New Worlds

AvalonReeseFanFics

A/N: Hey there my wonderful readers! Are you ready to see what happens next? I know I am! We're actual super close to the end of this story, only 4-5ish chapters left! Are we getting excited? Cause I know I am! As always don't forget to leave a review or a fav or a follow and I'll see you guys next week!

Chapter 15 – The Naughty Nines Part 2

When she got back to the nest that night her mother was there waiting for her, absolutely livid.

She had apparently noticed right away that the lumpy second skin she had tried to pass off as herself was not her. She had roused the whole pack in a panic and they were all out looking for. The only reason Rela was there was because she had double back to see if Una had come back on her own.

Until Una came back she was convinced a predator had come into that nest and snatched her hatchling away, or Una had wandered off and gotten eaten. But no, Una was fine, but after the lecture she got from her mother she wished she had.

It didn't help that she didn't have a good reason to have wandered off either. She hadn't thought up of a good reason, she just assumed she wouldn't get caught.

Well she had learned her lesson.

Always come up with a cover lie because her mummy knew everything.

But because she had run off the night before her mummy wouldn't let her out of her sight during the day.

That meant Una had to come on the hunt, she wasn't allowed to help, or do anything. She was told to sit in a tree and wait for them to come back.

But that ended up being a good thing. It gave Una the time to think of someway to get out away from her mother's prying eyes.

When the hunt was done, and the pack was eating, Una waited for her mom to eat her fill before coming out of the tree. She tried to put on her most innocent of faces as she asked her mummy for her favour.

"Mummy, I'm out of healing skins," she said. "Could I go get more?"

Her mother stared at her, hard. Not trusting her in the least… which was fair.

"How could you possible be out?"

Una shrugged. "I just am."

Her mother wasn't very convinced by that either.

"I suppose when Roc is done…"

"I can go right now," she said quickly. "I know where they are… I'll be very quick."

"You know I don't like you going there by yourself," her mother reminded her and yes, Una had thought of that.

"I know, but Roc is busy, and so are you and I'll be in and out. No one comes that far into your territory anyway!"

That was also true. The particular biped nest she was referring to was smack dab in the middle of her mother's newly grown territory. She had wrapped her territory around that nest as it was the one Una was in the most.

"Please mummy?" she asked pouting up at her. "I promise I'll be right back."

Her mother leant in to nuzzle her softly, nipping at her shoulder but not once breaking skin. "If you're not back by midday I will hunt you down and confine you to the nest even if I have to sit on you myself."

Una had giggled at the threat, though she knew her mom would do that if she had to.

As soon as she was out of her mom's eyesight though, she climbed up into a tree and changed her direction. She already knew that if she didn't really leave any tracks that her mom couldn't track her right, so she kept to the trees for as long as she could.

She stopped only to fish for a bit so her new project could have something to eat and then she was rushing into that compound.

She figured the best bet would be to approach from behind and then sneak around the side. She did so as quietly as she could, and then peaked around the edge.

The raptor was still under the desk, the healing skins she had wrapped around his leg had been chewed up and ripped off, which was not good, but at least his leg wasn't bleeding anymore. And the basin she had filled with water was empty.

She would have to fill that up, but first she'd have to wrap up the leg.

She stared at him for a long while trying to establish if he was sleeping or faking, and as she did she went into her back pouch for the rest of her healing skins.

She hesitantly came out from behind the side of the desk, hesitantly reached out for that leg and suddenly he lunged.

His teeth went for her face, while the claws on his arms went for her body. She managed to twist away, ducking to the side to avoid his lunge, but his claws raked down her arm anyway. She skittered to the side with a yelp, his claws scraping against the smooth ground telling her that he was chasing her.

She ran to the closest thing she could climb, a large wooden contraption with sections built it. She scaled all the way up it to the very top and then just stood there.

It wasn't very high considering how high a raptor could jump, so if he really wanted to he could jump up there and get her down, except he didn't.

He stood beneath her, glaring up at her, hissing in warning, as she crouched above him on that high contraption glaring and hissing right back.

He must not have been able to jump with his injured leg.

But he was awake, and he was hostile, and even injured he could catch up with her cause she wasn't as fast as the rest of her pack.

Una was stuck.

If she couldn't get home by midday, she was going to be in so much trouble and she didn't think that she could handle another lecture from her angry mummy. Or having her sit on her… literally.

So what was she going to do?

-JP-JP-JP-

She was still up on the high contraption.

They kept exchanging glares but neither had moved yet.

He was still under the wooden cave like structure, and she was still above on the wooden ledge. She knew that if she got down he'd go after her again. She might be able to out run him, but he was willing to hurt himself further to take her down with him.

