Author's Note: Okay so it took almost two months for me to create this itsy bitsy chapter. I can give you many excuses, like school and just being really busy....and I will, but that's not the real reason. I had serious writer's block. I planned this to be a much longer chapter, but I hit a wall, and when I finally broke through it, I hit another. Anyway, it's finally up, and hopefully I'll get through the next block before too long. However, I am planning on branching out and writing other stories about other topics (gasp!). So, this will probably not get updated as regulary as it was in the beginning. Thats all folks!

Oh, and all the brother bear characters belong to disney, except the ones that don't.

Chap. 7

"Oooh, what happened next, Shaman Denahi?" asked one of the children. A dozen other voices echoed him.

"After the incident on the rocks, we went back down into the valley. We rested and once we were feeling better we continued the search for a den." Denahi looked over the crowd.

"And..." someone else pressed.

"Well, I'm afraid that's all that there is for that year. Koda finally found a cave large enough for him and Kenai and there was another not far away for me. We made preparations for winter and Koda explained hibernation to us. Soon the snow became constant and winter was upon us. We went into the dens and slept the dreamless sleep..."

The year past, and spring came. The brothers awoke to find themselves in a new season. Through hibernation, all three had grown, though it was Koda who grew the most. Koda now stood half as tall as Kenai; he had doubled, if not tripled in size.

All three of them were still a little heavy after the winter, but they soon worked it off.

"Ha! Gotcha!"

"No Fair! That's cheating!"

"Is not! Hey, how'd Denahi get up there?"

"Watch out!"

Water splashed over Koda and Kenai as Denahi crashed into the river. As he surfaced, his two brothers pounced on him and all three began to wrestle in the chilly waters. It was a small river compared to the salmon run, but it was still deep and it ran close to the brother's dens. Most of it was still covered in ice, however the brothers had found a place where the ice was thin, and with only a little bit of weight, they managed to open up a great deal of the river.

Around noon, the brothers began to feel hungry, and they pulled themselves up out of the water and onto the shore.

"I'm so hungry I could eat a whole caribou." Koda said as he leaned against a tree.

"Koda, you eat more than Denahi and I do combined! How can you be so hungry?"

"Kenai, he's a growing bear, if you haven't noticed." Denahi shook the water from his fur. "I'll go find something for lunch."

"Let's all go find something; you wouldn't be able to bring back enough for me!" Koda laughed and trotted off into the forest. Denahi grinned and followed. Kenai shook himself dry before chasing after them.

They ate out in the woods, finding some tasty roots and other plants. They even caught two squirrels for their meal. When they were finished, they climbed up a boulder and lay down on it, watching the clouds float overhead.

"Kenai, do you remember the hunters last year?" Denahi asked suddenly.

Kenai looked at his brother. "Of course, how could I forget them? What about it?"

"You told me last year how Tananda talked to you soon after you transformation. Did you understand what the hunters were saying?"

"Of course, I wasn't paying attention to it, but I understood it. What are you getting at Denahi?"

Denahi looked down at his paws and Kenai could barely hear him when he next spoke. "I didn't understand them Kenai....I don't understand our own language!"

"That's okay Denahi, I couldn't understand them either." Koda had been listening from lower down on the rock.

"Don't worry, I don't know why I understood them, but most bears can't understand our speech just like most humans can't speak bear." Kenai put a paw on his brother's shoulder.

"You're right, I guess I miss it for some reason though." He stood up. "So lets move on to other topics, how about we go explore?"

"Denahi, we already explored the valley." Kenai patiently reminded him.

"Okay, so let's explore the glacier to the east. We haven't been there and it would only take the rest of the afternoon."

Koda grinned at this and sprang up. "That's a great idea. Can we Kenai?"

So it was that a little over an hour later, the three brothers were climbing a large glacier just east of the valley where they had made their home.