Author's Note

Welcome to my newest Land Before Time fanfiction.

Some of you may recognize this story (at least some of the characters and some of the plotline once it really gets going). I wrote it back in…2015? It had been titled "Truths," but I changed it to something cooler XD. I took Truths down sometime in 2017. I've obviously returned to the fandom, and as I've been writing my other fics, I thought, "maybe I should rewrite this one." I also figured it would be good to rewrite it because I've given permission for a certain someone to use my characters, and it would be nice for people to read the characters in their own story XD. Please, check out Trookay's story, Metempsychosis: It Whispers. They are a freaking amazing writer.

Anywho, this story is a side story to my Cold Fire Chronicles series, but no humans will be showing up, and you don't need any knowledge about that series to read this one. I wanted to make a story with just dinosaurs. As seen in the blurb, this story starts just after the Great Earthshake during the first movie (but the Gang are all aged up like they are in CFC). This fic will have mostly OCs, but many of these OCs will have connections to canon characters ;).

I'll try to update this story every three months on the first Saturday of the third month.

Now, let's begin…

Part 1; The Journey Begins

Cool rain fell upon the body of a young adult sauropod. Rivets ran down her dull-magenta flank as it rose and fell with each slow breath. An unnatural presence hung in the air. Maybe it was because no rain had fallen in nearly a year since the region had begun to change. Perhaps it was because of the sudden development of ominous dark clouds that cast the world into darkness moments after the earth quaked and shattered. Or maybe it was just the strange sensation that tingled scales and rose feathers when the first drops of rain touched the parched earth. No words were spoken between families or the unfamiliar as the lesser affected oasis's denizens took cover from the strange rain.

The unconscious sauropod groaned, raking a foreleg through the muddy earth. Her tail lashed, spraying mud when her spindly tail tip whipped through a puddle. Consciousness crawled to the surface. She could feel the cool rain on her scales, and the muffled thunder before a flash of lightning made her muscles tense. She groaned again, a shudder running through the length of her massive body.

Everything hurt.

But she needed to get up. Carnivores could be upon her. Even when her mind swam and the back of her head throbbed, the deep fear of flashing teeth and glinting eyes pushed the female to find her footing, no matter how much it hurt. She hadn't opened her eyes yet as her feet scrabbled for a hold, and her muscles heaved with the effort to haul her massive body upwards. With another low groan, the long-neck pushed herself to her belly, only for her neck and head to slump to the muddy ground, darkness swarming her vision and numbness invading her extremities. Her flanks heaved as she desperately grasped at the wavering consciousness.

Heartbeats passed. She groaned again, eyes peeling open. She stared into the rain, unable to remember how she ended up in her current predicament. She knew she was in an oasis, and her mother and sisters had gone searching for better food while she stayed behind. Now, she was muddy, torrents fell from the sky, and her head hurt like a club-tail had whacked the back of her skull. Just as her eyes drifted close, unable to push through the thick fog shrouding her mind, the earth shook.

She jolted upright, nearly downing herself a second time when her world darkened with the throbbing pain in her head. The earth ceased moving as she desperately clawed for wakefulness to stay with her. Bile rose in the back of her throat. Combined with the trembling earth and her head wound, she couldn't keep her morning meal down. She stared at her stomach contents, the wave of nausea settling down into an uncomfortable feeling coating her stomach.

Something roared in the distance.

The sauropod's head snapped in its direction, cringing in pain. She needed to get to her feet. Now. This oasis was not protected from carnivores, and without her mother and sisters, she could only rely on herself. Struggling to her feet, she stood in the pouring rain. Head hanging low, her snout nearly touched the muddy ground. It was then that she finally noticed the sharp smell of blood when something warm trickled into her mouth. Just as sharp as the smell, it was salty and made her stomach churn again.

Blood. Her blood.

