Author’s Note: I just wanted to add here that I’ve received permission to use Soulful Heart Fox in this story. He won’t show up for a while but it didn’t feel right going back to the first chapter to add him to the list of thank yous where only new readers would see it so I’d like to thank Nebulabelt/GammaEradon for letting me use him. Now on with the story.
Chapter 4: Home
The call of gulls and the roar of the wind and waves were oddly calming for Joel as he stood behind the wheel of a sailing ship. One gull swooped down and landed on the wheel which startled him for a moment. He could swear he saw the gull smile at him before it took off to join its flock.
“How’s the weather look?” Joel looked down at the blue bear on the main deck.
“Just fine so far,” Joel replied. He turned his gaze forwards to the horizon. “I just wish I knew where we were going.”
“Want me to take over?” the blue bear offered.
Joel shook his head, “No thanks. Go spend time with your mate.”
The blue bear shook his head as he marched up to the wheel, “I spend enough time with her. You need a break, go see my sister and the cubs.”
Joel sighed and relinquished control of the wheel, “If you insist.” He trotted down the stairs and headed below decks.
The cabin was full of hanging cradles, each made from half a barrel, which were occupied by one or more multicolored infant animals. An orange cat, a blue dog, a pink elephant, a yellow pig, an orange lion, a blue rabbit, a purple raccoon, a purple penguin, a green lamb, an orange monkey, and over a dozen bears in all the colors of the rainbow. The unicorn sat in the corner feeding her son and the cream colored bear was rocking a blue bear cub in her arms. The cub was fussing and sniffling, his noise threatening to wake the other dozing cubs.
“There there,” she whispered, but it did little to settle the cub down. So the cream bear sang.
“I keep recalling How life used to be Now and then I wonder: Have we changed? With you hand in mine, All the moments shine Like the pictures in a storybook, We can turn the pages Sharing pieces of the memory I care for you now As I did then At our beginning Our beginning…”
She placed the blue bear back in his cradle and stepped back, only now noticing Joel’s presence below deck.
“That was beautiful,” Joel whispered as he walked over to her. “Where did you hear that?
She blushed, “I don’t know, it just came to me.”
Joel gave her a soft kiss on the cheek and she giggled. “It’s so peaceful.”
“Do you think he’s still chasing us?” the bear asked.
Joel shuddered, “I hope not, we haven’t seen him for days at least.”
Her mother stood up from where she had been dozing and stretched. “I’ll go check up on deck,” she whispered as she passed Joel and her daughter.
The red cloud. They only regarded it as male because of the voice they heard from it as it chased them. Whatever it was it wanted them dead and so they kept running, running until they had been guided to the ship they now resided on.
Joel put his arms around the cream bear and hugged her close, “It’s going to be alright.”
Further conversation was halted by the crash of thunder from outside. It sent a chill up all of their spines. The unicorn set her son down to rest and darted for the steps upwards with Joel and the cream bear following close behind.
Up on deck lightning flashed overhead and rain poured down soaking them all instantly. The blue bear was wrestling with the ship’s wheel and trying to regain control. “This storm came out of nowhere! He must have found us!” Joel dashed up to help him push the wheel, only for them to feel a sudden lurch as the wheel spun wildly and threw both of them to the deck.
The blue bear sputtered and wiped rainwater from his eyes, “Gotta get-“ he was cut off by a loud crack of thunder as a lightning bolt struck the main mast, severing the sail and causing the ship’s mast to collapse nearly crushing the mother bear in the process.
The cream bear helped Joel to his feet and the peered over the edge of the ship, spotting a whirlpool forming in the water. Out from the whirlpool a red sea serpent emerged, its mouth full of razor sharp fangs and its eyes glowing red. The blue bear put his hands together and conjured a chunk of rock which he threw at the serpent, only for it to bounce harmlessly off the serpent’s snout. Roaring with anger it lunged forwards.
“Hurry!”
“The mast!” all five of them dove for the severed mast of their ship and heaved it upwards, catching it in the serpent’s jaws and holding them open. The serpent pulled back, shaking his head and struggling to free his teeth.
“Look out!” the unicorn pointed ahead to where a column of rising water had appeared, streaming up into the clouds above.
“What is it?” Joel asked.
“Whatever it is, we’re heading straight for it!” the blue bear shouted as he dove for the wheel again, trying to wrench the rudder away from, whatever it was. The red sea serpent still chased them and even with its jaws held open it made to strike the ship.
