AN: Still alive, still writing. RL has been demanding lately, but I'm trying to get my head back into the story rotation.

Solaufein awoke, as had quickly become his custom, shortly before dawn; the gradual shift from darkness to daylight was easier for his eyes to accept. Crouching beside the firepit, he began to add wood, stirring the banked coals back to life and filling Jaheira’s small copper kettle with water before setting it on the edge of the flames to heat.

“It has been rare to have one awake in camp before me,” the druid remarked in a low voice as she slipped from her bedroll and moved to join him, giving him a grateful smile as she noticed the kettle.

“It gives my eyes time to adjust to the coming of the sun, and my mind a time of peace for reflection,” he replied, his gaze shifting to the crescent moon sinking low on the horizon.

“If I am disturbing you –” she began, but he shook his head, motioning for her to sit.

“Company is not necessarily disruptive,” he told her. “There is satisfaction to be had in sharing such moments with others who appreciate them.”

She nodded, settling on the bare ground, and they sat in companionable silence until steam began to rise from the spout of the kettle. As the half-elf crouched beside the fire, pouring the boiling water over the tea leaves in her mug, the drow blinked in surprise at the tiny whiskered nose and bright eyes that peered from the dark hair that fell over her shoulder.

“I’ve not seen him accompany anyone but Minsc before,” he remarked as she sat back down, his eyes going to the ranger’s bedroll just outside the firelight, realizing for the first time that the big man was not the only one occupying it. “Aerie?”

Jaheira nodded, a faint smile on her lips. She was unsure exactly what had passed between the pair the previous night, but the avariel was nestled snugly against the Rasheman’s massive chest, both of them still fully clothed.

“Is he jealous, do you think?” Solaufein asked, amusement glinting in his blue eyes.

“Boo?” The druid shook her head. “No, he seemed quite pleased with himself last night.” She rolled her eyes. “And I would be grateful if you didn’t tell anyone else I said that,” she added, disentangling the hamster from her hair and holding him in one hand at eye level. “If anyone heard me speaking to him last night, my sanity would forever be in doubt.”

“You do not believe that he is as unusual as Minsc claims, then?” the drow wanted to know.

She hesitated, looking down into the oilspot eyes that regarded her expectantly. “Let’s say that I’m not quite the skeptic that I once was and leave it at that, eh?” Her answer seemed to satisfy Boo, for he accepted her offer of a portion of her biscuit and munched away contentedly.

Minsc and Aerie joined them a few minutes later, the avariel smiling shyly, a faint blush coloring her cheeks as she crouched by the fire to pour water into her tea mug. Minsc, his face alight with a new confidence, stepped to Jaheira’s side, bending and extending a broad hand onto which Boo immediately climbed, carefully maintaining his hold on the remains of his breakfast.

“Boo thanks you for sharing your pillow with him last night,” he informed the druid, “and Minsc thanks you, as well, for your wise words to him.”

“I am glad that they helped you, Minsc,” she told him, “and I am happy for you both.”

The big man beamed as he settled himself beside the fire, using his dagger to cut slices of bread and cheese for himself and Aerie. Anomen joined the group next, a wistful smile ghosting over his face as he watched the newly bonded couple.

“My heart rejoices to see such bliss, my large friend,” Yoshimo announced as he made his way to the fireside, stretching lazily. “I told you that boldness would serve you well.” He bowed deeply to Aerie, raising her hand to his lips. “Long life and happiness to you both.”

The avariel’s blush deepened, but she smiled at the Kara-Turan, then leaned contentedly against Minsc.

“Have you set a date yet?” Aran Linvail asked, emerging from the trees looking as impeccably groomed as if he had just stepped from a dressing room. He and Viconia had, as usual, made their bed well away from the main camp.

“First we must find Jessime and little Imoen and help them with whatever butt kicking must be done,” Minsc announced, his expression leaving no doubt that, to him, it was inevitable that they would locate the wayward siblings. “Then Irenicus must have the mighty boot of justice taken to his backside, to force him to return Jessime’s soul and claim vengeance for Dynaheir and Khalid. Once these things are done, then Minsc will wed his witch.”

“Eminently practical, Minsc,” Linvail agreed, taking a seat beside Jaheira. “She’s in an odd mood today,” he said in a low voice meant only for her ears.

