I'll not accept the group from Nesme.'" Bruenor growled at the barbarian emissary from Settle-I stone. "But, king dwarf . . ." the large, red-haired man stammered helplessly. "No!" Bruenor's severe tone silenced him. "The archers of Nesme played a role in reclaiming Mithril Hall," Drizzt, who stood at Bruenor's side in the audience hall, promptly reminded the dwarf king. Bruenor shifted abruptly in his stone seat. "Ye forgotten the treatment the Nesme dogs gave ye when first we passed through their land?" he asked the drow. Drizzt shook his head, the notion actually bringing a smile to his face. "Never," he replied, but his calm tones and expression revealed that, while he had not forgotten, he apparently had forgiven.

Looking at his ebon-skinned friend, so at peace and content, the huffy dwarf's rage was soon deflated. "Ye think I should let them come to the wedding, then?"

"You are a king now," answered Drizzt, and he held out his hands as though that simple statement should explain everything. Bruenor's expression showed clearly that it did not, though, and so the equally stubborn dark elf promptly elaborated. "Your responsibilities to your people lie in diplomacy/' Drizzt explained. "Nesme will be a valuable trading partner and a worthwhile ally. Besides, we can forgive the soldiers of an oft-imperiled town for their reaction to the sight of a dark elf."

"Bah, ye're too soft-hearted, elf," Bruenor grumbled, "and ye're taking me along with ye!" He looked to the huge barbarian, obviously akin to Wulfgar, and nodded. "Send out me welcome to Nesme, then, but I'll be needing a count o' them that's to attend!"

The barbarian cast an appreciative look at Drizzt, then bowed and was gone, though his departure did little to stop Bruenor's grumbling.

"A hunnerd things to do, elf," the dwarf complained.

"You try to make your daughter's wedding the grandest the land has ever seen," Drizzt remarked.

"I try," Bruenor agreed. "She's deserving it, me Catti-brie. I've tried to give her what I could all these years, but. . ." Bruenor held his hands out, inviting a visual inspection of his stout body, a pointed reminder that he and Catti-brie were not even of the same race.

Drizzt put a hand on his friend's strong shoulder. "No human could have given her more," he assured Bruenor.

The dwarf sniffled; Drizzt did well to hide his chuckle.

"But a hunnerd damned things!" Bruenor roared, his fit of sentimentality predictably short-lived. "King's daughter has to get a proper wedding, I say, but I'm not for getting much help in doing the damned thing right!"

Drizzt knew the source of Bruenor's overblown frustration. The dwarf had expected Regis, a former guildmaster and undeniably skilled in etiquette, to help in planning the huge celebration. Soon after Regis had arrived in the halls, Bruenor had assured Drizzt that his troubles were over, that "Rumblebelly'll see to what's needin' seein' to."

In truth, Regis had taken on many tasks, but hadn't performed as well as Bruenor had expected or demanded. Drizzt wasn't sure if this came from Regis's unexpected ineptitude or Bruenor's doting attitude.

A dwarf rushed in, then, and handed Bruenor twenty different scrolls of possible layouts for the great dining hall. Another dwarf came in on the first one's heels, bearing an armful of potential menus for the feast.

Bruenor just sighed and looked helplessly to Drizzt.

"You will get through this," the drow assured him. "And Catti-brie will think it the grandest celebration ever given." Drizzt meant to go on, but his last statement gave him pause and a concerned expression crossed his brow that Bruenor did not miss.

"Ye're worried for the girl," the observant dwarf remarked.

"More for Wulfgar," Drizzt admitted.

Bruenor chuckled. "I got three masons at work to fixing the lad's walls," he said. "Something put a mighty anger in the boy."

Drizzt only nodded. He had not revealed to anyone that he had been Wulfgar's target on that particular occasion, that Wulfgar probably would have killed him blindly if the barbarian had won.

"The boy's just nervous," Bruenor said.

