From our first breaths, we are programmed to hate. It is the will of our Goddess, the Valsharess, She who is above all. Lolth, the Demon Queen of the Spiderweb Pits, traitor to the Seldarine and prime Goddess of the Drow.
My people.
Perhaps I should say former people; but Drow are my people all the same. I have left the ones below behind, and found a number of them upon the surface in the Temple of the Lady of the Dance.
What I speak now is blasphemy to Those Below. But these words, I have found though my own explorations, are true, to the best of my knowledge: there are things that the Lady of Chaos fails to see. Things she cannot predict. Hubris can make even those we call gods foolish.
In Ched Nasad, Lolth stumbled.
The destruction of the city at the hands of deep dwarves and cambion destroyed many houses, mine among them. Lolth did nothing. No, instead that faithless goddess kept her silence, while her followers fought and died. This marked the beginning of my own blaspheming, seeds planted in the fields of death. The only reason I survived the razing of the city was distance: one of my duties to my House was hunting with slaves under my guidance. I was also allotted a small patrol of House soldiers to aid me and keep the slaves in line.
On this day, it did not matter. Nothing mattered. When we found the city embattled and in flames, they turned on me. They all turned on me, soldiers and slaves both. I suppose were I in that position, I would have done the same. There was no mercy in them--though some power or fate had mercy on me, and after I had fallen, half-conscious, the slaves and the soldiers fell upon each other. My last memory before I blacked out was the sensation of my hair being shorn from my scalp with a dagger, before I took leave of my senses.
It was as if I dreamed, after that. There was searing pain, and yet so distant it was, I could not touch it. It meant nothing to me. I thought I heard voices, and yet that meant naught as well. I thought I heard some female speaking to me--at first I thought it was my mother. And yet my mother had never spoken in such a kindly tone--it was unseemly for a matron mother to do so, and my mother was more than proper, in the full favor of the Spider Queen. Dimly, I thought I felt movement, and yet that, too, passed. I drifted in a black sea of nothing. I knew nothing. I was nothing.
When I awoke, I was in more pain than I had ever known beneath the tender ministrations of my family. I could not feel my tongue, and soon found that it had been partly cut out, when I probed my own injuries as best I could. At least I had not lost my eyesight or hearing. A faint throat clearing broke my reflections, and I turned my head slowly.
There are a great number of beautiful drowesses. We are, as a race, lovely--Lolth would have it no other way. But the female I faced now was one of the most lovely creatures I had ever seen. She stood over me as I lay there, an odd smile upon her strong features. I had never seen a concerned smile until that moment--I could not name it, then. When she saw that I was awake, her smile grew.
"I am glad to see you awake. You have been kept asleep for your journey here, daughter of House Arabani."
I struggled as she spoke the name of my House, and she pushed me down with a gentle hand. Her lips thinned as she frowned, and shook her head, patting my shoulder where she touched it. "You are not yet healed, child. You need your rest."
Kind words. But the Drow are anything but. Only time would tell if this were some sort of trick. My strength ebbed, and I allowed the nameless female to triumph, and slipped into unconsciousness once more.
My people.
Perhaps I should say former people; but Drow are my people all the same. I have left the ones below behind, and found a number of them upon the surface in the Temple of the Lady of the Dance.
What I speak now is blasphemy to Those Below. But these words, I have found though my own explorations, are true, to the best of my knowledge: there are things that the Lady of Chaos fails to see. Things she cannot predict. Hubris can make even those we call gods foolish.
In Ched Nasad, Lolth stumbled.
The destruction of the city at the hands of deep dwarves and cambion destroyed many houses, mine among them. Lolth did nothing. No, instead that faithless goddess kept her silence, while her followers fought and died. This marked the beginning of my own blaspheming, seeds planted in the fields of death. The only reason I survived the razing of the city was distance: one of my duties to my House was hunting with slaves under my guidance. I was also allotted a small patrol of House soldiers to aid me and keep the slaves in line.
On this day, it did not matter. Nothing mattered. When we found the city embattled and in flames, they turned on me. They all turned on me, soldiers and slaves both. I suppose were I in that position, I would have done the same. There was no mercy in them--though some power or fate had mercy on me, and after I had fallen, half-conscious, the slaves and the soldiers fell upon each other. My last memory before I blacked out was the sensation of my hair being shorn from my scalp with a dagger, before I took leave of my senses.
It was as if I dreamed, after that. There was searing pain, and yet so distant it was, I could not touch it. It meant nothing to me. I thought I heard voices, and yet that meant naught as well. I thought I heard some female speaking to me--at first I thought it was my mother. And yet my mother had never spoken in such a kindly tone--it was unseemly for a matron mother to do so, and my mother was more than proper, in the full favor of the Spider Queen. Dimly, I thought I felt movement, and yet that, too, passed. I drifted in a black sea of nothing. I knew nothing. I was nothing.
When I awoke, I was in more pain than I had ever known beneath the tender ministrations of my family. I could not feel my tongue, and soon found that it had been partly cut out, when I probed my own injuries as best I could. At least I had not lost my eyesight or hearing. A faint throat clearing broke my reflections, and I turned my head slowly.
There are a great number of beautiful drowesses. We are, as a race, lovely--Lolth would have it no other way. But the female I faced now was one of the most lovely creatures I had ever seen. She stood over me as I lay there, an odd smile upon her strong features. I had never seen a concerned smile until that moment--I could not name it, then. When she saw that I was awake, her smile grew.
"I am glad to see you awake. You have been kept asleep for your journey here, daughter of House Arabani."
I struggled as she spoke the name of my House, and she pushed me down with a gentle hand. Her lips thinned as she frowned, and shook her head, patting my shoulder where she touched it. "You are not yet healed, child. You need your rest."
Kind words. But the Drow are anything but. Only time would tell if this were some sort of trick. My strength ebbed, and I allowed the nameless female to triumph, and slipped into unconsciousness once more.