Normal 1.14: Mother and Sister
Egg
You awaken trapped and comfortable.
Something in you knows that you should get out. Escape. Be free. Free from what? The liquid around you is very pleasant. You hear sounds outside. High pitched and soothing. Mother! She is why you must get out.
You raise your head and bash your tooth against the wall. Then you do it again. And again. Mother is there. She will hear you and help. Eventually. She does not help but she does stop encouraging you. Odd. Your tooth strikes the wall again and the shell cracks. Another hit and it crumbles. You press your head out through the hole and into the
You don’t know what this is. A new sense!
You survey your surroundings and find her. Two hers. They smell like hers. One is very big and adult colored. Mother! You rush towards her and squeak so she knows that you are here and hers and that you love her very much. She reaches down one of her absolutely massive arms and holds out her claws and you press your head into them Her claws feel very soft. Wait what do most claws feel like? You press a claw into your face. Yes, hers are much softer.
“Hello,” Mother says. “Who are you?”
“Your daughter!” Obviously. “I just hatched!”
She extends her other claw down to scratch you because she loves you and will look out for you until you are as big as she is.
“And I’m your Mother?”
“Yes!”
She ruffles the feathers on your head. “You’re very soft,” she comments. Your sister huffs beside you. “Just like you, Pixie,” Mother adds.
Your sister’s name is Pixie! “What’s my name?” you ask.
“Hmmmmm.” She hums/roars a little bit. It’s very melodic and pretty and you’re upset when she stops. “Your Dad will be here later. I think he’ll want to name you.”
“Why?”
“Because…” She trails off and doesn’t finish the thought. “He wanted to raise you.”
You thump your tail on the ground. “But you’re my Mother!”
She shakes her head and her beautiful green feathers move with her. “I’ll still be around. But he’ll do most of the work.”
You hiss. “Unfair! You’re raising Pixie!”
Pixie harrumphs in agreement. It’s a very strange sound.
“Yes. Your Father is also caring for other pokémon.”
“But you’re taking care of my sister! Why not me? I’m a girl. You’re a girl. It makes sense.”
Her claws twitch up and nearly out of reach. You can still press your head into them if you stand up as tall as you can. “Why do you think Pixie’s your sister?”
“Because she’s the same color and size as me.”
You notice that Mother’s eyes are very pretty. Not like Pixie’s. There’s some color in them but it’s hidden behind a white pattern. Mother presses her claw against your body and scratches you from your head to the tip of your tail. Then she brings the claw back up and flicks the egg liquid off.
“I should get you a bath and a checkup before your Dad gets here.” She bends down and picks you up before cradling you in her giant arms. It is very warm and safe and you love her and she loves you. “Pix, can you guide me downstairs?”
Your sister shakes herself off with a wave of—cold air?—and starts walking forward with one tail held back against Mother’s leg. Huh. Pixie has multiple tails. Unfair! You only have one.
Mother opens up a clever barrier from her cave into—Another cave?! Then she walks down the tunnel until she reaches—Another another cave??!! And this one feels weird and has strange sounds. You want to explore it but Mother tightens her grip on you. Then the cave stops and the wall slides open into—Another another another cave???!!! How deep underground were you? Or were you near the surface and you’ve just been going deeper? Why does Mother live underground in the first place?
“Don’t live here,” she whispers. “Just staying here for a few days. Also, it’s not a cave. Closer to a hollowed out tree.” Woah. That’s a really, really big tree.
Mother takes you into a big cavern with a female adult leaning on a big wooden ridge. Mother and Sister walk over to the other adult. “Hi,” Mother says. “She just hatched and I think she needs a checkup?”
She gently places you down on the ridge. The other adult looks you over. “No problem. Let me call a nurse.”
Other adult picks up a strange shiny rock and vocalizes into it. Another adult female, a “nurse,” comes over and frowns. Teeth have been shown! Challenge? Mother reaches out and gently runs a claw along your back. No challenge.
