Veggiesaurus Rex

Rory the Tyrannosaurus was excited. It was his birthday and his mother had promised him that she would take him out for his very first hunt.

For weeks he had been practicing the lunge-and-snap technique his mother had taught him and working on his fearsome roar. After all that practice his lunge had gotten faster and he could now snap his jaws together with impressive force. His roar was still not quite as terrifying as the sound the adult Tyrannosaurs were capable of emitting, but he was sure he'd get better at it with more practice.

He was up early in the morning pestering his mother, anxious to make his first kill.

"What am I going to hunt?" Rory questioned enthusiastically as he followed his mother across the grassy plain. "Can I kill a Brontosaurs? I've always wanted to kill one!"

His mother stopped and turned her head to glance back at him.

"Brontosaurs are too big," she informed him. "Not even I could kill one of those."

"Oh." Rory tried his hardest not to sound as disappointed as he felt. "Well, what can I kill, then?"

"I'm looking. I'll let you know when I find something. Now be quiet, Rory."

"But what can I..." he broke off when his mother paused again and lashed him sharply across the leg with the tip of her tail.

"I said be quiet, Rory. You're going to scare off any prey that might be around."

Rory's mother led him toward her favorite hunting ground near the sizable watering hole. A myriad of different species of herbiverous dinosaurs could be found gathered there on any given day, and it was inevitable that at least one of them would be slow enough or elderly enough to serve as her offspring's first victim.

Rory tried his hardest to be patient as he stood at his mother's side hungrily eying the couple dozen plant eaters gathered at the waters's edge, gossipping amongst themselves as they drank.

"Go ahead," she whispered to him. "And remember, lunge and snap."

With the loudest and most frightening roar he could muster, Rory burst through the cover of the trees encircling the watering hole.

In semi-unison, the herbivores lifted their heads and in terror they all bolted in what seemed like twenty different directions.

Not at all certain what he ought to do, Rory chased first one and then another, lunging and snapping right and left. Although his lunges were swift and agile, every time his jaws snapped shut they clamped down on thin air.

This is harder than I thought, he mused to himself as a Parasaurolophus banked hard to the left to avoid his snapping jaws.

Rory's mother watched anxiously from the tree line. The suspicion that Rory was not quite ready yet to hunt and the possibility of him ending up embarrassing himself had been nagging at her for several days. She gasped when she saw him step backward, narrowly dodging the vicious club of an Ankylosaur's tail.

He lunged and snapped at a Triceratops, missing it by several inches as it put on a sudden burst of speed. He was beginning to feel discouraged and he worried that his mother would be disappointed in him.

A moment later his mother had overtaken him. She lunged at the Triceratops, snapping one of its rear legs between her powerful jaws. She then released it and stepped back, urging Rory to continue his pursuit of the injured prey.

Squealing in pain the Triceratops limped as speedily as she could on three legs, dragging the mangled and bleeding one behind her. The juvenile Tyrannosaur was pounding along after her. She could feel his breath on her flank and knew that death was imminent.

She stopped running and turned about to face Rory, her head down and her horns leveled. She would at least defend herself if she could. Yet as the predator advanced upon her she lost her nerve.

"Please," she begged in a broken squeak, her eyes large and filled with tears. "Please don't eat me!"

"But I'm a predator and you're prey," Rory pointed out. "That's how it is." A friend of his always joked that carnivores like themselves were 'dinersaurs' while the herbivores they preyed upon were 'dinnersaurs'.

"I know," the Triceratops sobbed. "And I'm not afraid of dying. Not really. But...but I have four eggs back in my nest and they're going to hatch any day now. I can't leave them without a mother. My babies need me. Please."

"But I'm a predator and you're prey," Rory repeated. His tone was somewhat petulant. "I'm supposed to kill you and eat you."

"Think about my babies. Please. Think about what would have happened to you if you'd hatched out of your egg and your mother hadn't been there to raise you and teach you everything you know. Would you have survived without her?" Large tears were rolling down the Triceratops's face and falling onto the dirt.

Rory lowered his head and opened his jaws wide to deliver his bone-crushing chomp, but when the herbivore's pleading gaze met his again he snapped his teeth shut on nothing.

"You're...not going to kill me?" The Triceratops couldn't quite bring herself to be hopeful just yet.

"I can't," Rory choked. "Go on. Go back to your nest. Is your leg all right? I'm sorry Mother bit you. Does it hurt bad?"

"Yes, but it will heal. See, the bleeding's almost stopped now. You're...you're really letting me go?"

"Yes. Your babies need you."

"Thank you. Thank you so much."

Rory returned to his mother.

"What happened?" She demanded. "Why didn't you make the kill? You almost had that Triceratops!"

"Herbivores have lives too," he stated.

"Yes, they live so we can eat. That's the way of the world."

"No." With that Rory stomped over to the nearest tree and bit off a sizable mouthful of leaves. His teeth were better suited for rending and tearing flesh from bone, but he found that he could chew the leaves with his back teeth. The foliage tasted very green, not like fresh meat but he could get used to it. He knew that if he was to live on vegetation he would have to eat pretty much constantly, but wasn't that what Brontosaurs and Brachiosaurs did?

Despite the fact that his mother assumed this was just a 'phase' and despite the teasing he endured from his carnivorous peers, Rory steadfastly stuck to his vegetarian diet.

The Brontosaurs and Brachiosaurs, at first wary, soon became accustomed to sharing their food trees with the Tyrannosaur.

He even made friends with Tanya the Triceratops, whose life he had spared, and he would drop mouthfuls of tree leaves for her four children to eat when they complained about being tired of shrubs and grass.