Following the sound wasn't the hard part. It was a fair distance away, but as Diego lithely made his way closer, it was his confusion and concern that kept holding him up.
There was a significant difference between the large, deep growl of a mammoth or elk and that of a wolf or other carnivore. And the closer he ventured, the surer Diego was that the low, powerful sound was, indeed, coming from a carnivore.
He really wasn't in the mood today to cross paths with some hotshot looking to pick a fight. It had happened a few times since he'd set out on his own, and he just wanted to get moving north and bypass whatever inconvenience this was going to turn out to be. But he also couldn't deny the prickly feeling under his fur that these noises had an edge of distress to them.
Something was wrong.
The woods were unfamiliar here; he'd been pushing into new territory for the last few hours. So it was total a surprise when the trees suddenly cut off a few hundred yards later to reveal a narrow strip of land that crumbled away into a ravine. The roar of water far below drifted up to meet him as Diego slowly padded closer.
The sound was coming from here – a clear growl of fear. And it was coming from below the ledge where he couldn't see. Diego didn't give himself time to come up with a worst-case scenario; he was already moving forward cautiously. An animal going over the edge and not being able to get back up again would have been the scenario he inevitably landed on anyway.
The edge was a rough drop-off. The rock here was layered and unstable, which was probably what had gotten the animal into trouble in the first place. One bad move, and part of it would shift and, being so thin, snap off. And down they'd go.
Remembering the lava flow all too well, Diego took his time approaching. He got as far as he could bring himself to and then leaned forward and poked his head over the edge.
A saber. They were clinging to the rough face by their claws and growling to themselves. All Diego could really see was the ash-orange of their head and the tautness in their forelegs. They were barely hanging on by their claws, and even that wouldn't be enough for much longer. Yeah, this was definitely not good.
When the saber looked up suddenly and their eyes met, Diego rolled his and edged a little closer. "To be honest, I thought you were too smart to get yourself into a situation like this."
Nate raised his eyebrows at him and readjusted his position a little. "To be honest, so did I."
Diego huffed and dropped to his belly. Slowly, he inched just a little farther. Then he reached down with his good paw. Nate just looked at it and didn't move. Feeling a little more confident since the ground hadn't given way yet, Diego wriggled a little farther so that his paw was farther down and easier to reach.
Nate was still watching him in silence, and it took him another moment before he reached up with a look of pain and caught his paw at Diego's. Diego grunted as he pulled up a little, trying to steady Nate enough that he could start trying to climb up.
His shoulder was starting to ache just slightly, but otherwise Diego was pleased to find that it was strong enough to brace him so he could take part of another saber's weight like this. And he waited silently as Nate slowly scrabbled his way up the sheer face of the rock, sending small chunks down to the foam of white water below. It was slow-going, and Nate had clearly been trying to hold on for a while.
Which was what made a large chunk breaking off such a problem. It fell away underneath Nate's front left paw out of nowhere, and once he lost his grip, it was all Diego could do to brace himself and hold on as Nate's weight got worse while he scrambled to find purchase again.
But the broken piece had taken a lot with it, and Nate had to reach up too far to find another place to hold. And as his claws scratched at the hard surface, back legs working up and down as if he was running in a desperate effort to pull himself up, Nate looked up at him. His eyes were wide and desperate, and he was shaking his head for some reason.
Diego didn't have enough breath to ask while pressed to the ground like this and pretty much taking Nate's full weight. But he did know he needed to act quickly, and he readjusted his own position and then carefully, slowly, let go with his injured foreleg and reached it down too.
Nate reached up to him reflexively, taking hold less firmly this time. Diego sunk his claws into Nate's thick foreleg fur just enough to get a better grip without hurting him, sliding forward a little now that he could no longer brace himself.
Nate winced at the slight drop. "Diego, I-" He paused to keep scratching with his back legs as Diego started trying to pull himself backward. If he could just get Nate high enough, could just get him to the edge and let him keep pulling himself up from there…
Despite a lack of immediate reaction, Diego was starting to feel his shoulder muscles shake now that they were being stretched and weighed down. He clenched his jaw, forcing himself to focus on Nate just below him, still fighting wildly for a grip and looking even more panicked.
