My Story After Ice Age 3:
This chapter is a little crazy in my opinion and so are some of the upcoming ones. It alo takes a little while before you see why it get its title. Sorry. lol
I returned at sunset, surprised that the herd was near the cave again. Someone I recognized looked at me. I went to the cave, to make sure Manny was ok with no time to spare even though I realized that I still hadn't been introduced to the herd like Manny had said but I was sure that everyone understood.
I returned to find Ellie by Manny. He looked like he had recovered a bit but still looked much worse than yesterday. His eyes were open partly. I wondered if I had been killed to save Manny or just in time to see him die?! I held back a shout.
Shakily, I asked "Are you ok Manny?" when I entered. This idea terrified me. Ellie turned to him but let him answer me.
"I'm doing better now. In a few days I should be a little more back to normal." Everyone stared at me, I must have been shaking badly and they would have all known why because of all the trauma lately. Ellie motioned for me to come over to them. She seemed to somehow be adopting me, her and Manny.
"It's ok, normally things like this don't normally happen." Ellie said, surprisingly cheerful. I told them my nightmarish idea of why I had come to them.
"No, you weren't." Manny said caringly. Ellie gave me caring eyes.
From the corner of my eyes, I could see Diego smiling and Sid crying happy tears that he wiped on Diego's back. After a while I got up and joined Diego and Sid. I started to go over to Sid to start a conversation to ask him how this was affecting him because no one ever took an ear to Sid when Casey's daughter came in. I looked at her. My mind blocked out that I had just been trying to have a talk with Sid. My mind traveled to Casey's daughter. I hadn't gotten her name yet.
"Hello, I'm Renee." I started.
"Hi, my name's Gara." she said back. "How did you get here?"
I gave the same answer as before with Wendy. I took a deep breath, trying to make it sound hard for me to say. "My family was killed when bunch of hunters came."
"Me, too sort of. My family got a disease and from the water we drank. We saw humans putting something into it. The only 3 of us that didn't drink it lived."
"That's too bad." I said. I wouldn't go into any detail about how I ended up here, especially because I was once a human.
She took an interest towards our herd's leader. "What happened to Manfred today?" I wondered why she used his full first name though I wasn't sure if anyone had last names. If so, they were not commonly used.
Diego covered in for me.
"He needed a bandage change. I asked but no one in the herd could help so we had Renee and Ellie do it. It seems like Ivera and Ellen made the leaves too thick. His skin got irritated and he lost some blood because Renee and Ellie don't have any medical training."
She was surprised. "Why didn't anyone help?" She obviously wasn't there when he had talked to the herd earlier.
Diego sighed. "Actually almost everyone wanted to help but as you know many are squeamish and are too nervous to handle things like this. You also must keep in mind that Manny had told me that he didn't want anyone much to see him like this." I realized that Manny probably didn't want anyone getting the wrong ideas that he was weak when he was supposed to be leader. For some reason, mammoth politics seemed very strict and complex, unlike how I had seen anyone behave in the ice age movies.
"Is he going to make it?" she whispered. I realized that while I had been thinking, Diego had taken her outside, probably because Diego wanted to discuss Manny's issues away from him. I realized that I had walked out of the cave with them. I had somehow followed them, perhaps because the answer to the question she had asked ment so much to me, though the cave was still in site and I had not walked far. Diego's hair bristled a bit. "We don't know for sure if he'll make it yet. Knowing how hardy he is, he will." My heart pounded. I realized that I had somehow made myself hide behind some bushes and trees after following them. I hadn't been conscious at all of it at all. Luckily they didn't notice me. Soon, she left an I went to the mouth of the cave with Diego. When he was about to enter the cave I spilled out what I had heard and what I had been doing, mentioning I had did it unconsciously of course which was true, making sure my voice was at a super quiet whisper. Diego seemed unhappy about what I heard but said it was ok. When I returned, it looked like Manny had just been moved. I figured out why because I had noticed this once yesterday and went in. Sid was unfocused on them, trying to draw on the cave floor. I realized the conversation between Nara and Diego must have gone on a while.
Manny was drinking water from Ellie's trunk and stopped right after I entered, embarrassed. I put on a smile and casually sat next to them, which was a mistake.
"Go ahead, drink." said Ellie.
"I, uh, well." he said giving her a look. He obviously thought that this either childish, it was not appropriate for him to be seen doing that in the presence of others because he was leader according to mammoth standards, or he didn't want me to see how much help he needed.
"Go ahead, I won't look." I said, another mistake. But as I turned away, Manny knew the impression he had given me by stopping and looked even more embarrassed. I hadn't seen Ellie's reaction yet.
