Ya'll, it is insane the chores I will do to get out of writing.

"See anything yet?" Gertie asked for the twentieth time, voice as lazy as her lounging posture.

Roger turned to glare at her for the twentieth time before going back to surveying the webbing cracks in the ice and stone. Deep groans and booms rattled the jungle around them, soft snow raining down from various fissures as the structure continued to settle.

"Da-ad—" Gertie started…

"No. We're checking it first. Stop complaining," Gavin cut her off.

He wanted revenge, sure, but what kind of father would he be if he let his kids fly around underneath multiple tons of unstable rocks and ice? No, he was much too responsible.

Roger's job for the last hour had been to carefully examine the various contact points between the cliff face and ice slab to see if there was anywhere that was taking too much strain, crumbling a little too quickly. They didn't need it to hold forever, just long enough to fly up, find an exit point, kill Buck, and come back.

So, for now, the three of them were right on the edge of the area and able to get away quickly if things started to go sideways—or come down. And given his son's propensity to worry about every conceivable thing, Gavin was confident that Roger wouldn't even think about giving the all-clear until he'd checked everything over thoroughly. Probably multiple times.

Besides, Gertie was strong like her mother had been, with the muscles to back it up, so they'd need to find a spot that they could all get through, or one that was safe to chip away at and enlarge. Roger had already found a couple of those too, not immediately apparent to Gavin's eyes.

His very responsible plan was working, and Gavin lounged back as well against the spongy ground, staring up at the unforgettable blue of the ice, tinged from a sky that he'd seen only once before. He'd been young and messing around with the other birds his age, and they'd flown up high to the ceiling of their world, bumping against each other for the opportunity to look through the rare patches of murky ice that exposed the world above them.

He remembered the deep cold on his claws, the too-bright light making his eyes hurt as he pressed his face to the underside of the ice. Now, he imagined the chill air whipping over his skin as he caught Buck once and for all, his children cheering behind him, as he finally took care of the problem that had been plaguing them for too long. He could already feel the draining warmth of the weasel's lifeless body slung around his shoulders.

Gavin glanced down, eyeing Buck's knife. He couldn't wait to see the look on the weasel's face when he realized that his very own weapon was being turned against him…

"Dad?" Roger turned to him then, and in his peripheral, Gertie sat up so quickly, she had to shake her head from the spinning. "It's safe. At least, as much as it can be. I think I found a spot we should aim for first."

Gavin grinned at his son's wide, blinking eyes and his daughter's barely suppressed shout of excitement. "Kids, it's time to go kill us a weasel."

Gertie whooped and launched herself into the air, followed reluctantly by Roger, who muttered a quiet, sarcastic, "Yay, violence."

Gavin ignored him, grabbed the knife, and took flight last of all, following his children as Roger led them up toward the bright, cold light.

000

After five months, Diego understood the north.

The landscape changed in subtle, familiar ways as he steadily made his way east. There weren't mountains out here like back west, but the shift from forest to plains and then slowly, reliably, back to forest again was recognizable. And Diego felt soothed for the first time in a long time. Like an itch he'd been ignoring had finally been scratched.

Sometimes he'd branch off and go further north, the increasingly cold clime giving way to what he recognized as the deep frigidity of the far north. He hit the arctic snow line a few times over the course of the next few months, noting the shift into cold so deep it cut through his fur like the sharpest claw imaginable. And then he'd turn around and begin making his way southwest, zigzagging around ponds and massive lakes covered in thick ice.

There were patterns to the land, ones he'd seen a thousand times before playing out in a new but familiar-enough environment. Mapping large swathes of the north satisfied the curiosity he'd carried with him since he'd realized almost two years ago that if he wanted to explore somewhere, he could just…go.

And finally, finally, he reached the ocean. He'd been smelling it for days, the salty tang to the air sticking to his tongue when he breathed. And when he hit shore and the endless blue opened wide around him, stretching out to blend into the horizon at the edge of his sight, something deep inside of his mind relaxed.

