Violet took too hesitant steps before launching herself at the elf. Luckily, he caught her easily and returned her hug. It was all she could do not to sob in relief.

"I didn't recognize you," Tamirell's voice was muffled by her hair. Setting her back on her feet, he scrutinized her, his eyes not missing a detail. "Are you alright?"

Before she could answer, a sharp whistle pierced the air. Tamirell whistled back before turning his attention back to her.

"I'm fine," she told him. "Now."

He stared at her hard then nodded, accepting her answer. "I think you have another tale to tell."

"You could say that."

Tamirell grinned, "come on. You look tired and hungry. Let's find a place to make camp and you can tell us all about it."

"Us? Tamival's with you?"

"And a friend," he nodded. "Come."

She followed him down river until they could easily climb out of its valley and back into the dry scrub brush of the mountains. As they walked, Tamirell kept glancing down at her.

"I don't remember you being this short," he finally said.

"Part of the story," she answered shortly.

He didn't comment.

They weren't too far from the river when Tamival joined them, seemingly springing up from the ground.

"Must you do that every time?" she asked him after she stumbled in surprise and Tamirell steadied her.

"Do what?" Tamival asked innocently.

He trailed after her in silence for a few meters before he asked, "did you get shorter?"

Tamirell snorted. Violet ignored the question.

She noted that the surrounding woodland was less arid than when she had first started to follow the river. While not lush, the forest around them was home to a variety of trees and plants. The ground was still rocky, but now it had a covering of dried evergreen needles and leaves and shaded from the heat of the sun. Overhead, birds twittered and tweeted to each other and she thought she saw a squirrel or two. Among the branches, she caught flashes of colors and identified a variety of fae creatures. Her spirits lifted.

After greeting Tamirell at the river, Nori flitted off and was now nowhere to be seen. Violet assumed she was happy to be in a more friendly environment also.

They came to an opening in the trees where the ground had been swept clean and a fire pit had been built with stones from the area. Though a fire wasn't burning in the pit now, she could see that there had been one recently.

"We spent the night here," Tamirell told her. "We were heading down out of the mountains when we crossed the trail of a pack of orcs and followed them up the river. We took out almost all of them. Those three were all that were left."

"When we saw you," Tamival continued, "we thought they had been running to you. You're lucky one attacked you before I could get in a shot."

She looked at him sharply, "you would have killed me without question?"

He shrugged not bothering to look abashed, "we didn't know it was you."

"Still, even if it wasn't," she shook her head in disbelief, "it could have been some other poor woman just trying to get to safety."

"You don't understand," Tamirell said as he gathered up wood from nearby to add to the fire pit, "we've been here for weeks, battling these creatures and their allies. One of their tricks is to feign a retreat and lure pursuers into an ambush. That's what we thought had happened."

"After the first or second time, you learn to shoot first and ask questions later," Tamival added.

"Well, I would've been very angry if you had shot me," she told them.

Tamival grinned, his normally sullen features transformed by the change. If only he would smile more often, Violet thought.

"That was a nasty spell you used on that orc," Tamirell changed the subject. "I wouldn't have thought you would use something like that."

Violet shuddered, "I don't know what happened. The last time I used that incantation, I got lightning."

"So, your magic hasn't gotten any more predictable since we left you in Highmoon," Tamaval noted dryly.

"Apparently not," she agreed. A heavy silence fell over the trio.

"Where's the ranger?" his brother asked abruptly.

"He's circling back to make sure there's no stragglers."

"We didn't miss any," Tamirell frowned.

"Try telling him that."

"Telling me what?"

Violet looked up at the new voice. Low and resonant with a strange accent, it matched its owner well as he stepped into the small clearing. Draped from head to toe in a forest green cloak, his face was hidden in shadows of the hood that shrouded his face. A stray whisp of stark white hair escaped the shadows catching the slight breeze that blew through the forest around them. Reaching up, he pushed the hood back and Violet sucked in her breath. His eyes, a startling purple, narrowed at the sound.

"Drizzt," Tamirell broke the silence, "this is Violet, the little lost witch we told you about."

The stranger looked her up and down then back at her friend. She felt that she had been thoroughly measured and came up short, no pun intended. She shivered and wrapped her arms around her torso.

"She is a little bit of a thing, I'll give you that," he answered.

