"No, It can't be," Davin said in absolute amazement.

Hugh stared, not sure what type of creature he was looking at. "What is it?"

"What kind of creature is that?" Cadence asked as they gripped their sword tightly.

"Do you not know what that is?" The amount of disbelief in Davin's voice was thick, stating each word clearly.

"What makes you think that I would know what that is?" Hugh asked in a huff, clearly offended.

"I have not seen a creature of this type in either lifetime," Cadence said, the mix of fear and excitement on their face.

"Guys! It's a DINOSAUR!" Davin yelled the last word, instantly covering his mouth as he realized it.

They had followed the tracks for what felt like an age to Davin, but a lot of that he tied to pure excitement, when he had seen the prints a childlike glee started to rise in him. There were things that everyone from his world knew of, they had been long dead and all that remains of them are their bones and fossils. Memories of holding his hand up to a copy of a fossil of a dinosaur footprint, holding fake eggs that held stuffed toys, movies, and television shows. They were a part of him at his core, a creature that never existed in his time, but a part of him knew in an instant what the print was. When they heard the thuds of its steps, Davin's heart jumped to his throat. Waving back his friends, slowing their pace, the slow-moving creature seemed tired, as if it was lethargic, they followed and watched as it trudged through the underbrush its breaths slow and heavy.

"Dinosaur?" Hugh and Cadence asked in unison.

Davin felt even more flabbergasted than he had by seeing the dinosaur. "Wait… do you really not know what that is?" Davin pointed to what he was sure was an Ankylosaurus, the wide body, spikes, and hammer-like tail.

"A huge beast?" Hugh asked as he shrugged.

"I assumed that it was some kind of dragon," Cadence suggested.

"Beast? A dragon?" Davin felt like he was missing something…. "Okay, that is a dinosaur." Davin pointed. "On my world, they went extinct more than sixty-five million years ago…"

"Extinct?" Hugh asked, the word foreign to him.

"Sixty-five million?" Cadence's look was more of a shock than confusion.

Davin let out a groan. "We can go over that after we deal with this."

"And how do you think we should do that?" Hugh asked as tripped over a branch sticking up from the underbrush, letting out a grunt of pain.

"That is an answer that I would want to know as well." Cadence helped Hugh back to his feet, their quarry seeming to be ignoring them.

"Honestly a huge chunk of me hopes it's friendly," Davin said with a shrug, his face leaving no hints of his seriousness.

"Friendly?" Hugh asked incredulously. "What makes you think that something like that can be friendly?"

"I have to agree with Hugh, I am also questioning that." Cadence finished getting Hugh to his feet.

"They don't eat meat, so I was hoping for something of a herd mentality."

"They don't? How do you know that they don't eat meat?" Hugh choked out as if he was trying to hold in a scream.

"It's been watching us almost as long as we've been watching it, and as we were moving, it's been grabbing mouthfuls of brush, and these things in my world are known to only eat plants."

"Watching us?" Cadence asked in a whisper.

Davin started to jog back to their cart, if what he was thinking was right, this big thing was hungry, cold, and confused. His jog was faster than he'd expected, reaching their cart within a few minutes. Grabbing one of the bags of feed that was meant for nibbles, and rushing back. When he'd made it back the creature was rooting around some of the underbrush, the crunching of branches filling the air. Hugh and Cadence had taken to hiding behind some of the few largest trees, which were not much bigger than they were. Davin chucked, still catching his breath from his run, to which the two nervously jumped when they heard him.

"Davin!" Hugh whisper yelled, annoyance clear on his face. "What did you go get?"

"Breakfast." Holding up the bag of feed. "Do we have any buffs that will give me an edge on this?" Hugh asked his friends, looking more to Cadence for this one.

"You wish to make a friend?" Cadence looked on, eyeing the beast as if to judge it, and words began to spill forth.

An ancient beast lost in a new world,

A frozen landscape, we wish to help it

And make it a friend.

