How I came to be Russa

I remember being small once. The high darkness of stone overhead in the cave I called home and the heavy presence that was my mother leading me through a green world. I remember raking me claws through soft dirt and pulling up bugs to eat, the cold flavor of mountain fish pulled from icy rivers and the feeling of sleep heavy after a meal. I remember the days getting warm and the travel down into a forest lush with animals moving about, new smells, and new tastes. I remember my mother stretching tall on her back legs to reach a hollow tree that vibrated with insect life and my first bite of honeycomb. That was the first time I experienced joy sparking my hunger.
To eat for the delight of the flavor and not just to fill the gnawing of my stomach.
 
It was many days before I experienced a new emotion: fear, and shortly after, sadness. One green day, I scrambled and sniffed in a winding way behind my mother as she strolled the forest. I had my head in a small hole at the base of a tree, sniffing at the dry leaves that smelled of last winter's burrow when a sound caught my little ears: the heavy chuffing my mother made when she smelled something. I turned to look at her and she was moving towards me. We moved quickly towards the fallen trees we'd been sleeping in, their trunks stuck together from a landslide with many holes between the massive trunks that a young bear might explore. I scrambled inside through a gap in the upturned root wad when my mother began to bellow and stomp. I peeked and saw another bear, a larger bear than even my mother. It was my first time seeing a male bear and he was charging at my mother. She was fierce and many times she bit him causing blood to fleck her fur but he did not stop. It took a long while, but I came to understand that they were fighting over me. My mother did not survive this encounter, but as it turned out neither did the male bear. I was the survivor but alone I knew little of how to travel through the forest alone.
 
When I finally left my den and had sat in the dim light before day waiting to see if my mother would open her eyes again felt a weight push down on my small ears. My insides became heavy and slow. I slept late into the rising of the sun next to my mother's head. Finally, hunger drove me out to find food, I circled near the den eating nuts dropped from trees and the rich white grubs that live inside the bark of dead trees, returning before dark to the den my mother had made. The two large bodies lay outside its entrance. For several days this went on, even forcing me to come out and growl viciously at several small scavengers that thought to eat at the two large bears resting outside my den.
 
It was on one such day, when I was sitting in the cold light of morning near my mothers head watching as the wind swayed her fur that I heard a noise. Turning I bore small fangs and stomped my front feet, at a new creature. This as a thin and tall creature covered in white and reddish fur and it was making noises at me. It was taller than me but I weighed nearly as much as it came towards me. It was wrapped in many things and made small ineffective swiping gestures at me for it was not using its claws. To my surprise, it only paused each time I bellowed and stomped my paws but would begin moving closer again after each pause. By the time it had gotten close enough I became concerned and decided to jump back into my den it had grabbed me. I bit and clawed and bellowed but its arms wrapped tight around my middle and lifted me from the ground.
 
That was the day I met Crikey. I left my den that day and my mother's body to slowly learn about the family that would be my future.
 
I did return to that place many many months later when I had bonded with Crikey and experienced civilization and all of its horrors. Still, I liked him and those he spent his time with, and I began to understand what loyalty and love meant. Many things had come to feed off of the two bears, and something had taken up living in my old den but I only cared for the bones I could find. During the months I spent with Crikey I had one experience that topped them all. During a journey we had taken I found a cave filled with a smell so strong I could not ignore it. Following the scent deep into the rock I found a pool of something that sent out a beaconing call from within its endless depths. Crikey had called me back and I knew I should return to him but the call in the deep water was just as strong and my senses overwhelmed. I brought my head down to drink of the dark water and found myself falling into it. The sensation of the liquid pouring into me with force overwhelmed all my instincts but one. Run. I scrambled, fleeing in a blind trail, smashing through obstacles and heaving my bulk against anything that tried to stop my churning paws. I ran until the feeling of a great force invading me had lessened and I collapsed. It felt as though a wet wind was blowing through my bones as I lay there. Some time later when I awoke to Crikeys hand I became aware that I was, for the first time ever, aware.
 
I wish I could say that with agency, speech, and refined thought things would have gotten better, but the world is still confusing and customs strange.