Consciousness came slower than a tundra spring to Morgan and the blurred shapes in front of her half-lidded eyes made no sense to her aching head. She groaned as feeling slowly crept into her numb body. "Mmmmmm," she moaned again, trying to move her trunk; she inched the tip a ways, and gave up, resigning to allow her dead limbs to wake up.
Then came the strange, distorted voice. "Rise an' shiiii-iiiine," it sang cheerily. Morgan forced her dazed eyes farther open but had to promptly snap them shut at the harsh light.
"C'mon, wake up," the voice (less distorted now) prompted.
Why in tusk's name did that voice sound familiar? Cracking her eyes open, carefully, she focused on the grey blur hovering over her head. She soon realized that the hovering blur had a pair of inquisitive blue eyes, a large pair of front teeth and an even larger nose. "Hi there!" it greeted, an even broader grin crossing its features.
The startled mammoth female had but on reaction for the smiling sloth: "AAAAHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Manny flicked a small ear upwards, cocking his eyebrows in puzzlement. "Did you hear something?" he inquired to the mammoth female beside him.
Lifting her own minute ears, she shook her head. "No. Nothin' but birds." Her mate looked at her, his expression still suspicious. Ellie sighed quietly and ripped up another shrub. She tucked it gently into her mouth and chewed. There hadn't been the slightest bit of trouble all morning. The only carnivore they'd seen was a bright red fox as it slunk through the underbrush. No one else other than occasional birds and squirrels could be seen, heard, or smelled. Scanning the area around her for the millionth time, she realized they were not far from the original camp. The mammoth female's mind was drawn to Crash and Eddie. Ellie caught herself wishing she knew where her brothers were, if they were safe. "Manny," she unconsciously began, "d' you think that…Crash and Eddie will…?"
The mammoth bull swallowed a mouthful of chewed leaves. "What? Find us?" he finished. Seeing Ellie nod, her expression worried, he tried to calmly reassure his mate. "I wouldn't worry about those two. They're not on the ground, and there's plenty of protection up in those trees." He tried to be comforting, but her concern did not abate.
"But what if they can't find us?" Ellie blurted, her tone betraying her reeling emotions.
"They found me."
The mammoth female paused, confused as to his meaning. "What are you talkin' about?"
Manfred almost grinned as he looked back on the memory, "Do you remember about four years ago? Back when before we were mated, back when we thought the world was flooding?"
"Yes."
"And remember when you were trapped in that rock-fall and your brothers went for help?"
"Well, yes."
Manny was smiling now, "Well they found me. Out of hundreds of creatures, they found me and they lead me to you." The woolly mammoth bull gave his mate a warm nudge to the cheek, momentarily savoring her scent. "We sent them to find a way out of here…I doubt they'll have any trouble finding us."
A hesitant grin replaced Ellie's look of apprehension. "I suppose you're right," she murmured. Taking a deep breath, she nodded to assure herself. "Those two are crazy knot-heads…but they're resourceful crazy knot-heads."
Without warning, the mammoth female gave a startled flinch.
Noticing her sudden movement, Manny frowned and gave her an inquisitive glance, cocking his head to the side. "What, is the kid kicking?"
Giving a slight grin, nodding, Ellie flinched again. "Yeah, all through the night too."
"Hmmmmmmm…" Manny left his leafy meal strode over to his mate, swallowing his last bite of the well ground foliage. Carefully—and minding his massive tusks—he laid his ear against Ellie's warm side, listening closely to her swollen belly. He closed his eyes….
The mammoth bull's features could barely contain his broad smile when he heard the quick little heartbeat of the unborn calf. Though, he then could not suppress the loud snort of astonishment when a little something bumped his ear from within.
"Ooh, I felt that," Ellie giggled. The small mammoth inside her had been doing quite a bit of moving around lately. When this had all began, she had worried that her time was coming soon and that perhaps the calf knew. But she'd reminded herself that her due date was a good two months off. Though tremendously closer than twenty-two, still a while away.
A sudden question popped into Ellie's mind.
"Manny," she began, giving his side a little nudge with the curve of her tusk.
He lifted his head, glancing over his broad shoulder. "Mmmm?"
"Do you catch yourself wondering what it will be? Or…or even what it will look like or be like?" she inquired, her ears flicking.
Again, Manfred couldn't help but grin. "Yeah, sometimes." After a moment of thought, he raised his eyebrows and sighed, his voice turning serious, "I just hope its personality winds up with a shade more towards you."
"What makes you say that?"
Manny smiled, almost apologetically and replied, "Well, lets just say that my calf-hood was a rather…adventurous one."
