CHAPTER TWO: ABANDONED


Despite Ornimimo having lived a lie for years, as Mimusa soon discovered, he ended up being right about one thing: Mimusa struggled to raise the kids on her own. Orni suggested that she could help her mother take eggs.

"I'm afraid it's too dangerous dear," her mother said.

"I saw how daddy did it. I can..." Orni began.

"Don't EVER mention your father again!" her mother snapped.

As time went on, things grew worse. They had enough food to live, but they were becoming malnourished. Though they ate other foods, eggs had been such a part of their diet, that Mimusa had devoted most of her food gathering efforts toward egg stealing. Also, her mate's betrayal had caused her to start to come unhinged mentally. This was making her less adept at stealing eggs and there were a few times a week that she had been unable to take anything, narrowly avoiding being killed by angry parents. Of course, they could have gotten other food, and they did what they could to get it, but Mimusa had been good at taking eggs and was too proud to cut them out of her diet. Unable to get enough food where they were currently at, her mother moved them to another area, but they had problems getting food there as well.

"This is all Orni's fault! If she hadn't caused a fight between our parents, then we wouldn't be in this mess now!" Orni's brother snapped at her one day.

"Well, it's not my fault!' her sister snapped. "Why did you have to sneak out anyway? And you still don't know enough to get us some eggs! Your whole little adventure was a big waste of time that only ruined our lives!"

"I do so! Mom just won't let me prove it."

"Why don't you go get one yourself and prove it?" her other brother snapped.

"Fine, I will! And when I come back with the eggs, I'll stick them up your tush and make you lay them!"

Orni's mother was off getting eggs. She thought that perhaps she should watch her mother first before attempting it on her own. After she saw her mother do it, perhaps this time she'd know enough to do it herself.

She, set out, eager to prove her brother wrong. However, she quickly realized that she didn't know where her mother was. She guessed that it was at a nearby nest but she didn't know which one. She went to one that had three-toed footprints. Her mother wasn't there, but neither was a dinosaur parent. There were half a dozen eggs there and the nest seemed to be unguarded.

Seeing nobody around, Orni slowly moved toward the nest. She was getting closer and closer. She still saw nobody around, but feared that they could be near and she not see them. Her panic got the better of her and she bolted right to the nest. She seized three of them, which was as much as she could carry, as the eggs were pretty big, for her anyway. As she began to run, however, the mother, who was returning to the nest, spotted her. And unfortunately for her, the mother happened to be a very angry Deinonychus.

Orni ran for it. The Fast Biter matched her speed. Orni stumbled on a rock, splattering the egg and breaking it open. She quickly got back up and ran for it, still carrying the other two eggs. She would have been killed, had not the mother paused for a few moments to stare in horror at her broken egg before angrily resuming the chase. As it was, Orni was able to get into a small cavern that was far too narrow for the Fast Biter mother to push her way through, not that she didn't try. As the mother repeatedly rammed the opening, rocks and dirt began to fall inside, scaring Orni. The young Fast Hand (as her type of Egg Stealer was called) began to look for a way out that wasn't the way she came in. Luckily, she found a way out, though it was narrower than the way she had come in and she barely, just barely, squeezed through. She arrived back her nest, tired, but triumphant.

All three of them gasped. "You aren't going to actually stick those up my tush, are you?"

Her other siblings held him and lifted his tail. Orni was actually about to do it when their mother walked in.

The mother, who was carrying two eggs herself, gasped in shock that Orni was carrying two eggs as well. She almost dropped her own eggs. "Where did you get those?* she demanded.

"I stole them from a nest," Orni replied proudly.

"But do you have any idea what laid those eggs?" Her mother asked, not sounding nearly as amused as her daughter. In fact, she sounded very serious and grave.

"Yes, a Fast Biter. She chased me and I accidentally dropped one of the eggs, but I still got away."

"Don't be so sure. They could have found your scent and followed you here." Orni's smile disappeared as quickly as Sam Bankman-Fried from the country after the collapse of FTX.

"Oops, I hadn't thought of her following us back here. I guess we're going to have to move again," Orni sighed.

