Hey everyone! I have good news, there are no changes I will make in this upcoming chapter, AND there are no mistakes that were made in the last one! Yay! Also, I want to thank the ONE reviewer I had for the past chapter, thank you, you really made my day! With that all taken care of, and nothing else to fix and take care of…. Sit back, relax and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Ice Age, meaning that most of these characters are not mine…. I do however own a stuffy of Ellie… so SHE IS MINE… BWA HA HA HA HA! '.

Souls Connected Chapter 5; Trains of Thought,

Ellie:

Ellie walked on, a semi-frown on her face….. The weather was cold, dirty, and wet, wet, wet! Crash and Eddie had continuously asked if they could stop but she (being the stubborn creature that she is) had insisted that they keep on going so that they could get to the valley on time, and on schedule. The only thing that was keeping her going right now was the fact that she would get there in a day…. And she was REALLY looking forward to it… the valley was said to be the most beautiful place on the planet, green as far as the eye could see…. Probably because it was completely surrounded by geysers, these geysers held back a gigantic frozen lake. It was known as the hole of paradise, the only bad parts of it, was the fact that the valley contained many rocks (which made it a very popular home for vultures… the main predators in the valley) and it contained the largest geyser field on the planet. Other than that… it was utterly perfect.

"Ellie!" Eddie complained, "How much longer until we get there?"

"We'll get there around 7:00 p.m. or so tomorrow boys… be patient" Ellie told her brothers… starting to get a bit impatient herself. She was eager to find a mud hole (Which was very common in this valley) and play her favorite game…. Mud Slinging.

Oh sure, Mud Slinging was a very discriminated against sport in that time… but only because the Possums had adopted it as their official sport. Possums… were not very well liked, and Ellie was a bit nervous about living in an area that was PACKED with other animals. She stayed positive though, and kept on walking, a small sheet of ice forming on her tusks. She remembered how she had been disqualified from all the Possum Mud Slinging games because she had an unfair advantage in that she had her trunk that she could very easily load by sucking in as much mud as possible, then shoot out the contents like a machine gun, keeping perfect aim the entire time. She had always wanted to find someone who she could enjoy this game with… she didn't want to play the game as much as she wanted to find someone who would understand her love of the sport. It was basically a snowball fight using mud instead of snow. Ellie enjoyed snowball fights as well, but since her brothers absolutely HATED the idea of getting clean… she couldn't play it either.

"Hey, boys." She asked her brothers as she kept on walking. "Do you remember when mom said that we'd have a whole bunch of mud holes to play Mud Slinging in?" They beamed.

"There's gonna be lots of them?" Crash asked hopefully.

"Of course… ma never lied." Ellie told her brothers. She smiled again, ever since her mother died, she had to play both parents to the twins… and that was not easy for her, especially since they had the idea in their heads that since she was their sister, that they could tease her and not listen to her when she told them things like it was time to sleep, or to go get cleaned up. Her mother never minded about her love of Mud Slinging, in fact, she thought it was a nice thing to see a girl have fun like that, and it didn't get her as dirty as Dung Rolling, which was her brothers' favorite sport. The main thing she missed about her mother was how she was so supportive of her and how she never wanted Ellie to be sad, and so in an effort to make her daughter as happy as possible would try to find flowers or things like that for Ellie to wear behind her ears… Ellie loved wearing flowers behind her ears, because she felt it made her beautiful, and she had heard many stories where boys had given girls flowers as a token of affection. This led Ellie to the next car on her train of thought.

She had never, ever, been loved by anyone outside of her family, and never been TRULY loved in her entire life. She remembered the day after the mating ceremony how all the girls Ellie's age gathered around a small pond and talked about love and things like that. Ellie's mom had insisted she go, unfortunately, Ellie was unable to join in on any of the conversations, and was left to hear about how happy the other girls were. She remembered how they had each described love as a different thing, but all had agreed that it was wonderful. Ellie had never felt more left out in her entire life. All she wanted was to know that someone out there cared for her, someone out there loved her, that she was not a freak who would never find anyone. Her biggest hope was that by some miracle, she would find someone in the valley. She felt her brothers move around on her back. They had found a large leaf, and were both trying to get underneath it to protect themselves from the rain. Unfortunately, the leaf could only cover one of them, and they were now arguing over who would get it.

