The Red haired girl had heard all the stories, about the monster in the cave. She knew if the crowd of children made her stay overnight there something horrible would happen. It did not take her long to begin to panic, and this fed the children in their zeal to seal her in the cave.

Many had trod this path, it wound around Goodbay through the mountains. Now however, it was nearly impassible. It had been blocked various ways, and by several different parties . In the beginning, it was the townspeople who forced brush and debris into the mouth of the cave when their own children spoke of mountains of fur in a cave nearby and went to investigate. There, they found a wolf pack protecting what seemed to be a mammoth pile of skins, protecting them with their lives.

After a few brave souls died, they left the pack there and just shivered when they heard the howls at the moon.
The Dragon Army discovered the cave , although this time the pack did not chase them away, and only one Wolf escaped. The soldiers prodded the pelts, but found no response. But the sense of being watched and great magic that they could not locate or understand slowly ate away at their subconscious until their dreams were not safe from wild imagined giant graying bears.
So, the cave was covered with huge boulders , and left to rot.

After a time, children returned to the area, only to find that foul weather had tumbled a rock free from the entrance.

It was the mistake of Jan, this little red haired daisy of a girl, to have bragged of her bravery in finding the ACTUAL CAVE of the MONSTER WOLVES. But it got worse, that hay-brain from the Wrey farm heard and called her a liar, and she was, but she thought maybe she knew or at least could trick them into thinking she did. She was VERY VERY wrong, and now they would make her prove it.

It was not difficult to track the debris left by the Dragon Army, they had not been subtle, it was impossible for all but the most flexible to navigate, but this immature mob made it.

Tom Wrey shoved Jan in.

She heard they laughing from outside, and then their laughter turned to screams as growling surrounded her and them. She fell and felt behind her , something furry and wet and , OH SWEET GODDESS *she loses consciousness*

The last thing little Jan sees before blackness takes her for a long time is the oldest largest thing she has ever seen open its giant maw over her.

When Jan is found outside her front door she is covered in dirt and fluid, but she is completely unharmed and clutching something that her mother must pry from her hands while the child sleeps after her long scrubbing. She had been missing for a week, Her mother thinks that only Chislev must know what the girl saw. Even in Jan's sleep the girl searches for the purchase taken from her hand.


A scrap of plaid wool.

The Ancient Grey Bear smelled blood in the cave and heard the screams of ...cubs, no children?
He opens one giant eye, with an immense effort built up over several minutes, to see little Jan . Her mouth open in a expression of abject fear.
His first passing thought...protect Heather.
(at this time Jan loses consciousness ) He roars a bellow that shakes the trees and strikes fear into the children as well as his beloved descendants of Thab.
The bear wonders how Heather has gotten so small as he picks her up with his mouth. He drags her inside to a soft place that he has rested for so long he cannot remember doing anything else. He lays her down and thinks , cubs need food and water and for the first time in many years the bear leaves the cave.
His giant paws pad gently down the path, the nighttime covers his silent trip down the path towards the , houses?
He passes sleepy watchmen with a snort and goes to the water , he sees a bucket and grabs it with his mouth after knocking a few apples from a low hanging tree into its water. Girl-cubs eat fruit it thinks.


When she wakes , she cannot walk on a foot that points an odd way and burns with deep, sharp, pain. She sees soft brown giant eyes watching her and she screams. The bear covers his head with his paws and looks so funny and terrifying at the same time that she laughs, and something starts to happen...she sees his paws seem to be like hands and feet. She sees that his middle has hidden a great swath of plaid wool . She sees as he changes, he is really a bear-man or man-bear. She is frightened again, until he grunts and light comes from his hand and her foot no longer pains her.


The bear is not sure if it dreamed it was a man or has been dreaming of being a bear. But, after finding the girl-cub he knew he has forgotten something important.
He puts his head down to rest after his confusing touch to the girl-cub, she seemed to feel better, but he could not put his paw (hand?) on what was wrong.Perhaps after a nap...
Soon in the night the bear carried the girl-cub in his mouth to the place which smelled like her. He set her down at her house (cave?) and wondered away through Good Bay into the North end of the burg. He seemed to recall a sign and a garden , and soon rested peacefully beneath a tree.
It is good that he slept this way, surrounded by the things of man, for the man deep inside recognised this place, and who he was...
And so an old raggity plaid covered man soon slept where a bear had been.

The bear sees with open eyes now, The Mother Pushes us towards the Grove. The man and the bear must soon be one thing, this frightens them both. Freedom of the sort that the bear has known is damn near impossible to give up.

(especially if you are a bear, which Puddle is not, though I am sure he wishes that he were, for the destruction of a war torn countryside and his own personal loss has weighed too heavily on this old man-who-wants-to-be-a-bear)

His mind drifts to friends and his sibling, but he cannot remember their names or even their voices, only smells. Sometimes he walks on four feet , sometimes two.
He can only concentrate on his mission, help Weyland-man to stop the sickness, before it reaches the people and their cubs.
So , he walks , his nose to the air, waiting until the call of The Mother.