He'd done it. He'd traversed the entirety of the north. And rather than going on forever, as he'd sometimes lied awake at night convincing himself it would (why hadn't he gone with the pack?), it, like it's western edge, ended in a body of water so vast he knew it must go on for thousands of miles. He'd only been to the ocean once on the other side of the continent, back before he'd joined Soto's pack. Diego had been indifferent to it then, and even now knew that he didn't want to stay here long-term. The cold wind off the water felt different than the icy brush of an approaching storm further inland, and there hadn't been much by way of large game for a couple of days.

But he'd made it here, and Diego spent the next few days leisurely exploring the cliffs above the shore and carefully making his way down to the dark sand of the beach, skirting along the shoreline as the foamy waves rolled in over and over again.

The steady rush of the water was calming, he'd give it that. But lying down in the sand was uncomfortable, and the whole area was so quiet, he could hear the ocean even at night when he was hunkered down a good mile away. It definitely wasn't what he was used to, and Diego found himself missing the spindly conifers and crisp smell of sap.

The last few months had cleared his head. And in the face of "what's next?" he wasn't surprised to find that he already had an answer in mind. In one of his excursions southward, during the second month of his trek, he'd come across what appeared to be a vast string of lakes surrounded by miles and miles of heavily wooded forest. The area wasn't anything too special, but he'd liked the terrain, and it was far enough away from the pack's former temporary territory that it wouldn't send him into another doubt spiral about whether going off on his own again had been the right idea. He already missed his friends enough as it was.

"I wouldn't have been ready for this. Not before Half Peak, definitely, but not even a year ago," Diego had told Nate one day, six months in. They'd been perched side by side on a massive fallen log, looking out at the autumn clouds on the horizon.

He'd needed that time to sort himself out. He just hadn't known it yet.

When Diego told him as much, Nate just laughed. "I didn't know it then, but I wasn't ready either. To be honest, I was more surprised you asked to stay than anything else. I'm pretty sure you were the first saber to spend more than an hour around us and still want to join." He'd twisted his head to look at Diego. "It was probably for the best. We would have gotten attached, and you would have been restless and eventually gone to keep looking for your herd."

Diego just huffed because it was the closest he could make himself come to admitting that Nate was right. And then he wouldn't have found them, and he'd have convinced himself it was because he'd waited too long to keep looking. And he would have gotten attached to the pack too—or, tried to. He wasn't sure if he'd have been able to jump back in emotionally so quickly after what had happened.

Even when Diego had been in a better place running into Nate the second time, it had taken time for him to allow himself to accept these new friends, a permanent place to sleep, a different version of a life he thought he was done with. And even though he still felt he'd made the right decision to not get tangled up in pack life again, he missed them.

Not surprisingly, the missing still hurt even now, but over the past five months, he'd come to the conclusion that he hoped he never stopped feeling like this completely. It was comforting to miss them, to still love them as if they were just away for the day and they'd all fall asleep together in their usual spots come nightfall. This missing felt like he still had them.

And for the first time since all of this started, Diego knew that things were going to be okay. He was okay. Whatever happened, he could do this. He had himself, and that was enough.

On the morning he'd decided to start heading back west, Diego rose early as he'd been doing for the last week and made his way toward the now-familiar sound of the crashing surf. He'd never really made it a point to watch the sunrise, but there was something about this place that drew him out of sleep early, left him feeling restless. (His sleep schedule had otherwise gone back to normal once he'd been on the trek north for a few days, no surprise.)

Just as the first wisps of color were returning to the grasses and rocks and sand, Diego settled himself on the craggy top of one of the cliffs to wait. The salty air ghosted over his face, cool and heavy off the water. He closed his eyes to try and memorize it. Most likely, Diego wouldn't ever be back this way, and while he still didn't have any desire to make it a permanent home, he also hadn't minded his stay.

