Origins of the Highbear Family
Nov. 23rd, 2009 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soc_puppetIt has been a long vacation so far, with far too much getting lost, and to top it off, the Half-Price Books tour we had planned for tomorrow is now canceled. I need something to make up for it (especially since I'm not sure I'll even be able to do my back-up "what I want" tomorrow of going to the new books store and, say, Best Buy), so I'm typing up a piece of what I've written for NaNo. It is fairy-tale-ish, and involves lesbians and bears. Responses would be quite happy-making.
Origins of the Highbear Family
Several hundred years before Snow White and Rose Red were born, and most people have forgotten how many exactly, the lands of what would become Highbearnia were struck by several disasters. As soon as the results from one disaster had finally been taken care of, another would strike. The kingdom, being fairly small and poor to start with, used up most of their savings trying to repair the damage that had incurred, and lost most of their food stores to the disasters themselves. Eventually there came a time when the disasters finally stopped and all the repairs were finished, but the people were left with too little food to make it through the winter and hardly any money with which to buy more.
Though they were reluctant to do so, the royal family decided to seek the aid of allied countries and families in their time of need. Though this would help them make it through the winter, the kingdom would end up heavily in debt to the countries whose help they solicited; there would likely be lean times ahead, even in years of plenty, as they tried to pay back the food and money they had borrowed.
The day they were going to send out messengers to neighboring kingdoms to ask for assistance, the eldest unmarried princess of the royal family, Princess Natalia, was approached in the garden by a Beast.
Beasts look much like ordinary animals, but are quite unlike them in habit and ability. While normal animals can only grunt or caw their words and cannot reason like humans, Beasts often speak in human tongues and can sometimes perform magic as well. Each Beast has its own beginning, and while some are indeed humans who have been transformed somehow, many are not.
Such was the case of the Beast that approached Princess Natalia on that day. Upon seeing a large bear coming towards her in the garden, Natalia was about to flee, but stopped when the the bear spoke to her: "If you take me to your family, I have a bargain to offer them."
Intrigued, Natalia complied. When they reached the royal courtroom where Natalia's parents were addressing the messengers, activity ceased. The bear looked first to Natalia, then to the king and queen, and began to speak, explaining that she was a powerful magic-user with a bargain to propose.
During the disasters, it seemed that the bear's home had been destroyed, and she had not yet found a new home in which to winter over. In exchange for a safe place to hibernate over the coming months, she would ensure that the people would be able to survive the winter and start rebuilding their stores and savings come spring. At that point she would leave and start anew her search for a more permanent home, secure in the knowledge that the surrounding land would be in capable hands.
Grateful for a better option than going into debt, the royal family all but instantly agreed. Happy that things were settled, the bear began making preparations.
Two weeks before winter was to set in, the bear told the people eat half of their remaining winter food stores. This allowed them to build up fat and energy for the winter. All the while, the people fortified their homes against the snow and ice, and the royal mages began setting spells to keep the country safe while the bear began her own magic.
When the sun rose on the first day of winter, the bear's spell went into effect: the royal family, whose fate she had tied with her own, were all turned into bears to begin the winter's long hibernation with her. All the people of the land, and their animals and livestock as well, whose fates were in turn tied with the royal family's, also fell into a deep sleep, their breath slowing and their hearts all but stopping, though they retained their original forms.
All through the lean winter they slept, their slowed bodies needing less nourishment than if they had been awake, and the two weeks of feasting before winter having fortified them against starvation. They woke only in short bursts for the unavoidable, as bears did.
When spring finally reached warm fingers into the earth, the Beast awoke, and with her the rest of the kingdom, while he royal family regained their human forms as well.
Still having not-quite-half a lean winter's food, the people were able to eat and drink almost as soon as they woke, making up for lost meals. Soon they began to work the fields again, planting crops for that year. They also tended their animals, and were delighted at the plenty in the surrounding forests, the wild animals not having to contend with hunting over the winter and thus able to build their numbers up. Though this did also increase the number of wolves, these were easily disposed or otherwise taken care of.
