Chapter 41

Kuma P.O.V.

The air is clean and cold, the scent of ancient ice worming under my hide and making me want to run in the opposite direction. Something I don't normally want to do, I know.

Fire crackles in the back of my hearing and I unknowingly dig my claws into the shoulder I'm sitting on. Well until they growl in my ear.

I look at Gajeel to see him hiding a grimace and when I extract my claws from his shoulder he sighs in relief. Jumping down I shift halfway and trot to catch up where Crystal is walking beside Wendy.

"What's the matter, Kuma?"

My shoulders straighten at the question and I look ahead, replying with a huff. "Nothing's the matter, I just wish we could head back already."

Crystal bumps her hips against mine, her tone sarcastic.

"Oh, sure, it's not like we just got past the toll and are now returning to your ancestral home where you watched all your loved ones die."

I snap my jaws shut, cutting her off and move until I'm able to sit on Wendy's shoulder as a cat again. She trills a light tune and I focus on it instead of the growing white wall in the distance. The tune reverberates through my bones and I find myself wanting to hum along until a new shift takes over, then I tweet and chirp with it.

When I close my eyes I forget about the ice, I forget about the trouble, instead I see myself sitting in a tall tree. Songs dance through the air from the multiple birds singing around me. Wind moves the warm air around us and the tree sways with it.

One bird in particular, a drop dead gorgeous blood red amazonian parrot, sings a song at me waiting for a reply. My heart fills with the joy and I open my beak letting the song be heard. When I finish the parrot nods in approval and drops off the branch, the wind catching it's wings and letting it swoop into the midday sky.

My eyes open once again and I shiver from the cold penetrating my bones, myself once again back in this place of cold and death. I tilt my head taking in the look of the feathers of the amazonian parrot I saw in the vision.

"Kuma?"

My eye catches the look of confusion Wendy wears and I open my beak, feeling the urge to speak over take me.

"Oh cool! I wonder if the stories my mother told me about the parrot species copying speech is true?"

Crystal grabs my attention with her words and I inwardly grin. I trill once, testing out my voice then raise a taloned claw to my beat in mock clearing.

"Is, is true."

I smirk, already planning my next words as Crystal's grin broadens.

"Crystal is idiot."

Her grin falls and she growls. "Come here you piece of chicken."

Cackling over takes me and I take the air while she jumps trying to catch me.

"Crystal is idiot. Crystal is idiot!"

Flying in circles I see the slayers shake their heads in amusement, Natsu cackling with me. Even the elders seem to get a kick out of it because I feel laughter drift from Ryu, amusement from Ember and Mitsuki and I get the sense of the twin viper shaking their heads and holding in their laughter.

When the temperature suddenly drops ten degrees I fall silent, dreading what we're about to do, where I'm about to take them.

"Kuma, remember the sleeping cat catches no prey."

At first Elder Abyssa's words don't make sense but on some deeper level I understand. Shifting mid flight I land in front of the group.

They watch me in confusion until Ember makes it known what I'm waiting for. Then the exceeds climb on my back, grabbing hold of my scruff to keep from falling and I turn away. Lumbering toward a hole in the wall of ice only I can see.

I walk through the hole into a small tunnel of different shades of blue and wait until I feel the slayers catch up behind me. When Wendy tries to walk by my shoulder I stop and turn my head toward her, pushing her back.

She opens her mouth to complain but Crystal cuts her off, seeming to understand that no one can be even with me.

As we walk the cave becomes darker and darker, until even I have trouble seeing in front of me. The cave goes quiet and it happens.

Overhead a pattern of lights appear mirroring two constellations that I know hover over the valley. Two lights pulse brighter than the rest and I feel the elders jolt in surprise.

I ignore the sounds of surprise from the slayers when the lights start to move. They seem to condense in on themselves then expand, as if waking up. One by one the lights slide down the walls until they stop ten feet ahead of me and start spinning.

Faster and faster they move as they rise into the air, then they stop. Because in front of me stands a woman in a dress of stars. Her eyes sparkle with starlight and anger while her mouth is turned down in a scowl. Her hair is down across her shoulders but I'm unable to tell the color with the light shining off her dress.

The dress itself is a sky black, only the stars scattered across it allowing any sign that she wears it. The sleeves reach to her wrists and the neck of it stops above her breasts showing off the gem she wears set in a necklace.

By her feet I see fabric move before a little girl steps out. Her head reaches the woman's knee and her hair hangs in front of her eyes. She only wears a small piece of cloth around her waist and her chest of the same fabric as the woman's dress and a chain wraps around her arm, holding the gem in place.

"Cub, I thought sister bear warned you when you left to never return to this valley?" The woman's voice is a low growl in the ancient language and I recall the last time we spoke was when I fled.

Normal P.O.V.

When the woman growls Crystal frowns, trying to focus on her words when Wendy tugs on her arm.

"Crystal, what are they saying?"

The wolf shifter turns her head, her ear focusing on the conversation as she whispers to speak to Wendy.

"Cub, when the valley smelled of death and destruction I warned you not to return. There is nothing left there besides grief and heartache."

The little girl in the woman's skirts nods and steps forward waving her hands as she growls.

"Sister Bear, you need to leave, this valley of death is no longer your home."

Kuma hangs her head, her growls barely being heard and Crystal jerks in surprise, the emotion coloring her words.

"I remember what you said, Mother Bear, but I have to return. It is the only way I can be human again. Please you must understand."

A sense of aggravation seems to fill the space around them and everyone looks at the bag at Wendy's side when it starts to glow. A red and orange mist rises from the bag and the sky dragon opens it up to reveal Ryu's gem glowing with an unnatural light.

The light flares and when it fades the dragon lookalike stands in front of them, not as smoke but in the similar appearance to the woman and the girl. His skin is brighter in comparison to the woman's, though, as the scales, tail, and wings reflect the light from her dress. On his tail and wrapped in chains, the red and orange gem gleams with life.

He stretches his wings, flapping them once and walks past the confused grizzly until he's standing even with her head, his focus on the woman.

"Ursa, why is it so bad for her to return?"

Crystal shakes her head and quickly translates for Wendy even as the woman responds.

"Because it is not safe there anymore, the valley our people once thrived in is abandoned and should be left for the dead."

Suddenly the girl seems to gain a glimmer to her eye and pulls on the woman's dress. The woman leans down and when the girl whispers something in her ear the woman looks at her in surprise.

The girl nods, seeming to answer a silent question and the woman rises back to her feet, the girl once again hiding in her skirts.

"Cub, it would appear that she has made the decision for me. We will let you through to the valley one more time, but after that you are to never return. You must leave the dead to their sleep and move on with your life and your pack."

The tension seems to melt from Kuma's broad shoulders leaving the exceeds to squeak as they drop inches in the space.

"Thank you, Mother Bear, after we leave I can promise you will never see us again."

Then the woman looks at the spirit and her lips quirk into a small smile, the first the group has seen since the start of the interaction.

"Ryu, you and the others would do well to keep her from following your path. Even the stars seem to know about her... misadventures."

The slayers look at one another in confusion at the words but have no chance to ask as the woman and the girl fade away, the constellations overhead once again appearing.

As Ryu turns around Kuma growls and he shakes his head in amusement, the words he speaks next in the language the slayers can understand.

"That is a story for another time, Kuma, but you do well when you enter the valley to explain to your friends what exactly has happened. Metal Piercer looks like he's about to blow a gear."

She huffs in amusement and he disappears back into the gem, Carla catching it before it can hit the ground.