Stolen Children Bringing Hope
Dec. 4th, 2022 07:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tales_of_faerunStolen Children Bringing Hope (7,444 words) by somariel
Chapters: 1/1
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Relationship: Drizzt Do'Urden & Zaknafein Do'Urden, Vierna Do'Urden & Zaknafein Do'Urden
Characters: Drizzt Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Inthylyn Aerasumé, Lilinthar Aerasumé, Eilistraee, Mielikki, Qilué Veladorn, Vierna Do'Urden, Elkantar Iluim, Bruenor Battlehammer
Additional Tags: Canon Divergence
Summary:
The sharing of tales lasted for a while, but eventually, Thyl and Lin could tell that Zak truly needed time to think about what they had told him, so when Lin wrapped up his current tale, Thyl stretched and said, “We’ve likely taken up enough of your time for today, but if you wish, we can come back in… a week or so, maybe?… with a map, so we can show you where the places we’ve talked about are in relation to here.”
Drizzt frowned at those words, and oh, that reminded Thyl so much of Del not wanting storytime to end, but Zak nodded sharply. “That would be useful, yes,” the elder drow said.
“Then we will take our leave and see you in a week,” Lin said.
He and Thyl got up from where they had been sitting on the ground and walked away. However, they only went far enough to be sure they were out of earshot of the pair, then stopped. “Time to talk to Aunt?” Lin asked, looking at his twin.
“Yes,” Thyl agreed.
Qilué was dealing with some necessary correspondence when the sending anklet tingled, just before Thyl said, ~Aunt, Lin and I are at the portal. Can you send someone for us? We have a tale you need to hear.~
~Of course, nephew,~ she replied. ~Someone will be there soon.~
Setting aside the letter she had been writing, she left her office and headed out into the public areas of the caverns that she and her Lady’s other followers were working on turning into a refuge for all goodly drow.
Sending the first adult that she encountered—Xinval, as it happened—to bring her nephews through the portal, Qilué then went to the area that had been set up for food preparation and storage, and gathered some refreshments for the coming conversation.
She ended up meeting Thyl and Lin on the way back to her quarters, and once they were all settled in the sitting room, with the refreshments in easy reach, she asked, “So what have you found that I need to hear about?”
The tale that followed, of a pair of drow who had been living peacefully on the surface for a few years, but who knew little to nothing of her Lady and were wholly unaware of the larger community of Eilistraee’s followers, left her feeling confused. And taking a moment to commune with her Lady only increased that confusion, because She had no knowledge of the pair either, despite that Thyl and Lin were quite certain that the younger of the pair was firmly good.
Coming back out of that communion, Qilué asked, “Would the two of you be willing to anchor for my Lady when you see this pair again, so She can investigate?”
“Of course,” Lin answered.
As they had promised, a week after their initial meeting, the pair of half-human faerie returned with a map. And after a long session of discussing distances, travel times, terrain, and potential threats along the way to the two places that the pair had recommended as safer places to raise his son, Zak gave a deep sigh. “I think the… Promenade, you called it?… would be the better place for us to go,” he said. “It’s further away than ‘Silverymoon’, but we’d be among other drow, instead of being oddities.”
“The Promenade of the Dark Maiden, in full,” Thyl said, “but it’s usually shortened to just ‘the Promenade’, yes.”
Lin sighed. “As much as I’d like to say that no one in Silverymoon would ever treat the two of you as oddities, I’d be lying if I did, even if I am certain that most residents would get past that stage fairly quickly.”
“Not going to start the journey now, though,” Zak said. “Too close to ‘winter’ for me to feel comfortable traveling that far.”
“Completely understandable,” Lin said. “There’s rarely any good reason to leave a proven shelter for a long journey, when winter is coming.”
“Speaking of winter, though,” Thyl added, “would you like for us to bring you more winter clothes, or supplies, or even just for us to check in on you throughout the winter to make sure that you haven’t developed any new needs we could help with?”
Zak frowned. Warmer clothing would be welcome, as well as dried meat—because Horim had been correct in saying that fishing wasn’t always reliable during the winter, and not having to deal with the cold water would be better for them—but… “Why?” he asked. “What do you get from doing that?”
Right, it took time for newly free drow to get used to aid being freely given, without anything expected in return. And for all that Zak and Drizzt had been on the surface for a few years, they hadn’t had the experiences needed for that.
Thyl did not sigh, but he wanted to. “Caring for and protecting the younger generation is something we value strongly, and wish to assist you in doing so for your son, having seen that you hold those same values in regards to him, despite all that the society you were born to does to discourage such.”
Zak could… sort of understand that, but it still wasn’t anything tangible. “But how do you—or those you have a duty to—benefit from helping me care for Drizzt?”
~Let me try?~ Lin sent, seeing that Thyl was having trouble finding a way to frame things that would be acceptable to Zaknafein.
~If you have an idea, go ahead,~ Thyl replied.
“Did Horim tell you anything about what rangers—like he is—actually do?” Lin asked.
“He said that it was his duty to deal with that wyrmling,” Zak replied, curious as to how that had any bearing on his question, “but he never explained why.”
Well, that made this a little harder, but it wasn’t like Lin was unable to explain what a ranger did. “It was his duty to deal with the wyrmling because rangers are guardians and protectors of the wilds, who have a duty to deal with unnatural beings, and evil ones that pose a threat to the wilds. Many rangers will also deal with threats to travelers, as well as any threats that hamlets, villages, and even towns, cannot handle on their own.”
“That… makes sense,” Zak said, “but I can’t see what it has to do with your offer to aid us.”
“I’m getting there,” Lin replied. “One of the things that Horim said, when he was speaking of the two of you, was that he feels that Drizzt hears the whisper of the wilds as much as he does. And from what we have seen of your son so far, we both feel that he is a ‘wild-called’ ranger in the making.”
Picking up the thread of the explanation, Thyl continued, “A wild-called ranger is one who is even more in harmony with the wilds than an ordinary ranger, having been gifted by the wilds with the talents other rangers must call on their patron to use, though those talents do become more potent if the ranger has a deity’s favor.”
“Wild-called rangers are rare, even among surface elves,” Lin added. “For Drizzt to be one, when he is a drow… that is unheard of. So how can we not offer you aid, when your son has such a valuable gift, especially when our mother’s city holds rangers in high regard and protects one of the most sacred places belonging to one of the common ranger deities?”
While Zak still wasn’t pleased by the explanation, it was at least one he could understand. Thyl and Lin saw potential in Drizzt, of a sort that they had been raised to value, and felt they had a religious duty to help protect and nurture it, for the future benefits it would bring.
“Very well,” he sighed. “I accept your offer.”
Eilistraee was now very confused, as even with Thyl and Lin anchoring for her, She had still been barely able to perceive the younger of the two drow they had met with. It was at least understandable why the father had escaped Her notice, being firmly neutral, but what little She had been able to perceive of the son had confirmed his goodly nature, so She truly should have known of him.
However, the fact that the boy was a wild-called ranger gave Her a new avenue of investigation, so She went through the portal from Arvandor to the House of Nature and sought out Mielikki.
Mielikki was talking with Gwaeron and Lurue when She sensed a minor disturbance—of the sort that was the equivalent of a polite knock—on the boundary of Her personal domain within the House of Nature. Swiftly excusing herself from the conversation, She teleported to Her domain and made her way to the point along the borders where the disturbance had occurred.
And while Eilistraee had certainly not been among those Mielikki had thought might be seeking entry to Her domain, the Dark Maiden certainly had a reason to seek Her out. So once she had invited the other goddess in, and they had settled comfortably in a clearing, Mielikki asked, “Have You come to speak with Me about Drizzt Do’Urden?”
Eilistraee blinked twice in mild surprise. “Well, yes, though I was not aware that You specifically were who I needed to speak with about him.”
“Oh?” If Eilistraee had not been aware of Mielikki’s own interest in the young drow, then why had the other goddess sought Her out?
“For some reason, I am unable to properly perceive him, to the point that I was wholly unaware of him until My Chosen passed on the tale of him and his father that some of her nephews had shared with her. But since he is a wild-called ranger, I thought it was possible that someone among the nature deities had accidentally blocked Me with a protection intended to block My mother.”
“That he is blocked from You so thoroughly puzzles Me,” Mielikki replied, “as while I am holding protections around him, I made sure to craft them such that You were explicitly exempted from their effects.” She hummed thoughtfully, considering Who might wish to conceal such a goodly drow from the Dark Maiden’s notice, and one name immediately came to mind. Given the nature of the Dark Seldarine’s banishment once Eilistraee had chosen to follow them, there was even an easy way for Mielikki to test what She thought might be happening.
“You’ve thought of something,” Eilistraee said, noticing the change in the Forest Queen’s expression.
