Serafina Pekkala first heard the story of a man, a hare, and a bear flying in an airship from a whisper from between the worlds.
Lee Scoresby, as she would come to know the man, would have hated the fact that this whisper came years before a young Texan made a near crash landing in Novy Odense where he would soon be surprised to see bears wandering the streets as if they were people. Lee Scoresby hated anything that touched on fate. He much preferred to think it was his choices that shaped his life. But then, being Lee Scoresby, was he ever going to make a different choice than to offer his help where it was needed? And was there ever a Lee Scoresby who would have left a person in a tight spot just because that person was a bear?
Fate was not so much the lack of choice as the playing out of how things must go. Perhaps the fact that his airship was blown just there, just then, could be called fate, but all else was people being themselves in that right place and time.
The whisper fascinated her. As a witch, she had lived a long life, and she had travelled in that long life, and she had never known such a thing as a panserbjørn in a balloon, let alone one in the company of a man and a hare.
She did what she rarely bothered to do, and she went as far into the in-between spaces as she dared, and she asked for more information.
Whispers are not the same as stories, and there was more than one world, more than one bear and man and hare, whispers of destinies that would never be realized in her world, just the potential for them to come to pass, whispers of a girl who was vital to existence…but not in this world…whispers of lives intertwined across worlds.
The day she met Lee Scoresby in person was the day her daemon flew to her side and said, "There is a fight gearing up in the forest."
"Do we care about this fight?" she asked, curious, because Kaisa would not have sought her out over a normal skirmish between men.
"Some thirty men are in a rage over a killing among them," Kaisa answered, clearly enjoying holding the story over her, feeding the pertinent details piecemeal.
"Men murder each other all the time," Serafina pointed out.
"It is not a man they blame the killing on, but a bear," Kaisa answered. "A bear with a man for a companion."
"A man and a bear?" Serafina asked, instantly intrigued, as Kaisa knew she would be. "Is there a hare as well? Do they fly?"
"They were not flying when they were with the men," answered the daemon, "And no one mentioned what form the man's daemon took. They did say he had a busted arm, and that the bear cared for it. Showed great care for the man, unnatural some said."
"That is unusual," said Serafina Pekkala.
"They will like as not be dead soon," Kaisa commented, "Man, daemon, and bear. They were dragging a cart with them, a heavily laden one, and the men were all set to track it. They are many and the ones they hunt are few."
"What do you know of the killing?" asked the witch, even as she took to the air, following Kaisa in the direction of the impending fight without having to ask. "Did the bear murder one of them?"
"If he did, I'll bet it was deserved," Kaisa answered. "Bears don't kill for no reason, not panserbjørn anyway. There was some argument over the dead man. One said he found him…or what was left of him…high over their own camp. And his rifle was left lodged over stone. Do you know where it was aimed?"
Serafina pondered this for a moment, enjoying Kaisa's enjoyment of the puzzle, before she said, "Towards the camp, I would imagine. Anything else would not be cause for comment."
"That it was. The killed man spoke against the bear often, too. Some think he meant to take a shot at it, right into the camp. And if that is true, some of the men think perhaps he had it coming when the bear went for him, and they think maybe they should just let them go. But everyone is riled. Most do not like the idea of a man-eating bear out where they can't see it."
"Did the bear eat the man?"
"Only the heart, from the sound of it. Left a ghastly mess."
They found the camp quite easily; smoke still rose from their campfire rings and some ten men sat around the carts, too smart to leave their camp entirely unguarded but knowing they'd need the bulk of them to face a bear.
The men did not see Serafina or Kaisa; men rarely bother to look up. Serafina did not announce her presence, just followed Kaisa, who showed her to where there were faint drag marks away from the camp; a heavy cart. Did it carry a grounded airship?
They followed the tracks, more swiftly and more easily than the men below, in fact passing over their heads some ten minutes down the trail. It was another half hour before they caught up with the ones being pursued.
There was an armored bear, just as Kaisa had said, young by the look of its incomplete armor, (a helmet, the beginnings of a chest piece, and one shin covered, the other three bare) but fully grown all the same. The man was riding on the cart while the bear pulled it, slowly but steadily over the uneven ground. The man's arm was injured, just as Kaisa had overheard; it was tied firmly to his chest in some kind of sling, a bulky bandage wrapped around it.
There was a hare. Serafina had to contain a whoop of delight, because there was a man, and there was the armored bear, and the daemon riding at the man's side was most definitely an arctic hare.
She might as well have whooped out loud, because just as she was close enough to see this, the hare's ear twitched in her direction.
"Lee," she said, "We got company."
The man, quite naturally, looked around along the ground first, and for the first time Serafina noted the pistol the man held in his good hand.
