Thrown off and hurling through the forest was a baby skunk-bear. It crashed into the leafy forest floor, and shaking itself off before looking up at the howling squirrel who stood fiercely and puffed out its fluffy chest while looking down. An awful stench now filled the air as the skunk-bear wandered off. It came across a fresh pond that the hogver’s were steadily making. It came to the edge and gulped down its fill. It mossied up the inclination, turned and began to sit down. Its large hind paw pushed the upper layer of soil, revealing a small sprout that outstretched in the spotty sunlight. Struggling to keep its eyes open and its head stable but still curious it lazily gazed out at the early spring forest. The adaptable plants were returning to celebrate the warming weather, only to declare war upon each other for space and resources. Beside the skunk-bear was an old unchanging pine, high in its branches a nest. The large scraggle raven chick was being congratulated and preened with its sibling, a year old and it was their time to leave. They fought to stay but were pushed onto the branch as the parents stomped and tore at the old nest. They were only a little more than half the size of the adults and so the two could only squak their frustrations, which continued as they were left behind for the last time. Watching their parents fly into the marvelous sunset, they huddled close hoping to stay forever. Hearing the commotion the skunk-bear curiously looked up the twinding branches, which were soon replaced by a large snout and black mass.
“Ea”
The mother sniffed, licked and grabbed her cub by the scruff of his neck before walking down the inclination and through the shallow water. As the cubs long poofy tail and paws dipped into the icy spring water it shivered. One of the hogvers working on the dam alerted as they passed, it stiffened, snorted, and kept an eye on them. After a few moments it became certain that they weren’t a threat and went back to packing down mud. Early twilight and the skunk-bears were walking into their shallow dugout den. With the chilly nights, they snuggled as the mother wrapped her tail around them, covering all but his face.
A whooping jay made the report for the day, morning and the coast was clear. The cub pounced out and snapped, scaring the bird. The mother quickly and roughly pushed him down and rolled him over. Then she greeted her friend who then landed on her snout. The pink and green land happily greeted the morning sun, and its swelling flames greeted all. A morning glory happiest to see the sun, started to open and blossom it’s many orange-pink flowers. Distracted the cub watched the flowers pop open one by one. The whooping jay then led them to a meal it had located, the cub was slowly getting left behind before bounding after them. In the branches of a pink dog willow was a golden prize. The bird waited far away as she climbed the tree, the cub stared at the flowing leaves that dangled down and flowed in the breeze. Then the mother bit at the bottom of the hive, soon the biting bees biked around her, the swarm quickly growing. But they were distracted by her poofy flickering tail. Unconcerned, she climbed down the tree and carried the sticky prize away from the hive. The cub skipped and bounded to lick the dripping and fallen honey. After the bees calmed and worked to repair the hive, the small bird returned to receive its share. The skunk-bear continued to hold the hive up as the cub stood on its hind legs grabbing and licking for it and the bird stood on it and carved away a small slice with its beak. When the whooping jay got the slice it flew to the branches of another tree to consume its sugary share. Then the skunk-bears consumed their favorite, sweet golden honey. They went their separate ways and the mother dragged him back to the den to rest as she was still imbibed from the stings that got through.
Sitting down and waiting beside her, his squirrel-like tail started to twitch. A few minutes pass, now laying down and tail twitching more, he pushed himself off the dirt and walked over.
“Eea”
The baby skunk-bear started licking at her ear and nibbling it. Her ear flickered to escape and she rolled over. He plopped down, legs out-stretched. His head tilted to the side and then laid down with his front limbs between his hind and nugged her with his nose.
“Aeh”
He immediately got back up and puffed, he started pacing and walking in circles around his mother. Then the cub paused and sniffed the air, he turned towards the soft lit entrance of the den, then the skunk-bear turned back to its mother...
Wandering just outside the den to investigate this scent, the cub’s eyes widened as he stood on his hind legs to sniff again. Following this trail and he moved further away from his only safety and familiar areas. He climbed up and embankment of purple grass near the river, and walked under the partial shade of the trees, the small flecks of light bouncing off and shining on his black coat. A large black feather danced its way down to the forest floor, landing on the skunk-bear’s back he turned around and sniffed it. He bumped into a rock and toppled over, making the feather fly off his back. His eyes became fixated on it and he pounced, pawing and biting at it. The feather now wet, battered and torn fell dully on the open dirt. The skunk-bear pawed at it, the feather popped up and he sniffed it.
