Mountain King = Huge fortress thing. Like, 1300s??? (note to self: look this up when you get to The Above). Weird history. Mountain King owns but doesn’t live there. His sister, Brigid, and her two husbands live there. And Mountain King stays in the High King’s palace.
One of Brigid’s husbands is not a born bear. Bears opposite of wolves. Never have birth-rate problems because not against the law to bite people in.
Smart??? Bears make several jokes at welcome dinner about their kind being “designed” smarter than wolves. Maybe right. Unlike she-wolves, female bears have sexual desire before going into heat. Can also go months without having to eat or eliminate.
Shadow King = Black obsidian nightmare castle: Got tour of Mountain Fortress—but not allowed to see inside here. But Shadow Princess (20?) and Shadow Prince are… strange. Say their father does not believe in parties—or talking.
Sadie visits him for a full week once a month. Strange setup. But everyone seems happy.
Sadie has ten kids and has gone into estrus 4 times!!!!
CULTURE:
Royals are only addressed by their titles. Sadie told me it’s okay to call her by her first name, but introduced all her husbands as the High King, the Mountain King, and the Shadow King. And her children as the Shadow Princess, the Mountain Princess, the Second Mountain Prince, etc. Easy to keep straight, I guess? Titles very important here.
Town made of one main street and several old-timey houses. EVERYONE IS GIANT. Feel short and skinny here, even though I’m 5’9” and 189 pounds.
Many attractive people, but they all smell… odd. Like Granni, but not exactly. Maybe because they’re born bears and Granni was bitten in, like Brigid’s second husband?
According to the Shadow Princess, bears and wolves can’t procreate. The Mountain Prince invited me to give it a try. Mountain Prince = Huge flirt.
Head spinning. Wish I knew how to draw or even do field sketches like Darwin. It’s KILLING me that I can’t take pictures.
Questions:
Who are the three serpent gods? Aliens??? If so, where did they go?
Why didn’t the bears ask me to sign an NDA? Do they not care if I write a story about their kingdom?
Why me?
…
I stopped there, but left a spot for the fourth question I was sure would come, along with many other ones.
The Irish Bears were a welcoming community, and the designated week I spent with them was packed to the brim with parties, special events, and cultural lessons. I learned all about the history of the secret bear and wolf kingdoms, though I couldn’t tell what parts were true and what parts were pure myth.
The Irish Bears were big on their rituals.
Starting from the first day, the Shadow Prince, Sadie’s seven-foot-tall and aggressively serious nineteen-year-old son, walked me through memorizing an ancient Irish poem that I was meant to recite to Aunt Naomi when we made the trip to meet her. Apparently, the poem had a ton of lore behind it, and I was warned to never say it in full out loud or even write it down—lest I get smited by the three gods.
No idea what that’s all about, I wrote it in my journal that night.But just in case, not writing it down here!
