"We got down eventually. Boar wandered off. We came back to camp, sat down, and told absolutely NO ONE." Bren held up one finger. "We were normal. We ate. We were completely normal people who had a completely normal morning. And then at the feast Elder Drav stood up to speak and I FELT it in my chest. He looked at us." Bren pointed at himself and two spaces of empty air. "RIGHT at us. All three of us. And then he did this—"
Bren rose slowly from his seat, straightened his spine, clasped his hands behind his back, and looked out over the fire like a man about to deliver the wisdom of the ages. "'Sometimes. The hunt. Reminds us. That nature does not owe us victory.'" He paused a full three seconds. "'We must approach the forest. With humility.'"
"HAAAAHK—" Harn made a sound from somewhere deep in his chest and toppled sideways clean off his log.
Serak folded in half over his knees and stayed there making sounds that had stopped being words several seconds ago.
