FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Hunting

* * *

Six Months Later

“Hey one and all, ParanormaLiam here. It's a little later than I promised, but we've got a very special collab episode here for you today, so please stick around. First and foremost, I have to offer my thanks. Two million subscribers! You folks are amazing.” Liam didn't need to play up his gratitude. Leaps and bounds didn't cut it, however stacked the odds of success were in his favour. “Likewise, more and more of you are picking up our 'Legendary Lady' merch, which is fuelling my ongoing quest to get absolutely peak footage of our elusive Lady Birna. Which brings me back to the topic of today's collaborative video.”

He tapped his phone's camera toggle and pointed it to another man who waved back.

Liam also gave a brief pan across the scenery beside the man, a deep and lush forest, with rays of sunshine pouring through the rustling leaves. “Probably needs no introduction, but all the same?”

“Sure,” the other man replied. “Gavin Vogel, also known as FoeSeeker88. Here to bring a little sense and sensibility to this 'Lady Birna' story. Namely by accompanying Liam here on his hunt for the supposed _'_cryptid' to work out exactly what it is.”

“The guy believes it's an escaped zoo animal, isn't that right. Gav?”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “It'd be more interesting than some camera trickery and a costume with the supposed size of whatever it is. Plus I'll at least give you some credit if you're not just another special effects abuser.”

“Despite the lack of artifacting in the footage.”

“You do have GrimGremlin editing your videos and, last time I checked, she's college certified in that field. It's better than most have-a-go ghost-hunters pretending dirt flying by the camera is evidence of orbs.”

Liam toggled the camera again and shrugged for the camera. “Bernie's good at what she does, true, but you'll soon see. Just keep near me, Gav. I've got a rapport with Lady Birna, but you? I almost made you sign a waiver in case she takes issue and straight up eats you.”

Gavin sniffed and waved his hand, dismissive. “Unless you happen to be a cannibal or, again, we're actually chasing a wild animal, I doubt anyone's going to be eating anybody else today. Now, if nothing else happens today I'm looking forward to at least getting some scenic recordings of the Forest of Dean. Shall we?”

“That we shall.” Liam smiled for the audience. “Let's go find our lady!” He closed the recording app and took up a much fancier digital camera on a steadying limb. A few button pushes and Liam began doing some sweeping shots of the dense, lush forest at midday for scene setting. He then felt for his earbud, tapping the mic before sending a quick text.

'You hearing me good on your end?'

Moments later, he felt his phone vibrate.

'Loud and clear. How's knob-head? Suitably sceptical?'

'Looking good. Should be at the spot in a few.'

'Alright. I'll go get 'comfortable.' Have fun and see you soon.'

“You done?” Gavin asked. “Can you not faun over your girlfriend for five minutes so we can get moving?” Gavin continued ahead before Liam pocketed his phone and caught up, though Gavin gave him a sideways glare. “I'm just glad you dropped the sob-story stuff about her supposed illness. Bit of a low-brow attempt at free clicks if you ask me.”

Liam didn't give an inch, and merely smiled back. “Call it what you want, Gav, but her recovery? Proper miracle. Got the scans, screenings, biopsies and doctor's letters to prove it.” His smile slipped as he stared daggers into the sceptic's head. It wasn't wholly intentional as he tried to keep his friendly front together.

Gavin noticed and his inherent smugness faltered a bit. “Genuine or not, it's still a bit of a scummy tactic.”

“I was just being transparent, in case Bernie took a turn for the worst. Was I wrong to do that?” Liam expected another rebuke, but Gavin kept quiet. Smelling blood in the water of morals, he struck. “I get you're all famous about being shooting down hoaxers and bullshitters, but pick your battles, mate. You can call my word and my videos into question all you want, and I'll defend them and debate what you think's wrong with them, but leave my girlfriend out of it or Lady Birna will be the least of your worries.”

Gavin gulped, cleared his throat, then replied, “as you said, calling out frauds is what I do, but fine. That was insensitive of me.”

Liam a short-sharp exhale through the nose. “So, not sorry about making the claim, just a nod that you got called out. Gotcha. Classy. Right on the back of delaying this collab a week and even making us start late.”

The silence sank in as they got their respective footage, while Liam guided them to the site he and Bernie had picked. Nice and deep, away from the main rambling routes. Liam caught himself smirking, and not just from his enjoyment of the day, but the duality of how right and how wrong Gavin had been. Serendipity in fine form.

A distant rumble. Too short and sharp to be thunder, let alone from the cloudless skies above. The game had begun.

