Amnesia: Chapter Two

BTW: I meant to mention this at the beginning of Chapter One, but I forgot- this story is a completely and utterly unrelated plot to Family Affairs. No babies for Drizzt in this one, lol. However there is a cameo for an OC from Family Affairs…

This is also my first attempt at writing Cattie-brie's accent, so please be forgiving.

Phantom Boo: this is actually for you're review of Family Affairs- yep, I was hoping to make it a bit of a twist, lol. And I figured Cattie-brie should get to have some fun. But now I think I owe Wulfgar a story….

Waldfee: I'm glad it makes sense to somebody other than me : )

Disclaimer: I own almost nothing, which includes Drizzt, Cattie-brie, and any other character and/or places from the Forgotten Realms, which is a pity : (

The drow warrior came awake slowly. Initially all he knew was the tight, throbbing ache radiating from the back of his head, but soon that was joined by the sensation of warm, comfortable sheets against his skin. He opened his eyes then closed them immediately with a small gasp of pain.

Light! He was in a brightly lit room!

The headache was really bad now, but the young drow was a well-trained warrior, and knew he had to fight the desire to lie abed like a great Underdark slug- to be not alert was to be not alive.

He tried peeking one eye open just a crack, and after a moment or two of discomfit- less than he was expecting, in fact- he was able to open both eyes and gaze about the room.

He lay in a large, decadent bed. Above him hung a canopy of plush drapes, which were currently pulled back, letting him see out the sides of the bed. The covers were luxurious too, and he felt most comfortable and warm, despite the pain in his head. He couldn't recognise the material they were made out of though- and that little fact troubled him.

Across the room was a vanity, topped off with a large, gold-framed mirror. A mirror. The drow had only seen such a thing once before- and then it was only a small hand mirror that his mother had purchased at great expense long before he was born. Such marvels were few and far between in the Underdark.

And then, horror of horrors, on the other wall was a window, showing the reclining drow a velvet flash of sky sprinkled generously with stars. He had seen such a thing before, when he had accompanied his brother on a raiding party to the surface, and he had thought it beautiful (much to his brother's chagrin) while his companions showed only fear…but if he could see stars through the window it must mean that he had somehow come to be on the surface.

How had that happened? Where was his family? Where was he?

The dark elf pushed himself shakily into a sitting position. He swayed with dizziness for a moment, sniffling at a particularly bad stab of pain from behind his temples, while at the same time becoming aware that his bladder was distressingly full. Moving very cautiously he slid and slithered his way out of the bed and crossed the room, often having to stop and clutch at his head, rocking back and forth on his feet. He suppressed a moan of pain by biting his lower lip so hard that it bled.

There was a door which he believed would lead to the hallway- presuming that houses on the surface weren't built so terribly differently from those in the Underdark- they must know about hallways, surely? And there was also a second, smaller door on the other side of the room, and it was to this that the drow headed. He leant against the cool surface for a moment, collecting himself, before opening the door, sighing with relief that he'd found the facility he needed.

He stayed in that little side room, unable to muster the energy to return to the bed. He knew he should really be trying to escape- he could not remember how he had come to be here, had no knowledge of where here was. And even if he knew where to go to get away he could only seem to totter a few steps at a time. How could he possibly escape from wherever he was like that?

At least he wasn't in a dungeon. He had quite clearly awoken in a bedroom, which boded well. Perhaps he wasn't captured as such, for surely a prisoner would be put in a cell?

As he lay on the cool tiled floor, which felt wonderful against his temple, he heard the sound he had been dreading- the creak of the bedroom door opening. His keen elven ears heard footsteps- at least two people- and then somebody called his name.

"Drizzt?"

The footsteps hurried across the room, and then a creature was peering around the door. It wasn't an elf, of that the drow was sure. The features weren't sharp enough, but the overall shape was like that of a female drow. Its skin was a strange colour- not black like his own, but not as pale as the white of his hair- and its own hair was a dark red-brown colour.

A human, his fuzzy mind supplied while she came and knelt at his side, distress writ plain on her face. A woman.

For just a moment a name seemed to hover on the tip of his tongue, but then it was gone.

The woman reached out to tenderly cup his cheek in her palm and the drow turned his face away quickly, the sudden movement sending a splitting pain through his skull. He lay panting against the floor, while the human held very still, her hand still extended.

"Drizzt?" she said again, softly. A second woman was looking around the door now, this one with hair as silver as the other's was dark, as straight as the other's was curly. Then the second female was gone, and the drow could hear her saying something. A third, much deeper voice answered.

