He woke to someone humming an old lullaby,. It was a girl. A familiar girl. At first it thought it was *her,* the girl he had been looking for, but as he listened, he realized it was someone else entirely. Despite knowing she had no intention of exacting revenge on him, his muscles tensed, but he opened his eyes to look at her.
They were in the little hut he had made to help him survive the colder months in the valley. Her back was to him as she tended to something over a fire. She wore hide coat that hide her muscular arms and matching pants that hid her muscular legs. Her long, dark brown hair was in a messy braid that cascaded down her back and brushed against the stone floor as she swayed back and forth to the tune she hummed.
"How did you find me?" he asked, and his hoarse voice surprised him.
The girl turned to look at him, revealing that she had been boiling water in a kettle for them. She gave him a light smile. When he met her eyes, emerald with flecks of brown, he closed his eyes again. They reminded him of the very reason she should have hated him, and he could never understand why she didn't.
"You don't remember?" she said in that *human* accent of hers. "You're the one who found me. You saved me from drowning in the river."
"I see."
They were silent for a moment.
"I didn't think I'd find you," the girl admitted, "after you ran away. I certainly didn't think you'd rescue me, after holding you prisoner."
He snorted at that, and he opened his eyes to meet hers again.
"*Prisoner*? Please, despite being one yourself, you don't know the first thing about keeping an elf prisoner."
The girl averted her gaze toward the floor. She lifted a hand to touch her pointed her, and she tried to disguise the motion by smoothing her hair behind her ear.
The moment reminded him that her perception of her heritage was much different from his because her human father had raised her without the guidance of her elven mother.
"It's only because I didn't want them to hurt you," she said. "I know the proper way to do it."
He doubted her words, but there was already guilt rising in his belly for making her feel self-conscious for something she had not chosen to be.
"I'm sorry for intruding," she said, standing. "Now that I know you're fine, I should go."
Without thinking, he grabbed her wrist, and she turned to him, startled.
"Stay," he said. "I think we both have many questions for each other."
She nodded, and she settled by the fire once more.
"I'll go first, if you don't mind," he said, releasing her, and he waited for her to look at him before he continued. "How can you show me so much kindness after I killed your father?"
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