Very little is remembered about the first years of Kjarni.

She was a little bear cub roaming with other bears, knowing nothing about beornings. Her parents, knowing the language of animals and trusting them, left her to a bear's family with the promise to take her away from the Vales of Anduin, because a great danger was threatening the Vales.

She spent some years as a bear cub travelling long with them, but one day, in Chetwood Forest noth of Bree, something terrible happened.
A great explosion, caused by a sort of black "magic" powder, called "an experiment" from a sort of men, killed all her bear family, burning part of the woods. She was the only survivor, a little invisible creature protected her.

It was only a moment that saved her life and she didn't know anymore. She was alone. It was time for a new journey, a lonely and desperate one.

Guided only by the whisperers of animals and trees and by the stars, she walked and ran long though woods and forests until one day she reached a huge and intricate forest, with something magical in. It was the forest called Fangorn.
The first creature she met there was so strange... a beautiful red fox with a white star on the forehead that could take human form, the form a mature shaman-woman with red hair. She was called as Vulpastra and she was a spirit of the forest.

It was that fox-woman spirit that revealed to the young bear her true nature, the nature of a skin-changer. Vulpastra called her Kjarni Skogar ,"Spirit of the Forest", due her sensitivity towards nature behind her might, and made her discover her human form, telling about Beorn's heritage.

Kjarni grew fond for her, that "fox" was her spirit guide for years. Thanks to her, the young beorning met the animals and the spirits of the forest and the Ents too, the Forest Shepherds, she learned about Arda, Middle-Earth and its folks, Men, Elves, Dwarves and Hobbits.
For Kjarni, all this was the most beautiful thing seen in her life. She realized that there is an ancestral magic in the forest and in Nature, a magic with roots more ancient than any folk. A magic that, if forgotten, the whole world would be lost.
 

Growing up, Kjarni developed some curiosity about that so-called Beorn's line; she wanted to learned about her family.
Vulpastra though it was time for her to discover it, but it was not a farewell for both of them. A part of the spirit would accompany her in this new journey.

Guided by her instincts, Kjarni went to the Vales of Anduin and there it was all magical too...woods, meadows and mountains. Talking with animals, she learned about a man of Beorn's line that "lost" a daughter years ago.
She found his home... a wooden cabin, all carved with animal and plant decoration, and with farm animals and behives outside.
A sweet scent immediately catched her: it was the smell of honey.

When she met her father, a tall and stout man with a thick grey beard and long hair, he was astonished by recognizing her daughter... there was happines in his heart, but also a sort of grief.
Kjarni spent several weeks in his father house, learning about the coziness of Beorning's life, but whenever she tried to ask about her mother, he never answered.

One day he told her that is was time for him to leave for a his own travel, giving no further explanations. Kjarni accepted it, knowing in her heart that their path would still cross.

So it was time for another journey in her wandering life.

It was during this period that she met the worst things that recalled her tormented childhood: orcs destroying everything, man killing animals, forests burned and destroyed, trees replaced by terrible machines. Her heart screamed, growled, cried...
Savegely killing orcs was only a little satisfaction.

After roaming a lot, she stopped for a period in a village of tribal men, called Dunlendings. They seemed so similar to her, they were wild, animist and revered nature and its spirits. The eldest, a wise and sensitive man, was their guide. But he was very old and his son, Lucht, only aspired to power. He was the same teached Kjarni the ways of a warrior, fighting with a steel axe, fostering her might and ferocity.
When the old men died, his son allied with those who promise power, gold and to "retake their land stolen by Rohirrim", the same that were destroying every creature.
Kjarni felt betrayed: she was only trained as a soldier and "pampered" by Lucht for his evil and filthy aimed.

She ran away in bear form towards the lands of Rohan she only knew so little... but there a group of Rohirrim knight tried to hunt and kill her.
Only one of them disagreed with the others and stopped them.
Severely injured, Kjarni took human form. The knights were surprised and feared some kind of "dark magic", but that one, that was a Rohirric bard, thanks to his knowledge, immediately recognize that she was one of Beorn's heritage.
He rescued her, bringing her on the horse to the near village. The inhabitants were suspicious of this "strange woman", but the bard convinced the healers to take care of her.

Time passed in that village and, despite most of the people remained suspicious about the beorning, others, such as childrens, grew fond of her.

One day, the people of the village were awakened by an unespected assault. Fear prevailed, because only a little number of knights were in that village.
That attack was lead by Luch and his clan followers, bearing a symbol of a white hand on their clothes.
Kjarni was face to face to her traitor and seized the moment to take revenge, not killing him in bear form, but with the axe as he trained her, beheading him. Other Dunledings were defeated and other run away.
It was so strange for her to kill a man with a weapon... she meditate a little about man killing each other with steel, about war, and she grieved for a while.

Rohan was not home for her. With gratitude towards cared for her, she left.

Kjarni's heart lied in Fangorn, but it was not the time yet to return. It was time for another journey. And so, it began, another time.

During that travel she only met another "men". She was in a bare land full of bushes and she was rescuing a little bird fallen from his nest when a strange old man, with a long beard, a gnarled staff and dressed in a brown robe approached.
"What are you looking for, skin-changer?" asked the old man.
Surprised about the question the and tired for the long walk, Kjarni answered: "Only peace for all these creatures... and for me. Maybe to live in a lonely and cozy cabin with only the company of animals".
With a soft smile he said "I see... and I understand. But, remember my words, Friends of Nature: if we don't fight to defend this world against the evil that try destroy it, there will never be peace fo animal nor a cozy cabin amongst mountain woods."
And, after these words, he was gone, like it was a dream, leaving Kjarni full of questions, but with hope in her heart.

She continued her journey, roaming in the lands of Eriador to reach the mountain of Ered-Luin.
And there, on the Blue Mountains, an unespected encounter: a creature similar to a young man, but taller, with pointed ears and very pale skin - she remembered from Vulpastra that creatures like these were called Elves - with long white hair and all dressed in white, lying in the snow, like sleeping.
Quite worried for that elf, Kjarni approached him and he gently opened his eyes, blue as ice.
He was very weak and he couldn't get up, so the beorning took a branch of a near snow-covered birch and gave him to use it as a staff to lift.
Rhiwol was his name.

It was in that moment that a new story began fo Kjarni a new adventure made of friends, affection, travels, music, dreams and magical moments that finally warmed her heart after so much sorrow, never forgetting her call for Nature.
 

Illustration by Martina Montrasi.