He was also looking up at Diego again. He must have been able to feel the shaking too. "Diego…your shoulder… It's going to give out and you're going…going to fall in too."
Diego just shook his head, clenching his muscles as tightly as possible and digging into the ground with his back paws.
Nate was still looking up at him, his own body tremoring from the effort. "You're going to fall. You can't-can't keep this up. Diego-"
Neither of them could keep this up for much longer. With a groan, Diego got his back legs underneath him and pulled up, both of his shoulders and his back straining under the weight, and bringing Nate with him…
"Wait, don't-"
…and a second later he was collapsing to the ground away from the edge with Nate half on top of him, both of them heaving for air. And, satisfied that they were far enough away from the drop, Diego let his head fall to the ground, on his back and too tired to move.
He barely registered Nate heavily dragging himself off to collapse beside him. They were both shaky and exhausted, and this was not what Diego had been expecting when he headed north this morning. But it was better than other alternatives, so he'd take it. As long as Nate didn't decide he'd changed his mind about Half Peak and try to turn this into a brawl. Diego wasn't in the mood to humor any petty fights today.
"You shouldn't have helped me. I was sure your shoulder was going to give out." Nate's voice was rough and wobbly.
It probably would have if Diego had tried to keep holding on for much longer. Feeling was starting to come back into the joints, and it definitely wasn't the best sensation. His whole body was starting to twitch a little, actually. Maybe he wasn't quite as healed as he thought he was. "You're welcome?"
"I'm serious. It would have been smarter to just walk away."
If it had been one of his old packmates, Diego probably would have. Mostly because he didn't trust them not to be dumb enough to start a fight. But he'd left Nate's pack on better-than-expected terms, and it was largely thanks to Nate himself.
"Maybe I don't want to be on Ames and Cole's bad sides more than I already am."
"I'm not sure how much I can do about that; they're pretty stubborn." A pause and then, "If it came down to not hating you or helping me, they would have told you to let me fall."
Diego laughed at that and closed his eyes again, still floating on his back with no intention of getting up anytime soon. The late morning sun felt good on his fur. Nate didn't move or say anything else for a long time either.
All other grievances aside, this was what Diego liked best about not being in a pack. If he wanted to fall asleep in a sunbeam for a while, he could. He had nowhere to be, no one to answer to. It was adequate compensation for how alone he sometimes felt.
Finally, when he no longer felt like his lungs were spasming, Diego reopened his eyes and stretched. Nate turned his head at his movement, and they both eyed each other before slowly getting up. Standing wasn't nearly as bad as Diego expected it to be. He'd be paying for this over the next few days, but it wasn't going to hurt his self-imposed schedule.
He gave Nate another wry smile as the other saber got his paws back under him, looking much worse for wear. Probably due to however long he'd been holding on and trying to climb back up before Diego got there. "How did you end up… Actually, don't answer that. I don't even want to know."
It was meant to be a joke, but Nate shot him a severe frown in answer that seemed out of character for him. It certainly hadn't been what Diego was expecting, and he was completely shocked that, out of everything Nate could have said or done in response to being helped, that had actually come off the most offensive.
Currently, the other saber was glancing around the area and then up once to the sun's position in the sky. He squinted at it. "You a good tracker?"
"Yes." Even as his mind whispered no, the usual guilt coming back briefly. He was doing a lot better at not allowing his mind to drag him down, but the thought of failing still hurt.
Nate's firm gaze returned to him, and he jerked his head toward the trees. "Come on."
000
Buck kept to the edges of the trees, mind half-occupied with remembering how to move silently through a snowy landscape, half watching the herd of sloths making their way westward, presumably toward Brian and Merle's territory for the meeting.
