...poor her.

Well, yes, but her husband took it incredibly hard and this was long enough ago that he's more salient.

"Never remarried?"

"Nope."

He tells Kib about everybody's brightest apprentices, frustratedly. 

"Maybe it'll be somebody in the second batch of cities?" (Shasali is fussing over Kalatha, who she missed very much.)

"Possibly, yeah. I might throw some money at the fellow doing medical work, that seems important and like it might scale with more resources."

"Worthy cause, sure."

"Should we get vaccinated for the pox, it sounds horrifying."

"Have you gotten so much as a cold since you arrived?"

"Nope. Probably aren't susceptible but diseases do leap species sometimes."

"You could try it, but the vaccine might not work on you either, considering."

"Yeah. Not going to leave on the next mini-trip for a while, Kalatha and Shasali missed each other."

"It's cute how like - Kalatha doesn't even know it's weird."

"She doesn't! Kids can get used to all kinds of things."

"Are the other creche kids jealous?"

"Some of them have asked. No one's been like 'will you take me home' - we probably would -"

"If too many of them did that it'd just be like a whole creche in your house."

" - yes but it'd be very hard to turn down a tiny kid who wanted to live with you."

Snort. "What about a seven-year-old, are those easy to refuse?"

"Easier, they're not tiny babies! But they still need parents - well, Amentan kids at that age still need parents, so I bet we'd take them."

"You're weird." Kiss.

"I'll live with that." Kiss.

Medical golems guy is named Aydanci and gets a letter asking whether additional funding would allow him to expand the reach of his programs.

Yes, he takes donations, he can also recommend the following organizations, here is his list of priorities going forward. It's a form letter.

He looks into those organizations too, figures out what he can afford, sends money.