Chapter 12
A Disorienting Orientation
Cera awoke with a jolt, reliving her last memory as her mind staggered into the now.
She'd seen Littlefoot's bones.
The sky, the Earth, the trees ... they were all there! The wind whispered. Someone was humming. The last she remembered, there was all-consuming sound, pain and a great light. Such was its brightness that when Littlefoot dove in front of her, she no longer saw the stone scales, the monumental muscles. That horrible light passed through it all, but not his bones. No. Those were silhouetted like trees against the setting Bright Circle.
However, Littlefoot was right there, skin flesh and all. Lying on his stomach, his position was identical to what it had been when he dove in front of her, shielding her from the light with his body even as it blazed straight through his flesh, except now? He looked perfectly ... fine.
...
... It had to be a dream. When her logic launched rebuttals, she smacked it down with a mental horn and reasserted herself with firm finality: It. HAD. To. Be. A. Dream.
She looked around. Maybe she was still dreaming? Her friends were there, along with their new allies and rescues. They were all sleeping. Perhaps Littlefoot had brought them there, after soloing The Clever Claws and passing out in front of her for some reason. He certainly had the strength to pull it all off, but it wouldn't be easy. Yes, that was what had happened! She liked that conclusion. She liked it even more upon realising that the countdown was gone, having yielded nothing.
Who was humming, anyway? It was growing annoying.
Cera gently pawed at Littlefoot. He didn't react, but she could see his giant chest expanding and shrinking with steady breaths. Satisfied, she peaked around him to see one of The Rainbow Faces standing a short distance away, stock still, eyes closed as she hummed that song which was getting really old, really fast.
That threw her convenient dream theory into a tizzy. ~Okay ... so those weirdos- I mean, The Rainbow Faces are actually here? Maybe it wasn't just a drea- Shut up, logic! We've got more important things to think about!~
Frowning, Cera moved to check on Ducky, senses peeled for fast biters as she gave everyone a brief scan for injuries. They looked remarkably unscathed. Ducky looked ... well ... just ducky. It didn't matter that she was a fully grown swimmer. No one could see sweet not-quite-little Ducky sleep without feeling their heart melt a bit. Breaths soft and consistent, she seemed comfortable, even if she was lying on top of the arm that wasn't actually there. That couldn't be good for her, exposed to the dirt like that. However, Cera didn't know if she could move her without making it worse. Dismay weighed on Cera's soul. Ducky was the last person who deserved this, but she situation seemed stable enough.
Okay, that humming was officially driving her crazy.
Cera cleared her throat. "Hey, rainbow lady. Mind telling me what happened here?"
The Rainbow Face didn't react.
Cera frowned. Being ignored was not high on her list of enjoyable things ... or even acceptable things.
Taking a deep, calming breath, Cera plodded over to the Rainbow Face and stood in front of her.
"Um ... hello?" Cera tried again.
Still no reaction.
Cera's frown deepened. She lifted a paw and gingerly moved it towards the Rainbow Face. She'd learnt the hard way how easy it was to topple smaller creatures with her taps as she grew bigger. Apparently, all her efforts were for naught. Cera had used the barest modicum of force, but the way the Rainbow Face jolted? She might as well have poked her in the ribs with a horn.
Zenith cracked an eyelid, evidently miffed. "Hello, Cera."
"How do you know my name?" asked a squinting Cera.
"Everyone knows your name," Zenith smiled. "You're something of a celebrity on The Mass Medium."
Cera eyed her blankly. "... Okay ...?"
Zenith rubbed the back of her neck. "Right, well, it's a means by which we share information. Beyond that, there is no easy way to explain The Mass Medium."
"If that's true, then why'd you say it?" asked Cera.
They stared at one another as a vaguely uncomfortable silence fell upon them. Cera could practically see several beginnings of an answer coalesce behind the Rainbow Face's eyes before she settled for one.
"The salient point is that you're famous," Zenith explained 'simply'. "I assumed you'd extrapolate that, at least."
"You also assumed I'd know what 'famous' means," Cera added.
The tiny bit of life that left the Rainbow Face's eyes gave Cera the impression that she wasn't enjoying this conversation.
"Dagara knew what it meant ..." Zenith muttered, rubbing her chin. "Apologies, my partner is more adept at interpersonal relations. Feel free to converse with him when he returns."
"But you're the one who's here, and it's not like you're doing anything," Cera retorted.
"I was scanning for hidden threats, threats in general, monitoring a battle in the sky, expunging residual radiation from the environment ..." Zenith listed off.
"Hang on, a 'battle in the sky'?" asked Cera, looking up. "I don't see any flyers up there."
"You wouldn't," Zenith admitted.
"And you did?" Cera pressed. "Lady, you were closing your eyes and humming."
"It helps me focus," Zenith stated.
"Did you even notice me earlier?" asked Cera.
"I did, although admittedly, 'noticing you' isn't tantamount to 'paying attention to you'," Zenith confessed evenly.
"So you were ignoring me," Cera surmised.
"In the nicest possible way, yes," Zenith agreed.
"I don't really like being ignored," Cera declared.
Zenith shrugged. "I don't like being interrupted."
"Again, you weren't really doing anything," Cera reminded.
"The plethora of potentially life-saving background tasks I am enacting hardly qualify as 'not doing anything'," Zenith emphasised. "Proper execution requires focus."
Cera stared at her funny. "... Right. Of course it does. Man, just when you think you're used to Pterano ..."
"You can always ask for clarification," Zenith assured.
"If you thought I'd need clarification, why didn't you make it clear in the first place?" Cera parried.
Zenith grinned. "An excellent question. You were always one of my favourites: you abstain from entertaining nonsense. Unfortunately, you don't entertain too much sense either."
"Excuse me?" Cera frowned.
Zenith ignored her. "With a little guidance, you could almost be pretty smart."
Cera's jaw dropped before she glared: "I am pretty smart."
Zenith tilted her head from side to side as though weighing Cera's statement and finding it lacking. "Where I come from, the standard for 'pretty smart' is much higher."
Cera's face soured all the more.
Zenith's expression softened a smidgeon. "Don't be like that. It's not necessarily a bad thing. You wouldn't believe what we can do with our minds, but every now and then, we've been outsmarted by mere animals! It wasn't that they surpassed us in our own game so much as they dragged us down to their level and beat us with experience. We broke our Circle of Life a long time ago, buried the pieces and never looked back, but there is a simple, brutal brilliance that can only be gleaned through fighting tooth and claw against everything The Circle has to offer. Have you ever gazed upon a distant feature of the landscape and thought, 'hey, that looks like an abritrary creature!' Then you get closer, see the details, and it doesn't look like a creature anymore? We see so many details that we may never see the creature in the first place. Sometimes, the simplest things confound the wise, and the wisest possibilities can be seen only by the simple. You fall within a grey area of lukewarm intelligence, neither formidable nor negligible. No one fears the burn or chill of lukewarm air. No one particularly feels it either, but it can carry poisons, or buffet them to the ground when it moves with great force. Our specialty is 5D tabletop games. Your specialty is flipping the table."
Cera paused to process the weighty monologue. "Okay, that wasn't entirely an insult, which is nice, but it almost sounds like you're calling me ... something less than a person?"
Zenith shook her head. "No. It's clear to me that you are a person. However, many qualify personhood by standards of capability that you do not meet."
Cera snorted. "I don't know who this 'many' thinks they are, but if they're Rainbow Faces or black biters, I'm perfectly 'capable' of showing them what's what."
Again, Zenith shook her head. "Not yet, but you will be, if you so choose."
Cera searched Zenith's eyes.
The Rainbow Face's expression remained impassive.
A shadow of a smirk tugged at Cera's beak. She puffed a single, nasal chuckle. Surely the Rainbow Face was messing with her.
Zenith didn't smile back.
Cera's amusement flipped to outrage. "What? You're not joking? In case you haven't noticed, I'm a huge and powerful threehorn!"
"Your point being?" Zenith deadpanned.
"You can't be saying some of you guys are stronger than me!" Cera proclaimed. "I'm pretty much as strong as I'll ever be!"
Finally, muted amusement flickered in Zenith's eyes. "Don't be so sure. Like I said, where I come from, the standards are quite high."
Cera's eyes were wide. This time, she was well and properly taken aback.
"... You think ... you're ... stronger than me?" Cera slowly asked.
Zenith lifted her palm. "Shift me from the spot on which I stand."
([~])
[PSEUDOSOMATIC FUNCTIONS]
```[Tier 1 Psychosomatic Inhibitors: UNLOCKED.]
``````[MyoMega Fibres: ACTIVATED.]
``````[Peak Functionality: 33.333% of Recommended Maximum]
[~]
[M.I.S.T. BEHAVIOUR]
```[Anchorage]
([~])
Cera raised an eyebrow, then snorted. She placed her paw against Zenith's and pushed.
It barely budged.
The threehorn frowned.
Zenith gave a dry smirk, eyes half-lidded in something approaching smugness.
Cera removed her paw and pressed her nose against Zenith's palm.
