Chapter One: The Hound

To be a hound again meant to have no name, no gowns to trip over, no boots to lace over swollen feet, no need to make noises with the throat, no meat cooked until it had no more scent, no games to play, no dances to memorize, no horses to placate, no kings to soothe. Above all, it meant to pretend no more. To be herself. But who was she?

Beatrice was the human name that had been given her. It was not her name.

Marit was the hound name that had been given her. But it was not her name, either. Not any longer.

The bear slept at her side in the cave he had brought her to after the transformation. He was strong and protective, but he was not a hound. There were so many times that she could not feel easy with him.

One day they went out hunting together, she and the bear. She was hungry for a fine rabbit. It had been days since they were transformed, and she had been in the cave for too long. She wanted to get out, to run freely in the forest again, to feel the ground beneath her feet and heat the air in her lungs. She wanted the taste of fresh meat in her mouth, for as a human it had always been given to her long dead, and seared to hold the blood in, so that she had to bite it to taste the kill that was not hers.

She motioned to the bear, so that he would understand what it was she wished to do. And he seemed to understand. He lumbered out of the cave with her. He was quiet as she was, waiting for the early morning sign of rabbits near the stream; for though she could try to smell them down to their warren, it was easier to wait for them to come to her.

But when the first rabbit came near, she held back, thinking that she was not the only one who needed food. But the bear leaped forward and caught the rabbit for her, and the others scattered. She spent long minutes chasing them, but they were long gone, and so was any other hope of game. She returned angrily to the stream, where the bear held out the rabbit, freshly cleaned in the stream and long dead, as an offering of some kind to her.

Was this his way of making amends for attacking first, with no thought for her needs? She almost forgave him then.

She took half of the rabbit meat, and left the other half for him, thinking this is the way it must be in any partnership. Yes, he had made a mistake, but that did not mean she would let him go hungry. Just as she had always fed Marit from her plate as she played the part of Princess Beatrice, she must make sure that he remained well fed. Their partnership would not be equal if she was strong and he was weak.

But the bear would not eat his half of the rabbit. He pushed it towards her.

She pushed it back to him and whined.

He turned away from it.

She growled at him. How could he be so stubborn? She knew that he must be as hungry as she.

But he would no take it.

They went back to the cave, her stomach only half full and his entirely empty.

She was furious, and he must have known it by the way that she acted.

She would not let her skin touch his, though she shivered through the cold night. He stared at her and made motions with his hands, to his mouth, to his stomach. Then to his head.

She did not know what he meant.

She only knew that he had made it impossible for her to show that she was pack with him.

What did anything else matter?

They spent days afterwards in silence, each treating the other as if a porcupine to be avoided with great care.

She did her hunting on her own afterwards, always eating before she returned to the cave.

She saw no evidence that he ate at all, but of course he must. He must live, as any creature must, by the death of another.

Why was he so secretive that he would not share with her his food? Was it that he had to eat privately? Was he disgusted with the way that she killed? With the way that she ate?

Why did he not simply leave the cave or chase her out of it, if he did not wish to be with her any longer?

How to speak to a bear?

He could not speak the language of the bears, nor could she. She could speak the language of the hounds, but he could not. She could understand the language of humans, but he could not speak it. And he could understand the language of humans, which she also could not speak.

Who had chosen this magic for them?

What pleasure was there in this?

She felt many times that she had been cheated. Marit had been given what she wanted, and had cared nothing for anyone else.

She and Prince George had gone off happily to their own world, never once looking back to see if the bear and the hound they left behind could be happy for more than a few magical moments of time.

What happed when the magic was over?

The nights were colder and it was nearing a frost when the other bears appeared on the far side of the stream, when she went out to get a drink.

Her bear was still inside the cave.

She counted three other bears. Two were smaller. Cubs of the other? But they were nearly grown now, and just as dangerous as their mother.

Bears and hounds are enemies, she thought.

