Bear Chieftan

Character: Bear
Key: Fash
App for: Island Cheiftan

Bear spent most of his years under the guidance of Wolf, his alpha and tribe leader learning the various techniques and ways of fighting from him. He had grown into a strong man by this time and sought more from life, more from the land. He enjoyed the company of the many around him, Kovu, Shark, even Tiger from time to time. But there was something more out there for Bear and he knew it. There were places that Bear had seen once, while swimming, places with sea creatures, water snakes, beautiful islands with fruit and coconuts to feed off of even the odd Banana.

All these foods seemed tasty to Bear, and though he thought often about his friends and family back in the forest and mountains, he rather liked it out by the water, listening to the waves crashing against the shore like music and the birds chiming in with serenity. He found peace there, solace. Bear had proven himself time and time again that he was indeed strong, maybe not as strong as Wolf or Tiger, but Bear was by far one of the strongest in the group. He never backed down from a challenge and always defended his honour justly. With that in mind he wondered about the characteristics of Wolf.

Was Wolf a great leader because he was the strongest? Of course it was a great aspect, along with food, shelter, warmth, protection and overall great teachings about the way of things. Without Wolf Bear would not have learned to hunt as well, and possibly could have died. It was then that Bear got a grand idea, what if he too could pass on these teachings? If he could show others how to hunt, feed them, clothe them, train them to be warriors that stood up for one another. Perhaps even one day he could hold fights between tribes for fun and make a game of it like the ping pong like game him and Shark were doing with snakes years ago.

Bear chuckled thinking of it, having his own tribe, his own family. It was almost like he was just going to help make Wolf's family larger, but it would be Bears, and he would do it his way. With the thought in mind he would leave his sheltered life from Wolf and the others to begin preparing shelter on the islands, lots of wood would be needed, lots of other things, and if he wanted to make things even better for himself and others out there, he would need fire. The one place he knew there was always fire was in the hut near the tribe.

Bear grabbed a large stick and lit it against the fire in the hut scurrying off to the islands not really thinking about how far it was. It was indeed an extreme distance to cover with one burning stick and as it burned down, Bear panicked setting a tree on fire to keep the flame lit. With a sinister smile he grabbed one of the lit branches and began to swim with only one arm, reaching one of the islands outward between the island he really wanted to be at to set up. Grabbing some bark from a tropical tree there he set it on fire and went back to shore to grab another branch from a tree that was not on fire, noticing the one he lit was out. He'd bring it back and set the new branch's tip aflame and begin swimming towards the larger island, finally getting there and securing fire for his tribe. His goal was now to keep it lit.

He thought about how to make the trip easier next time, thinking over ways to close the gap of water in between. After some hours of contemplation he built a large bridge from just logs and young branches, tying them off together first, then tying the bushels together afterwards until finally he had a perfectly fine log bridge reaching out to the island he would now call home. He had fire, a way there to bring more wood and other resources, now he had to build shelter. With his own two hands he had begun walking across the bridge with resources and setting up what walls he could with what knowledge he had. He had seen Tigers home and Wolfs, and thought about a combination of the two, there was more than enough food around to just be able to eat without even hunting, but furs were necessary cause Bear new it would get cold at night. The whole project ended up taking months to complete, but he finally had a small log hut that was sealed up with mud for warmth, fire for cooking, fruit for if he didn't feel like hunting or for those who couldn't because they were young, and soon, without knowing it for now, a way to build homes on water.