A few weeks into spring, the bear took her leave, beginning at last her search for a new permanent den. Though the royal family and the people of the kingdom were sorry to see her go, Princess Natalia perhaps chiefly so, they were thankful for all she had done for them and bade her good luck and good-bye. With her assistance it seemed likely that they would have a harvest bountiful beyond their expectations, and without having to submit to any of the neighboring countries besides.
Spring passed into summer, and summer to fall, all without anyone in the kingdom seeing the Beast again. Their harvest was unexpectedly plentiful, and it seemed they would be able to winter over well and healthily that year, even if they did not add much to their stores or savings.
Then, a few weeks before winter, the bear once again approached Princess Natalia in the garden. Overjoyed to see her friend but curious as to the reason, Natalia asked the bear what she was doing back there. In response, the bear explained that she had not yet found a suitable home, despite having searched the whole summer; she had found one that might do, but still, she thought she would make an offer to the kingdom again, as she had the previous year. Would they be interested in doing as they had done the year before and building up their food stores and savings over the course of a second winter? the bear wondered.
When the idea was presented to the rest of the royal family and to the people, they were delighted at the prospect. They would love to build up their stores a while longer, and if they could do so while assisting the Beast that had saved them the winter before, all the better!
So again the people feasted in the two weeks before winter, building up fat and muscle, and again the bear began laying her spells. And once again, when winter began the spell took effect, and the royal family took the shape of bears, and all the people and domestic animals in the kingdom slept the winter over. And, as before, a few weeks before spring truly took hold the people woke up and prepared to go about their duties with more in their larders than they had expected when winter was on the horizon the year before. And, for a second time, the bear spent a few weeks with them before leaving once again in search of a more permanent home to spend the winters to come.
Once more the people hunted and dried meat, and traded furs for spices and salts to flavor their food and preserve it. They tended their fields and raised their crops, anticipating another good harvest. They kept their livestock and bred and traded the animals. The kingdom prospered, hardly recognizable as the disaster-ridden country from not two years before.
And then, a few weeks before winter, the bear returned a third time - this time approaching through the front door of the palace. Confused but pleased to see her nonetheless, the royal family asked if she again sought a place to spend the winter.
This time though, and looking surprisingly embarrassed for a bear, the Beast said no. "That is," she said, "I would again be willing to help the people hibernate through the winter, but I have actually found a place I would like to stay. Or rather, I feel no need to winter over at the castle."
"Why, then," the royal family wondered, "did you extend your offer? What are you visiting the palace for, and is there anything you might want from the kingdom in return for your services?"
Looking more embarrassed still, the bear admitted that she had fallen in love with one of the royal children. "I would like to spend the winter at the palace instead searching for a way to be worthy of the one with whom I have fallen in love," she explained, "for a way for us to be together, if that is what that person would like." If, of course, the family would allow it. "If not, I will simply do as I have before and winter over at the palace with you, allowing strength and supplies to build up for another year. After that I would leave you in peace, and would not likely visit again for at least a few years - and then only if you wished it."
The family was quite surprised, to say the least. When the parents addressed their children, all seemed willing to give the bear who had saved their kingdom a chance at the very least. And so the family agreed with the bear's offer, and all that it implied.
That winter, though the people still feasted for two weeks before it, the atmosphere was quite different. Each of the royal children who was of-age and not yet married elected to spend time with the bear whenever they could, usually one at a time but sometimes with the rest of the family as well. Natalia in particular sought out the Beast's company, though whether anyone besides the bear noticed is anyone's guess.
When the sun rose on the first day of winter, the royal family transformed again into bears as they had the previous two years. They and all the people and kept animals in their kingdom fell into a deep sleep, their bodies slowed for the winter. This time, however, the bear remained awake, studying magic, keeping the wolf population under control, and maintaining the kingdom's protection spells. All the while, she was deep in thought about the future.
That year, when spring dawned and the people woke, when the royal family returned to human form, a surprise awaited them:
A woman was waiting to meet them in the main hall. She was tall and muscular with shaggy brown hair and wise eyes. She stood in the middle of a wide, complex magic circle, wearing a long fur coat and leggings.
For the most part, the family was confused, but the Princess Natalia seemed to know what was going on. She stepped forward and put her hand to the woman's cheek. "You're the bear who has been helping us these past three winters, are you not?"