*sneeze*
“Cu-cu-cu-cuka!”
Jerking his head upwards, a few pairs of red and blue wings darting high in the treetops. The skunk-bear stood up over the tall blades of purple grass and watched the disappearing shadows flow through the trees. On the other side of the patch of grass two gally-horns were
Drinking from the river, the small kid peered down at the glistening fish. It stuck its nose into the water and poked one of them, the catpy darted off to hide in the rocks. The small gally-horn popped up mouth open and ears perked, then bounded around splashing and trotting, each step it took made little sprouts of flowers and plants.
“Gle-e-a-e-blf”
Its mother walked to the nearby blue sprch tree and rubbed its head against the trunk to eat its bark. And hearing the commotion the skunk-bear bounded through the thick grass to investigate. The gally-horn’s ears turned to the shuffling grass and it begun to walk over, it put its head down near the grass. And out tumbled a skunk-bear, flipped upside down and some grass tied around its hind leg. The two paused before simultaneously trying to sniff the other. The gally-horn used its only forward pointing horn to break the entangled grass from the skunk-bear. The skunk-bear rolled over and half stood up to lick the bottom of the gally-horn’s chin, then it meandered underneath its legs. The gally-horn watched and wobbled its legs out of the way of the skunk-bear. Who followed the gally-horn’s feet and bunches of sprouts that came with each step. The skunk bear chewed and pounced the plants as each bit sprung up. The dappled sunlight and shadows danced on and off their coats as they twirled in circles.
“Geaa!”
The gally-horn lifted up its rear and used its front hooves to break their entanglement and patch of pink and green that rested on the sandy soil.
“Ea?”
A small breeze passed and the baby skunk-bear emerged from the patch. The mother gally-horn’s ears spin around followed shortly by her head, the rest of their herd were wandering by to eat the sprch bark. One of the younger males approached the leader, stomped his hooves and bounced around him. The buck accepted the challenge and walked head high directly towards the other. The other wavered slightly, ears flat and eyes forward, but stood his ground, then they positioned their heads so that their only forward pointing horn couldn’t pierce the other’s skull. Then the skunk-bear walked near the water to drink, the kid followed, which pointed them towards the herd on the other side. The kid and cub where then started by the sharp clack of clashing horns. Each buck fought to keep the others head down, pushing and tearing up the moss of the shaded forest floor, a few short head-butts to weaken the other, and a final clack. A severed horn spun upwards towards the branches. The younger buck then bounced and danced, the other held still, ears forward and its eyes and head followed the path of its horn. It flew just over a branch bounced on it and then slid off it, tumbling down to hit the victor’s backwards facing horns then bounce to its forwards facing horn. The younger gally-horn jumped back from it then shook its head to get it off. Slinging off, the horn plopped onto the ground, causing a small black spot of death to the life touching it. The other gally-horns had watched the event in their grazing and waited to see what would happen next. The loser walked to his horn and sniffed it, stopping the growing death of moss, he’ll grow a new horn anyway. Then the new leader went to their usual grazing path and walked it, the others slowly stopped and followed.
“G-e-e-a”
The mother turned to her kid and walked off. The kid turned to the skunk-bear and licked the top of its head and then bounced across most of the river then bounded off to the herd. The spot had a faint yellow glow on the skunk-bears head, it faded shortly after. The cub yawned and walked off in the same direction as the gally-horns. Crossing the river posed a new challenge to the skunk-bear, at first it walked on the rocks by the surface with its head up, but then it ran out of stones. Pawing at the water to a place to step and a tiny pulse in the water offset it cub’s balance sweeping it into the water. It got pushed under the water, for a solid second the skunk-bear paused at the fish, plants and amount of life swarming the river, with the glistening of scales and ripples bouncing on all the plants and rocks. Then it lost some air bubbles to the water, its pupils shrunk and it fought to stay afloat, it almost instantly learned to doggy paddle but its usually poofy tail, now soaked, was weighing it down. The tip of his snout popped out of the water so he got a breath and loosened up, causing him to fall under again. This continued as the skunk-bear got closer to the other side of the river, but also further down it. Arriving on the sandy soil it started coughing up water and dragged itself out. It shook itself off and walked into the overgrown tree line, near the edge of a small clearing rested a prickle berry bush, the cub reached up and grabbed some of the red berries before wandering off. Eventually it came across a half rotten stump, it meandered inside and curled up, shivering and wet it feel asleep.