The long-neck kept her head lowered, just wanting the pain in the back of her skull to stop throbbing. She didn't care that more dripped down her jaw from the ghastly wound on the back of her head. She'd tasted it more often than not to the point that it kept her from depositing her recent stomach contents, not that it currently matter, having already emptied herself. For now, she just needed to keep her bearings and hoped that whatever predator that had called to the crying heavens had found a different meal.

She forced her mind back to what had happened before she lost consciousness. She must have hit her head when the first earthquake occurred, and a glance at where she had been laying confirmed her thoughts. There was a chunk of rock jutting from where her head had been lying. With a deep exhale, she closed her eyes and just stood on her four feet, trying to regain more of her bearings.

Bronze and white feathers filled her mind.

Were her mother and sisters alright?

"Mother!" The long-neck's voice bellowed into the gloom of the storm, her voice rougher than the usual sauropod's. Compared to the deep rumbles of her kind, akin to cold water flowing over long-since smoothed stone, her voice was rougher, as if those stones hadn't yet been smoothed to perfection.

"Sorrel! Sky!" She called out to her sisters.

Only a rumble of thunder answered.

She called again. There was no answer. Her long tail lashed as she frowned at the dark sky. Were they okay in the storm? Did they find shelter, and were they unharmed from the earthquake? She obviously wasn't, but at least she was alive. Either way, she couldn't go looking for them. Rain still poured, and her throbbing head was just as much a danger to her as it was a carnivore. She'd have to wait and hope they would come back after the storm had run its course.

Shaking the cold rain from her muddy body, the long-neck glanced over herself for any other wounds. Her dull-magenta scales were unmarked, and it appeared that the only injury she suffered was a blow to the back of her head. Overall, the female looked like a typical long-neck of her kind. A darker stripe of dull magenta ran from the top of her snout, the length of her long neck, down her back, and all the way to the tip of her tail while her underside was a light tawny. Her kind of long-neck, the whip-tails, didn't have anything special other than their relatively large size and whip-like tails.

In all honesty, she was a bit jealous of the long-necks that had unique variations to their bodies, from the spine-necks, with their deadly neck spines, to the rock-backs with boney disks just under their scales. Then there were the mace-tails with their four-pointed, heavy tail tips that could deliver just as nasty of a blow as the armored, low to the ground, club-tails.

When she felt ready to move, the long-neck pushed through the rain, eyes narrowed, but her teal gaze sweeping for hungry sharp-teeth. However, it seemed everyone had taken cover from the pounding rain, and she was the only one stupid enough to be caught in the downpour. The silence was eerie, her scales crawling. This wasn't like the torrential rains she and her family sat and watched during green-leaf. Those were welcoming rains or, on occasions, a reason for worry. This downpour was something different. It smelled different. It felt different. She couldn't tell if it was the rain that was making her spine tingle or if it was the throbbing of her head.

The sauropod pushed through a water ladened frond and paused, flank pressed against the tree as she searched for the glinting eyes of a predator. She might be large, but that didn't mean carnivores couldn't come in her size or that a pack of large sickle-claws couldn't take her down. Her mother had taught her and her sisters everything she could about predators. Even when the long-neck didn't see the sharp eyes or the powerful body of a stalking predator, she did not let up her visual search. An ache ran through her body, and her tail flicked in frustration. She had to keep moving and find a decent shelter in the small oasis.

Hauling her large body over a ridge, she gazed across the barren landscape that stretched past the oasis. The earthquake had done more damage than she ever thought one could. Pillars of earth had exploded from the ground, and other sections of land had fallen. Cracks spread throughout the shattered landscape and, as she stared past the rain, she recognized bodies. Lightning lit up the world. Her heart clenched, and the tingle running the length of her spine spread across her scales.

There were so many bodies.

Swallowing hard, she searched for the forms of her family. There was the unmoving form of a spike-tail, half their body stuck under rubble. A family of tiny sprinters lay, scalded alive by the hot steam still wafting from the vent that had opened beside them. A pair of spike-thumbs lay beside each other, blood still running from their bodies even as the torrents of rain washed it away. The long-neck couldn't see any of her family, but that didn't mean they weren't affected by the earthquake.

