Mirror Witch

“There was a tale Maniye knew from the Crown of the World where a young hunter was cast out of his tribe. The names and the reasons varied, but all those stories shared the same soul. The exile would wander, meet strangers, overcome challenges, and at last return to his village to call out the chief or whoever had wronged him. Usually he became chief himself, after that. As a child she had always wondered at it: why would the chiefs and the priests allow such a tale that challenged the way things were? She understood it now: no matter how the chiefs and the priests might want to keep every tomorrow the same as yester- day, sometimes the world called for change. Better to have that path safe in a story, than let that change rip all your laws and bonds when you could no longer hold it in.”
― Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Bear and the Serpent