Bethan skipped along the path to the spring, barely visible in the lush spring grass. Barely behind the first bush, she slipped out of her shoes, despite the crisp in the air.

The soft blades caressed her soles, with a few cold droplets of dew, leftovers from the morning fog, tickling her senses. She smelled the aromatic scent of ribwort and parsley - a rabbit probably had been nibbling on the herbs just off the path, before she scared it away. She peeked in the undergrowth to see if she could apologize to the poor thing, but it was to no avail.

"Bethan! Don't tarry!" The breeze carried her mother's voice from the village, and Bethan sighed. Her mother hated her leaving the perimeter of the houses. She even had her wear a little bell so she would know when Bethan moved too far away from her, but this morning Bethan had "forgotten" to wear it. Mom was cooking one of her specialties, and it was crucial to closely monitor the cauldron at certain steps - of course that was the moment Bethan clumsily backed up against the bucked and flooded the house.

Her mom was furious, but damage control was more important right now, and after a few instructions on how to contain the waters, Bethan was sent to bring fresh water. Thankfully her defiance to the bell and the endless complaints about how the constant jingling made her nauseous had caused her mother to not nag about wearing the bell inside, but now she was free.

Bethan stopped to smell the flowers. She had been worried she wouldn't be able to enjoy spring this year, given her mother's constant supervision after what happened when she went for mushrooms last fall.

The grass grew thinner and eventually gave way to thick, loamy earth around the little pond. She realized she made a mistake taking off her shoes when she felt the mud under her feet. There would be no way to hide this, but she didn't care. Right now, she felt alive.

She cupped her hand and drank some of the fresh water when she heard the rustling of leaves on the other side of the pond. Bethan looked up, and her face lit up. "Mother Bear! How nice to see you! I'm sorry I had to cut our conversation short last time we spoke!"

The black bear dropped on her butt and spoke as quietly as possible. "Oh, please, dear, don't you worry about that. It was my fault, I should have sensed them coming. In fact, I was worried about you! I hope they didn't give you any trouble?"

A shadow darkened Bethan's face. "Trouble... well. They mean well. They were worried and thought I had been careless. I told them you weren't dangerous, but they think I'm crazy! They won't even let me out of the village now! Can you imagine that?" She felt the tears burning in her eyes but tried her best to hide them.

Mother Bear looked incredibly sad when she looked at her again. "I'm so sorry, my dear... It's my fault. I should have known, I should have protected you..."

Bethan squatted down and doodled in the gooey mud with a small stick. "I just don't understand this. I should not need protection against my village. Against my family. Why do they treat me like this? Why do they keep me trapped? I feel like the village has become my cage. And you know the worst part?" She looked at Mother Bear with a pout.

"What is the worst part?"

"It STINKS. They don't go to the bushes at the forest's edge to relieve themselves, can you imagine that?" The bear looked puzzled. "How... Why? Do they like the stench?"

Bethan, ready to rant on, stopped in her tracks. "You know..." She sounded insecure now. "I don't know," she admitted eventually. "I can't imagine anyone in their right mind would, but apparently they think I'm crazy when I tell them I can talk to you. It sounds insane as well, but..." Her voice trailed off, gaze lost in the distance.

The bear watched her quietly, not sure what to say.

Eventually, Bethan sighed. "I don't know anymore. I don't believe they are lying to me. I think they are really, really afraid. And I'm not sure if they are afraid of me or worried something might happen to me." Her eyes were sad now when she looked at Mother Bear.

"I've heard some of the other kids whisper about me, call me a freak. If no one else can talk to animals, does that make me a freak? And if I'm different... what does it make me?"

Bethan's frame looked so small, Mother Bear couldn't help but come around the lake and wrap her in her paws. Her gaze kept nervously jumping to the village path, while she gently caressed the child's shoulders. Bethan relaxed a little into her warm fur, then looked up into her face. "What does it make THEM, Momma Bear?"

"I have no idea, Bethan," she had to admit, even though she wanted to tell her something, anything, just to soothe her. "To us animals, all of you are simply humans. We don't know much about you, most of you don't talk to any of us."

Bethan sighed, leaning her face back into her fur. "Do you talk to the others?"

"The others?" Mother Bear was puzzled.

"Sorry, other animals. It's just.. to us, all animals are very different. Now I'm wondering... if I'm different than humans, and we all look the same, and you just said 'to us animals'... Does what we look like even matter? Are you maybe one people with one language, even though you all look different, and we are a lot of different ones, but all look the same?"

