Talan's Background
Talan crouched low beside a towering cypress. She could hear the soft crunch of dried leaves as the stranger passed. He didn't seem to be taking much care to conceal his passage, and the ranger silently worried he'd attract company - company she didn't want to have to deal with right now. At this moment, she had one concern, and one concern only: Who was this dark haired human, and why had he been following her? She knew, of course, that she was being followed. Talan wasn't sure what concerned her most, the fact that someone was trailing her, or that he wasn't taking any pains to disguise the fact. Either the man was an incompetent idiot, or he was very sure of himself. She didn't know which irritated her most.
As the dark form slipped by her, she crept from her spot beside the tree, taking a quick glance back in the direction he'd come, and then turning back to train her eye upon the human. Stepping into the path, she trained her arrow upon the man's back, and pulled the bowstring back with only the lightest of creaks.
"Hold." Her words, while softly spoken, were seriously meaningful.
The figure ahead of her chuckled, "It's about time."
Talan crinkled her nose in irritation. "Turn around," she ordered.
The man turned, a haughty smile spread across his face. "Really, Talan, I thought you'd never discover me."
Talan tried to disguise her surprise and agitation. Gods, how she hated arrogance. "You're awfully bold for someone who's an arrow aimed at their chest."
"Talan, sweet Talan... don't you recognize me?" he asked opening his arms wide as if in a gesture of amity. "It's Eithan." His brows furrowed at her lack of recognition. "Your brother."
Talan snorted. "Ha. I don't have a brother."
Eithan grinned. "You do now."
Talan smirked as she pointed to his ears with her nocked arrow. "You're human. I, obviously, am elven."
"I am quite aware of your lineage, Talaneyle," he replied confidently.
Talaneyle! He knew her given name! No one, save her father and her wench of a mother knew her given name. To everyone, she'd always been simply Talan. The shock registered on her face. Angered at her confusion, she snarled at the man.
"I think you'd best be telling me what in the hells you're talking about before I grow weary of holding back this string," she retorted.
Eithan sighed heavily. "Really, is it necessary for you to point that thing at me? I am quite unarmed."
From all outward appearances, he was. Eithan was a handsome man. Steel blue eyes accentuated his darkly tanned and chiseled face, and his shoulder-length black locks curled about his neck in the places his ponytail had refused admittance. Tall and slim, he towered a good seven inches over Talan's frame. He wore a silken shirt of royal blue, paired with soft black pants that tucked into leather knee boots. No sword hung from his hip, but that didn't mean he'd no daggers tucked in his sleeve or snuggled inside a booted calf. "He could be a mage," Talan thought. It didn't matter. She wasn't taking her aim off of him for one second.
She narrowed her eyes at him and flexed her drawing shoulder a bit.
"You have mother's eyes, you know," Eithan remarked.
Talan spat. "I have nothing, nor do I want anything from Zaena."
Despite her insistence, she couldn't deny that she did indeed have her mother's eyes, eyes that eerily matched those of the stranger before her. That one feature, however, was where any resemblance ended. Talan was fairer-skinned, though by no means pale, and her hair was a soft brown with streaks of gold. Her sharply pointed ears and delicate features marked her elven blood without question.
"That, Talan, does not surprise nor in any way disturb me. As mother's go, she wouldn't win any awards," said Eithan dryly.
Talan chewed the corner of her lip in thought. He seemed to know so much, this Eithan. And she couldn't deny the uncanny likeness to her orbs.
"Why should I believe you?" she asked.
Eithan sighed. "Really, Talan, you know it's true. I can see it in your expression. Talaneyle Khelban, first and only daughter of Abrel and Zaena Khelban, elven child begat of two half-elven parents. You've seen 127 autumns, and the last time you saw your mother, you were just shy of your centennial autumn. In fact, that was the only time you'd seen her since she left you with Abrel at the age of 14."
"Several people know that -" She began to reflexively dispute, but Eithan cut her off.
"You have a crescent shaped birthmark on your right hip, just shy of your waist," he stated.
"How -"
Again, Eithan interrupted her. "Several years after Zaena's unscrupulous departure - 98 to be exact - she met a human swordmaster named Caden Baern. Two years after that - and three weeks after she visited you - they were married. I was born five years after that. And yes, I am human. And your brother." He smiles. "Your half brother, at least. Eithan Baern."
Talan stood somewhat speechless, staring at the man as if she didn't wish to believe his words, but some part of her knew he spoke the truth. Her thoughts began to swirl into questions, many questions, many emotions, all tumbling together at once. Her gaze found the ground as she tried to sort them all out into something that might actually pass her lips.
"I'm sure this is quite hard to take," he offered softly.
Talan looks up to regard him, lowering her bow. "Indeed it-"
Eithan's eyes opened wide in shock and Talan followed his gaze down to the shaft protruding from his chest. A circle of blood dampened the silken shirt, and the elf looked down to her own bow, errantly thinking somehow she'd loosed the arrow. Even as her eyes found the arrow still nocked, her mind refused to register it until she felt the sting in her thigh.
"Eithan..." The name passed almost soundlessly from her lips as she trailed her gaze from the feathered wood in her thigh to his form lying in a heap upon the ground. Cloaked figures began to close in on them, five... maybe seven... Her vision blurred them into blobs of black, and she blinked several times. One of the figures was upon her.. he was speaking. Talan. He'd said her name.
Her mouth opened to speak, but no words tumbled forth as the arrow's poison spread hotly through her body, and carried her to oblivion.