Thread: Night & Day

She pouted as he scolded her, telling her about his culture in fashion and in money, she sighed as he mentioned the Drow accountants. I had thought of bringing someone down, but Celros, my teacher advised against it. 'A good accountant is hard to find, but worth the risk,' he said. The accountant we had been using passed before his fifth and last year. Something to do with your complex politics... And there's also the fact that I am the only elf allowed to walk freely in your city. If I brought another elf with me past the cave gate, they would have been slaughtered - or worse, enslaved. She shivered at the thought, knowing that that was worse than a death sentence, for it portrayed both imprisonment and a long death for an elf. They needed the sun, their bodies taking sustenance from it's light - a reason their clothing was always made of strong but thin material. So that sun could come in and touch their skin without showing their body to the world. Speaking of caves, she thought as she stepped out of the embasy. Her eyes went to the cavernous ceiling, it's 'sun' growing dimmer, she could see the stalactites that hung downwards. Elven eyes were suprisingly good in the dark, despite their love of light. They just didn't like such dark places. It was the young elf's curiosity of the dark caves, however, that had won her the ambassadorial position. Much to her relief. The spell on her told everyone that knew it after all, that she would be married outside of the Elves. Seeing as the Drow were the only other immortal race... Well, as far as she was concerned, it meant another five hundred years of life. She hid her disdain for her future position, as did her sisters that were tied to the same fate, but she knew they all hated that magic mark. It was all but a death sentence given by their own parents, the mark tying them to their first lover - assumed to be their husband - so that they could properly bond, and age with the men. It would be a sentence of death for her lover - and therefore her. It was actually because of her family's tradition in that that the other elves were both stifled sexually, but also released from the burden that was laid on the royal family. Only the royal family had ever used the spell, other families able to not be so callus for what was oft called the Princess' Sacrifice. The women could say 'no' to a marriage after all, but... Knowing the war that might ensue... Even knowing it spelled their own death, they couldn't. She was well aware that this tradition was not well understood or known outside of the Elves, the King and Queen having so many children - so as to keep up the number of girls - that Aiena herself had quite a few siblings - over a hundred, while the normal family was perhaps the largest at four or five children. The young elf blushed slightly at the display, but was thankfully able to keep her eyes from staring, having been prepared by the Drow art books that were kept in her office now, another present from her teacher. Well, save for one case of a man who wore only tattoos. She wondered how they were able to get the pigment to be seen in their dark skin... And how he could have a certain piece of his anatomy not only colored so, but... Pierced. She winced at that sight, bringing herself a little closer to Shuraste as she managed to pull her eyes away at that. She wished he would offer her his arm. He was a bit of a stranger still, but he was the only one she knew there. The action was perhaps chaste to him, but to her it was an offer of support to offer one's arm to a lady who was distressed. The action offering a closeness of bodies that was only ever allowed in dancing or in a known couple otherwise, the Lord's strength offered to her in that way with both his warmth and offer to help her stay on her feet. With how little he seemed to know, however, she could tell he'd not studied much on her culture - at least not as much as she'd tried to study for his. Is that the theater, she asked with a small thread of hope in her voice, seeing the large building, it's architecture was different, but it's shape and size were about right for such a building.