Water and Earth, Prologue, scene 13.70 -- Debriefing

Previous: To the Third  and Fourth Generation

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From within the forest, four wild boars watch the group of students and their teacher leave. As the group disappears around a bend, the amber gilt nuzzles the ebony boar's neck, and he nuzzles back. After a few nuzzles and nips, they back away, perhaps regretfully, grunting and sighing, then turn and snort to the other pair, who hesitate, then approach and join in nuzzling.

Shortly, four Xhilrans stand in the shade of the forest.

Earth Prince grins. "Nuzzling is fun."

Water Princess smiles shyly, looking down at the grass. "But staying in that form would be dangerous. I'm not sure I'd be able to control my, uhm, natural instincts."

"We changed back too soon?"

"Mom!"

"Animals have different rules." She pauses, then ducks her head in apology. "But we aren't animals. Sorry."

"Yeah. Much as I like your mom's ideas, I do agree with you, Dŵr. No." Earth Prince chuckles, and the four join in. He continues, "Just as well it's not yet rutting season."

"I shouldn't tease, honey. But I do like your new prince."

Earth Prince clears his throat.

Water Princess squeezes his hand while reaching out to give her mother a hug.

"Maybe we should go see what we can copy from the monuments and markers," Water Princess's father suggests.

Earth Prince looks at the position of the sun. "I've still got an hour."

(A sixteenth of a day. You would call it an hour and a half.)

The four head back into the woods, retracing their steps.

"Well, I think we did a good job."

"Thanks Mom. We need to thank the real boars, too, if we can find their sounder."

Earth Prince holds branches out of the way as the others pass. "Yeah. I was a bit worried about the methods, but this avoided the appearance of magic. That would have caused problems in this particular case."

Water Princess's father holds branches in turn. "I think at least two of their group are thinking there was magic involved."

The two men stop and nod to each other, then move on.

"Professor Parry." Earth Prince's expression turns a bit pensive. "She was one of my favorite teachers when I started the upper forms. She reached out to the students who didn't fit in."

Water Princess nods. "That must be disappointing. But I don't think she's a bad person. Just confused."

"Yeah, I think you're right. But I think I need to visit her."

観 -- That is correct. You do.

"She needs some  support. I'll go with you."

"If you need, we can too," Water Princess's mother suggests.

"Thanks." Earth Prince nods. "I'm not sure a crowd's a good idea, though."

使 -- Better not to have any parents on the first visit. And it will likely require more than one visit.

"Should I go alone the first time?"

助 -- Water Princess can help you.

"It's a date."

"But what if she calls me by name? Or asks yours?"

Water Princess pauses in her progress, and looks back to Earth Prince. "Maybe I'll have to give up a little more of my comfort zone ..." Her voice falters as she starts moving again.

They break through the underbrush, into the gravesite clearing.

"There's Professor Parry's dagger."  Water Princess's father walks over and picks it up. He frowns as he examines it. "Definitely not just a re-purposed letter opener. Can't leave it lying around."

"She would keep that in her desk and use it as a letter opener. She knows how to throw it, too, and just the thought of her having it handy kept some of the rowdier boys in line."

"Rather unique professor, I'd say."

助 -- We can take care of that.

Water Princess's father thoughtfully hands the dagger, handle first, to the messenger. The messenger accepts it, removes her pack, pulls a long cravat from it, and proceeds to wrap the dagger. Once the blade is protected, she stores it in her pack.

助 -- When necessary, the blade can be returned to any of you four.

観 -- Water Princess, what are your opinions of the work you have just done?

"If I had been more prepared, I think I'd have just asked the boars to handle it, and we could have watched from the shadows without having to assume any different form."

観 -- Do you think you could have been sufficiently prepared?

"Good question. I was just following the ideas that came to me, in my heart."

使 -- Could you have done better?

Water Princess and Earth Prince look at each other. Earth Prince shakes his head slowly.

"It's always possible to do better." Water Princess purses her lips thoughtfully.

"Until the job is done. It was sufficient," Earth Prince says with a wry smile.

使 -- Earth Prince is right. 

"And follow-up is always necessary, anyway." Water Princess nods in acceptance of her own words as she speaks.

助 -- To what object, the follow-up?

Water and Earth look at each other and nod, then speak in unison -- "To confirm Agnes's decision, and to try to help Professor Parry believe that magic is not the path she seeks."

