(Original Pern-type Cynonix by Lethe)

Name: Cynonix (sin on icks)

Gender: Male, he/him, quite pan

Age/DOB: barely 16 at search/early story

Origin: Somewhere like Pern

Family: technically speaking, this version is Vanya Sengihr's son but that's 'not this Pern' and 'not that Kalkin' but Kalkin (the Pernese one who changed his name from Vanya that lives in the Healing Den with Baeris and their kids) has absolutely adopted him even if the story below hints that it's actually genetic; his family is long dead, like most Sangers

Other: he is in a permanent and loving relationship with Tessrabia, Baeris' daughter, and they have three furry kids, Tyssix, Xenrai, and Cryten (and probably would have more eventually...)(later) Ranyx and Bianon

Height: at full adult maturity 6'2" and more with hair up

Build: at maturity and health, he's quite muscular but as shown fairly lean and slender, with broad shoulders and a very narrow waist; when he adds fur and a tail some of that detail might be a little lost

Hair: very fluffy, and pale grey in color - cheetah young are covered in down like this, and his just... never turned fully black like most Sangers would; also his is more flyaway and light weight than many

Eyes: vibrant blue, usually scared looking if he's under stress

Appearance: as shown as a human, he is tanned, with lots of freckles; he will definitely dress up a little more than this in polite society but frankly with fur later even that kinda goes to the wayside...

Standing At: Wu Weyr (links no longer work)

Dragon: Brown Ishioth

Created/Updated: originally made in 2004 at the latest; updated and remade into 1 page 3.24.23

Events and History: originally written way long ago - be warned for any adult and sensitive content. Also note that this page is condensed from /raanatani/ cynonix and cynonix2.html so hopefully I've caught any stray code or bold/italics in translation

Though born into a loving family, that family was less-than-dirt poor. The opportunity given to them to have their child fostered took a tremendous load off of them. His father was a squat, dark skinned, hardy miner, his mother a willowy pale girl born to holdless gypsies. His father never believed that Cynonix was his own child, and with good reason. When Cynonix was three turns old, he was turned over to Master Renaud, a healer of some strong repute in his field of experimental health care. What no one told the family was that this is the same twisted Master Healer who warped Vanya of Ablan into a terrifying shadow of a man within fifteen turns... But heedless of any strange feelings about the older Healer, Cynonix's family recieved a sum of marks from the Healer Hall, and the child was gone.

Forever. The family suffered an accident in the peaks of the High Reaches area, and were never heard from again. The awful truth is that like Vanya's family, they too were brutally murdered by Renaud's men. No communication from them since his fifth turn made Cynonix believe that they had in fact simply abandoned him, and he believes to this day that they may be alive.

Cynonix is quiet, yet not silent. He can be heard occasionally purring to himself songs of woe or the like. He immediately stops when someone comes near, and his hearing has been enhanced so that he will detect someone coming long before they hear him and his tunes.

Years of strange concoctions and injections with substances that made Cynonix's life hellish and painful have turned a very patient and observant boy into a hungry, terrified, lean and shaky young man. It was the harsh lessons in Healing that have settled into Cynonix and made him realize that he could help people, if only he could get away from Renaud.

When he finally did get out of the man's clutches, he bolted to the nearest coastline he could, and snuck aboard a ship headed South. Once docked, the sickly and horribly under-weight lad ran into the woods and headed west. Along the coast, he finally found Raanatani's cothold.

Physically, Cynonix is 15 turns old and will be 16 within only a couple sevendays. He is a slender, lean and tall boy, already at least 6 feet tall, but has a ways to go at a mere 140 pounds in weight (where a typical boy his height should be closer to 160). He is used to hard work, digging, climbing and such because of his travels in the wilds of the south, but he is also physically stronger than any lad his age, and durable moreso than you could guess by his frame. He has tanned skin with large attractive freckles all over. His hair is fluffy and oddly grey, though it is probably because of the experiments that Renaud performed on him that this is the case. His eyes are a vibrant blue, usually wide and staring. Those eyes are stronger for night vision than most humans, also mostly due to the experiments done on him.

