Slumps back in chair, exhausted. Man, this fanfiction stuff sure is pretty hard work! If only I'd known. But none the less...I got my three chapters for the three beasts I picked from the World of Kong's first chapter, the one about the coasts and villages, completely done! does the "I've got a section done" happy jig And one other thing. Remember how I said in the beginning how I'd put some made-upanimals of my own in here? Well, I've put two of them in here for you to find, and even a little inside joke in one's name.
As for my reviewers:
Tallacus: Thanks so much for being my first reviewer! Glad to see you like it so far.
Otacon: Don't worry dude, I know that it's utter fiction. I just wished that more of the book's creatures had had justice done to them by being shown in the movie, and that in turn made me want to come and play in Skull Island's jungles. Thanks for your positive review too by the way. :)
Chapter Three.
On the northern coast of Skull Island, almost exactly north-northwest of the village was its largest estuary, a fertile yet forbidding labyrinth of mudflats, sandbars, and mangroves. Every creature here was ruled by the implacable tides, and for that reason the Aciedactylus had sensibly dug out her den in a sand hillock several dozen yards from the high tide mark.
Forming the bottom part of the entrance was a partly buried carved granite pillar, part of which showed a woman nursing a child. In an ironic connection between the island's past and present, the Aciedactylus using it as her front porch was herself a mother, sticking her T-rex like head out now to smell and listen for predators. There were none, and so she slipped out into the dying mist, revealing her 14-foot body as she stepped over the pillar and did another anti-predator scan.
There was nothing, so she gave a chirping snort, her kind's way of saying "All clear." Immediately, half a dozen chicks scrambled out of the den. About the size of large ducks and covered in buff and chocolate brown scales with black mottling to serve as camouflage, they were proportionately more slender and longer limbed than their mother, with bigger feet and eyes. Only a month old, they leapt up over the pillar and fell into a loose, excited step behind their mother as she headed off for another day's foraging in the mangrove swamp.
Like ostriches or turkeys, although the chicks could feed themselves, they needed their mother's vigilance and the protection her bladelike hand claws offered if they expected to survive. As a female, the Aciedactylus had a red-orange bottom to her tail, and the chicks followed this as she moved. For her part, the theropod always kept a constant lookout for predators even while feeding or resting. This was an island where you could never be too careful, to say the very least.
Already there'd been losses, and these six chicks were the survivors of a nest of ten eggs. First, while she was off getting a drink, a water monitor had raided her sand and mangrove leaf nest, digging out and eating two of her eggs. When the chicks did hatch, one had been seized and eaten by a saltwater crocodile while they swam a channel, and a bull shark had taken another one in a similar situation.
They were generally safe enough on land however, and they came across a pool of water in the sand, home to a group of mudskippers. As their mother drank, the chicks excitedly chased the weird fish around, trying to run them down but failing as the fish hopped into the sea. Their mother watched for a bit after getting enough water in her, then gave a mild trumpeting call through her secondary nostrils, closing her primary ones and forcing air through the others to let them know it was time to move on. She was after oysters and crabs.
As they walked among pools and waded shallow channels left by the still receding tide, she came across a fist-sized land hermit crab, clunking along in its borrowed shell. This time, its protection failed as the theropod bent down and crushed the whole thing in her peg-like teeth, flicking the shell pieces aside and swallowing the hermit in two gulps. The family then came across a whole legion of fiddler crabs, displaying and waving their claws as they picked algae out of the mud.
Although the thumb-sized crabs were really too small to make much of a meal for her, fiddlers were perfect prey for the chicks, already rushing forward to chase them. They did catch and crunch a few, but most escaped back into their burrows. The theropod decided to help her chicks out a bit. Going to one of the holes, she jabbed a hand claw inside, flushing a fiddler out-and right into the jaws of one of her sons.
For the next fifteen minutes, she went around the colony, sticking in a claw and driving out fiddler after fiddler, until all her chicks had had at least a helping of prey. All the while, she attentively watched for anything that might be stalking them behind the mangroves. She still hadn't gotten much of a meal though, and gave another low trumpet to call her chicks again.
Now the Aciedactylus encountered a large black crab in a shallow, muddy pool, weighing maybe a pound or so. Raising its claws in defense, it snapped and whipped around as she circled, poking at him with her own. Crabs could certainly give a nasty pinch to the nose or face, so she wanted to take him from behind. Seeing her chance, she grabbed the crab by the back, and bit down hard. Before eating her latest catch though, she lowered her head and kindly allowed her chicks to take some bites from the smashed parts before finally eating it.
