Item from ice-age by
A single, perfect acorn that Scrat has been pursuing across geological epochs — the axis around which much of ice age history has inadvertently turned.
The acorn is simultaneously a mundane object and a cosmic force. In Scrat's paws it has the significance of a holy relic. Its pursuit has driven him through avalanches, off cliffs, through the entire Dinosaur World, and briefly into outer space. By any reasonable accounting, the acorn has cost Scrat far more than it could ever be worth as food. As a story object, the acorn is a MacGuffin elevated to philosophy. It represents single-minded desire, the gap between the thing we want and the life we're actually living, and the comic futility of obsession. Whoever holds it becomes the most dangerous person in any room, from Scrat's perspective.
The acorn is a perfect specimen: smooth, dark brown, its cap still attached, gleaming as if polished. It is slightly larger than one might expect. It catches the light. It is, to Scrat, the most beautiful object in the known universe, and somehow it reads that way even to observers who lack his specific obsession.
Also known as: the acorn, the nut, the prize