"I think he mentioned it at some point. She's a missing person?" 

"Yeah. She disappeared when I was 12. And - obviously, losing her was horrible for all of us, but - it was the uncertainty, the not knowing what or why, that -" 

She chokes up a bit, then catches herself. "...I dunno. I miss him so much, but - often I feel like not knowing is the worst part of this, too, when -"

Oh no he hates this. Why is this student having feelings at him and making him think about his feelings. Help. 

Hey, no fair, why is the new transfer hogging the hot TA just because she has a tragic backstory? This other girl will interrupt to ask a question about the homework, you know, what they're supposed to be talking about. 

Aaaand during the interruption her brain comes back online. 

Ami???? Hello???? You are fucking stupid???? Why did she say all that what the shit that was so dumb and counterproductive she might have ruined everything aaaaaaAAAA
 

She waits until the other girl is done, and then says  "...I'm so sorry, I really didn't mean to spring that all on you, that was really rude of me. Can we - pretend none that happened and just -" she holds up her assignment in chagrin.

"Of course. So, which problem were you struggling with...?" 

They can both be Incredibly Normal And Mentally Healthy People for the remainder of the tutoring session. 

So Normal! So Mentally Healthy!

(He's an excellent tutor. She thanks him heartily, when they're done, and manages to flee the scene gracefully.)

Kani's fathers bought her a brand-new hoverscoot for her birthday a few months ago, to replace Bippy, her worn-down 'scoot she'd grown up riding. Bippy was a bit of a Frankenstein-case built and repaired using parts from the two they'd had as kids. Bippy made funny noises, was almost as heavy an 8-year-old Kana was, and couldn't really handle the inclines and drops well enough for the trails down into the Canyon that the family spent almost every weekend exploring, in those days. When they got to the trailhead, Papa would hitch Bippy to his 'scoot while Dad strapped Kani into his, and she wouldn't get to drive again until they were safely on the floor.

Bippy 2 (Kani hasn't had the heart to give it a fresh name - everything she can think of is just a painful reminder), is fancy. It's silent, fast, waterproof and river-safe, and most impressively, it folds up into a safety hoverpack (not the kind that flies, you need a very special license for those, but ones that hikers, climbers, and cavers use to make it all-but-impossible to fall. It's the thing she'd wanted more than anything, 2 years ago, before Papa had gently told her that it wasn't the kind of present they could really afford to get her, not on their Park Ranger salaries.

When she remembers that conversation, she starts crying out of guilt, but Papa pulls her into a tight hug as Dad explains that all 5 of her grandparents and some family friends all chipped in to pay for it, and that they love her and they want her to be okay. (The closest they've seen her she's seemed to okay, since March, was when she came home past midnight after riding Bippy the 1st - she'd speak in full sentences, and even sometimes volunteer information without being asked!)

She'd clung to him and sobbed, feeling - a complicated mixture of pain and guilt and hope and love that was so much better than the dull stabbing griefgriefguiltempygrief. 

She'd expected Bippy 2 to have a pretty substantial learning curve, but it had turned out that the fancy new glove-based control system was exactly as intuitive as Magini had claimed it was, when she'd infodumped about it to Kani and Th 2 years ago. (Magini's uncle is rich, and so when she visits her cousins, she gets to play with some really crazy stuff. Kani had been jealous of that, back when she had more feelings.)

She goes out most nights, now. With her music in her ears, the wind rippling across her skin, the walls of the Canyon on each side of her, and the stars above, she sometimes feels at peace, for minutes or sometimes even hours at a time.  

Tonight, she's taking her first trip upriver in years, marveling at how nice Bippy 2 is. Bippy the 1st could handle water travel, of course, every 'scoot built in the last 100 years could, but it was heavy enough that banking at all would risk destabilizing, and the gyrosafeties would lock up in response, keeping her perfectly vertical and painfully slow.

With a practiced slide of her flighthand, Kani tilts almost horizontal, reaching down with her free arm and skimming the surface of the water. From somewhere deep within herself, she feels a tiny spark of delight.

Tonight, she feels drawn to explore...that way. She's never been up there before.

(...mostly, admittedly, because that particular side canyon isn't actually part of the Grand Canyon National Park.)

The gestalt entity that is Kani-and-Bippy 2 has no concept of National Park boundaries, only the ground and the wind and the stark night sky, which looks so pretty in that direction. 

It leads, and she follows.