It takes us twenty minutes to reach the border of the area I'm supposed to explore. Despite running without a break, Alis isn't even out of breath. On the way, she caught a hare and ate it while on the move rather than stopping - rabbit-to-go, basically. I had to close my non-existent eyes while she was doing that; I'm still not used to us hunting and eating raw meat. In a picture book, I had as a child, a bear was portrayed as loving honey and nothing else... I wish Alis was like that. A vegetarian bear who could find us some honey. Damn, now I'm hungry even though Alis just ate for us.
The area we're going to scout is a long rectangular stretch along the coast, going inland for about three miles. From where I'm standing right now, it looks like it's all going to be flat ground. Not many places for a portal to hide, but that doesn't mean we can assume it doesn't exist. No, we need to explore every inch of this moorland, even if it's boring.
We decide to run in straight lines from one side to the next, leaving maybe a hundred yards between each line. If the portal doesn't look like the big stone arch in Alis's memory, it might be small and easy to miss. Better safe than sorry.
Even though it looks like an island, from the vegetation it's clear that this used to be a hill before the Drowning, not an actual beach. There is little sand where the waves meet land; most of it has probably been transported here by the sea. It certainly doesn't look like a tropical beach I've seen on pictures. Not even like the cold, but beautiful Scottish beaches from before everything changed.
The ground is full of stocky heather bushes that we have to evade, but sometimes the snow hides their roots and branches and we almost stumble. I imagine this place might look beautiful in late summer when the heather blooms, but right now, it's a bit desolate with no colours except for a few shrubs fighting against the snow.
I get bored pretty quickly and let Alis do the searching. Despite sleeping for so long, I'm still tired. Maybe that's a side effect of the bonding. I smile inside when I think of Ràn. He's now officially mine. My big brown bear, far cuddlier than he seemed at first. Comparing the quiet, grumpy Ràn I met at the beginning with the one I made love to last night, makes them almost seem like two different people. But after what he told me about his upbringing, I can understand why he's not as open and happy as his brother.
Húnn. He's next on my to-bond list. Somehow I feel that I want to get both the brothers before I move on to Finn. Even though they are only half-brothers, they are very similar, not just on the outside. It takes a while to spot the similarities when you don't know them, but I do. They're mine.
After about an hour of running, Alis stops. Even she needs a break from time to time.
She shows me the mental map she has started to build. The basis is the hand-drawn map Torben gave us, but she's added landscape features that we ran past. And strange lines...
Those are scents, she explains. Scent marks other animals have left. They can help us find a specific point on the map should we need to.
I never thought of using scents that way.
You're not a bear.
Does every bear make mental maps like that or is that an Alis thing?
Bit of both. Mine's prettier than others.
I laugh. Alis is so self-confident that it's bordering into arrogance. Hell, what am I thinking - she's one of the most arrogant people I know.
She shakes her fur and looks around.
Let's continue. Feel free to take a nap while I do this.
Which is exactly what I do. A nap inside my own head. My world has become very strange.
We're not the only ones who didn't find anything. Arnold tries to cheer us up with some hot chocolate, but the mood is low. The two older bears are the most pessimistic. They've lived on this island for decades, even before it became an island. They know every nook and cranny. If there is a portal here, they'd have found it long ago.
But we can't just give up and sit here and do nothing. We finally seem to have a lead on what's happening to the bear shifters. We are nowhere near to finding a solution, but at least we're further than we were before. I refuse to believe that this is where it all ends. No, that girl didn't just turn up to lead us down the wrong path. As much as I distrust her, I do think that she was speaking the truth. What else would have been the point of her contacting us? If she only wanted to distract us, that wouldn't make sense as there was nothing to distract us from. We had no lead at all until she arrived. And she only confirmed what Alis had said already: that the Fates are involved somehow. Or even the cause of this whole mess.
"We'll continue tomorrow," Torben says tiredly. He looks just as exhausted and downtrodden as the rest of us. And that's not a good sign. Torben is always confident, always positive. I hate seeing them all like that.
I could think of a way you could cheer them up, Alis giggles.
No, I'm not taking off my clothes. That's not the way to do it.
I never suggested that. How about a game? Or some storytelling? That's what we used to do back in the days.
I remember how we played games back in the hut when I first met the guys. Oh the nostalgia.
