Ultimus Chapter Twenty-Three: Mother of Monsters

Andrew lay in his bed sleeping as he partly heard some of the five survivors outside his tent. He opened his eyes realizing that he missed his opportunity to see who that person had been out the night before. He shot up in his bed, got out, and got his armor on. As he got out of the tent, he saw Paul, Freya, and Erica walking away from the campsite towards the outside of the building they were in. Andrew looked around and saw Jonathan and Sylas sitting in one of the open tents. Andrew walked over and went inside their tent. He saw Sylas and Jonathan were distracted arguing with each other in one of the other rooms in the tent. They didn’t seem to even notice that he walked in. He decided to wait and ask them about what the others were up to after they were done. Andrew wandered around the tent, he found it was very neat and organized and found it was full of books and scientific equipment. Andrew could see sketches of creatures and field notes with each of the sketches. Some of the creatures he had seen in the Wasteland and Sanctuary many times, but some he had never seen before. Creatures so strange and so unusual and alien. Monsters and bizarre things, some he had only seen as those monsters in the wasteland but these were not those monsters. Then he noticed one that looked oddly familiar. A dinosaur that looked like a Triceratops. It looked like Tracy. He picked up the paper to see what was written about the creature but was all in French.

“Hé idiot!! éloigne-toi des notes. Ils sont organisés par la période de leur provenance.” Jonathan snapped at Andrew, Andrew jumped at this not noticing that they had finished arguing. Andrew just stood there

“Ce type qu'ils ont trouvé est en fait un cerf pris dans les phares ; n'est-ce pas ? Pourriez-vous mettre vos papiers s'il vous plaît !” Jonathan spat again, waving his hand at Andrew and the papers. Andrew didn’t understand what he was saying.

“Jonathan, he doesn’t know what you're saying.” Sylas said to Jonathan.

“Ouais, alors ? Il devrait encore pouvoir comprendre au ton de ma voix que je ne veux pas qu'il touche à ça, et qu'il devrait reposer ma note de terrain sur la table !” Jonathan said pointing to Andrew’s hand and then to the table, Andrew realized that he wanted him to put the field note back on the table.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to see what this creature was. I have one running around my house most months of the year for the past twelve years.” Andrew exclaimed, Jonathan gave a smug look to Sylas

“Ah, it does look like he can understand French.” Jonathan said sarcastically in slightly broken English, Sylas rolled his eyes as Jonathan walked over to see which field note Andrew had.

“or maybe you know, he saw you screaming and pointing at it that he figured it out.” Sylas muttered, Jonathan didn’t hear this but Andrew did and smirked humorously.

“If this is the one field note you were looking at, it’s called Styracosaurus. It lived during the Cretaceous and have spotted several of these.” Jonathan said, Andrew came over and looked at the field note to see what it was.

“It is!!” Andrew said excitedly.

“There you go then, now if you excuse me-” “Uh, I’m sorry to ask but do you know what Paul, Freya, and Erica went off to?” Andrew asked, interrupting Jonathan’s sentence accidentally. Jonathan, gave him a glare before Sylas jumped in.

“Paul was a little irritated with Freya for her choice of tame without having help. So they went out to go see it.” Sylas said, Andrew looked at Sylas with a confused expression.

“Why? Isn’t most taming of creatures like shooting a tranquilizer dart at one and feeding it when it falls asleep.”

“I mean yeah? Some do that, others have different taming methods. For my ape, you just had to throw some berries in front of it without being seen. Freya’s… was one like you said. She just took a different approach to taming it.”

“Yeah, she just tamed a descendant of the king of the dinosaurs with a glorified cattle prod, nothing too serious to do alone.” Jonathan said sarcastically. Andrew’s eyes widened.

“You mean a T.rex?” Andrew asked,

“A tyrannosaur, yes. But not at all a T.rex, too large and built structurally different from the T.rex. But if you and everyone else want to call it that. Then sure. Why not just rename the thing after its descendent.” Jonathan said irritatedly, obviously Andrew wasn’t doing too well to get on his good side.

“She went off and tamed that last night?” Andrew asked,

“She went off and tamed one by herself last night. Paul was less than pleased about this, she said before leaving that she scoped out the creature before. So she knew what she was taming, and she didn’t tell anyone what she was taming. Erica was laughing from what I saw of the situation.” Jonathan said, Andrew left the tent excitedly. Sylas and Jonathan followed up to the tent’s entrance.

“Where are you going off to?” Jonathan asked,

“Isn’t it obvious to you? He’s going to see the Rex.” Sylas said, Jonathan gave Sylas a look.

“Why, hasn’t he seen them before if he’s lived here for twelve years?”

“Yeah, but anyone who was a kid in their life would want to stand up close to one or even touch one if they had the chance. That’s why I think you're not human or anything that’s born.” Sylas said smiling, Jonathan rolled his eyes.