And this morning, after he'd once again watched the blues and purples languidly bleed out to pinks and oranges and reds, colors doubled in the water's far horizon line as the sun broke over it, Diego rose, turned around, and went back the way he'd come.

000

Bodhi had estimated two weeks to reach his home territory the morning he'd come back from his swimming lesson with Sid, both of them soaked through and clearly on better footing. And even though he hadn't said it, Ellie still heard the underlying sentiment: it would have been faster if they were just faster.

It made her mad. His impatience, unlike theirs, felt unearned.

Ellie knew that their anxiety and disappointment were rubbing off on him, knew none of this was his fault. He was frustrated. They were frustrated. Everyone was on edge. But over the next few days, she had to check herself several times to keep from snapping at Bodhi whenever his own annoyance at the weather and route rubbed her fur the wrong way.

She tried to content herself with worrying over her brothers and gently prodding Sid for details about the sloth's sudden decision to stop pretending like Bodhi didn't exist, but it wasn't enough. Even knowing when they'd first left home that this probably wasn't going to be resolved easily couldn't fix the current sullen mood.

Ellie wasn't good at being sullen. She tended to spiral, world spinning too fast like the branch had broken mid-swing and she was plummeting toward the ground. She'd never gotten used to that feeling.

After finding out she was really a mammoth, Ellie had wondered if maybe it was because it was a possum thing—that getting back up after a bad fall was something she was naturally bad at because of her bulkiness. The same strong muscles that allowed her to fly through the treetops also hit the ground a lot harder than her brothers' lithe bodies. Now, she was starting to realize she was just really bad at picking herself back up in general.

Manny, to her intense surprise, didn't seem bothered by the fog of stress that was following them. He hadn't even been ruffled by the fact that Sid had chosen now of all times to wear out their already-injured guide. Or, more likely, Manny was ignoring everything in favor of getting through this next leg of their journey. She had a feeling she knew what he was doing—focusing on one thing as the stress shut the rest of his mind down, left it numb. Ellie hadn't seen it for what it was all those years ago at the geyser fields, but she'd eventually come to realize that her mate didn't do well when he was panicked.

She knew she should say something to him, try to draw both of them out of their heads for a while, but she couldn't bring herself to start a conversation as they made their way through the thinning trees.

Snow was drifted around the bottoms of their trunks and stuck to their sides in the direction the herd was currently heading. A snowstorm had swept through here at some point. Bodhi estimated that the storm hadn't hit until at least half a week if not more after he'd come through the area. It had been too long to preserve any previous tracking markers and now too long since it snowed for him to have any hope of deciphering their children's prints from the many others who'd also come through, also headed in the same direction.

That was one upside, she supposed. The more animals in the area for this meeting that had been called, the more chances one of them might have seen the kids and could at least give them a direction to start with.

"I think it's time to ride again, Bodhi," she called up to the front, eyes focusing once more on their guide and the fact that his gait had stiffened steadily over the last hour, a sure sign that he'd reached his limit for the day.

The surprised, furious, and overall betrayed look he shot back made her laugh despite herself.

"Me or Manny?" she asked him.

Bodhi's narrowed eyes assured her that an argument was starting, and that just made Ellie grin all the more.

Just ahead of her, she could see Sid trying not to be obvious about looking between her and Bodhi, and she was just about to ask him if he wanted to ride too, when Bodhi's shoulders and expression slumped. "You."

She rolled her eyes as he literally dragged his paws on the way back to where she was standing. And before he could insist on jumping up himself, she wrapped her trunk around his torso and had him settled on her back in seconds. She could feel his barely audible, put-upon growling through her fur, and it made her feel better for the first time in days.

"Sid, sweetie?" Ellie offered.

"I'm okay," Sid said after one last moment of indecision, then gave Bodhi an apologetic smile and waved.