And the woman smiled and covered Princess Natalia's hand with her own. "I am," she replied, for she had spent the entire winter while the family slept learning all the spells and magic it would take for her to turn into a human. She was yet more overjoyed at the results, for this was the human with whom she had fallen in love, and for Princess Natalia to recognize the bear even in her new form was a sign that those feelings were returned in full.
That spring, in addition to the usual two weeks of feasting to restore what weight and energy was lost over the winter, a new celebration was announced: the alliance of the Beast-turned-woman with the royal family and the kingdom as a whole. At this feast, the bear-woman chose a name for herself: Ursa Highbear. When she left the palace a few weeks later, it was not alone, but with her love, Natalia, in tow. And it was not to find a new dwelling, for her home would forevermore be at Natalia's side; instead, the two sought a far greater magic than any Ursa had yet performed.
The two traveled far and wide that summer, seeking their boon, and all the while the family and the people of the kingdom continued to work the fields and tend the animals. Ursa and Natalia returned at last late that fall, tired but rejuvenated at seeing the kingdom again, and seeming closer than ever.
That winter showed the strength of their feelings as, though the people did not hibernate that year, Ursa and Natalia delivered their first child. They would have two more in their lifetime, beginning the Highbear family line, which would come to rule the kingdom in the years that followed. The two of them lived to a ripe old age, happy together to the end.
-Fin-
Confession time! I've known the backstory for this kingdom for quite a while before I even started writing stuff, but it took a really long time to find a name for them. I knew I wanted it to be something to do with sleeping or hibernation, and bears, since most of the royal families in this universe are named after an animal (or sometimes a plant) and something else significant to them. I went through many options, and in the end, it was the joke that did me in.
"Wouldn't the name 'Nathaniel Highbear' be hilarious?" said I to myself. "You could shorten it to 'Highbear, Nate'! And then the kingdom could be the Highbear Nation! AHAHAHAHAHAHA, I crack myself up. Except that's way too bad a pun; I'll never do it." And, well, you see how that worked out.
Anyhow, back to actually writing my NaNo now. Really. I swear.Okay, no, I'm sleeping and/or reading other people's books. Happy now?
Edit: Have just added a NaNoWriMo tag to my tags on DW, yay! It is now the tag I have used most so far. I am unsure how I feel about that.
Origins of the Highbear Family
Several hundred years before Snow White and Rose Red were born, and most people have forgotten how many exactly, the lands of what would become Highbearnia were struck by several disasters. As soon as the results from one disaster had finally been taken care of, another would strike. The kingdom, being fairly small and poor to start with, used up most of their savings trying to repair the damage that had incurred, and lost most of their food stores to the disasters themselves. Eventually there came a time when the disasters finally stopped and all the repairs were finished, but the people were left with too little food to make it through the winter and hardly any money with which to buy more.
Though they were reluctant to do so, the royal family decided to seek the aid of allied countries and families in their time of need. Though this would help them make it through the winter, the kingdom would end up heavily in debt to the countries whose help they solicited; there would likely be lean times ahead, even in years of plenty, as they tried to pay back the food and money they had borrowed.
The day they were going to send out messengers to neighboring kingdoms to ask for assistance, the eldest unmarried princess of the royal family, Princess Natalia, was approached in the garden by a Beast.
Beasts look much like ordinary animals, but are quite unlike them in habit and ability. While normal animals can only grunt or caw their words and cannot reason like humans, Beasts often speak in human tongues and can sometimes perform magic as well. Each Beast has its own beginning, and while some are indeed humans who have been transformed somehow, many are not.
Such was the case of the Beast that approached Princess Natalia on that day. Upon seeing a large bear coming towards her in the garden, Natalia was about to flee, but stopped when the the bear spoke to her: "If you take me to your family, I have a bargain to offer them."
Intrigued, Natalia complied. When they reached the royal courtroom where Natalia's parents were addressing the messengers, activity ceased. The bear looked first to Natalia, then to the king and queen, and began to speak, explaining that she was a powerful magic-user with a bargain to propose.