They were slow, though. Buck couldn't help but keep asking himself why he was bothering with this when he could have been long gone by now. But they also reeked, so the better to hide from Gavin by masking his scent with theirs. They were also loud and their conversation had been going in circles for the last hour he'd been keeping pace with them and out of sight. A bonus given that Gavin wouldn't expect him to be hiding himself here.
It was a risk, but maybe worth it to avoid trouble before reaching his destination. He was just making up his mind to stick around and debating whether or not to go introduce himself when there was a crunch behind him and a second later a splitting pain in his head, and Buck passed out.
000
Bodhi was absolutely going to scream. Like. Really.
Everyone was fussing over him the morning after his water-induced panic, and even reminding them that they were so close to where their daughter may have last been did nothing to keep Ellie from asking over and over and over again if he was okay. Manfred tried to get him to ride and simply give directions, which he flatly refused multiple times. Even Sid was hovering and acting as though Bodhi was about to lose it.
He was fine. A little sore; maybe still a little …conscious of what had happened yesterday. But that was it. Really.
"We're going now," he snapped and waved the twins up to walk with him at the front. They were the only ones who hadn't been all over him, preferring instead to stand back and watch everyone else drive him crazy.
"They're worried," Crash said, as if that wasn't abundantly obvious.
"They need to mind their own business." Bodhi made sure to say it loud enough that it could easily be heard behind them. He thought he caught a snicker in response. Probably from Ellie. She liked to pretend like this was all just some act that he was putting on for their benefit.
"They want to make sure you're okay," Crash added.
"Because they're overprotective," Eddie agreed. The two possums exchanged a look.
Bodhi just huffed and let his mind slip away into tracking mode. They were close, and it wasn't lost on him that their fussing might have been out of nervousness. Which made sense; he was nervous too. Despite trying to prepare them for the likely reality that reaching the area wouldn't solve their problem, he still hoped it would.
Almost an hour passed with little talking, and Bodhi's desperation started to claw its way upward. He wanted to smell something, see something that would give him some indication that they were still here. Even old tracking markers would be a welcome and unexpected lead. Ones he was fairly sure wouldn't be there.
And he was right another mile later as Bodhi pulled them to a stop in the exact spot the mammoth had been standing when he'd passed by. And as the rest of the herd looked around in clear confusion as to why Bodhi was stopping them here and what it was they were supposed to take from this, he sighed internally.
He turned and faced them. "This is it."
Another beat of silence. Then, "This is…this is it?" Ellie did a double take at him.
"This is where the mammoth was standing." Bodhi met her eyes and then Manfred's next to her as he stopped swiveling his head and focused on their conversation. "I smell nothing. I can canvass the area to make sure, but I'm almost certain they're long gone. I'm sorry."
Two weeks of traveling for this. Bodhi had no illusions that everyone had pretty much expected it deep down, but it still hurt. And somehow not being a part of the herd and having to watch as the rest of them looked around in a haze only served to make him feel even worse.
Still, he stayed silent and let them look and pace and mourn. Just got out of the way and let the silence swallow him up.
Finally, Manfred turned to him looking like he was searching for a way out of this. Bodhi was ready. He nodded back to Manfred's wide eyes. "It's time to go to Brian."
000
Diego was not in the habit of still following pack leader orders. And he certainly wasn't going with Nate because his immediate reaction had been to obey a command. It had, but that wasn't why he'd ultimately agreed.
It was a tense sort of silence between them, much different than the first time. And if this was how it was going to be, Diego wasn't going to bother much longer with this and simply say he had places to be. It wasn't like it was a lie.
Nate was currently leading him through the forest, presumably to some pre-determined destination, and it finally occurred to Diego that he was a long way from his territory. Unless Diego had somehow miscalculated, Nate was miles and miles away from where he was supposed to be.
"I wasn't expecting to run into you again." Nate said out of nowhere, not taking his eyes off the foliage and snow in front of them. "You seem to be doing a lot better. You look good. Happy."
