Vorga

And so the stranger was given unto the dark wood, as a lamb is given to the altar. No rope bound his hands, yet he was tethered still by fear, by duty, by the cruel hope of the village folk. They whispered among themselves: "Let the beast take the outsider, and spare our own."

But the old wives, who remembered the tales of their grandmothers, would clutch their shawls and murmur:

"Ah, boy... thou art become a lamb led to the slaughter. Yet who can say? Mayhap the great grey wolfess so fearsome, so terrible, so vast shall look upon thy innocent face and find her hunger... stayed. Mayhap she shall take pity upon thee."

But they did not say it loudly. For hope, in that place, was a fragile thing like a candle's flame in a storm-wind.

recommended a gentle, little person