Putting on a veneer of concern, Liam asked, “you hear that?”

“Huh?”

They stopped and turned their ears to the air. Another, clearer grumble sounded. Feral, yet intentional. “She's here,” Liam whispered.

“Could be a dog.”

Liam laughed, even breaking his false concern. “Don't be a berk, Gav. You and I both know that's no dog. That's Lady Birna. I recognise her voice anywhere.” He intentionally started scanning the area he knew Bernie would be, but quickly losing focus to check elsewhere, allowing the discovery to fall to his companion.

Gavin scrutinised the locale, a raised bank on the side of the footpath, and Liam saw him freeze up in the corner of his vision. “The fuck?” Gavin crooked his neck, bobbing his head side to side like a snake measuring up its prey. “Damn it, it's backed away.”

“What?” Liam moved beside Gavin. “What is it?”

“It's... hard to say, but I think it's wearing a bra?”

“Oh, that? Yeah, I think she wears some crude garments these days. Probably made them herself. It's been hard to get some solid footage with much detail so I sometimes wondered if it was mud or some sort of body-paint, but she's one elusive girl. Now get your camera ready. We might be in luck.”

They both trained their viewfinders on the hillock and climbed up as quickly as they dared. They reached the top, but their subject had moved on, but Gavin spotted what they planned for him to see.

“Footprints,” he whispered, took another moment to glance around, then crouched down to take a closer look. “Or... paw prints?”

“Strange, right?” Liam scanned the area, well familiar with the traces of his girlfriend at play. “Somewhere in the middle. Neither beast nor woman.”

Gavin tutted. “Or just wearing special boots. Come on, it can't have gone far.”

Liam watched Gavin head up the slope, then tapped his headset mic three times before following at a short distance. On command, Bernie let out a low roar from her hiding spot. A pang of nerves made Liam's stomach knot, which helped his reaction seem honest as Gavin stopped dead and glanced at him. They weren't nerves from the sound, because this was all choreographed so far, but now it was all free-flow. A risk of Bernie's creation against Gavin's pending reaction. He had to trust her.

Gavin walked ahead, now less concerned of a wild animal from what he'd seen. Liam wasn't the smartest man, but he knew how to measure people, and he knew Gavin's type from the sceptic's own channel, though their brief meeting so far cemented that. The guy was incredibly smart and well versed in the usual scams, special effects and misdirection the vast majority of which 'supernatural' videos consisted. No doubt at this moment he put the 'dressed bear' down as a hoax, with the feral rumblings some sort of recording. He might have even detected Liam's deceit, and was no doubt bolstered into uncovering a hoax.

Liam dragged his feet, fiddling with his camera to put space between himself and Gavin, then getting a shot of the man heading towards a steeper drop farther along.

Then it happened. A huge, pale figure leapt up from the ridge. Bernie seemed to resist gravity as a ton of weight, piled into a body with unnatural strength, reached the apex of her huge vertical leap. Gavin dived for cover as she landed with enough force to crack the dry earth beneath her feet.

It's not every day a guy gets to say he feared for his life when encountering his lover, but when she's this big, covered in woad-style painted Nordic runes and a crude, handmade loincloth and chest cover, bellowing in a half-feral state so loud, Liam felt his heart skip a beat.

Bernie gave her best death glare towards Liam, screaming, “ leave ,” with enough animalistic tone to distort the word.

Liam cussed and stumbled back. While no professional actor, he worked on camera enough to know how to add an earnest sheen to his reaction, spinning occasionally to watch for pursuit and catching Gavin scramble to his feet and scarper. Liam gasped and panted for breath as he retreated before turning and focusing on Bernie just in time to see her give chase after Gavin, who fled full pelt into the thick of the forest. Liam ran along the embankment before climbing again, he caught the sight of his rival and companion being chased by his girlfriend into the thick of the woods.

“Oh shit...” Liam paused the recording, chuckled darkly, and moved to pursue, albeit at a leisurely pace. It was time to let Bernie do her thing.

* * *

Liberation. That's what this was. Bernadette Saoirse Fothergill in her most superlative form. Ten feet, two inches tall (three and a half, ears included). Two thousand, three hundred pounds of gigantic muscle and fat padded werebear. Almost always constrained, forced into that old human form to fit in or having to act as if living in a world made from paper mâché when relaxing at home in her true ursine shape. She lived for moments like this, but she had to remember there was a purpose to all this. To a hope to have this freedom long-term.

