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Vierna Kastan AU
Family in Exile (2827 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Drizzt Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Original Drow Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary:
Vierna had the spell burning in her mind, a gate that she could use once she stepped out of Menzoberranzan's protections. However, she had one set of lingering issues to deal with before she could use it.
Her father and brother had managed to escape, the very night Matron Malice had discovered the crime of allowing a faerie to live. Vierna had thrown every strength she had into hiding her own secrets, and it had taken three years to reach this point.
Those three years had confirmed what she feared happened the night of graduation, something she meant to fix now.
The mercenary gave her a jaunty bow, then passed over the sleeping boy, small enough to yank memories of Drizzt at his most vulnerable to mind. In turn, she passed over the list of dweomer commands, and a lock of Maya's hair.
"Tell the Ghost I'll be looking, when you find him," Jarlaxle said.
"Remember to forget you saw me, until the House falls, or I won't be able to," she answered him with a hard smile, one he returned before she ascended to her escape path.
Rilauven was a challenge, trying to secure her place as well as raise a child on her own. Kastan — the boy had stubbornly insisted that was his name — had been won over by her willingness to answer his questions. Her heart ached, that she had not been able to be this open in teaching Drizzt.
She had to secure her place, though. Reaching out to Zaknafein and Drizzt had to wait, until she had proven her place in the temple hierarchy. She could only lean into her status as a life-long Masked Traitor so much; Vhaeraun expected strong service from His people.
That meant trusting the childcare of the Temple with her nephew, when she had other duties. In that, one of the first to greet her, a cleric called Nalatar, was helpful. They kept the boy, narrowed down a pool of candidates, and helped Vierna choose the acolyte that would best serve her. It was mutually beneficial; Vierna would be expected to teach the acolyte in exchange for the childcare.
Nauven proved that he was more than adept with a child who already knew how to manage his body functions already, and the three of them fell into a rhythm that saw Kastan learning as adeptly as Drizzt had, Nauven progressing in his studies, and Vierna swiftly proving she was every bit the skilled cleric their god had chosen.
Time passed, and Kastan was five years old before she realized it, and she knew she needed to find the rest of their family.
Mantol-Derith had been a starting point. Yet Zaknafein had refused to stay long enough for Drizzt to be seen as odd, or to draw down attention. He got them signed up with traders as arms-men. They kept to themselves, but their reputation built — any wagon they guarded made it to its destination.
They were between jobs, at a small trading post that included most of the races of the Underdark, when Zak felt an intrusion in his mind. He knew it wasn't Malice; he'd felt the ghostly agony of her death at some point in their travels, a last stamp of her on his life from centuries of mind-bonding spells from her.
~Zaknafein, come to Rilauven. It's your daughter, Vierna, and I swear to you on the pirate spiders you gave me that I was never Hers.~
He did not respond to her, though he knew that was part of the spell. No, he looked at his son, trying to decide if it was worth trying to find Bregan D'aerthe to get more information.
"What is it, Father?"
"Nothing to worry over," the elder man said, and shoved the contact to the back of his mind to mull over.
A week of Vierna insistently trying to convince Zak of her integrity and need to see them both had finally made Zaknafein ask a few of the merchants about the city she mentioned every time.
"They overthrew Lolth's clerics," one person said.
"They trade with the surface; it's one of the best cities for acquiring such things as only come from above."
"Every person is counted on their own merit."
"They do it weird — women as true fighters, men as clerics? I hear some women even do magic."
It was food for thought, and after a day stewing on it, Zaknafein found a merchant that would be sending a wagon in that direction soon enough for his liking.
"Next time we roll out," Zak told his son, "we won't be coming back here."
"Why?"
"Heard of a city that might be good for us both, with some … interesting perks."
Drizzt studied him hard. "What perks?"
"It's damned far from Menzoberranzan for one. Two, Lloth doesn't hold full sway there. Three… your sister is there."
That made Drizzt's eyes go wide. "Vierna?" he asked, just to confirm which one, even though their conversations had made it clear that Vierna was his full sister and the only one Zak had ever given a damn about.
"She's been coaxing me to let us go that way for several days now." Zak shrugged. "Don't plan on telling her we are coming, so we can see the city first, and make up our minds then."
Drizzt nodded, full of questions, but knew he'd need to wait for the answers.
Vierna had, of course, made certain guards loyal to the temple of Vhaeraun knew to be the look out for two men wearing equal length blades, probably still wearing their hair loose and pushed back from their faces. Drizzt's purple eyes were a distinctive feature to mark him out further.
