Convincing me to stay two weeks marked only the first half of Sigrid's battle. According to her, I needed weeks of recovery, and wasn't plump enough, strong enough, or maintaining enough of a stable temperature to leave. Her people, the Sami, recognized within minutes of meeting me  something was off, but Sigrid's hush-hush whispering of escaping an abusive situation and Zakarias' enthusiastic endorsement was enough to keep the questions to a minimum. For my part, I stayed with Sigrid primarily but tried to help out where I could (and where language barriers allowed- English was the second language of Norway and most folks knew the basics, but not everyone).

Zakarias took to teaching me how to lasso a reindeer and attach them to the sledges when they moved camp. I sucked at it, but those moments amongst him and his kin, caught up in the swirl of reindeer and colorful clothes, I started to think what life would be like if I threw all this mess away and got myself a quiet plot of land and simply lived and enjoyed living.

And then one night fireside, Zakarias had brought around an old radio and we'd caught the signal of some radio host discussing the Prince's upcoming nuptials.

While I could've stayed forever in the balanced peace of the herd's continual migration, the wedding date crept nearer and I was feeling better, but no more prepared than when I'd been wandering the woods alone. Wigs and decent makeup were impossible to come by on the windswept plateaus of Dovrefjell, and the herd wandered too far for a stop into a nearby town or village.

After a few additional days hemming and hawing in the older woman's company, watching her spin and learning a bit of needlework and pressing to her the urgency of leaving early, I finally told Sigrid I'd be leaving in the morning. She helped me pack and the next day Gull, Amy and I were off with refreshed spirits, a woven birch root basket of clothes, and a carefully plotted journey to Oslo. Zakarias had presented me with a scrimshaw antler knife to replace the one I'd lost to the wolves and a better pair of leather boots than the punctured shoes on my feet.

Those next few days and weeks scared the shit out of me- but they passed like every other day and week until I was beginning to grow comfortable with my solitary, meandering existence and the steady beat of Gull's hooves on the forest floor and the soft cuddles from a sleepy bear cub.

The roads of northern Norway stretched few and far between, but in the south they intersected at odd and numerous angles, which made skirting towns and village undetected nearly impossible. Blaring horns and raucous engines punctuated our journey through the dwindling spruce forest. On occasion, the metallic flash of a vehicle pushed through the woods-or footsteps- and we would push into denser vegetation.

I hadn't thought much of logistics in my weeks of recovery, but here on the outskirts of Oslo, I realized in a jolt of panic that somehow Amy and I would have to part ways.

But how does one tell an imprinted little cub that she can't follow you anymore? The cub went everywhere with me; she'd even taken to escorting me to pee. Oslo, with its dense population, lack of available food resources (for bears), not to mention more than a few Wanted posters if I were Queen Joronn, was simply not a place to walk about with an albino cub in tow.

Reaching modern civilization was both a wonder and a comfort for someone like me, but already I missed the eddying mountain air and hearty bellows of reindeer. These southern nights, dark but polluted with the dingy glow of cityscape, had lost its sense of purity.

Amy curled into my chest to sleep, stretching her paws a little too close to my face. She had lost-if she ever had it- the wild bear instinct. Born in a lab, raised by humans, taken on a journey with a clueless caretaker...The Sami had refused Amy for the opposite belief- she was a bear, and she would grow, and that instinct I feared she'd lost, they swore would return. The reindeer would run, and she would be triggered to pursue.

She was growing, but still a baby, still would have been with her mother another year or so. I couldn't just plop her onto the ground come dawn and send Gull into a sprint. Staying with the Engens hadn't stopped her last time. Who's to say she wouldn't follow me into a world of guns, cars, and other dangers? What's more, she was a scavengers from all I'd seen on our journeying, sniffing out corpses or dropped human food.

I turned the owl's band on my finger.

There was always the ranger station.

I could, would, change course and leave her there. Bang on the door until I knew I'd gotten the ranger's attention, then run. They'd take her. White fur, red eyes, lip tattoo...No doubt about it.

But would they return her to Svalbard?

Didn't matter.

Scientists would take better care of her than the city.

I spent the rest of my night composing a note on the backside corner of my map. If I dumped her without warning, it might take a few days, or hours, but the missing cub would trace back to the missing Allison Stevens. So I'd done my best to change my handwriting and mention how I as a hunter had taken the cub from a lost woman in the woods.

It was stupid, I thought, no matter what decision I made, but Amy had to go and I had to let her go safely.

According to my map, the National Parks border was about three miles west of our current location. As dawn lightened the shadows between trees, with the last lazy stars glimmering through sunbeams, we skidded down the final craggy slope and relaxed into flatter terrain. Somewhere nearby a tributary bled into the river, and it was here, in the shallows, that we would find our crossing.

Amy loped behind Gull and I, occasionally leaping up to swat at the mare's tail. As if too old for such nonsense, Gull would merely snort and flick her golden tail out of reach. Our first attempt at crossing, Gull's weight shifted, slipped in the frigid water- and so we turned away to find a safer location downstream. Reins bunched in hand, I reviewed our options. This creek joined with the river Lysakerelven near the station. From there, we'd reach the border of Oslo and Baerum, locate the stable Marc had mentioned, and get some much-needed sleep checking in under the Ohlsen last name.

We followed the creek from a comfortable twenty yards away, weaving around dense vegetation and boulders until the water level thinned to something easier to navigate. 

