"You're awake!" said Sam, round face dimpled from his smile.
Drizzt didn't immediately realize Sam was talking about her, not fully aware yet that she wasn't still dreaming. She was bobbing gently up and down atop Sam's pony. She was tied onto Bill in fact, a rope wrapped around her waist and hips. More of the fellowship soon gathered around her though and as their faces loomed around her she blinked her way back to awareness.
"You gave us quite a fright," said Aragorn.
"What happened?" asked Drizzt. She felt sore all over like she'd gone ten rounds through Melee-Magthere's obstacle course.
"The mountain, I suspect," said Legolas. Seeing the confusion in her eyes he explained further. "Elves don't fair well underground, high elves like yourself least of all."
It took a moment to process that. To know that not only had she gone from being a drow to a surface elf, she was apparently of a subspecies that couldn't tolerate stepping foot into the underground spaces she was once so accustomed to. What sort of joke was that?
Legolas continued, "I thought your father's ancestry might aid you but it seems that you are far more elf than human in this respect."
"Human?" said Drizzt, jaw dropping in shock. "I'm part human?" Her fingers curled, nails tracing the underside of her wrist nearly hard enough to cut. Human blood, coursing around inside her veins. "Disgusting," she hissed. The idea was so revolting that she was tempted to try and claw it out of herself. Then she realized how crazy that would be.
She looked up from her arm, noting that none of them looked impressed with the comment that had accidentally slipped out of her. "Uh, no offense." And she did mean that, even if some among the company seemed reluctant to believe her apology. Truly she'd thought she'd gotten over most of her issues with other races but as a pure-blooded drow lordling she'd had propaganda beaten into her head as a child even more than most drow children. Her first encounter with a human hadn't helped her outlook on the race either, with their meddling in spells that twisted mind, body and soul. In her opinion it was understandable that finding out she shared ancestry with a race she'd been taught to believe were no more than short-lived worms intent on breeding their way to victory would catch her a little off guard.
Hoping to move past the present awkwardness she turned in her seat on the pony to face Boromir. "Thank you for rescuing me by the way. I'll repay the favor someday if I can."
"No need for that, I'm just glad you're safe," he replied.
The tension broke with that and the fellowship spread out once more. Their walk resumed, Drizzt taking in her surroundings as the group climbed a seemingly endless staircase. Light from the wizard's staff illuminated a few meters in all directions before the gloom swallowed it. It was enough though to see that the stone staircase fell off to nothingness to either side. How deep was the abyss, she wondered. How many years would it take to find the surface again if she fell? Once again she wished the hobbit had chosen to continue over the mountains instead of taking this path. The peril of another avalanche was nothing compared to the myriad terrors that lurked in the Underdark.
"What happened to my skirt?" asked Drizzt upon noticing her wardrobe change. She was wearing what appeared to be a pair of hobbit trousers. On her they were more like shorts but still covered far more than the skirt. A bit tight around the hips and loose at the knees but it was still nice to finally wear pants again. It was only the question of how she'd gotten into them that bothered her.
Sam blushed fiercely and dropped Bill's lead line. He backed away wringing his hands as if he was fearful of retaliation. "Uh, your skirt was in t-t-tatters so I changed you into pants Miss-Lady Arwen."
Drizzt just stared at him impassively. It was somewhat unnerving to know that someone had been changing her clothes while she slept but no worse than the nearly lethal surprises in her youth. She'd been naive back then and actually been surprised when her fellow drow tried to kill her from behind. It helped in this case that it was Sam that had done it out of all of them. It was obvious that the stout hobbit only had eyes for his master, Frodo.
'Funny, that,' she thought. There were plenty of rumors around Menzoberranzan about young priestesses engaging with trysts with one another during decades they were shut away in Arach-Tinilith for training, but males doing the same was virtually unheard of. It was frowned on by those same priestesses of Lloth and usually carried a death sentence. Not that that was surprising. There were very few things males could do in Menzoberranzan that didn't carry some risk of arbitrary death.
"Arwen? Arwen?"
"What?" She looked up from her thoughts. Boromir had taken up the reins of the pony during her mental absence.
"Nothing." His stride was slow, his long legs too much for the pony if he moved at full speed up the endless staircase. Drizzt figured she should magically lower her weight again to make it easier on the poor pony. Soon. Her thoughts were still too scattered to safely practice magic and she was still strangely exhausted from the mountain overhead.
