true of elves, too, even though those elf bards likely knew the principals of their songs!
The centuries dull and shift the memories, and the lens of time alters images.
A great life for an elf, then, results either of a historical moment seized correctly or, more often, it is a series of connected smaller events that will eventually add up to something beyond the parts. It is a continuing process of growth, perhaps, but only because of piling experiential understanding.
Most of all, I know now, to be an elf is not to be paralyzed by a future one cannot control. I know that I am going to die. I know that those I love will one day die, and in many cases - I suspect, but do not know! - they will die long before I. Certitude is strength and suspicion is worthless, and worry over suspicion is something less than that.
I know, now, and so I am free of the bonds of the future.
I know that every moment is to be treasured, to be enjoyed, to be heightened as much as possible in the best possible way.
I know, now, the failing of the bonds of worthless worry.
I am free.
19. QUIET TENDAYS
Winter had already settled in far to the north, on the higher foothills of the Spine of the World. Cold winds brought stinging sheets of snow, often moving horizontally more than vertically. Drizzt and Innovindil kept their cowls pulled low and tight, but still the crisp snow stung their faces, and the brilliance of the snowcap had Drizzt squinting his sensitive eyes even when the sun was not brightly shining. The drow would have preferred to move after dark, but it was simply too cold, and he, Innovindil, and Sunset had to spend the dark hours huddled closely near a fire night after night. He couldn't believe how dramatically the shift in the weather had come, considering that it was still autumn back in the region of Mithral Hall.
The going was slow - no more than a few miles a day at most, and that only if they were not trying to climb higher along the icy passes. On a few occasions, they had dared to use Sunset to fly them up over a particularly difficult ridge, but the wind was dangerously strong for even the pegasus's powerful wings. Beyond that, the last thing the pair wanted was to be spotted by Gerti and her army of behemoths!
"How many days have passed?" Drizzt asked Innovindil as they sat for a break and a midday meal one gray afternoon.
"A tenday and six?" the elf answered, obviously as unsure of the actual time they had spent chasing Gerti as was Drizzt.
"And it seems as if we have walked across the seasons," said the drow.
"Summer never comes to the mountains, and up here, autumn and spring are what we in the lower lands would call winter, to be sure."
Drizzt looked back to the south as Innovindil responded, and that view reminded him of just how high up they had come. The landscape opened wide before him, sloping down and spreading so completely that it appeared to flatten out below him. In viewing that, it occurred to Drizzt that if the ground was bare and less broken, he could start a round stone rolling there and it would bounce all the way to Mithral Hall.
"They're getting far ahead of us," Drizzt remarked. "Perhaps we should be on our way."
"They're bound for Shining White, to be sure," Innovindil replied. "We will find it, do not doubt. I have seen the giant lair many times from Sunset's back." She motioned to the northwest, higher up in the mountains.
"Will we even be able to get through the passes?" Drizzt asked, looking back up at the steel gray sky, clouds heavy with the promise of even more snow.
"One way or another," she said. The drow took comfort in Innovindil's clear determination, in her scowl that seemed every bit as forceful and stoic as his own. "They treat Sunrise lovingly."
"Frost giants appreciate beauty."
As do I, Drizzt thought but did not say. Beauty, strength, and heart combined.
He considered all of that as he looked at Innovindil, but the thought itself sent his mind rushing back to an image of another female companion he had once known. There were many similarities, Drizzt knew, but he needn't look farther than Innovindil's pointy ears and sharply angled eyebrows to remember that there were great differences, as well.