If it meant scaring the shit out of one of Liam's biggest detractors then so be it. Did she mean Gavin any real harm? No. Well, maybe a little. He had said some pretty acerbic things about her and Liam's work ever since their fame began to escalate a few months ago. Besides, if Bernie really wanted to hurt Gavin, she could have thrown him through a tree ages ago. Or just stepped on him. Gavin's little legs beat a furious rhythm, whereas she was just enjoying a light jog yet kept pace with ease. The feel of grass at her thickly padded feet, wind bristling against her fur. The sense of all the 'woman' about her, all the curves, bouncing yet they felt light despite the obvious heft. Her muscles pumping and able to unleash at least some of their potential.

With the footpath long behind them, Bernie had let this game of cat and mouse go on long enough. She dropped to all fours, an ambling quadrupedal sprint as natural as breathing for her bearish form, and rushed at him. She grazed against Gavin with her shoulder, sending him in a sprawl to the ground while she shoved her arms against the ground, shoving herself upright and arresting most of her speed, though she still skidded a few feet before stopping. She screamed skyward as she turned, a coarse mix of furious ursine and raging human that echoed and bounced through the forest. Not sure what else to add to intimidate Gavin, Bernie spotted and latched her hands onto a broad tree trunk jutting out of the ground, as big as her torso, and started pulling. She immediately regretted it.

It didn't budge, even to her brawn. Bernie saw Gavin staring in horror and realised if she blundered this and gave him a chance to lose that fear, it could hurt the plan. She could also see his camera had fallen from his hands a short distance away, still recording, and almost certainly catching her antics. Bernie doubled down on her show of strength as she threw her full power behind pulling the stump. Supernatural strength was one thing, but the top end of her power had shortcomings.

Bernie felt her back twinge and her muscles burn, but she also felt the earth shift beneath her feet. The movement made her become desperate in her strain, screaming bloody murder as she hefted and heaved before, with an explosion of dirt and mud, she pulled the trunk free, actually several times longer and heavier than she expected. Her mind spun as she realised how much she had unearthed.

Bernie had done some math about her strength. Superhuman definitely, or at least super-bear-woman. She weighed a metric ton of weight, yet was able to lift three times that comfortably if she tried hard, like the digger that blocked their escape all those months ago at the barrow. But when emotions ran high, she could dig much deeper into her werebear nature. Her upper limit was still a mystery, and it didn't make sense, but it was magic. It wasn't meant to.

One harsh reality of Bernie's unnatural strength verses her natural weight found its way in as she felt the trunk start to teeter to the side, pulling her with it. She tried to hold it upright, but her back crunched and a painful wracking ran up her back, eliciting a deep snarl as something in her spine gave way. Feeling through her legs numbed and she had no choice but to let the massive lump of wood fall to the side with a ground-trembling thud. Thankfully, her supernatural regeneration popped her spinal column back into place with a dull, visceral click as vertebra and mended nerves in moments as the dust settled from the impact of the trunk.

Still needing to completely frighten Gavin, Bernie slammed her arms down on the ancient, dense tree in a hammer blow. The wood splintered in a shower of debris, splitting in half, but so did her forearm. Another spike of sharp agony shot through Bernie and she bellowed again, somehow bemused at it being the same one she broke when she first transformed, only for relief to sink in as her bones re-knitted together. Stimulated with the raw yet recovering pain from two would-be crippling injuries, her eyes flared blue as she snapped her eyes onto her prey.

Bernie stomped over to Gavin, snarling at him with teeth bared. As she took a sharp inhale she almost threw up at the scent of her quarry as she noticed the wet, brown stain between his legs. The distinct sensory bombardment of someone who had soiled himself.

Pushing through her revulsion, Bernie glanced to the side at his camera again, to make sure it was still running and capturing at least some of the chaotic encounter. There was no certainty, but it looked right, so she decided not to drag this out longer than needed. Bernie reached down and grabbed Gavin by his outstretched, shielding arm and lifted him without any effort. He yelped from the combined shock and pain, gibbering in panic until she roared full force into his face. The man froze as much as he could, even as his legs dangled helplessly below.

He whimpered, “p- please! No!”

Bernie snorted in his face, letting a low rumble rattle from her throat as she looked at him up close. “_ Argr _ prey ,” she rumbled, letting her natural voice shine with its depth. “_ Fara! _ Leave _ ! _” She dropped Gavin callously, knowing the grass would cushion his fall, and stomped off, running her hand and dragging her claws on trees as she passed by for dramatic effect, shredding bark and gouging trunks, before building to a jog.