“Can I have a name, please?” Nurse asks.
“Cuicatl Ichtaca.”
It would be weird if other adults who she was not the mother of called her Mother. It was very clever of Mother to come up with something else to be called.
“Mmhmm. Do you know what this pokémon is?”
Mother shakes her head. Is she dirty? Has an attacker latched onto her? Is she breaking the spine of prey? What is the head shake for? “She speaks a language similar to Upper Draconic. Otherwise, no clue. Hatched from a mystery egg a friend was given.”
There’s a brief silence.
“Do you understand Draconic?”
“Lower and Upper Draconic. They’re different languages.”
Nurse bites her lip. Surrender? An attempt to draw her own blood so that other predators and scavengers come to her under the mistaken impression that she is wounded, thus allowing her to kill them without having to hunt them down? Provides food and reduces competition all at once. Genius. Almost on Mother’s level.
“Can I put that in your file? Dragons are a pain to treat and I’m sure nurses would appreciate it if they could talk to the pokémon and tell it what’s going on.”
“Just because I can speak to dragons doesn’t mean they listen to me,” Mother says. “I can try but I make no promises.”
“I get it. Please wait here while I get a pokédex. I want to figure out what species she is before I do anything else.” Immediately after she starts walking away she turns around to look at Mother. “Are you just guessing she’s female or can you tell?”
“Upper Draconic is very gendered. She uses female pronouns.”
“Okay.” Nurse smells distressed, deferential, confused. Attack? Mother puts a claw under your chin and scratches you really hard and it’s wonderful. Wait, were you going to attack something? Nurse comes back with a strange flat rock. She points it towards you and a voice comes out.
Tyrunt, the Royal Heir Pokémon. Unregistered. Rock-dragon type. Prone to angry outbursts. Approach with caution.
The rock can talk! Should you attack it? Neither Mother nor Sister nor nurse move to fight it. You decide to simply watch for now.
Nurse makes a strange grunting sound. Attack? Mother taps your head. Is strange. Probably means should not attack. “What license do you have?”
“Class III.”
She bites her lip again because no prey have shown up to be eaten.
“Has she imprinted on you?”
“I think so. She says I’m her mother.” She is!
“Do you know what license Mr. Mahi’ai has?”
Mother blankly stares forward and slowly shakes her head. “Who?”
“Kekoa?”
Mother blinks very dramatically because sand or an insect attacked her only weak point like a coward. “Class III. Sorry.”
Nurse drives her claws onto a stone in a strange sequence. Eventually she nods her head and speaks while still looking down. “Could you withdraw your vulpix and come back with me?”
“I didn’t bring my cane…”
That provokes a dramatic and prolonged exhale. “Can you withdraw it once it guides you back? Vulpix have a reputation for causing trouble.”
Pixie whines on the floor. You don’t know why but there might be a threat so you also start roaring too and your sister almost immediately stops and stares at you with her tails pressed down and ears slicked back. Mother slowly and pointedly exhales like Nurse did. “Do you think you can do that, Pix?”
Your sister very softly barks.
“Perfect.”
Nurse tries to pick you up and you move to bite her before she pulls back. “Can you carry her?” she asks Mother. “She’s being aggressive.” Wow. She’s scared of your bite and you only have one tooth. Soon you will be unstoppable.
Mother gently cradles you and you go behind the dividing stone into Nurse’s den. With the unneeded assistance of Nurse and Pixie, Mother sets you down on a large slab high in the air. She fumbles with something at her waste and there’s a red flash of light. You stop hearing sister’s heartbeat a moment later.
Did Mother kill her?!
{No.} Mother messages you. In your mind! How?! {She’s just gone for a moment. I will bring her back later.}
MOTHER CAN RAISE THE DEAD?!?!
Nurse puts a wet and warm leaf over your head. It feels like the egg. You press into it and she brings it down your body. Then she rinses the leaf off and does it again. “I asked about the licenses,” she says during her second rinse, “because if she’s imprinted on you she only requires a Class III. But if she hasn’t she’d require a Class IV.”
