Part 3 (Final)

The great boar stared between them, a campfire at his hooves, and waited.

“Do we introduce ourselves with greetings or handshakes?” Mrs. Hamfrill said and noticed the boar’s uncanny warmth undulating from its own stomach.

“I don’t think they’ll want us for tea time either way,” Mr. Hamfrill said and made a number of starts to sentence he didn’t finish.

The great boar nodded its head, its eyes never leaving the little boar. But what happened next got Mr. and Mrs. Hamfrill both almost to fall over. From the great boar’s mouth, not a wail or growl or other animal noise but a voice like a deep bassoon rumbled out. “You can begin with your names.”

“Hello, I’m Mr. Hamfrill,” he said and pet the little boar in his arms like a cat before stopping himself. “We found your little boar hurt in the Neverwoods. I destroyed the trap that caught the boar.”

Mrs. Hamfrill inhaled sharp, smelling the dried blood dried on her hands. “We mended the boar’s wounds.”

The little boar woke and peered up at Mr. Hamfrill, and gave a quiet snort.

“Come closer,” the great boar said.

With each step, the great boar's size grew clearer, until it was like standing near a very tall house with a weathervane too high up to see.

“The missing boarlet,” the great boar said, gave a kind of huff. “A wandering one. Too curious for its own good. She tells of her leg getting caught in a trap,” the great boar said and blinked its ink-colored eyes. “And you fed her food.”

Mr. Hamfrill cleared his throat, and he said something that was meant to come out in a friendly way he regretted the moment it all spilled out his mouth. “Blackberries. The pigs at home like them.”

“Pigs in pens,” the great boar said, and its eyes turned over like a fire bellowed within them.

Mrs. Hamfrill slumped down and said, “we’ve never seen anything like you. How is it you know our language?”

“There are two ways to know your language. One is by eating the food from your hand and understanding it. The other is… not one I’ll say in front of this boarlet.”

Nicks peppered the ends of the great boar’s tusks, and Mr. and Mrs. Hamfrill went mute. Each stood under the lingering gaze of the great boar, unsure if each passing minute they’d stay standing. Doubts about leaving the nest whisked away with the fading daylight because reflecting from the tree line dozens of boar’s eyes blinked at them like fireflies.

Mr. Hamfrill, hoping to distract the great boar, said, “ah, are y-you making a fire for the evening?”

The great boar scraped his hoof at the mound of ash and kindling before him, and said, “we’re trying to learn, but the one who was teaching us is gone. The little boar tried to chase them down. But… do you know how to create fire without flints or matches?”

Mr. Hamfrill stuttered, having stared at what appeared an inconspicuous bone stuck between the boar’s teeth. “Y-yes. Yes, we can.”

“Will you give us the fire, and sleep near it for warmth tonight?” the great boar said. The wolves howled once more, this time so near to turn and find them at the edge of the creek wouldn’t have surprised Mr. and Mrs. Hamfrill. But neither dared to show their back to the great boar, who hadn’t taken his eyes off either of them.

Mrs. Hamfrill nodded and smoothed out a blanket on the ground knowing what was to come. “Yes, of course. I don’t think we can make it to Porttown.”

“Surely not,” Mr. Hamfrill said and set down the little boar onto the blanket, to free up his arms.

The great boar said not another word and watched with an intent like it was carving every action into stone. Mr. Hamfrill fished out his carving knife to make a pointed stick that a boar might chomp in one bite. Mrs. Hamfrill frayed kindling from the carving and put the splintered wood into a little pile. But after the moon rose up high and the wolves gave up their howling, they bored a hole with their creation, that puffed with smoke. Not until the first spark of ember and the kindling lit for a fire did the great boar speak again.

“I must talk with the others,” the great boar said and got onto its legs, thick as tree trunks. Steps from the campfire, the couple saw nothing but a darkness around them. Murmurs echoed, but to know if they were from the boars or the wind in the trees was impossible to tell.

Mr. and Mrs. Hamfrill knew with a single glance much of what the other thought. And their thoughts went bleak, even with their palms warmed up by the fireside.

Mr. Hamfrill whispered, “Do they want to eat us?”

“We’ll know if they come back with cracked pepper, and ask us to season ourselves,” Mrs. Hamfrill said, with a hearty laugh which silenced a moment later.

The great boar returned with a cloth pouch in its mouth. Mr. Hamfrill thought of all the tubers people ate with their stews. Mrs. Hamfrill wondered if there was any fat left on her to salt and pepper. The cloth lowered to them, and so did their fears. Berries sprawled out, plump and shiny.

The little boar gave a weary-eyed snort to the great boar, before whisking back to sleep.

“We won’t be eating you,” the great boar said, giving a laugh that out of anything but an enormous creature, might have been funny. “Nor any human. Cross these woods, without fear from us.”

They all feasted, mouths puckered with juice sharing stories. Mr. and Mrs. Hamfrill told of their ragged village. The great boar of Neverwood trails once so bustling you’d not take a step until spotting someone else. And both of how a long time ago, a war broke out between it all that no human remembered anymore. Mr. and Mrs. Hamfrill began a ruckus the next morning, hooting and hollering in a primal way that if anyone had seen the husband and wife thought them nuttier than an acorn. But they were alive and had done what no other had in a century. With another day of traveling, they found their way curiously marked with little hoofprints along the way to Porttown. Both spoke of the Neverwoods around a campfire, rapt to their attention, and that no one needed to stay away ever again.