“Maybe.” Mielikki focused within Herself and… shifted…, switching to Her aspect as Khalreshaar. Then she shifted Her attention to the Material Plane, focusing on the wild-called soul of Drizzt Do’Urden. And while she was still able to see him, it was difficult, the connection She had strengthened over the years since She had first noticed him fraying with every second She held this aspect. A shift back to Her true form, and the connection was back to its usual strength.
“Well. It seems that someone, most likely Your mother, wished him hidden from You, but could not achieve that without hiding him from all the other elven deities.”
Mielikki’s shift to Her half-elven aspect had made Eilistraee quite curious as to what the Forest Queen had thought of, but that… that made sense in a way that left Eilistraee concerned over Her mother’s plans for the boy. “I must tell My Chosen of this, as his father has decided that, in the spring, they will go to the stronghold My followers are building in Undermountain, and it is not safe to allow such a shroud to cross the wards there.”
Qilué had passed word of the shroud on Drizzt and what needed to be done about it on to Thyl and Lin, so when they returned with the clothes and food that Zak had requested, they told him about the matter. He had been quite displeased to hear of the Spider Queen’s interference in his son’s life, not much happier about Mielikki’s ‘meddling’—as he called it—regardless of Her intentions, and still more displeased about the need for further divine meddling to remove the shroud, though he did acknowledge the necessity.
Biweekly check-ins had been agreed upon, though Drizzt’s curiosity and desire to learn all he could quickly led to the check-ins turning into weekly lessons in wilderness skills. And while it had been Drizzt’s drive to learn that had initiated the lessons, Zak also tended to join in, his practical nature seeing the value in both of them gaining such skills, especially with the journey they would be taking in the spring.
The speed with which Drizzt picked up everything Thyl and Lin taught the pair of drow was always impressive, and sometimes truly surprising, even accounting for his youth making the learning easier. Thyl and Lin ended up concluding that it had to be another manifestation of Drizzt being a wild-called ranger, and even Zak eventually came to agree.
When the days started getting warmer as well as longer, Drizzt announced that he wanted to have a true test of how well he had learned all that Thyl and Lin had taught him. And after some serious negotiations between all four of them, it was agreed that they would all spend two weeks following the nearby Goblintide up into the Frost Hills, with Drizzt taking the lead in all matters, after which Thyl and Lin would teleport them back to Zak and Drizzt’s shelter.
And while the expedition did go well, satisfying Drizzt’s need for a test, it had also turned up the curiosity of an above-ground, abandoned dwarf city near the mountain known as Fourth Peak. They had not explored it for long, as Thyl and Lin knew that there were cursed ruins in the Frost Hills, and did not want to risk that their discovery was among them, but both they and Drizzt made careful note of its position in relation to both Fourth Peak and the Goblintide.
On Thyl and Lin’s next visit after the expedition, the subject of conversation came around to Zak and Drizzt’s upcoming journey to the Promenade, and when it would be safe for them to start it. Discussion of potential routes revealed that Zak had taken their warnings about Nesmé seriously enough to feel that it was worth the extra traveling time to begin by heading west to the Long Road in order to avoid Nesmé’s territory as completely as possible.
Knowing that, Thyl and Lin were able to say that it would be necessary for Zak and Drizzt to wait until the spring floods were at least mostly over before starting the trek, as there were two major streams they would have to cross in order to reach the Long Road. Zak was not entirely happy about the need to wait for an event that could not be predicted, but he did acknowledge that Thyl and Lin were the ones who knew the dangers, and their promise to check the state of the streams every week placated him.
Six weeks later, Thyl and Lin reported that the floods had subsided enough that travelers on foot would be able to cross the streams if they were careful. They also brought a map showing the area from the Spine all the way to Waterdeep, and two packs filled with travel rations.
“We’ve marked both the location of the portal to the Promenade and the more common locations used by its residents for the full moon rituals,” Thyl said as he handed the map to Zak, “but for the safety of the Promenade’s residents, we used a spell to make it so that only you and Drizzt can see those marks.”
Somewhat more than a month and a half after Zak and Drizzt had begun their journey, they reached the general vicinity of the portal to the Promenade. However, for all that he felt the Promenade was a better option than Silverymoon, Zak was still wary of other drow, and decided that he wanted to watch one of the full moon rituals, so he could see how these drow actually interacted with each other, before he and Drizzt approached them.
A bit less than a week later, Drizzt sat concealed in a tree at the edge of a clearing, watching a large group of drow dance and sing and spar under the full moon. He knew his father was wary of joining other drow again, but none of the ones in the clearing made his skin itch. Which, given that his father was the only person he had met before their arrival on the Surface that didn’t produce that reaction, had to mean that these drow were like him and his father!
Not willing to wait any longer for his father’s signal, when the song was so beautiful and pure, faintly calling to him in a way he didn’t really understand, Drizzt slipped down from his perch and stepped out into the clearing.
“Hello,” he called.
Zak cursed silently when his son stepped into the clearing, but he had halfway been expecting such an event to happen, even as he had hoped that it wouldn’t, so rather than immediately follow Drizzt, he chose to wait just a little longer on revealing himself.
Qilué had been just as startled as everyone else when a young voice called out greetings in Common, but turning to see that the speaker was a young drow—younger than Ysolde, even, she thought—at least relieved her concern that they had been discovered by someone who would reveal their presence to those distrustful of drow.
“Hello, young one,” she said, stepping closer to the youth, though still remaining out of easy reach for an attack with the blades he wore. “My name is Qilué Veladorn. What is yours?”
“Drizzt Do’Urden.”
“Ah, then you are the young drow that Thyl and Lin spoke to me about. They also spoke of your father, however. Is he near, or did something happen to him during your journey?”
Well, that was as good a cue as any for him to reveal himself, Zak felt, especially since the drow in the clearing had not only not reacted in any hostile manner, their leader herself had expressed concern—odd as that was to him—that something might have happened to him.
So he slipped down from the tree he was in—nowhere near as silently as Drizzt had managed—and stepped out into the clearing himself. “I am here, Lady.”
“You are Zaknafein, then, yes?”
“That is correct.”
“I am sure that you, at least, have questions that you want answered before you and your son enter the Promenade.” Qilué reached out to where Elkantar had come up beside her, and took his hand. “If you find it suitable, my consort and I will do our best to answer them, while the rest of our people continue with the celebration of our Lady.”
“I’d like Drizzt to stay with me for now, but yes, that does work.”
“Of course.”
The four of them gathered at the edge of the clearing even as the rest of the drow resumed what they had been doing before Drizzt interrupted things, and by the time the moon set, Zak’s questions had all been answered, the Spider Queen’s shroud had been removed from Drizzt, and both of them were ready to enter what would now be their home.
While Vierna had not dared to try and locate Drizzt and the Weapon Master while she was still in Menzoberranzan, she had hoped to be able to do so after settling into her Lord’s temple in Skullport. But for some reason, she proved to be just as unable to scry for Drizzt as for Zaknafein—more so really, as she had at least been able to determine that Zak was on the Surface, but scrying for Drizzt got no results whatsoever.
She kept trying again periodically, in case the protections had been removed, but as the months wore on without success, her frustration grew.
And then, roughly nine months after she had arrived in Skullport, ~I have news for you~ brushed across her mind as she was settling down to sleep, followed by a shadow forming in her bedchamber, a shadow that had Vhaeraun’s mask where the face would be.
“What news do you bring me, my Lord?” she asked.
“It seems that your brother and the Weapon Master have managed to make their way to the community of My sister’s followers that lives in Undermountain.”
Vierna smiled widely. That was significant news indeed. Only… “May I ask how You learned they had done so?”
“A reasonable request,” Vhaeraun said. “I have been keeping some of My attention out for them, and My notice was drawn by what turned out to be the removal of a shroud My mother had placed on your brother, to conceal him from the notice of the rest of Us.”
Vierna was already aware that the Promenade of the Dark Maiden sent trade caravans to Skullport on a bimonthly schedule, so now that she knew that Drizzt and Zak were there, she arranged for some of the Temple’s guards to go look for Zak among the caravan guards when the next one arrived.
Zak had not been with that caravan, nor had he been with the one after that, which meant that Vierna was going to have to get someone to approach the next caravan that came, in order pass along her request to speak with him. And while she would like to deliver the request personally, she knew it would be better to have one of the male guards do so.
Given the careful observation by other drow that the last two caravans had reported, Elkantar had felt it would be a good idea to send some extra guards with the next one, and had chosen to lead the caravan guards himself.
That choice now seemed to be paying off, as a male drow, wearing a cloak pin in the shape of Vhaeraun’s mask, approached him directly while the traders were unloading the wagon. As the other drow’s hands were well clear of his weapons, Elkantar did not reach for his own, though he did shift to make sure he could draw them quickly, should it prove necessary.
Tebryn noticed the shift in posture of the Eilistraeean he had chosen to approach, and stopped outside of easy attack range, though still within reasonable conversational distance.
The clear indication that the Vhaeraunite did not wish conflict either was at least somewhat reassuring, Elkantar felt, but he remained alert even as he asked, “What do you want?”
