Chapter Fourteen: Breathe Under Starlight

Remy sat beside the eggs, writing in her journal. The fire wasn't providing much light, but she didn't want to sit any closer. She had already been burned by a stray ember. Nonetheless, the fire provided a comforting warmth in the darkness of the night. The Great Valley might be a safe haven, but Remy was still outside, and her recent experiences told her that even inside the Great Valley, dangers lurked.

The fire crackled, and Remy looked up from her journal. She'd written a paragraph on the current page, but it was filled with more doodles than words. The two remaining eggs were fine in their makeshift nest of blankets and dried reeds. In the darkness of the night, the blue flecks on the smaller, darker egg glowed almost as bright as the fire.

Remy snapped her journal shut. "I can't see anything anymore, so there's no point in writing. Not that I was doing anything important, just straining my eyes in the firelight." She leaned back, looking up at the night sky stippled with stars. Like last night, she was alone. Spike had left her soon after she had come back from Suri's house. Luckily, the Valley was full of delicious fruits, so Remy could find a decent nighttime meal.

Her gaze returned to the two remaining eggs. "You two going to hatch soon? I don't really want to stay out here any longer than I have to. I might like the outdoors, but it gets a little unnerving when you're the only human sleeping outside. If you hatch quicker, then you'll be able to see your parents sooner."

"Are you talking to the eggs?" The owner of the rough feminine voice pushed her way through the thick bushes. The orange three-horn raised an eye-ridge, glancing between Remy and the eggs.

"Yes, Cera. I was talking to the eggs. I'm sure they don't mind. Baby's like hearing their mother's voices."

"You're not their mother. And it's not like they can hear you." Cera approached the eggs, taking a casual sniff of them.

"I know I'm not their mother. But I like to think I'm giving them comfort after having been away from their nest for so long." Remy gently brushed her fingers over the two eggs. "Hopefully, they'll hatch soon so we can get them back to their homes."

Cera rolled her eyes. "Yeah, okay." She sat down only to finally noticed that there were only two eggs rather than three. "One of them hatched."

"Yep. It was Maia's baby. I gave the hatchling to her while Spike watched the eggs."

"That branch-munching sow," the three-horn mumbled, her gaze hardening on the two remaining eggs. "She doesn't deserve to have her egg back. If I knew it was one of her kids, I would have just taken Ducky's sibling and left the others."

"Don't take it out on the others." Remy moved closer to the two eggs, covering them with her hands. "I know Maia's not the friendliest of dinosaurs, but there's no reason to glare at these two. And Maia's had a hard life. I know she's been a jerk to everyone, but that doesn't mean she should lose one of her children or that her children should suffer."

Cera snorted and laid down. "Whatever." Once her chin was on her paws, her eyes narrowed again. "What's up with the egg with the weird glowing stuff on it. I bet that one won't hatch."

"I don't know about that." Remy tenderly brushed the egg that had glowing specks scattered throughout its shell. "I think it'll hatch, and I have a feeling the hatchling will be very special. Their egg looks like it has flecks of the Shard on it, doesn't it?"

"Special?" Cera rolled her eyes, ignoring Remy's comment.

"Well, Ducky said that her former herd used to lay their eggs near Shards, which gave the hatchlings their more aquatic nature. Maybe this hatchling will be affected by the Shard too. We don't know how long these eggs have been by those crystals."

"So, we'll have some weird water-loving long-neck on our paws, then? I wonder what their parents will think."

"I don't know. I feel the Shard doesn't give each hatchling the same effect, but I'm not going to worry about it. We first have to see if either of these two will hatch."

The bushes rustled, and a long light brown neck slipped through the branches. Littlefoot walked low to the ground, sneaking into the small clearing and curling up beside Cera, making sure to tuck his neck and tail as close to his body as he could so that they weren't peeking out of the clearing.

Cera laughed, now rolling her eyes at the long-neck. "You really think a big long-neck like you can sneak around? You look ridiculous walking like that. It just makes you more suspicious."

"At least I'm here." Littlefoot lifted his head as the bushes rustled again, this time revealing the last three members of the group. Petrie was perched between Spike's backplates while Ducky walked alongside the large spike-tail, stifling a loud yawn.

"How are the eggs?" The swimmer asked, taking a seat next to Remy. "Spike told me that one of the eggs was Mrs. Maia's baby."

"Yep. Though she wasn't too happy even after I gave her hatchling back. I think she believes I stole it."

"At least you bring it back." Petrie waddled up to the other two eggs. "She like that."

