tales_of_faerun | Entries tagged with character: zaknafein do'urden

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

senmut

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

somariel

Three Roads to One Destination (3922 words) by Somariel
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Vierna Do'Urden & Zaknafein Do'Urden, Drizzt Do'Urden & Vierna Do'Urden, Drizzt Do'Urden & Zaknafein Do'Urden
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Jarlaxle Baenre, Drizzt Do'Urden
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary:

When Drizzt does not return from the raid, Zaknafein is done with House Do'Urden and finally leaves.

Unbeknownst to him, Vierna has made the same decision.

A companion to senmut’s fic Divine Intervention, with some inspiration from peppymint’s fic Volte-Face.

Three Roads to One Destination

Vierna's emotions were a tangled roil as she contemplated just how thoroughly the day's events had destroyed her plans to escape Menzoberranzan with Drizzt and Zaknafein.

Even after the long errand Malice had sent Zak on removed the opportunity to leave under the cover of Drizzt's graduation, Vierna had still kept looking for new ones to take advantage of.

But now... Drizzt had not returned from the raid his patrol had been sent on, though there was at least some hope that he was still alive, since Dinin had reported that the animals that had disrupted the raid and driven them away had separated Drizzt from the rest of them and driven him in a different direction.

As for Zaknafein... when he had seen that Dinin was alone, he had not even stayed to hear the other man's report.

And when Malice had demanded his presence several hours later, not only had his rooms been empty, but his weapons and armor were missing, and the pouch with his house amulet was sitting in the center of the table in the outer room.

But even as she was pleased that both of them were free of the city now, and even somewhat relieved by how much that simplified her escape plans, she could not help but feel annoyed that she would not have the company of the two people she actually cared about, when she escaped.

Sighing, she coaxed one of her pirate spiders into a travel jar, and made sure the pack she had been keeping ready since she brought Drizzt home from the Academy had everything she would need in the event an unplanned escape proved necessary.

Which seemed entirely possible, as there was another House plotting against them, and the failed raid ensured the entire city would know House Do'Urden was currently the recipient of Lloth's displeasure.

That done, she settled down to sleep.

It could not possibly have been more than an hour and a half later when her Lord's mental shout of ~MY PRIESTESS, GO NOW!~ startled her awake, but even as she realized that He had wiped away her fatigue, the House shook.

Which explained why He had awakened her, as there would be no better time for her to escape than when the House was under attack. Not to mention that without Zaknafein to lead the House's defenses, they were almost certainly going to lose, which meant that she needed to escape now simply to remain alive.

Thankfully, in addition to wiping away her fatigue, her Lord had granted her spells as if she had prayed for them... including the two simplest of the spells His mastery of trickery allowed Him to grant His clerics.

After slinging on her maces, she gathered up her pack and the jar with the pirate spider and slipped out of her rooms, heading for the secret exit that would bring her out of the House near the Westwall.

Once he had turned his newest acquisition over to the care of one of his lieutenants, Jarlaxle headed for his rooms—and Zaknafein—with a spring in his step, quite pleased with how well the last twenty-four hours had worked out for him.

But even though Zak was sure to welcome the news he brought, he settled to a more serious attitude before actually entering, out of respect for his friend's current—though likely unnecessary—grief.

Zak was still where Jarlaxle had left him, a frozen, grief-bowed statue on the couch in the outer room, and the mercenary wasn't sure his friend had moved at all in the hours since then.

Once he had the door locked and the magical security measures reengaged, Jarlaxle moved over to the couch and sat down beside Zak, carefully wrapping an arm around his friend's shoulders. "I have some good news, my friend," he said quietly.

Zak lifted his head to look at his friend and lover, wondering what the news might be, but couldn't quite pull himself out of his grief enough to actually ask.

Recognizing that that was all the engagement Zak was going to give him right now, Jarlaxle spoke again.

"It is entirely possible that Drizzt is still alive."

A lance of startled shock shot through the frozen numbness that Zak had been wrapping around his heart, and he gave Jarlaxle a piercing look.

"What?!" How could there even be a possibility that Drizzt was alive, when the patrol had returned without him?

"According to Dinin, the raid was disrupted by animals that drove the patrol away, and Drizzt was separated from the rest and driven in a different direction."

"How do you know that?"

Jarlaxle smiled. "I rather thought it behooved me to know exactly how Bregan D'aerthe's newest member managed to lose such a skilled fighter as your son."

That it would also tell him how much Dinin could be trusted to do right by the other members went unsaid, though Jarlaxle was sure Zak would guess as much.

After a few moments of meditative breathing to steady his whipsawing emotions, Zak gave a bitter laugh. "The House has fallen, then."

He would not miss Malice in the slightest, but he was somewhat surprised to find that despite his best efforts to wall away his soft feelings about Vierna and consider her dead as his daughter, he still mourned her actual death.

"And Vierna is unaccounted for," Jarlaxle said, knowing precisely where his friend's thoughts would have gone.

Zak sighed as his emotions churned again. "Then I wish her well, wherever she's ended up."

Zak had still been working through his tangled emotions when Jarlaxle had had to leave to attend to other business, and had not yet returned when the exhaustion from the day's emotional turmoil had caught up with Zak, leaving him with barely enough energy to actually get in bed before he fell asleep.

So it was not until the next day that they were able to discuss things further.

After a leisurely breakfast together, Zak followed Jarlaxle to the other man's office, and once they were both seated, with glasses of wine in hand, he spoke.

"How difficult will it be for you to locate Drizzt?"

Jarlaxle hummed thoughtfully. "Depends on whether or not he's managed to find any allies on the Surface." And at Zaknafein's dubious look, he added, "Given what happened, it's actually quite likely that he has."

"Oh?"

"How often have you seen wild animals down here disrupt a fight, or even just approach people?"

Zak took some time to scour his memories, but it didn't take long before he sighed and said, "Never, and extremely rarely. Which presumably would hold true on the Surface as well.

"You think those animals were purposely sent to disrupt the raid, then?"

"I do," Jarlaxle agreed. "As while it might be possible that animals running from something else would run right through a fight, the fact that Drizzt—and Drizzt alone—was not only separated from the rest of the patrol, but driven in a different direction suggests deliberate action, even more than the fact that the animals drove the patrol away at all."

Zak was silent for a long moment, and then he said, very quietly, "I've often felt like Drizzt somehow ended up with a faerie's soul instead of a drow's. But I can't see how anyone on the Surface would be aware of his nature."

"Not even a deity?" Jarlaxle asked, equally quietly.

Zak froze at those words, beating back terror at the idea of his dancer having caught a deity's direct attention. "Who?" he breathed. "How?"

"One of the faerie deities is also worshipped by humans as a nature deity," Jarlaxle said. "And I've heard whispers that the wizard who was assigned to Drizzt's patrol hated the strong bond Drizzt had with the great cat the wizard could summon."

"So you think Drizzt would have found allies among that deity's followers," Zak said.

"The human followers, at least."

Zak sighed. "And now that he's free of this city, Drizzt would want to be sure that Malice couldn't find him again."

"Exactly," Jarlaxle said. "Which is why, as much as I'd like to keep you by my side, I think it would make more sense to put you in charge of our Skullport outpost.

"It's not a drow city, but it has a drow presence—mostly Vhaeraunite, but a nearby settlement of the Dark Maiden's followers also comes there to trade."

Zak quickly saw the trail of logic Jarlaxle was following, and found he had to agree with it.

"Very well," he said. "I accept the post."

Vierna had been at the Temple of Vhaeraun in Skullport for not quite two months when trouble that had long been brewing between two would-be powers in the city broke out into open fighting.

Three days later, both groups had been reduced to infighting as members of each sought to replace the leaders that had been killed.

And the main topic of conversation even within the Temple was the drow male wielding twin longswords who had easily taken on multiple opponents from both sides at the same time in order to achieve those deaths.

'Drow male wielding twin longswords' would have been enough to pique her interest all by itself, but the frequent discussion of his skill and speed truly made her wonder if this seemingly-peerless fighter might indeed be Zaknafein.

And when she heard someone mention that the fighter had had long unbound hair, she decided it was time to actively seek more information.

No one seemed to know who the fighter actually was, but Kaiyeth had been able to tell her that he had apparently been hired by the city's council to stop the fighting.

So, knowing that Natoth was the Temple's representative on the council, she arranged to speak with him after the evening service.

Seated in Natoth's office, Vierna wound up her explanation of why she was seeking information about the mysterious fighter with "...and so I believe that this man might well be Zaknafein."

"I see," Natoth said. "And I know our Lord would be quite pleased if such a fighter could be swayed to His service." His face took on a thoughtful expression.

Vierna waited with all the patience she could muster, and was rewarded when Natoth resumed speaking.

"I do not have a name for him, but he is the current local leader of an all-male group that is headquartered elsewhere. The group is neither Vhaeraunite nor Eilistraeean, but does not seem to be Lolthite either.

"The man in question arrived maybe four and a half months ago, and took charge of their local operations with, as best as we have been able to determine, no resistance at all.

"And while the group has overall remained uninvolved in conflicts within Skullport, they will act to protect their own interests, as this man cited the threat the fighting posed to those interests as his reason for getting involved when he offered his services to the proprietor of the Dimmed Lantern."

"Mmm," Vierna hummed. "Bregan D'aerthe is an all-male mercenary group based in Menzoberranzan, and I know Zaknafein had some sort of connection to its leader.

"And it certainly has the resources to put up portals for swift travel between their holdings, which means the timing of this man's arrival makes it even more likely that he is Zaknafein, given how close it was to the House's fall."

"How do you wish to go about contacting him, then?" Natoth asked.

Early on the second day after Zak had killed the leading members of the two groups that had been engaged in open fighting, a street urchin had brought a note for "the twin-bladed fighter" to Bregan D'aerthe's compound.

And although he had known his skill with his blades would draw significant attention from at least the Temple faction of Vhaeraunites, he had still been surprised when the note proved to be a request from the Temple's representative on the city council for a meeting at the Dimmed Lantern, "to discuss a matter of mutual interest".

Intrigued by the oblique approach to what he was still rather sure was an attempt to convert him, or at least secure his skills for Vhaeraun, Zak had sent the urchin back with an acceptance.

A few more notes back and forth had arranged a time, with the councilor—Natoth by name—promising to take care of arranging a private parlor for the meeting.

And now, late on the second day after he had received the request, Zaknafein walked into the common room of the Dimmed Lantern, Jornil half a pace behind him, and headed straight for the bartender.

"I'm here to meet with Natoth," he told the man. "Has he arrived yet?"

"'Bout five minutes ago," the bartender said. "He and his companion are in the parlor with bats on the door. Take the hall on the left, and it's the second door on your right."

Well. If the priest had brought a companion, Zak was very glad he'd brought someone to watch his back. "Thank you."

It didn't take long to reach the specified door, and after a sharp knock that brought a response of "It's unlocked", Zak entered, closely followed by Jornil.

Within, seated in two of the chairs that formed a conversation area on the far side of the parlor, there were two drow in cleric's robes.

One of them was wearing their mask, leaving Zak only able to tell that one was female by the way her robes draped her body.

The other, however, was an unmasked male, who rose to his feet as the door closed.

"I do apologize for the mild deception," the priest said, "but it is actually my colleague who wishes to speak with you."

And then, while Zak was still recalculating what might be wanted from him, the priest walked right past them and left the room.

That, at least, simplified things, and he signaled for Jornil to do the same—which was obeyed with only a single check if he was sure.

And once Zak had taken a seat in a chair facing the priestess, she reached up and removed her mask.

"I'm glad to see you again, Zaknafein," Vierna said.

As startled as he was by who the priestess appeared to be, Zak was still thinking rapidly.

The mask could not be faked, therefore this woman was a priestess of Vhaeraun, but was she truly Vierna?

"What was my first gift to you, priestess, and what did I name as a price for it when you asked for one?"

"The gift was a female pirate spider, with a braided charm of my hair, and what I later discovered was yours.

"As for the price, you asked me to learn from watching her as she lived and, as I could, tell you of what she taught me."

This was Vierna, then, as only the two of them knew that.

Reaching out to take her hands, he said, "I am pleased to learn that you are not truly lost to the Spider, my daughter."

Clearing the air between them had needed to happen before they talked of anything else, but once they had done so, Vierna shifted the subject of their conversation to one that she knew Zaknafein shared her investment in.

"You may have learned this already," she said, "but given that you left without hearing Dinin's report, I need to tell you that Drizzt is likely still alive."

"Jarlaxle told me," Zak said, "after getting Dinin's account of what happened, but thank you anyway."

Vierna couldn't say she was displeased to learn that Dinin had survived the House's fall, but he was not the brother she was concerned about, so she set her curiosity aside for later.

"I'm glad you haven't spent the time since then believing he was dead," she replied. "However, my own attempts to actually locate him have been quite unsuccessful. Have Jarlaxle's resources proved more useful?"

"They haven't," Zak admitted. "But given that the details of what happened make it quite likely that Drizzt found allies swiftly, that's not exactly a surprise."

"Oh?" Vierna was well aware that, as the leader of Bregan D'aerthe, Jarlaxle would have developed a tendency to look at events from unusual angles, simply to retain the band's independence, but she truly could not see how he would have reached that conclusion.

Zak had not expected Vierna to immediately see the logic Jarlaxle had followed—he hadn't, after all—so he responded with a rundown of how his friend had laid it out for him.

And when he finished, Vierna sighed, and said, "Well, that does make sense. And since Drizzt has no way of knowing that the House fell, he'd want to make sure he couldn't be found again."

"Exactly," Zak agreed.

"At least now I know to direct my efforts to more mundane methods of locating him."

"And that's why I'm here, instead of at Jarlaxle's side."

Vierna cocked an eyebrow in an invitation for Zak to elaborate.

"The nearby Eilistraeean settlement," he said. "As often as I've felt like Drizzt somehow ended up with a faerie's soul instead of a drow's, it will be quite surprising if he never finds his way to Her followers."

"Point," Vierna said. "And even if he never actually comes this far south, word of him is rather certain to do so, as the Promenade-" at Zak's quizzical look, she quickly explained that the settlement's formal name was 'the Promenade of the Dark Maiden', before picking the thought back up "-is where the Dark Maiden's High Priestess has chosen to live."

"Mmm," Zak hummed. "Definitely something to keep in mind."

One year later

Zaknafein was not yet finished negotiating with the Promenade's caravan master for a pair of throwing knives—and the enchantments he wanted them to have—when he began to feel like he was being watched.

The watcher seemed to be curious, however, not hostile or calculating, so he took the time to finish negotiating before making a very casual turn that let him sweep his gaze across the caravan in order to identify the watcher.

But he was not even halfway through when he locked eyes with a very familiar—and clearly quite surprised—young drow male.

"Weapon Master?" his dancer said.

"It's good to see you again, Drizzt," he replied.

"What are you doing here?"

Although there were two possible meanings for that question, Zak was quite sure Drizzt was not asking about his presence at the caravan, so he gave the other answer. "When you didn't return, I left the House and joined Bregan D'aerthe."

Drizzt's expression clearly showed his confusion at the idea, so Zak smiled, and added, "Would you like to come with me to the Dimmed Lantern for a private conversation?"

Drizzt was torn by Zaknafein's offer.

The four years of joy he had had under the man's tutelage left him wanting to accept, but between that odd fight before he went to Melee-Magthere, and his wariness of being found by his House, he could not help but wonder if this was a trap of some sort.

But even as he wrestled with making a decision, the caravan master spoke up.

"The Dimmed Lantern has a well-deserved reputation for neutrality and privacy, Drizzt."

That... added a strong weight to accepting, and after taking another moment to consider, he said, "I would like that very much."

The Dimmed Lantern was close enough to the market square that the walk there did not take very long.

A private parlor—as well as a messenger to bring a note to Vierna—was easily arranged, and once he and Drizzt were settled in the parlor, Zak cut straight to the matter that he knew would be of the greatest concern for his son.

"The House fell less than a day after the patrol returned without you. So you don't need to worry about being found by them."

Drizzt sighed in relief. "That is good to know, though I can't help but feel some regret for Vierna's death."

"As it happens," Zak said, "both she and Dinin survived the House's fall."

Though Drizzt could easily guess that Dinin survived by joining... Bregan D'aerthe..., it took him a bit to think of how Vierna might have.

"Which House was she adopted by?"

"None of them," Zak replied. "It turns out that, in truth, she has been Vhaeraun's since childhood, and with both of us gone, she took advantage of the attack on the House to make her own escape."

"What?!?" Drizzt found it hard to believe what he had just heard.

"Vierna is Vhaeraun's, not Lloth's," Zak repeated.

Drizzt's face scrunched up in thought, and a few moments later, he said, "That... would actually do a lot to explain some interactions with her that were... odd, for a cleric of Lloth."

While Zak definitely wanted to know more about the interactions that Drizzt had considered odd, that was better saved for later. So instead, he asked, "What else would you like to know?"

Drizzt leaned forward in his seat. "Well..." he began.

In the year since she had reunited with Zaknafein, Vierna had developed a habit, when the Promenade's trade caravan was due to arrive, of only doing things that would not suffer from a sudden interruption.

So when a note from Zak was delivered, saying that Drizzt had come with today's caravan, and Zak had engaged a parlor for them at the Dimmed Lantern, she had been able to immediately drop what she was doing, and swiftly made her way there.

And now, standing outside the door of the parlor that the bartender had directed her to, she took a deep breath to settle her nerves over finally seeing her wean-son again, then knocked in the pattern that she and Zak had agreed on.

"Come in," Zak called, so Vierna carefully opened the door and stepped into the parlor.

Zak and Drizzt were sitting in the conversation area on the far side of the room, and once she had shut the door, Vierna went straight to Drizzt and hugged him tightly.

"I am so very glad to see you again, little brother."

Drizzt had initially tensed up when she embraced him, but after a moment, he relaxed and returned the hug.

"I'm glad you're alive," he replied. Then, with a tone she could hear the mischief in, he added, "Vehna."

Vierna huffed a laugh at that, hugged him a little tighter, then released him.

"Imp," she said fondly, and took a seat of her own. "It's clear enough that Father already told you where my true loyalty lies, but what else do you want to know?"

Once Drizzt's curiosity had been satisfied, it was his turn to share what had happened to him since that fateful raid.

Vierna was somewhat dubious about Mielikki's focused interest in him, and Zaknafein was outright wary of it, but given how clear it was that Drizzt had thrived under Her attention, they limited themselves to expressing that She had best continue to have a positive effect on his life.

And they were both very displeased to hear about the shroud that the Spider Queen had put on him, as well as quite relieved that it had been removed.

Eventually, the conversation turned to how Drizzt could stay in touch with Zak and Vierna, and once an agreement on that had been reached, Zak escorted him back to the caravan.

senmut

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

senmut

Gender-Changed Drizzt (7,046 words) by

senmut
Chapters: 3/3
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Relationship: Alustriel Silverhand/Drizzt
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Jarlaxle Baenre, Drizzt Do'Urden, Catti-brie Battlehammer, Bruenor Battlehammer, Wulfgar son of Beornegar, Alustriel Silverhand
Additional Tags: Gender Changes, Canon Divergence
Summary:

Drizzt, born a girl, too Good to survive as a priestess, is hidden by sister and father.

Boys are Fighters (4,977 words)

Vierna watched as Dreeza tried her best to pronounce the simple prayer, saw the absolute pain in eyes and the locked jaw, leaving her convinced.

She did not understand why her little sister was so different, but as a Masked Traitor, she had to come up with a plan. No drow life should be put aside lightly. Given how adept she was with both hands, Vierna suspected already she would have an ally in this.

One poison later, and the House had lost a daughter, a daughter that had not yet been too costly an investment for Malice to investigate after the junior cleric decreed the body had to be disposed of, for how the 'illness' had struck.

Vierna was in quarantine for it, and little Dreeza was removed from the house under guard to go to the acid pool nearby.

Zaknafein managed the switch with a wrapped body for the house slaves to dispose of during that trek, while a shadow slipped the actual child away.

Dreeza blinked at the bald man with the eye patch, but Vierna had told her to trust in him. She'd also said that the weapon master would come, from time to time, to check on her.

"Little one," the bald man said. "I am fond of your sire, so I will help you survive. But you cannot be a girl any longer."