"It's not that." Manny started. "I just uh-"he sighed because he knew he could not hide the truth. "-don't want anyone to see me like this." I was happy he had managed to tell me this. In the past this was something he would never have admitted.
He forced himself to drink water from her trunk in front of me. Diego came in. He put on a small look, but didn't make a big deal of it because Diego was his closest, if not second friend.
He finished and Ellie asked if he wanted more.
"Yeah." he said, a bit more calm now.
She left. Seeing Manny's show us a worried look, Sid sang "Love is in the air!"
Manny tried to bury his head in his feet. I thought he was disgusted. Diego looked puzzled but whacked Sid anyway. I showed no change of emotions, hoping not to provoke Sid to think or do anything. Instead I changed the subject and turned to Diego. "How long was I gone?" "Actually a whole half hour." Sid, hearing us, said, when you walked off, we thought you were easdropping on Diego and Nara. Is that true?" he asked slyly. Diego whacked him again, this time with force. I went over to Manny, hoping Sid would say no more.
"Hi." Manny said shyly. I forced myself to think that he was just nervous from me seeing him drink that way. Sid watched Manny closely.
I gave Manny a look.
"Nice to have you in the herd." he corrected himself but barely as I thought he was trying to do.
He gave Sid the evil eye who was smiling at us, probably because I refused to do anything.
Diego picked up on Manny's body language. He looked sheepishly over at Manny.
I moved away, hoping not to make anything worse.
When Ellie got back, Manny looked seriously upset with himself. Diego hid anything that had been going on by giving everyone his usual expression. I said I was going outside for dinner and left, taking a look at everyone behind me. Manny's expression told me he either was nervous about something to do with me or it was something else. I returned by about 9:30, about 3 1/2 hours, fearing I was eating too little. When I got back, unexpectedly, Diego was gone, probably dealing with herd matters or hunting, and Ellie was gone too. Sid was there, talking in his sleep. I was surprised anyone would leave Manny unguarded at this time. I hesitantly walked in. Manny was awake huddled in a corner.
"What happened?" I asked.
"Ellie's out foraging and Diego's hunting."
I stood there, not sure what to do, because of Manny's odd behaviors that night. Then I quickly made my decision and lay down next to Sid. I couldn't take his snoring for long so I found my own place.
Manny looked down, in deep thought. I decided to break the ice of what I thought Manny was feeling and pat Manny on the head which scared the living daylights out of him. I backed away, realizing I was being totally inappropriate for the situation. I tried to sleep but couldn't. A glimpse revealed Manny very worried. I didn't know what he was up to and I was questioning what was going on with him at this point.
"You ok?" No answer.
"Why are you so worried?" I tried again. At times like this, I could see where Manny totally lacked.
"Will Ellie think anything of this?" I said knowing I'd get an answer. I wasn't sure if he liked me or something else was deeply disturbing him. He definitely hadn't been like this yesterday when he talked.
Manny sighed, "I wanna be friends, nothing more." he said but this time I was definitely reading how he felt or so I thought.
"It's ok."
"I really can't do this." he said, gazing into open space.
"What do you want me to do?" I asked, testing him. No answer.
"Don't you just want to admit it right now to get it over with and get rid of all that nervousness?" No answer.
"What should I do? I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't want to harass you."
This seemed to alarm Manny a little. "Nothing. Not a word of this to anyone."
"What about Sid." I asked.
"He'll get the idea sooner or later." I stared at him, puzzled.
He sighed. There was something he had to tell me that he couldn't hold back any longer.
"I'm-I'm." he started, then decided to give me the easier thing for him to say first.
"First of all, I don't like you the same way you do." His words made me feel like I had just had a sharp thorn pushed into me.
"I've just been worried about the herd and that Cedric knows my condition now after today at the river. You came in at the wrong time. I, um, had just heard how bad the situation was with Cedric and me from the messengers. And you and Sid got the wrong impression and kind of made things worse." Manny's voice was small and he seemed very stressed.
"So when you said not a word of this to anyone, you were talking about your problems with Cedric out loud and about how not to tell anyone how we were acting."
"Yes." he said defeated. "I was trying to go with your idea a little bit when I was talking, hoping you'd give me some space."
"Sorry, Manfred." I used his full name to show him I meant it. Sometimes my social skills are lacking and I find it hard to figure out what you're really telling me."
"I know." he said, still worried.
Our conversation ended and he didn't look well. Afraid to do anything at all to him, I went to a corner, lay down, looked at him to see if he wanted to talk to me which he didn't, and went to sleep.