([~])
[PSEUDOSOMATIC FUNCTIONS]
```[Tier 2 Psychosomatic Inhibitors: UNLOCKED.]
``````[Peak Functionality: 66.666% of Recommended Maximum]
([~])
The threehorn began to walk forward, slowly at first. Her nose pressed harder and harder against Zenith's paw, but she wasn't getting anywhere. Her feet began to slip against the soil, while Zenith remained rooted in position. The Rainbow Face's paw was like the branch of a great tree. It would bend, but only slightly. Then it simply refused to go any farther.
Cera drew back. "What in the world?"
After a moment's thought, she reared onto her hindlegs, placing her forefeet against Zenith's palms. It looked like some kind of hatchling game, minus the clapping and singing. When the Rainbow Face scarcely wavered, Cera bore down her weight. She even bounced a bit. A tiny quaver afflicted The Rainbow Face's muscles. Was she winning?
([~])
[PSEUDOSOMATIC FUNCTIONS]
```[Tier 3 Psychosomatic Inhibitors: UNLOCKED.]
``````[Peak Functionality: 100% of Recommended Maximum]
([~])
The quaver vanished.
Cera gave a frustrated growl. Lowering her centre of gravity, she pushed as much as she dared. Finally, Cera eased off, frantically looking The Rainbow Face up and down. Her aghast bemusement twisted her face. She almost looked outraged, as though met with a reality that was fundamentally, disgustingly wrong.
"Why are you so heavy?" the threehorn demanded.
"I'm not," Zenith corrected lightly.
Cera leant forward, meeting Zenith glare to stare. "Look, sister, I know it's a sensitive topic, but if you weigh more than a full-grown threehorn, then I don't see-"
Without warning, Cera drove her horn into the soil beneath Zenith's feet and gave a great heave. The Rainbow Face flipped into the air, but not off the ground. Her ascent stopped, the moment Cera's heave had ended. She had frozen mid-air, along with the chunks of earth on which she stood. They had ... moved with her, uprooting as though attached to her feet by ... well, roots. Cera took a closer look. Wait, were those actual roots? Silvery strands branched through the slabs of soil, interconnecting and suspending them. On second thought, they didn't quite look like roots. At least, not any roots Cera had seen.
The silver not-roots levelled the airborne ground beneath Zenith and she descended them like stepping stones.
"Impressive," grinned the Rainbow Face. "You deduced that I wasn't heavy, merely attached to the ground somehow. You kept talking about my weight so that I wouldn't realise that you had figured it out. Then, you struck, hoping this misdirection was enough to take me off guard. It could have worked, but I was expecting it. Like I said, almost prettysmart."
"How- y-you-!" Cera stammered.
"The catch is, flipping me into the air wasn't your idea," Zenith explained, tapping her skull. "I planted it in your head when I mentioned 'flipping the table'. You wouldn't know what a 'table' is, but that held no bearing on your plan formulation."
"But ... the root-things!" Cera continued. "Where did they-?"
"Oh, they're all over the place," Zenith explained. "I just hooked my paws beneath them. See?"
She plucked at one of the many, silver roots subtly peeking from beneath the ground with her toes.
Cera was at a loss. ~Were those ... always there?~
"Actually, I was lying. Those things weren't always there," answered Zenith.
And suddenly, they weren't. Cera didn't see them vanish so much as she checked again and simply couldn't find them. Her mouth moved, but the questions died on her lips. She sat herself down, eyes darting about as though they may find the answer to the paradoxes before her. Finally, something solidified behind her eyes as they rested on the Rainbow Face. Something angry.
"Don't. Do that," Cera asserted.
Zenith's eyes fluttered in fascination.
Cera began pacing a circle around the Rainbow Face, like a sharptooth sizing up their opponent.
"You think you're the first person to mess with someone's head?" she asked. "To make them question their grasp on reality? Well, guess what? It happens all the time in threehorn relationships. 'Sweet Bubble, where'd you get that bruise on your head? Did someone ram you? Who was it?' They both know who put it there, but the way he talks? She feels crazy to believe it was him. Or maybe she's the one convincing him that someone else put a bruise on his head, but he will act like it never happened, because threehorns are tough, and a guy isn't a guy if he lets the love of his life rough him up. Well, you know what? I don't care how tough I'm 'supposed' to be. I decided long ago that I'd never let that happen to me, so if you mess with my mind?" Cera slowly shook her head, letting the unspoken ultimatum do the talking.
Zenith rolled her eyes with a click of the tongue. "Don't be so dramatic. I'm not abusing you. You talk like you've never pulled a prank before."
Cera froze mid-step, the intensity ebbing from her suddenly uncertain eyes. "W-well, yeah, but pranks are funny. That wasn't funny ..."
"Indeed. It was a wake up call, and it's going to be a lot less funny when your enemies are the ones doing it," Zenith pressed as she treaded closer. "I come from a place where battles are won not with claws and teeth, but truths, lies and all that lies between. My people are coming here, and you. Are. NOT. Prepared. For them."
With every staccato word, she tapped Cera's muzzle, causing the threehorn to wince back that much more.
Zenith brightened. "So, keep asking questions! It sharpens the mind!"
Cera frowned. "Fine. Here's a question: they're your people. Why are you 'helping' me?"
The Rainbow Face hummed her approval. "That is an excellent question. I am helping my people, just not the ones who want you gone. Besides, mass extinction just doesn't appeal to me."
"Come again?" Cera asked.
"It's when everyone dies," Zenith clarified. "Just like that, 'poof'. Well, except for people like me."
Cera stared at the Rainbow Face. She found it hard to believe such an inconceivable notion could be summed up in a 'poof'. Then she remembered The Stone of Cold Fire sleep stories ... and day stories ...
She shook off the chill. "I'd like to see them try."
"You wouldn't, actually," Zenith corrected bluntly.
"Okay, next question: if your people are so tricky, why should I trust a word you say?" Cera argued.
Zenith grimaced. "Right question, wrong motive. You're asking because you don't want to believe it, whether or not it's true. You're dragging your feet. Such petty forms of hesitation are not conducive to your chances of survival."
"You can't ( ( know why I'm saying that," ) ) Cera argued.
She noticed an echo ... only, it wasn't a mere echo. It was perfectly synchronised with her voice, yet clearly not her voice.
She stared at Zenith, who smiled in a manner that didn't reach her eyes. This time, she paid close attention to the Rainbow Face.
( ( "You didn't just say that," ) ) Cera asserted.
There was that echo-thing again. This time she saw Zenith's lips moving along with her own. She was mimicking her, except ... no, that was impossible. Zenith's voice even rose and fell with hers. They were speaking at the same time!
( ( "No ... you can't know what I'm going to say!" ) ) Cera insisted, and Zenith echoed. ( ( "You can't! You can't! YOU CAN'T!" ) )
"I don't," Zenith finally agreed.
That took a massive weight off of Cera's shoulders. This was too much. She didn't know how the Rainbow Face pulled that off, but she would find out.
~It's like she was in my head,~ thought Cera.
"Not 'in your head' so much as listening to your thoughts," clarified Zenith.
Cera was not one to freeze in the face of terror, but in that moment? She stood there, staring stone-stiff.
"I'm Zenith, by the way," chirped the Rainbow Face.
Cera and Zenith's attention was drawn to the laugh of the male Rainbow Face strolling up to them.
"I see someone's been enjoying the removal of the Interference Prohibitive Protocol," he chuckled.
"My actions are purely pragmatic," Zenith insisted.
He snorted. "Give yourself some credit, Zenith. You are no mere brain on a stick."
She folded her arms. "How'd your little chat go with the dromaeosaurs?"
He shrugged. "About as well as you'd expect it to. Austyrr and Guerra show some promise. The former accepted my radiation poisoning treatment. Syymp could go either way. The indoctrination runs deep, even for unorthodox fast biters such as The Clever Claws."
"'Dro-maeo-saurs'," Zenith stressed syllabically. "We're supposed to be teaching them how to speak, not going native."
"When in a lunar dome, do as the domers do," Apogee quipped. "Their speech patterns are a form of culture."
"Culture born or ignorance," Zenith quipped.
"Even so, it would be a pity to erase such charming little terms entirely," argued Apogee.
"I suppose," Zenith sighed. "So, what is the status of the herd?"
"Still a little agitated by the nuke, but otherwise they're fine. The Clever Claws guarding them didn't put up much of a fight, after realising the kind of power with which they dealt. I've assured the herd that they are in good hands, and that we'll be moving soon, before explaining the effects of the 'poison light', curing them, decontaminating their surroundings and leaving some M.I.S.T. to do the job upwind."
"How did they react?" she asked.
"Quite well, though I was discreet about doing anything too mind-blowing for them to handle," Apogee replied. "It helps that some of them are familiar with me."
"I bet they are," Zenith smirked. "I almost wouldn't be surprised if half the saurians in this region are acquainted with you."
"It's more like 10.2%," he clarified.
Her jaw dropped. "That's ...WHAT? How did you even-?"
