It never really had a proper name. Usually, its kind named themselves after some nonsense like a feeling or a thing they liked. It hadn't done so, not really seeing a point.
This was one of the many reasons its kind shunned it regularly. Not that it minded, on average its kind was a bit... dull, to put it mildly.
Sniffing the air in a snuffling fashion, it continued to lounge off to the side of a road, hidden by a clump of trees and thick brush. The gentle warm rays of an afternoon sun heating up its fur pleasantly, the light filtering through the overhanging branches full of leaves.
It snuffled again, the smalls of the forest and dirt road nearby filtering through, and a secondary smell on the breeze.
Sweat, flesh, treated dirty fabric.
It perked its small round ears up, and they picked out the sounds of a shuffling gate, someone walking but trying to be quiet and aware of their surroundings. Heavy footsteps, the crunch of dirt under a firm heel, a bipedal creature without a doubt.
There was a human walking down the road, one who was concerned and trying to be quiet.
Its snout snarled into a vicious grin. 'Perfect.'
It rose up to its hind legs, balancing best as it could, and it reached out with one of its forelimbs to grip a large section of planks nailed together into the best approximation of a sign it could make.
Pulling the sign up, it examined the piece, looking for any breaks or flaws since it had last used it. Finding none, it tucked the sign under its forelimb and lumbered forward on three limbs in a slow lope.
Hearing that the human was now approaching its crop of trees it emerged from the brush, not bothering with a roar or any sort of obvious threat, even still the man on the road froze, sweating in pure terror as his eyes bulged out.
"B-B-B-B-B-Buh-Buh-Buh"
Snorting, it pulled the sign out and placed it on the ground in front of it, tapping a long claw against the markings on it.
"Grrall. Belly."
His eyes darted from the poorly made sign, on one side a surprisingly well-drawn belly symbol, on the other a crude image of a person being torn to shreds by something with lots of teeth.
The large bear-like creature tapped the belly sign with a claw and then gave an approximation of a thumbs up.
"Belly."
The man tried swallowing in fear, but his mouth had already run dry as the bear then tapped the picture of a man dying.
"Grr."
It held out a thumbs down.
His entire body began to tremble as the form of a bear the size of a shed tapped the sign repeatedly.
"Gyah! Y-Y-You're the Bandit Bear!"
"Gruhh?"
Humans always said things like that to it like the words meant something. Despite learning the human words, they still spoke so much nonsense. There was no need for such frivolous talking when its meaning was clear as day.
It tapped a claw against the belly sign, then the mauling picture, alternating between the two adamantly.
It thought its message was perfectly clear, giving it his Belly was good, getting mauled was bad. Therefore, give Belly. Then again, humans were often very dull-witted and slow to understand basic concepts. If it didn't want the glorious shiny Belly so much it wouldn't even bother.
The man's knees were apparently so weak, just like the rest of his flabby spindly body, that they were shaking to support his weight, and he abruptly fell over. It dragged a paw down its face in second-hand embarrassment for him.
Silence persisted as it waited for him to cotton on to what it was saying. The wind shifted directions and blew a dead bush across the road between them. Finally, the man stopped his crying and moaning and reached into one of his pouches while muttering. Not to it apparently, but rather to himself.
"S-Stupid. They told me this would happen, but I was hoping to cut back on travel times. Now look at me, being mugged by a bear."
Waiting patiently it huffed slightly at that. Not a mugger, it was a bandit according to every other human. Maybe this one was just especially stupid. Or maybe it was every other human who had been wrong? Something to think about in the future.
Eventually, the man overcame his fumbling to grab his wallet which he placed on the ground. It grinned at the sight, well aware of what the people here used to hold their money by this point. It picked up the wallet gently with two claws, and then peeled it open, revealing a small be well-kept stack of Belly bills and coins, clean, sparkling. Glorious in every way.
It licked at its chops, wiping away the drool collecting there, wouldn't want to ruin the money.
