Note: I don't own the cast of Ice Age 2, but Kira, Kalek, Rigel and the sabers of the Three Rivers pack do belong to me. And yes, I'm sorry, I'm adding to the growing ranks of Diego/OC.

Title is still uncertain, as is the exact 'where' this little story's gonna go. Read and Review, please!

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The Rivers Come Together

Somehow, it had all come out alright. Nobody was really sure just what, or how it had happened, but the ice wall at the southern end of the valley had split. The floodwaters raced out through the fissure, and in the hours of silence that had followed, a beautiful and wondrous sight appeared: an entire herd of mammoths, moving as serenely and majestically as only the largest creatures in the world could do. Manny and Ellie had nearly parted, and even in remaining together, had been tempted to move with the large herd of mammoths. Thankfully, they chose to tread the true path, with their own herd, the strangest herd in the lands.

Not that Diego and Sid had any complaints. Some measure of relief held onto Diego's heart as he still found himself surrounded by prey: two mammoths, a sloth, and the two persnickety possums who claimed to be Ellie's brothers. To the saber, they were his pack… his herd, to use the prey term. But more importantly, they were his friends, friends that he had risked life, and limb for, more than once.

And Sid. Well, Sid was simply Sid. He could be happy no matter what was going on in his life, it seemed. There was always a bright side, always something to look up to. Yes, he was slightly crazy, and had no qualities of personal hygiene, but there was a strange, endearing quality to the numb creature that everyone around him was affected by. Diego would always be the first to admit that Sid was the best fall-guy around.

The fissure in the ice wall had opened up access to greater grazing lands, more hunting grounds as well. Even though the weather was warming, and the ground seemed to cling to paws and feet with a sucking, muddy feeling, the strangest herd of them all was content striking out into the unknown. The valley was too small to hold all the herbivores, in addition to all the new mammoths. So forward they went, through the greening lands. A measure of spring had finally come to the world, with all the uncertainty it held.

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"Crash? Eddie?" Ellie trumpeted softly, using her trunk to push aside the wide fronds of a willow tree. I Now, where could those two have gone off to/I she wondered silently, as there was no sign of either of her possum brothers beneath the tree. She cocked her great shaggy head to one side, and listened carefully. In the distance, she could hear Sid yammering over his fire-making.

Manny had warned her not to wander off too far. But when her brothers disappeared for any length of time, she tended to get worried. She moved slowly through the woodland undergrowth, being as careful as possible not to step on anything that could hide two wily possums.

"Come on guys," she sighed, as she poked her trunk into another bush. "This isn't funny anymore." Doing her best not to sound cross with the two, Ellie called their names again, continuing further into the landscape. With each step, she knew the sounds of her herd were getting further and further away. And the sounds of the woodland were getting louder and louder.

Feeling a shiver run down her spine, Ellie paused with one foot lifted high. Her ears tried to swivel around, as though they could catch the softest sounds of the surrounding greenery. The leaves on the low bushes around her rustled softly, and Ellie started, prancing to her left, startled by the sense of movement. Her green eyes widened, as she focused on the bushes, and the sonorous growl that began to resonate from within it.

"Oh, please… be Diego?" Ellie whispered softly, before spinning on her hind legs and bolting through the forest.

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"Now you've done it! After it!" Kalek snarled, cuffing his young daughter upside the back of her head. Kira winced, and flattened herself against the ground, as all around her the woods exploded into motion. The pack was on the hunt. Half of them were here, while half waited a distance along the river. "MOVE!"

Kalek's demands were not to be ignored, and Kira struggled to her feet. Already her uncles and cousins were a good distance ahead of her, and she hastily fought to untangle her feet from herself to catch up to them. Kalek wasn't a patient pack leader; he refused to wait even for his own daughter. Crashing through the undergrowth was a feast that would keep the entire pack fed for weeks, not to mention the strength mammoth meat would led to the ailing mothers, and mewling cubs.

Kira stumbled behind him, fighting to find her stride. Her paws were still too large for her frame; she still seemed ungainly and uncoordinated. Entirely not the picture of what any self-respecting saber tooth would look like. Kalek fumed as he snapped at the mammoth's flailing hindquarters, driving the massive female ever closer to the river raging down from the valley. His pack had been most successful using the river to kill their prey, since it had recently become swollen and fast.

