New Worlds
AvalonReeseFanFics
A/N: Hello there my wonderful readers! We've got another cute little chapter, another Part 1 of 2. Una is getting older and braver and now she has her friend to back her up. After this story I'm going to be debuting the last story in the series which is Her World which is Two Worlds but told entirely from Una's perspective. There will also be a few extra chapters of her and Eric interacting, cool right?! Tell me if you're getting excited!
Chapter 16 – The Tenacious Tens Part 1
It was so much more fun now that she had Rhum to go places with her.
For starters her mummy was so much more lenient about where she went and how long she was away from the nest, so long as Rhum was there with her. She had taught Rhum to respond to calls, so she could bray at any point during the day and he would answer and she would know both of them were safe.
And it was definitely easier to walk around now that she had him. Nothing really bothered her anymore. Herbivores didn't give her a second glance, and smaller predators gave her a wide berth now. All because Rhum was with her and he was much, much bigger than anything they normal came against.
Not that he didn't have to literally pick her up out of a swarm of Compies once, because he did have to do that, but mostly he managed her quite nicely.
It meant her mother didn't have to worry as much about her as she usually did.
After a full moon cycle they had a wonderful routine going. In the morning Una would tell Rhum where she wanted to go, and he'd say yes or no. Most of the time he said yes, and when he said no, usually she could convince him to change his mind.
They'd relay to her mother where they planned to go, sometimes leaving out the iffy places that would make her mother nervous, and then spend most of the day either making their way to that place or in that place. He'd call out to her mother when necessary, and he spent a lot of time teaching her hunting techniques.
When he realized she couldn't scent well, he started marking trees with his claws, always somewhere where she could see, so she knew where her mummy's territory started and ended. She did get better at running, and even climbing and jumping.
He didn't even mind that she was weird.
They did have slow days though, and this was one of their slower days.
Today was mostly cloud watching. This was where they'd go to grab food. She'd grab her sweet fruit and he'd grab a haunch from the hunt and they'd sit in the grass with the Herbivores around them watching the clouds go by.
These were her favourite kind of days, because the day could just trickle by. There was nothing she had to worry about, she could jut lay in the cool grass and let the sun beat down on her.
By this point the different herds were all pretty relaxed with having them around. Rhum was always certain not to make sudden movements so they knew he wasn't on the hunt. So they were milling about grazing as they normally did.
Closer then they would be to most carnivores, but still giving her a wide berth. They would no longer panic if they wandered too close to her and Rhum.
They had maybe been there for half the day, Una had just finished swimming to cool herself down. She had caught some fish for Rhum and splashed him too to help him cool down. They had been drying off in the sun when the Brontosauruses came into the meadow.
They must have been migrating to their nesting area because they usually weren't over here.
But now that they were she wanted to have fun.
Rhum had noticed right away, he could see the smile on her face and he was immediately hissing.
"No. Don't you even think about it."
"Oh stop being a worry wart."
"No. Una. No, your mom was clear, no rides on the Bronts, you'll be stuck for who knows how long…"
"Oh they're grazing, it won't be long!"
"You can't guarantee that."
"You can ask them to put me down," she said already standing up and skipping towards the tree.
Rhum dutifully followed after her. "Una, we've talked about this, they can't hear me from way up there…"
"Oh it's fine, look it's Big Boy," she said pointing to the largest Brontosauruses of the pack. Rhum did not like Big Boy, that was because he was the Alpha of the group and apparently didn't listen to Rhum when he tried to talk to him. But Una liked him because he was the tallest and he always carefully let her down.
She always knew which Bront was him because he had scars around his front leg. She wasn't sure what it was from, but he clearly won that fight.
"Hi Big Boy!" she called up in her raptorish. He didn't answer right away, as he was eating, but he did eventually sort of look in her direction and low at her. It was loud, but she knew he didn't mean it in a scary way.
"Please don't!" Rhum called but Una jumped right up into that tree and began to climb up. She got all the way up to where he was plucking leaves from branches.
"Hi Big Boy," she called again a little softer now that she was closer to him. "Is it okay if I go for a ride?"
