All Things Great and Small

Small feet pattered over hard savannah earth as Hekla tried to shove her way through thick clumps of grass, under tangled shrubs, and over and around rocks that were the size of small boulders to the tiny styracosaurus. She honked as loud as she could, but the answer to her anxious cries for attention were the same as they had been since she realised she was separated from her family: nothing but silence. No one called back but birds that scattered and took to the skies when she passed unknowingly too close to them.

The air was dry and dusty and her dark feathers, though still hatchling soft and downy, were making her very warm. Hekla went to sit underneath the shade of a sparsely leaved shrub, only to squeak in pain when she stepped on a thorny twig that she hadn’t noticed. A bit of blood beaded up at the site of the puncture, and it stopped hurting so much as soon as she shook the twig free from the bottom of her foot, but it was still the principle of the thing that hurt the most.

She was so tired, and hot, and thirsty, and hungry, and now her foot hurt as well. Everywhere she turned looked exactly the same - dry, varying shades of dusty green and gold, red, and brown, and blurry unless she squinted. She had no idea where she was, just that there was running and loud sounds and clouds of dust and then she was alone. She tried, but she couldn’t keep up.

Hekla nosed around on the ground with her beak to make sure there wasn’t anything else sharp and not nice that she was going to step on, then sat down heavily. She might have been too tired and hot to keep running, but she could still yell. She honked again, as long and loud as she could, hoping that her parents or someone else in the herd would hear her. Her siblings, her friends, anyone.

Nothing.

Not discouraged in the slightest, not yet, she continued to honk. It would get someone’s attention at some point, surely.

Hekla’s tiny voice continued to be the only one that called out amongst the lazy, buzzing chorus of insects and chirping of birds until long into the evening. By the time the sun had started to set, Hekla had all but lost her voice. Her honk was no longer or louder than a short squeak. Now, in addition to everything else, her mouth was dry and her throat hurt.

She lay on the ground, her chin resting on the earth with her forelegs splayed out in front of her, while she continued to call out quietly. She only paused when a dark shape cut through the rich crimson tones of the sunset. Something moving effortlessly through the air, larger than any of the birds that she’d seen flying around, and differently shaped. It flapped its wings harder as it got closer to the ground, diffused light glowing through the membrane and making its dark crest gleam. It slowed and landed gently, gracefully, on the ground nearby.

Hekla was intrigued, but she was still tired and the bottom of her foot still hurt. She huffed and sighed, then squeaked again. Maybe the flyer would hear her and take pity on her.

It wasn’t Piety that was curious about the sound, though - it was the precious bundle of downy fluff clinging to her back with tiny claws. Nova peered over her mother’s shoulder with wide, curious eyes at the quiet sound. A hatchling sound, but not a tapejara peep. Piety was content to pay no mind to whoever the squeaks were coming from and instead take advantage of the still-warm (but cooling earth) to pick the large insects and reptiles that were stirring and coming out to warm themselves while the sun was setting.

“Don’t go too far, my little fuzzball,” Piety teased when Nova started to scamper towards the sound. She hadn’t seen any large dinosaurs nearby, but imagined what they were hearing was just a family with rambunctious little ones that were bedding down somewhere nearby. Nova was a bear to try to get to sleep. A hatchling with boundless energy, and even more curiosity.

Hekla kept squeaking towards the shadow that she had seen disappear into the grass, and squeaked more frequently and more loudly when she heard someone coming. She jumped up immediately, hunger and thirst and the pain in the bottom of her foot forgotten as she hurried to greet the new face.

It wasn’t a large flier whose beak parted the grass, but something so small and dark that Hekla could barely see it. She stepped closer, lowered her beak until it was pressing on the tiny tapejara’s even tinier crest. 

“That tickles!” Nova laughed when her downy feathers were ruffled by Hekla’s frantic sniffs. The tiny creature didn’t smell like a styracosaur. She didn’t look like one, either. She was so little that she didn’t look like much at all, really. Just a smudge.

Hekla pulled her nose back and sat on the ground again. Nova laughed more and flapped her tiny wings. She couldn’t fly yet, not really; this was just an expression of joy. What a fun thing she’d found! She clambered up Hekla’s leg - nicely feathered, a lot easier to cling to than Piety’s back - and when Hekla turned her head to try to look at Nova, the little tapejara squeaked with laughter and ducked behind Hekla’s frill. Hekla got to her feet and turned her head the other way, only for Nova to shriek with laughter again as she ducked behind Hekla’s frill back to the other side.

Hekla’s sadness about being alone was forgotten, briefly, as she played with this tiny thing she could scarcely see. Piety ate her fill while Nova was preoccupied, completely at ease knowing that Nova had found something - someone, more likely, to keep herself entertained while she ate. It was safer that way. Nova was still far too small to hunt; even something as easy to catch as a lizard would probably be able to hurt her.

When Piety was satisfied with what she had managed to hunt down to eat, she pushed her way through the savannah foliage towards the sounds of chirps and cheers. Hekla, playfully bucking and jumping around while Nova encouraged her to go even faster, paused when she heard more footsteps approaching them. Another dark shape appeared from the grass, but much, much larger, and Piety clacked her beak in quiet amusement to see her daughter clinging to a stocky little styracosaur’s scarcely-horned frill.