"Multi-instance M.I.S.T. avatars, of course!" he chirped.
Zenith smacked her palm against her face. "Look, I understand that the Prohibitive Protocol is dead, but did you have to dance on its grave?"
"And love every minute of it? Yes. Yes, I did," he grinned before turning to the threehorn. "Hello again, Cera. I'm Apogee."
"And I'm invisible, apparently, until about five seconds ago," snarked Cera.
Apogee pointed at her with glee. "HA! She said 'seconds', not 'heartbeats'! They don't need direct intervention to develop proper speech!"
"Wow, how impressive!" Zenith enthused fakely. "If they keep this up, they'll reach our baseline within two to three generations!"
"But you can't last that long, can you?" deadpanned Apogee.
"Look, I know I'm a pedant, and unrepentantly so, but having these errant terms shoved into my face on a regular basis? It's akin to peeling open my skull and inviting hatchlings to poke, pluck and nibble at my brain."
Cera tried her best to shove that image out of her Advanced Imagination.
"Nnnngh ..." Littlefoot stirred.
Forgetting The Rainbow Faces, she ran up to the sleeping giant. He began to settle as unconsciousness reclaimed him.
~You're blacking out again? Hard nope!~ Cera thought.
Littlefoot jumped awake. His eyes fell on Cera.
"Did you just jab me with your horn?" he asked.
She fidgeted, avoiding eye contact. "It's possible."
"... You were trying to wake me up faster?" he deduced.
"Uh huh," she nodded sheepishly.
"... Because you wanted to make sure I wasn't heading for 'the light'," he concluded.
Cera held her chin high. "Yeah! You got it! You and me? We're sharing the same brain!"
"Which would technically make half a brain per individual," Zenith nitpicked. "Not a flattering choice of words."
Cera shot her a glare before turning back to Littlefoot and acting like Zenith hadn't said anything. "You're welcome, by the way!"
Littlefoot laughed. "I'm glad you're okay too. There was this horrible light ..."
"You had that dream too?" Cera inquired.
"That wasn't a dream. It was a nuke," Apogee explained.
"What's a nuke?" asked Littlefoot.
"It's a weapon of mass destruction," replied Apogee. "We stopped the brunt of it and fixed the damage it did to you."
"'Weapon'? What do you mean by that?" scrutinised Cera.
"You already know what weapons are," Zenith stated.
"Weapons are tails and teeth, horns and claws," Cera asserted. "Boulders can be weapons, and The Daybreaker uses The Bright Circle as a weapon, but weapons are things that were already there. That light came out of nowhere."
"Actually, it came from inside the black dakotaraptor," Zenith explained, frowning to herself. "I can't believe we missed it ..."
"You mean the 'fast biter'?" Cera corrected.
Zenith's eye twitched. "... Sure ..."
"I know how to speak just fine, thank you very much," preempted Cera.
"Good for you," Zenith agreed flippantly.
Cera narrowed her eyes. "I don't like being shrugged off."
"Well, that's truly a pity," Zenith sympathised without really sympathising. "However, my patience for this phase of the conversation has worn thin, so it is over."
Apogee winced. "That was rather cold. I thought she was one of your favourites."
"She still is," Zenith sighed. "Apologies, Cera. I'm sleep-deprived, irritable, not to mention we just fought off a nuke and cleaned up the aftermath." She massaged her brow. "After this, I'm taking a long vacation."
"Whatever happened to 'World Builders don't take vacations'?" Apogee teased, mimicking her voice with unsettling perfection.
"I'd like to go back in time and slap myself with a fish for that," Zenith grumbled.
Apogee blinked. "Oh ... you saw that?"
"Everyone on The Mass Medium saw that," Zenith reminded before a suppressed smile quivered on her lips. "It was ... quite amusing, to be honest."
He beamed. "Well, it's always a pleasure to brighten your day."
Zenith shadow of mirth disappeared as she dissected him with icy, incisive eyes.
He stared back, unblinking, eyes brimmed with warmth.
Her glare thawed to ambivalence before wavering away from him.
She cleared her throat. "Speaking of 'The Fish Incident', it looks like your viral little friend is coming to her senses."
He turned to see a groggy, groaning Cygnet sit up, stretching with a long yawn before smacking her lips and looking around in a dazed haze.
([~])
[RECORDING SENSORY MEMORY]
```[Filing Under: 'Adorable Saurians Doing Adorable Things']
([~])
The drowsiness fled from her popping eyes when they landed on Apogee.
"It's YOU!" she squealed, scampering up to Apogee and hugging his ankle. "I never got to say a proper 'thank you!', I did not, I did not! This leaflet has saved my life soooo many times, it has, it has! It even plays games with me! Could you make some for my friends? OH! I have FRIENDS now! It's all thanks to YOU, it is, it IS! I-"
Cygnet's words squeaked to a stop, but her mouth was still moving. She began to collapse ... but her mouth was still moving.
"Sweetheart, I think you need to breathe," Apogee informed.
Cygnet sucked in deep breaths between sputtering coughs.
Apogee cupped his paws close and pulled them together as if squeezing an invisible ball down to size. A sphere of silvery rainbows coalesced around the breathless swimmer.
Cera couldn't help but gawk a bit herself. It reminded her of a water bubble, but it was clearly something quite different.
As though forgetting her suffocation, Cygnet's breathing returned to normal as she gaped at the rainbow bubble.
"Ooh! This is so pretty!" Cygnet exclaimed. "Are you doing this? Hey ... I caught my breath really quickly! Did you do something to the air? Thank you, thank you, thank you! It feels nice, it does, it does!"
Cygnet lay back, giggling as she blissfully basked in her little bubble.
A tender smile graced his face. "I live for moments like these."
"Asphyxiating youngsters?" Zenith quipped.
Apogee almost choked. "What? NO! I meant-!"
"I know what you meant," Zenith assured with uncharacteristic softness.
"Right. I forget that you're sleep-deprived," he commented.
Zenith frowned. "I am perfectly capable of telling jokes when my brain isn't screaming for R.E.M.!"
He snickered. "I bet you are. I'd like to hear more of them ... delight in more of your smiles ... see you truly happy."
Zenith's cool composure faltered. "W-well, it's going to take more than a hyperbaric oxygen comfort bubble to make me happy."
"I know. I've composed a long list of 'more', based on observations and extrapolations."
"I'd like to see that list," she voiced.
"You'll see it in action," Apogee assured.
Zenith stared long and hard. "You're ... actually serious about me, aren't you?"
"Serious as I've ever been," he confirmed.
"Oh, you had me going there for a second," Zenith chuckled.
He rubbed his arm with a bashful smile. "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"
"You did," she agreed.
"I can be serious!" Apogee insisted, stepping up to her and leaning in close. "And you are going to be pleasantly surprised, my dear."
Zenith blushed away from him. "I ... uh ... we'll see about that, then ..."
"Hee ..." Cera guffawed.
The Rainbow Faces snapped out of their little world to see Littlefoot on the verge of an 'awww', while Cera smiled waggishly.
"You know, they remind me of Tria and my dad in their googy-eyed stages," Cera told Littlefoot before her face grew serious. "It was disgusting. I loved it."
"I don't know what's happening," Cygnet confessed.
"Grown up stuff," Cera surmised unhelpfully.
"Hey!" protested the swimmer. "I survived all on my own for the better part of my life, so I'd say I'm pretty grown up as it is!"
"I bet all the Mysterious Beyonder kids say that," Cera stated.
Cygnet folded her arms and pouted. "Who are you anyway?"
"Cera," the threehorn answered simply.
Cygnet stiffened and looked upon Cera with a new light. "... 'Cera' ... as in ... 'The Amazing Threehorn Gir-'?"
"That nickname needs to die, right now, but yes," Cera interrupted. ~Even if I still call myself that in my head.~
"Your secret's safe with me," Apogee winked.
Cera shot him a glare. "Is there any way for you to stop doing that?"
"Of course! I can desist, or you can stop me, but I'll have to teach you how to do that," Apogee explained. "I gave you the ability to protect your thoughts when we healed you, although if someone really wants to hear what transpires in your head, it'll take more to stop them. We'll get that sorted out later."
Cera side-eyed him. "You say you gave me the ability to-? ... Okay. Fine. How do I stop you?"
"You simply will it," he revealed.
Cera's jaw slackened. "Wuh? That's it? That sounds like a load of-! ... Hang on ..."
She watched him intently, frowning in concentration. Apogee tilted his head at her with vaguely clueless eyes. Either he was incredible at faking nonchalance, or he had no idea what she was thinking. Frankly, she wished she had no idea what she was thinking. She felt her features contort in disgust. His gaze grew piercingly perceptive under half-lidded eyes as a smirk crept across his face.
"I don't want to know what just passed through your mind, do I?" asked Apogee.
"So you DID hear?" Cera squealed. "Oh-man,-oh-man,-oh-man! I'm-SO-sorry!"
