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but deliver us from evil
Beka in the Teachingsphere
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There is a thick forest between Okux and Kuossae. They are friendly neighbors, and they've kept that the case by making it very difficult to visit each other.

Hunters and trappers and mushroomers go there, and avoid each other when they see each other, which isn't often. Traders bring goods on the ritual days, and exchange them in the ritual amounts. A few years ago, Kuossae had a famine, and Okux sent them grain in aid; in the living memory of the grandmothers, Kuossae had done the same for Okux. 

It is a nice summer day. A good time in the walk in the woods, and anyone who doesn't have urgent farming or spinning duties has discovered that their households are in desperate need of some wild-caught food. About half of them are actually looking for food; the other half are trying to avoid some other villager they don't like or to have sex without getting caught by whomever might disapprove. 

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Oh wow. She is outside. There is sunshine and - outside-smells - and her baby is still in her shirt, awesome -

She is sort of tempted to just try eating all the plants in this immediate area and if any of them are edible just live Right Here in this pleasantly outside place forever but she can hear people and should probably not be totally passive about being like, hi, people, please don't murder us. She rearranges the baby more comfortably in her shirt and strikes out toward some people who aren't in the middle of having sex because those people probably don't want to be interrupted.

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She runs across a human boy of maybe fourteen, who is in fact picking mushrooms. 

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Beka is not sure what kind of being that is! It looks more like her than like an Elf or an orc but still not that much like her; she's pale, in a grayish way, and her hair is silvery where it hasn't been hacked off, and she's six feet tall, and her ears come to points, and she's got a lot of tattoos covering up and working with her numerous scars.

Hello, she says.

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The boy spins around, startled. What?!

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I just said hello! Can you tell me where I am?

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You spoke inside my head!

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Well yeah I don't know your language so it wouldn't really work if I said it out loud.

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...Are you a witch or a fairy?

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No, I'm an orf.

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He looks at her suspiciously. You look like a fairy. 

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I think I'm the only orf so probably you haven't met one before but I definitely am one.

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Oh. You must be from very far away. 

Witches are evil and fairies are good and gods can be either way, so there is really no information about whether orfs are going to kill you horribly. 

Can you help babies that were cursed by witches?

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Gosh. I don't know. Might depend on the curse I guess? I'm a pretty good singer.

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The witches from over in Floralsash keep cursing our babies so they have small heads and weird faces and then when they get bigger they're stupid. Cursed babies are bad luck so we have to kill them. 

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Well if anyone tries to kill my baby I will kill them first but I can try singing to your babies in case that helps. Her baby's head isn't small but it's definitely got a weird face.

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Did your baby get cursed by a witch?

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No, she's just an orc, but nobody's allowed to kill her, she's mine.

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He is not going to argue with the magic person!

My village is this way. What kind of payment do you want?

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I guess we will need food and stuff.

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I didn't know magic people ate food

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Well you don't seem to know that much about magic people really.

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My cousin ran off with the fairies.

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Oh. I don't know anything about fairies, maybe they don't eat, but I do and the baby does. I think Maiar don't eat.

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Fairies eat fairy-food and if you eat it then you waste away because you won't eat normal food anymore. They look like you, they're tall and they have funny-colored hair and funny-colored skin. They give us fertilizer and farming magic and healing magic and magic so there won't be babies, but in exchange they take some of our blood. They need human blood to cast spells with.  

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Wow. I don't need blood to do magic, I just sing it.

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What kinds of magic do you sing?

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I was going to try healing your babies, remember? And I can walk on water and run through tree branches and stuff. Just the basics, I haven't written many of my own spells.

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Whoa! That's cool! I don't think fairies can do that. Witches can maybe but I don't know all the things witches can do, just some of them. 

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I'd never even heard of witches or fairies before, just Valar and Maiar and Elves and orcs and me.

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I've heard of elves but they're just in children's stories, they're not real.

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No they're real.

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Do they clean good people's houses and make them clothes?

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I guess they clean their own houses and make each other clothes. I haven't really seen them when they're at home though.

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When did you see them?

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I lived in the fortress of an evil god and he liked capturing them to torture them, that's where I came from.

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Shit. 