The hue of the water column changed to the six colors of the rainbow as the bowsprit touched it and it glowed before changing into a column of pure rainbow light. The bright light caused the sea serpent to recoil and roar in agony as the rest of the ship was caught up in the rainbow and lifted into the sky. The sea serpent finally broke the mast from its jaws and spoke in a deep rumbling voice. “Run, run while you can. No matter where you go I will find you. You cannot escape me. I am Dark Heart.” Dark Heart coiled himself into a spiral before his entire body changed into a whirlwind with two glowing red eyes and he flew off.
All five animals lay on the deck, panting, sweating, and soaking wet. As they rested a tingle of energy swept across the entire ship that regenerated the mast, created a star-shaped main sail, and coated the entire outer hull in clouds.
Joel was the first to recover and sit up. “What happened?” he rubbed his head.
“We’re flying. Eep!” The unicorn almost jumped to her hooves but fell back to the deck as a tiny red valentine heart and a tiny yellow five-pointed star, both with smiling faces, floated out of the now heart-shaped entrance to the hold and past the front of the ship. All five of them watched the little creatures as they floated up to greet a giant five pointed star that glowed a bright yellow and had the calm but weary features and voice of a kindly old man.
“Well done my little star and heart buddies, our search is now over. We have found creatures whose love and caring is so great that it sets them apart from the rest of the world.”
“Pardon me,” the mother bear raised her hand to get the star’s attention. “Who are you and what is all of this?”
“Ahh forgive me.” The star cast its gaze upon them. “I am the Great Wishing Star. I was created by all of the pure wishes of those who live on earth. I saw that the earth, especially children, would soon need guidance that only those with great caring can provide. For the great, love, caring and kindness you have shown you shall be known as True Heart Bear.” The cream bear felt a warmth on her tummy as it glowed then reveals a multicolored heart with a tiny pink heart inside. “Noble Heart Horse,” Joel’s tummy glowed as well, revealing a multicolored heart with a tiny pink star in the middle. “Sage Heart Bear,” the blue bear’s symbol was a heart made of multicolored rainbow dust. “Life Heart Unicorn,” the unicorn’s was an apple tree with heart shaped fruit. “And Grams Bear,” the mother bear’s symbol was a bloomed rose.
The newly named Sage Heart prodded his new tummy symbol. “How did you do this?” he asked.
“I sent the catalyst to change those it found worthy of carrying out this mission, the same catalyst that created myself,” the star replied.
“The catalyst? That crystal?” Life Heart glanced back to the hold.
“Yes. However, be wary for there are those like Dark Heart who will try to stop you, those who thrive off the misery of others. Sage Heart and Life Heart, as time passes you will be responsible for training those who will defend the other Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins, the Care Bear Magi. Now welcome to your new home: The Kingdom of Caring.” The star lifted out of view as the clouds in front of the ship coalesced together and, before their eyes, what could only be described as a country made of clouds formed before them. Their cloud ship came to dock right in front of a fountain that spouted rainbow colored water.
The five friends brought all the cubs up from the hold, all of whom were wide awake following the night’s events. They all stared in awe at their new home. Before True Heart could ask “how to we get down?” her tummy shook and a rainbow shot out of her tummy symbol, creating a rainbow bridge from the ship to the cloudy shore. Without prompting the cubs jumped on the slide and bounced onto the soft clouds, each of them gaining a tummy symbol of their own as they hit the shore.
~~~
Exhaustion, that’s all Sage Heart Bear felt as he fell into bed next to Life Heart Unicorn. The cubs were all asleep in a giant nursery just down the hall from their bedrooms. Thankfully the exhaustion was universal and the cubs were all sleeping soundly after a short day of playing, exploring and watching the fireworks they had shot out of their tummy symbols. True Heart seemed the most worn out and had fallen asleep in a cloud bank shortly after they arrived, needing Noble Heart to rouse her and get her to their new home in this castle before the rest of them gathered the cubs up into the nursery.
~~~
It was over a week later that a loud crying roused Sage Heart from his rest. “Huh?” he looked up and over to the door, hearing the voices of Noble Heart and True Heart coming from the nursery accompanied by the loud crying they recognized as belonging to Brave Heart Lion.
“What is it?” Life Heart said, half-asleep.
“Sounds like Brave Heart again,” Sage Heart said groggily. “Should we get up?”
“No,” Life Heart gave him a kiss, “Sounds like True and Noble have it handled.” She snuggled up closer to Sage Heart. Soon they were both asleep again.
Thankfully it was dawn before they were roused, this time by Grams Bear, who knocked at the door to their room. “Sage Heart, Life Heart, we need your help.”
“Be there in a minute,” Life Heart said. She yawned and slipped out of bed. Sage Heart grumbled a bit but pushed himself up and slid into his slippers at the edge. By the time Sage Heart had cleared the sleep from his eyes Life Heart was already out the door. Sage Heart stretched and followed after her.
