Chapter 7

Love and Loss

Mikey turned away from the female possum, which he didn't know nor cared about, but had probably just saved her life and without a single word, he walked away toward Diego.

"Tell them to be ready in five minutes, we'll be leaving then," Mikey ordered with immense anger showing in his voice, before immediately walking away and sitting beneath one of the leafless trees that surrounded the group.

Although Diego clearly didn't like the fact that this possum seemed to think he had power over him as well, he didn't feel like staying either and with a quick look toward Manny for approval, which was given in the form of a quiet nod, Diego dashed off to inform the rest of the herds.

Manny and the others began, silently, preparing to leave; a nearby roar emanated from somewhere behind the rocky outcrop, sounding the beginning of Diego's announcement and was almost immediately followed by a lot of tired sounding, grumbles as the animals began to wake up.

Eddie walked over to the small female, who was currently sitting and looking around nervously, clearly frightened by the much bigger animals that now surrounded her, but not sufficiently fearful to warrant playing dead just yet, it didn't take long for her to notice him.

As he approached, Eddie could see that she was pretty much standard as far as possums go, with the usual three beige rings around her body and the remaining surface being covered in dark brown fur, but with a distinctly feminine look about her. However the one feature he couldn't help noticing was her dazzling, emerald-green eyes, which seemed to sparkle brightly in the sunlight as he approached; there was no lying, she was beautiful.

"Hi," Eddie opened with the most non-threatening greeting he could think of, "I'm Eddie."

"Are they your friends?" the female replied, asking one of the first things Eddie would've expected and pointing at Manny, Ellie, Sid, Crash and Mikey.

"Ahh ,yeah, wait, not Mikey, I don't know him that well," Eddie answered, strange thoughts beginning to surface in his mind almost as if he recognised this possum somehow even though he was sure he'd never met her before.

"What about that tiger, how come he doesn't eat them," the female continued to question Eddie's bizarre choice of companions.

"Oh Diego, yeah he's cool, well sort of, he does lay into me and Crash sometimes, but it's kinda fun to annoy him; it's great when we're bored," Eddie answered the second question and, unable to shake the feeling that he knew this female from somewhere he had to ask, "Have we met before, I bet I don't remember cause Diego knocked me out yesterday, I still feel a little weird from that one."

"Eddie c'mon we gotta go, Mikey says the next stop could be ages away, we have to hurry if we wanna get there before dark!" Ellie was calling from the edge of the small clearing in which the group had been sleeping, until their rude awakening.

"Are you travelling with anyone?" Eddie asked the female as he turned to follow his sister.

"No, I'm on my own," the female answered, "Are you going somewhere?"

"Yeah, Mikey's leading the herd to someplace called the Green Lands, you wanna come with us?" Eddie couldn't help asking, sure it was probably the right thing to do as well, but there was no denying it, he definitely liked the idea of having a female of his own species around for once, and there was no passing up someone as stunning as her, "The others will be fine with it, I bet you didn't have anything to do with what happened earlier anyway."

She stopped to consider his proposal for a moment before answering, "Well, okay, I guess it'll be better than being on my own all the time. My name's Sarah by the way."

Sarah got up and followed Eddie who had already started toward Ellie as she began to leave the clearing; strangely, Crash was no where to be seen.

"Hey Ellie, can Sarah come with us?" Eddie asked as he caught up to his sister as they left the trees and walked out into sunny, yet still very muddy, plane that they were apparently following at Mikey's direction.

Ellie stopped and looked around at Eddie, who was standing next to the female possum Marlon had brought to them and had claimed was perpetrator of the prank they had all suffered earlier.

"What, why? I thought Marlon said she did it," she began, referring to the unpleasant wake up call they had all suffered, curiously except for Eddie and Crash.

"Yeah but I saw the knot that got used on you and Manny's trunks, I doubt she knows how to tie it, only m- I mean only a couple of people know how to tie one," Eddie had to stop himself from revealing that, as far as he knew, only he knew how to tie it and even though he knew he wasn't responsible for the prank, Ellie probably wouldn't see it that way, "Plus you know what birds are like, if they think there's food in it for 'em they'll say anything."

Eddie could see his sister was working it all out, it was a few moments before she responded, "Alright but you know what Manny's like, and Diego too, you're going to have to show them a reason to keep her," Ellie answered, clearly accepting the arrangement, after all, once her brother's were set on something it was pretty pointless to argue anyway, unless of course you get trapped in a cave and have to shove them through a small hole and tell them to get help, then they might see reason. but that also depends on whether they like you or not.

"C'mon Sarah, that means you're in," Eddie told Sarah, before climbing up onto his sister's back and gesturing for her to do likewise.

Sarah looked at Ellie for approval first, Eddie could tell she wasn't exactly sure about his sister yet, so he decided to help out by giving his sister taste of the puppy-dog eyes he'd been working on for the past week.