"Don't want to be," Dreeza told him. "Girls have to say the words that hurt."

The man smiled at her. "Is that how it is, hmm? Well. Can you learn to answer to Drizzt? Close to your name, but boyish."

"Drizzt." She — he, he firmly decided, because boys learned sharp things and sometimes magic — rather liked the sound of it. It felt right.

Drizzt showed the new techniques to Zaknafein, always happiest when that man came to visit.

Zak wished it could stay like this always, with him slipping in to teach his child as he was able. Jarlaxle was right, though. The city was getting more dangerous, Malice was pushing her ambitions too far, and Drizzt being exposed would leave him and Vierna — oh how proud he was of her! — at risk.

"Drizzt."

The young fighter came and sat beside Zak at that tone, accepting the arm that came around slim shoulders. As Drizzt had matured, Jarlaxle had used cleverly cut clothing to mask the slim build and modest curves, but Malice's delicate features were there.

"Father."

Zak's chest tightened. Jarlaxle had promised him that Drizzt would be safer elsewhere, somewhere House Do'Urden had no ties.

"Bregan D'aerthe will be taking you somewhere. It's getting too dangerous to hide you here, and you deserve to not be a prisoner in the compound."

Drizzt's chin tipped up, and the lavender eyes gleamed with resolve.

"Want you and my sister safe, so I will go. Some day, I will see you again?"

"Some day, darkness willing," Zak said, hugging his younger child tight. "Take this." Zak put a small figure in Drizzt's hands. "I took it from a wizard in training, and Vierna learned its name."

That had been a fierce fight for the House, but Drizzt didn't need to know that.

"Name?"

Zak leaned down and whispered it in his child's ear, prompting Drizzt to practice it over and over silently.

Jarlaxle had intended for Zak's child to be sent to safety.

Even he could not guarantee everything.

Drizzt had already been passed into the hands of someone else, though, and he never knew when the new band escorting the young fighter was ambushed, with the survivors set to be sold as slaves in unsavory places.

The slavers never reckoned on Drizzt escaping, fleeing them on the surface. Things seen in the short captivity, though, meant that Drizzt would continue to be a boy, rather than risk that kind of personal violence.

At least the figure had gone unnoticed for its worth, making Drizzt swear to keep it always safe.

The first lessons of life Above came in the Neverwinter Forest. Several times, Drizzt had only barely escaped from both drow and humans that lived there. The drow at least, had been curious about a stranger, but inevitably someone would check alignment, and then it turned into a hunt.

The humans started with hostility.

Drizzt became quite skilled at hiding, at observing the small bands of people, even as exploration was the path taken. Moving as far from where they had come to the surface seemed safest, and Drizzt traveled ever in the direction of the great light in the sky.

Through it all, Guenhwyvar, the figure's summoned creature, protected when she was there. The surface was better for her than the Underdark, and she would make certain Drizzt learned that well.

The hills had taught new skills of stealth, and introduced Drizzt to orcs. Badly.

There was only so much the fighter could do against many of them, and the injuries were taking their toll.

"Guenhwyvar," Drizzt called, hiding in a shallow hole undercut in the river's bank, the water lapping in to make it unpleasantly damp.

The panther took up the bulk of the space there, and growled, knowing her drow was hurt badly, maybe bad enough to kill.

She sprang out of the hole, and went hunting… first to secure safety, and then to find aid.

Drizzt came conscious in a warm place, clean and bandaged, and only hidden by a blanket in barely lit room. Panic flared, but before Drizzt could sit up, a hand — old, knotted with arthritis and pale — reached out to gently press down.

"No, child."

Those were words Drizzt knew, and the tone was kind. Lavender eyes sought the speaker, the owner of the hand, to find an old human, gray hair pulled tight in a bun, watching him without fear.

"Your cat came for me, brought me to you. An Astral being doesn't willingly aid someone evil, and you'd killed several of the orcs that chased you. Bad lot, those."

Drizzt wasn't catching every word, but this felt safe, felt like the deep woods where nothing ever hurt for long.

"You'll stay to heal. And maybe, maybe you'll learn a bit."

Drizzt's eyes closed, the warmth and safety and injuries all calling for more sleep.

Evgin Morningmist was, Drizzt came to learn, a retired ranger. Evgin took the time to heal all the injuries, then when Drizzt seemed willing to stay, began teaching Drizzt the true skills of wild-living.

Language came easier, having someone to directly talk to, and Drizzt soaked up everything that could be learned from the human.

Drizzt's gender didn't come up until Evgin brought in leather and boning to measure for new gear to replace what had been ravaged by the orcs.

"Figured," Evgin began, "that you had reasons for the way you wore that leather. That's between you and your soul. All I need to know is what you mean to be seen as, and what you let people know you are."

Drizzt swallowed hard against the knot of complications. "Men are fighters, wizards. Women are priestesses. So I prefer to be a man."

Evgin scoffed. "Not Above, Drizzt. Anyone can do as they want, no matter what parts they were born to or grew over time. If you see yourself as a man, that's fine. But if you make yourself be a man because you think that's how it has to be… that's not the best."

Drizzt considered, then shrugged. "That I know I am a woman in body is one thing, but my mind sees what I do as a man. Is that good?"

Evgin smiled. "As you wish it to be. I'll say he and him around others, but if you want to be she and her in my home, I will be fine with it. However, for now, I'm going to measure and we will make something to smooth out the curves more.

"Armor goes a long way, and Chauntea knows all elves are pretty enough few can tell the genders at range."

Drizzt laughed, but filed that away as another piece to keep safe among humans. Only trusted people — like Evgin — should know.

"Drizzt… child come here!"

Drizzt scrambled up out of the cellar where they'd made a quiet, dark place to live for the fighter. Evgin was on the swept stone just past the threshold, looking east.

"I'm here," Drizzt said rather than touch the woman.

"Need you to pack up the torches, and run like the wind," Evgin said firmly. "Caravan that passed today didn't make it far enough down the road, and it looks to be a dark night."

"Trolls?"

The ranger had retired very close to the Evermoors, also called the Trollmoors, and in the course of teaching Drizzt, explained the dangers they were. Most caravans knew to get to this stretch early, so they could skirt the edge on the trade road with full daylight.

Drizzt wondered why this caravan hadn't stopped when it was obvious they wouldn't make it soon enough. That didn't matter; gathering the pre-pitched torches did. It was going to be hard, to go and defend, when fire was so necessary. It meant others were bound to see the black skin and white hair that damned all drow to surface folk.

When Drizzt returned, torches in a tight bundle for carrying, Evgin was holding a shirt of mail, finely made.

"You get this now, Drizzt. I can't fight well enough to help you tonight, but my old armor will fit and protect you better."

The bundle was set down, sword belt unhitched, and Evgin helped Drizzt into the surprisingly light chain.

"Dwarf-crafting, said to have come out of the Frost Hills a few generations ago," she said. "Only ever let dwarves fix it for me, if I couldn't set the rings myself."

"I will wear it in honor," Drizzt promised.

"Know that, I do. Now go keep that idiot merchant safe."

And so it began… rumors of a drow that answered to the ancient ranger near the Evermoors grew. Many thought it was just a myth. Some would say they had seen dark skin and pale hair, but the stories were laughed away.

No drow was good. There'd been raids enough to prove that.

And the giant cat with this supposed drow? Had to be a wild elf or a wood elf, who just looked dark in the night. Drow didn't use animal companions after all.

Longsaddle was curious, but organization and sense of urgency never went hand in hand with the family there. The chance to find out slipped away, once Chauntea called her ranger home… and the student struck out to see what else there was in the world.

When Bruenor brought his people to the fighting, he'd hoped to save more than it was looking like. The last thing he expected in that hope was another fighter suddenly appearing…

…and goblins tripping over themselves to get away from the newcomer. Bruenor marked the possible threat, especially when the new fighter looked at a particularly gruesome pair of bodies, and gave pursuit to those fleeing.

The order to hunt for survivors went up when they stopped finding goblins to kill, and Bruenor came to the pair that had set the new fighter off. He started to say a prayer for the dead, but then one of the bodies was moved from beneath it.

Bruenor crouched, wary, and realized a human child had been sheltered by this pair… and possibly might survive.

"Easy, little'un, easy," he said in Common, and moved the body off to find a wee child, small and scared with a scratch on her arm and not much else.

The parents had done well by this one, sad a thing as it was.

"C'mere, little'un, let me help ye," he said in a gentle voice, axe set aside so he could open his arms to her.

She hesitated, then moved to him, accepting the help. He hitched her on one hip, got his axe in the other hand, and looked toward where the goblins had fled.

The lone fighter was coming back, cloak pulled in tight against the wind that was picking up.

"Foe of gobs is good, but are ye friend of dwarf?" Bruenor called, not recognizing anything of the fighter.

"If the dwarf will allow, I choose friendship."

The voice was no help to identity, and Bruenor tipped his head.

"If'n ye saw the child, she's barely hurt."

The posture of the fighter changed, relief visible in the set of the shoulders before the fighter came near enough that Bruenor's eyes could see beneath the hood.

He almost cursed in shock, but the bairn was on his hip, and that would done no one good for the child to learn such so young.

The fighter noticed, and relief changed to weariness.

"I will go my way, good dwarf, rather than intrude," the fighter said in resignation.

What in all the forges was the world coming to, that Bruenor actually felt sorry for the fighter, seeing and hearing that.

"Not intrudin' when yer invited."

The dark face came back up, hope shining in eyes a color he'd never seen looking back at him.

"My gratitude."

He'd put the bairn with Auntie, who had a hand with children, having mothered pretty much the entire clan after their exile from the Hall. The drow, on the other hand, he'd tucked in a room as close to the surface as possible, asking him to wait while he saw to the clan, making certain they were all back in and safe.

Not a dwarf lost, but that might have been different, if the drow hadn't joined in.

He came to the door, which he'd told the fighter to close or leave open as he saw fit, and saw it was open, with the drow quietly cleaning his blades.

"Gave me a start, I admit, tae see a drow in the frozen north," Bruenor said as he came in. "And most would — what are ye wearing?!"

The fighter blinked as the dwarf fixed on the mail now showing beneath the cloak.

"My teacher gifted it to me, said it had been passed down through generations," the fighter said. "Made by dwarves of the Frost Hills, and she was insistent that if it ever needed it, I only let dwarves mend it. As I am what I am, the few times it has needed it, I have done the wiring myself."

Bruenor's eyes got misty, to hear the reverence, and he believed the tale. "Yer teacher's family must have done favor tae me clan at some point, drow, for that was forged in the Hall of me ancestors. Recognize the way of crafting the mithral, aye."

"I swear, good dwarf, that I wear it in honor, for her memory, and my own need to do good."

Bruenor nodded, then sat down to see to cleaning his own axe. "Bruenor Battlehammer, chieftain of the clan here, but we came from the Frost Hills."

"Drizzt Do'Urden, a long time removed from the Underdark, and most recently out of Luskan." The fighter's nose wrinkled. "Kept moving on, as I had no wish to be a wizard's curiosity. And the wilds are my home, anyway."

"Plenty of those here, Drizzt. But it's good tae have solid stone when the weather sets. I'll talk to me clan, but my gut says yer a good man."

"I try to be."

Having shelter, even if most of the dwarves were distrustful, was one less worry for Drizzt, even if living in stone was a reminder of lost people. More, the addition of the bairn Bruenor had rescued -- there was nowhere else for her to go -- was a distraction from the outright hostility of the locals.

Drizzt was far too accustomed to that, but could focus instead on caring for young Catti-brie alongside the gruff dwarf. Bruenor, for his part, was liking more and more of the drow he'd taken in, as the fighter was without peer, never really complained much, and was more than willing to take over certain duties on the surface that his own people grumbled over, like guarding the trade wagon or hunting.

Catti-brie was their bonding point, more than anything. Bruenor suspected his new ranger friend was much younger than the fighter cared to show. Keeping Drizzt protected from the worst of bigotry became a major point for him, when trade was needed, and he leveraged his monopoly on new weapons for the Ten Towns accordingly.

Catti had always respected her elf's privacy, but the blood smear near the elf's door had her worried. Drizzt had been gone for days, and Catti was scared for how much blood was trailed in.

She pushed into the room to see her elf had made it in, but not to the bed. Catti got one of the dwarf lamps open, just a little, and saw the bloody bandages and tattered pants along Drizzt's legs.

Something had made the elf fall in sharp rock or ice, based on that pattern.

Well, Catti knew how to handle cleaning and bandaging. She went to get Drizzt out of gear, working swiftly with dwarf-conditioned strength.

She didn't pause at all, leaving questions to later, when her elf was awake again.

Drizzt opened eyes to see very faint light from the dwarf lamp, the feeling of blankets, and a slightly smaller body laying on top of them.

"Catti?"

"Scared me, elf," she told him softly. "Set the young ones tae scrubbing yer trail, got you wrestled tae bed on me own, after getting you out of the frozen clothes.

"Och, donnae be flinching like that." Catti moved so she could meet Drizzt's eyes. "I'd never tell another soul. Ye have reasons, I'm sure."

"I don't mean to lie to you," Drizzt said.

"Ye didnae, me elf. Ye kept a secret, maybe, but it's fine. Now I can help ye keep it too, aye?"

Drizzt managed to get an arm around the girl and hugged her. "Thank you, my Cat."

Drizzt was out on the open tundra under the summer night skies when the feeling of something pulled him in a specific direction. Evgin had said to always follow that, that it meant Mielikki had something to be investigated.

Seeing a pair of drow was not exactly what Drizzt expected, and caution flared sharper than if they had been giants.

The pair noted him, and Drizzt thought it was a woman -- the robes were different, not spider embroidered -- and a man in a well-made piwafwi carrying a pair of swords.

As that detail registered, Drizzt felt a multitude of emotions, and dared have hope that maybe this was the family long ago lost.

"Drizzt?"

Now Drizzt was certain, but caution with drow was etched into memory, so Drizzt did not release sword hilts immediately. The pair were moving slowly in Drizzt's direction, and once their faces were clear, Drizzt did let go.

"Vierna? Father?"

They came together, with Vierna almost smothering Drizzt in an embrace that was fierce and loving, so at odds with the prickle of evil that etched on nerves honed to hunt such. When she let go, Zak engulfed Drizzt in a hug of his own, and that did not itch like the other one had.

"Come, both of you. I have an outlying cave I keep when I need away from my allies," Drizzt said. "The wind cannot be kind to either of you."

They seemed happy enough with this plan, following him to the Cairn and up to Drizzt's secondary home. They were pointed to the couch that would keep their eyes protected more from the brazier, as Drizzt got a fire started in the prepared coal.

Only once heat was provided for did Drizzt come back to them, eyes shining. They'd both been watching, evaluating, and apparently liked what they saw.

"How did you wind up in a frozen hell?! We came once before, months ago, but there was a storm," Vierna said.

Drizzt shrugged. "I wander. Only, about ten years ago, I came here, and found a new home with my allies, helping to raise an orphan."

Zak gave a snort. "Hell of a place to raise any child."

"We barely notice the weather in our caverns beneath the tundra," Drizzt said before studying Vierna. "I see no whip, no spiders." There was hope there, despite the frisson of evil that came off the priestess.

"Even when you lived with us, I was not truly Lloth's priestess, little sister," Vierna told Drizzt. "I serve Vhaeraun."

That got a head tilt, then a slow nod. "That's why you were willing to protect me. I have heard they do not like to kill other drow, but I am a nuisance to them. Or was, when I still lived where His followers sometimes came to the surface."

The 'little sister' felt strange, and yet... Drizzt was, for this priestess that had taught words.

"Shortly after we got you out of the city," Zak said, "the reasons we had done so were circling close to Vierna's deception being found. So we used a skirmish between houses to disappear and start over in a more Vhaeraunite city."

"I never wish to take that long a journey in the Underdark again," Vierna fussed for the memory, and Drizzt had to smile.

"I am pleased. It is easier to deal with you being His than the Spider Queen's," Drizzt said.

Vierna studied Drizzt a long moment, then asked, to get it out of the way. "Did you fall in with the Dark Maiden then?"

"No. I learned human gods, from my human teacher, and one of them chose me for Her ranger."

Vierna relaxed; that was not as bad as it might have been. "Good. I do not want to be at odds with you, now I have found you again."

"I would not like that. If you mean no harm to the wilds or my allies of the surface, we need not be at odds," Drizzt assured.

"Don't much care for the Surface, so that's an easy promise to make," Zak said, firmly, and Vierna nodded.

"So tell us everything, Drizzt, and let us know all about your life," Vierna invited, getting Drizzt to settle in on the couch between them.

Much as Drizzt preferred not to speak of the past or doings, that was not something to hedge on now, and the story began to unfold.

Bruenor menaced the Towns men with his axe, and Agorwal stepped down with him, over the fallen ranger.

"I can take him for healing," the spokesman said once the others had left.

"Nay, though it's a fine offer. We take care of our own, and the ranger is mine tae care for." He whistled and a pair of dwarves that were on recovery duty came quickly. "I'll let me elf know the offer was made."

Catti had long since told him the ranger mustn't go to the Towns for aid, and he stood by that, without pressing for why. He'd seen a few elves in his life, and suspected, but their healers -- and Catti herself -- would be able to tend Drizzt just fine in the safety of their home.

Drizzt sized up the barbarian boy, recognizing him as the standard bearer from the spying done before the battle. A year in the mines and forges had tempered the pride some, but Wulfgar still sneered at the idea of learning anything from a filthy drow.

"Catti-brie," Drizzt said quietly. "Tell your father I will not teach him."

Drizzt walked away, and the barbarian started to run his mouth. The echoing sound of Catti-brie smacking him hard with her own sheathed sword did not slow the drow's retreat.

"Ye be an idiot, Wulfgar. Me da will send ye back tae the mines now, instead of ye learning from the best fighter in all Icewind Dale."

Drizzt's smile was soft, hidden from the pair, as the boy was herded back down to the lower levels by Catti and the pair of dwarves — who both added insults for the boy's stupidity.

"Why'd ye do it?" Catti-brie asked, sitting still while Drizzt brushed her hair out for her.

"He was not ready to learn. The pride is diminished, but I would have had to truly trounce him, and even then, he would not have taken the lessons to heart."

"He's sulking now."

Drizzt nodded silently. "Tell Bruenor when you see him later, I will meet the boy again in three months. And we shall see."

Wulfgar kept his opinions behind his face, and Drizzt sized him up. The arms were larger, and there was more height.

"You use a hammer?"

"Yes," Wulfgar said, voice polite, if not warm.

"Then come. There is no space in here to practice as you need."

"I need — "

A warning look from Catti-brie had cut those words off, and Wulfgar silently followed to the outside, drinking in the stars above, the cold air, as if his life depended on them.

Drizzt turned, pulling scimitars from the belt after closing the sheaths to keep them covered. Catti-brie almost snickered, having come along, as Drizzt taught her with bare metal.

Then again, a hammer was hell on edges.

"Show me how you fight," Drizzt said, as Catti-brie sat on a rock nearby.

"Does the girl have to stay? It's not seemly."

Drizzt's eyes flashed. "That young woman is a more skilled fighter than you are, or will be, if you keep that attitude."

Catti-brie carefully kept her mouth shut, but oh she wanted Wulfgar laid out and shown just how much a woman could fight. Yet, that wasn't fair to even think in her mind. Drizzt, as a fighter, was as much a man by mindset as Wulfgar. She'd learned that when it came to gender, her elf was a little specific on when male or female applied.

Wulfgar charged then… and measured his height in the dusty terrain.

Drizzt had moved once.

The boy looked up… and came up ready to fight, only to repeat his fall.

This was going to take a while, if Wulfgar didn't learn to fight smartly.

"Not bad."

Three weeks to get to a point where Wulfgar could last the full length of a timed spar, and Catti-brie saw the young man glowing at those two words.

Drizzt had not tried to be Wulfgar's friend, hadn't done anything but teach every night, but Catti could see that Wulfgar respected her elf so much more.

"Again?" Wulfgar asked, hopeful to extend his time under the stars.

"Spar Catti-brie, and I'll keep the time."

Wulfgar paused, then set his feet for a new bout without protest.

