Note: I've made some changes in Chapter 2. If you don't feel like re-reading, it's basically that the previously human girl is now a drow girl.
Dantrag knelt on the floor, before his Matron Mother. She and his oldest sister were signing at each other, he suspected. In any other scenario, he would have been curious to see what they were saying. But now he didn't feel that it mattered. The damned tooth had come loose of his shirt when he knelt and was swinging from the string around his neck. He focused on it, cursing it silently, wishing he had never seen it or picked it up, wishing he had never ran away from Faeryl, wishing he had been a good little boy and never gotten himself into this stupid situation.
His futile wishing was interrupted by a slave announcing the arrival of a Lady Andrea. That must be the girl who wanted him. He didn't understand any of this. He wanted to collapse on the floor and fall asleep and never wake again.
He sensed his mother and sister tensing beside him, heard the girl enter the room. He watched her boots cross the floor to where the Matron Mother stood and he saw her long hair nearly brush the ground when she bowed.
"Greetings," said the Matron Mother. "We have the boy. I do not understand what in the Goddess's name you want with him, but beware that he is worthless for any real purpose. He has killed a spider and attacked a female. If you wish to torture him to death, go ahead."
"Well, thank you for that." he heard the girl say. Her voice sounded cheerful and yet there was a distant, dangerous edge to it. She sounded mean, to the boy, and he flinched inwardly. The girl was continuing. "As I promised, you will be paid." She did not specify how she would be paying them. He assumed his mother and sister must already know.
Next thing he knew, his sister dragged him to his feet and pushed him towards the stranger. He staggered and ran into her. He expected to be struck, but instead she put a hand on his shoulder, turned him around, and steered him towards the door.
The two dark elves walked through the corridors, down the steps, out of the house.
They went into an alley, smelling of filth. He would have been hugely disgusted if he wasn't so scared. He heard her chant something under her breath and a there was a loud sucking sound. He glanced up and saw a large circular hole, hovering over the ground. It gave off a soft blue light and the girl nudged him forward. Together, they stepped through the portal.
There was a disorienting feeling of dizziness as he went through and once he arrived on the other side, it took him a few moments to get his bearings. He was in a large room, the walls made of some substance he could not identify, but it didn't look like rock. He was standing on a large shaggy rug, similar to those placed at strategic locations around the room. There were two doors, one on the north wall, one on the east. There was also a large bag suspended from the ceiling on an iron chain in one of the corners. Except for that, the room was bare.
He wanted to look at the girl, find out what she looked like, but he didn't dare. She had released his shoulder and was now silent at his side.
There was a short silence and then she said, softly, "Dantrag?"
"Yes?" He tried to keep the fear out of his voice and failed miserably.
She knelt, making herself his height. "Can you look at me?"
He looked at her. She had unusually long hair. Her features were sharp and hauntingly beautiful, like all the dark elves. Her eyes, gleaming red with infravision, had a serenity in them such as he had never seen. He wondered what lay behind those calm, unreadable eyes. He wondered why she wanted him.
She smiled and it didn't seem so scary. He almost smiled back, but he didn't quite get there.
"Are you okay?" she asked him, in her soft, gentle voice.
"Yes." he said. He was not okay. He was cold and hungry and terrified and he wanted to know where he was and why she wanted him and what was going to happen. She looked at him for a few more minutes, as if imploring him to tell her the truth. He felt tears prickling behind his eyes and then he was crying. He tried desperately to stop, knowing crying frustrated people, but he couldn't calm himself down. He was giving huge gasping sobs, feeling the same hysteria wash over him as he'd felt in the cell.
She moved and he stumbled away from her, desperate to escape her wrath. She caught him though and held him, her arms wrapped tightly around him. He struggled for a few minutes, sobbing and trying to escape while she whispered over and over that it was okay. Finally he calmed, buried his face in her shoulder and wept.
She sat, pulling him onto her lap, rocking him and reassuring him in her quiet, gentle voice. If Dantrag had been older, he would have been more confused than comforted, but he was still young and not so indoctrinated to cruelty that he mistrusted the gentle girl. Eventually, he stopped crying and she tried to stand. He whimpered and held on, not wanting to let go, wanting to be safe with her forever. So she relented and hugged him until he slept.
Andrea stood up, lifting the boy with her. He was light, skinny and just generally tiny for a five year old. She knew he was an elf, but she'd seen surface elven children and they'd been nothing like this. She thought of how scared he'd been and was disgusted; not with the boy, with his mother.
She knocked the east door open with her hip and carried the boy down the hallway to the guest room. Bracing him on her knee, she flipped the bedcovers back and laid him down on the bed. She covered him up and looked at him.
He was filthy, had probably pissed himself at several points and no one had bothered to clean it up. From where he lay, on his side, she could see dried blood on his tattered shirt. He was five years old, and to her way of thinking, no crime deserved this. She could see the tooth, it had fallen out of his shirt at some point. She considered taking it off, but it might alarm the boy, and he wasn't in any danger, so it shouldn't be giving him nightmares.
She left the room, quietly closing the door behind her. Once back in the main room, she let the disguise drop and she was human again.