Chapter 260: The Bear Finishes Drawing a Picture Book

Chapter 260:
The Bear Finishes Drawing a Picture Book

 

I PREPPED PAPER to draw on. Fina and Shuri sat to my left and right, waiting for me to start drawing.

First, I introduced the little girl’s sister. I drew a cartoon version of her.

“Wow, that’s so cute. Is it me?” asked Shuri.

“That’s right. That’s the girl’s little sister.”

Shuri seemed pretty happy to see herself being drawn. Then I drew the scene of the girl and the sister playing with the bear. But the good times wouldn’t last. The girl’s family had to move to the neighboring town.

“They’re moving to a different town?”

The little girl’s mother needed work, and she had to ask a friend from a neighboring town for help.

“No one in the town could help the little girl’s family,” I explained to Fina.

There wasn’t anyone like Gentz in this book, and it’d be weird to stick him in there without any explanation. This made more sense for the story.

“Since the little girl didn’t have anyone to rely on, she had to work really hard all on her own.” I looked at Fina.

“But I had Gentz—I mean, Dad—to help me.”

“You did.”

“So then is the friend going to be Dad?”

“I don’t know yet.” If I was going to write a continuation, I’d think about it. For now, I left it undecided.

 

I went back to drawing the rest of the book. Next was the scene where the bear and the little girl would have to part.

“She had to leave the bear?”

“That’s so sad for the girl!”

Shuri and Fina both seemed distressed.

“It’ll be fine. The bear comes back.” It wouldn’t help to lie to them, so I gave them a spoiler.

After I drew the scene of the bear and the girls leaving each other, I drew a scene of the girls getting on a carriage heading for the next town over.

“I thought the bear would appear and they’d ride on it,” said Fina. Apparently, this wasn’t going the way she’d expected.

But I couldn’t let the bear show up here, of course. “They just said their goodbyes. And I think the mother wouldn’t get on the bear to travel.”

After getting on the carriage, the girls looked sad. The bear was watching the girls leave from a distance.

“This is a sad story. I feel bad for the bear and the girls…”

“It’ll be fine. They’ll be happy in the end.” I preferred happy endings over tragedies.

I drew a scene of the carriage being attacked by monsters. I was mimicking what had happened when Misa’s carriage had been attacked. Everyone in the scene was escaping, but the girls were left behind.

The carriage was shaking, and they could hear the monsters. That was when the bear made a gallant appearance and rushed in. I’d made a few adjustments, but this was basically what had happened when I’d saved Misa. The bear fought off the monsters and saved the girls.

“I’m so glad!”

“The bear is so strong!”

The carriage was too broken down to move, so the bear took the three of them on her back. That was when the bear crooned out for her fellow bears. A cartoonified black bear and white bear appeared. “That’s Kumayuru and Kumakyu.”

“So cute!”

The two of them liked seeing the two bears.

“Shuri, which one do you want to ride?”

Shuri didn’t hesitate. “On Kumakyu!”

“Why Kumakyu?”

“Because Kumakyu is pretty and white.”

She had that right. Kumakyu’s fur really was white and beautiful, but that didn’t make Kumayuru’s black fur dirty or anything.

“In that case, I’ll put the little sister on the white bear.”

I had the little girl (Fina) get on the bear representing me. The mother (Tiermina) got onto the black bear (Kumayuru). Then, the three rode off to the next town on their bears.

“What about the people who ran away?”

“They don’t need bears, since they ran away and left the little girls on their own.”

At least I hadn’t drawn their bodies. I’d let the kids reading the book imagine where the people went for themselves. Picture books were meant to foster children’s imaginations, after all.

The kids and their parents could imagine for themselves whether the people who had been attacked were saved or not. It was a parent’s job to explain whether the people got to town after an arduous escape or were killed by the monsters. How they explained the scenario would shape the children’s minds…or that’s how I handwaved it to Fina and Shuri. Honestly, I just didn’t want to put corpses in my book.

“What do you two think happened?”

“I hope they survived.”

“I dunno...” Shuri seemed undecided, but Fina was being kind.

“What do you think happened?” Fina asked me.

“That’s a hard question. I think it depends on who was riding on the carriage. If they were strong, I’d want them to fight instead of run. If they aren’t fighters, I think they’d have to run. I’d hope they survive, but…well, I hope anyone who kicked those girls aside don’t do quite so well.”

“Uhh…Yuna, you’re scaring me…” Fina said.

“Well that’s just my take,” I said. “And I’m not necessarily right, y’know. If you two can read this and have kinder thoughts…then I’d like you to do that. I’d like you to stay like that.”

I didn’t want their hearts tarnished like mine.

To be honest, the main reason why there weren’t any casualties or injuries depicted in the book was personal reasons. I couldn’t tell them that the real reason was that having other people appear in the scene would get in the way of the bear’s fabulous entrance.

People don’t always say what they actually think.

 

Then the family headed out to the town on the bears. They got to the next town safely. Once they arrived, they say goodbye to the bear. Bears can’t go into towns, after all.

When the girl tries to say bye to the bear, the little sister says she doesn’t want to. Of course, the little girl doesn’t want to say bye either.

“Is this where they have to say bye…?”

“They have to leave the bear? That’s so sad…”

“It’ll be all right.” I made the bear smaller. Then, I drew the little girl hugging the small bear happily. They looked very happy.

“Um, I feel kind of embarrassed. This means that I’m hugging you, doesn’t it, Yuna?”

“Not necessarily. You can think of her as Kumayuru or Kumakyu instead of me.”

The girls headed into the town with the little bear in their arms. Then, with one last sentence—“The little girl got to stay with the bear.” —I finished the third volume of The Bear and the Girl.

“Yuna, that was amazing!”

“You’re so good at drawing. It was sad at first, but they got to be with the bear in the end!”

Little kids would be reading the book, so I needed to end it on a happy note. There were sad picture books in my original world, but I wanted good kids to have a happy ending.

“But won’t Lady Noa be upset?” asked Fina.

“Noa?” Why was she mentioning Noa, of all people?

“Because you used the story about us going to the capital as the base idea.”

“Well, I threw together a lot of things.” There was that scene of Misa being attacked in her carriage and the scene where she was saved.

“If Lady Noa sees this, she might realize she hasn’t shown up in the story.”

Oooooh, so that was what she meant. “It’ll be fine. You didn’t want to show up in the story because you were embarrassed, right?”

“Yes, but...”

“Noa would be embarrassed too, so it’s fine. I don’t think she even knows I’m using our story as a basis for drawing these. In fact, Noa wouldn’t see the books in the first place.”

Noa still hadn’t learned the books even existed and I doubted she ever would. Only a few people in the capital knew about them, and some of the orphans in Crimonia. Noa wouldn’t see it.

“If you say so,” said Fina.

“You’re such a worrywart,” I said with a smile, hoping to dispel Fina’s worries.