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Entering the clearing, we begin our examinations.
You haven't been here before, so this will be somewhat new to you. There are a number of headstones and a few larger monuments spread around this clearing.
It is the family grave site of a once prominent family, now fallen from grace, the subject of stories told in whispers.
Lying in an open space between monuments, the ceremonial victim's chest rises and falls almost too slowly to notice. Now her body shivers, and she moans quietly as we approach. On examination, we find vital signs within safe ranges.
使 -- You'll keep an eye on things while we talk with this girl, won't you? Hold her hand, will you, to give her some comfort.An adult woman dressed in long, open vestments emphasizing as much as hiding her lack of dress beneath, slips into the clearing from the opposite side from which we entered. She comes to the victim and draws a ceremonial dagger from within the vestments. Holding it horizontally over the victim's mouth, she checks for telltale fog of exhaled breath. Finding fog on the blade, she checks the vines, adjusting two for purposes that are not obvious. Apparently satisfied, she lightly traces the veins in one of the victim's arms with the tip of the dagger, raising it quickly to a safe height when the arm twitches.
Suddenly, there is a commotion in the undergrowth, and a boy and girl back cautiously into the clearing. Both appear barely a hexadecade in age, if that, and are dressed more or less the same as the victim.
"Easy, easy, we're not threatening anyone's babies," the girl says in an unsteady voice.
"What are you doing here? It's not time yet. And who are you talking to?"
The boy replies, "There're wild boars out there."
"Where?" The woman rises and goes over to them to check, as a commotion breaks out on the other side of the clearing and a boy and girl of similar age and dress to the first pair break into the clearing.
"Boars!"
"Run!"
"Impossible. There are no boars in this mountain in this season." The woman turns, just as another pair bursts excitedly into the clearing, both panting heavily.
The newest girl looks around wildly.
The boy looks at the woman, then the other pairs. "You guys, too?" he asks. "How many are there?"
Yet another pair crashes into the clearing, falling more than running through the trees. The boy stumbles to his feet, then helps the girl up.
"Whatever you do, don't fight them," she says.
From each point of the compass, tusked bovine we know enter the clearing —followed by true denizens of the forest — snorting and pawing the ground. Each of the boar is heavier than any three of the Xhilrans in the clearing.
The victim stirs, waking, mumbling. Then her voice comes clear. "We should not be here."
The woman jerks around to stare. "How can you be awake?"
助 -- Thank you for helping stabilize her. Holding her hand has helped draw the poisons from her blood."I've seen dreams. We are on sacred ground, but what we do is a different kind of separate." She rises. "What we were doing. I'm getting dressed."
The woman seems about to object, but the wild boars begin hollering and squealing, rooting among the stones and grass, moving towards the children and their leader, urging them away from the spot on the ground that had been their alter towards one side of the clearing, where their clothes are piled haphazardly, holding back as the children reach their clothing.
Seeing the boars hold their ground, the youths pick up their clothes and begin dressing, shedding the ceremonial loincloths and scarves to do so. The woman lags behind.
With sudden determination, she whirls around, screeching and howling, brandishing her ceremonial dagger, attempting to surprise and scare the boars nearest her, but they only respond by standing on their hind-hoofs, snuffling and grunting, dropping again to the ground, and pressing her with more urgency.
"Give it up!" One of the boys calls.
"You're the leader!" She turns toward an ebony-furred boar, slashing out with her ceremonial blade, only to find herself immediately bowled over and lying on the ground, the tusks of an amber furred gilt mere inches away from her nose, breath fierce and hot in her face.
Now shes squirms backwards, abandons her dagger and rolls and runs for the group of children, collapsing on the ground near them.
As the children regain their state of dress, most of the boars melt back into the woods.
"Don't they say these woods are haunted?"
"I've heard it's safe for people who are are not thinking impure thoughts."
"Pure thoughts. I'm busy thinking pure thoughts for the rest of the day, today."
"We should go back in a group, just in case."
The woman remains in her robes, in a heap on the ground.
"Aren't you coming?"
"No. Run away if you're scared. I'm staying."
The erstwhile victim comes over to stand by the woman. "Yr Athro, I am not staying. And I'm not going through with any more of this game we've been playing. Maybe they were hallucinations, but I've seen enough."
"Hallucinations?" the adult looks suddenly incredulous. "The boars?"
"No."
"You saw something? What did you see?"
The girl turns to the other children. "Some of you think you are stuck in an evil state, damned for things you haven't done and condemned forever for thing you have. It isn't so. There is hope for us as long as we live."
The woman howls, standing and reaching out to attack the girl, but suddenly two boars are behind her, snuffling and grunting again. Instead of attacking, she hides behind the girl.
The girl reaches out to the boars, who nuzzle her hands.
"Nothing to be afraid of, if we think pure thoughts."
"What is a pure thought?" the woman snarls. "I suppose you think you know. You are just a slut."
"That is definitely an impure thought, Yr Athro. I can't let people who did bad things to me in the past define who I am now. Nor should you."
"What makes you think —?"
The amber boar ambles over to the woman and grunts, nuzzling her leg. The woman suddenly crumbles back to the ground, reaching out and hugging the amber boar, sobbing. The ebony boar joins them, snuffling gently beside them. For a long minute or two (five or ten of your minutes) the woman remains as it were in the boars' embrace, the intensity of her sobs slowly ebbing away. Finally, she dries her tears and regains her feet, shedding her robes. One of the boys hands her clothes to her, and she proceeds to dress in a trance.
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[JMR2019: Backed up here:
https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2019/03/bk-we-0-13-55-wild-boars.html
original backed up here:
https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2019/03/bk-we-0-13-5-wild-boars.html
]