"Actually, I did not," Apogee assured. "I merely deduced that you were testing me. Do remember that we're quite smart. Besides, we've seen quite a lot in our extensive lives and you saurians are generally much more innocent than we are, so I doubt anything you can conceive will disturb me to the point where- OH! ONE BEYOND, HAVE MERCY! What is WRONG with you? I ought to put you on the WATCH LIST for that!"
"I'm-sorry! I'm-sorry! I-shouldn't-have-tested-that! I'm-sorry!" Cera rambled.
Apogee was calmed abruptly as he rubbed the stress away from his head. "Further perturbation is unnecessary. I removed the memory."
Littlefoot's jaw dropped at the ramifications of that statement.
"O-oh ... Y-you can do that?" Cera marveled. "Then do me a solid and get it out of my head!"
"As if that would remedy the problem!" Apogee exclaimed. "If you thought it once, you can think it again! You're stuck with that ... ugh ... MIND of yours!"
"Sorry! I only thought it up because I wanted to see if you acted differently when I wasn't keeping you out of my head! I don't think like that normally, and-" Cera's eyes fluttered. "Wait ... what were we talking about?"
"You're welcome," Apogee declared.
"Huh? Seriously, what were we talking about?" repeated Cera.
"You didn't like it when Cygnet called you 'The Amazing Threehorn Girl," Apogee reminded.
"Oh, riiiiight! ... Hm? I see you staring, Littlefoot. What's wrong, buddy?"
Littlefoot blinked away the horror on his face and shook his head.
Zenith's eyes softened as she walked up to him. "I understand. It's a lot to take in. If our people can hear your thoughts and steal your memories, what can't we do? What can you trust? Are pieces already missing from your life? Rest assured, most of us cannot interact with your mind in such ways but the enemies you encounter? They will more than likely be capable. Don't let it bog you down too much. We'll protect you as best we can and fortify your minds and bodies. Question everything, trust your gut and don't drown in paranoia. There's only so much our enemies can do against us."
Cera gasped as it clicked. "Wait, wait, wait, you stole my memories? I want them back!"
"No, you don't," Apogee asserted.
"Oh yeah?" she challenged.
"Yeah, you don't," Littlefoot agreed.
Cera didn't like it, but if Littlefoot agreed with them? She'd just have to fume quietly.
Littlefoot caught the swimmer staring. "Hi, Cygnet. That is your name, right?"
She nodded dumbly, awestruck by the longneck. "And you're ... you're Thunderfoot, aren't you? You're, like, a new Lone Dinosaur, except you're not alone."
"Actually, it's Littlefoot, but other than that? Yeah, that's pretty much it," he confirmed.
She squinted at his feet. "'Littlefoot'? Huh ... you looklike a Thunderfoot. I thought longnecks changed their names when they get older, or is 'Littlefoot' your grown-up name?"
Littlefoot shrugged. "I like my name. I still feel the way I did as a kid, so why change it?"
Cygnet's face scrunched in thought. "I guess that makes sense. I like that!"
He smiled. "Thanks."
Littlefoot looked around. Whatever force of slumber had beset the rest of the gang began to wane. Slowly but surely, they twitched, stretched and fidgeted their way back to consciousness. Well, except for Murfy, who jolted upright with the grace of a panicky tickly fuzzy. That was to say, none whatsoever.
"Did I just get sucker punched by a fast biter?" he asked abruptly.
"You got kicked," Cera corrected. "What even is a punch?"
Murfy's nasal grunt sounded like an 'I dunno'.
Cera wanted to press another question, but she shut her mouth and let it be. If Murfy didn't understand his own thought processes, she was doomed to failure from the start.
"To be fair, it's a miracle that he's capable of coherent thought in the first place!" Apogee interjected.
Cera glared at him.
He rolled his eyes with a smile. "No, that statement did not require me to peek inside your head."
Apogee eagerly trotted up to the startled Murfy.
"This is quite remarkable!" the Rainbow Face exclaimed. "I considered it highly unlikely that a Murfy would make it to adulthood!"
~'A Murfy'? What's that supposed to mean?~ Cera wondered.
"How do you feel, generally speaking?" Apogee went on.
Murfy blinked at the influx of questions from this unfamiliar face. "Uhhh ... sore? And confused? Like, all the time?"
Apogee rubbed the back of his neck. "Right, well, that is to be expected when one attempts to cram functional applications of chaos theory into a saurian's mind."
Murfy tilted his head. "Say what now?"
"Never mind that for the time being," Apogee dismissed, literally waving away the question. "We'll mitigate your condition when we have the proper tools."
Murfy furrowed his brow, lips parting contemplatively as the Rainbow Face garnered his total focus. It seemed, at least for a moment, that his mind was no longer a leaf fluttering in the whims of the wind.
"Wait ... you think you help me?" Murfy asked, his voice laced with the tonality of one who scarcely dared to believe.
"If anyone can improve the quality of your life, it's us," Apogee declared with a quick, optimistic nod.
Murfy looked off into the distance, the ponderous weight in his eyes akin to one who had seen too many years pass without hope as they neared the twilight of their life.
"I'm not so sure if that's comforting," Murfy admitted with a half-broken chuckle.
His foot slipped into one of the crevices that had crackled their way across Little Valley's terrain after he did 'A Thing'. Apogee took a big a big step to the side. That crevice widened and snaked its way towards him. Soon, the land yawned open like earthy jaws big enough to devour a Rainbow Face, but of course, Apogee was no longer there to fall prey.
Murfy's eyes popped as he glanced between The Rainbow Face and the small chasm that would have claimed him. How could he have seen that coming?
"Maybe it should be," Apogee replied.
When Spike opened his eyes, their first destination was Ducky. One of the late-wakers, she had yet to recover consciousness. Spike made as though to approach her before noticing the little spiketail he had saved snuggled against his side. He gingerly wiggled away from the kid so as not to wake him. Drawn to the warmth and softness, the sleeping youngster kept squirming back to him. Spike made a sound somewhere between a whine and a groan.
A spectating Apogee chuckled.
"Let me guess," Zenith began: "You just allocated that to your 'Adorable Saurians Doing Adorable Things' collection?"
His wide eyes snapped towards her. "How did you know?"
"You're not the only one who has accrued a long list of personality traits pertaining to their partner," Zenith almost boasted, "and trust me: mine is far more extensive."
Okay, she was definitely boasting.
"That's hardly fair," protested Apogee. "How about a compromise? I'll grant you a gander into my mind, and you'll respond in kind."
Zenith's face darkened a smidgeon. "The answer remains a categorical 'no'."
Apogee's face fell with doleful resolve as his voice dropped. "I'm going to find out who we are. You know that, right?"
Zenith looked him in the eye. "What if I ask you not to do so?"
He seemed lost for a moment. "Well ... that would certainly complicate matters, wouldn't it?"
She shook her head with a weary grin. "What am I going to do with you?"
"Whatever it may be, please don't take this away from me," he beseeched. "Perhaps I consented in the past. Perhaps you are observing strict protocols. I wouldn't know, but I don't want to lose this one. I implore you."
Zenith dumped her emotions into a long exhalation. "Let's discuss this at a more appropriate time, okay?"
He searched her eyes and eventually nodded. "Very well."
Spike finally managed to extricate himself from the kid and plodded towards Ducky. He stretched out a paw to flip her over so as to see her damaged side. It hovered within reach of her before he withdrew it and sighed, apparently coming to the same conclusion that Cera had. Ducky was breathing. Though peaceful, she didn't appear to be fading. She was better off left to be until the right person took a look at her.
He turned his attention upon The Rainbow Faces with a questioning grunt.
Apogee waved.
After a moment's thought, Spike waved back with the tip of his tail. Apparently, no more acknowledgement was necessary, as he absentmindedly moved towards a bush.
The moment he took a chomp of the greenery, the spiketail kid's head popped up.
Upon hearing tiny paws scramble to a stand, Spike stopped chewing, eyes widening. In fact, he stopped moving altogether. He had a bad feeling about this.
"That looks healthy!" the kid exclaimed. "Can I have some?"
For a moment, Spike remained still, hoping against hope that it might make him invisible to unsolicited eyes. That worked on some sharpteeth, didn't it? His glazed gaze shifted to the youngster, who beamed at him. Finally, Spike dared the smallest of nods. At first, he thought it was a fast biter. A really, really fast biter, whose feet didn't touch the ground so much as propel them through the air in a near-horizontal jump. It took him a moment to identify the thing that blurred past as the kid, who had embedded himself in the bush from which Spike had taken a bite.
Spike watched in something approaching cold horror as the bush was munched to nothing but bare branches in mere moments.
He tentatively tapped an earth whisper into the ground: ( ( Was I ever like this? ) )
Cera: ( ( Absolutely. ) )
Littlefoot: ( ( Halfway, maybe. ) )
Spike gulped the mouthful of greenery, more out of trepidation than hunger. Trying to forget what he had seen, he slowly turned to the sweet bubble bush behind him, which was ... No. Way ... that kid was already there!
Plopping himself down on the ground, Spike could only stare at the ravenous force before him that never slowed its quest for devourment.
