DISCLAIMER: Buffy The Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and 20th Century Fox. The Forgotten Realms setting is owned by Wizards of the West Coast. Drizzt Do'Urden is own both by Wizards of the West Coast and Authored by R. A. Salvatore. No infringement of these copyrights is intended. All original characters are the property of Wispr.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Big thanks to Rebelrsr for the betaing. I will be pretty much going by D&D 3.5 rules as a guide for those who are wondering. This story starts the same night as the BTVS episode "Prophecy Girl."
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
Beauty and the Beast the Faerûn Way…
By Wispr
Part 2
A Lonely Road…
Lhyra loped at a steady pace as she made her way through the old growth forest known as The High Forest. The wood stretched over three hundred miles across and was inhabited by all manner of trees: maple, ash, elm, evergreen and the mighty oak. Even with it being several weeks into the month of Mirtul, the fifth month of the year, there still was a biting chill in the air since the forest was located so far north.
The cold didn't bother Lhyra in the least, though. Her thick coat of light brown fur, with its spattering of reddish/gray spots, and her russet colored mane running from her head down her back to the base of her tail made sure of that. Lhyra wasn't one of the civilized races of Faerûn; she was a gnoll. She had the appearance of a humanoid hyena, standing slightly less than seven feet tall and weighing in at over three hundred pounds. Lhyra made for a very intimating sight. Her eyes gleamed a bright yellow, while the claws that graced her human-like hands and her dog-like feet were a dull black in color.
Lhyra wore patchwork leather armor made from scraps taken from smaller suits of armor. The mismatched armor covered her shoulders and torso and wrapped around her upper thighs in a pleated skirt made of thick, yet supple, leather. A double bladed battle-ax hung from her belt, and three small throwing axes were clipped to the opposite side of the same belt.
A dagger and a short bow with a score of arrows completed her weapon compliment. Strapped securely on her back was a backpack with very basic survival equipment stored within; though; she carried nothing for cooking. Gnolls preferred their food raw and screaming. What mostly filled the large backpack were expensive furs such as mink, fox and the like, with a few plainer deer skins that she had hidden from her tribe after looting them from a caravan the tribe had destroyed.
All of this was covered by a large cloak that, like her armor, was made from several cloaks stitched together by the tribe's slaves. Lhyra had had the slave's stain the cloak in shades of browns, greens and grays to help her blend in her surroundings. She had gotten the idea from a small group of human rangers that her tribe had ambushed the year before.
Lhyra moved at a steady pace, speeding quietly through the thick woods, placing her large paws carefully to lessen both sound and any trail she might leave. At times, she doubled back on her trail or even climbs a large tree to traverse several hundred feet through the interlocking branches before dropping back down to the ground.
Lhyra did this for a very good reason. Her tribe was hunting her.
By the time Lhyra had reached the age of nine, thus surviving to adulthood, she had discovered a unique talent. Lhyra could, through keen observation and insight, ferret out the psychological weaknesses in newly captured slaves. By using that knowledge, she broke their spirits. She became the tribe's tantekurash or soul-breaker. She also excelled at tracking and hunting and combined her skills to go out and capture slaves. After bringing them back to the small abandon fortress that her tribe made into their lair, Lhyra took great enjoyment in breaking her captives.
For the next three years, as befitting a Ranger of Malar, the god of the hunt, she had reveled in the hunt and the torturing of her prey. Humans, elves, orcs…all were seen as both slave labor and a source of food. But then, during the fourth year, something within her gradually changed. Her tracking and the subsequent capturing of new slaves lost its excitement, and the screams of her tortured victims stopped sounding sweet to her ears.
Adding to that, Lhyra also suffered a shock the very foundations of how she viewed herself, the lost of the spells granted to her by the savage god Malar. Through the years of raiding and hunting, Lhyra had become a powerful ranger and had been granted a few spells from Malar. The entire tribe worshipped Malar even though it is said that The Demon Prince Yeenoghu had created the gnoll race by fusing the essence of some of his mightiest demons with that of normal hyenas. Those hyenas literally gave birth to the gnoll race.
But now the spells were gone, and Lhyra was godless. This had made Lhyra look deeply into herself, and what she saw astonished her. Even though she could still feel the strong demonic taint within her, Lhyra had grown disillusioned with her kind's evil ways. She became withdrawn; Lhyra didn't know, though, what she wanted to do, for the tribe was family and even with the vicious infighting the tribe offered safety against the outside world. A world that wouldn't accept a renegade gnoll - or so she had believed.
Several weeks later, a mixed group of elves and humans had been captured and turned over to her for breaking. Amongst the group was a young human female bard with auburn hair who tried to take her fellow captives' minds off of their predicament with stories. Normally, Lhyra would kill one such as her by eating her alive in front of the other prisoners. But this time, she decided to listen to the stories the young bard told. Though the human bard spoke in the common tongue, Lhyra easily understood her, for she spoke common and a smattering of other tongues besides speaking gnoll and the language of demons, Abyssal.
One of the stories the bard told was of a Ranger who followed the Goddess Mielikki. What caught Lhyra's attention was the race of the Ranger, whose name was Drizzt Do'Urden, for his people were the evil dark-elf race called Drow. Lhyra listened from the shadows as the bard told of Drizzt's many great adventures and the cautious acceptance of him by the surface dwellers.