She did not, however, immediately go seeking them when she learned two such had rolled in with one of the merchants. The last thing she wanted was to make Zak decide she was a threat.
Still, as days passed, and no message came, she worried. Had the city not met whatever it was Zak was seeking in a place for them? Did he still distrust her too much? Had her strange little brother grown too uncomfortable here and made Zak move them on?
She didn't have message they had left, and yet —
— Zaknafein was not called the Ghost of Menzoberranzan for nothing.
She would just have to be patient, at least a month, and see if the men she dearly loved came to find her. She said nothing to Kastan, now a boy of six, but did tell Nauven that if a message came, he was to pass it to her wherever she was, short of deep ritual.
Zak didn't start the trouble. Drizzt wasn't even the direct catalyst other than existing.
He had paid attention to the prohibition on killing other drow, when the obviously Lolthite woman in her spider-embroidered robes laid hands on his son, while her guards chivvied him. Zaknafein, master of every weapon he had ever touched —
— didn't need one to make a point.
Three guards were down, the fourth was struggling to get back to his feet, and Drizzt had already broken the woman's grip, maybe her hand, to get away.
"What's going on?" the newest person demanded, a woman herself, flanked by two men, all three clad in the city's guardian piwafwis.
"The young one is a thief," the Lolthite insisted.
"I have nothing I did not come to this city with," Drizzt said in a low tone. "I had trailed back from my father to look at that merchant's wares," he added, pointing in the direction of the market table.
"He lies," the guard that was not unconscious said.
"We'll take truth spells, in the presence of whoever decides these things," Zak rumbled. "As the four here immediately cut me off from my son, when she touched him unprovoked."
"Saer?" the leader of the city guardians invited. "Are you so willing, or do you withdraw your objection?"
Her comrades were studying the fallen three, fast hand-signs passing between them. Zak thought they were noticing he had not used crossbow bolts to render them non-threats.
"Perhaps my eyes deceived me," the Lolthite said. She then looked at her unconscious guards, rolled her eyes, and turned her back on them, with the fourth one hurrying to try to keep up with her.
Zak then looked at the guardians then. "Are we free to go?"
"I guess, unless you're looking to hire on as one of us; that was quick work."
"He's my only son," Zaknafein answered that, to judge how they understood it.
She winced, and the other two nodded. "You did well, abiding by the law. Go your own way."
"Enjoy your duty," Zak answered that, before guiding Drizzt toward the hostel they were staying at.
"Why?" Drizzt asked once they were away.
"Either the Spider-bitch set a plan in motion, or she just thought you would be pretty in her bed."
Drizzt's ashen features at the latter part of that concerned Zak… and then he remembered what graduation was like.
"I think we should go find your sister, as we just made an enemy."
"Alright," Drizzt agreed in the quietest voice Zak had ever heard from him. That just added to the alarm bells, and made Zak start puzzling at how to ease his gentle dancer over the trauma.
Fortunately — or because her god truly favored her — Vierna was in quarters when the message came that she had visitors.
"Kastan, do behave," she told her nephew, raised as a son. This habit of raising male relatives from a young age was amusing to her.
"I will." He didn't even look up from painstakingly copying the lesson Nauven had left for him this evening.
Vierna secured her maces, stepped out of the apartment, locked the door behind her, and headed for the entryway of the temple. She kept herself as calm as she could, making herself not move with any haste at all.
If it was not her father and brother, she might be cross with whomever it was, though!
Drizzt waited just behind his father's shoulder, and watched as Vierna came into view, wearing robes that were far more concealing, and embroidered in bats instead of spiders. He still wasn't sure what he thought of Lloth's son, but He at least seemed to value drow lives, and that was better than what they had left.
His sister looked radiant! She was smiling, and it was in her eyes! There was no coldness to her at all, and Drizzt began to believe, maybe, really, they could be a true family with her!
"Father. Drizzt, my brother," she said, and Drizzt caught the faintest release of tension as Vierna openly acknowledged Zak as her father!
"My student," Zaknafein said in a lazy drawl.
"Vehna," Drizzt said, mischief in his eyes.
She laughed. She laughed freely and warmly and then reached for a hand from both of them! Drizzt gave his quickly, and Zak followed suit, each getting their hands squeezed.
"I am so very glad you have both made it here," she told them. "Come, let's get out of the entry and go talk about the last few years, hmm?"
"Alright," Zak agreed, and they followed her into the Temple.
