She kneels. Her knees are pressed into the rough floor, a grounding pain. She bows her head and grits her teeth. Her tusks gleam with blood but the rest of her is suspiciously clean.
When the ringing reverberating through her head turns to chimes she reaches her hands out to dip them in the bowl in front of her. She’s no longer suspiciously clean. She cups her hands and raises a handful of - water - and pours it over her head, eyes held closed.
It drips down her hair and face at a pace that is distinctly not water. If she opened her eyes to look, it would run a scarlet red. The crystal clear water given to her is no longer. Perhaps it never was, it was always destined to be blood.
She was always destined to be blood.
It runs its course, pooling on the ground beneath her, an impossible volume for the handful she poured. She does not open her eyes. She waits for the chiming to subside, ringing to silence.
She counts four more breaths after that, just to be safe. Then she opens her eyes. The scarlet red reflects like a mirror. She looks at herself. Blood trailing down her face and hair, leaving highlights in her hair and on her skin. The brightness makes her skin look washed out and sickly, like a pastel pink. It makes her hair look darker and more unruly.
Her eyes look less dull than they usually do. Her hair no longer outshines her eyes. She looks more like herself than she usually does.
She looks away, not in shame but because there’s a warning bell ringing in her head. She stands, the wobbliness of her legs ignored as she draws her sword. Something must be coming, nothing is supposed to be here.
This is a sacred area and she’s obliged to defend it. It might be an animal drawing closer, unaware of the territorial lines drawn in the sand. Or it might be a person, unaware of the danger they’ve stumbled into. Even worse, it might be a child, wandering too far away from their adults.
She has to take care of it no matter what it is. She is blood, and she is protection.
She takes steps towards the treeline, measured and precise. Her hooves make a noise on the ground as they hit the fungus covered rock. She’s straining her eyes for any hint of movement out in the forest, trying to see past the red fog that obscures the distance.
There.
There’s a flash of light pink, a gleam of white. She relaxes her shoulders just a little bit. She’s obliged to take care of any threat, no matter what it is. But it’s only a hoglin. An experienced warrior knows to tell hoglin pink from piglin pink. It could be a hybrid child, but it’s unlikely. They know to stay away better than most.
She shifts, preparing to sprint after it. She’s excited for this now, excited for blood. She also isn’t going to say no to food, and the hide will sell for something. She’ll take the tusks for herself.
She takes off into the forest when movement flashes again. Her hooves make almost no noise on the ground, years of experience camouflaging her from detection. The hoglin isn’t too far into the forest, she can catch up quickly.
And after only a few seconds of sprinting, she’s on it. Right before she dodges into sight, she draws her sword and leaps. The hoglin sees her only as she’s bearing down on it, sword in hide.
It squeals and tries to throw her off. She drives the sword in deeper and throws her weight to the side, tearing a path through its hide and toppling it over. Its legs collapse beneath it and she takes that moment to let go and roll out from under it. She abandoned the sword in its hide and draws her knives.
A clean slice will make butchering it easier.
She draws a vicious slice into its neck and belly. She pays no mind to the blood drenching her, that was its purpose. It struggles for no more than a minute. Impressive.
She pants as she stands off to the side, knives in hand. She takes a moment to stand still, calming down. When the moment is over, she pulls the sword out of its back and kneels next to the body.
She takes a moment to think before she starts dragging it. There’s no other way to move it unless she wants to pick rocks and fungus out of its wounds.
She heads towards home, dragging the hoglin behind her. She has a lot of prep work to do today, cooking the meat, stripping the hide, and recovering the bones.
Today’s only halfway over and it’s already shaping up to be a good one. It’s a long time till heatfall and she has a lot to get done by then. She smiles as she starts going over her to-do list.