Bipeds weren't that fast anyway.

Or at least, that was what he heard.

Rhum was only a year old. Everything he knew about bipeds were hearsay and myth. Hell he didn't even know if this thing was a girl, he only knew she was from the stories. The raptors of his pack had only heard the stories of when the bipeds had been on the island last and the only one left was Rela's little Halfling.

She didn't quite count as a biped because she hadn't been raised as one. She was raptor, or half raptor, no other raptor counted her as full raptor because she wasn't. They said not even Rela herself called her Halfling a raptor.

But she sure as hell protected her as if she were one, so many chose to just leave her alone.

He should have left her alone. He wouldn't have been in this mess if he had left her alone.

After a while she lowered herself out of her crouched stance, she sat herself down, and he had sat himself down too figuring it was safe to do so.

She pulled that thing off of her back, which meant it wasn't a part of her but another thing that she wore, and opened it.

He had no idea that it could even do that!

He tried to not seem interested, but he couldn't help it. He watched her pull something out of the pouch of sorts and then she just put it beside herself. She then took a good look at the slice he had left along her arm. It was bleeding, but not as badly as it could have been if he had managed to get his mouth around that arm like he wanted to.

She looked at it carefully before slowly beginning to wrap her arm up with the second skin. She went very clumsily about it, but she managed to wrap it all the way up, to the point where she wasn't dripping blood anymore.

He took a good long look at her, watched her as she struggle to secure it to something and then looked to his leg. She had done something as well, he had chewed it off, but he had woken up with that stuff around his leg.

"What is that stuff?" he asked her.

He knew she understood them. She was the only biped that could.

The little Halfling turned to him her wide eyes taking him in carefully before saying: "They're healing skins. You wrap them around the injury and it keeps it from bleeding. Helps the cut heal."

And she had wrapped them around him. Why? Why was she doing this?

He put his snout into the little mini pool, it had been filled with water, he was going to assume by her doing, but it was empty now. He licked at the bottom hoping that he had forgotten some but it was dry.

"I could get more for you," she offered. "But I can't if you're going to bite me again."

And he would bite her again if she got close. But he was thirsty.

"I can knock it over," he offered.

"Okay, go ahead."

He deliberated bumped his snout into the little water holder and then watched it move across the strangely smooth floor and closer to her. It wasn't that close to her, she had to step towards him to pick it up, which she did, very quickly, darting back lest he tried to attack her again.

"Okay… you stay there," she said and then she slowly made her way down the contraption she was on.

If he wasn't so damn thirsty he might have rushed her, but he figured he could once he got the water.

Her feet touched the floor and she turned around, one hand still on the contraption, ready to climb it again if it looked like he was going to attack her. Eventually took half a step forward, stooped down for the water holder and then, once she had it in her arms she skittered back.

Rhum purposefully stayed where he was, to show her that he wasn't going to attack her, though every inch of him wanted to.

"I'll be right back," she said and then she rushed off.

He watched her go and then sat back.

Honestly what was he going to do? He was hurt. Badly hurt, and none of his pack had been jumping to help him. In fact they had left him behind.

That made sense, no matter how much it hurt, because that was the way of the jungle. He was useless to them now, why would they stay to help him?

So why had the little Halfling helped him?

She wasn't even part of his pack, why the hell had she cared?

Was this a weird biped thing? Was she planning on fattening him up and eating him because how was she going to do that? She didn't hunt, or at least, no other pack had seen her hunting with Rela's pack. So… what was she going to do? What was the purpose of this?

She took a long time to get back, and when she did she had the water holder full to the brim. She carefully put it in front of him, then, before he could drink it she carefully picked out a leaf that had been floating in it.

Then she scampered away like he was going to attack her again.

Well he should have.

But he was just so damn thirsty that all he wanted was to drink.

He shoved his whole snout into the cold water and then practically inhaled all that he could. When he drank his fill he turned wary eyes back to her.

She was back by the contraption, a hand on it like she was expecting to have to climb it in a hurry. The two regarded one another before he finally asked the question that was on his mind.

"Why are you helping me?"

The Halfling blinked her eyes at him and then shrugged. "I felt bad. It's my fault you got hurt and… well… everyone deserves a chance to live."

Okay. Some of that made sense. It was her fault that he had gotten hurt. But he was also chasing her with the plan to hurt her… kill her actually. So it was kind of her or him, and it had ended up being him. That was the way of the jungle, one or the other. The jungle gave you one chance to live, and he had lost his, she shouldn't have been trying to change that.

But he was thankful that she was.

"I brought you food."

Rhum perked up right away. "Really?"

