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[Demetria]

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Some would call it strange, the liquid way a child's mind can get around challenges presented to them. Certainly for Demetria, her mind's ability to take over and get her through the many months she was held in Umbra as a slave was something that she would be grateful for when she was a grown-up. In time, the months of sleeping in the cold stables, wearing rags, and going hungry most of the time would be forgotten. In time.

The words of the Matriarch Ceinwyn (known to the child Demetria's mind as The Cold Lady) kept resonating in her mind...the words which freed her of the curse keeping her bound to servitude in the dark city.

The Cold Lady made Deme promise to never attack an Umbran again, and to save such enthusiasm for lightbringers. Having no clue what exactly a lightbringer was, she readily agreed.

Her heart sang with joy at her newly found freedom. Joy quickly turned sour when she remembered that there was no home to return to, no family to miss her, nobody wishing her home. Her first night of freedom was spent crouched before the music-box in Umbra's Den of Sin, listening to the Zento song over and over.

In time even the pleasant song of the music-box grew tiresome, and Demetria departed the Den. She hunted, she loosened the muscles that were so important in the art of archery, she sang to herself, and she cried bitter tears. She spurred her horse toward the Heartwood, that home of long ago from which she was removed like so much garbage.

Forbidden entry, again, she left with her head held low. Eventually she found herself back in the Dark City.

Only this time she got to rent a room, far from the stable. As she lay in the bed that seemed impossibly soft in comparison to the cold corner of the stables, her mind wandered back to the night she ran afoul of that terrible drow. Try as she might she just couldn't really be sorry for having pulled her bow on him.

He spoke to her in that horrible sounding language that those dark elves used. Everybody knew that drow men ate little elven girls for snacks. Even the teacher in the Heartwood said so. How could she be expected to be sorry for trying to defend herself? No matter, her mind countered, it's over and you're free now. You've served your penance, you owe nothing to society.

Maybe, she thought, maybe I can make a home here. Through her months of slavery she had gotten familiar with many of the faces of Umbra's inhabitants. She thought of the blue haired boy she had met once. He seemed nice enough, and they'd spent an afternoon out riding and visited the Chaos shrine near the big black ants.

I'll ask him if there's a school here she thought. Getting thrown out of the Heartwood meant getting thrown out of school, and Demetria loved school. It was one of the things she held dearest in her life. School meant learning, school meant being away from whatever foster-family she'd been forced upon for the biggest part of the day. School meant friends.

Sleep didn't come easily for the elf child, despite being weary to the bone. She just HAD to find that boy. Had to.