One Spring Morning in The MtBSNF

 

I decided to display a couple of Bev Doolittle paintings for this story.

She does such a nice job of illustrating a snowy forest.

           The planet rolled around. The secret forest faced the sun. It was morning. But the sun’s rising was late because of the season of the year. Early spring. It was cold. As the light came up mist rose from the remaining clumps of snow lying here and there. It was a scene painted in black, dark bark colors, muted green and brilliant white.

            The fire was down to mostly coals. A thin strand of smoke rose up through the trees, wraithlike and white. It was a little early for bird chatter. In fact there was very little to listen to.
            Into this dim and still winterlike scene, a dark figure on silent wings appeared. It was Maeve dropping down out of the treetops from the north. It is still a mystery where she comes from, and then where she goes when she leaves.
            Seeing that the scene was still quiet, she contented herself with hunching silently on one of the logs by the fire circle. Mostly silently.  Maeve has a habit of discussing matters with herself in little fussy half sentences. It sounded a little like chicken gossip.
            “Wake up,” she said to the air, since no one else was listening.
            Of course, the wind, which is always listening, heard her and came to investigate. It scattered the narrow column of smoke and flew away laughing.
            “I’m outside here, Ralph, don’t you need to get some firewood or something,” Maeve muttered, even though there was a considerable pile of it neatly stacked nearby.
            At last there was a sign of life.  The green door opened. It was Ramona of course, coming out to feed her fire up and get it hot and bright. This is easy to do with dry fir deadfall. It burns quick and clean. So, it didn’t take long to have a nice fire going.
            “I was lonely,” said Maeve to Ramona, who nodded at the big black bird sitting by her fire. “But, I’m better now.”
            “That’s good Maeve, why don’t you hop in there and wake up Twigg and the cats? Then you won’t be lonely for sure,” laughed Ramona.
            Maeve and Ramona headed into the cave. Ramona to get a pot to cook oats and raisins in and Maeve to tug on Twiggs hair until he woke up. Of course, this woke the puma bros too.
            “Meow,” or something like that, said Berry. “Go away,” said Bob, which got everybody’s attention.
            “Since when does this cat talk,” said Maeve to the room in general.
            “I only talk when I feel like it,” said Bob. “Mostly, I don’t feel like it.”
            All the chattering finally woke Ralph, who sat up, careful to not disturb Cherry, who slept through it.
            All of them went outside, carefully shutting the green door so that Cherry could sleep in some more.
            “There’s no reason Bob shouldn’t talk,” said Ralph, “if he wants to, why not?”
            “Talking Ravens make a lot more sense than talking pumas,” said Maeve to herself mostly. Then she took her place on Ralph’s left shoulder, as he sat waiting for breakfast by the fire.
            “Bob talks sometimes when we’re playing,” said Twigg. “I knew. But I’ve never heard Berry say anything but cat stuff,” as he sat with an arm around a puma on each side. They scampered off to play in the snow until time to eat, leaving Ralph and Ramona and Maeve by the morning fire.
            “Do you feel like something has changed Ramona,” asked Ralph. “Are we still the same?” He looked a little wistfully into the bright flames. “Do you think everything is still OK?”
            “Yes, sweetheart, we are the same. We always are. You’re just hungry I think,” said Ramona. “Everything is good.  Look around. What do you see?”
            “I see an early spring morning in the great forest. I see that everything I love is here and now Ramona. And I am very hungry,” said Ralph with a broad happy smile and gratitude in his big heart.
            Even Maeve seemed to approve.

In this case they are bear prints, but they look an awful lot like "who goes there!"