It noticed from the corner of its eye that the man had made good on His escape while it had been sitting there admiring the glint of sunlight off of one of the silver Belly coins, but it ignored that.
A small stack of bills marked with a one thousand symbol and a picture of a rabbit man. A handful of coins ranging from a single one Belly coin, which it hadn't actually seen before, all the way to the larger and more decorative five hundred Belly coins.
Not the best haul it had ever had, but far from the worst. And every single coin or bill was a blessing. It scent marked the coins affectionately.
Carrying both the wallet and the sign it waddled back off the road and out of the direct line of sight. Its stash wasn't very far off, and it made its way there to the hollow under an especially thick tree root where it had been collecting its hoard over the past few weeks.
Once upon a time, it hadn't known the loving shine of a Belly coin, nor the gentle softness of a Belly bill. It had lived as most of its kind did; in ignorance of such things. Then a group of humans had been startled on the road when they'd seen it napping under a tree in the open air. In their haste to get far away from the large bear before it awoke they'd dropped some of their money. That had been its first introduction to the phenomena that was 'cash-money', and it had been enamored ever since.
It carefully organized the new income into the rest of its stash and then added marks onto the root of the tree itself, tracking the numbers of specific bills or coins it had gathered. Perhaps unsurprisingly the lowest number of either coin or bill was the ten thousand bills, seeing as it only had eight of those. The second-lowest amount was the single Belly coin, with only a dozen in its stash.
It mentally added up the total of its stash and memorized the revised number, taking it to heart.
Two hundred and seventy-one thousand, six hundred and fifty-nine Belly's.
"Hurr."
It hummed happily, swaying in the light afternoon breeze. So much more than when it had started a year ago, so many Belly.
As it enjoyed the sight of neatly stacked rows of cash, a sound made its ears perk up again. A happy whistle, playing some tune it didn't recognize, but it knew one of the few creatures on the island that could whistle like that were humans.
It turned away from its stash, the allure of even more Belly drawing it out to the road, and sure enough, as it peaked stealthily between two bushes, it saw a human walking down the road without a care in the world.
It looked like a female member of the species, maybe less fatty than some of them tended to be though. Not very tall, but apparently muscular enough to be able to carry a stack of lumber planks tied together on its shoulder. They whistled as they walked, and showed none of the tenseness or fear that it had come to expect of travelers on the road as tales of its banditry spread.
Well, fear or not they were a human, and thus likely to have Belly on them, so it grabbed its sign, waited until the human was too close to be able to outrun it, and then it stepped out into the road, long practice letting it make those steps on its hind legs easily.
The human stopped walking, though it kept whistling as they looked it up and down. The bear tapped its long claws against the sign, doing the same tried and trued pantomimes.
'Clack' Belly, thumbs up. 'Clack' mauling, thumbs down.
The human chuckled, which was also a strange response.
"Ah, this is a robbery then? Sorry, mate, I don't have any money. What's it called again? Berry? I don't have any berries on me."
It frowned, exposing a lot of its teeth. Not food, they were called 'Belly', it tapped the sign again and then pointed more forcefully at the human. Some had tried this trick of claiming to not have any, but it was pretty much always a lie to keep their money from it.
The human frowned, shifting the stack of planks to better adjust while she was standing still.
"Look, bear bandit mugger, or whatever. I don't got no money for you, y'hear? I'm broke, penniless. Better luck next time."
The bear had had just about enough out of this human's mouth, and so when they started walking forward again, set on bypassing its wide stance blocking off the road, it snarled, baring every one of its teeth at the human as a final warning.
The human stopped short and glared up at the bear's maw, face twisted in frustration. Then she sighed, heaving the planks and setting them on the road next to her.
"Right, sorry about this. I'm a bit new around here and haven't quite gotten a handle on how strong I'm supposed to be, so 'bear' with me please."
