“Calastra!” Nymara cried in surprise as she rushed forward toward her younger sibling, stunned to find her sitting alone and apparently unguarded studying an ancient tome in a vast underground library. She and Courynn had followed the corridor from the foot of the stairs to a door finding the entire place decidedly absent of the threats they’d presumed to face. “Nymara,” the younger Moonshadow daughter uttered in near shock, “what are you doing here?” “What do you mean… ‘what am I doing here?’ I’m here to rescue you and get you back home,” she stated determinedly. Casting her eyes around the room in search of any previously undetected threats. “‘Rescue me’… rescue me from what? I’m here of my own volition,” Calastra announced, setting the tome she’d been studying aside to face her elder sister. “You’re not being held by the baelnorn?” Nymara gasped, unable to believe that after all she’d done to find her that she was there by her own free will. “No,” Calastra stated flatly. “He’s taken me on as an apprentice. I’ve already learned more in the last few weeks than I did in the last few years from the tutors back home, and he’s not just some baelnorn, he’s our ancestor… his name is Andaerean Moonshadow. He was left behind when our forefathers moved to Sildeyuir to guard something too dangerous to take with them, but the solitude of all those centuries nearly drove him mad. When he found me at the menhir I thought he was lost, but he was out gathering rare herbs for his research. Once I learn all I can from him I’ll take that lost knowledge back to Sildeyuir… just think how proud that will make father.” “Father thinks you’re lost here... and blamed me for filling your head with all my fanciful stories,” Nymara snarled. It was just like her to not think about the consequences of her actions but just blunder ahead and leave others to deal with the wreckage left in her wake while she was excused of any blame. “I thought about that, but I didn’t have any way to contact him and tell him I was alright,” Calastra confessed in a regretful tone. “I was sure he’d forgive me when I did return… but now you can tell him when you go home.” “What makes you think I have any intentions of ever returning to Sildeyuir?” Nymara snapped in frustration. “You should’ve gone back and told him you what you were planning to do. But you didn’t want to face him because you know he’d never let you come back. So, like always, you let me take the blame!” “That’s not fair,” the younger sibling complained. “Why would father let you stay and not me. You always get to do anything you want.” “Forgive me for interrupting your touching reunion,” Courynn snarked sarcastically. He’d been standing quietly in the doorway to the library, keeping watch for anything that might follow them down the corridor. “But you said the Ancient… this Andaerean Moonshadow… was left here to guard something too dangerous to take to Sildeyuir when the star elves migrated there, exactly what is he guarding and just how dangerous is it?”