We can see the fear in its eyes,

A creature so lost, so far from home.

It's a sight that fills us with sorrow

As we watch it wander alone.

We want to reach out and give it a hand,

To show it we mean no harm.

We want to help it find its way

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

In this unfamiliar land.

We hope to give it a new home,

A place where it will be safe.

A place where it can be free

And never feel so alone again.

We hope to make it a friend,

To show it the love it deserves.

We can't wait to see it smile

In this new place, it has found.

Davin's spirit soared, the words sparking something in him, he moved slowly as he approached, the massive beast likely able to slay him in an instant if it so chose. Digging his hand into the bag, he pulled out a handful, letting the scent fill the air, the mixture of dried grains and pressed hay pallets hitting his nostrils almost making him sneeze. Sprinkling some of the donkey chow on the ground before the beast, hoping that the smell would bring the big guy in for a bite. Davin didn’t want to have to fight what he felt was one of the most majestic creatures that he was sure that he'd ever seen, he tried to keep his thoughts as positive as he could, remembering some of the Animal Planet that he grew up watching.

The crunching of the weird pellets drug Davin back into reality, the ankylosaurs had begun to much on the feed, letting out a groan of confusion as well as what Davin could only hear as satisfaction, quickly eating the handful on the ground, it moved closer to Davin, to which he put another few handfuls of pellets on the ground. The crunching was smooth and almost melodic to Davin, each time it finished a pile of the food that he had laid down it would move closer to him. Pouring the contents of the bag on the ground Davin stepped back again, and tripped, causing him to fall and land on the brush near him surprising the beast, making it lurch back, to which Davin did the only thing that he could think of, and started to shoosh the creature, holding out his hands making himself seem smaller and more vulnerable.

Davin had let out a burst of air as the huge lizard's head bumped into his stomach, his panic rose until he saw that it was nuzzling him, and the thud of his own blood calmed down in his ears he heard the small chittering that it was making as it held its head in his lap, the rest of the food forgotten for the moment. Davin fought every urge to burst into laughter, every fiber of his being wanting to scream and run around.

The whisper in his ear almost made him jump.

"Please tell me it's not eating you." Hugh's concern was clear in his voice.

"Nope, I think I just made a friend," Davin whispered back, almost choking on a laugh as he started to pet the massive dinosaur.

"Another one? We just got Nibbles." The laugh in his words was only accented by him laughing only a few paces away.

The dinosaur turned slowly, eyeing Hugh and Cadence, the two of them still cowering just behind a tree.

"Come say hello guys, I don't think he's going to hurt us," Davin stated aloud, waving them forward.

The two were apprehensive of the massive creature, while they were from magical worlds neither of them had much experience with ones of this size. They moved slowly at Davin's encouragement, he'd been absently petting it since it had pushed into him its head large enough to crush him gently nuzzled him it had begun to let out a throaty chirp.

"You're okay, we aren't going to hurt you," Davin spoke softly and in a lowered tone, continuing to stroke its head.

When Cadence put their hand on the creature they let out a squeak. "What are we going to do with him?" the question was directed to Davin as their hand moved slowly on the neck of the creature.

"What will Nibbles think?" Hugh asked as he also placed his hands on the head of the creature. "But first things first… I think we need to get a fire going, this guy is freezing."

"This guy? Is that you or him?" Davin asked as he let out a chuckle.

"Eh, both, and it's getting close enough to lunch, so why not settle in for a bit," Hugh said as he moved his hands slowly over the head of the beast.

"I'm indisposed for the next bit, can I rely on the two of you to get something for lunch?" Davin asked as he started to scratch the underside of the chin of the dinosaur.

