fanfiction [Collection] Sands of Time

[Slvr]

Warning: I am a nerd and this is all of my own interpretation/creativity. None of this has any basis in real biology or how actual scientists think these animals work, lol. I have no idea what people think real dilophosaurs acted like, I just figured this was a fun little take on them all. 

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EDIT: I've decided to make this just my collection of little short stories so I do not spam the forums when I get inspired.  Sands of Time is just the first one here, but others will follow and I'll link them here as they get posted. 

EDIT 2: I have no idea how to link to specific posts. But, hit ctrl + f, and enter these phrases and you should get taken to the posts (you can copy and paste them into the box as well):

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Page 1

 When You Least Expect It

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Sands of Time

Dilophosaurs are not much of a threat, all things considered, in all the time I have spent on the Ark. These small theropods may terrorize new arrivals to the Ark for a short while, but typically their slowness and desire to chase smaller prey make them easy to evade. For the most part, that is where they remain; sometimes, new survivors will tame these animals for early protection, and then usually forget about them. Some will even release their pets back to the wild rather than keep them for no reason. I have watched someone in a tribe once struggle to say goodbye after her tribe had forced her to get rid of her clan of dilophosaurs since they were taking up space and eating food that the tribe simply felt was unnecessary to expend on dinosaurs they no longer used. But despite their lack of use beyond a survivor's early days on the Ark, I discovered just how truly intriguing the dilophosaur is.

Like many other early survivors, among my first friends was a dilophosaur named Happy. Happy looked grizzled and well-seasoned, with scars littering his muzzle and tail, but his personality would have suggested otherwise. After incidentally knocking him out, I felt guilty for the thing and having just met a sarcosuchus for the first time, I was unwilling to leave it unconscious in the sand, at such an unfair disadvantage if another fearsome predator were to come along. I nervously provided some raw meat to it, and once he regained consciousness, he no longer bared his fangs and tried to knock me down. He cocked his head at me, and chirruped. A slab of uneaten meat hung from his jaws and he dropped it in the sand at my feet. He licked it with a slender tongue and then sat on his haunches, seemingly waiting to see what I would do.

I was terrified, at the time. I had been on the ARK for a grand total of four days. Wary, I observed my beach surroundings and discovered that I was on a peninsula away from the main island. I found the shallow part of the brackish channel that separated me from the island and swam as quickly as I could to the other side. To my surprise, Happy followed, snatching up the meat he had dropped and chasing me through the water. More relaxed now, I calmed down and enjoyed his company. That was also when I named him Happy, since he kept eagerly following me and dropping that piece of meat at my feet. I'm not sure how he expected me to eat it, especially since at that point it was coated in a good layer of sand, but he sure seemed to determined to get me to try.

I eventually constructed a mediocre base. I never considered much more to the dilophosaur other than what I first observed: it seemed to be a familial animal for most of the groups I saw roaming the beach were hunting together. Loners tended to mainly be male. They spat venom at their prey to stun and slow them, and then used the distraction to close in and make their kill. But after establishing myself, I found that I actually had a fair amount of downtime. I was living very comfortably, compared to my first days on the ARK. 

I took to observing the dilophosaur then, since they piqued my curiosity and seemed more social than I had first realized. After Happy, I befriended a female I named Strawberry due to her red body and creamy white marbling. A little later, I found two females wandering together who looked so similar I believed them to be sisters. I named the two of them Carrie and Hallie. Introducing the animals was much more of a pain than I had thought it would be. 

Happy was not bothered by the introduction of more females into his fold. He would investigate them and after a visual examination, he would open his frill and trill at them, to which the females would perform a similar reaction, and that would be the end of it. But it was the interaction between the females that shocked me. Strawberry had been my only female at first, but when I returned with Hallie and Carrie, a bloody fight erupted almost immediately. Upon sighting the new females, Strawberry's frill flared wide and began to vibrate. Coupled with her shrieking roar, it was a frightening reaction indeed. Carrie and Hallie both repeated the gesture in return, but they were clearly much younger than Strawberry; smaller than her and with much less experience, Strawberry lunged at Hallie and within seconds had the smaller female pinned beneath her. Carrie leapt to her sister's defense, but was similarly put to the ground. Hallie did not get up, instead she relaxed her frill about halfway and gave a low, rumbling sound that could only be described as a catlike purr. Carrie soon purred as well, and Strawberry visibly relaxed. She backed away from the two females and her frill rested coolly against her neck again. She gave a series of short, low trills and stalked away.

