How she had gotten here and into this predicament, she didn't quite know. The whole picture was a puzzle of scattered pieces that wouldn't quite fit together - no matter how hard she tried to align this memory to that. She had just taking a repeated kicking to the head though, so maybe that was the reason everything was falling foggy around the last 48 hours or so.

She remembered that she had been minding her own business when she was accosted by this vile group of Dorcha who had immediately recognised her as a halfling. After that, it didn't take them long to suss out who she was. They had their fun with her for a while too - the largest and ugliest of the group had been the one to enjoy kicking her around the most as they wrapped the chains around her wrists and neck. Why was it that the biggest males of any species, seemed to get the most pleasure from beating small girls? It was a pattern. Compensating for something.

She tried to fight back, but that bitch Sorceress was dangerous, and she had very swiftly knocked Aeryn around with a couple of debilitating spells. "We can sell this sword and these knick knacks of hers for a few coins - and we'll take her body for bounty..." one of them sneered as he snatched away her sword and dagger. The beating went on for a while longer. It wasn't anything she hadn't experienced earlier in her life. This was just the Dorcha way, if there was something even slightly different within site - beat it up, enslave it, or sometimes eat it. The latter being a very rare sometimes.

So this is what it had come to - being led through these strange otherworldly caverns, to a flowing river, a prisoner of a ragtag group of Dorcha scumbags. Their own crimes were likely to be far more spectacular than hers. They bickered incessantly over how to kill her for what seemed like the entire trip to the river. It was a surreal feeling, that death was coming now. 

With a light shove from the smaller male she was pushed down onto her knees at the edge of the river. The water was cool and refreshing as it splashed at her face, and began to seep through her trousers around the knees. 

She drowned them out, and looked down at her own reflection on the surface of the water. Her eyes narrowed in disgust at her appearance. They had scrubbed dirt through her braids, her taupe skin was flaring in purple in red across her cheek where the quieter female had given her a hefty slap, her eye was bloodshot too. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that she was about to be sliced up, and ended. 

Her fists were a ball with the tips of her sharpened fingernails digging into her palms in anger, her face hot with frustration, nostrils flared - and then - she saw another reflection flicker across the surface of the water. He didn't look like a Dorcha - and there he was, winking at her. She curled a lip, showing her teeth just a little bit, like a caged animal that had been poked just that one too many times. Then it all seemed to happen, something was thrown and the next thing that Aeryn felt was a spray of hot liquid gush out and onto her back, and the steel of the sword on the nape of her neck slide down to the ground beside her. By some miracle, it hadn't cut her at all.  

The human dove into he water. An opening. 

The rest of the troupe had drawn their weapons and the Sorceress had already fired off her magics. Aeryn saw in her peripherals the shadow of the big bastard who had tormented her the most, they had seemed to forget that she was there. After all, there was not much more that Dorcha hated than a human. She waited until he had crept ahead of her, and then she leapt into action, jumping up and landing on his back, her arms wrapped his thick neck.

She was rather quickly flung off of him, but she had his attention now - and while his cronies focused their attention on the human - she would have her revenge. He skulked towards her, smirking. She stood up, and performed another jump, this time landing a forceful headbutt on his nose, and then he fell back, stumbling over a mossy rock and into the shallows of the river to what would be his violent demise. Aeryn crouched over him, her face close to his, a devilish grin on her face. Like a viper she struck, her teeth clamping down hard into his cheek, tearing at the flesh there. Her bound hands clutching his hair as she repeatedly smashed his head against the ragged edges of rock. The current began to carry away and dilute the blood flowing from the back of his skull. It was beautiful.

He only struggled for a few seconds. 

When she came up for air, she used the back of her still bound fists to smear the blood from her lips. In hindsight, taking a chunk from his face was probably not the way to go about killing him... She was about ready to make her escape from the scene - leaving the rest of the Dorcha to kill off the human when the Sorceress clapped her with another spell, sending her backwards into a tree with a loud thunk, close to where the mysterious human had just been standing. 

"If this is how I die, at least I took out your fat minion..." she slurred to herself as she tried to get herself back to her feet, looking for the human at the same time.