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Breeze (29 days after)

"Ma..." I groaned as she snuggled me in tighter towards her chest, "It's just a quake." Yet mom held me tighter, enough to squeeze the air out of my tiny lungs. I had to slither my way through her limbs to the outside world to breathe, then turned back to her. Her brown flimsy scales glowed from the outside world, yet hung wrinkled at some areas of her body, like a wet rag. She was hungry, as I predicted.

"Why can't we go outside?" Queen lifted her weary eyes, which glistened in modesty of my question.

"It's too dangerous," She simply said, letting steam puff from her nostrils.

"But Mama, I'm cramped in here." I moved towards her, clicking like tiny little squeaks. Mama just giggled softly in her throat as she laid her head down towards me, nuzzling my cheek.

"Don't worry," She sighed, "We'll get through this soon enough. There's still time on our hands."

"Time?" I frowned at the word that rang in the air, "I thought we'd always have time." Queen swallowed sadly for some reason, thinking about some memory gotten from some other dinosaur I presumed.

"W-Well w-we have enough to last," She shakily responded thumping her tail on the cavern floor bed, "Even enough for you."

I trailed away from her small little sentence, nibbling on her tail that waved around me, until I caught it with my jaws, piercing the tough scales through my weak teeth. Queen's eyes flashed she felt the small pinch of pain, and she glanced over at me with another chuckle.

"Where'd you learn how to bite that 'tough one'?" She playfully wondered, circling her tail around me like a game. I grinned at her response when I stopped, then flexed my jaws.

"Alicea showed me," I happily responded, "She showed me a lot of cool things like tail whips and smelling-" I sniffed the air, flexing my nostrils wide, "I really like how she..." I trailed off when I noticed the flushed out color in Mama's face, pure white as if she saw a ghost, and her eyes just stared at me with even deeper darker sorrow. I stood regularly at her and swallowed, "Why are you sad? Was it something I said Mama?"

Mama bit the side of her face, shuddering once, then with an unsteady breath responded, "No my youngling, it's not you..." She looked around, searching for some comfort, and through her eyes, more pain came rushed around the bend.

"Mama?" I asked.

"Yes Breeze?"

"W-Where did Alicea go?"

Mama's heart melted between a heartbeat, and her eyes went red. I gaped my jaws open a bit as I saw her shuffle her tail around, blink harshly at her cold eyes, then choke a bit, until she composed herself to answer.

"I don't know..." was the first thing she said, then followed up with, "She went to a better place I presume."

"Do you think it's a nice place?" I asked next. I was just plain curious. That's the hard part about being a hatching. My mother shifted her body lower, close enough to feel her cool breath tickle my tail with loving warmth, "I think it's a nice place. In fact, I think it's beautiful. Like a thousand forests all together."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Queen lifted her eyes up to the sky, "It's really beautiful..." She trailed off again, going into her sanctuary of thought and fear, and only my own questions pulled her out to reality.

"Do you think..." I began, pulling her eyes to me as if I caught the spotlight of her black pupils, "...that we'll see it too?"

Another heartbroken silence flooded through my mother as she thought, and her eyes swiftly floated to the outside world, blazing with fire, smoke and ash. She swallowed, turning to me and smiled, and I knew immediately that she changed the subject.

"We must stay strong," She chuffed back, "Strong 'till the very end. You think you can do it?"

"Strong?" I cocked my head. She breathed in once and moved in towards me into a whisper,

"Little one......Never forget how much your family loves you Breeze," My mother sighed, "Never forget no matter what happens..."

"Ma?" I shuddered, watching her eyes tear up, "What do you mean? What is going to happen-"

"I'm saying that.....bad things.....are going to happen soon. Very soon in fact. And we have to be ready for whatever happens next." She nuzzled me with a rumble in her throat, and brought me closer to her chest, "I just want you to know that I'll be with you Breeze....I'll protect you the best I can from whatever lies beyond."

"Okay mama," I confusily stated as she clutched me tight under her closed jaw and wrapped tail. I've never seen my mother so saddened before, despite my child-play with her. Though I never knew exactly what she was thinking about, or what she intended to say upon my fallen questions, but it did darken the mood.

Hence, the fear spread to my body as well. Especially since I realized that she never answer my original question; if we'd ever see the place that Alicea saw.

I had to guess yes.

Because death was already upon my kind.