[Author's note, Dec 2019: Just received some feedback from a generous reader to the extent that this part doesn't make sense. First, this is great feedback (I suspected that there was an issue so will revisit the whole start of the story, especially the 'Sen' story arc). Second, this is why Wattpad is so great...Keep the feedback coming folks, and I hope that you can power through these next couple of parts until I have implemented the fix! HR, Pete]

[on the Atripliceae Family Platform in atmospheric orbit over the planet Skye]

Sen sat barefoot and crossed-legged on the soft rubbery floor of the observation deck, her long brown hair swirled in the strong wind that burned her eyes.  She could feel the plants under her skin tingle as the microscopic machines compensated for the high altitude by enriching the oxygen in her blood and countering the reduced air pressure by augmenting the density of her epidermal cells.

The eleven year old had telepathically disengaged the platform's windshields; a trick that only she could perform. But the outcome of the act made her ears hurt and she regretted not finding a better way to express the intensity of her anger. She was angry at her patents for not letting her accept the invitation to become one of twelve child apprentices to the most influential people in the Galaxy, the Learned.

Beyond her discomfort, with the slight frame of an eleven year old Sen knew there was a chance that she'd be blown away; lifted by a powerful gust and carried like a feeble leaf down to the green expanse of forest canopy on the planet below. Maybe, she thought, I would land on top of grandfather. He was down there somewhere with the other aged, and with dangerous criminals too. No one will send me to a prison when I'm old, she promised herself, never.  I will close down the aged colonies when I become one of the Learned -- one day.

Sen's current outburst directly followed a meeting between a delegation from Qura Amara and her parents.

The visitors had travelled from the distant system to her family platform for the specific purpose of offering Sen a place of study with the Ethnaa Aashar -- to become one of the twelve. To any other family anywhere in the all the stellar colonies, this would be the pinnacle of opportunity -- the one-in-a-billion chance to become one of the legendary Learned. But to Sen's  parents, the opportunity was not an option. 

Rejecting their offer, her father told the aghast visitors, "No. I do not want any daughter of mine caged up like an animal for twelve years in your learning zoo. For what? So she can die before her time? Lose hundreds of years of experience just so that you can keep her a child and, in so doing,  steal her childhood?" He referred to the requirement that Ethnaa Aashar use one of their eleven gefreshes each year so they may remain the age of twelve for the twelve year duration of their learning. Each person within any of the civilised colonies was able to grow physically old, but then take their body back to as it was when they were thirty-two -- but, only ever eleven times. Refresh for a twelfth time was forbidden on the penalty of death.

When the head of the delegation, a patient and seemingly reasonable senior member of the Qura Amaran administration, reinforced the significance of the offer, Sen's father, Lynx insisted, "No. She is smart, she will make it without the oppression of the Learned. Who are we to sentence her to a premature death? We have no right to withhold from her from the promise of the long life. It's not just wrong,  it's barbaric. Our answer is no!"

Sen had been using a thread on the platform's SIS to listen in on the discussion. Now, the memory of the words pounded inside her head amid the roar of the wind, especially the word 'No'. She clenched her teeth and wondered, if she bit down hard enough, would it be possible to dislocate her jaw.

It was her father's idea she knew. Mother had been open to the notion as her daughter fantasized over the idea that she may be considered. "Yes, you could become a star, and famous; even as famous and influential as the great Gazul, or Zoro, who was your grandfather's friend, you know?" Mother had explained earlier, "You know they were from Skye too, Fraxinus was Gazul 's name, from the old Oleeae Tribe everyone called her Ash. Zoro's name was Pachy and he lives still"

When she mentioned the idea to her father that she might one day be like Gazul, no less than the one who discovered the Galaxy Tree, he had said, "Ha! Bring your head down from the clouds my little sprout. It is better that you live for today, not for fantasy."

The burning from the wind had just began to turn from discomfort to pain, when she sensed someone creating a thread to the pax stream to control the windshield. She could have easily kicked them out, but instead allowed them to engaged the energy field. In an instant, the platform's deck became still and silent. But the blood still thumped in her ears, and the roaring in her head from her tempestuous thoughts remained. It will happen. I will become one of the Ethnaa Aashar, she promised herself.

Her father was the first to run up to where she was sitting, he knelt down and took her firmly by the shoulders. She could read the panic in his face as he exclaimed, "Senniella, what were you thinking?! You could have died!". 

She just looked at him and said with a level voice, and more conviction than a child should know, "No, what were you thinking?" The next words she didn't say out loud but looked him in the eye and thought, I wish you were dead. I'll be twelve in four weeks, and only you stand between me and my dreams. You will probably die.