On some slightly higher ground, they encountered a small structure of mud, almost like a small termite mound. The Aciedactylus knew what that meant. Her chicks, playing along after her also needed to know as well, so she gave a cough and a mild braying sound through her secondary nostrils, causing them to stop and watch attentively. If her call could be put into human terms, it would be something like "Now you kids listen up and pay attention, 'cause you're all going to learn something new."
Going over to the chimney of hardened mangrove mud, she drove one of her stiletto claws in near the edge and carefully used it like a spade to cut away some of the side. As her brood watched, she did it again, cutting away even more of the mound. Four more times she did this, getting closer and deeper to the center, always taking care not to break a claw, until she reached her prize.
A foot-long mud lobster was revealed, and as it tried to scramble away, the Aciedactylus grabbed it in her jaws, enjoying her good-sized catch. The chicks were astounded. It wasn't the first time they'd seen their mother eat mud lobsters, but now they knew something about how one went about it, their brains soaking up the knowledge like sponges. She carried out the same procedure at another mound, but this time uncovered an unappealing Javan file snake, which she let go. A third though, yielded yet another of the giant shrimp relatives, which went the way of the first.
Continuing on, the theropod moved more slowly now among the mangroves, her wide, partly webbed feet preventing her from sinking, while her chicks captured small crabs and rooted out snails wherever they could. A deep tidal channel was in front of them now, where the mangrove roots were always covered by water. There were mangrove oysters just covering the submerged prop roots, and she waded out to one large tree, fish scattering before her as she stuck her head underwater to feed. Seeing a blue swimming crab buried in the sand, the Aciedactylus lunged downward and plucked it out, raising her head to eat.
Before putting it under again, she looked around first. Her chicks were all together, sticking their heads underwater too to find snails like mangrove whelks or searching out small crabs in burrows or debris. There were no Nefundusaurs, crocodiles, or sea eagles in sight, so she ducked her head underwater.
Now, the real function of her high-mounted second set of nostrils came into play. With her head down, she breathed through them as she rooted out snails in the shallows, and plucked mangrove oyster after oyster off the tree roots, occasionally sealing both sets to get crabs or oysters closer to the bottom. If she had to, the Aciedactylus could dive to a depth of eight feet and root out shellfish, although there was usually no need for that.
Then, raising her head to check on her brood for the umpteenth time, she saw something very worrisome. As they'd been feeding themselves, the chicks had naturally spread out a bit, but always remaining within view. One female chick however, was gone. Just gone.
Getting out of the water and running right over, the Aciedactylus called her chicks to her and smelled around, finding her daughter's scent on a thin path leading into the mangroves. So she cantered right down it, finding her just three hundred yards away as she was trying to catch a tide pool skink. Chasing after the lavender-bronze lizard, the chick was surprised to have her growling mother suddenly pop up right in front of her, and even more so to receive a hard blow from the side of a claw that sent her sprawling in the sand. Harsh as it might seem, there was a clear message sent. Next time, the visitor might not be her.
With a chastened, shaking, and disciplined chick falling back into line, the dinosaur went back to the channel, wading across it to the other side and continuing on. Reaching another channel, she went into the shallows with her chicks following. Suddenly the theropod saw her favorite prey in the world standing on a mudflat, a big purple mud crab weighing about four pounds. Mudcrabs are very good eating, and she wasted no time in doing just that, biting off one of the claws and then boring back in to smash the crab in her jaws. Nearby, she found another one, in a pool under a tree's prop roots. Prodding it with a claw, she flushed it out into the open and ate it as well. For a couple minutes more, she grubbed through the exposed mudflat for clams, finding and eating about a dozen.
The dinosaur was feeling good. She'd eaten enough crab and oyster now to fill her up for the morning, and all the chicks had also eaten well. Then there was a sudden squeal, and whipping around, the Aciedactylus fully expected to see one of her chicks helpless in a predator's grasp. But no, it was another chick having an amusing, if distressing end to his morning of crab catching. In one of the pools of water on the mudflats, some small fish had gotten trapped, and were dying of oxygen loss. A red mangrove crab, as wide across as four fingers, had taken the opportunity to grab and start to eat one.
