Darkness. It had always been darkness, from the first breath of life Leanansidhe had been encased in a darkness absolute, penetrated but for one moment at the age of four winters by a candle. Long had they suspected something, something that had gone wrong with this child. Four sisters, all showing the gods’ favor, each skilled and deadly. This youngest though, had complained of the dark and had cried from the moment of birth, later complaining that it was too dark, so dark that she could not walk properly. It was then that the mother knew something was wrong.

Desperately wrong.

The mother lit a candle, the light blinding her elder children into silence while- for the first time, the nature of the child’s eyes was seen. They were a pale, washed out blue.

Blind.

Blind. A curse from the gods, immediately the matron of the house set to her prayers to garner an explanation, only to hear silence from the darkness. Ten years since the matron worked with her to determine the nature of her failures. The girl, no matter how they tried, could simply not be taught. The matron decided then and there that the damned child would be sent to the surface, may she face the light and be dealt with by mortal men. This is what brought Leanansidhe to the woods, dumped at the mouth of the under dark like so much rubbish in the dark of the night.

Leanansidhe was a slight child, fifteen winters old, she had yet to develop into a woman. White hair cropped just below her ear and pale blue eyes washed out. She was alone, so alone, black skin protecting her in the night, allowing the girl to walk from tree to tree and hug the shadows to avoid detection. Though her sight may be low, Leanansidhe had excellent hearing, and with each step she worked herself deeper into a forest, each footfall calculated and mindful. Something, an instinct, pulled her forward, guiding her through the distance and safely through the dark forest into a cool, peaceful place.

The light was too bright.

To bright. Clenching her eyes against the light, the cool air whipping past her face suddenly ending as it had begun, leaving the girl tripping against smooth….smooth stones? She fell to her hands and knees, guarding her eyes against the light and crying out. There was so…much…too much.

“It hurts!” came the sharp cry of a child, curling in on herself against the smooth stones clenching her eyes shut.

“I have a job for you.” Angela approached her daughter on the half drow’s way out. “A girl has appeared on my beach… Can you go fetch her?” The way the goddess was smirking made Varsha flinch just a bit as she tilted her head.

“Fine, it is a favor you ask of me… I suppose I should be grateful.” The half-drow was red-haired with deep green eyes. Her skin was more like a purplish obsidian. Stalking her way down to the beach she put her hands on her hips as she looked down at the girl her mother had sent her to fetch.

“Because, of course, it would be.” It wasn’t a harsh tone she took as she bent over and took the young thing by her arm to help her up. “Easy kid I am trying to help.” Varsha’s first thought was there would be a fight but she made sure the girl could see her. “I was sent to get you by the Mother. These are her lands and you wound up here for a reason. She told me to come get you.”

If the girl let her Varsha helped her to her feet. “Now, hold yourself up tall.” Instinctively Varsha’s hand on was on the hilt of one of her khopesh but she realized it and let go. “Nothing is going to hurt you in these lands.”

Lea had never known light, softness, sand- nothing that could be soft survived in the Underdark, so this new world was not only a shock but overwhelming. The stones beneath her hands were soft, velvety and smooth to the touch- though hard at the same time. She had never felt such a thing, hard and soft did not exist together in her world and to find them here was something that she had transfixed on, tears still abated as she had closed her eyes against the searing light of the surface world. As she heard the approach of the other, Leanansidhe startled, scooting back as the elder grabbed her arm. As Varsha lifted her up, she whimpered, looking up to meet her face as those startling blue eyes opened.


Before her was a dusky skinned, red-haired, obviously Drow woman, but how had she ended up here. At the order to stand tall, Leanansidhe did. “The mother?” she asked, not having ever known such a being, she was uncertain of what the woman meant. How had another of her kind ended up here, in this brightness, and sent here….


“My eyes…” she whimpered, looking once more to the familiar dark skin, to what she knew, she bit her bottom lip. She had never -seen- before, and while all of this world was blurry, she saw better now than she ever had before. “I…I know no Mother…nor this land…you look like me, why…how did you come to be here?” She did not trust strangers; she did not trust the unknown, and yet she had no expertise outside of that. What would she do, go home?


A soft, bitter laugh escaped her lips as she shook her head, no, that was ridiculous. With tattered clothes and filthy white hair, she stood with the grace of a daughter of a high born family. This was it; this was her fate, it had been a good life. Lea closed her eyes against the light once more, accepting the darkness and her destiny. “If she sent you, then I should not impede your mission.”