They worked like a charm worked like a charm and Ellie let out a sigh, "Fine," she answered, giving in to Eddie's request, if only to avoid having to face several hours of non-stop whining from him.

Sarah quickly climbed up Ellie's tail with ease and sat down behind Eddie, who was giving a short victory chuckle.

"Hey Ellie, where's Crash?" asked Eddie curious as to why his brother was not already sitting with him on his sister's back.

"He's upfront with Manny, I think it's because I hit him earlier," Ellie answered, beginning to lumber forward with the herd, which was already beginning to form a long line of grumbling animals.

"He, he. Where'd ya hit him, sis?" Eddie couldn't help asking, sniggering as he did so, already quite sure of the answer.

"Do you really have to know?" Ellie responded, clearly not going to tell him, but her lack of an answer said it all, really, what else would make Crash put so much distance between himself and Ellie.

Sarah laughed a little, slightly amused too, even if she hadn't seen the event, she couldn't help it.

The days dragged on as the herd made its way over the drying mud, the late spring days were now pretty hot and the humidity was terrible, thanks mostly to the evaporating flood water as it rose from the muck. The bare trees became incredibly sparse as the previous forest had given way to vast fields of muddy grassland, which was definitely recovering much faster than the forests since large patches of green grass now dotted the relatively flat landscape.

Since the muddy plain continuosly refused to present any sheltered resting spots, the herds now had to sleep in the open at night, and this meant night watchers were necessary. Eddie and Sarah, as nocturnal possums, had proven to be the perfect candidates for this duty, unfortunately this left Eddie extremely tired during the day, and the lack of communication between himself and Crash only served to further aggriviate his already strained temper.

Mid-afternoon on the fifth day of the journey and Eddie was now bored out of his mind and on his last nerve, with no doubt in his head that his brother had somehow found a way to entertain himself without him, he always did.

In light of the fiasco several days ago, Ellie had forbid her brothers leaving her sight at any time and since Crash was safely upfront with Manny, Diego and Mikey; she seemed to have thought it best to watch Eddie herself. This strategy of keeping the two separated was working perfectly, unfortunately this left Eddie with very little to do, since it was Crash who had all the ideas.

He was now sitting on his sister's back, having a thumb war with the latest edition to the herd, Sarah.

"3-4-5, I win!" Sarah yelled happily, announcing what had to have been her hundredth victory and letting go of Eddie's incredibly sore hand.

"You didn't have to hold it so hard, I think it's broken," Eddie whined, looking at his swollen finger which was now aching terribly, "Plus you counted too fast that time, so it's a tie."

"No I didn't, you're just grumpy cause I'm a girl and I beat you," shot Sarah, still smiling happily, relishing her latest triumph.

"What do you think, Ellie?" Eddie called to Ellie, confident that, as his sister, she would definitely agree with him.

Unfortunately for him, Ellie had actually taken a liking to Sarah, most likely because Eddie's earlier argument had been right, she liked finally having another female to talk to now, after having being stuck in an all-male group for the past few weeks.

"I think she's right, you're just jealous," Ellie called up in agreement with the Sarah.

Eddie turned away from Sarah's smug grin, grumbling incoherently, and lay on his stomach, staring forward, toward the front of the long line of travelling animals that he and his siblings had become stuck with.

"Hey," he heard Sarah say from behind him, "What are you staring at? Did a glyptodont roll over again?"

Eddie felt Sarah lying down next to him, although it most likely to get the same view point as him, Eddie couldn't help feeling little uncomfortable with how close she was.

He could feel her fur touching his, and even more strangely he didn't exactly hate it, in fact he sort of liked it.

He slowly let his gaze slide sideways toward Sarah, watching her staring ahead, vainly searching for the non-existent source of Eddie's previous non-interest, completely oblivious to the fact that he was now staring at her, with a small, unconscious, smile on his face.

A sudden jolt pulled Eddie from his stupor, drawing his gaze forward again he now noticed that the herd had stoped and that the jolt had been Ellie doing likewise.

"Hey Eddie can you see what's going on up there," Ellie called up to his brother, who had now stood up on her back, a little glad to have something to distract him from Sarah.

All he saw was an immensly long, unmoving, line of animals ahead of them, giving him absolutely no view of what was happening at the front of the group, to have made the herd stop so suddenly.

Suddenly it hit him, this was perfect, if he played his cards right, this would provide the perfect opportunity to get away from his sister and hopefully reunite with Crash.

"I can't see anything sis, tell you what, I'll go up and check it out," Eddie called back to his sister, before immediately sliding down her side and setting of into the crowd toward the front of the herd, without giving Ellie a chance to answer.

However before he had even taken 4 steps, a large and furry object, that could only be Ellie's trunk quickly wrapped around his body and pulled him back.