Suddenly, the kid stopped and turned to look at Spike, as though realising for the first time that his older counterpart was a living, thinking, and most importantly, hungry person.
He scampered up to Spike and nudged him forward. "Come on! You gotta try this! Wait, wait, wait, lemme do something first."
Darting up to a bush bearing massive leaves, he tore one off, lay it on the floor before rapidly plucking sweet bubbles and greenery off the bush and piling them onto the centre of the leaf. He skittered off and returned with a pleasantly scented herb, adding it to the assortment. With swift, deft flips of his tail, he wrapped the sheet of green around its contents.
Spike's confusion turned to fascination.
The culmination of that kid's actions was a large, neatly packaged bundle that somehow smelled more appetising than the sum of its contents.
Smiling and wiggling his tail, the kid looked up and down between Spike and his creation, clearly expecting the bigger leafeater to take a bite. Spike didn't need to be told twice. In fact, he didn't need to be told at all.
Spike chomped into the concoction of vegetation and froze, eyes popping, before slowly squeezing them closed as he took his time chewing out every bit of flavour.
The kid bubbled a giggle. "I used to make these for my mommy all the ... time ..."
Spike stopped chewing and looked at the youngster. The kid was staring at the ground. If he frowned any harder, the dirt would boil beneath his gaze. He turned towards the sweet bubble bush and opened his mouth.
The young spiketail took a big bite and managed three chews before his face fell. He swallowed and gave his would-be-lunch a deadpan stare.
"Nope," he decided, turning to walk away from it.
His mother's tail gently, firmly, guided him back to the bush.
"Picky, this is the first edible thing we've found all day, and you will eat it," she asserted. "Besides, it's good for you."
"But it tastes yucky!" Picky protested as he attempted to walk around her tail. "Why did you name me 'Picky' if I can't be picky?"
"You weren't very picky at the time, so I thought it would be funny. Besides, I was feeling petulant," she admitted.
"What does that mean?" he asked.
"Whatever it needs to," she replied unhelpfully.
Picky's face scrunched in confusion before he finally managed to give her tail the slip. "Let's just find something else. We always find something eventually."
Again, her tail moved in front of him. Something about the the way she did it made him pause. Was she giving him that look of 'Heart-Stopping Look of Motherly Authority that is Not to be Questioned'? He took a glance at her face and immediately averted his eyes. Yup.
"Finding, food, is not, a given," she emphasised. "You never know when your next meal will be, so you eat what you can, when you can. A lot of spiketails never reach their full size because they didn't manage to eat enough. You need that size if you're gonna fight sharpteeth like the one that chased us out here. Speaking of which, we need to start moving, yesterday. It could be on our tail, so try to finish up quickly."
"It's a good thing you reached your full size ..." he mumbled.
She looked off to the side with a near-visible bruise to her pride.
"Wait, you didn't?" Picky exclaimed. "But you're so big!"
She cleared her throat. "Yes, well, there's 'big' and then there's 'big'. I should have been a bit bigger than that sharptooth, but I'm not."
"Would he have left us alone if you were bigger?"
She shrugged. "Maybe? Who knows? I think he was after you more than me."
"Really? Why?" asked Picky.
"Because you're smaller and easier to deal with," she reasoned. "Sharpteeth are cowards. They don't want a fight. They just want food."
So did he. He didn't want to think about this. His bites of sweet bubble bush grew bigger and faster. His teeth crushed it harder than was necessary.
"Hey Mommy, did that sharptooth look kind of weird?" Picky asked through a mouthful.
Standing guard, she cast him a glance. "'Kind of weird'? It was nothing but weird, though I guess you couldn't get a good look."
"Yeah, it was covered in swamp muck and stuff when it swam up to us. I thought it was a belly dragger, but I never stopped to make sure after I started running."
"It looked like one of us," she stated bluntly.
He froze, swallowed and stared up at her. "A spiketail?"
"Yes, and no," she replied. "A leafeater, like a clubtail, with rocky skin, but it had spikes on its tail instead of a club."
"Sooooo ... a 'spiketail'?" he repeated.
She chuckled. "We'll have to come up with a name for it. I don't think our words do a good enough job of pinning down what things actually are."
He took another bite. "How do you know it was a sharptooth?"
"It bit me," she explained simply.
"I've bitten my playmates before ..." he murmured.
She narrowed her eyes. "You did what?"
"Nothin'," he lied.
She rolled her eyes with a small laugh and turned so that he could see the opposite side of her. "Did the bitemarks you didn't make look anything like this?"
He gaped at the sharp-toothed incisions on her leg. "How come I didn't see that before?"
Again, she shrugged. "Because I didn't want you to, until it stopped flowing and I managed to dust bathe away most of the ... wetness."
He gave her a look. "Mommy, when did you even do that?"
"You were playing 'Step on a Crack', and I'm sneaky like that," she smirked.
Picky gave her a funny look. "Are you normal?"
"Hm, well, I took down a sharpneck once, so not really," she declared with a touch of nostalgic pride.
He continued to stare. "Mom, what's your name?"
She blinked in shock. "'My na-'? You really don't know?"
"I call you 'Mommy', or 'Mother', or 'Mom', some folks call you 'Ma'am', which is kind of like 'Mom', but others call you 'Ms. Spiketail'. I've heard someone call you Sardona before ..."
She smiled. "Well, I think you have all the clues to figure it out. Mommy didn't raise no dummy."
He gasped in epiphany. "Your name is 'Mommy'!"
Her eye twitched.
Picky recoiled. "Wait, was that wrong?"
"Of course not!" she enthused. "My name is 'Mommy'. It's always been 'Mommy'. In fact, I didn't exist until you hatched! I'm not even an actual person."
He side-eyed her. "How come other kids have Mommies with the same name?"
"Life is full of mysteries, I guess," she supposed.
Picky squinted at her. "Are you doing that thing you do when you say something and it sounds like you mean it, but you don't mean it and I can't tell?"
"Why would you think such a thing?" she gasped. "If I were doing that, you wouldn't be able to tell, would you?"
He opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, grimacing in thought. Again, it looked like he would say something, but nothing came out. He sat himself down, frowning. His mind seemed to be chocking on her 'logic'.
A dry, smug smirk was plastered on his mother's face as she watched him squirm with half-lidded eyes.
Finally, Picky burst into laughter. "Why are you like this?"
"I don't know! I'm terrible!" she laughed back.
Once their laugher had died down, she gave a relenting sigh. "Okay, my name is-"
She stopped upon noticing him crouch. He was looking under and beyond her. Before he could speak, she whirled into the thing that alit his eyes with panic.
Everyone was starting to stare. Picky's bites were loud and ferocious, cracking, crunching, wrenching, branches off the bush.
The cracks of her tail split the air as she blitzed the monster's head again and again. She knew what she was doing. It was clear in her stance, her strikes, her stormy countenance. He'd never seen his mother move like that, never seen any spiketail move like that, and yet the other spike-tailed thing that wasn't a spiketail never fell. Its sharp teeth bared all the more with every blow.
Its anger was growing, and it was bigger than she was.
Finally, those teeth latched around her tail.
His mother bared her own teeth, her face the essence of ferocity. "BIG ..."
She flung it into a boulder. The rock broke. It's grip did not.
"... MISTAKE!" she roared.
Her tail thrashed it into a tree that snapped, but the monster never released her.
She heaved her tail into the air, along with the front end of the monster. A shockwave rippled the dry soil as she slammed its jaws-first to the ground. She raised her tail again. This time, the monster beat her to it, throwing itself onto its side, twisting her to the floor as well. The creature was quick to its feet, adjusting its grip on her tail and dragging her between two rocks jutting out of the soil. Her tail made it through, but her body could not. Still, the creature continued to yank, and yank, and YANK.
"RUN!" she bellowed.
He could only stare.
Picky had decimated the leaves, the branches. All that remained was the trunk. He gnashed his teeth around it and began to pull.
It was pulling and twisting now. Picky didn't know how much more his mother could take. Tears poured from his eyes. What was ... this thing ... going to do to her?
"RUUUUN!" she screamed.
Finally, he skittered backwards and began to flee, but not before he saw the fruits of its labour.
Picky tore the bush's trunk clean out of the floor. Then did he stopped for the scantest of moments, before dropping and stomping the tattered trunk into the ground. He slumped and buried his face in his paws. Only then did he become aware of the mucus in his nose, the tears in his eyes, the pitiful keening he couldn't keep from spilling out of his lungs.
The Bright Circle's heat fled his scales as he was blanketed by a shadow. Its owner settled to the ground beside him. Curling his tail in a wide semi-circle around the youngster, he leant just close enough to emanate empathy deeper than words.
Picky looked up at Spike. Spike did not look back, but Picky didn't miss the eye contact. Souls didn't need eyes to meld and mend. They needed only to be there, to care, to bear burdens too great for the most mighty-bodied giants to lift, far less grasp.
