Disclaimer: Nadezdha Ssarash'i and her family are original characters who belong to me. Their world of the Forgotten Realms does not.

Enjoy!

Half-Blood

There are things in this world that are worse than death. The drow are masters at crafting them. They know a thousand ways to torment their enemies, and the cruelest of these is slavery. It strips away everything; identity, happiness, freedom, dignity. Execution is the death of the body, but slavery is the death of the soul. The price of survival is everything you are.

The cities of the Underdark are built on slavery. The home of House Ssarash'i was no exception. All unskilled labour in the city of Maeralyn was completed by the hands of captured kobolds, goblins, svirfneblin and duergar. Of course slaves had to come from somewhere. Someone had to trade them. Although trade was considered vulgar by most noble families, several of the lower ranking houses such as Ssarash'i had chosen to become involved in business in order to supplement their treasuries and increase their influence in the city.

House Ssarash'i possessed particularly skilled raiding parties, meaning they could provide their clients with a higher quality of slave, including such rare luxuries as slaves taken from the surface. The most expensive commodity to be found in the Underdark were enslaved surface elves. They were status symbols. For a noble house to possess an elf was a not-so-subtle flaunting of power and resources. House Qu'Yond, First House of Maeralyn, had four.

Surface villages and towns were too difficult to attack. The ones nearby were used to such assaults and had taken steps to defend themselves. But House Ssarash'i did not bother with villages. They knew what roads were the most travelled. Not to mention they had contacts on the surface, people who were willing to sell anything or anyone for any price. After all, the travelers were only strangers, were they not?

Usually raids only yielded one or two living specimens (often the quarry would rather be killed in battle than allow themselves to be taken). Today was turning out to be a truly lucrative day for House Ssarash'i. Three wood elves, two males and one female, had been taken while travelling back to their homeland. This was a momentous occasion and a proud moment for the raiding party, who were celebrating by parading their catch through the streets on their way back into the city.

Solque Willowtree stumbled as she was struck by rotting garbage from both sides of the street. As she struggled to keep her balance, one of her captors yanked hard on the rope binding her hands to hurry her along. The force of the pull knocked the slender elf off her feet and she fell to the ground, cutting open her knee on a stone.

As Solque cried out in pain she could hear the sound of laughing coming from all around her. She looked up. There was no wind, no trees, no light. Everything was stone and darkness and hatred. Solque looked at her father and brother and could see her own horror reflected in their eyes. There was no escape.

(/(/(/)

"Hey Faerie! Where are you?"

The child in question woke with start at this familiar sound of danger. Even in her sleep, she knew when she was being hunted. With a fear so familiar it had gone stale, she began to assess possible options to escape the coming beating. She was used to this. Whether it was out of boredom, anger, or some deeper resentment for the harsh lives they were forced to live, sooner or later her cousins would always take out their frustrations on her.

"Come out Halfbreed, we know where you are."

By the very fact that they were speaking to her the girl knew that they were lying. If they had known where she was hiding they would have attacked by now. But they were very young, just children like her, and they did not know how to hunt yet.

"Halfbreed!"

The girl did not have a name. Or rather she had many, and none of them flattering; brat, faerie, scum, halfbreed, iblith, worm etc. Being only half-drow, her blood was polluted by surface-dwellers and so she was unworthy of a drow name. She belonged to House Ssarash'i, but she was not a part of it. Yet she did have some drow blood in her and so, legally, she could not be used as a slave. She had no name and no status. As far as most were concerned, she barely existed.

Usually she was invisible. Except when she became a target.

Her pursuers did not sound too close. There was a chance she could run. She had used this hiding spot before and they were bound to check it again. They may have been inexperienced, but they were clever and had good memories. The girl hated giving up a hiding place, and this one was her favourite; a forgotten soldier's cubby just across from one of the armouries. There was just enough room inside for her to curl up and sleep and she had even managed to smuggle in scraps of cloth to line the walls and use as a pillow. She had also stolen several books. She did not know how to read, but she was trying to teach herself. If she was found here again, not only would she lose her few meager possessions but she would also have to stop using this hiding spot and find another. She could not afford to be easy to find.

Deciding to take a chance, the child slipped off the high ledge and dropped to the floor. Her landing would have been perfectly soundless were it not for the gentle tinkling of the bells tied to her ankles. She had been forced to wear the belled anklets for as long as she could remember. To the silent drow, their sound was as clear as a siren. They ensured that none of her movements would be secret. Her punishment for the sin of being half-blood.