"Not so fast!" Ellie yelled at Eddie, as she dropped him, face first, onto the ground in front of her, "You're not getting away that easily. Whatever it is I'm sure Manny and Diego can handle it, you'll probably just make it worse."

Eddie got up, brushing the dirt from his fur, thankfully the ground had dried throughout the day and he hadn't ended up slathered in mud.

"What if they're in trouble and they need our help?" he asked, although this was definitely not going to work, it was the only thing he could think of.

"What the heck are you supposed to do, you're too sm-" she began to answer Eddie's question, sounding a little more annoyed than the situation warranted, but he cut in before she could finish.

"HAWK!" Eddie cried, as loud as he could, pointing into the sky behind Ellie, who immediately swung around as fast as her large body would allow, knocking over a bunch of small, short–nose, things and hitting several other animals in the tightly packed group.

Before she had even finished turning around, Eddie was well on his way, sprinting on all fours, weaving through the legs of all the larger animals, as he sped toward the front of the herd, laughing out loud over the success of his cunning ploy.

Ellie may have been smart enough to see through Eddie's first escape attempt, but after years of living with her possum brothers, she still feared birds of prey, a weakness Eddie had been quick to exploit and to great effect.

After several minutes of running, not quite flat-out, Eddie finally made it to the front of the enormous crowd. After pushing his way through a bunch of anteaters, he fell onto his hands and knees, panting heavily and feeling like he was about to pass out from sheer exhaustion.

"The possum is weary it would seem. How challenging it can be, to escape those who know you best, tricks and cunning can save those who think, but running can save rest," to his surpriseEddie now heard the unmistakable voice of the raven, Corbin, who was obviously referring to him, "The groundlings stands alone? Abandoned his friends or is it they who abandoned he, never matter. The Sky king does wonder though, if Michael has appeared not in lead, as the Raven had promised. Does the groundling know of reason for this most concerning absence?"

As he got up Eddie noticed several things, firstly it wasn't hard to see Corbin, sitting in the branches of a single, small, tree growing a few metres from him, standing right in front of a large, steep cliff, that split the plain in two. Secondly Eddie also noticed that Corbin was not alone, the tree's many branches not only held the shoots of new leaves but also contained about eight different birds.
From what he could see, there were two falcons, one of which was Marlon, the other was a complete stranger, but something about it told him it was female. On a neighbouring branch stood three hawks, their eyes were, thankfully, not focused on Eddie himself but appeared to be scanning the crowd, but for what he had no idea.
The three remaining birds were standing on the highest branch of the tree, surprisingly, he recognised all of them. To the left was Corbin, looking thoroughly bored, his mind off somewhere else, as usual, and to the right was the very vulture who had, barely a month ago, given a fateful warning saving the lives of thousands of animals from a flood that had virtually obliterated the valley in which Eddie's family, and apparently Manny's group as well, had been living.

Neither of these two were particularly frightening, but it was between them that stood a sight that filled Eddie with a terror that far outstripped anything, any of the other birds could have caused.

On the branch, between Corbin and the vulture, stood the largest, toughest looking hawk, Eddie had ever seen. The winged beast stood almost two inches taller than any of the hawks or falcons and sported a coating of mainly light grey feathers, except for its wings, which were a much darker grey. He instantly recognised its plumage as being that of the hawk who had appeared several days ago, when Crash had been preparing for his latest attempt at the 'flying possum'.

Eddie immediately turned to run back into the crowd of, equally surprised, animals behind him.

"Don't even think about," came a loud, clear voice, Eddie recognised as belonging to the larger hawk, mainly because of the accent, which was in its case a strong English one.

However, in direct defiance of the hawk's warning, Eddie began to sprint straight back into the crowd, almost instantaneously hearing the unmistakable sound of wings flapping, as one, or more, of the birds in the tree took off, most likely in his pursuit.

Running as fast as his legs could carry him, Eddie, once again, found himself ducking, diving and sliding to avoid the limbs of the other animals around him and hoping desperately that their, much larger, silhouettes would provide some cover, lest the predator above catch, and most likely, kill him.

Pushing his way through a bunch of small, grey, waddling things, Eddie burst out of the crowd and found himself running across open ground, only realising far to late that there had obviously been a bend in the path, he had missed in his frantic rush to escape and, in a desperate attempt to correct this, Eddie made the terrible mistake of stopping right in the middle of open ground and spinning around to make his way back into the protective cover of the herd.

As he ran back toward the group of startled animals, he heard the bird above cry out victoriously, with a call that could only belong to a falcon, and begin its dive toward him.

Although he continued to run frantically toward his, foolishly abandoned, cover, Eddie knew it was too late and barely a second after the falcon had begun its dive, Eddie was slammed to the ground, extremely hard, by the force of the bird's dive.