She glanced at him, noting the serious cast to his usually merry blue eyes, and bit back the acerbic comment that had risen to her lips. “How so?”

He shook his head, frowning thoughtfully. “Distracted, agitated. She won’t tell me what is wrong, but she seems almost afraid.”

“The residue of your disagreement yesterday?” Jaheira asked.

“Possible,” Aran admitted, “though I went to sleep thinking we had reached another truce.” He seemed ready to say more, but stopped as Viconia appeared, stalking toward the fire with her face set into a forbidding mask. Her upper lip curled into a disdainful sneer as she glanced toward Aerie and Minsc, but then a shadow passed over her features briefly before the mask returned. Giving Linvail a flat, unfriendly stare, she quickly bent and carved off slices of bread and cheese, then strode away without a word, leaning against a tree some distance away to eat, her eyes distant and unreadable.

“I’m probably not the best person to be sitting with, if you want to get back into her good graces,” Jaheira informed the Shadowmaster dryly.

“She doesn’t own me,” he said simply, his eyes lingering on the lone figure, “nor I her. She is free to associate with or bed whomever she wishes…as am I.”

The druid regarded him with an upraised eyebrow. “If that was meant as a serious proposition, it was abominable,” she informed him tartly. “If it was intended as a jest, it was merely awful.”

“Nothing more than a jest,” he assured her, standing and offering a gallant bow. “You intrigue me, Lady Harper, but you don’t seem the type for casual dalliances.”

“Quite perceptive of you,” she murmured as he turned and made his way back the way he had come, giving Viconia a wide berth. She’d had two lovers before meeting Khalid, and none after. The very notion seemed…wrong, disloyal; it had only been a matter of weeks since Khalid –

“A bit early in the morning for a lovers’ quarrel, isn’t it?” Anomen asked, eyeing Viconia with wary curiosity.

“Aran seems to think there is more to it than that,” Jaheira replied, pushing aside her brooding thoughts.

“It’s not really like her to pass up a chance to be snide,” Aerie agreed, her lips pursed in disapproval.

“She has, at least, been attempting to be civil of late,” Jaheira reminded the avariel, who flushed guiltily and nodded in acknowledgement. “However, she is still not likely to confide in any of us…except perhaps Linvail.” She glanced again toward the drow and shook her head. “We should get moving.”

They broke camp with the ease of long practice, and Solaufein found himself riding again beside Anomen. The young knight had staunchly defended him to the more intolerant members of the Orders, and in the subsequent days, the cautious friendship that had begun between them had continued to grow.

The Helmite was quiet this morning, however, his brown eyes distant and melancholy; the drow could readily guess why.

“We’ll make better time now that we’ve separated from the armies,” he offered cautiously.

The knight chuckled. “Am I that obvious?” He shook his head with a rueful smile. “I never thought to see the day that I would choose not to travel with the Order in such a historic endeavor, but by Helm, their progress was almost maddeningly slow!”

Solaufein nodded. “The drow rarely travel thusly; it is preferred to send a number of smaller, more mobile forces that can attack either independently or in cooperation with each other. I can see the necessity for methodical protocols when coordinating the movement of such large numbers, but I admit that I shared your impatience. I was most relieved when Jaheira chose to move forward.”

“Aye.” Anomen sighed. “I just wish that we had some idea of what it is that we are to do when we reach Tethyr, if we are forbidden to seek out Jessime and Imoen.”

“If the gods are truly influencing events, then such things will be revealed when they deem the time is right,” the drow replied with a pragmatic shrug. “Until that time, we can do as Jaheira suggested to the Archprelate: conduct a reconnaissance and try to make contact with this Duke Rhindaun.”

“Prudent words, my friend,” the knight replied, sighing again. “Unfortunately, patience has never been one of my virtues, though I dare say that I am not as rash as I once was. Still, to know that they may be in danger, and yet be forbidden to even try to assist them…”

“Frustrating, indeed,” Solaufein agreed. It had been heartening that the group had maintained its unity in Jessime’s absence, but it was plain that all of them were worried about the two young women. Oddly, it was not Jess whose absence the drow found himself most aware of…or perhaps it was not so odd, after all. He had spent more time in Imoen’s company, and had grown accustomed to her constant questions and lively tales. It was hard to believe that the Taint of Bhaal was within her, though the haunted shadows that had sometimes crossed her face when she thought no one was looking spoke eloquently of the fears that lay beneath the cheerful surface.