Behind closed doors, Vierna startled Zak further by wrapping a fierce hug around Drizzt, then turning to him. It was clear she wanted to — and he allowed it. Holding his daughter, hugging her tight to his chest, eased decades' old pain. She truly was free and whole and not part of all he hated.
"Sit, both of you. Before I take you back to my apartment here, I need to explain something. But first, I want to hear all about your lives since you made Malice the angriest I have ever seen her in my life."
Zak snorted. "Not much to say. We went to find work with traders, so we could keep moving. Have to say, your teaching, my teaching, the school… none of it made a drow out of Drizzt and I'm damned glad of it."
Vierna sighed and ran a hand over her braids with wry frustration. "He made it very hard to be true to my god, and not get both of us killed!"
"I'm sorry, Vierna," Drizzt said. "I figured out, later, just how different you were, but … I am me."
"So you are, little brother, and I think I want that as much as Father seems to." She smiled at him.
"You?"
Vierna looked back to Zak for that single word. "Three years to engineer my escape, to make certain I wasn't leaving a death hunt at my back," she said. "And that included making a bargain with Bregan D'aerthe.
"Jarlaxle said he will be looking for you," she told Zaknafein, who nodded, expecting that.
"We go back," he told Drizzt who had tensed.
"Quite personally even," Vierna teased lightly. "I had something to acquire, he had orders to set things in motion for Malice's fall. We concluded our deal, my god gave me a spell to escape once I left the city wards, and here I am."
She then shifted to get an arm around her brother, having sat down beside him on purpose. "Drizzt, I remember how… withdrawn you were, after school."
He looked away, not wanting a second reminder of that so soon, but she put her hand under his chin and drew his face back around.
"Something good came of it." She put her forehead to his. "You have a son — I might should say we do, just not traditionally."
"WHAT?!"
"A boy child came of it. He was what I named as my price for the aid I gave," Vierna told him. "I've raised him here. His name is Kastan. And I think he's going to be more like you than like me."
Zak moved from chair to the narrow spot on Drizzt's other side, hand going to his back. "Easy, my son," he soothed, watching the heavy emotions wrestle through Drizzt's corded muscles, before he finally managed to bring them under his control.
It hadn't even taken as long as Zak expected, making him proud again.
"I have a son, named Kastan, and he is like me," Drizzt said in more wonder than anything else. "When can I meet him? Does he know about me? Is he going to let me be his father? Does he have the dual-handed gift? Do you think he'll want to be a fighter?"
Zak had to chuckle as all those questions proved Drizzt had landed on his feet with the new situation. They would stay, and be a family, to Zak's glad relief.
Kastan looked up as his mama — aunt and he knew it but she'd said it was okay to be 'mama' — came back in with two men behind her. One, a fierce drow warrior with normal red eyes settled with his back to the wall once the door was shut and locked.
The other, though, had all of Kastan's attention. He was more slender in some ways than the first and, most importantly, his eyes were purple!
Kastan looked at Mama, who nodded once, and he stood up to go to the purple-eyed man — HIS FATHER?! — to meet him. Surprisingly, his father dropped to kneel, so he was more level with Kastan's height.
"You're Drizzt."
That got a silent nod.
"My father?"
The purple eyes were a little damp, but "yes" came out of his mouth.
Kastan stopped just inside of Drizzt's reach, feeling awkward all of a sudden, but the man opened his body, arms out but reaching, and that made up Kastan's mind. Like Mama, this drow hugged, and he liked hugs.
He didn't even mind when Drizzt settled back, dragging him into his lap, even if Kastan was really too old for that, because the song was singing a little louder, and he knew this was going to be even better than having Nauven teaching him.
"Hi."
"Hello, my son."
Drizzt and Kastan had gone to bed, leaving Vierna and Zaknafein in the main room.
"You've done so well, my daughter," he told her quietly. "We will stay, but you should know that Drizzt is nothing like even the people you've seen in this city."
Vierna sighed. "Neither is Kastan, though Kastan has had little reason to rub raw against it, like little brother did," she admitted. "Vhaeraun has decreed that even though Kastan hears His blessed Sister, that it serves a purpose, in time.
"And He's never been able to see Drizzt, which I think is why He was willing to not make me send Kastan to the goodly ones."
Zak sighed. "Well, let's keep them both safe here, as long as we can, and worry about that later."
"Yes, we will. Until then? We are together, and can learn the right way to be a family," Vierna decreed, with his full approval.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Drizzt Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Original Drow Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary:
Vierna makes a bargain with a dear reward, and eventually finds the other men of her family.
