Sorry for the long wait, I had a lot of things on my mind and the upcoming chapter was a pain in the ass to write.

Brothers Under the Bright Circle

Chapter 7

Terror Awakening

When the Bright Circle cast its warm glow, Littlefoot found himself being the first to wake up. Normally Whiplash would be the one to stir him first, but he was surprised that it didn't happen. He yawned and stretched out his forepaws, arching his back to work out some of the knots. When he looked over at Whiplash, he found him still asleep. He must have been exhausted from last night's travel and keeping an eye out for potential dangers.

He carefully nudged his treestar next to his brother's flank, the cool water it had gathered last night seemed to ease the discomfort from the scratches that Sharptooth had inflicted on him. All the tension in Whiplash's muscles left him.

Satisfied, Littlefoot made his way over to the pond and sat down near its edge, staring at his reflection. Despite Whiplash giving him a great source of company, he felt conflicted over what he had said about longnecks and other dinosaur kinds not mixing together, even his mother had said so. And yet… why did it feel so wrong?

Littlefoot shook his head and slapped the water's surface with his paw in frustration, sending glittering droplets everywhere. He heard Whiplash make a snorting sound, but he didn't stir from his slumber.

"I just don't get it," Littlefoot said to himself as he looked down at his reflection, "why can't we coexist? Wouldn't just be easier if we travelled together, rather than alone?"

His reflection didn't answer, it just frowned right at him, just like he was doing.

"Gee, you're a big help," Littlefoot said sarcastically.

He leaned forward to take a drink from the lake. He'd barely gotten a mouthful of the distasteful water, when something reached out and grabbed him by the nose. He paused with widened eyes at the strange thing that had gripped his nostrils tightly. But it wasn't the sight of the object that made him terrified, it was cutting him off from breathing while he still had his mouthful of water.

Without thinking, he threw his head and tossed whatever had grabbed him over his shoulder.

The strange creature went sailing into the air, a childlike scream escaping its mouth before it landed on the closest thing it could find: right on Whiplash's nose.

The moment the creature landed on his snout, Whiplash's eyes shot open, and the strange creature stared right into him.

At first Littlefoot thought he would react the same way he did: let out a scream and throw whatever it was back into the water, never to be seen again. To his surprise, Whiplash's expression was neutral. Instead, he lifted his head while the trembling little creature continued to stare right back him. Gently, Whiplash set it down and it let out an 'oof', dust billowing from where it had been placed.

"It's alright, little one," Whiplash reassured it calmly, "you don't have to be afraid."

Slowly, the creature lowered its arms and its bright blue eyes blinked up at Whiplash in amazement.

"Oh wow," it gasped in a female voice filled with wonder, "you're tall, you are, you are!"

Whiplash smiled kindly. "I get that a lot," he joked.

Littlefoot tilted his head, puzzled. "I've never seen your kind before," he said. "What are you?"

The moment the question left his lips, he suddenly found himself flinching underneath Whiplash's gaze.

"Littlefoot, that wasn't very polite," he scolded, "clearly this child is still very frightened after what you did."

Realising his mistake, and the little creature's now noticeable shaking, Littlefoot lowered his head, his tone now carrying his apology, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to throw you like that. I just got a fright, instead I made it worse."

The little creature's face turned into a smile. "That is okay, I did not mean to grab your nose," she said, "I thought it was a water tree, yep, yep, yep."

Whiplash nodded, satisfied, and he lowered his head, but he kept his nose a short distance so that she could see him properly. "What is your name, little one?" he asked her.

"I am Ducky," the creature answered, leaping to her feet, "I am a swimmer."

Littlefoot came a little closer, but kept a respectable distance from Ducky in case he frightened her again. To his surprise, Ducky didn't seem that particularly bothered by his approach, so he took another step forward and she beamed when she saw this, giving no indication that she was afraid anymore.

"Who are you?" she then asked, pointing at Littlefoot and Whiplash.

"My name's Littlefoot," Littlefoot said proudly.

"They call me Whiplash," Whiplash answered, his tail twitching to show why and Duck giggled.

