Night fell on the first day with William sitting alone next to a campfire. To let the hours slip by faster he began to wiggle a stick around in the dirt. Thinking back to the gratefulness he had experienced earlier that day towards Harvick and Remony. The first one, he had intended to visit personally but now that that was not a possibility, he let his yearning fall on the latter…

Being by himself he muttered aloud, “I have to tell you this… But Remony… Joss, he’s… He might not be coming back…”. Stuck on that last sentence he realized there was an error in his way of thinking and thus he corrected himself, by saying, “Might… I didn’t see his… Body… But does that mean that there is still hope?... …………………. *Gulp*... Even if-… I should at least show her that I am alive and well in the flesh. Then there will be no doubt, even if Harvick should fail in receiving my letter… I just hope she’ll forgive me… And most of all that stupid brother of mine…”.

The next morning there were still no signs of the primitive nanny and the cub, so he began to prepare himself on how to present the bad news to his friend.

Every mix of words he came up with he could see the end of, and they all resulted in Remony crying on her knees. “Curses! I’ll screw this up, I just know it!”, he lamented. Then he tried to write his speech down in the ashes, to see if that would help. And it did. Inspiration hit him and he was about to write down the best delivery line he would ever come up with when the returning odor and low hums of a beast appeared.

Looking up, William felt a cocktail of emotions, for his inspiration had just been ruined! But at least his companions had returned!

The stick was flung aside as William got up to receive them. Once in sight, he snarked, “Where have you been?”. The culprit to his worry stepped into the light, rather unaffected by William’s accusing tone. Underneath Thalgar’s arm, the cub was held tightly against its will. It was only once Lucifer had been set free that he answered William back, “Out hunting?”.

William crossed his arms and continued, “Hunting?”. Thalgar clapped his ‘clothes’ to make the other person notice the difference. Seeing the newly added raw pelt dangling, didn’t impress William the slightest.

To make Thalgar realize his mistake, William said, “You know, I don’t fully trust you. So seeing you missing from our promised spot with Lucifer-… Well, let’s just say that it wasn’t exactly a pleasant surprise. If you had wanted to go out hunting for new-… Clothes. You should have told me before I left…”. Using his hand he signified that, “I was this close to going out on a search for you guys. But doing so could have meant that we would have missed each other, lengthening the torture... Just think about it: Would you have stayed behind if somebody took your dinosaur and left without a word?”.

Hearing this, Thalgar found the girl’s worry to be convincing, but alas, “No need to worry… If you had strayed, I would have found you… Besides, it is not I, who chooses when to hunt… It is the hunt that calls for me...”. Seeing that William didn’t believe in his luck at finding the lost, Thalgar added, “With my ability, I can sense energies. Including yours. So finding you would not have been that hard. You could have strayed a great distance away and I would still have been able to sense you...”.

Thalgar had expected this news to calm the girl, but instead, she grew pale in the face. William tried not to stutter when he said, “You can sense where I am? And at great distances?”.

“Boros can too?”, Thalgar replied. Not at all getting what the problem was.

William squeezed his fingers together, not too fond of Thalgar technically having an GPS tracker function. As a friend it was convenient, but as a foe it was beyond dangerous.

Lucifer crawled over behind its parent that dared to leave it together with such a psycho. Both humbled but also hurt, it waited for its parents attention, this time, somewhat patiently with a pesky tail.

William noticed the annoyed creature, but had to finish his interaction with Thalgar first. He fished out some oversized pieces for the man-beast to have before he said, “Anyway… I saw that you had a problem with your clothes as well and so I got you this”.

It took awhile for Thalgar to understand what William’s gesture meant. But the moment it clicked for him, he decided to sternly refuse the garments, “What is this? I do not need them... They appear far too tame. Besides, their texture will not be able to enhance my scent and without it, how am I supposed to declare my territory and let others know whom they should fear?”.

Blown away by Thalgar’s commonsense, William got irrational enough to say, “Wha-!? There are other ways to declare one's territory with, and they all do not involve others' sense of smell! The way you are referring to is ancient, Thalgar!... Nowadays people build castles and upkeep borders with their flags to signify: This is my place!............ You-… If you don’t start to learn how to accept the change, people won’t accept you. And that’s a fact!”.

Thalgar’s eyes lightly shook, but not from being indirectly told that he reeked and that he should change. No, the reason he was taken aback was because the girl knew who he was. Or rather, she knew his human-given name.

“Nonsense… I have lived far longer than the moon's 300 sons. I know what I am… But do you?”. William dejectedly took back the clothes and his reform before lying to Thalgar’s face, “No?”.

“You know the name they gave me”, Thalgar insisted, now with a voice flavored by bitterness. William wanted to facepalm himself for such a mistake. Yet, it shouldn’t really be that fatal. He explained this to Thalgar, not at all guilty for playing dumb, “Why, you’re so iconic. These days there aren’t many who haven’t heard of you… Alas, I don’t know you personally. So I answered plainly: No… I don’t really know who you are”.

Thalgar’s posture remained taut and straight but his breathing relaxed, “...”.

The rest of the day he remained silent, only letting Boros attend to his being. The dinosaur licked most of the bloodstains of the man’s legs and arms, but it didn’t per se make him smell better nor look pleasant.

It was odd to watch Thalgar being licked ‘clean’ by his bonded companion, yet William had had enough of his quest for sanitation. At least for now...

While the wild duo rested until nightfall, William took his time to apologize to Lucifer. Telling the dinosaur that, “I have thought about it ever since we had an encounter with Kaibalac and its cult. And that is, that I should give in to your playfulness more often and not treat you as something you're not... Because you’re not an adult, nor a beast that likes to stay quiet in the background. You do have an opinion but not a voice… And so, I forgot to listen to you… *Sigh*, I too have had parents who sucked the fun out of life for me… I must have forgotten what it felt like to be corrected and scorned… That’s why. I’m sorry, Lucifer and-”. During his speech the dinosaur kept its tail alive and visibly angry, but as soon as William took up a stick to play with, the dino changed its tune completely.

Just like a child, it forgot the injustice it had suffered. Now only the possibilities of the stick mattered.

At first, a hopeful light shined in Lucifer’s eyes as it had before been rejected when it tried to be playful. But this time was different and Lucifer loved it. The stick was now its toy and as they played its behavior grew wilder and more infantile. So much so that in the end it couldn’t contain its joy. Head-over-heels the cub fumbled around and was so clumsy that William had to laugh. 

They both soon became blind to their surroundings and started tumbling near some fields. The peasants who saw them in the distance, could not tell that it was a human and dinosaur that roughed it up together.

To them they both looked like animals, rolling and jumping about in the tall weeds...