It wasn't hard for her to find her way down to the little room. It wasn't the dungeon, for which she was grateful, it was a small cell down a spiral staircase that Lord Viren kept largely to himself. Lenore wasn't sure why she was being brought down with a tray of food, trailing behind the old lord.

He was a tall man, well trimmed and proud. Viren had never been outright kind to her, but he was cordial and treated her well. Still, she could see the weight that grief had for him. His shoulders were drooped, his jaw was set tight and his eyes were dark in ways that they had not been before.

Lenore worried her lip between her teeth.

She wanted to speak, but what did she say? That she was sorry for his loss? They were all sorry for his loss, and the loss of the two princes. That she had over heard the argument he'd had with the king before he died?

She hadn't been trying to eavesdrop, but she and Prince Ezran had been exploring the walls of the palace ever since her arrival and she had been in one that day, looking for the prince. He'd gone missing sometime, and they were leaving and she happened to be standing behind the king's fireplace when Viren was ordered on his knees.

If it wasn't such a serious night, she would have assumed it was for something else.

So she didn't say anything on the way down into the darkness. She followed Viren, her skirt floating around her ankles as he took her down a long hallway. There were grates on either side, where water dripped down. To make clean up easier, she guessed.

The thought made her stomach turn.

Len had, at one point, worked directly for a very shady businessman. David Xanatos was charismatic and ruthless. The only thing he cared about was increasing his own power, and his family. He was arguably the worst person that Len had ever answered to, but even he didn't have a secret dungeon where he kept elfs chained up to be harvested for magic ingredients, as Claudia had implied when they'd first marched him through the castle. And, he had never crossed borders to kill a child.

Which meant that Viren was the worst person she'd ever worked for.

That didn't sound like much of an achievement.

The elf was chained up, his arm above his head while his legs were tucked beneath him. He was covered in bruises and small cuts and one of his horns was cut half off. She had never seen an Moonshadow elf up close before. A splash of violet marking cross the bridge of his nose and intersecting lines and circles decorated his upper arms. He was broad in the shoulders and a pair of scars crossed across his bare torso. Someone had taken his shirt from him at some point and Len made a private note to thank them for it.

Despite all of that it's his eyes that catch her attention.

Deep blue, filled with fire and defiance. A fierce pride that shines through even as he sits in chains and captivity.

Lenore steps behind Lord Viren, out of the elfs sight. All she could think about what everything people had told her. That's elves were bloodthirsty monsters, who ate the hearts of man. And her own experience, brief at it had been, had done little to deter these rumors.

"I certainly hope you're comfortable," Lord Viren says. Lenore can hear the venom that drips down from his tongue. "Lenore."

She steps out, unable to look away from the elf. "My Lord?" she asks.

"This is Lenore," Lord Viren says, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I am leaving your care up to her."

At this her head snaps towards him, startled. Her?!

"I'm sure you'll treat him justly. It was elves that destroyed your village, wasn't it?"

Lenore looks away from Viren, between him and the elf who had apparently decided that this is not a conversation worth listening too.

"Yes," she says at length. "Sunfire elves." Not Moonshadow. Not that that makes much difference to most people. And in any case, it wasn't her village. They were only there for a short time before the attack, but it's an easy story to tell and few people press them for details.

"You'll bring him his meals and care for his worries. If you can," Lord Viren said. He tapped his cane on the ground twice and turned. The smile on his lips was not a kind one. Len stood there, watching him go. She tries to puzzle out just what his intent was. He vanishes down the hallway. Len listens to his footsteps fade away.

Only then does she looked back at the elf.

"Well. This is going to be fun," she says dryly. The elf shoots her a glare to venomous she almost cringes. Almost. As it is she sinks down at his side. Skirts piling around her knees. She doesn't know what Viren's scheme is, but she doesn't want any part of it.

She's here to do her job, and that's all.


"You know the way the human rib cage works, if our arms are help up too long we'll get water in our lungs and die."

