When Arthur Bled

We lived in what felt like a mansion compared to the little brownstone we’d had in England. It was next to a private school and owned by the school. Me and my brother were the sons of a professor who was often away on research expeditions.

My brother was the oldest and would behave like gold when our father was around, but he had had enough of the bullies and had taken to being the most underhanded at school. He made it less obvious to the teachers by spending more time with the less popular crowd, unaware he was trying to learn things to blackmail them.

I didn’t know he was doing this. Dealing with my own bullies and having to keep up with being my fathers assistant and my own extra curriculum was nearly impossible, but I managed.

After one of my bullies managed to get me kicked out of the photography club for “doctoring” my negatives of hard to find creatures into my images.

I was part of the student patrol and now that I had more time at night, I switched my patrol shift around the property to dusk. It left even less time to see what my brother was doing, but I thought it was a good thing, giving him time to express his grief.

I was on my final loop around the sprawling property with two dogs just as the dark really settled, I jangled my keys at what I believed was a skunk in the old maze area that had been turned into flat sports fields.

It was not a skunk, but a baby bear. Once I knew this I shoved the dogs leashes into the bush beside me and stepped away from them. I could hear the mother nearby and she was rumbling at me.

She came suddenly, like a thundering building from behind the bushes, grabbing me by the hip and pinning me up against the stone fence.

I was scared but knew I could not blame her. I tried to use soul touch to make her understand the mistake but there were just flashes of understandable fear and pain in her. Flashes of arrows piercing her flesh, of men and torches. Of dead cubs and no fish. She sums up what it means to be mother.

I accepted the images, not fighting the flashes of fire and pain she shares with me and this is what draws her up, though she does not release her teeth from my hip and I can feel the heat of tearing nerves and the grind of bone on bone as her teeth meet my hip.

I have no strength to struggle or call for help and I wouldn’t even if I could. Getting anyone else involved right now would just result in more injury and possibly death, either human or bear. Especially considering most of the staff and pupils here had long since let the neural pathways needed for soul touch die, viewing it as a genetic trait no longer needed in the modern area. So I say and send her nothing.

I do nothing as she drops me to sit on the fence and grabs my hand instead, not crushing the bones but enough to pierce flesh deeply. She guides my hand to the arrow wounds in her, as if she thought I hadn’t fought back because I hadn’t thought they were real.

I feel the ridges of old scars and the snapped off shafts that pull like half healed piercings in her skin. I pull three of the newer ones out and she stiffens at first but shudders out a sigh as the relief of her no-longer pinned flesh sinks in.

She lets go of my hand and the only thing keeping me balanced on the fence is the push of her great side against my legs as she goes down on all fours. I press one thought into her head as she turns away from me, trying to convey the danger she’s put herself in by protecting her young. I use the simplest form I can think of. “Tread careful. All of Man is Mother.”

She sends grudging acceptance before cutting her contact and I hope she believes me as she lumbers off, chuffing softly to find her cub. The only one to survive this season, it is small. Smaller than it should be.

I fall to the grass unable to keep myself upright. Thankfully I fall on the same side as I had been on and the dogs creep up to me, hesitating at first as the smell of bear and blood hang thickly in the air but they come quicker when they hear my dull murmurs of soothing.

I press my emergency bell that my father had given to me, though I’m almost certain no one will answer the ring of its match kept in my fathers work study. He’s most likely still traveling, his train not due to be back until tomorrow.

I don’t know how long I lay there, conscious of nothing but the bushes blocking out pieces of the night sky as I watch it darken, the brighter stars coming out to sting sharply like a hole pierced in the sky.

I am roused vaguely by the dogs whining.

The small brown springer spaniel Salty shifts her weight from foot to foot even as she lays waiting for someone to give her the command to break her down. I hiss out the soft whistle that is her release and she takes off whining.

There was only one person she would react like that to and I was hoping he would clue in to the fact that I was nearby and ask his beloved dog to come back to me.

The red setter Roger holds his stay beside me, calm but alert. At some point my father’s dog had shuffled closer until he lay with his heavy head pressed into my hip.

If I’d had anything else to hold pressure I would’ve scolded him softly, but he was doing what I couldn’t and it was clearly comforting him, so I let him have his way.

He is far more used to my companionship than the others, seeing as he and I had found comfort in the fact that my father left us both behind.