“I get excited about animals, just that my profession involves animals on a daily basis so it’s not the same as yours. And at least I know more than computer lingo and programming you knit whit.” Jonathan said as he walked away deeper into the camp.

“Now where are you going?” Sylas asked,

“Gonna make some tea. Everyone’s going to want some sooner or later, and I want some now.” He said as he walked off.

“Oh, ok.” Sylas said. He sat there for a minute looking at Jonathan walking away, he looked over at the direction Andrew ran off. He thought how strange it must be for him to deal with all of this. He woke up out of his own time, thinking he was the last for years before he came across five weirdos. That’s always how it was depicted in the movies and comics when something like this happened. He looked off in that direction a moment longer before it finally sank in what Jonathan really meant by making tea.

“Hey!! Wait UP!!”

~

Andrew ran through the rundown building, he was excited to see this thing up close. Out of all the creatures he ever wanted to see up close was a T-Rex. He had seen a few of them from a distance, but he never got up close to one. But it was more than just wanting to see one. His dad loved dinosaurs. While Andrew never took a liking to them, his dad loved them. He had an extreme obsession with the world of the prehistoric past, and his favorite one above all was Tyrannosaurus. He loved to bring up some sort of facts about it to him as a kid like how it was roughly on average forty feet long and weighed up to ten tons. It was called the king of the dinosaurs and was the largest land predator to ever exist, and it had the strongest bite force for any land animal. He even had a screensaver of his computer of artist renditions of the dinosaur. So he at least wanted to see his dad’s favorite up close and in person. He chuckled to himself as he ran. How ironic that he would be living in a world where dinosaurs roamed the Earth and he knew little about them, but his dad didn’t get to see them roam here and yet he knew so much.

He finally got outside of the building, seeing the rundown streets and other dilapidated buildings around. He heard people talking and looked to his right to see Erica, Paul, and Freya standing with Paul and Freya talking as Erica stood there smiling in humor. Andrew began to run up to them before he stopped in his tracks seeing the towering beast. It seemed so much larger than 40 feet and stood three stories high at least. As he slowly walked up to and looked up at the beast the beast lowered its head down at Andrew and he fell to the ground in fear. Its head was the size of a small car, and its teeth the size of as long as his head. Erica, Paul, and Freya looked over at Andrew who was in silent terror as he and the Rex were locked in a staring contest that thought was for his life.

“Andrew, you do know you are safe. She won’t attack you.” Erica said, Andrew looked at Erica in horror.

“How do you know that!!” Andrew yelled,

“Hun heter Angrboda, og fordi hun er min nye tamme Andrew.” Freya said, the others nodded but Andrew stared in fear and confusion.

“WHAT?” He shouted,

“Oh, sorry bout that lad. Forgot that you couldn’t understand her. She said it’s her newest tame and her name is Angrboda, though I wish she had waited for us to help with this tame.” Paul said as he looked over at Freya in irritation. Freya smiled and looked back at Paul. She said something that Andrew couldn’t understand. This was beginning to feel like the normal for him. People saying things that he couldn’t understand at all. Whatever it was. It seemed to irritate Paul more. Andrew slowly got up off of the ground, watching the giant dinosaur in front of him as he did. Unsure if it was going to make a move on him, but it seemed to be more curious about him than hungry.

“Yes, I know you have traditions you like to follow. But this is a T.rex Freya! You said it yourself back on the Ark that you had only tamed them with ranged weaponry. And this isn’t a normal first tame Freya, when you said that I thought you meant a raptor or a horse. Not a bloody T.rex!!” Paul said, Freya chuckled and said something as she pointed to one of the other larger dinosaurs with spines on its tails and three horns on its head. The one Paul had ridden earlier. Paul shook his head as she spoke.

“That was different Freya, I had help from Erica who used her Trike to get the beast drugged. Then I tamed it by myself.” Paul said, Freya looked at him and said something to Paul before walking away. Paul’s face softened as she spoke, though his irritation seemed to stay. He turned to Erica who was smirking at all this like a gleeful teenager.

“Erica, would ya be a las and take Andrew, Sylas, and Jonathan out to tame some fine travel mounts? Sylas’ ape is good, but something more suited to traveling. And Jonathan has nothing good besides his centipede, so he definitely needs to go. And Andrew should get something too. Go see if you can find some horses or something luath gu leor. We need to start exploring the vast waste and what’s beyond.”

“You won’t find much, out there.” Andrew said she continued to stare at the behemoth dinosaur in front of him, and Paul looked over at him with pity and optimism.

