The days without Drizzt were long and hard for the king of Mithral Hall. And then, to be without his beloved daughter, who had left to free the drow as soon as she was able, it stung.

Breunor didn't want to let Catti-Brie go. He had already lost Wulfgar, and that lost was still raw. But to send the human girl he'd raised into the heart of Menzoberranzan alone was the last thing he would ever want to do.

But Catti-Brie was a grown woman, and her destiny was her own choice. She was determined to go, and Breunor would have had to tie her down to prevent it. Breunor wanted to go with her, to fight at her sight to the bitter end, but he couldn't. He was the king of Mithral Hall, and he had a war to plan.

There were times like these when he wished he had never reclaimed Mithral Hall. When he could be beside his friends through all their adventures. Now, he had responsibilities that limited his freedom.

"Me king," Breunor realized he had been lost in his own contemplations when General Dagna approached him along with the cleric Yagrelda. Yagrelda had arrived all the way from Citadel Adbar to aid them.

"What are ye for?" Breunor grumbled, not bothering to hide his grumpy disposition. The two of them ignored his tone and Dagna stepped forward.

"We've succeeded," he announced. Breunor raised a brow, instantly interested. He knew that Yagrelda and her team had been working on restoring the drider that they had captured for over two ten days. Breunor had complained that it was a useless waste of resources and time for them to have continued for so long, but the cleric was determined and her magical skill was unparalleled in the dwarf world.

Dwarves had little use for magic and many looked at it with suspicion, so the cleric's profession was certainly an unusual one in her society.

Breunor leapt off his throne and eyed them both. "Yer saying the drider ain't a drider no more?" he asked.

"We've got ourselves a drow prisoner," Yagrelda proclaimed proudly, stroking her yellow beard. "Didn't think I'd be able to do it, but it's done. And his injuries are all healed up as well. He be waitin for ye in the dungeon."

Breunor shoved past them and hurried down to Mithral Hall's dungeon, eager to have a few words with this drow. It was the dark elves who had killed Wulfgar and many other dwarf soldiers, and the dark elves who had stolen Drizzt from them. Now, at least, he had one to take out his frustrations on.

He found the drow male inside a jail cell, the metal bars on the door allowing them both to see one another.

"Ye have a name, ye pointy eared dog?" Breunor sneered as he glared at the drow through the bars. The drow lifted his gaze to glare at the king. There was a familiarity to his handsome features.

"He looks a lot like Drizzt," Breunor commented to Dagna as the general and the cleric both stood beside the king. Dagna only shrugged.

"Dark elves all look the same to me," the general responded. But when the drow chuckled darkly at the mention of Drizzt, they regarded him closely.

"I should think I resemble Drizzt," he spoke in the dwarvish language. "Since we share the same mother. At least we did before her death. My name is Dinin Do'Urden."

Breunor raised a brow in surprise. What could be the odds of capturing one of Drizzt's own family members? The king hadn't been able to speak to Drizzt since he had been captured before the dwarves had gone into the Underdark after him, but his friend had spoken at lengths about his evil family and their deeds. Breunor recognized the name Dinin from Drizzt's stories.

"Ye staged this entire attack on my kingdom just to capture Drizzt?" Breunor had trouble believing in the single-minded purpose for the drow's attack on his people.

Dinin only chuckled, though Breunor could catch that there was a look in his eyes, a look of lethargy, like he wasn't completely focused on the present. "I participated very little in my insane sister's plots to recapture our renegade brother," he admitted honestly. "I wouldn't have chosen to go after that dangerous one. But I was too preoccupied with my eight legs and my will was not my own!"

Breunor couldn't help but feel some sympathy for this drow after hearing that. He had become a drider and his cruel people had taken control over his mind and body for their own uses. The pain of such a violation must be hard, even for a member of an evil society.

"Where is my brother then?" the drow asked as he got slowly to his feet and moved to the bar of his cell, a hand reaching out to grasp the metal as he winced in apparent pain.

"Captured by your kin," Breunor growled angrily. "Ye would do him a service if ye would tell me how to defeat his captors. Ye might even buy yerself some mercy."

"Bah!" Dagna countered. "Ye are going to squawk one way or another!"

"Drizzt is in Menzoberranzan by now," Dinin replied. "There is no way your army could catch him now. And you would be fools to attempt a rescue."

Breunor swallowed as he thought of Catti-brie, who was likely in Menzoberranzan by now too. "Is he alive?" he asked, worried that Catti-brie's rescue attempt might be in vain.

