CHAPTER 10

ROARY'S DECISION AND A RECONCILIATION

Roary's voice brought Chomper's attention back down to his son. "Mom? I have an annoucement to make..." He hesitated a bit before he continued. "I want dad... to teach me the green eater language... to teach me their ways..."

V'Leck was in total shock. "Roary! What are you saying! Has the sickness affected your head as well!"

"No, V'Leck!" Chomper said. "I think Roary's still perfectly sane." Chomper smiled. "I'd be happy to teach him."

V'Leck stared at them in utter disbelief. "Have you two gone mad! Listen to yourselves! You're talking nonsense! They are not our kind! There is NOTHING we could possibly learn from them!" Then she stormed off.

"No, V'Leck! HONEY!" Chomper called out to her.

"Dad..." Roary grabbed his father's forearm weakly.

"I'll go talk to her. NURSE!" Chomper said as he motioned the nearest female sharptooth caretaker over. He then got up and ran over after his ex mate after the nurse took over.

A short time later, he and V'Leck were sitting down by the pond. She was munching on a generous portion of long neck meat she had Chomper go collect for him. He was munching on a couple of rather large fish he had caught from the pond. They were both watching the volunteers racing back and forth carrying the meat that was needed for the medicine plant doses. Some of the volunteers snuck in a bite or two of the succulent meat as they hurriedly brought it back to the valley entrance. Chomper noticed that Chief Berserker had assigned guards all around the stockpiles of meat and medicine plants. He thought that was a good thing. The healers wouldn't want anybody trying to steal any of the plants or meat before the necessary doses were ready.

They quietly sat there for a time, munching on their meals. Then V'leck broke the silence.

"Want some? It's really good." she said as she handed him the huge slab of long neck meat.

After eyeing it for a moment, he smiled and said. "No, thanks. These fish will do fine."

"You don't know what you're missin'." she said in between her chewing.

If the circumstances were different, he would've happily taken the entire meat slab, if she offered it to him. But while Lesik and the other green eaters were here, he couldn't bring himself to bite into a piece of red meat. The very thought of it turned his stomach, for some reason. He felt it was not only because it was like he was actually eating a piece of his green eater friends' flesh, but also because of the smell of death and disease all around him. A meal of fish was about all he could keep down.

"How are they?" she then asked Chomper about the fish.

"Very good!" he said in between his own chewing. "Juicy sweet, actually." He smiled as he swallowed.

After a few moments, Chomper decided to brooch the subject. "V'Leck, why did we have to separate?"

"You KNOW why!" V'Leck finally said after she swallowed another bite of her long neck meat.

"No! That's not what I meant..."

"Then what did you mean!"

"I meant... What would've happened, if you died? What would've happened to Roary?"

"I can take care of myself!... and Roary! I did for all these seasons, when you weren't around."

"But you know how overprotective of their families some of these male sharptooth are! They wouldn't hesitate to kill any sharptooth they felt was a threat to the safety of their family... Even if that 'threat' was just a sharptooth female and her young son."

"Roary's old and big enough to fend for himself..."

"But still young and small enough to have his neck snapped in two by a much larger sharptooth male! I would'n't be so worried about you two if your parents were still alive! Especially your father. He was big enough to take on ANYBODY. But they're no longer alive! Who would've been there to protect you and Roary!"

V'Leck didn't answer. She felt the question was rhetorical.

He then took her right hand in his. "Honey, I still care very deeply for both of you. I would die if anything were to happen to either of you. My whole world would crumble, if I didn't have the both of you as a part of my life."

"You're just saying that..."

"No! I really mean it!" He then gave both her hand a light squeeze. "I know we've had our differences of opinions-especially about the green eaters-but we could've stayed together for Roary's sake! The boy needed his father most of all!"

V'Leck sighed and looked down at the grassy ground. "It's just that... I felt I had to go, and take Roary with me. I just couldn't bear to hear any more of your... INSANE TALK… about the green eaters and their ways... and I didn't want you filling Roary's head with those ridiculous notions..."

"It's not 'insane talk', V'Leck! And it's not 'ridiculous', either! Besides, Roary now says he wants to learn! Expand his horizons! He has the right to make his own decision in this matter! I have the right to teach him what he wants to learn!"

"But it goes against everything that was taught to us by our ancestors for generations! What you and Roary are... plotting... to do goes against tradition! You would be outcast... Roary would be outcast... 'I' would be outcast! I mean... WHAT COULD WE POSSIBLY LEARN FROM THESE... 'SAP SUCKERS'! THEY ARE NOTHING LIKE US!"

"That's not true..."

"YES, IT IS! Don't get me wrong! I am grateful that they are here helping us, here and now, in this time of great need. But believe me when I say that once this crisis is over, they will leave here and forget about us... and about YOU. It's best that you forget about them, too, once they're gone!"

"V'Leck..."

"This conversation is over, Teekul!"

