milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Here we have a dwarf, his labours finished for the day, his meal done with, and his beer before him. Alas, there were holes in his socks this morning. He is taking steps to compensate for that. While the primary crafts of the Dwarves are those of stone and metal, they have long been practical folk who cultivate other talents as well at need.

This is a long way of saying that Gimli is currently knitting a sock of eye-swimmingly intricate black, grey, and white wool on four extremely slender needles, the fifth flicking in and out as he works with dizzying speed.

We might note that he's also wearing his axe.

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Drizzt rises from his table and walks toward the bar when he sees the dwarf with the socks out of the corner of his eye.

Drizzt does a double take as this perticular dwarf has a remarkable resemblence to one of Drizzt's best friends.

"Bar could I have a glass of mead and one of whatever that dwarf is drinking."
Takes 2 coins out of his belt pouch and places them on the bar where they turn into the ordered drinks.

Drizzt turns towards the dwarf put on his best smile and walks over.

"Hello good dwarf, might I offer you a beer and some conversation?"

Gimli looks up from his work, and startles quite visibly. "Mahal's balls, man," he exclaims, "what happened to you?"

Er. Yes.

No drow where he comes from.

Drizzt sets the drinks on the table and sits.

"Nothing has happened to me good sir dwarf; I was born this way.
I thought all dwarves knew of Dark Elves."

"The Moriquendi, aye," says Gimli, "but the Elves who refused the summons to Valinor are like to their other kindred in face and form." Recovering slightly, he sets the knit-work aside. "It may be a matter of misunderstanding, perhaps. Do you hail from that world which is called Arda in the tongues of Elder Days?"

"I hail from Mithril Hall in the Spine of the World mountains of northern Faerun, on the world that is called Toril.

"Ah," says the dwarf with some satisfaction. He half-bows, remaining seated; the human-sized furniture is troublesome to him. "Another world entirely, then. I am Gimli, son of Gloin, sometime lord of the Glittering Caves of Aglarond; I was born in Erebor, under the Lonely Mountain, in that world which is known as Arda to the Elves and Middle-earth to the tongues of men."

"I am Drizzt Do`Urden of Icewindale the Lone Drow of Mithril Hall. It is an honor to meet you Gimli son of Gloin. For i do not meet many dwarves who dont want to kill me on sight."

"Ought I to?" Gimli inquires mildly. "There has been bad blood between Elf and Dwarf in the past, but I have no quarrel with any of the Eldar, so long as they choose no quarrel with me. And your own people are clearly not of my world; I know you not, nor any kin of yours. I would not be the cause of ill-will at a first meeting, without reason."

"Most dwarves on my world do not have your sentiments sir they will judge a drow upon first sight as a kill like most all of my race and kill him to protect their homes."

Drizzt relaxes in his seat and takes a drink of his wine.

Gimli shakes his head. "Long has it been since there was such foul spirit between the Mountain and the Wood," he says. "A strange, strange world indeed. Then again, I suppose I ought not to be surprised. How is it that you come by such colouring as you do? Among the races of Middle-earth only the men of Far Harad approach such tones, and their hair is nothing at all like your own. In truth, I'd thought you had fallen victim to some sort of poisoning when first I saw you."

"Once my kin came form the woods but no more, they reside in the deep earth,

As for my skin I can not explain, I can only surmise that the cause is the blackness in the hearts of the drow manifested itself in an outward appearance.

The drow of the Underdark do not see in the normal spectrum of light often they look mostly in the spectrum of heat as the underdak is a lightless realm."

"Peculiar," Gimli muses. "Few Elves of Middle-earth would pass underground long at all, could they but find another way. The ancient fortress of Nargothrond was delved in caves by Finrod Felagund, and the elves of Mirkwood dwell also in caves made fair by the work of their hands, but scarcely what one might call deep. They've light in plenty, anyway. How peculiar."

"My kin were banished to the lightless realms many centuries ago when their deity Lolth betrayed the father god of the elves."

"Lolth?" Gimli repeats, shaggy eyebrows up. "Never heard of him."

"Her actually. The drow are a matriachal society where males are just so much battle fodder and breeding materials."

Sips his wine to clear the foul taste out of his mouth.

Gimli stares.

"How," he says eventually, "is that even possible?"

"It is as Lolth decrees. Her worshipers exist mereley for her entertaiment. She enjoys the chaos that they create with thier interhouse wars, and wars upon the other races of the Underdark."