As soon as her feet hit the floor, the girl bolted down the corridor to the lower levels. Even though she heard no sounds behind her, she knew that her anklets had alerted the other children to her position. They would be following the sound of the bells now. Her only hope was speed. If she could get far enough away and evade them for long enough they would tire of their sport and leave her be for a while.

When she reached the tunnels below the house, the girl finally slowed and tried to steady her breathing. The tunnels only partially belonged to House Ssarash'i. If she went too far she would be outside her family's territory. Although the other children would not risk leaving the house's protection, it would not be wise for her to face unknown danger simply to avoid a small measure of torment. Still, there was no sign of her pursuers. Believing herself temporarily out of danger, the child decided to spend some time in the tunnels until she could be sure that her cousins had forgotten about her. As she began to wander, her feet instinctively pulled her in the direction of the one place she felt safe.

She ducked into a narrow, twisting passageway. She could walk this path in her sleep. Whenever she was hurt or frightened, whenever she needed to feel like she belonged somewhere she always went to the same place.

As she entered the small cavern, she took a moment to pause respectfully.

"Hello, Mother," she said softly.

Trapped in stone, Faerdh Ssarash'i had remained unchanged throughout the years. Still slumped against the wall, her mouth still open in protest, her hands still reaching out for mercy. It was a grim image, but the girl took comfort in the thought that her mother suffered with her. It made her feel like she was not alone. Moving closer, the child took hold of one of Faerdh's hands. She knelt down and pressed her cheek against the cool stone and closed her eyes. She stayed like that for a long moment.

Strange…When she pressed her face to the stone it was almost as though she could hear a…humming sort of noise. But she was not hearing it, she was feeling it. It was in her head, not outside it. It was like the sound of a thousand strings vibrating. She almost felt like she could reach out with her mind and pluck one…

"Hello, No Name."

The girl felt her stomach drop out of her. She leapt up and placed her back to the wall to ensure that she could not be surrounded. Not that it would do her much good. She was cornered. Both exits to the cavern were blocked. The group was led by Zavdra, Matron Irryra's second born daughter. She was still too young to have been sent to the temple for training as a priestess but she had already proved herself to be a vicious little drow in the making. She was flanked on either side by two male children, one of whom was her younger brother Dantal. She was the only girl child in the group, but that did not bode well. It meant she had full control of the male children. They would do whatever she ordered them to.

The boys were only armed with training batons, but Zavdra herself carried a short whip. It was not an enchanted snake-whip, she was far too young to possess one of those, but she had taken one of the slave whips. Zavdra enjoyed playing at being grown-up. A slave whip could deliver a sharp bite of its' own.

The little half-drow knew that she could not fight them off. There were too many of them and if she tried to defend herself she would be punished by the adults. Especially if she somehow managed to harm one of the full-blooded drow children. And if she hurt Zavdra she would no doubt be put to death.

Realizing that her position was hopeless, the girl stepped forward and knelt down. She hoped that if she submitted quietly, the whole business would be over with more quickly. At first no blows were forthcoming. The girl looked up and realized that her cousins had never seen the statue-that-was-Faerdh before.

"So this is the traitor!" exclaimed Zavdra, moving past her kneeling cousin to take a closer look.

"Is it really?" asked Dantal, momentarily overcoming his fear of his sister to stand beside her.

The boys all peered curiously at the statue.

"Who is it?" asked one of the younger children.

"You don't know the story?" asked Zavdra incredulously. "Well, why don't we let the halfbreed tell it? She must know it better than any of us. Go on, halfbreed. Tell us about your whore of a mother."

The child kneeling on the stone floor of the cavern stared down at her broken and dirtied fingernails and did not say a word. At the first strike of Zavdra's whip she gasped but managed to keep from falling forward.

"Speak, worm!" demanded Zavdra. "I gave you an order. Tell the story!"

Zavdra struck her cousin again. The half-drow grunted in pain, but still refused to obey. Pain could be endured. Shame struck much deeper.

"Fine," said Zavdra. "Hold her feet."

Two of the boys stepped forward and held the girl down. They pulled her feet forward.

"Dantal, break her toes."