Retired professor Dealy shoves his way through the bushes already talking, though I’m not sure if it’s to me or Salty. Salty ducks her head into the area between bushes before backing out again, not wanting to come near the still-thick scent of blood and bear.

The professor's tone doesn’t change even as he sees me splayed out like a poorly rendered battle exhibit.

“Oh there you are Lad, I’ve been looking all over for you! You’re usually much more punctual for our meeting time so I was wondering why you hadn’t turned back up. I knew there must be extenuating circumstances when you’d forgotten to bring Salty back for her supper, so I popped over to your father's shop and picked up your transmitter bell‘s racket.-”

I try to cut him off but his voice is far louder than mine and he plows right over my attempts without even blinking, probably unaware I’d even tried.

“-I hope you don’t mind lad, though I doubt your father will mind considering that’s how I found you.”

He chuckles to himself before realizing I hadn’t joined him.

“Come on now boy, why are you just laying here, did you take a bad tumble from the fence or something?” Professor Dealy finally pats down his pocket and retrieves his work in progress torch, which was constantly burning holes into his pockets. He shines it directly into his own eyes before angling it down at me. His eyes take a moment to adjust from the sudden flash of light, so he doesn’t understand or react immediately. Only once they have does he gasp and take a startled step back as he takes in the blood and the position I’ve landed in.

“Dear god!” He exclaims, “what caused all this? Did Roger do something?” before interrupting himself. “No he wouldn’t be so calm now.. it’s of no matter, let’s get you some help first. I’ll call the boys.”

I would’ve laughed at the absurdity of the professor calling in his favorites among my father’s students if I hadn’t also been aware that they were far more likely to have training on injuries in the field then any of the on-campus medical staff.

I let his words slide over me as the professor rambles on, talking just to fill the silence now. I would assume he was trying to keep me conscious if the ramblings weren't normal for him. I’d never met a silence Professor Dealy couldn’t fill.

The boys arrived sometime later though it couldn’t have been too long considering there was still some color in the dark blue sky above. The stars get more curious slowly as the sky shifts to dark but they were familiar to me, and I could tell they were still young in the night.

Hayden and Valence jog at a crouch through the bushes and come to kneel at my side. They try to push Roger off of me but he holds his ground until I hush him, brushing tired thoughts against his alert ones until he calms enough to back away a few feet.

My father appears at my head like a miracle, though I know he’d probably heard the call from the professor and come with his students.

His hair is three weeks long and his tan is much darker then last I saw him, so I know he’s no figment conjured up by my fear.

The boys take in the damage to my hip and I watch as they both press their lips tight, holding in their words. Probably realizing there was more damage then Professor Dealy had seemed to catch on to.

My father keeps his eyes on me though, trying to assess if I was in shock and what had caused this.

Valence calls softly to Hayden to hand him compression bandages and the two fall into an easy rhythm as I try to explain to my father what had happened, not sure if I’m making any sense.

I try to send impressions of anger and teeth as I ramble at my father, knowing that most of the impressions will be unclear, both from my lack of energy and conviction as well as the fact that soul touches were harder to maintain between two humans, who so often needed words to convey meaning in a way animals did not.

“It wasn’t her fault pa, you have to make sure they know that. She made the logical choice with what data she had.”

My father furrows his thick brow and tries to make sense of what I’m telling him. I know I’m making her sound too human for anyone else to follow, but not my father.

He was the one who taught me that animals felt just as much as us. He was the one who ensured I kept those paths of communication open, that I always had some sort of creature to speak with when he left on his trips.

I watch understanding and sorrow cloud his face as I held my hand up to grab his, making sure he understood the importance of what I was saying. He had already been grasping at the shape of the thing, but the clear imprint of a soft but giant bite mark on my hand confirms it and he sighs.

“I’m sure you did well my boy.” My father says, bending to kiss my forehead in gentle praise, unable to squeeze my shoulders as was his usual way.

I’d been numb before Valence and Hayden started their ministrations, used to the heavy but gentle pressure of Roger’s head. But the added pressure of the bandages they were wrapping me in and the movement required to get them in place was quickly reminding me just how badly I’d been hurt. Pain like a baked rock about to explode.

Even if it wasn’t close to the amount of damage that could’ve happened I was still pretty seriously wounded and the pain quickly building had nowhere to go.