Confident she was out of sight, she circled around to a stream, swam through to clear off the paint on her fur and waded up to a quiet copse with a well hidden divot, and a stowed bag of supplies. With a practised 'collapse' of her form, Bernie shrank and contracted, becoming smaller. Less than her true self, but a necessary human 'disguise' in this case.

Even back in her classic shape, Bernie didn't care about her nakedness she casually washed herself of any remaining dirt and woad paint that still clung to her, dried and got dressed. She stuffed her Lady Birna outfit in the bag, chuckling to herself how heavy the damned outfit was now when it felt feather-light as her true form was and, confined in the old-self once more, headed for her meeting spot with Liam.

* * *

Liam watched Gavin's camera footage as the owner himself went and cleaned himself up in a public toilet. A lot of guys were a little afraid of their girlfriends, but Bernie really gave it her all when she wanted to be scary. It was an act, sure. It was also all according to her plans to make their channel skyrocket to fame, either to earn enough cash to buy themselves a nice, isolated home in which Bernie could live out her days in her preferred form or, at the very least, 'normalise' it to the public in case she was ever exposed. And then cash in a whole other way.

Either way, through fame or infamy, Bernie was determined to live her best life and planned to use every tool and scheme to get there. No different than back at the barrow, where said she was giving her all to push Liam to a better future, but now she had a place in it as well. They could now push each other up, a shared dream. That and, as he watched Bernie's partially off-screen antics by threatening Gavin, he couldn't help but grin. Bernie was a menace, though largely a benign one, and God help whoever tried to stop her.

Gavin finally emerged from the public toilets. The man was smart enough to bring a change of clothes in case the rambling got them torn and dirty, or a traditional sudden summer storm rolled through and soaked them but despite being presentable once more, the erstwhile critic looked completely convinced of his encounter as he checked the treeline over and over. Gavin mumbled, “h-has she come back at all? I s-swear I heard her growling when I was in there.”

“Oh, it was probably her roars playing from this,” Liam replied and handed him back his camera. “I was just going over your recording. You got some great shots, all things considered.”

Gavin's trembling fingers pawed over the camera before he put it back in its case. It took him six attempts before it slotted in flush. “I... I can't believe she's real.”

“Told you she was, you berk. I've been tracking her- well, she's been 'luring' me ever since the Dorset barrow. I guess I must have had her spirit latch on me ever since, and maybe I'm compelled to go where she lingers?”

“That ain't no fucking ghost, you twat,” Gavin snapped, fearful trembling amplified by anger. “It's a fucking... f- fucking science experiment or- or something!”

“You're shaken up, so I'll let that pass,” Liam said and shrugged. He then squared up to Gavin, his broader frame and athletic physique making the once smarmy keyboard warrior look especially small, and slapped a hand on Gavin's shoulder. Liam's fingers dug in as he said, “but I'm gonna tell you straight, and you listen fucking good, you're gonna upload that footage straight and true. No dismissive bullshit, no 'oh, it was just a hoax so I deleted it all', fuckery. You know I invited you out here to boost my channel, and you accepted to try and squash mine. You lost this little spat.

“But you also get something from this. I mean, you saw Lady Birna. Fuck, you got fucking grabbed by her after she pulled a tree twice as long and almost as wide as my fucking van out the ground. So just tell the truth, top-and-tail the video with whatever you want to, but I want that whole clip up for all to see on your channel. I'll even send my viewers your way to watch it. It's win-win.”

“You don't get to tell me what to do,” Gavin said, trying to size Liam up. He tried to shrug Liam's hand off, but failed. Even so, he sucked in a breath to continue the argument.

A high voice suddenly called out, “you boys playing nice?”

Both men backed away from one another and looked as Bernie skipped up, stood beside and put an arm around Liam's waist. “Heard we got some more footage of our bear?”

Liam held her back. “Yep. I caught a good shot, but our guest here got an actual close encounter with the lady.”

Bernie gasped in awe. “Sweet! An actual, factual bear witness! Absolutely golden. Don't show me though yet, Gav. I want to see your video in its entirety when you upload it with all your usual bells and whistles. I bet it'll be great.”

Gavin went to argue, then tried to play things cool with shake of his head. “Sure... look, I'm going to go, okay? I'm exhausted.”

Liam kept glaring at him. “Sure. Real good working with you.” He watched as Gavin headed to the car park. Once well out of earshot, Liam leaned down to Bernie and said, “absolute twat. I bet you a fiver he won't upload it.”

