Unana and Yueret, seated on a large rectangular-oval shield surrounded by a purple aura, landed on a high cliff. From there, they could see a basin filled with white, frosty fog, surrounded by the silhouettes of mountains.
"Aaah..." Unana wanted to say something, but instead, she simply opened her mouth.
"Yeah, this place really does exist," Yueret jumped down from the shield. "Cold air collects below, so you can't see anything down there."
"Ahh..."
Unana looked down, as if trying to discern something in the white fog.
"Is there something there?" Yueret took a step toward the cliff and peered down cautiously.
"No," Unana finally managed to say a word.
"We'll have to go down there. We won't see anything from here."
Yueret was forced to return to the shield, after which it flew forward and began to descend into the basin.
The fog gradually cleared. First, the outline of a large oval object appeared against the white background, then the silhouettes of trees at its edges.
"It looks like a lake," Yueret noticed. "Does it really exist, or is it just a coincidence?"
"You still don't believe me? If you don't believe me, ask your bear cub."
Yueret closed his eyes, imagined a white-blue bear with blue glowing eyes and tried to mentally address it.
"You want to know what this place is," Yuerechen's voice answered. "It's a very scary place. You shouldn't have come here. Better go home and eat squirrels. They're tasty and nutritious. The berries are delicious too, but they won't give you bear-like strength or you won't break the neck of a non-living creature."
"What is a non-living creature? Are these dolls?"
"I can't tell you about it. It's too scary for a little bear cub."
Yueret opened his eyes. The blue-white bear was gone, but Yueret's little sister was there, huddled close to her brother and looking down.
"It's winter here for some reason," Unana said. "Is it because a blue-white bear lives here?"
The lower the shield descended, the more detailed the bottom of the basin became. The tree silhouettes took on their typical white-green hue, but the lake remained white. A thick layer of snow covered its hidden icy surface. It seemed like it would never melt, but the trees lining the shores suggested otherwise.
"No, of course not," Yueret smiled. "But the blue-white bear is somewhere nearby. I heard his voice, but I didn't see it."
The brother told his sister about his conversation with Yuerechen.
"Your bear cub is definitely related to the blue-white bear girl," Unana pressed her palms to her cheeks. "She was at the lake. But now she's nowhere to be seen."
"She must have left."
"Yeah… She got tired of waiting for us."
…The shield landed on the lakeshore. The vibration from the aura cleared the snow, and Unana spotted a layer of yellow tree needles, from which protruded the tip of a tree cone.
"Spring hasn't arrived here yet because cold air is blowing in.", Yueret said, jumping to the ground and sinking slightly into the pine needles. "Bearry has nothing to do with it."
"I already figured that out," Unana said, jumping down onto a pile of snow on the other side of the shield. "But for me, everything I see connects together. If a blue-white bearry can't make snow and ice, where will he hide in the summer?"
"In the wild, he lives far north. No trees grow there. There's only snow and ice."
"But the bearry is somewhere around here. You yourself spoke of a signal and how it can spread."
Yueret withdrew his shield and looked at the large oval space, covered in snow and devoid of trees.
"This place looks like an arena."
"There's an island missing in the middle," Unana said. "There was also some kind of stone thing there you could walk through."
"It would be strange if this place were an exact replica of the one from the game."
Yueret took a step forward and was about to step onto the snow-covered edge of the lake, but at the last moment something grabbed him by the sleeve of his jacket.
"What's happened?" Yueret turned around and saw his frightened younger sister, looking at him as if she was seeing him for the last time.
"It's nothing," Unana let go of her brother's jacket sleeve. "My hand just did it itself. It doesn't want you to go there first."
"Then let's go there at the same time. That way you won't be scared."
Unana nodded. Brother and sister joined hands and stepped onto the snow-covered surface of the lake.
"There's nothing here," Unana looked right, then left. "Maybe there's something in the middle..."
"There already is."
"Where is?"
Yueret pointed to a small snowdrift in the center of the lake. Unana looked ahead, then leaned forward, opened her mouth, and stuck out her tongue.
"What is it?" Yueret asked.
"There's a doll there," Unana's tongue returned to her mouth. "It has an eye."
The little sister fell to her knees, let her tongue out of her mouth, and was only able to stand up again thanks to her big brother.
"Let's check," Yueret suggested. "If it's a doll, I'll smash it. Now I know what to do with them."
"Okay..." Unana squeezed her brother's hand and turned away.
The "bear cubs" walked toward the snowdrift. The snow crunched under their boots, revealing no ice at all. It seemed like it had been there forever.
"This snowdrift is too big for a doll," Yueret said.
"Maybe there's a bearry in there?" Unana unclenched her brother's hand, but didn't let go completely.
"I'll check now. Let go of my hand."
"Uh... Okay."