She nodded and pulled down her pouch. She started to pull out fish after fish and, tossing each one close to him so he could eat without her having to go close. He happily crunched his way through every fish she threw him until there was no more.

"Can I check your leg or… do you want me to go away?"

He looked back to his leg. It had stopped bleeding but he still couldn't put pressure on it.

"I can make sure it's okay… if you don't attack me…"

He thought about it, thought about her answer to his question and figured, you know, at this point, what could it hurt?

"Okay."

"You have to promise. Give me your word you won't attack me again," she said in a quite a bossy tone. The kind of tone an alpha would use. She must have got that from her mother.

He nodded to her, and she came away from the contraption. He could have betrayed her trust, he could have lunged the second she got close, but she had those healing skins in her hand and she had fed him.

If he killed her now how would he get food or water? He wouldn't survive without her and he knew that.

She got close to him, she looked at the leg closely and then put a hand to it.

"Feels hot, that's not good," she said. "I think I have to open it."

"What? Why?"

"Sometimes wounds get sick and you have to get it out," she said. "That happened to my arm once, it got all warm and puffy and my mom bit it and all the white sickness came out. After that my arm was better. I think I have to do that for you."

She went back into her pouch and pulled out a single raptor claw.

"This'll hurt… but I need to do it…"

Then without a single moment of warning she sliced the whole cut open again. The second she did he could see exactly what it was she was talking about, this greenish sort of liquid came out with the blood. She used her skins to wipe it all way, and she pushed at the wound until it the greenish-whiteness went away and then as soon as it had she started wrapping it until the whole wound was covered again.

"That should fix it," she said. "I'm going to fill up your water again, and I'll try to be back tomorrow with more food, but my mummy's a little mad at me for wandering off so don't worry if I'm late."

He nodded, let her scamper off. A plan formulating in his mind.

Have this little Halfling heal him, and when he was ready, when he was better, he'd take her down.

-JP-JP-JP-

Rela had noticed almost right away when Una started taking bits and pieces of the hunt.

It started first by noticing that Una always found her way to the hunt once it was finished. She also noticed that her hatchling was spending more and more time on her own.

At first Rela was certain that this was just a part of Una growing up. She wasn't really needed at that moment, and she had repeatedly told her mother that she was bored. Rela figured that her hatchling was exploring her mother's territory. She was trying to give her more independence during the day so she wouldn't run off during the night, and so far that had worked.

When she started showing up once the hunt was done Rela just assumed that the girl was lonely. That she had wanted to spend time with her mother and the rest of the pack. You know, because she had been complaining that she was bored.

It wasn't until she realized her little hatchling was taking pieces of the hunt that she realized something was up.

This was something that Una was prone to doing when the little ones were freshly hatched. She was constantly hoarding little nibbles and fish for the smaller ones to eat if the bigger ones weren't sharing. Which they wouldn't because that was the way of the jungle. If you weren't strong enough to get food in the nest you wouldn't survive in the jungle.

The problem was that there were no hatchlings to feed. All of them had grown up.

So what was she feeding?

She had noticed that if Rela's pack took down a Pachycephalosaur she always came, taking down any other prey was hit or miss, but she always showed up for Pachycephalosaur meat.

To test her theory she had set out to take down a Pachycephalosaur and then she'd see if her hatchling came.

Sure enough she showed up once their prey was down. Rela, who had been looking out for her, noticed right away when she showed up in the trees just on the out fridge of where the prey had fallen. She let her mother eat before coming over to lean against her, like she usually did when she was lonely and wanted to spend time with her.

They spoke about what she had been doing and when she planned to be back at the nest that day. Then made herself busy with the others that were on that hunt today.

She pretended to not notice her hatchling hack a hunk of meat off once everyone was done. She pretended to not notice her hatchling dash into the bushes, but she did follow.

She watched her stuff her pouch with the meat she had stolen and then she took off into the jungle, climbing up into the trees to move through.

And Rela followed, just a little ways away from her, just out of sight, watching her through the branches, being sure not to lose her.

She wanted to see what her hatchling was doing, and if it was what Rela thought it was, she was going to be very angry.

-JP-JP-JP-

The second he heard her feet on the floor, Rhum was excited.

He heard her land on the top of his little hideaway and then her head poke out, hanging upside down from the of the wooden structure he was using as a den.

"Guess what I got you!" she crowed and he began to bounce.

"Something good?"

"Yes!" she cried dropping the bag on the floor and then jumping down herself. She rooted through it before turning a happy face to him.

"Look Pachy! Your favourite!"

She pulled the hunk of meat out of her bag and dropped it at his feet. He tucked in right away. The morsels she was bringing were getting bigger and bigger as of late, which meant sooner or later the others in her pack were going to notice and start asking what she was doing.

