In a light whisper, my dad goes, “There is an elemental bear behind the trees in front of us.”
The first thing that comes to mind is that Dad is joking with me. Elemental bears don’t get this close to the city. We have patrol groups and hunter groups that continually work the surrounding area. With the scouts they have, a bear getting through is pretty much impossible.
The second thought that comes to mind is fear. Pure, simple, fear. Without a parity and a couple weak strengths with us, we can’t fight and win against an elemental bear. We must run…hopefully before the bear catches sight of us.
Stating it simply, “Which way do we run?”
“Right now, we don’t. This field is too small, and the grass is a bit too low, for us to get up and run away.”
“We can slink back the way we came, using the ledge as a visual block between us and the bear. If he catches wind of us, we crawl up a tree and hope his element is water.”
With that thought, both of us peer up over the ledge and check to see if the bear is flashing his domain. Roughly, 100m away is a bear scratching his butt on a tree. The up/down and side to side motions causing the 2.5m tree trunk to sway the tree back and forth rigorously. He is big. He is at least 5x my dad…probably closer to 10x in height and just as much in weight.
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While this would be enough for us to crap our pants, the true fear comes from the slight glow at the ends of his fur coat. It is like white candle light. It flickers and fades, then comes back even brighter…only to fade again. This is a light bear.
My dad looks over to me and says, “Its a light bear. The only reason I can think of it being here, is that it killed one of the patrols and they haven’t had time figure out where the patrol went missing and what killed them. If we can stay unnoticed, a hunter group should be here in a couple hours. If it did kill a patrol, then it’s probably not hungry and is just looking for a nice place to sleep. We need to stay calm and slowly work ourselves back to the edge of the clearing. Ok?”
While it’s really comforting that my Dad thinks we can just walk away, my brain and heart are all in fear mode. My body is shaking horribly and logical thoughts are not making their way through.
“Take a breath son. This is not the first time I have encountered a bear, and it probably won’t be the last. Keep your eyes on the bear…if the bear charges us, turn and run in the opposite direction. Don’t stop until you get to the house or the village. Do not look back for me, I will be leading the bear on a merry chase. Do you understand?”
I nod my head. I want to run now. Why are we not running now. Lets run.
“Ok. First…very, very slowly…back down the ledge and head to that grey bark tree behind us. It’s about 75m, so we are going to be doing this for 15 minutes or so…do not rush! Second, don’t turn around. Use your foot to feel if there are scrub brush or leaf litter behind you. If there is, change your path around it. Ok?”
I nod again. My heart is sill beating way too fast. My body is still shaking.
“Go”. My dad says this as a slow, thin whisper, but it might as well been a scream. My whole body does one violent shake and slowly begins to slide down the ledge.