Bearclaw Valley a

The bear's lips pulled into an unusual grin, and Aventus mirrored it with a rare one of his own. He marvelled at the droopy lips, the huge yellow incisors, the size of Jaylen's eyes in comparison to the size of his enormous nose, and the wee round ears adorning the top of his head. He looked nothing like ma or pa or Avicus.

These alien qualities might explain why Aventus felt strangely at ease with the behemoth, despite being shy around his own kind. Jaylen lumbered closer and Aventus felt the ground rumble under his belly, but he wasn't hungry, so it couldn't have been that. He cast a look down toward his own narrow chest, failing to put two and two together to realize that Jaylen was simply so enormous compared to him that the bear shook the very ground. Jaylen distracted him then, rumbling something that sounded rather like the sounds Merrick made, but more gravelly and ponderous, because he was a bear and not a wolf.

Arf, was all Aventus could say back, because he didn't know how to speak yet, but any sort of verbal response to a stranger was passing strange for him. He reached his black toes out in a stretch before lurching to his paws, swaying clumsily, and then toddling in the bear's direction, utterly unaware of the danger that a bear could present. Jaylen's aura was simply too calm to alarm him any, and like any perceptive babe, Aventus could almost sense that about the ursine.