Title: The Bear Necessities
Author: overlithe
Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender
Summary: Kuei finds himself in the Spirit World after taking a very wrong turn. Koh's confrontation with Bosco doesn't go quite as the Face-Stealer expects.
Characters/Pairings: Bosco, Koh, Kuei; gen
Prompt: avatar_500 prompt 14. Supernatural; fanfic_100 prompt 059. Food
Word Count: 498
Rating: K
Warnings: Cracktastic
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and concepts created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, and owned by Nickelodeon and various other corporations/people. I'm not making any money and do not intend any copyright or trademark infringement.
Author's Note: Inspired by a scene from Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad, a novel I highly recommend if you like comic fantasy, and by a conversation with greedyslayer.
The Bear Necessities
'You know, Bosco, I'm beginning to think the man who sold us this map may have…' Bosco's human paused. 'Well, swindled us. And to think he looked so honest.'
Bosco let out a noncommittal grunt and went back to staring at the starless green sky and the mist-shrouded trees with considerable disinterest. Something that was very large and mostly legs trudged across the horizon. Bosco barely noticed it; the world was divided into his human, things smaller than himself and probably edible, things larger than himself and probably not edible, and everything else. This place seemed to be almost entirely everything else. He wandered off, his stomach rumbling.
The cave was large and deep and had a faint acrid smell. Bosco only had a few months' experience of feeding himself, but he had already learned that sort of smell was a often a good sign: there would probably be some four-legged furry meals around, or at least some small winged meals. He sniffed his way a little further into the cave.
Something skittered across a wall. Bosco looked up. The thing reminded him a bit of an oversized grub, only with a white face. His stomach grumbled again as he watched the grub sidle towards him.
'What a pleasure to have visitors again,' the grub said, and moved around the bear. Bosco did not react. It was a rather large grub, but he was a rather large bear. The grub whipped its head back towards him, and the white face turned into a different one. 'It has been so long.'
Bosco stared with ursine indifference. He could recognise his human's face, but other than that, once you'd seen a human face, you'd seen them all.
The grub spoke again, but Bosco ignored it.
It had been a very long time since his last meal, or at least a very long time for a bear.
His expression unchanged, he opened his jaws and lunged forward.
There was a distressed crunch.
Kuei was pacing excitedly under an enormous black-leaved tree when Bosco made his way back to him.
'I think I have a way out of here,' his human said, and pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. 'I managed to talk with—actually I don't know what he was. He was very rude.' He frowned, then leaned towards Bosco and picked up something hanging from the bear's mouth. 'What's this? Looks like an insect leg. Ugh. It's so slimy.' He tossed it to the ground and wiped his fingers on his tunic. 'Don't play with these things, Bosco,' he said with a sigh. 'You don't know where they've been.' He turned sideways and his face parted into a smile again. 'Come on, we'd better get going.'
Bosco burped.
Spirits were everywhere.
Spirits of the trees and the rivers. Spirits that were friendly and unfriendly. Spirits that had risen from the ashes, from the shadows, from the grave.
They had never risen from the bear.
++The End++