This interaction made me far more curious about the behavior of these animals than anything else. I soon had a large pen with part of a river included inside of it, and let the dilophosaurs roam freely in its confines. It became apparent to me that dilophosaur groups operated with a single matriarch, and Strawberry had automatically taken that role when she had been left alone with Happy. Carrie and Hallie, upon joining the group, had immediately been cast the rank of subordinate, and it seemed there were times when the sisters grew resentful of that title. Happy never interfered in the squabbles; instead, he would merely watch from afar, only reacting if the fighting came into contact with him. 

To see if there was a similar social structure among males, I tamed another male dilophosaur to bring back to the group. An elderly male with inky black scales and white marbling and a silver muzzle, as if the color had begun to drain from his scales there. His eyes were deep crimson. I named him Skull, primarily because of the ridges on the top of his head being silvery-white in color. When I brought him home to the group, the females all but ignored him. Happy took notice of him immediately, but unlike the females, a fight did not break out the second the two locked eyes. Instead, the two males stared at each other and locked eyes from afar. I suppose one could say it was a glorified staring contest. It seemed to be random when Skull finally began to slowly open his frill and vibrate it, never breaking eye contact with Happy. Happy reciprocated the display, and slowly began to open his mouth and hiss. Skull abruptly closed his frill, and broke eye contact, dropping to the ground and curling into a ball on his back. He chirped and trilled at Happy, and swept his tail across the sandy ground again and again.

Happy snorted and began to close his frill. With that, the interaction was over. Both males calmed down and proceeded to act normally for the next few hours. They even ate out of the trough at the same time and seemed wholly untroubled by the presence of the other, whereas Strawberry could not eat out of the trough at the same time as Hallie and/or Carrie (but the two sisters could eat at the same time as one another without issue). 

In my time observing this, I noticed that Strawberry had begun to dug in the wet sand closer to the riverbed. Between her massive boned head and her powerful back legs, she created a sizable depression in the ground large enough to hold her, and then some. Curiosity struck me and I decided to investigate the strange bed she had created. Within the next few days, I soon discovered it was not merely a bed. Three days after she dug the shallow bed, I realized it was a nest, for a single red and black egg was settled in the ground. Of course, when she noticed me sneaking up onto the nest, she rushed at me and flared open her frill, giving me a resounding roar. I heeded her warning fully and darted away. 

I decided to observe her from afar instead of close as I had been in the past. I created a platform that rested over the pen, but not close enough to annoy them. From there, I could watch without disturbing them. Strawberry treated any other visitors to her nest with similar ferocity, but instead of merely backing away, Carrie and Hallie's aggression soared alongside Strawberry's. I briefly wondered if the overzealous aggression was due to something wrong with my design of their pen... I figured I had made it quite large for only four dilophosaurs. As with all other interactions, the males, Happy and Skull, only watched the females from a distance and with indifferent stares. 

While observing from my platform, I noticed while Strawberry made the venture toward the feeding trough, Carrie suddenly darted for the nest. She snatched the red and black egg into her jaws and snarled, but did not crush it. Strawberry rushed her immediately, and that was the only event that seemed to pique Happy's interest. He bolted from his corner of the pen and while Carrie was distracted with Strawberry, brought his jaws down around her throat. Carrie gave a sound that can only be described as a yelp, dropping the egg in her possession, which Strawberry caught with expert precision. Once Strawberry had possession of the egg again, the violence quickly subsided. Happy let go of Carrie and gave her a sound earful for her thievery, and then stalked over to the feeding trough. Strawberry gently placed the egg back into her nest and then curled up around it. 

Carrie, shaken and bleeding, curled up next to her sister to rest. Hallie nibbled and picked at her sister's back, which I presume is a bonding activity dilophosaurs practice. But out of the aftermath of this event, I was mostly impressed when Happy retrieved a good chunk of meat from the feeding trough and brought it to Strawberry in the nest. She gratefully gulped it down, and gave a happy, high-pitched purring noise to Happy, who rested in the dirt near the nest.

From all of this, I concluded that a matriarch clearly existed (Strawberry) and her young were cared for by its father (whom I presumed to be Happy at this point in time). To succeed the matriarch, subordinate females might try to overpower her, from flatly battling her to killing her young. But the latter did not make sense to me. What good would killing Strawberry's young do for Carrie, or Hallie? It was unlikely they would be able to best Strawberry in combat, and so they would still be where they were before, and without a new member of the group. I soon discovered my answer.

