Wern, Fir of Marla: 28 Xiven

“All right, who wants a story?” Aunt Aayin called to the line of children. The line grew rowdy now that Rinesa shone right overhead. Anxious. The cold air from yesterday stung them into a restless stir even though there were no clouds to warn of rain. No village chores got done, no trade happened, just the long line of children getting their futures recited by Tidesa. A small pack of parents around asked Aunt Aayin to watch the children while they hunted, which meant it was time for one of her stories. Kayin’s feet panged, and even though he was a little old for fairy tales, it would be a lie if he said he didn’t look forward to them.

The children around, almost a dozen younger than him and a few older, all called excitedly for Aunt Aayin’s entertainment.

“Tell the one about the Sig-um!” said a little boy up ahead. He’d recently gotten a hand-me-down shirt, Kayin guessed, based on how it hardly stayed on his shoulders and looked more like a dress than anything. But little villagers didn’t wear dresses. Dresses meant you didn’t have to climb and fight for every scrap of food. Dresses and robes were for important people and scholars with money to pay for people to do all of that for you.

“Cigam,” Aunt Aayin repeated, humming to herself. While Kayin had heard this story before, it was one of his favorites. Cigam: the equalizer. Cigam: this ability to control an aspect of life, from fire to wind to the dirt itself. Sometimes, in his dreams, Kayin was a bearer of Cigam, where he would slow down time while fighting enemies or predict an outcome of a puzzle. Sometimes, when Dania’s mom wasn’t around, they played Cigam-bearers together. Dania’s mom really hated the tale about Cigam, though, so Aunt Aayin told them not to play.

“What’s Cigam?” the older sister of the boy asked.

“Cigam is… Oh, I don’t know if you’re old enough. It’s quite secret.” She leaned back, stroking her chin as she glanced around the children. This only made them bounce and clamber louder.

“I am!”

“I’m old enough!”

“I’m old enough, too! Lookit, this many is how old I am!” The littlest of the group, both in age and weight, held up their whole hand.

“Hmmmm,” she mused, watching them spin around her, suddenly energetic and a lot less cranky and bored. Although his feet throbbed and the whole purpose for this line dragged his mood through the mud, Kayin couldn’t help but smile and laugh with them. “I suppose you’re all old enough. But you know what that means, right?” She looked to the littlest child, crouching.

“What?”

“It’s a story, young one. Stories are not real. Right, everyone?” The other kids that hadn’t heard this story before quieted down a little. Aayin didn’t like to stave off imagination when she told stories, not normally. It was only this one where she reminded everyone over and over again that it wasn’t real. Well, this one and one about dragons, but the one about dragons was kind of scary, so Kayin figured that was really the reason why she said it wasn’t real. The Cigam story wasn’t scary at all, though.

“Stories aren’t real,” the eldest of the group, Yulia, repeated. She was just a couple years older than Kayin, and just as well-fed. She had a big family where lots of kids could hunt for bugs and berries. He couldn’t even list all her siblings, but he didn’t know where they were now.

“Right,” Aunt Aayin confirmed. She gave a quick glance to the line ahead, then ushered for everyone to lower themselves onto the road to sit down. “Have a seat. Come on, settle down. The line isn’t going anywhere.” She could say that again. Kayin settled into a little patch of dried grass right beside his aunt, crossing his legs, watching the faces of the children as they giggled and whispered in excitement.

Aunt Aayin knelt slowly, grunting as she did, and straightened her back to begin her story.

“The origin, then,” she said to herself as she thought to the different plots she had stored in her head. “Cigam is this…well.” She laughed to herself. “You know your thoughts in your head?” The kids nodded. “It’s just like that, but in addition to your head. A mind inside your own, with its own thoughts and wants and feelings, indistinguishable from your own so long as it is pleased.

“It was created in the Age of Science, long before Empress D’Accorda. Do you know about her? How long she lived to be?” They had been told that Empress D’Accorda was the last known ruler of the whole world, a hundred years ago, before she destroyed all the knowledge in her search for ultimate control. Her armies lay waste to these houses full of books, to these houses of chemicals and answers, and she kept it all to herself and other nobles like her until someone assassinated her. As far as anyone in Yatora knew, that was the last time anyone tried to unite the entire world under one ruler. They remained quite isolated as a little village ever since, with their external trade almost eliminated completely by threats and wars with Wakino. People didn’t go in and out of Yatora easily; those that left never came back, and it wasn’t very often that anyone willingly immigrated here. Though, now that Kayin thought of it, he wasn’t sure if Yatora was any different before Empress D’Accorda ruled.

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“She was sixty!” a little girl called. Aunt Aayin nodded to her.

