31. If a Dryad's Tree Falls...

Viconia was half-blind in the daylight, and cursing it. Jaheira held hands with and was engrossed with her husband, and vice versa.

"Monsters!" Minsc the ranger saw them first. "Very...happy monsters. Boo does not sniff evil just yet."

"What the..." Onyx pointed a gauntleted finger to the east, and heads turned to see an xvart, a kobold, and a tasloi crossing a shallow stream. "I don't sniff evil either. Er, see it."

The other party members readied ranged weapons, but the three tiny monsters seemed...less than hostile, somehow. Certainly less than a threat.

The troglodytic trio took no heed of the adventurers as they ambled in forth, yapping to themselves.

"So while you two were still up in the suite," the kobold yipped his companions, "I and those she-kobold groupies we'd met backstage after the Five Flagons show go up to check out the roof Jacuzzi..." the xvart and the tasloi gave soprano chuckles and the kobold continued, "...and, well, let's just say they don't call us Yipping Demons for nothing! Grrrrrr yip yip yip yip bark bark!!! All night long, baby!" The three little monsters all broke into wild, ear-piercing laughter and exchanged high-threes-and-fours.

"Hey, what's up, hu-man?" the kobold called at as they drew nearer the party and took heed of them. "I'm Larry! This is my brother Darryl," he nodded toward the xvart, "And this is my oother brother Darrly. We're real pleased to meet you!"

Onyx exchanged confused looks with Viconia, Jaheira, and Khalid. "Uhh….Larry, Darryl, and Darrly? Uh...hi."

"Man," the tasloi 'Darryl' giggled, "Larry, I told you these guys would be the wrong generation!" The xvart 'Darryl' nodded its tiny blue head.

"Wait..." Garrick suddenly burst through to the front of the party, and looked down at the waist-high creatures with wide-eyed adoration. " The Larry, Darryl, and Darryl!? Oh man…wow! I'm your biggest fan! C-can I have your autograph!?"

"Hey," Larry chuckled to his friends, "These folks want us to sign an ee-lek-tronik autograph for 'em!"

"Sure, dude," the xvart Darrly squeaked, "What's your name?"

"It's...uh...it's uh...G-G-Garrick!"

"Whoa, far out," the tasloi Darrly laughed, "You're with the Dale Wind Troubadours, weren't you?"

"Yeah!" Garrick gasped as if he'd just been anointed a deity. "Well, uh, was, see, they turned into more of a larceny outfit lately."

"I hear ya, man," Larry yipped, "Totally not cool."

The Darryls gathered around, and the kobold produced a scroll, a strange metallic writing device, and scribbled something before passing it to each Darryl. "Oh..wow!" Garrick's eyes glazed over as he was handed the scroll. He looked ready to faint, and Onyx ready to catch him peered over the bard's shoulder, and read the scroll.

To Garrick and friends with love.

-Larry, Darrly, & Darryl

"Wow...wow," Garrick gushed down at the tiny trio, "I know all your guys's songs. Vocals, harp-riffs, even percussion."

"Right on, right on," the xvart Darryl grinned, "'Bout time someone recognized the drummer!"

"Hey man," the tasloi Darryl crooned, "First of next month, we're gonna be live in Baldur's Gate at the Helm & Cloak, kicking off our Gods-Are-Dead Faerun Tour '68. You should totally come check us out."

"I'm there," Garrick sighed dreamily as the kobold, the xvart, and the tasloi laughed and started on their way. The bard called after them, "Larry, Darryl, and Darryl rule!"

---

An hour later, the party had stopped, eating lunch and washing themselves around a small pool at the base of a waterfall.

"What's that little girl doing on top of the waterfall?" Jaheira looked up the sheer rock face and the cluster of pines atop the steep hill.

"Whomever he is, I'm sure he's not worth it," Viconia muttered.

"No no," Jaheira sighed, " a said girl ...oh. Ha ha," she clamped her mouth shut as the drow's joke dawned on her.

A little girl alone in the middle of the woods being an odd thing, the party hiked up the side of the hill that the sheer face jutted off from, and then, stepping carefully through shallow water than flowed over the rocks from the waterfall, made their way to where the girl stood. "Hello, miss," Onyx took off his helmet and smiled down at the girl, "What's your name? Are you lost?"

The blonde-ponytailed girl, who had been standing suicidally close to the edge of the waterfall and staring over it, turned to gaze up at the paladin with red-cheeks and tear-streaked eyes, sobbed "Pixie...my cat, she was playing close to the water and slipped...* sniff* ...I hope she's alright."

"Um," Imoen bounded up and crouched in front of the girl, while pulling a wet, furry, and limp object out of her pack, "This cat?" The feline in question was definently not playing possum.

