At the edge of the world, where cliffs drop sharply into the churning sea, stood a solitary lighthouse wrapped in fog. Beside it, a great brown bear kept vigil—massive and still, his coat flecked with old salt from the wind. His name, long forgotten by men, carried on the breeze through the spruce trees: Tanuq.

Tanuq wasn’t lost. He was looking.

Every spring, his kin would spread across the wilds—some inland chasing the rivers, some to the coastline where whales sang deep songs. But now summer was waning, and the old bear had returned to this high place above the surf, hoping to glimpse familiar shapes in the distance. A flash of fur on the tide trail. The distant cry of a cub no longer quite so small.

The lighthouse blinked its steady pulse, casting gold over the rocks, and Tanuq watched. Not with worry—but with the quiet strength of one who waits because he cares. He wasn’t the leader of their clan, nor the fastest or fiercest. But he was the one who remembered every voice in the family’s den. He knew which paws had once stumbled and who still ran toward the wind.