Family in Exile
Vierna had the spell burning in her mind, a gate that she could use once she stepped out of Menzoberranzan's protections. However, she had one set of lingering issues to deal with before she could use it.
Her father and brother had managed to escape, the very night Matron Malice had discovered the crime of allowing a faerie to live. Vierna had thrown every strength she had into hiding her own secrets, and it had taken three years to reach this point.
Those three years had confirmed what she feared happened the night of graduation, something she meant to fix now.
The mercenary gave her a jaunty bow, then passed over the sleeping boy, small enough to yank memories of Drizzt at his most vulnerable to mind. In turn, she passed over the list of dweomer commands, and a lock of Maya's hair.
"Tell the Ghost I'll be looking, when you find him," Jarlaxle said.
"Remember to forget you saw me, until the House falls, or I won't be able to," she answered him with a hard smile, one he returned before she ascended to her escape path.
Rilauven was a challenge, trying to secure her place as well as raise a child on her own. Kastan — the boy had stubbornly insisted that was his name — had been won over by her willingness to answer his questions. Her heart ached, that she had not been able to be this open in teaching Drizzt.
She had to secure her place, though. Reaching out to Zaknafein and Drizzt had to wait, until she had proven her place in the temple hierarchy. She could only lean into her status as a life-long Masked Traitor so much; Vhaeraun expected strong service from His people.
That meant trusting the childcare of the Temple with her nephew, when she had other duties. In that, one of the first to greet her, a cleric called Nalatar, was helpful. They kept the boy, narrowed down a pool of candidates, and helped Vierna choose the acolyte that would best serve her. It was mutually beneficial; Vierna would be expected to teach the acolyte in exchange for the childcare.
Nauven proved that he was more than adept with a child who already knew how to manage his body functions already, and the three of them fell into a rhythm that saw Kastan learning as adeptly as Drizzt had, Nauven progressing in his studies, and Vierna swiftly proving she was every bit the skilled cleric their god had chosen.
Time passed, and Kastan was five years old before she realized it, and she knew she needed to find the rest of their family.
Mantol-Derith had been a starting point. Yet Zaknafein had refused to stay long enough for Drizzt to be seen as odd, or to draw down attention. He got them signed up with traders as arms-men. They kept to themselves, but their reputation built — any wagon they guarded made it to its destination.
They were between jobs, at a small trading post that included most of the races of the Underdark, when Zak felt an intrusion in his mind. He knew it wasn't Malice; he'd felt the ghostly agony of her death at some point in their travels, a last stamp of her on his life from centuries of mind-bonding spells from her.
~Zaknafein, come to Rilauven. It's your daughter, Vierna, and I swear to you on the pirate spiders you gave me that I was never Hers.~
He did not respond to her, though he knew that was part of the spell. No, he looked at his son, trying to decide if it was worth trying to find Bregan D'aerthe to get more information.
"What is it, Father?"
"Nothing to worry over," the elder man said, and shoved the contact to the back of his mind to mull over.
A week of Vierna insistently trying to convince Zak of her integrity and need to see them both had finally made Zaknafein ask a few of the merchants about the city she mentioned every time.
"They overthrew Lolth's clerics," one person said.
"They trade with the surface; it's one of the best cities for acquiring such things as only come from above."
"Every person is counted on their own merit."
"They do it weird — women as true fighters, men as clerics? I hear some women even do magic."
It was food for thought, and after a day stewing on it, Zaknafein found a merchant that would be sending a wagon in that direction soon enough for his liking.
"Next time we roll out," Zak told his son, "we won't be coming back here."
"Why?"
"Heard of a city that might be good for us both, with some … interesting perks."
Drizzt studied him hard. "What perks?"
"It's damned far from Menzoberranzan for one. Two, Lloth doesn't hold full sway there. Three… your sister is there."
That made Drizzt's eyes go wide. "Vierna?" he asked, just to confirm which one, even though their conversations had made it clear that Vierna was his full sister and the only one Zak had ever given a damn about.
"She's been coaxing me to let us go that way for several days now." Zak shrugged. "Don't plan on telling her we are coming, so we can see the city first, and make up our minds then."
Drizzt nodded, full of questions, but knew he'd need to wait for the answers.
Vierna had, of course, made certain guards loyal to the temple of Vhaeraun knew to be the look out for two men wearing equal length blades, probably still wearing their hair loose and pushed back from their faces. Drizzt's purple eyes were a distinctive feature to mark him out further.