It groaned internally at the bear pun and decided that was the final straw that broke the bear's back. It lashed out with one of its wide clawed paws, faster than any human it'd seen could move. But when it'd finished the swing it hadn't hit anything, and it saw that the human wasn't where it'd been standing before. It looked around confusedly, and then it heard a yell from above.
It looked up, just in time to receive a fist to its nose, as the human hammered it across the snout.
The bear fell to the ground, swirls in its eyes and the human wiped her hands of bear snot on her shorts.
"Wellp," she said, looking at the large furry form of her foe. "That was a bit anticlimactic."
She nudged the unresponsive bear a few times with the toe of her shoe, shrugged, picked her bundle of planks back up, and continued on her way.
It was still afternoon when it came to, which was surprising as considering how badly its snout hurt it would have thought it would be much later before it woke up from that blow. It hadn't even been hit like that before, most people didn't even try to hit it, instead just running away.
A groan slipped out as it stood up, the blow to the head leaving it with not only a killer headache but also a very sore neck and back. It felt similar to the time it had run headfirst into a tree as a cub. Only worse.
With an injured body and an even worst injured pride, it slunk back to its den, located in the hollow under the tree with its stash. Shuffling aside its Belly collection gently, it made just enough room for a bear its size to lay down curled up in a tight ball, which is what it did.
Despite it being still afternoon it gave up on the rest of the day and resolved to sleep off its woes.
It also resolved to avoid the punchy woman in the future if at all possible.
~JR~
It became necessary to avoid her the next day, once more walking down the road, in the same direction as before, meaning it must have missed her returning when it went to sleep earlier. Once more she was carrying a bundle of lumber on a shoulder, and whistling as she walked.
It hid in the bushes and eyed her carefully as she passed by, freezing when she slowed at the spot they'd met the previous day, but it relaxed when she continued on.
It was more than happy to avoid another confrontation with her, and by actually staying awake and aware, it learned that she made her return journey around sunset.
This became routine for the next several days.
Anytime someone else would walk down the road, it would ambush them and relieve them of their Belly's. But whenever it heard that whistle or smelled her on the wind, it would hide out of sight and wait for her to pass by. Always whistling, and always carrying a bundle of planks and lumber.
On the sixth day, it watched her carrying the lumber, it's curiosity finally outgrew its fear. So it followed her, stealthily and at a distance. Down the road, through the forest it had lived in all its life, and then down an offshoot path that led to the coast.
The path led to a small bay, largely hidden by trees and clearly unused for a while. Unused except for a wooden structure that was being assembled on the beach that is. It was entirely framework thus far, but it looked like it could maybe be a house for several humans, though the bear found itself exasperated that it could have been so easily beaten by a human dumb enough to build a house upside down.
The bear watched as the human picked up what seemed to be human tools, but roughly fashioned and made of wood and stone instead of the harder metals it had seen in the past. With one tool it knew to be a hammer, she started hammering the lumber into place. But it was off. She would hold up a plank, hammer the middle of it, and somehow the plank would end up nailed to the framework.
Not only was this puzzling, but it was also concerning. Had it tried picking a fight with a magic human?
It watched her hammer the planks into place, take a break to eat something, and then it followed her back down the road around sunset until they passed its usual ambush spot.
It slunk towards its den and pondered this strange activity.
The next day it followed her again, watched her strange routine as she hammered in more of the siding for the upside-down house, and then walking back.
The third day it got the courage to follow her past its ambush site, and it found that some ways up the road, she branched off but not on a path, instead, she walked a smaller trail that led to a clearing filled with stumps and then a single small lean-to shelter. The human-made a fire, sat by it for about an hour fiddling with something it couldn't make out from its hiding spot in the bushes. Eventually, though, it got late enough that the human crawled into the poorly made shelter, and the bear itself returned to its den.
It could understand making a house if all she had was that small lean-to. But it also felt some measure of pity for the human. All that effort wasted simply because she was building it upside-down. Sad.