I don't think I'm in the mood for games though. I'm in the mood for curling up in bed with a hot water bottle and some more of that delicious hot chocolate Arnold makes. And then not think of the whole bear situation. It's not like it's urgent. That's what I'm trying to tell myself. They're not dying, they're dying out. No more babies. Cubs, I mean. So it's not like a virus that is killing them quickly. No, it's a slow process.
Stop it, Alis tells me sternly. Don't start looking for excuses not to do something. Think like a polar bear. Think of the problem like prey that needs to be stalked. Sometimes it takes a long time to observe the prey and learn its behaviour, but then you pounce and kill and feast.
Thanks, I didn't need that image in my head. It's bad enough having to watch her kill things when we're out hunting. I'm tempted to become a vegetarian.
I've been wondering about that, though. If she eats while we hunt, I feel full afterwards. Does that mean that raw meat is in my human stomach afterwards? I shudder. Not something I should be thinking about. Let's focus on my mug. A beautiful mug with a row of bear paws on it. Oh the irony.
I sigh loudly and my men stare at me.
"Shall we go to bed?" I ask and their eyes light up. No, honestly, I wasn't thinking about bed in that way. I was thinking of a warm duvet, a comfy mattress, maybe a warm man or two beside me... but now that I've seen their looks, my ovaries are starting to get excited. Bonnie, Clyde, stop it. This is a serious situation. There's no time for sex. We need to focus, we need to... yeah, who am I pretending to talk to. I know exactly that I want them. Here, now.
Unaware of my inner struggle, Húnn takes our mugs and gives me a wink.
"I'll just do the washing up, then I'll join you."
Arnold and Bertie say their goodbyes, very much aware that we're not just going to sleep. I mean, we're going to sleep... eventually. First, there's something else to be done.
And as the bedroom is still not big enough for us all, we stay here in the living room, where we've spent quite a few nights already.
"We really need to get more beds," Torben huffs, saying exactly what I am thinking. As cosy as the sofas are, the floor is not.
"One or all of us?" Finn asks. He does that every evening. I think he's still getting used to the idea that I love them all the same. And that while I've been with both Torben and Ràn on their own, that wasn't planned. It would be strange to choose one of them right now and then disappear with him into the bedroom while the others are staying here. I'd have to come up with a schedule to make it fair.
No, so far, it's working. And to be honest, I love having their hands all over me. Their hands, their tongues, their... cocks. I grimace. My uncle would arrange me a date with his belt if he heard me using that word. But luckily, he's far away on another island. He can't tell me what to do. He can't hurt me anymore. I shudder.
"What's wrong?" Ràn asks, giving me a quizzical glance. Of course, he saw. Ràn sees everything. He may be quiet, but that doesn't mean he's not fully aware of everything that's happening. And since our bonding, we're tuned into each other. Sometimes, I get whiffs of emotions from both him and Torben. Only occasionally though, so it's not getting in the way, but I'm hoping the same won't happen when I bond with the other two. Knowing what all four of them feel... I'd turn into an emotional wreck.
Ràn gently runs a finger over the back of my neck. This time, my shudder is different. A lot more pleasant than thinking of my uncle and what he would do. What he did.
I try and erase those unhappy thoughts from my mind. It's no use dwelling in the past. The present is what counts. And right now, there are three hunky bear shifters waiting to make me happy. Four, once Húnn returns from the kitchen.
"What's wrong?" Ràn asks again, stepping in front of me so he can look me in the eyes.
"Nothing," I mutter.
"Don't lie." His voice is stern but also holds a trace of concern. Why does he have to be so attentive?
"Kiss me?"
"Not until you tell me what's wrong."
Damn that man. Can't he just distract me with a little kiss? Or maybe even a big one?
"Nothing is wrong."
He puts his hands on my cheeks, forcing me to look at him.
"I told you not to lie to me. I felt your fear. What are you afraid of?"
Oh, so it wasn't my shudder. It's that stupid bond. He can feel some of my emotions too, not just the other way round. That complicates matters.
But I'm not going to talk about this now. I want to have fun.
I look at him in defiance.
"Nothing is wrong."
He sighs.
"Everybody out."
Strangely enough, the others do what he says without even asking why. Even Torben leaves. Now I'm alone with Ràn.
Who opened up to me and probably expects me to do the same.
No way.
"You don't have to talk about it," he says quietly, surprising me. "Not now, anyway. But I'll be here once you're ready."
