Tales of Faerun

The End Comes at Last (5237 words) by Sharpest_Asp, Ilyena_Sylph
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Drizzt Do'Urden, Bruenor Battlehammer, Vierna Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Typical Violence
Series: Part 5 of Oblodra Gloom
Summary:

Vierna's quest is on the cusp of completion.

The End Comes at Last

After much consideration, and a lot of arguing as well as the deliberate hammering on the fact that the dragon had likely taken its hated duergar with it, Drizzt was given leave to go negotiate.

He spent the ice-locked season scouting right up to the area the artifact insisted was the second pool of Shadowfell energy. It was the very last peak in the region called the Frost Hills. He found interesting landmarks, and… an abandoned town built in stone above ground that would serve well as a base camp.

From there, it was a matter of seeking the best route. The clan could not take the one he intended to use to get back to Icewind Dale, across the peaks, but a stealthy trip inside a small town near the peaks let him gain access to better maps. The residents of Rivermoot never knew a drow had raided their town for knowledge, and he skipped off across the mountains as soon as he thought it was warm enough to make it to the dwarves.

He waited outside, near the trade door, making certain he was ready to do this. He had offers he could make, some things that were forbidden, and an injunction to make the dwarves do as much of the work as possible.

He could handle this, he told himself, before finally tapping on the trade door.

The spy-hole slid open, and there was a startled, "Ye're back?" before the door opened to let him in. "Chief said tae let ye in, but yer not tae go past the trade cavern wi'out him, ye ken?"

"Understandable," Drizzt said easily. He slipped in, went to the office, and began setting out the maps and drawings he had ready for explaining it all, to persuade the chieftain to this cause.

Nor was he kept waiting all that long, and he turned to see the dwarf he truly hoped would one day be a friend.

"Greetings, Chieftain," he said in a friendly manner.

"Greetings tae ye," Bruenor replied, "tis still right early, surprised as ye made it through th' passes sae soon, lad."

"I came over the mountains," Drizzt said easily enough. "More of a straight shot from where I was." He indicated the maps, before tapping the drawings of Fourth Peak. "I hope some of these spark a memory."

"Over th' mountains?" Bruenor stared at him, shaking his head emphatically, before he came to stare at the drawings. "Mountains," he said, "and... ye've a fine hand, tae catch 'em sae well."

He picked up one of the drawings to hold it more in line with where the horizon would be, trying to see if it did touch anything in his memory... but nothing came. He shook his head, and put it back down. "That one, at least, nae... why did ye think as it might?"

"More a hope out of a wish to spare you any meddling in your mind," Drizzt admitted. "I went to the Frost Hills. And Fourth Peak," he said, tapping it on the regional map of that area, "is where my sister's artifact says the Shadowfell energy is strongest.

"As unusual as these columns and that above-ground abandoned town are, I truly did wish they'd push through your memory." He shrugged. "Maybe drawings aren't enough. Possibly being there will be. If you choose to come scout it."

"It's a chance tae find me Hall again, lad," Bruenor replied. "If ye tracked the same magic as is on me clan tae this place," he gestured at the drawings, "then aye, I'll go wi' ye tae seek."

He picked up the one of the town, shifting it from near his nose to almost at arm's length, studying it intently. "Dwarves built that," he said, finally, "nae doubt o' that. 'S wrong for humans, an' elves donnae oft build so much in stone.... exceptin' yer people, I'd guess?"

"Hmm, our building with stone is a bit different," Drizzt said, amused. "But on the surface, the drow I have seen tend to take over established places, rather than build anew." He shrugged. "I don't much like the ones I have seen above so far. Their interpretations of religious writings is far too loose.

"But, I am glad you will go to look. As I am hopeful about seeing your people safely back to your home, while also helping my sister finish her quest. It will the right thing for your people, and aid her in remaining safe as well as protecting our father."

"I'd ne'er heard aught good about any drow, afore ye came," Bruenor admitted, "but yer a fair one. I'll need a day or three to see things aright while I'm gone, will that be a trouble for ye?"

"Not at all." Drizzt grinned. "I'll stop back in three days? As it will let me see more of this area, stretch my legs, restock my food," he suggested.

"Aye, that will do," Bruenor decided. "I'll get t'other old ones tae come an' look, mayhap one o' them will recall somewhat, from yer drawin's."

Drizzt inclined his head to that, then picked his pack back up. "My greetings to your clan, and I hope young Catti-brie is quite well."

He'd be glad for a chance to explore, and see more of this strange land.

---

Bruenor proved to be a good traveling companion, the whole way around the Spine and up into the Hills. The fights they had found in various points had given them each a measure of the other's skills.

Now, Drizzt perched on the wall of one of the buildings in the dwarf-built town as Bruenor wandered from place to place, trying to undo the curse on him by seeking something, anything that might be familiar.

The mark of the trade-clan helped; Bruenor had always known that part of his clan were more distant kin, and they kept their mark on the records they made, handling trade with Ten-Towns for them.

"Aye, elf, this was part of our trading range, for that mark tae be here," Bruenor called to him. He turned and looked at the peak looming up over them. "Ye think it be there, nae further in the hills?"

"The Shadow-energy dissipates as I move away from the fourth one," Drizzt said. "It's stronger at the lower part of the mountain than the top, but then… dwarves would delve low, not high, for ores."

"Aye, indeed."

"Let us rest this night here, and come the morning, explore the strange columns, and the river side if that doesn't aid us." Drizzt dropped down off the wall, coming over to the dwarf struggling to make his mind work.

"And if that fails?" Bruenor asked with a pessimist's eye to the sole goal he had for his entire life.

"We camp, and my sister comes to us, to see if she can heal the memory wound barring you from what we need."

Bruenor scowled, but they had no choice, if they were going to learn the way in.

---

Using Guen's ability to find portals in the Underdark helped Bruenor and Drizzt find the way in, once Bruenor had found the hidden stair, and was insistent that a door had to exist on the blank face of the mountain.

Guen could not, however, open the door, nor could Bruenor command it to work, but Drizzt's curiosity and tapping along the area with his dagger — crafted by coastal dwarves and then enchanted for a favor done for a witch outside of Neverwinter provided the clue.

Drizzt half-wondered if the blade's enchantments would ever work again or if the door had drained them all as the energy soaked out and let Bruenor open the passage. Ahh, well. That witch wasn't afraid of him and had appreciated his skills. She might redo them for another task.

After that, it was but another adventure, one built on stealth and the memories ever-so-slowly seeping back in as Bruenor told the Hall that Drizzt was their ally.

Even knowing the ancient enemy that had despoiled his home city was here, Drizzt was unprepared for the sheer depth of the evil miasma lurking. He'd never had to deal with such a thing out of true combat, such as when he protected his father's back in House Oblodra, and it made him wonder, especially as the gentle song in his mind faded to a whisper.

---

Drizzt stood for a very long moment under the moon, letting it pour down on him, before he collapsed to his knees. That Bruenor dropped alongside him, to the point of just lying flat out on his back staring up at the skies, was reassuring; Drizzt wasn't being weak to let the relief of being out of there hit him so hard.

After an indeterminate time, he put his hand on the sending stone to his father.

~Tell her it is the mountain, he is there, thousands of duergar, a pair of hounds, shades, slaves, and a few shadar-kai.~

~You'd better be alright, son of mine, or she nor I will be happy,~ was the gruff but loving reply.

With that done, Drizzt turned his head to look at Bruenor. "Probably not safe to camp this close. Think we can cross the river and find a spot?"

"Aye, elf. That much we have in us," Bruenor agreed, and slowly rolled to get back on his feet. He moved awkwardly, but the regalia had been needed, if Bruenor was going to motivate the dwarves of the region to fight for taking his Hall back.

Drizzt didn't envy him, as the mithral shirt he wore was light but unfitted. It had been too finely made for him to refuse the gift, and Bruenor had promised to have it fitted.

---

Vierna did not linger long over the communal meal in the Temple, not after the moment Zaknafein had caught her eye and laid his hand on the table in the shape of a 'd' for a heartbeat. She was not hasty, but soon enough she and their father were alone in her quarters, with the protections raised.

"You've heard from him?"

It was not the new or full moon, so that sign had to mean that Drizzt had reached out. For him to have reached out off-schedule, he had found something or there was some trouble beyond what he could deal with.

"The mountain is confirmed as our target," Zaknafein said. "He sounded tired, but reported the dragon is there with duergar, slaves, shades, hounds, and some shadar-kai." He shook his head. "If that boy got close enough to see the dragon…" He let the fatherly threat trail off. In his heart, he knew Drizzt would have insisted on getting that close.

Vierna sighed, raking her fingers through her hair. "You know he would have," she said, "but that isn't going to save him from my shaking him for doing it. With any luck, the damned thing was asleep.

"I suppose we're going to be testing out our Surface gear, then." She didn't bother to pretend Zaknafein was not going to be going with her, she'd have to petrify him to stop him and she knew it. "Hopefully there's a cavern somewhere nearby we can take shelter in."

"I'll leave you to coordinating that with him when you take your own spells," Zak said wryly, certain Drizzt was already planning on staging areas. "I'll need to see what I can, have him map for me, to be able to handle the fighters we take. And the wizards." He did not roll his eyes at that necessity. "Question is, do we let Jarlaxle know, so we can give him time to scout up to the den, given Drizzt being certain it is not far from Menzoberranzan?"

On the one hand, having surprise allies would be a benefit. On the other, if Jarlaxle wasn't careful, their former Matron might become aware of them.

Vierna hummed thoughtfully, tapping her fingers on her thigh in an idle pattern as she considered. "I see advantages to both, but... I think not. He is incredible at defending his mind, but what he doesn't know can't hurt us."

Zak inclined his head to that; he would not have minded the personal benefit of it at all -- and then he realized his son was probably going to be protective of the damned dwarves by the end of this.

"For the better to leave him out then."

"Yes," Vierna agreed, then a corner of her mouth quirked up. "Once this is over, Corvayn said he saw Bregan D'aerthe sigils in Skullport. You could go with one of the caravans down there for a while..."

She flashed a wider smile as her father momentarily glared at her.

She would need sending spells for tomorrow, as many as she could take, and if they went by portal up to the Surface, a teleport as well.

---

Vierna had waited for true night to fall in Drizzt's region before she reached out with her last sending, on the Surface already with Zak, to get a sighting for her teleport from her brother without being blinded.

How he endured that damned ball of fire, she would never understand.

Drizzt felt her questing send, had warned Bruenor that his family was coming, and found one of the buildings with a distinctive look to one wall and floor, using it as what he sent back in reply to her.

~Here, sister.~ Between the view, and her crafting of the sending stone, as well as Vhaeraun's intense interest in this quest, she had no trouble with the teleport.

Zaknafein, as always, shuddered a little; the effect was close to instantaneous but for her, a cleric of the Masked God, it meant moving through shadows not that far removed from the actual Shadowfell.

It was why Vhaeraun hated this dragon, for normally He was an ally to that realm, yet harm to drow trumped any alliances.

Vierna let go of Zak's hands to move to her brother, frowning as she took in his chilled appearance, and caught hold of his hands even as she greeted him, murmuring the three-word incantation for her healing spell.

Drizzt sighed, but accepted that this was who they were, and let the faintly tingling spell run its course without saying anything about it.

"It is good to see you, Vierna. Father. We're in the abandoned town on the side of the mountain. I thought you'd prefer to be out of the elements."

"Appreciated, but you look like hell," Zak said. "Or did, which means you needed what she just did."

Vierna leaned in to kiss his cheek. "Don't sigh at me; you look much better now. The dwarf has been taking at least decent care of you, I will admit. And yes. I appreciate not being out there. Do we sit so you can tell us, or..."

"He's sleeping," Drizzt agreed, and settled on the floor. "He's wanted me to improve a bit, while we figure out how to both get his clan down here and start building an alliance of dwarves to deal with the duergar.

"As, like we agreed in Rilauven with the fighters and wizards, the duergar are not necessarily our focus in this." Drizzt grinned. "He's thinking the need to kill gray ones will overcome the wariness of working with drow."

"It had better," Zak said. "How many shadar-kai and hounds do you estimate, son?"

"Two hounds; there were two beds in the lair. The shadar-kai? I only saw sign of five of them, but figure at least twice that."

"At least," Vierna agreed, nodding agreement. Two hounds wasn't terrible, the shadar-kai would be more difficult.

And then, of course… there was the dragon itself, the beast that had stolen worship from proper deities to fuel its own twisted ambitions and had destroyed and despoiled drow cities over its millennia of life.

"What is he thinking about the logistics?" Zaknafein asked, itching to have maps, but he doubted his son had had time to draw them yet.

"To go north, bring most of his fighting dwarves, then approach one of the citadels closer to here while the fighters turn this into a proper base camp." Drizzt shrugged. "It's doable, but only just barely, given the distances involved. It still might be spring next year before we can actually undertake the attack.

"But the fighters can move swiftly, without the young and old."

Vierna nodded. "I would not be allowed to make a portal for dwarves, even for this, I do not think," she said thoughtfully, "so that is likely the best that can be done. Have you seen anywhere we can shelter our people, until just before the attack begins?"

Drizzt nodded. "I found what Bruenor says was a stopover cavern, shaped and smoothed with water, for travelers to rest before starting up the road to here. It is not far from the door we intend to use to go in, once we have a wizard willing to passwall in with a dwarf to open it.

"As it only opens outward."

"So you already know where we're staging the army he's going to recruit?" Zaknafein asked.

"I will draw it all out," Drizzt promised. "As I am going to have to be one of the first in, to take the guards on the only bridge that will get us to the area that will make a good standing point."

"A distance attack, I take it," Zaknafein mused. "Best if the wizard that goes in first have a spell on hand, just in case."

"Of course," Drizzt said, refusing to feel slighted that his skill might not be good enough. This was not a time for pride.

Vierna nodded her agreement, as it was always better to have a backup plan -- or several -- at important points of any plan. "So," she said, "what else do we need to know at the moment?"

Drizzt settled in to tell them from memory, to better cement it for when he drew it for them.

---

Drizzt brought them to meet his ally, this Bruenor Battlehammer who had, so far, taken care of Drizzt when Vierna herself could not, once the wretched ball of fire had disappeared behind the mountains -- at least there was that much for it. Also, Drizzt had crafted faerie-fire lighting for the building the dwarf-chieftain intended to keep as his own, her eyes noticed gratefully as they came in. There was a low fire, but one or the other of them had piled large logs in front of it to block the majority of the heat from assaulting them.

Bruenor was seated on what appeared to be another chunk of log standing on end, and Vierna appraised him curiously. Very healthy, she thought, by his broad shoulders, solid chest, and massively muscled arms. Thighs and calves, too, had all the brawny thickness of dwarves. There was nothing at all attractive about him, but his face was at least calm and thoughtful.

"Bruenor Battlehammer, heir of Clan Battlehammer, this is Vierna Do'Urden, my sister and a cleric of Vhaeraun, as well as Zaknafein Do'Urden, my father and Weapon Master to many." Drizzt gave a smile for adding that bit. "My father will likely coordinate the effort to remove the dragon, with my sister's guidance."

"Yes," Zak said. "Greetings. My son says you have a plan to get your fighters here, but building alliances may push the restoration of the Hall until three quarters of a year from now?"

"Aye," the dwarf replied, nodding once. "Won't be many dwarves as won't want tae come an' aid with re-takin' a dwarf-hall as has been run over by stinkin', wretched gray ones, even with a false-god dragon in the mix... but it'll take time tae get where I need to be tae talk with them. Feedin' 'em, too, on th' way here an' while we're camped, is goin' tae take a fair bit o' talkin' on, too. Especially tryin' tae do it in spring... but it has tae be done. Sooner, the better -- and nae, no for me own pride. Durned dragon could turn intae a threat tae th' whole region any time."

Vierna nodded -- she understood all of that, and she could see the problem feeding so many fighters might bring. The Surface seasons made more impact than the life-cycles of the fungi of the Underdark, but it was still a problem. "That all seems reasonable," she said mildly.

"Seems the region should help make sure they're not the next victims," Drizzt said, seriously, and so perfectly logical yet mercenary that Zaknafein silently wished Jarlaxle a fortune. At least some practicality existed in his son.

"Drizzt has a point. Even if it is just providing food and adequate water to you and your allies, the dwarves will not be the only ones at risk once the dragon awakens," Zaknafein said. "It cannot return below, as we tore away its seat of power not long after it vanished to find your Hall.

"And it evidently refuses to return to the Shadowfell, implying that it has no further power base there."

Vierna let herself make an amused noise, looking from her brother to her father, but had nothing particularly useful to offer at the moment.

The chieftain's lips had pursed under his beard -- or at least, Vierna thought that was the expression -- but he had nodded at Drizzt, and again at their father. "Ye've a point, Drizzt, ye've a point there. Will have tae see what th' humans say, once I've me folk here."

"Too bad we can't manage a surgical strike to remove the dragon first," Zaknafein said with a sigh. "But it's too risky."

Drizzt considered, thinking, then shook his head. "I know we could get in, probably even stealth our way to the lair easily enough. But the dwarven curse would see us as dangers, and then we'd need to get out before the duergar reacted… too many variables." He then looked at Bruenor. "We had the responsibility of getting to the leadership that was left, in the effort to retake our city.

"It worked well, I think, but it had been planned all my life."

"Indeed," Vierna agreed, "it had. But I agree with both of you, I do not think it could be done. We were blessed to get through our attack with no more losses than we took, and we weren't facing the dragon."

The chieftain nodded. "Aye, an' while I could keep th' curse from touchin' Drizzt, I donnae think as I could manage that fer ye two. From what he said, yer god an' mine, they're nae friendly."

"No," Vierna replied, "they are not. And while He has put that aside for the common goal of this dragon's death, yours have... little reason... to have faith in that."

Drizzt nodded. "So, you two take the drawings I made today to plan our part of the assault, I see Bruenor back to his people and remain as a liaison," he said. "Once we have the dwarf side settled, we go from there?"

"I can't see much else to be accomplished right now," Zaknafein said. He then looked at Bruenor intently. "Take care of my son, and he will see you restored to your throne."

The chieftain seemed to bristle for a moment, skin around his blue eyes tightening, but then he nodded. "Aye, he's a good lad, an' a stubborn one, too. Figure as you're right."

Drizzt came and clasped hands with his father. "I'll see you both next spring, if not sooner," he promised, before turning to his sister, to let her decide their parting gesture.

She took a step closer, clasped his upper arms, and brushed a kiss over his cheek. "Stay in touch," she told him, smiling, before she stepped back. She would get back underground, with their father, before teleporting them back to the Neverwinter coast.

"May Vhaeraun keep you both well," Drizzt offered.

"And may you not find more trouble than usual," Zak said, before joining his daughter to leave.

---

Things went mostly as planned, with the 'mostly' falling on the side of 'not wanting evil drow involved' on the part of many of the allies that were reached out to. In the end, those mostly human cities agreed to provision the army, but provided nothing else in turn.

At least Silverymoon's refusal had come with a letter of apology for bowing to political necessity, which somewhat cooled Drizzt's anger over ignoring both the expertise his people brought and the threat to the entire region. He supposed that a city at the confluence of trade but far from the true grain baskets would have to be expedient.

Other cities had not been as polite, and outright hostile in their refusals.

The dwarves, on the other hand, had been firmly told from the beginning that they were using one evil to banish another, and the least sign of treachery would break any alliance in place. Drizzt had rolled his eyes; they were neither smiths nor miners. His people were coming to fulfill a god-given quest, and leaving to reap the rewards that Vhaeraun would give them. Any who died facing the dragon were assured of a place in Vhaeraun's personal legion in the afterlife.

Drizzt, who had lived with the dwarves in the entire time it took to assemble, was going to be leading the way in. The drow would flow in behind him, set up the needed pathway and protections for the army to get to the other side of the chasm. After that, the drow would strictly be hunting those things of the Shadowfell, with the Do'Urden men protecting their cleric for the fight against the dragon.

It was as planned as it could be, and in mid-spring, the time came for the attack.

---

Zaknafein had reason to be proud of his children. Drizzt had made the shots necessary to guard the bridge, and picked off a number of duergar as the initial staging happened. While the wizards were pouring corrosive spells and acid ones out to deal with the shadar-kai, Vierna was leading the clerics in keeping the dragon from escaping, and adding their own attacks to the beastly god.

He'd seen Drizzt and Guenhwyvar engage the hounds, meaning that protecting Vierna had become his sole focus. Nor was it easy, as mobs of duergar, goblins, and kobolds ignored the certain death to try and get to those who dared attack the dragon.

There was no way to dimension lock the entire battlefield, and there had been no way to anchor the spell to a living thing before Vierna had spent weeks in prayer and meditation, working out -- with her god's help -- how to make it so. That had been the greatest of the spells she had cast, and only the anti-magic field Nalatar Ssambra had cast in front of her had kept her from falling to the dragon's killing word. Blade barriers and wind walls protected their flanks at the greatest distance she had been able to cast them, and several of the others had helped ring in the dragon with the same spell to keep it within their range.