"Oh, surly it wasn't that bad," Ellie returned skeptically.
"No," the mammoth bull assured her, "I was quite the mischievous little trunkful…my mother always said I was, ahh…a spirited youngster."
The mammoth female couldn't help but tease him. "What? Are you worried you wind up raising a little fire-brand...kinda' like Morgan?"
Manfred obviously didn't find the humor and his eyes narrowed. "No calf of mine is going to act like that brazen idiot!" he snorted, already getting worked up.
"Well this little calf will be related to you too—I hope you realize," his mate reminded him, one of her eyebrows arched.
Manny frowned. "Well what's that got to do with anything? I'm not a brazen idiot."
Ellie gave a short laugh and shook her head, walking forward and around a broad redwood. Sometimes, she thought to herself. Sometimes I wonder about him.
"What?" Manfred inquired, completely mystified. He'd never been much at female insinuations, and it appeared as though he wasn't improving much. He followed her as she walked in a slow circle about the tree.
Heaving a sigh Ellie explained. "Manny, every now and then you say the strangest things."
Still confused, the woolly mammoth bull followed still. "How so?" he asked.
She gave another laugh, stopped and from around the massive tree trunk, gave him a look he didn't quite understand. Something between affection and exasperation—if that was at all possible. "You just can't see how alike you an' Morgan are, can you?" she sighed, one again shaking her head.
Manny lifted the tip of his trunk—something he always did when felt good and argumentative—and frowned. "That's the third time someone has mentioned something like that. And—"
"An' did it ever occur to you that itmight be true?"
Manny was at a momentary loss for words.
After only four years of being together (Manny truly hadn't beat around the bush in asking to be her dearly beloved), Ellie could read her mate's emotions well. She'd always been a fast learner and the fact that Manny was transparent as ice made the up difference. "Listening to the pair of you argue, it wasn't hard to figure out," the mammoth female went on. She suddenly smiled good-humoredly. "Besides," she almost chuckled, "she kinda' looks like you…. At least in the eyes."
Her last statement took the bull by surprise. So he hadn't been the only one to notice that. A tingle traced his spine as the image of Morgan's wild, almond-hued stare lashed back through thoughts. The sense of recognition returned, and for a second time he was reminded where he'd seen those eyes before.
"You just think their eyes are alike just because neither of them ever smiles," put in a jesting voice.
Manny nearly jumped out of his fur when he realized that predatory tone was directly behind him.
"Sheesh, Manny," Diego purred in amusement. "I thought you'd have smelled me long before you herd me. Seeing as that long thing attached to your face isn't just for decoration…or just for snuggling with Ellie."
Diego counted a mental point towards himself when his mammoth friend's ears turned a touch red. If they couldn't spar every morning (thanks to Manfred's chest wound), then he could at least pick up their old game of batting sardonic remarks back and forth.
"Deigo," Manfred blurted, clearly disconcerted. "How…how much of that conversation did you hear?"
The saber-tooth cat just tilted his head to the side, as though it was hard to remember. "Oh…just the your thoughts on our current…brazen idiot?"
Manny heaved a sighing: "Oy…."
Ellie snuck her flustered mate a tiny smile, giving him a look underneath her thick eyelashes. Manny just returned an embarrassed grin. Snuggling with Ellie, eh? The mammoth female decided it best if she changed the subject. "So," she inquired of Diego, "you been hunting?"
"Oh, yes," Sid replied with an emphatic nod.
"For how many years?"
"About five now."
The mammoth female across from him arched her eyebrows. How anyone could put up with that knot head of a bull for five years was far beyond her.
"So, where you from?" Sid asked, crunching on another twig.
The sloth's question seemed to catch Morgan off guard for a moment. Her shocked expression was soon replaced with one of mere indifference. She shrugged (as best she could, seeing as she was still sprawled out on her side) and replied nonchalantly: "Ah, nowhere special."
Tapping a blunt claw on one of her curved tusks, Sid spoke around his mouthful of food. "You're a tundra mammoth, arentcha'?"
Morgan frowned. "And what put you at that conclusion?"
Grinning, the ground sloth ran his hand down the underside of the tusk. He swallowed. "You're tusks are smooth on the bottom."
Morgan gave him an irked look.
Sid just looked smug.
"So?" the mammoth female snorted, admitting defeat.
"So that means you have to dig through ice to get to grass and water."
She was silent for a moment. "Okay," she began, at long last. "I'm a tundra mammoth. So what? But how did you know what to look for?"