He had stared at her for a long while, chewing his most recent mouthful, before he eventually leaned in.
She very excitedly hopped onto the top of his head and then he straightened again. He was clearly done eating, he was going to go back to watching over his herd which meant that they were heading for the middle of the meadow.
As per usual he walked slowly and deliberately. Normally there was a sort of bob in their heads as they moved, but he always made sure that he was level for every step when she was on top of him. But as he was walking she noted that he wasn't really walking in a straight line. He seemed to be veering.
"What's wrong?" she asked even though he couldn't understand her. "Are you hurt?"
She leaned over to look down at him, trying to see if she was missing something, and that was when she noticed he was blinking just in one eye.
Huh that wasn't normal.
Though she shouldn't have, she slid down his snout to try and get a good look at his face and that eye that was overly blinking. The second she did he stopped walking, just came to a complete halt and let out a little bellow, possibly of surprise.
Maybe he thought she had fallen.
She peered into that eye and noted that something seemed to be caught. Maybe a stick, but that would explain why he was blinking, maybe he couldn't see because of it.
It took some reaching, but eventually she got close enough to grab it. She yanked it right out from under his eyelid, and then waited as it blinked over and over and eventually just… stopped.
"There is that better?" she asked and it lowed again and then slowly began to lower it's head towards the grass.
Oh, so the ride was over now.
She waited until he got all the way down, and she slid off of his snout and to the grass. Rhum was a little way away having followed them to this point. Once she was on the ground Big Boy nudged her a little too hard with his snout and knocked her over. It wasn't an aggressive thing, but instead a nice gesture.
"You're welcome," she called and then he was straightening again and moving away.
"What was that about?" Rhum asked, coming closer now that Big Boy was walking away.
"Oh, he had something stuck in his eye."
"And you helped him? We could have used that to our advantage. We could have been the first Raptor pack to take down a Bront."
Una scowled at him. "I already told you, if we hunt while we're relaxing they won't let us come here."
Rhum huffed but didn't argue. Instead they returned to where the pouch had been abandoned and then decided it was time to go back to the nest.
But after that, every time they went to the meadow, if the Brontosauruses were there, even if it wasn't Big Boy's herd, the Alpha would be sure that Una was under his protective watch.
-JP-JP-JP-
On the really hot days, Una liked to swim.
They'd follow their little creek down to where it widened and then they'd wade in. Or Rhum would wade in and Una would go out farther to swim.
They'd spend the day in the shade of the reeds, fishing and swimming before drying off in the sun.
That day was like no other hot day.
Her mom and the other raptors were hunting in the shade that day, they might even come to join her at the water, but for that moment it was just her and Rhum.
Una had gone in to paddle, noting that none of the regular aquatic creatures were there to play with. Normally she'd go further out into the water where the currents were stronger, but she only did if there were Hadrosaurs in the water for her to crash into because they'd help her get back to shore.
Rhum hated it when she did that.
"You're going to get swept away one day and then what am I going to tell your mother?!" he'd snap at her but she never listened to him.
But since there were no Hadrosaurs that day, she stayed closer to the shore which kept him happy too.
They were swimming for a bit before she heard the honking.
Una was excited right away because that sounded like a Hadrosaur, and if it was them she could go out farther.
But she only heard the honking once, and then it would go quiet and she would hear it again.
So it was only one Hadrosaur and she had absolutely no idea where it was.
She paddled around before she found it.
"Look, it's a Hadry!" Una cried pointing at the giant crested beast. "What's it doing?"
The large Hadrosaur was just chilling midway into the river, it's head barely above the water. Every now and then it would honk in a distressed sort of way but its herd was no longer with it.
"I unno… leave it alone…"
"But something's wrong," Una said already paddling towards it.
"So? Una, leave it alone," Rhum called trailing after her while sticking to the shallows. "Una I'm serious," but she didn't listen to him.
She got a little closer and circled the head of the dinosaur, it's large wide eyes following her, huffing in a nervous way. But otherwise it didn't move.
If it was that nervous it would have moved away from her, or moved the water in some way. There had to be a reason why it hadn't done that.
"I think it's stuck."
