Lena reflected on it as she was being towed away to the brig by the first mate and another sailor. The journey was bad enough on its own - the whole "being chased away from home" thing was bad enough on its own, in fact - but the perspective of solitary confinement just about clinched the matter.
And what did she do? Why did she even do it? A lot of it was just reflexive action. She heard a girl's scream, she jumped belowdeck and kicked the biggest man in the nuts, and it all snowballed from there. The little blue-haired gnome had profited of the confusion to gather up her torn clothing and, apparently, cast invisibility on herself. Which she should have done on day one.
Only without the victim of the attempted rape there to back her up, Lena came off as the one who assaulted the man. The others backed him up and swore they did nothing at all to provoke her, and the gnome girl was not going to reappear just to get her out of it. Lena didn't blame her.
The first mate opened the heavy cage door with almost an apologetic look. "In you go," he said, giving her only the barest shove. We'll be in Targos tomorrow, so just stay put, okay?" He leaned closer and whispered, "the captain did this pretty much for your protection, you know? We all know what happened, but... this seemed like the best way out."
"So I'm not really a prisoner?"
"Girl, you're practically an angel compared to the rest of them!"
"Can I have the key, then?"
"What?"
"The cell key. Just in case. I didn't do anything wrong, right? And I wouldn't want to be stuck in here if someone decides that I did, after all."
The first mate licked his lips nervously, glancing around. Everything was dark, dank and quiet around them. The other sailor went up as soon as the cell doors were slammed shut, and now it was only Lena and the first mate, separated by heavy wooden bars, under the swaying light of a solitary lamp. She gave him a mirthless smile as she absently rubbed a bruise from the fight.
"You're a good man, Sam," she said. "I know you would not, say, let a few boys in here in the night so they can finish what they started. The others? I'm not sure."
The first mate opened his mouth, and then shut it without speaking.
"And keys can be stolen," she added.
He pressed the key into her hand as if he hoped it would hurt, and hurried away.
Lena took a deep breath - not a good idea on the orlop deck - and tried to find a less damp bit of floor to make herself comfortable on. A rat scurried away into the shadows, the ship groaned as it made its way up north, and Lena closed her eyes, trying not to dwell on her departure from home. She failed.
Not that she begrudged lord Gerain what he did. It was the only logical way for him to act, really. Lena did sometimes wonder what had her mother been thinking, though.
To marry a rich, influential human man, to be his pretty wife, the charming hostess to his parties, the mother of his beautiful, long-lived, half-elven children, was a sensible choice for a disgraced elven noblewoman. To foster her obviously fully-elven bastard daughter in her husband's country estate, in secret, was not.
Lena hardly ever knew another life. She was still a child when her mother established herself as lady Gerain in Luskan, and passed for her mother's young maid. Over time, though, the resemblance between mother and daughter became too visible, and Lena learned that her mother never told Gerain of her existence.
Which seemed bloody stupid. Why not tell him she had a child from a previous marriage? Luskan nobles could hardly think less of him then, and that child would not inherit. A secretly harbored brat was another matter. And humans never could understand elven lifespans so they never realised Lena was far too old to be the result of lady Gerain cuckolding her husband.
Thus she was sent away to the country estate, where she lived among the hunters, the gamekeepers, the grooms. It had been a wonderful life, but now it was over. Someone had found out about a strange elven girl of unknown origins living on Gerain's land. Someone had started to use that to their advantage, spreading disdainful rumours, ridiculing him, and Gerain felt his seat wobble. That was not part of his deal with the lady. Even worse, his now adult children were likely to take matters in their own hands if he didn't intervene.
"The North will sort you out," he had said. He was not a cruel man, he knew Lena's skills would be more than enough for survival in the wilderness of Icewind Dale. He gave her a fair bit of cash, told her to buy comfortable boots and a warm cloak, and never to return.
Oh well.
Lena remembered her parting scene with her mother, too. The silver ring with a green stone, at least matching Lena's taste for jewelry. Mother being tearful, apologetic. And Lena herself, finally asking the question that had long been on her mind.
"Mother, why did you even keep me here? Why not just foster me in Evereska or something?"
"Oh, but I couldn't! My dear girl, don't you understand? You are all that I have left of your father..." Mother's delicate face seemed to shine with an inner glow as she said the words. "You have his eyes, his dark maroon hair. You walk this earth because he loved me, and I loved him. You are our love, and our love is everything to me."
"So you endanger your present and future for a memory? That's madness, Mother."
"My sweet child, I hope one day you will understand," Mother had said. She embraced her daughter for the last time, lovingly, even if she did wince at the hard leathers and knotted muscles she always found so unseemly. "I hope one day you will find someone who will make you understand the sheer bliss of madness."
"I hope not," Lena had said, with feeling.
And that was how they parted. Goodbye to a life of hunting, of roaming the woods, carefree, of feeling no obligation and no power over her. She was off to take orders and fight for her life, in a place where no good deed went unpunished.
The timber groaned, the ship sailed on, and the plump oil lamp over her head swung gently to and fro, illuminating parts of the cell in turn. In the farthest, darkest corner, Lena saw a bundled heap of... something. The sweeping light made it look almost as if someone was there, curled up in the corner. Or...
Someone was there, curled up in the corner, a hood over their face. Lena unhooked the lamp and came closer. How was there another prisoner in the cell? They would have all heard if someone else got thrown in the brig.
Unless... unless that prisoner was here from the very start. Unless they made their whole journey in the cell.
The light of the lamp fell on graceful, long-fingered hands, on indigo-black skin, on a strand of silvery white hair.
