It began with a wind from another
world. A fury unlike any other kind of blizzard. It tore a hole in
sky and screamed at the ice, forcing them together with an elemental
charge. The eddy drew a death song out of the night and with it beat
a storm all the way up to the clouds. The sea shook and the tablet of
ice it supported broke in a random starburst of cracks.
And when all this had passed, what was
left was a bear.
He was lying with his paws
outstretched and straight, his snout pushed down between the hump of
his knees. The wind at first refused to die. It ripped at his fur,
making shallow angry waves across the curves of his back. It tugged
again, and again and again, but on the fourth gust his great head
rose in defiance and he breathed and held in the cold, sharp air. The
wind grew tame in an instant and dropped. It fell to a whimper as he
opened his eyes.
Lumbering slightly, he rose to his
feet. The wind made apologetic circles around him. He ignored it and
plunged ten claws into the ice. The auma of the North poured into his
heart. With it came power and a terrifying knowledge, of a world
disappearing too fast, too soon. He opened his jaws then and roared
at the sky, until his voice became water droplets melting in the
atmosphere. Snow fell on the crest of the planet.
This was the beginning.
And this would be the end.
But the Earth would not know it for
another year yet.
-Gancanagh-
