Chapter 147: Ring Bear

Now that Arthur had put out the mini-Milo fire, there was one more thing he needed to do. One last thing that would make everything perfect.

He just wasn’t sure if it was a good idea.

The area outside of the gates was fast becoming developed. Trees had always been sparse in the Coldbrook canyon, and after sustained logging to clear the area, they were even more thinned out. Spiky had told Arthur there were a lot of reasons this was a good idea, not least of which was having a clear view of approaching threats.

It wasn’t just the trees either. Roads, Hing pens, and even a few outbuildings for various work crews were de-wilding the surroundings. The town was leaking civilization.

Eventually, the town would become a city and spill out of the mouth of the canyon. There might even be smaller settlements between here and the rest of the demon world, and all of these places would harvest materials and resources. It was the drumbeat of progress and all part of the plan for the expansion.

Still, it made finding Daisy and Rumble that much harder.

“When was the last time you saw them?” Arthur asked. “Because I feel like we’ve been walking for hours and I haven’t seen so much as a hair of either of them.”

“It hasn’t been hours. Maybe an hour,” Lily said. “And I saw them the day before yesterday. Daisy popped out of the trees, took a look at the Hings, and Rumble played for a while. It was very cute.”

“Well, they certainly put some distance between us and them since then. I say we give this another hour at most before we give up. We still have a wedding to do,” Arthur said.

It was sort of a lie. The actual ceremony would take place in a couple of hours and the moms had already usurped the actual work of arranging and preparing for the wedding. He could use the time running inspections and correcting small misconceptions about how Earth ceremonies ran and looked, but those were minor details. If he wanted to be useful, he had to find the Prana mother-and-son pair, wherever they had wandered too.

“Oh, huh.” Lily’s face whipped around to her right. “Did you hear that?”

“No. I wasn’t paying attention. What was it?” Arthur asked.

“It sounded like sticks snapping. Like when Rumble crashes through a bush. I think we might be getting close,” Lily said.

They crept towards the right, fighting their way through some branches before getting far enough through the brush to actually get a good look at what lay past it. In a small area of thinner growth stood a Prata, picking at the ground with its claws.

“There’s Daisy!” Lily’s voice rose in triumph. “Now we just need Rumble.”

As Lily started to move forward, Arthur’s arm shot out instinctively to stop her. He jerked her back by her arm as a bunch of muddled warning signals went off in the instinctive part of his brain, flashing like fireworks as they sent “no, not over there, don’t die” messaging to his adrenal glands.

It was only a few blinks before the conscious part of Arthur’s mind caught up with his reflexes. The Prata was the wrong size. Rumble was growing fast, but not so fast that he suddenly became a full-sized adult in less than a few weeks. And Daisy was much larger than the Prata in front of them. She was a full ball of muscle, fat, and hide.

That meant they were now in the presence of an animal that could probably rip them apart if it was in the wrong mood. That was a problem.

“Not a friend. Quiet.” Arthur warned Lily in a whisper, but it was already too later. Her earlier exclamation had been heard, a fact Arthur was sure of when the new Prata turned, raised its head in a trumpeting roar, and charged.

It didn’t get far. A few steps into its gallop, its momentum stalled as a significantly larger animal slammed into it. The Prata flopped end over end across the forest floor. It stood up snarling and growling, then stopped in a split second when it saw exactly what it was snarling and growling at. Daisy gave it a look of casual disdain, then sent it running with a single threatening step forward. Rumble ambled up behind her as the other Prata ran for its life, making a smaller, weaker trumpet of its own as it left.

“Nice! Thanks, Daisy!” Lily bounded forward toward the Prata, who licked her face once as soon as she got into range before tolerating an owl-girl hug around its neck.

Daisy had very little of what Arthur thought of as pet-instincts. She mostly didn’t respond to petting or hugs, more allowing it to happen then seeking it out. At this point, both he and Lily had interacted with her enough to know she was perfectly safe, especially after she had risked her life to save them both. But if you wanted her to roll over for a belly rub, she wasn’t your girl.

Rumble was a different story. As soon as Arthur’s hand dropped to his head, he leaned into it, mewling for scratches behind his ears that Arthur was more than glad to provide.

“Better give them the fish,” Lily said. “Before either of them gets hungry. There’s no keeping them here once it’s time to find food.”

“Right.” Arthur reached into his pack and pulled out a waxed canvas bag Skal had loaned him and swore would keep his main bag from smelling like warm fish. From it, he pulled one of several large fish Skal had caught and held it up in front of Rumble while backing away a few steps. The not-a-bear immediately followed, whining and pawing at the food.

“Well, that would work, at least,” Arthur said. “If nothing else, we could hold a fish up in front of him. That would get him down the aisle.”

“You are going to have to talk about all this to me again, you know. You’ve explained it twice and it still doesn’t make any sense to me,” Lily said.

Arthur did his best to explain the entire concept again. At an Earth wedding, you exchanged jewelry. Some weird evolution of tradition said that it was better if that jewelry was on display for everyone to see, so it was walked down the aisle almost like it was a member of the wedding party itself. But since nobody really cared about looking at two rings on a pillow, it became more normal to have someone cute walk the rings down the aisle. Though in Milo's case, it'd be two bracelets instead of rings.

“Which I get. I really do get that part. But when people want someone cute, normally they bother me about it,” Lily said. “Not that I’m complaining. But why Rumble? You’ve been dead set on him since the beginning.”

“Not dead set.” Arthur watched as Rumble ripped apart a fish, and reached into his pack to get another item. “And you’d be a great choice to hold the bracelets. You’re cute and fluffy. But I’ll tell you why I was thinking about Rumble. But you have to promise me to keep it secret. From Mizu and everyone. Promise?”

Lily gave Arthur a what-are-you-up-to look, but couldn’t withstand her curiosity for long. “Fine. I promise.”

“Okay.” Arthur smiled. “So, you know that on my planet, bears are just beasts. Not savior-figures, not talking animals, just normal beasts.”

“Right.”

“And on this planet, Pratas are the closest thing we have to bears,” Arthur explained. “And since it would be offensive to actually ask a bear demon to do this, and since we have Rumble, I just thought that it would make the joke work.”

“The joke?” Lily cocked her head to the side then back straight as her confusion slowly morphed to a horrified realization. “Oh, gods, Arthur. No.”

“Yes.” Arthur smiled apologetically. “A ring bear. Technically, a bracelet bear, but close enough.”

“That is… Arthur, that’s surprisingly offensive.” Lily struggled to find the right words to express her emotions. She flapped her wings up and down. “Like, especially offensive in a focused way.”

“That’s why I’m not telling anyone but you. Ever. But it’s a personal dream of mine, and this is the closest I’m ever going to be able to get to fulfilling it, so I’m giving it a shot. To everyone else, it will just be a cool animal thing with a Prata. Plus, Rumble’s a part of this town. He’s cute and helped save us once before. He’ll make a great ring bear.”

“Ugghh. Fine.” Lily shuddered. “I guess I’m a part of this now. No helping it. Let's do this. You have the string thing?”

“I do.” Arthur held up the small iron weight he had Milo make for him, complete with a long section of twine weaved through a small hole in the center. “We just have to get it on Rumble and see how he does, I guess.”

“Well, do it quick. While he’s still distracted by what’s left of his fish,” Lily said as the two of them tried to imagine what everyone else’s reaction to a live Prata carrying two bracelets would be.