Back in the rainforest, the proud mother sits tall upon her nest of eggs, her long neck stretched up high into the air, her head swivelling slowly from side to side as she watches out for any more predators trying their luck against her or her eggs. What remains of the Spinosaurus lies nearby and within easy reach, ready for her to tear another chunk out of the moment that she needs more sustenance. Her fellow apex predator put up quite the fight, but in the end, it fell in defeat to her. As they all do. And as they always will, up until she grows old and frail and falls to either a more successful predator, or an ambitious youth that wants to take her territory.
Her belly full and her wounds still fresh but not bleeding, she sits, her instincts cooing pleasantly at her that she must be patient, and she must be present. Something big is about to happen, and she needs to be here for it.
A sense of contentment and anticipation rests deep within her large, fluffy chest. She gazes out at her clearing, sniffing at the familiar smells and finding no new surprises. She watches as the tiny creatures scurry here and there, not a single one of them a threat to her, or a potential meal. Not a blade of grass is out of place, not a single smell is unfamiliar to her by now, not a leaf or tree or tiny flower unrecognizable to her. Even the slightly cinnamon scent of her eggs has become familiar and calming to her, after all these weeks.
She feels the warmth of the sun on her feathery flank, and she ruffles her magnificent wings a little and settles them down again, getting more comfortable.
At this moment, she is feeling content in a way that she has never felt before. Her clearing is intruder-free. Her eggs (the ones that are left, that is) are safe, her belly is full, and it’s a perfectly warm and sunny day.
Her eyes begin to drift closed, as the greatest nap of her life begins.
Until, from underneath her downy backside, she feels something shift, snapping her out of her drowsiness and setting her on high alert. She looks from side to side, trying to find the source of the disturbance. A rustling and a cracking noise echoes out into the silence, coming from below her.
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With a start, she gets up, letting out a small chirrup in surprise. She peers down at her precious, precious eggs and sees something most concerning.
One of the eggs begins to shift from side to side, small cracks forming in its perfectly mottled surface. She starts to panic a bit, worried that her fat butt must have crushed her poor, precious babies. With mounting concern, she watches as the cracks spread out further, connecting into massive chunks of loose shell that are then slowly pushed out to fall to the floor, piece by piece.
As she watches, a larger chunk falls off, revealing a gooey, writhing mess of wet, earth-coloured feathers underneath. The gooey mass presses hard against the opening, straining with all of its might, before finally popping out and falling onto the floor. The tiny mass stretches out its tiny neck onto the floor.
Another egg starts to hatch, followed by another and another. As the mother watches in glee, all of her eggs begin to crack on their own accord, little chirps and twitters from the earlier eggs now accompanying the sounds of cracking and snapping.
The first one raises its small, delicate head up, sniffing the forest air for the first time in its life. The overjoyed mother moves her massive head closer to the baby, sniffing it deeply, marking its scent into her memory so that she will never, ever forget it. The tiny, delicate creature, following instincts that it does not yet understand, does the same to her, sniffing deeply and memorizing its mother’s scent. A feeling washes over the baby, and a word seems to form on its own in its mind. It latches onto this word, and onto the feeling the word evokes within it:
Caretaker.
While instincts, honed over millions of years, can take a predator far, it can’t take it all the way to the top. Some skills need to be learned; they need to be observed and practiced. Deep within this babies’ brain, it understands what it must do: eat well, grow strong, and learn all that it can from its Caretaker until one day, it stands on the top right next to her.
The mother goes from each baby to the next, smelling them and letting them sniff her in return. Each baby imprints on its mother through her scent, and she, in turn, imprints on them. With each one sniffed, she feels a mounting sense of accomplishment, as well as of responsibility. She was willing to kill to keep her clutch of eggs away from greedy scavengers. Now, she’s willing to die to keep her little pack safe from harm.
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