Later, Lhyra had taken the human bard aside and demanded to know if this Drizzt was real or not. The bard had told her that he was very real, for she had personally seen him with his friends, who were two humans, a dwarven King and a Halfling, plus the Drow's great black panther. From her tantekurash skills, Lhyra could tell that the human was telling the truth.
After questioning the bard further, Lhyra then returned her the holding cells and the rest of the day had thought long and hard on what she had learned. The stories about the Drow had gifted Lhyra with something very unique; they had given her hope. Although she hadn't the faintest clue what she would do once out there, she figure if they could accept a Drow, they might also accept a gnoll.
Lhyra knew she didn't want to be a hero like the Drow; that wasn't a life she wanted in the least. Instead, she had vague ideas of being a hunter/trapper or maybe even a bounty hunter. For even though she had turned away from her kind's evil ways, she still was a gnoll, and happiness for a gnoll was a full stomach, a roof over one's head, and the thrill of the hunt.
Once her decision had been made, Lhyra talked to the bard and together they had concocted a plan to escape. At first, the gnoll had planned for the two of them to simply walk out of the lair. The other gnolls would think Lhyra wanted to hunt the bard for sport. Lhyra wanted to thank the bard for giving her hope by freeing the human woman. But the bard had other ideas; she was adamant that Lhyra had to free at least her fellow prisoners that hadn't been broken. The bard had explained to Lhyra this would help her to be accepted, and Lhyra had very grudgingly agreed.
Luckily for the newly arrived prisoners, there were several orcs that needed breaking and Lhyra had no qualms torturing them at all. This gave Lhyra time to slowly stash weapons and equipment near the prisoners; though, during the time it took her to gather the supplies, several of the new captives were eaten by her tribe. This really didn't bother Lhyra at all; actually, she was rather happy since it meant fewer captives to rescue. Also, Lhyra really didn't care about any of the other captives beside her bard, who she learned was named Tythina. Lhyra felt indebted to Tythina, and maybe even the beginning of a friendship. Both emotions were wholly new for the gnoll.
On returning around midday from a hunt, Lhyra entered the large hall that the tribe used as a gathering area to find a few of her pack-mates and the tribe's chieftain eating the remains of the bard Tythina! At that moment, Lhyra freely embraced the darkness within her soul. With a roar of rage, she plucked one of her throwing axes off her belt and sent it streaking across the common room, spinning through the large fire in its center towards the chieftain himself. With a load thunk, the blade bit deeply into his sloped forehead, killing him instantly.
Even before the thrown axe had passed through the flames, Lhyra spun and leaped toward one of the large kegs of ale haphazardly scattered around the large room. Lhyra grasped the keg's wooden sides, her claws giving a secure hold as they sank into the wood. With a snarl, she twisted around to heave the heavy keg at the fire. It struck the floor with fiery results. The keg landed before the large fire with an explosive burst of ale that the flames greedily ignited. With a loud whoosh, the resulting fireball enveloped several of the surrounding gnolls, setting their fur afire.
In the following confusion, Lhyra rushed outside and began yelling about traitors to the tribe who had forsaken their god Malar and killed the chieftain. Just then, one of the enraged gnolls from inside came out and immediately attacked her, adding credibility to her claim. Between her statement and seeing the tribe's tantekurash being attacked, the listening gnolls enthusiastically leaped into battle.
Lhyra had slipped away during the fight and made her way to the other prisoners. Once there, she quickly freed and armed them with what she had been able to gather. She led them out of the back of the small fortress; they only ran into a few gnolls that she efficiently dispatched. By the sounds coming from the front, most of the tribe was embroiled in the fighting.
Lhyra and her small group had traveled for about an hour before she had spotted pursuers. Lhyra really didn't care how they had caught on to her so quickly, more concerned with the present danger that they represented. Without really thinking about what she was doing, Lhyra sent the small group of surviving captives on ahead after giving the more wood-wise captives directions to the nearest settlement. She, herself, turned back and began peppering the hunting party with arrows, fixating their attention on her.
For the rest of the day and the following night, Lhyra remained constantly on the move, leading the other gnolls on a deadly chase. Several times, she had used her extensive knowledge to lead them straight to a dangerous forest denizen, knowing that between the fighting and the need to feed afterwards, her pursuers would slow down.
That was how Lhyra found herself tiredly resting while sitting against the trunk of a large oak tree. The tree stood in a small clearing surrounded by thick underbrush that bristled with thorns. She had reached the clearing by once again traversing the branches, thus allowing her to not leave a visible trail for either her pursuers or any other dangerous forest creatures to follow. Her stomach was comfortably full from a young buck she had stumbled across near sunrise. After quickly dispatching it, she had ravenously devoured what she could of the deer, saving the rest of the meat wrapped in its skin for later.
At the moment, Lhyra was feeling rather alone. She had hunted many times by herself, but, Lhyra had had her tribe to return to then. A gnoll was, after all, a pack animal at heart. Now… Now she didn't even have any of the escaped prisoners with her to keep her company.
Lhyra began to feel overwhelmed at the prospect of facing the outside world and its civilization on her own when with a bright flash of light appeared, dropping a unconscious and naked human female onto her lap.