Borcade (pronounced Bore-CAW-day) was called by the High God to be a prophetess. She came from Gorneam, one of the more distant and provincial regions of the Southern Kingdom. It was a place of low hills with little grass, large rocks, and small minds. Making a living there was hard won. Their laws were as harsh as the land that birthed them. Justice was often anything but--especially for women--and swiftly carried out. Prophets are known for seeing the future, but their chief function is to foresee the logical consequences of their peoples' actions. All cultures drift from their cultural and spiritual ideals. The prophet's job is course correction, which is why prophets are rarely appreciated in their own communities in their own time. People prefer things the way they are. Even if things are really bad, they prefer the known to the unknown. Correction can be humiliating. Change is painful and takes much work. Better to kill or drive the troublemakers out than to have to change. In Borcade's patriarchal society, it did not help that she was both young and a woman presuming to instruct the Elders in proper behavior. Men resented her butting into their affairs. Even if she confined her activities to just other women, their husbands and fathers viewed it as interference in prerogatives that were exclusively their own. Every time Borcade opened her mouth she gained more enemies, more resentment from her people. Borcade was lucky; she was not stoned, only beaten savagely and driven out of the province. For the next four years, Borcade wandered the world. Everywhere she went, she tried to restore the spiritual life of those around her. She was sometimes jailed for months at a time. Twice she was flogged. One village stoned her and left her for dead, yet somehow she managed to rise up and continue her journey. She crossed deserts and fertile lands; wandered through small villages and huge cities. She crossed a large sea in spite of almost being tossed overboard by furious sailors. Borcade survived a shipwreck crossing another. She spoke to ordinary people and to rulers. Sooner or later, she was told to move on. Borcade was trudging across the Kellum Plain in her fifth year. She was lonely and broken, exhausted spiritually, physically, and emotionally. It was late spring and around her stretched sweet smelling cover as far as she could see. Borcade halted, raising her hands in appeal to Heaven. "Lord, I've always tried to do your will; to speak your Truth as you gave it to me. Yet no matter whether I spoke in kindness or anger, with gentleness or with sternness, people have rejected the message and driven me away. None has taken my side. Many have persecuted me. "I feel so lonely, Lord. You seem so far away." Tears spilled down her cheeks. "I can't do this by myself anymore. Send me a companion that I might know you still love me." Borcade heard a rustling in the clover behind her, yet she paid it no mind. She wept quietly. Behind her, came an odd-sounding sigh. She turned and there lying in the clover was the rarest of creatures, a thylacine. It looked up at her and thumped its tail hopefully. The thylacine seemed as lonely as herself. Borcade kneeled beside the creature. She held out her hand and the the thylacine hesitated, then licked her hand. "Thank you, Lord," Borcade whispered. Then louder to the creature; "I will call you Trudu. In the Old Tongue, it means 'Companion." Psalm 3:1-6 ******** Thanks for your visits and comments! Jeremy CREDITS: Vue 6.0, Poser 6.0. Figure: DAZ Victoria 4.2++, Arcebus's "Dirty Girl" skin mat, clothing is Xurge's "Rogue " with Brown texture by Chohole. Creature: Smith-Micro's "Thylacine"(Content Paradise). Ecosystem: "Clover " from "Forgotten Places."