“One of my Lord’s clerics wishes to speak with Zaknafein.”
Well, that would certainly explain why the last two caravans had been being observed so carefully. The cleric must have been hoping that Zak would be one of the caravan guards. It also raised the question of how the cleric had known that Zaknafein was at the Promenade, but since Elkantar didn’t think it likely that a mere messenger would know the answer to that, he settled for asking “Did this cleric say what they wish to speak with him about?”
“A family matter.” Tebryn was quite curious as to what sort of family matter the Redeemed Shade could need to discuss with an Eilistraeean, but he knew better than to ask.
‘A family matter?’ Elkantar knew of exactly one other member of House Do’Urden that Zak would have any desire to speak with. And given that Zak believed that member was wholly lost to the Spider Queen, this was most likely a trap of some sort, but it was worth finding out how well it was baited. “What is this cleric’s name?” Elkantar asked, not bothering to hide his suspicion.
“Vierna.”
Elkantar concealed his surprise by main force of will. That was the name of Zak’s daughter, which meant that there was a slim chance that Vhaeraun had, somehow, stolen her from the Spider Queen, though a trap still seemed more likely. But if they knew enough to use Vierna’s name, Zaknafein himself should be the one to decide how to handle this. “I will pass the message along.”
As Elkantar had suspected would be the case, Zaknafein’s reaction to the request passed along by the Vhaeraunite drow was well beyond suspicious, and solidly into paranoid. Nor could Elkantar blame him for such a reaction, as it was all too easy to imagine how much Vhaeraun might covet a neutral drow who had Zaknafein’s skill with blades. And that was assuming a more benign reason for a trap. It was entirely possible, after all, that a priestess of House Do’Urden had managed to get a follower of Selvetarm to pretend to be Vhaeraunite in order to reclaim the House’s erring Weapon Master.
Many serious discussions later, Zaknafein had decided that even with the strong likelihood of it being a trap, it would still be better for him to join the next caravan and see what he could find out, leading Elkantar to chose to go with the caravan again, since he was the one who could identify the drow who had conveyed the request.
Vierna was well aware that Zak’s reaction to her message was most likely to be outright paranoia, and he would therefore be unwilling to go out of easy reach of the other drow with the Promenade’s caravan, so when the next one arrived, she and another guard accompanied the one who had delivered the message, the two of them stopping in the shadows just out of easy sight of the caravan, while the original guard continued on.
As the traders began to unload the wagon, Zak followed Elkantar’s signal to come stand beside him, having agreed earlier that they would remain together unless Zak indicated otherwise. And it was not long before a male drow, once again wearing a cloak pin in the shape of Vhaeraun’s mask, approached the two of them.
Tebryn was relieved to see, as he approached the caravan, that a drow matching the description the Redeemed Shade had provided was indeed present this time. And unless he was mistaken, the man was standing beside the one Tebryn had spoken to last time, which had to be deliberate on their part.
Once again stopping at a reasonable conversational distance that was nevertheless out of easy attack range, Tebryn looked directly at the drow with unbound hair who bore two longswords, and asked, “Zaknafein Do’Urden?”
Shifting his hand so that it touched Elkantar’s, Zak signed ‘Same messenger?’ against his friend’s—strange as it still seemed to have someone that he could call ‘friend’ without any caveats—palm.
‘Yes,’ Elkantar signed back.
“That is my name,” Zak answered the other drow.
“Will you join me for a little while?” Tebryn asked. He hoped Zaknafein agreed, but at least the Redeemed Shade had provided non-confrontational instructions for what to do if the man refused.
“If we remain near my allies, then yes,” Zak replied. Elkantar shifted beside him, and he signed, ‘Stay. Will remain in sight.’
‘Alright,’ Elkantar signed in response.
“Of course,” Tebryn said. “It’s not far at all.”
“Then lead on,” Zak said, stepping forward.
Tebryn turned, and began to head back to where the Redeemed Shade was waiting with Chaurah, trusting Zaknafein to follow him.
As he followed the other drow, Zak paid careful attention to how far he was getting from the caravan, and when he saw that they were almost out of easy sight—and more than that, they were heading into a shadowed area—he stopped. “This is as far as I’m going,” he said. “If your Lord’s cleric still wants to talk to me, they can meet me here.”
In the shadows just beyond where Zaknafein had stopped, Vierna did not sigh, even though she wanted to. After all, she had been expecting something like this, and Zak had actually come a good bit closer to where she was waiting than she had thought he would. So she put on her mask, and stepped out of the shadows. “I am here, Zaknafein Do’Urden.”
As the woman who had stepped out of the shadows spoke, Zaknafein had to call on all of his long, long experience in not letting his reactions show in any visible way. Because the woman certainly sounded like Vierna, and she was even wearing two maces, but it was not possible for her to actually be Vierna. His daughter had long since been lost to the Spider Bitch. But with such incredible effort put into the deception, it was at least worth hearing her out. “And what sort of family matter do you wish to speak of with me?” he asked.
“Gifts given to a child, and the lessons taught by those gifts.”
At those words, Zaknafein was entirely unable to hide his shock. No one but Vierna should know about the pirate spider he had given her as a young child, much less what he had named as his price for giving it to her. Elkantar had thought there was a slim chance that the Masked God had somehow managed to steal Vierna from the Spider Queen; was it actually possible that his friend had been correct?
Vierna had never seen Zaknafein display any emotion so openly as he did at her reference to the gift that had, in so many ways, prepared her to be receptive to Vhaeraun’s overtures, much less one so vulnerable as surprise. But then again, that was precisely why she had made the reference, since it was knowledge that only the two of them held. Reaching up, she removed her mask and smiled. “Hello, Weapon Master.”
Zak had returned to the caravan long enough to tell Elkantar that it wasn’t actually a trap, that slim chance had turned out to be correct, and promise he’d be back before the caravan left, then quite gladly went with Vierna to Vhaeraun’s temple so they could visit in private.
The conversation had started with clearing the air between the two of them, then rambled through the experiences each of them had had since Zak had stolen away with Drizzt, and when it eventually came around to Zak and Drizzt taking up residence at the Promenade, Vierna said, “Is there any chance I can convince you and Drizzt to come live here? I have truly missed both of you.”
“It’s already clear that Drizzt loves the Surface enough that he’s not going to stay at the Promenade forever,” Zak replied, “so I’m certainly willing to come live here once he starts wandering. But Drizzt himself is, somehow, so thoroughly good that he just wouldn’t fit in here.”
Vierna sighed. “That’s… disappointing, though I can’t quite say that I’m surprised, given that I never did manage to teach him proper caution in trusting others. I’ll have to get to work on a pair of sending stones for him and me, then, since I certainly don’t want to have to wait years to talk to him again.”
She was about to ask what Zak meant by ‘Drizzt loves the Surface’, when the combined thoughts of ‘Drizzt is good-aligned’ and ‘a magical item for Drizzt’ made her realize that she now had a solution for the problem of the figure she had taken off the Hun’ett wizard. Drawing it out of her belt pouch, she handed the figure to Zak. “This is a gift for Drizzt.”
“Are you sure?” Zak asked. A figure of wondrous power was quite a valuable object, after all, and this had to be the one that she had mentioned as spoils of the House War that had given her the opportunity to escape.
“I am,” Vierna said. “Unfortunately for me, the great cat it summons is not only atypically independent for a figure, it is wholly good as well.” Then she told Zak its name and explained the time limitations.
“Ah,” Zak said, tucking the figure into his own belt pouch. “I’m sure Drizzt will be delighted to have an animal friend more intelligent than the bats and the spitting crawlers, even if it cannot be present all the time.”
“So what did you mean when you said that Drizzt ‘loves the Surface’?” Vierna asked, returning to the train of thought that had been diverted by the figure.
“Apparently, he’s what’s known as a ‘wild-called ranger’,” Zak replied, “and as a result, his nature is far more suited to living on the Surface than in any sort of underground settlement.”
“Well then, I think that makes it even more appropriate for him to have the figure.”
Elkantar and Qilué, and even Ysolde, had also noticed how obvious Drizzt’s love of the Surface was, and having more knowledge of rangers than Zak, had realized that Drizzt’s calling would drive him to leave the Promenade far sooner than would be considered a reasonable age for even a half-human elf or drow. And so, the three of them set about convincing him (and Zak) that when he did decide to leave, he should start by spending at least a few years training with Dove and Florin, learning the ranger skills that no one at the Promenade could truly teach him.
Thyl and Lin, and even the rest of the Tall Ones, contributed to the effort whenever they visited the Promenade, and eventually, after a meeting between the two drow and the two rangers had happened, Drizzt and Zak both agreed to the plan.
So when Drizzt’s itch to explore finally got too strong to hold back, at the age of thirty-six, Qilué quite gladly arranged for Thyl and Lin to bring Drizzt to Dove and Florin’s home in the Dalelands.