"I WANT IT!" Crash yelled.

"BUT I SAW IT FIRST!" Eddie screamed back.

"BUT I GOT IT OFF THE TREE!" Crash said angrily

Ellie groaned, she absolutely HATED it when they argued… and whenever they argued over a certain item, they always lost it, '1…2…3…4…5' she counted in her head… and then, RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP.

"AWW MAN! LOOK WHAT YOU DID NOW CRASH!" Eddie yelled.

"IT WASN'T ME! IT WAS YOU!" Crash shot back. Ellie groaned and picked the boys off of her back and looked at them in the eyes.

"You two will STOP ARGUING now! I am tired and sick of you guys yelling at each other all the time…. so what it's raining? Do you guys want to stop and find a cave and have to walk through another day of this, or do you want to go ahead and get to the valley… which is going to be a PARADISE? Which do you boys want?" Crash and Eddie looked at each other and sighed… their sister was right, she usually was. They could never understand why, but she had about 3 times the intelligence of her family.

"Ok" Crash said, defeated "We'll keep on going." Ellie smiled, put her brothers back on her back, and kept on walking. Her brothers were the only things she had in this world. They were the only creatures alive who cared for her, Ellie wasn't sure about where her grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were, but she hardly ever saw them. She remembered the night that their mom died, how Ellie had decided to sleep on the ground, and Crash and Eddie curled up in her trunk and all three of them spent the night sharing memories of their mother and letting all their pain out. 'They may stink, they may be annoying, but they are still my brothers, and I promised my mom that I would take care of them, and that is exactly what I am going to do!' Ellie told herself as she felt her brothers curl up in her fur, trying to make themselves warm. 'Eddie's a good guy' she thought, 'All he really wants is to be known, so what if he wants to be the dung rolling champion of the world? I think it's kind of cute really, And Crash isn't that bad either.' She reminded herself, 'He just wants to make a difference, he's always coming up with new ideas, some of them MAY be a bit wacky… but who knows?'

"Ellie?" Eddie asked. "Are there gonna be any other Possums at the valley?"

"I dunno Eddie" She responded, "I honestly don't think there will be, but I may be wrong." Ellie shook some water off of herself, the only good thing that rain brought to Possums was more mud, and it scared the birds away as well. She hoped that the weather tomorrow would be better than this; she did not want to have to arrive at the valley when it was raining, that would not be very fun. She sighed as she looked up at the sky 'one more day' she told herself, 'just one day left… I can make it.'

Manny;

Manny stretched as he lay down in the cave that his friends and he had found. It had started to rain, and it was starting to get dark as well, plus, for some reason, Diego got extremely irritable and grumpy whenever it started to rain. So now he was stuck in this cave for the night with his friends.

"Hey, Manny." Sid asked his friend as he sat right next to him. "Whatcha thinking about?"

"Nothing really Sid." Manny told his friend as he grabbed a piece of the immense plant Diego had found for Manny and Sid's dinner and ate it. Diego looked over at them from the fish he was eating and sat up.

"You look like something's on your mind buddy, mind telling us what it is?" Diego asked his friend, he was much more sensitive to Manny's feelings than Sid was. Manny looked over at him and sighed.

"I wasn't thinking about anything." He told them. "Can I just eat in peace please?" Diego then made Sid come over to his side of the cave so Manny could have some alone time.

Manny looked outside at the Glyptodon children staying in the cave across the way. They were playing in the mud, throwing it at one another. Manny smiled as he remembered playing that game when he was young, Mud Slinging they used to call it. Of course, Manny was especially good at the game and it remained one of his favorites today. He used to play it with his friends all the time when he was young, but once they reached the age of 13…. His friends decided that the game was dumb and inappropriate and stopped. Manny, being as loyal as he was, stopped playing the game altogether, but still inside was wishing to play again. Now an adult, Manny didn't have the immense urge to play as when he was 13 but still, whenever he saw little kids playing it he couldn't help but wish that he could as well. He remembered showing Wallace some kids playing it, but he thought that it didn't look fun. So Manny had to teach him snowball fighting instead. (Which was even better in Millie's point of view, her biggest pet peeve was to see Wallace get dirty.) Manny thought that if he could ever find a girl who loved the game as much as he did, that he would have found his true love, of course, he used to think that Millie was his true love, but it was a Mammoth legend that True Loves always died simultaneously, and since Manny didn't die when Millie did, that meant that they were not true loves. He had still loved Millie more than anything in the world and he had never really gotten over her death, he still continuously wished that, by some miracle, his family could come back.

