Akira wondered aimlessly through the vast land of ice and snow, littered with various mammals here and there who bolted at the sight of her. Her journey was hushed, the sabress lost in her thoughts as she'd grown tired of her dissolute existence, moving through the world with no true purpose now for she'd lost hope. She had never quite been by herself before and just when she'd brushed the ripe age of an adult for a sabre, ready to go out and explore the world unrestricted, a mild earthquake had struck her home in the mountains and forced her pack to disperse as an avalanche transpired. Now, Akira had all she had ever dreamed of as a cub but with no home to return to or family to greet her. Whether the former still stood and the latter still breathed was a mystery.
She had covered some distance since her last mammal encounter and when she heard the sound of laughter, soft but happy chatter as well as rushing water, her ears perked up at the sounds. The proof of family and friends enjoying themselves awakened a bit of longing within her slightly withered heart. The sabress walked the outskirts and just as she expected, spotted several mammals and birds having the time of their lives. At the sight of them, her eyes darkened a fraction with the predatory urge to hunt but she brushed it away. She'd eaten her fill of a stag a few miles back. There was no need to give in to instinct.
Akira shook her lithe body to properly dislodge her thoughts when the sound of struggling reached her ear, her left one in particular. Effortlessly, she found the source and tilted her head at the sight of a sloth grunting in an effort to wiggle himself free of. . . something. She slowly approached and saw the deep, green vines tied around his feet. The sabress sat back on her haunches behind him, unseen and unheard, her bright eyes observing. "Need help?"
He had been grumbling to himself, engaged in a fight with the offending vines, actions speaking volumes of frustration but at the sound of her voice, his head whipped around, eyes bugging out as his mouth opened to scream. "Please don't," Akira hurriedly said, bracing herself for the piercing scream she was typically greeted with from smaller mammals. The sabress wasn't exactly a mindless killer and more often than not, was mostly docile save for the times she was angry or simply hungry. Even then, certain mammals weren't on her lists of things to eat and sloths were one of them.
As he only managed to tangle himself further in his hurry to get away from her, Akira grew tired of trying to look as non-threatening as possible and swiftly reached forward to sever the vine with a deft paw and a sharp claw. The mammal wasted no time scrambling away from her, a whimper escaping his lips as he shed his restraints whilst keeping her in his sights. "A-are you going to eat me?"
Spitefully, she eyed him with dark eyes before the expression vanished just as quickly and she shook her head. "I don't eat sloth. Plus, I'm not hungry." His expression was deeply suspicious before he suddenly shrugged, seeming satisfied with that. "I'm Sid."
"Akira." The sabress settled back on her haunches, "Any reason you were in that little predicament?" A frustrated and vexed scowl suddenly overtook Sid's face. "Yes! My herd doesn't think I have the qualifications to run a camp and they don't respect me! But I'll show them!" Akira found herself cracking a sorrowful smile for Sid reminded her of her youngest brother. Jace was the runt of her family and quite often, most believed he wasn't capable of many things but he proved them wrong and the expression he wore when doing so was similar to Sid's. "And how will you do that?" She questioned curiously.
Sid crossed his arms, determined expression still in place and Akira couldn't help but find his sheer resolve a bit admirable. "I'm going to go down the Eviscerator!" Akira was quite lost as to what the 'Eviscerator' was until Sid pointed behind her at the glacier wall. She followed the direction of his claw, her eyes widening slightly in mild concern.
The Eviscerator was a natural and precipitous decline that had formed where the snow had melted and water had frozen over, forming a steep, smooth and dangerous slope. Not to mention it was incredibly high. "Uh, Sid that's pretty high up." She noticed but the sloth didn't seem discouraged in the slightest.
"Yup!" Akira exhaled quietly, shaking her head at the naive, little herbivore. "Okay, Sid, good luck." The sabress stood, readying to return to her pointless journey onwards when she was called back. "Hey, I, uh, will I see you again? I'd wanna introduce you to my herd. One of them is just like you, you know."