"Up, in the trees," Hester amended, and both man and hare looked up and found her. The bear stopped as well, turning and baring his teeth impressively. The pistol was fixed on her heart in a moment. Only for a moment. Once it registered to the man that he was not aiming at some unexpected ruffian, but rather at an unarmed, scantily clad woman riding on a pine branch through the sky, the pistol lowered, though it was clear it could be raised again just as swiftly if she proved a threat.
Ignoring the clear danger, (and to be fair, his goodness had been foretold to her) she did not draw her own weapon but flew down until she was level with the man and bear.
"What do you want?" asked the bear, no longer baring his teeth but not sounding particularly friendly either. Bears like to get straight to the point, though; to one used to them he came off more friendly than not.
"I am Serafina Pekkala," she answered, while considering what she might want to tell them. The truth, but how much of the truth? "You are being hunted. I can help."
"Hunted?" asked the man, before he turned to look at the bear. "Hunted?"
"How are you flying?" asked the hare, eyes wide. Kaisa landed next to her and, surprising just about all of them that weren't daemons, settled himself so they were touching.
"Hester?" the man asked then. It was rare for daemons to interact with such closeness when they were strangers. But then, Serafina thought, maybe Kaisa did not think of the hare as a stranger; they had heard of their coming many years before after all. They knew their lives to be intertwined in subtle and strange ways, if not the exact details. The hare did not seem to mind the bird either; she did not so much as startle and not only allowed the close contact but nuzzled back.
It was unheard of for daemons to nuzzle up to enemies, and the man, after his surprise, relaxed almost completely and looked towards Serafina with unabashed curiosity.
"How are you flying?" he asked, "If you don't mind us asking."
"I am a witch," Serafina answered, a bubble of laughter and delight in her voice at this first meeting. It did not completely feel like a first meeting. It felt like a reunion with old friends. The man's eyes went wide at her explanation.
"Witches are real?" he asked, before looking at the bear, and then laughing. "Well, if the north has armored bears, why not witches?"
"You said we are hunted," said the bear, still not sounding particularly friendly towards her or Kaisa. Perhaps he had a point, though; if those men caught up (and they would, in the end) if it did not end in the death of all three it would likely at least end in heavy injury.
"Some twenty men are following after the tracks your cart leaves behind," Kaisa answered. "They are riled over the killed man."
"Killed man?" asked the man on the cart. He looked at Kaisa, then turned to look at the bear. "Was it Colby? I knew he'd try something…he didn't hurt you did he?"
Serafina watched this exchange, fascinated to note how completely the man instantly had taken the bear's side, showing no sign of doubt that any killing the bear did was both provoked and deserved. Serafina agreed, simply because she was familiar with armored bears; there might be bad bears out there (there were bad among any people) but for the most part they were honorable. But men, she had noted, were usually distrustful of bears, looking at them as if they were only one step above their wild brethren. That this man did not share that view was interesting.
"It was the man called Colby," the bear answered. "When I went to hunt, I discovered him on the ridge above the camp. He had his rifle trained to kill. I heard him speaking with his daemon. He intended murder."
What the man said of the so-called Colby was both inventive and crude, at least until he glanced in her direction and turned bright red, saying, "Pardon my language, ma'am."
"Your language is delightful," she answered.
"Oh, don't encourage him," said the hare.
"Is he always so crude?" asked Kaisa, to which the hare said, "You have no idea."
The man looked at them, as if he were unsure he was comfortable with his daemon's newfound friendship, then returned to the point of the conversation.
"And I guess he meant to wait for you to get back from your hunt and take off your armor, and then he would shoot."
The bear was silent for a moment, then admitted, "It was not me the rifle was aimed at."
There was a longer moment of silence as the man and hare absorbed that. Serafina waited with interest to see if more colorful language would be forthcoming. It wasn't. Either the man felt the need to censor himself this time around, or he was not nearly as riled at threats against himself as he was threats against his friends.
"How did he expect to get away with that?" the hare wanted to know. "He wasn't popular enough to get away with murder, not even a stranger."
"I'd guess he'd have plausible deniability, being hidden up on the ridge," the man pointed out. "But why would he aim at me? It's you he hated." That was to the bear.
"He told his daemon he would remove the…unnatural…man from the world in front of his…friend," answered the bear, slowly, tasting some of the words before he spoke, and clearly censoring himself from the language the man had really used.
"Called us hell spawn again, did he?" the hare asked dryly. "Went on about pets, and beasts, and fornicating, and all that nonsense?" They clearly had the measure of the man the bear had killed.
