Some of you may be familiar with this story. To tell you the truth I wasn't going to repost it but the fact that it shares its title with the quiz has finally convinced me that I ought to. I've done some editing, so it's somewhat improved, though I don't dare go so far as to call it new.
Hope you enjoy
-Blue
First Impressions
“I must thank thee again for thy timely assistance,” Dynaheir said, adjusting her tattered violet robes in a vain attempt to look somewhat less disheveled.
“Oh you don’t really…” Brynn began.
“Think nothing of it,” Jaheira said, cutting Brynn off.
She probably didn’t even notice I was talking, Brynn thought, staring grumpily at the druid’s back. After all it’s not like I killed gnoll leader or anything. Oh wait, I did. Fancy that. “Anyway,” she said, “We were glad to help.” She offered Dynaheir a hand as they made their way over a steep stretch of path.
“My thanks, child,” Dynaheir said. “I am afraid I am yet a little unsteady on my feet.”
“We’ll get some food into you and a little rest and you’ll be as good as new, I’ll wager,” Imoen said, forging on ahead of the rest of the group, practically dancing over the rocky path in exultation. “Hey, Brynn, did you see that shot I made? I pegged a gnoll right in the eye!”
“No, I’m sorry, I missed it,” Brynn said. “I wish I could have seen though.”
“Minsc saw! It was a good hit! Little Imoen wiped the filthy floor with the buttocks of evil gnolls!” Minsc exclaimed.
“I thought I was doomed,” Xan sighed. “Oblivion is held at bay for another day, it seems.”
“Cheer up, snuggle-bottom,” Imoen said, skipping lightly over the stones and wrapping her arms around the dour elf. She planted a wet kiss on his cheek. “You can be such a sourpuss.”
Brynn watched as Xan’s already pale face went first stark white, and then bright pink. Imoen had taken undue pleasure in ruffling Xan’s feathers ever since they’d met him in the depths of the Nashkel mines. Imoen meant well; all she wanted to do was get Xan to lighten up a little bit, but being overly affectionate with him, hugging him, giving him sloppy kisses and calling him ‘snuggle-bottom’ was probably not the way to go about it.
Xan pried Imoen’s arms off from around his shoulders. “Do you know how much sickness there is in a humanoid mouth?” he asked. “I shall no doubt catch the plague.”
“Yeah, but what a way to get it, huh?” Imoen asked, elbowing the elf in the ribs and giving him a wink.
Khalid, who was walking more or less behind Brynn and next to Jaheira, said, “P…please don’t pester him so, Imoen. It’s… unkind.”
Imoen sighed and hung her head. “Sorry Xan,” she said.
Brynn turned her head and smiled at the older half-elf. It was Khalid of all of her new friends that she got along with best. He had a truly gentle nature, and he most of all was the one she respected. There were no other real warriors among her companions, though Jaheira and Minsc could certainly hold up their end in a melee. He was shy, and nervous, not qualities one tended to look for in a combatant, but he was the one who came closest to filling the position of mentor in her life since Touga-sensei had left to pursue his own quest and Gorion had died.
The group reached the top of one of the last rise before the land dipped down into a broad, fertile plain beyond the seacoast, and Jaheira, taking charge as usual, said, “We will make camp for the night
after we cross the river.”
“That is a sound plan,” Dynaheir agreed, resting one hand on Minsc’s forearm to steady herself. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Please,” Jaheira said.
Brynn listened as the two women discussed where they should set up camp for the night. Dynaheir had seen a nice little pond as she and Minsc had been journeying before the gnolls had taken her captive, and thought that it would be a good idea to camp there, rather than close to the river, where she had seen a Xvart village earlier. Jaheira was certain that if they camped far enough down stream from the Xvarts there would be no trouble, but Dynaheir seemed to want more than anything to get more distance between herself and the gnoll fortress, and Jaheira, probably sensing this, agreed to extend their journey a short while to make the Rashemi woman more comfortable.
They walked for another four or five hours until they arrived at the pond Dynaheir had mentioned and then went about setting up camp in a small copse of trees a few hundred yards away. It was close enough to get water, but far enough, Jaheira said, not to interfere with the nightly habits of the local wildlife.
