@Lovejoy And with that, I am proud to present an update to Oren's relationships. You have prompted me to smash my keyboard. Once I 'get to know' how Oren interacts with some characters, I think I'll expand more, but I've been needing to finish Mother Indira's one for a while, anyway. So thanks for the prompt, I suppose!
Pssst, Shy, Ziotea's in there!Mother Indira Al-Sayed: Mother Indira… a harsh woman, to say the least. But fair. And even though her training was punishing, Oren relishes the lessons he learned from her. It was her teachings that kept him together when he was fraying at the seams… even though he eventually had to give in to other methods. Every lesson, every mark on his body and on his mind, he refuses to forget.
In short, he is both highly respectful and highly grateful to his teacher. He has not fully grasped all of the things he has learned, but he endeavours to.
Father Cillian: Cillian was interesting, to Oren. Quiet, like himself, but in a different way. Oren preferred to hang back and observe, but Cillian didn’t even do that; disappearing into his garden more often than not. His store of ether made him an ample Protector, and his exclusion from Mother Indira’s ‘additional lessons’ made him even more of an oddity. Eventually, though, Oren acknowledged that the man was just disinterested in the rest of the world beyond his own place in it; or at least, that was his own interpretation of it.
Mother Ziotea: Oren is unsure what prompted him to offer to take the woman with him to the ruins. A sense of kinship due to their shared Omestrian heritage? Duty, from the lessons that had been given to him? No, those weren’t right. Best not dwell on it.
From what little he knows of her, he knows that he and Ziotea have different outlooks on life; different methods and values. But, Oren isn’t fool enough to think that his way is the only one that brings success. He values the fact that they are different - it will make her a beneficial ally.