"So, what do you think the other two eggs will be?" Ducky beamed, wiggling her toes in excitement. "The egg with the pretty glowing blue specks must be something special. Maybe it will be a swimmer like me. My siblings and I were raised near Shards like all the rest of the swimmers in Mom and Dad's herd."

"How long till eggs hatch? You think they will hatch? They may been gone for long time without mamas." Petrie looked up at Remy as if expecting her to know the answer.

The girl could only shrug.

"If we have to wait all night, I should just go back to my nest," Cera mumbled, but then her jade-green eyes hardened. "But I won't." She stuck her nose horn in the air, a display of defiance as she thought of the grounding her father had given her. The longer she could get away with it, the smugger she felt.

"Oh, I hope one hatches tonight. I do, I do." Ducky stroked each egg lovingly.

"Do you know whose eggs have gone missing? And not just ones that have gone missing recently. I know it's unlikely that an egg would survive long without its mom, but...these were found by a bunch of Shards. I have a feeling that the magic of the Shards might keep them alive, even without a mother to look after them." Remy stared at the egg flecked with glowing blue marks.

"Well..." Littlefoot lifted his head to the sky in thought. "Some of the spike-thumbs have lost a few eggs. Then there was that three-horn family and that curve-neck family."

"Do not forget the dome-head family too. They lost three eggs two nights in a row," Ducky interjected.

"Yeah, them too. They just...speak funny, and I don't really understand them all that well. Kind of like those dome-heads we met in that cave when we journeyed to the Valley." Littlefoot glanced to Cera, but the three-horn hadn't reacted to the mention of the dome-heads and the incident connected to them. "There's a lot of residents that have lost eggs in the past few moon-cycles."

Remy hummed in thought. "Are we sure it's just two egg-eating dinosaurs that are stealing eggs then? That sounds like a lot of eggs to have been stolen. And these eggs might not even belong to any Great Valley resident. Sadly, only these ones survived, and everyone else has lost a future hatchling."

"It was a good idea that we let the eggs hatch on their own. It was. It was." Ducky cradled one of the eggs in her paws. "I hope it is only two egg stealers stealing eggs. It will be harder to deal with there were more."

"Deal with? I don't remember us ever talking about dealing with the egg thieves?" Remy glanced between the five creatures.

"We talked about it before we came here." Littlefoot did not meet her gaze. "We're the only ones that know about them, and if they keep stealing eggs..."

Cera snorted. "They'll be easy to get rid of once we catch them. Just a jab of my horns—" she thrusted her horns towards the starry night sky. "And they'll be done for."

"You're pretty blunt about killing," Remy mumbled under her breath, just quiet enough that Cera didn't hear.

"What do you think the hatchlings will be, huh, huh?" Ducky asked, steering the conversation back to the eggs.

"Maybe a flyer like me!" Petrie proclaimed, clicking his talons together. "They both be flyers, and me take them home. Petrie have four new siblings then. Me teach them how to fly and how to fish..."

"I bet you the best fruit from the top of the sky fruit tree that one of them is the missing three-horn egg. And it'll be a girl like me." Cera grinned, eyes glinting. "And I'll teach her all there is to know about being a three-horn. I wouldn't even mind if it was a boy or some other type of horn-face."

"Say...if they aren't any of the Valley resident's eggs, why don't we raise them ourselves?" Littlefoot offered. "We can raise them and teach them stuff. It's not like we're going to be able to find the parents in the Mysterious Beyond. They're bound to be gone by now."

"I would not mind being a mama, I would not, I would not." Ducky switched to cradling the other egg, nuzzling it with her beak. "I would love you with all my heart, yes, yes, yes. You would never hear no."

Spike stomped a foot, shaking his head.

Everyone stopped their excited chatter about raising the expecting hatchlings and stared at the spike-tail. He shook his head again, his normally soft magenta eyes hard. "We. Not. Parents." He swallowed hard, pushing past the hoarseness in his voice. "We. No. Know. Kids."

"Spike's right. Even though all of you are technically old enough to start a family, I doubt anyone other than Ducky knows how to raise a newborn hatchling. I won't be any help either since baby dinosaurs are very different from baby humans. When they hatch, and if they aren't children of any residents in the Great Valley, then we will have to find foster families for them."

"Well, my bet still stands if one of them is a horn-face." Cera turned to the others. "If one hatchling turns out to be what you are, then you win the bet. If it's a long-neck, Littlefoot gets the sky fruit. If it's a singer, Ducky gets it, and whatever. And if it's none of our kinds, then Remy gets the sky fruit." Cera grinned. "If both of them are the same type, double the reward. Now, you better start picking the sky fruit because I never lose a bet."

