Just an angst piece. Probably a little slashy. I own nothing.
It had happened so fast, there was literally no time to think. One moment they were expressing a mutual distaste in Sid's less-than-groundbreaking biological broadcasts, and the next…the ground was breaking and the only biological broadcast running through the herd was one of abject panic.
All too soon there was a river of lava that opened up beneath them, hotter than the pits of hell it had come from and redder than the blood of a young antelope. Diego would know.
Trapped by space and depth and standing on an island of ice, he stared down at the fire in a moment that would be burned into his memory forever. The tiger swallowed down the terror and tried to breathe against the sulfur. He lifted off of the ice pillar and launched across the gap, digging his claws into the bridge. He heard Sid mutter something and Manny shout, "Wish granted!" before watching the mammoth boot the sloth across a slab of rapidly-melting ice.
Diego glanced over the edge of the ice bridge again, the tips of his fur singeing in the heat. Frightened, he shouted to Manny, "Come on, move it!" He had cursed the mammoth's extraordinary size countless times on this journey, but none more than now.
"Have you noticed the river of lava?" Manfred enunciated slowly, even in this most perilous of times wry and incongruent in his sarcasm, though his eyes betrayed him
After a glance down, the mammoth seemed stricken for a moment, frightened and unsure. But soon his eyes narrowed and he rolled his shoulders, and Diego looked on in open astonishment as the gargantuan beast threw himself –and the child –across the chasm to the dwindling ice on the other side. Manfred landed hard, a foot nearly falling, before lumbering across the thin sheet to safer and sturdier ground.
Behind the mammoth, a layer of ice fell away into the fires, sending up a violent geyser of steam that nearly broiled Diego. The tiger glanced down momentarily, baring his teeth. Then he leapt across the ravine in a desperate lunge for his life.
He knew before he was halfway across that he would come up too short.
His front hit the ice bridge, hard. Desperately he dug his claws into the unyielding ice and scrambled for a purchase, his determination to live at odds with his somehow innate knowledge that survival was, at this point, just the least bit unlikely. Still, his legs tore at the ice, frantically searching for something to cling to, to haul himself up.
He did not cry out.
Perhaps it was the sound of his claws scraping against the ice that made the mammoth turn. Diego wasn't sure, as his mind was otherwise occupied at the moment. He faintly heard Manny shout something at Sid and he vaguely registered the fact that the hair on his back was becoming uncomfortably hot.
He would later remember, however, with absolute clarity the expression on the mammoth's face as the long, flexible trunk reached out toward him. As Manfred gingerly crawled closer, Diego was struck by absolute shock: this creature was trying to save him, a stranger still, at the risk of his own life.
Diego knew he would never have done the same.
Claws still seeking a grip, though only automatically now that death was so near, Diego felt an unfamiliar flush of guilt. He knew he had been leading the mammoth to his death, but the creature trying to save him had never seemed completely real, almost like a cave drawing of a living animal. It was not until the actual cave drawings that Manfred had appeared as more than a strong, silent, wry…meal. And now, with the ice cracking and heaving, here Manfred was, trying to save the life of a beast that was ordered to betray him. Although he didn't like it, Diego momentarily wondered if perhaps it was fitting that he was to die this way.
Before the tiger could succumb completely to this self-depreciating train of thought, Diego saw the trunk that was stretched nearly within reach. Gripping the ice as hard as he could with one leg, the leather pads of his paws nearly bleeding, he extended a limb to the mammoth, even as the ice crackled threateningly beneath him. He was still reaching when the ice gave way. He let out a strangled shout and began to fall.
It was the shock of the trunk suddenly wrapping around his paw, painfully tight and unyielding that brought the tiger to glance up. Turning his head away against the rush of super-heated air from the fallen slab, Diego simply dangled for a moment until the stream had slowed.
With an apology flickering briefly in his eyes, he reached his other foreleg up and grabbed into the mammoth's trunk with his claws, feeling a flashing moment of self-hate as the mammoth winced against the sharpness. He shook it off quickly, narrowed his brows, and clung to Manfred's face. How, when dangling above a river of fire, was the slight scratch to a stranger's nose the worse of his concerns? And yet it was.
He watched the mammoth look away for a second, and then Diego was unceremoniously jerked up and hurled over Manfred's shoulder, falling hard to the barren earth just a few yards away. He had never been so happy to be cold.
The moment of relief was drowned by a rush of horror as Diego stared at the mammoth, standing on the thin sheet of ice that was sinking jerkily.
Terror lit the mammoth's eyes for a moment, before the ice gave way and Sid screamed, "Manny!" Diego heard the braying of the beast as Manfred fell down toward the river, struck by horror and disgust in the knowledge that the mammoth had died to save him. To save Diego, who had been leading them all to an ambush and death in the most gruesome manner.
Presently there was a great whooshing sound, and the braying continued, growing bizarrely nearer until the slab of ice supporting the mammoth was flung over the head of the remaining herd members, the beast atop it surely as confused at the rest of them.
Diego managed to cover his head as the mammoth crashed to earth, safety, and snow with a heavy slam. Once the snow cleared, Diego watched as Sid bumbled clumsily around Manfred.
"MannyMannyManny, you okay? Come on, come on, say something, anything!" the sloth cried, searching frantically for a sign of life from the mammoth.
Eyes closed, Manfred weakly grumbled, "Nrn nne ne ne ne nrun."
"What? What? I can't hear you!" Sid exclaimed.
"You're standing on my trunk," the mammoth ground out in the choked voice.
"Oh!" Side moved and the trunk gasped. "Oh, you're okay! Aw, you're okay!"
