So yeah this is that revised re-write I said I was writing for Journey to The Greenlands all those years ago. Obviously it has undergone some serious changes, like the entire bloody plot for instance.

Yes this story is written from an OC's point of view but I tell you it is a hell of a lot easier to keep the canon characters actually in character from an outside viewpoint. Character derailment is just too easy when writing a long fic from a canon POV as the previous version of this story very clearly demonstrates. However if you bear the mind to read on to chapter 2, or skip to it if you are so inclined, you will very quickly discover that I still put our beloved band of sub zero heroes front and centre from here onward for the entirety of this story. Writing an Ice Age fic without the Ice Age cast is like baking a chocolate pie without the delicious gooey chocolate, not much fun to make and even less fun to... read? Eat? Okay so the analogy kind of stinks but you get the idea.


Chapter1

A Wild Ride

Opening her eyes to the deep orange glow that flooded in through the leaves Sarah gave a lengthy yawn as she stretched her arms above her head in welcome to the new dusk and the long quiet night that was sure to follow. She couldn't help but smile contentedly. What better way to top off a full days rest than waking up to a pleasant sunset like this? No distant animals cries, no overly inquisitive arboreal rodents or hungry predators probing through the leaves; just herself and the large golden disk falling behind the distant hills.

Below her stretched a large white expanse of rolling ice fields, which reached from the base of the small hill on which her tree was situated and out toward the edge of the distant jungle of skeletal trees that itself extended toward the base of the Southern range of snow coated mountains. Spattered across the landscape were a few sparse patches of trees and bushes concentrated mostly around the small creak that ran through the fields. On most days the creek's surface would be frozen solid but it sometimes thawed out enough during Spring and Summer to flow somewhat sluggishly west toward the mountainous horizon and fortunately this happened to be one of those times.

With a small sigh, Sarah reached upward and, using her tiny claws to cling onto the smooth surface of the branch, she began to make her way toward the tree trunk just a few feet away. Stopping as she reached the trunk, Sarah stared down the length of the tree. It rose at a steep angle from the dense leaf litter below, which formed the perfect surface for her to slide down and forego the tiring and pointless exercise of having to climb. She leapt from the branch and onto the trunk, clinging onto its smooth, grey, bark for a few seconds before letting go and sliding down head-first on her belly. Flying off a small hump in the surface where the tree dropped vertically into the ground, she pulled herself into a ball, somersaulting several times in the air before spreading herself again as she fell; landing on her back with a muffled thud in the thick snow that coated the ground.

She whistled loudly as she sat up.

"Try hard!" a voice called.

Surprised, Sarah turned to see a small family of horned beavers who had apparently stopped to view her antics. Whilst the adults seemed somewhat impressed by her stunt, the younger kid was standing, arms folded with a disapproving scowl on his face.

"And you are?" she asked in reply.

The boy opened his mouth to answer but before he could the mother to wrapped an arm around the him and began to guide him away with the father giving Sarah a brief nod of approval.

"Thanks," Sarah replied quietly, before the beaver turned and hurried after the rest of the family as they headed away up the hill.

Getting to her feet, Sarah quickly began to brush the leaves and snow flakes from her fur. Normally she liked to think of herself as a calm, level headed possum with a slight sporty bend owing to her predominantly male family but waking up to the first genuinely cloud free evening in almost a month put her in such high spirits that she felt she just had to do something special to commemorate the occasion.

Suddenly a twig snapped nearby and Sarah froze, listening intently for any nearby movement. She sniffed the air for any unusual scent that might indicate a predator but it was no good, the sound had come from somewhere downwind. Another crunch emanated from roughly the same spot, and she spun to face it. Although nothing was immediately obvious, Sarah quickly noticed a big bushy tail rising out from behind a nearby snowdrift.

Immediately recognising its puffy, yellow-gray striped appearance Sarah quietly lowered herself onto all fours and remained as still as possible. A wide, cheeky grin creeping across her features as the tail continued closer and the creature to which it was attached began to emerge over the top of the snowdrift starting with a pair of prominent batty ears. Most of its stomach and chest up to its chin was covered by creamy-yellow fur with the rest of his body covered in a rather mangy coat of grey-black, and as it reached the top of the snowdrift a good view of the animals lower half confirmed that it was indeed male.

"Brown fur on white snow Sarah?" the creature suddenly asked with smile as his light brown eyes met Sarah's. "Gotta admit I expected better from ya' girl."

