He looked back at Innovindil, and noticed that she had moved very close to him. He could feel the warmth of her breath. Her golden hair seemed so soft in that moment, backlit by the fire, almost as if she was aglow. Her eyes seemed so dark and mysterious, but so full of intensity.
She reached up and stroked his face gently, and Drizzt felt his blood rushing. He tried hard to control his trembling.
"I think you a gentle and beautiful soul, Drizzt Do'Urden," she said. "I understand better this difficult road you have traveled, and admire your dedication."
"So you believe now that I know what it is to be an elf?" Drizzt asked, more to alleviate the sudden tension he was feeling, to lighten the mood, than anything else.
But Innovindil didn't let him go so easily.
"No," she said. "You have half the equation, the half that takes care to anticipate the long-term course of things. You reflect and worry, ask yourself to examine your actions honestly, and demand of yourself honest answers, and that is no small thing. Young elves react and examine, and along that honest road of self-evaluation, you will one day come to react to whatever is found before you in full confidence that you are doing right."
Drizzt leaned back just a bit as Innovindil continued to press forward, so that her face was barely an inch from his own.
"And the half I have not learned?" he asked, afraid his voice would crack with each word.
In response, Innovindil pressed in closer and kissed him.
Drizzt didn't know how to respond. He sat there passively for a long while, feeling the softness of her lips and tongue, her hand brushing his neck, and her lithe body as she pressed in closer to him. Blood rushed through him and the world seemed as if it was spinning, and Drizzt stopped even trying to think and just… felt.
He began to kiss Innovindil back and his hands started to move around her. He heard a soft moan escape his own lips and was hardly even conscious of it.
Innovindil broke the kiss suddenly and fell back, her arms coming out to hold Drizzt from pursuing. She looked at Drizzt curiously for just a moment, then asked, "What if she is alive?"
Drizzt tried to question the sudden shift, but as her inquiry hit him, his response was more stutter than words.
"If you knew that Catti-brie was alive, then would you wish to continue this?" Innovindil asked, and she might as well have added, "Drizzt Do'Urden," to the end of the question.
Drizzt's mind spun in circles. He managed to stammer, "B-but…"
"Ah, Drizzt Do'Urden," Innovindil said. She twirled, rising gracefully to her feet. "You spend far too much time in complete control. You consider the future with every move."
"Is that what it is to be an elf?" Drizzt asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
"It might be," Innovindil answered. She came forward again and bent low, looking at Drizzt mischievously, but directly. "In your experience, stoicism is what it is to be an elf. But letting go sometimes, my friend, that is what it is to be alive."
She turned with a giggle and stepped away.
"You pulled back, not I," Drizzt reminded, and Innovindil turned on him sharply.
"You didn't answer my question."
She was right and Drizzt knew it. He could only begin to imagine his torn emotions had they gone through with the act.
"I have seen you reckless in battle," Innovindil went on. "But in love? In life? With your scimitars, you will take a chance against a giant or ten! But with your heart, are you nearly as brave? You will cry out in anger against goblinkind, but will you dare cry out in passion?"
Drizzt didn't answer, because he didn't have an answer. He looked down and gave a self-deprecating chuckle, and was surprised when Innovindil sat down again beside him and comfortably put her arm around his shoulders.
"I am alone," the female elf said. "My lover is gone and my heart is empty. What I need now is a friend. Are you that friend?"
Drizzt leaned over and kissed her, but on the cheek.
"Happily so," he answered. "But am I your friend or your student, when you so freely play with my emotions?"
Innovindil assumed a pensive posture and a moment later answered, "I hope you will learn from my experiences, as I hope to learn from yours. I know that my life is enriched because of your companionship these last tendays. I hope that you can say the same."
Drizzt knew he didn't even have to answer that question. He put his arm around Innovindil and pulled her close. They sat there under the stars and let the Reverie calm them.
CHAPTER 14 REGROUPING
A pall hung over the audience chamber at Mithral Hall. The orcs had been pushed out, the western entry seemingly secured. And because of their cleverness and the explosive potions of Nanfoodle, few dwarves had fallen in either the initial assault that had brought the orcs into the hall or the counterattack that had pushed them out.
But word had come from the south, both hopeful and tragic.
Bruenor Battlehammer stood tall in front of his throne then, commanding the attention of all, from the guards lining the room to the many citizens and refugees standing by the doors awaiting their audience with the king.
To the side of Bruenor stood Cordio and Stumpet, the two principle clerics of the clan. Bruenor motioned to them, and Cordio quickly dipped a large mug in the barrel of dwarven holy water, a very sweet honey mead. Attendants all over the hall scrambled to disseminate the drink, so that everyone in attendance, even the three non-dwarves—Regis, Wulfgar, and Nanfoodle—had mug in hand when Bruenor raised his in toast.
"And so does General Dagna Waybeard of Adbar and Mithral Hall join his son in the Halls of Moradin," Bruenor proclaimed. "To Dagna and to all who served well with him. They gave their lives in defense of neighbors and in battle with smelly trolls." He paused, then raised his voice to a shout as he finished, "A good way to die!"
"A good way to die!" came the thunderous response.
Bruenor drained his entire mug in one great gulp, then tossed it back to Cordio and fell back into his seat.
"The news was not all bad," said Banak Brawnanvil, sitting at his side in a specially constructed chair to accommodate legs that would no longer support him.
"Yeah?" said Bruenor.
"Alustriel was seen at the fight," said Banak. "No small thing, that."
Bruenor looked to the young courier who had brought the news from the south. When Bruenor had sent out the Mirabarran dwarves, he had stretched a line of communication all the way from Mithral Hall, a relay team of couriers so that news would flow back quickly. With the orcs back out of Mithral Hall, the dwarf king expected a very fluid situation and had no intention of being caught by surprise from any direction.
"Alustriel was there?" he pressed the courier. "Or we're thinking she was there?"
"Oh, they seen her, me king," said the dwarf, "come in on a flaming chariot, down from the sky in a ball of fire!"
"Then how did they know it to be her, through the veil of flames?" Nanfoodle dared to ask. He blanched and fell back, showing everyone that he was merely thinking aloud.
"Aye, that's Alustriel," Bruenor assured the gnome and everyone else. "I'm knowing a thing or two about the Lady of Silverymoon's fiery chariot."
That brought chuckles from the others around Bruenor, especially from the normally quiet Wulfgar, who had witnessed first-hand Bruenor's piloting of Alustriel's magical cart. Far to the south and out on the sea, Bruenor had brought Alustriel's conjured chariot of flame streaking across the deck of a pirate ship, to ultimate disaster—for the pirates, of course.
"So she's knowing that a fight's afoot," Bruenor said, and he looked to the emissary from another outside kingdom.
"Citadel Felbarr would surely've telled her," Jackonray Broadbelt agreed. "We've got a good flow o' runners to Silverymoon and to Sundabar. Alustriel's knowing what's afoot, to be sure, if she joined in the fight in the south."