After Jackson's Death

Mor'Du

~2 months after Jackson's Death~

It was Merida and her mother's second week camping in the forest: so far, it had been anything but a holiday. They both rowed, they both argued; Merida continued to put her weapons on the table, her mother continued telling her what to do. Merida wanted desperately to go home; she missed her friends, and it hurt her that even when she returned she wouldn't be able to see Jackson.

One night, as Elinor knitted in her part of the tent, she sung the song that she and her daughter had when Merida was young. Merida, who was fletching arrows in her side of the tent, heard her mother's singing, and quietly joined in, gradually getting louder until her mother heard her. They sung together until they'd finished the song and felt too tired to stay awake.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later that night, Merida woke to the vicious and terrifying sound of a bear's roar. When she climbed out of her section of the tent and crawled over to open the door flap, she nearly cried out in fear: a dark creature stood before her with shining teeth, a shiny black nose and a scarred face. One of its eyes were milky white and the other was a brown so dark it might have been black. An abnormally large half-blind black bear with criss-crossed scars on its face.
Merida remembered the time she and her parents had camped in this very forest years ago, when her brothers had not yet been born. They had to make a quick escape back into town with Fergus holding off the beast to protect his wife and child. Fergus lost his leg that day, and any amount of arrows and swords that hit the bear's hide barely made an ounce of difference to its strength and aggression. Merida decided, that night, that she would avenge her father (who sung about losing his leg to that day as if to say 'I'm still standing') and prevent Mor'Du from killing again. With that, she went back into her sleeping bag, and settled to sleep.

The bear walked off into the dark night, the moon shining onto his battered pelt, his dagger-like claws slicing into small stones as he stepped on them.