It was Michael, a well natured, roughly middle-aged glider who although a little timid at times seemed to possess a perpetually sunny disposition. Although he'd been living on the opposite side of the hill for several years before Sarah had moved here, it was very obvious to her that his kind wasn't native to this region given his curious accent. This manifested in a strong emphasis on the vowel sounds with an upward inflection at the end of every sentence which rather frustratingly made just about everything he said sound like a question to anyone who wasn't used to it. Also he apparently preferred to be called by the rather childish sounding moniker of Mikey.

Sarah laughed as she jumped up and walked over to meet him, "Gimme a break I only just got out of the tree."

"So ya' did," he remarked. "Why ya' tryin' to hide from old Mikey then? 'fraid I'd try to seduce ya' or somethin' 'cause I can assure ya' my intentions are pure as snow."

"Hah, maybe if it got tread on a few times, after a skunk sprayed on it and it was left out in the sun to mature for a while."

"Say no more, love," Mikey replied with a chuckle, "It's that time of the season again. I know, I can feel it in my, uuhh, tail."

Sarah giggled, she knew exactly what he really meant, and it certainly wasn't his tail.

"Hah, unless you're planning on trying out some sort of freaky interspecies thing, what are your chances of getting any honestly?" she exclaimed, however, despite her exact words she actually thought it sort of odd that he was the only glider around here, with the obvious exception of the flying squirrels occupying the northern ridge.

"I'd say they're far better than yours, considerin' this anti-bloke thing you got going," Mikey retorted.

"So what if I don't want to do that just yet?"

"Heh. Well in your case that's probably a wise choice. Now I don't know you're species that well but from what I've heard, possums of the male variety have no sense of paternal responsibility."

"My thought's exactly."

"Ah, possums," Mikey continued his voice fading slightly before turning his face back to Sarah with a grin of ever-present enthusiasm, "How'd you sleep today, boy when I woke up this evening; I tell you now, I don't think I've ever needed to pee so badly in my entire life."

"And you're telling me this, why?" Sarah asked as she turned and started toward the top of the hill.

"I'm just in a sharing mood today. Too much water 'fore bed I think." Mikey replied, as he walked along beside Sarah. "That was some sunset eh?"

"What, that one?" Sarah asked as pointed toward the hills behind which the final yellow gleams of sunlight were disappearing, "Or one of the other million before it."

"Well it's certainly a nice change from all that cloud and snow we've been gettin' lately."

"I guess."

Sarah glanced sideways towards Mikey. He was certainly cheerful today, maybe he'd found a bunch of overripe fruit and gotten a little tipsy because if he had it wouldn't be the first time.

"So you had any close encounters of the male variety lately?" he asked.

"Can we please talk about something that doesn't relate to mating in any way," Sarah pleaded.

It was still early evening with some pink-orange sunlight still hanging around in the sky, and already she had had well and truly enough of that particular subject for tonight. There was still the entire season to get through yet and if things continued this way every night a wild killing spree was all but inevitable.

"Well," Mikey began, with a quick glance toward his stomach, "The ol' tum and I have been havin' a little talk about the proposition of breakfast, and we wanted to know what you think. I feel like fruit myself."

"What kind?" Sarah asked.

"Just a second," Mikey answered, leaning down and pretending to listen intently to his own belly. "Uh huh, just as I thought, fresh and filling."

Sarah couldn't help but giggle. "How about the trees down by waterfall?I think the peach ones are ripe by now."

"A juicy idea indeed, lead on!"

"Yeah, how about you do the leading tonight," she replied, "I'm still a little dizzy from that back-flip a moment ago."

This was of course a blatant lie, and from Mikey's slightly raised eyebrow Sarah could tell he wasn't buying it, but true to his ridiculously none threatening personality the glider maintained his friendly composure and simply responded with an understanding smile.

"No problem love, you just follow old Mikey then. I know a few shortcuts anyway."

He dropped to all fours and started off walking horizontally along the frosty hillside towards the northern face, and Sarah followed, preferring to maintain her upright posture as she walked quietly behind him. As usual with the coming of springtime just about everything was blooming some kind of flower or another. Most animals cherished this time of warmth and flourishing plant life and as such chose to celebrate in the traditional manner of adding another litter to the den, but for Sarah it signalled the beginning of a great personal challenge.

This year in following some rather interesting advice from her eldest, and only remaining brother she had decided to take it upon herself to go an entire season without making any kind of whoopee with anyone. The reason being that it was supposed to make the off-season positively mind blowing, but to put things in perspective she had never achieved so much as three days let alone four months so it was also fair personal challenge of fortitude and she was all for the bragging rights come the annual family reunion or as she liked to call it the 'whose not dead yet' headcount. She had a strange family.

