Hi everyone! First of all, I want to express my unhappiness at the fact that NOONE responded to my last chapter and that kind of upset me some. Oh well, I love this story so much, that I am going to keep working on it until it has 10 chapters! smiles I apologize for falling behind, I was SUPPOSED to update on Monday, but did not feel like it, I am now though, so ha! I was talking to my friend earlier today and she said that reviewing your own story is bad, and that it's a bad use of judgment, so I apologize for that as well! With that all out of the way… Sit back, relax and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Ice Age or any of the main characters in this fic, I do however own quite a few of the characters that these guys are gonna talk about! I don't own Dinosaur either.

Souls Connected Chapter 3: Mating Rituals

Ellie:

"Ellie!" Crash and Eddie yelled as they ran up to her… "You gotta help us!" Normally, Ellie hated to help her little brothers, but they seemed quite desperate, so she gave in.

"What do you need boys?" she asked.

"Well, I was telling Crash about how Topaz and I were gonna be mates someday, and he started saying that it wasn't true!" Eddie complained as he tried to get Ellie to his side of the argument.

"She never liked you!" Crash responded, "She chose William, remember?" Eddie pouted.

"She DID choose William, Eddie" Ellie told the sad Possum as he sat down on the ground and put on his best pouting face. "Besides all you really did with her was go up and say hi, and once she said hi back, you giggled like a girl and ran off!" Eddie put on an even bigger pout-face and Crash just burst out laughing. Ellie looked at him with a frown on her face. "I don't think it's that funny Crash" she told him "If I remember correctly, the girl you liked, Rose, chose someone else to be her mate too!" Eddie smiled and stuck his tongue out at Crash.

"Was it MY fault that I overdid the flirting?" Crash asked, frustrated that Ellie was on Eddie's side.

"Yes!" Ellie told him, "You were calling her 'hot girl' and just… being totally ridiculous!"

"Like you would know!" her brother shot back, "You've never even HAD a guy, when it was YOUR turn to find a mate, you couldn't find anyone and Cousin Vinnie felt so sorry that he suggested that you two be mates, but then dad had to go and give you guys the whole 'You have to mate for love, or else you will be making the ultimate sacrifice' speech, and he decided to choose someone else!" This statement hit Ellie like a ton of rocks, he was right…she had NEVER been able to get any boy out of their family to find her attractive, Never.

"Will you two just shut up?" she told them quietly as she continued on, trying her best not to cry. The boys caught up to her and Eddie walked up near her face.

"Ellie" he told her, "I think you are VERY pretty, and Crash does too! Those other guys, they're just jerks!"

"Yeah well," Ellie told them "I don't see why you two keep teasing me about this, if I remember correctly a year after I was left alone, you guys were too! Left hanging alone in the tree, while everyone else had found a mate!" (A.N. In my opinion, the possum mating ritual is identical to the lemur one in Dinosaur! Is it just me, or does the way Ellie lived remind you of Aladar from that movie?) Crash and Eddie looked at each other, they remembered how bad they felt that day, they were the only two left in the tree, they looked at their sister… she had been the only one left, in fact, she didn't even get to participate in the event! She had been upset for weeks after that and would not talk to ANY boy for anything. The only comfort she got was from her mom, and she was dead now.

"We're sorry Ellie" Crash told her as he hugged one of her immense front legs, "Can you forgive us?" Ellie smiled down at her brothers as Eddie came over and hugged the same leg.

"I guess I can…" she told them, then her face lit up "Hey!" She told them, "Maybe I can tell you how to act around girls, I'm sure that you could probably find a girl somewhere who was left out too!" The boys smiled, and Ellie did too, she loved it when they were happy, because then they didn't try to bother her or anything of that matter, also, if they did find a girl, she would have some females to hang out with. She looked up at the setting sun and sighed. The weeks after the mating ritual had been the hardest in her entire life, seeing all of her friends finding mates and going off with them, leaving her all alone. She hated it, of course, she could spend time with her mother, grandmother, aunts and female cousins, but that was about it. How she had wanted to hear the words 'You are beautiful' from someone other than her brothers, or any male family member for that matter. She wanted to hear it from someone who she had just met, someone, who was her new friend… someone she could trust. Someone… like her.

She laughed at herself as she picked up her brothers and put them on her back. 'I'm being silly' she thought to herself, 'there is no way that I will ever find someone to love me for who I am, I'm never going to find a mate, I don't know why I even try!' she sighed, 'oh well' she thought, 'I'm only 10 days away now, who knows what could happen!' She smiled as her brothers curled up in her fur for a nap; 'at least I have them' she told herself and went on through the forest, heading towards Acorn Valley and an adventure she would NEVER forget.

Manny:

Manny smiled as he walked along with his friends, even though the dream he had a week ago was still in his mind, he hadn't had another one since, so he figured that he would be ok. They entered this long rock tunnel, As Sid was having fun talking to his echo, Manny noticed that Diego kept looking at the cave paintings on the wall, most of which were of Sabers like himself.

