Author's Note: Pay attention to any lines through the story as they are being used to separate 3rd person memories from the actual story; these do play a decent role in emphasizing certain areas of the story and add a lot of imagery for everyone to picture. Other than this note, the story continues like the other chapters, so enjoy!

IV. Imperfections

While the footprints had no definitive track outside of the previous pool of mud, Diego felt like his tiger instincts would inevitably lead him to more of his kind. His decision to venture out into what he thought was an unknown would be more than satisfying if it had the potential to fill an emotional void.

Is it worth it? Diego often thought about whether or not the gazelle's execution was his doing and if he should have taken the trip away from the herd in the first place. Even if it was his kill, he wouldn't feel remorse for the gazelle's death, nor should he.

A typical saber would be proud for capturing their dinner…or their snack.

A dead gazelle isn't any of my concern. However it happened doesn't matter, it's taking me where I need to go.

"Hey, maybe I can catch a meal soon."

Diego wasn't in a dire need to satisfy his hunger, although capturing his first snack in a while would be rewarding. Thoughts of a new meal frustrated him, as he reminisced back to his first previous gazelle capture.

"Eat my dust, dingo!"

Those words stung his confidence as a carnivore who was not only supposed to be able to hunt, but one that was expected to catch what is known as his prey. A realization of this caused Diego to deeply exhale before continuing northward. He slowly treaded over a very thin layer of dirt. Initially worried about covering his tracks, he glanced at the ground below him.

"No tracks. It's nice having less to think about."

Diego looked back up again and slowly moved in the same direction before one of his paws treaded over nothing but air. The minor imbalance was enough for Diego to lose his train of thought and his stability over the ground. He shifted his momentum backward and put himself into a sitting position. Shut eyes ready for an impact turned into opened ones as Diego remained still, unharmed and untouched. After taking a moment to regain equilibrium, he calmly scoped the area around him to be sure that he hadn't fallen out of line with where he needed to go. After a quick view of the scenery around him, his right ear flickered. There wasn't anything particularly odd or strangely out of place within his sight, yet his body released a shudder – an almost sixth sense, consumed his mind; yet Diego couldn't hone in on the danger or any sort of oddity that would cause such a distraction within him. Unsure about what was bothering him, he decided to lift himself. Lingering in one area would never do Diego good; he'd learned this lesson after losing half of his pack; his predecessors; his family, to a group of humans. The bitter memories of his past began to pierce him deeper than daggers through fur, like claws from his own kind.

Not another second had passed before Diego regrouped his thoughts. Focusing on his steps was of utmost importance as future lapses of judgment may prove to be more serious, or fatal – even to a young and cunning saber. A second wind took over Diego as he opted to make up for any sort of lost time; concentration was all that mattered to him, and his past couldn't be the reason for him to avoid progressing in his life.

Gotta move. Any time spent thinking about my own self-being is time wasted. If it took the rest of Diego's life to find satisfaction within him, it was worthwhile.

Diego eased over to where he had lost his balance. The ground below his feet had in fact ended; he'd reached the cliff's end, but there was always the opportunity to go around. Silence filled the air as he pondered what to do now.

"Great." A growing impatience soon turned into frustration. What was thought to be an easy and short adventure played out more like a conquest in disguise.

"Perfect." Diego turned his tail to the open sky and stepped forward in the opposite direction, knocking an earthy mass off the ground and letting it trickle downward. His right ear fluttered once more; somewhat sure of the contact sound at the cliff base, Diego dashed back to the edge of the cliff and lied down, face at the edge of the cliff. With a slight grin on his face, he knocked over a comparatively smaller rock. With the area around him being generally silent aside from the occasional howl of the wind, the sound would easily resonate through his ears. A dull moment passed before the small stone reached the bottom; it was a considerably lower fall than first expected. A normally inaudible sound was as clear as crystal to the saber – Diego could distinguish anything coming into contact with a body of water after the frantic rescue of the two possum twins, even a body slamming into it after hitting a patch of ice head-first.