Drizzt studied with Dove and Florin for five years, traveling with Dove, and learning ranger spells, how to better communicate with animals, and more advanced wilderness skills than Thyl and Lin had managed to teach him during that one winter, before even that was no longer enough to keep him satisfied.
Dove and Florin had actually been expecting such a decision for most of a year at that point, and were impressed enough with his skills that they had already wrangled an agreement from all outside interested parties that—as Drizzt was still underage for even a half-blood, let alone a full-blood, but was of an age at which a half-blood might start exploring in the company of family—if he could manage to spend a full year living off the land near Shadowdale, without being seen by its residents, and leaving minimal sign of his presence other than actions taken to protect the residents or their animals, no one would fuss about his age.
Drizzt readily agreed to such a graduation exercise, and so, after just a month of preparation, he set out to begin it.
Drizzt had, by the strictest letter of the agreement, failed the graduation exercise, but since the only reason he had been seen by any of Shadowdale's residents was because he had saved its lord from an assassination attempt while said lord was traveling, everyone agreed that he had held to the spirit of the exercise, and had therefore passed.
So once he had said his farewells to Florin and the other students—and to a grateful Syluné and Aumry—Dove brought him back to the Promenade so he could spend some time with the family and friends he had not seen in six years, before he took up his independent wandering.
A month at the Promenade, two months in Skullport with Vierna and their father, followed by two more months at the Promenade, with Zak, proved to be as long as he was willing to spend visiting, and so, after farewells all around, Drizzt set out on his own, Guen’s figure in his belt pouch, and the contingency necklace Ysolde had given him around his neck.
Six years after he had set out on his own, Drizzt followed a pull north all the way up to the Icewind Dale. Knowing that the residents of the Ten Towns were unlikely to be any more welcoming of a drow than most places below the Spine, he chose to bypass them entirely, and set about finding a suitable cave up on Kelvin’s Cairn.
That had resulted in him meeting a young human girl, by the name of Catti-brie, which had led to a meeting with one Bruenor Battlehammer, chieftain of the small clan of dwarves that had settled in the cleft below the Cairn, and Catti-brie’s adoptive father. And while the meeting with Bruenor had started out poorly, Eilistraee’s blessing on Drizzt’s blades had quickly changed the dwarf’s mind about him.
By the time winter had set in on the tundra, Drizzt’s willingness to watch out for, and teach, Catti-brie, along with his willingness to aid the clan as a whole, had earned him welcome within the clan’s caverns. And while he did not impose on that welcome often, it was nice to be able to occasionally spend an evening with pleasant company in a place that was warmer than his cave, even with the improvements the dwarves had made to it.
On one such evening, as the tundra was starting to move into spring, the conversation between Drizzt and Bruenor came around to Bruenor’s eventual plans to find his clan’s ancestral home of Mithral Hall. But this time, unlike previous times the subject had come up, Bruenor mentioned that as best as any of those who were old enough to remember could recall, the Hall was probably somewhere in or near the Silver Marches.
“In or near the Silver Marches?” Drizzt repeated, intrigued. The Frost Hills definitely counted as ‘near the Silver Marches’, and he remembered the ruined city they had found on that long-ago expedition to test the skills Thyl and Lin had been teaching him.
“Aye,” Bruenor rumbled.
“Do you remember if the Hall had an above-ground trading point?” Drizzt asked.
It took several minutes, in which Drizzt was patiently quiet—knowing the difficulties those who had been old enough to walk out of the Hall, rather than be carried, had in recalling much of anything about the Hall—but Bruenor eventually sighed, and said, “It might’ve. There was certainly a place very close by that we stayed fer a few days right after th’ fall, before we had tae move on. Could’ve easily been th’ tradestown.
“Why’d ye ask?”
“Roughly thirty-five years ago, my father and I, along with my friends Thyl and Lin, found an above-ground, abandoned dwarf city in the Frost Hills.”
“Those're just west of the Silver Marches, aye? D'ye recall where in them th’ city was?”
“Essentially the western border of the Silver Marches, yes,” Drizzt said. “And the city was located near Fourth Peak, not far from the Goblintide.”
That description stirred something in his memory and Bruenor couldn’t help but gape at his friend. Was it really possible that Drizzt had found the best lead the clan had ever had, decades before they met?
“I think I need tae discuss this with th’ elders,” Bruenor said. “Because somethin’ about that seems familiar somehow, but damned if I c'n say why.”
After long discussion, and much cudgeling of their memories, the remaining greybeards agreed that the city Drizzt had spoken of just might be the tradestown they had known as Dwarvendarrow. But given the difficulties with their memories, they felt it would be best if they could speak to at least the pair of half-elves, and see the location on a map, before doing anything like preparing to move the clan back south.
Drizzt was well accustomed to Catti-brie coming to visit him, but it was far less common for any of the dwarves to come up to his cave. So when he heard a dwarf’s heavy footsteps approaching, a few days after his last visit to their caverns, he was a bit puzzled, though not at all displeased.
Drizzt had not—quite—forgotten what he had mentioned to Bruenor during that visit, but he had, rather deliberately, done his best to set his curiosity aside, in order to have his full attention available when he was ranging. The visitor turning out to be Bruenor himself, however, brought it fully back to mind, and once he was settled on one of the chairs, with a warm drink in hand, the dwarf got right down to business.
“D’ye have any way of gettin’ those half-elf friends of yers tae come up here, with the location of that city ye found marked on a map?” he asked. “The greybeards agree it might well be the tradestown, but want tae be a bit more certain before we go and do anything major.”
“Not directly, but I can start a message chain that will reach them,” Drizzt replied. “Though I will warn you up front that part of that chain is dependent on a bimonthly trade caravan, so it may take some time for the message to actually reach them.”
“We’ve been up here for near two centuries,” Bruenor rumbled, “a couple o’ months won’t matter, so long as the message does reach them.”
“Then I will use my sending stone to reach out to my sister tonight.”
Vierna had passed the message to Zaknafein, who had gone to the Promenade with their next trade caravan and passed it to Elkantar, who passed it to Qilué, who had then passed it on to Thyl and Lin.
The twins had wrapped up their current business as quickly as they were able to, and then, after procuring a map that they could give to Drizzt’s dwarf friend, went up to the Frost Hills to make sure they marked the location as accurately as possible. A chance remark to their mother when they had stopped in Silverymoon on their way to the Frost Hills had led to a brief sending to Drizzt to verify the clan name of his friend, and the result of that had both caused a week’s delay in actually heading north and given them a great deal more to share with said friend.
Most of three months after Drizzt had sent to Vierna, he, Thyl and Lin, Bruenor, and the clan’s remaining greybeards gathered in one of the rooms the dwarves kept warm at all times for the greybeards’ comfort. But after Drizzt had made the needed introductions, Bruenor and the greybeards experienced a further surprise, as Thyl started things off by saying “In addition to bringing the map you requested, we have set in motion a census of the Hall’s survivors in the Silver Marches, so that you will have a better idea of the clan’s full numbers, regardless of whether the city we found proves to be the trading point.”
“Ye’re sayin’ there are others of me clan who survived?” Bruenor asked, disbelief and hope warring in his heart and in his voice.
“Yes,” Lin said. “We were too young to help ourselves, but our older brothers brought many dwarrows and elders to the Citadels, after they had been found wandering by the elves in the Moonwood.”
“That is a blessing to know,” one of the greybeards said, “e’en if most o’ the elders have passed on by now.”
“We are pleased to have been able to bring you such welcome news,” Thyl said.
As surprised as he had been by the news of more clan to protect, Bruenor was still a practical dwarf, so he shook off the shock, and said, “Now let’s be about hearin’ yer accounts o’ the abandoned city, and lookin’ at the map ye brought.”
“Of course,” Thyl said, getting out the map.
Some time later, after much studying of the map, and an intensive interrogation of Thyl and Lin by the greybeards that had occasionally had them sending to their older brothers, Bruenor and the greybeards had to agree that the city most likely was Dwarvendarrow, called Settlestone by others according the records Thyl and Lin had found.
“Too late in the year tae be tryin’ to make the move now,” Bruenor said, “but we can spend the rest o’ the year preparing, and head south next spring.”
“And we can spend that time spreading word of your coming among the other survivors, and getting started on preparing Settlestone for the clan’s arrival,” Lin said.
“Aye, that’d be right good o’ you,” Bruenor agreed. “’Tis nice tae have some hope for the future again.”
somarielChapters: 1/1
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Relationship: Drizzt Do'Urden & Zaknafein Do'Urden, Vierna Do'Urden & Zaknafein Do'Urden
Characters: Drizzt Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Inthylyn Aerasumé, Lilinthar Aerasumé, Eilistraee, Mielikki, Qilué Veladorn, Vierna Do'Urden, Elkantar Iluim, Bruenor Battlehammer
Additional Tags: Canon Divergence
Summary:
Vhaeraun stole Vierna from His mother before she was even old enough to enter formal training as a priestess. Zaknafein stole his son away from Menzoberranzan before Drizzt had reached the age of twelve. Now events are moving and both of Zak's children are bringing hope to others.
