Disclaimer: I do not own Drizzt or his daddy.

The Birds and the Bees-According to Zaknafein

Drizzt stared intently at the weapons master. "Where do babies come from?" he asked.

The older drow looked down at his stubborn student. "We were discussing weapons tactics, boy, not babies."

"But I am curious."

"You are always curious."

"Is that bad?"

"In your case, yes."

"Where do babies come from?"

"You are not going to give up, are you?"

Drizzt shook his head, lavender eyes still focused directly at Zaknafein's face. The weapons master of the Do'Urden house groaned softly. His sister must not have explained things to him yet, he thought with annoyance. "Are you certain you really wish to know?"

Drizzt nodded resolutely.

"Babies," Zaknafein began. "When a female drow decides on the spur of the moment that she is interested in a drow male she lures him into her lair with the promise of wealth and power. It is irreverent if she has neither of these. Sometimes they bond together ceremoniously as consorts. Most often, however, they have no such lasting tie. Whether the bond is ceremoniously made or not they soon enough join in a purely physical union of chaos and passion. The resultant product of that chaos is a little, crying, smelly bundle called a 'baby.' And that, my young student, is where babies come from."

Drizzt stared at him, jaw dropped, eyes wide. He pointed a small accusing finger at the older drow. "You lie! That is not the truth at all!"

Zaknafein laughed at the boy's fury. "I am not lying."

"You must be."

"It is true. You, Drizzt Do'Urden, were made purely from chaos and passion."

Drizzt frowned, lavender eyes angry. "There must be more to it than that."

"What more is there?" Zaknafein asked.

"Well, should not the people who make that baby love one another?"

"Who ordained that two must love one another to make a child? No one, boy."

"But—"

Zaknafein would have raised a hand to strike the young drow for his impudence, but the confusion and anguish in Drizzt's bright lavender eyes stopped him. He did not wish to tell him the whole truth: The truth that babies were born to die whether they were sacrificed to Lloth minutes after they were born, murdered in their childhood beds by another warring house, or felled by the blade of some unseen foe.

The weapons master of the Do'Urden house sat beside the troubled lad. "In an ideal world," he said quietly, "when two people love one another enough to risk all they will come together to make a child . . . A child that hopefully will be able to grow wise, brave, and true to his own heart in a way that is beyond the expectations, and exceptions, of those around him. A baby born from chaos is at the same time born from innocence and is always threatened by the taint of the world around him. But hopefully . . ." he murmured, looking at Drizzt quietly, "a child born from chaos can find peace, whether it be in the chaos, or away from it."

Drizzt's large lavender eyes narrowed. "That does not help me know any better where babies come from," he muttered.

Zaknafein raised a hand and Drizzt flinched, knowing he had indeed crossed a line. But the weapons master only chuckled and ruffled Drizzt's stark white hair. "If my one greatest wish in all the world is granted to me you will one day understand." The hardened drow warrior stood up, looking with a smile down at his student. "And now we begin once again the lesson of battle tactics." He walked away from the young drow.

Drizzt, running a hand through his long white hair to straighten it, stood up and followed the elf that had fathered him.

End