Shalelu smiled. "I have seen a lot of things, and not all of them good. I saw a dragon kill my mother... and then I saw its corpse, as I put arrows into it. I saw my step-father abandon me after her death... and reconciled with him, when I discovered he was simply grieving in his own way. I've seen the courage of men stand up to armies of darkness, and I've seen good men fall in battle, swept under tides of unspeakable evil. You have a long road yet ahead of you, Rimeera, but I hope that we, all of us, can travel it together, at least for a time."