Cynonix is not altogether sane, but with very good reason. He is scared to death that Renaud will come for him, though he does not know that the man has been killed by Vanya (that is his own story...). He is more of an intellectual than anyone could realize, from his habits of staying out in the wilderness and roughing it. He has no love of Thread, for he had seen several bad instances of threadscored patients at the Healer Hall before Renaud took him to a private hold. He is versed in some amount of healing skills, and would return to it if he could be promised a good spot. But since coming to Raanatani's cothold he has found suddenly that he is more relaxed around dragon riders and their ilk. He cannot hear dragons, but he can understand their small cousins the fire lizards more easily than most.

When searchriders come to Mama Tani's cothold, they are always assured to find a good Candidate among her fosterlings. This one might shake their belief, but he has been Searched by one of her own offspring's dragons. Hopefully, a dragon below him will give him the courage he needs to stave off insanity and become a healer or dragon healer. Cynonix would probably be best on a blue or brown, but perhaps even a green would calm his nerves sufficiently. He is almost completely asexual, his desires had been both confused and crushed by Renaud's awful manipulations. If he does Impress, he will shorten his name to C'nix, or Cyn'x (they are pronounced the same). (he doesn't use that any more, just call him Cynonix.)

**

Kalkin wandered around the cothold after watching Sixth chew on the remnants of the wherrie he'd brought down. The small dragon looked up and chirped a strange question, one which Mama Tani by Kalkin's side furrowed her brows at.

"What did he say?" She asked, "he's not bespeaking openly you know."

"He wants to know who the fierce child is. He ..." Kalkin swayed with a bit of the dragon's mental contact.

He smells like you, my rider. He is afraid, sometimes you get like that. But he is brave like you too.

"I'm being brave by letting you speak to me like this," Kalkin said, almost gasping from the pain that his dragon's mind always gave him. But he looked at Tani and asked, "which fierce boy would this be?"

"We don't have many, but he might be talking about Cynonix. Come, this way. He's... probably been at the wher-den again. Taunting the poor beasts."

Kalkin smirked, "I like him already," he said.

Moments later, Tani held her hand close to Kalkin, and they stopped. Observing quietly from a ways away, they saw the lanky youth with the freckles on his skin (freckles they could make out clearly from halfway across a clearing) crouching on the ground and tearing the skin off a tunnel snake. The way he sat, and the curve of his back, the fall of the wispy grey hair and the fact that he was only wearing a pair of somewhat threadbare short pants made Kalkin stiffen with distress.

He watched the boy skillfully skin the snake, and then begin pull bones from its carcass. But it was the way the boy would pause and hold his hand up, stare at it, and then smell at it deeply that disturbed Kalkin the most.

"He does this occasionally. I've seen him take down a full-grown wherrie with his bare hands," Tani said, very quietly. "And I think he knows we're here. He is not telepathic like those pale boys at Blackstone, but ..."

"He hears you," Kalkin said, not as softly as Tani. "Raanatani, where did he come from?" There was a tremor of emotion in the healer's voice, and Tani turned with a concerned look.

"He wandered in. He's told me a bit, he ran away from someone. Someone awful."

Kalkin only blinked. Then, he slid around the Lady Holder, brushing his hand against hers softly. Kalkin walked to the boy, who stood carefully and turned to face the tanned man. He was nearly eye level with the elder.

And those eyes... The same brilliant shade of blue, perhaps a little rounder but ...

Kalkin's jaw tightened, and he held his long fingers up to the boy's cheek. "... Your mother was very beautiful, I ... can't say why I did not stay with her instead of letting her get away..."

Cynonix gulped, but maintained his eye contact. "So he was right," he said, of his 'father's' opinion. "Why couldn't you have at least come to help me?"

They walked into the woods, and Raanatani could not hear them. Finally she went back to the cothold and waited for them there. Soon enough they arrived with the tunnel snake, and vaguely dissatisfied but relatively happy faces.

"So he's one of your children, Vanya?" Tani said, and to her surprise, he didn't stop her from using his 'real' name.

"We had much to discuss. And I know why he is the way he is. I cannot say why my line suddenly has so many dragon riders among it... But at least he will make a good one."

