by frithus forest

Created on: July 02, 2007

THE TALE OF PALE BEAR

He arrived unannounced. Pale Bear appeared a haggard old giant of a man who pounded on my cabin door during an ice storm that was soon to be transformed into a three-week blizzard. He possessed a tortured, furtive look to his overly-bright yet deeply sunken eyes. His beard and hair flowed snow white. There protruded a nasty looking scar that seemed to start on his face but burrowed lost beneath his beard, where somehow I knew from how he held himself that it ran deep down his chest, as well as back over the sides of his neck, over his massive shoulders, and far across his back.

His voice choked swallowed and half-lost in the howling wind, but I swear he growled at me to give him entrance. Whether it was he or the force of the storm, I could not prevent it. I offered him some coffee and a seat by the fire. But he refused even to remove his coat. So I brought him some brandy instead, when to my astonishment he claimed to have been the oracle of the Great White Bear many, many millennia ago.

And this was his story:

"Once upon a time, there was a great white bear that lived far, far in the north, where the crystals grew clear and large and the ice flowed like water into the sea. It was a time long, long ago when the greater part of the world was still happily ruled by all the colors this world was heir to, while what appeared white existed only in the sky as clouds or ruled upon the earth's polar ice caps.

"Alone there in the far north lived the great white bear. Though actually his fur wasn't white but crystal clear, since it only appeared white due to reflection. Likewise his fur grew so thick that he gave off no heat at all from his body, which made it possible for him to survive in that cold, cold region. His eyes could see clearly even in that all-blinding white. He existed off the fatty flesh of the seals that swam in the neighboring oceans, but not experiencing feast or famine such as the polar bear of today. No, those were different times before mankind upset the balance.

"The white bear boasted only one friend who visited him from the sky on special occasions. It was a great snowy hawk, such as no longer exists on the earth today, but who in those times would feast with the white bear and share stories of the higher realms and what it was like in the rest of the world. Those were special times, and the white bear looked forward to them.

"Not that the white bear felt lonely necessarily, but he was driven by an inner restlessness he couldn't

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