Ananias sighed as he lazily and unenthusiastically made his way into the forest just behind the castle. "Bear trap duty," he sleepily murmured to himself, "the one job where I'd actually be glad if I didn't have to do." He cautiously stepped through the abundance of roots, branches, and forest shrubbery, careful not to step into any possible potholes or any bear traps that had yet to have been activated and shook his head. "Either I'm going to be handling a dead body or I'm going to be handling an angry one. Either way, it's going to be pretty messy regardless."
It was then that he finally came to his first, and last night's only, catch. It was a big one with one of its feet clearly having been caught in a standard bear trap, and it obviously felt very trapped and very angry, as the moment it saw him, it immediately began trying to stand up on its hind legs in order to scare him away, but with one of its feet caught, all it could do was let out a low growl of pain, fall back down on all fours, and attempted to swipe out at him with its claws, hoping that it would be just as imposing and that it would just as well get its message across.
Ananias heaved out another exasperated sigh as he closed his eyes and shook his head at his misfortune. "And it's an angry one," he muttered to himself as he slowly unsheathed his sword and prepared for the impending battle he was going to get himself into. "Lucky me." He then began to circle the wounded, but still very much alive and threatened animal, which was eyeing him the entire time and was letting out a low growl as if to warn him that this was definitely a fight he wouldn't want to get into.
Ananias simply crouched down as he continued to circle around it. "Now now, I don't like this any more than you do, but I've got a job to do and everyone's counting on me to do it, so I'm a little bit between a rock and a hard place, alright? I mean, I know that that doesn't exactly excuse me for ending your life and all that, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, you know?" He then began to slowly edge himself towards the rightfully angry beast as he slowly raised his weapon, preparing to deal the finishing strike. "Sorry. No hard feelings."
It was then that two small and adorable bear cubs then ran out of the bushes caught Ananias' and the bear's attention. "Huh? Cubs? What are they doing all the way out here without their mother?" As if on cue, the two baby bears quickly made their way towards the adult one and began to interact with it, exactly as if the bear that had been caught was their...
Ananias groaned, his shoulders and head drooping down, both due to exasperation and the sudden pang of guilt he was feeling in his chest. "Aw, geez, these are your kids, aren't they?" As if precisely to respond to his half-way rhetorical question, the cubs slowly began snuggling against the grown-up as the grown one nuzzled its nose against their heads. "Oh, that's just great," Ananias mumbled, rubbing his temples wearily as he did. "Now I've got to kill it in front of its kids. This just keeps getting better and better."
He then took a deep breath in order to recompose himself and waved his sword towards the side. "Alright you two," he firmly but nonchalantly instructed, "go away. Shoo." When the cubs, and even their parent, gave him only looks of confusion, he exasperatedly added, "Look, I don't care where you go, just as long as you or don't stay here, alright? I've got to kill your mom or dad now and I don't want you here to see it. Now go." Unfortunately for him, they didn't. If anything, Ananias' casual dialogue was only making them even more curious as to who he was, causing the two of them to slowly start to approach him.
Ananias gave them a somewhat surprised look before beginning to back away from them. "What? No. Stay back. I don't want to deal with you guys right now. So just go away and let me do my duty without you looking at me like that. I said stop!" Sadly, this seemed to have the opposite effect, as the two seemed to only quicken their pace towards him so that they could study the strange human before them even further. "No! Stay! Don't come any closer!" Much to his chagrin, the cubs were now wandering around his legs and aimlessly sniffing around to get a better idea of what they were interacting with, causing Ananias' legs to stiffen as he was being planted in place.
This continued on for a while, long enough for even the injured adult to calm down and look at him curiously, wondering what exactly this strange stranger was about to do next. Luckily for the three of them, Ananias eventually let out another exasperated sigh before sheathing his sword and muttering, "Okay, fine, you win. I guess I'm going back empty handed today." He then carefully stepped over the two cubs and made his way towards the adult one. "Now let's see what I can do about this bear trap you've got on you, big guy."
"Actually, she's a girl," a rough and baritone voice softly said from behind him, catching Ananias off guard to the point of causing Ananias to yelp out and jump up in surprise before immediately turning around to see that the voice had belonged to Nohr's monster of a man, Benny.
"Benny?!" Ananias hissed, acting as if the two of them were already caught up in a situation that required the utmost secrecy. "What are you doing here?!"
Benny sheepishly began to shuffle his feet and lower his head before answering, "I... I was just worried about my friends' safety, so I decided to come and check up on them."
"Friends?" Ananias repeated incredulously before glancing back at the apparently full-grown, female bear trapped behind him. "Wait, are you saying that you're actually friends with these guys?!"
Benny nodded. "Y-Yeah. A-Anyway, I was worried that I might have been too late," he gave Ananias an awkward but grateful smile, "but I'm really glad that you decided to spare them."
Ananias blushed before furiously scratching the back of his head and replying, "Yeah, well, it's not like I'm heartless. I mean, I'm not just going to kill these cubs' mom right in front of them, you know?"
Benny chuckled and nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah." He then looked past him, towards the mother, and solemnly frowned. "Huh. You know, that injury... it actually looks kind of serious."
Ananias glanced back at said injury and asked, "You think?"
Benny nodded. "Yes, I'm fairly certain of it. She's not going to be hunting or looking after her young anytime soon."
"Ah, that's rough."
"Yeah. We're going to have to take care of her until she's fully healed."
Ananias nodded and folded his arms absentmindedly at this. "Yeah." He kept on nodding until his mind was finally able to process the immense gravity of what Benny was actually suggesting, causing his eyes to widen as he gave Benny a look of pure shock and bewilderment. "Wait... what?"
Unfortunately for him, Benny had already gotten the trap off of her and was beginning to put his arms around her neck with the intention of carrying her back to her cave. "C'mon, I can carry her from the left and you can carry her from the right. Their cave shouldn't be too far from here."
"W-Wait," Ananias mumbled, "this sounds like a pretty big commitment."
Unfortunately for him, Benny chose to smile at him at that very moment and said, "Heh, you know, I've never been around another fellow bear-lover before. There's so much that we can talk about while we nurse her back to health and take care of her kids for her!"
"H-Hey, don't you think... y-you shouldn't assume...," Ananias began before finally letting out a relenting sigh upon seeing the pure and unadulterated bliss on Benny's face and finally deciding to just shut his mouth a go along with it, "I have to warn you, I'm not that strong."
"Don't worry. I'm pretty sure that I'm plenty strong for the both of us."
"Oh... joy."
