Aging

“I’m telling you, I can see a face in the flower! How can you not see it?” Three juvenile dinosaurs are huddled over a small patch of pansies. The flowers are glorious in their spring colours - bright yellows and whites and the classic purple with black spots and stripes. Just as you might gaze up at clouds looking for familiar shapes, the three had decided to look for shapes in the patterns on flower petals.  The tallest and big...

It’s fair to assume that only spooky things happen in the dead of winter, when the nights are dark and the chill seeps into your bones. When firelight is all that stands between you and the unseen. But don’t underestimate the uncertainty that lies in the haze of summer. Temperatures soar. The air is so heavy that it seems to bend sound and light in strange ways. Insects buzz and thrum with such intensity that you can feel them communicating with each other. Every river or stream is an oas...

It’s especially hot today. I know my scrubland doesn’t usually have that great of a temperature on the best of days, but it’s extra hot today. The sand is extra hot, singing my feet if I leave them on the sand for too long. But I have to patrol my territory. Due to this heat wave, there’s a higher chance other predators will enter it. There’s a stream of clean and clear water running through my turf, and that would be much appreciated by others. I can’t allow that th...

The Gauntlet was by far the most famous coming of age ritual known to all Atlanteans. Usually reserved for the bravest of Iguanodon adolescents, it was technically open to all species when it came time to choose what way they wanted to earn their place in the court. Generally, Ovis and Euoplos found other ways to make themselves useless and earned their warpaint that way, leaving the grandstanding and pageantry to the biggest species among them. For Lego and Arg...

Kratti hummed to himself as he trekked through the rugged jungle paths towards the main court clearing. There were a few patches of cleared foliage in the jungle of Atlantis that allowed safe habitation, but this one was the largest and where the vast majority of the citizens lived. His mission today was one he had completed several times before, take a group of juveniles out for a survival crash course in the jungle. For the first time, he wasn't in charge of a...

Days were a loose concept down in Atlantis, so Wollemia had no idea how old she was when the guards brought her to the nursery. One of the guards may have been her parent, but having been raised by a revolving door of iguanodons since she hatched she wasn't sure about that either. The ones currently escorting her were both unfeathered and stoic, not giving her any clue of a relationship. She managed to keep pace with their enormous strides by hurrying at a brisk...

Storms regularly crash into the Isles of Kela and Pera, sweeping across them in varying degrees of anger. Some will dissipate as they try to pass the mountains and others will keep raging until they eventually pass out over the ocean. Their path will take them over parts of Isla Pera that are not used to high winds and heavy rain. Areas like the ashlands. The mixture of sand, dust and ash that are the signature feature of the ashlands risk becoming vast amounts of mud and fast-moving s...

I wake up in darkness. I’m cold. Where are my siblings? Where are my parents? Usually I wake up in a pile, snuggling with my sisters and brothers in a pile of conserved warmth. But I’m cold. Alone. I panic a little, stumbling as I stand up. I run aimlessly, before tripping over someone. They bolt up, and lightly bite me. ...

Burdock had been braving the world farther and farther away from parents as he grew older. Now as a subadult he was spending weeks at a time away from home and hunting his own food. The natural speed of the Carnotaurus eluded him still, but he had refined his technique as an ambush predator and had no trouble tracking and securing a meal nowadays. His only trial was defending his kill from opportunistic scavengers. More often than not, he simply had to relent. H...

I sniff the air, nostrils flaring as I search for the faintest trace of prey. The desert is quiet today, too quiet for my liking, the only sound is the dry rasp of the wind pushing across the sand. In the past few months, I’ve grown large enough to claim my own permanent territory. Finally, after weeks of starving and being constantly parched, I have my own burrow next to a stream of water surrounded by the amazing scent of flowering cacti. No more fear, no more constantly bei...

As he got older, Burdock couldn't deny the fact that he was getting stronger. Each morning was still a struggle against the fatigue that plagued him but he was making progress. He could catch slower sources of food, he had learned to make his own nest, he sparred with his siblings and the faint dark lines of his dimorph were coming through. His mother told him it matched his grandfather's, which filled him with a strange sense of pride. He wasn't as energetic or...

Seasons come and go, their affect on some biomes are felt less than others. It may be autumn across the isles but within the ashlands of Pera, there is little change to experience. It is still dry, ashy, and balmy with the heat of neighbouring volcanic vents.  A stocky Styracosaur marches across the ashlands with a consistent rhythm. His skin is a dark dusky purple with darker patches scattered across his body. He has mostly grown into his ad...

With the gentle prodding of his mother, Burdock was nudged out of the nest he had been born in. He was the last to hatch, the last to rise and the last to head out each morning, even with his parents encouraging him. The hatchling Carno yawned, rubbing his face against the rocks to wipe the sleep from his eyes and blinked wearily in the morning light. “Good morning sleepyhead,” Boba cooed, “your siblings are alr...