My hands began to shake and my father clasped both of them in his to try and reassure me.

Someone was rambling softly and I was surprised to find it was me and not the professor. The words I could catch were something about protection and ignorance. I was most probably trying to absolve the bear from any guilt or anger the others were tempted to feel, though I could tell that only my father was catching the point.

He hushed me several times like I was a baby in need of soothing and ran a rough thumb over the back of my uninjured hand.

They got me loaded onto the back of their cart and urged our little Morgan horse on. Coal was more than happy to move out at a higher pace than normal despite the dark and my father called to Professor Dealy to hold him in check once we got to the cobblestone, lest the bumps do more damage than any haste would help.

Roger had jumped into the cart before it could move off and nearly pushed Hayden from the cart in his haste to get to me and my father. My father called a steadying word to him and Roger dropped to lay beside my hand, grudgingly letting Hayden and Valence push him back to give them room to work.

The dark sky swallows everything I can see but for a bright burst of red pain as we get to the cobblestone and -though it’s only a few hundred yards before we turn off onto our dirt drive- it takes me til the portcullis to remember how my lungs are supposed to work.

They slide me out gently, taking me not up to my own room but into my fathers study, where the brighter lighting will be needed to see what ragged flesh they can get back together. This is where it becomes dangerous. Not for me, but for the bear. I know that if any of those helping me were to report that a student had been savaged by a bear, there would be no stopping every man with a weapon from going after her.

“please.” I croak out, and it startles and shames me both to find my voice so similar to that of myself as a much younger child, begging my father to take me with him on his latest expedition.

I know my father makes the same connection because he looks away with unshed tears sparkling in his eyes even as his almost steady voice answers me.

“Don’t worry so Arthur. I won’t let it happen.”

Valence and Hayden both flick quick glances at their professor but say nothing as they scurry about dialing all the lights on.

I feel the heaviness of all the wrappings around my hip pull heavier with every minute and I wonder how much of myself I left behind to water the grass.

With all the lights on and Professor Dealy back with the medical supply kits, they’re finally ready.

My father is the one to peel back the cotton strips and even his newly acquired tan cannot hide how he pales.

When no one else speaks or breathes it is I that breaks the silence.

“Assessment.” I say.

It was meant to be a question but it comes out in a dull monotony. Still, it does its job and my father jumps back into work mode, running expert eyes over the edges of a wound I dare not look at.

“Several bone-deep incisions. This section here we won’t be able to patch.” He says clinically, as if addressing a crowd of students.

“We'll have to sew the section’s edges together as best we can and hope the whole thing scabs over on its own.”

He rocks me gently to my side to inspect the punctures that wrap around the other side of my hip, left by her lower jaw.

“The wounds in the front are definitely more extensive, but these are deeper, we'll have to keep a careful eye out for infection. These punctures may close before we know if there’s anything foul inside.”

He sets me gently back on the table and takes a glass from professor Dealy, which he hands to me.

I know by smell alone when I lift it shakily to my mouth that it’s some of the poppy extract which he and the professor had been working on.

It’s the first warning I get that they’re going to clean and sew the wounds.

I tip my head back and hope I don’t spill any of it with my added clumsiness.

I nearly drop the glass when I try to return it to him but my father manages to secure it before I do. He props a leather pillow behind my head and I sink into it as he and his students get to work.

They pour alcohol over my hip to clean the wounds and even though I knew it was coming, I still have to bite into my leather bracelet to choke off my scream.

My father shh shhhs me as he has to all of the animals he’s nursed back to health, and I find the familiarity of the sound more soothing than the sound itself.

I spend the next seventeen minutes of a lying clock trying to keep myself from reacting to the deep ache and sharp sting of my wounds. The heat of the thread pulling through my flesh is only half numb, and in all the wrong ways.

Eventually they’ve done all they can. Hayden and Valence disappear to get cleaned up and head back to their dorms to sleep before the next day's classes.

My father moves me to a cot in the next room over and I fall into a restless sleep with my father brushing featherlight thoughts against mine.

Reality comes back to me as a dull dream at first. An aching battle to fight off sleep despite still being exhausted.

My father comes back into the room he’d settled me in with the scent of strong coffee, trying to fight off the exhaustion from lack of sleep and mental strain. He sits softly beside me as if abrupt movements would harm me.

“You awake kid?” He speaks softly.

