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[Demetria]

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Now that her own personal quest had been over for weeks and brought her back to her adopted home, life was back to normal. The shock of discovering the truth about her heritage had subsided and Demetria was finding that she was able to accept it.

Being part drow wasn't really the issue at hand. Being raised in the Heartwood where her mother was from, and being raised to fear and distrust the dark elves was a problem. The majority of her life had been spent at the hands of elves very adept at instilling this hatred.

During the travels that brought truth to her, she also learned another thing. Her birth mother had passed away shortly after bringing the infant Demetria back to her native home. The prevailing version of the story was that while out in the world beyond Heartwood, she fell victim to the wasting disease. Her drow lover wanted nothing to do with the failing woman nor the child she'd birthed.

The years growing up being fostered by the elves were often fraught with difficulty. Deme often received displays of prejudice--both physical and mental. There was much bullying, and the smaller stature that came to her via a drow father made her a much easier target for the displays of hatred. Ironically, nobody--not even the elders-- ever actually told Demetria of her father's lineage. Perhaps to acknowledge publicly or privately the girl's dark blood was offensive on the most basic level of their society. Part of the irony in the face of the miserable treatment was that the drow aspect wasn't their weapon. It was being the bastard child of a woman who thought her life too important to waste among her kin . . . that she'd gone to live among the humans and other outsiders and came back, ill, with a baby who didn't even have an elven name.

Since discovering these truths, Demetria marveled at the fact that it was her act of drawing a weapon against a drow warrior of Umbra that kept her in the city; first as an enslaved prisoner, then being given the choice to stay after her price to Umbran society was considered paid in full, and finding she wanted to stay. Often she wondered what had become of that warrior. Rumor had it that he'd gone back below to be among his people.

Months prior to that incident Demetria had been forcibly and permanently banned from Heartwood. The reason given was her antisocial behavior that often included poisoning of communal objects. Now, she wondered what else lay behind that decree. Maybe the elders felt that turning such a seemingly frail young child out into the world would spell her demise, and leave their hands and consciences as clean as possible while at the same time destroying the life of a mixed-blood child. But they were wrong, if that was the case. Very wrong.

None of them expected her to return one day as she had, formidable in the hooded robe marking her as Umbran, her head held high, her shoulders square as she strode toward those same banishing elders with her crossbow cocked and at the ready. How they scattered like rats from a sinking ship as her booted feet created an echo against their beloved wooden floor.

When Demetria informed the elders that it was her intent to be welcome and given the respect of long overdue explanations, or bring down wrath of years of training and conditioning in Umbra upon them, they suddenly lost their lofty attitudes.

Though Demetria was unprepared for the surprise of their revelations compared to what she'd grown up believing, she listened to them take turns in their explanations with a quiet and concise demeanor. Suspicion of untruth or hesitation on their part resulted in her caressing the crossbow, quickly bringing the elders back into focus.

When they insisted there was nothing left to share, the Umbran bestowed them with a gaze and expression as cold as the ice the Matriarch could produce with her cryomantic magic. The first bolt struck the hand that had written the decree of banishment. The second quickly pinned the foot of the elder who had escorted her from the Heartwood to the floor.

"Call for help," she told the shocked elves, "And the next bolts that fly will not be so kind."

Calmly and slowly she walked out of the place that was once her residence but never her home, daring anybody to approach. None did.

Demetria had returned to Ilshenar for a period of time after this visit, where she'd so long ago played cat and mouse with the assailants she now understood to have been sent forth from the tree to dispatch her, and failed, once it had come to light that the girl had not perished in the outside world. She lived among the place where those final bodies had fallen for weeks as she sorted and processed what had happened. Then the day came to return to her dark city and discuss this venture with the Matriarch.

Yes. I am Umbran, she thought as she rode out and toward her home.