Catti wanted to cheer, both for his new ability to keep his stupid opinions in his head, and for the chance to show she was a skilled fighter, Drizzt's personal student all her years since she'd first asked to learn.

Drizzt stepped away and let her take over.

Vierna petted Drizzt's hair, having steadily brushed it all out as they got the tale of what little sister had been up to.

"And in the end, I didn't have darkness available -- too tired -- so I dumped flour on it. That was the beginning of the end, with the wizard ultimately doing himself in."

"You hunted a dragon and fought an artifact, and ... yeah, I think even I would have been too tired to summon it," Zak admitted.

"Bruenor's fidgeting more now. I think he's going to start pushing to take up the quest for his Hall," Drizzt said. "If we do go, I'll use the sending stone you gave me to tell you I am not here."

"I won't like it," Vierna said. "But I'd like coming to a snow storm and you not being here far less."

Drizzt put the stone back in the pouch, while Catti-brie watched.

"Don't have tae worry about that one coming while yer gone?"

"No, my friend. I had already warned this would be likely, and Vierna accepted it."

Catti-brie went and wrapped around her elf. "Wishing I was coming with."

"I know, but Bruenor wants you to keep an eye on things here."

"Bah. Fender could manage."

Drizzt held Catti a long moment, privately agreeing, knowing she'd fret the whole time, but Bruenor would not be persuaded.

Drizzt's nerves had been prickling since Regis joined them. Luskan had not helped a bit.

Now, with the encounter at Nesmé, and being turned away from Silverymoon, Drizzt felt nothing but worry.

The appearance of the Lady of Silverymoon soothed wounded feelings, but did not put the fears to rest. There was nothing to do but move forward at this point.

Having Catti-brie directly threatened and terrorized had provoked a stronger feeling in Drizzt than ever before. Catti had been raised by them, and Drizzt looked on her as both a child and a student to cherish and protect.

It did not make it any easier to stare at the remains of the assassin, ashamed of how far emotion had pushed this fight.

Catti-brie pressed against Drizzt's back, trying to reassure, to make it better, but nothing really could.

Drizzt finally turned and wrapped around her, while the others watched.

This wasn't done yet, but Catti-brie was safe, the threat to Regis ended.

They would manage.

~We're staying south of the Spine, Vierna. A campaign is being planned. I will find a quiet place to show you for teleports.~

~You don't sound well, so make that soon, little sister.~

Drizzt put the sending stone away, and rolled over on the bedroll, watching the others sleep. They had a lot of work ahead of them, but Drizzt knew one thing.

This was family, the one that mattered, and they would get through it all together.

More Personal Challenges (1,577 words)

Drizzt had made it through the entire campaign without a soul wiser about the secret carried. The ranger had reason to be grateful for healing potions, as the dragon's claws had torn through the mithral sleeve and left an arm useless.

That Drizzt had only been that close in order to save one of the wizards in the fight had made the ranger's reputation grow immensely.

Now, having found an outer cave that suited, Drizzt practiced with the arm to regain full mobility and strength.

Vierna was watching, with Zaknafein as Drizzt's sparring partner.

"How many duergar?" Zak asked.

"Hundreds, if not over a thousand," Drizzt answered, focusing on using the injured arm as the dominant one.

"A shadow dragon and two shadow hounds on top of that," Zak said, still impressed by the tale of the battle. He almost regretted not accepting the invitation to come join the campaign.

"Guen accounted for one of the latter," Drizzt said proudly. "And my blow that landed before the dragon tore my arm was credited as the turning point in that fight."

"Well done," Zak praised. "But next time figure out how to do it without the injury?"

Drizzt laughed brightly, and pushed an advantage in the fight. Zaknafein's pride was only growing as they sparred, seeing this child excel.

The biggest challenge after the dragon was far more personal.

Drizzt had, by the Lady's own invitation, begun to visit Silverymoon, a treasure that left the ranger speechless at times. It was one thing to have been accepted by an exiled clan of dwarves in a hostile region.

This was something far different, and made all the worse by flutters of feelings inside Drizzt's awareness where the Lady was concerned.

~You're feeling attraction, little sister,~ was Vierna's verdict after three nights of sending the conflicted nature of these new sensations and feelings. ~And if this wizard plays with your heart, or worse, I will kill her most painfully.~

~She will not have the chance to, as that is not something I am meant for.~

Whether Vierna would have more to say on that the next night or not, Drizzt knew it for truth.

Alustriel Silverhand knew Drizzt Do'Urden, ranger of Mielikki, as a man. Drizzt would not let that illusion fail, either, even as the ranger yearned for the kind of shared closeness that was growing between Catti and Wulfgar.

Meeting Kolarven, Knight in Silver, was a revolutionary moment for Drizzt. The half-elf was accepted as being other than man or woman, used gender neutral pronouns, and was as likely to be in skirts as pants when not in armor.

Drizzt wasn't ready to be that way, not truly, as gender was a brutal dichotomy for the ranger. Sister for Vierna, fighter and male to nearly everyone else of note, and Evgin's words came back.

All I need to know is what you mean to be seen as, and what you let people know you are.

Could Drizzt trust Alustriel as far as needed to share the secret? Why was this so much a mess inside heart and head?

Drizzt decided that leaving, traveling for a time, might help ease the chaos, and make the path clearer.

Silverymoon was an interesting sight to come back to as the first snows had fallen. All around the countryside, snow covered everything, yet only the faintest dusting lay on the city itself. Drizzt entered through the gate that allowed the quickest access to the Glade, as there was a small fortune to donate.

"Ranger!" the squire there called gladly, beaming with delight, and it hit Drizzt in the chest for the sincerity of it.

"Greetings, Squire Nellora."

The half-elf smiled even more broadly for the use of the name, waving the ranger on through.

Nor was she the last, as 'Ranger' rang out from several throats, and Drizzt wondered at it. The time spent here earlier in the year had been brief enough, it felt like, and even that the wizard saved during the fight was one of Alustriel's sons could not account for it.

Inside the Glade, though, with that dusting of white on the sleeping trees, Drizzt knew for a fact the city was home. Here was the greatest peace and feeling of belonging, after all. Drizzt did not hurry, once the treasure was in a collection basket near the altar, taking time to savor the peace.

It would be needed, if the Lady was as welcoming in her palace as the people in the city.

Alustriel came to the room Drizzt was in, the one Natali had been holding empty for their favorite ranger.

Drizzt opened the door, and the sheer joy in Alustriel's smile made it hard to breathe.

"Come in?"

She did, and Drizzt sat at the other end of the divan in there with her.

"I've missed you," Alustriel said softly. "And I've been worried that something I, or one of my people, did is why you chose to leave for so long this time."

Drizzt gave a head shake at that. "I needed time to think, to decide what I should do, going forward, as I have been … at odds with myself, here, with you."

She sat a little straighter, concern on her face now. "What is it, my friend? I would not have you be uncomfortable in my home at all. How can I help?"

Drizzt's eyes closed, and when they opened again, the drow reached for one of her hands.

"My name given when I was born was Dreeza," Drizzt began. "And like all drow nobles, my fate was set by what I was born as. I was to be a cleric of Lloth."

Alustriel's eyes widened, but she said nothing, only shifting to where she could better hold on to the offered hand.

"My sister who was raising me, saw the pain that came in the most simple prayers and songs. She, with the aid of my father, managed to fake that I had died, and I was put in the care of Bregan D'aerthe, the mercenary band.

"It was their leader, Jarlaxle, who offered me the name Drizzt, and the way to hide. It was he, after my father said it was necessary, who got me out of the city. And I believe father when he swears Jarlaxle never meant for me to be caught by slavers.

"Things I saw then reinforced that I needed to hide what I was born as. And it was firmly in my head that boys were fighters."

Drizzt paused, and Alustriel moved then, to sit beside the ranger, tucking the smaller drow close.

"I care not what body you were born to, Drizzt. You are my friend."

Drizzt's body went a little stiff, feeling a rejection in the making of those words, one that precluded the possible futures imagined.

"Lady," and the emotions roughened Drizzt's voice. "If it is but friendship, I will accept that, and ask that you not let my admission to you color the future."

"Oh." The soft sound was a prelude to Alustriel leaning her head down against that snow-white cloud of hair. "I'd made myself accept that friendship was all you wished, that you leaving was a way of stilling the interests I had."

Drizzt turned to look up at her, hope coming back for those words. "Lady?"

"Alustriel, please, my ranger," she chided before she slowly leaned in and placed the lightest kiss on Drizzt's lips.

Lavender eyes fluttered close as the sensations swept in again, reminding Drizzt of all the ways Alustriel could affect mind and body in such close proximity.

Still — more words were needed.

"I see Kolarven, and they help me understand better that it is not just men and women in the world, and that hard division," Drizzt said quietly. "I am still Vierna's sister, a man in the eyes of the world… and I am content to have it be that way.

"Does this… bother you?"

Alustriel gave a gentle smile. "No, my ranger. It does not. Let the world see a man at my side. We can learn what you wish in private, together, hmm?"

Drizzt let out a long breath, then pressed up to give her a kiss, deciding that this was the right path for them.

As the ranger settled back, Alustriel gave a little laugh. "You do realize, if you wish to try the full experience of a man… I could arrange that?"

Drizzt was startled into a laugh, before they were kissing again. It was not in the least tempting, Drizzt realized, accepting that body and perception really didn't have to match to be whole.

And now there was more to learn about the body, as Alustriel's kisses were proving.

Vierna shook her head as she settled back from the sendings with her little sister.

"What did Drizzt do this time?" Zak asked.

"Drizzt is now the lover of the ruler of that city," Vierna said. "And … is very happy for how it turned out."

Zak's eyebrow went up a moment, then he shrugged. "Drizzt knows we'll flay the woman alive if anything goes wrong?"

Vierna started laughing brightly, nodding. "I promised it."

"Good. Have to make sure both my children are safe and happy, after all."

"You always have, as best you could," Vierna told him, before settling back to studying.

How far they had all come from Menzoberranzan, and a child who could not say her prayers.

A Pair of Letters (492 words)

Correspondence time was sometimes vexing, sometimes refreshing. Today, Alustriel found herself oddly touched and amused, all in one.

The letters, two of them to be exact, had been in her correspondence from outside the city. One was addressed to the archmage of Silverymoon, and the other to A. Silverhand. The seals... those had sparked curiosity at first.

She had seen the complex sigil that was the Do'Urden seal once, on a different letter sent to Drizzt, just before he had vanished to tend to something, coming back looking faintly singed around the edges.

She decided to break the seal on the more formally addressed one, and was not surprised that her guess was correct in that it was from the sister that had put in motion Drizzt's freedom.

To the Archmage Alustriel Silverhand.

It has become apparent that my sister has become caught up in your well-being and affairs. I wish you to understand that if harm comes to her because of your personal choices, I will find a way to take vengeance.

The welfare of my sister is tantamount, and I am told you hold family just as dear. Please do keep that in mind.

Vierna Do'Urden, Silent Sable, Skullport

Alustriel carefully folded the letter back, weighing the best response. She was actually touched, in an odd way, as the fact Drizzt's sister had reached out did reinforce the fact that the cleric did love her sibling truly.

Drizzt had stated that for her, sister was the correct term, so Alustriel did not take offense on the behalf of her ranger. She would need to find the right words to soothe the woman's fears -- Drizzt was more than capable of finding danger and trouble on his own without Alustriel's influence, after all.

She opened the other letter, just to confirm her suspicion on the contents. The handwriting here was more precise, less flourished, as one would expect from a no-nonsense warrior.

Silverhand, which confirmed the writer. Of course Drizzt's father would be that informal, on purpose, to a powerful woman. It was a piece of his freedom.

That's my child you've taken as a lover. Don't do anything stupid.

I will find out if you do. And it will end poorly for you.

Zaknafein.

Short, to the point, and in a very strange way, heartwarming, Alustriel decided.

She noted the use of 'child' rather than a gendered term, and thought that was appropriate. Gender for her ranger was far more complex after all than even what Kolarven expressed, being entirely situational.

She drew a sheet to her, and began her replies to each of the Do'Urdens. She would have to have one of her sons or Laeral make certain it reached the pair, to maintain discretion, for all their sakes.

And she just might see if her ranger could arrange for her to meet the unusual drow, who despite alignment of the sister, still loved and protected their good family member.

senmut

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.

senmut

The Do'Urdens (750 words) by

senmut
Chapters: 1/1
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Canon-typical child abuse
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Dinin Do'Urden, Maya Do'Urden
Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Character study, Introspection, Canon Divergence
Summary:

Scens of various Do'Urdens

The Do'Urdens

'You should join me.'

Zaknafein has to look away from the hands signing those words. He doesn't know how to tell this man the depths of why he can't.

Jarlaxle has made a life that keeps him moderately comfortable, but Zak can't walk away.

So he offers a different take on it.

'If the House falls, then I will.'

He sees the resignation on his friend's face, feels it in how Jarlaxle shifts them on the bed.

'You tempt me to find reason to make Baenre wish that,' Jarlaxle taps out in code on Zak's arm, before ending all words.

The boy with lavender eyes being put under her control was but one point of seething anger for Vierna. The other was knowing how much of a test this was, because the Matron Malice wondered at her loyalty. She pushed the boy as hard as she dared, harder perhaps than any previous boy in their family for that reason.

It remained, though, that the boy was strong, intelligent, and able to meet nearly any challenge, just as she did. Zaknafien's blood gave them both the advantage.

Perhaps, one day, this male would be useful to her.

For now, she pushed.

"What are you doing? I didn't tell you that you could sleep yet!"

Drizzt managed, to not look up and glare at Maya, but it was a near thing. She'd had him running since he'd awakened, fetching every thing she could think of for him, and he knew she had slept once since then, while he was tasked with scrubbing her walls.

He missed Vierna, even with her biting whip, but at least she'd let him rest frequently.

He must have been too slow to respond, or Maya had seen the defiance, because her whip came out.

He would endure.

Zaknafien had two children.

Drizzt was the son of his soul even. He had never cast a second thought to Vierna, as she was a female, and much prized by the Matron of their house.

Long after he was dead, as the house was plunged into chaos and a war for its survival, Vierna wondered at her full brother's oddities.

As Matron Malice died, and she was cast into a rogue's life, Vierna wondered again.

Was a mere male truly stronger than their house? Was that strength in her?

She set foot in Jarlaxle's abode, and prayed it was so.

Most drow did not choose to regret the willful murder of someone else.

Dinin had a glimmer of the chaos he'd brought down on himself when the Weapon Master managed to persuade the Matron that his younger brother should be a fighter.

He felt a twinge of it when he nearly came to blows with the arrogant freak at the fighter school.

Leading him on patrols? Dinin felt a cascade of wishing he'd just let Nalfein live, given that he knew he'd never fend off an attack.

Fortunately, Drizzt didn't seem molded toward that kind of drow thinking, which only added to Dinin's unease instead of relieving it.

What kind of unholy horror had they set loose within their family?

There was almost a respect in Dinin's feelings for the way the younger drow had managed to beat them all so he could escape -- and Dinin had noticed his brother was injured when he did it.

He thought certainly all was done, until the day the Matron sent him with Briza to hunt Drizzt down. After that moment, Dinin was certain of two things: he never should have killed Nalfein, and he feared his brother more than anyone else in the family.

None of those regrets, though, could amount the ones he felt when Lloth reclaimed Vierna, driving her mad...

...and eventually he found himself in service to the Spider Queen Herself, a drider in her undead ranks.

All because he had stupidly coveted the Elderboy position and killed Nalfein.

"I know. It hurts. I am sorry, and wish it were quicker."

She could not answer him. Instead of reaching for her maces, Vierna had fled, choosing to get distance.

It had been as poor a mistake as the maces would have been. His blow had been less true, even if it was just as fatal. She looked up into his purple eyes, eyes that even now watered with pain… for her?

What was this brother who kept escaping Lloth's grasp?

As she thought it, she shuddered, part death-spasm, part awareness that a part of her was glad he lived.

somariel

Doing It Again (A Bit Less on the Fly & with a Little More Planning) (10,425 words) by somariel
Chapters: 5/5
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Characters: Drizzt Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Vierna Do'Urden, Alustriel Silverhand, Eilistraee, Vhaeraun
Additional Tags: Canon Divergence, Time Travel, Time Loop
Series: Part 12 of A Crossing of the Realms
Summary:

How would the events of To Do It Again change if the original timeline was the universe of Plans on the Fly?

Beginning Note

In addition to the linked inspiring fics, I highly recommend making sure you are familiar with the series To Steal a Priestess and Carving a Place, collectively called the Vierna’Verse by the authors, before reading this one.

The universe of “Plans on the Fly” diverges from the main Vierna’Verse late in the fic “Emergent Plans” and replaces the events of the rest of the fics in “To Steal a Priestess” with Vierna’Verse appropriate versions of the events of the book Homeland running from Drizzt’s graduation through the confrontation between Malice and Zaknafein over Drizzt’s actions on the raid, with “Plans on the Fly” itself starting just after that confrontation. And the changes caused by the events of “Plans on the Fly” most likely prevent the events of the fic “Plots Afoot” in “Carving a Place” from happening.

Additionally, this fic contains a certain amount of borrowing from “To Do It Again”.

Chapter One: Future Drizzt; Divine Negotiations

1298 DR

Drizzt sat in one of the map rooms, copying the fullness of the lands he had wandered. Alustriel had brought him to Silverymoon, and everyone was a stranger, even those whose names he knew, like Besnell and Taern. That last had taken him off guard; Taern was an older man, but human… and he was still an older man but human in this time as well.

He did not ask, though.

No, while Alustriel researched, communing with her sisters Syluné and the Simbul as more aware of time magic, Drizzt was putting his life in perspective. A copy of the map, the rough time periods he’d been in places, and what had happened there, was the thought he’d had.

He’d written a separate pair of notes, ones more personal, to give Alustriel. One warned about the attempt to assassinate Aumry that he had foiled, the other about the simultaneous attacks on Dove, Storm, and Shadowdale. Each was marked for the year prior to the events warned of within.

This map, though—Drizzt had to admit that he understood somewhat better just why people thought he’d lived too much in too short a time. He truly had done and seen much before settling in Silverymoon.

For Mithral Hall, he made clear that Bruenor had to be there, because of the dwarf curse. ‘The dragon sleeps’ was added, to contain any need to go ahead of the historic time to tackle that part. After all, if the dragon held the Hall, the drow could not take it.

Crenshinibon got a circle around the general area he had found it in, a questioning mark, and ‘very dangerous artifact; wizards beware’. Likewise, his comment for the tundra peoples themselves was ‘barbarians being themselves’ and the year that they massed.

Smaller notes, like his first meeting with Dove, the banshee lair they had located then, and the approximate location of the various individuals or groups he’d aided and when were dutifully marked in. Small or large, he made a map and time-line of his life.

The hardest note to write was the events of his very first time on the surface. If the family changed events then and there… Drizzt was uncertain what would transpire. But he owed Ellifain the chance to live well. So he detailed where her village was, and gave the number of fighters sent, including himself.

I beg of you to send the patrol back below. My dearest companion’s life, and possibly those of my father and sister, depends on me reaching the city once again.

Once he had it all spelled out in Common, he wrote another letter, this one on a thick piece of hide, using the impression script of his own people. He explained the events, giving details he would not want to be used to make matters worse for the unwary but good-wishing folk of Alustriel’s family. If they upset his time-line, he needed to leave a record, one that would help him use the map as a guide to be certain to save as many as he could.

This letter would remain with Alustriel as well. Only in the event of his untimely death or failure to emerge should it be opened, taken to Qilué to be deciphered.

That was the best he could do, appeasing his cautious nature and his need to protect in one fell swoop.

His careful work done, he put the map in a case, carrying it and the letters to the antechamber of the room Alustriel was meeting in this day. It was close enough to her usual break between courts that he didn’t mind waiting.

As she came out, accompanied by a Spellguard that Drizzt would never know in his own time, Drizzt stood and inclined his head to her.

“I apologize for intruding on your personal time, but I wished to deliver these to your safe keeping.”

Alustriel smiled warmly at him. That he had been keeping himself busy, and only rarely leaving the palace to go meditate in the Glade had not given her much time to assuage her curiosity about him, personally.