Vhaeraun had been generous, and the flame strikes that fell on the dragon from her, and from her cleric-sibs, were darkfire, so much less painful to their eyes. Swords and daggers manifested from their soul-stuff stabbed at the dragon's eyes and nostrils and sought soft places in its hide and joints, while every time the dragon cast a spell the cleric next in the list tried to counter it with their most powerful dispel magic.

Not every attempt succeeded, but enough did, and finally, finally, the great beast slammed into the side of the gorge and toppled headfirst down into the rushing waters of the river, sending up geysers of water... and the awful weight of its presence, the 'dragonfear', vanished.

It was dead, it was dead, and her joyous laughter rang out across the battleground.

Around them, the wails and shrieks of denial, of disbelief that rose up in the duergar ranks fortified the dwarven army. There would be no mercy, no relief to the ancient enemies as Bruenor led the charge time and again, resplendent in the fitted armor of his grandfather.

The drow, all of them that could, drew in tight to their clerics, with the less wounded gathering the bodies of those they had lost. Zaknafein was ignoring the itch to kill more duergar, scanning for any more Shadowfell inhabitants --

-- but every fighter he had picked had been ruthless in the moment the dragon fell. Sneak attacks, sudden brutal surges in strikes… the shadar-kai lay as dead as the dragon. That let Zaknafein look for his son, unconsciously counting their people as he did.

Drizzt was the last back to them, bearing one of Zak's fighters across a shoulder, and only one sword in hand. While Vierna looked every bit as exhausted as could be expected, Drizzt looked gray for some reason despite his burden.

"Who has the gate spell to get us out of here?" Zaknafein called when the numbers lined up, after he counted the dead and injured supported by others. It was a potent reminder that they were not staying for the aftermath, and gave them all focus.

"I'm not going," Drizzt said, passing the fighter off to one of the others. "I have promises to keep here."

Vierna wanted to protest, wanted desperately to protest, but it was true. She beckoned to him, though, and got hold of his cheek to push the one healing spell she had memorized for the day into him. "If you get hurt after we are gone," she told him harshly, "it will be centuries before I forgive you."

The gate spell went up, and Nalatar began ordering the rest of the Temple through. Vierna had a responsibility to stay to the end, despite her exhaustion, so she did, keeping her eyes out as barrier after barrier dissipated as their caster went through the gate.

Zaknafein made sure his son's second sword was merely sheathed, then briefly gripped him by the back of his head, as the exodus was happening. "Stay strong."

"Always," Drizzt said, having nodded to his sister's admonishment. He took kept watch, as even their father had to go through the gate before Vierna did, to hold to the full quest. Drizzt, being contaminated by the Dark Maiden, did not count against her, for all he had been her legs and eyes through it.

Once the last of their dead and living were through the gate, Vierna stepped backwards through it, and a moment later, it winked out.

Drizzt breathed out a small sigh of relief, to know this was done… and went to find Bruenor, to join the king he admired in the final push to reclaim the Hall.

---

At long last, the slayer of Chaulssin was dead, slain by His own people. Vhaeraun would keep close eyes on Vierna Do'Urden; she was definitely proving her worth.

"I release all claim on the ranger," He said absently.

"He was never going to fit in, but I will do nothing to break his appreciation of Your people," His sister said beside Him. "Well done, My brother." She left Him then, not remaining to see how Her approval had added one more sweet balm on this day.

Oblodra Gloom
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Part V
* Links will work as parts are revealed

A Darkening of Gloom (5161 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Bruenor Battlehammer, Drizzt Do'Urden, Vierna Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden
Additional Tags: Ensemble Cast
Series: Part 4 of Oblodra Gloom
Summary:

Vhaeraun entrusts His Masked Traitor with a quest, and a dwarf hall holds the key.

---

A Darkening of Gloom

1167 D.R.

Bangor Battlehammer wiped away the blood from his son's face, ignoring the attempt to scowl at him for it.

"Me boy," Bangor began, using the quiet voice, the one that spoke of serious tidings. "We cannae hold the upper levels much longer."

"Donnae be sayin' that, me da," Bruenor said, a coldness gripping his heart. At forty-seven, or near enough, he was too close to being an adult to give in to wanting to grab his father's apron and hold on tight, but there was something —

— something terrifying, more than the shadows that whittled their clan down in slow attrition.

"Our king, me own Da, he's gettin' the elders and the dwarrows and the babes," Bangor said, ignoring the protest. "Bruenor, ye have a duty to the clan."

That the duty was with those being gathered was left unsaid, but Bruenor exploded against that fate.

"Me place is defendin' me Hall, with me blood!"

"NAY, boy! Ye be the heir now! Ye will take them, and ye'll find a place, and ye'll grow strong! If'n we can collapse the bridge and drop the stair, we'll be behind ye!" Bangor told him with a hissed, harsh tone. "Ye take them tae Dwarvendarrow, wait three days.

"If'n we donnae come… ye go on, and ye be the king they will need!"

Bruenor met his father's eyes, saw the resolve there, and gave one more try.

"Can ye not be the king?"

"Nay, lad; yer Grandda has said all those above and below certain ages tae go, an' the rest o' us tae trap the shadows here. We owe that much to the Realms outside our Hall."

Bruenor wished he had a beard to soak away the tears trying to come to his eyes, and flung himself in for one last hug.

Bangor gave it, and Bruenor knew, even as he would wait, this would be the last he saw of his father.

---

Haerinvureem contemplated the tooth once more, then surveyed the forges all around him. Too much light and flame for his liking, but that was what the duergar existed for. They would mine, they would craft, and he would have objects made of mithral to build his new hoard around.

Who needed a drow city that would eventually rebel? Let Kyorl, pleasing as she had been at times, reap those surely-bitter rewards, even let her keep those he had shaped with Shadowfell magic and her psionics. He had gleaned so much knowledge from the soul trapped in the tooth, and now he held a lair befitting him.

He had only to deal with those that had managed to escape.

---

The hush on the land, a moonless night, and dread filling them all as it was their third one present with no word from the Hall had every dwarf wary. Those that kept Dwarvendarrow, a trading clan, were down to a handful, as the trade season was not yet upon them. They had dug out maps, likely places to go that wouldn't put the small and weakened clan at risk of falling under other, more powerful clans.

Come the morning, Bruenor would have to give the order. His cleric, an old dwarf with hands that shook but a presence that defied fate, had reinforced that the elders were to listen to their heir, even if he was nearly beardless.

The seeping pulse of magic came on the bloodlines, twisted divine energy seeking the heir, seeking all with claim, riding the very splash of potent curse magic invoked and reinforced by a dying king and his son in the Hall. Bruenor felt a blind panic, despair that threatened his very will to live, while it cast out from him to take all those who had escaped.

By morning, the rag tag band of elders and young, with that handful of trade dwarves, were bolting for distant lands, compelled to go as far as possible, to escape the danger that none of them could remember any more than they could recall where they were running from.

---

1337 D.R.

In Rilauven, a priestess found herself drawn into a dream.

The small family had, through Vierna's religion, found ways to stay hidden, and move away from Menzoberranzan. That city was beginning to open up to heavier trade -- in and out -- in order to reacquire its prestige and standing. Zak was able to work as an instructor, Vierna was polishing her skills as a cleric, and Drizzt was getting much of the education they had not been able to provide him in their former way of life.

To find this dream soaked in the red-tinged swirling clouds of her Lord's presence was worrying, to a degree, but she knew her standing, knew that whatever the summons was could not be about her actions.

"My Lord?" she asked, wondering but not afraid.

She had had no sense of that there was some particular upheaval or trouble that needed her, no awareness that anything was changing...

"My priestess," He answered her. "I have a task for you. The dragon… it was not present in your former city. And all that My informants have found, it did not return to the Shadowfell." The mask that was His symbol formed at a bit above her height, giving the impression of His presence in drow form, though not clearly. "I wish you to discover the destroyer, and orchestrate his ending."

"As You will it, my Lord," Vierna answered, though she did quail slightly at the idea of seeking for something her god did not know. "...perhaps if I seek for its magical signature -- with something like a compass, but tuned to it -- it can be found. I had little experience of it directly, but..."

Vhaeraun let the impression of a smile show in the shadows of His form. "You are a gifted priestess, skilled in designing artifacts." His pride in her radiated with warmth. "Use any resources necessary; I want that murderous upstart ripped from existence!"

She luxuriated in that pride, in His pleasure in her, and smiled back, radiant with delight. "I will do it," she told her Lord. If He thought her idea was reasonable, it would work, as long as she crafted well, "and Your desire is mine as well."

He left her with that pride, with the knowledge she was His favorite, so that she could finish out her rest and begin fresh.

---

1343 DR

Drizzt focused past the glare on the still snow-covered ground and then looked back to the talisman Vierna had gifted him with. In the six years since Vhaeraun had presented her with the task, the family had established themselves as a force to be reckoned with. Zaknafein and Drizzt often worked in tandem to acquire the materials needed — if it was in the Underdark.

Drizzt had spent his years learning Common, learned all he could of the Surface under the tutelage of Nalatar Ssambra, one of Vhaeraun's more academic-minded clerics. As Nalatar did not mind Drizzt's oddities, it had freed them all of concerns that Drizzt would be attacked, and forced into exile for killing the drow stupid enough to do that.

No one doubted that it would be self-defense or that Drizzt would prevail; he was both too kind to attack first, and too deadly to lose.

That education though, had led to Drizzt occasionally journeying above, finding things his sister decided she needed to craft the device.

And when the thing had stubbornly insisted that the two greatest concentrations of shadow-energy on the Material Plane were either back toward where they had come from or in the frozen wastes, Drizzt had volunteered to handle the next steps. He had to find the energies, investigate if it was the despised dragon and more of his minions, then report back to his sister and father with what he found.

They would decide from there, on how to handle it.

---

Drizzt had scouted where the energy was concentrated, and found no way inside. However, he trusted his sister's magic, he trusted Vhaeraun's power behind it, and his own tracking skills said people used paths near here. He took up a watchful point, enduring the cold with his hat, gloves, and cloak to protect him alongside the occasional use of cantrips to warm his face and hands.

He at least got to be amused by the family of ermine that decided he wasn't a threat, and from them, he learned he was watching for dwarves. That meant he'd have to be extra cautious, as dwarves were one of the races that Vhaeraun generally disapproved of, though not as much as He did the duergar.

Finally, a group of them came out, a hunting party it looked like, and Drizzt bided his time, letting them tend to business. It would be better to approach them after they had a burden to slow them down, and had used energy hunting.

On their approach back, Drizzt slipped down to wait in the approach so that when they rounded a curve, he was there, cloak shove back, arms crossed over his chest, putting his hands far from his hilts.

That did not stop them from scrambling to drop the pole drags and reach for their own lances, hammers, and axes.

"Peace, dwarves. I come in honest search of answers, and seek only to parlay," he told them in Common. "My name is Drizzt Do'Urden, son of that House in Rilauven," he added. "I wish words with your cleric or leader."

"Ye expect us tae believe ye, sorcerous drow?"

Drizzt stood his ground, still not drawing, not dropping his hands to be ready to do so. "I wish to talk," he said in a gentle voice, but the resolve in his posture was firm.

"We don't 'parlay' with evil ones," the speaker snapped.

"Then go your own way, with your kills, and I will wait. As long as it takes for you to be tired of me up here," Drizzt told him, leaping up suddenly enough that they could not give chase and the one lance someone chucked like a spear fell well short.

---

Bruenor Battlehammer did not like mysteries, did not like evil races, and did not like threats to his clan. That there was a drow in his lands was all three of those things at once.

Two days after the hunters came back with the tale, he put his full kit on, shoving the helmet into place, and stomping out with axe and shield at the ready. He did not want this to drag on, but also didn't want to endanger his clan.

He went out through one of the hidden doors, and worked to try and get behind the drow's position.

He came face to face with the most gigantic cat in all of existence, lounged in a sunbeam, blinking great golden eyes his way.

"Don't mind Guen," came a voice a bit above them. Bruenor, having been startled by the cat, had never noted the drow perched like a goat on a narrow ledge.

"Ye need tae be leavin' me lands!"

"And I am on a quest to find out why your lands are saturated in the energy of the Shadowfell," the drow said calmly. "That is all I am seeking, good dwarf."

Bruenor scowled, not understanding, not really, but the drow dropped to the ground, and the cat sat up, yawning widely. Those teeth were as massive as the rest of it!

"The talisman I'm using to track the energy is very fixated on you, right now," the drow said. "My name is Drizzt Do'Urden, son of that house in Rilauven, and I truly only need to ask questions about the energy."

"Why would it be fixed on me?" Bruenor asked, wary, but confused by the drow being polite and non-violent.

"I don't know; have you been targeted by a Shadowfell spell?"

"I donnae even ken what a Shadowfell is," Bruenor began, "but there be a curse upon me clan. Mayhaps it is what ye seek? Ye have a plan for dealing with such?"

"Not yet, but if I may talk at length with you, perhaps we can be certain, and I will find a way to aid."

Bruenor brought his shield arm down, then lowered the axe. "Bruenor Battlehammer, an' ye best not be lying."

"As my father and sister are fond of saying, I lie poorly," Drizzt told him with a smile. "Guen, go home."

The cat came to her feet, circled him once, and vanished in a fine black mist.

"Bah, magic!" Bruenor grumped, but he turned to head down to the trade door. "Come on, then, an' let us talk in comfort!"

---

Settled into a room made for trade negotiations, with water at least shared, Drizzt settled to the business of convincing the dwarf of his words.

"This," and he pulled the dial with its moving arrow out, showing the arrow was fixated on Bruenor, with a faint quiver, "was crafted so I could find concentrations of Shadowfell energy on the surface. My sister had determined the quarry we sought was no longer below the faerzress line, when she first was charged with finding it."

"What be she looking for, and why?" Bruenor asked.

"A shadow dragon, that enslaved our original city for much of her life, and had destroyed another drow city," Drizzt explained. "He was not present when we took the city back, and her god is demanding his death."

"Her god, but not yours?"

Drizzt ducked his head a little. "My nature runs in other directions. I am drawn to the surface, to the ways of the wild areas," he explained when he looked back up. "I hear the call of others, but have not had time to explore that, because I am part of this quest."

Bruenor shook his head. "Seems strange, but good of ye tae put family ahead of yerself."

"Family, always," Drizzt avowed. "It might be that the energy here is not related to the dragon I must find, but why is it here and so steeped on you? That is what I need to learn, and then, if it is unrelated, I will ask nothing more of you."

Bruenor's brow furrowed, and he shook his head slightly. "We've nought tae do wi' magic, but... whate'er drove us from our Hall cursed us, cursed our memories, an' almost all th' elders as escaped wi' us died well afore their time. I was nought but forty-seven, an' there's only four left as were older'n me when we were driven out."

"Only a couple of years older then than I am now," Drizzt said with a sad look his way. "My sister was a very young priestess when the dragon came to our city.

"But what you are saying, goes hand in hand with Shadowfell magic. It is a reflection of the Material Plane, in many ways, but cast in perpetual twilight, with a sense of hopelessness. Or so I was taught."

"Hopeless..." Bruenor murmured, and slowly nodded, "aye, that's how they were. Gave up wantin' tae live, out of our Hall, an' laid down an' died, soon as they'd passed on what they knew as they had tae."

"I am sorry for your losses," Drizzt said clearly, and honestly. Do you have any idea where, even roughly, you were driven from? That might aid me in tracking this down properly."

Bruenor frowned again, heaving out a long sigh. "The first place we remember bein' was Mason's Hole, almost intae th' Lurkwood, but north, still in th' hills. Afore that... nae, we've no idea a'tall. Sits hard, nae knowin' where our home is."

Drizzt started to answer, but something drew his attention to the door.

He looked to see a small — human — child edging around the door to come in quietly.

Bruenor noticed her too, and opened his mouth.

"Da," the child said in the most imploring voice.

"Catti-brie, I have business, and things tae say that aren't fit for a bairn's ears," the dwarf said with a gentle tone.

"If the child needs you, I can go wait outside again," Drizzt said with infinite patience, watching the child fearlessly study him.

"Nae, no need for all that; believe ye have honor." He got up and walked over to the child, hefting her up on his hip. "Catti-brie, me girl, meet Drizzt Do'Urden, come tae ask questions about bad magic."

"Hi."

"Hello, Catti-brie," Drizzt said with warmth. "May I have your father's attention for just a little while longer?"

He noted the posture of the dwarf shifted favorably, and the girl considered thoughtfully.

"Yes. Talk to me at meal?"

"If — "

"Seems ye have an invite to eat with us," Bruenor said in amusement.

"Then yes."

The girl hugged Bruenor, slithered down and raced off, letting the men get back to talking.

"I'll need to get my map out, but I think I my search may be coming close to an end," Drizzt said, moving slowly to get into the pack's bag of holding where he kept his precious copy of the surface map.

Bruenor watched him, but with more interest and less hostility, as Drizzt drew out the map and spread it between them, then shifted a bit to see the labels better. With some squinting and muttering, and careful consideration of the legend, Bruenor finally tapped a place. "Here, or close enow..."

Drizzt nodded grimly, then pointed out the line of hills reaching down from the Spine of the World. "These are called the Frost Hills. And that is close enough to where my city is, the one I was born to and helped free, that I chose to come here first.

"As that is the general area my sister's artifact also says is steeped in the energies of the Shadowfell. It may well be that the dragon, when it left our city, attacked your home. But, it might not be. I cannot say for certain, yet concentration makes me hope so."

Bruenor frowned, deeply, before he slowly nodded. "I'd nae notion we were sae close tae drow as that makes it sound, but yer lot live deep, deep down, aye? Well beyond our mines. I've nae doubt me da an' grandda cursed our home when they died b'hind me, but... might no' have been strong enow tae take down a dragon..."

"It was worshiped as a god," Drizzt said, "which by draconic ways actually makes it a minor one. We chose our strike on the city when it was away, on purpose, intending to use the full city resources after to destroy it.

"Only, from what we heard, as my family had to leave for various reasons, it never came back." Drizzt shrugged. "It had duergar armies — we saw very few of those while we took the city. Dragon-warped drow, shadow-fey, shadow-hounds… we did see more of those, minus the hounds, than we did the duergar."

"Grey ones?! Stinkin' grey ones as might be in me Hall?!" Bruenor had meant to ask about the idea of becoming a god, but that idea had wiped all else away.

"Likely, if this other energy pool is your Hall," Drizzt said. "I will have to take back what I've learned to my sister, and then, if she thinks it correct, I could return here to plan further?" Vhaeraun might not want to deal directly with dwarves, but death curses were not an easy thing to work around.

"Aye," Bruenor said, after he had fumed a little more, "I donnae think me clan can kill a god by ourselves, wi' nae proper cleric o' our own, even wi' yer artifact there tae lead us back. Ye'll be welcome, though I'm nae sure about yer sister..."

Drizzt chuckled. "She is an ends justify the means person, and her ends are to complete the quest her god gave to her," he said. "I don't know what she will suggest, but ridding the Material Plane of that particular dragon outweighs most other things for her.

"And she does not like to be at odds with me, so she tends to not do things that upset me."

"Well, that last at least, I can understand," Bruenor said, nodding slowly, "an' havin' th' same goal is a help, aye."

"We'll find a way," Drizzt told him firmly. He started folding away his map to put it in the bag of holding, content to let it rest at that. He'd take a meal with them, and then begin on his way back down to his entry to the Underdark.

---

Drizzt made his way up to the temple of Vhaeraun in Rilauven, feeling a bit more certain of the hypothesis he'd formed, as he'd taken the time to judge the distance to that second pool of Shadowfell energy by how strong the artifact reacted between the two places, aligning his memory of the Underdark maps to the Surface one he carried.

That other place was definitely very close to Menzoberranzan.

Not for the first time, he wondered if his mother had done well for herself, what she was actually like, and if it really was as bad there for one like him as his father said. He had no way of knowing, and if his spirit-uncle, Jarlaxle, had said anything about Matron Malice to his father, it had not been relayed to him.

The guards and acolytes he saw on his way carefully did not impede his way; startling him always led to an embarrassing defeat at his hands, and no one really knew how to deal with him outside of Nalatar and Drizzt's own family.

Soon enough, he was at the apartment his sister and father kept, having not yet decided on their own living space, and tapped at the door a specific way to be let in.

The door came open in invisible hands -- Vierna's invisible servant, then, extension of her will -- for him, and he came in to find her stepping out of her private chamber, a welcoming and relieved smile on her lips. "Welcome home, little brother," she said aloud as she came across to him.

He smiled broadly, sliding his pack off in a fluid motion so he could embrace her fully, having truly missed her and their father both.

"I think I've had success, sister!" he told her when she — and he — were willing to part enough to speak properly.

"Oh? No, wait, you just got home. Go enjoy a bath, and I will send a bat to fetch Father from the training grounds. When you climb out, I will conjure us a meal."

There had been an incident, a few months ago, of compulsion-spells placed on some of the kitchen slaves to poison and pollute (everyone assumed by one of the Llothite priestesses across the way), and Vierna was still summoning any meal not taken in the dining hall where there were greater protections.

Drizzt scooped up his pack, went to put everything in his room, then saw to getting that bath, holding onto the good news for now.