“You’re saying Kekoa can’t own her?” Mother asks.
Nurse nods right before she presses the leaf down on you. “Not legally. You could still be her legal owner while letting Kekoa do most of the caregiving.”
“I don’t think she, I mean the pokémon, wants that,” Mother says. “I asked her about that earlier and she got very upset.”
It’s hard to follow the conversation when only Mother makes sense and you can only sort of tell what Nurse means from her tone and actions. You think that Mother is laying out a case for claiming you from Father, though, which is very good. Mother is Mother. Father can help.
Nurse moves the leaf away and takes out a strange shiny object. She flicks a claw against it and a stream of very warm air comes out. You lean into it and watch as it causes the feathers it hits to press down and ripple out. Very warm! Can you nap under this? Does Mother have one? Can she use it maybe every day several times a day?
“You can work that out later,” Nurse says over the hum of the air. “Any questions on caring for her?”
“What does she eat?” Mother asks.
That’s silly! The same thing she eats, of course. Just regurgitated. Nurse turns the heavenly air off and you hiss at her. Mother presses her claws into your back and that shifts your attention because the pressure is really nice. Nurse bares her teeth. “Good question. Can I go get the pokédex?”
“Yes,” Mother says as she moves her claws to ruffle the feathers on your head. Is annoying! And maybe also kind of fun. Will decide after the scritches conclude.
Nurse starts walking away. “Raw or cooked meat is the short answer. Maybe the occasional insect mix or bone tossed in. She’ll move on to full carcasses as she grows up.” She grabs the talking stone and walks back. “Longer answer is that until she grows her first set of teeth it’ll need to be ground up for her. I think. And she might only take it regurgitated. I’m going to have to call someone off the islands to verify that. Hopefully the egg yolk will keep her full for a few more hours.”
“How often will she need fed?” Mother asks. “I know hydreigon eat once a week but…”
What is a hydreigon and will you get a chance to kill one? They might taste good.
“Again,” Nurse spreads her lips thin with just a little bit of teeth showing. “Let me check with someone who’s cared for a tyrunt before. With any luck I’ll have the information in a few hours.”
*
The door to Mother’s den slams open. “Cuicatl Ichtaca, I need you to tell Jennifer that we could use a fuckton of money right about now.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
You look up as two angry adults, both larger than Mother, walk in. Both are wet. One is walking in quick, heavy steps while the other stays back and moves delicately. Why are their three adults? There should only be two.
Mother sighs and picks you up into the air. Your resurrected sister immediately rushes in to fill the space on Mother’s lap you were occupying. “Your egg hatched, Kekoa.”
The angry one, Father, moves over and puts his face uncomfortably close to you. “Some kind of a bird?”
“Sort of. The nurse’s pokédex said she was a tyrunt.”
Father closes his eyes and practically hisses before stomping off. “Fuck me.”
Mother coughs. “She, um. They imprint. Like birds.”
Father stops and looks back at you and Mother. “She imprinted on you?”
“Yeah.” You can feel Mother’s pulse pick up as she lowers you down to the middle of her folded legs, ignoring your sister’s hissing. She begrudgingly makes room but continues to glare at you. “She did.”
“Fuck me.” Father’s limbs are shaking and his breath is heavy. He turns to face the entry to the den where the third human stands. “Jennifer, can you give us a minute here.”
She slowly turns around. “Yeah, um, I’ll be out with Sir Bubbles if you need me.”
When the portal closes Father slowly and deliberately sits down on a wooden platform with bedding on it. “Keep her,” he says.
“What? That’s… a lot.”
Father sighs. “I owe you for the shit I did earlier.”
Mother stops scratching you and places her hands on her legs. “You don’t owe me that much.”
“Cuicatl.” Father leans forward and looks at Mother with a terrifying intensity. “I need you to swear to keep this secret.”
