Liana shifted slightly with a soft moan.
Gone was the feeling of her veins running with fire, but it was replaced with a dull ache throughout her whole body. She slowly flexed each joint to ease out some of the stiffness, before slowly opening her eyes, and sitting up to take a look at her surroundings.
She was laying on a soft pile of spider silk, in a small cavern with walls lined in more webbing. The sounds of quiet breathing directed her gaze, one after the other to the slumbering forms of Makareth and the wizard. A few meters from her feet, against one of the cave walls Makareth lay on his side, body curled slightly with his knees drawn towards his chest, his silver head resting on one forearm. Against the opposite wall, the wizard sat with his back to the rock, legs stretched out in front of him with his hands resting in his lap as he slept. Liana's first concerns about the cave being a spider's den were immediately dismissed by their relaxed postures, despite the fact that both the high elf and drow were sound asleep.
If they felt comfortable enough to sleep, it was probably safe. She lay back down, letting her eyes drift shut again, her consciousness receding back into darkness.
0*0*0*0*0
When she next opened her eyes, Liana felt completely normal with just the tiniest hint of drowsiness. Propping herself up on her elbows, she glanced around the room, seeing the wizard enter through the web shrouded opening on the other end of the cave, carrying a bucket made of ice; while Makareth appeared to be cutting some oddly shaped mushrooms into smaller pieces, and laying them out on the floor to dry. The drow looked like he had just come back from a foraging expedition, with fresh dirt stains on his clothes, and a single smear of mud across his right cheek.
Her slight shift in position caused both other elves to look in her direction.
"Ah. You're awake." The wizard said, setting his bucket down on the cave floor, "We were wondering how long it would take for the antidote to rid your system of the poison."
"How are you feeling?" Makareth asked, putting aside his task to come closer to Liana, and touching her forehead to check her temperature.
"I'm alright, thank you." the wood elf responded, "How about you two?"
"You've just been unconscious for around forty-eight hours, because of deadly spider venom," Makareth began in disbelief, "And the first thing you ask is if we're alright? Not what happened, or where we are, but if we're okay?"
Liana shrugged, smiling slightly at the dark elf's bewilderment.
"Where we are and what happened can come next. But I do want to know if either of you are hurt." she said gently.
"We are both uninjured." The wizard informed her, "The spider decided we were not worth the effort to catch after a few point blank attacks, and it left."
Liana nodded, and listened quietly as the other two elves finished recounting the events after her loss of consciousness.
"As soon as you are able to travel again, we should get moving." Makareth stated, handing her a cup of water, "Ishrae has many means at her disposal to track me down. Now that I have openly defied her, it would be best not to stay in one place for too long."
"About that." Liana said, swirling the water around in her cup before locking eyes with the drow, "Why does she want you so bad? Multiple people have called her your 'mistress', so what exactly are you to her, that she'd be so hells-bent on getting you back?"
Makareth stiffened, dropping his gaze to the cavern floor.
"She's…." he began, paused, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, then met Liana's concerned eyes once more, "She's my aunt."
Both wizard and ranger froze, processing the information.
Makareth sighed, moving to sit with his back against the wall, drawing his knees up to his chest, and folding his arms on top of them.
"I was born to a drow noble, and one of the house's female slaves." he began, staring at the floor as he rested his chin on his folded arms, "When I was barely five years old, my mother was killed, and Ishrae found out that I was the bastard son of her elder brother; which got my father in trouble with another noble house, whose matron mother he was a consort of. The information never got any further than a few people, and so no one other than Ishrae ever knew who I was. She decided to let me live, keeping me in her home, and making sure all my material needs were met, along with providing me with combat training; but gilded as it was, it was still a cage."
His voice faltered, and he swallowed once, looking up at his companions. Liana, eyes still full of concern, nodded to him in encouragement, while Kirion sat still as a statue, his appraising gaze never leaving the smaller elf.
"It was still a cage?" the ranger prompted gently when Makareth didn't continue.
The rogue nodded slowly, curling tighter around himself as his gaze dropped back to the floor in front of him.
"She spent many of the early years of my life conditioning me to be completely obedient to her, to the point where I cannot disobey a direct order when she is around, even if I really want to. She had sent me on numerous missions to spy on, or exterminate one of her rivals, and each time I wanted to run, but couldn't find the courage to do it.
Roughly six months ago, I was on one of these blackmail material gathering missions, and was almost caught by the priestess' guards. They drove me out into the uninhabited caverns, and there I finally scrounged up enough courage to not go back."
He fell silent again, continuing to stare at the floor for a little while longer, before taking a shaky breath, and looking up.
"She wants me back because I have information she wants, and she spent all those years trying to condition me into utter submission, that to her it would be a waste of effort not to bring me back to finnish what she already started."
Silence once again settled over the group, the air around them thick with tension, until Liana slowly stood, and walked over to kneel beside Makareth, wrapping her arms around his small shoulders, and pulling him into a hug. He shrank away at first, but then allowed himself to lean slightly into her touch.
"I'm sorry." she murmured quietly, tucking his head under her chin, "No one should have to go through that."
Makareth huffed, giving a little shrug.
"I don't want your pity." he muttered, "It's what happened, and I can learn to move past it."
"Tough." Liana said, her tone leaving no room for argument, "You're getting it anyway." Then she added icily, tightening her grip on the rogue, "If I ever see that woman again, I am going to stick her full of so many arrows, she will resemble a pin cushion more than an elf."
Makareth raised his eyebrows at the uncharacteristically violent threat, but offered no protest, closing his eyes with a sigh.
"So, what do you plan on doing now?" Kirion asked, cocking his head to the side in curiosity, "You can hardly just spend the rest of your days running from your aunt."
Makareth opened his eyes again, and blinked a few times.
"I….. I'm not sure." he admitted, "I never really thought about it. Getting away from her, and her deity was my top priority. After I ran away, I had been doing what I could to disrupt the slave-trade as a way of keeping the priestesses from being able to get their hands on more sacrifices. But, they're already getting smarter, and traveling in larger groups, with another caravan not too far away."
He paused, looking contemplatively at the floor.
"For now, I am going to focus on getting Liana, and now you, back to the surface, along with any of the others we can find." he said, violet eyes glowing in the darkness.
"You can always come with us." Liana offered, releasing him from the hug, so she could look him in the eyes. His expression was one of surprise, hope and fear battling behind amethyst irises.
"Really?" he asked quietly.
Liana nodded, placing her hands on his shoulders.
"After what I just heard, if you think I'm just going to let you stay down here all alone, think again." she said, smiling reassuringly at him.
Makareth nodded, slowly moving forward to wrap his arms around her in his first attempt at a hug.
Author's note: Special thanks to aaronmag for being so helpful and supportive of this insanity!