---

Zaknafein turned the rest of the class period over to one of the senior students, admonished them that everyone had better be healthy for the next day's class, and gone home at the summons.

He came in to see Drizzt just coming out of the bath chamber, vividly outlined by the heat of the water he'd enjoyed and only in a pair of loose pants.

"Good thing you're not going out any time soon," he said.

"Know I'm safe in here, and anything attacking would be met with the full weight of the Temple behind it," Drizzt answered, but he grinned and came over to hug his father.

Zaknafein chuckled and hugged his son in tight to him, aware some of the warmth was transferring to him, but Drizzt was not wrong. This was as safe as they could be, behind the Temple's walls and Vierna's personal protections. "I suppose you have a point."

He shifted, holding his son out at arms' length, and appraised him closely. "You don't look as though the Surface did you any harm, at least."

"It doesn't, other than the loss of my levitation," Drizzt answered. "For whatever reason, I am well-suited to forays up there, and I enjoy it. The sun gets a little harsh, but I adapt."

He looked his own father over, giving a nod. "Teaching suits you… or are you doing other work again?" Early on, he and his father had handled a few security concerns against nearby duergar.

"Teaching, mostly," Zak replied with a half-shrug, "nothing outside the city recently."

"Excuse me, the what of your what?" Vierna's voice came from the table, where the scents of good and food now drifted into the air.

Drizzt turned her way, then started over there because food was never to be wasted in his opinion. "Nalatar warned me that prolonged exposure would lead to losing one or more of my abilities. Only the levitation is gone. If anything, my darkness is stronger."

Zak frowned; why hadn't his son mentioned that before going off? Well, that would be the infamous stubborn streak, he decided, making certain Vierna hadn't stopped him. He joined them at the table, quiet offer of gratitude in his head for the food.

He'd made peace with the god that preserved his daughter.

"Then I'm making you a ring to replace it before you go out of this city again," his daughter said, her hands braced on her hips above her hilts as she sat down.

"Has anyone told you that you fuss too much?" Drizzt said mildly, but an impish grin touched his lips, as he reveled in being loved by his sister. He'd observed enough drow in this city, remembered the uneasy alliance in their rebels, to understand the truly deep attachment within their family was unusual.

"It's not as if you could have known which would go in advance, so now we know, your sister fixes it, and we keep moving forward," Zak said, reaching for his food. He wound up smacking at Drizzt's hand for trying to take the same stuffed mushroom he'd wanted, but it, like the comment earlier, was all in play.

Once the meal was done, and they'd settled in the living room, with Drizzt sprawled on the rothe hide spread on the floor, they focused more on business.

"Two major repositories of Shadowfell energy visible to your artifact, Vierna," Drizzt began. "One was in the direction of Menzoberranzan, so I chose to ignore it at first, in case it was the residual effect of his occupation there, seeping upwards.

"I turned to the other one, and wound up having to wait a bit to be able to go, as the Icewind Dale is in the far north, and I had to wait for the passes to melt." He paused and wrinkled his nose. "I do not like the surface drow living in the Neverwinter Woods. They are barely more than brigands, preying on anyone that moves through there with no motive but terror and easy riches."

"You didn't get into a fight with them?" Zak asked, getting a sharp negative.

"I know better."

Vierna wrinkled her nose as well, shaking her head. Brigandry and sowing terror for its own sake and easy profit was no fit testament to what their Lord wished, and such folk vexed her. "Thank you for not," she said, stretching out one bare foot to wriggle it under his side affectionately.

He laughed a little, then got serious. "I found, once I could go up, a dwarven stronghold. These dwarves were displaced from somewhere else — they can't remember exactly where — in about the year that the dragon started being absent from Menzoberranzan regularly.

"And with what they can remember, I think they are from that other energy pool, which puts it in the surface mountains above our former city. When I was coming back, I paid attention to the way the artifact reacted and eventually got to a point that was halfway between the two sources to verify my guess.

"I think we have an ally in unseating and killing the dragon!"

"But dwarves," Zaknafein said, knowing that was going to be a sticking point.

"If the chieftain I met is right, the way in from the surface will be hard to find, and death-cursed on top of it," Drizzt said. "We need them."

Vierna frowned, worrying at her lip, as she turned that problem over in her head several times. "It is useful to know what the dragon may have been up to, but... concerning, that dwarves could be so confused about how to return to their hole. I will have to pray about this, Drizzt, and I do not know what answer I will receive. Tell me more. How did this dwarf treat you? Tell me everything that might sway my Lord to their favor."

"The hunting party did not want to parlay with me," Drizzt said, "though they did apologize later, once I was allowed inside. The chieftain came to meet me himself, geared for a battle, but was willing to speak after a time, with no blows exchanged.

"Granted, Guen was right there, and she does make people pause." He grinned for his protector's presence being so formidable. "He took me in, we spoke at length and said it seems reasonable. They are all fogged over everything before the driving out, and the Shadowfell energy is present even in those born after." He looked at his sister intently. "Blood curse maybe?"

"Most likely," Vierna nodded, "given what you say. I cannot think what else would do such a thing, unless they carried some talisman with them unwittingly... but you would have found that."

"And I did not, during the few days I remained with them," he agreed. "From a tactical point, given where Menzoberranzan sits, in addition to the other cities of svirfneblin and duergar, it seems wise to put a power in place between them and the surface, to delay anything their gods demand which might interfere with Vhaeraun's eventual plans."

Zak blinked, and carefully did not smile at hearing his son think in that manner. It was likely only an excuse to allow him to help this misplaced dwarf clan, but it was sound reasoning.

Vierna, though, did smile at him -- she'd asked him for things that might help her, and he had given the best he had. "I think that is a very good point," she told him, nodding. "Well done, little brother."

Drizzt looked pleased with himself.

"If not, we're just going to have to trust our son to rally an army to get it done on his own," Zak said dryly. "Wouldn't that be interesting?"

Being called 'their' son never failed to make Drizzt happy; Vierna had raised him after all.

"Interesting, perhaps, but I would prefer it otherwise," Vierna said, smiling at Zak.

Oblodra Gloom
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V
* Links will work as parts are revealed

Rising Rebellion (3400 words) by Sharpest_Asp, Ilyena_Sylph
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jarlaxle Baenre, Vierna Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Malice Do'Urden, Kyorl Oblodra, Kimmuriel Oblodra, Triel Baenre
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon Typical Violence
Series: Part 3 of Oblodra Gloom
Summary:

The city has finally had enough. Zaknafein and Vierna have a needed conversation. And then...

( fic this way )

Oblodra Gloom
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V
* Links will work as parts are revealed

A World Shaken Whole (6,053 words) by ilyena_sylph & senmut
Fandom: Forgotten Realms/Legend of Drizzt
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Philomena (Canon-Inspired OC), Drizzt Do'Urden, Ellifain Tuuserail, Catti-brie Battlehammer, Regis, Alustriel Silverhand, Ensemble Cast
Additional Tags: Canon Divergence, Female Friendship, Reunions, Trauma, Background Relationships
Series: Part 8 of Sisters in Spirit
Summary:

A child learns what the drow was thinking, and open negotiations of a future begin

A World Shaken Whole

The small group wound up in an office to informally discuss the findings in the Hall, with Dhaeln having joined them. Once that was seen to, Dhaeln took Regis with her to get him a place to stay, Catti-brie having already stated she would stay in her ranger's room -- she knew he wasn't near as steady as he looked.

She never realized his world could be upset even more than whatever he and his sister had discussed first.

A young elf, moon if Catti remembered her lessons, came inside the office, already speaking before she'd really taken in that Vierna was not alone.

"Mama, I ne--"

The words broke off as she made eye contact with Drizzt sitting beside Catti, and Catti felt every muscle cord up in Drizzt's arm where it touched hers on seeing the elf go so pale.

"Purple eyes," the young elf whispered, not seeing anything but the image of a face from her mostly repressed nightmares.

Vierna rose from her chair and went to her daughter, putting her body between her daughter and her brother, taking sight of him from her daughter for the moment, even as she very carefully pulled her in against her chest. That accomplished, she turned her halfway, so she could look at her brother without putting Ellifain's back to her nightmare. "Easy, sweetheart," she murmured softly, "easy. You're safe, I'm here. Nothing is going to hurt you while I'm here."

"He has purple eyes," Ellifain said again, keeping her face tucked into her mother's chest.

"You -- she -- " Drizzt was helpless under the onslaught of fresh guilt for a thirty year old crime committed against the faerie. Catti slid closer to him, getting an arm around him.

"Yes, he does," Vierna agreed softly, entirely focused on her daughter for the moment. She heard Drizzt, but he was going to have to wait. "He is also my brother, and Ravenna and Dhaeln brought him here. They wouldn't bring anyone here that would hurt you, right?"

She freed one hand from her daughter's back and held up a hand in 'wait', then mentally called herself an idiot, held on to her daughter with her elbows and started signing. 'You said you 'did something' to earn Lloth's disfavor. Was it saving a faerie child?'

Drizzt gave an emphatic nod, then gave up and pulled Catti into his arms so he could hold her and hide his face, willing to wait, but shaken to his core. Despite Catti being of a size with him, she went, and just stroked his hair while he hid in her comfort.

"Your brother?" Ellifain asked, looking up to her mother.

"My brother," Vierna repeated, nodding as she looked at her daughter. "He grew up in the same awful place I did, and ran away like I did... but he didn't get a chance to run away until he was sent to the Surface. He saved you, deliberately, just like we always thought." She paused for a long moment, thinking, then asked, "Do you want to go home, and I'll listen to his story and come tell you? Or do you want to hear it yourself?"

Catti-brie had to admire the woman's calm and gentleness, even as she kept hold of Drizzt and stroked his hair, waiting. This... this was something her ranger had never talked about, and now he was face to face with it?

Ellifain, a child by elven standards, and encouraged to be that way by all of her people here, weighed it, then made the choice to pull back and look at the man.

He... he was upset too. She could tell that. And the human was holding him, sitting in the same space as him, being gentle with him, like Mama with her.

Were they both hurt by that night, herself and the man?

"I want to hear him say it." She did not, however, move from Vierna's immediate space.

"I... you deserve more than just the words I can say," Drizzt managed to say, looking up past Catti.

Vierna kissed her daughter's hair, more proud of her than she could possibly say, and then moved both of them to another chair, seating herself and bringing her daughter down into her lap.

"Drizzt, would you tell us -- tell Ellie -- how that raid came to happen, and why you did as you did?"

Drizzt drew in a deep breath, looking at the moon elf briefly, then focusing on his sister's shoulder.

"When I graduated school, I was assigned to stay on patrols, with Dinin still leading us. We were then given a raid, in recognition of how we handled patrols." He shook his head for the way drow society handled that. "I still half-thought, maybe the faerie were evil, just like I was taught, even as I was realizing that drow were evil.

"We came above, and the surface was everything I had been yearning for without even knowing it." He had to look down, arms tightening on Catti unconsciously. "Then I heard the music, the singing, and it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever known to that point.

"Only... it made everyone else worse, more violent, uglier in every aspect of how they were. And... we got close enough. I froze, didn't think to make a noise, something that would have given a chance to the dancers!"

Vierna made a quiet, sympathetic noise, nodding her understanding. "...even if you had," she said softly, "it would have made little difference, Drizzt, with a full raiding party."

"I... could not have killed them all, and Dinin was my brother even if we were nothing alike," Drizzt said softly. "When I saw the child, though, I saw a chance, a chance to protect one person.

"I am sorry that was all I could do."

Catti-brie carefully shifted, still letting Drizzt hold her, but looked at the ... to her eyes a young woman, but elves were different. "Me ranger means it. He gives his everything tae protectin' others. E'en when they donnae give him naught but trouble. For a child, he would've tried hardest."

Vierna smiled at that gentle, but fierce reinforcement, and hugged Ellifain a little closer against her. "We knew, from that Ellie was only stunned, not hurt, that someone had to have chosen to save her... but we had no idea who. I thought it must be someone questioning... and now we know that is truth.

"Thank you, little brother, for my daughter's life. And for telling us."

He nodded, falling back to the silence he'd held as a shield against his family, except for his father, to gather himself.

"How old were you, if you had just left school?" Ellifain asked.

That made him have to talk, and he looked at her, briefly, to answer. "Thirty. I wasn't yet thirty-one when I left the city."

"Younger than I am now," she said, her gentle nature aching as she saw that yes, that night had hurt them both in deep ways.

"We've done our best to let you be a child, though, Ellie," Vierna said, "while he was forced to take on adult responsibilities far too young."

"Aye," Catti-brie said, shaking her head as she tucked herself against her ranger a little more closely, "thirty's tae young even for a dwarf -- so many fights as I've had with me Da, tae make him understand I'm grown -- let alone an elf."

She'd never really known how young her ranger was, but if this elf was still a child, then...

Drizzt squeezed Catti for that, while dragging all of his control -- shattered by too many emotions in a single day -- back around him. "I am very relieved, joyful even, to know you did survive that awful night. I have worried all these years that... you had not."

Ellifain peered at him, then nodded, before tucking into her mother. This was so much, and she had answers, and the man was really a good one.

Vierna's heart ached for her brother, and for her daughter. She brought her pendant out from inside her tunic, laid her fingers on it, and began to sing a song of calming and rest, to help bring their turbulent and painful emotions back under their control, exerting her will to ensure it would have the effect she desired.

It worked, very well on Ellifain, but she noticed, like Ravenna had, it took more effort to help it reach her brother. He did calm, and eventually let Catti shift into her own space again.

"You're my uncle," Ellie finally said, making up her mind. "And I think you have to have learned how to be good already. So... welcome to Spirit Sanctuary," she managed to say. "Mama, I am going to go lie down a bit."

"Of course, sweetheart," Vierna answered, letting her daughter out of her embrace. "Do you want me to come sing you to sleep, love?"

"Yes?"

Ellifain wanted that, and also it was a small test of if her uncle would be more than her in her mama's heart, without even seeing it quite that way.

"Rest well. Vierna, Catti and I are also going to go rest," Drizzt said, but he did not stand yet, not wanting to seem a threat at all. "I remember the way to the quarters you pointed out."

"All right," Vierna said as she rose to take her daughter and stay with her until she knew she was sleeping well. "Rest well, my brother, Catti-brie."

"Thank you," Drizzt said. Once they had left, he did rise, and walked with his friend to the quarters they had been shown. He did not lie down, though, choosing instead to drop on the floor after removing what he needed to for comfort, and settled to do the deep breathing exercises Montolio had taught him. "I'm sorry you had to hear that, Catti-brie.

"It is the worst thing I have ever been a part of."

Catti-brie snorted at him and dropped onto the floor with him, laying her head on his stomach and turning a little on her side to face him. "'Twas a terrible thing, aye," she agreed quietly, "but I'm nae sorry tae have heard how long ye've done the best ye could do tae protect others, me ranger."

He brought his hand to her hair, stroking gently. "I ... thank you, Catti. For supporting me, for believing in me," he told her softly. "I think, now that I have faced that, I might begin believing a little more in who I am."

Catti leaned into his hand, smiling up at him. "That's good, then. I'm glad of it... though I think 'twas nae knowin' if the lass had lived or died as tormented ye most, me ranger. Aye?"

He took a deep breath, then made an affirmative noise. "I saw how broken Belwar was in his spirit, after my attempt at mercy. It left me worried for the child. And... if my father had to die because of it, I needed her to have survived!"

Catti twisted to hug him, arms around his shoulders and under his neck, half draped over him, as she said quietly, "Ach, Drizzt... that was a hard thing for ye, aye, an' tae not ken...." She shook her head. "Now ye know, an' 'tis what ye'd have wished. She's safe, an' well, an' yer sister counts her as daughter. So... yer da got a gran'babe from it, aye?"

Drizzt half-smiled. "So he did. I think he'd be startled, but accept it."

Catti stretched up and kissed his forehead, squeezed him again, and then wriggled back down to her previous position. "Aye, I think as much. ...why are we on this floor, me ranger."

"Because I was going to do some breathing exercises and let you sprawl on the bed without me taking up space," he said in a mild tone. "But you, as ever, have calmed me. So we can both lie down."

Catti nodded and got up, putting her hands down to pull him to his feet so they could go and rest.

He let her, pulling her in to hug her a long moment, before joining her on the bed to rest for a time.

It had been a momentous day, after all.

---

Vierna's sending of 'we have met Ellie's rescuer and he is my brother' had elicited a yelp and immediate promise to arrive on the morrow. Mena came, wearing her moon-elf persona of Marith, so as to not be quite so imposing, and arrived as the new drow was practicing in the 'courtyard', really just one of the fields easily reached from the main village, with a human Mena did not know.

Vierna was watching, and several fighters, many of whom were openly talking about the technique on display.

"Sister," Mena called, smiling, though her eyes stayed on the odd pair... and that was a halfling on the other side of the circle, sitting with Dhaeln!

Vierna turned gladly, smiling as she called, "Marith!" in return as she came towards her to hug her friend. "Obviously, that is my brother out there, with his student Catti-brie Battlehammer. The halfling with Dhaeln is Regis, a friend of theirs."

"And your brother's name?" Marith asked, slightly teasing, as she settled with an arm around Vierna's waist, turning to watch. "He's teaching her? He's good, and she shows signs of being good at it too."

The pair being talked about weren't paying any attention, as Drizzt needed the activity of training to settle in his skin, and Catti-brie was determined to hone her skills as a fighter, even more than before.

"Drizzt," Vierna said quietly, "Drizzt Do'Urden. My full brother, not half."

"Son of the Weapon Master, then? My my, no wonder he might be your peer," Marith answered that. "Catch me up on everything?"

"Yes," Vierna agreed, and took her hand to find somewhere to sit. "The first I knew of matters," she said, "was your mother arriving by phantom steed to ask for my help," she began, and summarized through to having shepherded Ellie off to bed.

Marith was more than impressed, by all of it, but she was also worried. "Vierna, my soul's sister, I fear that the gods are meddling, for so many things to tie events together like this."

"I know someone is," Vierna said unhappily. "He's hard to heal, hard to calm, and we've never been able to scry him. Eilistraee's never heard him, for all that he blazes of goodness like a paladin."

Marith chuckled. "Even knowing you, I find the idea of a drow paladin amusing," she pointed out. "So he should see Mother, and let her discern if there is a spell at work? A fate charm or such. Except Mother turned him away, for the city's sake. However, I can sneak him directly into the palace."

"...I think I can convince him to accept that, because whatever is interfering could be a danger to us," Vierna said after contemplating it for a few moments.

"And the girl needs to go anyway, to make allies for her father. So, yes. Tomorrow. I'll reach out to Mother to warn her, make certain it won't cause harm." Marith smiled brightly.

Vierna laughed at her smug look and hugged her again, glad that there would be someone as wise and experienced as Mena's mother to look at whatever was interfering between her goddess and her brother.

---

Having spent the day getting to know Drizzt and his friends, Mena settled in her room and put the sending anklet on, tuning to just her mother.

~I am in Spirit Sanctuary, there is magic affecting Drizzt Do'Urden. I want to know if I can bring them directly to the palace.~ That was far more concise than she'd expected to get it to, but Mother could reply and kick a new sending off if needed.

She felt her mother's surprise and relief, as well as an... anticipation, almost, before Alustriel answered, ~Don't be seen, things are still... difficult. But yes. I will help as much as I can. All my love, dear one.~

Mena sat back, then nodded to herself. She could cast invisibility on Drizzt, and it would seem she only had Catti-brie and Regis with her. If they went to her room to wait, that would be best.

Once they were tucked in there, she would go arrange the official appointment for Catti-brie as Bruenor's designated voice.

---

Catti-brie was watching intently as Mena -- not Marith, and she needed to learn about shape-changing people -- opened the door to let the Lady of Silverymoon in. She had caught the tension in her Da about the woman, heard the teasing from Wulfgar, and seen the strangeness in Drizzt when the woman was mentioned.

And the Lady was an impressive woman to behold, as tall as Mena was right now, all silver hair and pale skin and wearing blues that made the silver stand out. She looked over at Drizzt --

-- he was transfixed by her, absolutely watching only her, barely aware of the others. Catti looked at Regis, who winked outrageously about Drizzt being like that.

Alustriel had carefully ensured that her eyes stayed on her daughter until she had greeted her and kissed her cheek, until the door of the room shut and she could look to her hidden guest. "Welcome to Silverymoon, Drizzt Do'Urden," she told him, so very glad to see that he had come through whatever troubles had followed him in good health, unable to look away from him in this so much better light for a long moment. Forcibly, she looked to her daughter again. "Mena, introduce me to our other guests?"

"This is Catti-brie Battlehammer, heart-daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer, chieftain of the clan, and this is Regis, once of Lonelywood of the Ten-Towns," Mena said smoothly, no matter how much she was startled by seeing her mother actually speechless for a moment.

"Greetings, Lady Alustriel," Drizzt said with all of his manners on display.

"Greetings, Lady, and may my stay here be better this time than last time," Catti said, uncertain how she felt about Drizzt was reacting. "Regis and I are here tae speak on behalf o' me Da and clan."

"Mena already told us, last night, that we should seek the Rockcrusher clan," Regis said helpfully, "but we do need to deal with the power in the region that we're told can be fair." He said it guilelessly, but the turning away still nettled, no matter how Drizzt seemed at peace.

