ORIGIN

Den, then. Sergei turned, gesturing with an expansive wave of one vast paw, and began to shuffle off the way he'd come. "This way. Follow," he instructed, and then pondered the child's other question.

It made sense that a cub who'd only ever met one stranger would have to ask if there were more, and Sergei felt the warning ripple through him before he spoke it. It was an ever-present anxiety for the bear. "There are many strangers--some have the white, too. Sometimes, you can't tell. They wish you to eat it. Do not eat it," he advised. But as for those he'd met-?

As he trudged along, scuffing through the drifts, he continued. "I have met many. There are many talking--mate?--that speak, yes? Not so many here," he added, glancing around the frigid wastes. But he tried to think back to those he'd met, or even seen in passing. Astraea, birds, dragons, Pallas (a bitter memory)... "There are deer that speak. Dragons. Little, furry things. Big things that live in water. Birds that can talk. There are things... with many colors, and pieces. I have no name for them," he finished, thinking of Azigh, of the beasts from Draco and others like them.

It didn't take that long to get to the cave: his path had already been trampled through the snow, and it was a den nestled just at the base of the nearest mountain. An overhang of ice protected it, and within, it was neither very deep nor wide. It was the sort of place that would hold heat well enough, but it was full of the debris of the barbearian's life: shards of stone and crystal, pieces of old bone, bits of wood or stick he'd found interesting, scraps of all the fur and leather and feathers from the creatures he'd taken that weren't fish. And, tucked in one corner--right into the snow and ice--was a small stack of a few fish.

"Frozen," he explained, setting his spear to lean against the wall with a clack. "But you can chew it, until it is warm. It is good food. Good to eat. These," he went on, with a wise gesture to the shiny fish, "live in water. I do not think any of them speak." He'd never met a talking fish, anyway; so they were probably safe to hunt.

As if in afterthought, he lobbed the fish to land before Zookeeper and then went to a nearby pelt: a simple woolly expanse that had belonged to a mountain deer. It was a white fur, but had been inexpertly skinned and not really tanned at all: stiff, then--brittle--but warm. This he took to the cub, and awkwardly he tried to set it over him. "Is warm," Sergei explained.

Sergei fell silent, a little puzzled. It is sleeping, already? he wondered, though Zookeeper wasn't quite there yet. But in retrospect, it made sense. Ursa was big. Cold. Hard to move through. If the cub was a fresh hatch, and had come all the way from Leo-? No wonder it was tired. He was a little ashamed he hadn't thought of it before.

"You can sleep," he informed the cub. "I will show you way out, when you wake. And give fish," he added. One for the road, so to speak.

Then he sat quiet, upright, keeping watch. He'd let the cub rest, and he'd chew a fish of his own, and sit idle--maybe nap awhile, once a couple hours had ticked away. But meanwhile, there was something... nice, about having company again. Sergei'd been suspicious of anyone--everyone. Their motives, whether they were infected. But it had left him lonely, terribly lonely, and the cub-? Well, a baby was not going to be some sort of sleeper agent.

For once, Sergei just... sat, and enjoyed not being alone, even though his present company was rapidly drifting off to sleep.