Mother bares her teeth for a moment before leaning down, touching the ground with a claw, and bringing it back to her mouth. “I swear in the name of Huitzilopochtili to never tell another soul without your permission.”
Father slowly relaxes. “I’ve been lying about my parents. They’re dead. I lived in an orphanage.”
“I’m sorry,” Mother instantly replies.
“Don’t be.” Father snickers. “You didn’t kill them.”
Mother exhales and runs a claw through her head feathers. “I meant that I know what it’s like.”
Father tilts his head and looks intensely at Mother. Not out of rage but concern or wariness.
“You want to talk about it?”
“No,” Mother says very quietly.
“Okay.” Father takes a deep breath. “Anyways, my brother and I watched Jurassic Park right before everything went to shit. Then once the storm cleared and the death certificates were signed my brother fucked off to the mainland to punch a god or something. Left me behind.” Mother is silent. For a few heartbeats so is Father. “I got a letter or a call once a week for a little bit. Then once a month. Then once a year. Then not at all.” His voice cracks. Is he injured? He looks down and shifts his legs. “He came back a few months ago. Tracked me down in Paniola. Thinks everything’s fucking fine and we can just go back to the way things were before.”
“But you can’t,” Mother adds.
Father nods. “But we can’t.” His face is already very wet but you swear that a little more flows down it. “I can’t take the tyrunt. That tells him the debt’s paid and we can go back to the way things were before...” He trails off.
Mother gently lifts herself up and pushes you and Pixie off of her legs. “Hug?”
Father walks across the room and embraces Mother in his very long arms. They stand still for several breaths in the center of the den before Father backs away with a muttered, “Thanks.”
“You want to cuddle? You can see Mother raise up her arms to her chest and tilt her head to the side.
Father walks back to his bedding and sits down. “Not now.”
“Okay.” Mother steps back and slowly lowers herself onto the bedding. Pixie rushes onto her and you settle for leaning against her leg. It will be your turn later and you will move her then. “I suppose she needs a name.”
“Yeah,” Father sighs and leans back onto his bedding. “Just don’t name her Chompy.”
“I was thinking Mitzcocotonaz, actually.”
Father pops his head up a little. “What’s that mean.”
“She will dismember you.”
He flops his head back down. “Fucking metal.”
“Fucking metal,” Mother solemnly agrees.
It is an excellent name. You will honor it by dismembering many things.
Mother tilts her head and feathers spill onto her face “Now, what were you saying about Genesis?”
You perk up. This is your chance to find out more about the strange third human. The Genesis.
“We caught a castform. She wants to keep it,” Father says in a low and monotonous voice.
Neither says anything for a moment. Father shifts in his nest and Mother starts petting your sister. “That’s a lot of money,” she finally says.
What is money? Can it be killed? If so, why isn’t she excited about an abundance of prey?
“Tell me about it.” Father sits back up and starts speaking louder. “That’s a new tent, a full resupply of potions and pokéballs, a backpack, and as much food as we need.”
Mother’s face scrunches up. “We have $180 in the bank, right?”
“Yeah.”
She stops petting your sister and starts scratching the side of your head with two of her claws. You lean into it and gently growl with affection. “We definitely won’t starve. Other supplies could stretch things.”
Other supplies? Nest-building stuff? Water? Rocks that shoot out warm air? Those are very important. Something rumbles in your gut. Time to poop. Where? You reach up and gently tug on Mother’s arm. She starts and looks down at you. “Hey. Uh, need anything?”
“Where do I poop?” you ask.
She bares her teeth and stands. Your sister jumps down to the floor as she does. “Kekoa, mind helping me outside? Coco needs to go.” Who is Coco—oh, you are Coco!
*
Outside is warm and moist and absolutely wonderful and you don’t know why Mother and Father live inside of a tree when they could be out here. And water is coming down from above you! How! You stare up to investigate it but no answers appear. What were you here for? Oh, right. “Where do I poop?” you ask Mother.
“Anywhere on the green plants.”