Alustriel had turned her full attention to Catti-brie at her words. "Your first stay? I heard nothing from any of my people that a princess of one of my old allies had come to my gates. Will you tell me what occurred?"

That question asked, she shifted her gaze to Regis, her unhappy expression at the woman's words lightening as she spoke to him. "I attempt fairness in all my dealings... but I may never place my personal wishes over the security of my people. My sisters have been at work in the city, soothing the fears stirred by Nesme, but if you can help me calm the merchants over tales of a dangerous drow, I will be profoundly grateful."

Regis dimpled a little. "I would gladly do so, while I am here," he said.

"Aye, and 'tis fair enough tae protect yer people such as that," Catti-brie said, "but yet an assassin with a wizard bent on evil deeds c'n stay within yer walls, holdin' me hostage." She took a deep breath. "Is o'er and done, but methinks that yer people need lessons in weighing deeds, not words."

"The assassin, the wizard, her guard, and the construct with them are all dead or destroyed," Drizzt said. "The latter three were seeking me due to my involvement in terrible events. The assassin was from Regis's past, and we should focus on the future or the now, not that."

Alustriel's eyes flashed silver for a moment as she took a deep breath at hearing such a thing had happened. "Let me guess," she said bitterly to Catti-brie's take, "they were all human. And yes... often as I try to make that plain, it is difficult for people to see past fear. I am pleased to hear that they are no longer a problem, but horrified that it happened at all."

"All human, aye," Catti-brie conceded.

"Artemis Entreri has been a danger for hire for at least fifteen years," Regis offered. "Drizzt did the Realms a large favor by removing him from them."

Drizzt half-shrugged.

"Mena said," Catti-brie said, realizing that Drizzt really didn't want to dwell on killing, "that I'm tae meet you proper later, but that ye might wish a report o' what happened with me Da's quest ahead of that."

"I would very much appreciate that, yes," Alustriel replied, moving to take one of the empty seats, "if you would be so kind."

Catti-brie nodded, and began the tale, letting Regis pipe up at times, and looking to Drizzt to add as he would, especially about the shades and the dragon scale. It took time, but they made it all the way through, with Drizzt stating the last of it.

"The cleric who aided us agrees with me that it is either a deep dragon or a shadow dragon, with the latter more likely."

"Certainly not someone I want to continue having as a neighbor," Alustriel said with a shake of her head, her mouth tightening. "Luckily, I have several experienced sons -- and, I think, a daughter -- who will want to be involved in ridding our region of such a danger?"

She raised a brow at her daughter even as she smiled.

"Of course I will help. Vierna plans to, though we still have to work out how to protect her clerics from perceptions." Mena gave a smile for that. "I could borrow some rings maybe? Aunt has several for her people to trade in Waterdeep."

"If it were only me clan," Catti-brie said, "there'd be nae need for such. We know our elf, an' we'd welcome his sister's folk. But I've heard enow o' the other clans down here tae know there'd need tae be summat, aye. We have tae leave that to ye mages, I suppose." She paused for a moment, then raised a brow. "Several sons, Lady?"

"A dozen of them, though some of them have gone a... long way, and may have a bit of difficulty making it back. One of them in particular would be very angry with me if I tried to keep him from coming to learn about a new species of dragon," she said with an amused curve of her lips. "I think your aunt would be willing to lend them for this, I'll ask her later."

"Thank you, Mother," Mena said warmly. "Though, given I've known her longer..." she teased, letting it trail off.

"Only House Baenre had near that in daughters," Drizzt said, surprised. "And she's said to be at least a thousand, maybe two."

"Elves," Regis said, but there was a tinge of wistful for the fact that Drizzt would all too soon lose the friends he'd made, strictly because they lived on different time-lines.

"Well, I'm not quite that old," Alustriel said, looking again at the ranger who had already had such an effect on her, "and I tend towards having twins -- or in one memorable and exhausting case, triplets. That speeds things up a bit."

He shook his head. "I do not want to think of what drow society -- the kind I grew up in -- would do with a litter born to one woman. I do not think it would be kind at all."

Catti-brie winced, just from some of the offhanded comments he had made about his city through their years together. "Best not tae think on it, me ranger. Ye've the softest heart for children as it is."

"The Tall Ones!" Regis exclaimed. "You're the mother of the Tall Ones!"

Alustriel felt herself pale just a little, and she shook her head. "No," she agreed. "That's not worth thinking about at all, from the stories I have heard. And yes," she added, turning her eyes to Regis as she found a smile somewhere for the recognition of her sons. "I am. They prefer not to make too much noise about that outside of Silverymoon -- where a large part of the elven population at least remembers them as children -- but they are mine."

"I saw one, once, from a great distance," Regis said. "And as I traveled I heard about them!" He looked at Drizzt. "You getting to meet one of them should be really good. Supposedly they all ride pegasi, and I just know the pegasi would like you!"

Mena contemplated her sworn-sister's brother a long moment. "I feel, from the stories about you so far, and how careful you were with Ellie, that your friend is right. The pegasi always know who is truly good, and they will be curious about you, once you meet my brothers."

"I have spent many an hour, when I was still in the hills south of here, watching them fly over, but never thought to meet one," Drizzt said, a little awed at the idea.

"Ghael's partner Ruakerym might be... fractious, but he is a rather temperamental stud who doesn't care for anyone but Ghael... and his own foals," Alustriel said. "The others, though, I believe Mena is quite right about."

"Oh I forgot he friended one of that line -- isn't Del's one of Rua's throws?" Mena asked. "No, never mind. We should probably tell you the other part of why I brought them all here, before you have to go so you can think on it.

"Drizzt can't hear Eilistraee, and She can't perceive him, and the clerics had a harder time healing and calming him," Mena explained. "We're hoping you might be better able to perceive why. Because I just don't think Mielikki would have been that careless in granting protections."

"No," Alustriel replied, "I cannot believe that She would, either. If I cannot learn anything, I will send to the Ladyservant and ask her to come and give her opinion. But let me see what I can see." She paused for a moment, and decided she probably should give warning. "My eyes may turn silver, and silver sparks flicker from my hair and fingertips. It's a... side effect of what I will likely have to do to gain an answer, and not a danger to anyone here."

"Thank ye for the warning; I'm not much used tae magic," Catti-brie said, though she still itched to move closer to her ranger.

Drizzt relaxed as fully as he knew how, trying to be willfully cooperative with this search.

One sword, something in his pouch, the amulet he wore... all of it came back strongly magical, with divinity in the last of the three. But under, more subtle than all of that yet glaring in the nature of it, was a shroud of magic, one that had a sticky impression, once Alustriel had gone deep enough in studying him.

Alustriel frowned a little, peering at the sticky shroud with eyes beginning to slide to silver-glow, her head tipping slightly to the side. What was... oh, ugh. Sticky, spidery webbing -- there could only be one source for that.

She slid sideways into the silverfire, into communion with her Mother, and tugged, drawing Mystra's attention to what was before her. :Mother... what has Lolth done here?:

Mystra peered at what Her daughter had found, and then came more fully to the anchor that Alustriel was, seeing a clue, perhaps, in the shadow on the horizon.

:What does that eight-legged nuisance think She is doing, weaving such a mess around one that could never be Hers?: was muttered, even as the Mistress of the Weave studied it and determined the best way to deal with it. "Philomena," Mystra said aloud, speaking through Alustriel, "hold a coin or a stone on your palm for me."

Startled, having firmly wished to never have to deal with her Grandmother directly, Mena pulled out a nicely sized opal she'd been holding onto for experimenting, and watched as it began to hover, then spin over her palm.

Alustriel was still there, watching in satisfaction as the nasty mess wrapped all around this generous, kindhearted, forgiving soul was slowly pulled away, spun off into the opal and lodged there until the whole mess was removed and the opal fell back into her daughter's hand. Mystra left her, then, as gently as She could... but Alustriel still slumped back against the chair, winded, starving, thirsty, and a little dazed.

"Go put... that thing... in my workroom, in the lead lock-box," she told her daughter, her eyes closed.

"Yes, Mother," Mena said, after a quick look to Drizzt -- who was moving to pour water from the decanter. The magical effort had barely done more than make his skin feel a pressure, as the evil was pulled free enough to let him actually discern it.

"Here, Lady," Drizzt said, once he had the water and had moved to her, Mena having departed. "Drink." He held the glass near her hand, his concern evident to both of his friends.

Alustriel felt the cool of the water and the glass next to her hand, and moved just enough to take it and bring it to her lips without opening her eyes, letting the water refresh her. After a few careful sips, she felt enough better to open her eyes and find his openly concerned gaze. "Thank you," she said, breathing a little easier. "Do you have anything very sweet, or very high protein?"

Drizzt nodded, and moved to his pack, coming back with smoked caribou, as well as one of the honey and berry nuggets he'd made for quick energy. "Both," he said, smiling as he offered them to her.

She took the honeyed fruit first, with a grateful smile, and felt the energy hitting her in a welcome rush. The jerky, though, looked entirely appealing and she bit off a piece of it as well, tucking it back against her cheek to soften. "My apologies," she said, "but it is... draining... to be a goddess, even One who loves you."

Drizzt nodded. "I am thankful, as whatever that was, once it was separated from me felt entirely too wrong," he told her, settling beside her chair, looking up at her from a cross-legged position, in case she needed more. "Once you have recovered some, if you would, I wish to know what it was."

"As do we," Catti-brie said, not happy, for more reasons than she could fully spell out even to herself.

"Of course," Alustriel agreed as she chewed the bit of jerky, drank some more water, and chewed another bite before she felt capable of explaining entirely coherently. Her Mother had left the explanation of what it was, and a guess at how long it had been there, behind when She left. "To quote Mystra, lady of magic," she said, "'What does that eight-legged nuisance think She is doing, weaving such a mess around one that could never be Hers?' There was a shroud around you -- which would have been a breach of the terms of the end of the War of the Seldarine, if Lolth had not crafted it to obscure you from Her clerics as well. It kept you from being noted by any of Them, and apparently interfered with Their spells as well."

Drizzt frowned, his agile mind pouring over that. He thought about the state of the city after he left, then what probably happened once he defeated his mother with the effigy of his father.

"Why would She do that?" Regis asked, and Drizzt sighed.

"My House, when I left was Ninth, one off the ruling council, and under attack from the Fifth House. That they survived to send a hunter after me ten years later implies Fifth was defeated, which would have placed them on the council.

"Only, given the magic involved in that hunt, I am almost certain my House fell when I defeated the hunter." Drizzt shook his head. "Briza never would have held it for long, given that I understand now zealots are only useful as puppets, unless they have charisma and she did not.

"So, the city of my birth, would have had a minor upheaval at the upper level, spreading chaos down the ranks, all because a good-natured male was hidden from their view."

"Causing chaos, and therefore satisfying that One's nature," Alustriel said with a quiet sigh. "Or at least, that's what She'd likely claim. Lying trickster that She is. Well, I am glad to have been able to remove that filth from you. Perhaps my last-born sister can put it to some use giving Vhaeraun's folk in Skullport trouble."

Mena slipped back inside, took in the arrangement, and decided to go sit next to Regis.

"I am still... digesting that She is not the only deity of the drow," Drizzt said wryly. "I should have guessed that was a lie, but honestly, with Her stench all over us, who would expect another deity to stay?"

Alustriel chuckled softly, and switched which hand the glass was in so she could reach down to him, offering her hand. "Not an unreasonable position," she said softly. "But Eilistraee is as stubborn as Her people tend to be."

He gave his hand to her, marveling at how quick to touch him she was, at the way it rested so peacefully in his soul to be touched by her. What was this connection between them?

Catti-brie noted it, and wondered too, but it was not for her to say something now. Later, yes.

"I look forward to learning more, once I have seen my friend into his proper home," Drizzt said. "My sister has invited me to stay with them, for a time."

"I am glad of that," she said, "I like Vierna, and have several reasons to be grateful her people guard my northwestern border."

"I am grateful, Lady, that you chose to inform her of my friends and I," Drizzt said. "The help they gave was immeasurable."

"That's what Vierna does, once she knows of a need," Mena said. "As you likely guessed after meeting Ellie." Mena looked at her mother. "We solved the mystery of who spared Vierna's daughter.

"It was Drizzt. Which is part of why we were so concerned at how tangled everything was growing, when he is Vierna's full brother, had spared Ellie, and then wound up back in the region."

Alustriel's hand tightened slightly as she looked down at Drizzt again, her heart aching for the child she'd been told about and the man beside her, whose eyes had gone haunted at the mention. "I see why," she agreed. "Those are several coincidences all at once."

"Add in that he's been seen by Aunt Dove when he was first up here, I thought it needed looked into," Mena said happily.

Drizzt returned the squeeze, and gave Alustriel a soft smile for the concern. "I do not wish to be within the gods' games, but Mielikki and I came to an understanding. Any others needing my skills will have to meet my standards as She does."

Regis could not help but laugh. "Yes, Lady, this is how he is."

Alustriel laughed, her eyes brightening with amusement. "Well, it is good for Them to have a challenge now and then. I have never not been a part of divine events, but I certainly understand your opinion! I've had moments I've wished to be less a part of it all."

Drizzt inclined his head, privately aware of a growing wish to face the future near this woman, and uncertain of what he was thinking -- or feeling.

Mena turned the conversation to the topic of the Rockcrushers then, while filing away this thing she saw growing between her mother and the ranger.

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX
* Links will work as parts are revealed

Ice on the Marches (3,480 words) by ilyena_sylph & senmut
Fandom: Forgotten Realms/Legend of Drizzt
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Alustriel Silverhand, Drizzt Do'Urden, Ensemble Cast
Additional Tags: Canon Divergence, Female Friendship
Series: Part 4 of Sisters in Spirit
Summary:

The Companions enter the picture

Ice on the Marches

1358 D.R.

The idea of a dwarf, a halfling, a barbarian, and a drow was the beginning of a tavern tale, if Alustriel had ever heard one in her life. She was entertained, though, as Shardra Harpell related this particular tale of the 'Companions of the Hall', as her cousin Harkle had dubbed them.

" —gar, and finally Drizzt Do'Urden who was — "

Alustriel wondered why that name had a ring to it. She did not think any of her children had said it in her presence. She kept listening though, even as she tapped her anklet in a tight focus to her ranger and bard sisters.

~Oh sisters mine, has one of you whispered the name Drizzt Do'Urden in my ears before?~ she asked in a merry mood, as Shardra spun her words with as much skill as any Harper.

~That… oh, right. The drow that Montolio DeBrouchee took in, the one I mentioned, oh, twenty years ago?~ Dove said. She started her own sending then. ~I'd asked Thyl to make sure he was watched for, as he was far from either major group of his people.~

~My people had whispers of a drow haunting the roads for … several years after that, but then he vanished,~ Storm tagged onto the sending. She then set her own off. ~I am on my way there, so I'll ask more when I arrive.~

~Oh, I will get to see both of you? And maybe meet him? As I am coming up to research an old ranger spell,~ Dove added.

~I look forward to it. Until later, my sisters,~ Alustriel said, to return her full focus on evenfeast's socializing.

---

Several days later, it was a much different mood for Alustriel as she took the report from the Moorgate. She'd already known how heavy her heart was around this, but hearing that those with the drow were injured and had refused to enter only added to the pain of her choice.

If Storm or Dove heard of everything that had been stirred up by the Riders, this could still spiral into desperate measures. She had to head it off. Fortunately, she had ideas on how to aid. A visit to the Companions, with the full weight of her sovereignty to offer apologies and explanations was one step. The next would be potions to heal, and in the dwarf's case, to mend his memory once they found their clues. She could also point them at a resource few knew to reach out to.

And finally, once that visit was done, she would reach out to Spirit Sanctuary, and see if they could — or would — keep an eye on the region near Herald's Holdfast to lend aid if needed.

Yes. That would help begin to ease the debt she now owed one she had wronged who did not deserve it. After, and telling them both of the measures in place, she would encourage her sisters to bring tensions in the city down. Storm was good at that… as long as Alustriel trimmed her reasons for temper down first.

---

While Alustriel had been allowed to know where Spirit Sanctuary was, she had never actually been there. She opted to leave that visit for the next night, as her pulse was still ringing with the reaction that actually meeting Drizzt Do'Urden had invoked in her.

He was a man cut from the same cloth as those she had allied to throughout her long life. His ability to let go of his anger was nothing short of amazing, and his spirit absolutely shone with dedication to the protection of others.

Her fingers were itching to commit that first impression into some form of art, but business had to take precedence. Later, she promised herself, she would savor it, especially how electric it had felt to touch his cheek, to try and console him against the bitterness.

Focus, she chided herself inwardly, pushing that giddy sense of connection with him to the back of her mind.

With all of her duties done, and Storm on a mission to scold the city into remembering their duty to good folk of all kinds, Alustriel slipped out of the High Palace on a phantom steed. She could be to the priestess and back well before dawn, having memorized two of the spells.

---

Alustriel politely landed on the broad lip of the plateau where Spirit Sanctuary was cut into the cliff. She was very impressed with how little illusion was used to keep it from being visible, as they had cut deep into the rock, supporting it with timbers and eventually shaped pillars. Approaching from the air or looking down from any part of the mountain itself would not reveal it. The pathways that led to it were obscured, she thought, surveying the area with magic detection, but even there she could see efforts to keep the village from being noticeable.

She let the phantom steed go after dismounting, and waited right where she was for the guards she knew had to be on duty to decide how to handle her. Nor was it a long wait, as she saw — ahh, they had gone directly for Vierna it seemed — the cleric coming out of an entry Alustriel had not yet noticed.

She smiled, to try and set the tone for this meeting, given she was asking for a favor from them.

"Greetings, Lady Vierna," she called warmly.

"Greetings, Lady Alustriel," Vierna replied, coming to within arm's reach of the powerful archmage, studying her face for a moment before she returned the smile. "You are welcome, of course, but what brings you to us in the middle of your night?"

It could not be that Mena or Thyl were hurt, their mother would hardly be smiling if there was anything truly wrong.

Alustriel took a breath. "A matter of some travelers that will be near the lower portion of your territory," she began. "Because of tensions in the Silver Marches, I had to deny one member of the party entry, and all of them chose not to continue their quest within my walls.

"I was... very upset to do so, but the Riders of Nesme had forced my hand with ugly rumors ahead of their meeting with me."

Vierna frowned at the mention of the Riders of Nesme -- her people had had one or two unpleasant encounters with the bigoted humans -- and more at the idea of them causing trouble for her friends' mother in her own city. "I am sorry to hear it," she said, "and... you wish us to keep our eyes out for them? What are they questing after?"

"The quest is for the dwarf's lost Hall," Alustriel began. "I don't know if you were established here already when Mithral Hall fell, but that is what they seek. I have pointed them to the Herald's Holdfast to see if they can find more information there."

"We had only gotten established," Vierna said, as her eyes widened in surprise, "but -- another survivor? Truly?!"

'Another' -- Oh that warmed Alustriel's heart further. "Thyl's and Mena's elder brothers aided with rescuing those that found the Moon Wood. Bruenor Battlehammer, though, apparently had a contingent that wound up all the way in Icewind Dale, and I had no idea of it until this tale reached my ears."

"A true Battlehammer," Vierna said in shock, her eyes still wide even as her mind kicked over into planning, into working out how to help this kinsman of her people. "I'll have to wake Micken, maybe Dhaeln, if you will tell me how to find this 'Herald's Holdfast' so he can go to them..."

That made the Arch Mage blink. Not just having succored survivors, but living ones here? That was providential news!

"The Holdfast sits on the eastern side of the Moon Wood, closer to my city. I was suspecting, however, that whatever clues they find will push them up into this region.

"I never knew where the Hall was, but had an impression it was closer to this region than not," Alustriel told her.

"I have never been able to remove the curse of forgetting my few suffer under," Vierna admitted, "Eilistraee does not entirely understand it, so..." She shrugged a little helplessly, sighing. "We know it cannot have been terribly far, because Micken did not have sores from his wastes, and the old one could not have fled far with his wound. There were spans of bare rock, though, that made it impossible even for my people to be certain where they had come from."

Alustriel nodded. "And so few of the elders survived for long after, with even some of the older youths succumbing to a malaise of the spirit," she murmured sadly. "I am grateful to know your people aided." She gave a warm smile. "Well, I will craft a map showing where the Holdfast is, if you wish it.

"But in truth, I had a secondary concern for you, and this is the part that pains me to admit." She met Vierna's eyes steadily. "The Riders had caused the merchants concern because of the drow in the party. Too much of our trade comes from that road, for food and goods we don't produce in our city."

"A drow?" Vierna blinked, several times. "Moving openly, in company with others? Are they one of Qilué's people, then? None of mine are away from me..." She trailed off, before she frowned a little more. "I am sorry to hear it, but I can understand your decision. They're idiots, but many humans are. Do you think the trouble will last?"

"No. Storm is in the city, enlisting aid in turning popular opinion," Alustriel said. "And so is Dove, who stands guarantee for the drow, having encountered him about twenty years ago, or nearly enough.