Onyx was prepared to do the best to console the girl in her inevitable outburst of tears, but strangely, she looked quite happy to see her cat's lifeless body. "It's alright," she smiled, "She's done this before. I guess Daddy will have to raise her again. Um, thanks! Here, have this scroll!"

She produced a piece of parchment for Imoen, who handed to Garrick and exclaimed gleefully that it would protect against undead.

"So..." Onyx asked his friend as they strode away from the top of the waterfall hand in hand, "You just found a dead cat and...kept it?"

"Oh yeah!" Imoen giggled, and looked up at her friend, smiling. "I found it behind the spray at the base of the waterfall, when we were washing off during our little rest. I kept it, cuz, you know, anything as weird as a dead cat in a waterfall is bound to be what someone nearby is looking for."

"Huh?" Onyx scratched his head.

"Adventuring humor," Jaheira told her charge, chuckling in spite of herself, "I was telling Imoen about this sort of thing before you showed up for breakfast this morning. You'll get used to it."

"Well," Garrick suddenly pointed at a figure approaching, "I could sure get used to that!"

Jaheira immediately groaned and shot Garrick a disapproving gaze, for she recognized the figure as an orange-haired dryad. She wore an extremely sparing blue 'robe' that covered no more than culturally necessary, showing off most of a figure that was, as with the sirens in the Beregost temple, an epitome of feminine beauty.

"Yes, G-G-Garrick, that's generally one of the more lauded parts of adventuring," Khalid added absentmentedly, then when his wife's gaze practically disintegreated him, smiled at her tenderly and added, "Especially f-for those of us who've already f-found our dryad." The Calimshani warrior succeeded in melting the druid's harsh gaze into one of love.

"You know," Onyx remarked offhandedly, mostly to Imoen and Viconia beside him, "In a way, this whole 'female creatures of absolutely perfect beauty' thing is...boring. Just looks too unreal or something."

"Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if not everything about her was real ," Viconia muttered under her breath, fumed at the perfectly shaped dryad. She then glared at Onyx and out loud declared with faux-misunderstanding, "Were you trying to suggest, jaluk , that I am boring?"

Onyx played the game he usually did with the drow cleric. "You know, Vico," he twisted his mouth as if contemplating her for the first time, "I hadn't really thought of it one way or theother." Of course, this was a lie, of course he'd noticed her beauty, and of course a highborn drow female with hundreds of years of experience in Underdark politics could see straight through the lie of a twenty-year-old paladin who'd grown up in a safe, cloistered library. But the thinly veiled insult wasn't the point. That he chose to was.

Viconia snorted haughtily. "Thank you for making my point, barbarian. Though I have noticed your gaze fails to settle to me. Do tell, is that you are blind, insane, repressed, retarded, or of...alternate persuation? Tastes of in these matters need no culturing - fortunately for you, who have had none."

Onyx chuckled, "Blind by elven standards, foolish by Sharran standards, repressed by drow standards, retarded by mindflayer standards, and persuaded elsewhere." He touched his breast, referring to the lock of curly golden human hair that he had previously showed her to be kept there.

"Then," Viconia sneered, "I was correct on all fronts. As usual."

Onyx grinned. "I like it when I can let you pocket an insult so retort with a self-congratulation. It's usually a convenient way to end the argument."

"Saying such a thing out loud just undid exactly that, idiot rivvil ."

"What, Boo?" Minsc asked the hamster upon his shoulder while looking at the dryad. "What are these birds and bees you speak of? Minsc sees no birds or bees anywhere! Did that dead cat eat them?"

Imoen giggled hysterically, but Onyx gazed at the dryad once it reached him, less at its hypnotic body than the terrified look upon its face.

"Please, kind spirits," the orange-haired dryad begged him, "A wondrous ancient oak is in peril. It is about to be attacked by two who wound defile the majesty of nature. They have avoided my charms, and must be stopped before irreparable harm is done. Would you heed my plea?"

Onyx, Jaheira, and Khalid, not surprisingly, immediately exchanged nodded glances. "Ooo," Imoen's round face frowned with concern, "Those meanies!"

"Little Imoen is right, Boo!" Minsc declared indignantly, "Rangers must liberally apply buttkicking when little forest sisters are in trouble!"

"Alas!" cried Garrick, "The classic tale of the poor wood-nymph in distress! You know, I have heard of an enchanted shortbow whose story is such…"

Viconia snarled as the nymph looked up at Onyx earnestly. "The nymph would pick the paladin to plead to! The waif knows her tricks."

"A druid," Jaheira scowled at the drow, "Would be no less adamant in her defense - if," she winked at Viconia and lowered ver voice beneath her human charge's hearing, "perhaps for more honest reasons."

