"Ye're scarin' me, gnome," a third remarked.
"Can we get through that much?" Nanfoodle asked Pikel, ignoring the others.
"Hee hee hee," said the green-bearded dwarf.
CHAPTER 23 ELF MUSING, GIANT FEARS
Drizzt sat on a high stone on the eastern slope, watching as the sky brightened before him, as pinks and violets grew from the deep blue of predawn. He was glad when he heard the soft footfalls of Innovindil behind him, for it was her first journey out of the cave since Tarathiel's fall, two days before.
She walked up beside him and leaned on the stone.
"It will be a beautiful dawn," she said.
"They all are," Drizzt replied. "Even when the clouds lay thick about the horizon, the glow of the sun is a most welcomed sight to my Underdark weary eyes."
"Even after all these years?"
Drizzt looked over at Innovindil, at the warmth of her elf features—seeming less angular in the soft, predawn light—and at the depth of her blue eyes. Dawn was a time befitting her beauty, he thought. The softness and the quiet. The opposite of the hardened warrior he had witnessed in battle. Only then, in that flavor, did Drizzt truly begin to appreciate her depth.
"How old are you?" he asked before he could even consider the propriety of the question.
"This time marks the end of my third century," she answered. 'Tarathiel was older than I, by many decades."
"That seems inconsequential to us of elf heritage."
Drizzt closed his eyes as he spoke, considering his own statement. What was waiting for him in his second century of life? he wondered. Was each existence among the shorter lived races a replay of the previous? A simple continuation?
He glanced at the sunrise and wondered, hoped, that perhaps it was not, that perhaps each «existence» as measured by the life span of a human or even a dwarf, would instead place layers upon knowledge already gained. He looked down at Innovindil, hoping that perhaps there might be some clue to be found in the depths of her eyes, but he found her smiling widely at him, a look that seemed almost condescending.
"You do not understand what it is to be an elf, do you?" she asked him.
Drizzt just stared at her. He understood what she was hinting at and even believed that there was more than a little truth in her words.
"You left the Underdark when you were but a child," Innovindil went on.
"Not so young."
"But never trained in the perspectives of elven culture," Innovindil said.
Drizzt shrugged and had to agree, for in his time in Menzoberranzan, he had spent his hours training to fight and to kill.
"And up here," she went on, "you have mostly been in the company of shorter-lived races."
"Bruenor counts his age in centuries, as do you," Drizzt reminded.
"Dwarves do not have an elf's perspective."
"You speak as if it is a tangible thing."
Drizzt paused then, as did Innovindil, for the eastern sky brightened with brilliant pinks and purples. The dawn came on gloriously, for there were just enough clouds, all drifting in distinct clusters and lines, to catch the morning rays and reflect them in myriad hues and textures.
"Was the beauty of that sunrise a tangible thing?" Innovindil asked.
Drizzt smiled and surrendered with a sigh.
"You must come to understand what it is or what it will be to live for several centuries, Drizzt Do'Urden," she said. "For your own sake, should you be fortunate enough to dodge your enemies and see those long years. You have picked your friends among the lesser races, and you must understand the implications of those choices."
"Lesser…" Drizzt started to ask, but Innovindil cut him short by explaining, "Lesser-lived races."
Drizzt started to respond again, but he fell silent and let his gaze drift back to the east. He concentrated on the beauty of the continuing sunrise, trying to hide behind it and not show the pain that had come into his heart.
"What is it?" Innovindil pressed him.
He held silent. He felt Innovindil's hand softly touch his shoulder, and he couldn't deny that her warm touch was drawing him away from the wall of anger that was building again around his heart.
"Drizzt?" she asked quietly.
"Good friends," he said, his voice quavering.
Innovindil's hand continued to hold him until he at last turned to regard her.
"More than friends?" she asked.
Drizzt's lips went very tight.
"The daughter of Bruenor," Innovindil reasoned. "You love the human daughter of Bruenor Battlehammer, the one named Catti-brie."
Drizzt swallowed hard.
"Loved," he corrected.
It was Innovindil's turn to put on a curious look.
"She fell at Shallows, with Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Regis," Drizzt mustered the strength to say. "I picked my friends and could not have found better companionship, but..»
His voice cracked apart, and he turned fast back to the dawn, locking himself into the spectacle of colors, even held his stare against the sting of the rising sun itself, as if its burn on his sensitive eyes could somehow block out the other, more profound pain.
Innovindil squeezed his shoulder hard and asked, "Do you question your choice?"
"No," Drizzt insisted without the slightest hesitation.
"And your choice to love a human?"
"Was I wrong for that?" Drizzt asked. His defiance melted suddenly, and he asked again, more quietly, as if searching for an honest answer, "Was I wrong for that?"
Drizzt had to pause then and take a deep breath, and another, and he turned back to the rising sun, his eyes moist from more than the bright light's sting.
"Do you think it unwise for an elf, who might live for seven or more centuries, to fall in love with a human who will not know the end of one?" Innovindil asked him. "Do you think it a terrible notion that if you had children with a human, they would age and die before you?"
Drizzt winced at both questions.
"I do not know," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper.
"Because you do not know what it is to be an elf," Innovindil said with certainty.
Drizzt looked back at her and asked, "You say that I was wrong?"
But Innovindil's smile disarmed his ire.
"Our curse is to outlive so many of those we will know and love," she said. "I have known two human lovers."
Drizzt eyed her, not knowing what to make of the admission.
"The first man I fell in love with was a human, and he was not a young man, by human counting," Innovindil went on, and it was her turn to look to the rising sun. "He was a good man, a wizard of great talent, if little ambition." She gave a wistful chuckle. "But how I loved him—as greatly as I have ever loved anyone. I buried him when I was still a child by an elf's counting—younger even than you are now. How that pained me….
"Nearly a century passed before I was able to dare to love another human," the elf went on, still staring to the east, not blinking at all.
"And he died as well," Drizzt reasoned.
"But not before we had three wonderful decades together," Innovindil replied, her smile widening. She paused for a long while, then turned and looked directly at Drizzt once more. "You really do not understand what it is to be an elf, Drizzt Do'Urden, because no one has shown you."
Her tone told Drizzt clearly that her words were an offer.
But could he dare to take her up on that offer? Could he dare to leave his heart open wide once more, where it would possibly get seared yet again?
"We have business to attend," the drow announced, his voice strong and determined. "Tarathiel's death will not go unavenged."
"You will kill the orc who slew him?"
"On my word," Drizzt declared through clenched teeth.
It took him a while to realize that Innovindil was staring at him hard. He turned to her, his determination ebbing as he looked into her wide-eyed, angry glare.