Chapter Twenty-Five: New to the Family

Remy stepped into the Great Valley. Almost a month in her world had passed since she had returned Cicada-Shriek to her family. It gave time for the new life of the Valley to hatch and acclimate to their lives. Hopefully, everything had calmed down for the new parents as they quickly adjusted to having a hatchling or three. Many families welcomed the newest members, while some were unhappy with their new siblings. It was all so similar to humans, yet all so different.

After a quick visit to Suri's house and dropping off her bag, Remy explored the Valley. She spotted Maia with her three hatchlings grazing in the meadow. Her two daughters, both sandy in color, quietly ate beside their mother. Her lone son, the hatchling Remy and the Gang had rescued as an egg, pranced around his mother. He carried a small piece of fruit around, so proud he had found it. Coincidently, he had become fast friends with the other three hatchlings in the Valley that the Gang had saved. He and Mushroom loved to romp around to the dismay of Maia. Ducky's siblings had hatched some days ago, and the two boys had befriended the hatchling from the egg the Gang had saved. It seemed the three had a connection with each other, even if they didn't know it.

"Beep!" Maia shouted before her dark brown son could get under the feet of Mr. Clubtail. "Get back here."

Remy shook her head, barely able to keep her laughter. Through her friends' gossip, she heard that Beep was a name among certain crestless singers like the yellow-backed mother.

"Remy!" Littlefoot called, sprinting through the meadow. "You're here. Want to see Ducky and Petrie's siblings? And you've got to see Cera's cousins. She didn't know anything about them until they hatched. Come on."

Remy could barely take up any of the information as she followed Littlefoot through the meadow and to the familiar lakeside Ducky's family had made their home. They spotted Ducky and her siblings lounging around the nest. Her mother was curled around it, three hatchlings nestled against her soft brown belly. At the sound of footsteps, she lifted her head and smiled at her visitors.

"Remy!" Ducky was on her feet, running over to Remy. "You are here. Yes, you are. Come see my new baby siblings. Aren't they cute?"

Aura nudged her hatchlings awake as Ducky introduced Remy to each of them.

"He is Kelpbelly." Ducky pointed to a dull green boy with dark brown eyes like his mother. He blinked up at the pair, yawned, and nestled back into his mother's belly.

"She is Raintoe." Ducky pointed to a green, blue-eyed female that looked just like her. The hatchling stared up at Remy, confused by the creature standing in front of her. Remy reached, letting Raintoe sniff her fingers. The hatchling placed her forepaws onto Remy's hand. Her feet were very different from Ducky's hand-like paws. Unlike the rest of her family, Raintoe and her siblings had hoofs for forepaws and walk more like Maia than their bipedal, aquatic family.

"They look so different from you," Remy breathed.

"They were not incubated by a Shard." Ducky picked up the last of the three, a bright green female with dark brown eyes. "This is Tidetail." Ducky lowered her voice. "She is the one that was lost. I have kept an eye on her."

"That's great. I've heard from those around the Great Valley that Tidetail, Mushroom, and Beep have been playing with each other. Isn't that interesting," Remy whispered back.

Ducky just grinned.

Spike lumbered up to Littlefoot and Remy, a small green spike-tail following him. Before Remy could ask who the young spike-tail was, Spike answered her obvious question. "Whorl. Dad Bark." Spike nudged the hatchling in front of him so that Remy could get a better look at him. Whorl looked just like Spike, green skin, dark yellow underbelly, and brown plate nubs.

Spike looked over his shoulder at the older spike-tail in the distance. He nodded to the dark green adult. "Bark." As if sensing they were looking at him, Bark turned to Spike and his son. He casually chewed a clump of grass but seemed happy to leave his son with Spike.

"Maybe you will make good friends with my baby siblings like I have with Spike," Ducky tickled Whorl's side. "You are a very cute baby spike-tail."

Whorl giggled, rolling onto his side and waved his feet into the air. Ducky let him get his breath back as her youngest siblings climbed out of their nest to say hello to the bigger hatchling. Everyone sat back and watched the hatchlings play. After some time, Littlefoot and Remy said goodbye and took their path to visit Petrie and his newly hatched half-siblings.

They didn't even need to shout, the dark brown flyer having spotted them long before they were standing under the dark grey cliffside. With a sweep of his wings, Petrie revealed the newest members of his family. One was a male that looked just like his mother but with pale grey eyes. The other was a cream-colored female with the typical dark brown eyes of the rest of her family.

"Boy is MottleCourage. Girl is BrindleCheer. Mama and Watcher very happy they hatch healthy. Watcher hear of other flyer mama have to scare off those claw-hands that got into the Valley." Petrie nuzzled each of the flaplings and pushed them just a little closer to the ledge.

