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“Why’s that?”

“He’s a total bitch, for one. And I don’t really like his face. Yeah, I guess that’s all,” he shrugs. Not wanting to waste any more seconds of his precious time, he then decides to shift into his bear form.

“Hop on and hold tight,” he growls at Lily, already half sounding like a bear as his cuticles grow into thick claws and his normally-smooth chest sprouts out hair at a ridiculously fast rate. Soon, he looks like a stereotypical lumberjack, whatever that is supposed to mean. Except for the wooden axe and grumpy facade, of course.

That, or a hairy, barrel-chested sailor from the fifties who most likely has an anchor tattoo on his shoulder as well.

Scientifically speaking, the process of bear shifting is undeniably slow compared to dragon shifting, blah, blah, taking up to five minutes for the shifter to fully be in their bear form, blah, blah, and blah; this sure is getting quite boring. Like, Lily (do you still remember her?) nearly falls asleep at the end of the process.

And that, our dear readers, is the process of shapeshifting into a bear.

Quite dull, quite tedious.

And specifically a brown bear, or Ursus Arctos, according to Wikipedia, a species of large bears commonly found in Eurasia and North America. Usually the species of bear used as a reference in most bear-shifter romance books as well. How that genre even came into existence, the author has no idea.

Also, why don’t there seem to be any panda bear shifters?

Like, football-watching, beer-slurping guys with eye bags and dad bods who shift into lazy, black and white pandas to do kung-fu from time to time.

They’ll be cute.

Lily-girl strokes the bear’s head, and it proceeds to nip her hand, confused, since bears aren’t exactly that smart, having much smaller brains than humans. Not that Every had a big brain to begin with. After she hops onto its furry brown bear back, it gallops across the bare, barren wasteland, with no trees or rivers in sight, all things old and worn.

As the sun slowly wanes and afternoon waxes, they pass millions of random articles that somehow found their way in there. A box of fried chicken, a packet of Magnum size medium, a certain Mary-Jean’s social security card, a pair of fur-rimmed handcuffs, and even a lump of shit with flies buzzing over it.

A dump at the dumpsite, how fitting.

After a couple of hours or so, not that she has a watch, Lily once again asks Every, now in the form of a bear, “bro, where are we?”

“Near the portal, mate,” Every the Bear answers in nearly intelligible growls and rumbles, as if she were an old friend or a drinking buddy.

“You planned our first date in this barren wasteland?”

“Nope,” the young man, or bear in this case, answers, “we were supposed to go to Las Vegas. I wanted to show you my favorite strip club. And then, you know, we’ll party and gamble the night away.”

“And what’s that?”

“What?”

“The portal.”

“Oh, it’s this magical gate for mystical people. You see, my fairy queen, we magical folks sure do like visiting other magical lands from time to time, and the portals are kinda like the only gates into those places, ya know.”

“Bro, why’d you sound like a wannabe biker all of a sudden?”

“I dunno, ma’ ole lady,” Every replies, then after half an hour or so, follows with, “yo darlin’, we’re here now at the damn portal.”

Lily looks over, spotting a tiny but pretty, Bora-Bora style hut in the distance, the brown bohemian beach-vibe aesthetics looking horribly out of place in the grey landfill. She blinks, wondering if all the main-character type shit she has been encountering in the recent couple of days are just a fever dream and she’s gonna wake up in calculus class, having slept through a whole exam.

What a nightmare.

But nope, she really is the main character, and therefore this bizarre situation she is in is just another typical day in her life.

You see, anyone, anywhere, can be a main character, just with the right mindset.

So live life to the fullest, live as the main character.

Wow.