Many summers ago, a young and inexperienced Zabine, a dejected drow, left his home of thirty seven years in the Underdark and came to the light above. His morals were much too different; his mother was constantly in distress about his lack of bloodthirst. His three brothers and one sister denied him, saying he was a mutt, a piece of rabid trash that had made his family worthless, and beyond that, his father denied siring such a complete failure. He had suffered more than his share there, but what was to come was not all the best either. Many people of the surface turned him away, spat on him. Several threatened him. All based on his race, drow. People talked, throwing him awkward glances, and gossip rose. His path was not easy, until by chance, he ran into little Niviba, as she was drawing water on a full moon summer night.
Niviba was a sprite youth when he met her, her cheeks rosy in the faint, graceful moonlight and her cheekbones high. He approached her from behind, cautious of the young girl’s reaction to seeing him. He didn’t want to scare the little girl, but he had no idea she was an elf. Niviba’s slippered foot rolled over the rock beneath it, sending her forward almost into the open well. It only took a second for her scream to alert Zabine, his body moving like liquid ebony to catch her round the waist with his trunks for arms. As he backed away from the well, his arms still around her, she didn’t struggle. He stopped, looking down into her face, lips agape in awe at her perfect beauty in the soft glow of the heavens. She didn’t push him away as many normal people might have, in fear. Then again, she wasn’t normal. He noticed her cute ears, long, like his. She had two little rings near the tip of one, and a tattoo there. The symbol of a high and noble house. She turned in his arms to face him, reaching up to his ears, moving her hands across his face. She had never once seen such a dark skinned elf, or was he a drow? She didn’t care, he had no weapons at all, in fact, he had just saved her.
“You’re very handsome.” Niviba commented, stroking his cheek and smiling. He wanted to weep in the image of her perfection, the way her cheeks rose when she smiled, her pearlescent teeth and heavenly blue lagoon eyes. If he had white skin like her, he might have turned bright red like a burning sun. For the first time in his life, he began to stutter.
“Th-th-thank y-you…” He gasped, nodding as if trying to convince the words to come. He smiled, his arms shaking where they lay around her waist, his hands sweaty. She laughed, the laugh of a thousand breeze-blown lilies tinkling. It was the most amazing thing to Zabine. He had never felt so wonderful, and compared to the misery, it felt like a dream. But he was very much awake. And the way her breasts looked confirmed that, although too long a glance might get him in trouble. His eyes wandered away from her chest, taking in the light armor she wore. She had the strangest, most alluring tattoo across her hip, his hand reaching to touch it. She didn’t flinch, but she made a noise that startled Zabine. She closed her eyes, pressing her hip into the cup of his palm as he opened it.
“Sorry!” He gasped, pulling his hand away. She then became spooked, jerking back and opening her eyes. She closed her gaping lips, biting the bottom corner.
“Oh, that… that felt good. I’m… uh, I’m Niviba.” She said, smiling again. Zabine cursed himself inside, gulping and trying to keep from falling over in fright. How had he ever come so close to such an angel? Without scaring her or worse, being turned away or threatened with the end of a sword.
“I’m Zabine…” He trailed off. They both smiled, swinging into the Elvish way of doing things, between a girl and a boy, about to be a man. Niviba took his hand, careful not to startle him. They both knew what was thrumming in their chests, and it wasn’t their heart. Zabine’s hand, the one not linked between the fingers of hers, snaked its way back down to her bare skinned side, stroking the flesh. He rested his palm on the round of her thigh, his thumb making circles that caused her muscles to relax. She closed her eyes again, sitting on the well, careful of her beautiful dress.
“That’s… that feels good, Zabine…” She murmurs, opening her eyes to look up into his face. He saw the twinkle in her eyes as they reflected the moon. It made him smile, his teeth like a row of perfect stars, in a perfect line, sandwiched by an ebony box of flesh. Niviba moved her idle hand up over his ear, lulling him to close his eyes and tilt his head so she might better see his handsome amethyst eyes. He loved being touched by her soft, tender hands. It was the gentlest thing he’d felt since he had last seen his family, a few months or more ago. They both pulled their hands back, Zabine hearing the footsteps behind him. He gave a fleeting, apologetic glance before he kissed her hand and took off into the forest behind them. Niviba’s father had watched her with the drow boy, and he was not pleased at all. But for a few days, Niviba fought the man, finally sneaking out to buy bread, and hoping to run into the one with the lavender eyes. She hadn’t forgotten one detail of his face, his long ears and their crystalline earrings, his Godlike mouth and nose, his supple cheeks… every detail down to his taut and muscled chest. But still, it was not perfect. His toned body was a masterpiece, how she longed to touch it, to feel it with her hands. But she felt her heart drop when she stood in the market a whole day and never once saw Zabine. Niviba watched and daydreamed until she had to return home, to the yelling of her angry father. He gave her a much stricter curfew, and he enchanted all the money in the house to glow blue if she disobeyed his rules. One day, her mother asked her why her sewing was going so slow, as Niviba was mending her armor. Niviba began to weep, her longing for Zabine an open wound.
“I met a boy by the well, and… mama, I want him to court me. But he left, and papa…” She wailed softly, her mother pushing aside the project in Niviba’s hands to pull her close to her side.
“Sweet child, did this boy deflower you?” Her mother asked. Niviba shook her head. She wouldn’t tell her mother of the drow boy, Zabine.
“He gave me his name… and l-left…” Niviba would whimper. Her chest felt as if it had been slammed by a blacksmith’s forge hammer. Her other half, the boy that had been caught by a cannibal tribe hiding in the woods not far from her home, knew this feeling well. He had been caught stealing their food, and had been imprisoned. He secretly longed for his Angel. Even when the cannibals deemed him too lean to eat, he wept upon seeing the moon in the skies above his prison. He begged the Goddess of Fate to return her, for he felt he was not whole without her. Her image had been etched into the back of his skull, but with the days, it faded like a drawing. He wanted to touch her. He remembered the night they met as the only memory he wished would play over again. Slowly, it too became gray, and far off like her picture. That’s what broke Zabine. He was there, doing nothing to get out, to return to his Angel.
“My angel… yes, my angel… I must return tonight…” The boy muttered. He fell back on his denied heritage, slaughtering the first guard to come in and feed him with his bare hands and leaving the gruesome camp, each step in his run taking him farther. In his ears, her voice led him by touch, and by smell. It gave him strength. He could see well the next night, having been raised in the Underdark had given him great eyesight in the poorest lighting. After what seemed hours of searching, he found the well. He knew it was the right one, the elven cottage nearby was confirmation. He saw a pair of longing blue eyes in the window. Hers! As silent as the wind, he snuck up next to the window, placing a palm up against the glass. His heart was galloping in his chest, and he wasn’t sure if it was her. An ivory hand, smaller than his own, pressed to the pane from the inside, his shadowing it like a monster of the night. In that instant, the two were reunited for good. He let his hand slide down around the panes of glass, edging them up. He pried, one by one, all four of the sections out and used what little strength he had left to snap the wood crosser. He looked up into the darkened room, smiling in the moonlight at a teary-eyed Niviba. She leaned out the window, taking his cheeks in her palms like she had the night they met, her lips meeting his. Her tears ran down over his chin, but he closed his eyes, and all that was the world was them. Zabine reached up, his hands guiding her over the window sill so they could escape. She fell into his arms, still fully clothed. She hadn’t changed, she had been waiting, and she looked like she hadn’t eaten nor slept for a good amount of days. He kept his pain with held from her view, strong as he carried her away, and swift. He had left no true trace of their disappearance, less for her parents to know. They were free now.
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