"That is not our problem!" Rhum called.
Una ducked under the water to see if it was stuck on something under and saw that it's whole back leg was tangled up in the underwater plants.
"It is stuck!" she cried once she resurfaced. She paddled quickly to Rhum and then scampered out of the water to her pouch.
"Una… if it's stuck we should leave it…"
"I'm not going to leave it, it can barely touch the bottom, it's gonna drown," she said as she dug through the pouch looking for her mother's claw.
"Again, that is not our problem, this is the way of the jungle…"
"You keep saying that, but you're alive because I went against the way of the jungle. I'm alive because my mom went against the way of the jungle."
She found her claw and immediately moved back towards the water.
"Una… you can't save everything," he chided as he followed her back into the water.
Eventually the water got too deep and he came to a stop but Una kept going. "I know that, but I can save the ones I can. And it's not like I'm interrupting a hunt. It's stuck, that's all. You'd want one of them to help me if I was stuck in the rapids, right?"
Behind her Rhum huffed because he knew it was true, and he knew they had done that for her before.
He stopped arguing with her after that, which was good because she was basically swimming away and back to the Hadrosaur's head. It honked again, the sound getting more and more sad as it was clearly literally about to slip under.
"Hold on, I'm coming," she cried as she swam towards it and it once again honked at her in response.
When she got close to it, she took another deep breath and then dove down as far as she could go. She carefully swam up to the stuck leg, grabbed a fistful of weeds with one hand and went about hacking with the other.
She did this until she needed to breathe, where she then swam to the surface, took another deep breath and dove back down.
She did this at least five times before she could see the leg starting to free itself and the Hadrosaur realized it too.
It started to tug at the leg, loosening the rest of the weeds around it, and upsetting the water around them.
The current pushed her away and she had to resurface just as it broke free.
It honked loudly, almost triumphantly as it began to swim away from her and Una swam back towards Rhum and the shallows.
"You're welcome!" she called over her shoulder as she swam away. She joined Rhum on the shore as he stared down at her.
"Feel better?" he asked dryly but she just smiled up at him.
"Yes, yes I do."
She threw her claw back into the pouch and then went and laid herself out in the sun. Rhum came to join her, the two basking out in the sun together.
They watched as the Hadrosaur swam back in forth in front of them, diving down underwater and coming back up. It was a little odd that it hadn't just left to find the rest of it's herd, but it was probably enjoying its freedom and eating.
They didn't know how long the poor thing had been stuck, it was probably hungry.
She had started to doze a bit when Rhum suddenly startled her awake. He was standing above her, slowly attempting to back away, and she realized that something was blocking a sun.
It wasn't a cloud though, it was the Hadrosaur, it had come out of the water and was now looming above her, still a safe distance away, shifting back and forth on it's feet as Rhum barked and hissed at it.
"Una… Una… run!" Rhum cried but Una didn't get a chance.
The Hadrosaur continued to walk towards her until it was basically standing above her. She had tried to back away but she got tripped up on her pouch and fell over.
She wondered if it would stomp her, she watched a few of the egg laying females do that to a herd of Compies that had been trying to get at their nest. But instead of squishing her under it's large three toed foot, it dropped this giant-still-very-alive fish on her.
Una let out of grunt of surprise as it landed in her lap and then it promptly flopped off of her.
She was never any good at catching the big fish, only because they were always in the deeper parts of the river. Even if she could spear them, they were often snatched up by other dinosaurs or fish before she could get to them. Though most frequently her little barb did nothing to them.
The Hadrosaur honked at her again and then just stomped off back to the water, no doubt to go in search of it's herd. Rhum eventually came back to her using his foot to claw at the fish to get it to stop flopping.
"It said thank you," he told her and she nodded, yeah she figured that was what it had said.
"You're such a scardy-raptor," she said. "Running from a Hadry."
Rhum hissed at her. "That Hadry is five times bigger than me, how was I to take it on, on my own?"
In the distance came the worried bark of her mother and both she and Rhum barked back that she was fine, and that they had a large fish to share.
It was very nice of it to fish something for her. She wondered if she could get the others to do that for her too.