Menelei grew up in the village of Crying Leaf, in the Mierani Forest, the daughter of Suliel and a renowned warrior named Faredur, who had fought famous battles against the giants. As a girl, she spent hours training with the bow, but she lacked her father's genius with the weapon. Her gifts lay elsewhere.
She spent her free hours travelling the woods, exploring and observing. At night, she would sit and watch the stars long into the night. As she grew into adolescence, her best friend Nuanui found her beautiful. He planned their future together and Menelei accepted it silently, for it was a long way off, and she could not yet speak of her dreams of travelling far beyond the forest of her home.
Years went by as they do for elves, and when she celebrated her first centennial, Nuanui made his courtship formal. It seemed that her future would be to stay forever in Crying Leaf, until one night she was walking with her fiancee. Her father had been speaking of the great battles of the past, and Nuanui had become jealous of the old warrior's fame and prowess.
"Anyone can shoot a giant," Nuanui complained. "Where is the greatness in that? I already am a better archer than he ever was, I just haven't had the chance to prove it. But I see my chance now."
He pointed to a bee dancing around a flower, and strung his bow. It was so far off in the dark that Menelei could barely see it, and she said nothing, thinking his words were an empty boast. A moment later, though, the arrow flew and both bee and flower disappeared. Nuanui laughed cruelly, and chose another target, a butterfly fluttering overhead against the stars. This time Menelei grabbed the shaft of the arrow before he loosed it.
"They are harmless insects," she said. "And the butterfly is sacred to Desna. You don't need to kill it to prove yourself."
"Don't you ever defy me, again," Nuanui snapped. "You are mine."
"I am my own."
Nuanui lashed out and struck her so hard with the shaft of his bow that it snapped, and it may have been that was all that saved her life. She fled, and he pursued, howling in his fury, but he could not catch her, and he could not shoot her with a broken bow. The next day, the engagement was broken formally, and Menelei left the village.
She travelled to Riddleport, and it was there that she first acknowledged that she was no longer just Suliel's and Faredur's daughter and Nuanui's betrothed. She had become Desna's servant, and in that she found a sense of belonging that she had never known in Mierani. She took ship for the south, but when the ship put in and Sandpoint and she saw the number of Swallowtail butterflies near the harbor, she took it as a message from Desna, and decided to stay.