Strangely enough, what was sure to be his last thoughts weren't centred on Ellie or his family, but he suddenly found himself thinking about how he hadn't had the chance to enjoy one of the fundamental experiences of life, he'd never had a mate and, even more strangely, he began to see Sarah, an admittedly attractive female that, over the past few days, he'd managed to learn nothing about, as a missed opportunity.

Mikey now stood in front of two animals, who, up until now, had placed their very survival in his hands, and staring up at them as they gazed back at him, waiting for him to explain himself.

It had been over five-and-a-half days since the herd had set off to continue its journey, and now, as he had dreaded, they had been stopped at a fork, where a narrow cliff seemed to split the huge, sparsely vegetated plain, in half.

From his view point, Mikey had been able to see that the cliff was actually the beginning of a large range of extremely steep hills, that seemed to continue off into the distance, until it eventually connected with the far-off mountain ranges, which now formed the entire horizon.

In choosing the correct path, the herd would obviously reach the haven they so desperately sought but if he went the wrong way, he was sure they would eventually reach an impassable wall of mountains, and that would spell doom for all the animals following him.

Now Marlon that had left him, because of the deep insult Mikey had unintentionally caused him to save the life of a worthless female possum, a decision Mikey now greatly regretted, since Marlon had been the only other creature, apart from Mikey's father, who knew the way to the Green Lands and his departure had left Mikey to lead the herd with only a rough idea of the direction.

Thankfully, most of the other trailing herds had merely seen this halt as a merciful act on his part, giving them time to rest a while. All except for the small, mixed species, group, who had apparently taken up a leadership position in the herd just before Mikey had met them.

After seeing that there was no way he could make the decision on his own, Mikey had lead them away from the main herd so that he could explain his predicament to them without alarming the other animals.

"Well?" asked Manny, snapping Mikey back into the present, eager to find out what was so important.

"Umm," Mikey began uneasily, trying to think on his feet, of a soft way to break the news to them, "You know, how I said I could lead you guys to the Green Lands."

"Yeah what about it?" Diego spoke now in a voice clearly intended to intimidate, and taking a few steps toward Mikey, "Wait, were you lying?"

"Well yes and no," Mikey continued nervously, taking a few steps backward, away from Diego, who was beginning to growl furiously, "I mean I do know the direction of the Green Lands, but I, er, forget to tell you that I don't know the exact way to get there."

"What? How could know the direction but not know the way?" exclaimed Manny, not exactly accusingly but definitely confused by the strange manner in which Mikey was speaking, "Do you know the way or not."

"I mean I know the direction to travel but I don't know the path to get there. I don't know which side of that of cliff I'm supposed to take," Mikey once again attempted to explain the situation to the others but still wound up sounding just as confusing as before.

Diego, clearly tired of the possums ridiculous explanations, began to advance on Mikey, unsheathing his claws as he approached and once again looking Mikey straight in the eye, just like he had done when the possum had first offered to lead the herds.

Stopping barely a foot from Mikey, who now found himself face to face with the same tiger that had only yesterday threatened to kill him if this kind of situation occurred, Diego questioned him one last time, "No stupid games, do you know the way or not!"

Mikey swallowed with fear and opened his mouth to answer, desperately trying to think of something to say. If he lied and ended up leading the group the wrong way, he'd be responsible for thousands of deaths but if he told the truth, Diego would literally skin him alive, there really was no safe answer and there was no way to run. That tiger would definitely catch him before he'd even taken two steps, unless, of course, something distracted Diego, if only for a moment.

"Grrr, Tell me," demanded Diego, taking up a pouncing stance, ready to kill Mikey if he tried to run.

Although It was incredibly stupid, and un-possum like, but it was his only chance, and Diego was just close enough fo him to try it; without warning, Mikey leapt straight toward the tiger and sunk his teeth deep into Diego's right foreleg, taking the tiger completely by surprise and giving him a very clear reminder that, although they were small, possum's still had very sharp teeth.

Diego, gave out a deafening roar of pain and surprise, it had definitely been the last thing he had expected, and from his yells, Mikey could tell it definitely hurt a heck of a lot more than a tickle.

After several seconds of desperately attempting to shake the surprisingly vicious possum off, Mickey's teeth finally came loose and he was sent flying, landing more than twenty metres away, quite an impressive throw from Diego actually.

Relishing the success of his highly unorthodox act of desperation, Mikey instantly rolled over and sprinted off, not really caring where he was going, as long as it led away from Diego, not even bothering to look back to see if the tiger was actually pursuing him.

Several minutes and several hundred metres later, the adrenaline rush of the whole thing had completely worn off and Mikey, collapsed onto the dry mud plain, his heart pounding heavily in his chest and panting madly for air as breath after laboured breath failed to fulfil his need.

Mikey had definitely overstretched himself this time, he was far too weak to move, no matter how hard he tried, he was forced to lie there panting and desperately hoping that no one had followed him.