"He apparently vanished into the Far North, and has only now emerged, yet -- " Her voice trailed off as she tried to find words for the sense of Destiny she'd seen around the ranger. "He seems touched by things yet to come, and carries a gravity that leads me to believe his stalwart friendships with the other three were very hard won."

"I am glad to hear that," Vierna said, as she nodded. "Thyl and Mena came to tell me there was one your sister had met who was now wandering, but... his travels never brought him to us. I was sad about that, from what they told me of her encounter with him. He sounded like someone I would like to meet. Perhaps I will, now!

"Friendships outside our own are most-often hard won," she agreed quietly, sighing. "I was very lucky in meeting Mena as early as I did."

That brought a smile to Alustriel once more, as she was fond of her ever-adventuring daughter's ways. "I am personally grateful as well." Through that friendship, there had been aid, several times, that had impacted her family. "Where may I settle, to work on the map for you, Vierna?"

"This way," Vierna said, and brought her to one of the workrooms. It was empty at this hour, and with the shutter closed, the candlelight would bother no one. "Did you happen to get this wanderer's name?"

"The Harpells have dubbed the band the 'Companions of the Hall', and named each one," Alustriel said, thinking for a moment on that wanderer more deeply than she possibly ought. "The ranger, for that is his calling, is Drizzt Do'Urden."

Vierna stared at her, shocked into speechlessness, her hands making a bewildered infant-sign of confusion and distress, the sound of her own rarely-used surname echoing through her mind.

Alustriel reached her hands out, taking those gesturing ones, and just offering support while Vierna worked through whatever this storm was.

"My friend, what is it? Is there something at work you already know of? I promise you, his nature is as keenly good as my own."

"That," Vierna finally managed to get out, "is my family name!"

Alustriel was the one startled now, and she blinked several times, before managing a soft chuckle. "If he is truly related to you, then, goodness runs in your line?

"He... he was so hurt, so angry, and yet he both let go of it and forgave me, once we had spoken."

"It must," Vierna said, "oh, how Malice would rage at that idea, but I am... intrigued. No, I am more than intrigued, I am near desperate to know more. He forgave you? Not something that comes easily to any of us, when we have been wounded. Especially not heart-wounds. We deal poorly with those, I have noticed."

That got a nod. "I was surprised that it went as well as it did, and yet... he felt like a kindred spirit in many ways." Alustriel let go of her hands, so she could get things out... and hide the faint flush to her cheeks for the fact that Drizzt Do'Urden was staying high in her thoughts.

Another Do'Urden, on the Surface? This would be either someone from another city, or a child of Malice's, since Briza would never mate.

A male sibling, of hers that wasn't Nalfein...

In short order, Alustriel had the outline of the hills, the river, the Moon Wood, and placed relevant landmarks. She had worked quickly, in the quiet of Vierna digesting the shocking news.

"I think this should be sufficient for any of your people to use?" she said at last, offering the map.

Vierna took it and looked over it, then nodded. "Yes, certainly. Thank you, Alustriel. The idea that they have a king still alive, an heir of the blood... that will matter very much to my people. And I... I am... bewildered and overwhelmed at this idea of someone who shares my name wandering the Surface for so long. This is the kind of thing Eilistraee would normally tell me, or... Qilué knows my name perfectly well, why didn't she tell me?"

Alustriel shook her head. "Dove did ask that watch be kept, but aside from rumored sightings several years ago, nothing solid ever happened. I do not believe Qilué knows more than you do about his wanderings.

"And... the bare impression I had was that the divinity he is drawing from is a wild one, likely Mielikki."

Vierna raked one hand through her hair, disarraying it, as she looked at Alustriel in consternation. "None of this makes any sense. Well, it is what it is, and hopefully with Micken to speak to this Bruenor, I can find out something."

"I wish you well... and by the time they know more, I will have my city back in hand, to lend aid," Alustriel promised, standing so that she could go. "May your people thrive always."

"And yours, Alustriel. Be well," Vierna told her, walking with her back out of the workroom once she had put the candle out.

Alustriel moved back to the open space, calling her new phantom steed to her. She could have teleported, but Old Night deserved a warning, so she would stop there, ahead of the Companions, and then go home.

Vierna watched her call the phantom creature, then turned to go back to her work. The map had convinced her that Micken could get to Herald's Holdfast before these 'Companions of the Hall' could, so she would let him sleep through the night, and talk to him in the morning.

---

Micken was up with the sun, like most of the non-drow that had ever lived with them. Some of the drow had joined that schedule, but most worked through the night, often hunting and gathering, slept in the morning, and then did crafts in the evening with their more day-oriented chosen kin.

Before Micken could get to the stores cavern and begin cataloguing the items brought in by night, First Sister was there to catch him after his meal.

"Aye?"

"Silverymoon's Lady came to me in the night," Vierna said, "with news that means much to me... but I think will mean far more to you and yours. There are more of your clan in Icewind Dale," she held up a hand for silence so she could finish, "their leader is a true Battlehammer of the blood, and he has come south to seek for his Hall."

Micken's jaw dropped, and he tried, a number of times, to find the right words. "Me people have a chieftain, an' there be more o' us in the north," he said incredulously. "Aye, that means a fair bit tae us, Sister, aye it does.

"Where be the Battlehammer now?"

"Headed to a place called Herald's Holdfast, which the Lady made me a map to," Vierna replied. "I expect you'll want to leave -- I made you a pack, but you'll want to go through it, I'm sure -- as soon as you can.

"The part which matters to me, my friend," she said softly, "is that a drow travels with him, one who could reach Silverymoon... and one who shares my family name."

"So we both be finding family soon," Micken said, resting a hand on her arm. "Aye, Lady, I'll be going an' findin' them both, see what I can learn from them meself." He straightened fully, his bearing set on determined now. "Until I see ye again, my Lady and Sister," he said properly, "may all our gods watch over us."

"Until I see you again," Vierna replied, "may they guide and guard you."

---

Herald's Holdfast sat close to the edge of the Moon Wood, but they still had to get to it from where they were. Drizzt took point, relying on memories of maps seen when he was younger and still under the tutelage of Montolio. Mooshie had made him study those maps intently.

We don't run often, but if you don't know a region and you run the wrong way, who gets the warning out, hmm?

The voice was a bittersweet comfort. Even with the reassurance of the Lady of Silverymoon — and a feeling that maybe, just maybe, he might yet find a place in her lands — his heart was raw. He'd never truly wanted to take up this quest, excusing his misgivings as a justified caution about whatever had driven the dwarves out.

How much of it was the idea that if Bruenor found his home, that was one more separation from Drizzt, when they had shared being exiles as part of their friendship? It was an unbecoming thought, and yet Drizzt was too honest in his heart not to grasp it, in part.

He was disturbed out of his thoughts as a jagged line in the bark of a tree caught his ever-vigilant observation. His eyes focused, and all thoughts of losing Bruenor as a friend faded, for he was looking at a drow glyph, marked in such a way as to tell those that could read it that an elf village was in a specific tree.

It touched the back of his awareness that the glyph neither glowed nor held any magic, and was actually just like the blazes rangers carved to guide each other. That really didn't matter as memories tumbled over top of each other — drow cruelty and drow viciousness and long ago violence under trees much like the one bearing that mark.

"My teacher?" Wulfgar called.

"Drow have been here," Drizzt managed to say, idly proud of the young man for noting the change in his demeanor, and for calling it to attention, much as Drizzt would have preferred to master the spike of emotions.

When did the world ever give him anything to his preferences?

Bruenor squinted at the mark, frowned and then shook his head. "Bah! Elf, ye cannae go gettin' yer head mixed up for such. That's been scored in the wood long enow tae be fadin'. Keep a-movin', and let's find this Holdfast, ye hear?"

"And if the marks are as old as the fall of your hall?" Drizzt asked mildly.

"Then even better I be knowin' ye, aye? Beat the tricks of the stinkin' drow and win me hall back, ye will!"

"Bruenor's right, Drizzt," Regis said. "If it is drow, you'll know how to plan a way to beat them!"

Drizzt had no idea why they had such faith in him, but it did ease some of the pain in his heart. Bruenor was right; the sign was old. And it might even be unrelated. Best to follow the guidance of the Lady — Alustriel, he reminded himself, still feeling the cool hand on his cheek — and pushed on.

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX
* Links will work as parts are revealed

Moonlit Clarity (3,950 words) by senmut
Fandom: Forgotten Realms/Legend of Drizzt
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Philomena (Canon-Inspired OC), Alustriel Silverhand, Inthylyn Aerasumé, Ensemble Cast
Additional Tags: Canon Divergence, Female Friendship
Series: Part 2 of Sisters in Spirit
Summary:

Vierna is tangling further into Mena's family

Moonlit Clarity

Late 1150s D.R.

Mena took the time to pass through Silverymoon, to see how the city her mother loved was doing, but after that, and with the nights growing cool, she decided to teleport to the High Forest.

It was not as cool down there when she arrived, and the leaves were just truly beginning to change. She wandered among the trees for a time, taking in all the new growth, a lost tree there, and the genuine peace of this sanctuary.

When she did reach the scouts, it was in the silver-haired half-elf form that she used with family, and she was quickly noted. After a few minutes confirming she was part of Elué's family, she was able to go up and to the family home that Papa kept for all of them.

When she entered, she saw two little boys, both with the silver hair, both showing all signs of being half-human, half-elf. She completely forgot everything she was here for as she dropped onto the floor to say hello to her new brothers.

"Well hello, Mena," Elué said warmly, having been in the chair that let the most light fall on the scroll she was reading.

"Hello, Mother, but who are these little scamps?" Mena asked in delight, even as the pair were cautiously approaching her, curious about this person that looked like them but was a stranger.

"Inthylyn on your left, Lilinthar on your right, called Thyl and Lin," her mother answered. "Boys, this is your sister, Philomena, called Mena."

"Hi," Thyl said without fear, while Lin made up his mind.

"Hi little brothers. I am glad to meet you both," Mena said, opening her posture to invite a hug… and Lin decided to swoop in and take that offer. She held him a long moment, heart wrapping around them, then got Thyl's hug after.

Discussing all the reasons she had come would wait, as she started getting to know her mother's latest children.

---

It was the third day — little boys could be very distracting and very tiring — before Mena sat to talk with her mother. Uncle Korvallen and Papa had taken the twins to go visit with Papa's pegasus friend.

"I have a request, as I have not learned this spell, given I don't need it," Mena said. "I want to have a glamour ring for a friend of mine, and her people, who cannot safely walk into towns to do trade."

Elué frowned at that, a contemplative look rather than disapproval. "Such magic, as you know, can be very abused by ill-meaning folk, or those that begin to grasp the possibilities."

"The friend is a cleric, of a goodly goddess, and she is very, very careful in who she trusts, even among her people, when it comes to any kind of power," Mena said slowly.

Elué looked her in the eyes. "Dear? Tell me more, and help me understand why I should do this."

"My friend is a drow, and she follows the goddess known to elves as the Dark Maiden," Mena said, wishing her mother had just trusted her judgment. However, Chosen-crafted artifacts tended to endure longer than those made by other wizards.

"Ahh. No wonder they cannot walk openly," Elué said softly. "It would be best if you not tell your Papa or any other elves."

"I didn't want to betray the confidence at all, Mother."

"Meaning I should learn to trust my children better," Elué said with a soft smile. "I'm sorry dear. With everything that's happened, I have been leaning toward caution."

Mena went to her and hugged her tight, not liking the stress lines she could see now. She should have known, though, that things had been rough, for Mother to have taken time to live simply in the village, to have children. She must have needed this.

That made her push discussion of silverfire and tall drow off her plate, and she put aside the concerns she'd had about Silverymoon as well. Just the ring, Mena decided, was enough to burden her mother with.

"I promise you, I trust my friend with this magic, with my life even. She is so good, and so careful."

"Alright, dear. I will make it for you, though I may have to send you to gather items for me."

"Of course!"

---

Early 1200s D.R.

Vierna had just settled to sleep when her personal wards against intrusion jangled, bringing her up with one sword appearing in hand. Mena, bloody and distraught, appeared at the spot she had long ago marked for herself, swaying on her feet.

Normally, she sent to warn that she was arriving, but Vierna could see why she had not. The sword vanished again, as she hastily moved to her sworn-sister.

"Come, please! My brothers, I could not bring them both, risk moving them!" Mena said, reaching for Vierna's hand. The cleric gave it immediately, and braced for the teleport. When it ended, she saw several dead orcs, two things that might have been worgs before the spells had torn them apart, and Mena all but collapsed.

More concerningly, two half-humans were there, unconscious and bloodier than her friend.

Vierna left questions for later, moving to where she could get hands on one of the fallen brothers. Her analytical mind told her that it had been a last ditch spell that wiped out the final enemies, so she would be fighting manna drain, in addition to the numerous sword wounds.

"When you can move, you know the pocket with my potions," she said very calmly to Mena, already questing for the worst of the injuries on the man.

Mena made a noise of agreement, and stayed where she was for the moment.

Vierna had not exhausted her spells, and her Lady was always willing to give her healing ones for those she had not used. The first of these poured through the man she was touching, sealing the wounds, burning away the infection they could have carried into what blood he still had.

Woozy from the effort, but knowing the other had to have her help, she moved the few inches needed to get hands on him, aware only of the need, of preventing suffering. The last of her spells were given gladly for another powerful healing, and then… then she could sit back and look at her friend.

"I didn't even notice you move to get the potion," she said, noting Mena looked better.

"Did you notice the sun has moved significantly since you began healing my brothers?" Mena countered.

"No." Vierna chewed her lip. "Rafi has the glamour ring," she said in a worried voice. "And I am certain you don't have the ability to cast an illusion."

"No, but your healing always makes people sleep, to let it finish. By the time they are awake, I will have a spell to take you home," Mena promised.

"We need to get away from the bodies, though, and into cover," Vierna reasoned.

"If you can walk, I can change my shape," Mena said, understanding that. "If they can be moved now?"

"Yes. Honestly, as badly injured as they were, they should be cared for longer, but — "

"You have your people to worry about," Mena said. "What if… what if they agreed to be blindfolded? I can just memorize teleports, then you can be sure of your healing with them, and we will leave once you are satisfied.

"We're not that far from Third Peak. I'd intended to get us into a camp and send to you, so you could meet them," Mena told her. "Just… bad luck that our trail to the camp I wanted took us past these."

Vierna looked at the slain enemies. "The orcs are starting to boil out of their clan holdings more and more. That's not good… and yes. If they will consent to blindfolds, we all go back to Spirit Sanctuary for at least a day." She then tipped her head. "Why were you in this region at all?"

"I'm helping them explore, and we were asked to see if we could find any trace of a trading town near Fourth Peak."

"Oh. The haunted ruins my people refuse to go near?" Vierna asked casually. Mena laughed, even as she made herself shift into a stronger form that could carry her brothers.

"Of course I should have just asked you. Probably."

"There's little in these hills we have not marked out; after it was obvious that all traffic to Fourth Peak had ended, we finally explored it as well."

Vierna pushed to her own feet, taking stock to see if she could carry one of the men. They were so tall, like Mena.

"Go find us a covered place; I can trail you with them," her sworn-sister promised.

---

Thyl shifted, felt something over his eyes, and started to reach for it.

Mena caught his hands.

"No, little brother. I need you to leave that on."

"Why?"

"My allies that are helping you, who saved your life, need you to. This place does not exist, for most people," Mena began. "You can't be made to forget like others they have helped. Mother would see the meddling. But if you can't see, you aren't a risk. They're just trying to live their lives, and it's best you not have to keep the secret."

"I would," Thyl said in a stubborn tone. "But... alright. My twin?"

"He's still sleeping. It's a side-effect of the kind of healing you got, as it comes from a night goddess."

"You trust these people?" Thyl asked her, hand questing... there was Lin. He noted that if there was any light outside the blindfold, it must be very dim.

"I have known and trusted them for a century."

"Then I will obey."

"You're a good brother. I would never risk any of you. Still mad the orcs got the ambush they did," she said in a sulky voice. Thyl actually smiled for that.

"Worgs make them sneaky," he offered, moving, carefully, to get to his brother on the pallet they were both on, so he could feel the rise and fall of the chest for himself. "Tired," he noticed.

"You should be; my friend had to use very intensive healing on both of you. When we go home, I am asking Andy to come drill you both in defensive magic."

Thyl mock-groaned, but they needed it, obviously. "You? How bad?"

"A potion managed mine," Mena said. "Now sleep, and I'll tell Lin to behave when he wakes, before I get some sleep again."

"Alright, sister-ours."

---

Both twins were awake when Vierna came back into her quarters, having given them up to minimize potential encounters.

"Well, I suppose your color is improved," she told them both. "How do each of you feel?"

"Restless," the one Mena had told her was Thyl said. "The food we were brought was good."

"I'll tell our cook of the day you said so," Vierna said, smiling for how nonchalant the man was about this.

"Still not sure why Mena gets to know you and we don't," Lin said, when Vierna knelt beside the pair, to do a more hands-on inspection.

"Your sister says you are still young enough that you do not have all the protections on your mind against thoughts being captured," Vierna told him. "And yet, you belong to a powerful family that has been under siege for decades now by other powerful wizards.

"I am responsible for many people in this hidden place. What you do not know cannot be taken from you and used to harm them. We have steadily fortified this location, built up stores of food, medicines, even some goods that are kept for future use. Over and beyond the safety of my people, we would all loathe for that to come into the keeping of evil-aligned persons."

Thyl made a low noise. "You have very good points, Lady."

"You both may call me Vierna. We use no titles in this place. It is a sanctuary, with our people working in common. I only lead because someone must be available to make hard choices."

"Vierna," the twins said in unison, before grinning broadly at proving, yet again, how close in thought they were.

"If, when we're older and more experienced, we were to come seeking, would we be turned away?" Thyl asked, more from curiosity than anything, if Vierna was to guess right.

Vierna laughed softly. "If you can find us, once you can keep secrets even from strong wizards, I will congratulate you and introduce you to everyone."

The way Thyl's face settled, Vierna was certain she would see him again, some day. She'd have to tell Mena not to lend any aid... just to make it a true test of skill.

---

1235 D.R.

Mena froze in the middle of talking, her eyes glazing over. She had come to Vierna for information, to see if Spirit Sanctuary had any insights into the wave of orcs boiling out of the hills and mountains, realms-wide, only to learn that her friend had pulled all of her people into the cliff dwellings, curtailing all but the closest scouting.

"What is it?" Vierna asked, once Mena's attention re-focused.

"Mother. Her city is caught in a power struggle and the horde is approaching," Mena said mournfully.

"Silverymoon, correct? The larger city split by the river?" Vierna asked. "Our trade goes there; Micken and those of us that use the glamour ring feel they are fair in their dealings, normally."

"Yes," Mena said. "I ... that city cannot fall, Vierna! It holds the Sacred Glade of Mielikki, one of Her strongest refuges and sanctified places."

Vierna bit at her lip for a moment, hearing a plea in that which could not be asked. Yet, Mena had done so much for them, helping them make a strong holding here on Third Peak.

"We only have the one ring. And bringing drow to a confrontation would only muddy it more," Vierna slowly reasoned out. "Yet, with us pulled into the mountain, and how strong my sisters in service are, I could go with you."

Mena blinked, then nodded before pouncing and hugging Vierna tightly.

"Gather all you will need, and tell your people, but to have a cleric as strong as you are? Could mean all the difference Mother needs!"

---

Storm Silverhand whirled to see who was arriving in the spot they were forcing all teleports to, and found the silver-haired half-elf she knew as Mena with a moon elf that was unknown to her.

"Aunt, this is my friend, Vierna, who is a cleric of some strength," Mena said quickly. "Andy said there'd been battle."

"Bless your brother for reaching out; we're running short on clerics as they're barricaded in the city," Storm said, moving with clear intent to lead them to where they were needed.

"Can you explain more as we walk?" Mena asked. "I was with Vierna when the sending came."

"One idiot was wasting all of Silverymoon's resources to his benefit, another idiot wants to replace him but is just as ill-motivated," Storm said. "That made your mother decide to come and contest with them, to bring her city back to its proper ways.

"Only there seems to be a deluge of orcs," she finished up.

Vierna had to smile for that blunt and candid assessment. "Our people have been seeing an increase in orc activity, and feel that it may be due to population pressure, but we never realized how extant the problem was."

"Yes, it is this way in all areas where they live," Storm said grimly, "which means their gods have pushed them to be prolific without actually providing the resources they need for it."

"We'll do our best to help," Mena promised. "I don't have many potions on me, but — "

"Healing is one of my specialties," Vierna said, finishing that thought so on cue that Storm truly relaxed to her presence.

"Thyl and Lin will be bringing in potions and elixirs as they finish bottling them," Storm told them. "Andy didn't think they should get involved in this, but they wanted to help in some fashion.

"The younger ones were told to go home, and support their father."

Mena laughed. "Methri's getting old enough to chafe at that, but this is going to get too ugly for him or Bo."

"Such a large family," Vierna said, shaking her head, before they were at the pavilion for the wounded, and they both had to get to work.

---

Vierna wasn't even thinking any more. The orcs had managed to use the main battle to disguise their secondary attack, trying to reach the more protected area with the wounded. None of the clerics and wizards present to aid were without skill in fighting, but Vierna had continued to hone her birthright as the Weapon Master's student.

