Amy Vondua is 9 when she arrives at Urtho's tower, and profoundly upset. For a young girl who's fondest dream was to grow up to be a healer just like her mother, being bundled off to school instead, in a place so far away from and different from the village where she grew up, is a profound betrayal. Even the promise of her mother getting a job nearby, so they can still spend mornings and evenings together, only goes so far to blunt the hurt, and it is with this attitude that she determines she will hate Urtho and everything about his tower. She hates the reception areas, she hates the architecture, she even hates the stupid food, so different from what she's used to. Only seeing the Hertasi proves the exception, her innate excitement at both seeing an entirely new species that can talk mom, did you hear and the many questions about their biology she can't help but voice. For almost half an hour she forgets to complain, before an idle comment when her mother is securing them temporary lodgings reminds her and she returns to sulking.

What Amy doesn't understand, however, is that she is fast approaching the limits of what her mother can teach her outside her own specialty, and even within it her practical knowledge outstrips the theoretical. Already she finds herself struggling to keep up with her daughter's endless extent of "why?," puncturing a hole in the curiosity of her daughter's that she so adores, Perhaps in another life, an incredibly toxic work culture and the trials and tribulations of single motherhood might drive her away from home for long hours, ensconcing her daughter primarily in the company of books as a way to offer intellectual engagement, but for all that the demand for healing-gifted outstrips the supply it is also greatly geographically constrained, and even a local doctor cannot possibly supply books in the quantity required to keep up with Amy's reading. Thus instead of holding her daughter back by keeping things as they were, or ferrying her from one apprenticeship to another to keep her occupied for as long as possible, Curie Vondua elected to bring her daughter with her to seek employment and education at the continent's greatest center of knowledge. It breaks her heart to see her daughter feel hurt by this now, but she knows in the long run it is for the best.

Amy Vondua is 9 when she arrives at Urtho's tower, and profoundly upset. For a young girl who's fondest dream was to grow up to be a healer just like her mother, being bundled off to school instead, in a place so far away from and different from the village where she grew up, is a profound betrayal. Even the promise of her mother getting a job nearby, so they can still spend mornings and evenings together, only goes so far to blunt the hurt, and it is with this attitude that she determines she will hate Urtho and everything about his tower. She hates the reception areas, she hates the architecture, she even hates the stupid food, so different from what she's used to. Only seeing the Hertasi proves the exception, her innate excitement at both seeing an entirely new species that can talk mom, did you hear and the many questions about their biology she can't help but voice. For almost half an hour she forgets to complain, before an idle comment when her mother is securing them temporary lodgings reminds her and she returns to sulking.

What Amy doesn't understand, however, is that she is fast approaching the limits of what her mother can teach her outside her own specialty, and even within it her practical knowledge outstrips the theoretical. Already she finds herself struggling to keep up with her daughter's endless extent of "why?," puncturing a hole in the curiosity of her daughter's that she so adores. Perhaps in another life, an incredibly toxic work culture and the trials and tribulations of single motherhood might drive her away from home for long hours, ensconcing her daughter primarily in the company of books as a way to offer intellectual engagement, but for all that the demand for healing-gifted outstrips the supply it is also greatly geographically constrained, and even a local doctor cannot possibly supply books in the quantity required to keep up with Amy's reading. Thus instead of holding her daughter back by keeping things as they were, or ferrying her from one apprenticeship to another to keep her occupied for as long as possible, Curie Vondua elected to bring her daughter with her to seek employment and education at the continent's greatest center of knowledge. It breaks her heart to see her daughter feel hurt by this now, but she knows in the long run it is for the best.