Bearclaw Valley host

parousia was weak.

she had grown as intended if one followed a guide, but she was a pitiful excuse for a growing child. the smushed state of her face did not help. the odd burden of conflicting gene pools did no favors, either.

often times, she stumbled until she could no more. then she sat wherever she fell down.

sometimes she cried, other times she did not. life was far from kind to her. life might snuff her out before she knew it. these things remained elusive to parousia.

she babbled nonsense to herself as she sunk her paws into a puddle of mud.

somewhere overhead a large bird circled.

She had seen a large bird from the hillside and moved to follow its arcing body. It turned in circles over a particular patch of forest, which told the huntress all she needed to know. There were scents here of many living things.

As the she ducked beneath the boughs of a tree Sanja lost sight of the bird entirely. There had to be something of value here in the mud, something that was spotted from on high, or the creature would not be surveying from above.

There was a warm, almost sweet scent that churned the woman's stomach. She had become sensitive to the sight and smell of different things that, before, did not bother her; this particular scent drew her attention at first, then transitioned to something closer to disgust.

Stopping short of where the girl was hidden, Sanja turned and dry-heaved at the ferns.

a sound.

parousia could not tell if she had heard this kind of thing before. something not like the rustling of animals outside or the scorn of her mother's coldness. this was very, very different.

mud forgotten, she wobbled with thoughtfulness (if such a thing was possible) towards where the sound came from. the rustle of leaves and the sound of heaving.

a patch of something brownish-blackish.

could this be mother bear? but even if it was, parousia knew better than to ask for much of anything from mother bear. so she merely took a seat nearby, muddy toes wiggled with uncertainty as she watched the partially obstructed dark form.

she babbled some more, a bit softer this time.

Something came up.
Pieces of duck from her hunt at the lake's edge, mostly digested. Lots of bile. It was a foul taste (no pun intended).

For a moment or two Sanja was distracted by the pounding in her head after she'd thrown up. It felt as if there were an ocean in her gut, foaming up her throat. The salt pickled her brain. Had there been something wrong with the meat?

Sanja sighed. The mewling sounds of something small caught in her ear after that, and her attention slowly drew towards the child. Hm?
What was a child doing here?

"hm?"

this was not the roar of mother bear, nor the incoherent ramblings of her either. parousia had met somebody new, for the very first time. in great awe of the new bear that blessed her.

this bear was beauty and elegance.

this bear was soft even if the scent spoke of rotted things.

parousia did not have words, she hardly ever did, but the look on her face was clear as day. enchanted and obsessed with the sight of this great new mother bear. soft, excited sounds squeaked by her small mouth.

Her eye traced back to the mess of dissolved fat and meat, piled in the mud. Sanja moved towards the child and with a quick reach, plucked them by the nape of the neck and lifted; the child wasn't so small that she could steal her away with great ease, but they tugged until the child was closer.

The meat there on display.

Hungry? She asked in her mother-tongue. Sanja knew better than to speak to the natives of this place, as they did not know her words. A motherly instinct overruled her sense. She nosed at some of the digested pieces and pushed them with her nose towards the child.

Could the child eat? Sanja wasn't thinking.

this sort of method, being tugged by the nape, was not new by any means. nor had she grown so much as to resent it.

besides, any contact seemed to be good contact, especially from a mother bear.

a mother bear who fed her. parousia did not do good fighting for food early on, but this was given freely. right to her. no others to compete with, no mother bear shooing her off early.

she would attempt to mumble back the word mother bear had spoken.

then gnawed without second thought on the once eaten meat, as if she had never had a meal in her life.

A strong, positive feeling overwhelmed Sanja as she watched the bjarn.
She had many questions but could not ask them.

The longer Sanja sat there with the child the warmer she felt towards them, but also she was.. confused. There was something different about this creature. It could not have been a wolf; but if it was, it had been born with a different face. Was that why it had been left here? Sanja wondered as she watched.

The mud had colored the child's extremities. They had been here a while. A piece of Sanja felt suddenly like weeping and she did not know why.

mother bear was quiet.

parousia felt only blessings, a full belly and the soft company of this mother bear. when she had stomached all she could from the meal that had been offered, she moved to bumble a bit closer to mother bear.

tender moments were rare, but not an impossibility.

if the woman did not move then parousia would lean against one of her limbs. short jaws opened with a hard-breathed yawn.

The child came closer.

It smelled now of rotten meat, bile, and the mud of its wallow. Its face looked squished. Did it have eyes? Sanja did not have the stomach to look.

A tiny yawn plumed from the child's mouth and in that moment Sanja saw their dark tongue. What had so afflicted this poor thing? It was wrong in so many ways — and Sanja wondered again, where the mother had gone.

But also, she could not blame them for abandoning something so obviously spoiled.

parousia had thought she had felt love before.

when mother bear had taken her somewhere alone and they had laid until parousia fell asleep. she had thought that had been the best thing that would ever happen. it had been so different from every other day before and after. parousia had known nothing like it since.

but this? this felt...much the same. the closeness and the softness with which this mother bear moved.

would such a thing happen again? twice was not a coincidence, but it also was not a habit.

now, spurred by the need to make this last, she tried to talk. although it was more just trying to once again mimic the word that had been spoken earlier.

it, too, was a new sensation.

Sanja would wait there for the child to sleep again.

She wanted to leave it to the wilderness, for the law of the wilderness would take hold without her there. It would not be upon her, the adult, to make any decisions for this bjarn. There was so much wrong with them already; how long had they survived here? Someone must have tended them.

You could stay, hummed a voice in Sanja's memory; her mother's. Clearly the child needed help.
It is not your place, responded her father's stern warning.

She would wait for the child to sleep again.
Then she would slip away.

eventually she would sleep, it was inevitable.

she had been fed, she had been soothed, she was washed in the smell of this new mother bear. parousia surely could tell the difference between mother bears, but there was no alarm here.

a mother bear was a mother bear.

how silly she would be to cry when tended to! when given all the attention!

she carried this very good, very new feeling in her as she eventually drifted off. a puddle of mud and meat and bile given life, sleeping soundly on the paw of mother bear.

she would be in no position to do much of anything (fussing, moving or other such puppy things) for some time now. the siren song of sleep too heavy and loud.