Suddenly Mikey froze, his tail dropped low to the ground and he immediately began to gaze around at the surrounding icy foliage while anxiously sniffing the air.

"What is it?" Sarah whispered, and she too stopped and began to sniff the air, eager to detect whatever scent Mikey had picked up. It didn't take long for the smell of blood and fur to hit her nostrils.

Normally she'd assume that something had died or at least been killed somewhere nearby but there was something different this time, something was missing. She sniffed again to see if she'd just missed it but usual scent of decaying flesh was weak, far too weak, and the scent of blood and fur was far too strong. There was something else there too, an unfamiliar mammalian odour that she just couldn't identify no matter how hard she tried. There was however still one thing she was sure of and that this smell was no vulture, it had the stench of a land predator all over it and it was definitely somewhere close by.

Suddenly, somewhere to her left in the uphill direction, she heard a deep menacing growl. With a soft crunch she hit the ground, eyes closed and completely limp, a natural survival reaction common to her species that she possessed no conscious control over. Indeed to any other animal she would have appeared dead and that was the idea, to appear as the most unattractive prey item possible.

Unfortunately this left her perfectly awake and conscious of her surroundings through her senses of smell and hearing, and usually in some of the most uncomfortable positions possible. Now was no different, and being basically paralyzed there was nothing she could do to correct her body, or pull her tongue away from the freezing ground to which it was now almost certainly stuck.

"Hey you, back off!' she heard Mikey call, "This is mine."

"What?" a deep and unfamiliar voice asked.

Whatever it was, it was certainly surprised by Mikey's presence. Of course this did little to distract from the fact that the creature definitely sounded much bigger than Sarah and inarguably meaner.

"I said this possum's mine, I saw it first," Mikey replied, without a single trace of fear or anxiety.

At that moment Sarah couldn't have felt any more thankful for Mikey's quick thinking, even if it wasn't particularly bright.

"What, that thing?" the voice asked, it definitely sounded closer now.

"'Course, what else?" Mikey responded.

"Err, nothing. Did you say it was a possum?"

The voice was now terrifyingly close now and Sarah could distinctly hear the loud, crunching footsteps of something very large approaching and the stench of blood and fur had grown almost overwhelming.

"Yeah and it's my breakfast." Mikey continued.

"Breakfast?" the creature exclaimed, "But it's night"

"What's it to you?"

"Not much. Just make sure it's really dead, I've been around those things and I gotta tell ya; they fake it pretty good."

"Oh it's dead alright, I checked," Mikey responded confidently.

"Well I think you need to check again, cos' that one aint as dead as you think."

Now the footsteps had silenced and the voice sounded as if it were right next to her; and it sounded strangely amused. "Look, see it breathing?"

"Eh? Whatdya' know it is," Mikey replied, feigning surprise, "I'm still gonna eat it."

"No you're not," the voice snarled.

"Hey I said it was mine!" Mikey shouted indignantly.

"I don't want it."

"Then what do you want?"

"Nothing, just passing through" the voice answered, "Heh, enjoy your possum."

Suddenly Sarah could hear the sound of heavy crunching footsteps moving quickly away from her and in seconds they had disappeared amongst the loud chirping of crickets in the fields below and Mikey finally spoke up again.

"It's okay Sarah, he's gone now."

Slowly Sarah opened her eyes and gazed around at the surrounding hillside. As far as she could tell, nothing much had changed. The sky was still dark blue deepening to navy filled with shimmering starlight, and Mikey was standing next to her facing away and down the hill toward the snowfields.

There was no sign of the predator and its scent had once again become little more than an innocuous odour on the wind.

"Where'd he go?" Sarah asked, still a little too nervous to get to her feet just yet.

"The field I guess," Mikey answered, and he gave an impressed whistle, "He always hunts down there. Little strange that he's hunting at night though." He turned back to Sarah with a thoughtful, almost nostalgic calm spread across his features, "C'mon let's go. No need to worry about him, them tigers only take the big stuff."

"What, morsels like us just a snack then?" Sarah asked as she proceeded to brush snow from her previously pristine coat.

"Nah, not worth the trouble," Mikey replied as a happy grin once again returned to his face, "Good chat though mind you. Shall we?"

Sarah just gave him a questioning gaze as the pair once again set off along the hillside with Mikey in the lead on all fours with his tail held high, and Sarah following close behind trying her hardest to fight the sudden overwhelming urge to literally kick him in the butt.

