Big Salmon Lake primum non nocere

His smirk firmed for a moment before he wiped the expression away entirely. He was pleased with the boy's openness to different points of view. Certainly, he'd been more opinionated and surly at not too distant an age. He'd been hurting, though. His own mother had gladly given him up — and he wondered, for a moment, if his outlook would have been different if she'd insisted on keeping him longer. If she'd tried.

And he wondered, suddenly, if he was doing the right thing by taking on Delos so young. If it was damaging. If it was worse, somehow, to drag Leto along.

Some things, he knew, would only become clear in hindsight.

"Don't be hard on yourself, Delos," he said when the quiet had stretched between them. "Your desire to see your mother safe is admirable, and your attachment to her is natural. You have done nothing wrong here, so long as you are willing to listen and learn. And I will tell you a secret that my master liked to tell me: The learning, in truth, goes on forever."

He offered the bot a small smile, his voice unusually gentle when he went on:

"Would you still like to make these vows, Delos?" he asked the boy. "Once now, just for the course of your apprenticeship. You may decide at the end of you will swear them again as a healer and as a man."