The mammoth broke from the trees into the clear space on the river's banks. She picked up incredible speed, swinging her shaggy head from side to side, threatening to sweep away tigers with the breadth of ivory tusks. Kalek called out for the second wave of runners to surge forward, replacing the flagging members of the pack with fresh paws, and fresh lungs. A steady pounding of feet joined Kalek's side, and he cast a sideways glance. It appeared Kira had found her stride, and was racing to catch up to the mammoth.

Kalek knew the potential for the huntress that existed within his daughter, even if she refused to accept the discipline that was needed to attain such heights. One of her brothers would someday take over as pack leader, and once that happened it would only be a matter of time, before Kira would be driven out. Silently, he urged his daughter onward, slowing his own pace slightly as she closed in on the mammoth's hindquarters.

She never got the chance to snap at the orangey hide, as the mammoth skidded around the bend. A landslide had recently created a drop off on the river's bank, a sheer face of mud and rock that was nearly twice as tall as any mammoth alive. It was that drop off that the saber pack had been using to its advantage lately. The hunters were to snap and snarl at the mammoth's right side, driving the panicked creature to its left. However, this prey kept a remarkable head upon her shoulders.

When the young hunters began snapping at her right side, the mammoth leaned right, putting all her weight into driving the sabers aside. Kalek snarled as the sound of breaking bones reached his ears, two hunters laid by the side, trampled beneath the massive mammoth feet. Suddenly, the mammoth trumpeted, in joy, as she rounded the corner ahead of the pack.

Kalek skidded to a halt at the rear of his hunters, yellow eyes narrowing at the sight before him. A bull blocked their way, taller and broader than the lighter colored female, this particular mammoth showed no fear in the face of six saber tooth tigers. Kalek threw his head back, and roared, summoning to him the elder hunters who had already fallen back. Predator locked gazes with prey, and Kalek waited until his pack had begun to fully assemble around him.

Kira kept her head low, allowing herself to slink back into the pack, so that her father wouldn't point her out as the reason the pack failed. Her ears laid back against her skull as the standoff continued. It was Rigel, the eldest and largest of her brothers, who broke the standoff. With a savage yowl, he leapt from his perch in a nearby tree to land upon the bull mammoths back. Claws sunk in deep to the prey's shoulder hump as the mammoth reared back in pain.

The crafty creature waited no longer, plunging forward into the waiting maw of the pack. The sabers scattered, leaping aside from the mammoths huge tusks. A few weren't fast enough, being caught along the curve of ivory, and thrown over to the precipice into the river. Three splashes broke Kalek's heart and resolve.

"Disengage!" the pack leader roared. "Retreat!" One by one the sabers broke off from the fight, tucking tail between their legs and racing back into the woods. They could vanish there, slink away into the dappled shadows, to wait their next chance at some tasty mammoth meat. Rigel was the last to drop away, leaping off the bull's back, and landing precariously in the grasp of a broad tree. He clawed his way fully onto the branch, and snarled at the heavily breathing mammoth, before he leapt from the tree, and disappeared into the forest as well.

Kalek snapped his jaws at his daughters retreating hindquarters, forcing her to turn away from the two mammoths, and follow her family into the forest.

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"I'm just happy the Wonder Twins saw you getting chased, Ellie." Manfred's voice was quiet, even as Sid stood atop his back to examine the deep claw wounds. "I wouldn't have found you in time if it weren't for them." His brown eyes shifted slightly to indicate the two possums clinging to Ellie's tusks.

"We thought we'da lost you!" Crash whined.

"Yeah!" Eddie echoed, beating his huge eyes up at his 'sister.' "And where would we be without our little sister to look after us?"

Ellie's trunk brushed across each possum briefly, before she stretched it out, to lay it gently upon Manny's own trunk. The gesture was small, but it held a lot of meaning for the two pachyderms. Manny winced as Sid patted down the last chunk of moss, before he flopped to the ground again.

"There! They didn't look too bad. After all, Diego'sh done worsh by accident!" Sid dusted his hands together as though that were the end of that statement. Manny couldn't see his own shoulders, but they sure felt worse than anything Diego had ever inflicted, in any state.

"Where is Diego anyway? Shouldn't he have come back by now?' Ellie turned her head slightly, to glance into the forest again. Night was rapidly enclosing upon the herd, and she refused to think of what may lurk in the darkness.

