A whistling sound above her made Striped Intensity glance up- nothing to worry about, simply the sound of dragonflies zipping overhead. She was going to have a talk with whoever had the brilliant idea of creating inter-dimensional machines for public use. There would always be at least one creature who considered the use of said machinery to visit alternate dimensions which, in some cases, existed in the past of their home dimension.

And there would always be at least one creature who had an obsession with dinosaurs, too. The pit bull was fairly sure that the coordinates had been intentionally set, even if the machine had accidentally gone off.

Striped Intensity, or SI as her comrades called her, was good at determining who was misusing such devices. It wasn’t her job per se- more of a hobby. But it was a ‘hobby’ she was good at nonetheless. Finding mischief makers before they brought anything back and giving them a stern warning about involving the true authorities was never a problem.

.....or at least it wasn’t a problem so long as the inter-dimensional devices did not malfunction.

Some of the machines which SI had come across before were shoddy pieces of work, hacked together in any way possible and barely useable. Others had been top of the line. The one she had found in use today? It looked like it was held together by duct tape and a prayer. And sure enough, the internal navigation system had glitched right as SI was delivering her friendly warning about why the devices should not be used frivolously. SI wasn’t sure where she had wound up, but it was certainly some period other than her own- she had never been good with the prehistoric periods, aside from a basic knowledge of the Jurassic period thanks to a certain well-known movie franchise. And of course, the machine had sent her because she was in its field. SI was about ninety eight percent sure the machine itself had remained stationary, though.

She didn’t notice the infant which was near the clearing until she almost stumbled on it. It was one of the long-necked dinosaurs which SI knew would get pretty darn big if it survived to adulthood, but nothing other than that. Hard to believe that something so small would weigh more than a several elephants combined when it got older. It had made an odd sound when she tried to leave it, so SI let it follow her as she found a space nearby which was sheltered.

The pit bull had consoled herself with the fact that the coordinates could be traced, and help would likely be on the way soon. A large predator passed by her hiding space with the long-necked infant but paid no attention. It seemed that the temporary neighbors weren’t looking for lunch, for which Striped Intensity was very grateful. The little flying dinosaur which was darting about after the dragonflies was of no threat to anyone but the insects.

That just left SI to her boredom. Moving around more than necessary would be a bad idea, because it would make finding her harder on the rescue team when they arrived. So all she could do was sit there, in the company of the juvenile. The infant kept squeaking, but not insistently or anything like that. It wasn’t trying to give any alert to danger or anything of that nature- it just apparently liked making noise. SI decided that she’d call it Pipsqueak. “Pipe down, Pipsqueak,” she teased as she made herself comfortable, lying on her stomach with her snout on her paws.

Pipsqueak did indeed stop a moment. The infant stared at her, then started to make its odd little squeaking sounds louder. “Or don’t,” SI grumbled.

Babysitting a dinosaur- not what she had expected to be doing when she got out of bed that morning.