She placed her foot on the muddy earth vacant of grass. She withdrew with a hiss, tail lashing. A surge had jolted through her body as if the oasis didn't want her to leave, as if it was warning her not to go out in the dangerous land that had killed so many. She stepped back, swallowing hard as she stared into the rain. In her condition, she shouldn't walk the ravaged land. But her family…

"Amazing, isn't it."

The long-neck snapped her attention to the figure who had snuck up on her. He was a tiny sprinter barely bigger than her foot. Typical of his kind, he was covered in pale grey fuzz with the usual darker back and lighter underbelly. The little herbivore stared up at her with large orange eyes, waiting for her to speak. He looked a bit comical with one of his tusks sticking out the side of his mouth.

"Yeah," She breathed, returning her gaze to the destroyed landscape. "It's amazing that it didn't touch the oasis." Her eyes traced the cracks that spiderwebbed across the parched earth. None had reached the lush grass the pair stood on.

"Might not have touched it, but I sure felt the tremors. Scared my kids half to death. And this storm is something else, huh?" He lifted his head to the downpour and outstretched a tiny paw. "Feels strange, doesn't it?"

Her tail lashed as she dragged a foot through the sodden ground. Grass pulled away, leaving a muddy trench. "Yeah."

The sprinter huffed. "Those poor fools out there. Saw each of them bodies fall. But life goes on. Now I don't have to worry about some herd of spike-tails tromping through here eating all the greens. This place ain't a good place for big dinosaurs like yourself to stay long." He looked up at her again and tilted his head. "Say, you've got a nasty gash on your head, lady long-neck. Want me to take a look?"

Too engrossed in the carnage, a heartbeat passed before she registered that he was talking to her. She looked down at the tiny dinosaur, "Oh…um…you know how to treat wounds?"

"Sure I do. Had to patch up my herd-mates all the time when I was still living with them. Was the head healer and damn good at it. Had a great apprentice until she was eaten by a sickle-claw. But what can a little dinosaur like me do against one of those big bastards? Oh, well, that herd went on, and I left. They better hope they found a damn good healer because I was the best they ever had, and Sandstone would have been as great as me, but she got picked off."

The long-neck shifted in discomfort. The sprinter didn't take notice, prancing across the sodden earth. She followed, one of her long strides equaling ten of his quick steps.

"What's your name, lady long-neck?" The tiny grey dinosaur asked before leaping onto a fallen log. "I'm Silverback, but my back ain't that silver. If anything, Ma should have named me Silverbelly." True to his statement, most of his body was a simple grey, like a common storm, but his back was a much darker grey, more like the sinister clouds that the rains currently fell from. His underside was a far paler, almost silvery color. The dark grey quills covering his back stood on end when a roar filled the damp air.

"Damn bastard. Keeps roaring and roaring and roaring. All the damn time. Wish I knew some sharp-tooth tongue, then I could understand what he's so angry with." The dark quills laid flat, but he kept staring as if waiting for a figure to appear under the shadow of the thundercloud.

"He's not saying anything," the long-neck mumbled.

"What'd ya mean? You know sharp-teeth can speak, don't ya? I know lots of ya big-footed leaf-eaters don't think they can. But pluck all the quills from my back, I know they can talk. Too bad I can't understand a damn word of it, no matter how much I listen to them yammer. Growling and screeching and hissing." Silverback shook out his dripping wet feathers and continued walking.

The long-neck opened her mouth the say that the predator really wasn't saying anything. They were just roars. Unless what she had been taught of the sharp-tooth tongue hadn't included whatever words they were speaking. She doubted it, though. Her teacher was very experienced in the language of carnivores. Then again, if the dialect was different enough…

She squeezed her eyes shut, pushing the thoughts away just as another squeezed itself through. She never introduced herself. Another heartbeat of hesitation followed before she gave Silverback an answer.