Sid wiggled his eyebrows, jerked his thumb in the direction Manfred and Ellie had left, and replied: "My mammoth friend—the big guy."
"He's no tundra mammoth," Morgan growled.
Holding up an index claw, the sloth cut off her grousing. "Nope, he's half. His daddy was a tundra mammoth. His mom was from the northern hills."
"Sid, do you intend on telling this vagabond my entire life story?" a gruff voice interjected.
His head whipping towards the speaker, Sid grinned affably at his much, much larger friend. "Just chatting, buddy, just chatting." The sloth noticed Deigo wasn't with Manfred and his mate.
Giving the sloth a mere grunt of a response, Manny turned his attention to Morgan (who was already giving the bull a sour glare). "Well, well, well. Look who finally decided to wake up," he commented wryly.
The mammoth female was about to lash back when: "Ehem," Ellie "coughed", giving her mate a reprimanding look.
Manfred just sighed and stalked to the other side of the camp.
Ellie, however, strode over to Morgan and gave her a warm smile. "Hi there. How you doen'?" She noticed how the young mammoth studied her. Her eyes didn't narrow like they did when she gave Manny her suspicious stare, but they were far from trusting. She must think we're gonna' turn her over to some mammoth herd.
"I'm fine," she replied at last. "My shoulder feels a bit stiff." At saying this, she tried to flex it. But she winced and let it go limp. "What in tusks name did you put on it? It doesn't throb like usual."
Ellie tried to hide her glowing pride. "Oh," she shrugged modestly, "just something my mother taught me."
"Well, thank you," the Morgan went on (speaking specifically to Ellie), "if you could give me a little nudge, I'll get up and be on my way."
"Oh I highly doubt that," came a smooth tone from the shale bank.
Ellie was a little shocked when Morgan's gaze snapped past her, eyes narrowed. She let loose a loud rumble—a threatening sound that came from somewhere deep in her throat.
Resting on the bank was Diego. The saber was watching the untrusting glare the wounded mammoth gave him with silent amusement. "Oh don't worry," he purred, "I don't think I'd want to eat you anyway."
"She'd probably give you intestinal worms," Manny muttered darkly.
Diego ignored his mammoth friend and paused to give his chest fur a few quick licks. "But you're not one who will be going anywhere soon. And when you do, not alone."
"Oh really?" Morgan quired, her tone sharp. "Well I'll tell you what, saber-tooth—"
"Here she goes," Manny griped under his breath.
"I'll try to say this slowly, so your feline brain can comprehend. I…fly…solo…. When…I…want…to go…I…go. I take orders from me…and only me."
Holding up the tip of his trunk, Manfred silenced Diego's cool reply. He stepped back towards Morgan and stopped when he was looming over the wounded female. Inside, the bull was grinning smugly from ear to ear; outside, he was fixing Morgan in his stern stare.
Oh goody, Diego sighed to himself, what kind of fight are we going to start today? The saber noticed Ellie and Sid casting worried glances at each other.
"You," Manny began, his voice far from friendly, "are coming with us."
Morgan snorted disdainfully. "Did you decide this?"
"As a matter of fact, I did."
"Fat liar," Diego muttered in an undertone.
"WHAT!" Morgan exclaimed, her expression one of entire shock and outrage.
"You," Manny stuck his trunk in the flabbergasted mammoth female's face, "owe someone a debt."
Morgan narrowed her eyes.
The three behind Manfred exchanged quizzical glances.
The mammoth bull pointed his trunk behind him at his expecting mate. "Her."
Ellie looked to Diego with bewildered eyes. The saber shrugged and both turned their attention back to Manny when the woolly mammoth began growling again.
"You owe her a debt for saving your worthless hide. Instead of letting you bleed to death, like I felt like doing—
"Fat-er liar," Diego muttered again.
—she patched you up."
"What do you want me to do about this?" Morgan practically snapped. "It's not my fault she decided to help me." The mammoth female's aggression was far from directed at Ellie, but at her belligerent mate.
"That hardly changes the facts," Manfred rumbled. "When you can walk, we're leaving, you're coming with us, and you are going to protect her with the life she so graciously saved. Got that?"
For a moment, she just glared. Her almond-brown eyes shooting daggers into his light ones. Finally she spoke, her tone as slicing as her defiant stare. "And what in tusks' name could I be protecting her from? A trunkful of beaten up cave lionesses?"
"Do the name's Sol, Noland, and Colin ring any bells in your head?"