"Ha. Good old Sid." Diego looked up at the sky with a somewhat suppressed smile as he began reminiscing back to the moment where he considered breaking his fear of water.

"But the point is...fear is natural." Sid made an attempt to reason with Diego, but a saber will never submit to anything, let alone admit a fear that they shouldn't have.

Diego dropped his face to Sid's and gave him a menacing, almost threatening look as he wanted to make sure his words would keep Sid from making any sort of rebuttal.

"Fear...is for prey." Confident that his words would be enough to keep Sid's mouth closed, he turned around and began to walk in the opposite direction; however, Sid was determined to get through to the stubborn tiger, even if it meant harming his ego as an all-powerful carnivore.

"Then you're letting the water make you its prey!" A smile stood out on Sid's face knowing that he bruised the "fearless" saber's ego.

No tiger, whether it be a saber or a scimitar, an alpha of the pack or the runt, would ever want a noticeable flaw; a single imperfection was enough to bruise them emotionally, and was grounds for physical retaliation. Diego was no different; he was quite a secluded tiger, even as second-in-command of the former saber pack. Regardless, he still had emotional standards. Sid's words that night, stuck with Diego permanently – him still being among the living was a memento of that night; of all mammals to give him lifesaving advice, it had to be a sloth that was one-eighth of his size.

The breeze blew from behind Diego's small ears as he continued staring out into the dimly blue-lit sky. Despite the time he'd longed for any sort of companionship, the problem-free time that he had to himself eased stress he'd been dealing with. However, Diego understood his priorities.

I have to go now. Taking the side trail was no longer an option and the water would definitely break the moderately-high fall. He stared down into the quietly flowing body of water; Diego wasn't afraid of the water but the last thing he wanted to do was soak himself, especially if a shorter way around the trail was possible.

"Looks like I have no other options." With no other routes within eyeshot, Diego rolled his eyes and casually leapt off of the cliff and into the water.

The body of water didn't simply break his fall – it had submerged him. Head below water, Diego fought his way back to the surface. He'd experienced the pain of fighting deep water before; the loose water like spikes in his eyes, his lungs burning from denial of oxygen, and the slimy feeling of a drenched coat. A huge breath of air entered Diego's lungs upon reaching the surface, to cool the intense heat in his chest from the lack of it. He found himself beneath the surface once more, unable to hold himself above the stagnant pool of water. While fear to sabers was indeed for prey, it took an extreme amount of self-confidence and bravery to stare into the eyes of death and not flinch. Diego's heart began pulsating harder and faster as he struggled up to the surface for a second time, gasping for air as he desperately moved the water around him to find some sort of balance – a moment later, he fell again. He recognized the situation he was in; he couldn't simply fight, he had to work with his problems. Panic began to set in as Diego's vision slowly began to fade into another recollection.

"Just jump in and trust your instincts!" Sid jumped off of a tree branch head-first into a pile of leaves, using it as a visual aquatic playground.

"You know, most animals can swim as babies, and for a tiger, it's like crawling on your belly…to stalk helpless prey." Sid climbed another tree branch, mimicking a predator-like movement to swim.

Diego turned his back to the illustration before Sid reappeared to his right with a vine wrapped to his chest. Diego not only grew irritated, but annoyed as well as Sid started to circle around him.

"…but faster, okay? Now claw; kick. Claw; kick. I'm stalking the prey…claw, kick; now, I look back over my shoulder to see if I'm being followed." He continued to circle around Diego, whose eyes thinned with every passing motion.

"…and I'm breathing!" Sid let out a few exaggerated gasps of air as he continued to circle around.

"…and I'm stalking…and I'm stalking…" Diego's face drew away from Sid as he waited for him to finish one more rotation around him before cutting the vine with his sharp claws.

