Once upon a time, there lived a bear. It was a rather small bear that lived in a rather large forest. It had only just started to try to provide for itself, having been entirely dependant on it's mother until quite recently, and it was not yet as good at hunting and foraging as it would've liked. It spent a lot of it's time feeling hungry and frustrated. Or as frustrated as a bear generally feels, anyway. Mostly, it was only vaguely concious of a gnawing hollowness in it's belly, and the lethargic sensation that this triggered; a hazy notion that maybe it should sleep deeply for a while, until prospects were better. But the summer weather was fine, and it wasn't ready to give up just yet.

One day, it was out searching for food. Other than a scraping of tough, chewy roots, it had been a fairly luckless day, and the bear found itself wandering further and further afield from it's usual territory. It forged through to a much older area of the forest, thick and overgrown and where the birds were quieter, and sometimes even the setting sun didn't penetrate through the foliage. There was a confusing array of smells and sounds all about it, and after a while, it was no longer sure it would even be able to find it's way back to it's den. But it was now very hungry indeed, and so it pressed on.

Finally, after pushing through a particularly troublesome section of brambles, it emerged into a grove that was filled with trees of a type it had never seen before. There were several squirrels and other little animals nearby, and the bear was hungry enough to have chased after even something so small and stringy as a squirrel, except that the ground seemed to be littered with a strange red fruit. The bear approached one of the fruits, sniffing it cautiously and prodding it with it's paw.

It was definitely something it hadn't found before. The fruit was a roundish thing with a little back stem poking out of the top. It's green-red skin seemed like an odd and unsettling colour against the glossy black fur of the bear's paw, and it was a little mushy on the side where it's skin was touching the ground, but its smell was pleasant, and so the bear snapped it up and crunched it down in seconds.

Delicious! The bear made a huffing sound, pleased, flakes of wild apple falling from it's snout. It immediately began sniffing around for another, snapping it up just as quickly. This one was even mushier, apparently having fallen from the tree much earlier, but the bear didn't know this, and even if it had, it wouldn't have considered such information relevant to it's existence. It finished gobbling up this morsel, and began looking for another. And then another. It wandered further into the grove, filling it's belly with apples. Delicious.

It wandered past a perfect ring of trees into a clearing at the very heart of the grove, and was far too busy searching the ground to notice that the air around it had become still and silent. There were no squirrels here. No birds. No animals at all, except for the bear. It became vaguely concious of something being amiss, and looked up.

What it saw ahead was another tree. But this one was different to the other trees in the grove... it was larger and healthier and had sharper smells and colours. The sky behind it seemed darker. The bear did not understand what it was seeing, or why it had begun to feel so very small. This sensation unnerved it, and it was just about to turn away and search elsewhere, when it saw the single fruit this tree bore, poking coyly out from between it's leaves.

It was an apple. The bear suddenly knew that this was what it was called, though it didn't know why, couldn't identify where that odd thought had come from. It was different to the other apples it had eaten. It seemed somehow more real. In fact, this apple seemed to make the things around it dissolve into nothingness, or peel away like dead leaves on the wind, as if this apple was the only real thing in the entire world, and the rest of the forest was just background.

It was the most beautiful and perfect apple that there ever was, round and full and golden and juicy, and the bear wanted it. It wanted the apple, more then it had ever wanted anything. It began to bound towards the tree, intending to clamber up and devour this delicious treasure.

As the bear broke from the treeline, bounding across the open clearing, the ground itself rose up to impede it. The grass and sod reformed into risen bumps and strange, unnatural shapes which rippled across the ground towards the bear, knocking it over, throwing off it's step, tripping it and making it falter. Normally, this would have been alarming, but the bear was too intent on the apple to care. It got up, ploughed forward, stumbled and kept going.

With a snarl of effort, the bear leapt over a risen crest of whirling soil and hit the bole of the tree, already scrambling upwards even as a mighty bough swung around and clubbed it across the face, even as a tendril of leaves and ivy whipped upwards and wrapped around one of it's legs like a tentacle. It clawed it's way upwards, pulling itself free, slicing with it's teeth and claws to keep it's limbs free. The further it climbed, the more branches there were that could reach it, slapping it and shoving it. It roared fiercely, struggling as it became completely entangled. It began to feel itself being pulled, lowered, pushed back towards the ground, and with one last effort, it lunged forward and bit into the huge apple.

The bear looked around.  He was still at the base of the tree with the perfect apple, which was lying at his feet with a huge bite out of it.  Seeing that he was already suffering for having bitten the apple, the bear ate the rest.  No sense in starting off on an adventure without filling his stomach after all. 

