The sound of bare feet thudding against the ground, of twigs breaking, of leaves rustling and of crackling flames filled the air. Gwen smelled the burning wood, and the dust caused her eyes to tear up, but she did not stop running. For once, she ran towards the burning house instead of away from it. People stood and watched as she continued to sprint past them, none of them seeming to hear the screams coming from the building.

She knew she only had a few more minutes to get there, but just as she wanted to force her legs to move faster, the ground fell away from her feet and instead she found herself wading through murky water that came to her hip. Something slithered past her leg and a shiver ran down her spine. Almost she let out a screech, but instead she attempted to kick at whatever it was before she began to make her way towards the house once more.

The screams had stopped by now, which almost seemed worse than the yelling itself.

"Modron!" Gwen yelled just as she pulled herself onto the bank, just in front of her house. "Hongian ar!"

No response.

With her heart in her throat, the half-elf made her way to the front door, all the while ignoring the flames that licked at her ankles. She tried to enter the room but found that the door would not open, even when she slammed her shoulder against it. Someone began to moan on the other side of the door, and nails scratched at the wood from the inside, a desperate attempt to escape.

"Modron!" Gwen called out again, this time kicking at the door keeping her away from the person trapped inside.

When she heard the sound of something crumbling, she knew she had taken too long. She flattened herself against the door, her chest pressed against the wood, and called out to her mother, begging for any signs of life. Silence was the only answer she received, and she felt her world shatter around her. A loud crack came from above her and she looked up only to see the roof cave in.

With a yelp, Gwen shot up and held her arms above her in order to protect herself from the rubble that never reached her. After a few moments, she opened her eyes only to find herself in that tent once more. The sight of two elves sleeping on the other side of the tent greeted her, and for a moment the half-elf looked around in bewilderment before she remembered what had happened.

She realised that the elves had been placed there to keep an eye on her, but she couldn't have cared less about them as she crawled out of the tent, where she stretched her legs. Apparently the wound from the trap hadn't been as bad as everyone had thought, for already she could feel improvement. Or perhaps some sleep had simply helped to make her feel better in general.

Outside, the moon still shone brightly, but when she stared at it for a while, she realised that it had changed. She had been asleep for a iwhole/i day. To emphasise this point her stomach let out a low rumble, and she remembered that she hadn't eaten any proper food since getting on that damned boat.

Uncertain of what she should do, Gwen made her way to the campfire again, making sure that she never came too close to it or any of the other flames.

"What is it about fire that scares you?" Iorveth's voice asked from right behind her, causing her to whirl around in surprise. Her wounded leg gave in, and the elf's hands shot out to steady her, though she brushed them off the very moment she had found her footing once more.

"I'm not afraid of fire!" she snapped at him, her pride already wounded enough since he kept managing to sneak up on her.

Iorveth stared at her for a few moments before shrugging and leading her in the exact direction of the cursed flames. "Come. You must be hungry."

"Why are you so kind to me all of a sudden?" She could only squint her eyes at his back as he took her to certain doom, the campfire momentarily forgotten. "You have two other elves sleeping in that tent with me, but now you're pretending to be all friendly with me or what?"

"You share a tent with others because we cannot simply give everyone their own," Iorveth answered, stopping in his tracks and shooting the half-elf a sharp look over his shoulder, "and if you are to join my unit then you are going to have to be fit."

He turned his back to her again and sauntered over to the campfire without waiting for her response, his armour clinking softly with every step he took. Not that he would have gotten one, for Gwen could feel her cheeks turn red from both anger and embarrassment, her mouth hanging open though nothing came out.

"If you wish to do so, you are free to leave. I will even send a few escorts with you to ensure your safe return to Flotsam, if that is what you desire." A mocking tone inhabited his voice and he sounded as if he couldn't believe he had just uttered those words.

Had she not stood frozen to the ground at hearing his words, Gwen would have cried and begged for the commander to never let such a thing happen to her. That she had suffered enough cruelty at their hands to deserve some peace for the remainder of her life, that she would always prefer the company of elves over that of humans. But thankfully she did no such thing, and instead she slowly made her way over to him by the campfire.

She sat down next to him with a scowl on her face, only realising that he awaited a response when she noticed him watching her. Had he honestly just given her a choice? If she hadn't been suspicious about his motivations before, she most certainly was now.

Without betraying her thoughts, she said, "If I had to choose between dying in the midst of humans and dying in the midst of elves... I'd rather jump off a cliff."

Iorveth let out a snort and shook his head. Then he turned away from Gwen and reached for something in the shadows beside him, only to come back with what looked two wooden bowls, water in one and some food in the other. Gwen wrapped her arms tightly around her stomach at the sight of it, as if that would hold back the sounds it would most definitely make.

The way he held the bowls just out of her reach filled her with dread, and no sooner had she guessed his intentions than he opened his mouth and asked her, "Those wounds on your back. Who whipped you?"

All the defensive walls that had lowered themselves at the sight of food rose once more and Gwen abruptly looked away, twisting her body so that she literally gave him the cold shoulder. Why had he decided to ask her something like ithat/i? She had expected him to ask her anything that had to do with Aedirn, and she would have told him the truth: that she knew nothing. Just because one of the country's kings had fallen in love with her mother many years ago did not mean that she had anything to do with the politics.