助 -- Correct. You may now proceed with the business of the day.

"I have some questions."

観 -- Yes, Earth Prince?

"That was some pretty heavy-duty physics."

使 -- True.

I'm sure you share our amusement at Earth Prince's insight. Please be patient with him.

"Care to enlighten us how it was done? I mean, the one translation of matter forms is hard enough to understand being possible. It's way beyond simple alchemy--"

助 -- Very true.

"But, then, reversing it. Perfectly --"

観 -- You don't remember?

Earth Prince mulls this over. "Well, I remember bits and parts, but I was mostly leaving things up to my princess and hanging on for dear life. First time you know."

Water Princess blushes and looks aside. "It was my first time, too."

"I remember a kind of a bump when the entropy field turned sideways. Or was it we turned sideways in the field so we could have time to --" Earth Prince begins to turn pink around the base of his neck. "This feels just a little what it must feel like to have the family present on the wedding night."

使 -- So you could have time to what?

Water Princess's face turns bright red. Her parents smile patiently and nod.

Earth Prince swallows. "Scan all our grosser parts into storage in our finer matter memories."

観 -- Ah, those finer matter memories. Your scientists call it dark matter. How silly of them. All parts, as in?

"Everything from our backpacks and the clothes we are wearing to -- every part of our bodies, down to the cells and genetic material. Down to sub-atomic particles."

"I'm sorry, Ddaear."

"No one's to blame, Dŵr. It's not like we were looking at --" he pauses and they look into each other's eyes, "each other that way."

"Or like we'll be thinking that way about what we've seen."

There is an uncomfortable moment of silence.

"Should we keep not using each other's real names?"

"I still need the, uhm, safety zone, as long as we can keep it."

"Maybe I do, too."

観 -- Making babies may be one kind of intimacy, but not all intimacy is about making babies.

"That's a slippery slope." Earth Prince shakes his head. "I don't want to go there. Well, not today, not any more than we've been. It's hard enough knowing I've now seen more of my Princess than her doctor ever will."

"Me too," Water Princess mumbles.

"And your parents."

Water Princess's father clears his throat. "Well, speaking of relatives who were helping out, when you're handling so much of your own genetic material for the first time, it often helps to have close relatives who share the same genes helping you."

"Huh?"

助 -- 土母?

土母 -- Hi, hon.

"Mom?"

土父 -- Sorry we haven't able to be there the usual way, son. But we've been doing what we can from this side.

"Dad?"

Silence reigns in the forest, and after a few moments, Earth Prince raises his hand towards his father. His father takes his hand, and they embrace. Then Earth Prince embraces his mother. After another moment, Earth Prince pulls back.

"But, how? The second resurrection ...?"

土父 -- When you're called to a specific work, some exceptions may apply. 

"Can I tell Ceri?"

土母 -- Not yet, sweetheart. But she knows in her heart, anyway. Don't worry about it.

We stand aside as Earth Prince re-acquaints himself with his parents.

"Should we tell our princess that her grandparents were also here to help?"

"I know, Mom. We found a moment to talk in between moving data around."

---

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Next: Ancestors

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[JMR2019: Backed up here:
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original back up here:
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]

Water and Earth, Prologue, scene 13.60 -- To the Third and Fourth Generation

Previous: Wild Boars

Table of Contents

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Now fully clothed, carrying the implements of their interrupted experiments, a sobered group of youths and one adult begins the hike out of the overgrown graveyard as the morning sun breaks into the clearing they are leaving behind.

"So, Nest, you saw stuff? Uhm, visions?" one of the girls asks the erstwhile sacrificial victim while pushing through the vines and undergrowth.

"Yeah, Enid. First it was the scary stuff you always see."

"Scary stuff?"

Wild boars can be very stealthy when they aren't announcing their presence. Four boars, whom we know, silently track the group.

"I guess that's all they're good at -- making scary faces and noises, flying around, talking about dying or --"

"Or?" Enid prompts.

Nesta stares at the ground. "Stupid stuff. Like rape. Except what they say doesn't really make sense. Or pretending to be my ancestors."

"Pretending to be?" the adult is puzzled. "Why do you say pretending?"

"My real great grandfather came and shooed all the fake ghosts away."

"Your great grandfather is dead," one of the boys points out as he holds tree limbs back so the rest can pass more easily.