The chick had seen this however, and boldly snatched the crab's meal to eat for himself after a brief tug-of-war. Then he went for the crab itself, but got a nice hard pinch right on a nostril for his efforts, making him squeal and jump around in distress as the crab hung there like some bizarre nose ornament while he tugged at it with his hands. Finally, after comically flinging the mangrove crab around and even trying to kick it for a couple seconds, he turned his head and bit into the crab's side, crunching into its carapace as best he could and eating it all as the crustacean shed its claw and tried to get away. All that was left was the claw attached to his face, and that too was scraped off and eaten.
The sun was close to its zenith now, and the mother Aceidactylus felt like a good drink. Smelling an outflowing, slow creek maybe three hundred yards away, she walked over to it with her chicks obediently following once more. A purple heron flushed from the creek as they arrived, while a very young Tartarusaur unhurriedly loped off into the swamp. The water tasted great, and both mother and chicks had their fill of fairly fresh water.
Leaving the creek behind, she led her brood to a small lagoon, flopping down on the firm beige mud to enjoy the heat. Lying on her side, the crab-eating theropod happily broiled in the sun for the next hour, digesting her meal and watching her chicks as they chased, wrestled, and mock displayed to each other, sometimes taking time to sun themselves as well or attack the moths, spiders, small crabs, and prawns they stumbled open. Sandpipers and Pacific swallows worked the flats and lagoon edges, while little egrets and striated herons waded in the shallows, hunting small prey like gobies and shrimp.
Eventually, the Aciedactylus became too hot and gave another mild trumpeting call to summon her chicks before moving off to find shade. Taking a drink from the brackish lagoon, she headed back into the mangroves at an angle, where she found an especially thick clump of trees and laid down again under them, with a small stream running nearby. Her chicks joined her, bellies full and finally out of energy, although they did have just enough to halfheartedly roll on top of and slap at each other.
As they rested and panted, mosquitoes viciously tortured them, drinking blood from between the scales and thin-skinned areas like the inner thigh. It was just something they had to endure though, and at least most of the bloodsuckers were normal-sized ones, not the huge robin-sized beasts found further inland.
All the while, the Aciedactylus calmly kept an eye out for any dangerous predators over the next two hours. Fortunately, the only potential threat she saw was a large male water monitor, coming into view about forty-five minutes into their siesta. And although he was big enough to possibly grab and eat a chick, she could tell from his demeanor that he wasn't interested in dinosaur. Instead, the monitor passed them by, tongue flicking, and went to a large log lying on the ground, where he began rapidly digging with his sharp claws.
The chicks were soon to learn yet another lesson about nature's sometimes savage ways, for as the water monitor kept digging, a whitebelly mangrove snake, 30 inches long and purplish-black, shot out from the other side of the log and tried to make a break for it across the mix of wet sand and leaves. With an incredible turn of speed, the monitor ran it down though, and the snake frantically whipped around, hissing and trying to bite back.
Like eagles or mongooses, monitor lizards are master snake killers, and this one proved to be just as adept. The Aciedactylus chicks watched in awe and amazement as the water monitor coolly bit down on and repeatedly shook the flailing whitebelly snake hard, throwing it against the ground as well and not stopping until it was a bloody, sandy mess. Then, in shockingly huge gulps, he bolted his kill down delightedly, even licking his chops in satisfaction. Duly impressed to say the least, all six chicks huddled tightly against their parent and protector, expecting they'd be next. But the huge lizard casually turned around and walked off into the brush, no doubt looking for more prey.
After two hours of resting in the cool shade, the Aciedactylus chicks were getting hungry again, and their mother decided to get up and lead them on another foraging trip, heading off again into the mangrove swamp along a deep channel. As she walked slowly, her brood dug and nosed out more small crabs, eating them in one or two bites. One male chick even got some red meat, in the form of a crab-eating frog he caught among some prop roots. There was were a few very anxious moments when the theropod heard a low hiss, turning around to see two of the chicks teasing and mock-attacking a mangrove pit viper that was crossing a strip of sand, but she sharply called them to come back and they obeyed right away.
The family then ran across a colony of soldier crabs, small bluish creatures with pale legs that oddly for a crab, walked forwards. Immediately, the chicks were among them, snapping up the crabs like candy. The crabs naturally went either right to their burrows or into the sea, and the young dinosaurs worked at getting them out. Meanwhile, their mother was eating more mangrove oysters of another tree, when she smelt a faint whiff of something dead. The scent of a large, dead, fish.