Hugh and Cadence looked at one another, nodded, and pulled themselves away from the petting, Cadence started to jog towards the cart while Hugh began to gather branches and other flammables and had a fire going within a few minutes. After the fire had been burning for a few minutes Davin finally got a chance to get up, the ankylosaurs had pulled itself up and wandered over to the fire, getting close enough that it could bask in the warmth while it finished eating the pile of food that Davin had poured out. Davin did the same, sitting close enough to the fire to have the warmth engulf him. It was another ten minutes before Cadence returned, Nibbles and wagon in tow, the donkey nervous around the larger animal.

"Woah, shh, shh, shh," Cadence said as they walked Nibbles by his lead. "They are a new friend, just like you." Cadence let nibbles free from the bridle and gave them a bag of feed to enjoy.

"Any trouble getting the wagon through?" Davin asked as he stood up and walked over to the cart.

"No, luckily the cart is smaller than him." They waved at the dinosaur.

"I have been thinking about names…" Davin grumbled as he pulled out a few things from their trunk.

"Oh?" Cadence questioned as they grabbed their blankets and wrapped themselves before sitting down in front of the fire.

"Yeah, Spike or Bowser have been the first ones, but I don’t know…." Davin bulled out a few of his older vegetables that were getting soft and added them to the pile that was being eaten by the dino.

"Spike?" Hugh asked as he put down more sticks to his burn pile. "Isn’t that a little cliché? To use your own words."

Davin couldn’t help but laugh. "You have no idea how big of a cliché that is, not only is it a spot-on description, but it's also several characters that have existed in stories in my world. But really what else could you name something that is basically the size of a truck?"

"That’s the size of your automobiles?" Hugh asked in disbelief.

"Truck?" Cadence asked.

"Truck?" Davin asked in confusion. "Oh, they're a kind of car, they were usually for moving big heavy things.

"No, I mean we could call him Truck, I understood the automobile reference."

Davin looked over at the ankylosaurs. "What do you think bud? Do you wanna be named Truck?" A wide smile spread over Davin's face as he asked.

Truck looked up at the question chuffed and went back to his eating, biting into the onions that Davin had added to the pile.

"Truck it is then," Davin stated as he moved over and pet the dino on his head, it moving up to nuzzle his hand as he did.

"Truck, Nibbles, why am I mildly afraid of what you'll name next?" Hugh said sarcastically as he chuckled.

"I never had any pets back home, so this is all a new experience for me." Cadence scooted closer to Truck, leaning against him.

"Eh, this isn't too far from pet naming conventions back home actually."

"Wait… what?" Hugh's horror showing on his face.

"Yeah, one of the most famous cats in my world that was lovingly referred to as 'Grumpy Cat' had the real name of 'Tardar Sauce'," Davin said, a chuckle following shortly after.

"What is 'tardar sauce'?" Hugh asked.

"Just a simple sauce for fried seafood." Davin held in a laugh as he put the pan onto the fire, putting the water on to start warming up.

"Someone name their pet after food?" Hugh sounded dejected.

"That’s some of the most common things to name them actually." Chopping some of the peppers that they'd gotten.

Hugh having seen the peppers, "Not too spicy please, I want to feel my face later."

"Adding just enough to help with the chill."

Hugh grabbed another blanket from the trunk, following Cadence's example, and sat down, leaning against Truck, to which the dino seemed to not mind, just continued to eat as Davin cooked a fragrant meal. Before Davin could finish cooking snores had filled the air, Truck was snoring softly, seeming to feel safe in the new company.

Thinking about the situation Davin pulled out his ledger and checked it.

Twenty-third entry:

You are right on top of it, this battle must be exhausting, I hope that you are safe, I would hate to see you expire so soon. -C

Twenty-fourth entry:

We didn't have to fight it, but we now have a new companion, I will give more details when we get back to a linked location, but we are bringing it with us on our adventures, we should be back soon, taking a break after. -D

Davin chuckled as he closed the ledger, seeing how the Patron worded it, they must have been expecting the whole thing to only have a violent solution… and he couldn’t think that they were wrong. As he finished pulling up the tent, he woke up Cadence so that they could take their watch, hot cup of soup in hand.