Again the drow nodded, though he wasn't certain he could bring himself to agree. Wulfgar was indeed nervous, but his behavior went beyond that excuse. Still, Drizzt had no better explanations, and since the incident in the room, Wulfgar had become friendly once more toward Drizzt, had seemed more his old self.

"He'll settle down once the day gets past," Bruenor went on, and it seemed to Drizzt that the dwarf was trying to convince himself more than anyone else. This, too, Drizzt understood, for Catti-brie, the orphaned human, was Bruenor's daughter in heart and soul. She was the one soft spot in Bruenor's rock-hard heart, the vulnerable chink in the king's armor.

Wulfgar's erratic, domineering behavior had not escaped the wise dwarf, it seemed. But, while Wulfgar's attitude obviously bothered Bruenor, Drizzt did not believe the dwarf would do anything about it - not unless Catti-brie asked him for help.

And Drizzt knew that Catti-brie, as proud and stubborn as her father, would not ask - not from Bruenor and not from Drizzt.

"Where ye been hiding, ye little trickster?" Drizzt heard Bruenor roar, and the dwarf's sheer volume startled Drizzt from his private contemplations. He looked over to see Regis entering the hall, the halfling looking thoroughly flustered.

"I ate my first meal of the day!" Regis shouted back, and he got a sour look on his cherubic face and put a hand on his grumbling tummy.

"No time for eating!" Bruenor snapped back. "We got a - "

"Hunnerd things to do," Regis finished, imitating the dwarf's rough accent and holding up his chubby hand in a desperate plea for Bruenor to back off.

Bruenor stomped a heavy boot and stormed over to the pile of potential menus. "Since ye're so set on thinking about food, . . ." Bruenor began as he gathered up the parchments and heaved them, showering Regis. "There'll be elves and humans aplenty at the feast," he explained as Regis scrambled to put the pile in order. "Give 'em something their sensitive innards'll take!"

Regis shot a pleading look at Drizzt, but when the drow only shrugged in reply, the halfling picked up the parchments and shuffled away.

"I'd've thought that one'd be better at this wedding planning stuff," Bruenor remarked, loudly enough for the departing halfling to hear.

"And not so good at fighting goblins," Drizzt replied, remembering the halfling's remarkable efforts in the battle.

Bruenor stroked his thick red beard and looked to the empty doorway through which Regis had just passed. "Spent lots of time on the road beside the likes of us," the dwarf decided.

"Too much time," Drizzt added under his breath, too quietly for Bruenor to hear, for it was obvious to the drow that Bruenor, unlike Drizzt, thought the surprising revelations about their halfling friend a good thing.

* * * * *

A short while later, when Drizzt, on an errand for Bruenor, neared the entrance to Cobble's chapel, he found that Bruenor was not the only one flustered by the hectic preparations for the upcoming wedding.

"Not for all the mithril in Bruenor's realm!" he heard Catti-brie emphatically shout.

"Be reasonable," Cobble whined back at her. "Yer father's not asking too much."

Drizzt entered the chapel to see Catti-brie standing atop a pedestal, hands resolutely on her slender hips, and Cobble down low before her, holding out a gem-studded apron.

Catti-brie regarded Drizzt and gave a curt shake of her head. "They're wanting me to wear a smithy's apron!" she cried. "A damned smithy's apron on the day o' me wedding!"

Drizzt prudently realized that this was not the time to smile. He walked solemnly to Cobble and took the apron.

"Battlehammer tradition," the cleric huffed.

"Any dwarf would be proud to wear the raiment," Drizzt agreed. "Must I remind you, though, that Catti-brie is no dwarf?"

"A symbol of subservience is what it is," the auburn-haired woman spouted. "Dwarven females are expected to labor at the forge all the day. Not ever have I lifted a smithy's hammer, and ..."

Drizzt calmed her with an outstretched hand and a plaintive look.

