Eagles Over the Kennebec

Well now, Daav did not expect Er Thom and Anne to up and die on him. They managed to look after Clan Korval and Val Con well enough, until the inconvenience of death overtook them. And I think that in Liaden perspective, you are not abandoning your children if you leave them in your clan's care. In fact it seems like a lot of individual Liadens have little, if anything, to do with their own offspring. Remember Aellianna's remark to Daav, that "the clan has my daughter in it's care"-she didn't even mention the kid's name! (I sort of wonder if the child described as Aellianna's youngest sister was actually her daughter. Maybe exact relationships are not considered that important, and Aellianna was kind of young when that awful contract marriage was in place. So maybe Aellianna's mother was foster mother, within the clan, to Aellianna's daughter.) Okay, please excuse the lengthy aside. My point is, even we Terrans have a long tradition of (men, at least) leaving the kids behind to go off and defend the nation/tribe/whatever, on the grounds that this constitutes answering a higher calling. However, I too think Daav could have been a *leetle* more forthcoming with Theo about a few things.
Teresa