The grizzly sow surveys the land with sharp dark eyes —
Less and less, is she the mare.
More and more, is she the bear.
It has usurped her life. Changed it into something that climbs trees, fishes for salmon, but still hunts for mushrooms by moonlight. Even peers into the odd cavern every so often in hopes of spotting something the bear cannot even comprehend looking for - bears don’t look for stallions, not blue-eyed ones that favor vines and shadows.
Except this bear does. Something her odd two-shape heart tells her to sniff every cave-mouth for a scent that the mare trapped somewhere in her flesh would recognize on a level so primal it scares her.
Is it any surprise that she finds, at last, his cave from so long ago? That his smell is both old and new on the dank air that she sucks down deep into her lungs? Or that the grizzly chuffs and snorts, unafraid as she pokes her muzzle inward and inhales again, a big draught of air and scent that makes her shape waver just the slightest and her heart flutter all the faster.
The female’s mouth is not a slim dark-tipped horse muzzle but a bear’s toothsome maw that lets slip his name in a growly whisper of disbelief, “Balto?” She ignores the warning, the dire pant of his breath and the stink of harshness and fear that rolls off him. Keeper has never been afraid of him and she won’t start now, not while in bear-guise and fearless herself.
ooc: yay you’re back! and pfft like you weren’t going to get a keeper reply to this! haha ❤️ and it’s horribly short - I haven’t written in a couple of months.