The sound of wailing greeted him as he exited. The cubs were up. The last fog evaporated from Sage Heart’s brain as he darted forwards into the nursery, finding Noble Heart, Grams Bear and Life Heart already hard at work. Life Heart was gathering and filling bottles for the cubs, Grams was checking for and changing diapers, and Noble Heart had gone to the kitchen and was pouring out some cereal for the four of them.
“Where’s True Heart,” Sage Heart asked as he grabbed a bowl, opting to just drink the cereal rather than waste time with a spoon.
“On earth,” Noble Heart took a gulp from his own bowl, “First caring mission.” He finished off his bowl and grabbed the two still full of cereal and milk. “We’ll take over, you eat,” he said, trading a bowl to Life Heart for Grumpy Bear, who finished off his bottle and promptly spat up on Noble’s nightgown. Sage Heart relieved Grams at the changing station, letting her get some breakfast as he powdered and diapered his son, Love Heart Bear.
“These are our mornings,” he muttered as he grabbed a bottle and put it in Love Heart’s mouth.
It took about 3 hours before they had seen to each cub and they were mostly all crawling around n the nursery floor. Sage Heart slumped into a chair, hand over his eyes. “Uggg, just five minutes,” he mumbled.
“I’m with you,” Noble Heart didn’t bother finding a chair, slumping against the wall and sliding to the ground. Seeing one of their guardians at rest, Harmony and Brave Heart crawled over to Noble Heart and tried to pull themselves onto his lap. Noble Heart wanted to protest, until he got a look at their faces, then sighed and resigned himself to being a small living jungle gym.
“Oh dear,” Grams took stock of the room. “Oh dear,” she did a second headcount of the cubs, “Swift Heart’s gone!”
“What!” Sage Heart was up on his feet. Noble Heart tried to get up but was afraid of hurting Harmony and Brave Heart.
“I just checked and she’s not here,” Grams did a third count just to be sure.
“She probably crawled somewhere when we were busy.” Sage Heart looked to where Noble Heart sat, “Watch the cubs while we search the castle, Noble.”
“No problem, I can’t go anywhere like this.” Noble Heart half raised an arm, attracting attention from more of the cubs.
After 20 minutes of frantic searching, Swift Heart Rabbit was no where to be found. “Oh no! Oh no!” Grams buried her face in her hands, “barely more than a week and we’ve already lost one.”
Sage Heart patted her back, “Easy mom, we’ll find her. We just need to think.”
“Noble Heart, when do you remember seeing her last?” Life Heart asked.
Noble Heart scratched his chin, “Well, I was talking with True Heart about the caring meter going off, I looked at the cubs,” he turned to look at Swift Heart’s vacant crib and saw the backpacks leaned up against the side. Noble Heart smacked his forehead, “The backpack she grabbed was right there,.Swift Heart must have slipped in when we weren’t looking.”
“We won’t know until my sister gets back. We might as well take a look around this place now that it’s daylight,” Sage Heart offered.
Noble Heart’s stomach growled. “After we get something to eat.”
It was late afternoon by the time True Heart returned with fraternal twins John and Dawn in tow. Thankfully the cubs had been put down for a nap and True Heart returned Swift Heart Rabbit to her crib.
John and Dawn stood in awe of the nursery around them, especially at the other four founders that greeted them. “Is this all real?”
“I can assure you it’s very real. Welcome to the Kingdom of Caring,” Noble Heart gave them a smile.
“John and Dawn have come to learn more about how to share their feelings,” True Heart said.
“Well then, we-,” Grams was cut off when the audible bell of the caring meter went off again. Noble Heart, True Heart and Sage Heart darted to the window and peered out at the caring meter as it dropped another point.
“It’s going off again,” True Heart said as John and Dawn approached the trio.
“If it’s dropping that low, this time it might be Dark Heart,” Sage Heart furrowed his brow.
“Who’s Dark Heart?” John asked.
“Let’s hope you never find out,” Noble Heart said as he cast a glance back at their guests.
“If it is Dark Heart it’ll take more than one of us,” True Heart said, pumping her fists.
“We can’t all go, someone has to look after the cubs,” Noble Heart said. He turned to face the thankfully asleep nursery.
“You three go and we’ll watch them,” Grams said. She approached the three at the window and forcefully nudged them towards the door.
“But-” Sage Heart tried to protest.
“It will be fine,” Life Heart assured him. “John and Dawn can help us. Now go,” she said as Grams finally ushered them out the door. Grams waited by the door until she saw the three of them flying away in a car made of clouds.
As if on cue, every single cub in the nursery started bawling up a storm, thrashing in their cribs and demanding attention.
