Upon the arrival of the Friaren to her people, Rue took particular interest in them, and spent a great deal of time with them. She learned to communicate with them, and had a strange knack for interpreting their words and mannerisms. Time passed, and her friends began to become antsy. They had many brothers and sister who were still under the tounar yoke. They were intent on eventually returning to their people and completing their emancipation. When the time came it was Rue who was aptly chosen to guide them through the Valley of the Tear, towards their wet highland homes to the west.

They traveled far, for weeks, across the same terrain that the Friaren had stumbled across the season before. Once they began to climb the jagged steppes to the wet highlands, it was decided to make a circuit around to the other side of the plateau, so that they may approach from a more unsuspecting, unperturbed section of the tounar land. They crossed into flats towered above by the mounts that formed the highlands. It became dry and barren aside from the banks of the streams that poured out of the hills and seemed to dry up almost within sight at the horizon.

They eventually turned up a narrow gorge, following a stream that would take them up. Rue had the choice to turn back, she had gone far enough, but … she was intrigued and determined to continue on with her new friends. In the darkness of nite she awoke to a disturbance, crawled to cover, and when danger was confirmed, she gave signal. Arrows flying and hitting two shady humanoids who fell and then a glow from behind. The friaren left their things, wide eyed, and clumsily scampered up the canyon. Rue retreated, sensing a strange force from the glow that seemed to continue to approach, creating a silhouette. She raised her bow, and then … froze.

In the hold, the hole dug in the rock that cradled her, she looked out into the open room through the bars. She felt sedated, her eyelids heavy but the voice echoed in her mind and it was coming from … He was tall, dark haired, and it seemed barely held by his leather restraints that held him in the chair on the other end of the room. His head was held high, and eyes closed. He sang, sang a song of a nostalgic melody, that shook the room with a timbre of light that touched everything. She closed her eyes and slumped back down.