Calling her chicks again with that mild trumpet, she trotted towards the smell's source, several hundred yards away. As she burst through some low bushes, she saw that on a sandbar in a tidal channel lay a whole dead tuna! This was too good to pass up, and she waded through water up to her chest to the fish, her chicks swimming closely against her side. Getting out, she walked up to the carcass and bit into its belly.
The tuna wasn't too far gone, and tasted great. Her teeth however, were peglike and blunt, meant for crushing and mashing crabs and shellfish, not piercing or cutting. It was like trying to cut steak with a tent peg. But although it was tough going, she managed to tug off and shake loose bites of deliciously smelly tuna, tossing down the oily, energy-rich meat. As for her chicks, their teeth were somewhat more pointed, so they had a fairly easier time of it.
All creatures here were ruled by the tide however, and as she ate, the Aciedactylus felt seawater creep up her toes to her heel to the top of her ankle. She'd only eaten half as much of the tuna as she would've liked to, but if she didn't want to take a long, risky swim back to shore-not to mention endanger her offspring-she had to leave now. Reluctantly, she slipped into the water, now so deep that even she had to swim, paddling with her partly webbed feet and using her tail as part power and rudder. Her chicks resolutely joined her, and they all swam the widening, 45-foot turquoise strip of sea back to higher ground.
Now, it seemed like every creature in the estuary was moving, the air-breathers giving way to the sea, and the creatures of the sea coming to invade what was land. Naturally, wise predators were using this exodus as an opportunity to hunt. Archerfish knocked insects off branches with jets of water. Geckos and other lizards ate spiders and insects fleeing the water, while mangrove vipers, kites, and other predators took them in turn. Small fish coming in on the tide were caught by herons and egrets above, while jacks and squid stalked them below. Wayward crabs fell victim to octopuses and eels, and crabs on land searched out snails heading higher up the beaches, cracking them in their claws.
Even the Aciedactylus and other large land animals were caught up in this combination of retreating and killing. Calmly trotting towards the back mangroves, she suddenly caught the scent of, and then saw, something she had not wanted to encounter. It was a male Palustroodon englehorni. Englehorn's wounding-tooth of the marsh.
Descended from Cretaceous troodontids, these lightly built, camouflage-patterned dinosaurs were restricted to the estuaries and salt marshes of Skull Island. Their name derived from both their preferred habitat, and the fact that on the fourth expedition to the island, Capitan Englehorn had earned the honor by shooting the very first specimen himself. Living in male-female pairs, the elusive predators traveled, slept, and hunted together, using their sharklike, serrated teeth to grab and rip into small or medium-sized prey-including dinosaur chicks. Since they were nocturnal hunters as a rule, one was generally safe from Palustroodon marauders during the day. But with so many animals moving back and forth as the tide changed, these smart, cunning hunters were presented with too good an opportunity to pass up.
The Aciedactylus gave a drawn-out, ringing shriek through her secondary nostrils, and all six of her chicks, knowing full well that they were in mortal danger, immediately gathered under her belly and between her legs. Growling savagely, she stretched out her arms, showing the twin blades of claws on each hand to the cautious Palustroodon. And she was deadly serious about it.
Sudden movement, and his mate came in from the side, trying to grab a groaning, squalling chick. Whipping around in a quarter-turn, the Aceidactylus swiped at the smaller dinosaur with her right hand, almost raking her across the face. Then the male Palustroodon leapt in himself, briefly grabbing a chick by the tail before her mother whirled around to confront him and he had to let go.
Ducking low, his mate struck like a snake at the huddled group, but then found herself knocked in the air and briefly pinched between the lethal claws of the Aceidactylus before somehow jumping and twisting loose. Amazingly, although she was bruised, the Palustroodon was unhurt.
The male came in from behind now, aiming right for a chick's side as his black head shot forward. Right at that moment though, the desperate chick leapt up into the air, flying over his attacker's neck, shrieking as he did so. Pivoting on her right foot, the Aceidactylus gave him a nasty kick in the shoulder before he could move away, while repelling his partner with a jab from her handclaws at the same time.
The two Palustroodon both hesitated for a bit, and the Aceidactylus used that half a chance to back into a thick mass of prop roots that offered partial protection from behind. Her chicks immediately slipped into the roots, while she stood in a boxer's stance, clawing the air and growling as the two Palustroodon came forward again.