By the fifth day it had decided that it may have overestimated the human after getting punched. It knew that it wasn't invincible, so really it was just that the human had gotten the drop on it, so when it heard the whistling coming down the road, it once more grabbed its sign and stood in the middle of the road.
The woman paused when she saw the bear, and it made its usual gestures for money, tapping the sign. She sighed.
"Listen, I thought we already went over this. I don't have any money. I'm broke, you saw where I live."
Nervous sweat dripped down its body, and it turned its head away, grumbling a negative. She chuckled at the sight of a poorly lying bear.
"Reakeekeekee. Whatever you say, but the point stands, I don't have any-"
While she was mid-sentence it sprung forward with a roar, swing wildly with both clawed paws. The woman gritted her teeth and held the plank bundle firmly as she dodged to the side, lashing out with a foot as she did.
It saw the foot coming and made a bite for it, but she pulled it back in the nick of time as the teeth clamped together just shy of her shoe. It grinned to itself, this was going much better.
They shuffled, slowly circling one another, but this time she acted first, balancing the wood on her shoulder she juked left, and then spun to the right. The bear followed her movement to the right and stumbled when it ended up being a feint, leaving it open to her punishing left cross into its midsection.
"Hah!"
Ripples flowed out from the impact on its flank and spittle flew from its mouth as it flew off, spinning from the punch until it impacted a tree. It tried muscling to its feet, but it collapsed from the effort, and then decided it would just sleep here, so it waved the human away.
She laughed again as she started walking, taking the win for what it was. She waved back to it as she left.
"Seeya later then. Drop by sometime if you want, I don't get much company back at camp."
It most certainly would not do such a thing. It turned over, facing away from the human and her whistling, grumbling about stupidly strong humans and their strange habits as it passed out.
~JR~
If it had to blame anything for the mistake it was making, it would be the tedium that the past three days had wrought. It had avoided picking any more fights with the human carrying wood, the bruise only just starting to fade from the last time. Instead, it had gotten back to its roots, namely robbing humans other than strong wood carrying human. There weren't an especially large amount, there hadn't been for a long time now, but there were a few brave souls who quickly became less brave when faced with a bear larger than they were blocking their route.
But its heart wasn't in it anymore.
It wasn't that it disliked Belly or anything, rather Belly seemed to be the only thing it really appreciated nowadays. Instead, it just seemed like after the heart pumping adrenaline of a fight, short as they tended to have been, standing and mugging helpless individuals lost its luster.
So it was trotting down the road to where it knew the humans camp was. Maybe if it followed her for a while it could learn the secrets of her strength. And she had invited it along after all.
It was a cloudier day that morning, not chilly but cooler than it had been over the previous week, not that the weather bothered it at all with its thick fur coat.
It walked down the path and emerged into the clearing where the humans camp was, and sure enough there she was, facing a tree at the far end of the clearing. Starting to walk forward it paused as it saw her punch the tree. Was this how she trained then? But then how was she chopping the trees down.
Thwack, thwack, thwack.
Pip.
"Hwuah?"
Its jaw dropped as it witnessed the tree she had been punching disappear from existence with an audible popping noise, leaving behind the human, a stump, and a pile of sticks and leaves around the stump.
The female must have heard its surprise, as she turned around and waved casually.
"Oh hey, glad to see you decided to stop on by finally. Busy with harvesting, but if you want there's some leftover breakfast over by the fire. Just check the wicker basket."
That said, she turned back and began gathering the sticks and leaves that had… dropped? Dropped from the tree. On a second look around the clearing there was a small pile of sticks and leaves near the center point of the clearing, which is where she carried over the ones that had freshly dropped off the tree she had been punching.
Deciding that food did sound quite good at that moment it wandered over to the camp and found the basket she'd been referring to next to the still smoking embers of a campfire. The basket looked roughly made, twisted together from some kind of plant life, but well-made enough, and it had a lid to match. It nosed the lid off the basket, noting that there was a small strap that acted as a kind of hinge.
Inside the basket was a clump of berries it recognized as edible and nonpoisonous, and a small clay pot filled with some kind of meaty stew.