“What’s this? Two fuzzballs? I only had one, the last time I looked,” she teased. Hekla honk-squeaked as Piety continued to approach, and the tapejara craned her neck to preen Nova with the very tip of her beak.

“Are your parents nearby?” Piety asked Hekla before she preened the dusty little hatchling’s downy feathers as well. She had a feeling she knew the answer already. Adult styras tended to be quite large, and their frills made them extremely identifiable. Piety had seen nothing of the sort when she swooped down over the grassland. Hekla was likely… not lost, but abandoned, or separated from her family after a carnivore attack.

Hekla huffed, a sound of immense disappointment. “All gone,” she replied simply, confirming Piety's suspicions.

Piety clacked her beak quietly, already thinking about what to do about this particular situation. She was not in the business of adopting ground-bound dinosaurs, but she had an idea of someone who might.

“I don’t have anything for you here,” Piety said, pleased already by her own genius, “but if you can follow me, we’ll get you ‘found’ again.”

“Can I stay with her a little longer?” Nova asked, still plastered to Hekla’s frill as she looked up pleadingly at Piety.

Piety clacked her beak, laughing again. “You can ride with her, yes. Follow me,” she said to Hekla.

In an ideal world, Piety would be able to simply pick Hekla up and carry her straight to Cedar - but she was smaller than most tapejaras, and it would be too much to carry both Hekla and Nova. Not that she would admit her own shortcomings, even to hatchlings.

It would be a bit of a walk for such a small dinosaur, but she would just fly slowly so that Hekla could keep up with her.

Piety took off into the air after a short run-up, stirring up enough dust that it made Hekla sneeze. Although Nova could still make out her mother’s outline against the darkening sky, Hekla immediately lost her. Hekla turned her head and shuffled around on the cooling earth, looking around frantically for the closest thing she’d seen to an adult styracosaurus since she’d gotten lost from her family. She tried to honk again, hopeful to get Piety’s attention, but the sound only came out as a broken squeak.

Fortunately, Nova quickly realised that Hekla was falling behind, and not even pointing in the right direction when she tried to start following a shadow of a tapejara that she couldn’t fully see.

“No, no - “ Nova tapped the left side of Hekla’s frill. “This way, she was flyin’ this way.”

Hekla turned, roughly in the right direction under Nova’s guidance, and started charging over the savannah again with another squeaky honk one tiny bound at a time. It was in this manner that Hekla followed Piety the whole way across the edge of the savannah to where the trees started to thicken and the grass grew shorter. Nova tapped one side or the other of Hekla’s frill whenever she needed to turn or started to deviate off-course, and Hekla charged forwards until Nova very confusingly tapped both sides of her frill at once after a short call from Piety. She couldn’t turn both ways, she’d just spin in a circle! She stopped instead, tilting her head back to try to look at Nova and only succeeding in looking up at the starry night sky when Nova was tilted back as well. Nova laughed, delighted.

They played together for a while longer, carefree at the edge of the forest, until Hekla heard something again. Not just wingbeats, but footsteps as well. Big ones. A familiar four-footed gait.

A styracosaurus, an older blue-grey bull with flashes of blue around his eyes, stepped between the trees and towards the edge of the savannah. A shadow rushed overhead and Piety landed beside Hekla with a rush of wind.

“Cedar here is going to take care of you now,” she said, turning her beak from Hekla to the approaching bull.

Cedar rumbled in quiet agreement as he came to a stop in front of the three of them. He looked down at Hekla, his pale green gaze full of gentleness. There was kindness in his voice when he spoke, soft and warm. “I heard you got lost.”

Hekla made a quiet, disheartened sound of agreement. She didn’t want him to take care of her forever, she wanted her herd back! But Cedar calmed her young worries before she had a chance to get herself too worked up.

“Don’t you worry now, little ‘un,” he rumbled. “We’ll find your parents again, and get you back to your family. My friend Piety here has her own hatchling to take care of, so I’m helping her to take care of you. Just until we find your herd.”

This seemed to satisfy Hekla, who snorted quietly. Piety knew it was unlikely that she would ever be returned to her family, and she had passed on her doubts to the silver bull, but it was still good for Hekla to have hope.

“Come on little fuzzball.” Piety scooped a playfully protesting Nova into her beak from Hekla’s frill and replaced her hatchling on her shoulders.

“Aww… “ Nova sighed, but clung onto Piety’s back with her tiny claws. She sounded incredibly sleepy. “Do we have to go already?”

Hekla looked like she shared the hatchling tapejara’s sentiment, though she was exhausted by this point as well.

Piety clacked her beak in amusement. “We do. I have some food for you and then it’s time to sleep. But... we can always visit again sometime if you want.”

Nova gave a sleepy cheer, and that was the last of it that Hekla heard before the blurry shadows became even blurrier, disappearing into the night sky as Piety carried the two of them away. She was excited by the idea of seeing the little flyer again, but even more excited by the prospect of getting some sleep.

Cedar looked at the hatchling with an already-growing sense of fondness. “You look like you could use some food and rest as well.” As gently as he could, he nudged her thigh with the tip of his nose horn, encouraging her to her feet. “What do you say we find something to eat, some nice clean water, and then find somewhere comfy to lay down and sleep? We’ll start lookin' for your family tomorrow, when the sun rises.”

Hekla put herself between Cedar’s forelegs, walking underneath him so she wouldn't get lost from him, too. She honked in quiet agreement. She liked the sound of that very much.