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Lae'zel of Crèche K'liir doesn't cry. She is her queen's most loyal blade in a sea of swords and blood. Her life hinges on her strength, her resolve. The sharpness of her eyes and body demanded respect with every step she took; the praise of her mentors powering the walk from her crèche to the ghaik circling the underdark.
It was careless, getting captured. It was a mistake she should never have made. The pod and her nightmares were the only thing she knew for far too long. When the thing she has sworn to take the head of finally opened her pod it was with worm in clawed hand. There was nothing she could do. Lae'zel, daughter of Gith, pride of Crèche K'liir could do no more than writhe fruitlessly against her bindings as the thing that enslaved her people made sure she would one day soon become just like them.
She breaks free. Strength sapped. Hellfire blazing around her. She knows what she must do in an instant. Without a second thought she stands up and marches forward through the ship.
She finds allies to supplement her temporary weakness, then she loses them, then they save her from yet another trap she carelessly stumbled into while adjusting to the blinding sun and fumes of the crash. In exchange she offers the cure of her people. She knows it to be the best way, the only way. After everything and all the wrongness of this world she just wants to see her people and attain the purity she knows they have perfected.
Lae'zel is ignored, and the tadpole is silent. One more day of waiting can't hurt, they say, one more week, one more month, one more year as long as the half elf holds onto an artifact stolen from the bloody clutches of her people. She hates the smell of grass, the weakness of the children, the joy of their music. It's all wrong. How can their lives be so easy that this is the first time they've touched a weapon? She finds a small piece of herself envying it before pushing it down with her steeled determination.
She will save herself, save them all, and she will bring the head of twelve dozen ghaik to her Queen for doing this to her.
When they finally heed her and seek out a crèche, it's just as alien as the rest of the world. The way they carry themselves is so vastly different from her home. The walls are crumbling with disrepair, the teachers waste their time, and the thing she had sought since the parasite worked its way behind her eye nearly kills her.
She convinces herself it was tampered with. The allies who have slowly begun to call her friend look at her with worry, then exasperation when she insists they need to report the ghustil. They tell her that the zaith'isk was designed to kill her and it always would. She knew. She knew deep within the pit of her stomach that they were right. But they couldn't be. She was Lae'zel of Crèche K'liir, her Queen's most loyal blade, and if she knew purification to be true, then it must be.
She marches them through the crèche to the Inquisitor and every piece of her lights up when Vlaakith looks upon her and says her name.
Lae'zel.
It did sound regal coming from the lips of her Queen.
When they fail to complete the one task they were given, she's met with a sea of swords and leaves behind a river of blood. Her stomach churns and the tadpole squirms at the thought that the person, the Goddess, she dedicated her life and soul to would condemn her to this.
Lae'zel listens to Voss when he intrudes on their camp, but she doesn't quite believe him. She doesn't quite believe anyone. She doesn't quite believe herself when she says that Vlaakith has sinned against her.
Her companions soften around her. She'd never admit it, but she softens too. The tadpole scares her less, but she's more determined than ever to undo it for herself and for them.
It's not until after the darkness of the shadow cursed lands is defeated, after Ketheric is dead, after she's seen the brain pulsating with power, after her people come for her throat again that she feels like she has a moment to breathe.
They step away from the lands cursed by darkness and see the sun again. It's warm and kind on her skin. She can smell the trees and morning dew covering each blade of grass and newly budded petal. She is no longer her Queen's sword. She didn't know what she was anymore. Her soul felt empty and her heart was constantly contorting in her chest.
Lae'zel of Crèche K'liir doesn't cry. But she let a tear fall down her cheek and onto the grass to hide amidst the dew.