She got up and stormed off.

Chomper got up immediately and ran after her.

"V'Leck... V'LECK! Honey! WAIT!" Chomper shouted as he grabbed her.

"Don't you call ME 'honey'!" she growled.

"V'Leck, LISTEN TO ME!" He grabbed her shoulders.

He pointed off in the distance. "Look at the threehorn Cera over there!"

V'Leck hesitated.

"I'm serious! LOOK AT HER!"

V'Leck sighed heavily as she looked off to where Chomper was pointing. She saw Cera working with the sharptooth healers in preparing the medicine plant antidotes.

"Before she came here, she thought exactly the same way about us as you think about them. She thought that we were nothing but cruel, heartless assassins who didn't have feelings, who didn't have any strong family ties whatsoever. This was what her father taught her, and this was what her grandfather probably taught her. What countless generations of threehorns had taught their descendants! But now, she's got a completely different attitude about us!"

"How do you know?"

Chomper smiled and shrugged. "She told me!"

"Oh! She did, did she?"

Chomper nodded and took hold of her shoulders again. "Look! During my brief time with them as a youngling, I discovered that they are exactly like us. They care for their young ones and their elders, like we do. They honour and mourn their dead, like we do. Look at the long neck Lesik over there!" He pointed in the direction of the big long neck busy caring for a bunch of sick sharptooths. "I'm sure that, when nobody was looking, he went over to the long neck carcass over there and... 'blessed' him in some way. Thanking him for sacrificing his life so that we'd all have a chance at life ourselves. By the Prime Egg, they even mate for life, like we do... well, MOST of us, anyway."

V'Leck didn't like his last comment, but decided not to jibe him about it. Chomper let her dwell on this for a few moments before he continued. "In a way, we're like... distant cousins!" Chomper smiled. "Only difference is: They eat the green stuff."

"And we eat them!"

"That aside, I'm sure that if you just give yourself a chance to get to know them, you'll see that I'm right."

V'leck seemed pensive for a few moments. Then she nodded. "Okay."

Chomper beamed.

"But I refuse to believe that they saved your life when you hatched out of your egg!"

"Fine by me."

"And if what you say is true, if we are destined to really become friends with these... 'sap suckers'...this will take a radical change of thinking in all of us, and such a change does not happen overnight."

"I realize that. Just like I realize not to expect 'you' to change 'your' way of thinking overnight, but if you can at least be more open to the possibility of becoming friends with them, and to the idea that we can someday live in harmony with them, that will make me VERY happy."

After a few moments, V'Leck slowly smiled and nodded.

Chomper smiled back and placed his hand on her cheek. "You're taking a step in the right direction, dear! I'm so proud of you!"

V'Leck giggled. "They say 'One sharptooth cannot summon the future'."

"Yes, but another wise old ancestor of ours also said: One sharptooth can make a difference."

Then both of them smiled brightly, rubbed their muzzles together and brought their foreheads as one, as they have done so many times before as a sign of their love and affection. "Come on, they need our help."

They then took each other's hand and walked over towards the valley entrance, where a large crowd of healers and volunteers were busy preparing the medicine plant antidotes. The medicine plants kept pouring in, and the volunteers kept running back and forth from the long neck carcass carrying as much meat in their arms as they could.

A flapping noise from above them caused them to look up. Chomper saw that it was Petrie circling down towards them. He was carrying a large bunch of medicine plants in his claws.

"Chomper! CHOMPER!" he exclaimed as he landed. "Look! I brought WHOOOLE bunch of medicine plants!"

Chomper smiled. "That's great, Petrie! Just bring them over to the healers so that can keep making antidotes."

"Okie dokie!" Petrie said. He was just about to lift off the ground with his bushel when he caught himself. "Uhh... Is this your mate?" he asked, pointing.

Chomper laughed. "EX mate! This is V'Leck!" He then introduced her to Petrie. V'Leck made a small grumble in Petrie's direction.

"She said 'Hi'." Chomper smiled.

"Oh! Pleasure to meet you too, ma'am." Petrie bowed. Chomper translated his greeting to V'Leck, who simply nodded. Petrie then asked. "You really think all this effort will save all these sharptooth?"

Chomper nodded. "We're real positive about it. Cera's working her hind quarters off getting the antidotes ready, and..." Chomper stopped mid sentence when he felt something churning in his belly. A rumbling sound could be heard as he put a hand to his abdomen. "Uh oh..."

"Teekul?" V'Leck asked in a worried tone.

"Chomper? Chomper, what wrong?" Petrie asked, equally worried.

"I'm..." He then put a hand to his mouth as he ran a few feet away then bent over as he heaved his stomach contents onto the grassy ground.

"Oh, no! TEEKUL!" V'Leck exclaimed.

Petrie gasped. "Oh, no! OH, NONONOOO! MEDIIIICS!"

Chomper had come down with "Bloody Tummy" himself.