“Thank you,” she said again, this time actually grateful. ‘Sharing’ food, or anything, in the Underdark generally meant humiliating someone with it. “Even noble Drow do not always have the luxury of being choosy with what they eat like surface elves. Rat is more a staple for commoners,  but everyone eats it.” She chewed and swallowed the still-warm meat quickly, no savouring of the food to be had. “Most meals centre around mushrooms.”

She paced as she ate, which was nothing unusual, but internally she was also feeling ever so slightly unsettled. She was underneath a castle in Vaasa, with no idea how she had arrived there or who had brought her or why, having to depend on a man and an unconscious goblin that she was only trusting because goblins were too stupid to lie to save themselves. She tried to focus on the cavern itself instead of the nagging feeling of [i]wrongness[/i]; learning the walls, walking herself back in her mind to the cell she had woken up in. That almost made it worse, because she did not belong in a surface cave.

“Most people only know a particular few hand signs, but you can have an entire conversation about anything without speaking a word. I’m surprised we kept speaking at all.”

She would not have normally spoken so much of Drows and the Underdark, or at all, really, but it was unusual to have someone take an interest in interacting, period. It had to be feigned, an act to get on her good side- what human called a Drow refined in anything but cruelty? And yet as loathe as she was to admit it, it was nicer than being alone, and there [i]was[/i] strength in numbers, so long as no one stabbed the other in the back.

What was it that humans said? Better the evil you know? Which reminded her…

“Is there a name I should call you?” She could just call him human, or not at all, but somehow it seemed too… impersonal. Which didn’t normally bother her.