When a bear finds a hound alone, it chases the hound and eats it to prepare for the long winter of hibernation.

When a lone bear is found by a pack of hounds, on the other hand, they attack and make a meal of the bear, if they can.

She stared at the bears.

One moved closer to her.

She stepped back, towards the cave.

The other bear was circling to the other side.

One bear would have been sufficient to kill her, but they were being careful.

She looked closely at them. All three showed signs of hunger. They should have been fat by now, with the bounty of summer. But something had gone wrong with them.

Was there magic at work in the way they worked together? Were they humans turned to bears? How could she tell?

She made a loud growling noise, thinking to alert the bear to her need for help. She did not cry out with a howl.

Why?

Because she was angry at herself, for needing his help.

Because a part of her was not sure that he would come at all, or that, once having seen the other bears, he would protect her from them.

Why should she come to doubt him so easily?

Was it because of the incident with the rabbit?

No. She knew it was because of the simple difference between bear and hound. They are not meant to be together. They were not meant to trust one another.

The smallest of the two young bears raked a hand to her side.

The fire of the pain streamed through her.

She held back her cry. This time it was out of habit, for during the hunt it is never time to give way to distress. And in a fight within the pack, one must never let the other know that they have scored a hit.

There was blood dripping down to her back paw. She could feel it. She wanted to taste it, to lick it, to heal it.

But now was not the time.

She moved back o the stream.

The larger bear met her there.

She stared.

The bear made no sound at all. Simply swung at her.

This time she was thrown across the stream, away form the cave. She could see the world spin around her, and then there was blackness. Nothing.

She was dead. Surely she was.

But the pain came, and she heard a keening sound coming from very close by.

It took a long moment to realize the sound came from her own throat.

She saw a blur of figures by the stream.

Four bears now.

Her bear, and the other three.

She heard the bellowing of the three. Her bear was silent. He could not tell the others to leave her alone, that she belonged with him. He could only make his presence into a warning to them.

The mother bear tried to come towards her again.

Her bear struck, sending her tumbling. The cubs attacked, and he did the same to them.

They were not grievously hurt, she thought. She saw no spurts of blood.

He had not meant to kill, only to send them away.

She thought of the rabbit he had killed. One rabbit. For her. And he would eat nothing of it.

He had eaten nothing since then but berries they had found, and the honeycomb he had taken from a beehive at great cost to his own hide.

Did he not know the law of the forest?

The mother bear rose, shook off the attack, and moved back to the threat to her two young ones.

But then the great black bear, the hound’s bear, moved across the stream. He gave her and her young ones a chance to retreat at no cost to themselves. And truly, why should they go to so much trouble for a hound?

No matter how hungry they were, there was better pretty to be had in the forest.

She watched as her bear came closer to her. He did not touch her, though.

Was he afraid that she would care about their argument over the rabbit now?

She whined.

He put his face next to hers.

Yes. He was safe.

It was a moment of oneness once more. She enjoyed it while it lasted.

Then he had to find a way to help her back to the cave. His arms were nearly useless, in comparison to human arms. They could drag her and claw her, but to carry her gently?

He tried to place her on a wide log and drag that, but she fell off more than once.

In the end, she dragged herself, as he growled at her and at the whole world.

Once she was in the cave at last, he brought back berries for her to eat, and leaves from the stream.

Leaves?

Well, they were wet, at least.

She sipped at them and felt a little less hot.

But the bear pushed them at her again, pressing them into her mouth.

They were bitter. She chewed a few times, then spit them out.

The bear insisted, and went back to the stream to get more.

At last, she managed to swallow them. But the berries were more than she could manage. A bear might live on berries, but not a hound. Not this hound.

The bear disappeared.

She spent hours in and out of sleep, waking only long enough to wonder if the bear would ever return, or if she had at last become too disgusting for him to accept.

But then she dreamed that she had caught a sweet, fresh rabbit.

