“Many people would call the door of Morik the Rogue the wrong door,” the woman answered. “But no, this is where I intended to be.” She gave a coy little smile and looked Morik over as thoroughly as he was regarding her. “You have aged well,” she said.
The implication that this enticing creature had known Morik in his earlier years piqued the rogue's curiosity. He stared at her hard, trying to place her.
“Perhaps it would help if I cast spells to shake our bed,” the woman remarked. “Or multicolored lights to dance about us as we make love.”
“Bellany!” Morik cried suddenly. “Bellany Tundash! How many years have passed?”
Indeed, Morik hadn't seen the sorceress in several years, not since she was a minor apprentice in the Hosttower of the Arcane. She had been the wild one! Sneaking out from the wizards' guild nearly every night to come and play along the wilder streets of Luskan. And like so many pretty women who had come out to play, Bellany had inevitably found her way to Morik's side and Morik's bed for a few encounters.
Amazing encounters, Morik recalled.
“Not so many years, Morik,” Bellany replied. “And here I thought I was more special than that to you.” She gave a little pout, pursing her lips in such a way as to make Morik's knees go weak. “I believed you would recognize me immediately and sweep me into your arms for a great kiss.”
“A situation I must correct!” said Morik, coming forward with his arms out wide, a bright and eager expression on his face.
* * * * * * * * ** * *
Both Catti-brie and Regis retired early that night, but Drizzt stayed on in the tavern with Bruenor, suspecting that the dwarf needed to talk.
“When this business is finished, you and I must go to Waterdeep,” the drow remarked. “It would do my heart good to hear Colson talk of her grandfather.”
“Kid's talking?” Bruenor asked.
“No, not yet,” Drizzt replied with a laugh. “But soon enough.”
Bruenor merely nodded, seeming less than intrigued with it all.
“She has a good mother,” Drizzt said after a while. “And we know the character of her father. Colson will be a fine lass.”
“Colson,” Bruenor muttered, and he downed half his mug of ale. “Stupid name.”
“It is Elvish,” Drizzt explained. “With two meanings, and seeming perfectly fitting. 'Col' means 'not', and so the name literally translates into 'not-son, or 'daughter. Put together, though, the name Colson means 'from the dark town'. A fitting name, I would say, given Delly Curtie's tale of how Wulfgar came by the child.”
Bruenor huffed again and finished the mug.
“I would have thought you would be thrilled at the news,” the drow dared to say. “You, who knows better than any the joy of finding a wayward child to love as your own.”
“Bah,” Bruenor snorted.
“And I suspect that Wulfgar will soon enough produce grandchildren for you from his own loins,” Drizzt remarked, sliding another ale Bruenor's way.
“Grandchildren?” Bruenor echoed doubtfully, and he turned in his chair to face the drow directly. “Ain't ye assuming that Wulfgar's me own boy?”
“He is.”
“Is he?” Bruenor asked. “Ye're thinking that a couple o' years apart mended me heart for his actions on Catti-brie.” The dwarf snorted yet again, threw his hand up in disgust, then turned back to the bar, cradling his new drink below him, muttering, “Might be that I'm looking to find him so I can give him a big punch in the mouth for the way he treated me girl.”
“Your worry has been obvious and genuine,” Drizzt remarked. “You have forgiven Wulfgar, whether you admit it or not.
“As have I,” Drizzt quickly added when the dwarf turned back on him, his eyes narrow and threatening. “As has Catti-brie. Wulfgar was in a dark place, but from all I've learned, it would seem that he has begun the climb back to the light.”
Those words softened Bruenor's expression somewhat, and his ensuing snort was not as definitive this time.
“You will like Colson,” Drizzt said with a laugh. “And Delly Curtie.”
“Colson,” Bruenor echoed, listening carefully to the name as he spoke it. He looked at Drizzt and shook his head, but if he was trying to continue to show his disapproval, he was failing miserably.
“So now I got a granddaughter from a son who's not me own, and a daughter o' his that's not his own,” Bruenor said some time later, he and Drizzt having gone back to their respective drinks for a few reflective moments. “Ye'd think that one of us would've figured out that half the fun's in makin' the damn brats!”
“And will Bruenor one day sire his own son?” Drizzt asked. “A dwarf child?”
The dwarf turned and regarded Drizzt incredulously, but considered the words for a moment and shrugged. “I just might,” he said. He looked back at his ale, his face growing more serious and a bit sad, Drizzt noticed. “I'm not a young one, ye know, elf?” he asked. “Seen the centuries come and go, and remember times when Catti-brie and Wulfgar's parents' parents' parents' parents hadn't felt the warming of their first dawn. And I feel old, don't ye doubt! Feel it in me bones.”
“Centuries of banging stone will do that,” Drizzt said dryly, but his levity couldn't penetrate the dwarfs mood at that moment.
“And I see me girl all grown, and me boy the same, and now he's got a little one.. ” Bruenor's voice trailed off and he gave a great sigh, then drained the rest of his mug, turning as he finished to face Drizzt squarely. “And that little one will grow old and die, and I'll still be here with me aching bones.”
Drizzt understood, for he too, as a long-living creature, surely saw Bruenor's dilemma. When elves, dark or light, or dwarves befriended the shorter living races—humans, halflings, and gnomes—there came the expectancy that they would watch their friends grow old and die. Drizzt knew that one of the reasons elves and dwarves remained clannish to their own, whether they wanted to admit it or not, was because of exactly that—both races protecting themselves from the emotional tearing.
“Guess that's why we should be stickin' with our own kind, eh, elf?” Bruenor finished, looking slyly at Drizzt out of the corner of his eye.
Drizzt's expression went from sympathy to curiosity. Had Bruenor just warned him away from Catti-brie? That caught the drow off his guard, indeed! And rocked him right back in his seat, as he sat staring hard at Bruenor. Had he finally let himself see the truth of his feelings for Catti-brie just to encounter this dwarven roadblock? Or was Bruenor right, and was Drizzt being a fool?
The drow took a long, long moment to steady himself and collect his thoughts.
“Or perhaps those of us who hide from the pain will never know the joys that might lead to such profound pain,” Drizzt finally said. “Better to—”
“To what?” Bruenor interrupted. “To fall in love with one of them? To marry one, elf?”
Drizzt still didn't know what Bruenor was up to. Was he telling Drizzt to back off, calling the drow a fool for even thinking of falling in love with Catti-brie?
But then Bruenor tipped his hand.
“Yeah, fall in love with one,” he said with a derisive snort, but one Drizzt recognized that was equally aimed at himself. “Or maybe take one of 'em in to raise as yer own. Heck, maybe more than one!”
Bruenor glanced over at Drizzt, his toothy smile showing through his brilliant red whiskers. He lifted his mug toward Drizzt in a toast. “To the both of us, then, elf!” he boomed. “A pair o' fools, but smiling fools!”
Drizzt gladly answered that toast with a tap of his own glass. He understood then that Bruenor wasn't subtly trying to (in a dwarf sort of way) ward him off, but rather that the dwarf was merely making sure Drizzt understood the depth of what he had.
They went back to their drinking. Bruenor drained mug after mug, but Drizzt cradled that single glass of fine wine.
Many minutes passed before either spoke again, and it was Bruenor, cracking in a tone that seemed all seriousness, which made it all the funnier, “Hey, elf, me next grandkid won't be striped, will it?”