Diego wasn't fast enough to stifle a choked laugh. Sabers were happy when they were able to eat and get enough sleep. He ate a fair amount and certainly wasn't starving, but he'd lost much-needed weight from the work of doing it all by himself, and his sleeping schedule was nothing special. By that logic alone, Diego was moderately content at most. "Did you hit your head or something before I got there?"
"It's not funny." Nate's voice was harsher than before, and his face was set in a grim scrunch. It took him a few more minutes to say, "I'm not sure I reacted well the first time we met."
"Well, I told you what happened and I'm not dead, so I'd say it went great." The last time they'd seen each other, Diego had been running an unanticipated bet against himself that Nate's fake calm would prevent him from outright taking retroactive revenge for Soto as a fellow pack leader. Maybe this was what it looked like when Nate's cultivated demeanor started to crack at the edges.
"I don't like what happened. I don't. But I also don't like what your pack leader did either." Nate still wasn't looking at him. "I didn't want to think about that when you first told me. And it took me a while to admit that to myself. But I understand why you did what you did."
"Even if you still don't like it."
"Yeah," Nate sighed. He seemed to have forgotten about Diego's injury completely because the slow gait he'd started them at had picked up as he talked.
Diego didn't complain, just kept pace and pretended like his shoulder wasn't pinching in low-level agony. "And now we're going…?"
"Home… Temporarily."
000
The first time Peaches dropped out of a tree and scared the triplets, she felt mostly bad about it.
"What the…" Cooper was on full alert, whipping his head around, body tensed. Behind him, Sidney had crouched into a defensive stance, just slightly behind Mayim who'd definitely jumped and wasn't too proud to pretend like she hadn't.
"Hey!" Peaches waved at their upside down, gawking faces. The branch supporting her was swaying slightly from the motion. When they didn't immediately smile back, she let her trunk fall to the ground. "You guys okay?"
"No. I just got scared out of my fur because my cousin can do something literally impossible…" Cooper had straightened up and was frowning at her.
"Possum uncles? Remember?"
"No. Do not do that thing that Mayim does where she references some earlier conversation we had and expects me to remember."
"I knew you were still mad about that," Mayim snapped at him. "I told you it was fine."
"Cooper isn't a very good messenger, and Mayim was super late to her meeting." Sid straightened up and trotted up to push her face affectionately against his. There was still a teasing glint in her green eyes though.
He batted her away halfheartedly. "We have a deer for an aunt, but none of us grew Aunt Claire's hooves." His serene face was pulled painfully in a frown and, over his initial surprise, Cooper was eyeing her with annoyance.
Peaches had to laugh at him. "I'm sorry for scaring you."
"Whatever. Just get down here."
Peaches rolled her eyes and swung a little to build enough momentum to reach her forelegs down and get her feet under her before letting go of the branch. It rustled back into place overhead. She beamed at their renewed looks of surprise. "What, like it's hard?" She pushed her fur out of her eyes nonchalantly, earning another glare from Cooper and an amused eyebrow raise from Mayim behind him. "Need some help getting newcomers settled?"
"Packed" was probably the best word to describe the tight living quarters over the last week. The locals had all been helping out as much as they could with finding places for new packs and herds and making sure everyone knew the ground rules. Peaches didn't particularly like constantly having to talk down cocky carnivores or soothe concerned herbivores and would have much rather been off looking for Buck, but now that her and Julian had talked over what Brian had said about picking out an area of their own and decided, formally, that they were going to be staying here, she also didn't want her new home ruined.
"Maybe; it's died down over the last hour or so." Mayim was heavily involved in the whole process, which made it easier to jump in and out. And she was currently eyeing Peaches like she knew what Peaches was thinking as they fell into step.
The triplets knew her and Julian were staying. Shira and Diego didn't. Peaches doubted she'd find time to bring it up until this was all over with. She wasn't in the mood to have it out with Diego right now. And she fully expected him to put up a fight.
"Where's Julian?" Sid was prancing along on Peaches' other side. She was being recruited for tracking and weather-related errands, much to Mayim's annoyance, and she yawned as she said it. Cooper, on her other side, glanced at her occasionally, also seemingly worried. Peaches reached down and lightly patted her head, drawing a smile. And another sleepy yawn.
