Disclaimer: I don't own any of the following Ice Age characters.
Beta: Profoundfish – Thank you so much editing this oneshot!
...This one shot is dedicated to my family...
He had gotten too close, Diego realized, stumbling as he favored a gored right back leg.
Following the events which led him to help in returning a human to his tribe, he found himself part of another pack - only; this wasn't really a pack at all. This was a herd. It was considered atypical because of what it was made up of: a mammoth, a sloth, and himself, a saber-tooth cat. As it happened, however, the three of them came together upon finding the human child, which had been tragically separated from its species.
Their fellowship proved ironic in the end, as the genesis of their bond stemmed from different causes and motives. Manfred, the mammoth, was the founder of the group who came from a troubled past; Sid, the sloth, happened across the child in the first place; and he, Diego, stayed with them to steal the child away, as reinforced by the now-deceased leader of his former pack, Soto. By sticking together rather than falling apart, they had formed a bond unknowingly.
In the course of the three days, old wounds were healed, and the empty places in their hearts were filled with their friendship. They had become a family. All three of them had made promises to protect, to care for, and to support one another through the progression of their lives.
And now Diego wished Manny and Sid were at his side right now.
He recalled the previous time when his life edged close to the brink of death. Thanks to his miraculous 'nine lives', with one gone and eight more remaining, he had survived, or so he believed. But at this very moment, he doubted they would save him, because as the humans closed in on him, the hopelessness of his situation began to test his faith in that old story. His wounded leg hindered his movement, and right now he couldn't even move it without white hot pain traveling up the injured limb.
A spear dove towards him, forcing him to retreat until he was pressed against a wall of rock. They encompassed him, closing off any possible exits, and he knew that even with the upper ledge above him, he still wouldn't make it. He could hear the breaking of rock above his head, and had the notion that extra humans were holding small boulders to pummel him when given the opportunity.
His hackles rose and a growl rose from his throat when he felt a bite of pain as a weapon was thrust toward him, grazing his skin. Gnashing his serrated teeth in the direction of said spear's wielder, he barely held back a pathetic whimper as another was thrown. This one was much closer, and he only just dodged it.
He watched one of his attackers lick his lips, as if trying to taste him before he was roasting over their fire. The action caused a shiver to course through him, but he refused to associate the action with any particular emotion. They could endeavor in torturing him or tearing him apart limb from limb, but he would never admit it. He was not feeling fear. Referencing fear to Diego was like implying Sid had a side of himself that was intelligent. It was unrealistic, and it just didn't fit the saber-tooth cat.
Though he knew, deep down inside of himself, that was a lie, because he was scared. He was terrified of the situation he had gotten himself into. If he had just listened to Manny instead of wandering off and trying to prove a stupid point, then this dilemma would be nonexistent. He would be at their makeshift home, probably pretending to listen to another random idea from the doltish Sid or teasing him along with Manny. He would be safe.
But as the daydream drew a curtain over his glassy green eyes, he was awakened by a sharp pain at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Reality tore through the fabrication of his imagination, and it became apparent once more that he was exactly where he didn't want to be. Choosing to savor the last sliver of control he still had, ignorant of what was happening around him just then, he started yelling.
"Manny! Sid!" His eyes closed shut and his breath came out in panicked, insufficient puffs of air. His body quaked, both from the fright and the pain he was feeling. He pressed his ears down against his head, closing off any sound as he surrendered himself to the inevitable: there was no way he could survive this.
"Diego," the muffled voice could be distinguished despite his blocked hearing, and his small ears twitched upward to allow the phantom voice a path into his head. "C'mon buddy, you gotta be alive," Sid: the maker of their herd and the glue keeping them together.
"Diego, get up," Manfred: the fatherly figure and the one animal they counted on to always have their backs.
A small smile rode up his lips and he silently thanked his mind for allowing him to hear his friends' voices before his death from the hands of the humans.
Something thick and heavy slithered across his midsection, encircling him. The hold tightened, and he found himself in midair not a second later, sputtering while his eyelids flickered open and cry of pain and protest escaped his lips. Staring downwards at the ground, he met the big brown eyes of Manfred and the teal of Sid, who stood at the base of the mammoth's feet.
Diego's pupils dilated in his surprise and agony, but he tried to shove it away to speak.
"Heh… what took you so long?" He got the feeling that a sarcastic reply was about to be made by Manny, but before he could hear it, the world went black.