Dantal stepped forward, wielding his baton. His face was expressionless. His eyes met his cousin's for an instant. He did not seem to be enjoying himself, but he also did not seem to care about her welfare. As he raised his baton, the girl knew it was pointless to try to resist, but she could not help struggling in fear.

As soon as the baton hit her foot, the child let out a blood-curdling scream. She could not tell if her toes were broken, but she knew from experience that if she expressed as much pain as possible, the other children would stop sooner. As it was, her foot hurt badly. Tears began to flow freely from her eyes.

"Let's try again," said Zavdra. "Who is that?"

"F-f-faerdh Ssarash'i."

"Who was she?"

"She was…the first daughter…of House Ssarash'i."

"What happened to her?"

"Punished…by Lloth."

"Why?"

The half-drow child was crying in earnest now. She hated herself for being so weak.

"Why did Lloth punish her?"

The girl raised her head.

"Ask her…yourself," she spat.

Zavdra seized her cousin by her hair and tore her head back as far as it would go. The girl shrieked in agony. She felt like her hair was bleeding.

"Lloth punished her for whoring herself out to surface elves, didn't she?"

All of a sudden Zavdra let go of the half-drow's hair. The child crumpled and clutched at her scalp.

"Go on, say it. Say that your mother was a whore. Say that she was a traitor."

The child whimpered but said nothing.

"Say it!"

She knew that she should say it. She was a survivor and she knew that the only way to survive in this family was to do as she was told. If she did then the pain would stop. She hurt so much…And yet she could not do this thing. She could not say what they wanted her to say. This was too high a price.

"Say it."

The girl's response was barely above a whisper.

"No."

They beat her after that. It was a beating that blurred with all the others. They were not allowed to kill her though, and so they did not. When they finally left the nameless child dragged herself across the stone floor to the statue. She collapsed beside it and pulled her knees into her chest. Before she fell unconscious she wished with all her heart that she too was made of stone.

(/(/(/)

The time had come. Solque breathed deeply, trying to calm her racing heart. Her plan was foolish, short-sighted, but it was all she had. She simply had to see her father and brother. Their father was so ill. He had barely been able to travel as far as they had. She had to give him his medicine, then…then, the three of them could think of something. Her father was so calm, so wise, he would know what to do, he always did. And her brother had always been so strong. Solque had once believed that he could protect her from anything. With luck, they could escape, there had to be a way.

The elf reached into her bodice, to the secret pocket hidden there, and pulled out the required herbs. Without a second thought she chewed and swallowed them. For a moment nothing happened. Nothing continued to happen. Then, like the stab of a knife, her stomach wrenched itself into a ball of pain. The cramps felt like they would tear Solque apart, but she endured them. At last, the pain was too much for her system and she wretched. She hadn't eaten more than two bites worth in what felt like three days, so very little came up. Very little besides the emeralds she had swallowed before her capture. She snatched them from the mess and cleaned them as best she could with spit and the hem of her tunic.

The drow slave traders separated their merchandise into two makeshift barracks, one for females and one for males. It was really more for the fun of tearing apart families than for any real semblance of organization. Inside, there were some assorted rags to sleep on, but not enough for all, so slaves often fought over their sleeping arrangements, only increasing the resemblance with animals. Solque tip-toed past the sleeping bodies strewn randomly about, keeping her back to the wall. Her infravision wasn't as sophisticated as that of the drow and the mercenary saw her before she saw him.

"You have them?" he asked in broken, heavily-accented Elvish.

Solque nodded, hiding her fear as best she could and opened her hand to show the jewels. "They're yours. Now let me see my father."

The dark elf snatched the gems from her, but sneered in disdain.

"Not enough."

The little elf could have sworn she felt the fall away from beneath her feet. Her voice trembled as she spoke, "It's all I have."

At this the drow's cold features twisted into a wicked smile. "Not all," he said and took a step forward.

Solque was not stupid. She understood all too well what the drow meant. She tried to back away from him but she was already against the wall as it was. He leaned in and, as a last defense she raised her hands and turned her face away. The drow twisted his gloved fingers in her dark hair and roughly pulled her head back. He moved as if to kiss her, then ducked his head and bit her throat instead, hard enough to bruise. Solque struggled, trying to hit him, but her flailing hands only met with his chain mail, a more than effective protection against her weak blows. The dark elf was biting her in other places now, her cheek, her shoulder, her breast. For a moment he pulled back and, laughing all the while, he lifted her by her arms and shoved her against the wall, knocking the wind out of her. The world blurred momentarily, there was more unwanted pressure on her breast and then it was gone. Dazed, the elf fell to the ground and tried to make sense of what her eyes and ears were trying to tell her.

