09-21-2018, 05:22 AM
Moonlight pools in the hollows of her face.
She is thin; ribs sprung and hips jutting.
The bear had a hard time before hibernation. Gone into it looking leaner than she ought to have. Following game had proven fruitless and frustrating as she refrained from taking down a juicy foal the previous summer after they’d had time to fatten up on their mothers’ milk. Fall had seen her dare not that much better - everything left ahead of the coming cold and snow.
So it is odd to see her now as a mare in rough-spun fur with a smear of old honey high up on her cheek. She is dirtier than she is accustomed to being; dirtier and wilder in her look. Haunted might be the best description of it as she stands beneath the moonlight before the mouth of a familiar cave.
No longer pony-plump, it is as if the winter had done more than carve the fat from her bones. It might have taken liberties with the memories trapped in her mind by the long necessary sleep the bear side of her endured. Memories of mushrooms and moonlight, and his fearful then trusting sighs in the dark.
She stands there now; something the winter spat back in shambles from a den of loam and hollowed out log. Each quiet drag of breath tells her that he is not there and hasn’t been in quite some time. It is easy then to morph into that other half of her that he never got to see, and so she does.
The grizzly is the one brave enough to tackle the dark and the cave-must as it lifts one large paw to the vines and pulls them back —
@[Balto] ❤️❤️❤️