"She's Bruenor's daughter," Cobble pointed out. "She has a duty to please her father."

"Indeed," Drizzt, the consummate diplomat, agreed once more, "but remember that she is not marrying a dwarf. Catti-brie has never worked the forge - "

"It's symbolic," Cobble protested.

" - and Wulfgar lifted the hammer only during his years of servitude to Bruenor, when he was given no choice," Drizzt finished without missing a beat.

Cobble looked to Catti-brie, then back to the apron, and sighed. "We'll find a compromise," he conceded.

Drizzt threw a wink Catti-brie's way and was surprised to realize that his efforts apparently had not brightened the young woman's mood.

"I have come from Bruenor," the drow ranger said to Cobble. "He mentioned something about testing the holy water for the ceremony."

"Tasting," Cobble corrected, and he hopped all about, looking this way and that. "Yes, yes, the mead," he said, obviously flustered. "Bruenor's wanting to settle the mead issue this day." He looked up at Drizzt. "We're thinking that the dark stuff will be too much for the soft-bellied group from Silverymoon."

Cobble rushed about the large chapel, scooping buckets from the various fonts that lined the walls. Catti-brie offered Drizzt an incredulous shrug as he silently mouthed the words, "Holy water?"

Priests of most religions prepared their blessed water with exotic oils; it should have come as no surprise to Drizzt, after many years beside rowdy Bruenor, that the dwarven clerics used hops.

"Bruenor said you should bring a generous amount," Drizzt said to Cobble, instructions that were hardly necessary given that the excited cleric already had filled a small cart with flasks.

"We're done for the day," Cobble announced to Catti-brie. The dwarf ambled quickly to the door, his precious cargo bouncing along. "But don't ye be thinking that ye've had the last word in all of this!" Catti-brie snarled again, but Cobble, rambling along at top speed, was too far gone to notice.

Drizzt and Catti-brie sat side by side on the small pedestal in silence for some time. "Is the apron so bad?" the draw finally mustered the nerve to ask.

Catti-brie shook her head. "Tis not the garment, but the meaning of the thing I'm not liking," she explained. "Me wedding's in two weeks. I'm thinking that I've seen me last adventure, me last fight, except for those I'm doomed to face against me own husband."

The blunt admission struck Drizzt profoundly and alleviated much of the weight of keeping his fears private.

"Goblins across Faerun will be glad to hear that," he said facetiously, trying to bring some levity to the young woman's dark mood. Catti-brie did manage a slight smile, but there remained a profound sadness in her blue eyes.

"You fought as well as any," Drizzt added.

"Did ye not think I would?" Catti-brie snapped at him, suddenly defensive, her tone as sharp as the edges of Drizzt's magical scimitars.

"Are you always so filled with anger?" Drizzt retorted, and his accusing words calmed Catti-brie immediately.

"Just scared, I'm guessing," she replied quietly.

Drizzt nodded, understanding and appreciating his friend's growing dilemma. "I must go back to Bruenor," he explained, rising from the pedestal. He would have left it at that, but he could not ignore the pleading look Catti-brie then gave him. She turned away immediately, staring straight ahead under the cowl of her thick auburn locks, and that despondence struck Drizzt even more profoundly.

"It is not my place to tell you how you should feel," Drizzt said evenly. Still the young woman did not look back to him. "My burden as your friend is equal to the one you carried in the southern city of Calimport, when I had lost my way. I say to you now: The path before you turns soon in many directions, but that path is yours to choose. For all our sakes, and mostly yours, I pray that you consider your course carefully." He bent low, pushed back the side of Catti-brie's hair and kissed her gently on the cheek.

He did not look back as he left the chapel.

* * * * *

Half of Cobble's cart was already empty by the time the drow entered Bruenor's audience hall. Bruenor, Cobble, Dagna, Wulfgar, Regis, and several other dwarves argued loudly over which pail of the "holy water" held the finest, smoothest taste - arguments that inevitable produced further taste tests, which in turn created further arguments.