"Well, about that," Tamirell looked back at her with a twinkle in his eyes, "we're waiting to hear what happened."

"And how she's here instead of back at Highmoon," Tamival almost growled, "where she promised she would stay until we returned."

All three of them looked at her expectantly.

Ignoring the prompt, she looked at Tamirell, "you mentioned food? I ran out of supplies four days ago and there's not a lot of forage in these mountains."

Tamirell started at her words, but instead of asking more questions, he shed his pack and knelt to dig through it. Beside her, she heard movement and looked over to see Tamival pulling a blanket out of his pack and spreading it on the ground.

"Here, sit," he told her gruffly.

She stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder as she leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "I knew you secretly liked me," she told him.

"I just don't want to listen to you complain about the hard ground on your delicate skin," he answered, but she could see a tint of pink along the edge of his curved ear.

"Keep telling yourself that," she quipped as she settled down on the blanket.

"Here," Tamirell handed her a chunk of crusty bread with some cheese. "This should take the edge off until I can get the fire going and roast the last of the venison."

"Thank you," she said around a mouthful of the bread and cheese.

While she ate, Tamirell started a fire while his brother gathered more wood from nearby. Drizzt sat down across the fire pit from her, pulled out a large, curved sword and began cleaning it. Brownish-red flakes spotted its bright steel surface and hilt that Violet guessed was blood. Swallowing hard, she pushed the thought out of her mind and studied him instead.

He had pointed ears like the two brothers, making her think he was an elf, but his skin was pitch black. Not dark brown. Black as a polished piece of onyx or obsidian. His features were strong and though his hair was pure white, looking so soft she itched to run her fingers through it, and long, it didn't detract from the pure maleness that emanated from him. She covertly tried to catch another glimpse of his strange violet eyes.

"Are you an elf?" she blurted, unable to contain her curiosity.

Tamirell froze in the process of spitting a haunch of meat and Drizzt looked up at her sharply.

"I mean, you look like an elf," she babbled. "The ears and the features. Your skin is throwing me off, but I guess there's no reason not to have black-skinned elves, after all there are humans with all different shades of skin. And I know that elves have different eye and hair colors, so why not a black skinned elf? Do you come from a tropical climate? Humans with skin that dark back where I'm from typically originated in tropical areas. Something about there being more melanin in their skin to protect them from the UV rays of the sun which is more intense at the equator…." She let the sentence trail off and took another bit of bread to cover up her embarrassment.

His lips quirked slightly as he regarded her in bemusement. Looking at Tamirell, he asked, "is she always like this?"

"No," Tamival answered, returning with an armload of wood, "sometimes she's worse."

Violet swallowed. "I am not!" she protested, looking to Tamirell for support.

He ducked his head and concentrated on the meat.

Tamival dropped the wood near the pit and sat down at the edge of his blanket that she was sitting on.

"Why don't you tell us what you're doing here now?" he asked impatiently.

She shoved the last of the cheese and bread into her mouth and chewed, giving herself time to think. Tamival glowered at her the entire time. While she thought, something one of them said came to her.

"You said you've been here weeks?"

Tamival nodded.

"But you were gone," she frowned, "off on some mission from Ailluin and not supposed to be back anytime soon." She looked him and his brother, confused.

Tamirell looked up and raised an eyebrow. "Violet," he said slowly, "where exactly do you think you are?"

"Thunder Peaks, just west of the Dalelands. From what I remember of the maps that I've seen; I shouldn't be more than two or three days from Highmoon."

Tamirell was shaking his head before she finished. "These are not the Thunder Peaks," he said. "These are the Desert Mouth mountains. You're a long way from Highmoon, Violet."

Her eyes bulged as she looked at him in shock. The Desert Mouth mountains were over a hundred miles to the north of the Thunder Peaks. "How? Surely we didn't go that far?"

"We?" Tamival asked.

"Coporal Reed and me," she answered.

"Who?" Tamival demanded.

"He's a…, I mean, um, he was a guardsman…," she stammered.

"Hold on," Tamirell stopped her. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"

She nodded, looking down at her hands twisted together in her lap, "yeah, yeah, that's probably a good idea." She took a shuddering breath.

The three males listened attentively while she told her tale with just a few interruptions.