“That's fine. It's entirely up to him if he wants to keep being an arsehole.” Bernie sighed and rolled her neck. “It'll either boost our channel or instigate a some online drama. Either fame or infamy, with Gavin's fans or his detractors, of which there are plenty, will flock to us when we show our footage. Then we'll be one step closer to fulfilling the plan.”

“You sound like an evil genius,” Liam chuckled.

“Maybe I could go full supervillain?” Bernie flexed her not-currently-existent muscles. “Lady Birna, the super genius werebear with superhuman strength and regeneration powers. And an amazing arse.”

“And that'd make me, what? Your cohort?”

“Nah, my sex slave,” she replied with a wink. “You'd look good in a loincloth and drizzled in baby oil. But seriously, I just want to get us to a place where we're stable, safe, mostly self sufficient and can live the life we want.”

“I'd sooner you not keep hurting yourself though,” Liam muttered.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I know when you get hurt as a bear, you know. I saw and heard it on Gavin's footage. I know you regenerate, but please stop pushing yourself like that.”

Bernie rolled her eyes. “It was an accident. I didn't realise it was a whole felled tree buried in the ground and I didn't want to look like an idiot on camera. It would have made the impact less... well, impactful.”

“So long as that's what it was. An accident. I know you're still a little gung-ho about this but still.” Liam sighed and dropped the issue and gave her a squeeze. “Guess I'd be lying if I said I didn't love how quickly we've moved forward, but part of me wishes we could have seen how things would have panned out before everything changed, to see if we had the right stuff to begin with. And I mean everything from your illness to the 'cure'. Just you and me, some cameras and a lot of hard graft.”

“Things changed, sure, but they were meant to change,” Bernie said and took Liam's hands, giving them a squeeze. “Nothing's out of place. I was given a gift and we're using it to give ourselves our best lives a little quicker than a regular couple could.”

They smiled at each other and Liam rubbed his thumbs in her palms. How soft and dainty they felt compared to her 'true' self. Liam said, “Everything else can be great or shit or something in between, so long as I get to experience it with you, I guess it doesn't matter.” Bernie threw herself into Liam's arms. Again, the novelty of holding her as a human for once played on Liam's mind, but he knew how utilitarian and restrictive she found this form. It made the mundane feel exotic, and the nights they had spent with her as a werebear feel natural as a result.

Bernie sighed and pulled herself away from the embrace. “Let's get out of here. It's a long drive back home, especially during rush hour. I don't know if I'll be able to keep 'bottled up' the whole way, but we've got to get home tonight or ma will do a flip.”

Liam checked the time on his phone and winced. “True. It'll probably be a good few. Not to mention tonight... I can't believe Gavin managed to delay recording until the bloody full moon.” Liam led the way back towards the car park. “It's still fun working out all the weird stuff about your 'condition.' You know, what's true, what's nonsense and such.”

They started walking the same way as Gavin, where their van was parked. Bernie said, “I still say we should try the silver thing a bit more vigorously.”

“Uh, no. Sorry, Bernie, but 'stabbing my girlfriend with a big silver knife' doesn't exactly rank highly on my list of priorities.”

“Better you than some weirdo who thinks he's an undead hunter or some shit. We've gotta know this stuff! It probably won't do anything, like spreading my 'ailment.' I mean, I think if I was going to infect you, you'd have been big and furry ages ago.”

Liam felt his shoulder. It was still healing. The full moon made her... quirky, including the days preceding and following. “Not that I mind the occasional love-bite or clawing, but the full moon struggle is still a problem. We got lucky it was a new moon when you first changed.”

“And I promise I'll try and resist for as long as possible tonight. Never know when I'll need to stay human in an emergency. On top of my other boring human stuff.”

Liam chuckled. “Jury's still out if we can get a giant keyboard and mouse or turn a wide-screen TV into a touchscreen device for your editing. They'll need to be claw-proof, heavy duty and such.”

“Eh, I'm not that finicky about needing to be in bear form all the time. I certainly don't mind being human for a little while to work on the channel and mingle with folks.”

“Well, if it ever gets too frustrating and we need a change of revenue, I've already lined up some ideas.”

Bernie raised an eyebrow. “Oh, this will be good. You, thinking?”

“Sure, I can make some good ideas once in a while!” Liam braced for her reaction. “You could become the new spokesperson for those glacier mints.”

Bernie stopped, stared, then rolled her eyes and continued on.

Fighting back the urge to laugh, Liam added, “or what about those iced gem biscuits? No? How about cola?”

