How Did I Go To the Beast World in My Pajamas?

Chapter 27: Bub the Bear Cub

When St. Benjamin returned with the prey he'd killed for that night's dinner, he was treated to the same sight that Spencer had enjoyed earlier. While he envied the bear cub the happiness he had never felt as a young scorpion, the emotion mirrored on Samantha's face was enough to soothe his jealousy. If Samantha said she had no romantic intentions toward the cub, that was good enough for St. Benjamin. He tossed half of his kills to Spencer to begin preparing, and the males worked together to cook the meat more quickly for the female who had brought this unlikely team together. "Where did you find a female like her?" St. Benjamin asked the fox, not really expecting a reply. Spencer looked uneasy and concentrated harder on his work, separating the various bloody parts of each prey he speared for roasting, knowing Samantha would want to use every part of it that she could. Among all the other unique things that made her her, an unwillingness to create waste of any kind was a trait that he was beginning to respect. The scorpion hadn't finished his musings in spite of Spencer's attempts at distraction, adding, "She talks about 'this world' and how different it is from wherever she came from, and it makes me wonder if someday, she'll want to go back to that place."

Samantha, who had strayed from the campfire to take the baby bear to answer nature's call as far away from their food as possible, poked her head between the two males. "If you have something you want to ask me," she said loudly, hoping to startle the beastmen and discourage them from their current topic of discussion, "feel free to ask me to my face instead of speculating over here unproductively. But to answer your question, even if I could return, which I can't, as far as I know, I wouldn't. There's nothing good waiting for me there. No tribe, no race, nothing. I'm better off without them, and they're better off without me." The bear cub, who realized there was an actual feast in front of his face, began to squirm in Samantha's arms, trying to reach the raw meat that was making his tummy rumble. "Do you mind if I grab a little bit of this to feed him with?" she asked sheepishly, her moment of declaring her proud separation from Earth having ended prematurely and ignominiously. Before she knew it, she was headed back to the campfire with a huge leaf full of raw, minced meats sampled from each prey Benji had thoughtfully selected for her.

"Hey, bub! Let's wait until I've sat down, okay?" Samantha chided the bear, who had gotten a mouthful of air while Samantha tried to get in a comfortable position to feed him. She didn't know how long it had been since he'd had food, and she didn't want this of all things to come up if he ate it too fast. "Here we go," she said in the cheerful, soothing voice she'd reserved for the cub. "You go ahead and sit there and- Ouch! Okay, no biting my fingers, buddy!" she exclaimed. It was hard for the two males to hold back their snickers and snorts; it was too obvious that Samantha had never been in contact with beastman young of any species before, especially not a male. There was a reason that males were raised in a harsher manner than females; they grew much faster and were much stronger, and if nothing else, their teeth came in much more quickly. Their work finished, Spencer and St. Benjamin arranged the prey around their campfire to cook and sat down to enjoy the show. Sitting on either side of Samantha, they let the small bear know with a few choice looks that they were perfectly willing to exert their four-stripe beast pressure if he continued to disobey their female.

Now that that matter was settled, Samantha was able to feed the hungry cub much more easily. She placed small bites of food in one of her open palms and held it under the bear's snout, letting him know he had permission to eat. He huffed with displeasure at the portion size offered, but Samantha was unwilling to risk him choking on too big a bite. "You'll get all this and more if you want it, bubby," she reassured him, "You can't eat too quickly just now, but I promise you'll be full before long." Benjamin raised an eyebrow in her direction, mimicking, "Bubby?" Samantha glared back at him indignantly and replied firmly, "It's a term of endearment where I'm from, usually for little males like Bub here. Aww, he's Bub the Bear Cub." She smiled and laughed, and all three males felt their hearts warm at the sound. "Samantha," Spencer mentioned gently, "It's fine to give him a nickname, but traditionally, male cubs are named by their father, or they choose their own names when they're old enough to transform into a beastman. You can't name him 'Bub'." Samantha leaned her head on Spencer's shoulder, sighing. "That's fine, but how old will he be when he's able to transform and talk to us?" she asked. "You'll be waiting for a while," Spencer replied quietly, noticing that Bub had fallen asleep on Samantha's lap, his full tummy protruding as he laid on his back. "Males can transform when they come of age, typically around age 17 or 18," he explained, "Or sooner, depending on their strength," he added as an afterthought.

