Part IV: Arrival

Things had gotten incredibly boring within the Abyssal Caves for Cera, Chomper and the gang. The days just seemed to stretch on, and with the overwhelming tide of the lake blocking their escape and an angry wingtail keeping them from exploring the caves some more the entire group just ate, slept, and occasionally talked about their past lives.

"My brothers and sisters never really kept me around too much… not because they hated my hide but because… well… they hated my hide," explained Gentry, "my skin colour was so obvious that any bloke could see me coming from a horizon away."

Cera and Chomper were there too, displaying both fatigue at sitting around and doing nothing as well as restlessness for something to do. The small sharptooth was picking up a single rock and dropping it over and over again as he sat on the ground, while Cera was laying her head on her crossed arms in boredom.

"Can't we talk about something else?" asked Cera, "…like how we're going to get out of here?"

Chomper lobbed the rock into the pool half heartedly.

"I wish Littlefoot was here… he would know how to get out."

Cera snorted.

"Hah, more like he would get his new friend Sky to show him the way."

"Are you still mad about that?" inquired Chomper thoughtfully.

"Well just look at where we are," Cera said bitterly as she rose to her feet, "if it wasn't for Sky being so stuck up and leading us on a green food in-the-wind chase for no good reason, we would all still be in the Great Valley with our families."

"Not mine," replied Chomper sadly.

It had been a long time since Chomper had seen his parents, and although Ruby's family had been really nice to him it just wasn't the same. He missed them and every now and then it grew very depressing to know that he might not ever see them again.

"Say, who's this Sky mate you're talking about?" interjected Gentry.

"He's a wingtail we met in our home the Great Valley," answered Chomper, "he seemed kind of nice, at least when he spoke to me."

…

A length of the tunnel-like cave away, Glide's eyes snapped open. Ruby jumped back in fright, certain he had heard her enter.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," apologized Ruby.

The fastrunner was holding a fish in her hand that she had just caught from the pool. She had been hunting water swimmers since she first started swimming to the point where it had become a completely natural thing to her. Ruby's mom had forbid her to do it in the Great Valley though when she came with Chomper so the leaf eaters wouldn't be inclined to drive her out, but now that her mom and siblings lived there she could eat what she pleased. During her swim she thought of how long the mysterious wingtail had been sitting there alone at the bottom of the entrance hole and decided to get him something to eat. One thing she wasn't too sure of though was how her gesture would be received.

Glide yawned and flapped his wings once, before settling into his standard composure.

"What do you want?" the black wingtail said roughly.

"I… I brought you something to eat so you wouldn't be so hungry," replied Ruby, as she approached him with the bluish water swimmer.

Glide simply watched her unblinkingly as she set it down next to him and backed up.

"Why are you doing this runner?" he asked curiously with a slight edge.

"Everyone has to eat when they're hungry," Ruby said with a smile, "you haven't eaten for a long time, and so I thought you would be really hungry."

The black wingtail glanced from side to side, to make sure nobody else was around to hear him.

"Thanks," he whispered considerately.

Light on her feet, Ruby waved and went back into the dark caverns towards the pool.

…

"Can I tell my story now… please, please, please?" butted in Thylo just as Cera had finished talking about herself.

"Fine, but it's supposed to be Chomper's turn," insisted Cera.

"It's okay… I'm not that interesting anyway," Chomper admitted.

"Oh, oh… tell me how you got all those nasty teeth!" Thylo pushed.

Cera and Gentry raised their eyebrows (or at least their upper eye lines since they have no hair) at the stupidity of the question.

"Umm… well…" started Chomper awkwardly.

"From feasting all on little spiketail chops," laughed Gentry he grabbed her tail.

"Hey," blurted Thylo as she yanked her tail out of the egg-stealer's grip, "stop it…"

"Only when you stop asking bloody stupid questions," retorted Gentry more matter of factly then mean.

Thylo stuck up her nose and turned away from him.

"Guys, I don't want you fighting over me… I can tell my story if you want," stepped in Chomper.

"Yeah," peeped Thylo, who just shrugged.

"Sounds all good to me," added Gentry.

"Humph, might as well," groaned Cera.

A moment later, Chomper's story was interrupted by the swift return of Ruby. They stopped what they were doing to greet her, and were mildly curious about how the 'gift' she had given was received.

"He loved it!" exclaimed Ruby, "If we keep being friendly to him maybe he could be our friend too."

Cera scoffed at the idea.

"Yeah right," the threehorn said as she rolled her eyes, "and then he'll kidnap us and throw us in the lake to drown…"

"Really, I think we aren't that different at all," replied Ruby, "we are all really in the same place at the same time so we can't be that different from each other."