"My name is Hyacinth."

"Hyacinth?" Silverback looked over his shoulder, orange eyes narrowed. "Not exactly colored like one. Should be brighter and pinker or purpler. Kind of a soft name for a long-neck too." He shrugged, sprang off another log, and sprinted into a thicket. He returned a few heartbeats later, a sandy-colored sprinter squeezing through the tight woven branches and vines following him. She chittered, blinking large yellow eyes at the massive form of Hyacinth.

"Oh my. I haven't been this close to a long-neck in years. Hello, sweetie."

"Um…hello." Hyacinth carefully lowered herself to the ground, wincing as the pounding in the back of her head flared. Luckily, several large trees were near the sprinters' nest that kept the cool deluge off her still aching body. Already, exhaustion pulled on her eyelids even though it was only midday. Maybe she could sleep now. The sprinters weren't big, but they were decent warning systems if a sharp-tooth did step foot into the oasis.

Something pecked below her eye-ridge. She opened her eyes.

Silverback was the culprit, a frown pulling on the corners of his mouth. "Stay awake, lady long-neck. If you go to sleep with that nasty head injury of yours, you might not wake up."

Hyacinth lifted her head, but Silverback leaped onto her neck. "You're going to keep your head on the ground. I've got to see how bad this wound is." His small hind claws prickled her scales as he stepped across her neck.

As she waited, four pairs of eyes peered out from the darkness of the thicket. A sandy-and-grey feathered head peaked out, followed by a sandy-colored head. When their bodies emerged from the shadows of their nest, two more grey children followed. As their father prodded the long-neck's wound with his paws, they hesitantly approached Hyacinth. The bravest of the four, the mottled grey and sand-colored child sniffed the long-neck's snout. They sat back and stared up at Hyacinth, eyes as orange as their father's.

"Your eyes are really pretty." He grabbed the top of her snout, tiny claws scrabbling at her smooth dull-magenta scales. "They're like those glowing rocks, but a little darker and…" his eyes narrowed in thought. "A little greener."

"Thank you." Hyacinth smiled, wincing when Silverback touched her wound.

"Well, lady long-neck Hyacinth." Silverback leaped off her neck. "That's a real nasty gash ya got on the back of your head. Lots of bleeding, but doesn't look like your skull's been cracked. Do you know how it happened?"

"I think when the earthquake started, I must have slipped and fell and hit my head. I don't really remember. I just woke up in the mud."

"That ain't good." Silverback tapped his beak in thought. "Well, you're alive. I'll get some herbs to patch up the wound. Just keep your wits about you. Best if you stay in the oasis for a few more days. Don't need you passing out in the sun. If that happens, you'll have a sharp-tooth eating you alive. Seen it a couple times myself."

Hyacinth shuddered. "If you think that's best, then I will stay in the oasis, sir." The numerous bodies sprawled across the barren wasteland prickled her mind. She needed to make sure her mother and sisters were okay. However, they could take care of themselves. She wouldn't be doing them any good if her head injury became worse. Still, she couldn't stay longer than a few days. The oasis was small and wouldn't properly support her for more than half a moon-cycle.

"Eroda. Kids. Keep the lady long-neck awake. I've got to get some purplesun. Great for keeping wounds clean. Keeps that nasty yellow ooze away. Good for healing wounds and tastes delicious too. Wish it grew more, but at least it's everywhere here." He kept muttering to himself as he disappeared under dripping wet foliage.

The sandy form of Silverback's mate, Eroda, settled in front of Hyacinth's snout. "May I ask why you're staying in the oasis and where you're heading?"

"The same reason as everyone else. The land's dying, and this little oasis was a good resting spot for my mother and sisters."

"Your mother? I didn't see another long-neck here."

Worry prickled at the back of Hyacinth's skull. "She and my sisters left before the earthquake happened. We arrived this morning." She looked past the rain where the earthquake had ravaged the land, the broken bodies of her family flashing behind her eyes. Her long tail lashed as if trying to slice through the images. She turned back to Eroda, swallowing hard. "So…um…why are you in the oasis? Are you staying here permanently?"