"Oh, he is alive," the drow assured him before shuttering, that distant look in his eyes more apparent. "They will torture him for perhaps years before they give his heart to the spider queen."

Breunor exchanged looks with Dagna. Drizzt was being tortured as they spoke. Breunor didn't want to imagine the pain his friend was in right now. But it gave him hope. His thoughts were with Catti-Brie.

"Ye have been brought back for a reason," Dagna growled. "I ain't for keeping ye around, if ye make yerself valuable I might be for letting ye live. If ye aren't gonna be any use, maybe Yagrelda here will put ye right back into the eight-legged beast ye was before, and then we will see how ye taste over an open flame."

The drow shrunk back, moving away from the door, clearly intimidated by the prospect of being a drider again. "I'll tell you what you want to know," he replied without hesitation. "I have no reservations about giving you what information you need about Vierna, my sister. She's the one who organized the campaign against Drizzt. And she was the one who turned me into that monstrosity. Perhaps we could come to an arrangement."

Breunor sneered. "Ye think I'm fer letting ye out of that cell then?" he prompted. "Ye might hate yer own people and for that I don't blame ye fer but that don't mean ye have any love for me kin and I ain't for letting you walk about the place."

The drow's lack of loyalty unnerved Breunor. Were they all so willing to give each other up like that? Or had this drow endured more than he could bear and had a need for vengeance against those who wronged him?

But Breunor remembered Drizzt's stories about Dinin. Despite everything he had endured, this drow was evil. He had committed evil acts. Dinin's exploits had been witnessed clearly by his younger brother, and it was his actions that contributed to Drizzt's decision to turn his back on his own people. It was Dinin who led the raid to the elf village, and it was Dinin who had taken part in the massacre of an entire group of deep gnomes.

Yet as he looked at this drow, as he watched as Dinin moved back to the back of his cell and sit down on the bench, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his long white hair drop over his face, Breunor felt compassion for him.

Breunor glanced at Dagna. "See that he gets a meal," he ordered before turning and departing the dungeon, feeling the need to be alone, to sort out what he was going to do with this drow.

Dinin had indeed suffered, and he still suffered. He tried not to think of the waves of nausea rolling through his stomach as he sat on the bench in the dwarf dungeon. He was still suffering from the lingering effects of having been a drider. The nausea, the dizziness, and the agony he felt in his very bones.

But none of those physical ailments could compare to the mental and emotional pain rolling through his mind.

The dwarves had provided him with a meal, far better in quality than what he would receive in a drow dungeon. It was a warming broth that calmed his rolling stomach, though he doubted his ability to keep it down.

Then, they had left him alone in the dark to contemplate his own thoughts. And his own misery. He had pondered his very existence.

Dinin couldn't have imagined that he could have been restored to his former self. He didn't even know such a thing was possible. Although his captors had done it for their own gain, he felt grateful to them for rescuing him from the miserable existence he was being forced to endure as a drider.

He had always thought that a drider would be void of any semblance of consciousness, of memory of what they once were, but he learned that was not true. Although his mind was enslaved by Vierna and his only instinct had been to kill, there was still a distant part of Dinin that remained cognizant of the entire thing. His body had been bloated and changed into the giant spider it had been, and the physical pain alone was something he never thought he could feel.

But the humiliation and the violations he endured were what haunted him the most from the experience. Vierna used him as a mount as she marched him into battle. Her blatant disregard for him was painful. And that pain went deeper than he would like to admit.

Dinin's life had been guided by a need for acceptance. He had been a loyal son of House Do'Urden. He served Matron Malice and his sisters without hesitation. He had done their bidding and accepted his lowly place in drow society.

And what had loyalty gotten him? The one time he spoke out, the one time he voiced his opinions, Vierna turned him into a drider.

Dinin felt conflicted. More conflicted than he had ever been in his life. He knew the dwarves were his enemy. He knew Drizzt was his enemy. He knew Menzoberranzan was his home. But he also knew his place in his home. He was a male, expendable and at the mercy of any priestess who came upon him.

He had killed without remorse, and he could do it again. But then where would he be? The house he served was gone, and if he could return to Menzoberranzan, he would be a rogue.

After the fall of his house, Dinin had found some acceptance as a member of Jarlaxle's and of rogues, but he doubted the mercenary would take him back now. Where did he belong now? In this cell for the rest of his days? He didn't know.

Dinin Do'Urden had no one in this world.