He had to hope that, by then, he would be fully healed and he could prove himself worthy to be taken in by a new pack, a stronger pack.

They had been at this for a while now and Rhum had long since decided that he wasn't going to go through his original plan.

He didn't want to take her down anymore, he didn't want to hurt her. The little Halfling was nice, and she cared more about him than any of his pack did.

He learned that while Una was a lot older than him, she really wasn't. Bipeds aged differently apparently. So while she was older in Raptor years, in biped years she was still a hatchling.

He learned her name was Una, a name her mother had given her. He learned that she was a hatchling minder because she wasn't good at anything else. She wasn't a good tracker, she wasn't a good hunter, she didn't have sharp claws or sharp teeth, she was literally the worst predator ever.

The fact that her mother let her run around alone so much was worrying because what if something happened to her?

The plan was for her to climb into the trees but… what was that going to do against a T-Rex who was as tall as most trees and strong enough to knock them down?

She shouldn't be out by herself.

Her mother's pack was large enough to have someone available to stay with her, why wasn't that an option for them?

Oh, if he could, he'd tell her mother how stupid it was to let this defenceless hatchling run around on her own.

It was why he was happier when she was there with him, at least he knew she was safe.

By the time he was done eating she had unwrapped the healing skins on his leg again to look at the injury. He had opened it up yesterday chasing after her in a game of hunt. Before that he had been healing quite nicely.

"It looks okay," she said. "It isn't hot anymore. If you're careful you should be good to go back to your pack in a few nights."

Did he want to go back to his pack though?

They probably wouldn't be too happy to have him show up after being gone for so long. Probably wouldn't be happy to hear that he had been saved by the little Halfling that everyone despised. She wasn't even that bad.

"I'm getting tired of just sitting," he grumbled. "If I don't move my legs are gonna be useless."

"Maybe start with walking instead of running. If you start big you're gonna make it…"

Whatever she was going to say was cut off when something grabbed her and ripped her away from him.

Rhum barked in surprise jumping to his feet despite the twinge in his leg.

He hadn't sensed danger at all, his sense must have been dulled for this break he had been having.

But when he got to his feet he could see that Una was fine, she had literally been tossed away and behind the other raptor, her mother.

The Alpha stood in front of him, as tall as she could be, looking right at him. She was in her challenging stance, she was daring him to attack her.

But he also realized that she hadn't meant been there to hurt Una, she thought she was saving her from him.

"Mummy, mummy, wait!" Una cried running to get in between them. "He's not bad, he's a nice raptor."

The Alpha's angry eyes narrowed in on Una and Rhum fought the urge to bite into her pouch and drag her over to him.

"You I will deal with later…"

"But mummy—" "NO!" her mother barked. "You went against every law of the jungle to do this. Do you understand?"

"I… I do but… so did you," she whispered.

Ohh… she had her there.

"I just wanted to make it better," Una said. "He was hurt and it was my fault and I wanted to make it better."

For a second the Alpha softened, she bent towards her, nudging her softly with her snout.

"This is not like when I rescue you. He is someone who was trying to kill you. Rival pack members cannot be trusted…"

"I can be," he said quickly being sure to keep himself in a crouched lower stance so she knew that he wasn't trying to challenge her. "Pretty sure I'm rogue right now. Got no pack. Mine… mine left me behind…"

He had the Alpha's attention now. She was staring at him again almost thoughtfully.

"See, he needs a pack. Can we keep him?"

"Keep him," she echoed. "What use would he be?"

"Well for starters he's huge! Just look at him, he's bigger than you!"

It wasn't the first time someone had commented on his size, he actually got it a lot. And yes, it would, most likely, be a point in his favour.

"You let her wander on her own," he said. "She needs someone to go with her, keep her safe."

"And you'd want to do that?"

"Why doesn't anyone in your pack want to?"

"I'm annoying!" Una cried and then giggled in her little biped way.

Her mother glanced down to her and then back to Rhum. "Yes. That."

"Well I don't think she's annoying. Or… she's at the very least manageable to me… and she's right. I'm big. And I'm strong. I'd be good for hunts. Or to keep her company so no one else has to."

The Alpha took some time to think this over and then said: "You'd have to swear allegiance to me."

"Of course. I am always loyal to my alpha. This will be no different."

She looked down to her hatchling, who was baring her teeth up at her in what he now knew was a happy way. He had a feeling that she knew that she was going to get her way.

Her mummy was going to let her keep him.

"Fine, trial basis," she said. "But if my hatchling gets hurt on my watch, I will take you apart myself."

Rhum had no doubt that this would be the case and he thought that fair.

He was just happy he had a new pack.