"How do you...?"
He looks at me as if he can read my mind. As if he knows that it wasn't just a random bout of fear.
"Victims recognise each other," he whispers sadly.
"I'm not a victim," I protest and he smiles.
"No, you're not. Neither am I. We don't let ourselves be made a victim. We're survivors. But that doesn't mean everything is fine."
"Nobody's life is fine. The Drowning took that away from us. Even children born today have a shit life. They'll never have the life they could have had in the old world. They'll never be properly educated, they'll never have proper medical care, they'll have to learn to cope with death much earlier than they should..."
My voice chokes. I shouldn't be this upset. The Drowning happened when I was a child; I've lived longer in the broken world than I did in the one before. I know most of the pre-Drowning from books, pictures and tales. Us children looked forward to when people on Salvation Island got drunk and would tell us about what life was like. A lot of their stories weren't meant for children's ears, but that's precisely why we loved them. They were gritty, sad, terrible, violent. A lot of the people living on Salvation Island didn't have good lives even before the Drowning. That's probably why my uncle found it so easy to indoctrinate them. They were on the lookout for someone to lead them, to tell them that everything was going to be alright. And that's what he did. Not that his promises ever came true. But he always had excuses. People didn't work hard enough. There were traitors in their midst. The women were too opinionated. The old used up valuable resources. He always knew who was to blame - and it was never him. Of course not. He was the leader of the island, both politically and spiritually.
When I was a teenager, I came across the word 'cult' for the first time. I was reading a dictionary... yes, that's how boring my life was and how desperate I was for knowledge. When I read the definition, I knew my uncle had created a cult. "A social group defined by its religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs, or its common interest in a particular personality, object or goal" - that was exactly what he was doing. It had nothing to do with religion - the people living on Salvation Island weren't the religious type. They wanted absolution, safety and order. And that's exactly what he was giving them. Especially order.
There were rules for everything. Some people found that reassuring; for me, it was hell. Many of the rules referred to what women were allowed to do. Or not, in most cases. We weren't allowed to talk to single men, or meet in large groups, or talk back to a man. I think my uncle had some kind of insecurity towards women, so he suppressed them. With most people on the island being men, it was easy for him to get those rules enforced.
As his niece, I had a few advantages. He couldn't give me public punishments too often; that would have looked as if he didn't have me under control. And while he did a lot of his punishments indoors, he couldn't have any signs of them show or people would have noticed. Bruises had to stay beneath my clothes. Handy that he didn't allow us to wear revealing clothes in the first place. Lucky him.
"You're crying," Ràn says softly, ripping me out of my memories.
I am? I touch my cheeks. They're wet with tears. Damn it. I shouldn't be so emotional. It's long ago. I'm away from there now. I should be focussing on the portal, on our mission...
"What can I do to help?" he asks, gently wiping away my tears. That makes me cry even more. Such a loving gesture.
"Kiss me?"
We both laugh. I tried that before and it didn't work. He doesn't let himself be distracted this time, either.
"No kisses until you tell me what's bothering you. I don't like seeing you this sad."
"I'm not sad," I whisper. "I'm angry."
"Who do I need to kill?" He's smiling but there's a dangerous tone to his voice. Now that we're bonded, there's not much we wouldn't do to keep each other safe.
"No killing. If I managed not to kill him, you're not allowed to either."
My tears end thinking of how I almost killed him once. I was so close. The knife was in my hands. But then I didn't. And I still don't know if that was the right decision. Does that make me a bad person? An almost-murderer?
"So it's a him?"
"Kiss me?"
This time, he doesn't smile. Which is making me angry.
"You said I didn't have to tell you. That you'd give me time! So why are you suddenly starting to interrogate me?"
I'm getting louder and at the same time annoyed at myself for losing my temper.
His shoulders sag and he takes his hands off my cheeks. I didn't even notice how comforting that was until he stopped touching me.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't pressure you like that. But... please know that I'm always ready to listen." He sighs. "And from my own experience, I know how good it feels to get rid of some of the crap that's accumulated in your brain."
He takes a step back. "I'll be here for you. Always."
My anger disappears in an instant. I close the distance between us and put my hands on his shoulders.
"I know that. Thank you."
He smiles. "Kiss me?"
I can't help it, I have to laugh. Suddenly, the table have turned.
I stretch and kiss him.
It's perfect.