"Alec, Larrissia ....If only we could have...."

Sha'uri cut off her own sentence, shaking her head sadly. So much pain and too many what if's to allow herself yet another tangent of thought in that direction. It was the story of her life, an existence full of What If's .

A deep sigh of resignation escaped her as she laid a hand upon the gravestone to help herself get up. However, the sigh fell short of the expected long exhalation when a tingle of something like pain shot through her hand. When she looked, there was nothing on the stone or her hand to indicate what it was that had caused the pain. Perhaps she was getting old really early and beginning to feel the pangs of senility.

She moved to the overgrown rose bush and plicked a few of the scented red flowers and laid them upon the graves of her brother and sister. Then quiet steps took her just a few paces away when she came upon a grave she really hadn't expected to see.

Briarius Ravensheart

Immediately tears filled her eyes and she fell to her knees in dispair. Last she knew, he was alive. Had it really been so long?

Her steps moved out of the cemetary and down the path towards the place where Ravensheat Castle used to reside. The cemetary wasn't the only thing that had changed so much over the years. The path was not so long before coming across buildings and houses where once only the foilage of virgin land had stood. Where the castle was, Sha'uri simply couldn't find it. It was getting dark so she moved further from town and made camp by a small stream and waited until morning.

Too soon and morning had arrived. It was time to get a real good look around RhyDin and there was only one way to do that quickly. Not wanting to make a spectacle of herself, her form faded with the magical incantation of invisibility and she began to fly as she changed into her dragon form.

A bird's eye view is what she needed. Indeed, much had changed. several places, where she used to frequent, where now gone as if burried under layers of dirt, dust and mostly forgotton dreams. A few had different buildings in place or at least had serious renovations done. She almost didn't recognize them. Some were just abandoned and others....down right destroyed.

One building, or the lack of, near the river caught her attention as she flew over. It looked as if a ton of explosives was dropped down and blew it out of existance. A glance over the area revealed the trail of what could easily have been part of the debris which had obviously cascaded down over a large portion of town. The fires were out by now, but she could guess it must've happened within a month or two at best.

Gliding over the center of town, she could see the courthouse had very recently been burned to rubble. The fires were out but smoldering ash and workers sifting through the debris gave the tale that the destruction had occured within a day. Yet another place to add to the list of destroyed buildings she once knew of.

Finding a place to land, Sha'uri changed her form to the usual human self and found an inconspicuous place to become visible again. She emerged from the alley near the newstand and procured a paper from the tender at the newstand. After puchasing bacon, egg and cheese pastry from the local bakery, Sha'uri sat down on a public bench to eat and read the local news. The answers came easily upon the first page; the warehouse and the arson upon the courthouse.

She read on, furrowing her brows with a frown reading about the attack in the famous local inn. Muttering under her breath, "And some things don't change."

She was about to dismiss the last article as nothing and turn the page when the name of Ravensheart almost made her drop the entire newsletter from her hand. A quick reaction had the paper crumpled between a nervous grasp, though not without the loss of previously stated pastry upon the cobblestone of the streets. She slowly, and with hands shaking, smoothed the pages upon her lap and read the article aloud in a whisper to herself, just to make sure she was reading it right. Nodding to herself, assured she had read it right, she stood with a loud voice and said.

"By the grace of Correllon....Briarius Ravensheart, you are alive!"

The newstand attendant gave her a look. "Aye, Ma'am, it's the another new school. I know of its where abouts. Ye seem to be a friend 'o his?"

Sha'uri moved to him quickly, eyes bright with hope. "Yes, indeed. He's sort of a relative. Not by blood, though. He was married to my mother at one time, before she married my father. Briarius has always been a friend, a good friend....you'd be hard pressed to find a more honorable kind. Please, tell me where this school is?"

The man smiled, "What's yer name?"

"Okay, if you must know. Sha'uri ....Sha'uri Arrowny, daughter of Pyriathin and Sharalis Arrowny. He was the commander of the Brotherhood of Light. I don't suppose you've ever heard of it?"

Surprisingly, the man nodded. He wrote instructions while he spoke. "Aye, that I have. My mother mentioned it in telling stories of the old days when she was a girl. Here ye go, ma'am. Hope it helps ye find yer way."

He gave her the instructions. Sha'uri was soon running down the streets towards this new School of the gifted.