become?
Hadn’t danger been his choice, his preference?
He closed his eyes and imagined the “softer” Dahlia, tending his arm, her hair bouncing lightly around her shoulders, her face clean and fresh and unblemished. He opened his eyes and looked upon her again, considering the change that seemed to come over her at a whim.
Drizzt remembered his midnight ride to Luskan and back, the exuberance of the danger, the thrill of the hunt. Those emotions better accompanied this incarnation of Dahlia. Even though she’d worn the softer look when they ventured into Luskan, it was this impression of Dahlia that helped Drizzt take the risks and enjoy the experience with little regard for the consequences. This incarnation of Dahlia was not vulnerable, was hardly delicate.
As he trotted down to join his lover, it occurred to Drizzt that perhaps he’d become as paradoxical as she.
“Have you ever been in love?” she asked without looking back at him as he neared.
The question stopped him in his tracks.
“Tell me about her,” Dahlia said.
Memories of Catti-brie swirled around his thoughts, and it occurred to him that he would likely tell Dahlia of Catti-brie in a different way, with different emphasis and different tales, if she’d been wearing her softer guise.
She looked up at him and wore a smile, though it was lost in the mesmerizing swirl of her woad. Perhaps she meant it to be a warm smile, but he couldn’t tell.
“It was a long time ago,” he managed to reply.
Dahlia laughed at him. “I’m not jealous,” she assured him.
“I know.” His voice was flat.
Dahlia’s smile disappeared, replaced by a pensive look then a slight nod of understanding. “Tell me of the dwarf, then. Of this King Bruenor Battlehammer. I knew him only for a short while, but he intrigued me. How long did you know him?”
“More than a century,” Drizzt replied, and he found he was indeed more at ease then. It would be far easier to speak of Bruenor than of Catti-brie, particularly to Dahlia. “Perhaps closer to two centuries.”
“From afar?”
“My closest friend.”
“For a hundred and fifty years?” Dahlia asked incredulously, and her smile returned, this time reflecting astonishment.
“Would that I had him beside me for another hundred,” Drizzt said.
“Instead of me?”
The suddenness of her question again threw the drow off-balance. He had to think about the answer—and wondered how he might phrase his impulsive thoughts even if he could sort them out.
Dahlia laughed again, relieving the tension. “Beside me, perhaps?” she offered.
“I’ll tell you of him and let you decide,” Drizzt replied, glad for the out.
“And of your lover?”
Drizzt felt his face grow tight.
Dahlia reached down and retrieved her wide leather hat and plopped it on her head, adjusting her braid so that it curled around her shapely neck and ended at the top of her cleavage.
“Come,” she said as she rose. “The road lies before us and I wish to hear your tales of King Bruenor.”
Drizzt moved down to the stream and vigorously shook his wounded arm in the cold water. He hustled to catch up to Dahlia, drawing a bandage from his pouch as he went. By the time they reached the road and he lifted his whistle to summon Andahar, he’d wrapped the arm from above the elbow all the way to the wrist. For the rest of that day as they rode, he clenched and unclenched his fist, battling the tingles of the residual devilish poison, and his bandage soon enough showed more than one red stain from the renewed blood flow.
Drizzt didn’t care about that inconvenience, however, for he told the tales of Bruenor, as Dahlia bade him. Those stories, happy and thrilling and filled with love and friendship, forcibly battled a different type of poison within the heart and soul of Drizzt Do’Urden.
They set their camp long after the sun had disappeared below the horizon, and were off again before the light of dawn. Andahar carried them effortlessly. Soon enough, they came to the northern reaches of Neverwinter, but on Dahlia’s insistence, they didn’t venture into the settlement. They set their camp just northeast of the town.
While looking for some wood for their small fire, Drizzt heard a rustle of leaves, a footstep. That alone didn’t concern him too greatly—the Neverwinter Guard was likely around the area, and they were not enemies, after all. But as he moved around to investigate, using all the stealth that marked the night as the time of the drow, Drizzt quickly grew more concerned, for whomever he followed showed himself to