It wasn't a conscious choice so much as he simply found himself leaning against the gentle giant. At the back of his mind, Picky noted that Spike was likely the biggest of their kind that he had ever seen. Was it thanks to food aplenty in The Great Valley? He sure hoped so.
Dawn wiped a tear from her eyes before they flit from the poignant scene to give everyone a quick check. There was a baffling lack of visible injuries, but she'd address that later. There were also a few new faces, but she'd address that later as well. She approached Ducky and sniffed at her, her brow wrinkling in perplexity.
"What were you expecting to smell?" asked Cera.
"Injuries," Dawn replied simply. "The air should be thick with the scent, but I can't smell any, not even from Ducky."
Cera winced. "You can smell injuries?"
Dawn blinked at her. "You can't?"
"Of course not. I'm a leafeater!" Cera argued. "I probably could if I really paid attention, but why would I?"
Dawn shrugged. "It could give you a heads up about sharptooth activity, or a friend in need."
"Hm, good point," Cera agreed airily.
With the utmost care (and an embarrassing amount of effort) Dawn shifted Ducky just a little way off her missing arm. She looked down at it, gasped and released Ducky, skittering back when she realised how easily Ducky could have rolled on top of her. Fidgeting with delight, Dawn seemed to be biting back a smile before abandoning the effort and lightly bouncing from side to side.
Cera frowned. "Am I missing something, or are you happy dancing over the body of a one-armed Ducky?"
"You, are most definitely missing something," Dawn giggled.
With no further elaboration, she fluttered up to Petrie. "Hey there, handsome! You good?"
Petrie quelled his nerves with a few quick breaths while Dawn patiently waited.
"M-me good. I'm fine," Petrie replied. "And you?"
She beamed down at the wing through which she'd pecked a hole before it tore in half. "Good as new, just like you!"
Petrie had a hunch that Dawn would be grinning, had she been capable. Being around here may have messed with his ability to think, but he found it immensely odd that she'd be smiling about his wing ... that didn't hurt ... even when he flexed it ...
His gaze snapped down to his wing. He gaped.
Dawn effervesced a laugh.
"What happened?" Pterano asked as he approached them. "You all appear as you were before the battle commenced."
"This is normal for me, but you guys?" Dawn shook her head. "Maybe we have more in common than I thought!"
Pterano's glare sliced into her. "Perhaps I can be compared to the likes of you, but you will not drag my nephew down to your level. What a profound feat of cowardice, forcing Petrie out of the fight against his volition! What of respect and communication? You may have the capacity to garner interest, Dawn, but you are in no way, shape or form suited for the prospect of a lasting relationship."
She shrunk back, looking almost ready to cry. "I ... I-I'm ..."
"It's okay, uncle," Petrie assured, slipping between Pterano and Dawn. "We talked. Everything's fine."
Pterano's death glare broke as he raised an eyebrow at Petrie. It returned with a vengeance when he caught Dawn nodding along with his nephew. He placed a wing on Petrie's shoulder and slid him out of the way as though he weighed nothing.
"If you tread upon Petrie again, you will find residence in The Great Valley to be uncharacteristically uncomfortable," Pterano warned.
"Y-yes, Sir! I mean, no, Sir! No treading on Petrie ... Sir!" Dawn fumbled, snapping a wing to her forehead in a stiff gesture that somehow felt respectful. ~What did I just do with my wing?~
Pterano gave a gruff huff before scanning the rest of the gang and area. ~They bear not a single scratch. What could have summoned them all to the same place? What has befallen the fast biters?~
His eyes fell upon The Rainbow Faces. A shock of recognition flashed across his face.
"Finally! Someone who knows how to speak!" Zenith exclaimed, stepping towards him with open arms.
"Stay-safe,-be-ever-vigilant-and-I-shall-search-for-fast-biters-from-above,-ta-ta!" Pterano rambled.
Before Petrie and Dawn could respond, he flung his wings open and fled to the sky, leaving them coughing in the dust cloud left his wake.
A disappointed Zenith slowly lowered her arms as she watched him go.
"I believe you owe me ten schematics," Apogee happily informed.
Zenith grumbled.
Upon awakening, the preach threehorn kid walked up to Cera and looked her up and down. He proceeded to circle and examine her. Concern and confusion were evident on his face.
"Are ... you checking for injuries?" she asked.
He nodded.
That heartened a smile to Cera's face. What a sweet kid.
"Aww," she cooed. "I feel fine, really. I don't know how, but I do."
Zircon sat up and rubbed his nape, perplexed.
An agitated Amethyst jolted awake.
Arwin experimentally flexed her long neck.
"I feel like my head got bitten off," Arwin commented.
"You feel that way because it WAS THAT WAY!" Amethyst escalated, wildly pointing at Arwin and then her brother. "You too! I SAW it!"
"If that's the way it was, that's the way it would still be," Zircon calmly argued. "Clearly, we're okay, even if 'okay' isn't something we should be. Someone must have dealt with that ... creature, before it could finish dealing with us."
As Amethyst and Zircon bickered back and forth, Littlefoot looked to The Rainbow Faces. Surely, these enigmatic allies had something to clarify. Their reactions revealed nothing. Nonetheless, he decided to ask, but stopped himself as his mouth began to open. It was time to try something a little different.
~Is Amethyst correct?~ he queried in his mind.
The surreal reality of The Rainbow Faces was still hard to swallow. He almost didn't expect an answer.
Apogee didn't even glance at the longneck, but sympathy was evident on his face. Littlefoot felt the slightest shift about his head, like a zephyr's touch. It might have eluded him, if not for the tiny, sensitive hairs a longneck used to anticipate changes in the weather.
(~Yes,~) came Apogee's voice within his skull.
Never did Littlefoot imagine that one word could carry such eerie implications. He stared at the fast runners and their longneck rescue. They all looked so ... alive ... none the wiser, except for Amethyst. It was hard to imagine that not long ago, they had ... been ...
~Were they dead?~ asked Littlefoot.
(~Not quite,~) replied Apogee. (~Their brains were beginning to ḁ̴̅sp̴̰̚h̶̛̙y̴̲̽x̴̨́iaṱ̶̏e̵̛̳, but Zenith stabilised their condition. I returned to finish the restoration process once the nuclear threat had been averted.~)
Littlefoot wrinkled his brow. 'Asphyxiate' ... it meant 'suffocate', didn't it? When had he learnt that word? It sounded like something Pterano would say, but try as he may, he couldn't recall Pterano using such a term. Wait a minute, if brains could suffocate, did that mean they could ... breathe? There was also a strange quality to the word. It sounded funny, as much as thoughts could 'sound' like anything. Why? These questions tugged at Littlefoot's will. Maybe that was the point. Perhaps Apogee didn't want him to ask the one question most pertinent to his heart. As benevolent as they seemed, The Rainbow Faces were proving to be tricky. Maybe they could think circles around any longneck. Maybe he was giving them too much credit. In any event, he dared to ask:
(~Can you bring back folks who are long gone?~)
This time, Apogee looked back at him, his face fraught the heartbreak that always lurked at the back of Littlefoot's soul. (~I am sorry, truly sorry.~)
Littlefoot blinked a few times before squeezing his eyes shut.
(~There is a spark that lies within every living person,~) continued Apogee. (~When it departs, it cannot be recaptured. To restore a body when the spark is gone would be to invite a new one ... or, perhaps ... something that is not welcome. We do not fully understand these sparks. However, their dwelling places can be preserved and moved, if one is quick enough. There are those who we deemed wonderful enough to preserve, so that they may finish leaving their mark upon the passage of time.~)
Littlefoot's eyes flashed open, hope glistening among the tears.
Apogee's thoughts were drenched in sorrow. (~We had your mother, but we lost her. We ... I ... failed.~)
Littlefoot took a deep breath as he gingerly folded his emotions back into the hole in which they languished for so many years. He covered them in stone scales, as he always did, but this time they kept seeping through the cracks of an open wound. Those cracks were spreading. To have hope placed before him, only to be yanked away? It was too much.
His breaths grew shaky. Pressure rose behind his eyes. His mother didn't deserve this. She'd fought so hard.
The others were beginning to notice.
Littlefoot was beginning to crumble.
This couldn't happen. Not now. Not like this. He had to be the mountain on which his friends could stand firm above the existential dread that loomed before them. They didn't deserve to see this.
She tried to cover it with her forepaws, as though hoping no one saw.
No one didn't see.
Littlefoot's ragged breaths hitched, eyes stark with shock. ~What ... what was that?~
Deathly silence fell over a younger Littlefoot. He walked up to her and knelt, trying to look her in the eye. She kept her head down, concealing her mouth, and pushed out a light-hearted chuckle - not too hard, she didn't want to cough. It almost seemed as though she were afraid to laugh, lest he see what he should never have to see.
Heart pounding, Littlefoot's open-mouthed panting was frantic.
That was not his mother!
She smiled up at him. "Cera's right ... you'll be talking about this f'rever. You'll always carry the memory, a memory I'm a part of. That way ... you'll carry me too. I'll be there ... even if you can't see me."
Littlefoot's face contorted. No ... not her too. She didn't deserve this. She'd fought so hard.