“I suppose, Saer Ranger, you will need to accompany me to my meal, then, to explain the items further,” she said, coming to his side.

Drizzt had shifted everything he carried so that his arm came up without thought, and Alustriel noted it.

This ranger existed within her inner circle in his proper time, and she was curious—oh so curious—why and how.

She guided their path to her rooms, where a meal was already being laid out, ample food for two people. Drizzt took in the differences in the room, something she also noted.

“Please be comfortable,” she said.

He nodded, setting the case and letters on a small table, but he did not, as normal for him, remove boots and sword-belt. This was not his Lady, not as she would be… maybe?

He did not want to chase the idea that their paths might not lead to the partnership that had been such an important part of his life for the last couple of years.

He took a seat at her table, and gave a smile to the staff before they departed.

“I thought it best to provide notes on my doings after I took up residence on the surface, and a letter for myself that I will entrust to you. As, once you unravel this spell, I have no way of knowing what I will know from any given point in time.”

“A wise precaution, as Sharr was correct. We cannot, in good conscience, allow you to have a difficult time of it, with what you did.” Alustriel smiled at him, even as he shook his head.

“The difficulties I faced, on the surface and in the Underdark alike, helped make me who I was, but there are certainly problems that I dealt with where an earlier awareness of them would be beneficial.

“As I have no idea how many some of the threats I dealt with had killed before my involvement.”

“That is… a good thing to be aware of. Hopefully, we can track such problems down before they are an issue for anyone,” Alustriel told him. “Tell me more of that over the meal? And anything else you believe will help protect people without causing larger issues? It will help me understand your notes more.”

“Gladly, Lady,” and Drizzt settled to talk with her.

“One thing that confuses me,” Alustriel said, as Drizzt walked her back from evenfeast, so that she could be seen by her people, “is why it took so long for you to meet any of my sister’s people.

“You mentioned that she herself came to teach you of the Dark Maiden while you were learning ranger skills from Dove and Florin, but by all you have shared, that was long enough after you took up residence on the surface that I would have expected you to have met—and learned from—one of the traveling bands before then.”

Drizzt sighed, but he smiled too. “I did not know this for some time, but apparently it was the Dark Maiden’s own choice to tread cautiously in regards to drawing me to Her worship. As She hoped that the continued love between me and my sister, despite our opposed natures, might provide a path to tempering the difficulties between Her and Her own brother.

“And so, while I did hear Her song in the moonlight, and She granted my blades Her moonfire blessing, She did not act to draw me to any of Her people.”

Alustriel made a quiet humming noise. “That is… an interesting choice. Do you know if Her hopes were—in any way—proving to be correct?”

“I know that Her brother never chided my sister for me, so… it is likely that they were, if only slowly.” Drizzt’s smile grew brighter before he continued. “Of course, I had the impression that She was not expecting progress to be swift.”

1314 DR

Eilistraee had paid close attention to the details when Her Chosen had shared the tale of the time-tossed drow ranger, as She knew that with the Silverhand family so invested in helping the younger version of him, it would be wise for Her to be more proactive about drawing him to Her than Her other self had been. And yet, with his beloved sister belonging so firmly to Her own brother, She also knew that Her other self’s caution had been warranted.

She had not dared to even try to so much as observe the younger version of the ranger during the remaining years of his raising in Her mother’s chapel, but once he was free of the chapel, Eilistraee looked in on him as often as She felt it was safe to do so. And every time, She became more certain that being more proactive would not only be wise, it was what would be best for Drizzt.

A test of how strongly good Drizzt’s nature was, made once he had moved into his father’s care, left Eilistraee astounded by the results, as his nature proved to be not just very strongly good, but so strongly called by the wilds that if She had not known exactly who She was Calling to, She would have easily believed she had Called to a wood elf!

And that meant that She had to negotiate with Her brother, as Drizzt would not fit among His followers, especially now, much better than he did among Their mother’s, and everything would go much more smoothly if He was aware of Her intentions and could ease matters with Drizzt’s sister.

While Vhaeraun was well aware that His sister still held some degree of affection for him, Eilistraee actually asking for a meeting with Him was unusual enough to rouse His curiosity, especially when She had offered to hold it on neutral ground—which was a welcome reassurance of Her good intentions, even if He had countered it with the suggestion of using the small domain She kept among the rest of the Dark Seldarine, as neutral ground was never truly private.

That She had accepted His counteroffer had made him even more curious, and now, a day later, the meeting was beginning. “What do You wish to speak with Me about, sister?”

“One of Your prized clerics has a beloved younger brother whose nature is, to be blunt, so strongly good, and called by the wilds, that he will not fit in among Your followers much better than he does among Our mother’s.”

“And why is this so important that it is necessary to bring it to My attention?” His words might seem indifferent, but with his hands, Vhaeraun asked, ‘City? House?’

“Because My Chosen’s family knows of the boy and is invested in helping him, once the two of them and their father leave the city of their birth,” Eilistraee replied, signing back ‘Menzoberranzan. Daermon N’a’shezbaernon.’

His suspicions confirmed, Vhaeraun asked, “And how did the Silverhands come to know of a boy that isn’t even old enough to attend the Academy, much less come to be invested in helping him?”

Eilistraee smiled. “That is a most unusual tale.” And then she began to tell it.

When she had finished, Vhaeraun was silent for a while, considering everything. Then he sighed, and said, “You wish for Me to reassure My priestess when the boy starts to hear You.”

“And to reassure You that I have no intention of interfering with Your plans for her.”

“Point. What are You willing to offer Me, as reassurance, and for Me to do as You wish?”

“I have only Called to the boy once,” Eilistraee said. “I am entirely willing to promise that I will not do so again until after the trio has left the city. And I am also willing to inform You when the Tall Ones set out to intercept the raid, so You can warn Your priestess to be ready to seize whatever opportunity arises from it being turned back.”

“Add that neither of us will try to influence the father,” Vhaeraun replied, “and that You will send some of Your followers—fully informed of Our agreement—to guide the boy to the Promenade once the trio has left the city, and I will accept those terms.”

“Agreed, then.”

Chapter Two: Changes Begin

1328 DR

“I am myself, and will ever be myself, no matter that the others around me are the strange ones for their lack of honor,” Drizzt said steadily, chin tipped up. His body was ready for a fight, if this man he had thought a friend and mentor took offense to his accusation on all drow.

Zaknafein felt his breath catch, his eyes widen, as he looked at the boy standing before him. Idiot, foolish, defiant child—but his son, not broken to Malice’s will after all.

“Darkness bless… how?” he murmured, soft and relieved, before his hands dropped his sword-belt to the floor and he extended both arms palm-out. “I did not dare hope…”

And yet, hope had gnawed at him with its bitter poison anyway.

Drizzt was confused for a moment, but that… that was obviously a peace gesture. He let his own belt drop and crossed the distance, wrapping his hands around Zak’s forearms. “You confuse me,” he admitted softly. “I thought us friends, but the school teaches how foolish that is. Yet—here you are, like this?

“I do not understand, Weapon Master.”

Zak laughed, a sound half bitter and half joyous, and shook his head before he leaned his forehead in to his son’s, hands firm around Drizzt’s forearms almost at the elbows. “You did not understand ten years ago, either, my young dancer. I picked that fight because I did not wish to see you made like your brother, or—night help me—even more like me.

“But when it came to the end… I could not find the strength to spare you, either.”

Purple eyes found Zak’s, as he filtered through the words, that day, and the way the fight had ended.

“You… wish me to be as I am, when it provokes my sisters, the Matron… all who know me?” he said slowly, his hands tightening. “But why? I do not wish to be like them, yet I have to walk carefully, as Vierna has been very clear about the potential consequences of failure to please any priestess, for all that she has more tolerance for me being myself if there are no others present.”

Vierna… let Drizzt be his strange self, if it was just the two of them? Why would she be willing to risk such, even if she was cultivating him with kindness like Zak suspected? That was a truly intriguing choice for a priestess as dedicated to Lloth as Vierna seemed to be.

Something in that thought sparked against an old memory, but Zak could chase it later. Right now, he needed to reply to his son. “I hate the Spider Queen, Drizzt. I hate what our people are, what I have done, all the endless blood and filth of our lives, all the joy in hate and,” he laughed a moment, “malice. You, my dancer, are the only real example I have ever had of anything better.”

There was Jarlaxle, but he was well aware his sometimes-lover would kill him for an advantage if truly necessary. He would not blame him much if he one day did… such was the way of the drow.

Drizzt took a slow, deep breath at hearing that, and then he smiled, eyes shining with joy. “I forgive that day,” he said, seriously, “but this is no way to live,” he added, his voice almost a breath of sound.

Zak thought he would destroy entire worlds to keep that light in Drizzt’s eyes, and was fairly certain he would have to. He took a soft breath of his own, and shrugged his shoulders, still holding Drizzt’s forearms. “I know,” he agreed, just as soft, “but what else is there? Where else is there?”

And that, the question of where else they could go, pulled a little harder on the memory that had been tugged at when he pondered Vierna’s actions with Drizzt.

“Even the wilds would be better than struggling to live against their lies and expectations,” Drizzt said. “Because… I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be part of what they wish me to be.” He pressed his forehead against Zak’s again. “We could survive, together,” he said, with all his heart latching onto this other drow that was not like the ones that made him so upset, all the time.

Zak considered that, a thoughtful hum in his throat for a moment. He had thought of running into the wilds, once or twice, but alone, it would be madness. The first time he needed to sleep, some monster would creep up on him, and that would be the end of him.

But two? When one of them was his dancer, his son, the only-near equal he had ever had?

And finally, the memory that had been jostled rose fully to the surface. The night Drizzt had been born, the Masked God had spoken to Zak, of Drizzt… and of Vierna. Vhaeraun Himself had called Vierna “most intriguing”. Was she not as sincerely devoted to Lloth as she seemed?

Bringing his attention back to the here-and-now, Zak replied to Drizzt’s suggestion. “Two might be able to survive,” he agreed. “Despite all the monsters and races that would hunger for our blood. …do you understand how hard it will be, though, my son?”

“You already know how hard life here will be for me,” Drizzt told him, “or you would not have chosen to battle me that day. Better to try, than face death, or worse, here.” Those last words, though, they hit Drizzt in his chest, as he heard the kinship claimed. He’d long suspected Rizzen had not sired him, but to know that? “Father.”

Zak smiled at him, one hand sliding from forearm up to cheek, nodding. “…I do, at that,” he agreed quietly. “We are going to have t—”

The floor shook. In Zak’s private quarters, a cup crashed to the floor.

In a breath, Zak had let go and rolled for his sword-belt, snatching it up as he went over it and latching the belt around his waist.

Simultaneously, he heard Vierna say, in the manner of a sending, ~Get Drizzt and meet me in the stables.~

With Vhaeraun’s comment about her freshly brought to mind, Zak was willing enough to reply ~Understood~, if still somewhat wary.

Drizzt was just behind Zak, following suit, his face going grim, and his mind switching to defense, away from the dreams of being free with his father—his father!—in the wilds of the Underdark.

“We will never have a better time than now to escape,” Zaknafein said over his shoulder, “if we are canny enough to do it.”

Drizzt caught up to him swiftly. “Then… work our way toward where our lizard riders would be?” he suggested. “At least one would help us, greatly.” He did not flinch as the house shook again, face full of hope.

Zaknafein nodded. He assumed that was why Vierna had made the request she did, since Drizzt was right, a tizzin would be a great help. And if that wasn’t why she wanted them to come there, well, they’d find a way to deal with it.

But would it be better to not surprise Drizzt with her presence there, so he said, “We might not be escaping alone. Vierna asked for us to meet her in the stables.” Drizzt cast him a questioning look at that statement, but a shake of Zak’s head and a signed ‘No time’ kept him quiet.

Zak would have preferred time to plan, to gather supplies, to do anything but simply run… but that was apparently not an option. So. Time to improvise, and get his son—and maybe his daughter—out of Menzoberranzan.

Matron Malice sending the Weapon Master on a long errand that lasted past Drizzt’s graduation had scuttled Vierna’s original plan for escaping with the two of them, and she was not going to reveal her true loyalties to the Weapon Master until she had a new plan, but even so, she had been keeping a pack filled with currency ready ever since she brought Drizzt home from the Academy, just in case an opportunity came up unexpectedly.

So when her Lord had warned her, a few days before Drizzt and Dinin’s patrol was due to return, that she should be ready to leave soon, she had taken the extra steps of adding some travel rations to the pack of currency, and coaxing one of her smaller pirate spiders into a jar for traveling.

The news of the failed raid left her wondering how her Lord had known of it, as the disfavor on the House because of Lloth’s anger was surely what was going to provide the opportunity to escape.

Coming up out of a light sleep because the house had just shaken was a surprise, but she also knew that there would be no better time to escape than with the House under attack. So even as she gathered her maces and the pack and jar, she sent to Zaknafein. And then, having received his agreement, she made her own way to the stables.

She was not surprised that she reached the stables first, but since time was of the essence, she went ahead and saddled a second tizzin after she had done so for her own preferred mount. And by the time she was finished doing that, Zaknafein and Drizzt had arrived.

As he slipped into the stables, Zak was pleased to see that Vierna was almost finished with saddling a second tizzin, her own already tacked up. Three would have been even better, but they could make do with just the two.

Moving to open all the doors, he told his son, “Tell one or two to hunt those without our emblems; the others will likely follow.”

He focused his amulet on the angriest of their herd, giving it the same directions, before moving to mount the second tizzin, as Vierna had finished with it while he was opening the doors.

Vierna was very glad that she had already mounted when Drizzt gave his command to one of the matriarchs, as his desire for them to hunt was so strong in his voice that she—and Zak too, she noticed—had to briefly reinforce her control over her chosen mount to keep it from following the pack.

As Drizzt mounted behind Zaknafein, she said, “I will follow your lead, Weapon Master.”

Zak nodded in response, and let his and Drizzt’s beast follow the herd out the doors, the beasts’ clawed feet and snapping maws making a path, and then sent it for the nearest wall and up, crawling out the destroyed gates upside down. From there, after a brief check to make sure that Vierna was following close behind, he headed the tizzin for the closest small passage out of the city entirely.

Zak was grateful that Vierna had remained quiet while he helped Drizzt work through his emotional crisis over having killed another drow, but once Drizzt had settled down to rest, he turned his attention to her.

Choosing to use the silent language so as not to disturb Drizzt’s rest, he asked her, ‘You’re not as devout as you seem, are you?’

Vierna was still for a moment that seemed like an eternity to Zak, and then she reached inside her robes and drew out… Vhaeraun’s mask! Well, no wonder He had called her “very intriguing”!

She held it to her face for three long heartbeats, then tucked it away again, before signing, ‘Full explanations should wait until Drizzt wakes.’

‘Agreed,’ Zak signed back. He paused, then decided to go ahead and add what he had wanted to say for so long. ‘My daughter.’

Vierna felt her chest tighten as Zaknafein confirmed what she had long suspected. ‘I’m glad it’s you,’ she signed back, before reaching out and offering her hands to him.

He took them, and she squeezed his hands gently, once, then let go.

‘Do you need to rest?’ she signed.

‘No. You?’

Vierna took a moment to consider, then signed, ‘Wake me in two hours. The attack woke me up.’

‘Okay.’

Chapter Three: A Sharp Turn in the Traveled Path

As she had promised, once Drizzt woke, Vierna gave the needed explanations—including that Vhaeraun now recommended that they head for a place called Skullport, which was apparently not a drow city, but had a significant drow population, including one of His temples—and then the three of them moved on, letting the pair of tizzin guide them to water.

They soon settled into a rhythm, Vierna riding while holding the pathfinding spell, and Zak and Drizzt switching off on which of them walked and which rode the second tizzin. The fact that they only had the one waterskin that Vierna had had in her pack and little food meant that she was always keeping those spells on tap, but they also gathered what food they found as they traveled, to reduce their need for such reliance. When they paused to rest, they would sleep in shifts, Zak taking the first watch, Drizzt the second, and Vierna the third.

The House amulets were holding with the tizzin, though Drizzt realized he didn’t actually have to lean into it to get them to do as he wished.

An encounter with a small war party of duergar had gained them more packs, more waterskins, and more rations, allowing Vierna to stop keeping those spells ready and replace them with ones more useful for dealing with the threats they might encounter.

As they were breaking their fast after one of their stops for rest, Drizzt asked his father and sister, “Have either of you been having dreams that seem… otherworldly?”

Vierna sat up straighter at the question, a frisson of concern running down her spine, but it was Zak who responded first.

“Otherworldly? How so?” he asked, cocking his head slightly.

Drizzt considered how to explain, and thought of his brief glimpse of the surface. “Tall things, with many branches, small things coming off them. I saw something like that on the surface, and most of the time, my dreams look like what I saw up there, mostly dark, with a bright circle high overhead that bathes everything in a silvery light, but sometimes it’s brighter and everything has bright colors and strange textures. I see small creatures that are warm, soft, with fur like the bats, but… more?

“Waters that flow and run and crash against things to spew foam and spray into the air. And the dreams with the bright circle in the dark have a beautiful song drifting through them.”

A beautiful song coming with dreams of a bright circle high overhead in the dark? Vierna’s frisson of concern turned to one of fear. Though she did not know what the brighter dreams might mean, that had to be the Dark Maiden’s song her brother was hearing. Was she going to lose him to Her?

“That is the surface,” Zak agreed, “bright during the day, when the ‘sun’ is up, and dark at night under the ‘moon’.

“I was taken, once, on a raid as you were. Most of the few creatures I saw were bat-furred, not slick or scaled. I wonder at you dreaming of it, though, when you have never seen it by day, and had other things to be concerned about during the raid.”

Drizzt ducked his head, then focused solely on his food for a moment, as he struggled with the words. Once he had an idea of what to say, he looked at his father again. “I felt right, when we first emerged. Curious, yes, but every smell, every sensation, the tiny lights above us… they called to me.

“But I’d put that away, in my fear to survive the onslaught of the giant misshapen faerie, to try and make certain Dinin made it back, to not get hit by the spells and blades they used.”

Vierna was too surprised by Drizzt saying he had felt like the surface called to him to question the phrasing about the faerie, but when their father did so, repeating it quizzically and lifting a brow at Drizzt, she paid close attention to her brother’s answer.

“They were so tall,” Drizzt said. “Taller than Briza. And their ears, their eyes… they were wrong, but not like Tanal Hrisski in school, the demon born fighter. Just… blunted? And they all used magic, and all of them had swords and knew how to use them!” Drizzt shuddered all over. “I felt like they were toying with us, all the way back to the priestess.”

While Vierna was certainly concerned about the fact that Drizzt was hearing the Dark Maiden’s song—and she could tell that Zak was concerned as well—she had not thought her concern was significant enough that her Lord would feel a need to speak with her about the matter.

And yet, after she settled down to sleep that night, she found herself in Vhaeraun’s realm.

“Be at ease, My priestess,” He said. “While your concern for your brother is welcome, it is not needed. His nature drew My sister’s attention years ago, and We have long since come to an agreement about the two of you.”

Vierna let out a sigh of relief on hearing that. “Thank you, my Lord.” She dipped a shallow bow to Him, even as her mind started spinning with questions that she was not going to ask—or at least, that she was not going to ask Him. Zaknafein might be able to answer some of them, after all, and some simply seemed impertinent to ask.

When Vierna signed ‘Need to talk later, while Drizzt sleeps’, Zak was sure he knew what she wanted to discuss. After all, he shared her concerns about the fact that Drizzt was being called by the Dark Maiden, and it would be beneficial to have a plan in place well before they arrived at Vhaeraun’s temple in Skullport.

So he was rather surprised when Vierna started the conversation by signing, ‘My Lord says we don’t need to be concerned over Drizzt hearing His sister.’

Zak couldn’t help a swift breath in at those words, but he at least managed to not make any sound that might disturb Drizzt. ‘That is… unexpected, if welcome,’ he replied. ‘Though I do wish to know why, and how He knew that Drizzt was hearing Her.’

‘What He said was that Drizzt’s nature drew Her attention years ago, and They have long since come to an agreement about the two of us,’ Vierna answered. ‘So He must have been paying close attention to me, in order to know when He needed to tell me that.’

