Overture Downs soft light

As intent as she was on the bison, and being that she had her back turned to the erstwhile stranger, Journey did not notice that they thought her point of view rather silly. Even the idea that they might live here and see this quite often did not occur to the excited youth, who could only imagine this experience as once-in-a-lifetime.

"Stories about the great hunts," she replied, as if this was all quite obvious. "Where I'm from, we mostly hunt the caribou, and sometimes a moose if something important is coming up. But these are like a moose and a bear in one gigantic body. Like stories of the ancient hunters taking down mammoths."

Journey wiggled back out from under the trunk, her eyes shining. "My aunt's a great hunter, you know. My whole family is, but my aunt they call Blackbear because she's hunted a bear. And she's hunted these, too. She says she once brought a whole pelt home to her father, and that's when she became the youngest leader of the hunt in — I can't remember. But a long time."

She spent a moment looking wistful before rearing back and bracing her forelegs on the tree trunk so that she could look over it instead of under. "My dad never liked me hunting big game," she said, conversationally. "I guess I can see his point where bison and moose are involved. But still — wouldn't it be cool to say you've taken one of these down?"