"Lead us," an oblivious Onyx nodded simply to the dryad, who smiled, turned around, and led the party past the scattered trees of the forest, and soon they came across an especially majestic, and somehow feminine, looking oak tree. Near its base stood two burly, thuggish looking armored men holding axes, and looking aat the tree hungrily. They looked rather similar, probably brothers, and the lighter-haired one called out to the party.

"Hey dere," he yelled with a heavy drawl, "I'm Caldo and dis is my brother Krumm."

"Of course," Viconia snickered, "Something tells me their parents were siblings as well."

"Wow," Krumm guffawed, "How'd you know?" Then he peered at Viconia carefully, and nudged his brother, "Hey lookie Caldo! We got ourselves a darkie-elf! Wouldya believe...?"

"Please state your business," Onyx cut him off with stern faux-politeness while Viconia snarled ferally.

Caldo snorted, looking at the paladin and pointing at the tree with his axe. "We think dis here's a magie tree, a hyuk, a hyuk! Cuz it's all alone up here n' so big. Probably got gnomes or pixies," he said the words with a child's wonder, "Or sumthin' in it, so we're gonna bust it down ant take any treaure! You wanna help? It's a big tree, probably got enough gold fer alluh us, a hyuk, a hyuk!"

Give them a chance. Onyx smiled politely, "Now, you don't really want to do this. Just think of how beautiful this tree is, and what a beautiful dryad it's home to," he gestured to his orange-haired new companion. "If you cut it down, she'll die, and I cannot allow that."

Caldo and Krumm each scratched their heads, causing generous dandruff to rain down, processing his statement. "Heeeeeey," Krum whistled, "This guy's pretty smart, Caldo! Lookie at that dryad," his tongue lolled out and he began to drool on himself, "He's right! We should keep her alive..."

"Um, that's not what I meant..." Onyx winced.

"...Fer now, a hyuk, a hyuk," Caldo grinned, ignoring the paladin, his insipid-but-predatory expression matching his brother's. "But I called fer first," With that he lunged toward the dryad.

"As you wish," Onyx stated flatly, and bolted forward to intercept the man. "You'll be first."

"Wot the..." Caldo raised his shield and swung his wood-axe, but Onyx blocked the axe with his own shield and cleft straight through his opponent's with Varscona, shearing half of the man's hand off on the cleave without stopping. Krumm lunged to his brother's defense, but Minsc lumbered into that man's path, nearly as large as the dryad's tree.

"IF BAD-MEN HURT LITTLE DRYAD-FRIEND THEN BAD MEN DIEEEEEEEE!" the ranger roared, froth spraying Krumm's face while one falling cleave of his gigantic two-handed sword split Krumm forehead to crotch.

HE WOULD HARM YOUR PRECIOUS, INNOCENT DRYAD. HE WOULD DESPOIL HER. KILL HIM...

His face impassive and cold, Onyx put more strength into his follow-through after chopping off half the hand, and drove Varscona on, clean through Caldo's head, and not stopping, echoed Minsc with a cleave straight down the center of the man.

"Now let's see you call her first!!" he screamed bitterly as he brought the sword clean through to the air between the man's thighs, and the body halves fell apart, each landing cleft-side-up to display gore that had been frozen, unbleeding, by Varscona. The paladin let his sword and shield drop, and feel kneeling to the grass, holding his head and groaning.

"Sartglin!" Viconia snapped forward. "Are you..."

"He's fine," Jaheira stared down at her kneeling charge and the drow crouched over him, her face of one who knows more than they say. Khalid nodded quietly, but rather than the confused horror of Imoen and Garrick and Minsc, he looked on like his wife with grave but unsurprised concern.

"Thanks Viccy, but I'm fine," Onyx removed his helm as he rose, and Viconia actually seemed to overlook the nickname as she studied him like a professional healer. "Just a little...enraged."

"Ah, good friend," Minsc, calm again, slapped him on the back, so hard his eyes bulged, "Minsc understands! Seeing some cruel men treat a little woodland sister so makes Minsc very very angry too! Sometimes we must strike the flint of vigilance with the steel of resolve to light the tinder of goodness and blow with the breath of freedom to stoke the flames of righteous action! With mighty berserker fury!" Boo squeaks at the top of his tiny lungs.

"That's...uh, beautiful...Minsc..." Imoen's eyebrows and mouth twisted, and she smiled encouragingly.

While Onyx took deep, slow breaths, Khalid nervously looked at his discomforted wife, Garrick sneaked a peek at the 'beauteous creature', Imoen giggled, and Viconia scoffed, Minsc and the dryad grinned and hugged like long-lost siblings. The ranger loudly proclaimed, "Comraderie, adventure, and steel on steel! The stuff of legends, right Boo?" The hamster hopped off his shoulder and into the dryad's orange hair, and seemed to dance with a bright singing canary nestling there.