He looks at her again. His blue eyes are burning. Len had never had so much hatred directed at her for simply living before. She ignores it and slices through the bread she's been she'd brought. Bread and water. It's not much, but it's something.

"That's the wrong way to say it," she amends. "Our ribs pulls apart to bring air in and collapse to let it out. If they can't collapse, we don't finish the breath. The body can go into shock pretty badly, and sometimes is leads to a pericardial effusion and water gathering in the lungs as well."

She holds up the slice of brown bread to the elf, who neither looks away nor makes any move to accept the bread from her. His eyes are burning.

"Not that you actually care," she goes on, "And honestly you probably know lots of ways for humans to die. Elfs too, I bet. Do elves have the same inter-country politics and problems that humans do?"

"I'm not telling you any'thin,"

"Well now that's just rude. And here I am, offering you fine knowledge on human respiratory system," she makes a face at him, but she knows its more playful than rude. She really doesn't know what Viren was thinking, sending her down here.

She does, privately, celebrate getting him to say anything. It's the first words he's spoken to her since they'd met that morning and she soaks in the accent. She loves accents. He sounds almost english, but it's not quite right. She doesn't know where to place it, exactly.

"If you don't want this bread, I'll take it," she tells him. She's lost weight over these last eight months, weight she most certainly wanted back. It's dehydration and half starvation, from the long march that she, her sister, and a scattered few other survivors of the razing of Liath.

He looks away from her then, bitter and angry.

Len roles her eyes and puts the bread back on the plate.

"Suit yourself," she says. She sweeps the plate off of the floor and leaves, just as Lord Viren and Claudia walk in. Len dips a graceful curtsey to the pair of them and goes on her way. She doesn't think she liked either one. It's entirely person.

Claudia seems like a sweet, fun girl but Len will never get over how easily she simply crushes the life out of other beings to suck the magic from them, or how eager she was to hold a captive. It holds too close to the Dark Stars.

She guesses that, if he had killed someone as close to her as Harrow was to Lord Viren and his two children, she might be a little more eager to see him in pain. Len wasn't sure.

There was a part of her that still felt distant. Set aside from everyone else in this world, this world that was not her own. She was not a servant girl in the palace of Katolis, she was not even an orphan, or the child of a blacksmith that had died months ago.

She wondered if her sister felt the same way. Jen was just as out of place as she was, but she had left less behind. Not a career or the esteem of her colleagues or the years and years of research and trial and error. Or even her stupid, petty rivalry with Andy Larson.

She has lost all she had and if she ever finds the bitch responsible-

Well, she doesn't know what she'll do. But she'll yell, for sure.


When she returns the next morning with a bowl of lukewarm porridge and the news that the princes aren't dead the prisoner is in a bit worse shape.

There's a split across his brow that wasn't there before and his mouth is half swollen. Some of his other bruises have faded but they've been replaced. The purple and yellow and green is ugly and it really does so very little to distract from how beautiful the elf still is.

Len muses that it's really not fair. Elves are stupidly pretty, and they have interesting horns and unique markings and they are born with magic and they live so, so much longer. It's not fair, the difference between them and humans.

Len kneels at his side. He could, she understands, drive that remaining horn of his through her eye if he really tries. She figures he won't. Her eyes are pretty, dark green. She wonders if the elf can see them in the darkness, or if they look brighter by candle light.

"Are you going to eat this morning?" she asks. He glances at her, the fire in his blue eyes no less prominent. He stares straight ahead again. Refusing to answer.

"Stubborn," she accuses. "Come on, you need to eat."

"Why?" he asks at last, "So your dark magician can keep me here longer?"

"I mean, I was thinking because starvation is really unpleasant. It takes humans about," she pauses, running through the math of proteins and glycogens breaking down, fats dissolving, "Five, sometimes six weeks to start eating its own muscles. So you'll still be here for probably a month at least, even if you don't eat. "

"I am already dead," he says.