She giggled under her breath, gently slapped him on the arm before pulling herself against him as they reached the forest park entrance. Gavin's car was already gone, though that was hardly surprising. Liam's newer, bigger and sturdier van awaited them as they climbed in and began the drive home. It was early evening and what would usually be a two and a half hour drive, but roadworks and the rush-hour traffic was looking to double the travel time. That put them squarely in line with nightfall by the time they reached Southampton.

Of all the details being proven or disproven about Bernie's ursanthropy, the moon was a big factor, but it wasn't as straightforward as only during a full event. Just being nighttime made her uncomfortable in human form, but it also tied in with a general 'need' to be in her now-natural bear guise. The longer she wasn't in bear form, the harder it became to resist changing, and the closer to a full moon, that effect was amplified. She described the feeling of the full moon as somewhere between a sugar-rush and one time one of her cancer treatments almost stopped her heart and she was jabbed with adrenaline. And strong arousal.

Not a fine science, but they could at least feel it out with each other, pun intended.

The fact Gavin's eclectic schedule forced them to record on the day of a full moon plus the fact he was late meant the perfect storm. Liam knew Bernie was going to transform tonight, during the drive home. It was inevitable. The van was stronger, yes, but driving when Bernie was actively changing was distracting and played havoc with keeping control of the vehicle.

Bernie took out her phone and tapped away, checking their video channel. She huffed and hummed to herself for a moment before tutting. “Already got detractors from Gavin's channel mass-shitposting all out vids. Usual vitriol. Also got some regulars being helpful with some extra details about the Dorset Barrow, though a lot of it's the hearsay, some stuff I found but didn't add in the OG video.” She scrolled a bit lower down on the comments. “Also some odds and ends about other werebeasts and such. Of course most of it is variants on the usual werewolf lore.”

Liam nodded as he kept his eyes on the increasingly busy roads, though couldn't help but think of the original mystery: how Bernie actually became a werebear to start with. The contract 'signed' with her blood, the pricking of Bernie's finger on the tooth necklace to cause that bleed, the disturbance of the burial of the previous werebear to collect that necklace all held a nugget of truth.

Prompted by the thought, Liam asked, “did you ever figure out the ins and outs of your previous werebear? Skage, was it?”

“Not a lot,” Bernie replied, now glancing around at the slow moving traffic. “I had a few commenters drag up some titbits tied to things I'd dug up. Basically, if I'm being charitable, we already knew Skage accepted the village wise-woman Gunnbj?rg's deal to protect the people. She presumably wanted to help anyway, but she had a number of her mentor's talismans with no real idea of how powerful they were. It also seems the bear totem of her former tribe favours those on death's door yet insist on fighting on. As in the worse the situation of the recipient, the stronger the blessing-slash-curse.”

“Then be charitable. That sounds pretty accurate and I feel like we owe Skage and Gunnbj?rg for your life. Though it's still especially funny how you fit the description to a T. Not the same type of fighting, but bugger me if you weren't going through hell all the same.”

“Some coincidence, huh?” Bernie closed her eyes and bobbed her head along as she continued to speak. “So anyway, Skage signs the contract, or pricks his finger on some previous bear totem, or handles whatever prior remains there were of the werebear before him. Or all three. Either way, all I know is that he definitely brutalised the invaders to his village. Only problem is he saw himself as a monster, fled after the battle and somehow found a way to take his own life, at least according to Gunnbj?rg. I guess it's more mind-blowing when you don't get exposed to werewolves, vampires and other stuff in the media. Kinda softens the blow.”

“The way he took his own life... that's why I'm worried about using silver on you. That could be exactly how he took his own life. You seem practically invincible, but like your escapades with Gavin, 'practically' holds a lot fine-print. But whatever. Let's not drag that back up right now.” Liam sighed. “Still, funny what a thousand years of storytelling can do. It makes the weird so typical, even if it isn't true. Like, imagine if aliens came down tomorrow? People would be shitting themselves like it was the end of days a few hundred years ago, now I think we'd take it in stride, either make peace or war, and treat them like we treat most other people these days. Hell, if nothing else, it's reinforced everything I've believed in.”

Bernie giggled and gave Liam a sideways glance. “And your taste for furry women.”

Liam then snorted down a chuckle. “... guilty as charged, but you knew that anyway.”

“Big ones too apparently.”

“That's...” Liam hummed and hawed for a moment. “Let's call it a recent development. Not that I've ever been against a bigger girl, and none come bigger than you, but it's just you, Bernie.” He dared a quick look across to her in spite of the packed motorway. “Everything you are and ever will be is all I've wanted ever since we met. You pulled me from my worst, life's offered you the chance to do the same. Fated shit, you know.”

