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[Reeve]

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The wind was all too still as the young elf, Bae'vin, ran from him. Her words hung in his mind. But the cacophony from within the tavern, however diminished by distance and walls, intruded tonight. Usually he welcomed the morality play that was others' revelry and despair. This evening, however, Reeve found himself contrary, meditative. And so the comradery of the other patrons was a hindrance.

His eyes followed the path the elf had taken to the north. She had run away. Some underlying anxiety drove her forth. It had been there the whole evening. It reminded him of how married people seem when their spouse is not present and they are willfully skirting all too close to infidelity; as if there is a needling, guilting presence with them, a burden, that cannot be escaped.

He turned back towards the tavern automatically. The symptoms seemed similar with the young elf. Though the subtle presence working at her did not, to him, seem to be about infidelity. Rather is was like a paranoia. Or perhaps-

deceiver...

He stopped just by the corner lantern, with the rift at his back. The breeze had returned. He listened carefully for more words on the wind. Was it memory dredged up by some innocuous task this day? Was it just a trick of the air coursing through the tightly packed buildings?

He frowned and pulled the skull cap from his matted here. Again he looked up into the narrow corridors between the buildings, waiting for something more. Daring any challenger or haunt to face him.

When naught but gentle breeze came to him he turned back towards the rift and pulled on his armaments. At last he summoned noble Destrier and rode away. There were duties needed attending and the past did not trouble Reeve.

[Baevin Kilduis]

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Bae'vin wasn't sure quite what to make of the drow Dinaxle'lin during their brief visit, though she suspected it may have at least had something to do with male posturing. It was frustrating to her, as the other drow claimed to have 'lost' most of their shared language and the thrill of getting to speak in her native tongue was stolen from the moment.

After his departure, and much to her surprise (and, secretly, horror) a human male began conversing with her in the language she knew best. He was forgiving of her poor common and it fascinated her to watch a human form the complex phrases of the drow tongue.

The interaction confused Bae'vin. The young drow had, of course, been raised to believe that humans are foul creatures, even more distasteful than their pale-skinned elven relations. This man seemed to betray much of what she grew up learning as well as what her surface life had been showing her--brief as this time had been.

There was much noise being created by other patrons arriving into Umbra's Den of Sin, and this made conversation more difficult for Bae'vin. Her general distrust of strangers only added to the already existing anxiety she felt in trying to speak and learn the common tongue--and their incessant babbling in the strange sounding words just added to her growing angst.

Reeve, he said his name to be and without thinking she gave him her own proper name. He seemed to sense her growing agitation and invited her to step outside into the calm and quiet Malas gloom. With some trepidation, she did. It was the conversation outside that started to truly frighten the drow. The man's unnerving ability to identify things she had thought and felt of late was a little too much for her to bear.

Resisting the urge to grab his shirt, she stepped close and urgently whispered to him that hate was all there was. Love was a farce, a thing of fables and stories. Horror washed over her as she realized she was sharing feelings, and sharing this with a human was all the more terrible to her. She ran off into the night, first going north and then heading east; ultimately she wound up in her favored room at the Banshee.

With a faint cry of despair and dismay, Bae'vin threw herself across the bed and cursed herself for her own stupidity. After what might be considered a small tantrum by some, she grew quiet and sat on the soft bed, rocking back and forth with her knees drawn up to her chin, arms wrapped around her shins, and mourned that which drove her to be in this strange and terrible place.