Zak was very glad that he was sitting down, because that was… unbelievable. Vhaeraun and Eilistraee had an agreement regarding his children? Had, in fact, had one for years, and were still holding to it? ‘I wonder which of you has interesting times ahead,’ he signed, letting his shock out with an attempt at humor. ‘Assuming it’s not both of you, of course.’

Vierna gave a shaky smile of relief at Zak’s words. She had long since realized that he was—very understandably—doubtful, if not outright wary, of all things divine, so she had been uncertain how he would react to learning that she and Drizzt together had a significant amount of divine attention. ‘I very much hope it’s not both of us,’ she replied. ‘Because Drizzt is the obvious candidate if it’s only one of us and I like being comfortable.’

‘Which interesting times usually aren’t,’ Zak agreed. ‘And with Drizzt dreaming of the daytime surface, I have to agree with that assessment.’

‘Speaking of the surface, do you think that the strange faerie that turned back the raid acted the way they did because they knew one of the members of the patrol was of Eilistraeean nature?’ That possibility had occurred to Vierna almost immediately on learning that Drizzt had had the Dark Maiden’s attention for years, but Zak had a better sense of tactical and strategic decisions than she did.

Zak took a few moments to think that over, because yes, that would explain their actions quite well, but if they had known about Drizzt, there was another route they could have taken that would have held less risk for the faerie. ‘Maybe. But it would have been less risk to them if they simply captured Drizzt and killed the rest of the patrol. So why didn’t they just do that instead?’

‘Less risk to Drizzt to just turn the patrol back, though.’

‘Point. And even if they had some way of identifying him, plans get destroyed quickly when people are fighting for their lives. We can’t tell Drizzt, though.’

‘No, we can’t,’ Vierna agreed, having already reached the same conclusion. ‘He’s not ready to deal with divine interest in his life, and we’d have to explain the agreement to explain why we think the faerie acted that way.’

Catching a sound ahead of them—a half-heard murmur, a tiny impression of armor and cloth in the next tunnel they meant to use—Zaknafein’s hand snapped out in a firm, silent ‘stop’ that had Drizzt and Vierna both bring their tizzin to an instant halt, though Drizzt’s head tipped in question.

‘People,’ Zak signed, ‘ahead.’

Something in the sound had said ‘drow’, and Vierna had told him that morning that Vhaeraun had informed her they would be meeting a party of Eilistraeeans—who were fully aware of His agreement with His sister—today, but he could not be certain. They could be any of the other sentient races of the Underdark, after all. He drew the hood of his piwafwi fully around his face, then fastened the lower catch that invoked its more powerful concealment spells.

Precautions taken, he began to carefully slip along the wall of the tunnel towards the joining, watching the walls as carefully as he would watch for traps in the beginning of an assault on another House.

Vierna and Drizzt had both dismounted while Zak was arranging his piwafwi, and Vierna levitated up even as their father began to slip forward, a spell ready on her tongue for if it proved necessary.

Maze and Path—as Drizzt had taken to calling Vierna’s tizzin and the other one, respectively—each laid down to a gentle pat and push from Drizzt, lowering their profiles. Drizzt then levitated up himself, and slowly, carefully loaded a quarrel on the crossbow he’d liberated. He and Vierna would keep watch from above, and the tizzin would stay as they were until there was battle.

At that point, Drizzt knew they would join the fray; Maze had already shown her loyalty to them by trampling a charging fell-drake several days before, and Path had been just as fast to move to deal with it, even though Maze had beaten her to doing so.

Zak got in view of the people—drow. Four of them, with three carrying swords, two of which had fighting daggers as well. The last of them was in robes laced through with sword motifs and crescents. They were all moving with skill, but… not as much as Zak would expect for drow in such a deep part of the Underdark.

The robed one was definitely a woman, but the fighters could have been either gender with the way their armor and tunics—not piwafwi—fell. Between the lack of piwafwi, the skill that was not quite as good as would be expected here, and the swords and crescents on the robes, Zak thought it likely that this was the expected party, but he wasn’t going to consider them safe until he was certain of it.

One of the fighters suddenly signed a halt, and the other three turned towards that one, the one in robes signing a query Zak could not—quite—read from this distance. The fighter half-shrugged, and his responding signs were as difficult to catch as the robed one’s. They at least had skill in that.

The one in robes nodded, faced away from the rest of her party, and her fingers danced for a moment. Her red gaze slid from left to right in an arc… and stopped on him. Dead on him, despite that he knew his piwafwi blended him perfectly into the stone around him.

“Greetings, stranger—or strangers, rather,” the robed woman said in an easy, low alto voice. “Will you join us?”

Well, that was a clear invitation, and he wasn’t going to find out more without interacting with them, so he might as well take it. “Why do you wander the wilds, I would know,” Zak stated clearly, as he removed the extra protections to be more visible.

“Looking for those who have escaped cities where the Spider Queen rules,” the cleric answered, “for each who flees and is willing to abide in peace strengthens our numbers. My name is Ravenna.”

“Interesting, dangerous, and potentially unwanted,” Zak told her without a trace of more than bare manners. He was done giving unearned respect, and from the little he did know, an Eilistraeean cleric would not expect it the way a Llothite one would. “Zaknafein. And I’ve had my fill with religion, but peace does not come easily to a survivor of the Spider Bitch.” But even as he said that, he was signing, ‘Looking for anyone in specific, or just generally?’

Two of the fighters grinned at his use of that epithet for Lloth. “Plenty of call for our blades still,” one of them said in a masculine voice. “Sriva. We have plenty that would see us wiped out, once we escape.”

“All true,” Ravenna agreed, nodding at Zaknafein and Sriva. “I am regrettably sure that the best we can ask for is peace in our own community, not with the world in general. If it’s not that eight-legged malignant excuse for a goddess’s followers hunting us as traitors, it’s most of every other race trying to kill us for how we look.

“Frustrating, but it is what it is.” And as she spoke aloud, she also signed, ‘Looking for three people specifically, but glad to help others, too.’

That was probably as clear an indication that this was the expected party as Zak was likely to get while he was the only one visible, so he pitched his voice to behind him and said, “Vierna, Drizzt, come.”

Vierna dropped down first, but she waited until Drizzt had done so as well before she started moving towards their father. And after a moment, in which the quarrel and crossbow were put away, Drizzt began moving that way too, beckoning Maze and Path to follow.

When the new drow came into view, Maze and Path both hissed at them, and Maze even tried to get ahead of Drizzt and Vierna.

“Easy, Path,” Drizzt said, his voice gentle. “Stop that, Maze,” he continued, adding a reassuring pat along Maze’s shoulder. “Hello.” Seeing how… not exactly at ease, but at least not wary… his father and sister were with the newcomers, he didn’t bother to weigh their threat potential. Besides, the three of them against just four others was decidedly not an even fight, even with the cleric, and the advantage was on his family’s side.

“Night above!” Sriva exclaimed, but barely above a conversational tone. “Are you even old enough to be out of school?! …apologies, I should not have said that. Greetings. You likely heard, but I’m Sriva.”

Vierna had reached their father’s side by then, and signed against his hand, ‘Seems fairly young himself, to actually say such.’

‘Reminds me of Drizzt, yes,’ Zak signed back.

Drizzt didn’t bridle, but only because Sriva did look abashed a little to have blurted that out. “I graduated this year, yes,” he said. “I am Drizzt. The tizzin have decided being called Maze,” he patted her on the shoulder again, “and Path,” and pointed to the other, “is fine.”

Vierna was proud of her brother’s composure. And while she still did not want him to leave her, if he went with these people, his honesty and joyful nature would survive longer than if he stayed with her.

“Then you must be Vierna,” Zelzalle said, turning to the woman who was now standing beside Zaknafein. “Greetings to both of you, and to Maze and Path as well. I am Zelzalle.”

“I am,” Vierna agreed.

Maze snorted to be addressed, but quit posturing quite so threateningly at Drizzt’s utter calm.

“It has been a while since I’ve seen a tizzin,” Elkantar said, admiring the beasts. Both females, he thought, which… might be useful, down the road, if Drizzt stayed with them long enough. “They both look to be in excellent condition, though. I’m Elkantar, and our cleric is Ravenna.”

Chapter Four: Turning to the New Life

Alustriel had just come in from her nightly routine among her people. She was in the midst of undressing with the help of an unseen servant when she felt her sending anklet tingle before she was touched by one of her sisters.

~Alustriel, it seems everything has changed,~ Qilué began, ~as Elkantar has found your ranger… with his father and sister. The father is apparently very neutral to my cleric’s casting.~

~With his father and sister?~ Alustriel asked in shocked surprise (and not a little relief) before she continued, ~isn’t it more than five years early? How did they come to meet?~

That ran out her sister’s sending, and she set off her own. ~Not that I’m not glad, and Andy will be overjoyed… but how?~

~I do not have the full story yet, but they were already on their way to Skullport, with a pair of tizzin, and their amulets are fading slowly.~ Too slowly for the maker and the matron to both be dead, but Qilué thought it was entirely likely that it was the maker who was dead, and the ‘matron’ keeping them from fading faster was the sister with the ranger. Nor did she hold any grief over that. She waited through the recharge, then sent again. ~I will let you know more, once the ranger is safely at the Promenade.~

~Of course. Thank you,~ Alustriel answered, smiling across the sending anklet. ~ My love to you, sister.~

While talking with Ravenna as they traveled had been interesting, especially for the insight into how a woman of Eilistraeean nature managed to survive in a Llothite city long enough to escape, it had also revealed that the fact there was an agreement between Vhaeraun and Eilistraee, over her and Drizzt, was known in the Eilistraeean community. Having the needed discussion of the matter could not happen while they were still on the move, but Vierna did get an agreement from Ravenna to have it after they stopped to rest.

That discussion, which had included Elkantar and Zaknafein as well as her and Ravenna, had ended with the conclusion that Drizzt really did need to know the agreement existed, but Drizzt’s unreadiness for divine interest in his life made eliding things to imply that the agreement was a recent event that had happened because of the dreams he had mentioned a reasonable way to handle the matter.

Even knowing that the reason her Lord had advised her to leave the others earlier today was because He was sending some people from His temple to guide her the rest of the way to Skullport, seeing the faint gleam of faerie fire ahead as she came around a curve in the tunnel still roused the instinct for caution that had helped her survive in Menzoberranzan, especially since this was the first sign of other people she had seen in the few hours since then.

But as she stepped into the lighted portion of the tunnel, she saw that the faerie fire was in the shapes of Night Above animals—one called a ‘cat’, and the other a ‘raven’. Both were symbols Vhaeraun used, and in the light were four drow. Two were in masks that matched the one she had tucked inside her robes, and the other two each wore a paired sword and dagger. Furthermore, the genders of the group were evenly split, with both the clerics and their guards being one each of male and female. “Greetings,” she called across the twenty yards or so to them.

“Greetings to you, our fellow Shade,” the male cleric answered. “Our Lord has sent us to bring you safely to His temple in Skullport, Redeemed One.”

This could still be a trap, as Vhaeraun had warned her that in addition to those associated with His temple, there was another faction of His followers in Skullport, though it had fewer females than the Temple’s faction. But there was an easy way to discern which faction these four were from, even without communing with her Lord.

“Then I am glad to meet you and your guards, fellow Shades,” she said. “Has our Lord informed you of the… unusual circumstances… surrounding me?”

The female cleric laughed brightly. “You mean His agreement with the Dark Maiden regarding your family? Indeed He has.” Then she reached up and put back her mask. “I am Kaiyeth, one of our Temple’s Shadow Hunters, and I am most pleased to meet you, Vierna Do’Urden.”

“And I am Natoth,” the male cleric said, putting back his own mask, “also a Shadow Hunter. Our guards are Tebryn and Chaurah.”

Five weeks later

Once she and Zaknafein were safely in her quarters, with the door locked, Vierna gave into the urge she had refused to follow in public, and hugged him. And after a brief moment of startled tension, he relaxed and returned it.

“I missed you,” she said, once the hug had ended. “Not knowing when you were going to feel Drizzt was safely settled at the Promenade was hard on me.” And as she spoke, she moved to take a seat on the couch.

Zak followed her over and took his own seat before replying. “We should work on obtaining a pair of sending stones, then, since I knew three weeks ago that I was going to be coming here with the Promenade’s trade caravan.

“Though it makes the most sense for you and Drizzt to be the ones who hold them, given that I’m going to be cycling back and forth.”

“That was, what, a week and a half after you arrived at the Promenade? I’m not—quite—surprised that Drizzt settled in so fast, but what was it that made you willing to set a time to leave so early?”

“Partly that Drizzt had settled in well enough to play a small prank on me, and partly that he was very clearly in the process of being… semi-adopted, I guess… by Elkantar and his daughter, so he wasn’t going to be without support if I left.”

“Semi-adopted?” Vierna repeated. “What do you mean by that?

“While both of them were quite clear on the fact that they weren’t trying to take our places in Drizzt’s life, Elkantar was explicitly encouraging Drizzt to think of him as an… ‘uncle’, he called it, a parent’s brother. And Ysolde is very pleased that there’s now someone so close in age to her at the Promenade—she’s less than a decade older than Drizzt—and has been carefully building a friendship with him, and encouraging him to call her ‘cousin’ if he wishes.”

“Ahh, so it’s not adoption in the manner we’re used to, but it’s still—in a way—bringing Drizzt into their family.” Vierna hummed thoughtfully for a moment. “What about Ysolde’s mother? Or is it just the two of them?”

“Qilué is being very careful to let Drizzt set the pace in their interactions,” Zak answered, “as she is the Dark Maiden’s high priestess, and well aware of how wary men who have escaped Llothite cities are of powerful women.”

Chapter Five: Needed Changes and Revelations

1345 DR

Given Drizzt’s dreams of the daytime Surface, Vierna had known that he would eventually leave the Promenade to explore up there, so when Zak told her, once they were settled on her couch, that her brother had finally gone and done so, the only thing she truly found surprising was the frown on Zak’s face as he spoke of it.

“What has you displeased with Drizzt’s decision?” she asked. “You have to have known it was going to happen eventually.”

Zak sighed. “Partly a wish that he’d been willing to wait longer to go—though I’m well aware that if not for his work with the tizzin, he surely would have left before now—but mostly, I wish that he’d at least been willing to join one of the traveling bands instead of going off alone.”

Vierna frowned herself on hearing that. She was displeased by that choice as well, even if she could understand why Drizzt had made it. “Does he have any way of obtaining aid that doesn’t require him to be able to think well enough to use the sending stones?”

“Ysolde gave him a contingency necklace, that will transport him to safety if he’s injured badly enough that he would lose consciousness,” Zak answered.

“And Drizzt accepted it?” Vierna couldn’t help her incredulity, knowing just how much her brother hated even the appearance that people were going out of their way to help him, and the commission of a contingency trigger item was not a small thing. “Also, where exactly will it take him?”

“Drizzt said that Ysolde refused to accept any arguments over it, and he chose not to waste the effort, but she told me later that casting it as something selfish on her part, so that she would have less reason to worry about him, helped settle him more.

“And it will take him to a room, with potions, in Blackstaff Tower, which will send an alarm to the Silverhand, the Blackstaff, and any other mage in the Tower that the Silverhand trusts to come help, and send to the Promenade.”

Drizzt had taken the map tube and the letter, written in the style of the drow of the Underdark, after listening to a strange tale of a man he might have been in some other life. He did not want to open either near others, not after the Lady explained that they knew of him because — of him?

Time magic, he decided, made no sense.

Now, sitting on a ledge above the milling tizzin, away from everyone, he opened the map first. Faerie fire was enough to see it was the north of Faerun, all the way up to the tundra of the Far North, and annotated with dates and notes at several places.

Some of those dates were gone now, but new notes, in a handwriting that was not his own (and it was so strange to know that he had written those notes!) told him the Tall Ones had gone and dealt with events on his behalf.

”You saved their father, near the time that this you was born, or soon after. They wanted to take you on the surface, that first time, but you’d felt it was very important to go back.”

The Lady’s words stayed with him, and his hands shook a little when he opened the actual letter.

“With Mielikki’s grace, it is my own self that this letter is given to. I have enjoined Alustriel to only give it to another to be read if … I have changed things too much and you/I do not emerge in time.”

It was a strange opening, but the impressions in the hide were clear to Drizzt’s fingers, including the utter familiarity used in spelling out the name of a powerful arch mage.

“If my wishes were followed, you were sent back to Menzoberranzan after a raid. It was my hope that in saving the elf lord, father to my friends, that you/I would manage to escape with Father and Vierna without the need for Vierna to improvise with Father’s life on the line. If Father’s life still ended up in danger, I can only hope that your Vierna was as successful as mine. If she was not… I am sorry for the grief you and she know.”

Father — in danger — (or dead?) — NO!

He blessed this older time-tossed version of himself for taking the risk, instead of arranging to remove him at the time of the raid!

“There is no guarantee of how things will play out, so I cannot know if you have met Dove Falconhand. If you have not met her, and through her, her husband Florin, you may not know that the whispers that guide you in dealing with evil and threats to the wilds—if such exist, and how terrible if not—are from Mielikki. She is a goodly goddess, who holds no enmity with Eilistraee, and will be your staunch ally if you wish it. If you wish to learn more, I recommend seeking Florin Falconhand.”

Drizzt knew those names already, knew Dove to be one of the Lady’s sisters. His life was meant to tangle with them, it seemed?

“Barring that, Silverymoon’s clerics of Mielikki will accept you for who you are. Silverymoon is home to me—though I am always welcome to visit Vierna and Father—but whether it will be for you is one you must learn.”

The letter broke off, and then there were notes, larger than the ones on the map, giving more details about what had happened, who to watch out for, who to seek if he chose to walk those paths.

Drizzt looked at the map again, and saw not just adventure, but purpose, chances to take.

And then he noted, written in ink instead of impressions, at the very bottom of the letter, there were two more words, and a date.

“Beware Menzoberranzan.”

He sought the date on the map, and found it beneath one a little earlier, with a note that said ‘invasion’.

That… well. It was a long while off, and Drizzt had friends to meet before that. He put the map away, folded the letter carefully, and then laid back on the ledge to let it all sink in.

When he did move, it was not to return to the Lady, but to go find his father. At this time, he should be home.

“Father and I are coming to Skullport. I’ve learned some things and need to talk to both of you.”

Vierna had been worrying ever since Drizzt had sent to her with that message, so once he and Zak were both safely within her rooms, and she had locked the door behind them, she pulled him into a hug.

Feeling the unusual fierceness with which he reciprocated the hug, she asked, “Are you all right, Drizzt?”

“I… think so?” He eased up some, then, and shifted so he could see her face. “I just… I know why Vhaeraun and Eilistraee needed to have an actual formal agreement about you and me. I know why the raid was so carefully turned back. Which is fine. You’re here, and Father’s here… and that is perfect.”

“We are all here,” Vierna agreed, though he wasn’t acting like everything was fine, and Zak’s signed ‘Most he’s said yet’ confirmed her thoughts, “here and well and safe.”

And apparently some of her dubiousness had leaked into her voice, because Drizzt pulled back from her, gave a serious look to both her and Zak, and took a deep breath. “I could let you see the map and read the letter, but it’s very… hard to believe. Other than for the fact it is in my handwriting, and I can see my life having gone as described, if we had gone to one of Vhaeraun’s cities after leaving Menzoberranzan.

“And in a world that was different, we did do so.”

Vierna frowned, then started guiding Drizzt towards the couch, with Zak following. “Come sit down, little brother, and tell us what you’re talking about. Because you’re not making a great deal of sense.”

Drizzt obeyed, taking a seat between her and Zak before he tried to find the right words.

“I apparently lived a life to a point well past this one, and got ensnared in a time spell by an elf-witch. That was marked on the map, with ‘do not go’ and a year. I would have been in my sixties by that date.” Then he turned to look directly at Zak. “You… ended up with your life in danger, after the raid but before we escaped, and Vierna had to improvise to save you. In that world.”

Vierna did not like the idea that things had gotten to that point in the other world, but she could actually see how they might have. But before she could say that, Zak spoke.

“Did your… other-self, future-self, however you want to phrase it… say anything of how? Or why?”

