It was on the way back to the Dino Cave that I heard the voices. My luck.

Why did I have to hear the voices?

I sighed mentally as I dipped into a bush, peeking out as the source of the voices came through the trees. My translation would’ve done it no justice, so I filled in a lot of the words. Bathe in awe of my excellent work:

“Blood trails don’t just stop!” The masculine voice, which I recognized, said as the three humans came around the corner.

“Yes, Sir Grenzer!” Barlan, the brunette squire said in exasperation. “But I’m telling you, after years of learning how to track from my father, I wouldn’t just lose something so easy to follow! It just ended!”

“Alright, alright.” Santa responded, stroking his chin. “Strange, if true.”

“It is true!”

The other squire, Shella, spoke up.

“Sir Grenzer?” she asked, receiving a grunt in response. “Do we really have to hunt the baby Saurian? It was just scavenging, after all.”

“What?” Santa asked, as though he weren’t really listening until her last statement. He turned to her, anger in his eyes. “Of course we do! It stole my gorlen! Do you know how rare it is to find a gorlen? They sell for hundreds!”

The girl rubbed her hand on her neck, her expression unhappy.

“But… Didn’t we come out here on a hunt, anyway?” Barlan nodded.

“Yeah! We’re supposed to be finding that troublemaking Saurian and hit it with this!” He pulled a long pole, wrapped in tan cloth, off his back.

Santa nodded.

“And we’ll get to that. We’ve got another day before he usually comes around this area, anyway.”

Your comprehension of Yatten has leveled up. It is now level 4.

A loud cry, low-pitched and echoing, reverberated through the area. It almost sounded like a fog horn, but much louder. I squeaked in surprise, but fortunately, the humans didn’t hear me.

Shella jumped, and Santa’s head snapped towards where it came from.

“That’s him!”

He dashed off, leaving the two squires standing behind, unsure. Then Barlan shrugged.

“Come on!” He started running after Santa, and Shella, looking around at the forest she now stood alone in, soon followed.

Which left me, the super curious and super careless dinosaur, sitting in the brush, wondering if that noise came from Karavos, or if something else was out there. These three idiots were hunting a dinosaur like that?

There was no way that would go well.

Mmmm…

I really wanted to chase after the humans… But after what happened last time… And also that they were apparently hunting me? Maybe it was best to stay away for a little while.

Just a little while.

Next time I’d definitely get involved.

But for now, the sun was getting near the horizon. I’d spent a lot more time dozing off than I’d realized. It was time to head back to the Dino Cave.

Oh, Frieda! I thought as I entered. I’m home!

Furball didn’t greet me as I entered. It was probably still a bit too early for her. But that wouldn’t stop me! I was either going to sit around until she woke up and be bored or… not be!

I headed to the back of the cave, finding her snoozing where I’d rolled her.

Time. To. Wake. Up.

I prodded her with my clawed fingers, carefully being sure not to hurt her. After all, you’ll get a bad reputation if you hurt the help, right? Haha.

She woke up with a yawn, her huge black eyes reflecting the light, and gave me a look.

What could you possibly want this early? I imagined her saying. I tilted my head towards the tunnel that lead further in, grinning. She looked at me confused.

I shrugged, which probably looked a lot more interesting coming from a dinosaur, and walked down the tunnel. By the sound of her stubby feet shuffling, I could tell she was following. She tugged on my tail when I was pulling myself through the hole, but I didn’t stop.

My face touched beetle, and I shoved him out of the way.

Almost immediately, he started sprinting away, his stubby legs scraping against the stone.

Then the light went on, and he stopped, staring straight up.

I managed to pull myself through and tackle him, picking him up and carring him back towards the furball. Phew he smelled.

It was probably a pretty scary sight to see all those legs kicking and squirming towards you. Which made sense when she squealed, retreating back into the hole. I put the beetle down on his back away from the hole, and walked towards the hole.

Her shining eyes gazed back at me with fear, and it touched my heart. I didn’t want to scare her. I turned around, and backed up, sliding my tail into the hole with her.

Her clawed hand grasped it, and I slowly moved forward. Frieda followed, I guess reassured by my actions. That was the goal, after all. When she was out of the hole, and the beetle was still rocking himself back and forth, I moved her away, and slid him back in, his butt facing outwards.

I chuckled as I imagined how frustrated he must’ve been.

Agh! I just got out of that hole, and now I’m in it again, but headfirst!

I wondered if beetles had a good enough memory for him to remember what happened last time he was facing this way. I turned to the furball, and she was inspecting the other corpses, sniffing them and pulling away, her nose raised.

I pointed to the beetle when she looked at me, confusion evident in her features.

Punch it, I thought, slamming one fist into another, hoping my meaning would get across.

She tilted her head at me in confusion.

I sighed. This was gonna be done the hard way, I could see. I walked around behind her, and shoved her towards the beetle, against her struggling and whining. Then, as she stood before it, cowering, I grabbed one of her hands with both of mine (it was hard to hold things like this), and led her through a scratching motion on the beetle’s now fully-healed shell.

With a little hesitation, she duplicated the motion, looking to me. I nodded, grinning again.

A bit more confidence went into her next “strike”, and then more, and more, until she was slicing at the beetle with all of her strength, grunting little high-pitched sounds as she did so.

It kind of reminded me of the sound a guinea pig makes.

I watched her slices scratch at the beetle’s shell, barely doing any damage.

Don’t worry, Frieda. You’ll get there.