The "bear cubs" stopped ten steps from the snowdrift. Unana let go of her brother's hand and closed her eyes.
The white snow turned blue-white under the influence of the energetic aura surrounding Yueret. The next moment, a translucent copy of the man struck the snowdrift and instantly returned to the aura.
"You can look," Yueret said. "It's not a doll."
Unana opened her eyes and saw an elongated ice capsule with something brown inside.
"What is this?"
"It's some kind of animal," Yueret answered. "It's too small to be a bear, but it certainly doesn't look like a doll."
"Dolls have hair that's not a human color."
Yueret approached the ice capsule and began examining what was inside. Soon, the brown "something" turned into ordinary human hair.
"What's in there?" Unana stepped forward and leaned to the side to see the capsule's contents.
"Don't come any closer, Unana," Yueret said, stepping back and summoning his sword.
"Is there a doll in there?"
"I don't know. But there's definitely something inanimate there."
At first, Unana was frightened, but soon her curiosity outweighed her fear. The little sister decided to see what was inside the capsule and took a step forward…
The ice, hidden beneath the snow, began to crack. Yueret grabbed Unana's hand and pulled her back. The archer's legs instinctively flexed and she jumped backwards…
… The brother and sister stood before the natural ice hole that surrounded the "island" containing the ice capsule.
"We need to get out of here," Yueret said. "The whole lake will melt soon."
"So it appeared because of the blue-white bear girl? You said that was impossible."
Instead of answering, Yueret dragged Unana to the shore. There, near the nearest tree, the brother told his sister what he thought.
"This snow and ice are weird. The snow is really thick, which means it's been here for a long time, and the ice is probably thick too. It held us up, but when I got to that ice thing, something snapped."
"The white-blue bear girl doesn't want us to break the ice," Unana slapped the air with her hand, like animals slap prey with their paws. "She's protecting what's inside."
"Is there something very important inside?"
"You can ask the bear cub. If it's connected to the bear girl, it should know."
The brother closed his eyes and again mentally addressed Yuerechen, but received only a growl in response.
"It doesn't want to talk," Yuerechen opened his eyes.
"The bear girl is angry with you. You did something very bad."
"I just cleared the snow from the ice. I didn't touch the ice thing."
"She doesn't like it. But if you'd done something with the ice thing, it would have been even worse. She'd have come here herself and started growling."
"That's what we need."
"What?"
"That bear girl might know where daddy is."
"I don't think she'll tell you where daddy is. She'll tear you apart and then go yum-yum. Blue-white bears aren't as kind as brown ones."
"Then I don't know what to do. I really don't want to fight the bear girl."
"She'll just freeze you, and you'll be stuck in this icy thing."
Unana pointed at the ice capsule in the center of the lake, which seemed small from the shore, and suddenly realized something important.
"There's something frozen there," Unana bit her lip.
"What?"
"It's something very important. I want to see it, but I'm afraid of the blue-white bear girl. She helped me with my memories, and I don't want her to be angry with me."
"You can ask your bear cub. It probably won't growl."
Unana looked at her brother and imagined a brown bear cub in his place. Soon, Unachan indeed appeared before her.
"Bear cub, do you want some yum-yum?" a voice rang out in the archer's head.
"I always want yum-yum, but right now I want something else more," Unana answered mentally. "I want to know if the blue-white bear girl will be offended if I melt her ice."
"Bears don't like it when something they do is destroyed. Then they become angry. But if you've become something special to a bear, then the bear won't touch you."
"I saw a bear girl at this lake. She knows me."
"It wasn't you. It was another bear girl, a brown one. You were just in her form, but the white-blue bear girl doesn't know about you."
"Then how will I know what's under the ice?"
"Bears are big. They don't ask permission from little bears like me. If they want something, they go and do it."
"But if I do that, the blue and white bear won't like it."
"I'm just a little bear. I can't fight a big bear. If you're big enough, you don't have to ask me."
Unachan disappeared.
"I'm kind of big," Unana looked at the snow that covered the icy surface of the lake. "But I'm not big enough to battle a big bear girl."
A bow appeared in her hand, loaded with a red arrow with a flaming tip.
"If you're afraid, don't," Yueret said.
"No, I'm already big," Unana answered in a childish voice. "I'll do it, even if the bear girl doesn't like it."
Unana drew the energy bowstring with a trembling hand, but couldn't let go.
"I'm not afraid of the bear... Maybe she's not even here. But if I don't destroy the ice, I won't find my dad."
This thought gave Unana a little confidence, her hand prepared to release the bowstring, but…
…from the hole that surrounded the ice capsule in the center of the lake, the head of a blue-white bear emerged. It was so large that even Unana could see it from that distance.
"This is… a bear," Unana lowered her bow.
Paws with long black claws emerged from the water. The bear placed them on the ice, and then blew a cloud of steam from his mouth.