The first human, the one at his side, was reaching for him again, talking softly all the while. She was berating him for not calling for assistance when he wanted to get up- though how he knew what she was saying he didn't know. She certainly wasn't speaking drow, yet it seemed that he could understand her. She might have cast a spell, for all he knew. He had heard of such things being done.

She wormed an arm beneath him, lifting his shoulders so that he found himself cuddled against her chest. Drizzt tried to put out an arm to stop her, but he had no strength to resist as she pulled him close, stroking the hair from his forehead.

"Silly drow," she scolded, though she didn't look angry. "How long have ye been lyin' here? Suren I'm glad we came to check on ye when we did. The healer's finally arrived."

Healer? The drow thought. Is this a good thing, or a bad?

Drow could keep a prisoner alive for centuries, torturing them to death's very door and then reviving them again and again and again. And those marked for sacrifice- well, there was no point in offering Lolth an ill drow, now was there? Why would she want that?

He was torn from his contemplations of what deity the human might worship when the silver-haired woman and a golden-haired, golden-skinned elf squeezed into the cramped little water closet.

Drizzt could not help but flinch at the sight of his pale-skinned surface cousin. When he had come to the surface it had been in a raiding party- a raid that had slaughtered a clan of the faerie folk. Then Drizzt had had doubts about whether or not the elves were as evil as he had always been taught- so much so that he had secretly saved one little elven girl- but years of indoctrinated fear still ran deep. He trembled as the elf knelt down and lid pale-fingered hands under his knees.

"Lady Alustriel, Lady Battlehammer, if the two of you could take a shoulder each I'll take his legs. We need to put him back on the bed."

The drow hissed, alarmed, when they lifted him, but he was replaced on the bed without mishap. To his distress, though, the elf proceeded to examine him. He was sure by the creature's gently manner that he was doing his best to be careful as he pulled the drow's hair away from what was apparently a serious wound, for it made the elf frown, but the poking and prodding hurt!

The dark-haired woman squeezed his hand when he grimaced, and the drow looked at her in wonder. No dark elf would ever offer such a comfort to another!

Eventually the elf stopped his prodding and began rummaging in a bag which lay on the foot of the bed. Eventually he emerged with a little vial of some silvery-blue liquid and a small cup. Carefully, pink tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration, the elf poured a small amount from the vial to the cup and then held it to Drizzt's lips.

"Here," he said softly. "This will put you to sleep for a little while, so that I might stitch your wound. Drink up now."

The drow tried to turn his head away, but the dark-haired woman helped hold him still. As soon as the cool liquid slid down his throat Drizzt felt his eyelids closing, reverie reaching out to engulf him.

"Nau," he whispered, not wanting to sleep- who knew what might happen once he was sleeping and helpless!

He fought against the potion for nearly a minute before sleep finally claimed him.

oOo

When Drizzt opened his eyes once more the room was awash with sunlight. Cursing softly the drow tried to turn and hide his face in a pillow, the stinging light causing his headache to flare up almost instantly. Gentle hands caught his head though, holding him still. It was the dark-haired human, who stroked his cheek and pressed a kiss to his forehead before holding a cup to his lips.

"Drink," she bade him, tilting the cup slightly. "Fael- that's the healer- said this will ease yer pain."

Drizzt was suspicious of the liquid sloshing about in the cup- it smelt awful!- but the woman was insistent. It tasted even worse than it smelled, but the drow felt the pain in his head already diminishing as he lay it back on the fluffy pillows.

To his surprise the human sat on the side of his bed, stroking his hair away from his face and smiling at him. He wondered why she kept insisting on touching him so- it was beginning to make him very uneasy. She was a pretty creature, but she certainly had no reason to be so familiar with him! Although it did make for a pleasant change from being whipped…

"Better?" she asked, still stroking his brow.

"Yes," the drow replied simply, not wanting to make her angry. For all he knew she was a rabid, sadistic psychopath like his sister Briza. "Thank you."

She gave him a strange look, and for a second he feared he had erred, that she was angry and might strike him. Her fingers stilled on his forehead at any rate.

"I can't understand ye if'n ye speak in drow, Drizzt." She said slowly, as if reminding him of something he should have thought of himself. He didn't know what language she expected him to speak in then- drow was all he knew. And how did she know his name, anyway?

oOo

Ok, this one's a tad short because I'm having some issues…it's not quite writer's block, more I can see where I want to go but can't quite make it fit…erm…if that makes sense. Anyway, we might do a bit of a cut to next scene rather than just waffle on endlessly…