And when she woke, the bear was holding one over her throat, letting the blood drip in.

Her instincts took over and she snapped the rabbit between her jaws and nearly bolted it all down whole.

The bear only watched impassively.

She swallowed the rest more carefully, chewing a bit.

The bear had brought her a rabbit. He had killed for her again. It meant something to him, and she must remember that.

He did not want to eat the rabbit meat himself, but he would bring it to her when she was in need.

She found herself nodding to him. He came closer, licked at her wounds.

The sting of his saliva on her flesh was somehow pleasant, a reminder that he had not left her, after all.

She recovered from the wound in another week, and was back catching her own game. But she had learned by then not to go hunting with the bear. She did not need his assistance getting her own food, and it bothered her that he would not share with her.

Better they were apart for a time every day in any case.

A bear and a hound might be lovers, but that did not mean they could spend every moment of every day together.

She thought of her old mate, a hound. They had not spent so much time together, but she had never noticed being alone. A hound in a pack is not alone.

But a hound with a bear must change.

She thought of how long the bear had spent alone. Many years, it must be now. No bears as companions. No humans, either.

She had seen a glimpse of him as she had changed from human back to hound. He had been a king, though she did not think he had been much of one.

She had known other kings. The king of Sarrey, King Helm, had been Beatrice’s father. A bear of a man with little softness in him, even for the daughter who had tried so hard to be worthy of him. He had been someone she could understand, and respect, though she knew there was no real affection between them.

But King Richon had been erratic, unsure of himself. He had not known who was his friend and who was not, and he had chosen badly time and time again. Determined to show strength, he had shown weakness.

Yet he had changed when he became a bear. He had learned what it was to be both hunter and hunted. He need not have learned compassion as a bear, but he had.

It made him less of a bear and more of a man, despite his appearance.

Just as Beatrice’s time as a human made her less of a hound.

But she could not go back. She could not be fully human.

Could she be a hound again? She knew her pack would not take her back. She knew it, and yet she went to them anyway. She did not try to get them to accept her. She simply stood outside, observing. It was done, sometimes.

Hounds were rejected from one pack and sent out, roaming. She had done it herself. She had not watched for her pack. She had kept as far away from any pack as she could.

But not all lone hounds were that way. Perhaps some even found a way to make a place for themselves again. Not in the middle of the pack, but on the edges. Not quite part of the pack, but not quite outside of it anymore?

She remembered a lone hound that head brought down a deer, then come and howled of his prowess to the skies. Her pack had heard him, and some of the younger males had barked happily, saying they should go and take this meat that was offered them.

But she would not let them go. She told them how did they know it was not a trap, that the hound would attack them.

The young males had said that it hardly mattered, with all of them, they could overpower the lone Hound.

And she had said simply no. They would not go. They would not take his meat.

Was it kindness that had made her decide such a thing?

Or cruelty?

The Hound had had his meat.

But he had had no pack, either.

Not even a hint of one.

Kindness was a human quality. A hound is not kind or cruel, she realized. A hound simply does. A hound simply is.

A hound lives for each moment, and enjoys each moment, whatever comes. A hound does not imagine what might have been, or think of what was in times past. A hound does not dwell on the scent of a loved one now gone forever.

But she could not stop wishing for it.

That was what had changed, since becoming human. A hound does not wish for things that are not, and cannot be. Only a human does that.

But this hound did.

This nameless hound who slept next to a bear, and wondered what it meant to love a creature so different from herself.

In one way, though, they were the same. They had hearts that beat, and so, after the wound was healed, the hound found herself lying down at one end of the cave, but as the night went on, moving closer and closer to the bear.

Until at last she was close enough that she could feel his heart beat on her skin. She was safe with him. She was loved by him, as she could only be loved by someone who knew what it was to be both human and animal.

She held herself close to him until she had made her own heart beat in time with his. And only then could she fall asleep.

But when she woke in the morning, the heartbeats were always different again. And the longings were the same.

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