"Among other words," the bear admitted. "I decided he needed to be removed. I informed him if he wished to battle an ungodly beast, I was ready to comply. He screamed a bit. Then he said 'I am a good and godly man and I am ready to die. Pull the trigger.' That was to his daemon, who was by the rifle. I did not allow them the time."
"And then you came ambling down like nothing was wrong and just said 'it's time to go'" said the man with a raised eyebrow.
"And we left," answered the bear.
"As fun as it is to get the full story," said Kaisa, still practically cuddling against the hare, "Perhaps we should do something about the hoard of men coming for vengeance."
"Yes," said the bear. "We must leave the cart here and find a defensible location."
"But…my balloon," said the man. Serafina, it must be confessed, did let out a small whoop at that, swooping momentarily upward in the air before settling again. The others stared at her.
"Sorry," she said. "It is just…I have waited a long time to meet a man who is friends with a panserbjørn and has a hare for a daemon, and who flies."
"You…expected to meet our exact group?" asked the man, wrinkling his nose in confusion.
"It is a witch thing," Kaisa intoned. "We are very glad to finally meet you."
"Huh," said the man. Then, suddenly, "Do pardon my manners, Ma'am. You said your name was….Sara Pekakola?"
"Serafina Pekkala, Lee," said the hare, voice both admonishing and slightly smug for knowing. The man looked at the witch, and when she did not contradict his daemon, said, "A pleasure to meet you. I am Lee Scoresby, Texan by birth, aeronaut by trade, though a bit grounded at the moment. The arctic hare with a mouth on her is Hester…"
"Lee!" hissed said hare, clearly annoyed.
"…And the armored bear here is called Iorek. Pleasure to make your acquaintances."
"I am Kaisa," said the bird daemon, bowing his head regally.
"Now that is how you do an introduction, Lee," hissed Hester towards Lee Scoresby. Serafina Pekkala should really have acknowledged them properly, but she was slightly distracted by staring at the bear.
"Iorek?" she asked, surprise clear in her voice, "Not…Iorek Byrinson?"
The bear nodded his head. Lee Scoresby and Hester looked confused.
"You know him?" he asked, and then, towards Iorek, "Do you know her?"
"I have heard her name spoken," answered Iorek. "I do not know her personally. We have an understanding with her clan."
There was another moment of silence, and it was clear Lee Scoresby was about to ask a lot more questions, when Hester said, "And the people coming to kill us…what are we doing about that?"
"I will kill them first," answered Iorek, as sure in his actions as only a bear could be.
"Yeah, let's have that be plan B," Lee Scoresby said. "Here, we need to find a place that we can hold down. Damn, I wish I could use my Winchester. Say…don't you think my arm…"
"It stays in the sling," answered Iorek, not even letting Lee Scoresby finish his sentence.
"Damn it, Iorek, this is an emergency," the man argued, before glancing at Serafina and saying, "Pardon again," presumably for saying the word 'damn'.
"There is no need," said Serafina, not about the apologizing (though there was no need for that either, what did she care about words?) but about their hurried plans to defend themselves. "I will mislay your trail. You may continue on your way unmolested."
"Is this another…witch thing?" asked Lee Scoresby.
"It is," answered Serafina. Lee Scoresby peered hard at her.
"I do not know what to make of you," he said, quite honestly, "But we'd be much obliged. I hate to kill if it en't necessary. Those men don't need to die because their friend was a fiendish murdering bastard." This time he did not beg her pardon.
Serafina looked at him, tilting her head, studying him back with interest. "You would let them live…even though they mean to kill you?"
"It en't right, killing if you don't have to," answered Lee Scoresby. "They're men, same as I'm a man and Iorek's a…a person. I've no call to go around killing them just because they're scared."
"I think I like you, Lee Scoresby and Hester and Iorek Byrinson," said Serafina Pekkala. "And I will gladly save your lives."
"We will return the favor if ever we can," said Iorek, and it was clear he had Lee Scoresby and Hester's full agreement.
"Our paths are intertwined by fate," answered Serafina, which earned another wrinkled nose and a slight shudder from the man.
"That a witch thing too?"
"It is a people thing," answered Kaisa for her. "All fates are intertwined, but some are more tangled than others. We have waited long to meet you."
Then Serafina Pekkala left to obfuscate the trail as she had promised. Kaisa did not follow, seeming content to perch with the man and hare.
"Hey!" she heard Lee Scoresby call after her, "You left your…how?"
She did not return to answer, leaving it to Kaisa to explain about a witch's daemon, though they all heard her laughter floating down behind her as she left.
This was their first meeting, and she would make sure it was not their last. Fate decreed their paths should pass many times, but even more than that, she found she liked the three of them. If it was in her power, she would not allow them to die young.