Carrie soon began to dig a nest like Strawberry. By the time she laid an egg, Strawberry's egg had produced a hatchling, and she and Happy were zealously protecting it and bringing it food to eat. (Side note - the hatchlings for dilophosaurs are absolutely adorable. Strawberry and Happy's hatchling was red with black marbling and light pink feathers protruding from its back, and gave the most adorable little chirps and baby roars.) But when she wasn't paying full attention to her hatchling, Strawberry was harassing Carrie. At first, it seemed petty; she pushed all the dirt Carrie had dug out for the shallow nest back in, effectively ruining the nest. But it soon devolved into something more sinister. When Carrie approached the feeding trough one day, Strawberry's frill spread and she chased Carrie away, to a corner of the pen. There she viciously attacked Carrie's shoulders, causing them to bleed. As if someone had flipped a switch, after she made her bleed, Strawberry lost interest and trotted back over to her hatchling.

Carrie began to search for ways to escape the pen after that. Feeling guilty, I decided to make the pen much, much larger. I didn't get to see the exact interactions while I was busy building, but based on what I heard, things between Strawberry and Carrie were still strenuous at best. Once I finished expanding the pen, Carrie immediately took the opportunity to seek a place on the beach as far away from Strawberry as she could. She dug a new shallow there, but found it difficult to retrieve food from the feeding trough still. Hallie seemed to try and help her, as did Skull (who I assumed was going to be the father of Carrie's egg(s)), by bringing her meat from the trough. But they too found themselves on the receiving end of Strawberry's ill temper, and later, Happy's. Happy primarily focused on Skull, but he did not attack him with the vicious cruelty in which Strawberry pursued her female subordinates. 

Strawberry seemed to stress Carrie so badly that she laid an egg... and then proceeded to eat it. After ingesting the egg, Carrie nervously made her way closer to Strawberry and rolled on her back similar to how Skull had when he met Happy. Strawberry bumped her muzzle to Carrie's, and then gave a snort before turning her attention back to her hatchling. She no longer chased Carrie away, and Happy also stopped harassing Skull. 

From these interactions, I gathered that the matriarch had sole breeding rights in a group of dilophosaurs. Due to the apparent dysfunction of my group, I theorized that groups were mainly of familial relation. Subordinates were primarily the sons and daughters of the matriarch and her chosen mate (in this case, Strawberry and Happy). Carrie and Hallie disputed with Strawberry so much since they were unrelated, and furthermore, were unrelated to Skull. I further theorized that groups lived far apart from one another to prevent clashes happening so commonly. With this new information, I decided to separate my two "groups." Strawberry, Happy, and their hatchling would remain together while Skull, Carrie, and Hallie would be relocated to a new pen.

Lo and behold, upon this move, the violence decreased dramatically to almost never. It seemed much less stressful on the animals and Carrie successfully reared eggs. So did her sister. No fighting broke out between the two and I further theorized that perhaps as long as the females are all related, they can produce eggs without issue... until the group got too big, anyway. I would later figure out that males, once they reached a particular maturity, would disperse from their groups and that females rarely lived longer than six years in the wild. Of course, my captive females lived longer, and the issue of crowding became... apparent. 

As a conclusion, I will simply say that even the simplest of animals on the Island can be fascinating. I have befriended, raised, and watched many other creatures since my arrival on the ARK, and have been fascinated and floored by each and every one, but I still hold a soft spot in my heart for the dilophosaur. 

[rpicardi1]

Like talking Rock Drakes and tamed dilos, all of it is a story of what if.

Check out the passive taming mod for an unusual what if in playing Ark.

[Slvr]

 

When You Least Expect It

This story does get a little... violent. I mean, it is Ark and about dinosaurs killing each other, so I'm not sure what you'd expect, but if that's not your thing... Here's your warning.  

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It all happened so fast; one minute, he had been guiding his therizinosaur, Forest, toward a thicket of trees, coaxing him into slicing apart the trunks for wood, then the next, he heard the guttural, snarling cry of an inconvenienced wild therizinosaurus and felt Forest give a lurch to the left. His heart began pounding before he even glanced to the right,  where Juneau watched as a much more massive and bulky therizinosaur lashed claw after claw at Forest's flank. Forest bucked almost like an equus, throwing Juneau off and into the nearby, shallow water. He felt his back hit the meager stony wall that protected his little islet from the smaller predators, such as raptors and dilophosaurs, that roamed the sandy beaches.