"You see yourself on there Diego?" Manny joked as he smiled at his friend.

"No" Diego replied, "I was just looking at this one right here" He pointed to a certain Saber who did not have long tusks like most of them did. "That's a female." He told his friends. Sid jumped down off Manny's back and looked at the painting.

"Hey Diego" He asked "You seem like a lady's charmer, did you have any girls in your day?" Manny rolled his eyes and kept on walking, leaving Sid to waddle in between his two buddies. Diego followed them and looked at Sid with a 'you shouldn't have asked me that' look.

"No, I didn't actually." He explained "The only female that I ever REALLY knew was my mom. You see, Saber colonies are divided into two packs, the Males and the Females, they meet twice a year, the first one is usually in early spring, and that one is specifically to find mates. In order to be mates, you have to go to the top of a cliff together, and give the loudest roar you can… so that the entire land around can know that you have made a lifetime commitment. Once they find a mate, the two go off together, and have a child. Once the child is born, then the trio stays together as a family until he or she is old enough to join a pack, which is where the second one comes in, that one's usually in the early fall, only the families get together and they divide the children into the assorted packs. The males go in one location and the females go to another location about 5 miles away. There were no mothers allowed at the male's division and there were no fathers allowed at the female's division. A saber stays in their pack for 7 months, then they will go to the mating ritual, it is there that the story starts all over again. My pack was going to go to the ceremony right after we had taken care of the baby… guess that didn't happen." Diego kept on walking without looking at his friends.

"Sorry" Manny told his friend… "I didn't mean to make you miss the ritual"

"It's ok" Diego assured him, "Females are confusing to me anyway"

"I hear that buddy! Wait until you hear my story!" Sid said happily as Manny leaned down and he climbed back aboard. "You see, Sloths are lucky, they all stick together, it's like one big family, a Sloth herd is." He then made sure Manny and Diego were paying attention, and then continued, "Then, once you are old enough you start to flirt with the different girls and try to get one to agree to be your mate. Then, on Mating Day, all the couples get together and then eat the century plant flowers that are provided!" (A.N. Century plants are wildflowers that grow in the southwestern deserts of America, they need about 10 to 50 years to produce a single 30-foot-high flower stalk and after that, they only bloom once every 100 years.) Manny and Diego looked at each other and smirked.

"So Sid," Manny asked "Have you reached YOUR turn to find a mate?"

"Yes I have, as a matter of fact; it was about 2 years ago!" Sid said proudly "Unfortunate as it may seem, the girl I had chosen, decided to go with someone else, so I didn't have anyone available!" Manny laughed at the expected news that Sid had been promptly left out of the mating ritual in his herd. "Hey Manny" Sid told him "What about Mammoths?"

"Yeah" Diego said, "Me and Sid have told about our species' mating rituals, what's yours?" Manny looked down at his feline friend and started to tell.

"Well, like Sloths, Mammoths usually stick in a herd, which is considered to be like their family. Everyone knows everyone else, and everyone is watching out for everyone else. Like Sabers, they mate by going to the top of a mountain, except instead of roaring, we lock trunks and then make the loudest trumpet we can. However, unlike both of your species, we can mate whenever and whoever we want, as long as they are the same species. Once Mammoths mate, they usually go off on their own, that's what I did with mine, and have a child. Female Mammoths take 22 months to develop a baby (A.N. True fact!) and once that time is done, the child comes, and then the family rejoins with the herd." Manny smiled at his friends, happy to have explained more about his species. They smiled back, happy to know more about him.

As they left the tunnel, Manny's smile disappeared, like him, his friends were alone too, but they had never been able to find someone. He didn't want to tell them, but he wasn't that good with girls either, he had been extremely lucky to have found Millie. He didn't expect to find any other girl who would like him as much as she had. He did want to be happy again, the only issue was… well, he got very nervous when he was in love and was positive that if he did fall in love again, he would be just as bad. He had worked very hard to get Millie, and he wasn't quite ready yet to get someone else. He looked at the setting sun as he set his friends down, 'who knows' he thought 'maybe there is someone out there for me, I'm only 20 days away, it's possible.'

Well, there you go! The third chapter, I would like to say that this story is going to have 10 chapters, 6 like this one, 2 where it's just going to be one group the whole time (that will be when one of the groups arrive at Acorn Valley) 1 authors notice and 1 epilogue. That leads me to the new instructions on how to read this fic, first, watch Ice Age, then read chapters 1-8, then, watch Ice Age 2: The Meltdown and after that read chapters 9-10, chapter 8 is going to take place RIGHT BEFORE Ice Age 2 starts and chapter 10 is going to take place RIGHT AFTER Ice Age 2 ends (It will take to long to copy the whole movie into here!) the 9th chapter will be an author's notice. I am proud to say that this is still the only fic with Ellie in it on this website, and I am extremely proud of this! Thank you, any who read this story and I hope that you will be ready for the Meltdown on March 31st, I know I am! See you next week!

Funkywatermelon's assistant