"This means someone is going to have to stay up and keep watch incase fast biters come for revenge. I am glad you got us more food, but it just might turn out to be our last meal. Have you heard the tale of what happened to the mate and offspring of your uncle?"

"I have an aunt and uncle?" Orni gasped

"Not anymore. No one of that group survived to tell the tale. The fast biters had them flanked on all sides before they knew they were there. They never stood a chance!"

"If no one survived then where did the stories come from?" asked Orni's older brother.

"Me! That was my sister and her mate. I saw it happen from a distance."

"I guess since I messed things up, I should be the one to keep watch," Orni sighed.

"That's right dear. Also, because you were so stupid, I also think it fair that you don't get dinner tonight!" and without another word Orni's mother snatched the two eggs from her and gave them to her older brother and sister. She then gave her younger sister one and kept the other two for herself.

Orni was peeved that she was being starved and made to keep watch when all she had tried to do was help. "What if I have to pee?" she asked.

"It's dark out so nobody will see you."

"Maybe the Sharptooth won't bother to try and find us. Maybe mom was just being paranoid," Orni said to herself.

She waited hours and no Sharptooth came. She fell asleep in the middle of the night. Around morning, the mother Sharptooth, who had been searching for Orni, found their home. They would have all been killed had not Mimusa happened to have woken up. She saw the Sharptooth coming. She grabbed her kids and, though it put her in danger, she grabbed the sleeping Orni, and just in time, for the Fast Biter snapped her maw where the young Fast Hand had just been.

"Mom, what's going on?" Orni asked, alarmed that she had been in her sleep by her mother.

"Sharptooth!" was all the reply she got, and, quite frankly, it was good enough. The family kept running for hours. Finally, they were able to escape by hiding in a cave behind a waterfall. They had gotten a minute's head start over the Fast Biter after she had tripped over a fallen log and had been down enough for the family to get out of her sight.

"That was close!" Orni sighed in relief.

"You're a terrible watcher!" her brother snapped at her.

"I'm just a kid. What could I do against a Sharptooth anyway?" she asked.

"You could feed yourself to it," her older sister replied.

"But wouldn't that hurt?"
Her sister ignored her foolish question. Her older brother, however, remarked "At least then there'd be one less mouth to feed."'

"What, I got you food last night and got none myself. You ungrateful, mean, sharptooth-breathed, ugly, dirty, pathetic..."

"Ok Orni, we get the point," her sister laughed. "You're mad at him."

Things went rapidly downhill over the next several weeks. It was clear to Orni that her siblings blamed her for their parents splitting up and, also, she assumed, they were jealous of her ability to steal eggs so well at her age. Even Orni's mother seemed to be growing increasingly cold toward her. Indeed she had. Not only was she beginning to associate her problems of getting by on her own with Orni's discovery of her mate's infidelity, but she also felt that Orni was foolish to be wandering around on her own, as she had those two times, as well as blamed her for the near miss with the Fast Biter.

One day, they were traveling again, looking for a new place to live, when they encountered another Sharptooth, this one a large Ridgeback Sharptooth.

The Sharptooth was nearest to Orni, with her siblings about 10 feet in front of her. Orni's mother grabbed her younger sister, who was the slowest and most in danger. Orni begged for help, but her mother ignored her, figuring she wasn't worth possibly dying for. Orni panicked as the Sharptooth neared and obtained a burst of speed that she didn't think she was capable of. Still, her family was out of reach. Suddenly, the ground began to shake, and the earth opened up, barring her way to her family. She ran into a crevice, hiding from the Sharptooth until she gave up looking for Orni.

Orni felt terribly sad and angry. Sad that she was alone and angry that her mother had left her for dead. And she was hungry too. She wandered around and found a nest of eggs. Unfortunately, it was the nest of the Sharptooth who had nearly killed her earlier that day. However, this Sharptooth was asleep. However, feeling hungry and angry at the Sharptooth for separating her from her family, Orni ran to the nest and grabbed all three of its eggs and took off with them. She ate them all, getting her revenge on the Sharptooth. Sated for food, Orni wondered what she was going to do now.