Bernie blushed softly, her cheeks growing closer to the shade of her coppery red hair, but she also turned quiet as they listened to the background noise of the radio as they slowly made the crawl home. The bright blue skies began to fade to a gentle azure as the sun beat sideways across the south-bound road with a potent golden haze. The green fields of the south of England splayed outward from the strip of congested grey to give a pleasant backdrop if Liam were allowed to watch it, but the dozens of other vehicles were too frantic and aggressive in trying to steal one more position ahead of the traffic jam.

Liam couldn't help but internally chuckle. Magic was real. His girlfriend was a werebear, whose regenerative powers squashed her cancer into tiny benign masses not worth excising. She had won once-impossible survival odds. They were abusing her powers for fame and eventual financial stability with further plans to explore more untouched corners of the world for more potential magic. And yet here they were, stuck in traffic as if life was as normal as could be.

Bernie fidgeted a few times, frequently enough that Liam glanced at her again. “Already?”

“Yeah,” she muttered and rubbed her forearms. “You'd think I'd be getting used to it by now, but no. Like an itch under the skin and a feeling like there's more of me crammed inside something too small. It's nothing I can't handle. I should be good for now. That being said, how long until we're back home?”

Liam shook his head. “Another hour and a half. We could always spend the night in the van if you're worried about getting caught.”

“Tempting, but nah. I could just hide in the back.”

“After last time, just let me know when you can't hold it back any longer and plan to change. The van suddenly gaining a ton of weight is hard to manage when we're moving at speed. I could find a service station and a dark corner before we set off.”

Bernie cackled. “Fine, fine. You should have known when we got into a relationship how things'd go down: you date a skinny slip of a girl, only once involved she suddenly puts on a bunch of weight, stop shaving and get all hairy...”

“And start pushing me around,” Liam added. “Which, when you can literally lift your bodyweight a few times over, makes it pretty easy.”

“I do not push you around,” she said with a pout.

“Well, less pushing than... y'know, picking me up like, or resting your boobs on my head out of nowhere. You realise you could give me a concussion with those things?”

Bernie pointedly adjusted her bra and gave a coy smile. “These little ol' things?”

“Sure, they're a... b-cup or something, right? The B also stands for 'boulders' depending on what you are at the time.”

“What can I say? Massive things come in small packages these days, and the real me is infinitely hotter than the old me.”

Liam wanted to give the equally truthful and supportive 'love you however you look' line, but no matter how far Bernie had progressed from her terminal stage, she never really ever reconnect with her old sense of self. He kept trying, if only to help her self-image, but he knew it was an uphill struggle.

It was such well-trodden ground at this point that Bernie sighed. “Sorry. I know. I shouldn't keep doing that.”

“It's fine. Honestly. Just so long as you never forget that it never mattered what form you took. Whether you're human, or on death's door, or a bear wasn't important. Only you did. You always mattered. That you're still here is the greatest blessing I could have asked for.”

“That goes for you too, himbo,” Bernie said, leaning across and giving him a kiss on the cheek. “Rich or poor, I'm not going anywhere without you.”

The conversation waned from the heart up to the head as Bernie settled back into checking her phone for their video channel, occasionally commenting on view numbers on their videos, comments and such. None of it was especially groundbreaking. They were good numbers, growing by the day as people scoured his backlog of urban crawls, but people these days were all about Lady Birna.

The original video had hit five million views some time ago and was even was mentioned on TV, but bigger, more prominent detractors like Gavin 'proving' the videos fake stalled their momentum. True, the Lady Birna sightings were intentionally vague in that 'Bigfoot in the woods on potato camera' style of mystery. Likewise Bernie let her natural voice werebear voice shine, the contralto so far away from her usual higher pitch, but she also let a lot of an ursine element bleed in when performing for the camera. The combination even sounded like something from TV or a movie since nothing quite like it existed elsewhere.

It was all by design, and certainly didn't bother Bernie like it did Liam. She even told him to expect this, that people accepted the mundane over anything strange or unexplained. People like Gavin thrived on it, as it made debunking unnatural videos all the easier. Being a believer for the longest time, Liam always felt at odds with this, but he had to trust Bernie knew what she was doing.

It was hard to argue with the results, either. People were intrigued by the sudden appearance of a polar bear roaming the British countryside, and the gradual reveal of her sentience and more humanoid traits. Debates, fans, detractors all promoted engagement. Online drama and rivalries besides, these days the ParanormaLiam channel was making an easy grand a week on merchandise sales and ad-revenue, with most of it reinvested in the channel's needs and the rest used to refloat Bernie's life after her career was stalled from her illness.