Two voices spoke quickly in a language she couldn't understand, one of them was coldly angry, and the other, the voice of her assailant, scared and apologetic. Solque watched as a pair of boots moved into her line of sight. She was then jerked to her feet by someone grabbing the fabric of her clothes. The new drow was dressed much more finely than the mercenary, his hair was longer and his cloak bore some sort of crest. He appeared to be haranguing the other dark elf.

"You do not touch this filth," he said, though Solque could not understand him. "They are nothing but perversity incarnate. They poison everything they come in contact with. To mix with them is a crime against Lloth herself."

Solque had no way of knowing what this drow was saying. As far as she knew, he had saved her from violation. It was this thought that motivated her to beg help from him. Kneeling at his feet, she tugged at his clothes until he spared her a glance.

"Please, sir, I must see my father!"

Commander Vuze raised one stark white eyebrow. He spoke much more Elvish than most drow and understood her perfectly. He found her words odd, but decided to play along for the fun of it. He knelt down beside her and looked at her with so much calculated gentleness it would have next to impossible to tell he was insincere.

"Why, Little One? Why must you see your father?"

Solque grasped at his false kindness like a drowning sailor at straws. "He's very ill, sir. I have to attend to him."

Something shifted in the commander's eyes. Had Solque been less distraught she might have noticed it.

"You can take care of him?" asked Vuze.

"Yes, sir. I'm a healer, sir."

"And your father is very ill, is he?"

"Yes," she whispered.

The drow commander took her chin gently in his hand and smiled. "Don't worry, Daughter of the Surface, he won't be ill much longer."

It was as if someone had taken the world and crushed it like eggshells. Solque couldn't even speak as she tried to cope with the flood of denial and fear that swelled within her. She clutched at the commander but he just pushed her away and said something in drow to the mercenary. Her attacker smiled a terrible, vicious smile and disappeared from view. There were sounds from inside the barracks, her brother's voice, raised in anger, her father's voice, questioning, the twang of a crossbow and then all too quickly there was silence. It was over so quickly, Solque couldn't believe it. Death is always over so much faster than we wish to think, too fast for us to deny.

"Illness makes for a poor sacrifice," Vuze explained casually. "Lloth doesn't appreciate spoiled goods."

Solque heard his words but could not take them in. She felt numb. She wanted to cry, but could not. This could not be real. It had to be a nightmare. It had to be.

(/(/(/)

It was hunger that woke her. At first, the child was not sure where she was. Then she felt the stiffness in her limbs and she remembered. Oddly enough, her injuries were not as bad as she thought they had been. She felt sore and had small aches all over, but she was able to move and stand. Her toes had not been broken. Carefully, she reached behind her and felt the flesh of her back. The welts from Zavdra's whip had all but disappeared. Her arms and legs bore a few bruises but other than that she seemed relatively whole.

But this was impossible. She never healed this quickly. Was she dreaming?

Although puzzled, the child forced herself out of her thoughts. Something was wrong. She could not define the feeling, but she had not survived as long as she had by ignoring her instincts. The air in the tunnels seemed to tingle, and the hairs on the back of the girl's neck were standing on end.

She was in danger. She had to get back to the protection of the house. Moving as quickly as she could while still keeping her anklets quiet, the girl picked herself up and scurried out of the cavern. As she rounded the corner to where the tunnel opened up she found herself face to face with an equally surprised fully armed drow scout. Before she even realized the threat, the child ducked down, covering her head with her arms. She could feel the rush of air kiss her skin as a crossbow bolt flew just over her locked fingers.

He was trying to kill her. Whoever he was, he was not a member of House Ssarash'i. As cruel as her family could be, they had never actually attempted to kill her. She was reserved for the hand of Matron Irryra. It was the reason she was being raised at all. If she was killed, it would be on an altar to Lloth as a sacrifice. It would not be in a forgotten tunnel by an anonymous soldier. She would not die so easily.

The girl ran back the way she came. The scout followed, firing another bolt as he entered the cavern. She rolled out of the way, but though she was spared a lethal wound the bolt pierced her left hand right through. She screamed in agony and total darkness fell upon the cavern.

