She awoke slowly, to the sensation of a warm heaviness on top of her. A soft bed, and a stack of blankets over her. It had been a long time since she'd woken up in such a comfortable place. She could smell the faint sweetness of bread and meat that had probably been cooked the previous day. She was hit with a sudden, powerful memory of home-the kind of home that she'd not had for a very long time.

She gave a tiny sigh. She was comfortably weak and warm, and was not inclined to move much. Her body was sore and heavy for some reason. It felt good to lie perfectly still and not open her eyes.

As she woke up a little more and her thoughts grew less clouded, she began to wonder whose bed she was in, and why. She tried to remember what she had been doing the previous day.

It all came back in a rush, like a forgotten dream suddenly recalled. She remembered flashes of the fight. Fire. Exhaustion. Darkness. Fear. Blood. Drizzt.

Her eyes shot open. With a small gasp of exertion, she pushed herself up to her elbows. She was in a small, dark bedroom. Daylight, weak pale blue from either a late hour or an early one, crept in from behind a curtain on the far wall. Firelight from the next room lit the crack below the door in gentle orange and gold.

Movement from the corner of the room drew her attention. She looked up, and Drizzt was there, sitting in a chair against the far wall. He'd been leaning on the end table beside him, but when she'd moved, he'd looked up.

Her eyes went to his side, where he'd been bleeding before. He was wearing a loose, dark shirt that looked to have been made with someone taller and broader in mind, and his swords and armor were on the floor beside him. His eyes were heavy-lidded and his skin was a pallid grey.

"Drizzt…" Ash said hoarsely.

He blinked. Then he pressed his hands against the arms of the chair to push himself to his feet. It obviously pained him to move.

Ash threw her covers off and tipped herself out of the bed, nearly falling in the process. Her legs wobbled, reluctant to hold her weight. She rushed to him anyway, and threw her arms around him. He gave a small, pained groan. She quickly loosened her grip on him, though it hadn't been tight to begin with. She pulled up his shirt to look beneath. A thick layer of bandages wrapped all the way around his middle. She glanced up at him, half concerned and half relieved. He gave a small shrug.

She began the motions of a healing spell. The moment she started chanting, pain sliced through her. She gasped, and her hands jerked to an abrupt stop.

Drizzt gave her a small, sympathetic smile. "You and Kelle both did too much casting," he said, which seemed like an understatement. "That is why you feel unwell. She said you will be able to cast again in one or two days. I think that is what she said, anyway."

Ash lowered her hands. She remembered the wide streak of dark blood that she had seen coating his clothes, and could hardly believe he'd survived. "How is it? Does it hurt?"

"Very much. But the worst of it has passed," he assured her quickly, before she could worry too much.

She had too many questions, and didn't know where to start. "Are we...are they…"

"The raiders are all dead," he assured her.

"What happened?"

"You do not remember?"

She shook her head slowly. The movement made her dizzy. Everything after she'd started casting that last spell had grown hazy in her mind. She vaguely recalled the sensation of being carried somewhere, of seeing the moon above her head and hearing quiet voices. Perhaps she'd awoken at some point on the way to wherever they were.

He hesitated, looking pensive. "You made them all sleep," he said. "They fell to the ground, all of them at once. Some of them even snored. I...did not know you could do such things."

She thought she heard a little of that nervous respect in his voice again when he said that, and still wasn't sure whether she liked it or not. "It was mostly Kelle."

"Kelle was unconscious when I saw you casting."

"But she formed most of the spell for me. I couldn't have done anything like that on my own."

"You will be able to, soon."

She knew he wasn't wrong. The idea excited and scared her. She was gradually coming to terms with who she was becoming, but the process was proving more complicated than she'd ever have imagined. A lot of things were proving to be more complicated than she'd imagined.

"Where are we?"

"The woman with the red hair. With the children," Drizzt said. "Her house. You have been asleep almost a day now."

"Zelda brought us here?" Ash said, surprised. She did not like the idea of being back in the village. They could not stay there for long.

"Yes," he said, and, sensing her concerns, added, "We are safe here. You should not worry."

From the other room there was a sudden burst of laughter from one of the children, and a quick shush from someone else. She could hear a quiet conversation in the other room now, and wondered whether the voices were held low for their benefit. Drizzt glanced over his shoulder at the sound, watching shadows move under the doorway.

"Being around the children doesn't bother you?" Ash asked quietly.

"Why should it?"

"You know why."

He thought, then shook his head. "It is good to hear them, when they are not in distress."

"I'm glad," she said. "I don't want to have to do that to you again." By 'that', she meant the mind control spell she'd cast on him earlier. Or, perhaps it was merely a calming spell.

Drizzt shrugged one shoulder in uncertain disagreement. "I did not mind it so much."

She raised her eyebrows. "Didn't you?" she said, relieved. "What does it feel like to be under the spell? I have never had it done to me."