“No,” Drizzt answered. “Only that he was hoping, by leaving warnings, that the events would change, and you would not end up in danger. If you still did, he hoped that my Vierna was as successful as his, and if she was not, he was sorry for our grief.”

Drizzt smiled wryly, and Vierna took advantage of his pause to speak. “I actually can see a way that events would have reached such a state.”

Drizzt and Zak both turned to look at her in surprise. “How?” Zak asked, voice low and intent.

“Drizzt, you said that you now know why the raid was turned back with such care. I can easily guess that it must have been due to knowledge left by your other-self. Which means in that other world, it must not have been turned back. But I cannot imagine that you would have participated in the killing.”

“I… No! I’d never…!” Drizzt sounded honestly horrified by the very idea.

Vierna reached out to rub his back soothingly for a moment before continuing. “So I find myself wondering, what would you have done if you saw a chance to spare the life of one of the faerie by making it look like you had killed them, especially if it was a child?”

“I’d take it, no matter how risky!”

Zak’s face lit up in comprehension. “Which would piss off the Spider Bitch. But Her disfavor on the House would not be publicly known, so Hun’ett would be more cautious about planning their attack.”

Vierna nodded. “Then, since Malice was already aware that another House was moving against ours, if she thought she had Lloth’s favor—whether for Drizzt’s supposed actions on the raid, or for another reason—she would seek to take advantage of that perceived favor to find out which House it was.”

Drizzt frowned, then gave a great sigh. “And when she was rejected because of the disfavor, she’d start investigating to find out who had brought it on the House.

“But I never would have told anyone, so how would she have learned of what I had done?”

“Not even me,” Zak asked, “if I was furious enough over what you were believed to have done to force a fight between us?

“Because if I thought the Academy had broken you to the point where you were willing to kill a faerie child, I would be. And you and I would have been considered the most likely suspects for having done something that angered Lloth.”

“Oh,” Drizzt said, “I see. Malice would have been spying on us, and learned that way.”

“Yes,” Vierna said. “And Father never would have let you be the sacrifice Lloth would have required to be appeased. So I would indeed have had to improvise to save him, as Malice would not have allowed any delay in performing the sacrifice once she had agreed.

“But that’s enough discussion of something that never happened for us. Your other-self left warnings, but you also mentioned a map earlier?”

Drizzt shifted closer to Zak, clearly needing the reassurance of physical contact after having what could have happened laid out so clearly, but once Zak had wrapped an arm around him, he answered.

“My other-self mapped out his life on the Surface, with notes for every place and time he had helped people, or dealt with some threat. He was quite busy, apparently. But the Tall Ones, Lady Veladorn’s nephews, have been handling the events on the map, to be sure that the changes to my timeline didn’t result in others being harmed.”

“I’m glad they have been, little brother,” Vierna said, “as otherwise you would be fretting over the places and people he had helped. Your other-self must have made quite an impression on them, though.”

“He saved their father,” Drizzt said soberly. “An elf lord, my other-self said. And that put all of this in motion, from them being so careful to turn our raid back, to Lady Veladorn knowing to send Elkantar to meet us, and even Eilistraee and Vhaeraun making a formal agreement about you and me.

“And… I think that me was very close to their mother. Because he wrote her name in the familiar sense, without any honorifics.”

Zak hummed noncommittally at that last bit, and Vierna herself had to suppress a frown. She really wasn’t sure what she thought of the idea that Drizzt might someday end up so close to such a powerful woman, though at least with it being one of Lady Veladorn’s Surface sisters, she could be sure that it would be entirely his own choice.

“So what do you plan to do now?” Zak asked.

“I’m going to use the map to guide me,” Drizzt said. “It may lead to some longer absences, but Vierna and I do have the sending stones.”

“I will miss you during those longer absences,” Vierna said, “but I know better than to try and talk you out of doing so.”

Even so, there were further things to discuss about his plan, but for now, she just wrapped her own arm around him, and settled in to enjoy the company of her family.

somariel

Divine Snit Fits Occasionally Bring Good Things (4,302 words) by somariel
Chapters: 1/1
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Characters: Zaknafein Do'Urden, Qilué Veladorn, Elkantar Iluim, Drizzt Do'Urden, Ensemble Cast
Additional Tags: Canon Divergence
Summary:

When a very annoyed minor deity re-embodied Zaknafein and left him at the Promenade of the Dark Maiden, They imparted to him two commands and a piece of knowledge.

Not dying anytime in the next century? That should be easy now that he's out of the pit of misery that Menzoberranzan is.

Finding a patron? The Spider Bitch made him disinclined to take one, but the Dark Maiden seems like she might actually be reasonable.

Knowing that his son is alive somewhere? That's... going to be more difficult to resolve.

A fic that picks up where senmut's abandoned fic "Pyrra's Snit Fit" left off.

Divine Snit Fits Occasionally Bring Good Things

Zaknafein finished the food before the music and dancing came to an end, though there was still water in the skin Qilué had given him.

And once he had, he turned the portion of his attention that had been devoted to eating towards watching Qilué specifically—something made easy by her uncommon tallness for a drow.

As he watched, however, he found himself becoming somewhat confused. Because for all that it was clear to him that Qilué was the leader of these drow, there was none of the deference that a high priestess of Lloth would require from those around her.

And when the dancing ended, Zak found himself actually surprised, as—based on the fact that she was accepting drinks from the waterskins of others instead of using one of her own—it appeared that not only had she given him her only waterskin, she did not expect anyone to fully give up theirs as a replacement.

As everyone scattered to towel off the sweat and put back on the clothes they had discarded for the dancing, Elkantar casually took another look around the clearing, confirming that their mysteriously appearing newcomer still seemed to have most of his attention focused on Qilué.

And once his tunic was back on and he was buckling his swordbelt, he quietly mentioned that focus to his consort.

"I know, love," she answered. "Given what the musteval said about him, I'd be surprised if he wasn't doing that."

"He's very newly escaped, then?"

"I don't think he had escaped before Someone... mmm, not pleased with Lolth... intervened in his life."

Elkantar winced. "So he hasn't even had a chance to live free of the forced roles Lolthite society demands.

"Do you want me to take over dealing with him?"

"I think that would be for the best, yes."

Zak's attention had necessarily widened somewhat when the other drow scattered around the open area where the dancing had taken place, but he still had enough of it on Qilué to notice immediately when the man she had been speaking with began to head towards him.

As he moved towards the newcomer—Zaknafein Do'Urden, Qilué had said his name was—Elkantar saw that his approach had not gone unnoticed, and Zaknafein had stood up from his seat by the roots of the tree he was under.

The man stopped at a distance Zak easily saw was calculated to put him at ease over being unarmed while the man had a sword attached to his belt, and said, "Greetings, Zaknafein. I am Elkantar."

"Greetings," Zaknafein replied, his tone and face both carefully neutral.

In the face of that neutrality, Elkantar decided it would be best to simply explain why he had come over to Zaknafein. "Qilué and I both think that you will be most comfortable with another man acting as your guide while you adjust to life at the Promenade of the Dark Maiden.

"So if it is agreeable to you, I will be your guide."

Zak took some time to consider the offer from all sides, but in the end concluded that there was no harm in accepting, if it had been made in full honesty.

"As long as you are truly just a guide, I accept," Zak said.

"We compel no one," Elkantar replied. "And if you end up deciding that life at the Promenade does not suit you, there is, nearby, a developing center for business of a more common nature for drow where you could seek employment."

"Unlikely, but good to know," Zak said. "I've had my fill of that sort of business."

"Then if you will follow me, I will start by showing you the way to the portal back to the Promenade."

"Very well."

By the time he was settled into quarters of his own, with several new sets of clothing—including boots—Zaknafein was starting to feel rather overwhelmed.

So when Elkantar asked if there was anything else he could get for Zak before he sought his own rest, Zak gratefully declined.

Once he had locked the door behind Elkantar, he shed the clothing that the other man had loaned him before taking him to choose his new clothes, and put on one of his new sleep shirts, then laid down on the bed.

And although he had only intended to meditate, the sudden upending of everything he was accustomed to—regardless of how much he had hated those ways—proved to have been more tiring than he realized, as he was soon fast asleep.

After the morning meal, Elkantar began a proper tour of the Promenade for Zaknafein, showing him how to get to the different areas and pointing out features of the caverns and tunnels that could be used as markers for remembering where each led to.

But although he had expected the other man's mingled sorrow and joy on seeing the Promenade's current drow children playing freely and without fear, the expression of what Elkantar could only call wistful hunger on Zaknafein's face as they entered the training hall to see Rylla and Sriva demonstrating a technique for the current handful of students was a surprise.

"Did you enjoy fighting, in your previous home?" Elkantar asked quietly.

"Not so much fighting as the testing of skill against a worthy opponent, rare as it was to find someone who could give me a decent challenge."

"Ah," Elkantar sighed. "Well, our Weapon Mistress there is the most skilled fighter at the Promenade, and will always welcome a chance to sharpen her own skills, if you wish to spar with her."

Zaknafein's expression brightened for a moment, before returning to the wistful hunger. "I do not have any weapons right now."

"If that is truly the only obstacle, we can go look at what is in the armory and see if anything there suits you."

Zak blinked in surprise, as he had truly not expected to be trusted with weapons so soon after his unusual arrival among these goodly drow.

But if Elkantar was willing to offer him such, he would gladly accept, so he nodded, and said, "Lead the way, then."

While it had taken longer than Elkantar had expected to find suitable weapons for Zaknafein, they had, eventually, found two longswords that matched well enough to satisfy the other man.

A sword-belt to hold the sheaths was substantially easier to choose, and then, belt and swords adjusted to Zaknafein's satisfaction, the two of them left the armory and returned to watching the lesson Rylla was teaching.

Rylla noted the return of Elkantar and last night's newcomer with a corner of her awareness, but since they had stopped at a respectful distance from the lesson, she remained focused on teaching until the lesson was over.

But once she had dismissed the students, she went over to greet them.

"Welcome, Elkantar! I take it you're showing our newcomer around?"

"Indeed," Elkantar replied. Then, turning to Zaknafein, he introduced her.

"A pleasure to meet you, Zaknafein," Rylla said. "I see that Elkantar has already helped you find suitable weapons, but please feel free to use this training hall anytime it is not being used for a lesson.

"And while you are certainly welcome to arrange your own sparring partners, if you wish assistance in finding someone of an appropriate skill level, I will gladly help you."

"Elkantar suggested that I might be able to spar with you?"

Zaknafein's response wasn't quite a question, Rylla noted, but it wasn't truly a statement, either.

Which, admittedly, was rather to be expected of a man newly come to the Promenade who was making such a comment to a woman.

"I am always glad to find new people to test my own skills against," she replied. "Do you wish to spar now?"

Zak blinked twice in surprise at the Weapon Mistress's easy acceptance of a comment that would have been—at the very least—pushing the limits for most Llothite women, then said, "I would like that very much."

"Then I will be pleased to do so."

Elkantar had known Zaknafein would be quite good with his blades, just from the simple confidence with which the man had commented on the difficulty of finding sparring partners who could actually provide a challenge, or he never would have suggested Rylla as a sparring partner.

But as the match with Rylla wore on, he found himself watching with growing amazement as Zaknafein's every movement proved that he was better than Rylla, and to a degree that Elkantar would have sworn was impossible.

And not quite an hour and a half after they had started, Rylla was the one to end it, managing to move one of Zaknafein's swords out of position far enough for her to safely disengage.

It wasn't until after he had sheathed his blades, feeling quite pleased with the match, that Zaknafein truly registered the size of the crowd that he had vaguely sensed gathering while he sparred with Rylla.

Elkantar had warned him, before the match started, that unless he explicitly requested otherwise, people would come to watch, but Zak had thought the number of spectators would be a few dozen at most, not what seemed like it must be the entire population of this place!

His attention was drawn back to Rylla when she bowed to him, and then, once she rose from the bow, he received another surprise.

"Zaknafein Do'Urden," she began, "you have no peer with the blade that I know of.

"I would be honored if you would agree to aid me in teaching those residents of the Promenade who choose to learn the use of weapons."

But for all that he was shocked to be offered such trust so soon after his arrival, it also resolved his unease over not having any way to earn the aid he was being given.

So he returned the bow, and said, "I would be very pleased to accept your offer."

As time passed, Zaknafein slowly acclimated to the Promenade, settling into teaching weapons-work with what Elkantar would almost call relief and developing a friendship with him.

But even as the friendship grew to the point that he received permission to call the other man "Zak", Elkantar couldn't help but worry over how much pain was in Zak every time he saw Ysolde freely expressing her love and adoration for her father.

Despite his worries, however, Elkantar had no intention of pushing on the matter unless something further came to light.

And then, not quite four weeks after Zak had arrived at the Promenade, Rylla came to him with some concerns of her own about Zak.

"He loves teaching the younger students," she told Elkantar, "but I also see how much pain it brings him, like it reminds him of a student whose loss is still fresh.

"And sometimes the pain seems strong enough that I wonder if I should have him stick to working with the adults.

"You're the one of us who's closest to him, so I thought you might have a better idea of if I actually should."

Elkantar sighed. "I'll talk to him. As your observations on what brings him pain intersect with my own to a point where I think pushing on the matter is necessary for his healing."

Elkantar had gotten Rylla's agreement on borrowing her office for the talk—it being familiar enough that Zak would feel comfortable, but also not being Zak's own rooms, which meant he had a place to retreat to if discussing the matter ended up proving to be too painful to manage—and then had arranged a meeting with Zak for that evening.

Zak's feelings had apparently been festering, because it had not taken much pushing at all for him to start talking about his daughter... and his son.

His son, whose innate goodness was so strong that he was often unable to suppress it well enough to fit in with Lolthite society, the choices his son had made as a result of that nature, and the events that had spiraled out as a consequence of those choices.

And now, Zak was wrapping up the tale. "...Whoever it was that re-embodied me, They left me with orders to avoid dying anytime in the next century, and to find a patron, as well as the knowledge that my son is alive somewhere."

"Well," Elkantar said, "that is... a lot to take in. But for the moment... may I tell Qilué about Drizzt?

"Scrying ought to be able to locate him, and even if none of our people are in a position to approach him, we have allies on the Surface who can move around far more easily."

Zak took a moment to consider the offer, weighing its sincerity and how freely the people here helped each other against the caution that his centuries in Menzoberranzan had ingrained in him, and sighed.

"Drizzt, yes, and you may even tell her about my re-embodiment, but not Vierna."

"Thank you. Though I do want to make sure that you realize telling her about your re-embodiment will result in her investigating Who was responsible."

"I rather assumed as much," Zak replied, "or I wouldn't have given you permission to do so."

"Very well, then."

Two nights later, Elkantar took a seat in Zak's rooms and after a deep breath to settle himself, he told the other man, "I have good news and odd news."

Zak's ingrained pessimism had had him bracing himself against whatever Elkantar was going to say, but at those words, he let out a sigh of relief.

"Might as well share the odd news first," he said.

"Qilué's own attempt to scry for Drizzt did not work," Elkantar said. "It didn't fail due to resistance, it just... didn't work at all.

"And consulting with Eilistraee about it revealed that She was wholly unaware of Drizzt's existence, despite the fact that She should be aware of every good drow."

Zak frowned. "That is odd. Though given that Drizzt was Malice's thirdborn son, it makes me wonder if Lloth did something to hide him."

Elkantar took a moment to consider that idea. "That... actually makes a certain amount of sense, even if it does carry the implication that the Spider Queen was fully aware of Drizzt's goodly nature."

"Not necessarily," Zak countered. "Given what you've told me of the Masked God, He may have been the one Lloth desired to hide Drizzt from.

"But since I don't think there's anything that can be done to figure it out right now, what's the good news?"

"Our Surface allies were successful in using arcane magic to scry for Drizzt, and have confirmed he's somewhere on the Surface, though we do not yet have any location other than 'northern mountains'."

"They'll keep up the scrying, then?"

"Until we get a location specific enough to teleport to, yes."

Paradoxically enough, having confirmation that Drizzt was alive and on the Surface caused Zak's thoughts to turn towards his son more frequently than before.

Thankfully, he had plenty of other things he could use to distract himself from dwelling on those thoughts.

In addition to the assisting with teaching weapons-work that he had already been doing, he took Elkantar up on the offer to teach him Surface Common, and the two of them also spent a fair bit of time planning how to handle things once Drizzt's actual location was determined.

That planning also resulted in Elkantar explaining the details of how Qilué was connected to the Promenade's Surface allies, which not only gave Zak a new source of food for thought, it also brought about the project of figuring out a means of calculating how long it had been since the fateful raid that had been the catalyst for everything.

That information, once obtained, was passed on to the Tall Ones, so they could find the child Drizzt had spared and make sure she was receiving the help she needed to recover from the trauma of the raid.

And then, three and a half months after Zak's unexpected arrival at the Promenade, Elkantar came and told him that they finally knew where Drizzt was, which released one source of tension even as another took its place.

Drizzt's observation post was close enough to the farmhouse that nobody thought it would be a good idea to try and approach him without a second person to manage the farmers if it proved necessary.

So once Andy had found a spot from which he could watch both the farmers and the tree concealing Drizzt, he let Dove use his eyes to teleport in.

Given the children that were working close to the house, Dove felt, and Andy agreed, that their best chance of talking to Drizzt without the farmers getting involved would be during the midday meal. So they settled down to wait.

And when the woman who had to be the children's mother came out and rang the large bell on the farmhouse porch, Andy and Dove began moving through the edge of the trees towards Drizzt almost before the children started towards the house.

A little while after the entire family, including the boy who had been dropped in the pig trough, had entered the house, Drizzt heard quiet footsteps approaching from the left, slightly to his rear—and closer than he had expected anyone to be able to get to him.

But even as he began turning to see who had discovered him, the footsteps stopped, and a voice spoke in Goblin.

"No fight, Drizzt Do'Urden. Talk only."

Startled by the use of his name, Drizzt drew his blades even as he finished turning, and saw that the speaker was a now equally startled tall faerie.

The faerie's eyes and ears were oddly blunted, he was wearing a sword-belt over modified wizard robes... and his hands were held out in front of him, palm-up, open, and empty.

That last was enough for Drizzt to sheathe his blades, though he kept his hands near the hilts.

"How know name?" he asked, in the same language.

"Much talking to tell," the faerie replied. "Will tell, away from here."

After taking a moment to consider things—he had not yet seen anything conclusive while observing the family, but their interactions so far were much more like what he had seen in Blingdenstone than anything resembling Menzoberranzan, and he truly did need to know how the faerie had learned his name—Drizzt decided to ask another question.

"What name?" he said, pointing at the faerie.

"Andelver Aerasumé. Small name Andy."

Drizzt nodded. That the faerie had been willing to share his own name resolved his indecision. "Will come with. Go, will follow."

The faerie returned the nod, then turned to start heading deeper into the trees, and Drizzt followed him.

The faerie walked for just long enough that Drizzt thought they were probably out of human earshot of the house as long as neither of them raised their voices, and then sat down on a rock, gesturing for Drizzt to take a seat on a nearby fallen tree.

And once he had, the faerie looked at him seriously and said, "Use magic, no hurt, make good Surface words?"

That was obviously a request for permission, but Drizzt wasn't sure he wanted to trust the faerie that far yet. "Why Surface words?" he countered. "Why not Drow?"

"Drow bad language for telling. Not have words needed."

If Drizzt had not had the time in Blingdenstone, he wouldn't have believed the faerie's reason—but he had had it, so he did believe, and knew that he would have to let the faerie cast on him despite his distrust.

But he could at least make it clear that that was the only reason he was giving permission. "Do not trust. Know Drow missing words. Use magic for Surface words."

Moving slowly and carefully, the faerie cast the spell, and once Drizzt felt the magic take hold, he said, in the language the spell provided, "No one on the Surface should know my name and yet you do. How?"

"As I said," the faerie replied, "it's a long story. But it begins three and a half months ago, at a minor ritual for one of the deities you were falsely taught to believe were lying demons..."

Drizzt listened with growing incredulity and disbelief as the faerie spun out a tale involving two deities—one of them supposedly a good drow goddess—a community of good drow who followed that supposedly good goddess, a claim to his father's soul that the other deity supposedly had due to the reason for his death, and the actions said deity had supposedly taken when Zaknafein's soul had returned to Their keeping after being stolen from Their realm by Lloth.

