A bear is born - Aesa

[Aesa]

The morning air was as cold as they come. It burned Aesa’s lungs as she took in deep breaths to fuel the run she was undertaking in the conifer woods north of the village of Whyendel. She was of the age where she was no longer a girl but yet to fully be a woman. The last few weeks had been filled with great ceremony and ritual. It was a time of celebration for her and three others of her people had become druids in the eyes of all. It was a small number for an entire year to add to the ranks, but it would be enough. A balance in all things, new to replace the old. As long as the cycle continued there would not be cause for alarm. The numbers involved mattered little, just that it happened. This was the first morning she was not required to be somewhere or any demands placed upon her so, like she had done countless times as a little girl, she ran. While she ran, memories flooded her. Memories both recent and distant, yet all seemed as clear as if they had just occurred.

~

“I do not believe she will be strong enough,” Uljen said, her voice betraying her age as easily as her wrinkled skin and thinning hair.

Uljen was the elder of the village that Aesa grew up in and the woman was a grandmother to all the children regardless of the blood that flowed in one’s veins. She was nearly a hundred years of age and quite proficient in the teachings of the druids. It was everyone’s belief that reincarnation for Uljen was not far off, but every day she emerged from her simple dwelling to greet her people and pass on her wisdom.

“She has the understanding,” Maytja replied. “There is not a leaf, berry or flower she can not identify. She walks through these woods as if their entirety was her home. She..”

“Yes, yes, I know of these things,” Uljen replied, slightly perturbed at having to be told them by her pupil. “I am old, not senile.”

“I meant no disrespect, Grandmother,” Maytja said endearingly.

“I know,” came the simple reply. “Yet the truth of it still remains. I don’t see her being strong enough.”

“I will be, you’ll see!” a young Aesa proclaimed, emerging from where she had been hiding behind a fallen tree near the small fire pit the two druids sat around. Hot tears streamed down her face refusing to relent to the cold of the night. She whipped around and bolted blindly into the dark of the forest, oblivious to the lurking dangers within.

“Aesa!” her mother Maytja called out, but it was far too late. Aesa was gone. Uljen could only smile.

~

Aesa stood before the burning village. Flames licked the sky and the heat melted the snow nearly a hundred paces in all directions. Dressed for the winter, Aesa roasted being so close to the flames but she had saved her mother. Handfuls of survivors were scattered about, clinging together in small groups. The few that were neither elderly nor preciously young were trying to save those structures furthest from the inferno. The orcs had burned all they couldn’t take, and they had been extremely thorough.

Aesa knelt by the burnt body of her mother, her hands clenching and unclenching. Her fingernails had repeatedly dug deep into the flesh of her palms. The elves had done this, driving the orcs from the Deep Wood and pushing them north. The elves stopped however when the land turned to snow instead of completing the driving of them into the North Sea. The elves thought they had broken them, and they nearly had. It had taken three full generations, but the orcs survived and proclaimed a new war chief. Now the stark banner of the Frostaxe tribe rose ominously from the east, most often during the harshest of winters. Unable to completely adapt to the cold, they resorted to the only things left to them; raiding and pillaging. At least it was only foodstuffs they were after and not flesh. They simply burned that along with everything else.

“Aesa,” came her mother’s voice, weak and cracking even on the simple name.

“Mother!” she cried out despite wanting to be brave. Her fists forgotten, instead turned into caring hands impotent in dealing with all the burned skin.

Aesa was well upon the druidic path but had yet to learn any spells. She could make ointments and salves unrivaled by anyone, but everything that could be used was burned, and hunting the forest would yield little at that time of year. It would be far too late to do anything for her.

“The elves who drove the orcs to our doors are not your father’s people,” her mother Maytja said in a voice struggling to be heard. “Remember that, my daughter..”

“I know,” Aesa sobbed. “I will.” She held her mother’s body for a time long after the soul had departed for its reincarnation.

~

“You came to us as girls and have been transformed into women,” the Arch Druidess said.

Aesa stood before the wizened woman with only a golden bearskin draped over her shoulders and trailing down her back. Her hair was unbraided and fanned out behind her. The others, girls all, stood on both sides of her and dressed similarly. Every one was focused on the Arch Druidess. Behind her stood the Totem of the Golden Bear, nearly twenty feet high, its story of the native golden bears carved into its wood. All around the clearing were other druids and immediate family. Lurking just out of sight within the trees were the golden bears themselves who had also come to watch the newest druids receive their blessings.

Aesa had no remaining family to see her on that most important of days and grandmother Uljen had been reincarnated years past. Still all of those gathered that day were her family, and so she would never be alone. As the Arch Druidess began to speak again, her consort, a druid in his own right and half her age, walked up to each of the young women and fastened a gold torc around each offered throat. Upon securing the torc, the antlers at each end intertwined, making the jewelry all but impossible to remove.

“A man may take your body at any time he may choose,” the Arch Druidess stated, “but you belong solely to Him. By his voice I speak this, by his will I do this, by his love I give this.”

The formalities of the ceremony gave way to a celebration unlike any Aesa had ever experienced. The food and mead were in abundance and the smells mixed with the herbs that burned in hung thuribles around the edges of the clearing. Most of the details of the revelry were lost to Aesa but she was certain at one point that bears had emerged from the woods and danced around a magnificent man with stag antlers and eyes of the purest green she had ever seen.

~

Nearly every muscle ached in Aesa’s body and still she ran. The memories had passed through her like one might flip through pages of a book. Old friends and remembered tales. When the last one had come and gone, her mind then was completely empty of distraction. It was then she saw as if seeing for the first time. The sights, sounds and smells of the forest were truly revealed before her. It was then she no longer ran on two feet but four; sprouted claws finding easy purchase in the cold ground of winter. Her hair had been replaced by golden fur, covering not just her head but her entire body, and that body gained a tremendous amount of mass. It was then she was truly a Druid of the Golden Bear.