Littlefoot shot Whiplash a puzzling glance, kicking a pebble behind him as he tried to think of something. Now that he knew who and what this strange creature was, it was quite obvious that she was alone, possibly separated from her family too when the big earthshake hit the land. He looked up at Whiplash and he caught the bigger longneck looking at him quizzically. He turned his eyes to Ducky and then back at Whiplash.

As if he understood what he was trying to ask, Whiplash turned his gaze to the sky for a moment and then back at Littlefoot before nodding.

Beaming, Littlefoot turned to Ducky, asking, "Um, you wanna go with us?"

"YES!" Ducky suddenly shouted and Littlefoot jumped with surprise.

Seeing his reaction to her outburst, she covered her mouth with her hands and giggled. "Oh yes, yes, yes, I do, I do!"

Once again, Whiplash's face was almost unreadable. Littlefoot was certain he did not like the idea of having a different travelling with them, but just like them, she was on her own and extremely small, leaving her vulnerable to sharpteeth attack. Maybe Whiplash understood what it felt like to be alone, but didn't want to concern his little brother with his distrust toward others that were not longnecks. Littlefoot recalled how Whiplash told him he had been raised by his father without a mother until a kind herd of longnecks took them in. Perhaps that was why Whiplash had an uneasy feeling about trusting another species.

Whiplash got up from his resting position and placed Littlefoot's treestar on his little brother's back. Slowly, being careful to not make Ducky nervous, he lowered his head toward them.

At first Ducky was confused until Littlefoot picked her up by the tail, placed her between his shoulders, and climbed onto Whiplash's head.

"Oh, no, no, no!" Ducky gasped. "It is very high up!"

"It's alright," Littlefoot reassured her. "Whiplash won't let you fall, I promise."

"But what if I do?" Ducky asked, now trembling.

"Trust that I will catch you if you do fall," Whiplash said. "I have caught Littlefoot when he fell off my back once or twice in the past. As long as you stay on Littlefoot, you will be safe."

Ducky nodded nervously and her grip on Littlefoot's skin tightened. Littlefoot winced, but he said nothing, knowing that it could make the situation worse for her.

Still travelling through the darkness at the bottom of the gorge, Cera trudged along. Eventually, she found herself wandering into an enormous cavern. Patches of light peeked through the cracks in the ceiling, thus giving Cera enough light to be able to see in the gloom, but it still muffled her field of vision. She didn't know how long she walked, but she found herself along a ledge that hugged the cavern wall.

For a long while, all she could think about was the annoyance at encountering the two longnecks. It had left her feeling bitter and irritated. Littlefoot had acted like he knew everything to every question, while Whiplash had been even worse. Even if the longnecks had saved her life, she didn't care.

"What makes them so special anyway?" she growled to herself, unaware that her voice was echoing through the cavern. "I can find my way to the Great Valley all by myself."

Still fuming, Cera was completely oblivious to her surroundings. She was so busy thinking about the longnecks that she didn't realise that the ledge had came to a dead stop, but something dark blocked the way and her horn slammed into it.

Shaking her head, she growled at the thing before realising that it dropped down to another level.

Bracing herself, she leapt onto the thing which felt oddly soft for a rock, but she didn't care, and onto another ledge.

The shafts of light continued to pass over the cracks, casting ominous shadows on the walls and floor. Fear began to grip Cera's mind and she took a nervous step backward, once again unaware of her footing. She suddenly slipped on the ledge and tumbled down with a grunt, she landed on something soft and rolled down.

She fell off the thing and landed on a pathway at the bottom, she turned her gaze upward as the shadows broke away into light on the thing she had been rolling on.

"Sharptooth!"

Screaming in terror, Cera darted behind a boulder and covered her eyes with her forepaws, waiting for the monster to attack.

But nothing happened.

Gathering her courage, she peeked around the boulder. Sharptooth was lying flat on his back, his tail draped over a pillar of rocks that had obviously fallen during the earthshake. His small arms were sticking in the air like tree branches on a rotten log. But most importantly, and to the threehorn's relief, he was not moving, his eyes were closed, and he wasn't breathing.

Cera, feeling bolder, walked up to the behemoth's body to peer at his teeth. Still he did not move. Now feeling cocky, she stuck her tongue at him tauntingly and began to ram her head against his snout repeatedly.