“They will take care of each other,” he told the knight, “and they are far from helpless.” He envied the pair their bond, a confidence in each other that went beyond the camaraderie of the group as a whole, an easy faith born of a lifetime of trust in each other.

Anomen nodded. “I know that,” he conceded, but his eyes were still shadowed. “I just wish that she felt the same trust in me that she places in Imoen.” He smiled wryly. “Petty of me, isn’t it?”

“It seems a natural desire to me,” the drow disagreed, “and I do not believe that she withheld her plans from you from a lack of trust. Would you have let her go alone, without argument…any of you?”

The smile turned slightly sheepish. “Alone? Perhaps, but without argument?” He shook his head slowly. “Jaheira and I, at least, would each have resisted the notion strenuously.”

“And she would have known that,” Solaufein concluded. “Under the pressure of a geas to leave with only Imoen, as quickly as possible, the two of you would have been the last that she would have elected to tell, even apart from whatever it is in Jaheira’s past that troubles her so.”

“You’ve noticed that too, eh?” Anomen cast a brief glance backward to where the druid rode alone. She had assumed leadership of the group in Jess’ absence with her usual brisk manner, but her disquiet had grown more perceptible the closer they drew to their destination.

“Aye.” The drow took pains not to allow his gaze to follow that of the Helmite; he had learned quickly of Jaheira’s tendency to bristle when she felt she was being coddled. “Facing one’s past is never easy,” he murmured. “It can only be harder when it is shrouded in uncertainty.”

Anomen turned his eyes back to the road, riding in silence as he contemplated his confrontation with his own past only weeks earlier, though it seemed lifetimes ago. Solaufein watched him thoughtfully, but chose not to break the silence, which held until Jaheira called a stop for rest and food shortly after the sun reached its zenith.

“Four more days’ long riding to reach Mosstone,” Jaheira announced, studying the parchment scroll in her lap as she nibbled on a handful of dried fruit.

“Looks like we could reach an inn by nightfall,” Yoshimo observed, peering over her shoulder. “Any chance of a break from all this fresh air?”

“I suppose it could be arranged,” she conceded with a roll of her eyes. “A night without the need for watches would be of benefit; I suspect they will be fewer and farther between before we are done with this.”

“Aye: the boundless forests of Tethyr,” the Kara-Turan said expansively as he straightened, though his expression was one of amused resignation.

“You do not care for nature?” Solaufein inquired with a faint smile.

“When was the last time you saw a squirrel wearing a belt pouch?” Yoshimo asked in turn, grinning irreverently at the drow. “I’ll gladly leave it to Minsc.” The ranger had wandered a bit further into the trees, evidently holding a three way conversation between himself, Boo and one of the aforementioned squirrels. “And to you, of course,” he assured Jaheira. “It looks like there’s enough to share, after all.”

Jaheira snorted softly and shook her head, but whatever acerbic rejoinder she might have delivered was lost in the sudden rise of Viconia’s voice.

“You understand nothing, waele jaluk!” she shouted, striding back toward the horses from the far side of the glen in which they rested. She had, if anything, grown more agitated as the day had gone on, her mount dancing restlessly beneath her, and Linvail had taken her aside as soon as they had stopped, though the ensuing conversation had not appeared to be going well even before her stormy exit. “Why must you continue to meddle when you –”

She stopped suddenly, her eyes gone wide and fearful as they darted from one side of the clearing to the other. “Shar defend me,” she said hoarsely, reaching for the mace at her side. “She has found me! She has –”

The mace fell to the ground as her hands flew to her head, and she collapsed with an agonized scream. Solaufein came to his feet, barely aware of the others doing the same, feeling for the first time the sense of malevolent searching that he realized must have been with Viconia since that morning, a presence that no drow raised in the Underdark could forget. It skated off of his consciousness and focused back in on the prone female. “Arm yourselves!” he barked.

Deep shadow swept over the clearing, though the sky overhead remained a cloudless blue. A faint pop of displaced air announced the arrival of the hunters; Solaufein murmured a prayer to Eilistraee as he swept his sword from its sheath and spun to face the attackers.

