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A great blow had been struck against Vlaakith this day. That is what Lae’zel knew she must cling to. The morning had brought battle, hardship and casualties, but the night had brought celebration. Celebration, for the last of the Lich Queen’s strongholds in the material plane had been reduced to rubble. With her suppliers destroyed, and her forces retreating to the Astral plane, the time to strike had come. Gish and Zerth alike were to surround the city of Tu’narath, and in a siege led by the Prince of the Comet himself, draw out Vlaakith once and for all.
Oh, how Lae’zel itched thinking about it. To strike down that tyrant once and for all with her might, to cleave her people’s chains, usher in a new age for the children of both Gith and Zerthimon. A dream she had given everything for. A dream that just managed to hold her together.
A dream that would start the next morning. For now, there was rest. The last rest they would need for a long, long time. A rest that refused to come to Lae’zel it seemed. Without the roar of battle, or even the bonfires and laughter that came after, she was left only with the weight of emptiness filling her. She slipped away from the dead celebration. She found herself merely wandering an unknown trail through the woods as memories washed over her.
Nine months had passed since her love had made the ultimate sacrifice. For the gith people, the prince of the comet, and for her - she became illithid. To render her mind, body and soul onto oblivion was an unthinkable act. It was one she took without hesitation as her penance. Every innocent man, woman and child she took as a daughter of Bhaal would be avenged in the sacrifice she made. It had been a victory over the ghaik like no other, not since the leadership of the great Mother Gith.
How Lae’zel wished she hadn’t.
Orpheus himself offered her lover a place among the rebellion, even as ghaik. An offer Lae’zel couldn’t comprehend, to see githyanki and ghaik fighting alongside one another was outlandish. It was an offer her lover had refused. She chose to remain on that dock, watching Lae’zel ride into the astral on the back of Quuthos.
The trail led uphill. As the sound of the military base grew quieter, she heard waves grow louder, crashing upon the beach. Thousands of stars dotted the inky night. A sky so luminous hadn’t graced her nights since the reunion.
She had once hoped to one day see the source of her bruises again, ghaik or not. A hope that had died a pitiful death on that beautiful night three months ago. She still remembered the moment the truth had set in. The silence that had fallen once she asked the question, the unsure glances her one-time companions shot between each other, the emptiness which filled her upon the realization. An emptiness that never quite left.
Jaheria had been the one to pull her aside. She explained everything that had happened since Lae’zel’s departure. Her lover had known what fate would have awaited her as a mind flayer. One's soul was no small sacrifice. She would lose herself in time, consuming the others to survive, cowering in fear of her people’s assimilation. A life not too different than what Bhaal offered her. The only life she took as an illithid was her own.
In the battle against the netherbrain, she thought she saw her lover remain under ghaik flesh. Her final act proved her right.
The daughter of Bhaal was unrecognizable as such in the time Lae’zel knew her. At first, she felt cursed to be stuck with such a she’lak - an idealist do-gooder, a benevolent burden. She was everything Lae’zel was taught not to be. And yet, she had taught Lae’zel so much. Zevlor and the tieflings, Florrik and the Flaming Fish, Gandriel and the Gur - all weaklings Lae’zel would have scoffed at had she been calling the shots. But with their help, all of them stood strong beside the party against the netherbrain. Kindness was no act of submissiveness, it was a strength. Under the right circumstances.
Lae’zel refused to let her sorrow break her. She was a warrior, a child of gith and a knight of the comet. Her people rejected these emotions for years. Perhaps they were correct in doing so. Nine months since she had lost her, nine months and the crushing weight inside her never left.
The trees ahead cleared slightly, onto a dune overlooking the Sea of Swords. A place of solitude for her to mourn was all she wished for. As she pushed through the bramble, she found she was not the only one. Before she even comprehended the presence of another, the former Kith'rak Voss’ blade was held to her throat.
“Take caution where you wonder, Lae’zel. I almost took your head.” Voss said curtly.
“Chk. You would have died in the attempt.” Lae’zel shot back. An unproven assertion to be sure, but she was not show weakness in front of Voss.