During the disasters, it seemed that the bear's home had been destroyed, and she had not yet found a new home in which to winter over. In exchange for a safe place to hibernate over the coming months, she would ensure that the people would be able to survive the winter and start rebuilding their stores and savings come spring. At that point she would leave and start anew her search for a more permanent home, secure in the knowledge that the surrounding land would be in capable hands.
Grateful for a better option than going into debt, the royal family all but instantly agreed. Happy that things were settled, the bear began making preparations.
Two weeks before winter was to set in, the bear told the people eat half of their remaining winter food stores. This allowed them to build up fat and energy for the winter. All the while, the people fortified their homes against the snow and ice, and the royal mages began setting spells to keep the country safe while the bear began her own magic.
When the sun rose on the first day of winter, the bear's spell went into effect: the royal family, whose fate she had tied with her own, were all turned into bears to begin the winter's long hibernation with her. All the people of the land, and their animals and livestock as well, whose fates were in turn tied with the royal family's, also fell into a deep sleep, their breath slowing and their hearts all but stopping, though they retained their original forms.
All through the lean winter they slept, their slowed bodies needing less nourishment than if they had been awake, and the two weeks of feasting before winter having fortified them against starvation. They woke only in short bursts for the unavoidable, as bears did.
When spring finally reached warm fingers into the earth, the Beast awoke, and with her the rest of the kingdom, while he royal family regained their human forms as well.
Still having not-quite-half a lean winter's food, the people were able to eat and drink almost as soon as they woke, making up for lost meals. Soon they began to work the fields again, planting crops for that year. They also tended their animals, and were delighted at the plenty in the surrounding forests, the wild animals not having to contend with hunting over the winter and thus able to build their numbers up. Though this did also increase the number of wolves, these were easily disposed or otherwise taken care of.
A few weeks into spring, the bear took her leave, beginning at last her search for a new permanent den. Though the royal family and the people of the kingdom were sorry to see her go, Princess Natalia perhaps chiefly so, they were thankful for all she had done for them and bade her good luck and good-bye. With her assistance it seemed likely that they would have a harvest bountiful beyond their expectations, and without having to submit to any of the neighboring countries besides.
Spring passed into summer, and summer to fall, all without anyone in the kingdom seeing the Beast again. Their harvest was unexpectedly plentiful, and it seemed they would be able to winter over well and healthily that year, even if they did not add much to their stores or savings.
Then, a few weeks before winter, the bear once again approached Princess Natalia in the garden. Overjoyed to see her friend but curious as to the reason, Natalia asked the bear what she was doing back there. In response, the bear explained that she had not yet found a suitable home, despite having searched the whole summer; she had found one that might do, but still, she thought she would make an offer to the kingdom again, as she had the previous year. Would they be interested in doing as they had done the year before and building up their food stores and savings over the course of a second winter? the bear wondered.
When the idea was presented to the rest of the royal family and to the people, they were delighted at the prospect. They would love to build up their stores a while longer, and if they could do so while assisting the Beast that had saved them the winter before, all the better!
So again the people feasted in the two weeks before winter, building up fat and muscle, and again the bear began laying her spells. And once again, when winter began the spell took effect, and the royal family took the shape of bears, and all the people and domestic animals in the kingdom slept the winter over. And, as before, a few weeks before spring truly took hold the people woke up and prepared to go about their duties with more in their larders than they had expected when winter was on the horizon the year before. And, for a second time, the bear spent a few weeks with them before leaving once again in search of a more permanent home to spend the winters to come.
Once more the people hunted and dried meat, and traded furs for spices and salts to flavor their food and preserve it. They tended their fields and raised their crops, anticipating another good harvest. They kept their livestock and bred and traded the animals. The kingdom prospered, hardly recognizable as the disaster-ridden country from not two years before.
And then, a few weeks before winter, the bear returned a third time - this time approaching through the front door of the palace. Confused but pleased to see her nonetheless, the royal family asked if she again sought a place to spend the winter.
This time though, and looking surprisingly embarrassed for a bear, the Beast said no. "That is," she said, "I would again be willing to help the people hibernate through the winter, but I have actually found a place I would like to stay. Or rather, I feel no need to winter over at the castle."
