Dagger-mouth walked back in the direction of the pool, and the young one followed. He paused for a while near a clump of magnolia trees, and she paused, too. She did not grunt or call to him. She just stayed near, in his space.
Later he returned to the edge of the plain, and still she was there. Perhaps she felt safe near him. Now that was a new thought. His inside feeling always told him that he belonged on his own. He shook his head and then, with a burst of loud, raspy noises, he coughed up a bit of gristle and spat in onto the ground.
The small one didn’t even look his way. Suddenly Dagger-mouth’s problem was solved. Whether she was close or not, he would just ignore her the way she ignored him. Easy!
The great hot sun was creeping down to the edge of the sky when a huge shadow darkened the air around him. Dagger-mouth shuddered. It was only a giant pteranodon making a final swoop before nightfall.
But when night did come and the air around grew dark, a sense of uneasiness stayed with Dagger-mouth at first. He stood very still and stared across the plain at the rim of the fiery volcano.
Then, above him, the moon came out, and countless brilliant stars shone as they always did. But Dagger-mouth hardly noticed them, for once the sun’s light disappeared its warmth went too.
And as the air’s coldness sucked the day’s warmth from Dagger-mouth, it sapped his energy. For the long hours of the night neither the young tyrannosaur nor the volcano held any interest for him at all.