When the faerie finished, Drizzt was silent for a long time, simply letting it all sink in.

And when he finally spoke, it was just four words. "I don't believe you."

"Would you believe Zaknafein?" the faerie asked. "One of my brothers will bring him if you want to speak with him."

Drizzt blinked in surprise. The faerie was offering to let him speak with the supposed Zaknafein here, not requiring him to go elsewhere to do so?

Could he take the risk, when he truly did not believe his father had actually been re-embodied? Did he have any way to determine if it actually was his father, despite all the odds against it?

That thought pulled up the memory of the fight with his father's effigy—specifically, the means by which he had determined that Zaknafein's spirit was present in it, not just the muscle memory. He had never used that move against anyone else, and while Malice's control of the effigy might have given her knowledge of the move itself, only Zaknafein would know the reason why Drizzt had developed it.

Which meant if he figured out the right words, there was a question he could ask that would let him be absolutely certain whether or not it was actually his father.

So once he felt that he knew how to phrase the question properly, he said, "If he is truly my father, I would."

The faerie nodded in response, and then he seemed to focus on something that Drizzt could not perceive. But after a moment, his attention returned to Drizzt, and he said, "I've passed the word that you want to speak to him. My brother will be here with him soon."

Drizzt gave a nod of his own, and reached into his pouch to rub Guen's figure while they waited.

Thankfully for his nerves, it was not long before two pairs of footsteps could be heard coming along their backtrail.

The first person to come into sight was another tall faerie, who bore a great resemblance to the one already with Drizzt.

But behind him... with skin as dark as Drizzt's own, pointed ears sticking up through long, unbound hair just as pale as Drizzt's, and a pair of longswords hanging from his belt, the man truly did look like Zaknafein.

And when he said "Hello, my son," it was Zaknafein's voice, in the same relieved and joyous tone he had used after Drizzt had confessed to sparing the elven child.

But Drizzt had to be sure. So he took a deep breath, and then began to speak in Drow.

"My father once told me that there was no way to improve the correct parry for a certain attack such that the defender would gain an advantage from the parry.

"If you are truly my father, then I ask you to tell me: What is that attack, what is the correct parry, and what did I eventually develop as a successful method of improving the correct parry in the manner you said was impossible?"

The man smiled Zaknafein's pleased smile, and replied, also in Drow, "The attack is the double-thrust low, the correct parry is the cross-down, and your improvement is a kick to the attacker's face after the cross-down."

After a long stunned moment, Drizzt breathed "Father", and then all but launched himself forward to wrap Zaknafein in a hug.

Loath as he was to interrupt such a heartfelt reunion, when a few minutes had passed without Drizzt showing any sign that he intended to end his embrace of Zaknafein anytime soon, Andy gently cleared his throat.

Zaknafein's shift in attention at the sound proved to be enough to break through Drizzt's focus on his father, and once both drow were looking at him, Andy said, "While I do understand how much this moment means to both of you, we ought to collect Aunt Dove and leave while the farmers are still unaware of our presence."

"True," Zak said. "Come on, son. You'll like it at the Promenade."

Zaknafein's agreement wiped away the reluctance Drizzt was displaying, and soon enough, the two drow and the two half-elves had returned to where Dove was waiting, and the five of them teleported to the usual spot near the Promenade's portals.

They ended up having to wait there for a little, while Qilué and Elkantar got free to come meet them, as Qilué had been clear that whatever was keeping Eilistraee from noticing Drizzt needed to be investigated before he actually entered the Promenade.

While they were waiting, Drizzt was asked about why he had been watching the farmers, and once he explained about the gnolls that he had killed because they intended to attack the farm, Dove decided to investigate the matter further, just in case the gnolls had been part of some larger threat.

And once Mystra, acting through Dove and Qilué, had removed the shroud the Spider Queen had laid on Drizzt, they all entered the Promenade.

senmut

Raising a Resistance (4,575 words) by

ilyena_sylph and

senmut
Chapters: 1/1
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Relationship: Vierna Do'Urden & Zaknafein Do'Urden
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Ensemble cast
Additional Tags: Canon-typical Violence
Series: Part 2 of Oblodra Gloom
Summary:

Drizzt is growing up under the care of his father and sister... and the band they live with

( fic this way )

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

Current Mood: working
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senmut

The Coming of Gloom (4414 words) by

ilyena_sylph &

senmut
Chapters: 1/1
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Minor Character Deaths
Relationship: Malice Do'Urden/Zaknafein Do'Urden
Characters: The Do'Urden Family & Ensemble
Additional Tags: Canon Divergence, Ensemble Cast, Positive Malice/Zak
Series: Part 1 of Oblodra Gloom
Summary:

In Menzoberranzan, a grasping matron makes a devil's deal with a dragon that had already destroyed one drow city. Another begins to plot for how to rise above what that meant for all of her plans.

Notes:

As ever, we are choosing a longer time span between Malice's children, and thus continuity is not going to quite match the Official Time Line. Including, we discovered, a discrepancy with when Mithral Hall was taken versus when it was described as being invaded in the original canon.

( fic this way )

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

somariel

Stolen Children Bringing Hope (7,444 words) by somariel
Chapters: 1/1
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Relationship: Drizzt Do'Urden & Zaknafein Do'Urden, Vierna Do'Urden & Zaknafein Do'Urden
Characters: Drizzt Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Inthylyn Aerasumé, Lilinthar Aerasumé, Eilistraee, Mielikki, Qilué Veladorn, Vierna Do'Urden, Elkantar Iluim, Bruenor Battlehammer
Additional Tags: Canon Divergence
Summary:

Vhaeraun stole Vierna from His mother before she was even old enough to enter formal training as a priestess. Zaknafein stole his son away from Menzoberranzan before Drizzt had reached the age of twelve. Now events are moving and both of Zak's children are bringing hope to others.

A continuation of senmut's fic The Time Zak Stole Drizzt.

Stolen Children Bringing Hope

The sharing of tales lasted for a while, but eventually, Thyl and Lin could tell that Zak truly needed time to think about what they had told him, so when Lin wrapped up his current tale, Thyl stretched and said, “We’ve likely taken up enough of your time for today, but if you wish, we can come back in… a week or so, maybe?… with a map, so we can show you where the places we’ve talked about are in relation to here.”

Drizzt frowned at those words, and oh, that reminded Thyl so much of Del not wanting storytime to end, but Zak nodded sharply. “That would be useful, yes,” the elder drow said.

“Then we will take our leave and see you in a week,” Lin said.

He and Thyl got up from where they had been sitting on the ground and walked away. However, they only went far enough to be sure they were out of earshot of the pair, then stopped. “Time to talk to Aunt?” Lin asked, looking at his twin.

“Yes,” Thyl agreed.

Qilué was dealing with some necessary correspondence when the sending anklet tingled, just before Thyl said, ~Aunt, Lin and I are at the portal. Can you send someone for us? We have a tale you need to hear.~

~Of course, nephew,~ she replied. ~Someone will be there soon.~

Setting aside the letter she had been writing, she left her office and headed out into the public areas of the caverns that she and her Lady’s other followers were working on turning into a refuge for all goodly drow.

Sending the first adult that she encountered—Xinval, as it happened—to bring her nephews through the portal, Qilué then went to the area that had been set up for food preparation and storage, and gathered some refreshments for the coming conversation.

She ended up meeting Thyl and Lin on the way back to her quarters, and once they were all settled in the sitting room, with the refreshments in easy reach, she asked, “So what have you found that I need to hear about?”

The tale that followed, of a pair of drow who had been living peacefully on the surface for a few years, but who knew little to nothing of her Lady and were wholly unaware of the larger community of Eilistraee’s followers, left her feeling confused. And taking a moment to commune with her Lady only increased that confusion, because She had no knowledge of the pair either, despite that Thyl and Lin were quite certain that the younger of the pair was firmly good.

Coming back out of that communion, Qilué asked, “Would the two of you be willing to anchor for my Lady when you see this pair again, so She can investigate?”

“Of course,” Lin answered.

As they had promised, a week after their initial meeting, the pair of half-human faerie returned with a map. And after a long session of discussing distances, travel times, terrain, and potential threats along the way to the two places that the pair had recommended as safer places to raise his son, Zak gave a deep sigh. “I think the… Promenade, you called it?… would be the better place for us to go,” he said. “It’s further away than ‘Silverymoon’, but we’d be among other drow, instead of being oddities.”

“The Promenade of the Dark Maiden, in full,” Thyl said, “but it’s usually shortened to just ‘the Promenade’, yes.”

Lin sighed. “As much as I’d like to say that no one in Silverymoon would ever treat the two of you as oddities, I’d be lying if I did, even if I am certain that most residents would get past that stage fairly quickly.”

“Not going to start the journey now, though,” Zak said. “Too close to ‘winter’ for me to feel comfortable traveling that far.”

“Completely understandable,” Lin said. “There’s rarely any good reason to leave a proven shelter for a long journey, when winter is coming.”

“Speaking of winter, though,” Thyl added, “would you like for us to bring you more winter clothes, or supplies, or even just for us to check in on you throughout the winter to make sure that you haven’t developed any new needs we could help with?”

Zak frowned. Warmer clothing would be welcome, as well as dried meat—because Horim had been correct in saying that fishing wasn’t always reliable during the winter, and not having to deal with the cold water would be better for them—but… “Why?” he asked. “What do you get from doing that?”

Right, it took time for newly free drow to get used to aid being freely given, without anything expected in return. And for all that Zak and Drizzt had been on the surface for a few years, they hadn’t had the experiences needed for that.

Thyl did not sigh, but he wanted to. “Caring for and protecting the younger generation is something we value strongly, and wish to assist you in doing so for your son, having seen that you hold those same values in regards to him, despite all that the society you were born to does to discourage such.”

Zak could… sort of understand that, but it still wasn’t anything tangible. “But how do you—or those you have a duty to—benefit from helping me care for Drizzt?”

~Let me try?~ Lin sent, seeing that Thyl was having trouble finding a way to frame things that would be acceptable to Zaknafein.

~If you have an idea, go ahead,~ Thyl replied.

“Did Horim tell you anything about what rangers—like he is—actually do?” Lin asked.

“He said that it was his duty to deal with that wyrmling,” Zak replied, curious as to how that had any bearing on his question, “but he never explained why.”

Well, that made this a little harder, but it wasn’t like Lin was unable to explain what a ranger did. “It was his duty to deal with the wyrmling because rangers are guardians and protectors of the wilds, who have a duty to deal with unnatural beings, and evil ones that pose a threat to the wilds. Many rangers will also deal with threats to travelers, as well as any threats that hamlets, villages, and even towns, cannot handle on their own.”

“That… makes sense,” Zak said, “but I can’t see what it has to do with your offer to aid us.”

“I’m getting there,” Lin replied. “One of the things that Horim said, when he was speaking of the two of you, was that he feels that Drizzt hears the whisper of the wilds as much as he does. And from what we have seen of your son so far, we both feel that he is a ‘wild-called’ ranger in the making.”

Picking up the thread of the explanation, Thyl continued, “A wild-called ranger is one who is even more in harmony with the wilds than an ordinary ranger, having been gifted by the wilds with the talents other rangers must call on their patron to use, though those talents do become more potent if the ranger has a deity’s favor.”

“Wild-called rangers are rare, even among surface elves,” Lin added. “For Drizzt to be one, when he is a drow… that is unheard of. So how can we not offer you aid, when your son has such a valuable gift, especially when our mother’s city holds rangers in high regard and protects one of the most sacred places belonging to one of the common ranger deities?”

While Zak still wasn’t pleased by the explanation, it was at least one he could understand. Thyl and Lin saw potential in Drizzt, of a sort that they had been raised to value, and felt they had a religious duty to help protect and nurture it, for the future benefits it would bring.

“Very well,” he sighed. “I accept your offer.”

Eilistraee was now very confused, as even with Thyl and Lin anchoring for her, She had still been barely able to perceive the younger of the two drow they had met with. It was at least understandable why the father had escaped Her notice, being firmly neutral, but what little She had been able to perceive of the son had confirmed his goodly nature, so She truly should have known of him.

However, the fact that the boy was a wild-called ranger gave Her a new avenue of investigation, so She went through the portal from Arvandor to the House of Nature and sought out Mielikki.

Mielikki was talking with Gwaeron and Lurue when She sensed a minor disturbance—of the sort that was the equivalent of a polite knock—on the boundary of Her personal domain within the House of Nature. Swiftly excusing herself from the conversation, She teleported to Her domain and made her way to the point along the borders where the disturbance had occurred.

And while Eilistraee had certainly not been among those Mielikki had thought might be seeking entry to Her domain, the Dark Maiden certainly had a reason to seek Her out. So once she had invited the other goddess in, and they had settled comfortably in a clearing, Mielikki asked, “Have You come to speak with Me about Drizzt Do’Urden?”

Eilistraee blinked twice in mild surprise. “Well, yes, though I was not aware that You specifically were who I needed to speak with about him.”

“Oh?” If Eilistraee had not been aware of Mielikki’s own interest in the young drow, then why had the other goddess sought Her out?

“For some reason, I am unable to properly perceive him, to the point that I was wholly unaware of him until My Chosen passed on the tale of him and his father that some of her nephews had shared with her. But since he is a wild-called ranger, I thought it was possible that someone among the nature deities had accidentally blocked Me with a protection intended to block My mother.”

“That he is blocked from You so thoroughly puzzles Me,” Mielikki replied, “as while I am holding protections around him, I made sure to craft them such that You were explicitly exempted from their effects.” She hummed thoughtfully, considering Who might wish to conceal such a goodly drow from the Dark Maiden’s notice, and one name immediately came to mind. Given the nature of the Dark Seldarine’s banishment once Eilistraee had chosen to follow them, there was even an easy way for Mielikki to test what She thought might be happening.

“You’ve thought of something,” Eilistraee said, noticing the change in the Forest Queen’s expression.

“Maybe.” Mielikki focused within Herself and… shifted…, switching to Her aspect as Khalreshaar. Then she shifted Her attention to the Material Plane, focusing on the wild-called soul of Drizzt Do’Urden. And while she was still able to see him, it was difficult, the connection She had strengthened over the years since She had first noticed him fraying with every second She held this aspect. A shift back to Her true form, and the connection was back to its usual strength.

“Well. It seems that someone, most likely Your mother, wished him hidden from You, but could not achieve that without hiding him from all the other elven deities.”

Mielikki’s shift to Her half-elven aspect had made Eilistraee quite curious as to what the Forest Queen had thought of, but that… that made sense in a way that left Eilistraee concerned over Her mother’s plans for the boy. “I must tell My Chosen of this, as his father has decided that, in the spring, they will go to the stronghold My followers are building in Undermountain, and it is not safe to allow such a shroud to cross the wards there.”

Qilué had passed word of the shroud on Drizzt and what needed to be done about it on to Thyl and Lin, so when they returned with the clothes and food that Zak had requested, they told him about the matter. He had been quite displeased to hear of the Spider Queen’s interference in his son’s life, not much happier about Mielikki’s ‘meddling’—as he called it—regardless of Her intentions, and still more displeased about the need for further divine meddling to remove the shroud, though he did acknowledge the necessity.

Biweekly check-ins had been agreed upon, though Drizzt’s curiosity and desire to learn all he could quickly led to the check-ins turning into weekly lessons in wilderness skills. And while it had been Drizzt’s drive to learn that had initiated the lessons, Zak also tended to join in, his practical nature seeing the value in both of them gaining such skills, especially with the journey they would be taking in the spring.

The speed with which Drizzt picked up everything Thyl and Lin taught the pair of drow was always impressive, and sometimes truly surprising, even accounting for his youth making the learning easier. Thyl and Lin ended up concluding that it had to be another manifestation of Drizzt being a wild-called ranger, and even Zak eventually came to agree.

When the days started getting warmer as well as longer, Drizzt announced that he wanted to have a true test of how well he had learned all that Thyl and Lin had taught him. And after some serious negotiations between all four of them, it was agreed that they would all spend two weeks following the nearby Goblintide up into the Frost Hills, with Drizzt taking the lead in all matters, after which Thyl and Lin would teleport them back to Zak and Drizzt’s shelter.

And while the expedition did go well, satisfying Drizzt’s need for a test, it had also turned up the curiosity of an above-ground, abandoned dwarf city near the mountain known as Fourth Peak. They had not explored it for long, as Thyl and Lin knew that there were cursed ruins in the Frost Hills, and did not want to risk that their discovery was among them, but both they and Drizzt made careful note of its position in relation to both Fourth Peak and the Goblintide.

On Thyl and Lin’s next visit after the expedition, the subject of conversation came around to Zak and Drizzt’s upcoming journey to the Promenade, and when it would be safe for them to start it. Discussion of potential routes revealed that Zak had taken their warnings about Nesmé seriously enough to feel that it was worth the extra traveling time to begin by heading west to the Long Road in order to avoid Nesmé’s territory as completely as possible.

Knowing that, Thyl and Lin were able to say that it would be necessary for Zak and Drizzt to wait until the spring floods were at least mostly over before starting the trek, as there were two major streams they would have to cross in order to reach the Long Road. Zak was not entirely happy about the need to wait for an event that could not be predicted, but he did acknowledge that Thyl and Lin were the ones who knew the dangers, and their promise to check the state of the streams every week placated him.

Six weeks later, Thyl and Lin reported that the floods had subsided enough that travelers on foot would be able to cross the streams if they were careful. They also brought a map showing the area from the Spine all the way to Waterdeep, and two packs filled with travel rations.

“We’ve marked both the location of the portal to the Promenade and the more common locations used by its residents for the full moon rituals,” Thyl said as he handed the map to Zak, “but for the safety of the Promenade’s residents, we used a spell to make it so that only you and Drizzt can see those marks.”

Somewhat more than a month and a half after Zak and Drizzt had begun their journey, they reached the general vicinity of the portal to the Promenade. However, for all that he felt the Promenade was a better option than Silverymoon, Zak was still wary of other drow, and decided that he wanted to watch one of the full moon rituals, so he could see how these drow actually interacted with each other, before he and Drizzt approached them.

A bit less than a week later, Drizzt sat concealed in a tree at the edge of a clearing, watching a large group of drow dance and sing and spar under the full moon. He knew his father was wary of joining other drow again, but none of the ones in the clearing made his skin itch. Which, given that his father was the only person he had met before their arrival on the Surface that didn’t produce that reaction, had to mean that these drow were like him and his father!

Not willing to wait any longer for his father’s signal, when the song was so beautiful and pure, faintly calling to him in a way he didn’t really understand, Drizzt slipped down from his perch and stepped out into the clearing.

“Hello,” he called.

Zak cursed silently when his son stepped into the clearing, but he had halfway been expecting such an event to happen, even as he had hoped that it wouldn’t, so rather than immediately follow Drizzt, he chose to wait just a little longer on revealing himself.

Qilué had been just as startled as everyone else when a young voice called out greetings in Common, but turning to see that the speaker was a young drow—younger than Ysolde, even, she thought—at least relieved her concern that they had been discovered by someone who would reveal their presence to those distrustful of drow.

“Hello, young one,” she said, stepping closer to the youth, though still remaining out of easy reach for an attack with the blades he wore. “My name is Qilué Veladorn. What is yours?”

“Drizzt Do’Urden.”

“Ah, then you are the young drow that Thyl and Lin spoke to me about. They also spoke of your father, however. Is he near, or did something happen to him during your journey?”

Well, that was as good a cue as any for him to reveal himself, Zak felt, especially since the drow in the clearing had not only not reacted in any hostile manner, their leader herself had expressed concern—odd as that was to him—that something might have happened to him.

So he slipped down from the tree he was in—nowhere near as silently as Drizzt had managed—and stepped out into the clearing himself. “I am here, Lady.”

“You are Zaknafein, then, yes?”

“That is correct.”

“I am sure that you, at least, have questions that you want answered before you and your son enter the Promenade.” Qilué reached out to where Elkantar had come up beside her, and took his hand. “If you find it suitable, my consort and I will do our best to answer them, while the rest of our people continue with the celebration of our Lady.”

“I’d like Drizzt to stay with me for now, but yes, that does work.”

“Of course.”