Two Handmaidens regarded him with apparent surprise. “Two apostates,” the foremost said in a satisfied purr, dropping her hand to caress the shiny carapace of the arachnoid form that loomed at her side. “Take them both,” she ordered it, the sweep of her hand including its twin who stood with the other Handmaiden. “Kill the others.” As the spiders surged forward with chittering hisses, the two females began casting, their voices rising and falling in the harsh syllables of the drow tongue, but Solaufein was already finishing a spell, magefire flying from his free hand to strike the nearest female, disrupting her spell.

Linvail had already interposed himself between the spiders and Viconia, his rapier drawn and his cloak waving loosely in his extended off-hand. The first one to reach him reared back on its hindmost pairs of legs, lashing out at the cloak, dancing away to avoid the strike of the rapier. The second circled wide in an attempt to outflank the Shadow Master, only to retreat with a screech as two arrows penetrated its abdomen in quick succession.

Behind him, Solaufein heard Anomen’s voice rising in prayer, mingling with Aerie and Jaheira’s spells; seconds later, he watched in satisfaction as Lolth’s minions cringed visibly, first at the wash of holy power that surged throughout the clearing, then at the light that burst into existence overhead, driving back the shadows.

The knight hefted the Flail of Ages, moving to assist Linvail against the spiders as Yoshimo sent a trio of arrows flying to join the first two. His target screeched again, turning to face the source of the missiles that had punctured its bulbous form, only to be forced to twist awkwardly as Anomen delivered a crushing blow to one of its rear legs, leaving it hanging by a thread of connective tissue. Roots erupted from the earth, twining around both of the arachnids to hold them immobile. At the same time, gossamer webs shimmered into existence, draping over Anomen and Aran.

Solaufein felt a sudden pressure as a similar spell was turned from him, and for the first time, he could feel the power of Eilistraee wrapping around him in a Blessing that could never have been so openly bestowed in the Underdark. A joy almost savage in its intensity swept through him, and he charged the two Handmaidens. Aerie’s voice rose behind him again, and three glowing orbs flew past his shoulder and enveloped the nearest in a golden light that was evidently quite painful, if the way that she doubled over was any indication. Solaufein never slowed, bringing his sword down in a deadly arc onto the exposed neck of the drow and stepping past as her head dropped to the grass in a fount of blood, the cut clean enough that her body remained on its feet for a split second before collapsing, her unseeing eyes staring at it in apparent shock.

The second drew back at the deadly purpose in his eyes as he bore down on her, her teeth bared in a snarl as her hands wove an intricate pattern in the air to accompany the harsh syllables that fell from her lips. He recognized the spell, bringing his sword up in time to partially strike of the shadowy blade that appeared before her, hissing as a white-hot line of pain traced across the side of his neck.

“BUTT-KICKING FOR GOODNESS!!”

Minsc’s bellow alerted Solaufein in time to allow him to step aside as neatly as if the move had been rehearsed, leaving Lolth’s Handmaiden to meet the Rashemi berzerker’s charge. Her eyes widened, and she immediately began to weave another spell, only to find her voice suddenly silenced when Aerie completed her own casting first. The first sweep of the greatsword knocked the magical blade away as if it were held by a child, and seconds later, the Handmaiden’s broken body joined that of her companion on the ground.

The spiders had been dispatched with equal alacrity by the others, severed limbs and shattered torsos twitching fitfully in pools of thick, dark ichor as Jaheira drew Anomen aside to tend the bite that he had received, the poison already beginning to make his arm swell and blacken. Solaufein put his hand to the stinging line on his neck; his fingers came away dark with blood, but the cut seemed shallow; it could wait for a bit.

His eyes turned to Viconia. She was still curled up on the ground, her face hidden from view beneath the fall of her hair, her shoulders hitching with ragged sobs. Aerie started toward her, compassion and uncertainty at war on her face, then stopped, plainly unsure of how she would be received. Linvail met her eyes and nodded, slipping the rapier into its sheath as he knelt beside the drow, lifting her into his arms. She fought against him briefly, then twisted to bury her face against his chest, tremors wracking her body.

Jaheira approached and crouched beside them, her eyes grave as she laid a hand on Viconia’s temple. The drow seemed unaware of her presence as she raised her head, her eyes wide and hollow with shock, face haggard, voice toneless and barely audible.

“Shar…has forsaken me.”