2 Lakes and Memories

Night began to fall as the gleaming Moonlight broke through the trees and lit up the night sky. All the nocturnal beasts crawled out of their nooks and borrows, hopeful that the titans of the day would keep to their slumber as they made their own separate dances of life and death.

Not so for Victoria, her throat was parched and irritated. She had wasted too much energy rumbling her throat at all manner of creature during the day. Rising with great irritation, Victoria sat on her hind-limbs and glanced at her sleeping brothers who had immediately fallen asleep with no issue due to all their play-fighting. Half-tempted to wake them up so she wouldn't have to deal with a dry throat alone she blinked her eyes wearily and forced herself up and search for water.

Standing up in the break between the trees she took a large sniff of the air, at time like this she could really use Caesar's knowledge of the land. When their parents had been teaching them how to live she had failed to pay attention to landmarks just like Napoleon, only being eager when there was going to be food. Caesar however had been the smart one, sniffing at trees and looking for anything that would be unique and make finding their way much easier. As she mused to herself, she shook her head, no sense worrying about this now, she needed to find water, otherwise she would be retching all the next morning.

Taking in a deeper sniff she tried to pick up the smell of dirt or mud and thought, maybe she could go back to the river, but as she recalled, there were lot of prey by the river so that wouldn't do. If she went there, they would certainly wake up and seize on the chance to rid the land of another predator so, that wasn't an option for her. Pondering upon her desire for water and her desire for safety she was struck by a thought, river's don't go on forever. The water had to be coming from somewhere, she just had to find that somewhere and then she could have her drink.

With confidence she strode carefully into the night and traced her memories of the river. It wasn't hard to find or to locate and upon sighting it, she was right. Sleeping at the river's edge were a group of titanic Amphicoelias and she would have no quarrel with them tonight. Turning her ears to the left she saw one end of the river stretch onward, where she could hear the sound of the sea slamming against the shore, not that way then. Looking back she slowly traced the river in the opposite direction and began to follow that, away from it. Pausing for a moment, she looked down at her feet and remembered her poor sense of directions. Lowering her head she looked over at the brush and grabbed a few bitter bushels of leaves from a nearby bush in her mouth and held them. Ignoring the bitter taste from the glowing plants she began digging with her legs, scraping until they made a small hole. Pushing forward she made the whole in the small shape of a direction towards the direction she wanted to go and dropped the leaves in the whole.

Feeling satisfied at having placed a marker not reliant on scent she continued searching for the source of the river, and it didn't take her long to find it. It was a massive lake that was connected to four different rivers all pointing out in different directions. Victoria looked at the giant lake and partially wondered where the water in the lake came from but that was secondary in her mind. She needed what now and she look several long draughts of water, sitting on the bank of the lake in satisfaction and enjoying the sound of the nighttime animals. In the distance she could hear the sound of the nocturnal Watusi Cattle and mused about a future nighttime hunt. Well not if she could get past those large horns, shaking her head she lowered her head and stared at her reflection in the water. The shimmering waves were making her feel melancholy as her throat became soothed, the moonlight reflecting in the water. As she continued staring she felt displeased with herself. She wasn't sure of herself, all she had was being the strongest of the three, but was being the strongest all that there was. Lowering herself to rest fully on the bank staring at the water, she thought of her brothers. Caesar would always be the smart one, and Napoleon would always be the imaginative one, what was she? The big strong one, the willful one? She rationalized to her that she needed to be the strongest to make up for her faults, she had to protect her brothers and make sure they didn't die like the rest of their siblings. After all she had to be attentive all the time to cover her mistakes. Continuing to stare, her eyes grew misty as her memories came to the forefront of her mind.

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11 Years Ago

It was Victoria's turn to be the sentry today among her siblings. All 12 of them were enjoying a nighttime meal. Their parents had made a successful kill earlier today and were on the hunt again for provide a meal for themselves after collecting food for their children. With all of them at 3 years old they were old enough to recognize danger and keep watch for each other. So the siblings each took turns, well....almost all of them, Victoria noticed that the youngest of them, the runt of the clutch Napoleon was busy staring at some butterflies landing on his nose. The young Caesar was observing a worm digging underground, scratching the ground and pulling the worm out again and watching it scurry back to safety.

Stifling a yawn she left her post and noticed out of the corner of her eye a glowing bush. Blue lines were streaking through the bark and the leaves and she had never seen them shine that brightly before. They were attractive and she was wondering what these blue lines were and what they meant. Moving in further away from her siblings she perused further away from her siblings, who were assured that she was watching their backs. They were all still tiny but they could still run away quickly but she didn't feel worried.

Feeling a soft thump ahead of her she paused immediately, freezing, her instinct raising the feathers covered all over her body as she looked around. Hearing a small crack she looked up to notice an animal she had never seen before, but could immediately recognize from its teeth and posture that it was a dangerous predator. It was a Carnotaurus with two intact horns, its blue coloured scales had blended in with the shiny blue glow of the plants and she had failed. Failed to feel its footsteps, and failed to notice the towering animal in front of her. Thankfully, it had failed to notice her and was instead looking directly through the plants at, her siblings. Backing away slowly as to not make a sound she turned around and moved towards the small clearing with her siblings. If she could make it there she could warn them and prevent her blunder from getting worse and they could run away to the scent of their parents and hopefully the Carnotaurus would be more interested in the carcass.