Inside the den and the mother begun to wake up. She lifted and uncurled her tail, no baby, scrambling up her head swung around to every nook and cranny of the den, no baby.
“EEa”
Ears pointed out the den, no response.
“Geh-geh-geh”
She walked out the den.
“Whoo-ap”
The awkward legged whooping jay landed on a nearby branch, body forward and head tilted. She huffed and walked off, it tapped about on the tree as she passed, then dove down to land on her shoulder then walked to the ridge of her neck. Snout down she followed the scent of the cub, winding around with his meandering until they reached the river. Where it ended. She looked to both sides of the river, then walked up it.
The cub woke up, still full, drier but alone.
“Ea?”
He waited for a response, there was none. He walked off opposite the direction of the river, the dampness of the forest was gone, it was midday and the plants soaked up the sunlight instead. High above in the branches was two scraggle raven fledglings stood, stomachs growling, they had already stopped waiting earlier that day and begun to hunt. They hadn’t succeed yet. The skunk-bear rolled down a slope, nearby an amphzard plopped onto a leaf which bended under its weight as it walked off. The skunk-bear bunched up and crawled after it, stepping lightly. His eyes focused on the target ahead and one scraggle raven noticed the event. It alerted the other and the two slowly descended jumping down from branch to branch with soft clacks as they landed, both avoiding the loud flap of their wings. The amphzard’s eye rotated backwards and its body took off towards the pond it was already heading towards, the skunk-bear tensed and pounced at the same time as the scraggle ravens dived, claws reared. The skunk-bear barely touched the amphzard’s tail and it popped off, then the skunk-bear caught a glimpse of the scraggle ravens as they bashed into each other just before getting a grasp on the cub, though their claws still cut into the skunk-bear sending enough force to make it tumble down the small slope into the pond. The colliding scraggle ravens also plummeted into the pond, the amphzard hid in the mud and up turned soil of the pond water. Squawking and flapping the scraggle ravens fled to land, the strong, dull, and rotten stench following the cub as it raced away from the scraggle ravens, back to where it had come. The scraggle ravens then squawked, flapped and pecked at each other, forgetting their prey.
The mother skunk-bear had already begun to double back, now at the point she was before going up.
“Who-o-o-h”
The whooping jay directed her to the sound of scraggle ravens, and she picked up her pace.
The cub’s blood trail didn’t stop it from running and stumbling over its own feet, soon it was back to the dead tree it had rested in, but this time it took shelter in the log.
“EEEeaaaa”
“EEa”
A soft glow formed on its forehead and then flowed to the gashes on its side, slowly healing the wound.
“Gea”
“A”
Catching his scent the mother charged across the river, throwing the whooping jay off and it flew ahead to investigate.
“EEa”
“EA”
The whooping jay located the log, landed on top and peered inside to a bloody cub. The scraggle ravens had been marching up the hill following it, the whooping jay’s head swung up, and a second later-
“SCCRRRRAAAA!”
“WHHoooAAa”
Echoing through the forest, alerting the other birds. The phoenix parrots’ attention was caught to the warning. They recognized the birds.
“Cu-cu-cu-cuka!”
The scraggle ravens seeing the charging phoenix parrots and skunk-bear scrabbled to take off with their damp wings. The elder of the two took off first, and saw as the skunk-bear chomped on its brother, crushing almost all of it bones in a single bite, but was forced to fly away from the incoming phoenix parrots. The mother immediately dropped the bird and checked on her cub. Who ran out and cuddled her, she began to lick him, then they went home.
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