Tani looked at the boy and grinned broadly. "You have finally decided to take them up on the Search?"

"I will stand on the sands as soon as I can, Mama." It was the first time he'd used her typical name, in the cothold! Tani cried openly, and smoothed down his wild grey hair while they arranged transport to Wu Weyr.

**

The trip to the Weyr was both harrowing and laughable. Sixth offered to bring Cynonix and his father there to Wu, and it was a wonder that they both arrived alive let alone for the correct season and clutch. Cynonix dismounted from the tiny blue dragon and with a pale face (from all that betweening and timing it, inadvertantly having gone quite a lot farther than they planned) the freckled lad patted the dragon's side and practically ran down the corridor of Wu looking for a place to hide.

"Brave, huh?" Kalkin muttered to Sixth.

I never said he was not afraid of heights, or able to see better between than you, my rider.

Kalkin laughed, and pleaded with Sixth to be able to come back *during* the hatching, instead of several hundred turns *after* it. They went back to Alabaster, making that journey with ease.

Cynonix on the other hand was pacing around his chosen weyr like, well, an angry cat. Weyrwoman Wumai paused at the entrance to it, peering in to see the pampas-haired youth talking to himself in a strangely musical tongue She shook her head, and walked down the hall. It wouldn't be the first time that a person who was apparently insane impressed... Perhaps it would do him good...

**

When at last the day of the hatching arrived, Cynonix had actually gotten rather used to the weyr. He enjoyed hunting in the wilderness around it, and also entertained more serious thoughts of continuing his Healing education with the local master healer. The night that the hatching occurred, Cynonix seemed to have heard the humming of the dragons long before anyone but the sire and dam's riders had.

He stood by the other boys, nervous in his uncomfortable white robe. The first egg to hatch (finally) was a brown, a beautiful one at that. Then a bronze and green hatched shortly after. The brown had nosedived into the hot sands more than once on his way to the boys, and several of the other candidates went out to help him. Cynonix found his own feet carrying him toward the creeling brown, who was very scared. Alone!

Oh! Oh, I am sorry, I'm not alone! You are not alone either! Now we are together, Cyn'x! I am Ishioth, and I am not scared any more!

"I..." Cynonix, now Cyn'x, gulped. "I can't belive... oh, Ishioth! You're right, we will never be alone or afraid again..."

**

Ishioth, could you come here?

The brown dragon raised his head and looked for C'nyx. I am busy.

You are not busy.

I am catching something!

Sunlight! That's all! Come in and help move this table! It's too heavy for me!

The brown dragon rose with delicate care, so far from his clumsy state as a hatchling. His long legs extended and he nudged the wide desk which C'nyx had been given to assist in his Healing duties. A gift from his father. There were also tools inside the drawers, and a promise to be taught how to use them if he wanted.

C'ynx examined where the desk was, then shook his head, his grey-black hair tumbling around. "No, that's not it, over here."

We will be at this all day... Ishioth sighed.

** formerly at cynonix2.html ** ^slight retconning of ages

At the eve of Cynonix's twentieth birth day, the Protectorate changed. It disappeared from its Pernese setting and just up and left it. Certain elements remained consistant: the wings were mostly intact, though separated by whether the riders were among Alabaster or Blackstone origins; the Search dragons continued their work; those who had been eager to remain on Pern stayed there oblivious of the changes...

Cynonix was one of those who waited for the change eagerly. Though his father seemed a bit confused about it, Cynonix managed to remain calm when he himself changed from a freckle-skinned human, into ... what effectively was a cheetah on two legs. Ivo from earth comforted him easily -- perhaps comfort is not the right word -- enjoyed the change a little much?

But in any case, he could still ride a dragon, still mix herbal remedies and set bones. His senses continued to be strong as ever, perhaps they never changed. Leaving their old home behind them, establishing himself at the Healing Den as one of the Protectorate's many resident healers, Cynonix and brown Ishioth generally keep to themselves.

Until the times when Baeris' children grew up.

One of them, the youngest, Tessrabia by name, attracted his attentions the moment she rushed into the infirmary as a child and pulled on his long spotted tail. He nearly clung to the ceiling in surprise, but has never faulted her for it. In fact, he has always had a deep love for her.

