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A Demand for his Aid
Feb. 13th, 2025 02:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
senmutA Demand for His Aid (3004 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Zaknafein Do'Urden, Vierna Do'Urden, Drizzt Do'Urden
Additional Tags: Canon Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Attempted Murder, Murder, Family Dynamics, Graphic Description of Injuries
Summary:
Zaknafein was headed for his quarters after having dealt with an infraction of discipline in the commoner soldiers. He was not in the best of moods already when there was a very intense hiss in his mind.
~Your children need you!~
The voice was male, with more power to it than Malice had ever brought to bear on him, and he had the fleeting impression of a mask floating in shadows. If he were any other drow, he would have pushed off the intrusion, knowing full well what the mask symbolized, and not wanting anything to do with it.
His weakness, though, was children, with his own first and foremost, even if his daughter was long lost to him.
He turned to go to the chapel where they both should be, and he could hear — and smell — the vicious attack happening inside there.
Neither woman involved in the attack was looking at the doorway. Vierna was caught in a spell, her face twisted in agony, while the boy was being all but flayed alive under the snapping mouths of two whips held by Malice and her youngest daughter.
Zaknafein acted before thought, brought fully to a rage to see the boy, not yet out of the care of his wean-mother, being killed before his very eyes in such a horrific fashion. He could not even take satisfaction in finally killing Malice, barely noting her shriek as one sword went above her cleric robes to take her head.
Maya turned, and his other sword found her heart, enchanted to overcome what pitiful protections she had worked into her robes. Vierna had begun to move the moment Malice's life ended, indicating which one had been holding her, but his daughter was ignoring him and the violence to get to the boy.
"No, no, my little brother, you cannot die on me, you must live!" he heard her say, hands working feverishly to stem the bleeding, raw wounds. "Weapon Master, Briza is out of house today; hold the door against others!"
The words were an order, but the need behind them reverberated in Zak's heart, seeing one child he thought lost trying to save the one that had never been meant to live at all.
"You'll have to hurry, Priestess," he said gruffly, but moved to be certain no others came… or that they died before they could report what had happened.
"Just need to get salve on them," she said, and he would have sworn there was desperation in the words.
He flicked his attention that way, saw that she was applying the salve to a large piece of cloth. That was wise; it could be laid over all the wounds at once. His ears strained for the sound of any approaches, filtering out her flurry of activity. When she snapped her fingers for his attention, he saw she had secured the boy to her with shawls, keeping him against her side.
"Down to the tizzin holding pens, and we can get out a secret way there, with the one that answers to me? Or do you have a better idea?" she asked, her hands hot and almost blurring the signs in her haste.
Well, at least she was smart enough they had to get out. Then again, she had always been exceptional in most regards.
"That works," he replied, coming to her side. "If you have a plan, given this was not on my agenda today," he added, letting his dark sense of humor rear up.
She drew in a deep breath. "I don't know what betrayed us, but yes, I have a plan. I don't dare swing through my quarters, but I leave certain things in my saddle bags that will help us. We just need clear of this place before Briza returns."
Zak nodded, indicating for her to lead, unsurprised when she took him down a back passage from the chapel. He stayed alert, noting that she had the dagger he had given her in the hand not under the shawl holding the boy to her. Zak noted the boy was running hot, not cooling, indicating he might yet live from the torture he'd been put through.
Once they reached the tizzin holding pens, Zaknafein set to getting the one she indicated rigged with harness and added a second saddle to the gear Vierna had indicated. While he did so, she went and opened the gate that would let the mounts reach their feeding paddock, giving them a cushion of time as the beasts would be surly to be called back from food, if pursuit should begin immediately.
"Ready."
Vierna came to his side, using her levitate to rise high enough to get into the saddle, shifting the boy in front of her to better support him. Zak climbed up behind, ignoring the beast's protest, and watched as his daughter used a spell to open a door that had been hidden, one that led to a portal.
