Kilbia Genta: Ribbon of Moonlight
(an alternate persona)
Hi. I'm Kilbia. Kilbia Genta. No, we probably haven't met. I try and stay out of sight; it's something you learn quickly when you grow up underground, especially when you don't look like the other kids.
Mom's a wood elf, so I know I'm not full drow. I might be half-drow, but I don't know. Mom doesn't like to talk about her life before she was kidnapped and brought underground, and flat-out refuses to talk about how she got me. It made her cry the first couple of times I asked, so I stopped. But I look like a total opposite of the drow I grew up with; they've all got black skin and white hair, and I have pale skin and black hair. Well, it's black except for this one white lock next to my left ear. It's how I got my name, actually - Kilbia Genta roughly translates to "moonbeam".
Mom says it's that lock of hair that saved my life. See, apparently my mom was pregnant when they captured her, and my particular settlement had planned to feed me to their guardian spider the instant I was born. But as the midwife was cleaning me off, she noticed that wisp of hair, and being superstitious, took it as a sign of my being accepted by their Goddess as one of their own. So I was allowed to live, and was granted a lot more freedom than my mom, whom they kept around as a slave and wet nurse.
Acceptance and freedom didn't amount to much during my time there, though. I was still a freak, and drow just aren't very good at tolerating freaks. I was teased mercilessly by the other children until I either cried or punched someone, and nearly every rule of courtesy known to the drow had an invisible "unless you're dealing with Kilbia" appended to it. I was held to standards of courtesy and behaviour not even laxly enforced upon the drow children, and the adults in my settlement seemed to actively find excuses to berate or outright punish me.
I had hoped to apprentice to the calligrapher when I came of age, but they knew my eyes would tolerate a forge's light better than any of theirs, and I was sent to learn from the weaponsmith. I was expected to do far more work and far less talking back than any of the other apprentices, but I was used to it by now. The forge was located near a surface opening next to a stream, and I was permanently assigned the task of getting water for tempering the metal because I could stand the sunlight. Hauling buckets of water helped me build up some muscles, which wasn't a bad thing at all, and it got me away from the smoke of the forge-fires and into the fresh air.
It bewildered me the first time I went to the stream. The area was wooded, and light filtered through the trees, painting a dazzling picture of green light and shadow. The air was filled with buzzing and chirping, but the swift-flowing stream was deep and silent, and so clear that every once in a while I could see little creatures swimming back and forth in it. It was completely entrancing, and if I hadn't been so harshly disciplined for the past twelve years, I probably would have stood there gaping like a fool for about half an hour. I filled up my buckets and headed back, nearly spilling it all as a small green creature jumped out of one of the buckets.
The image of the woods and the stream refused to leave my mind. It was so lovely and peaceful, and a perfect safe haven from a harsh life. I began to spend more and more time at the forge so I would have an excuse to visit the surface. I was always careful not to go too often or take too much time, lest my master figure out my motivations and put me to some other chore. I couldn't bring Mom with me, but I told her all about it. The stories made her happy, at least as much as she could be. She said it was my wood-elf nature waking up that made me go there so much.
Eventually my fumbling attempts at weaponry began to please my master, and I was made journeyman on my seventeenth birthday. I spent my money on engraver's tools and spent my free time sitting by the stream trying to figure out how to use them. I would more or less doodle on a knife or dagger, and melt it back down if I wasn't happy with the results.
I especially enjoyed engraving runes that I copied from pictures, as it was sort of like calligraphy on metal. Those especially pleased my master, and he began teaching me some forge-magic to empower those runes. I learned how to properly carve runes of power and defense, and where on the blade to place them. I've forgotten a lot of that knowledge by now, but my master still has a few blades in his collection that I carved for him. At least, the last I heard of him.
You see, it was inevitable from the instant the sunlight hit me. I had to escape to the surface world. I didn't know where I would go, or if I would ever make any friends after having lived with the drow for so long, but it didn't matter. Every gurgle from the stream, every bird's chirp, every insect's buzzing seemed to call me away into a life that was mine, more than my underground existence would ever be.
I tried so hard to be careful. I began to work even more diligently for my master so he wouldn't suspect my desires. One by one I cached my few personal belongings into the bushes next to the stream. I didn't even tell my mom, for fear the drow would torture her into betraying me. But my one downfall was my plan to escape at dawn so I would have more time to flee before the others could begin searching for me. I began working at odd times, trying to synchronize my body to the day/night schedule of the outside world. For all my diligence, it was enough to rouse my master's suspicion, and even though he was not there when I finally decided to cross the stream and never come back, his son saw me retrieve my possessions from the bushes, and ran to stop me, dagger in hand.
I never was good at fighting. I sparred a little with the other apprentices, "testing out" their first attempts at blades, but never enough to be skilled. The weaponsmith's son was one of the best around, and if I faced him in a direct fight, I was as good as dead, and death wasn't the kind of freedom I was looking for this morning. It would be an impressive trick to fight him and survive.
Just the kind of trick I had up my sleeve.
I had learned one last rune from my master before I left, and had carved it into a throwing knife, thinking I could use it as a template to carve it onto future weapons. Without even thinking, I slipped the dagger into my hand and flung it at the boy. The rune of Accuracy gleamed subtly in the dawnlight, and the knife buried itself in the boy's throat.
For a second I was seized with the desire to retrieve the knife, but I knew I had to run, and now. I began sloshing across the stream, but I slipped on a rock and fell in with a loud splash. The stream carried me along for awhile, and I figured it was as good an escape route as any, as long as I could keep my head above the water. Then I heard a low rumbling, and found out the reason the stream moved so quickly here: I was about to tumble down a waterfall! I probably didn't fall as far as it felt, but I hit my head on something not long after I landed, and was woozy and sick to my stomach for a while after that. The water moved slower beneath the fall, and I was able to make it to shore somehow. Still slightly dazed from whatever hit me, I dragged myself out of the water and began walking next to it. If my settlement found streams useful, surely the cities on the surface would too.
I was right, of course, but I didn't find that out till later. I hadn't walked very far before I got very dizzy and fell down.
It was dark when I woke up, and I sat up in a panic, afraid they'd caught me and dragged me back underground. Then a strange face peeked in through a square doorway and asked me questions in a language I couldn't understand. Seeing my totally blank expression, the face vanished, and shortly after returned, bringing another with it.
The second man was tall and well-dressed, with long dark hair not unlike mine. The first one, whom I was able to see better now, was shorter, but also with the long dark hair. He was dressed in garishly mismatched pants and a tunic.
The tall man knew my language, and introduced himself as Tangelo, and the other as Tarasque, his apprentice. He said that Tarasque had found me lying unconscious by the riverbed, and had chosen to bring me back here and care for me until I woke up. Tangelo's tone of voice implied he would not have done the same, and I felt the urge to leap out of bed and punch him in the face. I also felt far too tired and weak to do it, so I simply thanked Tarasque for his hospitality. Tangelo mumbled a translation, and Tarasque smiled and nodded at me.
Feeling better, but ill at ease in this strange place, I asked Tangelo where the nearest town was. He simply pointed out the window, where I saw lights burning and dancing not far away. Suppressing once again the urge to punch him, I simply got out of bed, gathered my things, and showed myself out. Tarasque sort of waved at me.
The city gate wasn't far away, and the guards didn't seem to care a whit about security, simply nodding at me and waving me through. I looked back, and could see no trace of the house I'd left. It was strange, but that was lost in the excitement of being in such a big city. And besides, I wasn't terribly sure I liked those two anyway.
Anyway. Here I am. I am sorry to ramble so, but it has been a hell of a day. So tell me something about yourself....