"What if it's a carnivore?" Remy asked, raising her gaze from the egg freckled orange and blue.

"Then we'll kill it."

Before anything could interrupt Cera's response, the sound of cracking made everyone look down at the egg Ducky was currently holding. "The egg is hatching," Ducky breathed, lowering it back into the nest.

Everyone else gathered around the egg, watching with bated breath. More cracks spider-webbed throughout the fragile shell. First, a sturdy flat foot burst from the shell, meaning it was not a flyer. Another foot smashed through the egg. Then the hatchling rolled from where its egg had wobbled, shattering the rest of the shell other than one large piece on its head.

"It's a horn-face!" Cera declared. "I know a horn-face when I see one. Look at those legs and stocky body. I bet you it's a three-horn like me."

Ducky ignored Cera as she reached to take the last piece of the eggshell off the hatchling's head.

The moment the shell was removed, Cera's boasting vanished. She stared at the beige hatchling, beak agape. "What is that thing?"

"Cera!" Ducky scolded, immediately scooping the frill-head into her arms. "He just hatched."

"It's glowing!" The three-horn nearly shoved her nose horn into Ducky's arm so she could get a better look at the newly hatched dinosaur. "And its head doesn't look anything like any horn-face I've ever seen. It's ugly."

"Cera!" Ducky scolded again, turning away so that Cera couldn't make her drop the hatchling.

Remy offered to take the baby from her arms. Ducky gave him to her, and Remy held him close. She stroked his still wet scales, marveling at the bright glowing blue line that ran the length of his body. It was uneven and wavy, starting behind his frill and stopping on his hindquarters. Small splotches of glowing blue also colored his frill, which was curled forward ever so slightly. Unlike Cera, he didn't have a nose horn, just a thick bony patch where a horn should have been.

"He looks like one of those glowy cave mushrooms," Ducky commented, ignoring Cera as she strutted around to see the hatchling. "Let us call him Mushroom!" Ducky took the hatchling from Remy. The swimmer wiggled her fingers at the frill-head, cooing incoherent words to him.

"We are not calling it anything!" Cera stomped in front of Ducky, Remy swooping in and picking up the other egg before Cera could crush it on accident. "We should just get rid of that ugly thing. Throw it out into the Mysterious Beyond and let sharp-teeth eat it. Or maybe we could give it back to the claw-hands."

"It is just a baby, Cera!" Ducky glared, holding Mushroom close as she turned away from the three-horn. "He has done nothing wrong by hatching."

"But look at it! It glows! There's no way it's going to survive."

"We aren't in the Mysterious Beyond anymore, Cera," Littlefoot commented. "We live in the Great Valley where there isn't any sharp-teeth, and no one has to fight over food or water."

"I still think we should get rid of it. There's no way its parents are going to take it."

"Me think we take care of it. Hatchling cute." Petrie landed on Ducky's shoulder, waving his three taloned fingers at Mushroom. "Petrie think glowing marks unique. Like how Petrie talk." He puffed out his chest. Mushroom squeaked, wheeling his forepaws at the flyer.

"I suggest we get the little one something to eat and notify the Great Valley council. I have a feeling this isn't the hatchling of the three-horn family that's missing an egg." Remy said, staring Cera down as she held the other egg close. "We still have another egg to look after."

"That one will be worse than this one," Cera mumbled, slumping down furthest away from the others.

"Let's just get this little one something to eat." The moment Remy said this, Spike offered her a clump of tender leaf buds from a nearby bush. She took them, giving the spike-tail a tired smile.

Remy sat down on the ground, placing the other egg back in the nest while Ducky settled beside her, keeping Mushroom between her forelegs while he ate his first meal.

"I guess it would be smart to wait till morning and have Spike and I bring the baby. I just need someone to watch over the other egg."

"Me can watch other egg," Petrie announced. "Mama give me light grounding. As long as Petrie say where me is."

"Okay, thanks, Petrie." Remy slumped against Littlefoot, who had curled around the nest. "You guys should really get back to your nests, though. You don't want to get into trouble."

"I want to help you look after Mushroom." Ducky looked up from the hatchling.

"It'll be fine. You can see him tomorrow. Besides, I think he'll be having a nice long nap after he's had his fill. It takes a lot of effort to hatch out of an egg, doesn't it, little guy?" Remy leaned over, just able to scratch the little frill-head's back from where he sat beside Ducky.

"If you guys aren't leaving, then I'll just go." Cera stood up, fed up with the conversation, and stomped out of the bushes.

Remy watched her leave. Cera had won the bet, even if she wasn't happy about the outcome.