"[color=7bcdc8]NO SPEECH'S![/color]" he blurted rather violently, before recovering and stammering. 

"[color=7bcdc8]uh.. uh dun like bein'... roun' lotsa peoples... It. Uh dun like it.[/color]" he drawled with a suddenly 'thousand yard look' in his eyes, which then just as suddenly, and somewhat disturbingly refocused on Theodore.

"[color=7bcdc8] If'n ya jus' wans' sum silly ol' spells shown off.. 'at's fine an' all, buht... Not fer verruh manuh. .. No moar an' abou' five 'er so.. Ih.. ih hard tuh keeps track o' em.. an' uh dun like bein' stare' at.  ... Make muh fur stan' on end... Oh-- AN NO DANCIN'.  Ain't NUTTIN' good e'er come a dat dancin' spell... Nuh uh. No Sir!  --Onluh cas' it TWICE'T-- an' it dun wrecked a whole dayum taown bot' dayum times![/color]"

He had noticed that some humans seemed to positively [i]revel[/i] in being showy, pretentious, and being the center of everyone's attention, but he had found that this was simply not for him.  He much preferred the quiet non-visibility of simply going all fours in the woods, and only interacting like a man when he really needed to. True, his thoughts and feelings had not properly been those of a "proper bear" since he was maybe 7 months old, and he most certainly did remember what that felt like, but this was not about trying to delude himself into thinking he was something he was not.  He just found that other animals were significantly less judgemental than humans were, and were [i]VASTLY[/i] easier to understand. To him, human "thinking" had a lot in common with a howling thunderstorm, or maybe a jumbled up ball of wire, or a knotted up length of rope. Loops, turn-arounds, knots, twists, -and with some people at least-- frayed edges.  His own thoughts were a bit twisty, at least compared to a proper bear's, but nowhere near the maddening maze of plots, plans, and 'rationalizations' that lived inside a human.  He knew, because before he started having 'man-thoughts' of his own, his dad could touch his mind like he did with his mom-- and [i]he remembered exactly how that felt.[/i] He would never [i]forget[/i] how that felt. Missed it even. More than once, he had looked into his dad's lonely, single brown eye, and wished he could be wrapped in that all-encompassing warmth and love the man had inside him-- even if there was a raging tempest of maddening thunders and crackles held at the edge.

What he did have inside him, was very much a stripped down version of what he had felt back then. His dad was a storehouse of some very terrible feelings, memories, doubts... but somehow that man kept it at bay.  

-- He wished he knew know.

Suddenly, he realized he was in danger of compromising the "official position" he was supposed to be keeping.

"[color=7bcdc8]We kin talks' 'bout it, buh not 'here... Dun wunna talk tuh too many peoples righ' naow... already o'er muh limit, so tuh speak... Muh room s'posed tuh be daown one'ah 'dese 'ere halls.. .. Thank Meluhdey say it were ... 'da hun'ers' green room' or summat like at.  ..... Beat the [i]fuck[/i] outta meh which one it is dough...[/color]"