Diego cut in over Sid's jubilant refrain. "Why did you do that? You could've…died, trying to save me." Diego turned his face toward the ice, unable to look at Manfred.
The response was not exactly was the tiger was expecting. "That's what you do in a herd. You watch out for each other."
Diego picked up his head, and locked eyes with that steady, frighteningly godlike stare that could stop any creature in its tracks. The gaze pierced into Diego and the tiger felt vulnerable, exposed, and weak, even though the mammoth was cast down onto its stomach and seemingly unable to move anything more than his head.
The mammoth's eyes seemed to say, "I know everything you have ever thought. I will wait for you to tell me yourself." Although of course he couldn't know, Diego still felt as though he was trapped and being studied.
Breaking the connection, Diego's eyes darted down again, and he managed to slide out a, "Well…thanks."
Sid broke the moment. "I don't know about you guys, but we are the weirdest herd I've ever seen."
Later, Diego was knuckling Sid's head, laughing at the sloth's tendency to flinch at the slightest spook, when Manny said, "Hey, lovebirds." Diego stopped immediately. Somehow, that term and that tone coming out of the mammoth didn't sit right with him. "Look at this."
The mammoth gently relinquished his trunk's grip on the child, and, wonder of wonders, the little human began to totter unsteadily away from the protective clutches of Manfred.
"I don't believe it," Sid murmured, staring in awe at the tiny creature wandering around.
Diego smiled at Sid, and watched the child for a moment, before his gaze turned to Manfred. The mammoth was already watching Diego, total delight written across his face. Diego felt a twinge of something like pity in his chest; perhaps this was what it was like when Manfred watched his own child learn to walk. The parental pride in the mammoth's gaze was unmistakable and would have been almost tragic had it not been so utterly charming and enthused.
Manfred turned his gaze away to watch the human totter unsteadily on its feet. The mammoth's trunk always inches behind it, in case any stumble or waver should overtake the delicate process and send the child to the ground. Sid made cooing noises and attempted to draw the child to come near him.
"Come here, you little biped! Come here, you little wormy worm! Come to Uncle Sid…" As the child changed course, the sloth started to stutter, "Oh, no no no no, this way, this way!"
Diego saw that the child was coming upon him, and he muttered nervously, "Oh, no. No, no. No, go to him." The tiger flicked a paw in Manfred's direction. "Go to him." He took a step back.
The child collapsed against Diego's foreleg, the wide, adoring face turned up to the tiger. Diego sighed inwardly. 'You, too, human?' he thought. 'Guilt over Manny's one thing…but you, too? If I'm able to eat after this in a month, I'll be lucky.'
"Uhhh. Okay?" Diego shrugged, glancing up to meet the gazes of his other two companions. The child squealed something happily and Diego gently turned him around, his claws retracted. "Good job." He pushed the child toward Manfred softly. "Keep practicin'," he purred over the lump in his throat.
The child pressed forward a few more steps. Sid cooed, "Look at that. Our little guy's growing up."
Manfred's attention was completely on the child, his eyes soft and doting. The little human sneezed and fell back on its hindquarters, rubbing its eyes sleepily.
The mammoth rose to his feet, eager to wrap his trunk around the child again.
"All right, sleep time, lumpy." Manfred moved closer to the sheet of rock behind them, cradling the human in his trunk. Sid came over to sit beside Diego, who watched at Manfred gazed adoringly down at the child.
"Look at that big pushover," Sid said fondly, watching Manfred guard the baby in his trunk, the small creature looking soft and out of place between the huge ivory spears.
"You know…Diego?" The tiger looked up. "I've never had a friend who'd risk his life for me."
Diego dropped his gaze to the ground. "Yeah. Manny's…"
What, or who, was Manfred to him? The mammoth was much more than just a kill, just prey. Diego hadn't actually thought about killing the mammoth until he met up with his pack mates that first night. In fact, he hadn't even really thought about the mammoth until he met up with his pack mates that first night. He had only been after the baby. Desperate to send back a good word, Diego, in a flash of bravado, had promised the mammoth as a meal for the pack. So, now that the sun had set and a dangerous day had brought him a new perspective and Diego was left to think on it, what was Manfred to him?
Manfred was a friend. A good one to have, it seemed. A loyal creature, generous beneath the hard, sharp exterior. Diego was nearly jealous of Manny's inner goodness, since the tiger knew that beneath his own hard exterior there were only harder innards and a taste for blood.
Perhaps there was some kindness somewhere…but whatever kindness there was, was almost always locked away behind cruelty, sharpness, hunger, and ferocity. Fortunately, the kindness escaped occasionally for a few fleeting moments, and when it did, it was kindness of the sort that came out in guilt and regret and the steadily growing gentleness Diego showed when handling the child…and Sid.
The mammoth had brought forth something in Diego that Diego hadn't known he'd had. A spark of goodness lurking in a predatory heart. That was enough to make him nearly a very good friend.
Unfortunately, Diego was not in the habit of eating nearly very good friends…but here he was.
"…he's a good guy," Diego finished rather lamely.
"Yeah, he is," Sid replied, eyes wide and earnest and for once, serious. The gaze of the sloth stirred something painful inside Diego. "Well…good night." Sid rolled over without any exaggerated noises or stretching.
Diego rested his head between his paws, sparing a glance at Half-Peak, now left alone to wander the nighttime trenches of memory and decision, searching for the newfound spark of goodness that might be able to help him chose the path he would take the following day.
He closed his eyes to better the search.
He did not sleep well that night.
Long days bring long nights.
Just a quick one for you all.
Hope you enjoyed.