Yes, it is good to be home, in the wild land of Icewind Dale, where monsters roam aplenty and rogues threaten the roads at every turn. I am more alive and more content than in many years. For too long, I struggled with the legacy of my dark past. For too long, I struggled with the reality of my longevity, that I would likely die long after Bruenor, Wulfgar, and Regis.
And Catti-brie.
What a fool I am to rue the end of her days without enjoying the days that she, that we, now have! What a fool I am to let the present slip into the past, while lamenting a potential - and only potential - future!
We are all dying, every moment that passes of every day. That is the inescapable truth of this existence. It is a truth that can paralyze us with fear, or one that can energize us with impatience, with the desire to explore and experience, with the hope - nay, the iron will! - to find a memory in every action. To be alive, under sunshine or under starlight, in weather fair or stormy. To dance every step, be they through gardens of bright flowers or through deep snows.
The young know this truth so many of the old, or even middle-aged, have forgotten. Such is the source of the anger, the jealousy, that so many exhibit toward the young. So many times have I heard the common lament, "If only I could go back to that age, knowing what I now know!" Those words amuse me profoundly, for in truth, the lament should be, "If only I could reclaim the lust and the joy I knew then!"
That is the meaning of life, I have come at last to understand, and in that understanding, I have indeed found that lust and that joy. A life of twenty years where that lust and joy, where that truth is understood might be more full than a life of centuries with head bowed and shoulders slumped.
I remember my first battle beside Wulfgar, when I led him in, against tremendous odds and mighty giants, with a huge grin and a lust for life. How strange that as I gained more to lose, I allowed that lust to diminish!
It took me this long, through some bitter losses, to recognize the folly of that reasoning. It took me this long, returned to Icewind Dale after unwittingly surrendering the Crystal Shard to Jarlaxle and completing at last (and forever, I pray) my relationship with Artemis Entreri, to wake up to the life that is mine, to appreciate the beauty around me, to seek out and not shy away from the excitement that is there to be lived.
There remain worries and fears, of course. Wulfgar is gone from us - I know not where - and I fear for his head, his heart, and his body. But I have accepted that his path was his own to choose, and that he, for the sake of all three - head, heart, and body - had to step away from us. I pray that our paths will cross again, that he will find his way home. I pray that some news of him will come to us, either calming our fears or setting us into action to recover him.
But I can be patient and convince myself of the best. For to brood upon my fears for him, I am defeating the entire purpose of my own life.
That I will not do.
There is too much beauty.
There are too many monsters and too manyrogues.
There is too much fun.
Chapter 1 BACK TO BACK
It is long white hair rolled down Catti-brie's shoulder, tickling the front of her bare arm, and her own thick auburn hair cascaded down Drizzt's arm and chest.
The two sat back to back on the banks of Maer Dualdon, the largest lake in Icewind Dale, staring up at the hazy summer sky. Lazy white clouds drifted slowly overhead, their white fluffy lines sometimes cut in sharp contrast as one of many huge schinlook vultures coasted underneath. It was the clouds, not the many birds that were out this day, that held the attention of the couple.
"A knucklehead trout on the gaff," Catti-brie said of one unusual cloud formation, a curving oblong before a trailing, thin line of white.
"How do you see that?" the dark elf protested with a laugh.
Catti-brie turned her head to regard her black-skinned, violet-eyed companion. "How do ye' not?" she