CHAPTER IV: Lake
By this point the climate was even more shaded from the two men as they arrived to the end of their rocky slope from the top. The vast amount of tropical palm trees, with their thick leaves, meant the sun could only touch them through the gaps between the leaves. The temperature was a lot more tolerable down here in the forest as a result.
They cautiously walked on as the ground resembled that of a tree bark. Somewhat brown and slightly bumpy, but it wasn't actually bark. It was just a differently coloured stone ground, and at this level there were a few parts of the ground which was covered with an entirely mud surface mixed in with tropical bushes.
Michael briefly leaned downwards to pick a leaf off one of the bushes, just out of morbid curiosity. It was only a plant but given where they were, everything here was something worthy of being looked at. Again, the plant felt rubbery and silky and had a bright shine coming off its green colour.
"What's that?" Nathan asked, briefly stopping to look at Michael.
"Just another bit of plant, it's wildly interesting this stuff."
Nathan could see the reasonings behind why it'd be interesting. The opportunity to actually feel and get a sense of how everything down here felt, the environment and the plants, given it was from the movie, was incredibly interesting.
"We just need to be careful obviously with these plants, just in case...you know."
"We're nowhere near the big ones that Manny and Diego got trapped in, and I don't think any of these are poisonous," Michael said, "I hadn't actually considered that."
Michael dropped the plant and caught up with Nathan on the path they were walking on. He didn't want to use his drinking water to rinse his hand. Not that he was worried, but obviously it was better to be safe than sorry.
"If there's that lake around here," Michael said, "I'll give my hand a quick swish in it, but it was just a standard plant from what I could see."
Michael's words reminded Nathan that they ought to look for the lake anyways, just in case there happened to be some sightseeing to see.
"You should be fine Michael, but we'll go look for that lake."
"After that, we should definitely concentrate our path towards Lava Falls for sure without any delays. We can reach it today if we just prioritize getting there."
With a quick glimpse behind themselves, Michael and Nathan recognized the slope not too far from here that they had come down from, just to know exactly where they needed to head if anything here went badly. Upon seeing that slope, safely knowing its direction in case of an emergency, the two of them diverted from their current path and headed towards where they thought the lake was.
Upon turning and walking through a brief clump of trees, some of the tree trunks looked scorched, some of them were taller than the others but a few didn't even have any leaves on them, just the pure bark. A gigantic stalagmite that was the height of a skycraper made its presence known as the two friends walked past it in their quest to find the lake.
"Watch out here, we just need to push these leaves out of the way, I think I can see the water."
Nathan, upon proclaiming that he could see the water, moved his hands in front of himself to push the palm tree leaves out of the way, and some of them came from elevated bushes on the ground level. Michael followed him behind. Just a split second later, the two friends found themselves in the complete open - in front of them, a giant body of water with scattered lily pads, many of which had an orange flower on top.
Quite a few portions of the rocky ground around this lake had extended upwards like mini mountains, some of which had bridged halfway over the lake. The natural formations of the ground in this world was a sight to behold, much more so in person than in the movie.
"Oh look over there!" Michael pointed, his voice uttering in a higher pitch of excitement, with him and Nathan ducking down as they turned their heads to the far right corner.
A group of bronze coloured Triceratops were wandering within the lake, and although they were quite a distance away, they looked like they'd be HUGE up close, and they were much bigger in person than in the movie.
"Triceratops, look at those guys!" Nathan said in a slight whisper, with the two of them keeping their voices down.
Their horns stuck out from the heads like viking helmets, their frills were like a giant wall, in which they were higher than the horns, and their broadened bodies gave off the appearance of a strong, not to be underestimated dinosaur. And they had the exact same eyes as the ones in Ice Age 3 had, further confirming that the dinosaurs here looked exactly like how they did in that movie.
"That is amazing, my heart is beating like crazy now," Michael said, smiling at the sight of the dinosaurs in the lake, who looked like they were roaming their way out of the lake.
The excitement was crazy for the two of them.
The Triceratops were very slow moving dinosaurs but they weren't one the two men wanted to catch the attention of. They were most definitely fast if they wanted to be, that was the assumption the two men made anyways.
Besides, Michael only wanted to come to the lake to give his hand from the plant a brief swish in the water. But this was a very nice surprise.
"You stay here within the leaves, they're literally that far they won't see us, so I'll just slowly go to the shores and just give my hand a quick dip."
Nathan nodded. He noticed a couple of little juvenile Triceratops with the bigger ones, which meant they had to be extra careful when hanging out around the lake.
