A Kingdom United, is a Kingdom of Kinship
A Kingdom Sustained, is a Kingdom for Inheritance
A Kingdom Under Threat, is a Kingdom in Great Distress
A Kingdom Unprotected, is a Kingdom Destined to Perish
A Kingdom Under Grace, is a Kingdom that Will Live Forever

For over two hundred years, we the hierarchy of the royal family of the Ursus Americanus, have been in conflict with the invaders of the outer realm.  For many generations, it has become a war that we have been losing against a most formidable alien foe.  A foe so cunning and decisive, that it has spread its own kind beyond the great waters and across the entire face of the earth. Conquering those that have stood in their way, claiming all that mother earth has to offer, becoming overlords to all that she possesses.

Though we, the woodland kings of the mountains have dominated this domain beyond the centuries from where time once stood still.  We have had to outmaneuver, outwit, outlast, and overcome our own natural mortal enemies of the forest. Those being the great clans of the Cougar, the Panther, the Wolf, the Elk, and the mighty Thunderbird, all being rivals in their rightful territories, perishing from the land they once inhabited.

Yet it is these new enemies, those who have drifted across the open sea, carried on wings of wind filled sails that have been our greatest concern.  It is they who have confounded and deceived the great knowledge and wisdom of the kings of the mountains’ ancestors with trickery, brutality and wonderments that many of the kingdom’s subjects have fallen prey to.

It is these more recent, pale-skinned creatures that show little to no respect to the royal family of the forest, amusing themselves at our kingdom’s expense.  They have left this once great empire of the mountain kingdom in a state of near total defeat and distress.  Unlike our red-skinned brothers of the wilderness woodlands, which respected, revered and sometimes feared the kings of the mountains; these new bare-skinned foes show no reverence to the rightful royal family of the highlands. 

Therefore, we who are left, those descendants of the royal clan of the Ursus Americanus, do appeal to all that is good and nurturing within our current adversaries, the mighty and new conquers of our rightful domain, that we may reside in concentrated effort, to live together in both peace and harmony.  We strive to coexist as friends and neighbors within a nation where both of our offsprings may grow healthy and happy all the days of their lives, coinciding simultaneously in our own chosen natural surroundings. Thriving once again under new guidance amongst the now ruling family, united by a sincere understanding and purpose for a greater future for all animal and human kind.  That we may not perish into antiquity, but once again be respected and acknowledged, for we were once, the true “Kings of the Mountains.”

Black Bear, Leader of the Ursus Americanus Clan

The Highlander

Read our other Tales within the Black Bears of the Blue Ridge Smoky Mountains