The four of them gathered at the edge of the clearing even as the rest of the drow resumed what they had been doing before Drizzt interrupted things, and by the time the moon set, Zak’s questions had all been answered, the Spider Queen’s shroud had been removed from Drizzt, and both of them were ready to enter what would now be their home.

While Vierna had not dared to try and locate Drizzt and the Weapon Master while she was still in Menzoberranzan, she had hoped to be able to do so after settling into her Lord’s temple in Skullport. But for some reason, she proved to be just as unable to scry for Drizzt as for Zaknafein—more so really, as she had at least been able to determine that Zak was on the Surface, but scrying for Drizzt got no results whatsoever.

She kept trying again periodically, in case the protections had been removed, but as the months wore on without success, her frustration grew.

And then, roughly nine months after she had arrived in Skullport, ~I have news for you~ brushed across her mind as she was settling down to sleep, followed by a shadow forming in her bedchamber, a shadow that had Vhaeraun’s mask where the face would be.

“What news do you bring me, my Lord?” she asked.

“It seems that your brother and the Weapon Master have managed to make their way to the community of My sister’s followers that lives in Undermountain.”

Vierna smiled widely. That was significant news indeed. Only… “May I ask how You learned they had done so?”

“A reasonable request,” Vhaeraun said. “I have been keeping some of My attention out for them, and My notice was drawn by what turned out to be the removal of a shroud My mother had placed on your brother, to conceal him from the notice of the rest of Us.”

Vierna was already aware that the Promenade of the Dark Maiden sent trade caravans to Skullport on a bimonthly schedule, so now that she knew that Drizzt and Zak were there, she arranged for some of the Temple’s guards to go look for Zak among the caravan guards when the next one arrived.

Zak had not been with that caravan, nor had he been with the one after that, which meant that Vierna was going to have to get someone to approach the next caravan that came, in order pass along her request to speak with him. And while she would like to deliver the request personally, she knew it would be better to have one of the male guards do so.

Given the careful observation by other drow that the last two caravans had reported, Elkantar had felt it would be a good idea to send some extra guards with the next one, and had chosen to lead the caravan guards himself.

That choice now seemed to be paying off, as a male drow, wearing a cloak pin in the shape of Vhaeraun’s mask, approached him directly while the traders were unloading the wagon. As the other drow’s hands were well clear of his weapons, Elkantar did not reach for his own, though he did shift to make sure he could draw them quickly, should it prove necessary.

Tebryn noticed the shift in posture of the Eilistraeean he had chosen to approach, and stopped outside of easy attack range, though still within reasonable conversational distance.

The clear indication that the Vhaeraunite did not wish conflict either was at least somewhat reassuring, Elkantar felt, but he remained alert even as he asked, “What do you want?”

“One of my Lord’s clerics wishes to speak with Zaknafein.”

Well, that would certainly explain why the last two caravans had been being observed so carefully. The cleric must have been hoping that Zak would be one of the caravan guards. It also raised the question of how the cleric had known that Zaknafein was at the Promenade, but since Elkantar didn’t think it likely that a mere messenger would know the answer to that, he settled for asking “Did this cleric say what they wish to speak with him about?”

“A family matter.” Tebryn was quite curious as to what sort of family matter the Redeemed Shade could need to discuss with an Eilistraeean, but he knew better than to ask.

‘A family matter?’ Elkantar knew of exactly one other member of House Do’Urden that Zak would have any desire to speak with. And given that Zak believed that member was wholly lost to the Spider Queen, this was most likely a trap of some sort, but it was worth finding out how well it was baited. “What is this cleric’s name?” Elkantar asked, not bothering to hide his suspicion.

“Vierna.”

Elkantar concealed his surprise by main force of will. That was the name of Zak’s daughter, which meant that there was a slim chance that Vhaeraun had, somehow, stolen her from the Spider Queen, though a trap still seemed more likely. But if they knew enough to use Vierna’s name, Zaknafein himself should be the one to decide how to handle this. “I will pass the message along.”

As Elkantar had suspected would be the case, Zaknafein’s reaction to the request passed along by the Vhaeraunite drow was well beyond suspicious, and solidly into paranoid. Nor could Elkantar blame him for such a reaction, as it was all too easy to imagine how much Vhaeraun might covet a neutral drow who had Zaknafein’s skill with blades. And that was assuming a more benign reason for a trap. It was entirely possible, after all, that a priestess of House Do’Urden had managed to get a follower of Selvetarm to pretend to be Vhaeraunite in order to reclaim the House’s erring Weapon Master.

Many serious discussions later, Zaknafein had decided that even with the strong likelihood of it being a trap, it would still be better for him to join the next caravan and see what he could find out, leading Elkantar to chose to go with the caravan again, since he was the one who could identify the drow who had conveyed the request.

Vierna was well aware that Zak’s reaction to her message was most likely to be outright paranoia, and he would therefore be unwilling to go out of easy reach of the other drow with the Promenade’s caravan, so when the next one arrived, she and another guard accompanied the one who had delivered the message, the two of them stopping in the shadows just out of easy sight of the caravan, while the original guard continued on.

As the traders began to unload the wagon, Zak followed Elkantar’s signal to come stand beside him, having agreed earlier that they would remain together unless Zak indicated otherwise. And it was not long before a male drow, once again wearing a cloak pin in the shape of Vhaeraun’s mask, approached the two of them.

Tebryn was relieved to see, as he approached the caravan, that a drow matching the description the Redeemed Shade had provided was indeed present this time. And unless he was mistaken, the man was standing beside the one Tebryn had spoken to last time, which had to be deliberate on their part.

Once again stopping at a reasonable conversational distance that was nevertheless out of easy attack range, Tebryn looked directly at the drow with unbound hair who bore two longswords, and asked, “Zaknafein Do’Urden?”

Shifting his hand so that it touched Elkantar’s, Zak signed ‘Same messenger?’ against his friend’s—strange as it still seemed to have someone that he could call ‘friend’ without any caveats—palm.

‘Yes,’ Elkantar signed back.

“That is my name,” Zak answered the other drow.

“Will you join me for a little while?” Tebryn asked. He hoped Zaknafein agreed, but at least the Redeemed Shade had provided non-confrontational instructions for what to do if the man refused.

“If we remain near my allies, then yes,” Zak replied. Elkantar shifted beside him, and he signed, ‘Stay. Will remain in sight.’

‘Alright,’ Elkantar signed in response.

“Of course,” Tebryn said. “It’s not far at all.”

“Then lead on,” Zak said, stepping forward.

Tebryn turned, and began to head back to where the Redeemed Shade was waiting with Chaurah, trusting Zaknafein to follow him.

As he followed the other drow, Zak paid careful attention to how far he was getting from the caravan, and when he saw that they were almost out of easy sight—and more than that, they were heading into a shadowed area—he stopped. “This is as far as I’m going,” he said. “If your Lord’s cleric still wants to talk to me, they can meet me here.”

In the shadows just beyond where Zaknafein had stopped, Vierna did not sigh, even though she wanted to. After all, she had been expecting something like this, and Zak had actually come a good bit closer to where she was waiting than she had thought he would. So she put on her mask, and stepped out of the shadows. “I am here, Zaknafein Do’Urden.”

As the woman who had stepped out of the shadows spoke, Zaknafein had to call on all of his long, long experience in not letting his reactions show in any visible way. Because the woman certainly sounded like Vierna, and she was even wearing two maces, but it was not possible for her to actually be Vierna. His daughter had long since been lost to the Spider Bitch. But with such incredible effort put into the deception, it was at least worth hearing her out. “And what sort of family matter do you wish to speak of with me?” he asked.

“Gifts given to a child, and the lessons taught by those gifts.”

At those words, Zaknafein was entirely unable to hide his shock. No one but Vierna should know about the pirate spider he had given her as a young child, much less what he had named as his price for giving it to her. Elkantar had thought there was a slim chance that the Masked God had somehow managed to steal Vierna from the Spider Queen; was it actually possible that his friend had been correct?

Vierna had never seen Zaknafein display any emotion so openly as he did at her reference to the gift that had, in so many ways, prepared her to be receptive to Vhaeraun’s overtures, much less one so vulnerable as surprise. But then again, that was precisely why she had made the reference, since it was knowledge that only the two of them held. Reaching up, she removed her mask and smiled. “Hello, Weapon Master.”

Zak had returned to the caravan long enough to tell Elkantar that it wasn’t actually a trap, that slim chance had turned out to be correct, and promise he’d be back before the caravan left, then quite gladly went with Vierna to Vhaeraun’s temple so they could visit in private.

The conversation had started with clearing the air between the two of them, then rambled through the experiences each of them had had since Zak had stolen away with Drizzt, and when it eventually came around to Zak and Drizzt taking up residence at the Promenade, Vierna said, “Is there any chance I can convince you and Drizzt to come live here? I have truly missed both of you.”

“It’s already clear that Drizzt loves the Surface enough that he’s not going to stay at the Promenade forever,” Zak replied, “so I’m certainly willing to come live here once he starts wandering. But Drizzt himself is, somehow, so thoroughly good that he just wouldn’t fit in here.”

Vierna sighed. “That’s… disappointing, though I can’t quite say that I’m surprised, given that I never did manage to teach him proper caution in trusting others. I’ll have to get to work on a pair of sending stones for him and me, then, since I certainly don’t want to have to wait years to talk to him again.”

She was about to ask what Zak meant by ‘Drizzt loves the Surface’, when the combined thoughts of ‘Drizzt is good-aligned’ and ‘a magical item for Drizzt’ made her realize that she now had a solution for the problem of the figure she had taken off the Hun’ett wizard. Drawing it out of her belt pouch, she handed the figure to Zak. “This is a gift for Drizzt.”

“Are you sure?” Zak asked. A figure of wondrous power was quite a valuable object, after all, and this had to be the one that she had mentioned as spoils of the House War that had given her the opportunity to escape.

“I am,” Vierna said. “Unfortunately for me, the great cat it summons is not only atypically independent for a figure, it is wholly good as well.” Then she told Zak its name and explained the time limitations.

“Ah,” Zak said, tucking the figure into his own belt pouch. “I’m sure Drizzt will be delighted to have an animal friend more intelligent than the bats and the spitting crawlers, even if it cannot be present all the time.”

“So what did you mean when you said that Drizzt ‘loves the Surface’?” Vierna asked, returning to the train of thought that had been diverted by the figure.

“Apparently, he’s what’s known as a ‘wild-called ranger’,” Zak replied, “and as a result, his nature is far more suited to living on the Surface than in any sort of underground settlement.”

“Well then, I think that makes it even more appropriate for him to have the figure.”

Elkantar and Qilué, and even Ysolde, had also noticed how obvious Drizzt’s love of the Surface was, and having more knowledge of rangers than Zak, had realized that Drizzt’s calling would drive him to leave the Promenade far sooner than would be considered a reasonable age for even a half-human elf or drow. And so, the three of them set about convincing him (and Zak) that when he did decide to leave, he should start by spending at least a few years training with Dove and Florin, learning the ranger skills that no one at the Promenade could truly teach him.

Thyl and Lin, and even the rest of the Tall Ones, contributed to the effort whenever they visited the Promenade, and eventually, after a meeting between the two drow and the two rangers had happened, Drizzt and Zak both agreed to the plan.

So when Drizzt’s itch to explore finally got too strong to hold back, at the age of thirty-six, Qilué quite gladly arranged for Thyl and Lin to bring Drizzt to Dove and Florin’s home in the Dalelands.

Drizzt studied with Dove and Florin for five years, traveling with Dove, and learning ranger spells, how to better communicate with animals, and more advanced wilderness skills than Thyl and Lin had managed to teach him during that one winter, before even that was no longer enough to keep him satisfied.

Dove and Florin had actually been expecting such a decision for most of a year at that point, and were impressed enough with his skills that they had already wrangled an agreement from all outside interested parties that—as Drizzt was still underage for even a half-blood, let alone a full-blood, but was of an age at which a half-blood might start exploring in the company of family—if he could manage to spend a full year living off the land near Shadowdale, without being seen by its residents, and leaving minimal sign of his presence other than actions taken to protect the residents or their animals, no one would fuss about his age.

Drizzt readily agreed to such a graduation exercise, and so, after just a month of preparation, he set out to begin it.

Drizzt had, by the strictest letter of the agreement, failed the graduation exercise, but since the only reason he had been seen by any of Shadowdale's residents was because he had saved its lord from an assassination attempt while said lord was traveling, everyone agreed that he had held to the spirit of the exercise, and had therefore passed.

So once he had said his farewells to Florin and the other students—and to a grateful Syluné and Aumry—Dove brought him back to the Promenade so he could spend some time with the family and friends he had not seen in six years, before he took up his independent wandering.

A month at the Promenade, two months in Skullport with Vierna and their father, followed by two more months at the Promenade, with Zak, proved to be as long as he was willing to spend visiting, and so, after farewells all around, Drizzt set out on his own, Guen’s figure in his belt pouch, and the contingency necklace Ysolde had given him around his neck.

Six years after he had set out on his own, Drizzt followed a pull north all the way up to the Icewind Dale. Knowing that the residents of the Ten Towns were unlikely to be any more welcoming of a drow than most places below the Spine, he chose to bypass them entirely, and set about finding a suitable cave up on Kelvin’s Cairn.

That had resulted in him meeting a young human girl, by the name of Catti-brie, which had led to a meeting with one Bruenor Battlehammer, chieftain of the small clan of dwarves that had settled in the cleft below the Cairn, and Catti-brie’s adoptive father. And while the meeting with Bruenor had started out poorly, Eilistraee’s blessing on Drizzt’s blades had quickly changed the dwarf’s mind about him.

By the time winter had set in on the tundra, Drizzt’s willingness to watch out for, and teach, Catti-brie, along with his willingness to aid the clan as a whole, had earned him welcome within the clan’s caverns. And while he did not impose on that welcome often, it was nice to be able to occasionally spend an evening with pleasant company in a place that was warmer than his cave, even with the improvements the dwarves had made to it.

On one such evening, as the tundra was starting to move into spring, the conversation between Drizzt and Bruenor came around to Bruenor’s eventual plans to find his clan’s ancestral home of Mithral Hall. But this time, unlike previous times the subject had come up, Bruenor mentioned that as best as any of those who were old enough to remember could recall, the Hall was probably somewhere in or near the Silver Marches.

“In or near the Silver Marches?” Drizzt repeated, intrigued. The Frost Hills definitely counted as ‘near the Silver Marches’, and he remembered the ruined city they had found on that long-ago expedition to test the skills Thyl and Lin had been teaching him.

“Aye,” Bruenor rumbled.

“Do you remember if the Hall had an above-ground trading point?” Drizzt asked.

It took several minutes, in which Drizzt was patiently quiet—knowing the difficulties those who had been old enough to walk out of the Hall, rather than be carried, had in recalling much of anything about the Hall—but Bruenor eventually sighed, and said, “It might’ve. There was certainly a place very close by that we stayed fer a few days right after th’ fall, before we had tae move on. Could’ve easily been th’ tradestown.

“Why’d ye ask?”

“Roughly thirty-five years ago, my father and I, along with my friends Thyl and Lin, found an above-ground, abandoned dwarf city in the Frost Hills.”

“Those're just west of the Silver Marches, aye? D'ye recall where in them th’ city was?”

“Essentially the western border of the Silver Marches, yes,” Drizzt said. “And the city was located near Fourth Peak, not far from the Goblintide.”

That description stirred something in his memory and Bruenor couldn’t help but gape at his friend. Was it really possible that Drizzt had found the best lead the clan had ever had, decades before they met?

“I think I need tae discuss this with th’ elders,” Bruenor said. “Because somethin’ about that seems familiar somehow, but damned if I c'n say why.”

After long discussion, and much cudgeling of their memories, the remaining greybeards agreed that the city Drizzt had spoken of just might be the tradestown they had known as Dwarvendarrow. But given the difficulties with their memories, they felt it would be best if they could speak to at least the pair of half-elves, and see the location on a map, before doing anything like preparing to move the clan back south.

Drizzt was well accustomed to Catti-brie coming to visit him, but it was far less common for any of the dwarves to come up to his cave. So when he heard a dwarf’s heavy footsteps approaching, a few days after his last visit to their caverns, he was a bit puzzled, though not at all displeased.

Drizzt had not—quite—forgotten what he had mentioned to Bruenor during that visit, but he had, rather deliberately, done his best to set his curiosity aside, in order to have his full attention available when he was ranging. The visitor turning out to be Bruenor himself, however, brought it fully back to mind, and once he was settled on one of the chairs, with a warm drink in hand, the dwarf got right down to business.

“D’ye have any way of gettin’ those half-elf friends of yers tae come up here, with the location of that city ye found marked on a map?” he asked. “The greybeards agree it might well be the tradestown, but want tae be a bit more certain before we go and do anything major.”

“Not directly, but I can start a message chain that will reach them,” Drizzt replied. “Though I will warn you up front that part of that chain is dependent on a bimonthly trade caravan, so it may take some time for the message to actually reach them.”

“We’ve been up here for near two centuries,” Bruenor rumbled, “a couple o’ months won’t matter, so long as the message does reach them.”

“Then I will use my sending stone to reach out to my sister tonight.”

Vierna had passed the message to Zaknafein, who had gone to the Promenade with their next trade caravan and passed it to Elkantar, who passed it to Qilué, who had then passed it on to Thyl and Lin.

The twins had wrapped up their current business as quickly as they were able to, and then, after procuring a map that they could give to Drizzt’s dwarf friend, went up to the Frost Hills to make sure they marked the location as accurately as possible. A chance remark to their mother when they had stopped in Silverymoon on their way to the Frost Hills had led to a brief sending to Drizzt to verify the clan name of his friend, and the result of that had both caused a week’s delay in actually heading north and given them a great deal more to share with said friend.

Most of three months after Drizzt had sent to Vierna, he, Thyl and Lin, Bruenor, and the clan’s remaining greybeards gathered in one of the rooms the dwarves kept warm at all times for the greybeards’ comfort. But after Drizzt had made the needed introductions, Bruenor and the greybeards experienced a further surprise, as Thyl started things off by saying “In addition to bringing the map you requested, we have set in motion a census of the Hall’s survivors in the Silver Marches, so that you will have a better idea of the clan’s full numbers, regardless of whether the city we found proves to be the trading point.”

“Ye’re sayin’ there are others of me clan who survived?” Bruenor asked, disbelief and hope warring in his heart and in his voice.

“Yes,” Lin said. “We were too young to help ourselves, but our older brothers brought many dwarrows and elders to the Citadels, after they had been found wandering by the elves in the Moonwood.”

“That is a blessing to know,” one of the greybeards said, “e’en if most o’ the elders have passed on by now.”

“We are pleased to have been able to bring you such welcome news,” Thyl said.

As surprised as he had been by the news of more clan to protect, Bruenor was still a practical dwarf, so he shook off the shock, and said, “Now let’s be about hearin’ yer accounts o’ the abandoned city, and lookin’ at the map ye brought.”

“Of course,” Thyl said, getting out the map.

Some time later, after much studying of the map, and an intensive interrogation of Thyl and Lin by the greybeards that had occasionally had them sending to their older brothers, Bruenor and the greybeards had to agree that the city most likely was Dwarvendarrow, called Settlestone by others according the records Thyl and Lin had found.

“Too late in the year tae be tryin’ to make the move now,” Bruenor said, “but we can spend the rest o’ the year preparing, and head south next spring.”

“And we can spend that time spreading word of your coming among the other survivors, and getting started on preparing Settlestone for the clan’s arrival,” Lin said.

“Aye, that’d be right good o’ you,” Bruenor agreed. “’Tis nice tae have some hope for the future again.”

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Tales of Faerun

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Tales of Faerun

Entries tagged with character: zaknafein do'urden

Oblodra Gloom: Finale

Oblodra Gloom IV

Three Roads to One Destination

Oblodra Gloom Part III

Scenes from the Underdark

Gender-Changed Drizzt

Cataclysmic Beginnings

The Do'Urdens

Doing It Again (A Bit Less on the Fly & with a Little More Planning)

Divine Snit Fits Occasionally Bring Good Things

Raising a Resistance (Oblodra Gloom II)

The Coming of Gloom

Stolen Children Bringing Hope

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