Maebe took some time to really consider whether she wanted to go into that dank cave and find herself a partner. That was what they'd told her to do.. and that meant she didn't want to do it. But nobody had tried to push her, nobody had urged her on, they'd just left her alone to make the only decision she could make. Either she went in, or she stood there and did nothing.. forever. Those were her choices. Which meant she wasn't really given a choice at all.

The last thing she wanted was to be forced to bond with anyone, or anything. Scratch that, the second last thing. If she was going to be honest, the last thing she wanted was to stay out here alone a minute longer. And that was what made her choice for her - she headed down the stairs, one by one, with very slow, measured steps. Each step was slower than the last, but there was no stopping her until she got to the end. When she hit the floor with both feet, she gave up the pretense of getting away without doing this and looked around.

The whole room was covered in little squares. Each one had a symbol carved into them, and each one was different. Even the floor was covered in them; she felt like she was walking on peoples graves, every time her foot landed on a carving. There was no way for her to know just how close to the truth that feeling was.

Just walk around and touch the walls, they'd said. It didn't seem hard. She brushed her fingers against the squares, and ran down the lines of symbols. Nothing happened.

She tried harder. She tried to touch every single square she could. There were some too high to reach, and she jumped up as hard as she could, trying to lay her hand on them one by one. She felt like she'd touched every single damn square in the room, before she got down on her hands and knees, and started feeling the floor. A vague sort of desperation started to itch at her. WAS something supposed to happen? Or maybe she was just supposed to pick one out herself, and leave? She dug her fingers into a random floor tile, desperately trying to pull it out. All she managed was a broken nail, and a feeling of rejection.

None of them wanted her.

Maebe stood up and let out a quiet, but frustrated scream. She started scratching at the tiles, trying to find any loose corner or edge to pull at. None of them budged. She kicked at the floor, and only managed to hurt her foot. So she did it again, and again, and a dozen times more.

Finally, she crumpled into a corner, burying herself as much as possible in its darkness. All of the tiles remained dormant and silent, but it felt like they were all laughing at her. Laughing, and ignoring, and refusing to care.

She put her hands down on the floor to push herself back up, and a seething pain burned her right hand. When she turned her hand to look at it, the skin was red, puckered everywhere except for the etched marking of the tablet it had been resting on. It was a thin line, topped with three arrows. She brushed the fingers of her other hand on the puckered skin, and winced at the pain. The tablet had burned her hand raw, and she smiled. Turning to look down at the tablet itself, she found it still attached to the floor, but the faint glow of heat burned the block of stone with a soft red hue. She knew it was still hot to touch, but she also knew that it was the only one that had reacted to her.

It was hers.

Maebe's hands, both the burned and the uninjured, sunk her fingernails down on the edges and tugged the tablet out of the floor. It singed her skin and made her fingernails tingle with heat. She settled it on her lap, where the warmth quickly permeated through her clothes.

Suilad, little elf. A gravelly male voice spoke into her mind for the first time. She felt the heat of it coursing through her, leaving her warm, with a little headache from the pain.

"Are you mine?" She asked, picking up the tablet. It no longer burned her skin, as it melted away into something more.

No. It answered. The tablet lengthened into a long, black rod. On, and on it went, until the ends exploded into trident formation. You are mine.

She wanted to be disturbed at that. She never wanted to be claimed by anyone.. and she hated when someone tried. But Thaw - she knew his name without him ever saying the word - Thaw wrapped his warmth around her like a blanket, soft and protecting. She couldn't help but accept.

A small, needy voice murmured back out into the empty room. "Okay."