Taking a deep breath, Cassandra stepped into the sunlight.

At last, freedom! Finally, her mandatory quarantine had ended! No more eating pre-made meals (even if they did taste good)! No more being stuck with a small yard for exercise! She was free! She could walk around and examine this ancient land not through cameras, but with her own two eyes! And it would be wonderous!

The last few days had certainly weighed heavily on Cassandra (and by no means had she come to terms with what had led to her arrival in the 'present'), but the happiness she felt over being free to explore the park currently trumped those feelings of doom and gloom. After all, she was going to experience a privilege that none of her fellows would ever receive the honor of possessing: being able to see how the ancients lived their lives, and not having to run on rampant speculation. Perhaps she could see learn about the great liberator, the supposed messiah whose visage sat atop a marvel in the capital of the Union of the Americas. Or maybe she could learn of the origin of the four tyrants - those who had their faces carved into an ancient mountain that was part of the sacred lands of a more ancient people.

...Actually, maybe that would have to wait - she would stick out like a sore thumb in this time's present. At best, she might be able to pass herself off as some tourist, but there was only so much that one could imitate before coming off as a parody. And besides, the Union had no aristocracy, nor did it have any neighbors that still possessed a form of nobility - such nations were fewer now than they were in the prior times. While father may have been of lower birth, that had not stopped her mother's parents from allowing him to marry her mother, despite her other suitors' pleas. Granted, most of them were incompetent ding-bats. And yes, it was okay for a lady to say that - her grandmother most certainly had.

A sudden movement in front of her brought Cassandra out of her musings - a tiny, brown and blue colored bird of some sort was looking around for food. Attention instantly in mono-focus, Cassandra fell to a prone position and slowly began to move in. A bird with such a long and bony tail had not been recorded in the history books, making her likely the first to document its appearance...oh wait, she didn't have a notebook.

...And now it was looking up at her! My, my, what nice teeth it had...wait, teeth?

Eyes widening, Cassandra gave the creature another glance. Then she felt the urge to bury her head in her hands.

This creature was not a bird - it was a dinosaur. A raptor dinosaur, going by the tow claws. The short snout and somewhat blunt teeth indicated it was a type of troodontid, but which one eluded her - species with these traits existed all over the world.

The bird-like dinosaur observed her for a moment, before going back to eating from the berry bush. The peace, however, was shattered when an iguana darted by, pursued by another fluffy dinosaur. Instantly, the troodontid darted into the air, while Cassandra leapt backwards in surprise, landing square on her butt. By the time she had overcome her shock, the chase was over - the dinosaur had slain the lizard, and was feasting on its corpse.

This new theropod was harder to identify than the troodontid - it lacked an specialized traits, only having the basal body design. The number of fingers on its hand ultimately ended up being the smoking gun here - four fingers indicated that this creature was a coelophysoid, though which was still beyond her ability to identify. Perhaps the staff would identify the exact genus for her after all of the new human arrivals were settled in?

Uncaring of Cassandra's musings, the Tawa and Koparion went on with their feasting.

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Korac watched in awe as the mammoth cow walked by, the rest of her herd not far away.

It was not the fact that there was a mammoth here - there were plenty of them, and Korac was used to hunting mammoths. What really surprised him was that this mammoth was both the smallest one in these lands and the only one with fur (excluding the bull that he and his friends had been chasing).

When they had arrived, Korac, his wife, and their fellows had been confined to a strange sort of dwelling, where they were checked on by healers. Though neither party could speak the other's language, the overall intent was clear: their new hosts wanted to make sure the ancient humans were not carrying disease with them into their new home. Once they were proven to be clean, they hunter-gatherers were free to choose where they wanted to make their new home. That, of course, depended on where the best hunting was.

Only now, though, was it obvious just how difficult finding the best hunting grounds might be.

Here, on this snow covered hill, was the point where it became apparent just how strange and familiar the creatures of this land were.

Before them was a herd of mammoths, but unlike any they had seen before. For one, all of them had bare skin, instead of a fur coat. The fatty hump was also absent, and where mammoths normally had small ears, the ears on these mammoths were huge. Some had tiny tusks, while others had more familiar pairs. And then there were the ones with tusks on their lower jaws as well as their upper ones. Just what those tusks were used for, Korac had no idea.

And that was just the mammoths! Among the stranger creatures, Korac could see a sail-backed predator tearing into a fish with fleshy tendrils on its maw. A little ways away from that creature, a gigantic, long necked flyer was feeding on a deer. Most interesting of all, though, was the bipedal hunter watching the mammoths from the distance. This beast was of the same breed as the one the boy had been with, but it looked less feathery and more aggressive.

Putting those thoughts away for now, Korac gestured for his tribe to follow him - only once home was set up could they worry about other problems...like those strange toothy bird people.

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AN: Just for reference, this chapter takes place before COVID was a thing.

I assume the park would want to quarantine temporally-displaced humans to avoid diseases.

Cassandra was referring to Mount Rushmore and the Lincoln Memorial. She's technically American by blood, but the records from her times about the Modern U.S. are imperfect and rather biased (though given how Trump is handling this crisis, I am buying into that bias right now, and I am an American).

The tyrannosaur Korac was talking about is Matilda - she's being taken somewhere for exercise.

Not a lot happens in this chapter (well, nothing really major), but I needed to address what happened with our new human park residents.

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