7. Donte's Deed

Donte and Nisah weren’t fast, but they were also hard to miss. “Jump on our backs!” they yelled into the forest in unison. “Flee while you still can!”

Despite all their effort, the yield so far was two young dinosaurs walking with them, and an old lizard who slept between Donte’s spikes.

“The asteroid will hit soon!” Nisah was hard to understand with all those leaves in her mouth. By now, though, the asteroid was visible enough that a warning was barely needed.

A group of lizards crossed their path. Donte had learned to pay better attention and stopped walking well in time.

“Looking for a Taxeies?” Donte tried. No reaction. “Oh, sorry, I mean a porter?”

The group stopped. “Where to?”

“As far away as possible.”

“Doesn’t sound like a clear place.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Throne of Tomorrow. If anywhere’s safe, it’s under the protection of the gods.”

“You realize all the dinosaurus are also headed there?” Nisah asked.

“Yes, and the gods will stop them easily.”

“You’ve too much faith in gods,” Nisah and Donte said at the same time.

“They can’t even stop the asteroid!” Donte swung his neck towards the flaming dot in the sky. “No time for pleasant conversation! Coming or not?”

“Have faith in gods. They will stop asteroid.”

“Oh please.” Nisah ducked down, picked up the lizards with the tip of her mouth, and placed them on her back. “The gods aren’t going to stop the asteroid because they’re pretending.”

“What? Nonsense!” The lizards curled around her scales until they lay comfortably. The group ran on.

“Again, how do you know this?”

“I’ve spent more than enough time with the gods to know they can easily stop that asteroid.”

The lizards looked back and forth between her, Cosmo in the air, and the asteroid. “It’s … it’s not actually that large of a rock, right?”

Donte felt like nothing made sense anymore. Everything was not as he was told. His father’s hatred towards the gods was justified. But walking to the throne to overthrow them was nonsense.

He shook his shoulder blades. I have to stop trying to justify what the dinosaurs do. I’m fleeing and I’ll live my dream somewhere else.

“The gods are lying! They’re not stopping the asteroid!” the lizards shouted.

That drew the attention. Swarms of Small Ones joined the group and ran along, especially to ask what on Somnia he meant. More and more creatures climbed onto Donte’s back and held on tightly, for his round body still couldn’t sprint gracefully.

The other animals shouted their own sentences. “Asteroid is going to hit! Gods are fooling us! Flee with us!”

Only when Donte reached the Wise Sea again, with the beautiful Tree of Life radiating in the sun as if nothing was wrong, did he dare look around. Their group had grown to at least a hundred Small Ones, some on his back, some on Nisah’s.

“What are you doing?” Feria sneered from a branch. “If you can’t knock me down, you’ll flatten me with a hundred animals?”

“We demand you stop the asteroid,” Donte said, bolder than he felt.

“We’re trying, aren’t we? But we aren’t all-powerful.” Feria’s prying eyes fell on Nisah. She hung her head and swung down. Whatever their relationship, Feria knew Nisah could call her bluff.

“It’s not up to us to control and steer nature,” she said. “My dear Father called that principle Zyme, and it’s a very important one. That asteroid is simply coming. What happens … happens. Nature balances itself, we’ve seen this many times over the past millennia.”

“Feria,” Donte tried to put on a kind voice, but everyone mostly heard fear. “I know how much you care about the animals. There are good dinosaurs among the bad. Is it really so bad to steer nature a little?”

“Oh? And what ifl a thousand years ago, the gods had decided to destroy the first dinosaur eggs? Because they grew too big and hunted too well? Would you still think it a good idea then to steer nature?”

Feria pointed her tail at a point behind the herd, on the horizon. Silhouettes of gigantic dinosaurs, black-gray in the setting sun, stomped towards the Throne of Tomorrow. “If you don’t mind, we have a throne to defend from your bloodthirsty kind.”

Feria ran off. Donte shouted after her. “What kind of leader lets their herd go extinct?”

“I’m not a leader and you’re not my herd.” Feria walked across the water without drowning, but this time there was no starfish path to explain it. “I’m a force of nature in animal form, so you understand. I’m afraid, though, you’ll never understand.”

She looked over the group, her voice clear as a song. “Head North. Gulvi guards the Dolphin Pass, Darus his mountains, beyond there you’ll be safe. As safe as you can be, that is.”

The beautiful fox left towards her family.

“You heard the grumpy red mutt,” a lizard shouted. “To the North!”

The rest cheered and marched around the Wise Sea, towards freedom and safety. Donte could only see the entire continent behind them, which was far from empty.

“Yes, go there,” said Donte. “But I help here. There’s room on my back for more animals. The gods are in danger from things my kind is doing.”

He expected an angry or disappointed look from Nisah, but she smiled. “My mother was right about you.”

“What? What did she say about me? How does she know me?”

“She knows everyone. And she said people would speak for a long time about what you’re going to do here today.”

Donte hoped they would speak of him because he was going to do something great and succeed at it. Not because he would die during a silly act.

Something I would do. I run to the gods to help, I trip over a twig, and I fall into a ravine or something. “Dumb Donte,” they’ll say. “He was always an odd fool. Let’s remember his mistakes for the future so no one makes them again.”

“Donte, you’re daydreaming again,” said Nisah.

He shook himself awake and sprinted back into the forest with her. When he passed the first tree, a small animal suddenly landed onto his head.

Where did that come from?