Swords moved in blinding fashion, bringing merciful death to those who came too close, for Vierna did not believe in making her opponents suffer. By the time one of Mena's brothers and her Aunt managed to get back to them, the orc band was dead.

"Vierna?" Storm called, having noticed that Vierna was not moving yet from the last orc she had felled.

"A moment," she answered, calling to her goddess, seeking comfort from the necessity of the battle. The song spiraled up, steadying her, and she was able to move to where she could both see her patients, and clean the blades in her hands. "We'll need the bodies moved away. No, you get back on that cot!" she said to one of the less wounded who moved to try and help with that task.

"We'll get a detail here quickly," Dolthauvin, the younger of the pair of twins she'd been introduced to, told her. "You... are impressive."

Vierna gave a tight smile. "It is needed, and therefore I do it."

She then focused on the others working as healers, and began organizing them, having mostly taken command of the support effort. Storm watched her another long moment before helping with the detail to remove bodies.

Vierna wondered what the bard was thinking, but they had work to do.

---

If Vierna never saw a campaign like this again, she would be grateful. She'd been sending every few days to Rafi to let him know she still lived. Now, with the city in the hands of Mena's family, and the population trying to recover, she was ready to return to them.

One last necessity, though, an invitation to meet with Alustriel herself, had to be dealt with before Mena would be able to take her back to Spirit Sanctuary.

The meeting was slated for in the Sacred Glade of Mielikki, as they had managed to protect it, sheltering as many as they could, and Mena was glad to escort her there.

"My brothers all revere Mielikki in her half-elven aspect, and since Mother ruled here before, there are very tight bonds," Mena said warmly.

"Your brothers are good men," Vierna said with a small smile. "Thyl made a point to speak with me every time he brought potions."

"Oh?" Mena arched an eyebrow at her.

"I think he knows there's more to me than I seem to be, because why would you have hidden a moon elf village from them?" Vierna laughed softly. "I have a suspicion he will begin his search for where he was then."

"Probably." Mena was amused. "He mentioned that he would love to get lessons from you. He just didn't say what kind of lessons."

Vierna started laughing even more as the insinuation came through. "Mena, you know I don't even have time for such things!"

"I'm not getting in his way if he tries to change your mind," Mena said, half a playful threat.

"Hmph."

---

Alustriel enacted silence outside of the canopied area she had received her daughter and the powerful cleric that helped them with no offer of reward. She studied the seeming elf, noting the glamour ring she had made, remembering that Mena had asked for that, for a drow.

Mena's faith had certainly been proven.

"You may speak freely, Vierna, as none can hear us but the three of us in here," Alustriel said. "I must say, first-most, thank you for all you did here, as well as for saving my children some time ago."

Vierna realized Thyl or Lin must have mentioned it, as Mena would not have, unless asked.

"Mena has been my guide on the surface for nearly as long as I have lived Above," Vierna told her. "The welfare of her family only adds to my calling to do what good I may.

"As I take it, by the invitation to speak freely, you are aware of my nature."

"I had pressed Mena to break your confidence when she asked for the ring you are wearing, I admit," Alustriel said. "However, I should have trusted her then, and that has been more than proven now."

"You seem very calm about it, which I appreciate," Vierna said with a small smile.

"I recently became aware of a connection to those that follow the Dark Maiden," Alustriel told her. "Storm made an inquiry on my behalf, and I must say that Qilué Veladorn had much to say in praise of your efforts."

Vierna's heart fluttered in fear for a moment; their Lady's Chosen was a more closely kept secret than most among the good drow.

"She's Mystra's Chosen too!" Mena said, having intended to stay quiet, but remembering that meeting. Now Alustriel favored her daughter with a surprised look.

"She is Mystra's youngest," the wizard said slowly.

"She's my aunt? Neat! I met her before you!" Mena looked at Vierna who was trying to process that. "Lots of magic, a tragedy, prophecy... all the kind of things my family tends to fall into," she explained. Mena then looked back to her mother. "Vierna should know this. So she can better choose how and when to aid."

"Then, yes. Vierna, the one you know as a Chosen of Eilistraee is also Chosen by Mystra, and only became known to us as Her seventh Daughter recently," Alustriel said. "We all, as far as we know, are Chosen, but there is still a mystery around the one just up from her.

"And all of us have confronted our prejudice and beliefs on drow. As their representative, the Seven Sisters of Mystra will provide aid to your community and people."

"Then... on behalf of my people, whatever aid we can give, we will," Vierna told her, accepting the alliance. "We may be limited, though, as we are aware of the danger in people growing accustomed to goodly drow, and the fear that currently exists.

"Mena can tell you, and those Sisters that need to know, where we are, and a pass phrase." She then smiled brightly for the wizard. "I'd prefer if Thyl nor Lin are told directly, due to a small challenge issued when they were healing with us."

Mena grinned. "They have to find it on their own," she clarified.

Alustriel returned the smile, and amusement behind it. "Then so be it." She came closer and held her hands out to Vierna. "I believe, like my daughter, I will be glad to know you as friend, in time."

"I agree," Vierna said, clasping her hands lightly.

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX
* Links will work as parts are revealed

Legacy of Vierna (5,900 words) by senmut
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forgotten Realms (Legend of Drizzt)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: ANIMAL DEATH
Relationship: Drizzt Do'Urden & Vierna Do'Urden
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Drizzt Do'Urden, Artemis Entreri
Additional Tags: Canon Divergences
Summary:

Vhaeraun's Priestess wants to find her brother. So does an assassin.

---

Legacy of Vierna

When Vierna had failed to get her teacher and her brother out of the city before everything went to the Abyss in a spiderweb, she had raged. Protecting her brother's escape had been the best she could do, 'missing' him with a web spell.

If she could have stolen her teacher's — her father's! — body before making her own escape, she would have, but only Matron Malice could open that part of the family vault. As it was, her escape route had made it impossible to pick up her brother's trail, and she had abided by her true god's wishes in where to go.

Several years of teaching what she knew of Lloth's ways, to find weaknesses, and learning more than Vhaeraun could teach her through the dreams He'd sent to her, had brought a level of skill that left her a very, very dangerous woman to cross.

That made her the perfect candidate to go and be present in another stronghold for Vhaeraun, one that might, in time, reward her personally.

~Skullport. Go with the next shipment to Skullport. Seek Natoth, and tell him I sent you,~ Vhaeraun insinuated into His stolen priestess's thoughts during her prayers to Him for her spells.

~I will, but is there more to it, my Lord?~ she asked, as willing to live one place as another, even after years of study here. He delighted in the fact she was no blindly obedient servant, having a will all her own that just happened to marry closely to His own wishes.

~They have a problem, and Natoth will tell more. It is also near My Sister's people, which might… hold interest to you?~

He felt the thrill race through her, knew she had never solved the mystery of her brother's location, only knowing the strange one was not dead.

Her gratitude for that hope was sincere, and Vhaeraun basked in it. He did not mind all of His schemers and plotters, but there was something refreshing to having cultivated Vierna from childhood to share mutual respect.

---

Skullport, being above the faerzress line, was a terrible place in some ways, and it offered Vierna many lessons, including new spells to learn and pray for, yet still, the presence of her brother was not to be found.

Had he been spirited off-plane? Vierna would have to grow even stronger, then, to manage to find him.

In the meanwhile, she and Natoth did what they could to undermine the stronger mercantile and mercenary company that followed Vhaeraun, while also monitoring that the Dancers didn't get ideas of resisting them.

She traced out her own plans, solidified alliances as she was able... and if that meant keeping a thread of an alliance with the small faction of Bregan D'aerthe she had found... so be it.

---

The seething frustration of five years of watching for her brother among the Dancers came to a head when word reached her from above that a drow, a barbarian, a dwarf, and a human had been seen departing the docks swiftly.

The drow had been noted as carrying two curved swords.

Investigating the sighting only added to her anger; it had been far too many days to give chase in that absolutely torturous world that existed above. At least in Skullport things were in perpetual half-shadow at the very least!

She attempted to use a sending, knowing he had been near, knowing he lived! Yet, it could not reach him, much as every other attempt over the years had done. Was it because he had been changed too much, that he was no longer the alien brother she had raised, making his mind a stranger?

Or did he have protections against the family interfering with her?

Well. She'd have to learn why he'd been on a ship, and maybe that would lead her to a clue as to how to find him now.

---

The informant that had been found for Vierna was... human. He'd been in bad enough shape that her agents had been able to make him a deal that was not easily declined. Bringing him to Skullport, giving him time to recover his health had eaten more precious time, but her agents assured her he was more than willing to cooperate and get her information on Drizzt Do'Urden.

He was, per her agents, now in a shape to meet her, and Vierna decided that would happen here, in the seat of her power. It was imperative that the human understand she would not tolerate failure to secure her brother's whereabouts, so that she could finally see and speak to the strange child she had raised.

She settled on the raised dais, her robes the ones she had chosen to mark her as a cleric who also fought with their strategically reinforced panels, the maces she prided herself on her skill clearly visible, even as she arranged herself to be as visibly dismissive of a human as she could manage.

They brought him in ten minutes later, guiding him through the utter darkness of the temple, before leaving him standing in front of her. With a smile, she drew faerie fire up to grant the pitiful human the ability to see.

"Greetings, Artemis Entreri," she called in Common. "I am told that you have information on the whereabouts of Drizzt Do'Urden."

He took her in once his eyes adjusted, a faint rising of an eyebrow as he appraised her, before he casually dusted off one sleeve where the agents had touched him.

"A dangerous adversary to track, when he is on the other side of the continent, no doubt," the man said in his Calimshite accent.

"Yes, but I can't see his basic nature having changed in the last few decades," Vierna said with every ounce of haughtiness in her voice she could bring to bear. "Such honor and principle." She did not have to feign the scorn; she truly could not believe her brother had hung on to those through his years at school.

The human watched her with cold, unfeeling eyes, his body temperature staying steady without any betrayals of emotion. "I want Do'Urden to face me, prove which of us is actually the better."

It will be my brother, in many ways, Vierna immediately thought, sizing him up. He carried himself with the same precision and control she associated with their father, but he lacked passion, even in declaring that he wished this fight.

"I am under the impression," she began, studying her fingernails, "that where he goes, there are others that are quite interfering. Three pirate ships destroyed or captured? An entire power base disrupted?

"It seems, he is resourceful, perhaps moreso than one person can take on to arrange such a fight."

The human half-shrugged. "Which is why you have come to me?"

Oh, he might actually be a useful asset in the long run. Vierna doubted it, though; if the feud with her brother was too deep, she would kill him herself, as Drizzt's welfare... mattered to her.

Despite his alignment, that actually pleased her god, who saw it as proof of her loyalty to His ideals.

"I can provide the resources to cut him away from his friends," Vierna said, that word dripping with disdain. "You get your fight, away from any interferences. I get access to the entirely too ... good ... drow."

"What's to stop me from just dealing with him directly, once he's cut away?" the human challenged.

"Oh, I think you're smarter than that," Vierna said with ice and venom alike in her words. "I found you in the first place; I can keep doing so. And death need not even end the torments I would visit upon you if you take Drizzt Do'Urden out of my reach."

He smirked, the arrogant little human, and her eyes narrowed.

"I think we have a deal, Priestess." He tipped his head. "Do you have a name?"

"I do." She paused for his nod. "I am Vierna ... Do'Urden. And your prey in this hunt is my brother."

Let him think this was a vendetta, a family cleaning spree. That was how he seemed to take it, and Vierna decided this should work in her favor completely.

---

Vierna had been, to say the least, concerned when Entreri showed her where they were in comparison to where Drizzt was. If he was living in a dwarven hall that had been accessed by a shadow dragon, and her concept of where Menzoberranzan should be was correct — he was at risk!

The House was dead; she knew that well through Bregan D'aerthe. That did not, however, mean that Lloth was through with her brother, or herself if the abominable goddess of lies ever realized hurting Drizzt would be a blow against Vierna.

Vierna wasn't certain she cared for feeling that vulnerable, yet she did truly wish to know how her brother fared, and to have closure over their shared past. Or, possibly, an opening to a future, she reminded herself.

"Go. Learn his habits. Determine a plan that allows for capture," she told the assassin. "Using the sending stone when you have the plan, and I will give you the support needed to follow through. We'll bring him back here, so no one can interfere."

Entreri nodded. She did not trust him to not try and engineer an escape from her wrath if this failed, or Drizzt came to harm, but it was the best chance she had, when there was no end in sight to the block her brother had against scries and sendings.

---

The first check-in with Entreri, after giving him time to reach the correct region, had made it clear that the assassin was well-aware of her reach. He was gathering information, using the mask that Drizzt had abandoned to stay hidden, and focusing on the deal.

It was soon discovered, despite the cold settling into the region, that Drizzt Do'Urden did not remain in one place at all times. His travel took him back and forth between Mithral Hall, the place Entreri knew well, and Silverymoon, a city he preferred not to set foot in.

Fortunately, the outlying small settlements on that path were trusting fools who accepted the idea of a half-elf that had gotten separated from his party by injuries. Entreri took his rest in such fools' homes, and listened, relaying the information to Vierna in small bursts of words to sift through on their brief sendings.

Vierna wondered why he'd chosen half-elf, but then reasoned out that the man's speed and grace was more easily explained with faerie blood. She scried for him, to verify his words, after every other conversation with the man.

~I mean to haunt the road between the city and the Hall; he moves often enough that I have a feel for it,~ Entreri told her on their next conversation, and now Vierna readied other spells. Mephits she had long since convinced to do her bidding, and a shadow-fiend to transport her brother and assassin to her were prepared. She forced herself not to scry too often.

Entreri's curses blistering along the sending stone and a nebulous get-here feeling upended the careful planning, as she focused on the very clear, very intent image of her brother down beneath a gigantic black cat that looked dimly familiar to her.

She teleported, spells for defense on her tongue. The cat's astral origins were vivid to her, and banishment was never far from someone escaping Lloth's minions. Vierna only barely noticed the two large bodies as the cat yowled when it was sent far from the scene, while the disguised Entreri was finishing off an injured horse.

Vierna expected Entreri had created the injuries it had suffered from, but she was glad for the cessation of noise from it even as she got to her brother. Blood soaking the cloth under his armor, skin turning ashen… and when she laid hands on him she felt far worse inside him.

"I've got his bow and quiver off the horse, and the cat's figure; he seems to have held onto the pack under his cloak," Entreri said after she had managed the first major healing spell for her brother. "We need to be away, before the patrols come for the noises!"

She almost hissed at him, but she'd held onto multiple teleports for days now, just in case. The sunlight through the trees was not helping her calm any, but she was able to lift her brother, seeing he had managed to sheathe his swords — one of them was violently casting blue light at her — before he collapsed.

Had Entreri aided with that?

Well, Drizzt would be in her care now, and that just might help her set a better stage with him.

"Hand on my shoulder," she snapped at the assassin, before using the shadow slide technique, to get them out of the light, and also to remind the assassin of where her power came from, as a favored of Vhaeraun.

Let the prissy Dancers of Eilistraee use their moon bridges; she welcomed the caress of the shadows, the threats hidden among them, as she took her brother to safety.

---

Clawing Drizzt back from the brink of death was hard. His nature fought the second spell of healing, and the salve she made was not as efficient as Malice's had been, being crafted with sub-par ingredients.

She burned a hard-earned favor with Natoth to check her brother over, and while he was able to finish the task of stopping Drizzt's body from killing him, the head cleric had also noted how difficult it was to pull divine favor down on the fighter's behalf.

~He does not exist where I can perceive him,~ Vhaeraun told His clerics, frustration making the pronouncement ring in both of their heads.

"This is most unusual," Natoth said, "but your plan has already met with our Lord's approval. He may remain, but you are responsible for the repercussions he creates, Redeemed Shade."

"I accept that," Vierna said coolly, before inclining her head to him in respect. "He will heed me."

"He better."

Once Natoth had left them, Vierna saw to putting cooling cloths on her brother's forehead and chest, to ease the last of the fever that had hit with the blood pooling in his guts.

"You will listen," she whispered to his unconscious form.

---

Her little brother was not so accustomed to darkness all around him, Vierna decided, as the heat signature changed for a moment before being yanked under control with steady breathing.

"It's too late, Drizzt; I know you're fully conscious," Vierna said, watching him, as he only had a modesty kilt in place, to allow her to treat the injuries with her salves as he slept.

That he would have died in that place had crossed her mind and angered her. She could not resurrect him if she could barely even heal him!

He did not answer her words, and the fact his skin had cooled dramatically was concerning. Had he passed out again —

— and she only barely managed to catch and hold him as he came off the bed in a desperate lunge to knock her away to get to freedom.

"Drizzt! In the name of our father, calm down and listen to me!" she said with urgency, hoping he had not undone any of the internal healing with that foolhardy stunt. How had he cooled himself like that?

Then she got a good look at his eyes, pinpoint pupils when they should be blown wide to catch all of the heat signs in the room, noted the breathing was still impossibly even.

"Drizzt. Drizzt, my little brother," she called to him, even as she managed to wrangle him into a hold that blunted any further tricks. He was not in his right mind at all.

She risked freeing a hand, snapping fingers at the mephit present to watch over him, and pointed at the figure that Entreri had very deliberately not wanted to hold onto. It brought the onyx statuette over obediently.

"Drizzt, take the statue from the mephit," she entreated, the only true measure she had in this moment to try and win over cooperation.

Shockingly, the quieter, gentle words, and what they offered did penetrate, and the moment Drizzt's hands curled around it, the coiled readiness melted away, replaced by tension… wariness and pain both, she thought.

"Let me help you back onto the bed, little brother."

"Vehna?"

She was almost certain the deliberate slurring of her name was a test; she had missed hearing it, but had chided him for it once he should have been speaking clearly as a boy.

"I'll tell you everything you can ask, if you let me help you back into the bed," she said, pressing her cheek against his hair, something she had not been able to do since he was too small to really be anything but a burden.

"Yes… but I am so confused."

"Well, it's about time you get to be the one confused by my actions," she teased him lightly, smiling as she said it, and he was startled into a half-chuckle. Gently, she got him back to the bed, noting the death-grip on the figure, as if it were an anchor to sanity.

Maybe it was. How long had it taken him to find a safe place? She still had nightmares about her trek to Rilauven.

With him settled, Vierna brought her faerie fire up, the soothing blue giving another edge of comfort to her brother by pushing the Underdark's blackness from his memory. That also let him see his weapon's belt, quiver, bow, pack, and cloak all neatly arranged in the open wardrobe nearby.

Though the glowing sword had had its hilt wrapped in light absorbing cloth, Vierna thought with pleasure. That sword was not sentient, yet managed to nick her fingers twice as she cleaned both blades for her brother.

"See, little brother? Your things are here, and you are safe."

He turned those purple eyes her way, wariness at war with hope. "My steed?"

"I arrived too late to do anything for the beast," she said, which was a truth. Entreri had already been dealing with it, after all.

He closed his eyes, and she was relieved to see his body temperature pulse and change in reaction to his grief for the creature. How had he brought himself to such a state earlier? Was the unseeing madness a form of shock, cooling the extremities rapidly?

"Did you set those strange giant-kind on me?" he asked her next.

She snorted. "No. I was seeking you, but my agent found you after you killed them, it seemed. I wish it had been before you took such injury, little brother, truly."

"You'll have to forgive me if I find the timing suspicious," Drizzt answered with a touch of dark sarcasm to the words.

It surprised her… and made her feel something like pride that he could be cutting and wary all in one.

"Oh I understand, but I am certain my agent was not able to call down such, and he seemed angry that you were in such a state. After all, he wishes a fight with you."

He searched her face a moment, then scowled. "There was someone approaching, sword and dirk in hand," he said. "Artemis Entreri?"

"Oh you have not gotten any dimmer in that brilliant mind, even if you never could figure out how to keep your mouth shut around questions," she praised him. "Yes.

"I'd had word, too late, that you'd been seen disembarking a ship in the city above." She watched the realization of how far from his allies he was settle in. "My informants backtracked the ship, and found him.

"I promised him he'd get that fight, but I do not ask you to make it to the death unless you feel the need to do so."

That made his eyes open wide as he focused on her fully.

"I do not care if he lives or dies, even if he is merely a human. But you, little brother, must live. We have much to discuss, after all."

"Am I your prisoner?" he asked her.

"No." She reached out to rest a hand along his cheek. "If you choose to leave, that is something I will have to accept." The words burned with bitter gall, but she had to handle him carefully, to get what she wanted.

It shook him, and he pressed into her hand, unconsciously, as he digested it.

"I will remain. And if Entreri insists, then I will give him his fight, though I thought I'd proven myself the last time we clashed."

"Humans tend to stubborn in ways worse than yours, Drizzt," Vierna said, before standing. "The mephit will come for me if you need me, or defend you, should any intrude. But I have duties, and you need rest."

"Yes, Vierna," he said softly, rolling onto his side to try and do just that.

