[Feanor of the Peredhil]

I dreamed last night that Mac, Rikae, Lari, and Mira were all visiting me and Nienna in the house I lived in as a little kid (same house I couldn't find in my last BD dream, actually).

Mac, Rikae, Lari, and I decided to go for a hike in the woods behind the house (in reality, there aren't woods behind the house, there's a small yard with a tree, backed by a huge building, with another road on the other side of it). As we started climbing the hill, I commented that it was questionable for us to head up into the woods at twilight, and Rikae seemed surprised I'd say so. She asked why.

I explained that these woods have a mountain lion in them. And bears.

At that point, Lari (who may have briefly served the dual role of being Rikae's mom), said that she wanted Rikae, not Mac, to lead the hike, because Rikae had grown up here.

I was a little confused, because I didn't know Rikae had grown up in the same small towns I had, but I figured, okay... we'll just deal with wildlife if we see any.

Before we've even gone fifty yards more up the hill, a bear comes down out of a tree. A little black bear, but even a little bear is much bigger than a human.

I said, "Back up slowly, don't make any sudden moves, and we'll walk back the way we came."

We all back up slowly, walking away, watching over our shoulders.

The bear follows.

We are very concerned.

We hear a loud noise and look over. There are two wolves attacking a squirrel.

We curse.

We speed up our slow walking away, trying not to draw attention, trying to get back to the house.

After maybe twenty feet, the wolves decide to chase us, as does the bear.

At this point, we quit trying to play it cool and we all run for it.

Of course the animals are faster than us...

The bear chases one of the wolves, which conveniently distracts them both, but we're still having to deal with the much bigger wolf that apparently wants to eat us.

I yell, "Mac, stick!" and he obligingly ducks off the path and grabs a large stick to beat the wolf with.

He weilds it like a baseball bat, waiting for the trajectory of the wolf to bring it into reach, and then swings.

Problematically, the stick is rotten, so it breaks on impact, and doesn't really hurt the wolf.

We're still running, and at least the wolf is momentarily dazed.

It attacks again. Again, Mac whacks it with the rotten stick (which breaks again).

The bear and wolf lose interest in each other and start barreling after us down the hill.

I should mention, the hill was snowy by this point. We were slipping and sliding, crashing into trees, but at least it slowed the predators down too.

We got to the house, finally, and I slammed the door and locked it (the bear was outside), and Mac and Rikae embraced, and Lari ran upstairs to cry in Nienna's room, and I took several deep breaths, and Stick yelled at me for letting everyone go hiking where there were wild animals and they could have died.