“Well even if we don’t find much, whatever we do find it may be useful to us.” Paul said kindly, Andrew kinda didn’t hear this as he was more interested in the benevolent beast, he walked up to the Rex and touched its ankles seeing how much larger than it was. It was the size of a huge tree trunk, Andrew didn’t think he could even get his arms around it and lock his hands together. This creature seemed like a true symbol of terror and power that his father talked about, it felt like this was the animal that should be called king. But it didn’t feel right to him, this was just way too big to be a T.rex. It didn’t even feel natural to stand next to it. Jonathan mentioned that this wasn’t Tyrannosaurus rex but a distant relative, which to Andrew’s mind rang truer now than it did before. But still, with that explanation, none of this felt natural to him. But he never studied biological science, so maybe it was natural.

Andrew felt a tap on his shoulder, breaking him away from these thoughts that rattled in his mind. He looked over his shoulder to see Erica standing behind him. She gestured her head that it was time to go. “Come on, let's get the two nerds and get onto finding a some good travel mounts.” She said as she and Andrew walked off back into the building where their base camp was located.

~

Paul watched as Erica and Andrew went inside. He looked over at Freya who stood there next to her Rex. The creature had lowered its head enough so that she could stroke it's under throat and jaw. He sighed, she had said he was treating her like a child in a humorous manner but this still struck him, maybe she was right. But he felt he had a responsibility for these younger adults so maybe he was treating them a bit like his children. But Sylas, Freya, and Erica weren’t that old either. Jonathan was at least old enough to do some things on his own. But he didn’t do anything risky like the other three, and Paul still watched him carefully in case he needed help.

“You need to quit treating me like the others, Paul. I can handle these types of things on my own.” Freya said, Paul shook his head as she said this.

“But you are not on your own Freya. We are here as a tribe and as so a team. We need to work together to protect one another and help each other.” Paul said.

“I lived a year in that place without any help before I met you and Erica. I know how to handle myself with these dangers. I don’t need help with such things. With making the “sorcery” that is needed for the prods or the strange armor prior to your magical ones. Then yes, I do need help. But taking on these beasts is no issue for me.” Freya declared with a smile and a soft voice.

“Aye, I know that. But it fact remains that you should’a had us help you. No woman should be trying to do this on their own.”

“And a man can?” she said raising an eyebrow.

“Don’t pull that with me again Freya. You know where I stand on this one woman’s role. I believe you’re a strong woman and you’d make your father proud, the same goes for Erica. I also believe women can do all the things a man can do in the workforce. But I take into account whether they should, and I in my own opinion as a father to a daughter and husband to a beautiful wife. I would respectfully say no. But that doesn’t matter here, everyone works here to how much they can do unanimously and I am fine with that. But this isn’t about that. No one should be doin’ something like taming a rex on their own Freya. Without a ranged weapon no less. As I said before, I believe you’re a strong woman who is far stronger than anyone I know and you’d make your father proud, but going to tame a Rex on your own is just lunacy for anyone. If you wanted to tame this, come get me, or if you don’t want me to help or I can’t help. Get Erica or Sylas and Jonathan. I just don’t want any of us doin’ anything stupid. I don’t wanna lose anyone. Especially you Freya.” Paul said, Freya blushed as he said this. She didn’t seem offended but rather just happy.

“All I wanted you to do was compliment me and call me a woman like last time. You don’t know how long it’s been since I have heard someone just call me or treat me like that instead of a demon or deity. I understand your feelings about it, and to be honest agree with them. I lived in a world where women only did the man’s role only when necessary. I was an exception to this, and so thought to be a child of the gods or a Valkyrie. Thank you for being worried for me and not treating me like that when we met. And I know it was dangerous Paul. But I just had to do it, it’s something I need to do. Just by myself to see if my first tame is worthy for me to ride. If it gives a good fight then it is worthy. And Angrboda has proved that to me.” Erica said as she stroked Angrboda’s underchin, Paul smiled for a moment at this. He wasn’t expecting her to say that. He chuckled to himself, he was kinda expecting her to be like Erica and call hi old fashion in thought. He walked over to her and put his right hand on her shoulder.

“I’ll never know what you have been through. But if you need someone to talk or or listen to. I’ll be there. But please, don’t pull any more dangerous stunts. I really don’t want to lose anyone before your called home.” Paul said sincerely, Freya smiled with a light laugh.

“I promise I won’t do any more taming like Angrboda’s. She’s special on that part to me. Like Sif was to me.” Freya said as she took a step forward and stood on her toes as she started scratching Angrboda’s back chin. Angrboda began to purr as though a cat. Her eyes closed and she lowered herself as she sat down and laid her head on the ground to let Freya scratch her more. Paul grinned at this in envious humor.

“I’ve been bloody envious of that gift you have there for a while. I’ve tried doing this myself and all I get is an irritated shake.” Paul said as he watched her stroke the Angrboda. Freya just smiled as she continued to stroke the drowsing rex.

“It’s a secret. I’ll teach you… when you prove your worthy of me.” She said…