"This is ridiculous," Bodhi snapped as they began walking again. "I did what you wanted me to do. I tried swimming, which is basically just like hunting, by the way, and now I'm being punished for it just because I'm a little bit sore…"

Ellie let him complain for a few minutes, checking on her brothers up ahead. They'd been walking next to Bodhi all morning, and she'd been almost sure they'd come scrambling back to ride with him. Instead, they'd stayed up there, leading the way and, when Sid caught up to them, engaging him in some mindless conversation that probably wouldn't have made sense even if she could hear all of it.

Sid had been tight lipped about his swimming lesson with Bodhi. Of course, he'd been quick to say that Bodhi had tried really hard and reassured the saber that he'd done really well for his first try. But no matter how many times Ellie privately tried to coax him into talking about how spending time with Bodhi had made him feel, Sid would fumble for a few seconds and then make a general remark that approximately meant "fine," which they both knew was a blatant non-answer. It was almost like he had an answer but didn't quite know how to say it.

Yet another thing for Ellie to try and be patient about.

This was the bad thing about taking a fall like this. For the first few moments when she sat up, the world was always dizzy, and she'd inevitably panic that it would never right itself. But it always did. Ellie tried to take deep breaths now and remember that moment in her mind, when her vision cleared and she was ready to get back up there.

"…I'm second in command of my pack…" Bodhi was really on a roll when she focused back on him. "I am not a baby. I know what it feels like to be sore, and I can make decisions for myself without needing parents who aren't even mine telling me what to do…"

"Keep crying, tough guy," Manny interjected. His voice was hoarse from lack of talking.

Bodhi immediately shut up, and Ellie had to repress a giggle.

"Does it bother you how easily I can manipulate you?" Manny asked, not bothering to hide his own grin.

A growl that Ellie could hear and feel erupted in response, and she gave in and laughed out loud, awkwardly reaching her trunk up to pat around until she found his head. She mussed the scruff at the back of his skull.

"Honey, I'm starting to realize why sabers need to be in packs. I can't imagine what you'd be like with no one out here to keep you in line."

Bodhi's spluttering only made her laugh harder, along with everyone else, and for a moment, the world was clear and Ellie was ready to get back up once more.

000

By the time Diego finally pulled him aside, Jackson already knew what the other saber was going to say.

Merle wasn't getting better.

It was more or less an open secret at this point, and Jackson was dealing with it. He didn't know how well, but he was making his rounds and checking on his packmates, so obviously well enough.

And honestly, it wasn't even the news itself; it was how Diego did it.

Because Jackson had overheard Shira the night before quietly filling Diego in on Merle's condition (worse now, after he'd insisted on going to the lake by himself a few days ago and collapsed within minutes of limping out of the herd's clearing), and it had been quickly followed by a whispered, "How do we tell him?"

It was that question that left Jackson lying awake for most of the night and, in turn, nervous and irritable when Diego approached him a few hours after sunrise to ask if they could talk. This was the first time in all of this that Shira or Diego had really acted like Jackson wasn't a fully matured (if still young) adult. And it was the worst possible time for them to start acting like parents.

"I know," he said as soon as Diego had finished summarizing Merle's condition. "Everyone knows."

"More or less," Diego conceded, pausing before adding, "But he's been a little more…candid with Shira than the rest of us. And as his second, we wanted to keep you updated. Especially since he's…struggling right now."

Diego was telling him carefully. Jackson didn't want to be told carefully. There was no amount of careful that would change the fact his pack leader wasn't getting better, had only been slipping further and further into worse.

"Are you making any changes to rounds schedules since it will be a while longer?'

"Not unless you think I should." Diego didn't comment on his clipped tone. But he also didn't take the hint and go back to business. His eyes were still soft, waiting.

"No, I wouldn't. The current pairings are getting along well." That wasn't a lie. For as much as Jackson had been unsure of Diego's changes at first, they were actually working. "Anything else?"

Diego's expression wasn't knowing so much as it was resigned. And sad. "If you need to take a break from rounds or anything, or even a breather, go ahead. You don't need to check in with me or anything."

