[ WP ] `` Witch hunts are rarely ever about witches . ''

Witch hunts are rarely ever about witches. 
 
 Sure, at face value, a witch hunt is about ridding the town of another well-poisoning, child-abducting, curse-rending satan spawn, but if you take a closer look you'll see a far more horrifying story. 
 
 I realised this myself 3 lunes ago after I watched another burning ceremony. Her screams echoed through the halls, just like the screams of her sisters and ancestors. Some believe you can hear the victims screaming alongside a witch, but I've yet to hear proof of that. I find it hard to listen to the screams, because I get so distracted by the crowd; there is never a time, not E'ensprent nor Tornal week, where you can see such joy in the faces of so many people. Seeing the justice that's being enacted in front of them as the hellflames lick wildly at a witches' feet, eager to return them to their birthplace, is unlike any other feeling. Something clicks within you, and you forget everything that worries you for a short time. You're filled with nothing but pure, childlike happiness. 
 
 That's what I've been told, anyway. I like to pride myself on being slightly more empathetic than those around me, so I can never see the use in killing someone in such a painful way. If we truly believed they'd be punished forever by the Demon, why should we add to the eternal pain? 
 
 It took some time to figure out, but eventually I realised it. The rituals, the sense of justice, the final puff of smoke as the flames fully devour all of the cursed flesh; it's all a distraction. Witches are easy to hate. They're evil, that's all there is to them. It's a simple evil, one we can all work against. As soon as you leave the Hall of Fire, you're back to society, where usurers ruin lives and slavers exploit them. When you leave that sacred place, you rejoin the land in which it takes less than a moment's thought to destroy everything someone else has built, where none are equal. 
 
 Witch hunts are rarely ever about witches; it's what they hide that's important.
