Author's note: Guys...I am sooo sorry for keeping u waiting for this long, but lemme clarify right now: This story will NEVER go on Hiatus. I have had some annoying experiences were my favorite authors didn't update their stories for so long and then just randomly out of the blue shut them down, and I certainly DON'T wanna put u guys through that.

So, this story will continue to be updated cuz I have BIG plans for it and since we are nearing the summer holidays, I will try to update more often than the last couple of times.

Italics means telepathic communication

Warning: OC pairing, Don't like, DON'T READ!

Disclaimer: Don't own the Ice Age franchise or any of the characters in it; that all belongs to Blue Sky

After a few tree jumping fun hours with the possums, it was the middle of the night by now. At moments like this, Sid would put up a campfire, they would all settle down, have idle chit chat or watch the fireflies as they floated by before finally going to sleep. Tonight was rather different since it was pitch black, no fireflies were floating around and there was a hint of a mist floating ominously above the ground and encircling them as they sat down around Sid's fire; as if it was too shy to step any further into the light.

If Taura had her way, she would've played some more tree jumping activities with Crash and Eddie. But just before they could climb another tree, Ellie came crashing into the clearing with THE most furious face Taura had ever seen on her and swooped both possums into her trunk before the dust could clear. Now, Taura had never seen an angry female mammoth, but she certainly didn't want to ever cross one and she certainly didn't want to test that theory with Ellie! So she simply shrugged her shoulders and followed the rancid fungus smell of Sid back to the camp clearing, thinking that it was probably hormonal female possum problems.

And that is how she ended up currently with Sid and Diego sitting around the fire Sid made, until they heard the heavy foot steps of Manny coming along and they all looked up with hopeful faces, not noticing the grimacing expression on the mammoth's face.

"So..." Diego asked "How did it go?"

Manny glanced nervously to the side before he murmured awkwardly "Mm...not bad."

Taura raised a curious eyebrow as if to say 'what do you mean by that?' until a certain familiar female mammoth passed - more like stomped - by them with the same irked expression with both Crash and Eddie sitting on her back with the same expression and their arms folded, making Manny's grimace go down even further as he groaned and clenched his eyes shut in exasperation. As Ellie passed by, one of her feet crashed onto a puddle, the splashes landed on the campfire and shut it off; making it pitch black all over again.

"Okay, let's go!" Ellie huffed at them loudly over her shoulder, "We traveled with you all day, now you're coming with us at night!"

"But, we can't see at night..." Manny weakly argued with a shocked expression,

"Then enjoy the flood!" Ellie yelled angrily over her shoulder one last time before she continued to march off again.

One of the possums muttered disgustedly "I can't even LOOK at him!"

Then Crash suddenly turned around, glaring at Manny and shouted at him "PERVERT!" which made Manny's eyes widen even further with shock; Crash then proceeded with pointing both fingers towards his eyes and back at the mammoth, making an 'I've got my eye on you!' gesture.

The quartet looked at each other, as if psychically asking each other if that really just happened before they all just decided to follow Ellie.

Sid not-very-cheerily chirped as they walked "Making friends...wherever you go, just making friends..."

Taura followed behind Diego until she heard a rustling in the bushes behind her...a familiar rustling sound...

She paused in her step and looked behind her to find a pair of glowing, turquoise eyes staring right at her in between the gaps in a bush. Taura narrowed her eyes briefly at them before glancing nervously at the trio walking further away from her and then back to the bushes.

"Later" She stated, before she jogged after them. If she looked back, she would've seen a dark muzzle slowly poke out of the bushes, revealing a rather sly grin and two, long sabers...

It didn't take long before the landscape drastically changed; the soft, mud and grass terrain changed into hard dirt and sharp, jagged black rocks that shot out of the ground. The mist from before had grown into a soft fog that rose up to Taura's shoulders, which served as a soft cloak around the rocks. Taura thanked her feline eyes for being sharp in the dark, or otherwise she would've lost two of her claws by now.

Never the less, she still made sure to keep close to Diego by walking behind him, since he was taller and probably had a better view of the ground. Not that Taura didn't mind the view she had in front of her, she cheekily thought as she glanced quickly at Diego's swinging tail and... She suddenly shook her head sharply and grimaced.

"No, bad Taura! Stop thinking naughty thoughts about Diego!" Taura scolded herself, DEFINITELY making sure that Diego didn't hear THAT!

No sooner did she say that did she hear a pained yelp behind her. She looked back sharply to find Sid with a very pained expression and both his paws clutching in between his legs, making Taura wince sympathetically and thanking whatever deity above again for her sharp eyes. Diego simply looked back and smirked mischievously before nonchalantly walking off.

"Watch out, there's a stump!" Crash called out,

"Not any more..." Side rasped as he clenched his eyes shut painfully.

The two possums snickered amusingly before hopping back to their sister...whom Manny was desperately trying to explain something to. Taura rolled her eyes at the scene and shook her head. Sure, Manny might have said something stupid to Ellie since he's not exactly experienced in the romance department... well, maybe he is, but hasn't tried it out in a while. But Taura thought that Ellie might be acting a little too stubborn, she could at LEAST give him a chance to explain!

"But then again...I'm not exactly experienced in that department either..." Taura argued as she gave a sideways glance at a particular male saber walking next to her. She let that sentence hang, let out a tired sigh and shook her head again, reminding herself about the no-bad-thoughts policy about Diego.

Suddenly, without any warning, the ground beneath all mammals broke!