"You know, maybe that's the main difference between humans and animals: we do not think until our brains hurt," the bear said after a while of thinking. "Because right now my brain does hurt from thinking about all this complicated stuff. "

Bethan giggled. "If you ask me, that's what makes you smarter than us humans. You know that old man in the weird-looking house?"

"The one with the weird smells and noises?"

"Yeah! That's old Nostro. He always tries to tell what to world is really made of. Every week, he has a new theory, and he gets MY head hurting when he's talking! All those weird smells and explosions are his attempts to prove his theories." She scoffed.

"That's probably the worst part of being kept in the village: I'm getting so bored I voluntarily listen to him. And then my mom gets mad at me AGAIN for talking to him, because he's crazy! She even scolded him for making me believe I could talk to animals. You should have seen her face when he laughed at her - the madman everyone laughs at laughed at HER because she even considered he might believe that!" The memory got her giggling again, and Mother Bear couldn't help but grumble amusedly.

"Bethan! What are you doing! I need the water!" Her mother's voice was angry now, and Bethan jumped up, "Oh no, quickly, hide!"

The bear was already halfway around the pond. "Relax, she's still in the village, but you should be going. Take care, little one, and I'll try and ask the foxes or rabbits to check in on you, alright?"

Bethan got up, the bucket full of delicious spring water now. "I will! Thank you, Momma Bear. It was nice to talk to someone who believes me and is not always mad at me!" 

And then she was gone again, leaving Mother Bear alone with her thoughts.

~ * ~

Humans were really strange creatures, and it was true - their curiosity was probably the biggest difference to animals.

"Maybe we should talk to the humans in the big forest."

The bear was startled, and the fox next to her scolded her gently. "Really, you need to be more careful when you're this close to the humans. Come, let's get to somewhere safer."

Mother Bear sighed and followed her. "You're right, Lady. I'm just worried about her. Keeping her trapped in the village like that seems so cruel."

"It is. That's why I suggested talking to the other humans in the Big Forest."

"Do you think they will understand us?"

"I heard they do. All of them. My grandma told me of them. They live a very different life than this village, and I thought she was making things up. Nothing she said seemed to match what I saw humans do. But if there are different kinds of humans, maybe Bethan is one of them - and maybe they can fetch her."

"If that's true, then we definitely need to talk to them," Mother Bear agreed.

"I'll go," a third voice interrupted them. Magairo, the largest and oldest stag of the forest, approached them, and both bear and fox respectfully bowed their heads briefly.

"Is that a good idea though, Magairo? You're not the youngest anymore, and we don't know how far the Big Forest is," Lady said.

"But I do - and it's precisely why I'm going. It's been a while I really stretched my legs, and if there's any place that would make a good place to die, it is the Big Forest."

Lady's eyes lit up with the wonder of a child that's hearing their favorite stories again. "You've seen the Big Forest? Is it really that big?"

Magairo chuckled. "It's quite big - but the right name is actually the Old Forest. It is a very special forest, with many wondrous things you can't find anywhere."

"Woah... and to think my grandma was there and saw that!"

"Actually, it was not your grandma. Sadly, you foxes are not as long-lived as we are... I came here with your grandma's grandma, and we brought the first of Bethans kind here safely."

Lady stopped in her tracks, speechless, and Mother Bear dropped into a sitting position, dumbfounded. "You KNOW what she is?" They asked simultaneously.

Magairo chuckled. "She is human - but one of the Good Ones. Way back, when humans got all haughty like that Nostro guy in that village" - the disdain in the stag's voice was palpable - "they were taught a lesson...."

"A lesson?" Lady was in full kit mode again, and Mother Bear grumbled happily, gently stroking the fox's back. "Wait, does that mean they didn't kill us before? And do the Good Humans no hunt us?"

Magairo shook his head. "Lady... Would you say you are a good fox?"

"Uh... yes? Why?"

"Well, I heard you fed one of Tamila the rabbit's youngest to your kits a few weeks ago. So you're hunting rabbits, too. Tamila was very distraught. Does that make you a good or a bad fox?"

Lady sat down, stunned and sad. She had never thought about how her prey's parents must feel, and Mother Bear protested. "Don't be so harsh on her!"

