Ellie and Manny watched as Diego lay down some distance away from them and looked up at the moon.
"He seems lonely, don't you think?" asked Ellie.
"Nah, he's just enjoying the quietness." dismissed Manny.
"No, there's something wrong with him. He's so silent and withdrawn." continued Ellie.
"Diego has always been reticent. He's all right."
"But he spends more time alone now, than with his newfound pack. Maybe they got into a fight?" suggested Ellie.
"Stop worrying; he's their leader, why should he get into a fight with them. They're all so young."
"That's exactly the point. He is getting old. Have you noticed he's gotten thinner over the last months?"
"No, Diego is the same as when I first met him. Old!" Manny waved his head unbelievingly.
"Well, if you don't believe me, go and see him yourself, talk to him." Ellie insisted.
"Ok." Manny sighed.
Slowly he walked up to where Diego was sitting and stood beside him. When he glanced at his long time friend he saw that Ellie was right after all. Diego hat gotten quite skinny. Once muscled and strong he was now wiry and his ribs showed through his thick fur, which turned more and more grey.
"What are you looking at?" questioned Diego without facing him.
He sounded hoarse and tired.
"Nothing."
Manny quickly stopped staring at the sabre-toothed. A short uncomfortable silence fell over them, before Manny spoke once again.
"Ellie worries about you, you know?"
"And why would that be?"
Diego seemed not in the least interested in the subject. Over the last time, he had hardly shown interest for anything besides sleeping and watching the stars.
"Because you're being so anti-social and she seldom sees you with your pack anymore."
Diego got up and took a few steps forward, so he was standing where the cliff fell. He gazed down into the black abyss. Manny noted that he was limping again and tried to keep his weight off his right foot, the foot on which he landed when he fought with Soto.
"I'm getting old Manny." Diego suddenly said.
"Oh come on! You're not old; you just have a bad day."
"Over the last three months?" Diego chuckled, but it was twisted, with some underlying bitterness in it. "No."
They fell silent again.
"I chased after a gazelle today."
Manny waited for him to continue.
"She mocked me for being so slow and easily exhausted. I haven't caught one in the last six weeks without help. I have to eat what the others leave, to keep myself halfway satisfied."
"Wait, what the others leave you? But I thought you were their leader? Aren't they supposed to let you feed first?" interrupted Manny alarmed.
"Normally they would, but I'm not their leader anymore. I'm out." Diego told him in a sullen voice.
The words needed time to sink in.
"You mean, they kicked you out?"
"Pretty much."
"But, but… How?"
"When the leader becomes too old, the younger will challenge him, the winner stays, the loser has to leave."
"They challenged you to fight them?"
Diego nodded curtly.
"And you lost?"
Diego nodded again.
"Isn't there a way for you to return?"
"If I'd battle them and win, they would have to accept me back."
"Then do it."
Diego shook his head vehemently.
"I can't! Don't you understand? I'm simply too old to be a match for them! If I'd go back they wouldn't hesitate to kill me!" he cried desperately.
"But that's unfair; you leaded them for over fife years."
"Don't Manny, that's just the way life is. You appear, you act, and you disappear. We all have to disappear once, even you, even Peaches will have to someday, though I hope that day is far away. When your time comes, you have to accept it."
Diego said all this frightening calm, as if he'd just told Manny he would go on vacation and be back in a few weeks.
Goodbye my friend, we'll never see each other again, but don't be sad.
It had been summer back then, now it was spring. Diego had died in the middle of winter. Not suddenly or abrupt, but quite. He simply hadn't been in his cave one morning when Sid came to look after him, because he didn't move around so much anymore. They found him some distance away, at his favourite spot to watch the moon. He'd looked like he'd just be sleeping. Calm and peaceful. Sid had been devastated, Peaches was too young to understand and so they let her believe Diego was still sleeping and dreaming a happy dream from which he couldn't wake up. Ellie had somehow seen it coming when he told her the night before, he would be taking a walk in the morning and that Sid shouldn't search for him. After all cats went away, when they knew their time had come and sought a place were they could die alone and in quietude. Manny was captured between being happy, that Diego had had such a good life with a good end and being disappointed, because his old friend had decided to leave him so early and hadn't said a word. Afterwards he made it a habit to get up early and watch the sunrise on Diego's little hill.
Goodbye my friend, we'll never see each other again, but don't be sad.