"Remember us." there was a slight pause in his voice and the child gripped his trunk, "We'll remember you."

Road trip.

Manny despised the word.

He despised the entire thing.

Who would want to spend all of their life running around with these loud, obnoxious animals?

Crash, Eddie, Sid, and peaches were all making a terrible ruccus in the back, and Diago wasn't helping with his annoying banter with Sid.

Ellie, too, often through in a line in the banter, in short it was not Manny's 'thing'. It irritated him, and couldn't he just have quiet for once?

He grumbled and kept walking, speeding up a bit, allowing himself room to brood away from his wife's cheery mood.

In all of his brooding, on the path of their rode trip (to some place Ellie had insisted they visit, as she had seen it when she was a kid) he didn't catch the noise of footsteps around him.

It wasn't until he had nearly run into the human that he noticed it.

He stopped, frozen. His eyes slanted and his muscles froze. Fear gripped from deep inside of him, and he reared back, "Ellie! Run!" chatter stopped as Diago rushed forward to help stand at the front of the herd. Eddie and Crash grabbed hold of his tail and jumped up to try and defend Peaches and Ellie to.

Sid walked forward, still very much thinking to himself and let out a, "Hey! What's the problem?" The human stood stock still in front of them all.

He had long raven hair, and a stunned look upon his face.

Ellie had been backing up, pulling their teenage girl with her, when suddenly something dawned on Manny.

"No." He murmured to his wife, "Stop. I-I- think I know this human."

Diago cast a glance up to him as Sid walked forward and eventually fell down on his face, "Whoops," he said irritated, "can't a sloth get anywhere now days?"

And he was right infront of the human, he froze himself and the human looked down at the sloth, reached his hand out and poked him. Sid's eyes were as wide as saucers and he reached up and poked him back, unsure.

"IT'S HIM! Heeeyyy! Guys! Look! It's the little baby from-from forever ago!"

Diago still stood at attention while Manny moved forward and leaned his head forward to really get a good look at the kid.

Well, he wasn't a kid anymore. No- now he was a full grown man, his face was alighted in a grin.

Manny brought his trunk and rubbed his hair.

"Wow." he said, and then brought his trunk up and gestured to Ellie, "Ellie, come here. Bring Peaches. Be slow, we don't want to scare him off."

Ellie took a hesitent step forward, along with Peaches, peaches poked her head out from around her mothers trunk, and looked at the human man with curiousity.

The man was grinning ear to ear, and gestured with his hand, saying a few words that none of the animals could understand.

"What is going on here Manny?" Ellie asked, even as another human emerged from large grasses, her hands gripped around a tight bundle of cloth.

"This- this is the boy we rescued from- well from Diago's old heard." he murmured as a woman human looked unsurely up at Manny and Ellie, before holding her Bundle up for the large Mamoth to see. It was a baby, it brought back many memories from years ago when he had helped a baby back to it's pack- looking just as this one did now.

He gestured to Peaches, "Come here, I want him to see you-" he murmured. "And, I would really like you to meet him."

Peaches walked forward and stood infront of Manny. The human smiled widely, and the woman came forward a bit to get a closer look at the young female mamoth. Peaches reached up, and touched the squishy face of the young human. The young human reached it's arms out and clutched her trunk in a tight hug. She stood stiff for a moment, and then let out a small chuckle. "It's so adorable dad." she said happily coming forward to get a better look, becoming more trusting of the humans.

There was a yell of other voices from the other humans from far off, and the human man turned his head aroound and stared off into the distance, before gesturing to his wife, and gave her a hug before speaking words and letting her run off.

Then the Human man came forward and got close enough to reach Manny's trunk and gave it a tight hug.

Warmth washed through manny, and words that he could not understand came out of the humans mouth, but the meaning was very clear to him, "Thank you." he was saying to Manny.

He smiled looked at the human, and said, "No. Thank you."

There was a moment, unlike any moment before this, where a meaning so profound passed between Man and animal, both extremealy grateful for the other, and both understanding that consiousness of the other was just as important as the consiousness of self.

And with that, the Human man walked away, and Manny never saw him again, but the meaning of that interaction was something that would forever changed his life for the better, again.