She cocked her head at the sudden nervousness and chuckled quietly, the sound lacking much mirth, but was quickly interested in the rising thought stemming from Sid's words. A sloth like a sabre; now that she'd love to see one day. "Sure, Sid. I'll be around so just holler."
After all, she had nothing better to do.
Akira was lounging on a sturdy branch in a towering tree, dozing, when she heard loud chatter and the footsteps of many. She peered through half-lidded eyes with confusion at the sight of the seemingly never-ending line of mammals marching along. "What are they doing?" Akira muttered to herself, bewildered.
Migration was common among land mammals and those that occupied the air but the various array of sloths, molehogs, anteaters and more was unusual. The sloths she spotted among the herd didn't hold the light yellow-green coat of the odd sloth she'd exchanged a conversation with mere hours ago and Akira briefly wondered if Sid had caught wind of this—particularly if he knew what was going on.
The sabress was curious by the march and resolved there was no harm in following them mammals along to see what lay at the end of their journey but it would be much better to wait until the crowd thinned before she moved from her resting spot. The last thing she needed was to create a panic among them in seeing a predator.
An hour or so had passed before the only animals left behind were the sick and the old. That was when Akira returned to solid ground, scaring a few flightless birds as they spotted the white blur upon her descent. She was craving a snack but fortunately for the sick and elderly, she wanted something with a bit more meat on their bones and less discoloured in the face. Akira skulked through the environment under the cover of the trees and bushes, sharp ears listening for her next meal when she heard scurrying above her. Upon looking up, she spotted two giggling possums a moment before a rock struck her muzzle, leaving a slight stinging sensation in its wake.
"Go pick on someone your own size." She snarled half-heartedly, feeling little motivation to make a light snack out of the diseased-ridden vermin. The pair seemed to have no sense of self-preservation as they both sent another round of rocks to pelt her fur. Akira gritted her teeth and feigned vexation as well as a step forward as if walking away but when the brothers fell into an unsuspecting round of snickering, she turned on her heel in a blink and scaled the tree effortlessly.
The possums barely managed to avoid the fatal swipe of her paw, screaming bloody murder as they bolted, leaving their reeds in the dust. Unable to curb her annoyance and thrill of the chase, Akira was hot on their heels. She lowered her mouth, her jaws a hair's breadth from seizing their side-by-side tails when the possums glanced back and screamed even louder. "Ellie!"
Akira ignored their cries as she surged forward with a burst of speed and snatched the tails of the troublesome duo in her unforgiving jaws. The pests cried out in alarm, twisting around each other in a fearful embrace as she extracted them from her mouth to hold their tails in her paw. "Sabre!" Lazily, the sabress glanced up and her eyebrows, thin lines of darker fur above her eyes, raised high at the sight of two full-grown mammoths, a southern sabre and—"Sid?"
"Akira!" Upon recognizing her, the sloth wore a wide, buck-toothed grin as he rushed forward and threw his arms around her, startling her enough to release her temporary prisoners. Akira eyed the mammoths and sabre warily as she gently nudged the sloth away. One was a female, noticeable by her lighter coat, slightly smaller and less rough build. The other was male, towering over the female with darker-coloured fur, a gruff build and larger, more lethal tusks. It threw her off, however, when she saw the female was afraid as she stared at the lone sabre and the male looked wary but not alarmed at the sight of a predator.
Akira wouldn't expect any kind of fear when the mammoths had the company of a sabre who looked quite comfortable next to their sheer size, the sabre in mention watching her with narrowed eyes. His reaction fit her sudden appearance better than the outright fear, the slight caution and misplaced excitement.
