Chapter 6: Ducky's lament / Not So Friendly Neighbors

Sigh

After the fateful outcome of her last visit, Ducky had sworn not to return to this place ever again yet here she was - at the outer edge of the valley's borders, sitting on a little exposed boulder, her gaze wandering through the mysterious, crooked landscape that lay beyond the Valley's borders. This was where she and Petrie had parted. How long ago had it been already? The swimmer didn't know. A week? A month? Certainly did feel like it had been an eternity...

"Why does it hurt so much? Why can I not forget? Why... why does nobody understand?!"

The landscape became blurry, her eyes filling with tears as she lamented, only the wind lingering around to listen. Just what had happened to the happy life she used to have? Her current self was a mere shadow of what it used to be, the happy cheerful Ducky gone, replaced by a pessimistic swimmer that even surpassed Cera in attitude. Last but not least, why could her friends not accept her feelings? They were something that could not be helped! After all, you couldn't just tell someone to stop mourning for a lost one or stop liking a friend, could you?

That was when Ducky's head sunk onto her knees as a loud cry escaped her mouth. When would this madness finally stop?

As the flyer approached, grim stares on him, he realized something very important.

Hmm, mountain has lots of cliffs and it difficult to find place to dwell…

As he had already noticed on other mountains, those flyers holding the more daring positions on the mountain often seemed to have females around them while those on safer positions were usually without any females. Petrie thus looked out for an easy spot that wasn't taken yet. No good in picking fights, he thought. Luckily there was more than enough space to settle down...

"Spike, we were right... you hear it too, don't you?"

Spike let out a sad sigh as the sound of the swimmer sobbing entered his ears. As Littlefoot had anticipated, which his sniffer was soon to prove, his sister had climbed the walls of the valley once again to go to what had seemingly turned into her thinking place - the very location she had parted ways with him...

Probably to think about Petrie again...

The longneck imitated Spike's sigh. The coming talk wouldn't be easy, so much was certain. When the two friends eventually reached the top of the wall where the sound of Ducky wailing was echoing from, Littlefoot was immediately reminded of the last time he had been standing here, fearing for her life. In comparison, the task of comforting his friend suddenly didn't seem so bad anymore. Determined, he marched forward until their poor friend came into view.

"Right, now that me here, what me going to do?"

As the young flyer had finally found a temporary place on the mountain - maybe a little exposed and windy but with no competition whatsoever, he began wondering just how he was supposed to spend all of the Cold Time in a place such as this. Should he sit on the mountain all day waiting for the day to be over already? Should he be actively looking for a mate? Pterano had shown him how the practical part of courtship had to be performed and he'd told him manners, rules and advice just the same, however the young flyer was still unsure of himself. Naturally, his kind was known to be very extroverted and self-confident - characteristics that were absolutely necessary for any male flyer to be successful in courtship just as well as in life. However, Petrie didn't have any trust in his abilities. Granted, the fact that he had been able to find this place safely and without major problems was showing that he had long since risen far above his younger self, however, looking at some other males around him, he just got to admit that he looked rather puny in comparison. Being a bit short for his age as it was and being a rookie didn't help much to shine against the older, more experienced individuals on his mountain, many of which seemed to be terribly muscular quite unlike him.

But did he even have to worry about that right now? His heart still torn apart from and aching from the split-up with Ducky, could he even let another girl enter his world at this point? Moreover, shouldn't he rather get familiar with the place first? However…

"How me make sure no other flyer take this place?" As Petrie thought about this, taking off to explore his new temporary home suddenly didn't seem nearly as great an idea. "Maybe me should just do observation and watch what other flyers doing?"After all, they occasionally had to leave their places as well to get food and water. Did they all keep their perches, did they just take a different one or fight over them even? The flyer was just about to make up his mind about that matter at issue, as the sound of flapping wings reached his ears...

"Uuuuhhuuuh!" Spike piped up to make himself known, the two stopping at a reasonable distance to the swimmer - which was necessary since Ducky would sometimes even reject the company of her own brother lately.

"Hey Ducky," Littlefoot spoke up quietly in a grave voice, waiting patiently for a reaction of the swimmer. But none came; her head remained buried in her arms.

"Probably might be best if Spike goes ahead first..." the young longneck pondered, giving Spike a non-verbal plead to greet his sister first.

"What do you guys want?" Ducky cried as Spike nudged her gently, the Spiketail immediately taken aback by her outburst. "Did you not already hurt me enough?!"

"Spike and I came to make sure you're alright, Ducky," the longneck answered calmly, Spike giving a curt nod to underline his point. "Cera said some nasty things I don't agree with either but I think she's worried about you just the same and, as your friend, she only wants what's best for you..."

"Me and Petrie being apart is NOT what is best for me!"

Littlefoot and Spike leaped back as Ducky screamed in a mixture of anguish and anger.

"YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND!"

"Ducky... yelling at us is not okay..." Littlefoot sighed as Ducky threw a full tantrum. Switching to a more authoritative voice, he continued. "We're your friends, not your enemies. We are trying to help."

"You are hurting me... yes you are..." The swimmer returned to a more reasonable tone, more tears obscuring her vision.

"No, you are hurting yourself..." Littlefoot pointed out with regret. "Let Spike and me comfort you so we can talk in a calmer atmosphere, Ducky..."