Lenore frowns. "That's depressing," she tells him. "I guess I don't get elves," she admits. "Maybe it's got something to do with how short my life is."

She picks up the tray and leaves him again. She'll be back again tonight with whatever the kitchen sees fit to send down to the prisoner. She hops up the stairs swiftly with all the grace of a deer. She's always been light on her feet and the years and years of ballet and later free running had left her skilled and quiet for no other reason than it was the only way she could get out of the house.

The castle in the center of Katolis is a winding maze. There are two towers that climb towards the sky, a square tower, taller of the two, that once housed the king and his royal family. The second tower is smaller, home traditionally to the archmage and his own family. In this case, Viren and his children. The rest of the castle is akin to a city within the high walls, perched upon a cliff that juts above a winding river.

River and her sister have their own little cottage with a thatched roof inside of the bailey. Most of the staff is the same, especially people like her, who work so early in the morning or stay most of the day around. Those that keep the live stock, the stable hands, along with guard garrisoned and the nobility all live inside. Everyone else makes the trip to and from a village at the base of the craggy mountains every few days, to bring trade and other things.

She hadn't known exactly how medieval castles had worked before coming here. She had walked through some, seen the inside of the Forever Knights fortress, but she had never put very much thought into them. They were old and she was a city kitty at heart.

She is still. She misses the high towers and the loud, busy streets of cities, She misses the pulsing life of oceans of people moving as one, she misses the yelling of cars and the never ending light, be it morning noon or night.

She misses grocery stores. She misses cable.

She misses her goddamn roomba.

Jen is sitting by a candle when she walks in. She's a sweet girl. Taller than Len already, but her face is still heart shaped and rounded by puppy fat. Her eyes are surrounded by long lashes, and her brown hair is long, braided to the side of her head and falling into a fishtail down her shoulder. Her shoulders slope and despite her athleticism she's a healthy weight, round around the middle. The only thing she and Len really have in common is the freckles that smatter across their cheeks and noses and the green of their eyes.

Len likes to keep her hair, a shade of red not far from rust, cropped just above her collar bone, no bangs to be found. Once, when she was young, she kept it long and always in a dancers bun. Now she keeps it easy to get out of the way. It's uncommon here, for a girl who isn't a soldier to keep their hair cropped, but she's find with that. There are many things about her that are uncommon.

"Hey Newbie."

"How were the catacombes?" Jen asks. "See anything dead or frozen?"

"We're not in fucking Westeros," Len makes a face. "Thank christ. I'd end up on a murder spree before starting the industrial revolution."

"Who first, Jofferey or Ramsay?"

"Depends," Len sinks onto one of the two cots that makes up their one room house. She's had studio apartments bigger. "Is it the show or the books?"

They dissolve like that for hours, until Jen blows out the candle and they're talking about Asgard. With the moon filtering through the slated Len looks upon her sister and can't help the sigh that passes her lips.

She doesn't know if Viren picked the right sister or not.

Jen isn't like her. Jen is so tethered to this world and her trauma is so new and fresh. She is driven by anger, by fear, and by love in a way that is so very different from Lens. She thinks she would have mashed the food into a paste and shove a reed through the elf's nose to get him to eat. To keep him alive for as long as Viren and his torments desired.

She hadn't been burned by the flames of the Razing but her soul had been scorched and her heart scarred by hatred.

Jen is so young. She's just a teenager and she hasn't as much of the universe as Len has. She doesn't know people the way Len does. She doesn't understand hurting and being hurt as intimately, and she is so, so young, and so soft. The worst thing that's ever happened to her had been the Razing of Liathe, and people half strangers to them were killed by elves.

The worst things that have ever been done to Len had been done by mortal men.

Hers was much more personal, she thinks.

Len rolls over on her cot and lets go of some small concentration that's always in the back of her mind, like the kind other people use to keep their balance when standing. Her right arm dissolves into a cloud that settles across her skin and the night falls quiet and peaceful.