Samantha looked down lovingly at the sleeping cub, who was still awake enough to purr softly. "He was probably only born this past winter, if bear beastmen are similar to bear beasts," she murmured, "I guess we will be waiting a while, or at least his parents will be when we find them. Have either of you smelled or sensed any bears in the area at all? Even though he's a male and you say he's less valued than a female cub, I can't imagine a bear would just leave their precious cub behind. Especially if his mama is a bear, too." Benji sighed, taking his turn to answer yet another question from the female. "Samantha, there are bear scents everywhere. They aren't exactly shy about it," he added scornfully, remembering the piles of bear excrement he'd had to avoid in his hunt. "The problem," he continued, "is that there are too many bear scents. There's probably a tribe not far from here, and your 'Bub' could easily have made his way back there if he'd wanted to. Instead, he's been wandering all the way out here, purposely going further from their location." Samantha sighed sadly, wondering what had happened to poor Bub. She tried to hold onto hope for both of them that they would be able to locate his family. "Okay, then," she decided, "he'll keep traveling with us. But keep sniffing around for his family, check the trees as we travel for lost bark and bear scents. I'm sure they'll have left a trail for their son to follow."

Both Spencer and St. Benjamin nodded in agreement, their mouths full of the cooling meat Samantha had placed there. Her arms would grow tired long before she could feed them enough to fill their stomachs, but somehow, food tasted better than it ever had when it was fed to them by her. They took turns feeding her in return; Samantha hadn't had a chance to wash her hands since feeding Bub, and the males knew by now that scrubbing their hands or paws before eating was expected of them. Neither was willing to risk getting her sick because they'd touched raw meat and then fed her; they remembered how miserable she had been when they'd first met her, and they also didn't want to lose the privilege of feeding her with their own hands. She even thanked them every time for helping her, unaware of the fact that even one of her mates would be considered lucky beyond measure to be given such an honor. Neither male was looking forward to her eventual education on such matters in the City of Beasts, but Spencer had a favor to call in with the Wolf King, and the protection offered by the city for an extremely desirable female with only two males for company and no mates wasn't something they could afford to turn away from.

Having finished the bland but filling meal, Samantha had a favor to ask her friends. "Instead of putting out the fire," she began, "do you think one of you could make a tool for me that looks like this?" She took one of her styluses and drew a soup pot in the dirt. "I'd like to fill it with water and put all the bone pieces in it and leave them to boil overnight. That way, we'll have a nice broth to enjoy with breakfast when we wake up, and I can grind the leftover bones into meal using this," she explained, pausing to draw a mortar and pestle in the dirt beside the soup pot. "It'll take less room in our luggage, and we can dry it out later to make it ready to use when we find a place to live in the city," she said, hoping to persuade them. However, Spencer was already on his way to carve up a few rocks to make the tools Samantha had requested, and she smiled gratefully at his retreating figure. Bub had begun to stir, and Samantha knew she was running out of time before he awakened and was ready to cause mischief. "Benji, could you use a few of the stronger bones and make some knives for me? I have almost everything else I need for now, but those would be useful since I don't have any claws or pincers," she pleaded. "Of course," he said tenderly, stroking her face with his thumb. "I'm your guardian beast, after all. If these will protect you, I'll gladly make them," he said before setting out to sort through the various bones they'd acquired over the course of this one meal, choosing the best candidates to leave out to dry.

Samantha thanked him and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before picking up Bub and heading for the cave Spencer had dug for them earlier. Seeing the fox beast return almost as soon as she thought of him, she waved to him, saying, "We'll be waiting for you inside," at a normal volume, relying on the huge fox ears that popped out from his head to intercept her message. She thought it was adorable that both the fox and scorpion would sprout traits from their beast forms when they were having trouble controlling their emotions. She had smiled for nearly this entire evening, and even though she was living in the wild without a pillow to her name, she was sure she'd look back on these moments as some of the happiest times of her life. Amused that Bub, their little "problem", had united the three adults despite such strong misgiving from the others, she settled down with him in the middle of the room and curled her chubby body around his. Hopefully, they could keep each other warm enough until their two "big spoons" appeared. Samantha wasn't sure how the cub would affect the sleeping arrangement that the three of them had found themselves in night after night, but she definitely wasn't going to complain if for once, she didn't wake up stretched in a compromising position between the fox and scorpion who seemed to fight over her every night as they slept.