When the Oban invasion first began, Uquin was a young man just taking on the mantle as healer. Even now, all this time later, he remembers Neued… the influx of wounded from the doomed battle, and the inevitable retreat with a patient on his back. Oba had placed a firm hold on Jauhar, and omnipresent force, a looming threat that he could only hope to flee from. And so he did. And for a time, Uquin let himself drown in the responsibilities of a Healer. He tended to those wounded who had escaped to Yera, he established a center for himself in the old tree he had been given as a prentice, and there he was able to do good work. In these busy hours, you could almost forget the threat that hovered on their border… and, in celebrating the return of warriors from the lost battle, he lost himself.

And in losing himself, in that one moment of weakness, Uquin gained a small, if complicated, family. How was it that weakness, which he had forever detested as imperfect, had resulted in something so wonderful? It was true, there was no romance to be had in this, but his daughters… his daughters were everything he had ever dreamed, and yet not known he wanted. And yet, he had come so close to missing out on them entirely. Before they had even come into the world, and were still just quickening in their mother’s belly, in a moment of weakness and intimidation, he let himself run away to Jauhar under the pretence of a research trip. And there, in Neued, in a place he had thought would be safe… he was once again reminded of the Oban threat.

Neued was lost… and, during the battle, the horrible, senseless invasion that took over the small town, Uquin was lucky to have escaped and, once he had somehow returned to Yera, he was reminded of the fragility of life. How easily he could have missed the birth, because of his cowardice and fear of being a father. For the first time, Uquin had a desire that wasn’t related to healing… a desire that, truly and utterly, was selfish. With the birth of his daughters came the realization that as a Healer, though it was his duty to appear at battles and help tend to the wounded, this same calling that had drawn him in as a child… could also take his life. Before, the risk was par for the course - to lose his life in service wouldn’t be preferable, but it was a necessary risk. Now… how could he risk himself, when those two darling faces were waiting for him back home?

The war couldn’t end fast enough. But when it did… when it did, the world opened up, for him and for his daughters. A world where they could be free to explore if they so wanted, a world where their father could practice his craft without risk. Even if he lost his eye during the conflict, he was alive and he could continue to care for them, watch them.

And even if Ujana moved to Jauhar with her mother, away from him, that was alright - even if she was far away, he loved her and knew she was being cared for.

Until the Alkidike invasion, that is. In the whirlwind, as he and Padma fled east to Sauti, Uquin could only pray that Ujana was alright, wherever she was. He thought, for the first time in years, about his mother and sister. Waiting for the extremists to close in on Sauti, waiting for the battle that he had never seen coming, Uquin gave in to concerns and fears that hadn’t awakened for years. Powerless, unable to assure Padma that yes, Ujana WAS alright, of course she was -- but really fearing the possible truth.

This time, the threat finished within one battle. There was no long, drawn out campaign, or lingering maliciousness hanging over their heads… only the suspicious stares shot towards the Alkidike that had come to assist them. Back home, the settlements appeared untouched, as if the extremists had merely passed through on their way to take Sauti (of all places).

And for a glimmering moment, it was as if his fears were simply paranoid nightmares, the overactive imagination of a concerned father. But Ujana never reappeared. Weeks later, as he passed through the town she and her mother had stayed at, there was no sign of her. It was as if his daughter had disappeared, or had never existed.

Two years and her disappearance still haunts him. Two years, and the very idea of letting Padma explore the world alone, as she often suggested, is abhorrent to him. They leave the house to travel for his work, and he allows her to pursue her interests at home - but there’s no way he can let her disappear, too. She’s now all he has - even if, at times, he looks at himself and sees his own mother looking back at him.