"Alright, alright. Here's the thing: it doesn't make you a good or a bad fox. It just makes you a fox. After all, what else would you feed your kits? And it's not the hunting that the humans were punished for. After all, Nostro is not the one hunting."

Lady nodded, still looking distraught.

"Hunting? Him?! Hah! He wouldn't lift a finger if he can avoid it!" Mother Bear growled. "The only thing he is good for is leaving a stench. Have you seen that the plants around his house look so sickly?"

The stag sighed. "Yes, exactly. It was people like him who got haughty. They lost respect for us and thought they were entitled to hunt us for fun, or because they were greedy. They like to brag about how big the antlers of the stag were they hunted when that was all they took." Magairo worked himself in a rage. "When they killed my father, I saw them approaching him and then talk about how disappointed they were that his antlers had a blemish. I'm not even sure what they were talking about, but they just killed him - and then left him there!"

He stomped his hooves aggressively but settled down a little when he felt Mother Bears paw gently petting his shoulder. With a tired sigh, he continued: "It's one thing to hunt because you need to eat. It is never nice, but it is what it is. We get hunted, and our remains turn to earth. Plants grow from it, and in turn, are eaten by us. But humans forgot. They think themselves outside of the circle. They don't allow predators to feast on them, and some places tried to bar the plants their dead nourish so we can't eat them. They have forgotten what life means."

The gloomy mood hung like a dark cloud above them, and Mother Bear briefly yearned for summer, when she could have suggested plundering a beehive to distract everyone. Though she wasn't sure if Magairo would appreciate that. Maybe the river was a good idea, though. The water this time of the year still carried the delicious flavor of ice from higher up the river.

"Let's go to the river, I'm thirsty. And I don't feel like going back to the pond by the village..." Her voice trailed off. Magairo snorted and nodded, and Lady readily jumped up. "Good idea, spring river water is delicious!"

~ * ~

They drank above the waterfalls, where the waters were turbulent and had an extra kick to it. Down the river, they could see the bridge crossing it by the edge of the forest, and a small group of travelers had settled for a small camp by the bridge. They were preparing their lunch, the smell of goat roasting over their fire gave it away.

"How come no one knows about that anymore, Magairo?" Lady asked, watching the camp.

Magairo was still drinking, but now he lifted his head from the river and joined them looking out over the waterfall. "Few of us really spend too much time thinking about stuff outside of our daily needs. That's just the way it is."

Mother Bear chuckled. "It would probably be very distracting. Every time I talk to Bethan, I start thinking too much. She has so many questions and wonders about things that never occurred to me!"

"Is that why I startled you by the pond?" Lady asked.

The bear nodded. "Yes. She asked me about whether or not I talk with other animals. She said humans think all animals are so different, they couldn't possibly communicate with each other. Yet, it seems like they also do not believe that she can talk to us and understand us. And she was wondering if that meant despite our different looks, animals were more one group than the samey-looking humans are when she has such different abilities than most."

Magairo chortled. "Samey-looking humans? Is that what she said?!"

Mother Bear couldn't help but laugh a little, too. "I don't remember her words, but it didn't feel as mean as when I said it now."

"That's what I thought," Magairo said fondly. "She's still untainted by all that negativity."

"I'm not so sure, Magairo," Mother Bear said worriedly. "When she left, she thanked me for talking to her. She said it was good to talk to someone who was not mad at her all the time."

Magairo sighed deeply. "You're right to be worried, Mother Bear. This must feel terrible for her."

The bear nodded. "Anyway, when she asked me all these questions, I told her we animals don't think about stuff like that. She called us wise for that, but now I wonder. If it means we're forgetting important things, is that really wise?"

Lady nodded. "I never thought about how bad Tamila must have felt when I caught her small one..."

Magairo interrupted her. "That's why it is wise not to think about it. Some knowledge makes you old too soon, is what the first Good One used to say. You're wrong, Lady. You have kits, and you need to feed them. The circle cannot be broken. And I'm sure you have lost kits too. Maybe even to friends."
Mother Bear looked to the side uncomfortably.

"This is why sometimes it's wise to not think too much." Magairo sighed. "I'm sorry for making you think about that. Mother Bear was right to scold me. We may be friends and be able to talk in moments like this, but ultimately, we all need to eat. And you can't change the fact that my family is part of your menu.

The bear and the fox nodded, lost in their thoughts.

"Ahhh, now look at this beautiful, sunny day, and yet we always seem to end up under a new dark cloud over our heads... Magairo sighed.