("She's always been a prodigy," Mayim said one afternoon when they were hanging out just the two of them and talking about their families. "Dad taught us all how to track, but Sid picked it up immediately and just ran with it. She's amazing. And everyone else knows it, and they think that it's okay to 'borrow' her whenever they need something. I finally had to put my paw down.")
"Julian's doing some more tracking, should be back soon." Peaches left it at that. If the three of them noticed the shortness in her tone, they didn't comment. And Peaches was glad for it because Julian had been acting increasingly closed off over the last few days, ever since he'd told her that Shira knew what they were up to and that Cam of all animals had been the one to figure it out and tell her. Peaches was glad that Shira knew now and wasn't planning on stopping them. She was also glad that Cam agreed with them and could support Jackson. She wasn't glad that something had obviously happened in the midst of all this with Julian that he wasn't telling her. She kept promising herself she'd bring it up soon, but it hadn't seemed like the right time yet.
Now, the four of them reached the main clearing, and Mayim was giving her siblings orders to go help a couple of warthogs standing around looking lost and more than a little annoyed. Then she offered Peaches a warm (for her) smile and loped over to talk to Brian on the far side of the clearing.
Peaches was just looking around for anyone else unfamiliar and looking confused when her husband came through the snowy trees. He was at the center of a group of mammoths from Brian's herd, and they were all laughing and listening as he talked, telling some joke. The laughter increased when he hit the punchline and looked up and saw Peaches standing there.
She offered him a smile that he didn't return, instead saying something to the mammoths and excusing himself, making a beeline to her. As soon as he was close enough, he caught at her trunk with his, the laughter in his eyes gone and replaced with something frantic. "There you are. Come on; I found something."
000
There was bright light beyond Buck's eyelids. It was too bright; wrong, somehow. And his body was cold, like he was lying in snow.
And something was…poking him?
"Hey! Wake up!" That was an unfamiliar voice. Another poke. The sunlight overhead shifted into part shadow. A lot of crunching was involved, again like snow.
Buck coughed and blinked his eyes open, staring upward into the snowy trees and gray sky. Right. He was above ground again. And that chill was snow. The sloths…he'd been considering introducing himself to them…
"There you are!" The unfamiliar voice spoke again, and blue eyes set in a pale, folded face leaned over him. The eyes blinked at him. "What are you doing?"
It was…a sloth? Buck sat up and immediately grasped his head, just above his missing eye. His skull was pounding. "I…" Wow, that really hurt. She'd asked him a question. He wasn't sure what it had been anymore. What had happened to him…?
There was a forceful whap on his head, right in the same spot, and Buck yelped. She struck the palm of one of her paws with the stick she was holding one more time for good measure, then put it back down to lean on. She was frowning severely down at him. "The first one was for sneaking off! Now get up, Precious! We're gonna be late, and I hate being late."
"Wha'?" Buck pushed himself up a little farther.
"Let's go! Need to find some fruit, and you can chew that for me, Precious…" She'd turned without further comment – or violence – and was crunching off into the trees. Her voice floated back to him in half-coherent sentences, mumbling nonsense.
Late?
Buck watched her shakily waddle off, finally putting two and two together that she'd been the reason he woke up lying in the snow. Which begged about a million questions, but for now, he was also realizing he couldn't hear the rest of the sloths. He wasn't sure how long he'd been out for, but long enough for them to be too far away for him to pick up their chatter.
Growling to himself, Buck got his feet back under him and started following the sloth, well out of stick distance.
Alright, I think that's everybody now!
Legally Blonde quote because I couldn't resist.
Thank you to the guest reviewers! I love reading your thoughts! As far as a possible prequel about Shira and Diego meeting in this story-verse, I do have some flashback scenes involving Gutt planned for later on. However, if this fic ends and anyone is interested in more information than whatever I end up using in this story, please let me know!
Sorry for the wait, and thanks for reading!