A sharp pain in Diego's chest brought him out of his mind and back into reality; he'd been submerged for a fair amount of time and now, he regained consciousness at the bottom of the body of water.

"Claw…kick." The two words replayed in his mind over and over again; his survival would rely on this concept. Suddenly, Diego's eyes thinned as he glared into the eyes of pain.

Diego's tiger-like instincts completely masked any sort of fear that was left within him; he'd conquered aquatics once before and a watery grave was not in his immediate future. The lack of oxygen was more painful than knives puncturing through his body, but he did not care. He could feel the pain, but he completely masked it.

You are not my predator, and I am NOT your prey. Diego crouched at the bottom of the river and leapt straight upward toward the surface of the water; the immense strength within his legs pushed him half of the distance between the surface and the floor. Four lunges later, he arrived at the surface of the water, completely unfazed and operating on adrenaline; a normally exaggerated gasp for air to any other nearly-drowned mammal was nothing more than a calm, almost confident breath to a fully-concentrated Diego.

"Claw…kick." A focus so great loomed over Diego, the loose water piercing through his eyes was nothing more than a minor distraction as he swam his way to the land. As his destination became nearer, so did his vision; he continued at his almost rushed pace to the shoreline despite the blurring eyesight. Each passing stroke brought him closer to safety, and even closer to danger; Diego's body slowly began to shut down as he pushed himself to dry ground.

Diego's claws hit the ground while his head was still above water; he'd reached dry land, with the sky a darker shade of blue. His head was pounding as hard as his heart was, while his vision was a blur. He staggered forward to what looked like a green-colored area; nothing was distinguishable beyond sounds of his own body. After a few steps forward into what he thought was high grass, he heard nothing more than his heartbeat – colors faded to gray as Diego could no longer hold himself up, and gray faded to complete darkness as his body slammed onto the ground.

**********

Crash and Eddie were running atop and around Sid's back as he gripped on to Ellie's thick coat. Although his claws were decently sharp, and deep into Ellie's fur, she didn't mind it at all. Oddly enough, the possums' unrest was more of a distraction than Sid was.

"Will you two knock it off? I can get my laughs without you two running all over me." Ellie's speech was uneven, being occasionally interrupted with forced laughter.

"Listen to your mo--…sister, guys; you two are going to be uncles soon." The two possum brothers stopped in their tracks with straight and somewhat scared faces; Manny knew while this made them feel bigger and more responsible, the reality would make cringe from head to toe. The herd traveled along the trail parallel to the imprinted tiger tracks, hoping that their carnivorous friend was headed in the same direction. Manny, moving the swiftest out of the group, suddenly stopped to address Sid; he was oddly quiet the entire duration of the trip.

"Sid, everything okay? I mean, nothing wrong with you being silent and all…" Ellie immediately stopped and glared back at her mate.

"…but every once in a while your voice is nice to hear." He turned himself away from Ellie who broke her glare and gave a smile back to him. The two possums laughed at the obvious fib for a moment before Manny turned to silence them with a glare of his own.

"Everything is fine and dandy!" Sid stood up on top of Ellie before losing his balance and falling on her head. Something about Sid's response didn't fit with Manny; Sid had a strange way with vocabulary but it sounded extremely forced, as if to be cloaking other inner feelings. Ellie not only picked up on the strange reaction to Manny's question, but also his recent behavior; before Diego's disappearance, Sid would always linger near Ellie as if the baby were going to arrive in the world at the exact moment he was around. Aside from Sid riding on top of her, that almost protective attitude suddenly disappeared.

"Sid…you can tell us if something's wrong." Ellie very gently wrapped her long trunk around Sid and pulled him in front of her. Ellie, typically the happiest, and quite possibly most sane mammal in the herd, had a worried face of her own. Sid started chuckling a bit before dropping his head and planting his knees the floor. The entire herd had not been witness to a quiet, reserved Sid; they all moved next to each other and stood silent all staring at the sloth, wondering what kind of reaction to expect next.