"Diego can take care of himself, El." Manny sighed, patting the ground beside him with his trunk. It was his invitation for her newest habit, a habit that he had every much enjoyed. Ellie smiled softly, and paced around to settle in beside the bull. "Don't worry about a thing; he always comes back."

"Yeah," Ellie sighed, as she pulled her feet in around her. "Manny?" She waited until the bull answered with a soft grunt; she then leaned up against him, resting the temple of her head, just below his. "Thank you."

Manny smiled in contentment, and cracked his eyes open just enough to peer around. Sid was busying himself pulling up a few shredded bits of bark to sleep on. The possums were getting comfortable in a small, twisted tree nearby. Diego's customary spot near the edge of the clearing was still empty. As Manny allowed himself to gently stroke Ellie's fur with his trunk, he wondered just what was keeping their resident carnivore so long.

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The elders convened barely heartbeats after the dead sabers had been identified. Two of the dead had been Kalek's own siblings; leaving the elders dangerously short of members. This was a fact that the other elders didn't allow to escape their leaders notice, the constant mumbling and bickering of the great cats grated on Kalek's ears.

"Enough!" Kalek had never been the eldest of any circle, and he was still not the eldest even in his own counsel. But he was the strongest; the cubs still whispered stories of how he stopped a stampede all by himself. Kalek never denied any of the rumors. So he sat with this forelegs crossed casually before him. His was the position of power, resting upon the wide rock slab set above the others. "We lost a mammoth today. A hunt that should have been easy... should have been rote. But it went heinously wrong."

The elders rumbled again, raising their voices in agreement to their pack leaders statement. "We lost three good hunters today. My brothers, Aki and Rio, and Bane's sister, Cloud." He indicated the grieving elder with a tip of his head. Cloud had not been among the counsel, but she had been the eldest den mother in the pack. "A mistake was made out on the field. A mistake by a juvenile hunter, who quite possibly should not have been with us today."

The elders fell silent. They all knew just whom he was speaking of. They never expected Kalek to be lenient, not after the way he had wrested control of the pack from their previous leader. But this felt as though it was going too far. Bane scowled as he glanced among the other elders; the whole whopping three of them that were left.

"Rigel is seeking Kira right now," Kalek was continuing with a heavy sigh. "She knows what she has done wrong, and he is to keep her within the den woods until we have managed to think a suitable punishment for her."

"Sir, you can't be serious?" It was one of the elder females, her face scarred and silver. "The girl hasn't been right since we lost her mother. You can't punish the infirm for making a mistake." As she spoke, Tya turned her blind eye to Kalek, as if to illustrate her point.

Bane rumbled. "My last littermate was lost to the river, OneEye! Because the child broke position before our time was right." Tension rolled through the saber's shoulders, and his head lowered slightly in silent answer to her challenge.

"The herds are plentiful enough," Tya countered with a snarl. "The loss of one mammoth should not bring punishment. Reprimand, yes. I am sure the girl feels remorse for her actions."

Kalek snorted then. Shaking his head slowly, he lowered himself until his chin rested upon his forepaws. Now was the time for listening, to give Rigel enough time to find his sister, and do what had to be done.

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Diego had learned long ago to hunt downwind of his herbivore family. It was really only polite, to keep them from growing unnerved by his eating habits. Especially since it seemed he could only catch rodents in this forsaken forest. Everything else was getting pretty crafty, from the lapids to the flightless birds. Everything around here was accustomed to being hunted. Something that Diego kept struggling to get used to.

It had taken him a little longer to catch his quarry, but rabbit had never tasted so sweet and fresh as it did when one really had to work for the meal. The tall conifers provided him with the perfect shade to enjoy his catch, while blithely around him the songbirds kept chirruping away.

Idly he scratched at one side, shedding some more of the thick winter coat, in favor of something sleeker, for the balmy weather. He'd never been this far south, never been this... warm. Sometimes it was downright frustrating. Opening his jaws wide, he curled his tongue into a yawn that shook his entire frame.

As he rose, he shook himself, running his tongue over his chops to assure himself that he was clean of all traces of his dinner. Ellie would probably freak worse that the boys would, but it was still something Diego didn't want to risk. Another yawn was accompanied by a long stretch, claws extending and dragging through the pine needle litter.

Diego's ear twitched in response to a rustle high above him in the trees. Furrowing his brow, he looked up, only to watch needles drift lazily down from the branches. He let his eyes contour over the branches for a moment, until he spotted it. A lump of fur nestled in the crook of a tree branch.

