"I'm so bored." America muttered as he laid on sprawled out on the couch. On the other end of the couch, Shelby was enjoying a spicy bowl of ramen while she watched the Office.

America glanced over at her, but spinning himself around like a turtle on the back of it's shell so his head was near her now. "I'm boooooorrrreeeddddd." He repeated, dragging out the last word.

She glanced at him, "Well, go get Cards Against Humanity. I'll sure I can get my friends to come over and play."

With that, he rolled off the couch, stood up, and went to Shelby's room, in search of the card game. He found it rather quickly on the shelves, and pulled it out. However, as he did so, several items clattered to he ground, one making sharp clicking noise as it clattered to his feet.

It was a shiny, strange looking stone that had a weird spotted pattern on it, almost hexagon shaped with a dark spots in the centers. He studied it for a moment, before returning to the living room, holding the item between his fingers.

"What's this?" He inquired to Shelby, holding out the stone for her to see.

She smiled. "Oh, that's a Petoskey Stone. State stone of Michigan." She held out her hands, and Alfred placed the rock in her palm. "I got this one time when I went Up North."

"Where's Up North?"

"Up North." Shelby answered, and Alfred rolled his eyes. "The stones are supposed to be fossils of coral from when Michigan used to be near the equator and under tropical water. When the Great Lakes formed, rocks above the layer eroded away and now they wash up on the Sleeping Bear Dunes all the time."

"Sleeping Bear Dunes?" He echoed.

"Yeah, they're named after one of the legends on the formation of the Petoskey stone." Shelby explained, and when she glanced up, she saw Alfred sitting on the floor, crosslegged, eyes wide. It reminded her of a three year old who was eager to have a story read to him.

She laughed. "Okay, so, the legend actually starts in the woods of Wisconsin. In these woods, there was a mother bear and her two cubs. One day, an enormous wild fire broke out in the forests. Animals had no where to go but towards the water. Many threw themselves in to escape the heat. The bears, being able to swim, kept going from the mainland to escape the smoke and fire. They knew that once the fire was gone, they'd have no home left."

"Wow."

"They kept swimming. And swimming. They were determined to reach of the eastern shore, but the baby bears were so tired. They had been swimming for so long..." Alfred's mouth opened slightly in realization. "They began to lag behind their mother. She called for them to keep going."

"Are they..."

"Eventually, she reached the shore, lumbered onto the beach, and sat in wait for her cubs. She hoped that they were still swimming towards the shore."

Alfred leaned forward slightly.

"A little over half way across the lake, one of the cubs couldn't swim anymore. He was very tired, and hungry, and the weight of the water on his fur became too much. Exhausted, he sunk into the lake."

"No."

"A few miles later, his brother sank as well, so tired from the long swim."

"No!"

"Their mother didn't know this. She kept waiting for her cubs. She waited for hours, which turned into days, which turned into months. She didn't move from her spot, sitting in wait for the cubs to come to shore.

"Then, she started crying. But they weren't normal tears, like you and I have. They were brown, glistening, with strange patterns swirling around as it trailed her cheeks. When it hit the sand, they turned solid." Shelby held up the Petoskey stone, and Alfred gasped.

"The stones are her tears." He muttered.

"Yep. Eventually, The Great Spirit, taking sympathy on the mother bear, impressed with her determination and love for her children, brought the cubs back up from the depth of Lake Michigan and turned them into islands. North and South Manitou. Finally, able to see her children, the mother was able to fall asleep, and the Great Spirit blanketed her with sand." Shelby pulled out her phone and typed rapidly into it, before giving it to Alfred. On the screen was pictures of people scaling tall, sandy hills. "Thus creating the Sleeping Bear Dunes."

"Wow. Two legends in one." Alfred muttered. "Is it real?"

Shelby smiled. "No clue. It was a Chippewa legend. They claimed to have seen the great bear waiting for her cubs. I like to believe it."

America looked between the pictures on Shelby's phone, and the Petoskey stone in her hand. "You know, Michigan's actually pretty cool."

She laughed. "I agree."