Sid's shadow represented the back of his body; the front was gently illuminated by the slowly dimming dark blue sky. The dry ground below Sid's knees darkened with a drop meeting with the floor – the entire herd noticed and heard it. Everything around them was ominously silent; deep exhales could be heard from each mammal as they watched their once joyful friend on his knees. Crash and Eddie left from Ellie's back and stood in front of Sid, staring at the emotionally broken sloth, unsure of what to say; they were well aware of the things they normally said and silently came to a consensus, to keep silent.

"I never thought...that..." Sid's words were interrupted by a frequent sniffle, or a moment of silence. None of the stares broke away from Sid, but the possum twins came up to Sid and put their arms around his body.

"…I…would grow attached…to something that nearly killed me." The entire herd dropped their stares in recognition of what Sid was talking about. Manny and Ellie came up closer to Sid as they all took a moment to rest.

"Sid – why didn't you say anything?" Ellie continued forward to Sid before stopping for a moment, squinting her eyes and dropping her head, catching Manny's attention.

"Ellie, everything alright? What's wrong? Is it the baby?" His pace of speech had picked up considerably. Ellie rolled her eyes toward him as an attempt to indicate that she was alright.

"I'm fine, Manny. You worry too much." Ellie hid the pain in her stomach from Manny. She was well aware that her birth was imminent, but the last thing she wanted was to have an over-protective mate to lose sight of the reason why they were out there in the first place.

"Sid?" Ellie glanced back at Sid, who hadn't moved. Sid lifted his head in response to Ellie's voice, teary-eyed, but not quite clearing out his eyes anymore. He then stood up, and lightly rubbed his claws to the opposite arm, cleaning himself off. All of the mammals dropped their blank stares and put their minds together, thinking about all of the good times they had with their friend.

"We were holding on to Sid in the meltdown…but in the end it was Diego who saved all three of us." Eddie stared down to his feet, guilty for taking Diego's presence for granted before the sudden disappearance.

"He couldn't even put his paw in a puddle of water, that's all I remember." Sid was still talking very slowly; depression was clear to everyone else.

Crash climbed on top of Sid, and stood on his head. "It didn't help that you hit your head on ice mid-dive."

He jumped on Sid's head at the end of the sentence to emulate the impact of the dive. Even Sid put a smile on his face after understanding why he had very little to no recollection of that event. Ellie put her trunk near Sid's head as a signal to the possums to climb back up onto her.

"You know…" Manny began speaking to grab the rest of the herd's attention.

"Diego is such a lonely tiger, but he's also a great friend." Ellie, Sid and the two possums all nodded, agreeing that Diego's presence, while not a big one, was a necessary one.

"Without him, none of us would be here. He was so confused, and to this day he still might be, but he's always done things for the right reasons." The entire herd began to slightly scatter apart in front of Manny, getting ready to rest as night began to fall. Fatigue began to set in to the entire party; they opted to rest where they were as it was a fairly desolate area.

"He went out of his way to betray his family…only to stay with us." Manny's head faced the floor for a moment before he continued. "He…took a hit from his leader, to save my life…and I will never forget that."

As Manny began to get pushed back into a corner, the other three tigers of the saber-tooth tiger pack began to swipe near his massive feet. Diego had nearly been incapacitated from the pack leader, Soto – and his unrelenting strength. Manny arrived with a boulder as tall as he was, back to the stone. He flailed his trunk as an attempt to divert any attacks, but Soto was much too nimble to strike. Soto crouched in preparation of a leap as Diego stared helplessly at his mammoth friend. Diego caught a final wind of energy as Soto took his leap and leapt in front of Manny to take the nearly fatal hit.

"I never knew Diego had done so much for you guys." Ellie stared at Manny's eyes as they slightly watered up. "Diego's a really good friend but I was never able to see too much of him. He was always quiet…shy, even."

