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The university was on the city's land, but it was and wasn't part of the city. When the student met her mother, it was always at the water.
"How are your studies, dear?" her mother asked, though her mother's attention was on the docks, the sailors disembarking from their ships, the ever-shifting boundary line between city and sea.
"Oh, fine, learning a lot," the student said lightly. Going into detail was pointless; her mother had never retained these things. And now, well, the university’s red towers were encircled by stone walls that allowed only students and workers in, and (it was rumored) kept the more arcane details of its knowledge from getting out. "A fun spell for quick travel."
Her mother's forehead furrowed in concentration, before a stray breeze swept in from the sea and her face cleared.
The student said, "How are you, that road construction still going on in Brookside?"
"Endless," her mother huffed, patting a tangled spot in her hair (it had been tangled before the breeze.) "And you wouldn't believe--"
The student listened: a new restaurant here. A closed shop there. A fount of chatter, until, "My darling, I should get going. Be well. Are your studies done soon?"
"A few years yet," the student said, "and then–-we'll see what's next."
Her mother nodded absently, frowning as she watched a ship leave harbor, and said, "I'll be in Oldtown for a while if you need me. Love you."
They hugged goodbye. (A press of metal against the student’s back: Around her mother's wrist, there was always something that looked in some lights like a bracelet adorned with garnets; in others, a battered shackle.) Her mother's arms encircled her tight and strong, the safest place in the world, before her mother let go and strode away.