Two women were at the cookhouse window.
The specific, side-by-side, each-looking-forward, not-looking-at-each-other arrangement of two women who were at the same window for the same reason and were maintaining the polite fiction that they were there independently.
The first one said, very quietly, while looking forward:
"Do you think we should—"
The second one said, also very quietly, also looking forward, also not looking at the first one:
"No."
A pause.
"—'AAAHNNNN~~~~~!!!'—" From the clearing. The specific, sky-reach, full-sky-reach, gold-white breakthrough light of Core Formation Late going up from the clearing's center.
Both of them looked at the light.
Both of them looked at the woman in the clearing who had just had that light.
Who was on the ground.
Both holes.
The full, warm, comprehensively-addressed, thoroughly-spent reality of a woman who had been at threshold for forty-eight hours and had just received the complete dual cultivation transfer at full output.