Michael remained ducked down as he slowly stepped over to the shallow shores of the lake, in which a couple of lily pads were directly in front of him. He dropped his hand into the water, which was VERY warm and felt like it'd be a good lake to swim in due to the tropical temperature, and he moved it rapidly back and forth. That's literally all he wanted to do.
Remaining in a ducked stance just inches from the water, Michael couldn't help but look at the Triceratops, they appeared to be quite a big family. A couple of juveniles were walking slowly with what was most likely their parents. Michael continued watching them in awe as he dried his hand on his bag, initially removing it off his back to do so.
"Are you done?" Nathan quietly yelled to Michael as the two of them continued to stay ducked.
"Yeah sorry, I got distracted. They look amazing, don't they?" Michael said.
As he started walking in his ducked stance back over to the trees and bushes Nathan was situated in, one of the Triceratops in the distance raised its head from the water and directly looked at their direction.
"Oh god, look, I think they've seen us."
Nathan pointed towards their direction in the lake as he said that. Michael followed his hand and looked at the dinosaurs - they indeed were looking. First it was one of them, then it was a second adult, and now the juveniles had all noticed the two of them. Luckily for them there was a great distance between them and the dinosaurs.
"Do you reckon they're curious?" Michael asked.
"It's like...they're just staring at us blankly," Nathan replied, "oh hang on a minute..."
Suddenly, the ENTIRE family of Triceratops in the distance in the water was looking at them. And as they looked, Michael and Nathan could hear some very brief croons from them, even at this distance. They started taking slow steps on their four legs towards their direction.
"Right, that's our cue to move I think," Nathan said, "come on."
Michael agreed. They didn't want to hang around for too long for the distance between them and the Triceratops family to close. The fact they started walking towards their direction, through the lake, persuaded Nathan and Michael to push back through the bushes and carry on with their hike to Lava Falls, knowing full well the distance of the Triceratops was a safe one for the time being.
As soon as the two of them were back through the maze of trees and bushes and into the somewhat more open vicinity of the forest, they both stood back up straight.
"My legs, I hate ducking for long."
"I know," Nathan said, "we should probably get a move on with this then, just in case they catch up to us. They've probably already lost interest now we're not there anymore."
Nathan said all of that just now as he looked at the heaps of bushes and cyacads they'd just went through to exit the sight of the Triceratops, not knowing Michael had once again sneakily moved to a whole new spot.
"Look at these, Nathan!" Michael said, standing on an even darker portion of the rocky grounds.
Nathan walked over to Michael, noticing that this part of the ground had much more mud on it. He stepped on a couple of the small bushes to catch up to Michael, who was staring at a footprint.
And not just any footprint either, it was a T-Rex footprint.
"No way, is that the footprint from..."
"It is, but they're definitely the ones from when she took Sid down here, they're not new footprints."
Michael and Nathan chuckled outloud, not out of an authentic laughter from humour but from the excitement of seeing the footprints. They were the footprints of Momma Dino but also the footprints as a result that were going to direct them straight to Lava Falls.
"Yeah I think I remember this particular area from that scene in the movie, you know when they first meet Buck and Diego spots these?" Nathan said, pointing at the footprint.
Michael raised his left trainer up and just stamped it a couple of times into the footprint. The size difference was daunting. They were just short of 3 meters in length.
"Right then, we've got our way to our destination. We need to stick to this now and not get distracted with anything, so we can get this done today and come back." Michael said.
"I completely forgot about these to be fair, they'll be our gateway to there and back. Fingers crossed hey?"
Michael nodded.
The two men fully understood that these footprints were from when Momma Dino kidnapped Sid and took him down here, they weren't new footprints at all. But they didn't need to be - they just had to direct them to Lava Falls.
The monstrous amounts of green surrounding Michael and Nathan as the footprints in the vicinity they were in were an open area created a contrast of sorts. An engulfed forest of palm trees, with tropical heat and the sunlight tagging its lights through the gaps of the branches above, made for an incredibly beautiful sight. It couldn't get any easier than this.
The pink bright skies of the dino world were still present, meaning it was day time. Michael and Nathan had no qualms about reaching Lava Falls before it fell to night down here, especially with following the footprints. They didn't even consider that they'd possibly fail to make it to Lava Falls before night, and discovering these old footprints from Momma Dino made them all the more confident.
They had enough water, food, for a full day. All they had to do was get to where they were going and back. It was going to be a great time with absolutely no errors and no risk of failure or dangerous encounters - in their minds anyways.