“Perhaps. An unfortunate outcome either way, for both of us.” he sheathed his blade as quickly as he drew it. “It is unlike you to not partake in the spoils of victory. What brings you out here?”
In the moonlight, Lae’zel saw he was partially unarmored. His silver cuirass and pauldron sat upon a sand dune in front of them, as well as his gauntlets and cuisse, leaving only his hauberk and trousers. Lae’zel had not noticed him at the celebration, but it was not unusual for him to celebrate with the prince in private. To see him alone out here was an odd sight.
“I could ask the same of you.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve come to chaperone an old man.” He scoffed.
“I…” the words caught in Lae’zel’s throat. In all her life, she had never once seen or read a githyanki profess their love for another. Love was as alien as it got for many githyanki. How could Voss comprehend, much less empathize, with her situation? No, he’d see these feelings as a sign of weakness, a distraction when her focus must lie on the battle ahead. And rightfully so. This was not something she could speak about with any of her kin. “I sought a moment to reflect on my performance today. That’s all.”
He crossed his arms as he tried to read her. She had lied to Voss once before, on the mountain pass where they first met. He didn’t buy it then.
“I’m not sure what you’re to reflect on. Your performance was more than satisfactory. The method you used to dispatch the duthka’gith was highly efficient.” He stated as he turned from her.
“You spout a mentality that breeds complacency. There is always room to improve.”
“I suppose so.” He strode toward the sea, and gestured for her to follow him. “But, if it is reflection you seek, you are free to do so alongside me.”
She stepped forward, standing stiffly beside him as he sat upon the dune, a cool breeze brushing them both. The Sea of Swords spread ahead of them, as dark and endless as the sky above. The waves below lapped against the shore in a low murmur, the only sound breaking the silence between them.
“Voss, do you - do you ever feel as if…” The words came out, no rhyme or reason, no clear endgame. Just mumbled speech to fill the void of the crashing waves.
He glanced up at her, but she lost her nerve to finish her question. She looked away in shame.
“You wonder why I came out here, do you not? Perhaps I’ll explain.” He patted the spot next to him, directing her to sit. She obeyed, hesitantly kneeling beside him on the sandy grass.
“Do you see this arrangement of stars?” he pointed her attention North, towards a constellation of five stars. Four of the stars formed an upright rectangle, with the fifth glowing brightest in the center. Creche K’liir had done much to prepare her for interstellar travel. She had memorized over 500 celestial landmarks across realmspace in preparation for the astral sea of this plane, including this one.
“A simple question, you point to the Sleepless Knights.” she stated matter-of-factly. “Its most common purpose for astral travel is to locate Mystra’s Star Circle, and its brightest star Algairtha, which provides a constant reference to true north. The istik believe the stars represent five knights of the savage north, whose unwavering devotion to their king was rewarded by the Star Wanderer himself.”
“Your power of observation will do you well in battle.” Voss smiled before turning his attention back to the stars. “But, it is not that I point toward. Look harder, between the upper stars of the Knights.”
She focused her vision, honing in where Voss point. She noticed a dull, gray orb, one which would have been completely blotted out on a duller night.
“Is this where your Crèche lies?” She asked, unsure of any githyanki settlement that far out. He let out a low sound, almost sounding like a chuckle.
“I hail from no crèche, Lae’zel, but the planet Glyth. I’m sure one as studious as you knows of it.”
Glyth. A world rendered entirely unto the ghaik. A place where the grand design is no mere nightmare, but a living reality. It had been described as many things in the slates of K’liir: a charred ruin, a graveyard of the githyanki people, a bleak, slave rearing world where millions are bred as livestock for their ghaik masters. The birthplace of Mother Gith.
“A place you must hold no love for.” she murmured.
“Indeed,” he said bitterly. “I was sold onto that world from one ghaik master to another named Zarqrodeos within the first decade of my life. When I arrived, much of Glyth was dense and teeming with life, not unlike the rainforests of this world. But, rather than allow such an unruly force to exist without their consent, our masters forced us to torch most all of it.”