Diego found himself elevating and tried to clutch onto the ground beneath him, but Taura suddenly clutched onto both of his back legs and made him dangle off the end of the rock piece. Sid ended up on the layer beneath them while Manny and Ellie were trying to balance out on the same rock as the two sabers. Taura searched with panicking eyes for the possums, worried that they might have fallen off, and saw them at the corner of her eye standing on another layer of rock.

"STOP...MOVING!" Diego suddenly bellowed and everybody followed the command. The ending result was a sort of messed up rock...Jenga pile balancing at the center of each other.

"Thank you..." Diego breathed out in relief.

But no sooner did he say that...did another layer of rock break out on them, causing everything to go into havoc again.

The giant jolt made Taura slip and with a silent yell, fell on top of Sid who was at the bottom layer, making her bounce again and land on the bottom layer with the possums. Diego fearfully looked down when he felt Taura let go and saw her land safely on another layer, making him let out another breath of relief. He then went back to looking forward and saw their layer of rock start to break in half!

Diego roared at the two mammoths on top "Manny, Ellie! Lock trunks!"

When both mammoths heard Diego, they looked at each other with angry glares, neither willing to touch the other!

"NOW!" Diego roared at them again, and they instantly did, just before the rock could break out beneath them. Both Manny and Ellie continued to intertwine their trunks, letting out loud painful grunts because of the effort, with the other's until the rock stuck back together. The other layers were still balancing, but by now all the rocks were continuously spinning around!

Diego looked back down towards the possums and Taura and yelled at them "Crash, Eddie! Help Taura grab onto that ledge!"

The trio saw the oncoming ledge and the two possums looked down fearfully at the dangerous drop if they failed.

Both of them laughed humorlessly while Eddie sarcastically yelled out "Funny! ... Now what's your real plan?!"

Taura loudly roared at them both irritably and whacked the back of their heads before gesturing towards the ledge, silently commanding them to do as Diego said. She looked ahead determinedly and carefully shuffled her paws towards the ledge, worried that her shift in weight might make the layer break.

"Goodbye Eddie!" Crash sniffed,

"Bye Crash..." Eddie whimpered,

"Bye Ellie.."

"GO, NOW!" Diego barked at them, making sure they got on with it!

Taura by now had already clasped her claws onto the sides of the ledge, but Crash held onto Eddie's tail while he helped to slow it down by grabbing onto the end.

"Uhhh..." Taura heard Manny call out from above, "I'm sorry...if what I said before offended you!"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'IF' IT OFFENDED ME?!"

Suddenly, Taura found herself slipping off the original rock and falling down! But before she could yell out in fear, the two possums quickly caught her feet and held on. Taura suddenly found herself sweating in fear when she saw just how far the fall was while she was dangling off...

"Oh boy..." She gulped.

"THAT it offended her! THAT it offended her!" Crash yelled back to Manny, cupping one of his paws around his mouth while making sure that the other arm was holding on tightly to Taura's foot.

"I-I mean THAT! THAT it offended you!" Manny loudly stuttered while intertwining his trunk back to it's original tightness, making the rocks slow down again. Taura felt one of her eyes twitch in utter fury...

"Now?! Are they seriously going to do this NOW?!" Taura shouted frustratingly in her head.

Taura then suddenly heard Manny yell out in his defense "You just overreacted, that's all!"

...

If Taura wasn't dangling off the end of a rock, she would have face-palmed, "Did he really just say that?!"

"WHAT?!" Ellie roared, obviously leaning away from Manny in disgust since the layers started to shift more quickly again.

Crash angrily yelled out "Take it back!"

Eddie followed up "There are other lives at stake here!"

Sid suddenly called out "Wait a minute, he's got a point!"

"HE'S GOT NOTHING!"

"IT WAS A MISUNDERSTANDING!"

"IT WAS INSENSITIVE!"

"APOLOGIZE!" Diego finally roared at Manny,

"Why me?! She overreacted!" Manny roared back while glaring at Ellie,

"Just apologize!"

"NO!"

"DO IT!"

"OKAY, I'M SORRY!"

Taura's eyes widened in shock when she realized...that was Ellie's voice! She must have locked her trunk back to Manny's because the rocks started to slow down again.

"WHAT?!" Everyone else yelled out.

"He's right...I overreacted.." Ellie calmly stated as if they all weren't literally depending on her and Manny to not let them plummet to their doom!

"You mean you-!" Manny was about to yell accusingly until Diego interrupted:

"Not another word or I'll come down there AND PUSH YOU OVER MYSELF!"

There was a tense silence and Taura finally let out a breath that she didn't know was held in, thinking that everything was finally calm again...

or not.

The rocks were suddenly collapsing in on each other and Taura saw Sid's layer heading directly towards her face! Crash and Eddie must have seen it coming because they quickly lifted her in one big tug which helped Taura straightened her two front paws onto Sid's layer. As soon as they did, Taura slipped her two back paws off of the possums' grips and sprinted to the other side, the possums hot on her heels.

Diego was the last one who was running as fast as he could over the layers, until he reached the last one and tried to jump on top of it, reaching as high as he could towards the safe ledge above him...but found himself descending down again when he didn't reach and clenched his eyes shut...

Until he felt a bunch of claws latch onto his front paws and hold onto him, stopping his descent. Diego sharply looked up to find Taura's relieved face smile at him reassuringly, her back legs being held by two trunks, Manny's and Ellie's.

Diego let out a large breath and weakly smiled at Taura "Uh..he he...thanks."

Taura's smile widened into a grin as a gesture of 'your welcome', Diego not really noticing her elevated heart beat and the light blush across her cheeks.

Above them, the two sabers heard Ellie mutter, and one could almost mistake it as affectionately, towards Manny "I guess we finally did something right together..."

"Hey hey! Don't mind us, just hanging off the edge of a cliff here!"