"Of course, Alwyn. But there was a ghost pretending to be him, and a bunch of others pretending to be others. But it didn't feel real. I couldn't really believe it. Jut didn't feel right. Then when my real great grandfather came, I just knew."

"Knew him? How?" Alwyn is curious.

"I could tell. Among other things, he wasn't trying to scare me." Nesta pauses and thinks. "Or get me excited. There was something different."

"So you had a vision," another girl interjects. "I'm jealous!"

The whole group stops for a moment, looking expectantly at Nesta.

Nesta shakes her head. "It's not what you think, Efa."

We can see various expressions of puzzlement in their faces.

"We've been looking for magic. My grandfather told me we have all the magic we need inside ourselves."

The adult has stopped beside her. "All?"

"So how come I can't fly?"

"Why do you want to fly, Enid?"

"So I can fly out the window when maths get's boring."

Snickers circulate among the youths, and the adult sighs.

"What good would flying out the window do?"

"Be more interesting."

Murmurs of agreement.

"How about flying in your imagination?"

Murmurs of complaint.

The adult changes the subject. "You said I shouldn't let people define me. Why did you say that?"

Nesta turns to face her. "Professor Parry, my great grandfather showed me what he did to my grandmother. He said he had convinced himself he was trying to help her, but he was lying to himself. Then he showed me how she did much the same to my father, but worse, and then my father did it to me. Then he showed me some of what my mother and your mother did to you when you were a child."

Professor gasps, almost inaudibly, mumbling something.

"He said he was sorry. Said he really thought he was trying to help, but he messed up. And he said four generations repeating the same mistakes was four too many."

"You saw everything?"

"No, but I saw that they told you that you were to blame. That you were evil, so you didn't have any right to object. That you should like it because you were bad. You're not really a bad person, Professor Parry."

Professor Parry looks down, then starts moving forward. The rest of the group starts moving again.

"But it's too hard, being good," she complains in a low voice.

The students stop again, and Professor Parry proceeds a few more steps, then stops, holding a tree branch out of the way over her head as she  turns to face the students. "I don't think I want to be good."

Nesta and Professor Parry look into each other's eyes, each querying the other.

助 -- Maybe she is misunderstanding what good is?

"What is good?" Nesta asks.

One of the boys offers, "You've told us yourself a lot of the hard rules society makes are hard to follow because they aren't good."

"Llewellyn, did I really say that?"

"You told me I had to learn which rules were good for me, and how. And you said you were still trying to figure the rules out for yourself. That's why we came here today isn't it? We wanted to know whether magic is good or bad."

"So now we know it's not something to play with, I guess." Professor Parry turns around again and the group proceeds on their way through the thinning underbrush. "I did say that."

One of the girls adds, "We're trying to figure things out as we go along. And that means we're gonna make mistakes. It's what you say. That's what you tell us. Mistakes that don't kill aren't fatal."

"Bryn, you have no idea how hard it is to believe my own advice right now. My plan failed. And I could be disqualified from teaching, if people know what we've been doing."

Nesta shakes her head. "You didn't force any of us. Not really. And we learned something from it. I don't think it's a failure. Experiment with negative results, isn't it?"

Another boy volunteers, "And thanks to a bunch of wild boars, hey, nothing really happened today beyond a little drama practice. That's what I'm going to say it was, and it's pretty close to the truth. Right, Nest?"

Nods and murmurs of assent are exchanged as the group breaks through the trees onto a small path.

Nesta shrugs. "Yeah, Dylan, the boars were very helpful. I'm going to offer a quick prayer to whatever deity were watching out for us, in my heart. If you guys want to do that you can too. And then I'm getting back to real world."

The group pauses for a short minute or two of contemplation in their hearts, reaching in their own ways for communion, before heading in silent agreement down the path.

(Short minute — roughly twenty of your seconds. Sixteen hours to the day, sixteen long minutes to the hour, sixteen short minutes to the long minute. It is a coincidence that the Xhilran day is rather close to the same length as the day of your world, when comparing entropic rates.)

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Next: Debriefing

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[JMR2019: Backed up here:
https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2019/04/bk-we-0-13-60-to-3rd-and-4th-generation.html
original backed up here:
https://joel-rees-economics.blogspot.com/2019/03/bk-we-0-13-5-wild-boars.html
]