"Uh, thanks for not eating my brothers." The female mammoth said and had Akira been mobile, she would have stumbled over her paws at the sheer absurdity of a mammoth being related to the two, mischievous possums. "No problem?" She echoed, beyond bewilderment. "Uh, you're not going to eat us, are you?" The shemmoth continued, inquiring. It appeared that if the answer was not in her favour, she was ready to bolt at a moment's notice. Akira's ears swivelled in her confusion and she slowly shook her head. The female mammoth seemed more than satisfied with that, her rigid stance relaxing ever so slightly.
Sid eagerly picked up when the odd exchange submerged the mammals into silence. "Well, Akira, this is my herd. That's Manny," he pointed to the larger of the two mammoths, "And Diego." The sabre. "And that's Ellie, Crash and Eddie. They're possums and they're joining us." Ellie was the female mammoth, Crash and Eddie the possums but according to Sid, the mammoth was a possum. It was undoubtedly strange and the sabress wasn't exactly sure what exactly she had gotten herself involved in.
It had been one thing to believe Sid was an odd sloth that ran with a bunch of other strange sloths but it seemed that was not the case. Far from it actually. "I thought your herd was of sloths. Not tw—a mammoth, three possums and a sabre." He shrugged with a lopsided grin and Akira gave a small shake of her head, easily reading the looks aimed at her from over the sloth's shoulder. "This is by far the weirdest herd I've ever seen." Sid noticed her slow and retreating steps and frowned in alarm, frantically waving his paws around. "Wait, wait! You can't leave. The—the valley is going to flood in two days!"
Akira blinked at the sloth whose teal eyes were pleading with her. "That's what this whole march is about?" He nodded in affirmation. "So, will you come with us?" She arched an eyebrow as Manny and Diego exclaimed, "Sid!" The sloth glanced at them over his shoulder, his paw waving dismissively. She eyed the group again and sat back on her haunches, "Thanks for the offer, Sid, but I don't think I'm wanted."
She turned and began walking away. "Akira, they won't mind! Right?" He was met with silence from his companions, the three... possums watching quietly. "But—it can't be safe for a lone sabre! We can protect you!" She paused, staring straight ahead as she heard Manny and Diego talking quietly amongst themselves. No, it wasn't safe for a lone sabre but she'd held out this long. "You could die!"
Akira continued, ignoring Sid's cries. "I survived an avalanche, Sid, I think I can deal with a little water." Akira sure as hell would not fair well on her own if the flood was as worrying as it seemed. Mammals had uprooted themselves from their homes and that was telltale enough that the flash flood would be the farthest thing from a little water and gentle but Akira wasn't going to subject herself to being where she was unwanted because a prey had taken a liking to her.
"Diego, Manny, a little help?!" The sabress rolled her eyes but halted mid-step as the mammoth called out to her. "Hey, wait. We're all travelling together and you might as well come too. If Sid trusts you then I guess you're okay." Akira turned to face the group, her head cocked. "Do you just go around trusting every lone sabre you see?" The sloth and mammoth looked at Diego, Diego glancing between the two before the trio shrugged.
"Not every lone sabre." Sid exaggerated, bounding over to her and wrapping his arms around her neck once again. She grunted upon the contact. "You are oddly touchy." She acknowledged, gently pushing the sloth away. "So she's coming with us?! Uh, don't we have a say in this?" She looked up at the real possums perched on the shemmoth's tusks and her eyes darkened a threatening shade. They caught it and whimpered, each taking a respective step back.
"No," Manny snapped. Ellie looked the sabress over and shrugged, turning around as she seemed satisfied with her safety and presence. Akira shook her head at the oddity of a healthy mammoth possibly being afraid of a single female sabre. The possums scurried onto their sister's back and eyed the two sabres travelling at the back of the herd with wary eyes.
Feeling spiteful, Akira grinned hungrily at them, opening her jaws to showcase her gleaming, white fangs and closing her mouth with an audible clack. They cowered and scampered onto Ellie's tusks, out of her sight. Akira grinned to herself, satisfied by the fear she had instilled in the rodents. She heard an amused exhale and glanced to her left but Diego made no indication he ever made a sound or much less noticed the exchange.