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A thirteen year old boy walks alone in the Riddermark, the wind tearing across the unsheltered landscape to rip the hood down from his head, revealing those cold eyes, those eyes which have seen things no child should ever have to see.  There is no emotion in that face, the blank look of indifference a clear mirror of the soul.  The boy cares little for anything now, not after everything was taken from him.  of course,  there is...was... friends in Edunas, and family.

It was evening when I rode to Waymeet and there turned south, onto the road to the South Farthing Homesteads. I was grieving the loss of my real mother, Yola Plumblossom. O, how I wished I could have known her! But that was not going to happen.

As if I was a soldier in the Free Peoples Army myself, I reported back at their Town-hole’s office, Reconnaisance and Intelligence Gathering Division, one day later, exactly on the appointed hour.

I looked around helplessly, the music in the Green Dragon sounded faint and far away as I seemed to go in and out of consciousness a few times. I had to force myself to stay with it, to face what I had found just now.  I had been so happy to find a person, in Stock, who had actually known my real mother Yola, although she could not tell me where I could find her. But now this!

When I was in Bree I had met a jeweller, called Madge Woodsey. I showed her the coloured pebble I carried with me, this gift of  Yola to her daughter.  To my surprise and great pleasure I was told the stone was called a rubellite. Oh! This is where I got my name from!

Of the newspapers that I had gathered I had now read the Breeland Herald and discarded it while I put the others back into my pack to be read later. There was nothing in that paper, that had helped me in my search for Yola, my “real” mother. Here in Bree, I had met only trouble and nothing to further me in my search.

The very first thing I did on my first day in Bree was to write to Pa and Ma to tell them I had arrived there safely. I tried to imagine how they would feel right now: having to tell me that I am not their daughter and then, shortly after that, for the first time see me leave home for an indefinite time on a possibly dangerous journey. Poor Pa and Ma!