Having missed the previous page and going through the two of them at once really made me feel the hollow snapping of her throat against one grubby trotter. This was one amazing ending - an ending I thought could have been avoided and have become complacent it would indeed be, but then again one has to be ready for everything in the little backwood world of SLOP. But it was an ending deserved. I could not have a grudge against the boar.
I don't think the ending is anything too complicated, so unlike other times, I'll thread it lightly. Mulefoot says, his rollercoaster of life ain't that little white package that you put down the glass and you snort it through your nose. But, hey, Mulefoot, you are wrong this time! Your life - and everyone's life, if that matters - can be a drug for other people to experience: extracted, processed, packaged, labeled and sold away to willing customers. Some people simply don't need the little white package; they want the source. They want the overdose. But overdose kills people.
For the smart girl she was at the beginning, carefully treading the edges of Mulefoot's emotional whirlpool, at the end she simply revealed her real reptile nature in a most stupid, reckless, suicidal manner. When she believed herself she had him in her paws, she was no more redeeming him, but accusing him. Not giving to him, but taking away everything. Not caring, but arrogant. Manipulative. Mulefoot was not blind to that; part of him silently expected it to show up; another hoped it would never do so. When she made her mistake, he simply acted by instinct. Preserve yourself, emotionally. At any cost.
What she should have done when she had him was to immediately back away. Give him space to start feeling comfortable, nonthreatened. Let him control her, after she already put the girdle of belief around his snout. Let him believe what he sees, what he feels, not what you repeat him again and again. Accept him as a man he believes he is; use no words that could accuse him. Let him talk of the past himself; speak only of the present, and hope nothing of the future. At the end, let him decide whether he stays or goes; and if he goes, leave the door open for he might return.
If she were clever enough to know that, we might have had a different ending, and a couple of you would envy her for having this boar's breath at your neck more than once. But people are rarely patient. They want the overdose.
But, like I said, overdose kills people.
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