"I had not, either, until that first time you used it on me," he said. "That first time… It felt good, at first. Comfortable. And then I realized something was wrong and it was...frightening. There was a moment at the end where I had control of my mind, but not my body."

Ash shifted guiltily. "It sounds terrible."

"But," he continued quickly, "it is different coming from someone I know. I would even call it pleasant."

Ash watched him, skeptical. She had thought he would regret having her do it, afterward—maybe even resent her for it. "You didn't find it too…intrusive?"

"I have never found anything else that can take me out of the fear," he said. "It felt like coming out of cold water and having someone there to throw a warm blanket over me."

Ash gave a reluctant smile. "I'll do it any time you want me to."

"Thank you."

She gestured down at his side. "Are you sure you're going to be alright?"

"Zelda gave me a healing potion."

Ash raised her eyebrows. "Potions of healing are difficult to get. That is no small gift."

"I know."

"Did she do those bandages, too?"

"Yes."

Ash felt a rush of warmth and gratitude toward Zelda-and then, truthfully, a little jealousy also. She should have just been grateful that Drizzt was alive, but suddenly she was imagining Zelda taking care of him, putting her hands on him…

"What?" Drizzt asked, watching her. She realized she'd been frowning a little.

She tried to think of something less unflattering than the truth, but couldn't come up with a good lie on the spot. "I wanted to be the one to rescue you," she said quietly, fully aware of how silly it sounded.

He gave a surprised laugh, then winced and quickly stopped. "I—that is—" he fumbled, searching for a word. Ash guessed, based on his expression, that he found the admission ridiculous. But she also noticed that he didn't seem that upset by it.

"Foolish? Selfish?" Ash supplied.

Instead of answering, he kissed her.

She was surprised for a moment, and then, not wanting to waste one of these rare moments of forwardness, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer before he could second-guess himself. Off-balance, he fell against the side of the bed, and made a pained sound.

"Sorry," Ash whispered. She let him go, but he didn't move away.

"I should tell you something," he said. His breath puffed softly on her cheek.

"What?"

His hand was cautiously curving around her neck and weaving into her short hair. His face was at her shoulder, quietly breathing her in. There was a tentative excitement to his movements—like touching someone this way was a new experience for him. It probably was. Ash bit her lip to keep her grin at bay.

"Drizzt?" she pressed, because she could tell something was bothering him.

He hesitated another long moment, his hands slowing to a stop on her skin.

"I think I have been deep in the grasp of ssinssraka for some time now."

He said it like it was a grave proclamation, as if he'd just announced a death sentence, despite what he'd told her before, when he'd claimed it was something he wanted. He sounded so conflicted about it, in fact, that Ash was a little offended.

She considered what it meant for him to experience ssinssraka, and to admit it aloud. It was not something that was done in drow society.

Maybe some part of him was still waiting for her to betray him.

"Does that frighten you?" she asked.

He pulled away slightly to look at her. "A little."

She hesitated, then rested her hands over his. "Would you be less frightened if you knew that I was suffering from ssinssraka also?"

"Suffering?"

"It is a sickness, you know. Madness."

He looked at her a little nervously before returning her smile. It had taken him a moment to understand she was joking.

"At least we will have each other for support while we search for a cure," she said.

"I do not think there is a cure."

She kissed him again.

"Oh!" came another voice.

Ash jumped. They both looked up to see Zelda in the doorway, staring at them in shock.

Drizzt straightened, running a hand through his hair uncomfortably.

Zelda wrung her hands in her lap, her eyes still wide with surprise. She looked at Drizzt, then at Ash. She cleared her throat. "You're awake," she said, apparently deciding not to mention what she'd just seen.

Ash nodded, relieved that she was not too offended. There was an awkward silence. Zelda kept wringing her hands. After a few moments, she came in and sat down in a chair across from them. She watched them with an air that was not quite nervous but not quite at ease. She gave Ash a small smile.

"I heard you do a good impression of me," she commented.

"Ah...I suppose I do," Ash said, embarrassed.

Zelda smiled, amused, and Ash realized she'd only been trying to lighten the mood and, again, was not offended.

Ash's thoughts returned to the events of the previous night. "Elva was fighting with us," she said. "Up there, on the hill. Did he—"

"He's fine," Zelda reassured her. "He and Kala and Sharlin are all well. So are your friends, the wizard and the elf, but they've left town already."

"They are not our friends," Ash said.

"The wizard called you a friend. But that's not my business."

Another uncomfortable pause drove Ash to move to the window. She pushed the curtain aside to look out into the early morning light. Two of the houses down the road, including hers, were now piles of blackened ruins. It had been long enough now that they'd stopped smoking. She could see a group of people already starting to clear away the debris. The bodies that had been on the road were already gone, to her relief.

Others seemed to have just woken up and were carrying buckets of feed and water to animals. The Fletcher children were playing amongst themselves down the road, a little quieter than usual but seemingly shielded from the worst of the emotional impact of what had happened the previous day. At the far end of the village, along the tree line, she spotted Kala playing her imaginary-sword game, wailing away at a tree. The girl held a stick in each hand now, instead of just one. Ash smirked.

