A village!

Brian the stealth bear crept closer to the smoke, and what he saw from between the trees fascinated him.

Buildings!

Strange, blocky buildings that looked nothing like the tents back home, but Father had mentioned these structures before. People lived inside of them. Human people. So wherever buildings lived human people did too. Brian saw a few of them walking through the street. He squinted his little bear eyes.

They looked so strange.

They were all pink and fleshy, like the skin beneath his fur. They looked nothing like the Ursine, far smaller and thinner than his kin, but he had to admit he liked the way they moved. Far more graceful than his cousins. Brian watched them for awhile, anxious about his discovery, and eventually he could pick out differences between men and women. Men were generally larger—although that wasn’t always the case!—and had broader shoulders and chests. Women were slighter in comparison, with svelte bodies and more pronounced hips—but every so often he’d see one that broke the mold too. Human’s were so diverse! Yet the biggest difference were the big fleshy mounds on a woman’s chest.

Those confused Brian. What were they for? They looked so awkward and ungainly, but he kind of… liked them. A lot. Were they teats like he’d suckled from when he was a baby? But some of them got so big and… nice.

They all looked nice, really. Women, that is. Brian had heard stories of their beauty, but he’d never imagined someone not an Ursine could look so good. They wore such little clothing compared to the men too. Tiny skirts and tops. Brian thought it was a weird and interesting societal development. He approved.

The young bear found his confidence, and he picked himself up from his hiding spot. He would talk to a human person, he decided, and see where it went from there. That was what pilgrimage was all about. Doing things, not watching things.