of bears and mares and who knows what else; any

[keeper]

Keeper kept on waiting.

For what seemed like eons and eons. She had lost the handspans of time that the moon told just from waxing and waning. No longer able to keep up with the passage of time. Or the way their daughter began to drift off on her own, leaving the mare to grow wilder and more lonesome by herself.

That’s when the bear came back. Took over. So easily and thoroughly that Keeper just gave in to its harsher more animalistic nature. Did that bear claim that cave with its door of vines still green as the first night she’d laid eyes on it? Yes, yes it did and it defended it fiercely from all comers except the mice that crept around in the corners.

Mice and hours. That’s all that stole around her on quick quiet feet. The rest was regulated by pure instinct and she settled for the smallest joys in activities like hunting and fishing and foraging. Ursine, she stayed nourished and alive. In her original shape, she simply looked thin and distressed. So she gave up that horse skin and became the bear.

It was easier. She made herself believe that because she couldn’t forget. Because love ate at her in a manner of starvation and vexation. Keeper had always known she could be capable of a love like that and now it slayed her slowly from the inside out, snipping off small trimmings of her heart that she left hung on the corners of fingernail moons and delicious mushrooms growing in the dark.

So it is a bear that came lumbering forth to sit before the river and just look at it with such a long measuring look as if it expected the river to just rise up and conversate with it. A large paw scratched a furrow in the loamy bank, idle and telling of a deeper distraction that the bear part of her often chose to ignore. But nothing cajoled the mare inside forth. Not hunger. Not salmon. Not the ripening scent of fall in the air.

[Mazikeen]

Like she had promised Myrna, they left Hyaline in search of her parents. And frogs. The second had been easier to find, but the first was proving trickier. She had thought she had caught the scent of them in the mountains but it had been lost and she simply had no idea where in Beqanna to look. They had been wanderers, so she supposed the common lands would have the highest chance of success but that did not seem to be the case.

Today she is outside of her home on her own and already regretting it. She had regretted it as soon as she left Hyaline but was attempting to pretend she could handle being on her own. She did not need someone else with her.

But she did want them there. She constantly wanted that. So that she could reach out at any given time and reassure herself that they were there, that this was her reality now. Fortunately, some common sense had returned to her with her emotions and she knew she was going to have to get used to being alone now and then. 

Theoretically, it would take time and practice.

On this particular late autumn day, Mazikeen is herself as a white mare with black markings - but she's hidden the curved horns for now. Not exactly incognito but she wants her senses wide open. For signs of her parents. For a curse she still needs to end.

Instead, she sees movement ahead and pauses - her bright orange eyes watching the bear as it comes lumbering to the bank before sitting. Curiosity draws her forward. Although she is reasonably sure she can either best or escape a wild bear if it charges her, she maintains a polite distance. And then, because there's really no reason not to, she asks a question that will either get an answer, if it is a shifter, or be completely ridiculous, if it is not.

“Are you a real bear?”

You could say Mazikeen's a little out of practice meeting someone new.

mazikeen

@keeper

[keeper]

The bear lifts her paw and looks at the grains of dirt that sift through her claws. Comparisons can be drawn to the sands of time and dust in the wind but the bear doesn’t make them. She blinks, eyes piggish and squinty, like the distance and dimming light is bothersome. It is neither of those things but the niggling sensation of loss that blossoms in her like an ache. The equine part of that shared animal heart has reared its ugly head for a moment in the bear’s stillness to remind it of its dual nature and other things, things the bear knew nothing of.

Bear-Keeper gave a low growl and slammed its paw back into the earth. No! The ursine side would not cave before the soft mushy equine side. She gave a snort and resumed staring at the river, actually contemplating doing some fishing. That was a favorite pastime of hers and she liked the glimmer of fish scales on her muzzle before they dulled and flaked off. That might have been one small vanity the bear allowed herself in her harsh and basic world. Not that such a thing had ever won her a mate nor had she given that a second thought - that was the mare’s realm and she left those weak things to her.

Sometimes the bear wondered how the horse even survived. More and more, she took over to get them through the seasons and the heartache. If left to the mare, they might have given up and died over a broken heart and a stallion’s fading scent on the cave he had claimed. Well, her cave now… for a moment, she turned towards the trees at her back and sniffed - autumn was fading and she could feel the stirrings of the need to hibernate. Eat first. Then sleep. The long sleep and the bear actually looked forward to such a lengthy time of dreaming and snoring.

It is possible that in that moment, Bear-Keeper might have smiled except it was extremely feral and toothy.

The bear’s reverie is interrupted by hoof steps and she doesn’t start in surprise - it’s a horse.  There were plenty of them around, and occasionally she looked at a foal a little too long and with a bit of drool on her lip. This one practices animal etiquette and remains at a distance but near enough for the bear to get a whiff of a most familiar scent… Hyaline. She dwelt there once and long ago, in the earliest stages of her shifts. Even had a cave there until she abandoned it for Ryan’s cave then Balto’s.

The bear startles at that. She doesn’t usually remember places and names, at least not anything so commonly and lovingly associated with the mare side of herself. There is a grumble and rolls of fat shifting before she remembers that she has company and company is still there, asking if it’s real or not. The meaning is lost on her because she is as real as a bear can be until the more equine surfaces and tells her to answer the pale horse. That part of her understands what is being asked.

Bear-Keeper tries to answer instead though, and it comes out of her mouth as a series of grunts and growls. Then a noise of exasperation is made and now there is a plump little mare sitting on her haunches, laughing to herself, and feeling more meat on her bones than she remembered before the last shift. Keeper had been thinner then, but knew her bear-self would eat better for the two of them. “Real enough at times, and a sham of a shifter all the rest.” she remarks with a lilting laugh, that sounds a tad bit growly - the bear was always near the surface, lurking.

@Mazikeen

[Mazikeen]

Something Mazikeen is continuously learning (because she often forgets) is that shifting isn’t the same for everyone. It is easy to forget, especially lately when she’s been spending so much of her time with her children and their cousin - all of whom seem to follow the same general rules as she does. When she’s in her shapes, she can still speak - she is still herself. If there are instincts she is repressing in the process she really can’t bring herself to mind.

Sometimes those instincts would be handy but for the most part she was glad to have control. And, lately, she was especially glad for it.

So it is surprising when the bear opens its mouth to reply but there is just a series of grunts and growls instead of words. Mazikeen’s orange eyes widen a little and her grin grows - all the more when the bear becomes a mare.

It seems like the start of an invitation for a conversation so she takes another step forward but leaves it at that. There is far too much caution in her to boldly approach strangers anymore - or many of her friends. “You seem pretty good at it to me.” It’s not the most impressive compliment she’s ever given, but it is an honest one.

And then, because she can’t help the curiosity and hopes this mare with the growling laugh won’t mind, her next question is -  “Is it normal for you to not be able to speak as a bear?” There's no judgement in her tone, or at least she does not intend there to be. She's trying to remember if she's met someone else before who could only 'speak' as the animal they had become and she is sure she's never come across it as a possibility before.

mazikeen

@keeper