By the time Sarah and Mikey had reached the waterfall the sun had long since disappeared behind the hills and night was well and truly upon the land leaving only the moon and the stars to shine down, their weak luminescence colouring the rolling hills and fields the most beautiful hues of blue and grey. High-time for the crickets was certainly in full force as the sounds of their chirps rose up from the plains and mixed with the other various nocturnal calls to create the evening cacophony which filled the air around the two hungry mammals, who were currently perched in the fork of a peach tree, tucking into their evening breakfast. True portraits of fruity gluttony

Sarah couldn't help humming happily as she jammed yet another fresh, juicy peach into her mouth and experienced the ensuing torrent of sweet, peachy goodness. From the branch just across from her, Mikey signaled his enjoyment of the meal in the usual male tradition of a loud belch, a might bit crass admittedly but neither of them were known for good table manners. In all honesty Sarah was probably messiest out of the two considering the copious amount for sticky peach juice and small pieces of fruit stuck all over her face. Her mother had always told her to grow up and act more lady like but that pretty much went right out the window when Sarah left to live on her own, not that she'd ever really listened anyway.

Just across from them, amongst the shrubs and bushes on the opposite bank of the small brook the peach trees bordered, Mikey had pointed out the silhouettes of a small group of animals sleeping together in a clearing. Although the actual number and type of animals present was hidden by the surrounding shrubbery, the smells wafting across on the cool night breeze carried quite a variety of unique but rather unfamiliar animal scents. Amongst them Sarah certainly recognized the musk of blood and fur from the event earlier this evening and it didn't take a genius to know what that indicated. Not that it worried her though, as Mikey said, it wouldn't be interested in such small morsels like them.

"Hey Sarah, do you hear that?" Mikey asked, after swallowing a fresh mouthful of peach.

Sarah listened intently for a few seconds, and sure enough there it was, a most peculiar sound emanating from across the brook. Although she couldn't be quite sure from this distance, it sounded a heck of a lot like someone moaning, probably in their sleep.

"Someone's have'n a real' nice dream by the sound of it," Mikey remarked with a snide grin.

"Or a real bad one," Sarah corrected.

Mikey shrugged and took another bite out of his peach, "Waffeva oatfs yeh boat."

"Aww, that's it I'm stuffed," Sarah announced finally laying back against the branch.

Mikey didn't reply but she could hear him taking another squelchy bite out of his peach. Geez, with the mountainous volumes he tended to take in at every sitting he really should have looked more like a gelatinous blob of fat and fur rather than a glider with a prominent belly-bulge.

"What do you think we should do next then?" Sarah asked once Mikey had swallowed his mouthful.

"Dunno'," Mikey answered, "Your night love, pick something."

"Hmmm," Sarah gazed up into the above branches as she mused over the possibilities for this evening.

She really didn't feel like a race down the hill, mostly because the only clear path was on the far side and she didn't like trekking that far on a full stomach. Plus the brook was by far one of her favourite places, even if the 'waterfall' that fed it was only really a trickling stream downhill that dripped and sputtered, but she liked it better that way. Admittedly the snoring echoing across from the opposite shore was a little annoying though. Come to think of it, she and Mikey might as well check out the newcomers while they were here, after all she'd never seen a saber before and it wasn't like she'd had a good look herself earlier.

"Wanna check out the tiger?" Sarah suggested.

Mikey gave her a strange look, "No need. I know him. Not on first name terms mind you, but we've had our little encounters."

"Well, it's not just a tiger. You smell the other things? We could find out what they are."

Mikey just chuckled and stood up on his branch as began to stretch, "Two mammoths and a sloth, oh and a couple of possums; 'bout your age actually."

"How the heck could you know that?" asked Sarah.

"What, just one of the local herds." Mikey answered casually, "Quite a weird bunch really, and boy have they got some stories. I mean I take it all with a big ol' pinch a salt mind you, but it's damn good fun if you got the time and like a good long chit-chat."

"You know those animals?" Sarah asked, indicating the opposite side of the brook.

"I've been here damn near twenty long ones love. I know lots of herds around here," Mikey replied, suddenly spreading his arms and legs, and consequently stretching his gliding flaps to full width, "Would you like to see 'em then? It's about time you got to know ya' neighbours."

Sarah couldn't help but feel a little puzzled by this suggestion. Not that she was particularly averse to meeting new people, but given the current time of night most animals would be asleep including those species that Mikey had just mentioned, except the possums of course.

"Ahh, Mikey are you sure…" Sarah began, "I mean, won't they be asleep?"

"No problem, love. We'll just pop around for a quick looksy, no need to wake anybody," Mikey said back to her as he approached the edge of the branch and prepared to leap off, "I'll go first shall I?" And with that he leapt from the branch, falling a few feet before his gliding flaps managed to catch the air instantly ceasing his earthward plummet and carry him gracefully over to the opposite bank where he dived in amongst the branches with a soft rustling and grabbed hold of a tree trunk.