"This one!" Bruenor bellowed after draining a pail and coming back up with his red beard covered in foam.

"That one's good for goblins!" Wulfgar roared, his voice dull. His laughter ended abruptly, though, when Bruenor plopped the pail over his head and gave it a resounding backhand.

"I could be wrong," Wulfgar, suddenly sitting on the floor, admitted, his voice echoing under the metal bucket.

"Tell me what ye think, drow," Bruenor bellowed when he noticed Drizzt. He held out two sloshing buckets.

Drizzt put up a hand, declining the invitation. "Mountain springs are more to my liking than thick mead," he explained.

Bruenor threw the buckets at him, but the drow easily stepped aside, and the dark, golden liquid oozed slowly across the stone floor. The sheer volume of the ensuing protests from the other dwarves at the waste of good mead astounded Drizzt, but not as much as the fact that this probably was the first time he had ever seen Bruenor scolded without finding the courage to fight back.

"Me king," came a call from the door, ending the argument. A rather plump dwarf, fully arrayed in battle gear, entered the audience hall, the seriousness of his expression deflating the mirth in the tasting chamber.

"Seven kin have not returned from the newer sections," the dwarf explained.

"Taking their time, is all," Bruenor replied.

"They missed their supper," said the guard.

"Trouble," Cobble and Dagna said together, suddenly solemn.

"Bah!" snorted Bruenor as he waved his thick hand unsteadily in front of him. "There be no more goblins in them tunnels. The groups down there now're just hunting mithril. They found a vein o' the stuff, I tell ye. That'd keep any dwarf, even from his supper."

Cobble and Dagna, even Regis, Drizzt noted, wagged their heads in agreement. Given the potential danger whenever traveling the tunnels of the Underdark (and the deepest tunnels of Mithril Hall could be considered nothing less), the wary drow was not so easily convinced.

"What're ye thinking?" Bruenor asked Drizzt, seeing his plain concern.

Drizzt considered his response for a long while. "I am thinking that you are probably right."

"Probably?" Bruenor huffed. "Ah, well, I never could convince ye. Go on, then. It's what ye want. Take yer cat and go find me overdue dwarves."

Drizzt's wry smile left no doubt that Bruenor's instructions had been his intention all along.

"I am Wulfgar, son of Beornegar! I will go!" Wulfgar proclaimed, but he sounded somewhat ridiculous with his head still under the bucket. Bruenor leveled another backhand to silence his spouting.

"And elf," the king called, turning Drizzt back to him. Bruenor offered a wicked smile to all of those about him, then dropped it fully over Regis. "Be taking Rumblebelly with ye," the dwarf king explained. "He's not doing me much good about here."

Regis's big, round eyes got even bigger and rounder. He ran plump, soft fingers through his curly brown hair, then tugged uncomfortably at the one dangling earring he wore. "Me?" he asked meekly. "Go back down there?"

"Ye went once," Bruenor reasoned, making his argument more to the other dwarves than to Regis. "Got yer-self a few goblins, if me memory's right."

"I have too much to - "

"Get ye going, Rumblebelly," Bruenor growled, leaning forward in his seat and nearly overbalancing in the process. "For the first time since ye come running back to us - and know that we're knowing ye're running! - do what I ask of ye without yer back talk and excuses!"

The seriousness of Bruenor's grim tone surprised everyone in the room, apparently even Regis, for the halfling offered not another word, just got up and walked obediently to stand beside Drizzt.

"Can we stop by my room?" Regis quietly asked the drow. "I would like my mace and pack, at least."

Drizzt draped an arm over his three-foot-tall companion's slumping shoulders and turned him about. "Fear not," he said under his breath, and to accentuate the point he dropped the onyx figurine of Guenhwyvar into the halfling's eager hands.

Regis knew he was in fine company.