"You aren't so tough now," she laughed.

Now feeling quite confident and, with foolishness, she darted some ways back. She pawed at the ground, kicking stones and dust away, and wriggling her body. She charged with absolute ferocity and full force.

Before she even realised what was happening, Sharptooth's eye snapped open wide.

Sharptooth heard a scream, but since it was on his blind side, he could not see what it was. A stinging sensation almost caused him to flinch as the screaming thing lightly touched his eye.

The enormous monster pushed himself out from his prison, anger flaring in his muscles and heart, as he heard the screaming thing run away into the darkness. He wasn't sure how long he had been unconscious for, but he didn't care. The only thing that mattered to him was revenge, and revenge was quite sweet when it was cold.

He was most certain that the threehorn hatchling had fled to find other leaf eaters, and the faint scent of the hatchling longneck told him that she had unintentionally gone toward him… as well as the foreign longneck. It didn't surprise him that he was still alive, leaf eaters were quite durable when it came to survival, and the hatchlings would undoubtedly want to be near him for protection. But of course, one adult longneck would not stop him.

When he reached the surface, he realised that the Night Circle was casting its light across the landscape. The scents were stronger now when he turned his nose toward the east, and his stomach growled with additional hunger.

"So, you're alive."

Surprised, Sharptooth whirled around at the sound of someone speaking in his language. Unfortunately, whoever had spoken was well hidden and downwind of him, making it harder to locate them. He growled in frustration, lashing his tail.

"No need to get so uptight," the voice huffed from a nearby set of trees. "You might make our kind look like cowards. Then again, what can you expect from someone as infamous as you."

"Come out," Sharptooth hissed.

"If I came out and showed myself," the voice said with a sniff, "you might consider eating me. Any meat eater would go for anything if they were desperate enough. Judging from the sharp ridges on your sides, you wouldn't care, would you?"

Sharptooth frowned. "Luckily for you I'm not stupid enough to go after another meat eater," he said. "I have other plans."

The voice was quiet for a short moment before it spoke again. "You're going after the leaf eaters."

Sharptooth wasn't certain if it was a question, but he didn't care. "They ruined me, the longneck hatchling especially. I was getting hungry when I came after them, I would have had the hatchling in my jaws if it hadn't been for that strange longneck and the hatchling's mother."

"Strange longneck?"

Sharptooth began to pace around, his jaws snapping as the urge to chase after the leaf eaters became stronger. "It was a large longneck, didn't look like any longneck I'd seen before. He was greyish brown with spikes on his back, yellow eyes, a scar on his cheek, and a really long tail."

Once again, the voice was silent for a long moment, longer than Sharptooth liked. He shook his head, he was wasting time, and he was beginning to feel the hunger gnawing at his stomach. He needed to eat now.

He was about to set out when the other sharptooth spoke again, but his voice had a hint of uneasiness, "Take care, that strange longneck is not someone to be trifled with. Do not underestimate him."

Sharptooth snorted impatiently. "It's a longneck, a leaf eater, they are mindless and have no sense of purpose except to eat, drink, mate, and move."

Without looking over his shoulder, he turned and stalked into the moonlit night, leaving the stranger behind.

As he disappeared, the trees rustled and a smaller sharptooth emerged into the light of the Night Circle. His grey body with a blood red stripe was much lithe and smaller compared to the bulky appearance of Sharptooth, but he was still quite large for his kind. A pair of bony crests sat on top of his eyes, while three claws on each hand curved slightly in rest, and his narrow jaws, packed with serrated teeth, turned upward a little in the form of a smirk.

"Believe me, Sharptooth," he whispered to himself, "you might want to rethink about your target."

He paused and looked up at the Night Circle, his good left eye frowning thoughtfully.

"I don't think I'll be catching up with the longneck any time soon, not with Sharptooth hunting him and his little group. If I go in now, Sharptooth will surely finish me before I get the chance to finish what I started."

He lowered his head slightly.

"It would be best if I return and report what I know to His Lordship, he might be a little understanding. He never is in a good mood regardless of what I say."

He shrugged.

"But as they say: good things come to those who wait."

He turned and walked back into the trees, his black, empty left eye darkening in the night.