For a heartbeat, neither she nor the scout moved, each of them unsure where the darkness had come from, each believing the other had cast it. Then the scout heard a soft tinkling of bells coming from his left. Drawing a knife he leapt towards the sound, but instead of meeting with flesh his blade met something hard and unyielding. Just then the darkness lifted. For just a moment the scout was distracted, taken aback by the tortured figure of Faerdh's statue. A moment was long enough. The first blow struck him in the back of the knee. As the crossbow bolt was torn out of his leg again, ripping through tendon and muscle, the scout fell to the ground. Overcome by pain, he tried to raise his knife. Without hesitation, the half-drow child drove the crossbow bolt into his neck with all her strength.

Blood bloomed from the wound, covering her uninjured hand. As the body fell she jumped out of the way. The scout was dead before his body hit the ground.

The girl watched dazedly as the blood continued to pool around her feet. Her left hand was severely hurt. She had torn the flesh when she pulled out the bolt. The wound was bleeding badly.

Still trembling from adrenaline, the girl picked up the drow's knife and used it to cut away part of his tunic. It was a hard task to do one-handed, but she managed somehow. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she wrapped the cloth around her left hand, hoping that would staunch the blood flow.

She bent to pick up the knife again, then hesitated out of habit. It had always been forbidden to her to possess or use weapons of any kind. It was one of the Rules. She thought about what she had done. She had attacked and killed a drow warrior with a weapon meant to kill her. She had removed her anklets to distract him, she had pulled a crossbow bolt out of her own hand, and she had stabbed an adult drow in the throat.

Any one of those offenses could have her put to death.

She had killed someone who wanted to kill her. She had fought and she had won. She felt both powerful and doomed. She was simultaneously more elated and more terrified than she had ever been in her short life.

She stared down at the body. If there was one, there would be more. House Ssarash'i must be under attack. She wondered if the rest of the house knew it yet. She did not hear any sounds of battle. This must just be the beginning of the invasion. Making up her mind, the girl bent down, snatched up the knife and tucked it into the sash around her waist. There were also several small orbs tied to the drow's belt. She picked one up and pocketed it, hoping it might be useful. She left the crossbow, knowing that it would be of no use to her. Even if she had known how to use it, there was no way she could load it one-handed.

With one last glance at Faerdh's statue the child without a name ran out of the cavern and towards the upper levels. She did not bother to be quiet. There was no time. She focused on speed. She was only a child with no combat or magical training but she did have one slight advantage. These tunnels were rarely used, even by House Ssarash'i, but a life split between boredom and fear had given the nameless girl both the time and motivation to learn their every corner, twist and bend. She knew where they split off and where they met again. She knew where the dead ends were and where the passageways were so narrow that only she could slip through.

She took as circuitous a route as she could, hoping to confuse anyone who was following her. She did not have to wait long for the enemy drow to make their presence known. Realizing that the girl was trying to warn her house, the soldiers gave up on stealth and began trying to take her down with their crossbows.

She managed to double back and took another passage to the house. When she began climbing the carved stone steps up to the house she heard something whistling behind her. She looked over her shoulder and saw a magic missile hurtling through the air towards her. She escaped death by a hair's breadth as she leapt off the stairs. But the mage had made a mistake in trying to kill her. The spell's force triggered the magical defenses of House Ssarash'i. Immediately a high-pitched alarm split the air, alerting the house above to the danger below.

Taking advantage of the surprise of the alarm, the nameless girl threw her knife at the mage. It was a poor throw, the knife caught the mage on the arm and did little damage, but the child did not stop with one attack. As she leapt up the stairs, she reached into her pocket for the orb and threw it with all her strength at her enemies. As soon as the orb hit the ground the tunnel was flooded with artificial sunlight. Although the half-drow child had never seen sunlight, her eyes quickly adjusted to it. However, caught off guard and unable to adjust the drow soldiers were momentarily blinded.

The half-drow girl took the steps two at a time. As she slipped under the portcullis at the entrance to the house she found herself face to face with House Ssarash'i's Weapons Master and over a score of the house's best soldiers.

"We're under attack," she said matter-of-factly, gesturing the way she came.

With that, the child finally succumbed to her exhaustion and blood loss. She fell forward and was vaguely aware of someone catching her before she hit the floor. There was shouting all around her and then all was blackness.