Robert Salvatore - The Legacy

I appreciate Alustriel and the goodness she has shown me. I appreciate that she, a ruler in a too-often unforgiving world, has taken such a chance as to allow a dark elf to walk freely down her city's wondrous avenues. Alustriel's acceptance of me as a friend has allowed me to draw my desires from my true wishes, not from expected limitations.

But do I love her?

No more than she loves me.

I will admit, though, I do love the notion that I could love Alustriel, and she could love me, and that, if the attraction were present, the color of my skin and the reputationof my heritage would not deter the noble Lady of Silverymoon.

I know now, though, that love has become the most prominent part of my existence,that my bond of friendship with Bruenor and Wulfgar and Regis is of utmost importanceto any happiness that this draw will ever know.

My bond with Catti-brie runs deeper still.

Honest love is a selfless concept, that I have already said, and my own selflessnesshas been put to a severe test this spring.

I fear now for the future, for Catti-brie and Wulfgar and the barriers they must,together, overcome. Wulfgar loves her, I do not doubt, but he burdens his love with apossessiveness that borders on disrespect.

He should understand the spirit that is Catti-brie, should see clearly the fuel that stokes the fires in her marvelous blue eyes. It is that very spirit that Wulfgar loves, and yet he will undoubtedly smother it under the notions of a woman's place as her husband's possession.

My barbarian friend has come far from his youthful days roaming the tundra. Farther still must he come to hold the heart of Bruenor's fiery daughter, to hold Catti-brie's love.

Is there in all the world a concept more fleeting, more elusive?

— Drizzt Do'Urden

"I'll not accept the group from Nesme." Bruenor growled at the barbarian emissary from Settlestone. "But, king dwarf…" the large, red-haired man stammered helplessly. "No!" Bruenor's severe tone silenced him. "The archers of Nesme played a role in reclaiming Mithril Hall," Drizzt, who stood at Bruenor's side in the audience hall, promptly reminded the dwarf king. Bruenor shifted abruptly in his stone seat. "Ye forgotten the treatment the Nesme dogs gave ye when first we passed through their land?" he asked the drow. Drizzt shook his head, the notion actually bringing a smile to his face. "Never," he replied, but his calm tones and expression revealed that, while he had not forgotten, he apparently had forgiven.

Looking at his ebon-skinned friend, so at peace and content, the huffy dwarf's rage was soon deflated. "Ye think I should let them come to the wedding, then?"

"You are a king now," answered Drizzt, and he held out his hands as though that simple statement should explain everything. Bruenor's expression showed clearly that it did not, though, and so the equally stubborn dark elf promptly elaborated. "Your responsibilities to your people lie in diplomacy. Drizzt explained. "Nesme will be a valuable trading partner and a worthwhile ally. Besides, we can forgive the soldiers of an oft-imperiled town for their reaction to the sight of a dark elf."

"Bah, ye're too soft-hearted, elf," Bruenor grumbled, "and ye're taking me along with ye!" He looked to the huge barbarian, obviously akin to Wulfgar, and nodded. "Send out me welcome to Nesme, then, but I'll be needing a count o' them that's to attend!"

The barbarian cast an appreciative look at Drizzt, then bowed and was gone, though his departure did little to stop Bruenor's grumbling.

"A hunnerd things to do, elf," the dwarf complained.

"You try to make your daughter's wedding the grandest the land has ever seen," Drizzt remarked.

"I try," Bruenor agreed. "She's deserving it, me Catti-brie. I've tried to give her what I could all these years, but…" Bruenor held his hands out, inviting a visual inspection of his stout body, a pointed reminder that he and Catti-brie were not even of the same race.

Drizzt put a hand on his friend's strong shoulder. "No human could have given her more," he assured Bruenor.

The dwarf sniffled; Drizzt did well to hide his chuckle.

"But a hunnerd damned things!" Bruenor roared, his fit of sentimentality predictably short-lived. "King's daughter has to get a proper wedding, I say, but I'm not for getting much help in doing the damned thing right!"

Drizzt knew the source of Bruenor's overblown frustration. The dwarf had expected Regis, a former guildmaster and undeniably skilled in etiquette, to help in planning the huge celebration. Soon after Regis had arrived in the halls, Bruenor had assured Drizzt that his troubles were over, that "Rumblebelly'll see to what's needin' seein' to."

In truth, Regis had taken on many tasks, but hadn't performed as well as Bruenor had expected or demanded. Drizzt wasn't sure if this came from Regis's unexpected ineptitude or Bruenor's doting attitude.

A dwarf rushed in, then, and handed Bruenor twenty different scrolls of possible layouts for the great dining hall. Another dwarf came in on the first one's heels, bearing an armful of potential menus for the feast.

Bruenor just sighed and looked helplessly to Drizzt.

"You will get through this," the drow assured him. "And Catti-brie will think it the grandest celebration ever given." Drizzt meant to go on, but his last statement gave him pause and a concerned expression crossed his brow that Bruenor did not miss.

"Ye're worried for the girl," the observant dwarf remarked.

"More for Wulfgar," Drizzt admitted.

Bruenor chuckled. "I got three masons at work to fixing the lad's walls," he said. "Something put a mighty anger in the boy."

Drizzt only nodded. He had not revealed to anyone that he had been Wulfgar's target on that particular occasion, that Wulfgar probably would have killed him blindly if the barbarian had won.

"The boy's just nervous," Bruenor said.

Again the drow nodded, though he wasn't certain he could bring himself to agree. Wulfgar was indeed nervous, but his behavior went beyond that excuse. Still, Drizzt had no better explanations, and since the incident in the room, Wulfgar had become friendly once more toward Drizzt, had seemed more his old self.

"He'll settle down once the day gets past," Bruenor went on, and it seemed to Drizzt that the dwarf was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. This, too, Drizzt understood, for Catti-brie, the orphaned human, was Bruenor's daughter in heart and soul. She was the one soft spot in Bruenor's rock-hard heart, the vulnerable chink in the king's armor.

Wulfgar's erratic, domineering behavior had not escaped the wise dwarf, it seemed. But, while Wulfgar's attitude obviously bothered Bruenor, Drizzt did not believe the dwarf would do anything about it-not unless Catti-brie asked him for help.

And Drizzt knew that Catti-brie, as proud and stubborn as her father, would not ask-not from Bruenor and not from Drizzt.

"Where ye been hiding, ye little trickster?" Drizzt heard Bruenor roar, and the dwarf's sheer volume startled Drizzt from his private contemplations. He looked over to see Regis entering the hall, the halfling looking thoroughly flustered.

"I ate my first meal of the day!" Regis shouted back, and he got a sour look on his cherubic face and put a hand on his grumbling tummy.

"No time for eating!" Bruenor snapped back. "We got a-"

"Hunnerd things to do," Regis finished, imitating the dwarf's rough accent and holding up his chubby hand in a desperate plea for Bruenor to back off.

Bruenor stomped a heavy boot and stormed over to the pile of potential menus. "Since ye're so set on thinking about food,…" Bruenor began as he gathered up the parchments and heaved them, showering Regis. "There'll be elves and humans aplenty at the feast," he explained as Regis scrambled to put the pile in order. "Give 'em something their sensitive innards'll take!"