He set off in the direction he knew the stream to be in.  He wandered slowly through what he now knew was called an orchard, marveling at the age of the trees in it.  They were gnarled and lumpy with the pressures of years.  They reached, strong and vital, toward the sky, which he now knew was a very bright blue that day.  The bear snuffled at the green plants on the ground, knowing now that they were grass and moss.  Learning, or rather, remembering, the names of all the flowers.  He had no idea how he knew what these things were all called, but he was enjoying finding out so many things were in his head.  Everything looked so very different through the filter of his new mind, which may explain why the bear was startled when something spoke to him from the edge of the forest.

"Where are you going, bear?" said the voice.  "Can I come along?"

The bear looked around frantically for the source of the voice, and finally found it coming from a strange little man-creature hiding in the shadows at the base of a tree.  The man-creature was much smaller than he was used to man-creatures being, and smelled very strange.  Like the red mushrooms that had killed his sister and old rotted meat. The bear was wary of him, because his smells reminded the bear of sickness and death.

"No thank you, man-creature, I travel alone.  Company will just mean more mouths to feed."  The bear began to walk on, skirting where the man-creature was hiding.

"Wait, bear.  If you bring me with you, I can help.  And I will give you some of this for your trouble."  The man-creature held up a big honeycomb.  "All I want in return is to go with you to the stream, and then join you in your travels."

The honeycomb smelled wonderful.  Full of honey and some small, delicious bees, and warm, soft wax.  The bear began to drool.  He was a very young bear, after all, and still growing, and despite all the apples he had eaten, he knew that he would be hungry again soon.  But he hesitated.  How did this strange man-creature know where he was going?  And there was that scent again, even in the honey-smell.  The scent of death.  The man-creature's scent worried the bear quite a lot, for reasons he couldn't understand.

"No thank you, man-creature.  I will make my own way." said the bear.  He hurried along into the forest, hoping to leave the creature behind him.

On his way to the stream, Bear pondered his newfound awareness of the world, and the sharpness of his senses. Being a naturally inquisitive bear, he had always found the behaviour of his fellow woodland animals curious, and had often spent some time hiding in the bushes watching the rabbits and squirrels of the forest playing, unaware of his presence, before attempting to catch them.

But this...this was different. And so much more exciting! He could hear and smell and see better than ever before. He could taste the particles of rotting fruit that drifted on the wind, smell the deer that he knew lived a good way away from the part of the forest he was in, and hear the rustling of the leaves as the squirrels leaped from tree to tree, far above his head.

He continued to walk towards the stream, marvelling at the sounds and smells that overloaded his senses. Bear's walk took him through what he knew to be an area well known for hunters. As a youngster, he had seen his mother fall foul of the hunters in this area, and since then he had known to stay well clear of it, but it was the quickest path to the stream, and the part of Bear which had come alive from eating the apple told him that the man-cub wanted him to go this way. He stepped cautiously through the tall trees, tiptoeing over the branches and trying to stand on only the softest earth, so as not to make any noise. He could smell man, and knew that the hunters were close.
 
After a short time, he heard from not too far away a small whimpering sound. He recognised it as being a youngster of his kind - another black bear. Bear sniffed at the air, trying to ascertain the direction from which the sound had come. The sound came again - louder this time - and within the whimpering, Bear could hear the youngster calling for help. He moved cautiously towards where he sensed the bear to be, keeping his ears alert to the sound of any hunters that may be nearby. As he reached the young cub, he saw that it had been caught in a trap, its left hind paw pinned between the razor sharp edges. Its leg was bleedy heavily, and Bear examined it closely, turning it over gently with his own paws.

"You are fortunate, youngster", said Bear, "the trap has not broken your bones". The cub looked up at Bear with wide, fearful eyes. "Who are you?" it said, "Where is my daddy?" Bear licked the top of the cub's head, showing it that he meant it no harm. "I am Bear", he said gently, "I don't know where your daddy is, but I will take care of you until we can find him". The cub looked worried, but it saw that Bear meant only to help it, and nodded slowly. "Can you help me out of this trap?" it pleaded.

Bear set to work trying to remove the trap - first licking the blood from the cub's wounds to keep them clean and keep the flies and, more importantly, the wolves away.

Over the warm grasses did Bear and Cub go.

"My leg - it hurts, Bear," said Cub, bumbling through flowers, "What kind of silly animal is Trap anyway.  It does not move, it does not play - all it is, is great big teeth that just sit."
"It is no animal, Cub," replied Bear.
"But it bites like an animal," says Cub.
"And yet it is no animal," replied Bear.
"But it sits like an animal, and waits like an animal," insists Cub.
"And yet it is no animal," replied Bear.
"I don't understand," said Cub, finally.
"Of course not, Cub," replied Bear.

The river reached, they saw it was fresh and clean, the water giggling as it flowed over rocks and heath.  
The reeds at the water's edge tickled Cub's nose as he dunked his head in to drink.  
But Bear kept his head above water, and looked about, for something was amiss at the water's edge.