[COMPLETE] Life Before Man - Fabian's Journey

Chapter 3

Fabian did not cough because he had a cold nor because he had swallowed something the wrong way. The air was just that dry. Even though he did not breathe in any sand, his throat felt as if he did. He even had to carry an annoying new friend.

A Peteinosaurus took the opportunity to skip its Tethys flight and enjoy a dragonfly on Fabian's back. Other Peteinosauruses gathered in what used to be the burrow of a large Ceratodus. The entry was scratched open by a predator's claws and gave everyone a glimpse of the winged fiends in their sloping bat cave. Here, they got a safe supply of insects and a momentary break on the ground.

Pterosaurs were the first vertebrates to conquer the skies, well before birds or bats followed suit. Even the Triassic kuehneosaurids with their massive arm-sails of skin were mere glides. There were reasons not everyone was capable of powered flight. Flying is tough. If you are a vertebrate, it is recommended to have hollow bones, large wing area and a very efficient energy production. Being small also helps. It is no surprise that even a specialized flier like Peteinosaurus tended to avoid such challenges when possible. Plus, especially the larger Plateosauruses were full of delicious insects.

At this point, Aconia practically qualified as an ecosystem of her own. Ticks crawled to her wounds to eat blood. Dragonflies ate those ticks and Peteinosauruses the dragonflies. Desperate to defeat the pestilences, Aconia scratched the riverbed and whacked her tail to whirl up the sand. She destroyed a beautiful honey-colored alternate bedding of sandstone and siltstone. Sand deposited from the wet season's violent torrents, silt during the peaceful dry season. This dry season, a puddle was the river's final legacy.
While his mother fought the flies, Fabian wanted to empty the puddle like a camel. A bull pushed him away. Normally, his mother would have stepped in. However, her protective instincts dulled down with his age and she had her own problems. The bull roared. Being barely thicker than the adult's forearm, Fabian backed down. This was a harsh experience in many ways. It was not just that his neck was half-empty of water. He also felt betrayed. He felt like an eagle chick who was just thrown out of the nest even though it could not fly yet. Fabian went to the sentry.
The guardian's hands were just above the river bank and her gaze focused on the horizon, ignoring the dried up ferns. Fabian climbed up the bank to reach for those plants.
As he got his head above the bank, he realized what the sentry was so focused on. It was not a Liliensternus that caught her attention. It was much worse.
A rogue bull Plateosaurus.
He was a burly adult, measuring ten meters from the snout to the tail-tip. Yet despite this, a scar connected his right elbow with his palm, showing how even giants can lose fights for dominance. The bull Fabian used to dread backed off from the puddle's last splashes, but the intruder did not even look at it. As he was traveling without a herd, a scientific observer might have concluded that he was after the females. But that was not his goal.
As soon as Fabian stepped out of his way, the bull tilted his head. Fabian did not understand. It was no Liliensternus who was staring at him with such greed in his eyes. While Fabian knew that a Plateosaurus would not spurn a Peteinosaurus' corpse, he had never seen one go after a breathing target. The adults just stood there and watched as the giant opened his mouth.
Fabian plunged into the Peteinosaurus' cave. If he was a human, he might have worried about being slower than an adult or about the bull digging him out again. Fortunately, nature blessed him with a simple brain. The cavern gave him a sense of security, an umbrella against the primal fear of predation.
While Fabian's seismic sense was not fully developed, he knew that the bull was not coming closer. In fact, as he surfaced again, he saw what the bull was really after.

Fabian stood on dead leaves.

They were not many, but the bull took what he got. Fabian was so focused on the bull that he did not even notice this food right beneath his feet.