"You better really trust whatever that leads to," Zak murmured in her ear, and was relieved by her defiant little laugh.
"Malice should be the only other person who could command it, and it takes time to resurrect someone." She commanded the beast forward, putting them through the opening and into something that was more wild than Zak had seen in centuries. The faintest glow ahead made his eyes try to shift into the visible spectrum, but he focused, surveying everything for dangers.
"Her gathering paths," he said, once he was satisfied.
"I don't think she's done it more than a handful of times since I took the task over," Vierna said, guiding the tizzin to one of the smaller caves she knew to exist. "We are going to have to hole up long enough for me to pray for healing for him, Weapon Master."
"For better or worse, Priestess, I am tied to your fate now. And his."
"I will do all I can to see you never regret that," she told him.
What the hell did he even say to that? He didn't have words, but let her get them somewhere they could be safer fro the moment. When they were inside the small cavern, and the entry sealed with another spell, he almost had an answer, shocking as it was, when she pulled a mask out, tying it on, so that she could reach for divine spells.
His daughter was not Lloth's? She followed Vhaeraun?!
The day was only getting stranger.
The boy — his son — was ashen in color, under the blue faerie fire she pulled up to observe him by. He was far too hot, and Zaknafein could see how discolored both the bandaging cloth and the shawl were from lost blood.
If the boy died, at least he would die free and not in that damned chapel!
It didn't look like Vierna was going to accept even that benediction as she prayed fervently and applied the prayers diligently to the boy's back. Slowly, the heat receded, and some color returned, until finally Vierna had nothing left to give, and the boy's labored breathing could be heard.
"I will ask again tomorrow," she said firmly, letting the mask dangle on her neck before she looked at Zaknafein, face almost challenging him to speak his mind.
"How long?"
"Always."
"How?!"
She smiled, wearily, before smoothing the boy's hair away from his face a little, and off of his back. "Because a man once drugged my nurse, and offered me a gift to learn from."
That didn't answer how, not really, but Zak settled back to weigh his next words. He watched her do small cantrips to get the cloths clean. Once they were, she covered the boy to keep him warmer, eyes tight when it provoked a small sound of pain.
"What happened?" he finally asked.
"Somehow, they discovered my allegiance," Vierna said with bitterness. "I'd been so careful, but maybe… one of his questions was heard, one I didn't punish for and would have, under the spider's demands. They both came, and before I could do anything to defend us, to maybe dispel their suspicion, Malice accused me, and put me in an agonizing hold, decreeing I would watch him be destroyed before she delivered me to her goddess."
"Do you need any salve?" Zak asked, flinching from that punishment. He'd felt it once or twice in his centuries of blaspheming.
"No, if you have some, save it for him," Vierna said. "How did you know?"
"Your god, who I don't like much better than Her, told me I was needed," he told her, not yet willing to lay it out too openly.
Vierna's mouth tightened in a thin line. "He always told me you were my best choice for help, when the time came. Only, that was supposed to be when I was ready to take the House. We never counted on such a strange child as Drizzt is." Her tone was affectionate, as was the gaze she dropped on the boy, and Zaknafein's heart clenched with strange emotions.
"Had Briza been present, I might have been able to take all three, with surprise on my side as it was," Zak mused. "But she wasn't, and we could not have held against what she brought back to the House with her, given that the bitch-goddess would have warned her."
"No. So now, I will take him to one of my God's cities… and I very much would like for you to join me all the way there, Weapon Master."
"Not about to let the two of you wander the wilds alone," Zak told her gruffly. "Especially with his injuries."
She looked relieved… and exhausted, actually showing her true state to him.
"Sleep, Vierna. I can keep a watch, and you said they shouldn't be able to follow until they resurrect Malice."
"I… thank you."
Somehow, impossibly to Zak's view of things, the boy was conscious before Vierna had fully awakened. Maybe it was the pain, even though only a slight hitch of breath had given the boy away before those eyes — such a shade of purple — opened. It looked like the boy was biting his lip against making any more noise, but Vierna had also heard the change in breathing, and brought her hand to the boy's cheek with such gentleness that Zak felt his chest tighten again.
