The Ninth Region

Chapter 1: Gloria and Nathan Are Charged with a Mission
In the day of King Otto when the war of the Ninth Region with the Ice Lady was nearing the end of its third year, those that had to fight had been gone a long time. Those that could not fight lived in fear for their loved ones. Those that lived on the outskirts of the land of the Ninth Region, far from the war, only knew that the war was going on because of the stories they heard from travelers.
The hamlet of Kendo in Paw County was one of the lands that lay on the outskirts of the Ninth Region under King Otto’s reign. This is where the family of Sco lived. The family of Sco was a family of black bears who had lived in the land of the Ninth Region for many, many, many years.
Within the Sco family were born Kermode bears. Kermode bears are a special kind of black bear born to some black bear families that lived in the hamlet of Kendo. Kermode bears are just like black bears in that they do not like the really, really cold weather. They do not kill other animals to eat like polar and brown bears do. The weird thing about Kermode bars is that they are black bears that are born white. Their parents can be black and their brothers and sisters can be black, but they are white. They have dark eyes and are not albinos. Kermode bears are just white.
Their land was cold but not freezing cold, snowy but not too snowy. The daytime sky was shades of pink and reds that shimmered as the sunlight came through the sky. Some days were pinker than other days, and a darker sky meant that bad weather was coming soon. When that happened, the sky filled up with purple puffy clouds and big, huge raindrops. The raindrops were so big that if you looked up into a raining sky and got a raindrop in your eye, it would cover the whole eye and sting for a second or two or three. In the hamlet of Kendo, fall and winter were not much different than summer and spring, except the rain was replaced with blowing snow and ice particles that turned the pink sky the colors of the rainbow. At night two moons lit up the dark sky.
One spring, when all of the animals woke up from their long winter sleep, they discovered a change. No longer was their hamlet of Kendo a happy place, for the the Ice Lady of the Northeast had taken all the young adults to her castle to serve her. No one in Kendo had ever been through this type of thing before, so they knew not what to do.
After much talk amongst themselves, they decided it was best to send a small team to find and rescue the missing bears. The team consisted of four brave bears. Nettle, who was the older brother in the Sco family, was one of the young bears on the team. The Ice Lady had never been seen by anyone from Kendo, but they knew she existed.
So the team of bears set off. Every one of these four brave bears was excited and scared. They brought supplies to last them until it would be time for their long winter sleep.
*
By the end of autumn, when it was time for the hamlet of bears to hibernate during the winter, not one bear had heard from the rescue group that left so many months ago. The family of one of the rescue bears, Nettle Sco, was made up of an elderly mother and a father. Their youngest cubs were twin Kermode bears named Gloria and Nathan. The twins asked their parents what was to be done about Nettle. Their parents explained to them that winter was a time to sleep. If no word had been received from the rescue team by the spring when the village woke up from their hibernation, then they would have to decide what to do. After all, the hope was that the party was on their way back but had to stop to hibernate. This was the way of the world in which they lived, so this was what was to be done. The village would go into hibernation and hope for the best. There was nothing else to do.
The members of the village went to their homes and caves to sleep through the winter and hoped that when they woke up everything would be as it was before. The Sco family’s cave was comfortable because it was very deep and had lots of pocket-rooms that made the family feel safe.
Nathan and Gloria tried to sleep as they were told, but they could not. After not too much time had passed, a beautiful purple mist formed on the cave wall. Nathan and Gloria grabbed each other out of pure fright! The purple mist began to form a transparent figure that did not have a physical body and appeared to them as a ghost. They could tell it was a lady by her long, streaming, vaporous hair. Her eyes were piercing but peaceful, and her voice was strong yet reassuring. She did not touch them, and yet she did touch them. They could feel her presence inside of them all the way down to their toenails. (The twins later found out that the purple mist was Lady Lilly. Gloria and Nathan had heard their parents talk of Lady Lilly, but they never really understood who she was.) The purple mist, which was known as Lady Lilly, told them that the Ice Lady was filled with an evil heart. She was born like other creatures, but she only wanted people to be cold like her. She was a spirit friendly to no one! It suited her to cause misery. Few beings knew why she was this way. Long ago, the Ice Lady had started to feel sorry for herself. The more she felt sorry for herself the more ugly she became, inside and out. The Ice Lady enjoyed making others feel as bad as she did. It made her feel empowered. This is why she sent her guards to gather up various bears and bring them to her castle. At her castle in the northeast part of the Ninth Region they were forced to be her slaves and serve her every whim.
Lady Lilly touched the hearts of the twins. They knew they had to rescue all the bears being held against their will by the Ice Lady. Feeling the presence of Lady Lilly filled the twins with confidence. They knew they could save their brother with her help.
While all the other bears in the Ninth Region slept, the twins wrote a note to their parents. They packed supplies, as much as they could carry and started on their trek, just as Lady Lilly told them to do.

Then in Chapter 2:
They continued to try to travel east. At midday they came along a stream that flowed over rocks and boulders. It was filled with bugs. Gloria and Nathan were so overjoyed of the thought of fresh water and food that they ran into the stream. As they stepped into the stream of water, they got caught in a trap of mud and logs. The more they struggled the more they became entangled. They were stuck in the mud just inches away from refreshment. Unable to get out of the mud and logs, there was nothing they could do.
After some time, a group of bears, brown in color, came to the stream to have lunch. When they saw Gloria and Nathan they started to laugh. The brown bears laughed because the twins were white in color and easy to see in the dark forest. The brown bears also laughed because Nathan and Gloria were trapped. After the brown bears refreshed themselves, they encircled Gloria and Nathan.
One of the brown bears asked, “Why are you traveling in our forest?”
Nathan and Gloria said, “We have gotten ourselves lost and would truly like some help finding our way out of your forest.” They lied to them about their purpose and did not mention the plight of their older brother and other village members.
One of the brown bears said, “You should have paid more attention to where you put your feet to walk. There are dangers everywhere to those who do not know how to see them. Many times things are not what they seem.”