The candle flame flickered hot and bright close to her pale fingertips, a thin trail of smoke rising up to fade into the otherwise pitch black of the room. That heat should have burned her, but she felt no pain and suffered no injury, seated there cross-legged on the wicker stool, her eyes closed and her breathing steady. Already sharpened for the next day's hunt, twin kukris glinted in the light on the table just by her other hand, which lay palm up and deceptively relaxed.

Concentration was key here – she had long ago sensed that the fire in the small sitting room had grown cold, and now she was aware of a presence entering the house. But she knew those footsteps and did not stir from her position – she could feel her goal was almost reached. Increasingly she was becoming conscious of the darkness in the room, a warm presence soft against her skin like a cloak. Opening her eyes slowly, she found that she could see the candle's flame through her fingertip, and the outline of her whole body had blurred into the shadows. She felt light, weightless almost…

"Your concentration upon your studies is admirable, Isaviel…in spite of the things I have been hearing. Your diligence at the housework duties I set you…less so," the voice of her Elven foster father, Daeghun, sounded with his usual grudging tone from behind her.

Sighing, Isaviel let her form return to its usual corporeality, her hands dropping to her sides as she watched Daeghun making his way around the table. Opening one of the shutters on his way so as to gain the aid of the full moon in the darkness which his foster daughter had created, he set to work restarting the fire.

Isaviel watched him silently until the flames were leaping in the hearth once more. Her mother had been an Elf, although most certainly not one of the Wild Elves as Daeghun was. With hard, if still chiselled, tanned features and dirty blonde hair, he did not much resemble his ward. Nor could she quite grasp the unfamiliar tone in his voice – serious and cold, the seasoned Mere ranger did not often give out praise. When it came to Isaviel, he never did. It made her wary, not pleased.

"You want to say something, don't you?"

"Yes, Isaviel," he sounded tired, continuing to stare into the fire with his back to her for a few more moments before looking around, and when he did his green eyes fixed upon her with a grim stare. She noticed that he was not dressed in his hunting leathers this day, but rather his brown tunic and trousers, the ones he wore when he ventured over the river into West Harbour to meet with the humans. That normally meant conversing with her teacher, Brother Merring, and learning what more trouble she had got herself into.

"If it's about…"

"We have discussed your future."

"Have we?" Isaviel, mocking him with feigned surprise, "And why, pray tell, was I not invited?"

He ignored that.

"Brother Merring loves you dearly, as if you were his own, and, as I have said, you apply yourself well to the tasks of the monkish Orders which he sets you. But you are also…diverging too much from the other behaviours expected of one of your vocation."

"Protect the weak? Feed the poor, tend the sick?" Isaviel stood quickly, and noticed when he flinched at the incredibly swift movement. Her training had brought her 'unnatural side' as he liked to call it more to the fore than anyone had expected. And it had failed to reign in an unexpected penchant for the lawless things in life.

"You mock me to hide from what I must say because you know already what that shall be," Daeghun frowned, "Your unruly actions have given Brother Merring no choice – you have proven yourself uniquely ill equipped in temperament to eventually seek the Order of the Sun Soul. You better resemble a follower of your mother's god, the Lone Wolf, than you do his Lathander. But you cannot stay here – anymore of your mischief and I will have to report you to Georg Redfell myself, and we both know what he thinks of you. Nor can Brother Merring train you any further – your skill already extends beyond anything he taught you."

Isaviel blinked at him in blank surprise. Her beratings had never gone this far before – it would appear Merring and Daeghun had been planning this for some time, as poorly as her foster father had delivered it. She felt like laughing in his face – he seemed to think he was punishing her, but more than any of them she had always known that the Sun Soul would never take her. She had never wanted to be trained in this manner at all – but Merring had been teaching her in the arts of discipline and concentration since she was five years old.

Even at that age her mysterious origins, those stemming from her unknown father, had begun to show themselves. Daeghun had consulted with Merring, a priest of Lathander, as well as the town wizard, Tarmas. They had all agreed that she was not a Tiefling of sorts… thus not one of a half-Devilish nature. It was more typical for Demons to be parents to such children anyway, offspring who would oft sport tails, horns and reddish eyes. As a toddler, Isaviel had begun to sprout grey-feathered wings instead. The scars remained by her shoulder blades from what she suspected must have been Daeghun's answer to hiding her heritage, though he had never admitted it. She had possessed a violent temper, too, and in a rage a red glow would grow in her pupils – something which had made them wonder if she really were Demonic or Devilish somehow. Otherwise, however, she could easily have passed for a Moon Elf of Myth Drannor blood, as her mother had been. So they had sought to help her control her rages and had hacked off her wings. 'All for the greater good.'

"I want you to leave for Neverwinter. Merring has contacted the monkish Order of the Even-Handed there. And you will be staying with my brother, Duncan, at his establishment The Sunken Flagon."

Isaviel did laugh then. A bitter laugh…she had always dreamed of escaping the Mere of Dead Men, the marsh in which West Harbour lay, to go to Neverwinter, or maybe Waterdeep. That would have been to seek her fortune, not to be tossed aside and entrapped by another monkish Order. For the moment, though, she could not argue. She would bide her time, make sure she was well away from her controlling foster-father, and then she would be free. And to all the Hells with discipline and the Order of the Even-Handed.