A continuation of senmut's fic The Time Zak Stole Drizzt.
Stolen Children Bringing Hope
The sharing of tales lasted for a while, but eventually, Thyl and Lin could tell that Zak truly needed time to think about what they had told him, so when Lin wrapped up his current tale, Thyl stretched and said, “We’ve likely taken up enough of your time for today, but if you wish, we can come back in… a week or so, maybe?… with a map, so we can show you where the places we’ve talked about are in relation to here.”
Drizzt frowned at those words, and oh, that reminded Thyl so much of Del not wanting storytime to end, but Zak nodded sharply. “That would be useful, yes,” the elder drow said.
“Then we will take our leave and see you in a week,” Lin said.
He and Thyl got up from where they had been sitting on the ground and walked away. However, they only went far enough to be sure they were out of earshot of the pair, then stopped. “Time to talk to Aunt?” Lin asked, looking at his twin.
“Yes,” Thyl agreed.
Qilué was dealing with some necessary correspondence when the sending anklet tingled, just before Thyl said, ~Aunt, Lin and I are at the portal. Can you send someone for us? We have a tale you need to hear.~
~Of course, nephew,~ she replied. ~Someone will be there soon.~
Setting aside the letter she had been writing, she left her office and headed out into the public areas of the caverns that she and her Lady’s other followers were working on turning into a refuge for all goodly drow.
Sending the first adult that she encountered—Xinval, as it happened—to bring her nephews through the portal, Qilué then went to the area that had been set up for food preparation and storage, and gathered some refreshments for the coming conversation.
She ended up meeting Thyl and Lin on the way back to her quarters, and once they were all settled in the sitting room, with the refreshments in easy reach, she asked, “So what have you found that I need to hear about?”
The tale that followed, of a pair of drow who had been living peacefully on the surface for a few years, but who knew little to nothing of her Lady and were wholly unaware of the larger community of Eilistraee’s followers, left her feeling confused. And taking a moment to commune with her Lady only increased that confusion, because She had no knowledge of the pair either, despite that Thyl and Lin were quite certain that the younger of the pair was firmly good.
Coming back out of that communion, Qilué asked, “Would the two of you be willing to anchor for my Lady when you see this pair again, so She can investigate?”
“Of course,” Lin answered.
As they had promised, a week after their initial meeting, the pair of half-human faerie returned with a map. And after a long session of discussing distances, travel times, terrain, and potential threats along the way to the two places that the pair had recommended as safer places to raise his son, Zak gave a deep sigh. “I think the… Promenade, you called it?… would be the better place for us to go,” he said. “It’s further away than ‘Silverymoon’, but we’d be among other drow, instead of being oddities.”
“The Promenade of the Dark Maiden, in full,” Thyl said, “but it’s usually shortened to just ‘the Promenade’, yes.”
Lin sighed. “As much as I’d like to say that no one in Silverymoon would ever treat the two of you as oddities, I’d be lying if I did, even if I am certain that most residents would get past that stage fairly quickly.”
“Not going to start the journey now, though,” Zak said. “Too close to ‘winter’ for me to feel comfortable traveling that far.”
“Completely understandable,” Lin said. “There’s rarely any good reason to leave a proven shelter for a long journey, when winter is coming.”
“Speaking of winter, though,” Thyl added, “would you like for us to bring you more winter clothes, or supplies, or even just for us to check in on you throughout the winter to make sure that you haven’t developed any new needs we could help with?”
Zak frowned. Warmer clothing would be welcome, as well as dried meat—because Horim had been correct in saying that fishing wasn’t always reliable during the winter, and not having to deal with the cold water would be better for them—but… “Why?” he asked. “What do you get from doing that?”
Right, it took time for newly free drow to get used to aid being freely given, without anything expected in return. And for all that Zak and Drizzt had been on the surface for a few years, they hadn’t had the experiences needed for that.
Thyl did not sigh, but he wanted to. “Caring for and protecting the younger generation is something we value strongly, and wish to assist you in doing so for your son, having seen that you hold those same values in regards to him, despite all that the society you were born to does to discourage such.”
Zak could… sort of understand that, but it still wasn’t anything tangible. “But how do you—or those you have a duty to—benefit from helping me care for Drizzt?”
~Let me try?~ Lin sent, seeing that Thyl was having trouble finding a way to frame things that would be acceptable to Zaknafein.
~If you have an idea, go ahead,~ Thyl replied.
“Did Horim tell you anything about what rangers—like he is—actually do?” Lin asked.
“He said that it was his duty to deal with that wyrmling,” Zak replied, curious as to how that had any bearing on his question, “but he never explained why.”
Well, that made this a little harder, but it wasn’t like Lin was unable to explain what a ranger did. “It was his duty to deal with the wyrmling because rangers are guardians and protectors of the wilds, who have a duty to deal with unnatural beings, and evil ones that pose a threat to the wilds. Many rangers will also deal with threats to travelers, as well as any threats that hamlets, villages, and even towns, cannot handle on their own.”
“That… makes sense,” Zak said, “but I can’t see what it has to do with your offer to aid us.”
“I’m getting there,” Lin replied. “One of the things that Horim said, when he was speaking of the two of you, was that he feels that Drizzt hears the whisper of the wilds as much as he does. And from what we have seen of your son so far, we both feel that he is a ‘wild-called’ ranger in the making.”
Picking up the thread of the explanation, Thyl continued, “A wild-called ranger is one who is even more in harmony with the wilds than an ordinary ranger, having been gifted by the wilds with the talents other rangers must call on their patron to use, though those talents do become more potent if the ranger has a deity’s favor.”
“Wild-called rangers are rare, even among surface elves,” Lin added. “For Drizzt to be one, when he is a drow… that is unheard of. So how can we not offer you aid, when your son has such a valuable gift, especially when our mother’s city holds rangers in high regard and protects one of the most sacred places belonging to one of the common ranger deities?”
While Zak still wasn’t pleased by the explanation, it was at least one he could understand. Thyl and Lin saw potential in Drizzt, of a sort that they had been raised to value, and felt they had a religious duty to help protect and nurture it, for the future benefits it would bring.
“Very well,” he sighed. “I accept your offer.”
Eilistraee was now very confused, as even with Thyl and Lin anchoring for her, She had still been barely able to perceive the younger of the two drow they had met with. It was at least understandable why the father had escaped Her notice, being firmly neutral, but what little She had been able to perceive of the son had confirmed his goodly nature, so She truly should have known of him.
However, the fact that the boy was a wild-called ranger gave Her a new avenue of investigation, so She went through the portal from Arvandor to the House of Nature and sought out Mielikki.
Mielikki was talking with Gwaeron and Lurue when She sensed a minor disturbance—of the sort that was the equivalent of a polite knock—on the boundary of Her personal domain within the House of Nature. Swiftly excusing herself from the conversation, She teleported to Her domain and made her way to the point along the borders where the disturbance had occurred.
And while Eilistraee had certainly not been among those Mielikki had thought might be seeking entry to Her domain, the Dark Maiden certainly had a reason to seek Her out. So once she had invited the other goddess in, and they had settled comfortably in a clearing, Mielikki asked, “Have You come to speak with Me about Drizzt Do’Urden?”
Eilistraee blinked twice in mild surprise. “Well, yes, though I was not aware that You specifically were who I needed to speak with about him.”
“Oh?” If Eilistraee had not been aware of Mielikki’s own interest in the young drow, then why had the other goddess sought Her out?
“For some reason, I am unable to properly perceive him, to the point that I was wholly unaware of him until My Chosen passed on the tale of him and his father that some of her nephews had shared with her. But since he is a wild-called ranger, I thought it was possible that someone among the nature deities had accidentally blocked Me with a protection intended to block My mother.”
“That he is blocked from You so thoroughly puzzles Me,” Mielikki replied, “as while I am holding protections around him, I made sure to craft them such that You were explicitly exempted from their effects.” She hummed thoughtfully, considering Who might wish to conceal such a goodly drow from the Dark Maiden’s notice, and one name immediately came to mind. Given the nature of the Dark Seldarine’s banishment once Eilistraee had chosen to follow them, there was even an easy way for Mielikki to test what She thought might be happening.
“You’ve thought of something,” Eilistraee said, noticing the change in the Forest Queen’s expression.
“Maybe.” Mielikki focused within Herself and… shifted…, switching to Her aspect as Khalreshaar. Then she shifted Her attention to the Material Plane, focusing on the wild-called soul of Drizzt Do’Urden. And while she was still able to see him, it was difficult, the connection She had strengthened over the years since She had first noticed him fraying with every second She held this aspect. A shift back to Her true form, and the connection was back to its usual strength.
