mothers and children

[cauchemal]

Who: Mal Cobb, Angelica Sexby, and some Parasaurolophus dinosaurs.
What: The miracle of life and angry mothers.
Where: A clearing in the park.
When: At some point during the port (day 1 or 2)
Warnings: Not much to speak of, probably.

Comments

[naughtbutlife]

Still trying to wipe the excess mud off of her bottom - embarrassing only because a small noise had startled her and sent her tumbling - Angelica followed Mal with just as much desire to have a look at the gigantic creatures. She stopped trying to fix her appearance and joined Mal in the brush, nodding and taking her word for it about the relative harmlessness of the beasts.

"I see one, but surely there must be others," Angelica mused aloud, glancing over her shoulder and then squinting into the distance to try and spot the others.

She was startled by a soft noise beside them, but luckily this didn't send her flailing into the earth. "Look, Mal," she whispered. "Look, one of them moves. Is it hatching?" As clearly Mal knew more about these things than she did.

[cauchemal]

Mal started to lean forward to get a closer look at the egg that Angelica indicated, and as she did so, a tiny twig snapped under her foot with a crack.

The watching hadrosaur's head went up and she snorted; not so much an alarm as a sort of "who's there?" Mal froze and gripped Angelica's hand, as much to say, wordlessly, don't move.

After a moment, the hadrosaur decided there was no great threat and lowered her head again. Meanwhile, the moving egg tipped over. A soft tapping sound could now be heard from within.

"It's hatching," Mal whispered. "I think we are about to see something few humans have ever witnessed."

[naughtbutlife]

Angelica easily obeyed the silent command, as she was already frozen on the spot with the fear of being charged by the great creature. While it looked almost lazy as it rested there, she imagined that if startled properly it was perfectly capable on going on rampage.

Wide-eyed and slightly awed, she watched the egg roll from side to side until it stopped, though the tapping noise continued. "A birth?" she whispered, sounding both terrified and thrilled.

She took Mal's hand again and crept along with her in tow to have a closer look.

[cauchemal]

Mal nodded, and they leaned forward just a little closer.

A hairline crack, barely visible, formed on the surface of the egg. A few more taps, and a tiny chip, smaller than a child's fingernail, broke away.

[naughtbutlife]

Angelica let out an excited squeak, then quickly covered her mouth and had a glance around her to make sure she hadn't drawn any attention to them. When all seemed well her attention returned to the egg.

"Oh, look," she gasped. Another chip had broken away, and the egg began to softly rock again. Angelica began to offer it words of encouragement in her head.

[cauchemal]

It could have been minutes or half an hour or more-Mal scarcely seemed to notice the passage of time as they watched the egg and the efforts of the little creature within to break free. And then they saw a tiny wet snout poke its way out of the widening hole in the egg. Mal pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle a squeak of her own.

[naughtbutlife]

Angelica was practically bouncing on her feet now, such was her excitement. She grinned from ear-to-ear at first sight of the little creature, marvelling at how determined it seemed to escape from that egg. She thought it funny that human women did all the work while their babes did nothing, whereas here with these creatures it seemed the other way 'round.

"Oh, come on, little one," she murmured.

[cauchemal]

A coin-sized piece of shell fell away, and a tiny yellow-and-black striped head, shining and damp, emerged from the shell. Mal gripped Angelica's hand hard-"sorry!"-because otherwise she might have actually screamed.

It was so cute!

[naughtbutlife]

She didn't even notice that Mal had been a little overzealous with her hand holding - there far, far more interesting things to focus on, like an adorable little creature hatching before her eyes.

She giggled as it made a little noise - an adorable noise - and resisted the urge to jump up and down and make a further spectacle of herself.

"How precious!"

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"Isn't it beautiful? I had no idea they had such colours-"

Mal broke off and froze. Was it her imagination, or did the ground just-?

Thump.

No, not her imagination. The brush behind the two women rustled with the sound of something very big coming through. And then there was a sound unlike anything Mal had heard from an animal, a sort of honking, inquisitive snort.

She turned slowly and found herself staring into the face of a fully-grown hadrosaur, not six feet away.

[naughtbutlife]

Angelica had agreed with a silent nod, still smiling down towards the little thing and wondering how on earth something so odd-looking could be so adorable, when Mal suddenly seemed startled by something.

She thought nothing of it at first, but then jumped when she felt the earth shake.

Glancing over her shoulder, Angelica's jaw dropped at the approach of...well, could be the baby's mother or father, couldn't it? And just in time to catch the two women cooing over its newly-hatched child and think they were trying to harm it!

And Good Lord, the creature sounded like it was trying to play a horn.

"Mal," Angelica breathed, standing stiff as a board. "Mal...shall we run now?"

[cauchemal]

Before Mal could answer, the hadrosaur threw back its head and let out a deafening, trumpeting bellow that was promptly taken up by every other one of its kind within earshot.

Which was a lot of them, if the resulting racket was anything to go by.

It lunged for them then, and teeth or claws or no, any angry mother animal was dangerous at three or four times the size of a human. "Run!" shrieked Mal.

[naughtbutlife]

Angelica nearly fell right over. Just fallen over, on her back, from the surprise and fear and - how was it making that noise?

But fortunately she had kept upright, which made running from the angry mother dinosaur a lot easier.

She grabbed Mal's hand and pulled her out from the direct path of the creature, then began to blindly sprint towards the relative-safety provided by the brush and jungle undergrowth.

She could feel the ground still shaking underneath her feet as the mother - or perhaps one of the friends who had heard the mother's call - continued to give chase.

[cauchemal]

The brush seemed to slow the dinosaur down a little, but its sheer bulk, speed, and endurance would catch up with Mal and Angelica eventually. But, Mal realised amidst her panic, they did at least have some manueverability on their side. Seeing a gap in the trees off to one side, she pulled Angelica's hand. "This way!"

The quick change of direction had the desired effect; the hadrosaur had to slow down and pause to figure out where to go next, which was a bit of an operation at its size. Just enough time for Mal to duck down into a hollow under a fallen log, dragging Angelica after her.

[naughtbutlife]

Angelica was trying to swallow down her screams, which wasn't the easiest task when one was being chased by an enormous, dragon-like creature.

Even if she could stop for long enough to fire a shot off her pistol, she doubt it would have any effect on the hadrosaur. Besides, it was a mother. Angelica knew she'd probably do the same thing if she were in the dinosaur's place.

Thank God for Mal though, who had figured out how to use their small size to their advantage. She let her lead her this way and that, protectively throwing out her arm out across Mal and pressing her further back against the hollow. She didn't make a noise - she didn't even dare breathe - as the stomping of the dinosaur came closer and closer.

But Mal's quick thinking had seemed to do the trick, for the mother hadrosaur seemed confused, not quite knowing which direction the two would-be threats to her child had gone.

[cauchemal]

There was a snorting noise, as if the dinosaur was scenting the air, and more shuffling. Then, after a moment, it let out another trumpeting call, noticeably different in pitch and urgency than the last, and answered again by the rest of the-flock? pack? What did one call a group of dinosaurs?

Mal barely breathed again until she heard the dinosaur shuffle off back to the clearing. Then she exhaled a long, relieved breath.

And started to giggle.