A/N: New fanfic? Why, yes! Yes, it is! This one came to me a long, long time ago, but I just never got around to doing it. But now I am! I really hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Summary: It turns out that the herd never included merely three animals. In fact, it included one more, someone really unexpected. Her name was Roxanne Bunny, preferably Roxie. She wanted more than what her family had planned for her, she wanted adventure, and that was how she had run into Manny and Sid, later on being Diego. OC/Diego
I cursed again as Mother finally managed to call my name, suppressing me once more in another morning from making a run for it. I had been trying for five months now to escape my family, to escape the burrow, and finally be able to find my own story and find my own path to take instead of, as Mother had quoted, "Find the right rabbit and settle down." That wasn't what I wanted. It wasn't even close.
Sure, a mate sounded fairly nice, but so early in my lifetime? There was so much more out there than what Mother had planned. Speaking of her, she was currently yanking on my left ear, dragging me back into the burrow where my seventeen brothers occupied, my father had died years ago from being hunted by a pack of sabers.
"Honestly, Roxanne," she said in her usual criticizing tone, "You were really think of starting the migration without us."
"Yeah," I mumbled as I rubbed my now sore ear. "That's what I was doing..."
My brothers each snickered and pointed at me as I grumbled and crossed my arms. I was the oldest of the bunch and happened to be the only sister. Each of them was dumber than the next, obviously earning my father's genes. It was hopeless. I would be stuck with this bunch for forever.
"C'mon, kids, got all your things? The carrots, the water?" Mother asked, returning and less angry now about my failed escape.
"Jimmy ate all the carrots, Mom!" one of my little brothers blamed, pointing to my most overweight sibling, who burped. I rolled my eyes and groaned miserably. This was already starting off as another horrible migration, which is just following animals out towards where we're 'safe', which has proven to be a big, fat lie.
"I suppose we'll have to find a substitute on the way, then!" Mother let out a sigh and pointed to the exit of our burrow. "Alright, all of you go first so I can count ya!" As each hopped by her, she counted all of them until she got to me. "Come now, Roxanne, I bet you'll find yourself a mate right when we get there!" My eye twitched in annoyance.
"Oh, joy!"
As we piled out, we all settled on the path where all the much bigger animals were taking. We were probably the smallest, and most likely the most weakest on the food chain there, considering we were herbivores. The boys hopped ahead, Mom dragging my wrist to catch up to them.
"Emmett, let go of your brother! Billy, no, don't chew that! Gregory Bunny, that is not another bunny!" She was struggling so much she actually had to let me go, which I was incredibly thankful for because this meant I could sag behind the group, slowly making my way but at my own pace.
It was only after three minutes that something finally out of the ordinary occurred for me to snap my attention away from my angry thoughts to the yells coming from a few miles behind the animals moving away. My ear twitched for a moment and I just stared until the yells happened again. Looking back toward my mom whom was way ahead, I noticed her full attention was still on my brothers.
Smirking, I got to my paws and hind legs and took off toward where the yells were coming from. Usually, bunnies just walked on their hind legs, but it was much easier to run this way. Soon, I came to a ledge which stared down into a gorge. I noticed about four animals below, either angry or downright terrified.
"That's a bit of an odd picture," I said, sitting on my haunches. It was two rhinos charging after a sloth, whom hid behind a mammoth. It seemed the rhinos were trying to convince the mammoth to let them have at the sloth. "Seems I should be the one to interfere, however!" Looking to the side, I spotted a tree and grinned, gaining a brilliant idea.
Getting to the top, I began to pull at the branch until I was at the bottom, where I let go of my pressure and let it chuck me out into the scene. I was aiming for the rhinos, but instead, I landed face first right in between the feud, painfully so. "Maybe I should've just walked here," I grunted uncomfortably, rubbing my stomach as I stumbled to my feet.
"Can anything else go horribly wrong?" the mammoth whined.
"So...I take you were bluffing about the sink hole, eh?" the sloth asked, looking up at him.
"Yeah...yeah that was a bluff."
The rhinos looked at the ground where I had landed, before looking at each other, each wearing the same smirk. "GET 'EM!"
Shrieking my protests, I threw myself away toward the mammoth, clinging onto him with my claws until I got to the very top. There was no way a small bunny like myself could take on two fully grown rhinoceroses on my own. The mammoth managed to throw both off with ease, making my eyes widen in surprise and my mouth practically drop.
"You're pretty good," I giggled.
"Yeah! We did it, we did!" the sloth squealed, throwing his arms around the mammoth, which made the three of us slip off the edge and down until we hit solid ground, hard enough to throw myself off the mammoth's back.
"You have beautiful eyes," the sloth said from the trunk of the mammoth.
"Get off my face," the mammoth grumbled, standing up and flicking him off as he made his way away from the two of us.
"Wow, the three of us? The three of us make a great team, you know that? We should all head south together," the sloth grinned, taking my paw and helping me up.
"Oh, yeah, both of ya hop up on my back and relax the whole way!"
"Really?"
"No!"
The mammoth continued on his way opposite to where the other animals were going. Ears falling, I ran ahead so I was walking level with him. "Aren't you going south? The pack of mindless animals is heading that way," I pointed over my shoulder carelessly as the sloth ran to the mammoth's other side.
"Shouldn't you be with your litter of kits?" he asked sarcastically. I glared.
"I'm actually single and have no kits, thank you very much," I crossed my arms. "I just abandoned my f - I mean...I've been alone my whole life. Kind of preferred it that way," I lied. If he knew I left Mom and my brothers, he might not let me follow him. "My name's Roxanne, by the way, but call me Roxie."
"That's great, bye!" the mammoth walked further ahead. I pouted and continued following him, this time more determined.
"Yeah, that south thing is really overrated," the sloth sucked up to him. "Isn't it great? Two bachelors and a bachelorette in the wild?"
"No, you just want a bodyguard and she just needs company, whereas I, not surprisingly, do not."
"You're a very shrewd mammoth," the sloth pointed out. "Well, can you lead the way, Mr. Big Guy?"
"Manfred," he introduced grimly.
The sloth giggled and began to list ways of his names, using the constant term, 'Manny'.
Finally, Manny had enough and grabbed a log the sloth had clung himself on to. "Stop following me." He looked at me. "And you, go back to being the soloist you claim to be."
"No way! You guys are the actual first mammals I can come to like!" I wasn't lying really here. Despite the sloth's idiocy and the mammoth's rudeness, it seemed to even out my brattiness. This would prove to be a weird group, but I did not want to go back to Mom and my brothers...