I hum an answer as I fight my eyelids for control. They, determined to stay shut and I, determined to see what my father was thinking.

I win the battle with determination like fishhooks, yanking my eyes open to look at my father.

His expression melts a little with relief when we make eye contact and I notice he’s wearing his brown tweed suit. I frown thoughtfully as I try to figure out why. He catches my expression and guesses my thought process. Answering before I could waste more energy on it.

“I’m going before the board to ask them not to hunt her.”

This does not have the calming effect my father expects and I attempt to sit up, grabbing his forearm to use as leverage but he keeps his arm limp and lets me take it and I fall back without the added leverage.

“Who told them?”

I ask instead, determined to know all I can if I can’t get up and do something about it.

My father’s face looks pained when he answers me.

“We don’t know. Dealy hasn’t spoken to anyone and Valence says no one saw him or Hayden getting back to the dorm.”

He runs a hand through his freshly cut hair and sighs.

“Doesn’t matter now. What’s done is done, I’m going to go speak to them and try to keep them from issuing a statement to the campus and surrounding farms for a hunt.”

Before I can stop myself, the grip I have on his arm tightens as if I’m going to try and get up again and he shoots me a pointed stare.

“I’ve woken your brother, he’ll sit with you while I’m out. Do not get up.”

I let go of his arm, well aware that he’ll do his best to stop them, and he was far more likely to be successful anyway.

“Alright.” I agree grudgingly, knowing I didn’t actually have an option.

“Good. He should be down any minute now, unless he’s fallen back to sleep..”

He seems to ponder going to check before he’s interrupted by the half-awake voice of my older brother.

“You woke me up, so I’m up. You don’t think me that lazy, do you father?”

Our father steps to him and squeezes his shoulders in greeting.

“No, of course not Adam. But it is a Saturday and I assumed you might decide to sleep in if I hadn’t woken you. I am sorry to interrupt your plans, but I need someone to watch Arthur.”

My brother rubs the sleep from his eyes as our father talks and I see a dark look cross his face before he raises his head, leaving me wondering if I’d imagined it.

“And Roger’s not capable enough?”

Father frowns as if trying to find the humor in the quip but moves on, quickly deciding he didn’t have time to banter with his oldest’s newest form of humor.

“Roger can’t fetch a glass of water or change bandages, so no -unfortunately- a human is needed.”

My father kisses my forehead and squeezes Adam’s shoulder. I’m already on the edge of sleep again when I hear him tell Adam to send for him if anything happens. I don’t hear his response, already asleep.

I wake and sleep with the inconsistency of a newborn, never quite certain I’ve surfaced until my brother shoves a glass of water in my hands or asks me if I’m back in the world of the living. Each blink a different scene in time as the sun moves ever forward, dragging me half asleep with it.

I wake feeling clearer to Roger licking my hand. The clatter and cursing from the foyer is what finally clues me in that something’s different this time but my brother firmly shuts the front door with him on the other side of it before I can ask what’s going on.

I brush souls with Roger and send only the upturn of a question. He answers me in short sharp images, a cobbled together form of sentence that he and I had practiced over lonely years together.

Adam’s face, set with determination. His deerskin boots, waxed for waterproofing that he always wore for hunting. The gun my father had given him when he’d turned seventeen, to use only as protection. The scent of my brother's friends with the sharp infectious smell of anticipation. And the scent of a bear.

I was already beginning to understand when Roger added the scent of gun smoke and blood. Adam and his friends were joining -if not starting- the hunt for the bear mother.

I send only the image of Roger’s harness and he disappears with his red tail flagging after him, finally happy to have something to do.

He brings me the leather and burlap harness my father had made for him to carry supplies on the rare trips we were allowed to accompany him. It's a simple enough belt system that means that once Roger steps into it -even as weak as I am- I’m able to get it sitting snugly in place without moving. Then comes the hard part.

I spend a few minutes just breathing with my hand wrapped around the strap of Roger’s harness that rests over his shoulders before I ask him to pull.

He leans his weight into the harness and gently levers me into a sitting position and I slide myself sideways so my leg sticks straight off the cot, trying my best not to bend my hip and pull at the stitches or start the wounds bleeding again.

I let the hot tears leak trails from the corners of my eyes and do nothing to brush them away, well aware that if I let go of Roger’s harness I’ll abandon my quest entirely.