No. No. No. Jackson did not want his responsibilities lightened. He didn't want Diego silently telling him it was okay to fall apart. Because then he would.

"You could go spend time with Merle," Diego suggested quietly, and something inside Jackson snapped.

"Anything else?" he repeated.

"…Not pack business, no."

That was enough of a dismissal for him. "Great." He forced himself to add, "Thanks…for the update," before loping swiftly out of range so that it would be awkward for Diego to have to call him back to ask more questions.

As soon as he was well out of earshot and there was absolutely no chance that Diego would come after him and try to make him talk more, Jackson swerved and resolutely headed for the far eastern edge of their territory to begin his rounds—a silent screw you to Diego for being so kind and compassionate about this.

He couldn't believe his own foolishness. He'd seen what that animal did to Merle. Of course there would be a chance Merle wouldn't survive this. He'd known something was off in the days right after the attack. Merle had seemed…fragile, somehow. And not just from having been in a brutal fight.

But then…then more animals started arriving and pack duties just kind of started swallowing things: his time, his worry, his energy, his thoughts—anything they could get ahold of. And Merle had gotten lost in all of it without Jackson even realizing it.

And now it felt too late. Jackson couldn't reclaim the time he'd spent doing rounds or searching fruitlessly for Buck. He couldn't turn the few hours he'd seen Merle in the last few weeks into the long conversations that they should have been having. About the pack. About Merle. About…anything.

He'd never felt more like a cub.

So, no. Jackson couldn't just take a breather whenever he "needed to."

And if he was starting his rounds in a weird spot to give himself some time to put himself back together, Diego didn't need to know.

000

Try as he might, Buck couldn't reverse-track the dino that had found its way to the surface. He'd been reluctant to take the extra time, but as he got closer to the mammals' territory, the more he found himself veering north. If he could still pick up a trail from when it left the area, he could track the blasted thing directly.

When he was within a two days' walk his destination, Buck gave up and went the rest of the way north, only pausing when he began to smell the lake nearby. This one wasn't the lake the mammals used; it was connected to it but considerably less busy. Which might have been good, if Buck could figure out if the dino had come through here. Less scents, less tracks, the better to pick out what didn't belong in the surface world.

But as the hours, and then one day, then two, passed, and everywhere Buck searched was empty and undisturbed, the more his heart sank.

There was a dino on the loose in the surface world who had already attacked and almost killed once and who had now gone missing. Buck couldn't do any good as a dino wrangler if he couldn't actually find the dino. And it was that last thought that finally pushed him onward to the mammals' territory.

There were no leads here; he could spend forever searching the surrounding areas and still come up with nothing. What he did know was that there was a massive sheet of ice that had broken the surface not far from where the saber had been attacked. And if that's how the creature found its way up in the first place, then there would be more eventually. And Buck wasn't going to let anyone else get hurt.

Big Bang reference! In the (snowy) tree cricket episode, Sheldon gets Howard to agree to opening the elevator shaft by claiming that if they don't find the cricket to prove what kind it is, their bet isn't off and Sheldon will win Howard's comic book by default. Howard caves immediately, and Sheldon goes, "Does it bother you how easily I can manipulate you"? Lol.

This is a shorter chapter than I was planning on, but I'm not quite done with the other scene I had planned, and I kind of wanted a scene in between to balance everything out and…I don't want this to turn into a five-month-long wait again, lol. So the good news is, I've got almost a thousand words of the next chapter already written. The bad news is I still need to write the rest of it.

Thank you so much for the positive reviews! I really appreciate them! Unfortunately, I'm not a huge fan of Gutt, so I'm probably not the best person to write about him starting a family. I am aware that his backstory would have been similar to Manny's if they'd chosen to include it, and I'll get into that a little bit once we get a little farther. But for me, he's got this coldblooded edge that Soto had, and I endlessly love comparing and contrasting the two of them as antagonists/villains.

Thanks for reading!