Herds Converge

Standing in a clearing, a young adult longneck held his eyes closed, inhaled deeply and rhythmically. In one quick moment a small rock came flying at him from the trees. With one quick movement, without even opening his eyes or changing his breathing, he knocked it away with his tail.

A much older longneck emerged from the trees. His slate gray body was offset by the dark red scar that cut over his right eye. "Good job, Littlefoot. You've learned well."

The younger longneck opened his eyes and faced his mentor. "Thank you, Doc."

Doc motioned his head to the left. "Come. A familiar herd is approaching." Doc began to move, Littlefoot following behind. Littlefoot could feel it already, the vibrations of the herd's footprints as they thundered across the land. As Doc and Littlefoot emerged onto the plains, they caught sight of the herd. "My fellows!" Doc called out to them.

The longnecks of the herd each turned to look at the two. One of them, a elderly male, but not near as old as Doc, stepped forward. "It is good to see you again."

Doc and Littlefoot walked up to the herd, Doc looking around the various longnecks. "Where is the Old One?"

"Our leader, the Old One is dead." The Old Male said, stepping forward. "We were attacked not to long ago by a pair of sharpteeth who killed two of your herd members. The Old One was one of them."

"Hmmm. Seems unfortunate. What did these sharpteeth look like?" Doc asked.

"One was young and a deep purple color. The other was very old, but very strong. He was dark green and had his right eye closed the whole time." The Old Male said.

"Sharptooth?" Doc said. He turned back and glanced at Littlefoot. "So it seems he's causing trouble. But who was the younger one?"

Littlefoot stared intently at the ground. A much younger deep purple sharptooth, his thoughts automatically turned to his old friend. He looked back up to the herd of longnecks. "Did this younger sharptooth happen to speak Leaf-eater at any point?"

The herd each turned to the other and started muttereing. Until one young female stepped forward. "Yes, he did." She said.

"I was afraid of that." Littlefoot turned back to Doc. "That purple sharptooth was Chomper."

"Wait," the young female said, "how do you know that?"

Littlefoot turned back to her. As he looked he thought he saw something familiar about this girl. All of a sudden it hit him, as if a tree has just fallen on his head. "Ali? Is that you?"

"Littlefoot?" She asked. She bolted from the herd and crashed into Littlefoot, wrapping her neck around his. "It's been such a long time." She said as she pulled away. "What are you doing all the way out here?"

"Well," Littlefoot felt the heat raise in his face, "It's a long story."

"Go ahead and tell her. We're going to be traveling with this herd for a few days, so we have plenty of time." Doc said.

/

A adolescent pink threehorn scampered across fields of green grass and white fluff seeds. Two older threehorns, one pink like the child and one yellow, watched over her. The younger of the two, the yellow one, watched with harsh intent. Not a single step was missed by her.

The small pink threehorn found a small burrow in the ground and started to dig at it, playfully. She jumped away as a legless lizard slide out, hissing and rattling it's tail.

The yellow threehorn charged for the youngling, placing herself between the little trheehorn and the legless lizard. With a quick stomp, she slammed her foot down on the head of the hissing animal, crushing it.

"Cera," the elder pink threehorn said, "that was a little uncalled for. You could've hurt Tricia."

Cera turned to her. "I did it so that nothing would happen to Tricia. You should be more attentive of your child, Tria."

"I am more than capable of taking care of my own child. I don't need your help." Tria stepped nose to nose with Cera.

Cera didn't flinch. She knew that if push came to shove she could take Tria in a fight, now that her horns were fully developed. She scoffed and walked away, wiping the blood off her foot on the grass behind her. She continued to walk along until she came to the watering hole. She laid down and rested by the cool water. Allowing her eyes to slowly close she drifted off to sleep. That is until some familiar voice awoke her.

"Cera! Cera! Get up!" A light green bigmouth ran up to her, along with a green spiketail and a brown flyer perched on his back plates.

Cera's eyes lifted open. "What is it, Ducky?"

"It's Grandpa Longneck! Something's wrong with him!" Ducky proclaimed.

Cera rose to her feet. "What do you mean 'something's wrong'?"

"Just follow us and we'll show you." Ducky took off back towards the forest with Spike and Petrie in tow. Cera trotted on after them.

They emerged in the clearing of Littlefoot's old nesting grounds. Laying on his side in the middle of the field was Grandpa Longneck. His breathing was labored and only came out in small gasping breaths. Dara stood watching over him.

Cera gasped when she saw. "Dara, what's wrong?"

Dara looked up at her. She shook her head slowly. "He's just old, Cera. Nothing more than that."

"Is there anything we can do for him?" Cera asked.

Again, Dara shook her head. "His time is short now."

"Littlefoot..." Grandpa said in a hushed whisper. Their attention shifted down to him on the ground. "...Littlefoot..."

Cera clenched her eyes. "Ducky, Petrie, Spike...I'm leaving."

"What?" Ducky asked.

"I'm going to find Littlefoot. Grandpa is dying, and Littlefoot needs to be here for him." She said. Cera turned away and started walking off to the Great Wall.