I grab rolls of fresh bandages from the low table beside me and stuff them in one of the harness pockets before I can question my own sanity. I’m just distracting myself from what comes next but it takes me less than a minute before I’m forced to face my next task head on. Standing.

I let go of the buckled down strap in favor of one of the loose ties used to strap other supplies to Roger’s back, knowing I’ll lose my balance if I try to stoop to hold onto the harness. Then I heave myself forward and use Roger as a counterweight to keep from falling on my face.

He’s confused, but used to my odd antics so he stands placidly beside me, wagging his tail when I look over at him.

Slowly. Stubborn step by stubborn step, Roger and I make our way to our father’s telegraph machine. It was attached to the main office of the school and meant for experimentation and emergencies only, but I counted this as an emergency and hoped I would be able to make contact with my father.

I lean against the table but decide against sitting down, scared to contort myself and tear something when I had no one to help me if I passed out.

There’s already a message resting crumpled on the table and I read it twice before I understand what must’ve happened.

Board voted no hunt- (Stop) meeting cont to other topics (Stop) Inform Arthur

Father 7:13pm

Adam must’ve read this message and crumpled it up before deciding to contact his friends and take matters into his own hands. It’s as I think of the order of events that I realize, it must’ve been him that informed the board of the attack in the first place.

He was upstairs when I was brought in through the study. And he was far more tired than he should’ve been when he came down this morning. The dark look he had hidden from our father also had not left the corner of my mind.

I sigh as I murmur to myself. “What’s going on with you Adam?”

My older brother had withdrawn since our mother had passed and we’d moved to America, but I thought it was his way of mourning. I hadn’t expected this.

I sigh but turn my mind back to my task, determined to alert my father before I fell over. I think for a moment before I send the message, trying to keep it short without leaving anything out and finally settle on.

Adam’s gone bear hunting- (Stop) -Friends and horses gone- (Stop) Red and I await response

Arthur 7:47pm

After it’s sent I wait to see if Father or anyone from the college would respond but the machine stays dead silent. It’s eight o’clock before I realize the board must still be in session.

I’m not going to get a response, not in time to stop Adam and his friends from getting too far ahead to catch up to.

I waver, both on my feet and in my mind, trying to decide what should be done and if I was capable of even trying.

Roger tugs against his harness as if to keep the leather strap I was holding taut and I smile down at my small red companion. Brown eyes meet brown as I stare at the setter that had been more of a brother to me than my own blood and I find my mind settling.

I lean forward and send one more message. One which I know will panic my father, but I couldn’t leave without informing him when I know he would waste precious time coming back home to check on me instead of rallying a group to stop the hunt.

I follow- (Stop)

Arthur 8:02pm

After the message is sent I look down at Roger and could almost swear he raises his eyebrows at me. I chuckle dryly at him but find it strengthens my resolve anyway.

“Yup, you’re absolutely right Roger. It is no doubt the worst idea I’ve ever had. Shall we go?”

And we do. Step by staggering step til we’re through the front door and out into the yard. “Find Adam.” I tell my trusty little companion and Roger tugs gently at the harness as if telling me, ‘I know where I’m going, but I’m not going to pull hard.’

We try the drive but I find my dragging feet catching on the stones embedded in the dirt so Roger and I move onto the grass and -already using the yard- decide to skip the main road and go through the gate on the other side of the yard. I hadn’t really been looking forward to the cobblestone anyway, remembering the sharp red pain of it from the night before.

It’s slow going. Entirely too slow to believe I’ll get anywhere close to catching up, but I have to try. Roger is heading for the last place we saw the bear and her cub and it worries me, though I know my brother was smart enough to take his companions and their two hunting dogs to a place he was sure they could pick up her scent.

I avoided the place where the bear mother had pinned me to the wall and headed straight for the river she’d gone to, not interested in seeing how much of my blood had dried before the soil drank it.

We make it to the slope above the river bed when I pause, certain I could hear dogs baying.

I’m surprised that they’re so close until I see the torches on the horizon. My brother had probably recruited farmers from the small town and had them corralling her back this way, probably hoping to trap her up against the same wall she’d pinned me to.

I see the flash of the setting sun off of George’s palomino gelding before they break tree cover and charge across the field, hoping to get there and push her into the river. The bear mother turns and raises herself up onto her hind legs, nearly towering over the boys and their horses.

