[[Thanks to Penny4him for beta-reading Chapter One!]]

Chapter 1: The Sun

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The sunlight was locked away from him, leaving the room shut into a tight and securing darkness. He awoke within it, reveling in the feeling of his senses returning to him. The sickening hold that his strange illness had held him in had faded in the last fever breaking days. He was only now becoming fully aware that he was still alive and not in the hands of the Abyss. Groggy, he sat up in his bed, aware of all the sounds and smells around him, and knowing that none of it was familiar.

"Ah, so you awaken, finally." A voice startled him, and he looked at the source of it. Blaming his weakened senses for disregarding her presence, he remained frozen, attempting to make sense of her. As dark as it was in the room, it was not dark enough for his eyes to filter into the infrared spectrum. From what he saw she was a surface elf, and an old one at that.

"Who are you?" was the first question to burst past his lips. His voice was harsh, and it made him jump. He was on edge in this strange place, and it made him terribly defensive. He struggled to take a calming breath, not daring to break eye contact with the lighter skinned she-elf.

"I am Lady Aeirlyth, the head of the town council. You have been very sick for many months." Zarthaen made a face, one contorted through a mixture of confusion and disgust. But he didn't say anything, and so she continued. "You were found in the street, unconscious. I took you in, my keeper nursed you to health."

"Where am I?" Zarthaen asked, frustrated with the lack of valuable information pouring from the woman's mouth. She didn't break stride, and his lack of gratitude didn't seem to shock her.

"You are in the town of Tierlynn," she explained, "on the surface."

Her last three words left Zarthaen in a thoughtful silence. A staring contest of monstrous proportions proceeded before he gave up with snort of derision.

"How did this happen?!" Zarthaen whispered harshly, more to himself than the woman sitting beside his bed.

"I'm not sure, but I know I'm just as curious," she answered him nevertheless, and he glared at her violently through the dark. A brief memory played in the back of his mind, but he couldn't quite wrap himself around it. He flippantly dismissed it, and instead returned his attention to the woman.

"What do you plan to do with me now?" He glowered at her, hating his life being placed in her hands. He had no weapons, he felt the weight of the effects of his illness, and was hungry enough to eat a herd of rothe.

"I plan to better understand you and your people, and I plan to explain my own to you." She was very patient, her voice very calm and certain.

"I don't think I'm interested."

"That's a shame," she quipped, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Zarthaen had seen that smile before, and knew that he was up against someone not as stupid as they let on—a schemer, no doubt. "And because if you don't listen to me, you get to answer to the council. I'm fairly certain they'd rather simply be rid of you."

Zar couldn't find any argument against her. He had nothing to stand by. He was in the worst place a drow could be, with no defense, and no reasons to be there. It was inevitably the worst-case scenario he could possibly imagine. Or so he'd thought.

--

The Sun—it was a terrible, dreadful, ghastly thing. How the people on the surface lived with it, and even worshipped it, appalled him. There was nothing that he could see or understand that made it worth bearing with. It made many days unbearably hot and uncomfortably bright. He abhorred it, and quickly became nocturnal. Remaining conscious during the day was nearly impossible with how dizzy it made him. And so the hours he didn't spend in reverie, he spent grudgingly learning from Aeirlyth.

"How'd you learn to speak drow?" He'd asked her during one of their surface common lessons. She smiled wistfully.

"We all are all entitled to our secrets, Zarthaen," she responded coyly. She'd been able to gather his name from him amongst few other bits of knowledge, and in return had only provided just as much. They played games of trading knowledge and memories, measuring the worth of such by only how their own curiosity egged them on.

"Aye, such has been made quite clear. Then what has been your experience with my people?" Zarthaen's face remained stoic, already fairly adept at the game they'd been playing for the past few months.

"You mean my people's dark cousins? You are not so entirely separated from the family of elves as you'd like to think," she argued, a smile of superiority contorting her answer into snobbery.

"That was not the answer to my question." Zarthaen wanted to grin with triumph, knowing he'd caught her in a trap. By respected rule, with her deviation came the expectation that she give him the full story he'd originally asked for.

"I had a lover," she answered in a depressed sigh. Zarthaen blanched, mercilessly exploiting her confession. "Don't," she raised her finger as he opened his mouth to reveal his disbelief.

"Do continue," he answered, once he'd calmed himself.

She calmed her face, wanting so terribly to glare at him. Sometimes she just couldn't maintain the patience necessary for this young dark elf. "He was half-drow," she explained, but did not continue as he blanched at the possibility of such a thing. When he realized this, he quieted, ever so slightly crestfallen like a child not allowed to hear the rest of the story before bedtime. This made her smile; each time she saw this touch of innocence in him it made her decision feel all the more just and right.

"Oh, I'm tired," she whispered, as she stood slowly. She'd tired more quickly from their game than normal, and Zar watched her stand and ever so gracelessly make her way to her quarters. He did not feel concern for the old elf lady, but he did realize that whatever had taken hold of her in the past months was not good for her health. And what was not good for her health was not good for Zar.

Where would he go?

Frustrated and without answers, he spent the last hours of the falling light in reverie. When the sun had hidden itself, he explored the town. On feet skillfully silent, he watched the world in ways none on the surface ever could. Everything they missed during the night, Zarthaen saw as clearly as though it were day. Life, he felt, was more exciting on the surface when the sun had fallen. Perhaps that was a slightly prejudiced view, or perhaps it was simply founded on the fact that he was not disturbed by the people's stares and glares nor the effects of the sun in the dead of night. Whatever the case, the world of the surface was simply more tolerable when the great ball of fire slept.

And so at night he crept, knowing the place as the people who'd lived their all their lives had never known it. On this night, as he took his walk, he'd have never expected running into anyone, which is why his guard was down when somebody ran headlong into him during the dead of night. He fell back with a harsh thud, and that somebody crushed him, pinning him to the forest floor. Having the wind knocked from him, it took him a bit longer to orient himself than the elf who quickly stood up. She, as he assumed from the tune of her voice, was utterly flabbergasted and dribbling with apologies. He knew she could not see him; could not see him as he smiled, amused, at her terribly white-hot face flushed with embarrassment.

"What you doing out?" he asked, his terrible common ruined further by his accent. She froze where she stood, and he could see the color (quite literally) drain from her face. She made quickly to turn and run in the other direction, but Zarthaen was faster. Snatching her wrist, he flung her back to the ground and looked down at her triumphantly. "I ask you question. Answer."

She stared up at him in utter horror, struggling with her voice for an answer. "What is it to you?" She finally summoned up a response, gathering some kind of reserve to remain defensive. Zar kneeled down in front of her, bringing his face uncomfortably close. He watched her quiver. He was reveling in her fear, delighted with this newfound power.

"Are you scared, faerie?" he asked, his voice more derisive than the words.

Her face scrunched in anger towards the mocking tone, and with little thought to the action, put as much force as she could behind the swing of a curled fist. Zarthaen almost didn't see it coming, but it didn't matter that he had. He was only seeing random bubbles of lights behind his eyelids as he heard her gather herself up and run. Holding his bloodied nose in his hands, he was nearly in the mind to go after her. But he was done playing, what with a colossal headache coming on and all.

Maybe braving the sunlight tomorrow was worth revenge.