She did not, however, immediately go seeking them when she learned two such had rolled in with one of the merchants. The last thing she wanted was to make Zak decide she was a threat.
Still, as days passed, and no message came, she worried. Had the city not met whatever it was Zak was seeking in a place for them? Did he still distrust her too much? Had her strange little brother grown too uncomfortable here and made Zak move them on?
She didn't have message they had left, and yet —
— Zaknafein was not called the Ghost of Menzoberranzan for nothing.
She would just have to be patient, at least a month, and see if the men she dearly loved came to find her. She said nothing to Kastan, now a boy of six, but did tell Nauven that if a message came, he was to pass it to her wherever she was, short of deep ritual.
Zak didn't start the trouble. Drizzt wasn't even the direct catalyst other than existing.
He had paid attention to the prohibition on killing other drow, when the obviously Lolthite woman in her spider-embroidered robes laid hands on his son, while her guards chivvied him. Zaknafein, master of every weapon he had ever touched —
— didn't need one to make a point.
Three guards were down, the fourth was struggling to get back to his feet, and Drizzt had already broken the woman's grip, maybe her hand, to get away.
"What's going on?" the newest person demanded, a woman herself, flanked by two men, all three clad in the city's guardian piwafwis.
"The young one is a thief," the Lolthite insisted.
"I have nothing I did not come to this city with," Drizzt said in a low tone. "I had trailed back from my father to look at that merchant's wares," he added, pointing in the direction of the market table.
"He lies," the guard that was not unconscious said.
"We'll take truth spells, in the presence of whoever decides these things," Zak rumbled. "As the four here immediately cut me off from my son, when she touched him unprovoked."
"Saer?" the leader of the city guardians invited. "Are you so willing, or do you withdraw your objection?"
Her comrades were studying the fallen three, fast hand-signs passing between them. Zak thought they were noticing he had not used crossbow bolts to render them non-threats.
"Perhaps my eyes deceived me," the Lolthite said. She then looked at her unconscious guards, rolled her eyes, and turned her back on them, with the fourth one hurrying to try to keep up with her.
Zak then looked at the guardians then. "Are we free to go?"
"I guess, unless you're looking to hire on as one of us; that was quick work."
"He's my only son," Zaknafein answered that, to judge how they understood it.
She winced, and the other two nodded. "You did well, abiding by the law. Go your own way."
"Enjoy your duty," Zak answered that, before guiding Drizzt toward the hostel they were staying at.
"Why?" Drizzt asked once they were away.
"Either the Spider-bitch set a plan in motion, or she just thought you would be pretty in her bed."
Drizzt's ashen features at the latter part of that concerned Zak… and then he remembered what graduation was like.
"I think we should go find your sister, as we just made an enemy."
"Alright," Drizzt agreed in the quietest voice Zak had ever heard from him. That just added to the alarm bells, and made Zak start puzzling at how to ease his gentle dancer over the trauma.
Fortunately — or because her god truly favored her — Vierna was in quarters when the message came that she had visitors.
"Kastan, do behave," she told her nephew, raised as a son. This habit of raising male relatives from a young age was amusing to her.
"I will." He didn't even look up from painstakingly copying the lesson Nauven had left for him this evening.
Vierna secured her maces, stepped out of the apartment, locked the door behind her, and headed for the entryway of the temple. She kept herself as calm as she could, making herself not move with any haste at all.
If it was not her father and brother, she might be cross with whomever it was, though!
Drizzt waited just behind his father's shoulder, and watched as Vierna came into view, wearing robes that were far more concealing, and embroidered in bats instead of spiders. He still wasn't sure what he thought of Lloth's son, but He at least seemed to value drow lives, and that was better than what they had left.
His sister looked radiant! She was smiling, and it was in her eyes! There was no coldness to her at all, and Drizzt began to believe, maybe, really, they could be a true family with her!
"Father. Drizzt, my brother," she said, and Drizzt caught the faintest release of tension as Vierna openly acknowledged Zak as her father!
"My student," Zaknafein said in a lazy drawl.
"Vehna," Drizzt said, mischief in his eyes.
She laughed. She laughed freely and warmly and then reached for a hand from both of them! Drizzt gave his quickly, and Zak followed suit, each getting their hands squeezed.
"I am so very glad you have both made it here," she told them. "Come, let's get out of the entry and go talk about the last few years, hmm?"
"Alright," Zak agreed, and they followed her into the Temple.
