“Tell me your name again,” I call over my shoulder as we begin to move off.
“Kristine!” She squeaks the word against my back.
Kristine is a warrior’s name, a good name, a strong name. I like it very much. I like her very much. The flame red hue of her hair, the wild and untamed curls just barely contained by some kind of tie. She is hefty and round, with generous hips and even more ample breasts. She is a little spitfire. On my world, I had a generous harem filled with many females of all shapes and sizes. She would have been a worthy addition.
I am making plans for her now as we ride. Once upon a time I might have had the luxury of keeping her as a solely carnal amusement, but she will have to fill more roles now. She will be many things. She will be my second in command. She will warm my bed. She will cook my meals, and in return I will ensure that nothing devours her whole. That seems like a suitably mutually beneficial relationship to me. I assume she will agree.
* * *
Kristine
“I can’t believe I’m riding a fucking dinosaur!” I scream the words to the wind, but also probably directly into King Rex’s elongated and somewhat swept back ear. It looks like it belongs to an elf who decided to be a barista. It’s hard to avoid screeching in his ear because my arms, which are very short for this particular purpose, are wrapped around his muscular midsection. I can't even touch my fingers because he’s so damn girthy.
He’s not the only thing that’s huge. The foliage of the trees we pass by at lumbering speed is massive. Think normal tree leaves, but every single one of them is the size of my whole body. I have the strangest sensation of having simply shrunk. I used to imagine how amazing that would be when I was young and thought things had good outcomes. Movies about being shrunk were super in at the time. As I got older, and ironically larger, I forgot about the simple pleasure of being very small in a very big world.
Atop the triceratops, or a dinosaur very close to looking like a triceratops, I am free in a way I never was back on my world. There’s nobody here to tell us how fast to ride our triceratops, or what lane we should be in with our triceratops, or when we should signal aboard our triceratops, or get a license and register our triceratops. I’m thinking the word triceratops a lot, but this really isn’t about triceratops. This is about animal anarchy, and I am into it. Nobody will ever control me again.
“Here we are,” Rex announces. “This is the seat of my power, my first significant construction. Long may it last.”
I’m expecting some kind of hovel. Maybe a shack, if I’m lucky. Something that’s not built to code. Something that’s just put together however Rex wanted, with no regard for leaks or fire hazards. Buildings the way we used to do them before everybody decided living between thin sheets of sheetrock was a good idea.
What I see is a whole lot more impressive than I expected. The exterior of the compound is fortified with big, sharpened branches placed in the ground with the sharp ends very much up. There are actual gates which stand open for the moment and allow us to pass through.
There’s a garden area with big plants rioting all over the place. There’s also a series of pens where there are smaller dinosaurs and something with feathers. There are some little buildings up on sticks. Something tells me that they're storehouses elevated above the ground to keep them from being preyed upon by mice and stuff. How do I know that? Maybe a visit to a museum sometime in my past is paying off. But none of these amenities compare to the grand dwelling at the center of it all.
He has built a small fortress and it’s fucking adorable. It’s like a fortress for two. He must have carried all the stones one by one and built this square sort of tower that rises at least twenty feet into the air.
“Wow, very nice setup. How did you do this?”
“Any king worth his salt is capable of constructing a basic fortification,” he says, though not without a bit of pride. “The bedroom is on the second level, to keep us safe from predators who might attempt to creep up on us in our sleep. Of course, this will be as much use as a sandcastle when the tide comes in if one of the really big boys comes through, but I’ve sited this well off the normal hunting tracks and prey pathways, so we should be safe.”