Pain! Burning! Inside the guise of the bear, Rilana was terrified. Her people embraced everything about the deep cold. The sparkling beauty of ice and the delicate creep of frost. The unfathomable shades of blue that could only be found inside a sheet of ice a mile deep. But Rilana feared fire. Everyone knew that foreigners in these lands might be burned at the stake for the slightest infraction. And now her shoulder was sizzling next to her ear! The stink of scorched fur and charred blubber filled her black nose so that she could only breathe in snarls through her mouth. But the bear didn't know fear. The bear knew fury!

When the weight of the creature fell away, Rilana fell with it, landing heavily on her front paws, favouring the right as blood and melted fat oozed down the fur and turning it spiky as the gore slicked the clear-white hairs.

She opened her mouth with another primal scream, angry at the pain, angry at the way the chimera was dragging itself away from her. Flecks of froth flew from her wicked teeth and she charged again, her rolling gait even more pronounced now that she was forced to limp heavily, staining her paws in the slug trail of blood left by the beast.

Rearing up, she aimed both sets of claws down on the chimera's back, lunging forward with her stout head so that she could sink her teeth into the back of the monster's neck and end it once and for all!