"Of course not," Milou said as they crouched to pull a rod of metal off of the pile that was stacked in a corner. "Why should there be?"

"Well ain't he like the king here?" Liya asked, watching as Milou used a pair of heavy tongs to put one end of the metal rod into the fire.

"The Cynn is a public servant," Milou replied. "His is, er...a give-up life."

"What th' hell does that mean?"

"I do not know how to translate it. The Cynn has ehm, a fate. To serve. Nothing more so. It is a burden. Not, er...glamour." The metal rod was slowly going cherry red in the fire. Liya watched it, still remembering another fire, brow furrowed worriedly without really realizing it. "The generation after the war was a give-up generation. Their burden was to clean up what had been done before them. The Cynn's burden is to give-themself-up to look after us. You see?"

"I guess so," Liya said doubtfully, and sat back. "Seems pretty lame for the Cynn, though."

"Better than the alternative," Milou said simply. "Power and prestige corrupts."

Liya didn't answer that. There was a thoughtful pause, after which Milou said, without looking up, "You do not like fire very much."