Black gave way to blue as the world's mottled frame became clear through his blurry vision. He groaned and strained to reel his head upwards as he grew more aware of his surroundings. Manny and Sid had set up camp, and from watching the moving blobs of brown and a light yellow, he could see that they were still preparing shelter. His disoriented vision slid over to the middle of the site, and he watched a smear of dancing red and orange lick at the air. Discerning it to be a campfire, he observed the glow it gave off, leaving bronze patches of light flitting across the surfaces within its range.
"Diego," the voice was white noise in his ears, and the appendages winced in the opposite direction as a reply. "Manny, Diego's awake!" It was Sid, and couldn't the sloth lower his voice in respect for the saber-tooth cat as he just awakened from unconsciousness?
Manfred seemed to notice Diego's discomfort, hissing, "Sid, keep your voice down." At the order, the sloth theatrically pantomimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key. Of course, that didn't stop him from crawling up to Diego, smiling like an idiot.
"How ya feelin', buddy?" The wisp skirting his words brought an odd comfort to Diego, a reminder that he was safe and no longer in danger.
Swallowing thickly, hoping to soothe the burn of his dry throat, he rasped out a reply. "I've had better days." He licked his lips and settled his head in the dip between his two front paws when the world began to spin.
Sid smiled, displaying his crooked front teeth that were yellowed in tint, "I'm just glad you're safe, you gave Manny and me a scare when we saw you…" The sloth allowed his sentence to trail off, and was cut off from any further conversation by Manny marching up to them with narrowed eyes.
"Why didn't you listen to me when I told you not to wander off?" Again taking the role of their 'father figure', Manny stared down at Diego with a disapproving look.
The saber-tooth cat looked off to the side with furrowed eyebrows and a firmly planted frown, reflecting back on the time Manny was talking about.
The feline had scaled a cliff and scouted the terrain around them from the higher ground: a world of white with spots of clear land. Worn trails from the migrating animals could be seen through the breakage of snow in the dell, and he missed the sight of smoke trailing up from the base of the high cliff.
Manny must have noticed it anyway, because just as Diego was about to wander the lower land, he was stopped by the mammoth's voice. "Diego, what are you doing?"
The saber-tooth cat had then paused in his walk, and pictured Manny's facial expression in the back of his mind: all worried, but with a hard mask attempting to cover it up. The mammoth was softening, though, and it was easier for both him and Sid to read him now that the façade was breaking.
"Exploring," he had answered, as if the word explained everything.
Manny had stepped closer to the cliff, and Diego peered down at him as the mammoth stared right back. "Explore somewhere else, just not down there."
"Manny, I'm not some kid. I can do big boy things."
"Yeah, sure, but there are-" He didn't listen to the rest of what his friend had to say as he darted off, and as a result, he'd missed the final words Manfred had spoken.
Manfred was trying to warn him about the human's campsite. As he had wandered, he hadn't sensed how close he had gotten to the tribe's camp before they attacked, and in the process he was put at a disadvantage as his right back leg was speared.
Returning back to the present, he folded his ears back. "Sorry, Manny," he sighed, ascribing the characteristic of an apologetic child. He even looked down at the ground, marginally scooting back as far as he could without harming his wounded leg further. The appendage that was stabbed had herbs on it, and congealed blood caked the fur around it. It throbbed with any motion in his lower half; the simple movement of backing away caused pain to race through the limb. He grunted his discomfort and sagged down to the Earth in defeat, knowing he wouldn't be able to avoid this.
"Diego, you need to be more careful next time and actually listen." Manfred, per usual, seemed to ignore the saber's pain, and went right in for the kill.
Sid eyed the two animals, for once giving consideration to whether he should join in on the conversation or not. Diego watched his mouth open and close several times as if he were about to speak before he finally said, "C'mon, Manny, don't be so hard on him, we just saved him from the humans." He rigged his jaw shut when the mammoth directed his glare towards him, stepping back a little out of fear.
At the action, Manny realized how harsh he was being, and released his stern facial expression with a sigh. "Fine." Turning back to Diego, he scolded him like he was talking to a child, "Just be more careful next time, and more aware of your surroundings." With that said, the mammoth strode back to his shelter to lie down. Sid wobbled toward the campfire to feed it twigs and keep it going through the night. Silence followed, and the singing of the crickets did nothing to calm the tense air.
After a ten minute interval, wherein Diego had been tapping his front paw for five, he finally had enough. "So," the saber-tooth cat grinned, panning his green eyes over the mammoth and the sloth, "how did you guys rescue the 'oh so defenseless' me?"
By the request of 'KaylaDestroyer', I am going to be writing a sequel to this one-shot. I have a lot of stories I am currently working on, so it will be a while. The sequel will be an added chapter to this, or a separate story.