"What are they?" I asked the woman next to me. "Caribou? Kudu?" (They looked nothing at all like kudu.)
"No, they're rune," she said.
The two rune got up, and walked into the river. As they approached us, they started to change, becoming more like women. By the time they got to our side of the river, they were these eight or nine foot tall women, with dark hair and human faces, but still the weird antlers. They wandered around, smiling and making pleasant conversation, and the next thing I knew I was reading the little labels on dozens of plant seedlings, trying to find the shade tolerant ones to plant on the deck. (I know where THAT came from, at least...) But the rune, at least, were kind of interesting.