What mattered to Brynn was that the camp was situated so that the pond could not be seen from it, and that meant that she would have the privacy to bathe, something she looked forward to with considerable enthusiasm. She was feeling particularly grimy after a day of travel and a long, rather difficult battle at the gnoll fortress. Touga-sensei had always been fastidiously clean, and she had picked up the habit of daily baths from him. Since she had left Candlekeep she had been hard pressed to bathe as often as she liked, and she used every opportunity that presented itself to her to scrape off her current coat of dirt.
As soon as her duties at camp were done she excused herself, telling Imoen where she was headed and why and giving her friend instructions to tell Jaheira where she’d gone if she was needed. She took a change of clothes and her lump of precious soap and hurried off to the pond.
She stretched by the edge of the water, and then pulled her katanas out of her sash and set them on top of her clean clothes. She resolved to clean the blades after she’d bathed. Her tunic, which had once been a pale blue, but was now so blood-spotted and filthy that she could hardly tell the original color, came off over her head, and then her boots and her soft leather breeches, just loose enough to allow flexibility, but tight enough not to get in the way. They needed cleaning badly, and she really ought to have been rid of them, but they were ridiculously comfortable, just worn enough to feel like a second skin, so she didn’t want to do away with them just yet. Not until she’d broken in a new pair, at least. Last to go was the cloth wrapping that bound up her breasts to keep them from jiggling all over the place when she was running or fighting. She was glad to get the damn thing off, since it was less than comfortable. Then again, it would be even more uncomfortable to go into combat without it.
Not that I’m particularly top heavy, she thought, regarding herself with a critical eye. She sighed as she unbraided her hair. Loose it fell to the small of her back and though Touga-sensei had advised cutting it more than once she kept it long to appease her sense of femininity.
She stepped into the water up to her armpits and began to scrub her hands over her body. She took the time to inspect the new scar she’d acquired from the gnoll commander. He’d struck her on the shoulder just as she had swept his head off of his shoulders. She was furious with herself for not being fast enough to get out of the way, or smart enough to see that he was baiting her. She turned out to be skilled enough to take him down despite his trap, but Jaheira had been quick to reprimand her even as she applied pressure and healing magic to the wound.
It wasn’t that bad, Brynn thought as she scrubbed her hands through her hair to get the sticky blood out of it. I would’ve been fine for at least a little while longer. Minsc needed the help more.
She waded back to shore to get her soap and was just about to start lathering when a dark figure burst through the trees on the far side of the pond. It was a man, his skin was jet black where it could be seen around his chainmail, and his hair stark white, a combination Brynn recognized from her reading at Candlekeep and a more recent encounter farther north.
A drow.
She had read of the evils that drow perpetrated on the surface races and an almost instinctive tingle of fear ran up her spine, though that had as much to do with her own nudity as it did the reputation of the stranger’s race. The drow looked more harried than threatening anyway, and was so far posing no threat, though he did have a pair of scimitars belted to his sides.
He stopped dead in his tracks the moment he spotted Brynn, his jaw dropping open a little bit, and his pale eyes –Brynn thought they were a sort of lavender color- going wide. He was apparently just as shocked to see her as she was too see him. He didn’t stay put for long though, because a dozen or so gnolls charged out of the trees behind him, weapons at the ready, and he whirled about to meet them, his two blades drawn in a flash of glittering steel.
Brynn didn’t even have to think as she grabbed up her katanas and unsheathed them. Twelve to one were unfair odds, but she fancied that she could even them out. She charged into the melee.
The drow gave her a surprised look even as he parried a downward slash by one of the gnolls, and Brynn gave him a sort of ‘what can you do’ grin in reply. She brushed one attack aside with her left blade and opened her gnollish attacker from shoulder to ribcage with the right. Spinning, she caught another gnoll square in the jaw and sheered his skull in two. The drow, who was moving at an unnaturally fast pace, was more than matching her, and dropped two gnolls almost simultaneously as they came at him from the right and left. He let them get just close enough and swung his scimitars out to his side, cutting them down with ease. Brynn took up a position on his right flank, picking off a fifth gnoll while the drow faced off with two more to his left. He dispatched those two almost as easily as the others, and spun so that they stood back to back. Brynn felt the drow’s cold chainmail press against her bare skin and took a deep breath as the gnolls moved to surround them. One charged her, but she jumped up, landing heavily on the shaft of its halberd and driving the blade into the ground with her weight. She swept the gnoll’s head off with her blade and then stepped off the halberd in favor of the more stable footing provided by solid ground.