When she enlisted Vorn and Milya to accompany her and Ada to check on Flora, Drizzt nodded and commented, "I know those two. Good choices."

"Of course, you wouldn't go back to Highmoon," Tamival snorted at her following the Harpers into the tunnels.

Drizzt questioned her about their encounter with one of his kind in the tunnels, then announced, "he wasn't a mage then. You got lucky."

When she described the circumstances surrounded her shrinking, Tamival chuckled. "Serves you right!" She swatted him on the arm for the comment.

As she described the frozen city, they shook their heads collectively. They had never heard of Neitia, but they agreed that it and its citizens shouldn't be left the way it was.

Tamirell sat beside her and wrapped a comforting arm around her when she broke down during the telling of Corporal Reed's death. Even Tamival kept his opinions to himself about the guardsman. Violet left out their kiss from the tale. That was something she didn't want to share with anyone.

"Gold has a way of warping a person's thinking," Drizzt said quietly.

She sniffed and wiped her eyes with a tattered sleave, "the warning signs were there all along. I just ignored them."

"You shouldn't hold yourself responsible," Tamirell told her, giving her a sympathetic squeeze.

"If I had better control over my magic, I could have saved him," she insisted. "In fact, Tamival's right. If I hadn't been down in the tunnels in the first place, he wouldn't have followed me down the waterfall. He might still be alive."

Tamival shocked her when he shook his head. "No, you may have saved his life several times with your magic before then. For all you know, he would have died anyway. You cannot blame yourself for someone else's actions."

Violet sat up, letting Tamirell go back to his cooking venison. "Anyway," she changed the subject, "we must have traveled a lot farther than we thought if these are the Desert Mouth mountains. What's the nearest town or city?"

"Shadowdale is just two days from here on foot," Tamival told her.

"Shadowdale?" she perked up at the name. "Isn't that where Elminster lives? I can take the sapphire to him and let him decide what to do with it."

Tamirell looked up from the fire, "he's not there right now. He's with the Harpers battling the waves of evil coming from Myth Drannor."

"That's only a few days travel from Shadowdale," Drizzt suggested.

Violet looked eagerly at Tamirell.

"No! Absolutely not!" he snapped, glaring at Drizzt. "You aren't going anywhere near Myth Drannor. There's no telling what kind of trouble you would get into there."

"He's right," his brother agreed. "We ought to just tie you to a horse and send you straight back to Highmoon right now."

She spun around and gaped at him, "you wouldn't dare!"

He leaned towards her with a wicked gleam in his eyes, "try me."

"I may not have a lot of control over my magic, but I bet I could come up with something particularly nasty just for you," she threatened.

"You forget; I'm faster than you are."

"Storm Silverhand might be back by the time we get there," Drizzt stated calmly, ignoring the heated exchange.

"Who?" Violet asked.

"Storm Silverhand," he repeated. "She was almost as powerful as Elminster at one time. When it comes to lore, she may be more knowledgeable than him. She might have some of the answers you seek."

"What do you mean, she was almost as powerful as Elminster?"

"Over the past century, there have been several great magical upheavals," Tamirell explained. "The worst being the most recent, spellplague, where many mages lost their power completely. Between that and the death of her goddess, Mystra, Storm's magic was mostly stripped away."

"Wait," Violet questioned what she just heard, "a goddess died?"

"The entire pantheon was cast down to walk the realms as mortals during the time of troubles. Some did not survive. The goddess of magic was one."

Violet contemplated the idea of gods walking around as mortals. "Wow, earth is starting to sound a lot more stable, even if there's not much magic to be had there."

"What fun would that be?" Tamirell asked.

Violet ignored him and directed her question to Drizzt, "so, you think Storm might be able to help me?"

He shrugged, "possibly. If not, you can wait for Elminster to return."

"Oh, no," Tamival shook his head. "You just heard how much trouble she managed to get into in Highmoon. Nothing ever happens in Highmoon, but within weeks of her arrival they're facing invasion from Myth Drannor. Can you begin to imagine how much trouble she would cause this close to the wretched place?"

"Well, according to that logic," Violet argued, "I'm not safe anywhere. At least in Shadowdale, you two are nearby."

"She has a point," Drizzt agreed.

"Do not encourage her," Tamirell told him with a hint of a smile. It was then that Violet knew she would be staying in Shadowdale.