Now, as the Healing Den floats in the Nexus, waiting for people to arrive or depart, Cynonix reaches a decision point.

Tessrabia is a candidate at Talor Cliff's last clutch. A factor which he knows will make or break their relationship. Tessrabia is her mother's daughter, in most ways. Bold, honest, and a potentially great Healer. But in many ways the mother and daughter are quite opposite: Tess has a soft side which she shows just as eagerly to him, as her aggressive one. Bubbling over one minute, and the next folding into his arms to confess some childhood distress.

Baeris knows of the deep bond between the two. Cynonix has confessed it himself to her. Now... Now, as a candidate, she might...

"Come back with a gold, Tessrabia." Cynonix whispered as Nora and blue Mitanth flew off from the wide "parking lot" outside the Healing Den's entrance. "Come back with a gold and Ishioth and I will do whatever you wish."

"Ahh, now that's devotion... What if she returns with a green?" Jibed V'tar, Raanatani's own furry offspring. The other healer nudged Cynonix out of his gazing at the Nexus, and Cynonix shook his head.

"She'll come back with the right dragon. I ..." The cheetah man paused, "I can only hope that it's a female right dragon. She is so set on having some dramatic flight, her ideas of what makes a love deep -- I can hope that Ishioth lives up to her expectations."

"And her dragon's," V'tar said, grinning.

"And her dragon's. Well... There's nothing much to do now but wait. Even if she impresses tomorrow, it will be a while before they come back..."

"No, it'll be right away, you ninny." V'tar reminded Cynonix that their Den remained outside of time as well as space. "She can spend a year outside, or wherever they will be training these last clutch bonders, and then come right back to your side."

Blinking, Cynonix looked at his friend. "You... are right... I keep forgetting. I ought to be more than twice her age^, but she has grown only as much as she needs to. I have stopped. Like you, like Baeris. So the wait will not be as agonizing as I had expected it."

"As you hoped it would be, you like pain still."

"Not like that. I am my father's son, though... And I will wait for her, whatever she comes riding back on!"

(Art from City of Heroes, and by Mehndix on Deviantart)

After some amount of time, and the fact that Tessrabia did in fact impress a lovely gold dragoness by the name of Yliath, they hook up both formally and permanently. Though Ishioth does race around to sire some odd offspring here and there, it is the love between these two that allows three amazing children to be born. They have their own stories across the Nexus and varied worlds. While Tess and her mother both work at Carramba High School, Cynonix remains at the Den helping out with healing and occasionally hunting with the dragons.

Dragon

Name: Ishioth
Gender: Male
Size/Shoulder/Length: Medium 13'6" s / 55' l / 83' ws
Colors: pale and even brown that is slightly dustier-darker along the tail and over the backs of his wings, with no differentiation between the wingsails and body shade
Features: Wu-born Pernese with no added bells or whistles, bare tail and head/neck, 4 fingered wings with claws and a wrist claw
Powers: Winged Flight
Teleportation, Genrehop, Timeshift
Telepathy
Unassisted* Firebreath - like many of his breed that have been at the Healing Den for the bulk of their lifespan, even though his parents and possibly others in his line normally require firestone or coal to ignite, his flame starts at will. He doesn't fight thread or other things, so this has kind of gone by the wayside, but should they be out in the wilderness or actually back on Pern, he can maintain a decent burn over about 100 meters or a cone into a very hot flame for closer work
Parentage: Gold Kuaith (Wu Progen) and Bronze Sarenth (glass island progens gold Keleth and bronze Falanth)
Origin: Wu Weyr clutch 2
Other Info: Ishioth and Yliath will be providing the Nexus with some lovely babies some day, who knows when...
Mates: Naughty Clutch paired with (herm) brown-gold Dryslydth producing Green brown f Butcheth, brown-cream herm Dildoth, and blue green m Dragth
Naughty Clutch with Green-yellow Halutath producing Green Gold Jailbaith
Naughty Clutch with Lightning Jaffs producing rusty steel CHainth, and cream with purple Prudeth