As soon as he sat back down to ponder this development, a growl rose from behind him. Over his shoulder, he caught a splash of dark orange fur, and gleaming nine-inch long incisors. It dawned on him, as he turned slowly to face the newcomer: he was trespassing on another saber pack's territory.

"Rogue," the huge saber snarled, lips curling up around the fangs that gave the great cats their name. "What are you doing in our lands? I suggest you hurry up and pass on through, before I make an early dinner out of your carcass."

"Woah, ease up there," Diego shrugged his shoulders, and laid his ears back. Doing his best to look non threatening, Diego curled paws in close beneath him. "I'm just stopping for a light snack. Won't be staying long at all, friend."

"I'm not your friend." The male snorted, flaring his nostrils as he began to circle around Diego, sniffing the latter for scents of trouble. Diego shifted slightly. Would he be able to scent the prey smells that clung to his fur? "You're a long way from home, northerner. Where's your pack?"

"I don't have one." Diego lied. He had a herd, and that was better than any pack he could imagine. Very slowly, Diego turned to keep facing the dominant male. "Anything I can help you with, friend?" Diego liked how irritated the male was getting, how his funnel ears kept shifting back and forth, in a paranoid state of worry.

He seemed to think for a few moments, eyes narrowing, and his stub of a tail dropping slightly. "Yeah." The orange furred male muttered at long length. "If you see a gangly lookin' cub around, tell her she needs to get her butt back to den rocks fast."

Diego nodded, and repeated the message quietly. "So... can I finish my meal in peace?" He asked, indicating the carcass of the rabbit creature not far off. Diego remained still with his paw poised in mid air until the orange saber grunted, and slunk away into the woods. Somewhere, Diego found a sigh of relief hiding in his chest, and he released it, allowing his head to droop and his eyes to close.

He waited, maybe ten, or fifteen slow breaths, until the sounds of the retreating tiger had long vanished into the underbrush. He lifted his head then, glancing into the tree. "You can come out now. The bruiser's gone." Diego had a hard time keeping the smirk out of his voice.

The tree above him moved, or rather, the small tawny lump upon one of the branches stirred. A pair of amber eyes peered over the edge of the branch, and soon after two funnel shaped ears swiveled into view. Diego waited patiently. He'd never been one to climb trees; after all, any prey he would ever go after were land bound. Watching the young female pick her way down the tree trunk to the forest floor was something of an oddity to him.

She moved with exaggerated caution, but she was still most definitely a cub. Her feet were too large for her frame; her legs too long. She landed on the ground with a rather ungraceful thud, splaying all four feet wide to catch her abrupt fall. She remained that way, half crouched while staring at Diego.

"I'm not gonna attack you, kid," he sighed tiredly. She started when he spoke, almost tripping over herself in her haste to sit up straighter. Diego couldn't help but chuckle softly.

"Don't laugh at me," she simmered, narrowing her eyes. She was trying to look cool, and calm. Diego knew better than to fall for that act. "I'm not a kid; I do have a name." She insisted, as Diego raised his brows in curiosity. "I am Kira, daughter of Kalek, who is leader of the Three Rivers pack." One paw lifted as she leaned forward slightly. "Why?"

"Why what?" Diego echoed her odd question, lilting his head to one side. Kira waved her paw in the general direction that the orange male had slunk off in, and Diego added two and two together. "Oh, that! N-No reason." i Because that's what herds do. /i Diego could almost feel the herbivore thought process lodged in the back of his skull. He dared not reveal anything as he watched the young female, Kira, get back to her feet, and turn from him.

"Well, thanks anyway, rogue." Her amber eyes glanced sideways, almost daring him to follow her, but he remained still where he sat. She gave her tail a flicker of irritation. "If you know what's good for you, you'll get out of this area… it's our hunting grounds, and Papa doesn't like strangers."

"I'll take that as a warning, kid, and not a threat." Diego couldn't help but smile. She didn't sound the least bit intimidating. But if this was really the hunting grounds for a saber pack, he had to get the herbivores through the area as fast as possible. He batted a paw idly at the half eaten rabbit, as he watched the female disappear into the forest opposite the way the male had gone. Instinct bid him to follow her, but he turned, and trotted quietly through the woods toward the clearing that promised to be "home" for the night.