Frederick pulls his bay up harshly to avoid running straight into her and takes a poorly aimed shot at the bear mother despite the bay's solid footing. I cry out as a shot rips through her shoulder with a spray of blood and she turns to run for the river.

It’s as she gets closer to the river that I notice the cub isn’t with her anymore. The realization sinks into my stomach with dreaded thoughts lingering over a limp cub in my mind before I realize, ‘she wouldn’t be running right now if she thought they’d killed her cub, she’d be ripping them limb from limb.’

She bounds into the river with massive leaps and her momentum carries her halfway to the near bank even as more shots ring out, several hitting their target. I watch horrified as the current dyes red as it passes around her, telling me of more wounds then I had seen her take.

I want to brush my conscience against hers and bolster her spirit but she seems to have more than I do despite her wounds, and I dare not try and accidentally add to her burden instead.

The riders had gathered their mounts and two of them were now perched at the edge of the bank as my brother's chestnut horse plunges in.

The way Ember has her ears back tells me my brother is not trying to soothe his mount, who has always been uneasy crossing water that past her knees. I call for my brother to stop but my voice is too weak to reach him over the crack of bullets and rushing water.

The bear mother makes it to the bank and drags her soaked self up the bank as three or four more bullets are fired. I know she’s slowing but I can’t tell how bad her injuries are.

By chance Frederick and George both stop shooting to urge their horses into the river and I decide to act before my brother -who has reached the near bank and is standing in his stirrups to aim himself- can take a shot.

“Stop!” I shout, pouring all my energy into the single word, hoping it reaches all of them. The boys on the far bank, my brother, and the farmers coming up behind them. The effort of it tugs deeply at my own wounds but I shove the sensations aside. I am not the one in danger here.

My call echoes off the water and even some of the farmers plow horses jerk their heads up in surprise.

My voice feels raw from that single shout but I call again, barely audible with how little energy I have left.

“Please, stop. She’s done nothing wrong. The board voted no hunt.”

My brother digs his heels into Ember and she crabs sideways to try and escape him, not understanding what he wants. He frowns in annoyance at his horse's mane before throwing his concern at my feet, trying to get Ember to climb up the bank so he can aim his gun where the exhausted bear has collapsed.

“What are you doing out here Arthur, you’re supposed to be resting!”

Ember finally throws herself at the bank, heaving in relief when she makes it to the flat grass bank above even as Roger and I stumble closer, trying to stop him from firing again.

“Adam” I croak, lacking energy and air to make myself louder as I stumble forward. “Don’t.”

My brother either ignores me or doesn’t hear. When he raises his gun to point at her majestic head, I see a glint of satisfaction in him. It startles me, as I’d never seen him look anything other than heartbroken at the sight of an injured beast. My brother had changed more than I’d realized, and not all from grief.

I trip and collapse, sobbing to the grass as it finally dawns on me that I’m going to watch my brother kill something with no mercy, having already injured her beyond repair.

“Adam stop!”

The authority in my father’s command is undisputable and my brother lowers his gun before he even registers who spoke. I crawl to the bear and Roger whines as he follows after me, nervous to be so close to that which injured me but refusing to let me approach alone.

She’s laying in an ever-growing pool of blood and I choke on another sob as I realize no amount of sewing or surgery would save her now.

She groans as I get close and I collapse there, not sure if the sound was meant to be a warning and not wanting to cross any more of her boundaries. Her soul reaches out for me first and It’s with relief that I reach back, opening the link more fully then we had when we’d spoken last time. Both of us had been more guarded then. She communicates in flashes that all wild beats I’d touched did, and it was through that learning that I was able to understand her.

“You warned me.” She says with flashes a forest going silent and the scent of my own blood. She pauses as if gathering a memory before she adds in the exact images I had sent her just yesterday.

“All of man is mother.”

I sob even as I flash images of natural illusions and a thing turning away from the scent of my blood. Then cracked bear paws and teeth.

“They are not mothers. They are just sore-paws with still-sharp teeth.”

She rumbles in a sound that is neither agreement or disagreement, beyond caring who was right about that now. I can sense her urgency about something, but she’s rapidly losing the strength for the mental strain it takes to communicate.

“But you are a mother?” The dying bear asks me.