There are many green plants. So many places to poop! You walk forward and defecate on some green plants just like Mother told you to. Right after you step away Pixie steps up, pops a leg, and pees right where you just went before huffing and walking back to Mother near the tree and out of the water.
Should you follow her? You glance up at the sky again and it lights up and roars in response. You rush back to Mother for protection and she brings you back inside the safety of the tree.
*
“As it turns out not many places have hatched tyrunt,” Nurse says. “A few hatchlings in Shanghai but they’ve classified the details. The parks in San Diego and Panama are closed at this hour. Finally got ahold of a safari in Dubai.” Mother nods slowly and Nurse continues. “They’re hardier than I’d feared and Alola’s climate is good for them. Until she starts teething you should mainly feed her regurgitated poultry.”
Mother’s mouth twists and she tilts her head to the side. “Teething?”
“Yup.” Nurse starts rummaging through strange white leaves on her desk until she finally settles on one. “Just like human babies. In a few weeks she’ll start biting everything she can wrap her jaws around.”
Neither party speaks for a while. You take the opportunity to look around at the strange cave. It takes you a few sweeps of the room but you finally find the warm air tablet. You tense up and prepare to run over to it when Mother resumes speaking. “I guess I should have expected that.”
Wait. Her tone is wrong. Are they talking about you? Is she disappointed in you? Why? You love her and she loves you. For a moment you wonder if you want the question answered but then you decide to ask it aloud anyway. Mother starts before calming down and pressing a few claws into your feathers. When she speaks again it’s different somehow. Less clear. More like you talk. Except some of the sounds are wrong. You can’t really explain it. “Not disappointed,” she says. “Just working out some logistics.”
“What are logistics?”
She pauses before answering in the same strange way. “When and where to hunt.”
That makes a lot of sense!
Mother bares her teeth and switches back to her smooth way of talking. “Sorry. She just wanted to know what we were talking about. Any advice on getting through teething?”
Nurse grimaces and pushes her hands together so that the claws interlock. “Thick gloves and a firm hand? I’ve never worked with tyrunt but that’s the answer I give for everything else.”
“Very, very thick gloves,” Mother says with the same solemnity with which she declared your name to be fucking metal. Whatever metal means.
“Well,” Nurse says. “Maybe.” She ruffles through a few more leaves. “Tyrunt have a strong bite but it’s proportional to their size. A young tyrunt isn’t exactly crushing steel.” She bares her teeth and leans back. “Besides, being able to talk to her in a way she understands is a big deal. If she listens.”
A claw runs through your headfeathers. “She’s been a very good listener so far.” You have been!
Nurse gets up and walks over to a strange blocky object. She opens it and a wave of cool air shoots out. Just like Pixie. You jump down to investigate but Nurse closes it again and the air stops. Then she starts walking back and you jump back up to Mother and almost miss and fall because it’s a big jump but she scoops you up and puts you on her lap because she loves you.
“The kitchen staff had some leftover pidove if you want to use it.”
“So…” Mother lowers her claws to the table and crosses her legs. “I need to chew it and spit it out to her?”
“You could use a mortar and pestle for now. Or you could chew it if it helps her learn. We don’t really know much about how that works.”
“But won’t I pass on diseases or something?”
Nurse shakes her head. “The park in Dubai didn’t think so. You’re a modern non-pokémon mammal and she’s a protobird pokémon from sixty-five million years ago. There’s probably not many diseases you could communicate to her.”
“Okay…” Mother sounds reluctant but she does reach out and eventually take a small mass of something vaguely meat-scented. She manipulates the object and pulls out a smaller lump that is definitely meat. Mother slowly brings it to her mouth and chews it. You (successfully!) jump the small distance up onto the big flat surface and hold your mouth up and open so that she can drop the food in. After thoroughly digesting the meat Mother slowly leans forward and you start waving your tail back and forth in anticipation.
“You can spit it at any time,” Nurse says. Mother does. You immediately snap your jaws shut and swallow the food.
