Zea always felt different from other Iunnians. Her curiosity about the wheeling cosmos and her creativity set her apart from the mundane routines of her brethren. For much of her young life, Zea walked on the fringes of her mountain community. Her brother, Zed, inspired her with cosmic storytelling and daring questions in his spare time. Zea and Zed were children of Joio ("Joy-oh"), their high mountain village perched on the crater of a dormant volcano. Their parents had left Zea and Zed a guiding monument inscribed with the wisdom of their lives, lessons grown in the stone made from their bodies. Zea and Zed were the only two siblings produced by their parents' lithification, rare for Iunnian families.

While Zed found a place as a skilled and respected Shleper'nin, a protector of the village goatelope herds, Zea tried many professions, none of which satisfied her heart's desire to explore the night sky, the deep mystery others told her was forever beyond her reach. Zea found the next best thing: she decided she would explore all of Iunn. She became a world traveler, setting out to meet other peoples and wildernesses. In her travels she learned navigation skills and interpersonal insights that would be essential to her future journeys on other worlds. Zea sailed with the Sayel'nin of the Metalfolk, hiked game trails with the Woodsfolk, and delved into wild lands untouched by Iunnian civilization.

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As she at last returned to visit home, scaling the mountain slopes through neighboring villages, Zea witnessed a catastrophic volcanic eruption tear open the land and sky above Joio. The dormant volcano awoke, hurling molten rock and ash into the village and its fields. Zea sprinted up the mountain, looking for Zed. When she spotted him, he was guiding the panicked villagers and herds away from the lava. The Well of Ancestors, their stone heritage, buried by the angry red river, Zed remained the village's only guardian. While Zea sprinted towards him, Zed committed a heroic sacrifice that saved her life and the countless lives of Joio and Ezir (Ouy's home) in the forest below: jamming his ancient Shleper'nin staff into the mountain side, Zed collapsed the nested mountain cliffs, falling with the stone into the roiling lava. The flow dammed, the fires in the forest below prevented, so many lives saved, yet Zea fell, grief gripping her double-knees, to the stone, having lost the one person in life who mattered most to her.