Manny then noticed the two Glyptodon parents watching their children, smiling; they then nuzzled each other, and then continued watching their children. Manny's heart sunk. He remembered how he and Millie would often lay, trunks locked, watching their son run around with the other boys in the herd. The herd knew how close Manny and Millie were and always supported them, they'd always keep an eye on Wallace, to make sure that he didn't get hurt, and they were very supportive of Manny when Millie and Wallace died. He wanted so badly to have that feeling again, the wonderful feeling of pride and love, the feeling of sitting with your mate, watching your child play. He wanted it again, but he also did not want to loose his old family, he didn't want to forget them. He knew that Millie had not been his true love…. 'But' he thought, 'If she wasn't…then who could it possibly be? Who could I possibly love even more than Millie?'

Manny remembered staying with his parents for a few months after the incident, in order to get himself back in mental shape. He remembered how his mom constantly would talk with him and remind him that his family cared for him, but he didn't really care about that. All he wanted was to be loved, truly loved, not just… familial love, but real pure love. 3 years he had spent with Millie, 3 of the most wonderful years of his life. He remembered how hard it was for him to ask her to be his mate…. How he had rehearsed at least 100 times earlier that day in order to get the courage, and how he almost fainted afterwards when she said yes. He had worked hard for Millie, and he couldn't imagine a more wonderful, existing creature. The sun had finally set, and so he turned to his friends and smiled at them.

"We only have 11 days left guys." He told them happily, "After that, we will be there." They smiled at him and Sid walked over to his side.

"Manny," Sid told him, "When we get to the valley, do you think that there will be other creatures of our species there?"

"I don't know how many times I have answered that question on this trip Sid," Manny told him "I'm not sure…. It's possible."

"Sid." Diego said, "Why do you want there to be other creatures of your species? Are you hoping to find a girl by any chance?" Sid gave Diego his best pouty face as Manny laughed.

"Sid." Manny told him "Do you REALLY think finding a girl is THAT easy? Because it's not, it takes a ton of bravery and willingness to let them be in charge…. It is very, very difficult, way too difficult for you!" Sid looked at Manny, noticed he was just joking and then laughed along with his pals. Manny smiled, he and his buddies, 3 bachelors, working their way about the world, each had a hard past, and was helping each other gain a better future. At least, that was Manny's goal, to find both of his friends good futures…. It shouldn't be to hard… right?

Well, there you go! Chapter 5! Please don't forget to review and reply, and also, if you want to post a Manny/Ellie fic, don't wait until the movie comes out, go ahead and post it now! That way you'll beat the crowd! I will post up chapter six (Titled "Ellie's Arrival") tomorrow, this will consist of, what else, Ellie, Crash, and Eddie's arrival at the Valley… the location where The Meltdown is going to take place, pay close attention, because some of the locations I will take note of, are going to be seen in the movie, along with many mentioned things, such as Cousin Vinny, The geysers, Vultures, Rocks, Millie and Wallace, Mud Slinging, Dung Rolling, the fact that Manny doesn't have the necklace anymore, Crash and Eddie arguing, Ellie trying to take care of them, them picking on her, and so, so much more! I will put up chapters 7-9 on April 1st, probably in the A.M. hours. For I will be attending a "Meltdown Party" in the afternoon and through the night until noon the next day. Meaning that chapter 10 will be posted sometime between April 2nd and April 5th… at least, that's my goal. Once again, thank you for reading… and get ready for the Meltdown, because next time I see you all after tomorrow, it will have started! squeals of excitement and suffocates Ellie doll in hands oops… he he… sorry! Either way, TTYT! (Talk To You Tomorrow!)

Taffyabc, (A.K.A. Funkywatermelon's assistant)