"Easy, my wean-son, easy little brother," she crooned softly. "We are safe, and we will get you healed." Zak knew it was too soon for her to make the effort again; no god was that generous.
"Introduce us, and I will treat his back with the salve," he told her in a quiet voice, as those purple eyes had never left him once they opened.
"Drizzt, this is the Weapon Master, Zaknafein. He can take care of you as I do. He will not hurt you."
The boy blinked once, and that was when Zak realized it wasn't a fever — or merely the fever — that was making the boy's face blotchy. He had a whip strike across his cheek and jaw, making Zak wonder if they had gone for the boy's tongue.
His temper flared, and he truly wished he'd had time to make the deaths hurt.
"No, don't sit up, unless you have injuries on your front," Zak told the boy as he moved closer, pulling his own jar of salve out. The boy stopped moving, and laid very still as Zaknafein pulled the cloth coverings back to deal with the half-closed injuries along the back. His touch was as light as he could make it, but the boy made no sound, only flinching minutely at each touch.
That Vierna was watching, rather than going back to sleep, reinforced her investment in the boy's welfare, especially as she kept her touch lightly on the uninjured side of his face. Zak had to indicate for her to move so he could put the salve on the boy's face, and those eyes closed but still there was silence, even though that had to be more painful than the ones on the back.
He sat back, watched the boy fall into a quieter, more even breathing, and met Vierna's eyes after he put the salve away.
"Always so quiet?" he signed.
"After punishment only. Always questioning."
Zak studied the boy, then her. "Let him ask."
It was bold, a demand, and he half-expected anger from her.
"I plan to."
That… was unexpected, but good.
Vierna decided for them that lingering was ill-advised and had them moving again as soon as she had done her praying. The boy settled in front of her, the sling connecting them still, but Zak had seen his body was much better. Once she had scried the path they needed, Vierna worked some more healing on the boy, and they traveled in silence for several hours, only stopping for brief rests.
The boy slept, enough that Zak was becoming concerned, and brought it up once they reached a defensible camping point.
"Should he be awake more? I could hold him and walk along side, if so," he signed.
Vierna shook her head. "Better that he sleep, my Lord has said, when He gives me the healing. Both for our travel, and so there is no lingering damage.
"But thank you."
There was no sarcasm, only genuine gratitude, the kind of emotion that Zak had seen so rarely in his life. He inclined his head, and continued checking for threats. Once he was satisfied, he settled near them, watching the boy be awakened for the food and drink that Vierna had summoned for them to share. The purple eyes were so odd, but more, Zak could not see anything of himself in the features, only Malice… yet Vierna was much the same.
He focused on the boy's hands then, and watched as both were used with indifference, no slighting of either one, with ease. He looked up at Vierna's face, knowing she was watching him study the boy. She gave a small smile.
"He shares the trait," she signed… while using her free hand to stroke the boy's hair.
That actually made Zak smile, a small twitch upwards of the corner of his mouth.
"We get it from you, don't we?" she added then.
He didn't want to lie to her; they were dependent on each other for the time being. He gave a short nod.
"Well. I am glad, though it does mean I will likely never find a patron worth having at my side. Who could live up to what you have proven a man should be?"
Her words, delivered with sass behind the motions, made him chuckle, rather than dwell on the fact she seemed pleased by it.
"Daughter." He signed the one word, willing all the misunderstandings of the past to be gone.
"Father." She knew the sign for it, usually only seen in the commoners, not using the formal 'sire', and that made his chest tight again.
No one, he swore, was ever hurting them again.
Drizzt did not, really, complain once he was feeling better. He was just a little more active in trying to 'help' his sister get him secured.
Amazingly, Vierna saw the issue and stopped with the shawls, looking at the boy with patient eyes.
