Three Roads to One Destination (3922 words) by
SomarielChapters: 1/1
Fandom:
Forgotten Realms,
The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. SalvatoreRating: 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 ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.
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