, she'd come back and see how his leg was.
This was all very thrilling and she found, though she was bone tired and sore she was excited for the following morning.