Bear of the Tundra Drum

Her bones creak against the squeak of compacted snow but her face shows no discomfort. She has walked this vast forgotten land since the first hare was set loose here by ancient hands. She is a moonlit shadow in the never ending night. A hot breath against swirling ice whipped into smoke by bitter winds. There are none of her now, she sees no footprints in the ground, even the caribou's grow faint. She traverses thousands of rocks, knowing each one by its hardy lichen touch.
For a being so large this land consumes her until she is just a shadow, a ghost in this coldest ocean of air.
Sounds are few, you can go weeks without so much as a whisper and only those that need to, only those that can cope will hear her. For once you hear the deep, lonely beat of her drum there is no forgetting. The tundra will be in your heart through every life time and the next. It will wake you in the night when you dream by the warm hearth with a chill in your blood and a beat in your bones.