With an excited grunt, Amy darted forward past us.

Flies appeared about half a length before the smell. The cub kicked through the leaves and buzzing flies, zeroed in on what I glimpsed as the black blood nostrils of a rotting hare. The corpse sagged over a branch near the base of a scrubby tree.

Below, the morning sun edged the glimmer of dull steel.

"Shit!" I scrambled off Gull after her. My foot caught in the stirrup and I took an awkward fall into the moss. "Amy! No!"

She glanced over her shoulder just feet from the tree. Her paws, silted pale grey from runoff, shifted beside the rim of a jagged steel mountain range half-uncovered in the leaf litter. I snatched a rock, flung it at the damn trap to trigger it- but her front right paw came down first.

The stone pinged off her back as the jaws snapped around her leg.

She screamed, little ears pinned far back as they could, screamed and started to run, only to get wrenched against the ground two feet away by a bolted chain. Shrieking, the cub jerked violently backward until the chain pulled taut in the opposite direction and she stood facing me suspended, leg and trap lifted in the air, the other three limbs pulling desperately against the crushing teeth.

My heart broke into smaller and smaller pieces.

"Stay still," I pleaded, begged, sliding the final feet to scoop her in my arms and relieve the pressure from the taut chain. "Trust me."

But Amy had become an injured wild animal, and there was no understanding to be had. She thrashed and bit, gnawed at the sinister teeth engulfing her paw; took a chunk out of me when I impeded her frantic scuffle. My fingers failed in the whirlwind of blood and fear. She clawed, pulled, pushed, sometimes into the tree, sometimes against my chest, but nothing freed her from the rusty grasp.

The next time I glimpsed my hands they were slick with blood. Hers, mine, it didn't matter and I couldn't tell. Amy was chewing her paw off for freedom and we had been so close, so close to the ranger's station! If I could just leave her and rush there, if I could just loose the damn bolt from the earth! I dug around it, the cub, exhausted, finally slumped in my lap, panting and shivering,  eyes rolled back and throat conjuring up a most horrific whimper.

"You'll be okay." I brushed my fingers along her head and back, staining her fur in macabre stripes. Maybe by fastening the rein in such a way with zipties and something else Gull could drag the nail free.

The mare, however, was no where to be seen. Unlike Marc, I was a shitty whistler and couldn't make the right sound to call her.

Amy's chin rubbed against my knee.

"I'm sorry, but I need to get up," I told her, stroking her ear softly. "I promise I'll come right back, okay? Gull is going to save you. We just have to get this stake out of the ground and I can't do it alone. I-" 

Leaves crunched in the staccato rhythm of two sets of feet on higher ground than our route. A man with peppered black hair slapped the back of a younger version of himself. Each wore a rifle strapped to their shoulders. Another rabbit, this one still bleeding, dangled by one splayed leg from the son's gloved hand. Had they not been so engrossed in conversation, no doubt they'd have spotted us.

They had likely set the trap- but should I call out? Did I risk drawing attention to myself and her?

 Amy, perhaps sensing the rising tension and panic, renewed her fight, shredding the hem of my shirt in the process and wailing at the sudden rush of pain as her paw twisted.

The men stopped talking. I turned my head in time to see their rifles lowered to hip height. Sunlight played off the barrels. My breath caught. I saw Kasper then the polar bear, teeth centimeters from my throat. 

Amy quieted like she finally understood, turned her eyes onto mine in silence, silence that came too late. 

The son stopped moving to scream something at me, then fired off a warning shot that thunked into the tree. Bark exploded over us. I cringed, sending Amy into a new frenzy, and had to wrap my arms around her tight to keep her still, all the while shivering myself. I might have been able to confront a wolf and a startled herder, but not experienced hunters. The best I could do was ask if they spoke English.

In response, the young man tipped the barrel. A bullet pounded the dirt a few feet from my knee. Amy clawed loose over my shoulder and hit the ground in a twisted bray of pain. The breath caught in my throat. I felt faint, grabbed my knee on instinct ...but with a glance at Amy reached for her instead.

"You can't!" I said, turning my gaze onto the older man. I pulled the panicked cub into one arm and held her tight, leaving my other hand free to reach for the knife at my hip just out of the hunters' sight. "She's for the ranger's station."

The older man tipped his gun, said something about the bear, probably a suggestion to leave her.

I drew Amy closer. "I can't do that." 

Lifting the barrel and his hand, the man made eye contact, then slowly returned the weapon back against his shoulder. His son shook his head, slung his own rifle over his shoulder with an angry huff and stepped forward to rip Amy from my arms.

In a flash the knife bit into his upper arm. The son sprang away howling, slipped on a root and fell. The father cursed at his son, tossed him out of the way and stamped over to me before I could stand. He seemed almost apologetic on approach, then grabbed my shoulder and punched me. 

I came-to moments later flat on the ground, half my face a swelling numbness with the weight of someone's boot grinding against my tailbone. I spat blood and dirt, turned my head to come nose-to-snout with Amy. The cub licked my cheek, and then she was on three legs, clinking and screaming and snapping at the man with his foot on my back.

Out of the corner of my eye I watched the son stride into view, reach down into the leaves with his wounded arm and curl his fingers around the chain. He yanked hard. Amy tumbled over herself with a startled cry. He grabbed her by a hind leg, lifted her into the air as he'd carried the rabbit, and from my right accepted a club from his father. 

My cub's pained eyes turned toward me as he swung.