Deciding that berries were the norm, it carefully pulled out the pot of stew in its paws, and began lapping it up. Hesitantly at first, unsure what to expect, it was pleasantly surprised by the taste. It wasn't very flavorful, and some cooked roots in it were bland, but it could clearly taste the rabbit meat, and it also tasted some herbs it knew grew in the forest.
As it eat the stew it watched the female walk over to another tree once she'd moved the sticks and leaves from the first stump. Once at the tree she began to punch it as well. It didn't look like she was hitting the tree as hard as she'd hit its snout the other day, rather it was a decent hit, but more about the form. Turning her hips, twisting her fist at the last moment, throwing her body weight into each blow.
It tilted its head while slurping up some soup. Was this how humans fought, it knew she could throw a punch, having felt it twice now. Maybe that was the secret of her strength. And then the tree she was hitting popped out of existence.
It spewed out the stew as once more, an entire tree popped away leaving behind a stump and some debris on the ground.
She looked over her shoulder at its surprised expression and looked embarrassed, scratching the bridge of her nose.
"Ah, yeah. I guess that would be a surprise, eh? Took me a bit to get used to myself. But if you think that's weird you should check this out."
Curious as to what exactly could be stranger than punching a tree out of existence, it carefully waddled over, making sure to stay out of arms reach as she gathered all the sticks from that tree up into a pile, and then punched the pile.
Normally, such an action would hurt the fist, or break the sticks. Maybe both. In her case, it half expected the sticks to poof away as well, as the tree had when punched.
Probably the last thing it expected to happen to that pile of sticks was for them to waver, and then meld into a stack of wooden planks.
"Grr… GRUH?"
She laughed at the bears bug eyed and jaw dropped expression.
"Yeah, its pretty weird, isn't it? Dunno why it works like that, but it does make some things easier."
Though it heard her words, it didn't fully process them. All that was running through its head was a short cartoon of a bear getting punched by a woman, and then turning into a pile of sticks, or maybe a pile of meat and fur. Over and over on repeat.
It shook off that image from its head, and then pointed at the planks, then giving what it knew to be a universal 'what the fuck' sign, then pointing at itself. The woman shook her head, smiling.
"Nah, it doesn't work like that. It only works on nonliving things, so I'd have to kill you first, which I don't really want to."
It nodded, that was actually more comforting than it seemed like it had any rights to be. She nodded back and there was a moment of silent commiseration between the two of them. Then it bit her face, jaws fully clamped around the sides of her head.
As she screamed into its mouth it grinned, sometimes an ambush was best. Then a foot hit it in the throat, and it collapsed to the ground, foaming at the mouth.
~JR~
The next month was in a similar vein. The bear would visit her campsite in the early morning, they'd share a breakfast together, and then they'd get to work. She would punch the trees down, the bear resigned itself to picking up the sticks and leaves and sorting them out. Then in the afternoon they'd have a quick meal, and then spar.
Sparring here meaning the bear would try any method it could think of to beat her in a fight, and usually end up on the ground with a lump on its head.
After the spar they'd head down the road together to the coast, so the human could continue her work. The bear came to find that while it was a home in a way, the human was actually constructing a ship. They'd hammer in turn, the bear getting experience with tools, and the whole time they'd share a companionable silence unless the human started to sing songs. She called them shanties, and they seemed well paced for work. The bear in turn shared the song of its people.
Finally, they walked together the last day, carrying the mast between the two of them. Down the road, taking a wider path to avoid getting caught in trees, and then once at the ship she leaned the mast against the side of it, and hammered it. The mast disappeared from the side of the ship, and appeared as a fixture in place. And from the mast somehow hung a tied up sail.
The bear couldn't help a feeling of pride at seeing the finished product, and judging by the proud grin on her face the human felt the same. She clapped, and gave it a high five, which it had learned from her.
"Hell's yeah! We finished. Tomorrow it's time for its virgin voyage."
