I have officially decided to use possum. Thanks to all who have reviewed Change! :)
Disclaimer: Anyone else find it absolutely ridiculous how they make you put these things in each and every story/chapter? Anyway, I don't own Ice Age or any of its characters.
Sid grimaced. He specifically recalled throwing a newly-made coral necklace around a sleeping Diego's neck just a few hours ago. But now, observing from a distance, he saw that the saber was now awake and chatting with Manny - with nothing around his neck.
The sloth decided to question this out loud. He wobbled over to his two good friends, and asked, "Hey Diego, what happened to that necklace I gave you earlier today?"
The mammoth and saber exchanged looks. "Sid, I don't remember you ever giving me a piece of junk."
Sid frowned. "It's not junk! I made that for you! I put it around your neck while you were napping!"
"Not smart to do, Sid. Anything could've happened to it while I was asleep. Probably floated away to the ocean, for instance."
"But you weren't napping anywhere near the tide!"
"Who knows? A bird probably picked it up and dropped it in the water," said Diego rather matter-of-factly.
Sid pouted. "Fine then, I'll swim out and look for it myself!"
"You sure you wanna do that? It's probably long gone already, and the waters are probably infested with sharks."
"Nuh uh! I put my head underwater the other day, and the only things down there were small fishies!"
Diego didn't bother asking why Sid was doing that in the first place. "So you haven't heard of the legendary saber shark?"
Sid looked perplexed. On the other hand, Manny, who was clearly silent the whole time, just gave Diego a look that plainly said, 'What the hyrax are you talking about?'
Diego explained further. "Legend says that a shark once mated with a saber. Their saber shark offspring lived underwater, but they're just as carnivorous, and they tend to be more deadly, since their swimming prey usually don't see them. And I heard that they live in these areas."
Sid looked doubtful. "Diego, I know you're just trying to scare me into not going into the water."
"Okay, but if your leg suddenly gets bitten off, don't say I didn't warn ya."
Sid started trembling, but didn't succumb. "Fine! I'll probably find your necklace before any saber shark finds me!" He headed off towards the direction of the water.
Manny finally spoke. "Saber shark? Really? Even Sid didn't get scared enough to give up!"
Diego just smirked. "Not now, but he will." He started walking away.
Manny called out after him, "Where you going?"
He only got a "You'll see" in return.
Sid gulped. What if what Diego said was true? But usually, whenever he or Manny disapproved of something Sid wanted to do, they would, more often than not, tell some tall tale to prevent Sid from doing that certain task. And sure enough, Sid eventually found out that all of them were fibs.
Come on, Sid, they weren't telling the truth before. Why would they start now?
But you never know... Diego looked dead serious.
Doesn't he always look like that?
Yeah, but...still.
After that brief battle with his conscience, Sid managed to dip his toe into the ankle-deep water. He slowly but carefully put his entire foot in. He then brought his other foot in. He waded into the deeper areas, looking for that darn necklace, while also trying to scout out any signs of saber sharks. For both, he couldn't see anything yet.
He went into the even deeper waters. By the second, he was growing more and more confident that the saber shark was just a bunch of bananas. His guard gradually let down, and completely focused his mind onto looking for the necklace.
Splash!
Sid's head shot up, wondering if he heard right. That splash certainly wasn't made by him. He looked behind him, and saw nothing. He merely shrugged it off, and resumed searching.
Splash!
Sid whirled around, and again saw only the peacefulness of the sea. He was getting slightly spooked. He went back to searching, occasionally glancing behind him in nervousness. And just when he thought the creature that had made the splash noise had gone away-
The sloth felt a harsh pain in his right leg." AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
He quickly swam out of the water, and stumbled across the sand, frantically looking for Manny or Diego, not even clear on what direction he was headed. He eventually found them, completely freaked out.
Normally, Manny would be sympathetic, but Sid got himself into many mishaps often, so sounding pitiful was useless. "What happened to you this time, Sid?"
"S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-"
Manny hit Sid with his trunk. "Cut that out, Sid!"
"S-S-SABER SHARK!"
Manny just gave a disbelieving look, while Diego looked smug.
"It's t-true! It sunk its fangs into my leg!" Sid showed the other two his wound.
Diego's smug expression never left his face. "Told you."
Manny rolled his eyes. "Sid, you can't be sure it was a saber shark. You probably just caught your foot on something and scraped it really hard."
"No! It was a saber shark! The bite felt exactly like a saber's bite!"
"And you would know what a saber's bite feels like how?"
"Don't you remember? It was that time Diego slammed me into a hole and bit me!"
"You were spying on me and Shira, and made me lose my dignity once again," Diego stated. "Sorry buddy, but you kinda deserved that."
Manny rolled his eyes again. "Alright Sid, I'll get Ellie to clean your wound and find something to ease the pain." He put the sloth on his back and walked off, calling Ellie's name.
As for Diego, he went off towards the ocean where the saber shark had attacked Sid. He saw Shira shaking off the water from her pelt. He smirked.
"Glad I gave you swimming lessons?"
Shira shot him a look. "The sloth tastes worse than he looks, and he looks horrible. That's the last time I'm ever pretending to be a 'saber shark' just so you could convince him that they're real. Which they're not."
Improvisation can affect a story so much... This was originally meant to be a story about all of Sid's attempts on getting Diego to wear the necklace he makes him, but while I was coming up with the conversation between Sid and Diego, I thought about Diego's bluff about 'saber sharks' and decided to base the entire one-shot on it instead, as it seemed much more interesting.
Abrupt ending, but I was racking my brain and trying to figure out a way on how to end this. Nothing good enough came to mind, and that was the best I could come up with. -n-
Okay, I obviously still need to practice writing in this fandom, but I'm still brainless on ideas for it. So I'm going to ask you guys if you have any inspiration that you could lend me.
Also, did anyone catch the reference to Change? ;D
R & R!