And I think of the impressions she left me just yesterday. Before she cared, before it mattered. Of fighting and protecting and the desperation to save the life of another being.

I ponder how ‘protector’ and ‘mother’ mean the same thing to her, and I find the answer comes to me without a drop of the embarrassment I would feel if I were talking to a human.

“Yes. I think so.”

She sighs with every inch of air in her lungs and locks her gaze on mine. As the light leaves those rich earthen eyes she leaves me one last image of a light brown thorn, and a little bear cub stuck high up in a tree not even two hundred feet from where we lay collapsed. Both without the strength to rise.

Though I will again, she won’t, laying stone still in the soft cool grass as the last rays of the sun's light dip below the tree line.

I inch myself forward sobbing, not caring for the audience of people and horses now gathering uncertainly on our side of the river. I grab the sides of her great paw and hold onto it as if holding onto her corpse will be enough for her to know I’ll do what she asked me.

The little bear cub hesitates, but does the last thing his mother told him to. He scampers through the long grass by the bank, running full tilt for his mother. The horses dance away with alarmed nickers, reacting to the cub that was no longer near them. Voices rise as they try to calm their panicked beasts.

I ignore all of them, not taking my eyes off the light brown cub, too busy noticing his fur is the exact shade of that little thorn.

He skids to a stop beside us and stands breathing heavy as his wide eyes lock onto the still form of his mother.

He knows she’s not there. He’s old enough to know what death looks like, having seen it hundreds of times since he’d first left the winter den. He walks forward and reaches his nose out, nuzzling the same paw I had grasped.

‘He’s trying to remember her scent’ I think to myself, trying not to let the tears welling in my eyes spill out. ‘It’s his last chance and he knows it.’

He hums a low note into the giant rough paw pad and licks it sharply before turning away. I reach my mind out for his even as he reaches me.

“You, Thorn. I, Arthur.” He sends the same images back in opposite order, only tripping a little over the foreignness of a human name, and I mentally croon at his cleverness.

“I, Thorn. You, Arthur.”

When it sinks in, I let out a pitiful little sound, half laughter and sob before I turn inward yet again and send present images to confirm before adding.

“Mother gone. I, in her place. Hmm?”

Then the choice of two paths, one with the scent of me and the other with the scent of nothing.

He sends back only the image of the path with my scent on it, though he adds the still-stone scent of his mother, implying it was what she wanted.

A clear enough answer, and he proves it by nuzzling into my shoulder.

My father comes to my side then, with tears brimming his own eyes as he takes in the great mother beast, downed by so many unmerciful bullets. Not a one of them had hit a vital spot but the totality of them had stolen enough blood to bring about her end.

“Oh Arthur, my boy. Why did you leave?”

It’s only after I hear the agony in his watery tone that I realize part of the blood on me is not from the fur of the bears but from my own wound, the bandage having done its best to contain the ripped stitches but unable to stop the blood from seeping out. I can feel it in a numb sort of way. Too emotionally overloaded to care overmuch about the hole in my hip.

”I’m sorry.” I say to my father, my protector.

“I had to do something.”

He looks again to the dead bear before sighing and glancing between me and Thorn.

“How did you even get this far? I expected to find you but feet from the front door.”

Roger woofs out a little alert from a few feet behind me and Thorn turns to look at him, clearly thinking about something before he cautiously approaches him.

I can sense Roger reach out to the cub but I don’t reach out with him, letting the two make their own introductions. Instead, I turn back to my father and let him help me to my feet. He takes nearly all my weight when my knees immediately threaten to buckle under me, but I don’t feel scared. I still had my protector, and it was my turn to extend that safety net to someone else.

“Let’s get you home” my father mutters into the hair above my forehead before he lifts me gently. He raises his voice to include Adam, who stands between Smoke and Ember. Holding the horse's reins with his eyes on the grass.

“Let’s all go home.”

Roger follows behind yipping soft quiet invitations to Thorn, who growls back as he follows, trying to copy him. Then our cobbled together family heads for home, one more member added to the walls of our hearts.

We would have to sit down with Adam later, try and figure out where his anger is welling up from but for now, we are alive and together.

I fall asleep before my father even makes it back to Smoke, stirring only momentarily when his alarmed voice beckons me to answer him but once I had and he was reassured I hadn’t passed out from blood loss, he lets me sleep, our four legged family tagging along behind.