"Why, then," the royal family wondered, "did you extend your offer? What are you visiting the palace for, and is there anything you might want from the kingdom in return for your services?"
Looking more embarrassed still, the bear admitted that she had fallen in love with one of the royal children. "I would like to spend the winter at the palace instead searching for a way to be worthy of the one with whom I have fallen in love," she explained, "for a way for us to be together, if that is what that person would like." If, of course, the family would allow it. "If not, I will simply do as I have before and winter over at the palace with you, allowing strength and supplies to build up for another year. After that I would leave you in peace, and would not likely visit again for at least a few years - and then only if you wished it."
The family was quite surprised, to say the least. When the parents addressed their children, all seemed willing to give the bear who had saved their kingdom a chance at the very least. And so the family agreed with the bear's offer, and all that it implied.
That winter, though the people still feasted for two weeks before it, the atmosphere was quite different. Each of the royal children who was of-age and not yet married elected to spend time with the bear whenever they could, usually one at a time but sometimes with the rest of the family as well. Natalia in particular sought out the Beast's company, though whether anyone besides the bear noticed is anyone's guess.
When the sun rose on the first day of winter, the royal family transformed again into bears as they had the previous two years. They and all the people and kept animals in their kingdom fell into a deep sleep, their bodies slowed for the winter. This time, however, the bear remained awake, studying magic, keeping the wolf population under control, and maintaining the kingdom's protection spells. All the while, she was deep in thought about the future.
That year, when spring dawned and the people woke, when the royal family returned to human form, a surprise awaited them:
A woman was waiting to meet them in the main hall. She was tall and muscular with shaggy brown hair and wise eyes. She stood in the middle of a wide, complex magic circle, wearing a long fur coat and leggings.
For the most part, the family was confused, but the Princess Natalia seemed to know what was going on. She stepped forward and put her hand to the woman's cheek. "You're the bear who has been helping us these past three winters, are you not?"
And the woman smiled and covered Princess Natalia's hand with her own. "I am," she replied, for she had spent the entire winter while the family slept learning all the spells and magic it would take for her to turn into a human. She was yet more overjoyed at the results, for this was the human with whom she had fallen in love, and for Princess Natalia to recognize the bear even in her new form was a sign that those feelings were returned in full.
That spring, in addition to the usual two weeks of feasting to restore what weight and energy was lost over the winter, a new celebration was announced: the alliance of the Beast-turned-woman with the royal family and the kingdom as a whole. At this feast, the bear-woman chose a name for herself: Ursa Highbear. When she left the palace a few weeks later, it was not alone, but with her love, Natalia, in tow. And it was not to find a new dwelling, for her home would forevermore be at Natalia's side; instead, the two sought a far greater magic than any Ursa had yet performed.
The two traveled far and wide that summer, seeking their boon, and all the while the family and the people of the kingdom continued to work the fields and tend the animals. Ursa and Natalia returned at last late that fall, tired but rejuvenated at seeing the kingdom again, and seeming closer than ever.
That winter showed the strength of their feelings as, though the people did not hibernate that year, Ursa and Natalia delivered their first child. They would have two more in their lifetime, beginning the Highbear family line, which would come to rule the kingdom in the years that followed. The two of them lived to a ripe old age, happy together to the end.
-Fin-
Confession time! I've known the backstory for this kingdom for quite a while before I even started writing stuff, but it took a really long time to find a name for them. I knew I wanted it to be something to do with sleeping or hibernation, and bears, since most of the royal families in this universe are named after an animal (or sometimes a plant) and something else significant to them. I went through many options, and in the end, it was the joke that did me in.
"Wouldn't the name 'Nathaniel Highbear' be hilarious?" said I to myself. "You could shorten it to 'Highbear, Nate'! And then the kingdom could be the Highbear Nation! AHAHAHAHAHAHA, I crack myself up. Except that's way too bad a pun; I'll never do it." And, well, you see how that worked out.
Anyhow, back to actually writing my NaNo now. Really. I swear.
Edit: Have just added a NaNoWriMo tag to my tags on DW, yay! It is now the tag I have used most so far. I am unsure how I feel about that.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-24 01:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-26 03:57 am (UTC)Thank you ^___^