"As long as we can." Eroda smiled at her tussling children. They chittered and laughed as they rolled in the mud. "This oasis might be small, but it easily supports a small family of sprinters and a paw full of the larger kinds as long as they don't stay too long." She raised a paw and grasped a large leaf that hung over her. "We're lucky that the oasis hadn't disappeared when the land started dying years ago. Good thing no bigger dinosaurs have eaten everything either."

Eroda moved along the length of the large leaf until both paws were braced on its bare stem. Leaping, she clamped her jaws onto the stem and bit down. It tore away with a bit of gnawing, and she dropped to her feet. Turning the leaf in her paws, she stared at the end she had bitten. "This oasis is amazing. I've never seen anything like it before in my life. The water is always fresh and is always flowing, no matter how hot it has been or how dry it is outside the oasis. And the food. Everything I have eaten is the most delicious thing I have ever tasted. The berries are so sweet, the nuts and seeds aren't dry and bland. Everything grows so fast here. I'll bet the quills off my back that this leaf will grow back in three days." Eroda sighed, her yellow gaze cast on her children again. "It's amazing here. It's the perfect place to raise my children. This oasis, it's like it's—"

"Magical." A knowing smile tugged at the corner of Hyacinth's mouth.

"Magic? What do you mean magic?" Eroda's curious words caught her children's attention. They stopped playing and slowly crept up to the long-neck. The four glanced between themselves, chirping and chittering, apparent excitement resonating through their unique dialect. Eyes a spectrum of orange to yellow, stared at Hyacinth, waiting for her to further explain.

"It's the glowing blue crystals in the center of the oasis. Have you noticed that they are directly in the middle of all this lush greenery? Have you noticed how they make your scales tingle, or your feathers stand just a little on end, but all in a good way? My mother knows a lot about these magical crystals. They are called Shards and are scattered throughout the world." She looked up at the dark rain clouds, envisioning a burning blue rock streaking through the cloudless night sky.

"A stone of cold fire," The only male child gasped, his grey and sand tail almost wagging with excitement.

"Yes. That's another name for them. Every so often, one of the flaming rocks will fall from the sky. Most of the time, they break into thousands of fragments before they can land, spreading Shards everywhere. But, sometimes, very, very rarely, it will stay in one piece.

"Does that mean, if we touch it, we'll get magical powers?" The boy asked, his legs ready to spring him forward to the glowing rocks.

"Can I read Ashtail's mind and find out where she hid my favorite stone?" one of the grey females asked.

"Can I moved water out of the puddles and splash all my annoying siblings?" the sand-colored female asked. "Especially Pyrite." She sent a glare at her mottled grey and brown brother.

Hyacinth laughed. "Sadly, no dinosaur, flyer, or swimmer can just get powers. Only under very, very special conditions can they develop. Thin-skins on the other foot… as long as they are touching a Shard, they can do wondrous things."

"Why can thin-skins do such cool things?" the other grey female pouted. "I want to read Charcoal's mind, so I know when she'll sneak up on me tomorrow."

"Because they are thin-skins. They are smaller than many dinosaurs and aren't born with claws, teeth, clubs, spikes, or armor. They are not fast like you sprinters. They do not have natural camouflage. They cannot fly, and they cannot swim as well as swimmers. They bleed too easily. So, they have been gifted with the magic of the Shards, that is, if they can get their hands on one."

"But they can make their own spikes, and they hunt in packs. They can be as dangerous as a sharp-tooth. I've seen it," Eroda said.

"And I can't be as dangerous as a sickle-claw?" Hyacinth stared across the landscape. "It's all a matter of perspective."

"So, how does one of us get powers?" Pyrite asked, hope in his large orange eyes.

