"Get up."
Standing in the doorway was a dark elf whose beauty honored Babylon. She scanned the room with her gaze, avoiding looking at him.
In her slender hands, she held a worn leather package, roughly closed with a braided leather strap. Without a word, without a glance, she let it drop at his feet.
"Mother?" he murmured, more to himself than to her.
Deep down he knew that word was meaningless, that it represented nothing to the woman standing before him. Yet, despite everything, in the deepest part of his heart, he kept a tiny spark of hope. The absurd hope that one day she would look at him.
A muscle twitched imperceptibly on the dark elf's jaw. She abruptly turned her gaze away, staring intently at the window, anything as long as it wasn't him.
"Don't call me that," she rejected in a cold voice.
He lowered his head, his eyes settling again on the contents of the package. Then he picked it up.