The rebellious fire in her eyes dimmed. Again, she merely studied the bull before her. But then the mammoth female's expression grew suspicious. "What do you take me for, pal? Yeah of herd of those three—in stories. Because that's all they are—stories. Tales invented from hearsay and superstition."
"But you have herd these stories?"
"Well yeah."
"Well let me ask you how big a lion would have to be to make marks like these." With that said, Manny moved his head and trunk aside to reveal his jagged chest injury.
Morgan once again dropped into silence. Even from where she lay, she could smell how fresh those wounds were. But what caught her attention the most was how far they spread. None of the lionesses she'd fought could have done that. Three days previous she'd seen the pride's young king jump through the underbrush in hot pursuit of a small deer. He was hardy larger than his lionesses. Far too small to inflict gashes such as those scored across Manfred's chest…. Could he be telling the truth? Why would he lie? It was easily apparent that he disliked her as much as she him. The last thing he would want his her anywhere near him…. "What choice do I have," Morgan growled, arching an eyebrow.
"Not much," Diego put in before Manfred could.
Both mammoths turned their attention towards the saber-tooth tiger. Manny gave him an irked look. Steal my thunder, will ya'?
Diego just gave the bull a fleeting, apologetic grin. He looked back to Morgan and continued. "Those lions want your skin for that nice humiliation yesterday. Put a bit of a stain in their pride…no pun intended. So if you go off all by your lonesome, you'll wind up as dinner—"
"Come with us an' you might have a chance," Manny interrupted (reclaiming authority over the conversation). "Meaning, you help protect her," the mammoth bull pointed to his mate, "until we get out of this mess, and we (meaning I) won't throw you and your beat-up shoulder into the lion's den. Get it?"
"Fine," Morgan spat, her eyes turning back to steel. "But are you sure you don't want me defending you as well? Or better yet…should I carry you across my back?"
"You can hardly carry yourself."
"So you think!" With that vehement retort, the obstinate mammoth female began struggling from her side to her knees.
Manny didn't try to stop her, nor was he surprised when Morgan's exertions got her nowhere save a one-way trip back to the dirt. "You done yet?" he growled.
Her only answer was a rebellious glare, aimed directly at the bull that infuriated her so. She said nothing and lay there, panting. What was there to say that her enraged eyes didn't convey?
He turned slowly and walked off down the dry stream, shaking his head. This female was a loose cannon. Even when she healed, who knew what the young berserker would do?
Ellie watched Morgan a moment longer. The younger female lowered her head back to the ground and with one last sigh, closed her eyes. She stormed after Manny.
Manfred only noticed that his mate was following him when she gave his tail a rough jerk. He turned around and was surprised to meet a pair of scolding emerald eyes.
"What are you tryin' t' pull, Manny?" Ellie hissed in an undertone.
He sighed. "What are you talking about?"
"I thought th' idea was t' help someone!" she growled, her eyes aflame, "Not play up this guilt trip so I'd have a livin' shield!"
"Well there've been a change of plans," her mate grumbled back. "She can fight, and she will if the occasion calls for it."
Ellie was flabbergasted. She knew Manny had a titanium backbone but she'd never seen his gold heart loose its luster. "I can't believe you. What has gotten into you? What is making you do this?"
Her word struck a key in the mammoth bull's mind. Bloodstained images flashed across his vision with blinding speed, though he could see the gruesome detail of ever one. If ever you could possibly know, you'd be shocked.
"Remember what I said to you back in the clearing?" he asked, trying to keep the quaver out of his voice. "About what I'd do to get us out of this mess? Well I meant it. Every word."
"And this is the best you could think of?" Ellie snapped, her expression for more hurt than angry.
It took a moment for Manny to answer. "This is the best I've got."
Ellie sighed and shook her head. She couldn't help feeling gulty. Even if Morgan could take care of herself, which she probably could after a few days, she didn't like the idea of anyone being forced into being a bodyguard. I didn't feel right. "I just wish…we didn't have to do it this way."
Manny noticed how she'd said we instead of you. He also realized that she thought herself part of the problem. She was trying to shoulder the burden alongside him. Boy, I sure found one heck of a keeper. Lowering his voice, Manny agreed. "Yeah…me too."
His mate looked up at him, the slightest hint of amusement in her eyes. "Even though you can't stand her?"
"Even though," he relented, his ears drooping at the mere mention of the tundra female belligerent nature.
Ellie couldn't help but smile. "Well, I doubt she'll do her job without a bit of input."
"This is going to be a long trip…."
A/N: FINALLY! The next chapter! collapses. You have no clue how many plot knots I had to undo in the writing of this one. Sorry for the wait, but I had to make it just right, you know.