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Description
After everything that had happened Bard fully expected to have nightmares about Dragons, about fire and the battle, but he didn't. His children did, but not him. It was disappointing in a way, because dragons and fire and death would make sense. Dragons, fire and death he could handle. Dragons, fire and death he could talk about. Those things were completely understandable. That was a goddamn dragon. A holy fuck it's a dragon. Totally understandable. Absolutely relatable.
Instead he had the return of his reoccurring dreams about the bears and the baskets. All dreams are ridiculous but this one especially so. He knew what troubled him most about the dream, it was what troubled him most about the book the bears and their bloody baskets were from. The extra basket. The dreams had started after his wife died and thankfully stopped when Tilda was around five. While she was the one who insisted on keeping the book and making up stories about the bears and their baskets, they'd never been on a picnic, he was sure she wasn't ever secretly a bear in disguise, and they never even owned any baskets.
In the book, a hand-me from his childhood but not one he can recall ever having heard there's these bears, six of them and they are having a picnic in the woods with seven baskets. And that's it. Six bears with seven baskets having a picnic in the woods.
It didn't help any that most of the pages from the book were missing. His wife had insisted on keeping it and making up new stories for the bears and their baskets while Bard would sooner have thrown it out. There's being thrifty and there's keeping a book with only five pages, mostly pictures and just the back cover, blank. There wasn't any more information in the book then that there were six bears, they had seven baskets and they were in the woods. The picnic was presumed by the illustrations, they didn't have the page that finished the sentence that told the reader what the bears were doing the woods with their too many baskets.
Bard had asked Percy about it when he was trying to track down another copy of the book, no luck, and he'd suggested that the extra basket was for the presumably child reader so that they may join the bears for their bear party. Oh god why?
In his dream, he's going after Tilda who has decided to join the bears for their picnic, but he always stops her only to find that Sigrid and Bain have already joined the bears and literally become bears. That's not the part that unnerves him. Sure having ones children run off with bears and then turn into bears isn't anything a parent would want for their children but it's a dream and his children know not to take baskets from bears no many how adorably illustrated they are.
It's the extra basket. Bard doesn't not like the extra basket and he can't quite put his finger on way, no matter how much time he spends turning it over in his mind. There's an extra basket in the book and there's always an extra basket in his dream. Even after Sigrid and Bain have been turned into bears, they don't get that basket. Dream Bear Sigrid and Bain even complain to him about it, there's not enough baskets for them. And they also don't like being bears, of course not. His children are sensable. It was one of those things that was just unnerving for not apparent reason. An extra unattainable, untouchable basket was a strange choice for a fear by his subconscious.
Bard half-wished the dream would end with Smaug coming down from the sky and burning all the bears. That's relatable.
But with his luck the dragon would burn everyone, everybear and everything in the woods except that one extra basket.
Stupid bloody basket.
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Barduil Week
July 1st (Happy Canada Day!) - Dreams/Nightmares
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We Three Kings - caycowa.deviantart.com/gallery…
Aftermath (2941-2944)
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Tumblr Reblog - Tilda loves her bear siblings
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