"Don't let them get too close to the edge, Petrie," his blue mother shouted from the back of the cave. "They don't know how to fly yet."

"Me know, Mama. Me keeping a good eye on them." Petrie turned to Littlefoot and Remy. "What you think of them?"

"They are adorable. I can't wait until they can fly so I can say hello up close." She waved at the flaplings. They waved back, but they seemed to be a bit unsure. "Those are some odd sounding names," Remy mused.

"They traditional flyer names. Mama not use them, but Watcher want them to have names like that. Me grandma was named SpottedHope."

"Well, we should go see Cera's cousins. Talk to you later, Petrie. See you soon, MottleCourage and BrindleCheer." Littlefoot waved goodbye to them with his tail.

Littlefoot and Remy slipped into the clearing where Cera and her father lived. They found Cera by a cluster of trees while her dark grey father laid next to a sage green female. Three hatchlings as bright orange as Cera rolled around by the female's feet. When Littlefoot and Remy stepped into the clearing, the hatchlings stopped and looked up. The only girl of the three tottered up to Littlefoot and squawked loudly.

"They're my cousins. Begonia, Honeyfrill, and Nectarbeak," Cera sighed tiredly, her head resting on her paws.

The two boys stayed next to their mother, their grey eyes wide as they watched the long-neck and human.

"They look a lot like Cera," Littlefoot commented, cringing when the words came out of his mouth. "Not that I'm saying she had any eggs…" He flinched when Topps glared at him.

"They're bright orange like her because the father is her uncle." The pale-green mother explained. "He had even more orange scales than Cera. Flamehorn was her mother's brother. He was a handsome male, but it wouldn't work for us in the end. He broke off the relationship. Then I figured out I was with eggs. By that time, I didn't know where to find him. I did know where the Great Valley was. I'm just surprised I found relatives of his. I am a little more surprised that these relatives-by-family took me in." She turned to Topps, but nothing more was said.

"Anyway, I'm Sage. It's nice to meet you." She nudged one of the orange males closer to Littlefoot and Remy.

"It's nice to meet you too," Remy bowed her head.

Remy and Littlefoot played with the three hatchlings for a little bit. By the time Littlefoot and Remy walked back to Littlefoot's nest, the sun was setting low in the sky. The two chatted for a long while. It had been an exciting adventure. Not only had they rescued eggs from claw-hands, but they had found another realm-hopper who was the companion of a sharp-tooth. That sharp-tooth was the brother of one of the eggs that had hatched.

"I have a feeling these adventures are only the beginning." Remy leaned back on Littlefoot's leg, staring up at the star-speckled sky. "Everything is slowly unraveling."

"Yeah," Littlefoot breathed. "I just hope it won't be as bad as our journey to the Great Valley."

"Me too."

The two friends watched the stars fill the ever-darkening canvas. Another adventure was soon to come.

And there we have it! Book 2 of Cold Fire Chronicles is done!

Most of the babies from this chapter were seen near the end of the 2nd movie. I thought I'd add them in since I love making connections XD. Overall, this was a bit of a mess. I feel like I could have written this story better, but I also didn't want to take the time to really slow things down and flesh them out. And now, it doesn't matter. Why? Well…I have an announcement to make.

I'll be discontinuing this series (sort of).

[Rambling below]

Since I finished writing the second book (which was at least 9 months ago), I haven't been able to pick up writing book 3. I had some interesting ideas planned, but every time I sat down to write it, nothing would come to mind. I just lost interest.

So, I took a step back and looked at the series to understand why I felt that way. I had other little bits and pieces I was excited to write, but nothing really burned that creative fire and I still had to push through the other books. I almost ended up making a collection of scenes because I just had bits and pieces I wanted to write, but that didn't feel right either.

At first, I thought it was just Remy. She's a rather flat character and wasn't very flawed, and in my opinion, didn't have a strong bond with the Gang.

As you may know (or not), I ADORE Land Before Time Retold, which is what started me writing Truths (an old LBT story from 2014-ish) and Cold Fire Chronicles. However, Elise Lowing managed to allow Aylene to form a strong bond with the Gang while I feel like Remy is just 'eh' about them. Like, they're her friends, but there isn't a connection to them like Aylene has (probably because Aylene is younger, was lonely, and loves dinosaurs, while Remy has none of those to drive her). I also feel that I may have followed a *little* too close to Aylene when I was making Remy.

I also think the whole traveling back and forth between realms was an issue for me, oddly enough. I love the concept of realm-hopping stories, and I have a few original stories that contain the concept but… I don't know. It was almost cumbersome to think of Remy going back and forth? So, I thought of another idea, and allowed some of my original ideas from my original dinosaur & magic realm to seep through. This new story will be posted sometime after the New Year.

Hope you'll read it!