Shooting down Gavin or having him boost the channel was revenge or redemption, but it was a milestone nonetheless. Liam was getting the fame he wanted, Bernie was just relishing every since cheating death and feeling utterly invincible all the while.

But like the mundane traffic slapping them both down from the fantasy life, the supernatural was rearing its head again as Bernie pinched the bridge of her nose. She winced, baring her teeth for a few seconds, glistening and half illuminated as much by her phone screen as the dusk outside. A telltale glow was beyond the treeline of the oncoming full moon.

Liam knew the signs and asked a familiar question. “Scale of one to ten?”

“Seven.” She grunted and spasmed. Liam couldn't help but look across to her and he swore a ripple of dark rolled over her skin before returning to her natural fair pigment, a prelude to the transformation. “Okay, eight. I'm trying, honest, but fuck me I feel like an overinflated balloon here.”

“We got a stop coming up. Last service station. You good until then?”

“I mean, I'll try?” Bernie took some long, deep breaths, but a grin forced its way to the surface. Darker than her usual mirth. “Emphasis on the 'fuck me' though...”

Liam glanced again. Despite the obvious stress and struggle, there was a need in her eyes. Bottling the change up had that effect, but that usually took a day or two. This was the full moon taking hold. “I'm not averse to dogging it out here, but I doubt a petrol station's the right spot for a romantic-”

“Hah! N- no,” Bernie stammered, strained and her voice with a drop of that telltale feral undertone, an abnormal bass dragging her voice down an octave. “No romance... just really fucking horny.” She snapped back a little with clarity, the vocal tinge fading as a sheepish worry crossed her features. “Not 'no romance' in a bad way... shit, you know what I mean, right?”

He nodded, sympathetic that she was in a weird head-space. “Yeah. Hold on. I swear we're almost there.” He put his foot down on the accelerator and began to actively weave through the thinning traffic. To most it would just appear like typical van-man driving, but better speeding than slowing for a safe change for his treasured cargo and having someone else not paying attention to the road plough into the back of the van. Even the hard shoulder would be a high risk of a patrolling road-recovery crew appearing.

Another agonising mile passed and Liam was forced to keep his eyes on the road, but he heard Bernie's struggle. The slowly developing rasp of her breathing and the sudden hitches. The half-mile sign for the service station was in the distance, then a row of trees thinned out... revealing the looming full moon.

Bernie loosed a shuddering gasp and, even over the sound of the engine, Liam could hear subtle creaking and popping as her bones began to adjust. She unclipped her seatbelt to the protest of the car's safety sensors and her skin was growing darker by the second. Bernie glared at him, her eyes flickering and pulsing with a low blue light. “C-can't... fff-fuck. Fuck!” She clambered between the seats and into the back, followed by a loud, almost laboured moan and torn fabric as Liam dropped his speed and verged back over to the outside lane just as he felt the shift.

The extra drag, the subtle drop of the van's travel as the suspension became burdened by the rapid onset of hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of werebear mass. A second, more relieved crooning, deepening an octave every half-second filled the cabin, but the van began to rapidly struggle with the growing mass in the back, and trying to slow down with the dense traffic was going to be a struggle without causing an accident.

Liam remained quiet as he tried to keep the van under control. The service station was still out of view but opportunity knocked in the form of a small side-road, likely a farm path. Secluded and dark, he pulled onto the hard shoulder, let his speed bleed off, then turned in coming to a stop a few dozen feet down the path, neatly out of view from the road.

He turned off the lights and engine. “Bernie? You good back there?”

An eerie silence. No, not a silence... a low, slow and deep breathing.

Liam felt the hackles on his neck rise. “You're freaking me out here, Bernie.”

He unclasped his own seatbelt but, before he could turn, a sudden touch. Bernie's huge hands grabbed his shoulders, claws digging in. He flinched, but knew not to struggle.

Her big, furred head emerged from the darkness in his rear view mirror, her eyes glowing bright blue in the dim light of the full moon, lidded with lust. Her muzzle dripping with saliva as she licked her lips. “Oh... I'm good,” she growled. “About to be much... fucking... better.”

He could have asked for her to go easy, tried to balance the coming event, but he knew. He was entirely hers. “I love you.”

Some lucidity broke through the lunacy as she softened her voice. “Love you too, himbo... now, hush.” Then the rumble returned. “Let me get all predatory on your cute little arse.”

With a final tug, Liam vanished into the dark, and another adventure. One of many more to come.

End