Bearclaw Valley pelagic

nearby cameo

how strange and beautiful that the bears had seen fit to fill ursus with names the same once more. astara, aventus, apophis, asperas — arielle;
ashlar.
merrick did not think he had ever been faced with such a decision. nothing had hardened the boy into the spearpoint he had wanted. not even aventus had been able to mold that clay in his bruin's jaw. ashlar was kind and delicate as ever, not a warrior, not a mediator, not even a hunter.
battle had always driven out their weakest, but the seasons had been long without it.
merrick thought hungrily upon his eldest son's talk of the glacier.
ursus was small once more, but not without their own strength.
it was embodied in the sootgrass spiking of his littlest girl, who crackled with a fel and blackened energy toward the bear who only watched the wolves of ursus.
aventus, approaching; merrick yet too distant to hear what the bruin-jaw told his sister. he had stopped to watch them, keeping from earshot. but soon he turned, bowing toward their sacred one, scarred lips moving in a soundless prayer.
the single eye beheld with love the crown of ursus.