Time to Breathe

[Tenzin]

Her eyes squinted when she took a mouthful, the sharp burn a little stronger than she remembered, but she laughed the reaction away, raised the bottle in a salute, then plopped it for now on the floor beside her chair. It was clear Jacinda was badly injured, but also clear she did not wish to show the vulnerability. Tenzin respected that and simply ignored the obvious difficulty the woman had easing down onto the couch, just as she would ignore when the women eventually rose to clean and tend her wounds.

A returned god. It wasn't news, but it was a topic she hadn't intended to engage with. Blood boiled hot when the debate of that particular quarry came up, even back home. Practices might be different there from here, but the answers were no less easy to come by. Tenzin already knew they killed on sight here, but if was different to be confronted with the reality of the consequences. She gently examined the idea in her mind, but found no strong feelings. It was done, and however Tenzin might have acted in the same situation, right now she chose not to judge.

But she did reflect on the differences.

Like many rākṣasa hatyārā in northern India, Tenzin collected the Sick children when they were rejected by their parents, but she did not actively hunt the young adults -- not unless they gave her a reason to believe they threatened the peace. Even then the decision was passed to the lamas first. The sin was shared. But it was not a task she relished, or a decision made lightly. Given her own unique circumstances, she had more right than most to bare teeth at the notion.

Probably the biggest difference was that they simply did not kill the pups (at least, they were not told to do so); instead they brought the suspected spirit-touched to the temples and handed them over to the lamas. Many died despite the meditations, and those that survived were kept separate in the monasteries -- because what else could be done with them? They were still human. Of course some felt that was simply a disaster waiting to happen. Especially when the first trickles of adults began to arrive, begging such aid as could be given. Alchi was a small community and the situation before she'd left was becoming precarious, but Tenzin was living proof that sometimes compassion was the better medicine.

She snorted. "Not 'gods'. Hate that name. Like they are above us."
Her lips pursed; the irritation was real, but it didn't tell the whole story. They were human, that was the point -- just as human as she was. Imagining them as anything else only heightened the sense of fear that surrounded their unique abilities. They were capable of great destruction, she knew that; but give any man a gun and he was capable of the same.

She mentally shook the feeling off, glad to seize a different topic. Home made her heart ache. Thinking on her pack was like prodding a wound, but it also brought about the warmth of memory. Despite being abandoned as a child she had had a good childhood. Not an ordinary one, perhaps, but she was surprisingly well adjusted. "Jammu and Kashmir. Very in the north is home. Different names and customs there - here is so different! But, Destroyer is here, so they say. So I come."
She would have said more, but she didn't quite know how to articulate it; her English was still a work in progress, and she understood more than she could easily express herself. "And you? You are not from here either."