“Well. It seems that someone, most likely Your mother, wished him hidden from You, but could not achieve that without hiding him from all the other elven deities.”
Mielikki’s shift to Her half-elven aspect had made Eilistraee quite curious as to what the Forest Queen had thought of, but that… that made sense in a way that left Eilistraee concerned over Her mother’s plans for the boy. “I must tell My Chosen of this, as his father has decided that, in the spring, they will go to the stronghold My followers are building in Undermountain, and it is not safe to allow such a shroud to cross the wards there.”
Qilué had passed word of the shroud on Drizzt and what needed to be done about it on to Thyl and Lin, so when they returned with the clothes and food that Zak had requested, they told him about the matter. He had been quite displeased to hear of the Spider Queen’s interference in his son’s life, not much happier about Mielikki’s ‘meddling’—as he called it—regardless of Her intentions, and still more displeased about the need for further divine meddling to remove the shroud, though he did acknowledge the necessity.
Biweekly check-ins had been agreed upon, though Drizzt’s curiosity and desire to learn all he could quickly led to the check-ins turning into weekly lessons in wilderness skills. And while it had been Drizzt’s drive to learn that had initiated the lessons, Zak also tended to join in, his practical nature seeing the value in both of them gaining such skills, especially with the journey they would be taking in the spring.
The speed with which Drizzt picked up everything Thyl and Lin taught the pair of drow was always impressive, and sometimes truly surprising, even accounting for his youth making the learning easier. Thyl and Lin ended up concluding that it had to be another manifestation of Drizzt being a wild-called ranger, and even Zak eventually came to agree.
When the days started getting warmer as well as longer, Drizzt announced that he wanted to have a true test of how well he had learned all that Thyl and Lin had taught him. And after some serious negotiations between all four of them, it was agreed that they would all spend two weeks following the nearby Goblintide up into the Frost Hills, with Drizzt taking the lead in all matters, after which Thyl and Lin would teleport them back to Zak and Drizzt’s shelter.
And while the expedition did go well, satisfying Drizzt’s need for a test, it had also turned up the curiosity of an above-ground, abandoned dwarf city near the mountain known as Fourth Peak. They had not explored it for long, as Thyl and Lin knew that there were cursed ruins in the Frost Hills, and did not want to risk that their discovery was among them, but both they and Drizzt made careful note of its position in relation to both Fourth Peak and the Goblintide.
On Thyl and Lin’s next visit after the expedition, the subject of conversation came around to Zak and Drizzt’s upcoming journey to the Promenade, and when it would be safe for them to start it. Discussion of potential routes revealed that Zak had taken their warnings about Nesmé seriously enough to feel that it was worth the extra traveling time to begin by heading west to the Long Road in order to avoid Nesmé’s territory as completely as possible.
Knowing that, Thyl and Lin were able to say that it would be necessary for Zak and Drizzt to wait until the spring floods were at least mostly over before starting the trek, as there were two major streams they would have to cross in order to reach the Long Road. Zak was not entirely happy about the need to wait for an event that could not be predicted, but he did acknowledge that Thyl and Lin were the ones who knew the dangers, and their promise to check the state of the streams every week placated him.
Six weeks later, Thyl and Lin reported that the floods had subsided enough that travelers on foot would be able to cross the streams if they were careful. They also brought a map showing the area from the Spine all the way to Waterdeep, and two packs filled with travel rations.
“We’ve marked both the location of the portal to the Promenade and the more common locations used by its residents for the full moon rituals,” Thyl said as he handed the map to Zak, “but for the safety of the Promenade’s residents, we used a spell to make it so that only you and Drizzt can see those marks.”
Somewhat more than a month and a half after Zak and Drizzt had begun their journey, they reached the general vicinity of the portal to the Promenade. However, for all that he felt the Promenade was a better option than Silverymoon, Zak was still wary of other drow, and decided that he wanted to watch one of the full moon rituals, so he could see how these drow actually interacted with each other, before he and Drizzt approached them.
A bit less than a week later, Drizzt sat concealed in a tree at the edge of a clearing, watching a large group of drow dance and sing and spar under the full moon. He knew his father was wary of joining other drow again, but none of the ones in the clearing made his skin itch. Which, given that his father was the only person he had met before their arrival on the Surface that didn’t produce that reaction, had to mean that these drow were like him and his father!
Not willing to wait any longer for his father’s signal, when the song was so beautiful and pure, faintly calling to him in a way he didn’t really understand, Drizzt slipped down from his perch and stepped out into the clearing.
“Hello,” he called.
Zak cursed silently when his son stepped into the clearing, but he had halfway been expecting such an event to happen, even as he had hoped that it wouldn’t, so rather than immediately follow Drizzt, he chose to wait just a little longer on revealing himself.
Qilué had been just as startled as everyone else when a young voice called out greetings in Common, but turning to see that the speaker was a young drow—younger than Ysolde, even, she thought—at least relieved her concern that they had been discovered by someone who would reveal their presence to those distrustful of drow.
“Hello, young one,” she said, stepping closer to the youth, though still remaining out of easy reach for an attack with the blades he wore. “My name is Qilué Veladorn. What is yours?”
“Drizzt Do’Urden.”
“Ah, then you are the young drow that Thyl and Lin spoke to me about. They also spoke of your father, however. Is he near, or did something happen to him during your journey?”
Well, that was as good a cue as any for him to reveal himself, Zak felt, especially since the drow in the clearing had not only not reacted in any hostile manner, their leader herself had expressed concern—odd as that was to him—that something might have happened to him.
So he slipped down from the tree he was in—nowhere near as silently as Drizzt had managed—and stepped out into the clearing himself. “I am here, Lady.”
“You are Zaknafein, then, yes?”
“That is correct.”
“I am sure that you, at least, have questions that you want answered before you and your son enter the Promenade.” Qilué reached out to where Elkantar had come up beside her, and took his hand. “If you find it suitable, my consort and I will do our best to answer them, while the rest of our people continue with the celebration of our Lady.”
“I’d like Drizzt to stay with me for now, but yes, that does work.”
“Of course.”
The four of them gathered at the edge of the clearing even as the rest of the drow resumed what they had been doing before Drizzt interrupted things, and by the time the moon set, Zak’s questions had all been answered, the Spider Queen’s shroud had been removed from Drizzt, and both of them were ready to enter what would now be their home.
While Vierna had not dared to try and locate Drizzt and the Weapon Master while she was still in Menzoberranzan, she had hoped to be able to do so after settling into her Lord’s temple in Skullport. But for some reason, she proved to be just as unable to scry for Drizzt as for Zaknafein—more so really, as she had at least been able to determine that Zak was on the Surface, but scrying for Drizzt got no results whatsoever.
She kept trying again periodically, in case the protections had been removed, but as the months wore on without success, her frustration grew.
And then, roughly nine months after she had arrived in Skullport, ~I have news for you~ brushed across her mind as she was settling down to sleep, followed by a shadow forming in her bedchamber, a shadow that had Vhaeraun’s mask where the face would be.
“What news do you bring me, my Lord?” she asked.
“It seems that your brother and the Weapon Master have managed to make their way to the community of My sister’s followers that lives in Undermountain.”
Vierna smiled widely. That was significant news indeed. Only… “May I ask how You learned they had done so?”
“A reasonable request,” Vhaeraun said. “I have been keeping some of My attention out for them, and My notice was drawn by what turned out to be the removal of a shroud My mother had placed on your brother, to conceal him from the notice of the rest of Us.”
Vierna was already aware that the Promenade of the Dark Maiden sent trade caravans to Skullport on a bimonthly schedule, so now that she knew that Drizzt and Zak were there, she arranged for some of the Temple’s guards to go look for Zak among the caravan guards when the next one arrived.
Zak had not been with that caravan, nor had he been with the one after that, which meant that Vierna was going to have to get someone to approach the next caravan that came, in order pass along her request to speak with him. And while she would like to deliver the request personally, she knew it would be better to have one of the male guards do so.
Given the careful observation by other drow that the last two caravans had reported, Elkantar had felt it would be a good idea to send some extra guards with the next one, and had chosen to lead the caravan guards himself.
That choice now seemed to be paying off, as a male drow, wearing a cloak pin in the shape of Vhaeraun’s mask, approached him directly while the traders were unloading the wagon. As the other drow’s hands were well clear of his weapons, Elkantar did not reach for his own, though he did shift to make sure he could draw them quickly, should it prove necessary.
Tebryn noticed the shift in posture of the Eilistraeean he had chosen to approach, and stopped outside of easy attack range, though still within reasonable conversational distance.
The clear indication that the Vhaeraunite did not wish conflict either was at least somewhat reassuring, Elkantar felt, but he remained alert even as he asked, “What do you want?”
“One of my Lord’s clerics wishes to speak with Zaknafein.”