"If I let you sit, you have hold on tight to the straps, in case we have to go up. That means not using your hands for anything else."
Zaknafein saw the boy's eyes widen, then he clung to Vierna, letting her finish getting the shawls in place. Once they were moving, the tizzin still grunting displeasure at two riders plus a half-size child, he looked over Vierna's shoulder a few times to see Drizzt moving a pebble on his fingers.
It was never the same hand when Zak checked.
The feeling of pride was growing, as he saw his daughter had kept the ability to care, and his son was as skilled in his hands as Zak himself had been at the same age.
The truce on not resisting being bound to his sister lasted a few days, and Zak, to forestall further concerns, took to walking. "Need to see and feel the tunnels, now that we're away from anything that looks vaguely familiar," he said, waving it off, before wrapping the tethers in a way that made it possible to secure his son in the second saddle.
That it meant Drizzt was hidden from anyone approaching them from the forward position was good enough for both of them to accept the new way.
Along with his body being mended, it seemed Drizzt's mind was becoming curious again, and Zaknafein got to listen as Vierna explained her religion, answered apparently old questions about why the women were like that, and at least half a dozen other topics. Vierna had not been exaggerating; Drizzt was always asking questions now that he didn't have to fear any whips. If Vierna was uncomfortable with the question, Drizzt would stop, but not to flinch.
No, the boy was quick to hug her, having learned he could be as tactile as he wanted with her now. The obvious affection between them was one more ache in Zak's chest.
If all drow had the capacity, why did it have to be the way it had been in their city?
That was something that chewed on his mind for a time, until Vierna's reassurances that her god's city would not be like that at all actually re-ignited hope for him.
In Menzoberranzan, a priestess's body was confiscated against potential use later, while her surviving daughter was absorbed into the Second House, and her assets distributed between First and Second.
In the wilds, Vierna led her family along a winding path to sanctuary that was far from the chaos strewn by their House ceasing to exist in that city.
And a father grew stronger in the care of his children, finding new purpose to living.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Characters: Zaknafein Do'Urden, Vierna Do'Urden, Drizzt Do'Urden
Additional Tags: Canon Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Attempted Murder, Murder, Family Dynamics, Graphic Description of Injuries
Summary:
When Zaknafein is contacted directly by a god, everything changes
A Demand for His Aid
Zaknafein was headed for his quarters after having dealt with an infraction of discipline in the commoner soldiers. He was not in the best of moods already when there was a very intense hiss in his mind.
~Your children need you!~
The voice was male, with more power to it than Malice had ever brought to bear on him, and he had the fleeting impression of a mask floating in shadows. If he were any other drow, he would have pushed off the intrusion, knowing full well what the mask symbolized, and not wanting anything to do with it.
His weakness, though, was children, with his own first and foremost, even if his daughter was long lost to him.
He turned to go to the chapel where they both should be, and he could hear — and smell — the vicious attack happening inside there.
Neither woman involved in the attack was looking at the doorway. Vierna was caught in a spell, her face twisted in agony, while the boy was being all but flayed alive under the snapping mouths of two whips held by Malice and her youngest daughter.
Zaknafein acted before thought, brought fully to a rage to see the boy, not yet out of the care of his wean-mother, being killed before his very eyes in such a horrific fashion. He could not even take satisfaction in finally killing Malice, barely noting her shriek as one sword went above her cleric robes to take her head.
Maya turned, and his other sword found her heart, enchanted to overcome what pitiful protections she had worked into her robes. Vierna had begun to move the moment Malice's life ended, indicating which one had been holding her, but his daughter was ignoring him and the violence to get to the boy.
"No, no, my little brother, you cannot die on me, you must live!" he heard her say, hands working feverishly to stem the bleeding, raw wounds. "Weapon Master, Briza is out of house today; hold the door against others!"
The words were an order, but the need behind them reverberated in Zak's heart, seeing one child he thought lost trying to save the one that had never been meant to live at all.