She heard the sound of liquid dripping to the ground and when she glanced over her shoulder she saw Iorveth slowly spilling the water from one of the bowls.

"This is all you're getting. We don't exactly have the resources to feed everyone twice, so you better answer my questions if you don't want to through another day with an empty stomach," he explained without diverting his gaze from the bowl, which he had steadied for a moment while he waited for her response.

Gwen's throat felt dry all of a sudden, and her stomach grumbled in protest. She crossed her arms and, refusing to look at the elf sitting next to her, she mumbled, "The guards on the ship."

She had tried to keep her mind blank as she gave him his answer, but still she could hear the crack of a whip from her memories and her body twitched, as if anticipating a hit.

Iorveth frowned when he saw it and, giving the half-elf the promised bowl of water, tightened his grip on the other. He had guessed as much, but he hadn't wanted to believe the voice in his mind. Royal blood flowed through her veins, she was the daughter of Baldwin the First; she must have had a pleasant enough life up till some point, right? The very reason why he had wanted her, from the moment he had caught wind of what her great, great grandnephew planned on doing, was her royal blood, but if even that hadn't protected her from persecution, then what good would it do ihim/i?

He wanted to blame the humans and their cruelty, but witnessing the woman's hatred towards both humans and elves and her reasons behind it stung. They could never have treated her like the dh'oines had, knowing fully well what oppression felt like. But he had to have lost both of his eyes to not notice the animosity between his captive and his soldiers. He hated humans just as much as the next elf, but her elven blood should have granted her at least a chance to prove herself to the group. Inh'eids had just as much reason to hate humans as any other non-human.

And after all, theirs was a dying cause. They would all perish anyway, whether by human hands or simply through old age, and they would do so without having succeeded much of anything they had set out to do. Something had to change, and if Iorveth had to be the first, then so be it. And perhaps his original plan would work out in the end. For now, having an extra sword under his command couldn't hurt anybody but his enemies. First, however, she would have to heal, despite his soldiers' reluctance to help anything with human blood in it. He understood their feelings and felt his own annoyance bubble up whenever he took note of her human features, but he had to remind himself that she did not actually belong to the humans.

Gwen wiped her mouth and chin with the back of her hand before closing her eyes, enjoying the moment while she still could. Which meant until her stomach growled again, as if it feared she had forgotten about it.

Still looking very much unhappy with the situation, she stared at the bowl that Iorveth held in his death grip. Obviously a quick learner, she waited for the next question. Had the mood been any lighter, Iorveth might have grinned.

Instead, however, he asked the one question that had been burning in his mind from the very moment he had heard about her situation. "Why were you exiled in the first place, anyway?"

A look of surprise replaced the frown on her face, taking Iorveth aback for a moment. She looked as though the question should have been, 'Why had it taken them so long to exile you?' It didn't take long before the scowl from before came back and the woman practically snarled at him.

"You really ido/i believe I had an easy life. Do you think I was surrounded by plush cushions and servants at all times as well? That I only had to clap my hands and I'd be presented with five different kinds of cheese? That I-"

She never managed to finish her sentence, for suddenly her eyes went from his face to the fire, and her face paled. Without another word, she jumped up and tried to flee, only to stumble to the ground a few steps later, where she continued to lay as her shoulders began to tremble.

The Scoia'tael commander had gotten up from his seat when she did, and now he stood and watched the woman as she tried to stifle her startled sobs with the bed of leaves beneath her. Almost he had seen her as an elf, her hair black and long like those of the women in his camp and her dark eyes, whatever their colour, cold and distant. Her elven mother had obviously been a beautiful woman, and she had passed many of her traits along to her daughter, but the fierce emotions and their changeability left no doubt of the human blood in her. He had known the woman only a few days and already it tired him.

After a few moments, Gwen's stomach protested once more and she remembered she had earned herself the bowl of food now. She scrambled back to her feet and, her face a blank mask, she hobbled over to Iorveth to retrieve it. Without uttering a word, the elf held it out for her and she accepted it before sitting back down and shoving the greens and berries into her mouth, thankful for the lack of meat.

It didn't take long before she had emptied the bowl and satisfied her belly. She immediately handed the bowl back to the elf and got up once more, refusing to spend another second in the man's presence.

Just before she left, however, she realised that she had never actually answered his question. With her back still facing him, and for reasons unknown even to herself, whether to spite him or out of anger at herself, she said, "Stennis believed to be merciful if he sent me out of the country before the humans managed to get their hands on me. He put me on a boat with thieves and murderers who were to be punished in Flotsam, and I didn't wait to find out whether the humans there would kill me after all."

And with that she left, ignoring his gaze boring into her back as she made her way back to her tent.

Any "Elvish" that appears in this story will either be taken from the Elder Speech list on the Witcher wikia, or it will simply be Welsh, because that is the Celtic language I am most familiar with. I'll put the translations here.

((From previous chapters:
Dh'oine = human
Seidhe = elf
Inh'eid = half-elf
Voe'rle = stop))

Modron = mother
Hongion ar = hang on