"Nine dead, and more injured" Zelda said. "We will have a lot of work to do in the next month or so. Cleaning everything up, rebuilding...holding funerals."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Ash said, which was more true for some of them than for others. She'd seen some of the dead, but not all nine. She wondered who of the villagers were among the deceased. "Where is Rainer?"

Zelda's expression dulled. "Well, seeing as he hid by himself through the entire fight, he ought to be fine," she said flatly. "I haven't seen him since yesterday. He's probably too ashamed to show his face."

For a moment, a number of irritable words danced on Ash's tongue, unspoken. Because, perhaps if anyone had realized what a bastard Rainer was before this, she might never have had to leave Marwood in the first place.

But then she might never have met Drizzt or Kelle. She might never have had the courage to explore the vast world outside Marwood. She might never have made anything of herself.

Rainer didn't know it, but he had done her a favor by forcing her out. Nothing worthwhile came without risks, and before she'd left, she'd been too afraid to take any. And now, she was a wizard, and Rainer was still in Marwood-peacocking around for his friends, pretending to be a person he wasn't, while doing nothing of consequence.

Ash realized, suddenly, that she could not summon the ability to care about him anymore. She searched for that fury she'd had toward him in the weeks prior. That powerless frustrated rage. That burning need for what she'd thought was justice. But all of it seemed so pointless and small now. She just couldn't care.

A small shadow appeared in the doorway. Anna hovered there, half hidden behind the door frame, her eyes on Drizzt.

Zelda gave a long-suffering sigh, looking up at Drizzt and Ash. "I've told her to stop staring," she said apologetically. After a moment, the girl hurriedly crossed the room to huddle beside Zelda's legs. She continued to stare, wide-eyed and quiet. There was a noticeable lightening of the atmosphere in the room as they all shared amusement.

Zelda idly smoothed the girl's hair, brushing stray strands behind her ears. "I think we have you to thank for the fact that we're still here," she said quietly. She looked up at them, and behind her eyes there was a deep fear of what could have been, had things gone differently. "I can't imagine—" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "Why did you come back?" she asked instead.

"Wouldn't you have?"

Zelda shook her head. "I don't know. If I were you, I'd probably be long gone-in Neverwinter or someplace like that. I'd have forgotten about little Marwood."

Neverwinter. Suddenly Ash recalled Kelle inviting her to look her up there, back when they had first crossed paths.

"I don't know," Ash said. "I keep getting drawn back here. Maybe it is time for me to move on."

"I am grateful you were here," Zelda said firmly. "Some of the others are still...suspicious. But they won't bother you in here. You can stay as long as you need to. I think your friend will need time to heal before he can walk far."

Ash raised her brows, once again caught off-guard by her kindness. "Thank you," she managed.

"Don't thank me. We owe you far more than this."

Anna tugged on the end of Zelda's skirt. Zelda bent to put her ear closer, and the girl whispered something to her. Zelda sighed again.

"She won't stop asking about him," she said.

Ash translated for him, though she was beginning to think that she didn't have to translate much anymore. Drizzt gave the girl a small, slightly nervous smile.

"It is...alright," he said to them in common. "She can…" he trailed off, not knowing the words, and simply gestured for her to come closer.

Zelda hesitated, polite smile frozen stiffly on her face, and Ash thought she would reject the offer. But then, she picked up Anna and carried her across the room. She set her down on the bed beside Ash and Drizzt, then took a step back, her hands held tight in front of her.

Anna stared up at all of them, not knowing what to do next. Drizzt offered her a hand. Anna looked up at Zelda, checking for approval, before tentatively reaching out to touch it.

Ash watched Drizzt's face. She couldn't quite read his expression, but she could tell something bothered him.

"What?" she asked.

He paused. "I do not want her to think that she should not run if she sees another drow," he said hesitantly.

Anna was grinning up at him, her eyes bright with the excitement of discovery and the innocent absence of fear. She hadn't learned to be afraid, yet.

"If she were close enough to a drow to see them, would there be any point in running?"

A dark look crossed his face. "Perhaps not," he admitted.

"Maybe she shouldn't run, anyway," Ash said. "I shouldn't have run from you, when we first met. Maybe it's good for her to learn not to fear the unfamiliar."

He gave her a wry look that suggested he disagreed, but he didn't say anything. Anna reached up, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and pulled on it, as if to be sure it was real. Drizzt winced.

"Gently, sweet," Zelda said to her. She sat down on the edge of the bed as she watched, all the stiffness gone from her posture.

Ash couldn't help staring at Drizzt. He looked happy. Relieved. And out of his element, but still.

"What will you do, after this?" Zelda asked.

"We do not know," Drizzt said in common.

"Neverwinter," Ash decided suddenly. "We're going to Neverwinter."

Drizzt glanced up at her. "Both of us?" he asked her privately.

"Of course. We outcasts must stick together."