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Yeah, but then I walked into this mysterious monster thing and now I'm here! It seems nice here!

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Well, we do have the witches in Floralsash. It's not just the babies, they also curse the crops and summon evil gods into people and steal people's penises. 

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Shit, I thought all the evil gods lived in the one fortress. These ones can possess people?

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Yeah. That's why my cousin ran away, her husband was possessed by an evil god and he choked her and then she couldn't talk right. 

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Did you guys kill him?

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No? It's not like it's his fault an evil god possesses him. It's the witches' fault. 

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It doesn't have to be his fault for him to be dangerous. He's just still around evil god and all? Are possessed people harder to kill?

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Nah, they're the normal amount hard to kill. They just have a little bit of evil god in them.  

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Oh. Well I guess that's a lot better than having an entire one but if he tries to choke me or my baby I'll probably kill him so if that evil god wants to keep being able to possess him it should keep him away from me.

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I'm not sure that possessed people are that good at self-preservation. Are you sure you're not a fairy? 

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I don't need blood to cast spells and the fairies you're thinking about seem like they don't look like orfs particularly.

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No, you do look a lot like them. And the girls are like you too-- human girls are shy but fairy girls will just straight-up stab you if you try to take liberties. 

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They don't have pointy ears. Elves and orcs and orfs have pointy ears.

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I saw a fairy man with pointed ears once. 

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Huh. Okay, I guess maybe they're sort of like me somehow. Maybe some orfs escaped long ago.

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Walk walk walk here are some fields! 

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They're so pretty! She will sing to the fields as they go. The plants perk up.

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Whoa!!! That's cool magic.

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I never got to use it for real before! There aren't any plants in Angband!

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You used it for pretend?

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Yeah, I was an actress and most of the roles were Elf roles so I got to learn some Elf songs.

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Cool! I met an actress once.

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Just once? Did she act all by herself somehow?

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Well, I didn't really talk to the others.

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Oh, that makes sense. Who's sending actors here?

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Sometimes people travel around from place to place and do performances in exchange for food.

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Cool! Were they good?

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Yeah!!! --The plant song is so cool. I've never seen someone do magic like that before.

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The plants are also cool! They're so pretty.

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They're potatoes!

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I've never had a potato! Are they good?

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They make good vodka but they're mostly pretty boring.

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What else do you eat? I'm used to mostly bugs.

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Milk, vegetables, eggs. Meat on holidays.

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What's a holiday?

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A holiday is when you honor the gods by throwing a big party and getting drunk and dancing and fucking.

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Sounds fun! These are different gods from the ones who are evil and possess people?

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Oh yeah. Most gods're fine unless you do something to offend them like not make sacrifices or shit near the water.

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Are they like, river gods? What kind of sacrifices do they want?

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The fairies explained it to us. If you shit near the water it makes the river gods upset because they don't want shit where they live-- which is fair enough-- so they make people sick. 

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Oh, that makes sense. What kinds of sacrifices though, they can't have my baby and I will go live somewhere far away from a river if they want her.

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Oh, normally they don't want babies, they want food and drink and paintings people make and that kind of thing. 

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Ooh, paintings! Can people look at them before they get sacrificed?

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I'm pretty sure the gods don't care.

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I'm excited to see paintings!

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And here they are at the village! The houses are made of sticks and straw, arranged in a triangular shape. Pigs, dogs, cats, and small children wander through the village on their own inscrutable errands. 

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Oh gosh! Animals! She goes up to a dog to get a closer look.

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The dog snarls at her and tries to bite her finger.

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She swats it on the nose but then backs off a few steps.

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The boy ducks into the house and brings out a sleepy baby. I gave her some vodka so she'd be quiet while you sang to her.

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That isn't actually very important but thanks for the thought!. And she sings the healing song, loud and clear.

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The baby looks exactly the same as she did before.

The boy sighs. Well, it was worth a try.

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I can keep going for a while if you want, it can take hours for really bad injuries and I don't know if her thing is like that.

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She was born like that. Because of the witches.

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Yeah, it might still not help, but I can try it, I don't mind singing for a long time. And it'll work for anybody else who needs healing and comes by too, if you wanna go tell people.