Here's the next segment of Inside Their World:

Martha was grazing contently on the savannah. The grass here was not too different from what she normally grazed on, but it was still a new experience for her, as was everything else here. It was a brave new world, and she would have to face it.

Martha was perplexed by the circumstances that had brought her here. She and her herd had been migrating for years now, searching for food. The forests that had once been rare had now become so common that they were the dominant plant group in the tundra. Whereas before, there had been many miles of open tundra with a couple patches of forest, now the opposite had been true.

The change was not a welcome one. With much less grass available, the herd had been forced to move farther than they had ever gone before to find food. Often they trekked for many miles, searching for some grass to sustain themselves on. Many had succumbed to hunger and died, feeding the carnivores that followed the herd. While this had happened before, the frequency was increasing, as there simply wasn't enough food to sustain all of the herd.

To add to this problem, the world had been getting warmer. Every year, the summer was warmer than the one before it, putting further stress on the mammoths. Even though they did not realise that this was the reason that the grass was disappearing, it had other, more irksome issues for them. Chief among them was that they were constantly overheating, due in part to their own adaptations. Their thick blubber, tick fur and small ears defended them well against the cold, but against the heat, all of these were a liability. While none of Martha's herd had succumbed to heat stroke, it was a still a massive annoyance.

But the biggest problem had been the humans. Martha had known about humans for a long time. She had scenen them slay a bull mammoth in her youth, after seeing it injure itself fighting another male for the right to mate. She had scene them use the bull's hide for making strange covering on their bodies and the bones to make a den of some sort. She had scene these actions more than half a dozen times in her life, but they really didn't matter to her. After all, they were only doing what they needed to survive. All that mattered to her was that she avoid becoming their meal.

Now, though, man had grown far more common. Not very animals realized this, but human's ability to work together ensured that they could endure what other creatures could not. They took care of their sick and injured, while the old passed their knowledge to the young. This, coupled with the climate change, had resulted in a population boom for these hunters, allowing them to flourish in the new world.

With this had come an increase of attacks on the mammoths. With all of these mouths to feed, they needed to get as much meat a possible. And that meant going after the biggest game available.

In just the past three years, the herd had been decimated. They had gone from around 30 to five, with half of those losses from human hunters. Then, while they were crossing a river, one of the others females had fallen through the ice. While the other two had stayed behind to try and help her, Martha and her sister reluctantly moved on. They hadn't seen any of them since.

Then, a week later, Martha's sister had fallen. Unlike their herd mate though, it wasn't into a frozen river. It was into a human spike pit. Her sister had cried out in pain, before trying to break free, when a group of humans emerged and tried to attack her. Her sister fought back, as did Martha, but ultimately, it was in vain. A few hours later, her sister had succumbed to her injuries.

Martha had spent the next hour trying to rouse her, to no avail. Then, to her surprise, she found another human looking at her. This one was different from the others, though: he wore skins unlike any of the others, and also had strange coverings on his hands, something no human she had seen before had used.

Martha had assumed that the human was here to try to finish her off, but he hadn't done anything to her. Before she had time to ponder this, her strength had left her and she had collapsed. As she watch the human react to this with what appeared to be distress (which confused her to no end), she quickly realized that she was not alone. Joining her were a small herd of wooly rhinos.

The rhinos had been hit even harder by the climate change than her kind. The gradual warming of the planet had, ironically, increased snowfall on the plains that both mammoth and rhino had grazed. While the mammoths could dig through the snow with their trunks, the rhinos had to use their horns. With small necks, this was no easy task. Many pushed themselves to the brink of exhaustion digging for grass to eat.

They, too, had been prey for humans, and their numbers had fallen accordingly. Martha had only scene on or two during her lifetime, and had assumed them extinct when she had collapsed, but it appeared they were still holding on.

Later, more humans came and sent up some kind of shelter near her. To her surprise, though, they didn't try to eat her. In fact, they gave her water, as well as something that made the fever she'd started to develop disappear. They chased off wolves that tried to eat her and even forced the hunters who had attacked her and her sister to retreat.

By the next morning, she had regained some of her strength, as had the rhinos. Then, the human did something strange: he set down a pair of sticks, then twisted them. In moments, a strange vortex of light appeared between the two sticks. Mesmerized by this, Martha made an effort to stand up. For a moment, though, she turned her attention toward her dead sister. Now, Martha was unsure whether she wished to stay or to leave and follow the humans who had helped her. Eventually, pragmatism won the debate and she followed the human through the portal, with the rhinos not far behind.

As soon as she had crossed over and the rhinos moved past her, she collapsed again, still very weak. She'd blacked out for a while, but when she'd awoken, she found herself on a small grass covered hill, with a few patches of snow covering the ground. It was a little warmer than the land she had left, but not too bad.

Martha, however, was too lonely to care. Though she had left her dead sister out o pragmatism, now she was regretting the choice. She was alone here, with no herd to call her own. Even if she could survive on her own, it wouldn't be a happy existence.

A few times during that day, people brought her grass to eat, but she paid them no mind. She wasn't really that hungry after all that she had experienced. The strange human had come too, offering her grasses from her homelands. Still, it did not change her mood.

Then, the next day, a great group of humans had gather on the hill that was her home. They seemed anxious about something, though what she could not tell. Then, she heard a trumpeting sound similar to the ones her herd sisters would make. Turning toward the sound, she found herself facing another mammoth. This one, though, was different from others she had seen. For one, it was taller than her. The she-mammoth also lacked fur, and had very short tusks, even for a female. She also had very large ears. Perhaps she was a mammoth native to warmer lands?

The way the female carried herself indicated that she was a matriarch. Nearby, Martha could see a herd that resembled the female she was staring at. Perhaps she could join their herd? It would be different from her original herd, true, but it was worth a shot.

Slowly, the matriarch approached her. She let out a rumble, signifying that she was watching Martha. Martha made a rumble indicating acknowledgement, before initiating the behaviors associated with joining a new herd. Though she had never had to perform these before, she had witnessed females who had been separated from their herd perform these behaviors to try and get her matriarch to accept them. Most were accepted, except for one who had been far more aggressive than normal. Once she had finished, Martha waited for the female's response.

Her answer came soon enough. The female let out a different rumble, one indicative of acceptance. Then, she backed up to allow Martha to move past her.

It was more than Martha could have hoped for. The mammoth moved quickly to join her new herd, now free of the loneliness that had plagued her before.

As the memory subsided, Martha returned to her meal, only to find that she had been joined by a very tiny creature. They stood on two legs and had feathery quills and beaks like birds, but they also had arms and scale skin. They were colored green and red, and were busy gorging themselves on several seeds.

They were not alone, either. Nearby, she saw strange horn-headed humped creatures, orange and white horned creature resembling deer, and strangest of all, two black winged creatures that were busy picking apart a carcass. A few horses were also nearby, as were strange fuzzy animals the size of deer.

All of these things confused Martha, but for now, thinking about them could wait. Filling her stomach came first.

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AN: Read and Review. This is Flameal15k, signing off.