A few seconds crept along, as she moved forward and the Carnotaurus still hadn't noticed her, but like her he was moving slowly too. Making care not to make sounds of his own, and the horror dawned on her. Most predators would focus on the carcass and prepare themselves to look as big and scary as possible, but the Carnotaurus was focused on her unaware siblings, he wanted her siblings dead. Why, she couldn't fathom but he was ready to kill and they need to get away, she prepared to increase her pace, and in a fateful moment stepped on a beetle, which made a soft crunching sound as its body popped under her weight, echoing in the night sky. Victoria winced as she saw the Carnotaurus' head turn and spot her, with nothing left she bolted for the clearing, shouting as many different variations of a warning cry as her scared mind could muster. Her siblings all raised their head in confusion, they had all started looking for Victoria and were perplexed as to why she was running.

Their answer came in the form of the Carnotaurus bursting through, jaws open and hunkering low to their height, catching them off guard. Victoria ducked to the right missing the snapping jaws but rolled into a dusty tumble as the Carnotaurus snorted and went for another sibling. Some of her siblings had run into a panic and bumped up against the carcass, trapping them, making them easy pickings, with one having their legs trapped in a rib cage with another sibling trying to tug them out. The Carnotaurus first grabbed the attempted rescuer, grabbing them by the neck and shaking hard until a sickly snap could be herd. Looking at the trapped young tyrannosaurus it was a simple matter to bend down and give a quick crunch of its jaws to render it lifeless.

Victoria watched this with horror as her mistake continued to spiral and looked for her other siblings, thankfully some had managed to flee into the brush and issue vocal alarm cries, but the problem were Caesar and Napoleon. Caesar was trying to help Napoleon up and the runt looked dizzy and had foot-marks on his snout. Seemed his brothers and sister had run over him in a panic and he was too stunned to move. Another sibling had stayed behind to help Caesar move Napoleon to safety, but turned around as the Carnotaurus easily walked up to them and though the sibling gave a defiant hiss, the Carnotaurus killed him without a second thought. Hovering over Napoleon and Caesar, he turned to notice a small pain in his left foot and looked amused as he saw Victoria trying to gnaw on him. Shaking his foot with barely any energy he tossed Victoria to her brothers and continued to advance on them. Victoria closed her eyes and lamented herself for her failure and stepped forward for the Carnotaurus to take her first, but no bite came.

Her ears found the reason while as a great rumble shook through her body and the trees and even the Carnotaurus felt it, his head bobbing up in alarm and fear. Mother was angry, the Carnotaurus looked around at all it had done and decided retreat was the best option, bolting as fast as it could. As Victoria watched its tail disappear in the distance she looked at the bodies of three of her siblings. They were down to nine now, and this time, it was completely her fault and no one would trust her to be a sentry again, all because she had left them alone.

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Present Day

That final thought in her memory jolted her back to the present, she had left her brothers alone, all so that she could have a drink. She launched herself up and turned around to walk back, making a brisk walk, unaware of the bubbles that had formed in the middle of the lake and moved in a straight line towards her, only to disappear as she moved away from the bank. Whatever had been in the water had lost its food source as it slunk back into the depths.

Ignorant to all of this Victoria let out a yawn as she made it back to her brother's sleeping place, glad to see they were unharmed. She took in the night sky and looked at the stars, the sky was pretty empty, save for the occasional nighttime birds, insects pterosaurs and the very annoying drones that would fly overhead with clicking noises. Sitting down to look over at the ground level she saw a small light show, hundreds of fireflies, moving around with dozens of tiny Compsognathus trying to catch them. Snorting she closed her eyes and went to sleep, content with a soothed throat.

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Victoria wasn't the only nighttime theropod moving around, but it was one she was very familiar with. The same Carnotaurus from her infancy was wandering nearby, but with a clear facial difference, of the two curved horns atop his head the left one was gone, as if ripped off. He had been watching Victoria move about during his nocturnal hunt, but he wasn't interested in her as food, no she was far too large and strong for him now and any fight with her would involve her siblings. No he wasn't going to risk it, shaking his head he accidentally disturbed a group of fruit-eating bats that had been resting on a branch above his head. Snorting at their distress he felt even more annoyed as he recognized that he was near a scanning tree. Rolling his eyes he inched closer to the tree and let it wave its scan lines over his body, it was at least something to break up the monotony of the night.

Species designation: Carnotaurus sastrei

Current length: 25 feet. Height: 9 feet.

Individual Name Designation: Bulmetis.

"Bulmetis" grumbled as his given name was displayed on the tree's bark in glowing red letters. He hated the name that had been given to him, he understood why they gave it to him, but he didn't like it, and there was no need for names when one was a hunter. It wasn't like they were going to come back for him and the others in this land. Feeling that being angry about would only be a waste of time he moved in search of found and within a short time, found himself near the herd of nocturnal Watusi cattle munching on the grass. Musing the likelihood of a successful attack he stared at their large horns, knowing that the large bulls could easily end his life. No it wasn't worth the effort, maybe he could go for a hadrosaur in their sleep, much more efficient. Pleased with himself he continued to scurry into the nighttime, hoping for a good meal.