Brothers

Chapter 5: Please Fear Deinonychus and His Band of Misfits

As the second day passed by, I had no doubts about my weight. Tappy seemed to want to fatten me up, throwing fish at me two times a day. She was always close by me, talking to me and telling me more of her stories. She allowed me to ask questions about her, and she asked questions about me. Our friendship was growing fast, faster than I would've expected.

She was someone I had never encountered before. She was interested in everything, asking questions about things I'd never even thought. She experimented with things, like making wood float on water, and telling me of things she learned solely from observation. She cared about me, not like a parent, not like a sibling, and not in a fake way. It wasn't smothering, nor was it self-centered. She loved to make me laugh with silly antics or silly jokes.

I had obeyed the orders and limited my exercise, only getting up a few times to relieve myself. I was growing comfortable with walking on four legs.

"Is walking that way faster or slower?" Tappy asked me as she rode on my head.

"With all four legs? Faster," I replied.

"Then why don't you walk like that more?"

I shrugged as I settled down beneath the tower. "I just don't like it. It's faster on flat ground like this, but slower when I'm in the forest. Though, I'm slow in the forest in general, it's just much slower."

"Do a lot of spinosaurs walk like that?"

I nodded. "Bigger ones or ones that have grown up around other spinosaurs, yeah. Our legs are kind of shorter compared to others, and the bigger you are, the slower you go. I've always walked on two legs, though. It was easy for me, since I was smaller, and therefore, lighter. Then once I found Deinonychus, I felt like I fit in better walking on two legs." I flinched, remembering something. "Then, of course, there was the teasing I was dealt by Deinonychus and the others. 'You look like a stupid herbivore, walking like that. Get on your two legs, Spiny, like a sophisticated dinosaur'. He would tell me."

She shook her head. "The more you tell me about that jerk, the more I don't like him. Besides, a lot of herbivores walk on two legs, just as some carnivores walk on fours. Like me! I eat meat, and I walk on four legs." she said and hopped off my head just to demonstrate. First walking normally, and then waddling forward on two legs, her wings awkwardly wrapped to her sides.

I laughed at the goofy walk. "I can see why, that looks hilarious."

She laughed back, flying back to my head. "Yep! That's why I walk on all fours."

"But you are primarily a flyer, so I don't think he would count you as an example." I replied.

"What opinion does he have on us, by the way?"

I winced. "He's jealous of you, and you are just as fair game as herbivores and omnivores."

"He's eaten pterosaurs?"

I nodded, causing her to grip onto my scales harder. "He would chase them at any possibility. He hated that they could fly, that they were better than him. So he would eat them any chance he got, to show that he was better than them. He wanted to be better than everybody, even putting down many of our pack members to lift himself higher."

"Goodness, he has issues. Do you think he has any in his pack?"

"If he's accepted a tyrannosaur, anything is possible. They would just have to be just as vicious as him. He doesn't appreciate the opinions of others much, he'd rather just have his opinions echoed back to him. I didn't do that, I was always questioning him, offering different opinions. Which made him mad." I replied.