"You'll have to hurry, Priestess," he said gruffly, but moved to be certain no others came… or that they died before they could report what had happened.
"Just need to get salve on them," she said, and he would have sworn there was desperation in the words.
He flicked his attention that way, saw that she was applying the salve to a large piece of cloth. That was wise; it could be laid over all the wounds at once. His ears strained for the sound of any approaches, filtering out her flurry of activity. When she snapped her fingers for his attention, he saw she had secured the boy to her with shawls, keeping him against her side.
"Down to the tizzin holding pens, and we can get out a secret way there, with the one that answers to me? Or do you have a better idea?" she asked, her hands hot and almost blurring the signs in her haste.
Well, at least she was smart enough they had to get out. Then again, she had always been exceptional in most regards.
"That works," he replied, coming to her side. "If you have a plan, given this was not on my agenda today," he added, letting his dark sense of humor rear up.
She drew in a deep breath. "I don't know what betrayed us, but yes, I have a plan. I don't dare swing through my quarters, but I leave certain things in my saddle bags that will help us. We just need clear of this place before Briza returns."
Zak nodded, indicating for her to lead, unsurprised when she took him down a back passage from the chapel. He stayed alert, noting that she had the dagger he had given her in the hand not under the shawl holding the boy to her. Zak noted the boy was running hot, not cooling, indicating he might yet live from the torture he'd been put through.
Once they reached the tizzin holding pens, Zaknafein set to getting the one she indicated rigged with harness and added a second saddle to the gear Vierna had indicated. While he did so, she went and opened the gate that would let the mounts reach their feeding paddock, giving them a cushion of time as the beasts would be surly to be called back from food, if pursuit should begin immediately.
"Ready."
Vierna came to his side, using her levitate to rise high enough to get into the saddle, shifting the boy in front of her to better support him. Zak climbed up behind, ignoring the beast's protest, and watched as his daughter used a spell to open a door that had been hidden, one that led to a portal.
"You better really trust whatever that leads to," Zak murmured in her ear, and was relieved by her defiant little laugh.
"Malice should be the only other person who could command it, and it takes time to resurrect someone." She commanded the beast forward, putting them through the opening and into something that was more wild than Zak had seen in centuries. The faintest glow ahead made his eyes try to shift into the visible spectrum, but he focused, surveying everything for dangers.
"Her gathering paths," he said, once he was satisfied.
"I don't think she's done it more than a handful of times since I took the task over," Vierna said, guiding the tizzin to one of the smaller caves she knew to exist. "We are going to have to hole up long enough for me to pray for healing for him, Weapon Master."
"For better or worse, Priestess, I am tied to your fate now. And his."
"I will do all I can to see you never regret that," she told him.
What the hell did he even say to that? He didn't have words, but let her get them somewhere they could be safer fro the moment. When they were inside the small cavern, and the entry sealed with another spell, he almost had an answer, shocking as it was, when she pulled a mask out, tying it on, so that she could reach for divine spells.
His daughter was not Lloth's? She followed Vhaeraun?!
The day was only getting stranger.
The boy — his son — was ashen in color, under the blue faerie fire she pulled up to observe him by. He was far too hot, and Zaknafein could see how discolored both the bandaging cloth and the shawl were from lost blood.
If the boy died, at least he would die free and not in that damned chapel!
It didn't look like Vierna was going to accept even that benediction as she prayed fervently and applied the prayers diligently to the boy's back. Slowly, the heat receded, and some color returned, until finally Vierna had nothing left to give, and the boy's labored breathing could be heard.
"I will ask again tomorrow," she said firmly, letting the mask dangle on her neck before she looked at Zaknafein, face almost challenging him to speak his mind.
"How long?"
"Always."
"How?!"
She smiled, wearily, before smoothing the boy's hair away from his face a little, and off of his back. "Because a man once drugged my nurse, and offered me a gift to learn from."
