Bitterroot Valley ✢ Pretty boy

Sega watched the boy tear into the elk, silent and unmoving as a stone set in the earth. He saw the way hunger ruled him, the way it stripped him of caution and pride alike. A boy, thin and restless, gnawed not by famine alone but by the truth of wandering without anchor.
When he finally pulled back, voice rasping with the question that hung between them, Sega’s head only shook once.
There no price, he said, voice husky, carrying the weight of earth and smoke. The Ute are a peaceful people. We not trade blood for food.
His pale eyes fixed on the yearling, sharp as flint. But a boy must become strong. Hunger will teach nothing. Eat, yes—but stand. Learn. Hunt. Then will your belly be filled without another man’s kill.
The older wolf shifted his stance, broad shoulders square to the carcass, as though the lesson itself were part of the marking of his valley.
I can teach. If you stay.