Well, that would certainly explain why the last two caravans had been being observed so carefully. The cleric must have been hoping that Zak would be one of the caravan guards. It also raised the question of how the cleric had known that Zaknafein was at the Promenade, but since Elkantar didn’t think it likely that a mere messenger would know the answer to that, he settled for asking “Did this cleric say what they wish to speak with him about?”
“A family matter.” Tebryn was quite curious as to what sort of family matter the Redeemed Shade could need to discuss with an Eilistraeean, but he knew better than to ask.
‘A family matter?’ Elkantar knew of exactly one other member of House Do’Urden that Zak would have any desire to speak with. And given that Zak believed that member was wholly lost to the Spider Queen, this was most likely a trap of some sort, but it was worth finding out how well it was baited. “What is this cleric’s name?” Elkantar asked, not bothering to hide his suspicion.
“Vierna.”
Elkantar concealed his surprise by main force of will. That was the name of Zak’s daughter, which meant that there was a slim chance that Vhaeraun had, somehow, stolen her from the Spider Queen, though a trap still seemed more likely. But if they knew enough to use Vierna’s name, Zaknafein himself should be the one to decide how to handle this. “I will pass the message along.”
As Elkantar had suspected would be the case, Zaknafein’s reaction to the request passed along by the Vhaeraunite drow was well beyond suspicious, and solidly into paranoid. Nor could Elkantar blame him for such a reaction, as it was all too easy to imagine how much Vhaeraun might covet a neutral drow who had Zaknafein’s skill with blades. And that was assuming a more benign reason for a trap. It was entirely possible, after all, that a priestess of House Do’Urden had managed to get a follower of Selvetarm to pretend to be Vhaeraunite in order to reclaim the House’s erring Weapon Master.
Many serious discussions later, Zaknafein had decided that even with the strong likelihood of it being a trap, it would still be better for him to join the next caravan and see what he could find out, leading Elkantar to chose to go with the caravan again, since he was the one who could identify the drow who had conveyed the request.
Vierna was well aware that Zak’s reaction to her message was most likely to be outright paranoia, and he would therefore be unwilling to go out of easy reach of the other drow with the Promenade’s caravan, so when the next one arrived, she and another guard accompanied the one who had delivered the message, the two of them stopping in the shadows just out of easy sight of the caravan, while the original guard continued on.
As the traders began to unload the wagon, Zak followed Elkantar’s signal to come stand beside him, having agreed earlier that they would remain together unless Zak indicated otherwise. And it was not long before a male drow, once again wearing a cloak pin in the shape of Vhaeraun’s mask, approached the two of them.
Tebryn was relieved to see, as he approached the caravan, that a drow matching the description the Redeemed Shade had provided was indeed present this time. And unless he was mistaken, the man was standing beside the one Tebryn had spoken to last time, which had to be deliberate on their part.
Once again stopping at a reasonable conversational distance that was nevertheless out of easy attack range, Tebryn looked directly at the drow with unbound hair who bore two longswords, and asked, “Zaknafein Do’Urden?”
Shifting his hand so that it touched Elkantar’s, Zak signed ‘Same messenger?’ against his friend’s—strange as it still seemed to have someone that he could call ‘friend’ without any caveats—palm.
‘Yes,’ Elkantar signed back.
“That is my name,” Zak answered the other drow.
“Will you join me for a little while?” Tebryn asked. He hoped Zaknafein agreed, but at least the Redeemed Shade had provided non-confrontational instructions for what to do if the man refused.
“If we remain near my allies, then yes,” Zak replied. Elkantar shifted beside him, and he signed, ‘Stay. Will remain in sight.’
‘Alright,’ Elkantar signed in response.
“Of course,” Tebryn said. “It’s not far at all.”
“Then lead on,” Zak said, stepping forward.
Tebryn turned, and began to head back to where the Redeemed Shade was waiting with Chaurah, trusting Zaknafein to follow him.
As he followed the other drow, Zak paid careful attention to how far he was getting from the caravan, and when he saw that they were almost out of easy sight—and more than that, they were heading into a shadowed area—he stopped. “This is as far as I’m going,” he said. “If your Lord’s cleric still wants to talk to me, they can meet me here.”
In the shadows just beyond where Zaknafein had stopped, Vierna did not sigh, even though she wanted to. After all, she had been expecting something like this, and Zak had actually come a good bit closer to where she was waiting than she had thought he would. So she put on her mask, and stepped out of the shadows. “I am here, Zaknafein Do’Urden.”
As the woman who had stepped out of the shadows spoke, Zaknafein had to call on all of his long, long experience in not letting his reactions show in any visible way. Because the woman certainly sounded like Vierna, and she was even wearing two maces, but it was not possible for her to actually be Vierna. His daughter had long since been lost to the Spider Bitch. But with such incredible effort put into the deception, it was at least worth hearing her out. “And what sort of family matter do you wish to speak of with me?” he asked.
“Gifts given to a child, and the lessons taught by those gifts.”
At those words, Zaknafein was entirely unable to hide his shock. No one but Vierna should know about the pirate spider he had given her as a young child, much less what he had named as his price for giving it to her. Elkantar had thought there was a slim chance that the Masked God had somehow managed to steal Vierna from the Spider Queen; was it actually possible that his friend had been correct?
Vierna had never seen Zaknafein display any emotion so openly as he did at her reference to the gift that had, in so many ways, prepared her to be receptive to Vhaeraun’s overtures, much less one so vulnerable as surprise. But then again, that was precisely why she had made the reference, since it was knowledge that only the two of them held. Reaching up, she removed her mask and smiled. “Hello, Weapon Master.”
Zak had returned to the caravan long enough to tell Elkantar that it wasn’t actually a trap, that slim chance had turned out to be correct, and promise he’d be back before the caravan left, then quite gladly went with Vierna to Vhaeraun’s temple so they could visit in private.
The conversation had started with clearing the air between the two of them, then rambled through the experiences each of them had had since Zak had stolen away with Drizzt, and when it eventually came around to Zak and Drizzt taking up residence at the Promenade, Vierna said, “Is there any chance I can convince you and Drizzt to come live here? I have truly missed both of you.”
“It’s already clear that Drizzt loves the Surface enough that he’s not going to stay at the Promenade forever,” Zak replied, “so I’m certainly willing to come live here once he starts wandering. But Drizzt himself is, somehow, so thoroughly good that he just wouldn’t fit in here.”
Vierna sighed. “That’s… disappointing, though I can’t quite say that I’m surprised, given that I never did manage to teach him proper caution in trusting others. I’ll have to get to work on a pair of sending stones for him and me, then, since I certainly don’t want to have to wait years to talk to him again.”
She was about to ask what Zak meant by ‘Drizzt loves the Surface’, when the combined thoughts of ‘Drizzt is good-aligned’ and ‘a magical item for Drizzt’ made her realize that she now had a solution for the problem of the figure she had taken off the Hun’ett wizard. Drawing it out of her belt pouch, she handed the figure to Zak. “This is a gift for Drizzt.”
“Are you sure?” Zak asked. A figure of wondrous power was quite a valuable object, after all, and this had to be the one that she had mentioned as spoils of the House War that had given her the opportunity to escape.
“I am,” Vierna said. “Unfortunately for me, the great cat it summons is not only atypically independent for a figure, it is wholly good as well.” Then she told Zak its name and explained the time limitations.
“Ah,” Zak said, tucking the figure into his own belt pouch. “I’m sure Drizzt will be delighted to have an animal friend more intelligent than the bats and the spitting crawlers, even if it cannot be present all the time.”
“So what did you mean when you said that Drizzt ‘loves the Surface’?” Vierna asked, returning to the train of thought that had been diverted by the figure.
“Apparently, he’s what’s known as a ‘wild-called ranger’,” Zak replied, “and as a result, his nature is far more suited to living on the Surface than in any sort of underground settlement.”
“Well then, I think that makes it even more appropriate for him to have the figure.”
Elkantar and Qilué, and even Ysolde, had also noticed how obvious Drizzt’s love of the Surface was, and having more knowledge of rangers than Zak, had realized that Drizzt’s calling would drive him to leave the Promenade far sooner than would be considered a reasonable age for even a half-human elf or drow. And so, the three of them set about convincing him (and Zak) that when he did decide to leave, he should start by spending at least a few years training with Dove and Florin, learning the ranger skills that no one at the Promenade could truly teach him.
Thyl and Lin, and even the rest of the Tall Ones, contributed to the effort whenever they visited the Promenade, and eventually, after a meeting between the two drow and the two rangers had happened, Drizzt and Zak both agreed to the plan.
So when Drizzt’s itch to explore finally got too strong to hold back, at the age of thirty-six, Qilué quite gladly arranged for Thyl and Lin to bring Drizzt to Dove and Florin’s home in the Dalelands.
Drizzt studied with Dove and Florin for five years, traveling with Dove, and learning ranger spells, how to better communicate with animals, and more advanced wilderness skills than Thyl and Lin had managed to teach him during that one winter, before even that was no longer enough to keep him satisfied.
