https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2019/04/we-0-13-60-to-3rd-and-4th-generation.html
(originally from https://joelrees-novels.blogspot.com/2019/03/we-0-13-5-wild-boars.html)
Original of this scene written February to May 2019.
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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 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 I didn't really believe it. It didn't feel right. Then when my real great grandfather came, I just knew."
"Knew him? How?" Alwyn is curious.
"I could tell. 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 at the window when maths get's boring."
Snickers circulate.
"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 before heading in silent agreement down the path.
(Short minutes — 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, comparing entropic rates.)
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