The Herd's Growing Family (Ice Age)

Meeting Buck

Elsewhere in the jungle, a family of Triceratops walks through a pond. The baby spots a waterlily with a flower on it. It sniffs the flower and goes to eat it when one of its parents growls at it. The baby looks down sadly and continues to follow them. It gets out of the pond and shakes off the water before looking back and continuing to follow its parents.

Once they're gone, the weasel, who helped the herd, rises out of the water with the waterlily on his head and a knife in his mouth. Meanwhile, Manny, Ellie, Diego, Redwood, Avery, Crash, and Eddie also come out of hiding.

"Dude, you're awesome! You're like the brother I never had!" Crash said as he and Eddie walked toward the weasel.

"Me too", Eddie agreed.

But then they stopped in their tracks when the weasel throws his knife on the ground next to them. He then twists his body to squeeze himself dry, takes the waterlily off his head, un-twists himself, and then sniffs at Crash and Eddie before picking them up by the tails and turning to the others.

"Can we keep him?" Crash asked the others as if he was a kid asking for a pet.

Manny looks at Ellie before the weasel suddenly jumps onto his face, startling the poor mammoth.

"Buck".

"What?" Manny asked, confused.

The weasel crawled onto Manny's head as he spoke. "The name's Buck. Short for Buckminster". He then inspects Manny's trunk. "Long for Bah". He added.

He then opens Diego's mouth and touches his long fangs. "Hmm. A little dull".

He moves on to Avery, who doesn't know whether to move or not, and started examining her features before staring into her eyes. She stares back, feeling a bit awkward. "Uh... Hi?" She waves.

Buck then sniffed her fur a bit and finally dropped the serious face. "Huh. Another weasel", he grins.

Redwood looks at him weirdly before he suddenly jumps on her shoulder, making her yell in surprise for a brief sec. Buck inspects her head and arm next, feeling slightly surprised to see a human of all things. "Very uncommon", he comments.

Redwood then grabs him and sets him back on the ground. "Sorry, but I like my personal space. Also no offense, but the last rodents I touched said they carried diseases when we first met". Redwood sideways glances at Crash and Eddie, who gave her nervous shrugs.

"No worries, kid", Buck says before leaping onto one of Ellie's tusks. "What are you doing here?" He asks the herd.

"Our friend was taken by a dinosaur", Ellie answers.

Buck hops back to the ground. "Well... he's dead. Welcome to my world. Now, uh, go home". He walks over to his knife and takes it out of the ground. "Off you pop".

"Not without Sid". Ellie says.

Manny stops her. "Ellie, wait. Maybe the deranged hermit has a point".

"Manny, we came this far, we're gonna find him". Avery says. "I know you're concerned for our safety but we need to rescue him".

"I've got tracks". Diego tells everyone as he stands over a big dinosaur footprint.

"Okay, let's go". Ellie walks off with everyone else following.

However, Manny stops and yells for a quick second as Buck suddenly hangs upside down in front of him. "If you go in there, you'll find your friend". His tone then gets dark. "In the afterlife".

"How do you know, o great wise and weasely one?" Eddie asked, still feeling awestruck about Buck.

Buck then lowers himself on a vine to the footprint. He licks the ground and then spits. "Mmm, yeah. Mommy dinosaur, carrying her three babies and some floppy green thing".