“When it rains it pours,” Life Heart sighed as she moved to comfort Tenderheart, who was closest to her. She sniffed, grimaced, then called out, “John, can you open that cupboard over there and bring out some fresh diapers.” She nodded towards a cupboard on the wall.
“Here?” John asked as he approached and opened the cupboard. Life Heart didn’t need to answer as he saw piles of cloth diapers in the cupboard. Grabbing an armful of diapers, he headed over to Life Heart who already had Tenderheart on a changing table.
“Dawn, help me with the formula.” Grams took Dawn’s hands and led her to another cupboard, this one full of small blue baby bottles. Once they were laden with them they headed for the kitchen and grams grabbed the mixture for the formula that had been provided for them. “Boil some water and get the lids off,” Grams said as she began mixing the formula.
With so many cubs waiting for care Life Heart was run ragged. She cast a glance over at John who, despite some hesitance, took to his task with dedication, if not enthusiasm. She had to use her magic to set up a bathing basin for the cubs and filling it with water and soap as she finished removing and chucking a messy diaper in the laundry bin.
John just stared as the bathtub floated over to the faucet and filled itself seemingly without help. “How did you do that?”
“I’m a unicorn, it’s magic. We can talk later, please help me here,” Life Heart said as she moved the bath next to the table and gently bathed Tenderheart before tying a fresh diaper one and putting him back to bed. John followed suit with Brave Heart as Life Heart lifted a still crying Cheer Bear up to the table.
Tenderheart began to fuss after being put to bed but thankfully at that point Dawn came over, the first few bottles of formula in her arms. “Here you go,” she said, offering the bottle to Tenderheart, who instantly latched on to the bottle and sucked greedily. Grams approached with more bottles on a tray and began handing them out to each cub as she were laid into their cribs, all the while softly singing to the cubs.
“I care for you, It’s kind of magical it just takes two. To share with you, I’d like to show you by the little things I do. It warms my heart, To think that you might feel like sharing too. That’s what it’s all about Because I care for you.
“It isn’t so hard, All you have to do is try, Now you have to make the first move, You’ll see good things usually multiply.
“Somehow is all work no it’s really not so rare. Give a little here, Five a little there No it doesn’t take much to show you care.
“I care for you, It’s kind of magical it just takes two. To share with you, I’d like to show you by the little things I do. It warms my heart, To think that you might feel like sharing too. That’s what it’s all about because I care for you.”
After over three hours of care, diapering, bathing, occasionally replacing the water, and mixing formula, the cubs were all settled down. Grams checked each crib, removing emptied bottled and burping the cubs that had finished eating before she set them down and they fell asleep again, showing Dawn how to do the same.
Somehow, Grumpy Bear had ended up with a fresh diaper tied around his head and John could swear the blue cub was glaring at him for this mix up.
“Oops,” he chuckled as he removed the diaper and tied it properly around Grumpy’s bottom before he lifted the cub over and sat in one of the room’s rocking chairs. Life Heart was already there, bottle-feeding Love Heart in the other chair.
“There there,” Life Heart cooed as her son finished the bottle and she burped him over her shoulder. Once he was asleep, Life Heart replaced Love Heart in his crib.
Dawn slumped into another chair and yawned. “So tired,” she mumbled.
“You did very well for a first time. Get some sleep and we’ll have you back before anyone knows you’re gone,” Life Heart said.
“That’s good,” John said as Life Heart relieved him of a now sleeping Grumpy Bear. Soon both humans were fast asleep.
True Heart, Noble Heart and Sage Heart returned less than an hour later. Noble Heart grumbled in his seat as they touched down. “Nothing. No sign of Dark Heart or even someone in trouble. This was a waste of time.”
“Maybe…” True Heart sighed as they entered the castle. She peered into the nursery, only to see Grams make a ‘shush’ motion with a finger to her lips as she pointed to their still sleeping visitors.
“You left two children who didn’t think they could do anything right and returned to find two ‘world class’ babysitters,” Grams chuckled softly.
“They did very well considering the work load,” Life Heart nodded with Grams’ statement.
“At least some good came of this.” Sage Heart smiled and put his arm around Life Heart.
“We should probably wake them up before too long, I don’t want the camp councillors to worry about them.” True Heart said.
“Just let them rest a little longer, we’ll have them back to camp before dawn.” Noble Heart nodded.
A/N: Sorry for the delay, took me a while. Just so you know I’m not going to go through every scene of Care Bears 2, just the ones with major alterations. Just assume that Grams, Sage Heart and Life Heart are there for most of the major scenes. Also I really wanted to fix what I saw as a really creepy scene with the baby-care-o-matic where the founders leave two kids they just met to look after all the cubs they’re supposed to take care of.
