If she was going to weathering the winter here, then she would need to bulk up and learn how to survive when the temperatures dropped. It hadn't taken Arayne long to notice that the bears in the area had begun to congregate around a large river, as if they were waiting for something. As days passed, she discovered the reason: the river was a salmon run. Red-bodied, with curved green faces, they swarmed the river in their hundreds, leaping upstream in their frantic desire to spawn. The bears used the river like a buffet, and it didn't take long for Arayne to get an idea.
She picked a spot farther away from the bears, unwilling to get into a row with one over a fishing spot. Less fish came her way, but she needed a lot less meat than a bear did. She had already caught two, and left the bones in a neat pile on the banks. Her paws were cold from the frigid water, but the excitement of finding a good food source helped her endure. If she could catch more fish, then she could cache them nearby and come back to them when pickings were slim. With a splash, another salmon attempted to leap over the three-foot-high crag she had positioned herself on, only to get caught in her jaws. She pranced back to shore, crunching down to stop it's thrashing, and dropped it on the stones, then went back to get another. Plenty of gulls and ravens swarmed overhead, but the majority of them were down by the bears, where there were more fish. Her catch was relatively safe from scavengers.
At least, she thought it was.
"Speech"
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