Despite the cheer and pride in the task being done, the bear also couldn't help but feel… sad? The human would doubtlessly soon leave the island, and it had grown so used to having her around it didn't know what it would do in the future, back to highway robbery? Didn't have the same shine to it.
"Whats up, dude? All good?"
She laid a hand on its furry shoulder, and it just nodded, not needing to add anything to the moment. She nodded back, but still seemed unsure.
"Well, first thing in the morning then. I know I had to store some stuff, but I got some foodstuff set aside for a leaving feat. Let's go eat."
And eat they did. Her idea of food set aside seemed to be mystery meat and fruit and veggie shish kabob's roasted over a much larger campfire than normal, which she called a 'bonfire'.
They ate, and danced, and sang well into the night, and after she'd collapsed to sleep, the bear slunk off to its den, not wanting to watch what had fast become its friend leave in the morning.
Despite how much they'd enjoyed each other's company, the bear had never shown the human its den, largely because it slipped its mind. So it was honestly surprised when bright, and early it heard someone knocking on the root that framed the mouth of its den.
"Knock-knock. Wakey-wakey eggs and bakey. Well, there are actual eggs, but I stuffed em into a baked potato looking root. No bacon though… And now I'm sad. C'mon out and help me stop being sad, and get glad."
It blinked blearily, its eyes still half crusted over as it largely ignored her ranting. She got like that sometimes and the best bet was to just let her run it out while it dealt with the more important questions. Such as how did she find its den?
"Haah, bags would be nice. Don't got none though, a shame. Anyways, get your big-bear-butt out here. Times a-wasting."
Resigning itself to a goodbye, it slowly unrolled and carefully crept past its piles of organized Belly's, squeezing out the entrance of its den, sure enough there she stood, wearing the same clothes, smiling wide, and holding out a baked root filled with cooked eggs apparently, a second in her other hand with a few bites already taken out of it.
It gratefully accepted the food, taking the whole chunk into its mouth and ignoring how hot it was still at its center. The human was looking over the den, not entering, but just politely nodding at it.
"Nice place you got here. Suppose it would be a shame to leave it."
It tilted its head at her, why would it need to leave its den? Seemingly understanding its question she laughed.
"Reakeekeekee! What, you think I wasn't gonna do my damnedest to bet you to come along with me? If I can swing it, we're both setting sail today, matey."
Dumbly, it sat back on its haunches, staring at her grinning face. It pointed a claw at its chest and she nodded.
"Yes you, you big lug. Not like I know anyone else on this island. So, if you'll have me." She held out an open hand, her grin still wide and her eyes glimmering with a promise it didn't recognize. "Come set sail with me."
Well, there was only one thing to say to that. It rubbed the grime from its eyes, definitely just grime no tears. And it shook her hand.
She beamed.
"Well, then, we'd best get you all packed up."
So, it let her help it pack. She was providing the packing baskets anyways, so it wasn't much trouble. Also, it found that it trusted her to handle its Belly's without worrying about her taking any. For her part, it got to introduce the money and its values as apparently she'd had no idea before then.
With the Belly's in a basket, they set off for the ship, and for a voyage.
One last time it looked back at its now empty den, its home for most of its life. And then it looked to its human friend, forging ahead with a whistle on her lips as usual.
The exchange was well worth it, as it trundled along behind her, maybe not happier, but more content than it'd been in a long time.
"By the way, I don't suppose you have a name?
"Grrowl."
"No? That's about what I thought. What would you like to be called?"
"..."
"Berry? No, Belly then? Belly the Bear. I can get behind that kind of alliteration."
"Grr."
"Oh yeah! Me! My name's… My name's Lana. Nice to meet'cha."
(Authors note: The intro chapter is from the general perspective of a bear... in case that wasn't clear. This note is letting you know that generally speaking the story will be from Lana's perspective. So fear not, this isn't the foray into bear-based fiction you feared. Or if you wished it was that... sorry?)