"You can't." Hyacinth smiled sadly down at him when his tail and head drooped. "Only when an egg is laid near a Shard and is incubated long enough by it, the baby within will…change. This can happen with thin-skin babies, too, when the mother is always wearing a Shard. Creatures that have been changed and blessed with powers by the Shard since birth are called Shard-Blessed."

The long-neck gazed up at the sky, lost in thought as she continued to speak. "And the powers aren't anything like you have been suggesting. They are like the stone of cold fire. Things of wild, mystical nature. Blue flames that burn cold. Black water that makes you ill. Liquid wind that can blow you away with just a single drop. Solid light that can be shaped into more armor and horns and teeth and claws. There are so many wondrous abilities a creature could be blessed with, but they are all a strange, almost warped sense of nature. Do you understand?"

The children exchanged glances.

"Maybe?" Pyrite's squawk sounded more like a question.

The rustling of leaves pulled the family of sprinters to the noise. Silverback strutted out from the foliage, his jaws and arms loaded with bright purple flowers. He dropped the plants and looked over Hyacinth. "Still awake. Good. Let's get patching that head wound."

Silverback stuffed a flower into his mouth and climbed onto the sauropod's neck. As he chewed, he gestured for his mate and kids to keep talking to Hyacinth.

"You said you were here with your mother and sisters. Is it just you, or do you come from a herd?" Eroda asked, settling down in front of Hyacinth's snout once more, the big leaf still clutched in her grasp. "It's not often that we see a lone long-neck."

"Just me and my family. We're sort of loners. My mother likes to keep us moving and exploring the world. Since she knows a lot about Shards, she likes to teach dinosaurs and thin-skins about them. There are a few things even most thin-skins don't know about Shards."

"Really! Like what?" Pyrite leaped to his feet, all disappointment from earlier gone. "What can they do?"

Hyacinth laughed, "that would be telling, wouldn't it?" She sucked in a sharp breath when Silverback pressed a wad of chewed-up purple pulp to the back of her head.

"Please," the two grey feathered girls begged, paws clasped to their chests and large yellow-orange and orange eyes staring up at her.

"No. You don't need to know anything about the Shards. You can find out when you meet a Shard-wielding thin-skin someday." Hyacinth closed her eyes, only for Eroda to rush forward and peck her under the eye. She groaned but just focused on the pain in the back of her head as Silverback skittered across her neck, chewed up more purplesun flowers, and layered the thick paste onto her wound.

Eroda continued to talk to Hyacinth while her children ran around each other or along the length of the long-neck's giant body. Silverback recommended that she not move, so the children didn't have to worry about being crushed since she wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. Nonetheless, they enjoyed a few games of seeing how fast they could run the length of Hyacinth's body or how far they could climb up her large columnar legs and onto her thick back. Silverback encouraged them to run on her body as long as they didn't bother him while he worked. The sharp prick of their claws kept Hyacinth awake, not that the pounding in the back of her head had stopped enough to let her drift while Silverback was working on the wound.

When all the purple flowers had been chewed and the pulp placed on the back of her head, Silverback hopped onto the ground. He inspected Hyacinth, the snaggle-tusk sticking out from the side of his mouth making him appear rather comical even as his orange eyes narrowed in all seriousness. He gave a curt nod. "You should be fine, lady long-neck Hyacinth. The gash on your head is nasty, and you might have had some head stuff happen, but you'll be alright. I'll let you get to sleep. Rest in this oasis for a few days, then you can continue as all of you traveling big-footed dinosaurs do."

"Thank you, Silverback."

Hyacinth finally closed her eyes. The pricks of the children's sharp claws soon left her tail and back when their mother and father called them back to their tightly woven nest. Even though her feet itched to look at the bodies of the fallen and call out to her mother and sisters, she knew it was best if she rested and waited. The rain would be done by morning, and her family would find her tomorrow in the oasis. She had to remind herself that they would have also taken shelter and were waiting out the storm and earthquake just like her.

They were fine. Her family would be okay.