Of the Breaking of Hearts
The soft lavender orbs shimmered with anguished opalescence as they slowly filled with tears.
"You don't mean that," said Drizzt hoarsely, finding it suddenly hard to speak around the lump forming in his throat. "I know you don't."
Catti-brie bowed her head, allowing her long auburn locks to cover her eyes, which were also beginning to water. "I do," she said gently, yet firmly. "It's over, Drizzt. This can't go on."
"Yes it can," said Drizzt desperately. "It can work. I'll make it work. For the gods' sakes, Catti-brie, don't leave me."
Catti-brie watched with budding fascination as tears rolled off his long eyelashes and dripped into his lustrous, snowy hair, which she had always thought of as a silvery spider web until she ran her fingers through it. Wet lines also streaked down his delicate, beautiful ebony face, which, even in sorrow, looked as if a master craftsman had carefully carved it out of a magnificent block of obsidian. She was nearly overcome by an abrupt urge to forgive him of everything and pull those perfect lips onto hers, slipping away into the oblivion of a nonexistent Happily-Ever-After.
She mentally shook herself, and then said, with increasing resolution, "You've said all those things before, Drizzt. You've said them a hundred times over. Let's face it: Things are never going to be right. Things are never going to work. I see now why interracial pairings are so discouraged throughout the realms. We are different, all of us. Fundamentally, in the deepest part of our essences, we are different. When you came back to us, after we had thought you lost to the hoards of Obould, just as you had thought us, I thought, foolishly, that love could overcome everything. We abandoned good sense in favor of our passions, and it was good for a while. The passion is all but gone now, Drizzt. What do we have now? What do we have now?"
"We still have our love," said Drizzt, reaching out to touch her face, her smooth, exquisite face; she shifted out of reach. "We have each other. Sure, we have difficulties, more so than many couples throughout the realms, but we can overcome them through love. Don't leave me."
"I'm sorry, Drizzt. I'm sorry, my love, who is my love no more." Catti-brie headed for the door of the bedroom, not able to stand the look on his face any longer. "You'll be better off without me anyway." She turned to knob and stepped outside, pausing before shutting the door to say, "We can still be friends, you know," and left Drizzt alone in the darkness.
A year later, the Companions of the Hall were seated around a great table in Mithral Hall, eating the evening meal. It had been years since the last of Obould's forces were destroyed, and no great troubles had plagued the land since. It almost seemed as if the world had no more need of heroes.
In the back of the minds of all the Companions, they felt somewhat obsolete.
Colson was a beautiful young girl, whose flirtatious attitude even at that young age promised future frustration for multitudes of young men.
Regis had outdone himself on self-fattening, and now weighed more than half the dwarves in Mithral Hall.
Bruenor was grouchier than he had been, and the very noticeable streaks of gray in his beard did nothing to improve his mood.
Catti-brie and Wulfgar were holding hands as they ate. Wedding bands glittered from their fingers.
Drizzt was dead.
He wasn't medically dead. His heart still beat. His feet still walked. His hands still directed his scimitars to perform complicated maneuvers. However, there was a certain apathetic lethargy in everything he did. Though his eyes were almost totally used to the sun, and there was no need for it within the underground caverns, he always wore his cowl over his face. He spoke with his friends only when spoken to. He laughed at there jokes, but his smile never seemed to reach his eyes. He had congratulated Wulfgar cheerfully at his wedding, and then spent the rest of the evening in his room with his wrist poised uncertainly over Icingdeath's razor-sharp edge.
He had been a coward; he hadn't done it.
He had tried winning Catti-brie back, to no avail.
He had tried hating Catti-brie, but his anger dissolved when he looked upon her.
He had tried cutting off all emotion entirely, becoming a soulless automaton, but all it took was a single smile from her in his direction to melt the ice off his heart.
So he lives in a constant state of sorrow and loss. Day after day he greets Wulfgar with a smile, silently imagining slicing the man's huge arms into ribbons with the twin scimitars. He smiles less and less, even when Catti-brie is present. He calls Guenhwyvar almost never; the panther begins to long for a new master. Regis and Bruenor see what has happened to their friend, but are powerless to halt his dissolution.
Sitting at the table, picking at food he won't eat, Drizzt Do'Urden wonders if he will ever feel whole and right again.
He probably won't.