It tastes a little strange. You aren’t entirely sure what meat is supposed to taste like but not quite like that. It’s still very good, though.
“Now, there’s one last thing you’ll need to take care of,” Nurse says as Mother stands up. Do you have a pokéball on you?”
“No. We have some upstairs.”
Nurse moves to put the meat container back into the cold rock. “You can do it there. Or you can bring her back down if you want help.”
Mother shakes her head. “I think I can do it.” She pauses. “Will a nest ball work?”
“That’s what I would recommend you use,” Nurse says as she turns back around with bared teeth. “It’s the idea ball for most newborns and hatchlings. Just switch her to a more suitable one when she grows up a bit.”
“Oh.” Mother freezes up. “How quickly do they grow up?”
“Not so fast that we have to discuss it tonight.” Nurse walks over and puts a hand on Mother’s shoulder. “You’ve had a long day. Go up and rest. Long term planning can wait for the morning.”
*
What?
…
Is this
…
This is an egg.
…
Why are you in an egg again?
*
You hatch for the second today. Except this time your feathers are dry and Mother’s looking down at you and you’re both in the same places you were in before you were re-egged.
“Why was I in an egg again?” you ask.
“Not egg. More… sleep.” Her face scrunches up and she keeps a single claw extended until she speaks again. “Making you sleep is within my power.”
Red light. Sleep. Returning later. “That’s how you raised Sister from the dead?” you ask.
She negation growls. “Not death. Sleep.”
You think you understood her meaning. The phrases are simple even if she’s pretending that she can’t pronounce the words. They also make absolutely no sense. Not yet. Maybe they should? You’ll think about it.
Mother extends a hand and you rub your head into it. Being hatched is much better than being unhatched. She reaches down and slowly lowers the strange orb in her hands to the ground. Then she sits back up and pulls a giant leaf made of feathers over her. You avoid being swallowed by it before she finishes pulling it up and lies down. Pixie immediately lunges onto her chest and extends all of her tails over her abdomen. “Let your sister sleep, Pix.”
Oh. It is sleep time! Except not in the egg? You push your sister’s tails aside and rest on Mother’s abdomen. Pixie hisses and glares at you but ultimately just walks around in a tight circle and plops back down so that she’s facing you and her tails are resting on top of her. Interesting. You walk in a tight circle but cannot get your tail on top of your body. Unfair!
*
Colorful moving images spring up on a rock on the other side of the nesting chamber. If Mother was not giving you and Pixie an abundance of scritches you would go and investigate it up close. For now you can watch from a distance.
Father walks back from the rock and sits down in the middle of the nest. Genesis is on the opposite side with her strange round creature that you are not supposed to attack unless you want to go to sleep and wake up with all of your feathers soaked in water. She also has her Pixie-shaped-plant and a floating white thing that taunts you by staying just out of reach at all times. Someday you will catch it and you will be very satisfied.
Water starts moving on the screen. You stare intently but nothing really changes so you relax a bit and sit down and press into Mother. Then a deep voice starts talking and you have to wildly look around to see where it’s coming from.
“Who’s the narrator?” Mother asks.
“No idea.” Father answers. “Why?”
“He has a very good voice.”
Red dot! There’s a red dot on the stone. You tense to pounce and half-expect Mother to stop you. She doesn’t! You jump off of the nest and charge the stone. Well, charge the tree the stone is on. It’s higher up than you expected. Well, you can still jump—red light everywhere.
*
This time Mother is staring right at you when you hatch. Same Mother. Same Sister. Same Father. Same extra adult on the nest. Was this—
“Myth,” mother says in her broken, stilted speech. “Story. Red prey is past.”
It takes you a bit to process that. Well, it takes you a bit to figure out what the words even were. Then it takes you another bit to process. Two bits. “Stone is myth-telling?” you finally ask. Mother nods. Okay. Story stone should not be attacked.
The story resumes.
A fish appears and starts chasing the red lights. Unfair! You want to chase them.