---

There was discussion of how Vierna had come to be here — and the damnable fact that Vierna's plans had failed to come to fruition on saving him and Zaknafein — while Drizzt healed. He shared his own experiences with her, and when he told of their father's final demise, she surprised him with an angry tirade on Malice before collapsing into his arms so they could both truly grieve.

"I admit, I'd hoped to have Dinin determine what happened to his body when the House fell," Vierna said softly, "as the leader of Bregan D'aerthe was father's ally. But now, I know it was not there. Which complicates the idea of resurrection immensely."

"I did not think it possible," Drizzt admitted. "Not without something of the body."

"It would require a great cost in materials, and to convince an archmage to aid us, but it could still be done." Vierna drew in a deep breath. "I suppose I will have to begin grooming a wizard to be our ally."

Drizzt was quiet a long moment. "You can perform the resurrection?"

"Not quite yet, but soon, I think," Vierna told him. "Vhaeraun favors me, and I do all I can to keep it."

He leaned into her. "I will see if I can handle the wizard side of this. I have… allies."

She looked at him, saw the stubborn resolved stamped in his features, and nodded. "Alright. Yours are less likely to be treacherous, after all."

---

Vierna watched as Entreri sauntered into the courtyard, as they were holding the fight in the daylight outside. Drizzt stood calmly, wearing his mithral chain shirt and both swords, his body language screaming resignation to Vierna's eyes.

"Do you really want to do this, Entreri?"

"More than ever," Entreri assured him.

"Careful, or someone might think you can actually feel an emotion, even if it is foolish pride, stung by the idea that one doesn't need to be a killer to be skillful," Drizzt told him, taking a place in the center of the courtyard.

Vierna shifted under her canopy to have a good view of it all, magic at the ready should her brother's skill fail him… or the human tried to cheat his way to victory.

Entreri rolled his neck to loosen it up, then approached, sword and dagger both still sheathed, but prominently visible.

"You should have left while I recovered," Drizzt told him, not yet drawing his swords.

"You should have let the girl take the shot when you proved to have no heart for the kill," Entreri countered, sizing the drow up. "Perhaps I should abduct her again, and teach her how to be merciless?"

"She needs no further lessons from you or I, assassin."

If the threat to this 'girl' were meant to break Drizzt's repose, Vierna could see the assassin had failed fully. Still her brother left his swords in their sheathes, just watching the human.

"Oh, that's right. A wedding, placing her under the thumb of that oaf you had at your side." Entreri sidled to the right, and Drizzt merely remained still, holding composure and readiness. "How will it feel, ranger, when his society breaks her spirit?"

Obviously, Vierna needed to learn more about the girl in question, as she saw a minute tightening of one hand on her brother before he stilled it. The assassin obviously thought she was an emotional keystone.

"You say I feel nothing, and I say you feel too much," Entreri boasted. "You cannot bring yourself to kill, to take the strongest approach to protecting those pitiful few that you have made to hold pity for you."

"I do not kill for anything but necessity, or duty," Drizzt corrected, and Vierna wished she dared sigh at his nobility. Why — and how — was he so damned good?!

"Draw your blades," Entreri said, "and let us see how that holds up now!"

"Draw your own, assassin, and show me you are worth the effort," Drizzt said in the coldest tone Vierna had heard from him yet.

The change in inflection was not lost on the human, and there was a brief hesitation, Vierna could see, before Entreri did draw — damn but he was fast! — to begin the dance.

Only, there was no dance. Entreri feinted convincingly, but Drizzt's own swords appeared, and while one scimitar held the sword at bay, the tip of the other went into the wrist of the dagger hand as Drizzt stepped gracefully to the side.

The dagger clattered to the ground.

Given the relative lack of blood following, Vierna sucked in a very interested breath, leaning forward. Had her brother literally just cut the nerve that allowed the hand to grasp?

"Step away," Drizzt encouraged Entreri, but that single strike, the almost casual manner of motion, seemed to kindle a deep rage in the human. Vierna watched, though, and saw that while her brother was not so much toying with Entreri, he was letting the fight go on, proving the point of which of them was better by simply not… letting an attack land.

Entreri did not stop. Vierna was almost convinced that the human could not, that he had looked into the abyss of his own nature, and clung to the idea he was without peer. Yet Drizzt's very existence mocked that notion, leaving him teetering on the brink of self-destruction.

Less than two minutes later, though, Drizzt chose to end it. His stepping forward, into the path of a strike had Vierna ready to throw hold person, yet a glimmer of an attack from their father, one that had always left her weaponless, intruded on memory.

And just like that, Entreri's sword flew from his hand as Drizzt used both swords in the tighter space he'd made to take it, before following with the clash of his forehead to Entreri's nose, sending him sprawling with a cut across the bridge from Drizzt's face-guard.

"We are done," Drizzt said, that tone still like ice, before turning away. He'd made it two steps, and Vierna was already beginning the spell she needed, as Entreri refused to be beaten, going for a knife with the hand that worked.

Drizzt swatted the knife from the air, and Vierna's spell landed, summoning the shadow fiend she worked with. Entreri's scream as he was dragged off the material plane was satisfying, and her fiend would be happy for a time.

"You could have killed him at any time," she pointed out.

"And proven myself no better than a paid gladiator, a fighter for sport? That's not much better than what Menzoberranzan demanded of me," Drizzt told her. He then pointed at the dagger, dropped so early in the match. "That's vampiric; I'll leave it to you or one you choose to gift it to."

She shook her head at him, but let him go to his rooms, aware that he had not rebuked her actions, or shown any regret, for Entreri's fate.

---

Vierna looked up as one of the temple guards dared intrude while she was trying to make a strong case for Drizzt moving here, prying at the edges of his entrenched insistence he had to return to the Silver Marches.

Not, she'd noticed, to the Hall of the dwarves, but that region, which meant something in the city truly had a draw on her wild-child of a brother.

"Redeemed Shade, there is trouble," the woman said, scowling unrepentantly at Drizzt.

Had the goodly little Dancers learned of him and actually started something they were in no shape to finish, Vierna wondered.

"Tell us then."

"Four half-humans, wearing swords and wizard robes," the guard answered. "Demanding we give them Drizzt Do'Urden, or they will level the temple.

"They are protected from missiles," she finished.

Drizzt snorted, drawing Vierna's attention his way.

"You'd better let me go speak to them, sister, because they actually can tear this place apart, between them."

Oh now that just added to Vierna's intrigue at the life her brother was living. She had not gotten the impression he ran close to such powers… but then, he seemed to understate everything, didn't he?

"Lead us to the gate they are at," Vierna decreed, rising and moving to Drizzt's side. They walked together, and Vierna was certain even an idiot could see the strong resemblance between them as they came out into the entirely too bright courtyard. She really did need to see about increasing the shade found here.

"My friends," Drizzt called, once they were in sight of the party of four facing off a squadron of nine.

Vierna thought they were all rather pretty, if pale, despite being taller than Briza. The human blood, she supposed, elongating their bodies as it distorted their ears and eyes.

One moved slightly ahead of the others, and Vierna thought it interesting that this one had robes that blended in more with the lands Entreri had come from, with the ripples of various shades of tan and beige.

"Drizzt?"

"I am completely unharmed, save the loss of my mare," Drizzt answered them. "And while my business here began somewhat precipitously, I am remaining on my own wishes, to conclude the matter of family affairs."

The forward one flicked his attention to Vierna then, and seemed to dig in his heels.

"You really expect us to believe that, when we found two athach bodies near your mare?" he challenged.

"I could have left him there to finish dying," Vierna said, amused when it made Drizzt put a hand on her arm. "But he is my brother, all but a son to me, actually.

"I prefer he draw breath and continue, like myself, to be a thorn in the eight-legged abomination's side."

"How much longer," one of the others began, "do you anticipate needing? We can take up lodging, so you don't do something like trek across the world in the winter."

Drizzt chuckled. "I do know I can ask for aid in the surface city here," he said, smiling brightly. "But — " he looked at his sister, conveying questions with quick flicks of his fingers.

She answered, not pleased, but understanding in her own way, and he turned back to the four.

"Give me another night here."

"We'll return at sundown, tomorrow," the first of the four said firmly.

"The Dimmed Lantern," the other speaker said, "is where we'll be staying, Ranger, if you have need to leave earlier."

"Thank you, saers," Drizzt answered. "Until tomorrow."

The wizard-fighters withdrew, and the siblings went back inside, easing the slight headache Vierna had felt coming on. The guards would see to strengthening the defenses no matter what.

"Who were they?"

Vierna had waited until they were in her audience chamber again, with Drizzt sprawling on the steps to her dais and her sitting on the top one.

"Sons of the ruler of Silverymoon. Not the meeting I could have wished for with them," he said cheerfully.

Vierna stared at him. "You… did not know them?"

"I know of them," Drizzt answered. "I know the one who stepped forward first was Ghael; he was wearing clothing from Calimshan, and that's where he tends to stay. I think the second speaker was Andy; he's eldest after all, and the beads in his braid indicate a lord's status.

"The other two were probably the one that keeps an eye on Waterdeep, and one of her youngest ones, I think, as there was no insignia marking out a specialty in his robes, while the one I think is local had scroll-work embroidered in his fighting robes, indicating a teacher."

"And I am back to the fact that you did not physically know them, yet they came here and threatened my temple?! Drizzt, what in the names of the Abyssal Planes are you doing that such a party would do that?" Vierna demanded.

He did not answer, but the very interesting flush of heat in his cheeks gave Vierna an indication that this was treading on personal —

"You? Really?"

Now Vierna was amused, for a moment. "A ruler of a city." She then grew serious, protective even. "If she has taken choice from you, suborned you in any fashion — "

"No! Vierna, it was freely chosen, not like… not like that."

Vierna drew in a deep breath, remembering how terribly hard the ceremony had fallen on Drizzt, and it made her accept his word that this was a love match. Likely on both sides, Vierna decided, if the woman had sent her sons for Drizzt.

"She'd best not hurt you, you better not come to harm because of her, and alright." Vierna reached over and petted his hair. "Let's go have a spar, then food, and a soak, since our time is so limited now.

"And, there is the matter of the sending stones, as I do not want to lose contact."

"Nor do I, sister, strange as that feels."

---

Life felt quieter, once Drizzt had been gone a few hours. There was a small ache that Vierna clamped down on, ruthlessly, as she did have duties, but… it was there.

~In Waterdeep now, will be leaving … sometime in the next few days. I wish you well, my sister.~

The sending came after her nightly prayers, and it was full of the emotion that had made Vierna cling to the search for him.

Love.

He loved her, now they had open honesty and peace between them. And she loved him, as a sister, as a parent even.

~Until the next quarter moon, then, little brother, and we speak again, be well.~

They would survive, where their House had not. Someday, even, they would have their father back, to enjoy this new life they had carved for themselves.

Vierna was pleased on all levels at that idea, and knew it pleased Vhaeraun, who would have access to Zaknafein's abilities, through her, for His purposes.

It was all just a matter of plans coming to a head.

Cataclysmic Beginnings (6,988 words) by senmut
Chapters: 3/3
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Minor Character Deaths
Characters: Zaknafein Do"urden, Vierna Do'Urden, Drizzt Do'Urden, Yasdra Do'Urden (OC)
Additional Tags: Canon Divergence, Autistic Drizzt
Series: Part 1-3 of Cataclysmic Beginnings
Summary:

When divine warring breaks Menzoberranzan, a small family sets out together.

---

Wilds of the Underdark

Zaknafein was nothing if not persistent. His children, both of them, were in the remains of the chapel. He had to find them. That Malice nor Briza were taking control gave him hope both were dead. But he refused to think his children were.

The cavern was still shaking from time to time. So much for the solidity of cavern stone to protect them all, when the cavern itself was split, Narbondel had fallen, and there were magma vents where none had been before.

He estimated where the chapel had fallen, and his guts wrenched to see the broken stone, all the magics shattered by the physical destruction. How could any -- NO. He could not think that way until he found them. If they were dead...

... he told himself to stop thinking that way and moved carefully.

---

Vierna had come awake with a spell completely unknown to her burning in her mind and a compulsion to get to her brother. She'd never had her god do this to her before, but the words came and what she needed was in her hand. What had happened?

The stone rose around them, forming a shield on the sides and the top of them. Even with the bowl that formed, she felt true fear as the breaking of the cavern rocked them, casting down houses that had stood for centuries... and the protective bowl they were in shattered as they hit the rubble below, with her losing consciousness from the forced spell.

---

Drizzt was scared. The chapel had broken after Vierna woke him, throwing herself around him and shaping the stone to hold them. He couldn't see anything but her, and she was sleeping. Despite being small and weak compared to her, he tried to move the big rock above them off, his back to it, and willing himself to levitate like when he cleaned the statues.

It didn't move, not really, though it made a scraping noise at least.

---

That noise had been different than the rest of the settling, quaking noises, and Zak's head shot up toward it. The heap he'd thought might be the altar... wasn't? He moved as sure-footed as possible over, and found that very little rubble was on top of the oddly slabbed stone, light enough that he should be able to push it off.

Zak checked the debris around it to make certain he would not cause a worse issue, and set himself to the task of lifting the slab. The moment he saw that yes, the hollow had occupants, his strength surged, and he was able to shove it open enough to see his son peering up with large purple eyes, and curled around where the boy was crouching was his daughter, unmoving.

This was not the first meeting he'd ever envisioned for himself and the boy, but moreover, he needed to know if Vierna was hurt. She... was breathing, and it was not rasping, so maybe?

"I am the weapon master," Zak told the child. "You must follow me exactly, young one, because I must carry her. We need to seek safety."

"Yes, weapon master," the boy piped at him.

There was a side passage, one that he knew of because of his time on city defense. The tunnel was thick, and if the mouth was open or could be reached, he'd feel safe enough to check her for injury, use the salve from within his piwafwi for them. Drizzt seemed uninjured, and after Zak scooped up his daughter, followed along bravely, running or leaping from rock to rock to match the weapon master's stride.

Zak was having a harder time navigating his way there, the rubble shifting under his feet, landmarks gone that normally broke the cave up, but he kept moving until he knew he was on the correct outer wall, and looked for the right patch of deeper black that would be the mouth of the tunnel he knew about.

"Boy," Zak said, looking down at the child who had, through sheer stubborn -- so much like himself -- stayed close. "I have to get her up there. You will be alone. Do not move."

"Yes, sir," the boy answered swiftly, before hunkering down in a less humanoid shape, freezing so that he had an unmoving profile.

Vierna was teaching him well.

Zak gathered himself, firmly commanding the house emblem to let this happen, and levitated up --so slowly! -- to lay his burden down in the mouth of the tunnel. None of the rock had broken there, so that was promising, even as another ominous rumble lashed out at the city.

He gave a quick look, didn't see anything immediately threatening. Hopefully all the shaking had driven the predators and scavengers away for the moment. He then dropped in a controlled fall back to his son... who was still imitating a small, warm boulder.

Zak reached down and rested a hand on the back... and the boy unfolded, twisting to be picked up in silence. Zaknafein gathered him close, and got them both up to the mouth of the tunnel. He was relieved to see nothing had changed as he got them into the mouth. It was low, and he needed to get Vierna tended before they moved further.

"Keep your eyes on that side of the tunnel, and if anything moves, say 'Zak'," the man told his son, pointing to the far end. He glanced down into the cave, saw other Houses trying to respond and recover for themselves, but he had no intention of trusting others.

All he cared for was either right here, or had more resources than he did to figure the mess out.

Vierna was largely unharmed as far as his check could find, and he decided the unconsciousness had to be from magical effort. Zaknafein reached into a specific pocket, found an ampule, and broke the thing under her nose. The scent of it was acrid, sharp... and had the effect he needed, as she began to stir under his hand.

He watched her open her eyes, take in the change of location, notice him... and then try to sit up too fast to find the boy.

"Easy, he is here too," Zak said, and the way her face shifted to his awareness made him think she ... felt safer?

Some of the tension in her face eased, anyway.

"What happened?" she asked in a low hiss.

"Groundquake, biggest I've ever seen. The cavern itself broke, ceiling and floor. Not sure there's a house that isn't at least cracked wide open." Zaknafein assisted her to sit in the confines of the tunnel, so they could both put their backs to the walls.

He watched her reach for the boy, pull him into her space, even as he squirmed enough to keep his eyes down the tunnel like he'd been told to. Her hands moved over the child, and Zak found his chest actively hurt to see that. It was not a rough check, but gentle, caring, strange as that was.

"We were probably protected some because of how close to the wall we were," Zaknafein briefed her. "I did not see any other signs," he told her, honestly, but that was because he hadn't looked.

He didn't want the others to have lived.

"What now?" Vierna asked, stunned by this, grateful to her god, but overwhelmed. She'd had no idea more than the tiniest tremors could happen, and those never broke Houses!

"You're the priestess, and as far as I know, Head of House," Zaknafein pointed out.

"And I am in no way, shape, or form qualified to guide us from here, through the wilds, anywhere," Vierna said, after looking down in the cavern. "They will do all they can to kill one another, stupidly, over the resources they dig out of the rubble.

"I say we take our chances and leave for Chad Nassad, or any other settlement you think can be reached."

His eyes stayed on hers, testing her resolve, seeking any sign of a trap in that.

"You expect me to keep you, the boy, and myself alive, to a strange city, and then help you carve a place there?" he decided to ask, to be certain.

"There is no one else who could, because I have faith in your skills, Weapon Master."

Zaknafein swore inside his head that no woman in all of drow society could have confused him more than she just had, but he bowed his head to her briefly.

"I'll need my hands free, fully," he pointed out.

"I will carry my brother," Vierna said. "I can make a sling of the shawl I have, to help support him on my hip."

He looked at the boy, still so slightly built, and wondered if he'd favor Malice's diminutive build or his own height in time. Assuming they survived. Vierna was closer to his own size, after all, but there was something of Malice's beauty in Drizzt's young face.

"I can walk," the boy said, unable to refrain from it at last, and Vierna... smiled. That, more than anything else, made Zak's eyes widen. He also saw the bunching of muscles that said the boy had realized he'd spoke up without permission.

"You may, at times, but we need to move swiftly," Vierna said. "So you will cling to me as needed."

Zak looked down at the cavern, saw a small mob was forming, bearing down on the ruins of House Baenre.

"Not salvaging from in there. Let's get moving." He stood, hobbled over slightly from the smallness of the tunnel, and Vierna stood to follow, one hand in the boy's for now. The tunnel was low enough that they couldn't move too fast for the child.

When they found a safer point, he really ought to get the introductions made more properly.

---

Safer point turned out to require a little work, but Zak got the cave fisher pulled out of the hole he wanted after all but dicing it into pieces. He made certain it was clear, boosted Vierna up into it -- they were trying hard to limit their use of the House Emblems, just in case. Or he was and she was going along with it.

Once she was secure, he lifted Drizzt up into it, made certain the passage they were in was still clear, and grabbed the lip of the hole to flip himself up into it.

"Boy, are you holding up well?"

The child had walked, without complaint, for the length of the first tunnel, then allowed Vierna to secure him to a hip once it opened enough for the elder pair to begin to cover distance more swiftly.

"Yes, Weapon Master," was the quick answer. "Vehna?"

The mispronunciation was deliberate, Zak was almost certain, based on how the boy was holding himself, a testing of boundaries or an attempt to bring a smile?

"I will need to salve my legs," Vierna admitted. "I have not had to do so much walking in a very long time."

She favored the boy with a long look. "Drizzt, you should know the weapon master's name. He is Zaknafein, and shares our House name," she told him.

Zak watched the boy turn, pull himself into a properly polite stance, and then smile shyly.

"Hello Zaknafein Do'Urden. I am honored to have your name known to me now."

That had Zak side-eye the priestess, but she was actually rolling her eyes at the boy's decision to be formally polite.

"It is good to know your name as well, Drizzt," Zak said.

Vierna found the salve in her pocket and began working it along her legs, as Zak averted his eyes out of politeness.

He watched instead as the boy explored, seeing the heat signature of the face move all around, taking in the dimensions of the hole they were in. As the boy was moving slowly, and the space was small, Zak let him have that freedom for now. Vierna must have felt the same, as she worked on easing the muscle pains.

"Water's going to be a problem, food might be," Zak admitted. "We're ill-equipped for a trek like this. I haven't looked at outer maps in decades, not since that last duergar push against the city."

"What choice did we have? The city was destroyed, those who remain were already turning on each other. And we will have both water and food, I promise, my teacher," she said, deliberately going for less formal with him by the set of her shoulders.

He could not truly hold past actions against her, not now that they needed each other. And she was gentle with the boy, shockingly so.

"You think that wasn't the result of something attacking your goddess with all they had?" Zak asked skeptically.

Vierna's laughter was, again, not what he expected.

"Oh I truly hope so," she said. "But She is not, and never has been, mine."

He studied her, but she was reaching into her pocket, drawing out an item that tingled with magic, dancing with subtle patterns in the darkness of its material to their vision.

"You... you follow the Masked God?"

"Yes, and I am thankful I never let the whip be near my resting," Vierna said. "I truly hope it was crushed."

Zak shook his head in shock. "I find myself pleased, surprised, and... curious. Until that one was born," he said, pointing to the boy, "the last He'd been sighted in the city was just as I was entering Melee-Magthere."