"No..." Ducky wailed, not feeling up to being comforted by her friends who didn't like her relationship with the flyer.

But the two friends didn't care about the swimmer's request, embracing her as best as they could, the girl ceasing to resist soon, keeping the embrace strong and tight until Ducky finally ceased to weep and sob.

"Geez, there's so much fresh meat here this year, don't you think guys?"

Petrie rapidly turned around as a series of light thuds indicated a bunch of flyers landing some distance behind him.

Oh no me got visitors...

"Hey puny, this ain't a playground for little kiddies," a sneering, deep voice emerged from the small group, belonging to a tall flyer with a long crest and intimidating chest. He was somewhere between orange and brown in colour, wearing a smug grin.

This one of alpha flyers, what they want from Petrie?

"What you want?" Petrie asked in a reserved but polite manner as the huge adolescent walked up to him until he stood right in front of him. The young flyer couldn't help but feel intimidated and his nervousness rocketed to the sky quickly as he was being mustered from head to toe. Was he at the wrong mountain after all?

"You see, in a place like this a flyer like me has to assess the quality of his competitors. However..." He gave a loud snort, cackling as he continued. "However, I really don't need to worry about toothpicks like you!" Laughter broke out in the small crowd - his gang of admirers and scoundrels as Petrie deduced quickly.

"That... be okay with m-me," Petrie replied timidly.

"M-m-m-me?" More laughter broke out. "Oh boy, he's a perfect match for my good-for-nothing sister!" Suddenly there was movement within the admirers and a rather small female flyer with a strawberry-reddish colouration was ungently pushed to the front where she landed in the dirt.

"May I introduce? My good-for-nothing sister. Having to watch her is such a pain y'know? She's as useless as you… and she st-st-stutters!"

More laughter broke out, pointing fingers moving away from his figure, now on the newcomer. Petrie's eyes immediately took note of the girl who slowly rose from where she had been pushed. She seemed slightly younger than himself, probably too young to engage in any courtship, but, more importantly, Petrie immediately took note of her many bruises.

Now me even more scared, how he treat her!?

However, he barely had time to get worked up about how she was apparently pushed around as the male turned his attention back on him.

"Oh, excuse my bad manners, my name is Aphteron. I won't ask for your name though, it is irrelevant to me, you see?" Aphteron was the exact opposite of Petrie at that moment, hanging around the smaller flyer in a laid-back manner, a cool expression on his face while the latter was tense to the point of shaking and about to snap from nervousness.

"Remember your place and don't get into my way, got it, scrawny?" As he was spoken to, Petrie tried to avoid the menacing gaze that seemed to burn holes through his body. Instead, he caught a quick glimpse from the young female as their gazes crossed each other for a second before she looked away as quick as she could. Just seeing the expression on her face told him that she was just as uncomfortable around her brother as he just felt.

"Also, you look someone in the eye when you talk to them. It's like the number one courtship rule, you won't even get a dumb girl like this... geez these newbies..." Earning another good chunk of laughs, Aphteron turned his attention away from him.

"Let's go back to the cool area guys, the girls don't wait..." Spreading his wings in an almost graceful and proud manner, he took off, his followers joining him swiftly as they took off after him.

"Hey good-for-nothing, you better be home before I am!" Aphteron exclaimed before he glided out of view.

Petrie looked once more at the young flyer who hadn't followed the boys, catching another short glimpse from her that said more than 1000 words.

She hate him too.

Then, she quickly looked away shily, taking off to different direction.

Well, me think me stay here... for now.

Petrie let out a huge sigh of relief as he finally found himself alone again. The flyer hadn't exactly expected to meet anyone friendly there but his luck seemed to be really bad. Did he just have to bump into a full-scale bully right away?

"Well, at least he no want to fight," the flyer muttered to himself. "Guess me just gonna observe other flyers to learn about things..."

Well, here you go with the next chapter!

Looks like Ducky is very upset, even yelling at her friends. Will Littlefoot be capable of calming the young swimmer's anger? And is Ducky going to see reason?

Petrie finally seems to have settled down, however he gets an unexpected visitor If some things confuse you in the last scene, most of this is probably going to clear as soon as we delve more into Petrie's part. Due to the chronological order of things, Ducky's part might be a bit more heavier in the near future but I might decide to screw sticking to a correct timeline (I ignored it once early in the story already) and try to give both stories roughly the same attention in each chapter. Probably going to decide on that before posting the next one because it'd affect its content already (all written, just not fully arranged).

Anyway, what are your initial thoughts on Aphteron? And what is your first assumption concerning his sister? I surely didn't just have her appear as a camo after all ^^

Hope you like the chapter and until next time!

Guest chapter 6 . Aug 17

"I couldn't agree with your position more. If you're going to kill off an important character it should be done with a level of respect rather than just shock value. While I'm glad you didn't kill her, the fact she didn't survive unscathed should lead to some important character development for the group as a whole. Speaking of which, you cannot imagine how satisfying it was for me to see Littlefoot stand up to Cera without a physical confrontation. It's a definite sign that he's matured and is something I've wanted to see for a long time. I look forward to reading what happens next."

Well, I think Ducky won't have a permanent damage there but one that doesn't go away in the matter of a few days for sure. I'm glad that you liked the non-physical confrontation, LOL :D