Dove and Florin had actually been expecting such a decision for most of a year at that point, and were impressed enough with his skills that they had already wrangled an agreement from all outside interested parties that—as Drizzt was still underage for even a half-blood, let alone a full-blood, but was of an age at which a half-blood might start exploring in the company of family—if he could manage to spend a full year living off the land near Shadowdale, without being seen by its residents, and leaving minimal sign of his presence other than actions taken to protect the residents or their animals, no one would fuss about his age.
Drizzt readily agreed to such a graduation exercise, and so, after just a month of preparation, he set out to begin it.
Drizzt had, by the strictest letter of the agreement, failed the graduation exercise, but since the only reason he had been seen by any of Shadowdale's residents was because he had saved its lord from an assassination attempt while said lord was traveling, everyone agreed that he had held to the spirit of the exercise, and had therefore passed.
So once he had said his farewells to Florin and the other students—and to a grateful Syluné and Aumry—Dove brought him back to the Promenade so he could spend some time with the family and friends he had not seen in six years, before he took up his independent wandering.
A month at the Promenade, two months in Skullport with Vierna and their father, followed by two more months at the Promenade, with Zak, proved to be as long as he was willing to spend visiting, and so, after farewells all around, Drizzt set out on his own, Guen’s figure in his belt pouch, and the contingency necklace Ysolde had given him around his neck.
Six years after he had set out on his own, Drizzt followed a pull north all the way up to the Icewind Dale. Knowing that the residents of the Ten Towns were unlikely to be any more welcoming of a drow than most places below the Spine, he chose to bypass them entirely, and set about finding a suitable cave up on Kelvin’s Cairn.
That had resulted in him meeting a young human girl, by the name of Catti-brie, which had led to a meeting with one Bruenor Battlehammer, chieftain of the small clan of dwarves that had settled in the cleft below the Cairn, and Catti-brie’s adoptive father. And while the meeting with Bruenor had started out poorly, Eilistraee’s blessing on Drizzt’s blades had quickly changed the dwarf’s mind about him.
By the time winter had set in on the tundra, Drizzt’s willingness to watch out for, and teach, Catti-brie, along with his willingness to aid the clan as a whole, had earned him welcome within the clan’s caverns. And while he did not impose on that welcome often, it was nice to be able to occasionally spend an evening with pleasant company in a place that was warmer than his cave, even with the improvements the dwarves had made to it.
On one such evening, as the tundra was starting to move into spring, the conversation between Drizzt and Bruenor came around to Bruenor’s eventual plans to find his clan’s ancestral home of Mithral Hall. But this time, unlike previous times the subject had come up, Bruenor mentioned that as best as any of those who were old enough to remember could recall, the Hall was probably somewhere in or near the Silver Marches.
“In or near the Silver Marches?” Drizzt repeated, intrigued. The Frost Hills definitely counted as ‘near the Silver Marches’, and he remembered the ruined city they had found on that long-ago expedition to test the skills Thyl and Lin had been teaching him.
“Aye,” Bruenor rumbled.
“Do you remember if the Hall had an above-ground trading point?” Drizzt asked.
It took several minutes, in which Drizzt was patiently quiet—knowing the difficulties those who had been old enough to walk out of the Hall, rather than be carried, had in recalling much of anything about the Hall—but Bruenor eventually sighed, and said, “It might’ve. There was certainly a place very close by that we stayed fer a few days right after th’ fall, before we had tae move on. Could’ve easily been th’ tradestown.
“Why’d ye ask?”
“Roughly thirty-five years ago, my father and I, along with my friends Thyl and Lin, found an above-ground, abandoned dwarf city in the Frost Hills.”
“Those're just west of the Silver Marches, aye? D'ye recall where in them th’ city was?”
“Essentially the western border of the Silver Marches, yes,” Drizzt said. “And the city was located near Fourth Peak, not far from the Goblintide.”
That description stirred something in his memory and Bruenor couldn’t help but gape at his friend. Was it really possible that Drizzt had found the best lead the clan had ever had, decades before they met?
“I think I need tae discuss this with th’ elders,” Bruenor said. “Because somethin’ about that seems familiar somehow, but damned if I c'n say why.”
After long discussion, and much cudgeling of their memories, the remaining greybeards agreed that the city Drizzt had spoken of just might be the tradestown they had known as Dwarvendarrow. But given the difficulties with their memories, they felt it would be best if they could speak to at least the pair of half-elves, and see the location on a map, before doing anything like preparing to move the clan back south.
Drizzt was well accustomed to Catti-brie coming to visit him, but it was far less common for any of the dwarves to come up to his cave. So when he heard a dwarf’s heavy footsteps approaching, a few days after his last visit to their caverns, he was a bit puzzled, though not at all displeased.
Drizzt had not—quite—forgotten what he had mentioned to Bruenor during that visit, but he had, rather deliberately, done his best to set his curiosity aside, in order to have his full attention available when he was ranging. The visitor turning out to be Bruenor himself, however, brought it fully back to mind, and once he was settled on one of the chairs, with a warm drink in hand, the dwarf got right down to business.
“D’ye have any way of gettin’ those half-elf friends of yers tae come up here, with the location of that city ye found marked on a map?” he asked. “The greybeards agree it might well be the tradestown, but want tae be a bit more certain before we go and do anything major.”
“Not directly, but I can start a message chain that will reach them,” Drizzt replied. “Though I will warn you up front that part of that chain is dependent on a bimonthly trade caravan, so it may take some time for the message to actually reach them.”
“We’ve been up here for near two centuries,” Bruenor rumbled, “a couple o’ months won’t matter, so long as the message does reach them.”
“Then I will use my sending stone to reach out to my sister tonight.”
Vierna had passed the message to Zaknafein, who had gone to the Promenade with their next trade caravan and passed it to Elkantar, who passed it to Qilué, who had then passed it on to Thyl and Lin.
The twins had wrapped up their current business as quickly as they were able to, and then, after procuring a map that they could give to Drizzt’s dwarf friend, went up to the Frost Hills to make sure they marked the location as accurately as possible. A chance remark to their mother when they had stopped in Silverymoon on their way to the Frost Hills had led to a brief sending to Drizzt to verify the clan name of his friend, and the result of that had both caused a week’s delay in actually heading north and given them a great deal more to share with said friend.
Most of three months after Drizzt had sent to Vierna, he, Thyl and Lin, Bruenor, and the clan’s remaining greybeards gathered in one of the rooms the dwarves kept warm at all times for the greybeards’ comfort. But after Drizzt had made the needed introductions, Bruenor and the greybeards experienced a further surprise, as Thyl started things off by saying “In addition to bringing the map you requested, we have set in motion a census of the Hall’s survivors in the Silver Marches, so that you will have a better idea of the clan’s full numbers, regardless of whether the city we found proves to be the trading point.”
“Ye’re sayin’ there are others of me clan who survived?” Bruenor asked, disbelief and hope warring in his heart and in his voice.
“Yes,” Lin said. “We were too young to help ourselves, but our older brothers brought many dwarrows and elders to the Citadels, after they had been found wandering by the elves in the Moonwood.”
“That is a blessing to know,” one of the greybeards said, “e’en if most o’ the elders have passed on by now.”
“We are pleased to have been able to bring you such welcome news,” Thyl said.
As surprised as he had been by the news of more clan to protect, Bruenor was still a practical dwarf, so he shook off the shock, and said, “Now let’s be about hearin’ yer accounts o’ the abandoned city, and lookin’ at the map ye brought.”
“Of course,” Thyl said, getting out the map.
Some time later, after much studying of the map, and an intensive interrogation of Thyl and Lin by the greybeards that had occasionally had them sending to their older brothers, Bruenor and the greybeards had to agree that the city most likely was Dwarvendarrow, called Settlestone by others according the records Thyl and Lin had found.
“Too late in the year tae be tryin’ to make the move now,” Bruenor said, “but we can spend the rest o’ the year preparing, and head south next spring.”
“And we can spend that time spreading word of your coming among the other survivors, and getting started on preparing Settlestone for the clan’s arrival,” Lin said.
“Aye, that’d be right good o’ you,” Bruenor agreed. “’Tis nice tae have some hope for the future again.”
Tags:
- au: canon divergence,
- author: somariel,
- category: gen,
- character: bruenor battlehammer,
- character: drizzt do'urden,
- character: eilistraee,
- character: elkantar iluim,
- character: inthylyn aerasumé,
- character: lilinthar aerasumé,
- character: mielikki,
- character: qilué veladorn,
- character: vierna do'urden,
- character: zaknafein do'urden,
- rating: general audiences,
- warning: no warnings apply
no subject
Date: 2023-06-06 12:03 am (UTC)I love the Tall Ones, Eilistraee, Qilué, and all the others.
But ultimately I am just OVERJOYED this got such a wonderful follow up!
no subject
Date: 2023-06-06 08:16 am (UTC)And I'm glad you love it so much.