'Easy enough for you,'Sarah thought irritably as she gazed down toward the ground beneath her branch and started toward the tree trunk.

All Mikey had to do was glide across; she had to cross the brook by jumping across a couple of stepping stones further downstream. Not that it took her long to reach them and jump across them on all fours with relative ease, but it still took her a while to get back to the bank opposite the peach trees mostly because of her reluctance to actually meet this herd. For one thing, why in the hell would she ever want to come anywhere near a tiger let alone spy on it, and although Mikey had already informed her of their presence, the air was rank with male pheromones, and that smell harboured no appeal to her whatsoever.

"Oi, up here Sarah," she heard Mikey call down from one of the nearby trees.

Looking up into the sparse canopy above her it wasn't hard for Sarah to spot the glider standing in the fork a few trees away from her, gesturing for her to join him in the tree. Not willing to risk vocalizing a response this close to a tiger, Sarah just nodded and dropped to all fours as she scampered as quietly and as quickly as she could over to Mikey's tree.

"Geez, does the word stealth mean anything to you?" Sarah whispered as she clambered onto Mikey 's branch.

"Huh, not with this bunch, you'd have better luck wakin' the dead," Mikey replied quietly, "The tiger's the only one with ears. The rest are just for show if you ask me."

Sarah looked from Mikey down into the clearing a few feet away from their tree, and sure enough there they were, exactly as Mikey had described; two enormous, shaggy mounds of red-orange fur which she assumed to be the mammoths, a light green pelted sloth lying in an extremely awkward and uncomfortable position against a half-rotten log, and an orange furred saber sleeping apart from the others on the edge of the clearing. Given the distance she had to assume that either the saber wasn't exactly good chums with the others or he was an extremely lousy sentry.

Strangely though, even though their smell was pretty damn strong around here, no matter how hard she looked she couldn't see any sign of the possums Mikey had mentioned, and naturally this made Sarah extremely nervous.

"Hey, Mikey, where are the other possums?" Sarah whispered.

"Hmm? I dunno, they usually hang around the big girl one over there," Mikey pointed out one of the mammoths whose coat was a much lighter hue of orange.

Sarah looked more closely around the mammoth he indicated, and after a brief search she noticed two tiny beige lumps on the ground right next to it.

"Are those them?" she asked, indicating the two lumps.

"Heh, waddaya know," Mikey commented with a chuckle.

"What is it? Is it them?"

"Eh? Nah, look at that," Mikey pointed toward the mammoths again, only this time it was another much smaller mound of similarly coloured fur upon which his index claw fell, "Aww, would ya' look at that. Congrats Manny, ya' finally gotcha-self a kid."

"Manny?"

"Manny and Ellie, they're the mammoths."

"Wait I thought you said you didn't know the names?" Sarah pointed incredulously.

"Not the tiger or the possums no, but I know the sloth and the mammoths. Just about everyone here knows 'em. Sid, Manny and Ellie they're called. Last I heard Ellie was preggers with a lil' mammoth, I didn't know they'd actually had the baby yet."

"So what, you wanna wait 'til morning to congratulate them or something?" Sarah asked, "I don't know about you but… whoa what was that?"

Sarah looked down toward the ground as the tree branch began to vibrate awkwardly. Oddly enough it didn't look like anything was brushing against the tree, if anything the way the leaf litter was starting to move about made it look like the ground itself was vibrating. Despite this Mikey seemed pretty unconcerned.

"No worries Sarah, it's just a little earthquake," he replied calmly.

"What!" Sarah exclaimed, regrettably at full volume, and out of the corner of her eye she could see the tiger stirring.

"Calm down love, no need to get yourself all worked up it's just a little'un, happens all the time. They-" Mikey paused as his ears perked up and he began to glance around nervously, "You know what, scratch that. Grab onto something."

"What now?" Sarah asked.

"Well, ya' hear that?"

Heeding Mikey's suggestion Sarah quieted down and listened intently to the night air. At first she couldn't tell what he was talking about but after a second or two she noticed a distinct rumbling in the distance coming from the direction of the mountains and it sounded like it was coming closer, and it was coming fast.

"A stampede?" Sarah asked, but Mikey just shook his head and chuckled.

"Ha, you wish babe," he replied, grabbing a firm hold of the branch, "You best get ready for a wild ride."


I'm sorry that the canon characters recieved little more than a cameo in this chapter but trust me it's all about them from here on out.
Also as an admittedly flimsy pre-emptive defence against copy-cat accusations, Mikey's accent is Australian not British.