The male made a bluff charge now, while his mate, hunkered down low, rushed the briefly exposed chicks. Anticipating this though, the Aceidactylus slashed with her claws at the carnivore. Yelping, the Palustroodon leapt right up into the air, barely avoiding a strike that would've ripped her open along the flank, and indeed had lightly grazed her there. Retreating, she rejoined her mate and they appraised the situation. Several more times they ran at the bigger theropod, hoping to get a chance at a chick. But their mother stood firm with grim determination, and after two or three minutes the Palustroodon pair got tired of Aceidactylus-baiting, leaving to find easier prey somewhere else.
Panting hard, the Aceidactylus watched them go. After they left, she waited for four more minutes, carefully sniffing around while her chicks sat tight among the thick roots. When she was sure that they hadn't circled back or were lying in ambush, she gave a cooing purr, an "All clear," signal to let her brood know it was safe to come out in the open again.
The tide was rising here now too, and the mother led her chicks through the estuary towards a sort of ridge, where the ground was high and dry. Trotting fast after their dangerous encounter, they climbed the gentle, wet and mucky slope, reaching an area of stable, moist sand. The theropod laid down in the shade and rested, her chicks doing the same right next to her. A minute or two later, she smelt the odor of Palustroodon yet again, fairly close by-but she saw that the pair was after a different prey.
It was a troop of Adrien's giant squirrels, cat-sized rodents with sleek fur that were colored mahogany above and straw-yellow below. Only living in wooded coastal habitats, they fed on coconuts, fruit, snails, seeds, flowers, and other nuts. After feeding and playing in the seaward mangroves, they also had to head to higher ground if they didn't want to swim back. That entailed leaping between trees, of course. Sometimes though, they needed to travel through short trees and on lower limbs, putting them within reach of predators.
And that was the exact thing the Palustroodon on their tail wanted. As the squirrels ran and leapt, they got onto some lower branches. The male of the pair leapt eight feet right in the air, plucking a male squirrel off a branch and running off with his catch. His mate also leapt right then, and she caught a half-grown female, shaking her as she followed her partner into the mangrove maze.
After that spectacular incident, things became more relaxed for the Aciedactylus and her brood. Saving energy, she slept lightly in the shade as the chicks laid beside her and played. In the humid swamp, geckos called out, and butterflies flew between the flowers. Then, right on schedule for the mid-afternoon, clouds rolled over the island and rain just came bucketing down on the mangroves.
For two and a half hours it rained continuously, puddles and rivulets forming in the mud and sand while the rain beat a tattoo on the leaves and rising water. The Aciedactylus loved the feeling of the cool wetness, standing up to drink from the puddles and feel it pelting on her scales. The chicks loved it too, splashing in the puddles, snapping at raindrops, and rooting in the rivulets just for fun.
But inevitably, the rain lost its appeal. So, soaked and getting cold, the Aciedactylus sought some shelter under a leaning tree, where the family relaxed and gazed out at the falling rain. When it finally came to a stop, the sun proclaimed that it was now late afternoon, and she decided that she'd best lead her chicks back to the sleeping den if they weren't to get caught out after dark.
Giving another mild trumpet as she got to her feet, the theropod started heading back along a more landward route to her den, her chicks faithfully following the orange-red bottom of her tail. It had been a good day of feeding, with everyone's stomach telling them that it was quitting time. Although she did stop to harvest a few mangrove oysters here and there, the Aciedactylus' half-mile return trip was an uneventful, focused business.
Reaching their familiar den, the Aciedactylus scanned for danger once more, and then laid down lengthwise on the stone pillar, enjoying the last of the sun's rays before it finally disappeared behind the mountains. Her chicks jumped around and played, chasing each other across the beach sands that they so resembled, and tugging their mother's tail.
When the twilight became darkness, the female Aciedactylus, full of shellfish and feeling sleepy, lowered her head and went back into her den, the chicks coming in behind her. Taking care not to crush or stab them by accident, she curled up into a loose ball and drifted off into sleep. Her two sons and four daughters joined their mother, resting against her side. By the time they matured and reached independence at seven months of age, two more of the chicks would've fallen victim to predators. But for now at least, they'd all successfully survived another day of life on Skull Island. And that was a major reward in itself.
This part of Kong's kingdom might be covered now in regards to its denizens, but there's even more to explore, believe me. Right now though, I can't decideifmy next chapters will be about the creatures of the lowlands, or the creatures of the swamps. In addition, I'm starting a whole new semester of college tomorrow, so whatever I choose probably won't find its way here any time soon. But the time and the idea will come to me sooner or later.