"It's so cute," Unana said, dropping her weapon and falling to her knees.
The burning arrow fell onto the snow and then disappeared. The bear dug its paws into the ice and tried to pull itself free, but something held it in place.
"The bearry needs help," Unana said, standing up and taking a step forward.
"You don't even know what kind of bear this is."
"But it's trying to get out of there. We can't leave it there. It's suffering."
Yueret looked at the bear's large head, which was swaying from side to side, and then at its paws, which were trying to grasp the snow.
"This bear is strange. Usually, white-blue bears just swim on the ice, but this one apparently lived under the ice. Maybe this lake connects to some other body of water through a passage?" Yueret thought.
He decided to test his hypothesis. The brother didn't stop his sister, who had already activated her purple aura and was ready to fly to the trapped animal.
"It's a blue and white bear," Yueret thought for a moment and suddenly realized. "It shouldn't be here. Sure, there's snow and ice here now, but the distance to where those bears live is too great. So it must be..."
Yueret looked toward his sister, but found only two large boot prints in her place...
Unana, her purple aura glowing, landed on the ice next to the trapped bear and quickly discovered the cause. The hole, though seemingly large, was no match for the growing white-blue bear cub.
"Your belly's grown too big to fit through this hole," Unana said, looking into the water. "I'll make the ice a little smaller. Do you mind? Close your eyes."
The bear cub looked sadly at Unana, after which he apparently understood her words and covered the upper part of his muzzle with one paw.
The archer took a few steps up, summoned her weapon loaded with a burning red arrow, and pulled back the purple energy bowstring.
"Bearry, don't be afraid," Unana sighed.
The burning arrow hit the edge of the ice hole and melted the snow. A nearly transparent white ice surface appeared, revealing some kind of foreign object underneath.
Unana became frightened and summoned another arrow to finish what she had started, but at the last moment, the archer's hand simply refused to draw the bowstring.
Unana dropped to the ice, then got up on all fours and looked ahead.
The blue-white bear cub continued to cover his eyes with his paw, unaware that his savior had apparently abandoned her role.
"Bearry is waiting. It will cry and scream if I get scared and leave."
Unana activated her aura again, but this time she took a few steps higher to avoid seeing the terrifying object beneath the ice. The archer's weapon, with its burning arrow, appeared in her hands again...
The ice at the edge of the hole sank beneath the water, but soon resurfaced, along with the very same object...
Unana sank down onto the snow. The blue-white bear cub still had his paw over his eyes, but he was already starting to groan from the long wait.
"Bearry, you can get out now," the kind little eighteen-year-old archer finally said.
The bear cub seemed to understand its savior's words again and removed its paw from its eyes. Unana deactivated her aura and fell to her knees to watch the unfortunate animal escape its captivity, but instead saw a blue-green-haired head staring right at her with bulging eyes...
Unana opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, the large, clawed paw of the now-grown blue-and-white bear cub descended on the doll's head and crushed it against the ice.
The bulging eyeballs flew out of the slots and fell into the snow. The jaws disappeared under the water, and the hair and skin, conversely, floated to the other side of the hole, beyond the ice capsule, where they landed on the "shore."
"Bearry..." Unana looked at the animal, which had already completely escaped to freedom.
It was a fat bear cub about the size of Unana, covered in white-blue fur. Its black eyes stared at the snow in front of it, and the tip of a dark purple tongue protruded from its mouth.
"This lake is a cemetery for the undead," a high, almost childish voice came from the bear cub's head.
"Did you say that, little bearry?" Unana scooted back a little.
"Yup, it's me," the bear cub looked at the girl.
"But your mouth isn't moving. You're talking without it."
"Oh."
The paws grabbed the head, then with a sharp movement, removed it and threw it into the snow.
"Uh..." Unana's mouth fell open in surprise.
In place of the bear's head was a nearly human one, with white-yellow hair, from under which protruded small white-blue ears.
"I am the spirit of the white-blue bear," the head introduced itself.
"I see," Unana looked at the snow. "You're a bear girl... Stop. You're a bear girl!"
Unana's mouth dropped open and she looked at the bear girl as if the bear girl had saved her, not the other way around.
"What's wrong? You're so happy. Have you never seen a bearry before?"
"I've never seen bears like you," Unana said, turning away. "And I've never seen the regular brown bearries that live in the forest, either."
"Brown bearries…" The bear girl's voice deepened, now resembling that of a full-grown wild bear.
"What?" Unana took a step back.
"Brown bearry… Where is she?"
The bear girl glared at Unana.
"How should I know?" the archer stood up and took a few more steps back. "I'm looking for one human. He looks like me and that person."
Unana pointed at the man in black standing on the shore.
"You've already found him."
"What?"
Unana looked at the ice capsule and saw something brown inside that resembled human hair.