In the time it had taken her to do that, the drow had dispatched two more gnolls, leaving only one left. The two allies turned at the same time, and both caught the gnoll in the middle, each cutting half-way through it until their blades met. The two halves of the gnoll fell away, and Brynn and the drow looked at one another, panting, and sheathed their swords.
“Thank you,” the drow said, looking at his feet. He took off his cloak and held it out to her. “I would doubtless have been overrun without your timely assistance.”
“You’re welcome,” Brynn replied, wondering what he wanted her to do with his cloak.
And then she remembered she was naked.
She grabbed the proffered article of clothing and wrapped it around her shoulders, holding it closed in front as best as she could while still keeping hold of both of her sheathed katanas. “Thank you,” she said sincerely, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. “Sorry about the… I mean, I didn’t mean to you know… be naked… and stuff.”
“Don’t apologize… er… rather, don’t worry, I tried not to look… er… don’t take that the wrong way, I mean I tried not to look because it wouldn’t have been nice… not what I was looking at, you’re not unattractive but… Oh, bother all. Can we start over again?”
“It’s all right, I understand what you mean,” Brynn said, smiling despite everything.
The drow sighed in relief. “Thank the Gods,” he said. “I suppose we ought to introduce ourselves. I am Drizzt Do’Urden, of Mithral Hall.” He proffered one slender black hand. The name rang a bell.
Brynn juggled cloak and katanas briefly and stuck one hand out to clasp his. “Brynn Trueblade of Candlekeep,” she said. She tucked her hand away again and put it back to work preserving what little there was left of her modesty. “Have I heard of you before?”
Drizzt shrugged. “Perhaps, have you ever been to Icewind Dale?”
Brynn shook her head. “I’ve never been north of the Friendly Arms Inn, and never out of Candlekeep until three weeks ago. Mithral Hall though… that’s the place the dwarves took back in ’56, right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Run by King Something-or-other Battlehammer now, isn’t it?”
“Bruenor Battlehammer, but yes, that’s correct.”
Brynn’s mind wandered around the various tracts of information she’d acquired as a youth and eventually she settled on a realization. “Oh!” she said suddenly. “That’s you! I’ve heard stories about you! I don’t know why I didn’t remember…”
“It’s quite all right,” Drizzt said. “I’m actually rather surprised that you’ve heard of me this far south. I hardly realized I was making such a name for myself.”
I’ve just fought by the side of one of the most heroic people in the Realms, Brynn thought. That was quickly followed by: I just mooned one of the most heroic people in the Realms. Gods take me now and please let my shame can die with me. She waited for her prayer to be answered, but was disappointed. I hate you. I hate you so very much.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” Drizzt said, picking up on her distress. “You didn’t know anyone was going to show up after all.”
“I know,” Brynn said. “It’s just this isn’t really how I wanted to meet you if I was going to meet you, you know? Helping you kill the gnolls was a treat, but the naked part I could’ve done without.”
Drizzt opened his mouth to say something, but hesitated. “You know,” he said after a moment of thought, “I really don’t think there’s a thing I can say about that that won’t make me sound like either a total cad or a pervert, so I hope you won’t mind if I decline to comment.”
“Not at all,” Brynn assured him.
They stood there for a moment, looking at one another.
“So,” Brynn said, taking a deep breath. “You wield two swords too, huh?”
“Yes, scimitars. I can’t say I recognize your blades though. They are very interesting.”
“They’re katanas, from Kara-Tur, the islands of Wa, specifically.”
“Really? Where did you get them from? Not all the way in Kara-Tur certainly.”
“My sword master made one and I found the other in an old storage room in Candlekeep when I was a child.”
“Oh really? Have you been training long then? You’re very good you know.”
“You really think so? I’ve been training for about twelve years now, since I was eleven.”
She heard Jaheira shout and saw the druid running toward her, the entire party in tow.
“You know,” Brynn said, “I should really go get my clothes now, because when that rather angry looking half-elf gets here she’s going to want to know why I’m standing here, covered in blood and wearing only a cloak, talking to a strange man, and I’d really like to be able to explain while I have my pants on.”
“I understand completely.” Drizzt said. “I’ll… er… wait here and look at the trees.”
Brynn smiled. “Thank you,” she said. She turned and hurried toward where she’d left her pack.
What a way to make a first impression.
