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Aria didn't move when Cass reached out to comfort her, concentrating on breathing. She would not think of the labyrinth. She would not recall the looks on their faces when she stood up, still alive and left for dead: pain and despair mixed with a brief fluttering of hope. She would not reimagine what it was like to kneel down next to them one by one and check for a pulse, to beg and plead with a weapon to willingly part from their bonded in order to keep serving. She refused to recall how her hands shook when they'd painfully tilt their chins up, exposing their throat and making one last request. Aria's breath caught as she recalled the rush of warmth that covered her hands when she filled those requests.

The division leader closed her eyes, fighting off the memories that threatened to creep back. They were getting worse. Aria wondered briefly if she would require stronger medicine to send her into a blissful sleep. Hell, not even Lance's presence as enough to fend off the nightmares sometimes. He had to wake her up more than once and hold her tight, hands running down her soothingly to calm her.

"It will be a lot of work," Aria began softly when she managed to find the words. "There will be a lot of work involved. You will be pushing yourself to the limit. And even then, it might not be enough. Do you still think you could handle it?"

"A wise answer," Aria replied, nodding and standing up, clutching the rifle in her hands. She took a deep breath, grasping her fears and nightmares and placing them aside, freezing and locking them away somewhere deep and dark. There was no time to be haunted, much less here of all places. Part of her was aware of how weak she suddenly appeared in front of the trainee. The other part didn't care. Aria was human, after all.

A silence stretched between them as they continued to walk. Aria did not offer to speak, instead whistling softly for Beau to come trotting back towards them. The silence seemed to stretch before Aria broke it again. "When we get there, we'll need to set up a blind. A blind is basically a sort of camouflage that will hide us from the birds. Ducks have surprisingly good eyesight, and around this time of year we may also run into geese."

"Providing there's been someone there recently, the blind should already be there," Aria answered. "There's several different variations, but the one we usually have on hand is woven out of dried grass. It's too wet in the season now to make our own, and," Aria glanced up at the sky, adding, "It would take us too long to make one. Perhaps later if you're still interested I can show you how to weave one."

Hopefully whoever was out here last put it back where they usually kept it. If it had mold or wasn't usable... Aria bit back a grimace. A replacement would most likely need to be supplied by her. As usual.

"Once we get the blind up, we're going to wait. They'll probably hear us coming, so we'll need to wait for them to come back. After that..." Aria grinned, nodding towards Cass. "I hope you're ready to find out how much of a trigger finger you've got on your gun. You'll need to shoot and aim for their heads. Once the first shot goes off, they'll all take off. Shooting it through the body will probably wound it, and it might get away. Always shoot to kill. We're here to feed ourselves, not the local wildlife."

Aria grinned. "Then perhaps sometime in the future we'll go on a camping trip with knives only and rough it. It's not too bad -- it's kind of fun once you get over the potential amount of suck." The division leader's gaze grew distant as she recalled that particular memory. "And have good weather. When we do it, I promise we won't go to Africa or to South America. Or to a jungle. Something like an American or European forest might do nicely."

Or it had the potential to turn into a giant train wreck. There was always that.

The two Mists made it down to the spot, whereupon Aria demonstrated how to properly place the blinds. And how to lure out ducks. And after three months several hours of waiting, there were ducks.

Aria quietly raised her rifle, loaded and ready to fire. She gestured towards CASS wordless: take the first shot.

Her first round of shots wasn't bad, hitting each of her targets and sending two of them down. Good. That was a good start.

It was when she fired again it seemed like her aim had gotten a little off. One duck went down as she hit it again, but the other two seemed to have gotten antsy enough to want to start moving. Damn! She'd need to hit them both more firmly if they still had that kind of energy. Better to kill them now than let them bleed out and suffer, right?

Still, she had to remain calm. Always calm.

Duck 2 - Ded
Duck 3 - Hit 1 - miss
Duck 5 - Hit 1 - miss

She pulled the trigger five more times, trying to not spend too long aiming, but not firing completely wildly either.

Again, her aim was rather effective as three of her targets went down without a fight. Another one flailed as it was hit, and she could tell she'd have to shoot it again to put it down, but one seemed to wonder what that wind that had just blown past it was.

Hmmm.

You've downed 8 now. Going to try for those last two?

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Duck 6 - Hit
Duck 7 - ded
Duck 8 - miss
Duck 9 - ded
Duck 10 - ded

Aria shrugged. "Beau's more of a duck-dog than general hunting, but we can see." She didn't make any promises. A dog would be useful to have to hunt with, and yet... Truthfully, Aria wasn't sure how well Beau would cope with roughing it. In her experience, Beau was rather sheltered for a dog. She stayed at her "home" in the kennel when she wasn't out running with other hunters, or hunting herself. And when it came to Halloween creatures...

Cass fired her pistol. Aria held off on firing her shotgun, watching. The original plan was to stay on standby and finish off a duck that Cass missed before it got away. She didn't need to bother. When Cass looked to her, Aria shook her head and lowered her rifle without firing a shot. "You exceeded my expectations! I was under the impression that you needed more practice with that pistol of your's, but..." She grinned, then whistled sharply. "Beau! Retrieve!"

The dog didn't need to be told twice. As soon as she heard her name her ears perked up; the second word had her off and running, splashing into the water towards the floating bodies. The retriever began to bring back the ducks, dropping them off one by one to the two Mist girls. "You've got more than enough. I think we're good to wrap this up and head back." Aria added, passing Cass a ball of twine. "Go ahead and dismiss your weapon. Next step: turning these into food."