This piece was drawn by  Xenotropos to the following blurb:

"Ascension"
A night grassy landscape showing starry sky with Ursa Major and Ursa Minor visible, and the third dipper constellation appearing near them. There is an oriflamme made from a polar bear pelt on two crossed sticks sticking from a rock pile in the right part of the picture.

Note the color of the title. I planned to draw it myself because it is so highly personal. But when she asked, I agreed, because I trusted her to do a good work on it.

There is also a huge lot of a backstory there.

The traditional way bears shapeshift in Northern and Siberian myth is by putting another's pelt on. That's the primary way I shapeshift, too. Why you never see it? Because, while primary, it is used less often than the dreamshaping.

I am a shaman, trained in all things ice and cold, but also am a dreamwalker and shaper, as well as a trickster. While that still doesn't explain it, it would in conjunction with another piece of myth.

In astronomy of many unrelated peoples, the dipper constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor are linked to the bears (I will revisit the topic, but if you wanna, look it up on my profile). The stars you see on my body are foxfire tattoos made for my transcendence ritual. They are not just ornamental, but served as sockets for seven fallen stars to be inserted into my flesh.

The results of that ritual were unexpected to me, but one thing it did was giving me the ability to dreamshift outside of the dreams. That's what all my other forms you are familiar with are. Two less featured aren't. One that I was before, Mriï, the Dream took more real presence as I just told about. Other, Mora, the Darkenbeast I will revisit later, too.

So all the above is just a backstory... Or even a small snippet. I can ascend to either. The picture here shows the stellar ascension, with me becoming Ursa Mriï, taking my place with Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

If you look carefully -- and are familiar with sky lore -- you will notice that all three constellations keep to the rule of 7. Each tail lies roughly on the same line as the edge of another's dipper, 7 times the length of that edge away. The tail of Ursa Major is behind the oriflamme, but you can easily check that.

I am looking at Polaris, the Wayfinder there. Someone finding my cairn and putting my pelt on might call on my spirit, but they better be careful not to be overcome. I am a trickster after all, and they might find the deal cost them more than they signed for.

Xenotropos praising me for excellent art direction made me blush a bit, but it is true -- I knew exactly what I wanted, and I provided her the layouts and all the necessary info for this to be the piece you see here. It came out absolutely beautiful and all too true to what I wanted. If you consider that it is traditional art, it is all the more awesome.

You can see and fav the original post by the lovely pangelcorn here: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/9132178