That didn't answer how, not really, but Zak settled back to weigh his next words. He watched her do small cantrips to get the cloths clean. Once they were, she covered the boy to keep him warmer, eyes tight when it provoked a small sound of pain.
"What happened?" he finally asked.
"Somehow, they discovered my allegiance," Vierna said with bitterness. "I'd been so careful, but maybe… one of his questions was heard, one I didn't punish for and would have, under the spider's demands. They both came, and before I could do anything to defend us, to maybe dispel their suspicion, Malice accused me, and put me in an agonizing hold, decreeing I would watch him be destroyed before she delivered me to her goddess."
"Do you need any salve?" Zak asked, flinching from that punishment. He'd felt it once or twice in his centuries of blaspheming.
"No, if you have some, save it for him," Vierna said. "How did you know?"
"Your god, who I don't like much better than Her, told me I was needed," he told her, not yet willing to lay it out too openly.
Vierna's mouth tightened in a thin line. "He always told me you were my best choice for help, when the time came. Only, that was supposed to be when I was ready to take the House. We never counted on such a strange child as Drizzt is." Her tone was affectionate, as was the gaze she dropped on the boy, and Zaknafein's heart clenched with strange emotions.
"Had Briza been present, I might have been able to take all three, with surprise on my side as it was," Zak mused. "But she wasn't, and we could not have held against what she brought back to the House with her, given that the bitch-goddess would have warned her."
"No. So now, I will take him to one of my God's cities… and I very much would like for you to join me all the way there, Weapon Master."
"Not about to let the two of you wander the wilds alone," Zak told her gruffly. "Especially with his injuries."
She looked relieved… and exhausted, actually showing her true state to him.
"Sleep, Vierna. I can keep a watch, and you said they shouldn't be able to follow until they resurrect Malice."
"I… thank you."
Somehow, impossibly to Zak's view of things, the boy was conscious before Vierna had fully awakened. Maybe it was the pain, even though only a slight hitch of breath had given the boy away before those eyes — such a shade of purple — opened. It looked like the boy was biting his lip against making any more noise, but Vierna had also heard the change in breathing, and brought her hand to the boy's cheek with such gentleness that Zak felt his chest tighten again.
"Easy, my wean-son, easy little brother," she crooned softly. "We are safe, and we will get you healed." Zak knew it was too soon for her to make the effort again; no god was that generous.
"Introduce us, and I will treat his back with the salve," he told her in a quiet voice, as those purple eyes had never left him once they opened.
"Drizzt, this is the Weapon Master, Zaknafein. He can take care of you as I do. He will not hurt you."
The boy blinked once, and that was when Zak realized it wasn't a fever — or merely the fever — that was making the boy's face blotchy. He had a whip strike across his cheek and jaw, making Zak wonder if they had gone for the boy's tongue.
His temper flared, and he truly wished he'd had time to make the deaths hurt.
"No, don't sit up, unless you have injuries on your front," Zak told the boy as he moved closer, pulling his own jar of salve out. The boy stopped moving, and laid very still as Zaknafein pulled the cloth coverings back to deal with the half-closed injuries along the back. His touch was as light as he could make it, but the boy made no sound, only flinching minutely at each touch.
That Vierna was watching, rather than going back to sleep, reinforced her investment in the boy's welfare, especially as she kept her touch lightly on the uninjured side of his face. Zak had to indicate for her to move so he could put the salve on the boy's face, and those eyes closed but still there was silence, even though that had to be more painful than the ones on the back.
He sat back, watched the boy fall into a quieter, more even breathing, and met Vierna's eyes after he put the salve away.
"Always so quiet?" he signed.
"After punishment only. Always questioning."
Zak studied the boy, then her. "Let him ask."
It was bold, a demand, and he half-expected anger from her.
"I plan to."
That… was unexpected, but good.
Vierna decided for them that lingering was ill-advised and had them moving again as soon as she had done her praying. The boy settled in front of her, the sling connecting them still, but Zak had seen his body was much better. Once she had scried the path they needed, Vierna worked some more healing on the boy, and they traveled in silence for several hours, only stopping for brief rests.