Gimli gags, or at least makes a noise that might well be gagging writ loud. "When Morgoth, the Dark Lord, rose against the Powers of my world and the will of Iluvatar who made them, it's said he captured elves and put them to torments and wars," he says. "But that was to shape them and all their blood thereafter into Orcs, and no one knows the truth of that. Among the Elves of Arda, there have been three slayings of Elf by Elf- three wars in which Elves fought amongst themselves, that is."

"It is quite a common practice, in Mezoberranzan where I came from, for entire families of Drow to destroy the other simply to elevate their position of power within the cities base of power."

Drizzt says all this with a look of disgust on his face.

"Sounds positively Orcish," Gimli mutters. "You had the sense to get out, I take it?"

"I rejected Lolth and damned my family in doing so, but yes I did leave. For ten years I lived in the wilds of the underdark with just my shadow and Guenhwyvar as company. Finally after running into my Loving family many times I decided to leave for the surface."

"Well done, that," says Gimli bluntly. "It must have come hard on you, to walk under the sky after so long in the tunnels. Did this Guenhwyvar follow you, or is that the name of some weapon of yours?"

"Yes after almost 60 years spent in the underdark it was difficult to walk the surface.

I have yet to miss a sunrise though. It is beautiful and painful all at the same time.

But with each sunrise the pain lessens."

Drizzt pulls a figurine from his pouch.

"Yes Guenhwyvar came with me, she is always with me, Would you like to meet her?"

Gimli nods, and then leans forward. "So long as it's no trouble, I think I should indeed."

"Tis no trouble."

Drizzt places the fingurine on the floor

"Come to me Guenhwyvar my shadow"

A black mist appears around the figurine and begins to circle it.

slowly the black mist takes the form of an 800 pound panther with bright green eyes that show an intelligence that goes beyond that of normal panthers.

Guenhwyvar looks into Gimli's eys then diips into a bow and curls up at Drizzt's feet.

Reflexively, Gimli starts to scramble backwards; then the cat- bows?

"Sorcery indeed," he murmurs as the panther slinks to her master's side. "There are those in my world who have gathered beasts about them, beasts that know their companions' minds- but I do not think any tale of Beorn and his companions has ever had such wizardry as that in it."

"Guenhwyvar is the astral entity of the panther. the one that all panthers are modeled after. She will not harm you or anyone here I assure you."

"Hmm." Gimli considers the creature from where he sits, and essays another half-bow in response. "I do not think I have ever seen such a beast as this, save in Valinor, and then only from afar. There are few panthers- few beasts of prey, indeed- in the mountains where my folk live. Wolves, perhaps, but seldom more than that."

"The panthers of my world are more indigenoous to the forest and jungles of the southern warmer climates. I would expect the same is true on your world."

Gimli nods. "My people dwell further north," he says. "I expect there may be panthers in Harad, or in the far east of Rhun. Even in two hundred and sixty years under the Sun in Middle-earth, there was still much I did not have the chance to see."

"you speak as if you have left that world for good, are you bound here then?"

Gimli nods. "I lived two hundred and sixty years of the Sun on the Hither Shores, where mortal Men and Dwarves and Halflings yet dwell," he says. "And when the time came that my friend Legolas, of the woodland Elves, felt the call of the Sea and sailed west into the Undying Lands, it was granted me that I might go with him, and see what none of my people might. I reached the end of my mortal days there, but seem to have arrived in this place instead of those halls my people are supposed to attain after death."

Drizzt stares

"So you are...Dead?"

Gimli inclines his head. "Afraid so, lad," he says. "I'll go to the Halls when the time comes, but since my people are set to learning greater lore and craft until the time of the remaking of the world, I see no reason why I shouldn't learn it here, until that day."

Has never met a dead person...well there was that one time.

"Forgive me sir I did not know that the dead could gather here."

Has a look of hope on his face as he looks around the bar as if expecting to see someone he recognizes.

"Fair enough," Gimli says. "Aye, it happens. There are others here who have passed from their worlds forever, though you wouldn't know it to look at them."

Drizzt rises from the table and Guenhwyvar stands beside him.

"Forgive my haste in leaving Gimli son of Gloin but there is something I must look into on my world."

Gimli nods. "But of course," he says. "Farewell, Master Drizzt. I expect I'll see you again."

"I truly hope so."

Drizzt salutes the dwarf and then sprints away with Guenhwyvar at his heels

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