He drew his breath with an anguished squeak.
"I fought good ... f'r good ... I'm h-happy ... pleasebe h'ppy f'r me ... I lov' you ... all of you ..."
Littlefoot wailed.
All eyes wrenched towards him. All jaws slackened. No one had heard him make a noise like that. Ever.
Something leant against Littlefoot's ankle as his breaths raced out of control. It was small but firm, emanating a warmth that seeped throughout his body and sapped the panic and pain. Breathing grew easier. There was a silvery, rainbow hue in the air much like that which Apogee cast around Cygnet. Sure enough, the male Rainbow Face's paw was extended towards him, but that didn't explain the pressure at his ankle.
Where was Zenith?
He looked down to see her leaning against his leg, as though pressing her very heart into him. She looked up and their gazes connected. Her tears mirrored his own. Her eyes reflected his very soul, and so much more. They bore that unnamable quality that could only forged with age. He saw it every time he looked into his grandparents' eyes, but theirs was a puddle. Zenith's was an ocean, roiling with murky emotions under a black sky torn by lightning. Littlefoot had a hunch that no longneck could tread those seas. Maybe he could never understand her, but perhaps she could understand him.
Maybe, she already did.
Something else leant against his opposite leg. He recognised the feel of the frill: Cera. Apogee joined them, adding his own, strange warmth to the mix. It was brighter than Zenith's but somehow ... shallower? Ducky pattered up to Littlefoot and wrapped her arms around his girth as best she could. Petrie perched atop his back and enveloped his lower neck with his wings. Spike's gentle nuzzle was not lost on Littlefoot. Pterano, Dawn, Murfy, Zircon, Amethyst and the kids kept a respectful distance.
He almost began to forget ...
Littlefoot walked up to her and knelt, trying to look her in the eye. Daga-̷̙̀
.̶̹͙̽.̴̖̯̕...̵̡̀͜..̵̝͛.̷̰͒̎.
Littlefoot knelt before his mother as sky fire outlined her fallen silhouette.
"I'll be with you ... even if you can't see me," she whispered.
In a way, she was. He still heard her, still felt her love, and that same love had revisited him in the form of his friends. He bade farewell to the memory and returned to the present. The moment. After all, this was where his friends lived.
They still lived.
Littlefoot chuckled in spite of himself. "Thanks, everyone. Cera, what a nice surprise."
She flinched. "What a what sur-what?"
"You've finally warmed up to the joys of a big ol' hug," he smirked. "And now, I'm gonna hug you any time the moment's right."
"Hol' up!" Cera exclaimed, backing off. "I was not hugging! I was doing Zenith and the spiketails' leaning thing! If I'd known that was an option, I would have gone for it any chance I got! Do you know how awkward it is to wrap your legs around someone, especially someone bigger than ... you ...?"
Having noticed Spike staring at Ducky, Cera followed his gaze and her voice petered out.
"What is wrong?" asked the swimmer.
"Ducky, you're hugging Littlefoot," Cera explained. "With your arms!"
The swimmer recoiled from Littlefoot with a gasp so deep that it bordered on comedic. Raising her arms, she glanced back and forth between the paws with obsessive scrutiny.
Zenith sighed. "I don't see cause for this extremity of bemusement, Cera. Your healing is old news. I thought you were tough enough to handle the extraordinary."
"No, you don't get it!" Cera snapped. "Closing a wound is 'healing'! Ducky's arm was completely gone!"
"It still is, technically," Apogee agreed with an awkward cough.
Zenith's glare seared into him.
He pointedly looked away from her, fiddled with his fingers and tried to whistle, ignoring the fact that his mouth wasn't currently built for that.
Zenith suddenly stomped up to Ducky, who resisted the urge to flee. Gentle yet firm, she grabbed the swimmer's once-missing arm. If stares could peel back scales and muscle, Zenith's would have brought Ducky's newborn arm to a quick, untimely end.
"You augmented her," Zenith concluded.
"And you saw through the deep-tissue hologram!" Apogee praised. "How much were you able to discern?"
"That's not important!" Zenith hissed as her gaze leapt from individual to individual before she threw apart her arms. "You augmented ALL OF THEM?"
Littlefoot noticed the vaguest spark of bluish white fly off her fingers, towards the landslide he'd surmised separated them from the area where Dawn's herd could be found. The path must have been blocked when Murfy did 'A Thing'.
"Wow, those medical illusions didn't help at all, did they?" Apogee quipped.
"Forget that!" snarled Zenith. "Having reached the valley; we were supposed to inform them as to what an 'augment' IS; present them with options, the pros and cons; insist on our recommended augments nonetheless; subtly influence their decision-making and respect their final choices! Consent is important, and there is a procedure for everything!"
Apogee shrugged. "Unnatural selection doesn't care about procedure. Also, T.M.I., don't you think?"
"Honesty is PART OF THE PROCEDURE!" Zenith raged.
Cera frowned. "What did you do?"
"Look, I outfitted them with light, basal augments: a good foundation with emergency measures and small, potentially life-saving conveniences," Apogee explained. "Littlefoot's tail was broken, so were Cera's horns and Ducky's arm was A.W.O.L. That which was damaged, I improved. That which was missing, I replaced with something altogether better. That's an oversimplification, but you get the picture. Take a peek at their ṣ̴͍̔͂̕p̵̨̺̳̈́ȇ̸͎̣c̶̮̳̈́̎s̵̰̈̊. I'm sure you will approve."
"I'll tell you w̸̺̐h̴͔̲͠ă̷̡̚t ̶̙̬̎to̷̢̊̔ ̶̤̻̉d̴̓͂ͅo̷̰͐ ̴̳͗w̶͔̻̌i̴̥͋th ̵͕͝t̸̢͍͂ḣ̸̢̺ẻ̶̢ s̷̯̝͒p̶̩̿̔ec̵̢̚s!̸͓̿̕" Zenith growled.
His jaw dropped. "Wow ... you are markedly more agitated than I anticipated."
"THIS ISN'T SOME PETULANT TANTRUM! I AM BEING PERFECTLY REASONABLE!" she screeched, throwing out her arms.
"What. Did. You. Do?" Cera growled.
Zenith gestured him towards Cera, urging him to explain.
Apogee stepped towards the threehorn. "Remember when Zenith overpowered you?"
Cera's eyes fluttered. "Of course I- Wait, you weren't there, how did you ...? Never mind. Yes. It was annoying."
Apogee smiled and leant forward, pausing for dramatic effect. "Zenith is about twelve and a half times smaller than you. You didn't use your full strength in wrestling her because the goal wasn't to cause harm, and you had no idea how much she can handle. However, it took Zenith's highest echelon of strength just to keep herself from budging. Imagine that kind of power, packed into a giant such as yourself. That is what I am doing to you."
Taken aback by his bold claims, Cera could only stare back and blink for several seconds as her mind caught up with the implications.
"You ... made us stronger?" she hesitated to ask.
He gave a slow, satisfied nod. "That is correct, and I'm merely getting started, my dear, if you so choose to indulge me."
Cera felt a goofy grin begin to stretch across her face as she slowly turned her gaze upon his partner. "Hey, Zenith?"
"No," was Zenith's prompt response.
"Wanna wrestle again?" Cera persisted nonetheless.
Zenith side-eyed her. "Did I stutter?"
"Come on, don't be scared. I promise I won't squish you," Cera assured.
"'Scared'? You 'promise'?" A grim chuckle throbbed in Zenith's throat as her gaze grew dark. "Cera, you can't 'promise' anything. You have no idea what he did to you. You have no frame of reference for what he did to you. We come from a people so advanced that splitting the atom is mere child's play! Do you even know what an atom is, or are you too busy basking in the 'iNgEnUiTy' of your spears and cave fires! Oh, that's right. You don't have those either! This isn't 'High Tech meets Low Tech'. It's 'High Tech meets No Tech!"
"If you're gonna rant like that, could you at least speak leafeater?" Cera snarked.
Zenith broke into a cackle. "Oh, the irony! I'm not speaking your language. You are speaking mine! Your friend is a 'spiketail'. What is a 'spike'?"
Cera's brow wrinkled. "What kind of question is that?"
"Kosh is a clubtail," Zenith went on. "Now tell me: what is a 'club'?"
Confusion chased the annoyance from Cera's face. "I ... well ..."
"It's a primative weapon. Let's try something closer to home. What does 'Cera' mean?" pressed Zenith.
"It doesn't mean anything! It's just a name!" Cera insisted.
"It's short for 'ceratopsia', the saurian suborder of your kind. It also references the word 'triceratops', which is what you are specifically," Zenith delineated.
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm a 'threehorn'," Cera scoffed.
"Yes, that is what 'triceratops' means," Zenith deadpanned.
"Then why not just say that!" argued Cera.