The hobbits stayed at the far edge of the wizard's light, Sam's nervousness towards Lady Arwen infecting all of them. The others were still wary of talking to her after her comment about human blood, even if Gimli was secretly pleased at the confirmation of Elvish bigotry. As a result she was left alone with her thoughts or lack thereof. They must have climbed a few hundred meters before Boromir broke the bubble of silence around her.
"From what I've heard you are also part Maia, if that makes you feel better."
"Maia? What's that?" She wasn't sure she could take any more surprises today after experiencing drowning, female issues, and various varieties of public shaming. If it turned out 'maia' was another word for goblin or troll she'd be greatly upset.
Boromir looked over his shoulder at her, his face captured by a sad frown. "You've truly forgotten everything Arwen, haven't you."
"As I've told you all before… I'm not Arwen. My name is Drizzt. Drizzt Do'Urden."
Boromir paused in his tracks for a moment until Bill nudged him onwards. "I think I'm almost starting to believe you," he said slowly.
Drizzt just huffed at that, not impressed with someone almost believing her. But however appropriate a response it was, it was also somewhat out of character. She couldn't recall huffing like that ever in her life, arms folding beneath her breasts unbidden like some ingrained habit. She supposed that like her occasional giggles it was just something that came with the body.
"Well I might as well explain then," he said. "You should talk to Legolas or your father at some point for more though. Beliefs about the Maiar are varied and personal, and I shouldn't speak for what the elves think of them."
He gestured in a circle around them. "According to legend the Maiar helped shape the world. Not the largest of things like the sea, but littler things like hills and streams, fish and birds. Some call them lesser gods, or powerful spirits. Other men call them a myth, but elves have longer memories and long lives as well. Your grandmother Galadriel may even be old enough to have seen one with her own eyes."
It was a heady revelation. It meshed somewhat with what she'd heard about the shaping of the world in the Academy and the tutoring from her sister Vierna but a few things were off. He'd left out a lot of the supposed strife between gods and the timescale seemed totally off. Even if the elves in this part of the world were truly immune to aging it seemed impossible that any would still be alive from those times. Drow weren't immortal but they lived for hundreds of years and it had been countless generations since they moved underground, and who knew how many generations before that since the shaping of the world. Was it possible somehow that she'd traveled back in time rather than just between bodies? 'No, that's completely impossible.' Messing with time was something that not even Lloth could pull off.
Drizzt clicked her tongue, unsure how to take the knowledge that she might be part god, even if it was just a lesser one. On the one hand it opened the possibility of developing new and exciting abilities. She'd been resistant to learning magic in Menzoberranzan despite her talent at it but here where magic didn't inexorably lead to demon summoning and blood sacrifices it definitely carried an allure, especially with the men around her still refusing to let her carry a weapon. But on the other hand she worried what her mischief her lineage might yield. Higher beings only seemed to complicate her life in her experience and her bloodline might call meddling and evil gods in her direction.
Her heart skipped a beat as all the thought about gods reminded her of something. "I think I may have done something foolish back at the pond."
"It was not your fault it dragged you in," he said, quick to console her.
"It's not that," she replied. "When I thought I was going to drown I think… I hope I'm misremembering but I think I may have prayed to someone I shouldn't have."
"What do you mean?" Boromir was deathly curious. Surely she couldn't be one of those maddened cultists that followed the dark lord. She was so confused about what gods were that he imagined she'd prayed to a turtle or something.
"A breathless prayer left my lips towards a goddess I turned my back on years ago."
'A goddess?' thought Boromir in confusion, unable to think of any that merited such fear. "What is her name?"
Drizzt slumped on the pony, fear-born energy only lasting so long. "It's better not to speak it. Her attentions could be deadly if we draw it our way. She is known, among other names, as the Queen of Spiders, as the Mother of the Dark."
"I see." Though truthfully he didn't see at all. While not terribly deep, his education was quite broad. During none of his studies did he ever hear or read of a goddess of spiders.
"Hopefully nothing will come of it. I am far from home and look nothing like myself so with luck a single mistaken prayer will be overlooked." She matched his eyes then, trying to impart the seriousness of the matter. "But it is better to be on guard. She is a vengeful goddess and though my sins against her took place some time ago she does not forget and she does not forgive." She could be bribed, but Drizzt didn't intend to sacrifice a dozen innocent children and devote their blood and souls to Lloth just to ensure her own safety.
With that the silence returned.