The Final Days of Springborough
Chapter 45: The Gentle Giant

As far as Patrick could figure, there were three options:

1. Wait for the Bear to defecate. Meaning they could wait until Lucky went to the bathroom, and hopefully found the ring within the excrement that the Bear released. Although, it was known, objects of a foreign nature sometimes lodged themselves in digestive tracts and stomachs, like an earring he had accidentally swallowed as a baby which he passed several months later, or so his mother told him. So perhaps the fact that the bear’s body could not break down the gold of the ring, would mean the bear was doomed to carry it around with him forever. Although, that quite possibly could mean that wherever the bear went, the Queen’s spirit would go as well, and Patrick thought it would be nice to have two companions for the company of one.

2. Let Thomas use his sword to cut open the belly of the bear and maybe replace the ring inside Lucky’s stomach that way. This option meant that his new pet would surely not survive. They would have to put the bear under anesthesia. Patrick would have it no other way. He’d hold the bear’s paw as he went to sleep for the last time, and he’d tell the bear how sorry he was that the bear was just being a bear, eating up some blueberries, had to stumble upon this royal mess. Ever since the bear satisfied his hunger, innocently, he had lodged the Queen’s bone with a powerful ring inside of him, he had defended himself against the Princess when he was shot with an arrow, he then was in a fight with Patrick who used the arrow to cause him more pain and who almost drowned him in a mud puddle, and then poor Lucky was taken prisoner, and now he was inside the castle with people arranging his death.

“You unlucky thing,” Patrick whispered to him as he stroked the bear’s fur. Lucky, of his part, simply looked up, sadly.

3. They could force the bear to throw up.

“Couldn’t we?” Patrick asked, hopefully.

“How do you make such a beast vomit?” Rodolfo asked as he was finishing the final touches on the binding of the blonde guard’s ankle.

“We could feed him ipecac, no?” Patrick asked, knowing that the medicine men in the village would always have some ipecac roots that would help villagers throw up their stomach contents in case one of them accidentally ingested something they shouldn’t have, like a poisonous mushroom, instead of an edible one.

“We don’t know how much to give an animal of his size, though, Patrick,” Kyrstin said. “Too little, and he’ll just get a stomach ache. Too much, and he’ll die horribly. The only surefire way for this to succeed is if we put him down, and perform surgery.”

But that was not the way Patrick wanted it to happen. He was sure ipecac would work, and he was sure that they could figure out just how to make it work with the bear.

“How much does this bear weigh?” Patrick asked to a room full of shocked eyes. Nobody had any clue.

Patrick wrapped his arms around Lucky as best he could, the bear was still too big for him, even if he did grow a couple feet over a nap. He tried to lift the bear, but couldn’t- whether it was the odd weight or the awkward angle, the bear’s front feet came off the ground, but his back paws never moved. Lucky looked over, licking the sweat off of the young Giant’s face, and the room pretended not to notice the kindness in its gesture.

“Okay. Now I need some men. Come over, let me try and pick a group of you up.”

Four guards went over to the Patrick, standing shoulder to shoulder. The tallest one still stood a couple inches shorter than the nine year old. Patrick held his arms out wide, and had them all step closer to him, until he wrapped his arms around them and tried to pick them up ,which he did, much easier than trying to lift the weight of the bear. Which meant the bear weighed more than the four men.

“Have any of you done ipecac recently? For any reason?”

Rodolfo raised his hand.

“I feared I ate water hemlock, so I went to the town doctor.”

“How much root did he give you.”

“The size of my thumb nail.”

By Patrick’s estimation, Rodolfo was roughly a fifth of the size and weight of Lucky. Which simply meant, a good estimation, that the bear might need to ingest five times the size of a root as big as Rodolfo’s thumb nail. That must be enough to make the bear vomit up the ring, and stay alive. It was a chance Patrick was willing to take, and so he sent Max, the guard, off to the medicinal man in the village to get them some ipecac.

The group stood there waiting for the guard to return.

“What makes this ring so important? Is it powerful?” Corson asked.

“It’s a family heirloom,” Kyrstin explained. “My grandma got it from her grandma, and she was going to give it to me.”

“It’s for protection,” Brynn said, still staring off at the throne, probably getting her information from the Queen. “That’s all she knows. If it was on the finger of a member of the royal family, the Kingdom would be protected. And since it was removed, this storm has come in.”

Max came back with the ipecac, and Patrick broke off what he assumed was about five times the size of Rodolfo’s thumb nail and held it out to the bear who sniffed it, wanting no part of it.

“Come on, Lucky, this is our only shot of keeping you alive,” Patrick pleaded. The young giant looked around. “Does anybody have any food?”

“I wish,” came the response from one of the guards.

“Corson, get some berries from the cellar. This bear likes berries,” Kyrstin commanded.

Corson was gone and back in an instant, cupped hands full of raspberries that had rubbed off on his skin. Everyone looked at the man’s offering, and when Patrick tried to take them from him, Corson pulled back.

“No, your highness. This bear has already eaten the fingers off of the Queen. We can’t chance him eating the fingers off of you as well.” Patrick agreed, and hid the ipecac within the berries in Corson’s hands. Lucky had already sniffed the fruit, and was lifting his head to sample the food. Corson, for all his bravery, still shut his eyes and looked away, imagining the bear chewing through the berries and then through his hands.

“We can’t chance him eating the fingers off our greatest swordsman, either,” Thomas said, offering his own hands.

“I’ll do it!” Captain Jonathon James said, the small blonde boy with the wind burnt face. “I have faced the roughest seas of my life today, I have crashed on the rocks, and fought being swept out to sea more times than I’ve had nightmares in my sleep. I can see you’re all scared of losing your fingers, but, honestly, it would be one of the smallest fears I’ve faced today.”

So, Jage, replaceing the confidence and courage inside of himself held out his hands for the berries, and upon receiving them, instantly offered them to Lucky Bear. The animal’s large, thick tongue licked the red juice running off his small, white hands. Jage flinched when he felt the front of the bear’s teeth brushing against his palms, but held firm. He didn’t want to move his hands from where the bear knew they were, thinking one twitch out of place, and the bear could rip into his skin. So they stood there, boy pirate feeding the bear, until all the berries were gone.

It didn’t take long for the ipecac to take effect, and for the bear to vomit all over the floor of the Great Hall which was already stained by blood and rain water and mud.