"Well, I hope you get to see Diego when he is at his best. He'll fight for his friends until he has wasted every last ounce of energy he has. I know this from experience." Ellie had never heard Manny speak as seriously as he did then. Sid was still sitting down, very saddened by the fact that he may never see one of his best friends again.

Manny looked around to see everyone asleep aside from Sid, who was now sitting down rather than being on his knees.

"Sid." Manny walked up to him to give him some words of encouragement, something that he was not used to giving to Sid.

"Manny, if you're going to tell me something about how I stink worse than—" Sid was quickly interrupted by Manny's voice; he'd never interrupted Sid in the middle of demeaning himself.

"You told me something…after the meltdown, which stood with me forever. I think it would be useful for you to take your own advice." Sid stared blankly at the mammoth, confused.

"Before we started on our travels together as one big group, you told me that I had to forget about the past, so that I could have a future. Now I know this won't be the most relieving thing that you'll hear in the next couple of days, but I'm going to tell it to you like it is. Diego might not be coming back." Sid's face dropped to the floor again.

"But, you are the life of this herd. You brought us together, and as much fun as it is to pick on you, we still need someone to make everyone laugh when we're at our worst. That person, is you, Sid. You make silly mistakes, you're clumsy, and I will not lie – your small problems bring a smile to everyone's face." Sid looked back up to Manny's face and put a smile on his face, showing to Manny that he could be happy even when times are rough.

"Get some sleep – we'll keep looking tomorrow; believe me, we'll do anything in our power to find Diego."

**********

Diego's body shutdown, thankfully, wasn't a permanent one. The repercussions of using every ounce of energy to keep himself alive from that near-disastrous encounter with water began to emerge after he looked up to see where he had landed. He had no recollection of how he made it out of the water alive, but he wasn't about to argue that fact. His heart began racing simply upon standing up and he was quite nauseous after moving less than a few feet in front of him. Diego dropped to a prone position and stood in that position for a moment to gather his energy; while he was well aware that he still had a job to do, he wasn't sure if venturing out alone was the best idea.

Diego looked around and noted a very familiar landscape – the mountainous area ahead of him looked extremely familiar even with the lack of snow; the entrance to the area had a tall stone pillar marking entry into the new terrain. His mind was now set on simply heading north until he found something or ran into a dead end. His skills as a tracker would easily lead him back to where he needed to be if the future yielded no results, and regardless of what happened, he would have at least an ounce of satisfaction knowing that he made an attempt to better himself – he made an attempt to break his seclusion.

He had let himself rest for a moment, unwillingly succumbing to his fatigue. His lack of physical exercise did not help make a recovery any easier.

Have...to move. Diego was very slow to lift himself off of the ground, making sure none of his motions were too strenuous; a normally weak strain could cause substantial damage in the condition that he was in. He began to limp over before something caught his vision. Diego blinked his eyes a few time to be sure his vision wasn't deceiving him – a young gazelle, eating some thin leaves stood a long distance. The thought of fresh food nearly caused Diego to salivate. He dropped his position to sneak around the unaware gazelle. He crept around a few trees to parallel himself to the gazelle, and then crouched from where he was to prepare for a large pounce. His ears dropped and a heavy snarl came from under his breath before leaping out of the bushes only to find himself pounce just short of a second gazelle. The frightened gazelle dashed away from Diego as he gave a fierce chase – Diego did not let the gazelle get too far as he shortened the distance between them; he passed the stone pillar as he gave chase. Within a few moments, the distance between the two animals was short enough for Diego to pounce; he lodged his claws directly into the neck of the caught gazelle, killing it instantly. His appetite was just as big as the boost in confidence he had received. Diego dug into the meat of the freshly killed animal and took a large bite, with an evil smile. Diego turned away from the gazelle and was greeted with a claw straight to the face. It drew blood just below the nose; his natural reaction was to physically retaliate, that is, until he viewed the face of the animal who struck him.