Part 11: Cython
Hchahn started awake. She was warm, lying on a blanket near a fire. Across from her, tendrils of darkness swirled around the hermit Cython. One long tendril pulled back from her direction and shrank into the rest. As Cython opened his eyes, the darkness flowed into him and he became more solid.
“Master Cython.” Hchahn said in amazement. “You used your darkness.”
He shrugged. “You would have died if I didn’t.” He stirred up the fire and added another log.
Hchahn sat up on her knees. “I pray you forgive my impertinence.” She said, falling into the courteous speech patterns of her race. “I am an ignorant child, devoid of understanding. Please teach me.
“You are filled with darkness, yet you cherish your humanity. You know that each time you use your dark powers you endanger that humanity, yet you used them to help me. Why do you take the risk?” she begged.
“I had no choice in how I came into this world. I do have a choice in what I do here. I avoid most people, but if I were to turn my back on someone who needed my help, I would forfeit that very humanity I sought to protect. So I do what I do, and I live with the consequences. I fight the battle for my humanity every day, but with each life I save it becomes easier to accept my inevitable defeat.” He answered as though it explained everything.
“I do what I do and I live with the consequences.” Hchahn repeated quietly as she pondered his words.
“Is defeat inevitable? She asked at length. "Is there no way one can triumph over their dark nature?”
The hermit smiled sadly. “We cannot change what we are, Hchahn of the Sstoi’isslythi. We can only control what we will do with the strengths and weaknesses of our natures. If we deny our dark nature, it may spring forth unbidden and cause great harm. It is only by accepting that the darkness is part of us that we can find a way to use it for the benefit of others. Then we can live without shame.”
The fire crackled gently as Hchahn gazed into the dancing flames, lost in thought.
She looked up when, quite a while later, Cython took his cloak off the makeshift shelter and put it on.
“You were wrong about one thing.” He said, picking up what was left of his firewood. “You are not a child. The time to blindly follow masters is behind you.” With that, he walked into the shadows of the forest and was gone.
Hchahn watched the fire burn down to coals. “I am sstoi’isslythi.” She said. For the first time in many years, the words did not fill her with dread. Her people were not only fangs and poison. They were also culture and civility. Hchahn remembered the pears on her grandmother’s table. The forms and courtesies of her people were not a mask they wore to hide their violent nature, they were a way to control that nature. They made it possible to avoid triggering a strike reflex in their neighbors. Hchahn smiled. At last, she felt she could go home again. Someday.
But first, a life without shame. “No more masters.” Hchahn said. “From now on, I direct my actions.”
She broke up the remaining coals and threw dirt on them. Then she folded the blanket she had been sitting on and said, “Thank you, Cython,” as she hung it over a branch. She was tempted to leave the durwood box where it laid, but only for a moment.
I will not put another murderous monster on the throne, but I will not strengthen the one who sits there now, either.