The boy slept, enough that Zak was becoming concerned, and brought it up once they reached a defensible camping point.
"Should he be awake more? I could hold him and walk along side, if so," he signed.
Vierna shook her head. "Better that he sleep, my Lord has said, when He gives me the healing. Both for our travel, and so there is no lingering damage.
"But thank you."
There was no sarcasm, only genuine gratitude, the kind of emotion that Zak had seen so rarely in his life. He inclined his head, and continued checking for threats. Once he was satisfied, he settled near them, watching the boy be awakened for the food and drink that Vierna had summoned for them to share. The purple eyes were so odd, but more, Zak could not see anything of himself in the features, only Malice… yet Vierna was much the same.
He focused on the boy's hands then, and watched as both were used with indifference, no slighting of either one, with ease. He looked up at Vierna's face, knowing she was watching him study the boy. She gave a small smile.
"He shares the trait," she signed… while using her free hand to stroke the boy's hair.
That actually made Zak smile, a small twitch upwards of the corner of his mouth.
"We get it from you, don't we?" she added then.
He didn't want to lie to her; they were dependent on each other for the time being. He gave a short nod.
"Well. I am glad, though it does mean I will likely never find a patron worth having at my side. Who could live up to what you have proven a man should be?"
Her words, delivered with sass behind the motions, made him chuckle, rather than dwell on the fact she seemed pleased by it.
"Daughter." He signed the one word, willing all the misunderstandings of the past to be gone.
"Father." She knew the sign for it, usually only seen in the commoners, not using the formal 'sire', and that made his chest tight again.
No one, he swore, was ever hurting them again.
Drizzt did not, really, complain once he was feeling better. He was just a little more active in trying to 'help' his sister get him secured.
Amazingly, Vierna saw the issue and stopped with the shawls, looking at the boy with patient eyes.
"If I let you sit, you have hold on tight to the straps, in case we have to go up. That means not using your hands for anything else."
Zaknafein saw the boy's eyes widen, then he clung to Vierna, letting her finish getting the shawls in place. Once they were moving, the tizzin still grunting displeasure at two riders plus a half-size child, he looked over Vierna's shoulder a few times to see Drizzt moving a pebble on his fingers.
It was never the same hand when Zak checked.
The feeling of pride was growing, as he saw his daughter had kept the ability to care, and his son was as skilled in his hands as Zak himself had been at the same age.
The truce on not resisting being bound to his sister lasted a few days, and Zak, to forestall further concerns, took to walking. "Need to see and feel the tunnels, now that we're away from anything that looks vaguely familiar," he said, waving it off, before wrapping the tethers in a way that made it possible to secure his son in the second saddle.
That it meant Drizzt was hidden from anyone approaching them from the forward position was good enough for both of them to accept the new way.
Along with his body being mended, it seemed Drizzt's mind was becoming curious again, and Zaknafein got to listen as Vierna explained her religion, answered apparently old questions about why the women were like that, and at least half a dozen other topics. Vierna had not been exaggerating; Drizzt was always asking questions now that he didn't have to fear any whips. If Vierna was uncomfortable with the question, Drizzt would stop, but not to flinch.
No, the boy was quick to hug her, having learned he could be as tactile as he wanted with her now. The obvious affection between them was one more ache in Zak's chest.
If all drow had the capacity, why did it have to be the way it had been in their city?
That was something that chewed on his mind for a time, until Vierna's reassurances that her god's city would not be like that at all actually re-ignited hope for him.
In Menzoberranzan, a priestess's body was confiscated against potential use later, while her surviving daughter was absorbed into the Second House, and her assets distributed between First and Second.
In the wilds, Vierna led her family along a winding path to sanctuary that was far from the chaos strewn by their House ceasing to exist in that city.
And a father grew stronger in the care of his children, finding new purpose to living.