"Because it's not the right word!" Zenith gushed. "You saurians barely even had words before we showed up, and what you had was fractured from species to species, herd to herd, family to family, and you're still learning! For generations, we whispered new words and ideas into your dreams, slowly unifying and priming you so that when we arrived, we'd all be speaking the same language, sharing the same cultural undertones. Everything would just click. It was a process nine hundred and seventy two years in the making, spearheaded by minds such as Apogee and mine, and frankly? ... It's a miracle we've gotten this far. As disparaging as my tirade may seem, I really do deem you all to be amazing - testaments that perhaps we were on the right path ... but our time is up. Sink or swim, do or die, the moment has come to test our half-baked, prototypical engines, held together by wishes and dreams to see if we're ready to brave the void between the stars or succumb to the will of gravity and burn up on reentry."
In the dead silence that followed her monologue, Apogee eventually spoke up. "That was overbearingly pessimistic, Zenith."
"It was realism!" Zenith snapped. "That flippant attitude is what gets us into these situations!"
With an exasperated sigh, she turned and took note of the blank look on Cera's face.
"Apologies. Most of that was lost on you, wasn't it?" asked Zenith.
Cera confused expression melted to exhaustion. "Kinda? Sorta? I dunno. Sorry, I just don't understand what I'm supposed to take away from this."
Zenith massaged her temple. "My point is, you don't understand what you're getting into, so tread lightly. What Apogee did was primarily for emergencies, and there are consequences. Take Spike and Murfy, for example. They are the way they are because someone already did something them!"
All eyes turned on the aforementioned pair.
Squirming under the scrutiny, Murfy ducked his head and took a step back.
Everyone flinched as the roar of rubble met their ears. They turned to see collapse of the boulder mound blocking the path to the section of Little Valley occupied by the herd. Their gazes returned to Murfy. All except Littlefoot's, which fell on The Rainbow Faces.
Zenith shrugged. "Well, I think that's enough orientation for the time being. Does everyone feel prepared to depart after their anesthetically induced slumber?"
Though confused glances abounded among them, most of the group nodded. Littlefoot continued to stare. Arwin rose to her feet and took a single step before tipping over and splatting face-first into the soil.
"Eh, close enough," Zenith concluded. "Zircon, please carry her."
Zircon squinted at her. He looked as though he wanted to argue, or ask a question.
"M'm noh tha' 'eavy, 'm I?" Arwin asked, muffled by the dirt from which she apparently didn't have the energy to remove herself.
Zircon sighed as he hoisted her onto his back. "It's fine. I'm just still getting used to these Rainbow Faces ... you know ... existing."
"You and me both," Arwin agreed.
Amethyst was about to scoop up Cygnet when the peach threehorn kid lowered himself and the little swimmer climbed onto his back. She smiled. It was good to know that her rescue had friends.
As they departed for Dawn's herd, Apogee smiled up at the silent Littlefoot.
"'The more he saw, the less he spoke. The less he spoke, the more he heard'," quoted Apogee.
Cera looked between Littlefoot and Apogee. "Y'know, Littlefoot's standing right there. If you have something to say, say it to his face."
"Curious, isn't it? He could have said that. Instead, he's allowed you to spearhead the conversation. Littlefoot is not introverted, and his curiosity runs deeper than yours. Under most circumstances, he'd be overflowing with questions, yet he stands there, silently, observing our interactions as they unfold, untouched by his interference."
Cera realised he had a point. She stared up at Littlefoot, who quietly stared back. She was no stranger to adopting sharptooth-like silence to fade into the background. Still, this was a little unsettling.
"I'm curious as to what is transpiring within his mind, seeing as he has blocked us from all thoughts but the ones he intended to convey," Apogee revealed. "Littlefoot, are you running some form of threat assessment?"
That mildly piqued Zenith's interest.
Littlefoot sighed. "That wasn't Murfy, was it? That was you, wasn't it, Zenith?"
Zenith stiffened, staring back at the longneck.
Apogee grinned. "Please elaborate."
"The whole point of Zenith's argument was that we weren't ready for you guys," Littlefoot explained. "We kept dragging our feet when it came to accepting who you are and what you can do. When you said, 'that's enough orientation for the time being', you meant it, so you decided to limit what you show us so that we stop choking on the new information. However, you still had to clear the way for us to reach Dawn's herd, so you blamed it on Murfy. I saw that spark."
Zenith didn't say anything, but her lack of reaction was an answer in itself. Now, she was staring at Littlefoot in the manner of a longneck sizing up his rival in courtship season.
"Did anyone else see it?" asked Apogee, rubbing his paws together as though anticipating a meal.
A wave of confusion and realisation rippled across the gang. Cera, Spike, Cygnet, Dawn, Murfy and the threehorn kid were among the half that claimed to have noticed the spark, though they'd somehow forgotten amid the excitement and couldn't make heads or tails of it. Circling above, Pterano volunteered no response.
"Why do you accuse us of blaming it on Murfy?" asked Zenith.
"You mentioned him just before the barrier collapsed, so that he'd be fresh on our minds. Naturally, most of us assumed he caused it, but Murfy hadn't moved. Usually, he'd have to at least do something, but he was just standing there. For it to happen just when we were ready to leave? It was too convenient. However, we didn't have to see that cold fire spark you sent to the barrier. You probably had a hundred ways to break it down without us noticing anything. You wanted us to see it, didn't you? Just enough for us to make the connection, but not enough if we weren't really paying attention. Smarts is a big thing for you guys, so you wanted to see if we were sharp enough to figure it out, and if we were flexible enough to accept the possibility."
The group fell into stunned silence.
Zenith's was gaping.
Finally, Apogee laughed. "He's as clever as the best of us!"
Zenith forced her jaw shut and cleared her throat. "In a near-baseline kind of way. Alright, Littlefoot, perhaps you qualify as an asset, but Apogee mentioned threat assessment, yes?"
"... Yes," Littlefoot hesitated.
"Do you not trust us?" Zenith pressed.
Littlefoot sighed. "Whether or not I trust you, your just being here changes everything, like a longneck walking through a field. It doesn't matter how lightly he treads, how carefully he plans every step. He'll crush hundreds of crawlers in a single day, and there's nothing he can do about it. Now that you're here, you're the longnecks, and we're the crawlers, and if more of you are coming? What happens to us when you're all walking around? What happens to us when you fight?"
Zenith's nods were slow and ominous. "He gets it."
Most of the others did too. Her dark eyes swept across the rest of the group as grim realisation finally, visibly, dawned upon them.
"People like Apogee and I are your only chance of survival," Zenith asserted. "However, make no mistake: we're not a threat. Presently, we are THE threat. We are the extinction-level asteroid looming over your heads. I beseech you all not to waste time pining for what was and will never be. There is no turning back. So, do you fancy yourselves ready for what is to come?"
The gang and rescues exchanged glances before apprehensively shaking their heads.
Littlefoot sighed and stepped forward. "I don't think there's any way to be 'ready' for this, but we'll take things as they come and do the best we can. Even crawlers find a way to live in a world full of longnecks, and we couldn't stamp them out even if we tried."
Zenith's eyebrows lifted before she slowly clapped with a satisfied smile. "He gets it, yet he refuses to accept the prospect of oblivion! Take notes, everyone!"
"What are notes?" asked several individuals.
The positivity died on Zenith's face as she slapped her palm against it. "Never mind."
She turned to continue on, met with Apogee's disapproving stare.
"Zenith, that could have gone catastrophically," he quietly admonished. "There's a difference between delineation and demoralisation."
"True, I never was much good at motivational speaking," Zenith admitted. "Fortunately, that's your department! What brilliant means of morale cultivation will you employ this time, oh Apogee, lifter of spirits?"
Apogee grumbled, though he stifled a smile.
Zenith smirked and looked away almost innocently. It felt good to be the one dumping, err- delegating stressful conundrums on her partner for a change.
"Would anyone like to try a comfort bubble?" Apogee offered.
Zenith nearly gagged. "What in the name of shallow, low-effort-?"
"OOH! MEEE! MEMEMEGIMMEADOPTME!" Cygnet squealed, almost falling off the threehorn's back as she frantically flung her paw into the air.
Apogee simpered at Zenith while Cygnet rambled on and on in the background.
"You emotional cheapskate," Zenith chastened, folding her arms.
"If it ain't broken, spam it until it most certainly is!" he quipped.
Yeah, that's a horrible saying, not that Apogee cares.
For those of you curious about the hyperbaric oxygen bubbles, they're a more advanced version of the H.B.O.T. chambers we have today. Although H.B.O.T. chambers are beneficial to human health, they don't necessarily feel all that wonderful. I'd say a lot of saurians can't get enough of them because they're just 'built different', and their colossal physiologies love drinking up the extra oxygen because it's good for their growth and respiration needs. Of course, Cygnet was suffocating when she got her first bubble, and would have appreciated the oxygen even more. It helps that the Rainbow Faces can calibrate their bubbles for comfort (you can have a comfort bubble without the hyperbaric oxygen, and vice versa), so extra oxygen and atmospheric pressure isn't the only thing in there, such as molecular massages. What would be enjoyable for The Rainbow Faces' kind is extra pleasant for a saurian in this case.