He saw her slender features change a little, as apparently that was news to her. She then looked at the boy who had found something to fascinate him, and was lying on his belly starting at it, Zak noted.

"I have been protected by Him since I was a child. He offered me a spell, and has kept me strong within it since then."

Zaknafein played back over the years of his daughter's life, and even the reason he had drawn away from her made so much more sense now. Of course she had had to, to protect herself, and been more merciful about killing that young drow than anyone else would have been.

"That... is an exceptional deception, Priestess."

She smiled at him, and then looked over at the boy. "Drizzt doesn't know, of course, but I will be thankful to be able to just answer his questions instead of... being as expected."

"Boy likes to ask things?"

Vierna looked back at him. "Incessantly."

"Might not be so bad now," Zaknafein told her. "Vhaeraun had made me wonder that night about you, but... I was tired of trying to find any hope in anything of our lives. Even knowing the boy had been spared, given how that came about."

Vierna's mouth set in a thin line. "I know it can't have been easy. I'd caught the edges of Matron Malice's displeasure with your beliefs in how she spoke of you."

"No offense, but I'm not here for your god either, and He knows it," Zak told her. "If that's a problem -- "

"No," she said so quickly that he lifted an eyebrow at her.

"He does not insist you follow him. He knows what you've endured. More than that, though, you are the one person I have been able to trust my entire life, and the separation between us has... bothered me," Vierna told him.

Zak had to take in a deep breath. "It's always been the children that bothered me the most, Vierna," he said, noticing the way her body language grew more open at the use of her personal name in his quiet tone. "But you were merciful, and I see that now, that you had to.

"We will make this work, somehow, for our freedom, and the boy's future."

Vierna reached out for his hands, taking them to squeeze. "So we will."

---

Once Vierna had rested long enough to pray for her spells, she reached for her god's guidance as well.

"Not Chad Nassad," she said softly, after. "He will lead us, but it will be a long journey, Zaknafein."

She watched him set his shoulders back, and then nod. "We will do as needed."

Drizzt, who had acquired a small lizard to entertain himself, looked up at her. "He?" the boy questioned, and Vierna reached to stroke his hair.

"Yes. Not Lloth, and I will teach you as we go."

His face scrunched up, but his purple eyes fixed on her with absolute trust, almost making it too hard to breathe.

"Alright."

Vierna gave into the urge to draw him back into her lap, and Drizzt went willingly. She then looked at Zak who was watching with the softest expression she had seen on a drow face.

"He is yours?" she signed at him as Drizzt laid against her chest.

"Yes," he answered in kind.

Vierna considered that, adding up other pieces, and decided to ask her own question in sign. "Am I?"

Zaknafein hesitated, and she knew it was their culture that said all children belonged to the mother, before he gave a sharp nod.

Her two-handed ability, her speed, all the skill she had with her maces and the gifts of dagger and pirate spider had been making her suspect. Now she was almost certain Zak was why she had been chosen by Vhaeraun.

"I am grateful to know that," she signed.

She set to providing them a simple meal, grateful that she would be able to keep them fed, even as she dreaded protecting her little brother for countless miles of the Underdark.

---

Zak knew, a moment too late, that he'd tripped a magical detection line, and twisted, shoving Vierna with Drizzt back against the wall. He grunted as a bolt hit the shoulder of his armor, but did not penetrate.

He did not tell her to stand back, as his blades were drawn and he readied to fight.

"Stand down," a voice hissed in the dark -- proper accent, deeper register -- and Zak merely stood ready to be the death of any who came at him if they did not obey the voice.

"The line is further out than I remembered," he said when no attack came.

"Didn't expect our first guest to be you, oh Ghostly one."

Zak's body language changed slightly, trying to convey 'less threat stay on guard'. "Jarlaxle, I thought you'd've made it out somehow. You should know not to ever count me down." Zak then evaluated the new person who stepped into sight, and after a moment, put his blades away. "You've always played fair by me in the past. We are not going back to that city."

"There is no city to return to," Jarlaxle said soberly. "Come, into the shelter. You and your companions."

Zak beckoned, and Vierna came, having set Drizzt down to have her hands free for her knives. He walked at her side, quiet now, his pet lizard hiding in his hair.

They went in and found a generously sized cavern, with men, and a few women, in various states of injured and well, supplies that had been thrown into anything at hand, and faerie fire lighting it all.

"Not many," Zak said softly.

"No," Jarlaxle told him in a grim voice, guiding him to a smaller cave off the side of it. "Were you looking for us?"

"No. Looking to raid the supplies I expected to find," Zaknafein admitted.

Jarlaxle threw his head back and laughed. "Ahh, you old rogue, I will part with what I can, but tell me: would you not rather stay in among us as we seek our next place? You know my views."

The small chamber had furniture, one piece being a couch, and that was where Zak steered his family. Vierna was keeping silent, letting him do the dealing, which was likely best.

"We have guidance on where to go," Zak told his old friend. "But with the boy, it would go easier if we had travel rations."

"Of course." Jarlaxle nodded to that, then looked through his uncovered eye sharply at Zak. "I'm surprised," he said bluntly, "but of course you have reasons."

Now Vierna did speak up. "My father has chosen to trust my judgment."

Zak enjoyed the startled look, even as Jarlaxle smile, the eye patch shifting with the motion.

"Finally have yours to call your own, old friend. Well good."

Jarlaxle sprawled back in his chair, looking at them, and Zak's posture relaxed, one hand coming to rest on Vierna's back to encourage her to calm.

"I can spare some. Likely not enough for your full journey, but it will help. Will you take a message ring?"

Zak debated, then nodded. "I'd be stupid to lose the potential resources, and I would like to know where you end up."

"I'd like to know the same, just in case my first option doesn't pan out.

"You must have gotten out swiftly, Zak. I did look."

Because his hand was still on her, Zak felt Vierna's surprise in the bunching of her muscles.

"The old loop tunnel," Zak said. "I knew it was in stable rock, or should have been. And it wasn't far from our House. Once I had them both, I went straight there."

"Of course! I should have realized. It was all very disorienting, though, sifting through the ruins, pulling capable people from the mobs, finding trinkets and bits to help along the way."

"What was the full situation you left?" Zak asked from curiosity.

"Sorcere seemed to have the most survivors, but Oblodra must have had shelter in the rift, or sheltered by their mind magics," Jarlaxle said. "I have no loyalty to the Arch-Mage, and despise the mind-readers, so we are moving on.

"As it was shaping up into a war with potentially three sides... the rabble, the wizards, and Oblodra."

"May the rabble win," Zak muttered, getting a sharp grin from Jarlaxle.

"I'll stop back in a decade or three to find out," Jarlaxle told them.

"Do you have the space for us to stay and rest before we go again?" Zak asked.

"Of course," Jarlaxle said. "Will you join me to go over your needs? They can stay in here, and I will set out a meal for them."

Zak snorted, knowing just what was intended... and he wasn't against that idea at all. "Vierna?"

"I follow your lead now."

"Agreed, then."

---

When they set out, they all had packs, even Drizzt whose small sack had foods and their healing salves. Vierna had a single mace; they had not turned up any others. She was fine with that; the dagger in her other hand would work just as well, if she wasn't spell-casting.

Jarlaxle had even turned up a single knife small enough for Drizzt's hands, and he was working on getting used to holding it the way Zak had shown him.

They did let the boy ride on their hips or backs when they needed to cross caverns, but it was often easier to let him walk and run along side them in tunnels. The only rule was that he did not go past Zak, who was usually out in front.

The lizard had been joined by another, and Vierna was beginning to wonder her little brother's habit of finding small animals. That it kept him entertained was one thing.

The day that they suddenly hissed from his shoulders and he froze, just as Zak held up a 'stop' ahead of them was going to stay in Vierna's mind a long time. She got to see as her father got both blades in hand in time to deflect a blow from some monstrous creature, before rapidly destroying the lumbering hulk with too many spines and teeth.

"More coming?"

"They're loners. Not even worth their meat, though," Zak said in disgust. "Let's get some distance before the crawlers come."

Vierna gestured, and Drizzt clambered up to hold on to her shoulders with a little bit of help. She would think on the strangeness later, as she often did with her quizzical little brother.

---

The giant bat, shaped more like a manta ray than a bat, laid very still, hoping to avoid notice. Something had actually knocked it out of the air, and a rock had pinned its tail.

Drow were dangerous, evil creatures. The giant bat, or sinister as they were called, knew that.

"Oh," the small one breathed and the sinister realized she had been spotted. Drow resistance to magic was legendary but she had to--

--no. The child had gone to the rock. Was moving it even as the big ones settled, not seeing the child's intentions.

Two small spitting lizards were in the child's hair, and they peered at the sinister, making her wonder at this all.

"You have to move. Can't hold and move you," the child said very softly, as if not wanting to draw attention to what he was doing.

The deep bat felt the pressure on her tail shift and she scooted awkwardly forward, pulling her much abused tail out from under it.

The child set the rock back down, and then bravely reached out to pet before she was able to get her forcefield back up.

It felt nice.

"Drizzt?"

"Helping a bat, Vierna! She's nice."

The sinister readied to fight and flee now... but the adult drow didn't come? Was the child actually in control? Not a child, maybe?

"Thank you for letting me pet you," the child told her, before moving back. "Do you need help to get back in the air?"

This was so confusing. She fluttered her sails a bit, and the levitation returned, along with the protective force fields. Those, she dampened so she could flutter over the child, causing his hair to move and him to laugh. She headed up high, toward her roost, and the child went back to the other two.

It was very interesting, to know that a drow could help.

---

The brute that had swatted her to the ground was back, and this time had a small tribe of goblins to help hunting. The drow were quick to respond, but the boy... the boy was vulnerable to the thrown spears or darts, and there were so many.

The sinister didn't think so much as react, swooping down to where the child huddled, making herself vulnerable long enough to present her back as a safe haven.

Amazingly, the child understood, and was soon safely lying along her back, and she could soar back up, keeping him safe within her protective sphere while the adults dealt with the threats.

When all of the enemies were dead, and the pair looked for the child, the little one peeked over the edge of a wing sail, and called down.

"I am here! The nice bat is protecting me!"

She slowly came down as the weapons went away, and when no aggressive move was made, lowered the field. The child slipped free and ran to the slower of the pair, getting scooped up.

Repayment for the rock moving done, the sinister floated back up, pleased... and considering moving on with the group, since this area was infested by killing creatures now.

---

On the third day of their journey, with Drizzt actually able to keep up because the sinister insisted on carrying him, Vierna had to ask her god what to make of this.

~He's a wild-called ranger,~ Vhaeraun deigned to reply, some curiosity in His words as He answered the simple query. ~It used to be common among our people, before we were driven below.~

The concepts had translated in her mind, rapidly enough that Vierna would need to digest them, but her Lord wasn't angry over the boy's oddity, more curious like she herself was.

Weeks of travel, too many near death experiences, and Zak growing worried because their path was taking them ever higher, out of the regions he knew best, had finally culminated with them being in a cavern that actually opened onto the surface itself.

Try as he might, he could not find a way down or through.

Vierna looked at the opening in trepidation, but she did not want to bother her god when the spell had clearly led them this way.

"We wait for nightfall," she decided, noticing the dim light coming through that crevice.

Zak sighed, a little, having hoped she would say they had turned wrong at the last junction. He glanced at his son, who was saying farewell to the sinister, as it was one of the deep kind, who did not go above.

"Will he be safe?"

Vierna took a deep breath. "He must be," she said. "Let us trust in my God this far, and go, no matter how strange it is, once the darkness of night falls."

Zak faced the opening, and could only hope she was right. He would, if it came down to it, fight even the gods for his children, he decided.

---

They did not venture out far, before they were met by other drow, drow that greeted Vierna as a long lost sister.

"The labyrinth is broken and home to demons from the cataclysm that was the strike on Lolth," one said, "so we were sent to take you by the surface to our city. The entrance is in the woods, which is called Neverwinter Woods by the surface folk."

"You know what happened?" Vierna asked.

"The Infernal Ones decided that they were done with having Lolth and her assorted underlings on their plane. Our Lord was warned — he has kept careful relations with them — but not when it would occur, or you and others like you would have had more time."

Zak sighed out in relief, Drizzt currently on his back, staring at the land and sky and strange things called trees.

The foremost of the trio sent to guide them nodded, able to discern the reason why, being male himself. "Yes, Her power will be diminished for a time."

"Come; if we walk quickly enough, we can be at the portal we need before the sun rises," the one woman said.

The small family followed, unknowing of what life would be like in the new place… yet together, as each wished to be.

A Useful Talent

Growing accustomed to the number of bats and lizards that accompanied Drizzt to their home since they had settled in the small drow city under Vhaeraun's protection had been interesting to say the least. But when the master of the corral came to visit Vierna after a long day in the temple, she realized that the strangeness of her brother had come to notice elsewhere.

"Honored Priestess, my request is simple," the man said, a low-born drow who had, nonetheless, won a position of prestige in the temple of Vhaeraun.

"Speak it, then, and I will see what can be done," she said formally.

The man bowed his head to her. "I know the boy of your House is expected to learn much, but we have noticed his skill with animals. And we recently brought in new tizzin stock.

"Is it possible, Honored Priestess, for the boy of your House to spend time with us in the corral, settling them before parceling them out to the Houses that have requested such?"

Vierna did not outwardly sigh in relief. "Such a task will help him use the energy that children seem to have, benefit our Lord, and see us grow stronger. After his classes, he may report to you. I will tell him this. But. If he does not arrive promptly, you must send word."

"Of course. I can ask one of my hands to escort him, even."

Vierna inclined her head and saw him out again. She looked to her father's door, and listened... yes Drizzt was studying with him, working on knife skills.

What kind of fighter would her brother become, beginning so young?

Well, she would talk to him after dinner.

---

Drizzt was mostly ignored by the adults working around him in the corral, but Burchi was guiding him through, showing him the holding pens, the stalls, and explaining which of the riding lizards were dangerous.

He was excited to be allowed to come and help.

"Now, these are the new ones," Burchi said, pointing to the last pen. "We know you have a magic with animals, lad. Can you help us settle this herd down? They have young in there, and that's making them hard for us to get calmed."

"Will try!" Drizzt climbed up on the corner post, and looked in. The lizards milled, trying to hide the young ones, glaring with danger in their eyes.

Burchi stood ready to act on the boy's behalf, but he sat quietly, reaching into the small pouch he wore, pulling out dried mushrooms. The scent of food caught some of the lizards' attention, but Drizzt didn't seem to think it was a threat.

Several moments passed before the oldest, biggest, most scarred of the new herd pushed all the way to that post, and Burchi nearly snatched the child back.

"Hi. Yes. I will share." Drizzt put a piece flat on his hand, and the tizzin's tongue darted out, taking it.

Drizzt placed his hand on the snout when the lizard snuffled for more, and the big beast reared back... only to come back on all four when the boy did not react at all.

"Yes, I know. Scary and strangers all around you," Drizzt said. "But it will be okay. Lots of food, and no more monsters trying to hunt you."

Was the beast understanding the child? It moved so that the boy's hand was higher up, near the beast's eyes even! Burchi watched in amazement, and thanked his Lord that he had been strong enough to go the Masked Traitor and ask for this boon.

He stayed near, even as Drizzt petted and scratched at the lizard, while marveling at the gift the child had.

---

Zak came to see how his son was handling the duties he'd taken on, with an eye to seeing how the other drow were treating his strange child. As he got inside the corral, he heard squealing and laughter, and the working drow he could see were smiling at the sounds, or whatever had set them off.

That was promising, at least.

The squealing was because his son was in the middle of the smallest tizzin Zak had ever seen, with a stiff-bristled brush, doing his best to brush each one, but they kept butting each other out of the way.

Zak leaned back, watching his son laugh and smile as he tended the little ones, until Drizzt finally looked at the adult lizard closest to him.

"Help! Make them behave!"

The big lizard moved close, using their snout to bully the little ones away, only allowing one to go to the boy at a time.

Zaknafein was more certain than ever that whatever a 'ranger' was, his son was a powerful one in the making.

Adjustments Needed

Drizzt had listened to the discussion around if Zaknafein would have time for both things, wherein 'things' were training him as well as tending a baby.

It hadn't really sank into his brain that 'baby' meant a new person coming into their home and changing all of their routines. He was not so certain about this idea once the baby was there, and his normal day changed so completely. Fortunately, Vierna had decided to take over some of his training, which almost offset the disruption, and he did like learning from his sister. Zaknafein made time for him in the morning, and Vierna trained him in the later day.

He had more time to work at the corral, which was also good, but... it was taking him time to adjust.

---

It wasn't until the baby was beginning to crawl that Drizzt was spending much time with it -- her, he supposed. Zaknafein had cordoned off space in the part of their home that was for training in, cutting down the floor space they could work with, to allow the baby time to move under Zak's watch even as he taught Drizzt more.

"Will she learn to fight?" Drizzt asked, after the end of a long, grueling session left him sprawled on his stomach, looking into the baby cage, as he thought of it.

"At least enough to effectively defend herself, yes. What she chooses will be up to here, just as Vierna asked you when you turned sixteen if you wanted to continue learning to fight or something else." Zak watched his son and daughter, leaning on a cool wall, knowing that Drizzt had been resistant to all the upheaval in their lives since the baby had been given over to them.

"She won't be a priestess like Vierna?" Drizzt asked, face scrunched up. Of course he wanted to be a fighter; he was going to be just like his father, and be the fastest, best two-handed fighter!

"She might be. Or she might choose magic. Or, oh my son, she will be just like us."

Drizzt rolled to look at his father, not sure of what he thought about that.

"Only time will tell," Zak said. "Enough resting; back up, try that form with me again."

Drizzt pushed up, feeling the lessons in all his muscles like he should, and went back to it.

---

Drizzt was in his favorite chair, with a precious book, and Vierna had lit a candle lamp for him to read by. It was his privilege for having passed all of his academic exams in the temple.

Yasdra came out, blinking against the light, dragging a blanket.

"Bright."

Drizzt looked at her with a moment of upset, because he'd thought she was sleeping, and he would be able to read alone.

Then he remembered that his father had told him, just the day before, that he needed to be a good example for her.

He couldn't disappoint Zak.

"I earned the right to read, and needed the candle," he explained.

"Read to me?" Yasdra asked, even as she came closer, and Drizzt watched her squint her eyes to endure the light.

She was so brave, he realized, coming close to something that hurt like it did. He carefully put the book to one side, and reached down to help her up into his lap.

"Close your eyes," he told her, as he settled her so he could hold the book. She tucked her blanket on both of them, not very well, but Drizzt helped with that too.

She was a warm, quiet weight on him as he began reading aloud, letting her share the history he was learning now.

---

Yasdra watched as Zaknafein helped Drizzt inside their home, noticed that Drizzt looked much cooler than he should. She stayed out of the way as their father got her brother laid down, but when Zak moved to go get something, she climbed up on the couch by her brother's legs.

He was breathing funny, and his face was scrunched up like he was hurt.

Zaknafein came back and helped Drizzt sit up to drink something in his hand, a very small bottle, but whatever it was, it made her brother calm down, let him breathe better. He even started warming back up, and Yasdra scooted up closer to his chest.

"Easy little one," Zak said.

"No, fine, father, let her?" Drizzt said softly. "The potion fixed it."

"Alright."

Yasdra moved to lie along his side, by the back of the couch, her head on his shoulder.

Vierna came in then, hurrying like Yasdra rarely saw her do, but Zak moved and intercepted her.

"He's fine. Ribs and maybe his lung, but the potion fixed it," Zak assured her. She paused, ran a hand over her hair and braids, which Yasdra knew was to calm herself down. Big brother didn't deal well with people being upset around him.

"What happened?" Vierna asked in a low voice.

"Someone spooked the herd; he was in their way." Zak sighed. "Burchi said this is the third 'accident', but the first Drizzt didn't manage to get out of the way."

Yasdra didn't know that word from her sister, but given her brother flinched, she bet it was bad.

"Drizzt?" Vierna asked softly, coming over, "do you need more healing."

"No. Just want to rest with my baby sister."

"Alright. You do that." Vierna looked at Yasdra in That Way, and Yasdra nodded. She would keep Drizzt very still so he could rest.

---

Drizzt looked up as his door opened, and Yasdra slipped in.

"Why are you leaving?" the slender girl asked.

"Because... I am not like everyone else," he told her honestly. "I'm tired of the accidents, tired of the attempts to provoke me into fighting, tired of fighting and bringing shame on our sister."

Yasdra gave a shake of her head. "It's not your fault, and Vierna knows it. But... you're not happy here."

Drizzt dropped on his bed next to the pack he had been making. "No. I want to be. This is home, and the god brought us here from far away, but... It's not good for any of us for me to be like this."

Yasdra came and sat beside him. "You have to find a place that doesn't hurt you," she said, and he could see how brave she was being to understand that. He put his arm around her, and held her close.

"I will come and visit, I promise," he told her.

"I know. And when I am grown up, and decide what I will be, I might come visit you."

Drizzt smiled into her hair, and pressed a kiss to her temple. "Family is what matters, right?"

"Always," she said, settling into his arm to have one last snuggle -- for now -- with her brother.