Spluttering and with his heart beating so fast it felt like it might give out, Juneau wildly swam to the surface and threw his arms over the top of the short wall. Looking back at Forest with bleary eyes, he watched the two therizinosaurs fight. Therizinosaurs, Juneau knew, were viciously territorial, and a dreadful feeling it was when he knew just how most territorial disputes ended. Forest began backing up, his rear facing the islet, while the wild therizinosaur only continued to move closer, savage claws ripping and raking Forest’s mottled green feathers. Blood sprayed and turned the water red. It began to seep into the cracks of Juneau's metal armor. 

Juneau shook and shivered as he hauled himself over the mediocre wall, and began whistling for his other animals to help. Anyone, anyone would do - it didn’t matter who responded. Evergreen, his massive green spinosaur with a red-tipped sail, his pack of raptors, and a fair few pteranodons answered his cry for help. Evergreen reached the wild therizinosaur first, bringing his massive fanged jaw down onto the unsuspecting animal’s head. Juneau tried to close his eyes before he saw the result, but he did not do so in time before he watched Evergreen’s massive jaws close around the wild animal’s forehead and split it open like a grape. It was dead instantly, collapsing into a heap on the ground. The raptor pack began to pick it apart piece by piece, but Evergreen carried around the decapitated cranium of the therizinosaur like a dog with a trophy, practically prancing around the body. 

Limping away from the scene, Forest shuddered and leaked blood from what seemed like everywhere. Juneau dodged his excited pack of predators, who seemed to be enjoying the corpse of the wild therizinosaur a bit too much, and stumbled over himself trying to make it to Forest’s side. Forest chirped at Juneau and looked at him, or at least, he tried to; three deep, gruesome cuts lined his face from the right side of his forehead to his left cheek, effectively spilling blood so dark from his eyes it was black. Forest's knees gave a violent shake, and he collapsed to his side, heaving breaths and spitting blood onto the sand as he tried to breathe. Clumps of green feathers were missing from his back, and two of the claws on his left hand were crooked and limp. Juneau figured he had broken them trying to desperately defend himself from the wild therizinosaur. 

This was not the first time he had seen the results of deadly confrontations with therizinosaurs, and he knew it would not be his last. But despite the therizinosaur’s preference for berries and vegetables, it was a ferocious animal, and the violent aftermath of its lengthy, terrifying claws resonated more deeply with him than watching the way other large predators tore into their prey. At least they made sense. They attacked to defend or eat, and even when they did kill to defend, they still typically ate the opponent. They did not kill and leave the body to waste. The therizinosaur had no mercy; anything that crossed its path and encroached on its territory was subject to murder, and justly so in its eyes. Especially others of its own kind.

Juneau gently touched the top of Forest’s head, the adrenaline in his veins slowly ebbing. He did not cry, but that did not mean he was not upset. It was an all-too familiar dread that squeezed his chest but invoked no physical emotion otherwise. He had etched a line into the nearby rock formation for every day he had spent on the island, and he knew that the current days added up to something around 280. In those 280 days, he had lost fourteen of the animals he had befriended on the island. It was far more loss than he was used to, especially from what little he remembered of his own life. When animals had began to die so easily here, he had come to accept the ghastly reality with a kind of outward indifference. 

He comforted Forest as he died, but he was not able to muster any other reaction. It simply felt not worth it, and it would no doubt only stress the blind and injured animal more. Forest slowly and stiffly curled into a more comfortable position, pulling himself closer to Juneau. Unable to see, he bumped his beak against Juneau’s knee and did so until he was able to figure out where to rest his chin. He tucked his feathered, fluffy tail behind his left leg and underneath himself. 

Juneau touched Forest’s forehead lightly, until he watched his loyal therizinosaur stop breathing. The shuddery, irregular rise and fall of his chest stopped. The breeze eerily ruffled his feathers, making splotches of thick, crimson blood glisten in the midafternoon sun. 

A thud in the sand nearby made Juneau turn his head. He winced and looked away quickly. Evergreen had dropped part of the wild therizinosaur’s head in the sand next to him, and bloody saliva dribbled from the spinosaur’s jaws. Evergreen gave a rumbling sound that almost resembled a purr, and pushed the eyeless, top half of the wild therizinosaur’s head toward him. 

“Thanks, Evergreen… I think.”