Behind closed doors, Vierna startled Zak further by wrapping a fierce hug around Drizzt, then turning to him. It was clear she wanted to — and he allowed it. Holding his daughter, hugging her tight to his chest, eased decades' old pain. She truly was free and whole and not part of all he hated.
"Sit, both of you. Before I take you back to my apartment here, I need to explain something. But first, I want to hear all about your lives since you made Malice the angriest I have ever seen her in my life."
Zak snorted. "Not much to say. We went to find work with traders, so we could keep moving. Have to say, your teaching, my teaching, the school… none of it made a drow out of Drizzt and I'm damned glad of it."
Vierna sighed and ran a hand over her braids with wry frustration. "He made it very hard to be true to my god, and not get both of us killed!"
"I'm sorry, Vierna," Drizzt said. "I figured out, later, just how different you were, but … I am me."
"So you are, little brother, and I think I want that as much as Father seems to." She smiled at him.
"You?"
Vierna looked back to Zak for that single word. "Three years to engineer my escape, to make certain I wasn't leaving a death hunt at my back," she said. "And that included making a bargain with Bregan D'aerthe.
"Jarlaxle said he will be looking for you," she told Zaknafein, who nodded, expecting that.
"We go back," he told Drizzt who had tensed.
"Quite personally even," Vierna teased lightly. "I had something to acquire, he had orders to set things in motion for Malice's fall. We concluded our deal, my god gave me a spell to escape once I left the city wards, and here I am."
She then shifted to get an arm around her brother, having sat down beside him on purpose. "Drizzt, I remember how… withdrawn you were, after school."
He looked away, not wanting a second reminder of that so soon, but she put her hand under his chin and drew his face back around.
"Something good came of it." She put her forehead to his. "You have a son — I might should say we do, just not traditionally."
"WHAT?!"
"A boy child came of it. He was what I named as my price for the aid I gave," Vierna told him. "I've raised him here. His name is Kastan. And I think he's going to be more like you than like me."
Zak moved from chair to the narrow spot on Drizzt's other side, hand going to his back. "Easy, my son," he soothed, watching the heavy emotions wrestle through Drizzt's corded muscles, before he finally managed to bring them under his control.
It hadn't even taken as long as Zak expected, making him proud again.
"I have a son, named Kastan, and he is like me," Drizzt said in more wonder than anything else. "When can I meet him? Does he know about me? Is he going to let me be his father? Does he have the dual-handed gift? Do you think he'll want to be a fighter?"
Zak had to chuckle as all those questions proved Drizzt had landed on his feet with the new situation. They would stay, and be a family, to Zak's glad relief.
Kastan looked up as his mama — aunt and he knew it but she'd said it was okay to be 'mama' — came back in with two men behind her. One, a fierce drow warrior with normal red eyes settled with his back to the wall once the door was shut and locked.
The other, though, had all of Kastan's attention. He was more slender in some ways than the first and, most importantly, his eyes were purple!
Kastan looked at Mama, who nodded once, and he stood up to go to the purple-eyed man — HIS FATHER?! — to meet him. Surprisingly, his father dropped to kneel, so he was more level with Kastan's height.
"You're Drizzt."
That got a silent nod.
"My father?"
The purple eyes were a little damp, but "yes" came out of his mouth.
Kastan stopped just inside of Drizzt's reach, feeling awkward all of a sudden, but the man opened his body, arms out but reaching, and that made up Kastan's mind. Like Mama, this drow hugged, and he liked hugs.
He didn't even mind when Drizzt settled back, dragging him into his lap, even if Kastan was really too old for that, because the song was singing a little louder, and he knew this was going to be even better than having Nauven teaching him.
"Hi."
"Hello, my son."
Drizzt and Kastan had gone to bed, leaving Vierna and Zaknafein in the main room.
"You've done so well, my daughter," he told her quietly. "We will stay, but you should know that Drizzt is nothing like even the people you've seen in this city."
Vierna sighed. "Neither is Kastan, though Kastan has had little reason to rub raw against it, like little brother did," she admitted. "Vhaeraun has decreed that even though Kastan hears His blessed Sister, that it serves a purpose, in time.
"And He's never been able to see Drizzt, which I think is why He was willing to not make me send Kastan to the goodly ones."
Zak sighed. "Well, let's keep them both safe here, as long as we can, and worry about that later."
"Yes, we will. Until then? We are together, and can learn the right way to be a family," Vierna decreed, with his full approval.