Gentry snickered, attracting everyone's attention.

"Sorry," corrected Gentry as he rubbed his snout, "had something in my nose."

"Hey… look!" gasped Thylo at something unseen behind their backs.

The entire group of them including Ruby, Chomper, Cera, and Gentry all tilted their heads to get a look at what had startled Thylo, and they gasped in surprise. Glide had emerged from the cave and had been listening in – his expression entirely neutral and emotionless. Nobody said anything for about ten seconds, before the silence was broken by Cera.

"What do you want?" she growled with about as much tact as a landslide.

"Cera," barked Ruby in alarm, before turning to address Glide, "sorry Cera can be a bit mean sometimes… you can come over here with us if you want."

Glide's eye's narrowed slightly, but again he didn't say anything. After a moment he turned away from them and trudged down to the pool to do what he came for – to get a drink of water. The black wingtail lapped eagerly with his tongue taking in as much water as he could, not caring that all the young dinosaurs were still staring at him.

"You know Cera, when you first met me you didn't like me that much remember?" said Chomper thoughtfully.

"Yeah, but we're friends now Chomper," replied Cera, "what are you trying to say?"

"Well maybe… he could be our friend too if we got to know him," finished Chomper with a shrug.

"…maybe," Cera grumbled admissibly.

"I'll tell you one thing mates," added Gentry, "I'm not gonna be the one going anywhere near him… looks like he might explode any second."

"Someone has to talk to him… any volunteers?" suggested Chomper.

"Oh, oh pick me!" shouted Thylo eagerly, jumping on her feet.

"That won't be necessary," interjected Glide with a bit of contempt as he finished his drink, "what are you hatchlings doing down here anyway… this is a wingtail cave."

"Hah…" piped Cera, ready to vent her mind.

Ruby stepped in front of her.

"You see, we aren't supposed to be here," answered Ruby sadly, "they're keeping us down here."

"Who?" inquired Glide.

"The other flyers who look just like you," replied Chomper, "they caught us and threw us down into this cave for no reason."

Thylo and Gentry looked surprised.

"We aren't here for no reason mates," said Gentry somewhat timidly, "…don't you all know?"

Ruby, Chomper and Cera all looked at each other in a circle and echoed the same looks of confusion.

"The white flyer makes us come shout into his big shiny thingy so it makes us all loud and stuff," added Thylo in the best way she knew to explain the strange behaviour of her wingtail captor, "sometimes he comes down and gets us for it or drops down more friends to play with!"

"What!?!" Glide roared, "…you mean Eybron has been kidnapping children to test the Sonicron?"

The outburst triggered a coughing fit from the black wingtail, whose ribs hadn't fully healed over yet. To the gathered young dinosaurs it was like he was speaking an entirely different language.

"Who wants us to test what?" Cera said somewhat sarcastically.

Where Glide would have been still angry, the pain humbled him into sadness.

"What does it matter," he mumbled to himself while he clutched his chest, "he's already taken the only thing I cared about."

And on that note, there was a good minute of pure silence. It was not a confused or curious silence, but more of a depressing one. Every one of them in the cave at the side of the life-giving pool was far away from those who cared about them and they loved back. It was almost if they were all lost in personal reflection… all but Thylo that is.

The young spiketail had grown up in the Verdant Valley… a very large, fertile, and rich valley that was a paradise to leaf-eaters. The nearby Black Mountain had disturbed their lives occasionally, but for what it took away therein grew green food anew even better then what had been there before. The adults of the Verdant Valley wanted everything to be perfect for their children – as their parents had ensured for them – and that meant they reacted to any threats from sharpteeth or egg-eaters suddenly and severely. Life had been so good for her family that Thylo had actually been bored with it.

Nothing exciting ever happened in the Verdant Valley.

Unlike her spiketail brothers and sisters she possessed a heart that desired adventure and danger, to see all edges of the world and encounter all the deadliest of enemies along the way. Perhaps it was this longing for adventure that fuelled her passion for sharpteeth – or maybe it was just plain ignorance at never having met a real mean one face to face.

Thylo also had a secret too… and that was she had submitted to Eybron's wingtails willingly. She heard them talking in a tree one day on her long adventure walks near the edge of her home valley… and they talked about wondrous things. In what was either a good or bad choice, depending on how you look at it, she offered to go with them to help with what they needed. The two flyers were all too happy to oblige, and soon she ended up here in the bottom of the hole with a host of friends she had just met – the ultimate adventure.