There are scenes of prey. Big, proper prey. Adults, mostly. Too big to attack on your own. But then there’s an egg. An egg that rolls all the way down a waterfall and a hill until it comes to rest and—baby prey! You tense up and eye the delicious small baby as adults comes back. You hiss at the adults. They need to stop blocking your hunts.
Finally, thankfully, the baby wanders off on its own. You slowly rise up on your legs and crouch down, tail pressed straight back. Mother says that you can’t attack the story stone but you still want to practice stalking your prey.
“Coco’s about to pounce,” Father says. Mother picks your sleep egg up and holds it at her side, ready to use it. She won’t have to because you’re very good and won’t actually attack the baby in the story. Mother should just be happy that you want to practice so much.
Another baby appears! This one has a wide bony face and is stalking an insect, just like you’re doing. But then it fails and gets peed on by the bug. Ew. Now it will taste gross when you eat it. Well, if you could eat it. Squarefaces are often covered in bug pee. That is the important lesson you will take away from this.
The adults come back. Then the kids get lost again. You tense up and shake out your hips a little as you lower down. “Coco’s doing it again,” Kekoa says.
“And I’m holding her ball.”
She is but she won’t need it. Pixie isn’t stalking the prey but is looking at you with interest. Not that you can figure out what you—
An adult appears on screen. One of your adults! Without any feathers. Strange. You plop back down to watch a proper hunt play out. Except it doesn’t. The babies are cowards who cheat and hide behind wood which an adult could totally get through but doesn’t for some reason. It is very confusing. No, wait! It’s working! The adult has the babies cornered and… and the ground starts shaking as giant cracks open up in it. Adults and babies yell on screen but the sharptooth, you’re called a sharptooth!, keeps pressing the attack like a proper predator until—until the longneck mother whips her tail into the sharptooth and knocks it down into the earth.
No! That’s incredibly unrealistic. The sharptooth would have killed the Mother and all the babies and gone home to nap. Why are your parents watching lies? You turn around to voice your extreme displeasure to Mother.
“I know,” she responds in her rough language. “Is warning. Bad hunting.”
Oh. So the real story is that you shouldn’t hunt near places you could fall. And that you shouldn’t attack young threehorns because many of them have insect pee on them. And that longneck adults are cheaters who sometimes win even though they shouldn’t but the babies are tiny and easy prey. And that you should just rip through roots and wood and kill prey as soon as you can. So many useful lessons!
The adult dies shortly after. That’s another lesson: just wait for the adult to die, then kill the babies.
Your mother turns to face the other adults. “So this is a kids movie, huh?”
Father stares impassively ahead, curling his claws around his hands. Genesis starts at the question and shrugs. “I guess? I, uh, I didn’t really remember that.”
“Rule #12: Jennifer doesn’t get to pick movie night,” Father commands.
“Agreed.”
Genesis snorts and looks away. “Well, sorry I guess.”
The rock turns black. When color returns the baby encounters a giant armored beast with spikes on its back and a tail club. How would you kill that? Is the belly armored? You can’t tell. As long as it is on the rock you will do your best to figure it out.
“Oh, it’s not your fault. It’s not your mother’s fault. Now, you pay attention to old Rooter. It is nobody’s fault. The great circle of life has begun. But see, not all of us arrive at the same time.”
You smell something behind you. A glance shows that there’s strange water near Mother’s eyes. She crosses her arms across her chest and takes long, distorted breaths. Is she under attack? Did more terrible sand strike her eye? Pixie stands up on her hind legs and presses her paws into Mother’s chest. She unfolds an arm and pulls your sister closer. Out of the corner of your eye you see Father look over and immediately look away.
Unsure of what to do, you turn back to look at the story stone. The baby is alone now. It appears to be weak and starving. Almost unconsciously you start to crouch again at the opportunity to—a tail flicks your leg hard and you take off before you can even figure out why you’re running.
Red light engulfs you well before you reach the stone.