“Sixty, that’s right. We think of that as old.” Almost in a preemptive warning, she glanced to Kayin for him to bite back a joke that was probably only appropriate for when they were by themselves. He smiled at her, silently communicating that he understood to bite his tongue. “In the Age of Science, when books were so abundant, that even little villagers like us could have them. People lived so long, sometimes up to a hundred!” And, after a wry glance to Kayin, she added, “That’s older than me!” The older kids laughed appropriately, but the littlest ones gasped in surprise. Aunt Aayin let them get away with it.

“Right at the end of the Age of Science, there were three scientists: Morna, Lorna, and Kayne.” It had been so long since he heard that name without the weight of the insult behind it, Kayin still flinched. The other kids noticed, smirking. “Morna and Lorna were twin sisters, as brilliant as they were similar. Where one was found, the other lingered. Together, they experimented and studied to find answers of the world: why do some people get red hair, and others get brown? Why do some seem more flexible than others, or why are some more sickly?”

“Genetics!” one of the kids shouted.

“Yes, that’s right! Things you get from your parents. Morna and Lorna explained genetics with their studies.” Even though this was a fairy tale and nothing in it was real, Kayin thought dryly. “And always standing at their side was Kayne, their assistant. Well, just as the sisters did everything together, they, too, also fell in love with Kayne.” Aunt Aayin held up a finger. “But, we know what that name means, right?” Some of the kids looked at Kayin, and he stared at the floor. My name has an in sound after it, he thought.

“Bad at decisions and rules,” said Yulia, the eldest girl. Aunt Aayin sucked in a breath.

“Well,” she started, noting the murmurs of agreement to the kids. “It used to mean to have lots of choices. Kayne had lots of choices.” Some of the kids looked curious at the note, but others stared at Kayin as he relaxed a little. “Kayne had to choose which sister to be with…but he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t decide, and a lot of bad things happened. And that is why, sometimes, it’s not thought of as a good word.” Or like a mean insult people threw at kids that happened to have similar-sounding names. “The sisters grew tired of waiting for Kayne’s answer. And so, as scientists do, they tried to find a solution. They thought his parents, long gone, were to blame. They studied his genetics, and studied how to influence those.

“Their studies turned to experiments. If they could find out what was to blame, could they change that? And it turned out they could! The more they experimented with village volunteers, the more they discovered: they could make certain families control fire without burning themselves, influence the growth of the crops, command the bones beneath the ground. Some families could move objects without touching them, or create sparks with their fingers. There were countless possibilities!”

The littlest kid shot up his hand. “And make rain maybe?”

“Yes!” Aunt Aayin said, excited. “And stretch cloth, or shrink it, mold metal. Anything.”

Yulia made a pointed gesture to the front of the line, and added, “Predict the future?”

Aunt Aayin was a little more careful with her nod. “Yes.”

“Is that how Tidesa can see the future?” asked a little girl sitting beside Kayin. “Is it Cigam?”

“Stories aren’t real,” Yulia repeated.

“Oh, yeah.”

Aunt Aayin cleared her throat, waiting for the questions to stop before she continued, “Morna and Lorna approached Kayne with their studies, but when they did their experiment on him, nothing happened. He was one of the bloodlines that could not access any ability. They could not change Kayne to make him decide. And then, chaos.” The children hushed as she waved her hands around them. “There was an accident, and the city delved into ruin. Fires, explosions, arguments and disease, all at once. A peaceful and thriving people were crushed by their new abilities, unable to control them, unable to control themselves. You see, in the excitement, the villagers exploited their new powers. They controlled the world without giving back to what gave them power: their Cigam. And so, the power took control, and destroyed everything it could. The bloodshed continued until only one person remained alive: Kayne.

‘I wish I could go back,’ he begged the gods. ‘Oh, please let me go back. Let me change this.’ And so, he did. He found that he could control when he existed.”

“Chronus!” the girl next to Kayin announced.

“Father Time!” Aunt Aayin agreed, nodding to her. “Kayne became Chronus. He went back in time to try and fix his mistake, over and over again, but no matter what he did, the outcome remained the same: Cigam came to be. He went back a hundred times, told his past self to pick Morna or Lorna, or told the villagers not to participate in the experiments, but nothing stopped it. After trying to fix the future so many times, Morna and Lorna began to pick up on what was happening. They began to predict Kayne’s actions, to know what would happen next—”

“Oh, Namuhs of the Future!” the girl next to Kayin identified. The kids murmured excitedly amongst one another, but Aunt Aayin’s gaze no longer focused on them. She looked over the head of Yulia, where Dania and her mother began to approach, looking sad and confused. Kayin stirred, but Aunt Aayin lay a hand on his shoulder.

“Right,” Aunt Aayin, said. “And then everyone died. The end.” Without asking, she used Kayin’s shoulder as a crutch and rose to her feet. He wanted to go with her, but the grip on his shoulder told him to remain put.

When his aunt left the kids to whisper with Dania and her mother, the small group murmured, displeased.

“That wasn’t a very good story,” muttered Yulia. Kayin didn’t have the heart to tell them that, even though Aunt Aayin skipped to the end, that’s what happened anyway.