As the group of them sat there, the swishing movements of Glide's tail caught her eyes. It was so mesmerizing; the little bushy tree-star twirling back and forth… it reminded her of a real tree-star flowing in the wind. She was getting hungry. Back and forth, back and forth… she began to salivate. At last she couldn't take it anymore, and primal instinct took over.

Thylo pounced on the tree-star and bit down on it hard, and all hell broke loose.

Glide screeched so loud the entire group of them jumped back in surprise, and he rounded on the little spiketail with a look of pure venom and hissed at her. Contrary to the terrible surprise, Thylo was actually laughing.

"Your tail tastes funny," she giggled.

Chomper couldn't help it, and started laughing too. Before long the entire group of them was cackling away, while Glide just sat there and fumed. Had he of been covered in water, there most definitely would have been steam rising off him. This wasn't funny.

Again Sky got them up at the break of dawn, but Littlefoot was so used to it by now he just yawned, rubbed the sleep from his eyes and feasted himself to a morning breakfast while the others were still half asleep. There was no talking amongst them, which was unusual for the trip but not entirely surprising given how exhausted they still were.

"I have a surprise for you this morning children," informed Sky to their backs while the group was eating.

Ali dropped the treestars she had been chewing on and turned to face the blue wingtail.

"Surprise… what surprise?" she asked eagerly.

It was unusual for Sky to say something like this, so it made it really interesting. In response the wingtail took to the air and beckoned for them to follow.

"You will see."

All the children including Littlefoot, Ali, Ducky and Spike bounded after him. Petrie naturally took to the air and followed close behind the blue wingtail.

"It not scary surprise is it?" inquired the small flyer as he joined with Sky, who had been taking his time to allow the land walkers to catch up.

"It depends," answered Sky with a sly smile.

"Depend on what?" chirped Petrie with fear.

"… It depends on whether you enjoy lots of food, water, and the company of many others of your kind," chuckled Sky as he swooped down towards the ground.

Petrie flapped rapidly to keep up, diving through a gap in the trees only to have the land underneath him give way to a massive cliff, and a drop of hundreds of feet. The flyer was so shocked he almost fell out of the air. Sky circled around until he was level with him.

"Quite impressive isn't it?" the wingtail commented.

"Me not like being up so high so fast!" Petrie responded.

"Come now," responded Sky in a homely manner, "what kind of flyer is afraid of flying?"

Petrie gulped.

"Me."

Sky frowned.

"Well if you're not into bettering yourself, then perhaps you will enjoy my surprise instead."

The blue wingtail pointed towards the ground. Bellow them was the largest, most beautiful valley Petrie had ever seen. He wondered what the others would think when they saw it.

…

Littlefoot and the others had reached the edge of the cliff, and come to a grinding halt. There were no words to describe the beauty of the place contained within the basin, but the best comparison he could make was when he stumbled across the Great Valley as a child. From the seemingly endless flocks of trees, to the grassy plains and flowing rivers the Verdant Valley appeared to be a natural paradise of huge proportions. Littlefoot turned to Ali next to him who had her mouth open in wonder.

"Wow… it's indescribable."

The whole group of them stood there, transfixed by the sight.

Spike was the first to break out of the spell, and he wasted no time making his way down the cliff walls.

"Spike is still hungry… he is," commented Ducky with amusement.

"Come on Ali," laughed Littlefoot as he ushered her after him, "lets go eat."

It took them almost an hour to get down the cliffside that guarded the Verdant Basin, but when they finally did there was a joyous celebration. Ducky rolled in the grass while Spike took it upon himself to 'sample' every piece of green food he could find. As the group split up to do their own thing, Littlefoot remained. Sky came to a landing next to him as the longneck waited.

"Littlefoot, what do you think of my surprise?" the blue wingtail asked.

"I love it," responded the longneck with a bit of excitement, "you came through for us… just like I knew you would."

Unexpectedly, Littlefoot nuzzled the side of Sky's neck catching him by surprise.

"Oh," said Sky in surprise as he regained his balance, "I'm glad you're happy… but I think you should join your friends instead of hanging back here with me."

As Sky said it he pointed towards the forest in the direction Ali had gone.

"See ya later Sky," laughed Littlefoot as he proceeded after his longneck friend.

"Goodbye Littlefoot," whispered Sky with unease when he was out of earshot.

So many things weighed on the blue wingtail, and while the children had still been sleeping after he woke up from his dream he had made a stark decision. He had led the children far enough… and under the zealous protection of the dinosaurs of the Verdant Valley they would be safe. The next leg of the journey was his and his alone. For Littlefoot, that was his final goodbye.