“Foolish.” Lae’zel sneered. “Why would the ghaik destroy such resources without extracting them first?”
“Whatever resources that world held were less valuable than our servitude. Among ash, we had nowhere to hide. The smoke of the fires almost destroyed the atmosphere, making the surface nearly uninhabitable. It forced us underground, into the most ruined parts of our master's cramped cities.”
“A grim existence.” muttered Lae’zel. “Such a fate would have fallen upon this world if not for…” She felt the words die in her throat. She couldn’t bear to say her name, not in front of Voss. He glanced her way, and she changed her words quickly. “I’m sure such hardship has only made you stronger.”
“Bah. You speak in platitudes.” he scoffed. “My master would have seen me subjugated as nothing but a thrall to die in its steed. In some ways, I never left that world. Even after eons. I still feel the smog scorching my lungs, the acid rain burning my lash wounds, my kin killing and dying over petty differences between our masters. No, it was not the ghaik who gave me strength, it was Orpheus.”
“Orpheus?” She asked. Historical facts of the prince’s early life were scarce. So much of her people's history had been scrubbed by the lich queen. Anything to paint Vlaakith and her line of tyrants of the githyanki people’s saviors.
“Yes. He saved me, elated me when I fell furthest to despair.” Voss smiled thinking of him. “I was younger than you, perhaps by half a decade. Zarqrodeos had a score to settle with another ghaik, and sent a platoon of us into battle with his slaves to fight for it. I don’t remember why they fought, but I remember the battle, and I remember when I was struck by a dull blade to the head. The wound split my forehead open and its pain sent me into panic. I believed I was to either fall in battle or be so broken by it I’d be sold for consumption, that I’d have lived and died as nothing but an object to be used and discarded over little more than petty discord. So, I fled.”
“The great jhe’stil kith’rak fleeing battle after a single blow? Chk. I don’t believe it.” Lae’zel was intrigued by a firsthand account of slavery under the ghaik, but as Voss’ ally, knew it was… unusual for him to speak of such vulnerabilities.
“It was cowardly. I’ve faced far worse since then, and it's hardly slowed me down.” Voss’ eyebrows drew together as he looked down toward the sea. “But that’s what I was as a slave, a coward too afraid to die. So, I picked a direction and ran. The battle had drawn up enough ash to create a cloud, thick enough to provide cover. I hadn’t much time until Zarqrodeos realized I had deserted, so I never slowed down. My head throbbed, my feet ached, and I didn’t know if there was a single place on that world to escape to. I merely ran until I collapsed. I had made it to one of the fields of death, where ghaik used our bodies to fertilize the crops of our food rations. It was here where Orpheus and his father-”
“Father?” Lae’zel interjected, only to realize the obvious. The historical slates stated that githyanki had evolved to reproduce asexually after Mother Gith had led them to the Astral plane, a process manufactured by Vlaakith CVLII herself. But to think her prince was born in such a way…
“Hm.” Voss frowned. “I suppose such a detail would seem odd to one of your generation. But yes, Orpheus had a father. It was not uncommon for our kin to form more traditional families in that age, although children were often sold in their first decade as I was.”
“I should have concluded as such, but it is repugnant to think about.” She hugged her knees, making a face picturing such an alien notion. “To have a living being crawling its way through your belly, to push it out the womb kicking and screaming while you both bleed and cry from the agony. Such an unclean way to reproduce.”
Voss shrugged. “It is how our kind reproduced for eons. I find oviparous reproduction a far greater oddity.”
“Who was Orpheus’ father?” Her curiosity had been piqued by such a notion, as no consort to Gith had ever been discussed by their history slates. Voss’ face tightened at her question.
“I should not have mentioned that detail. His identity is a highly personal matter to the prince, so I will not speak his name. But I will say both he and Orpheus were part of the laborer caste. They toiled in the fields during the day for an infamous ghaik called Arlathii Twice-Deceased, suffering back breaking labor to grow rations for his soldiers, one of whom being Gith."
Lae’zel was disappointed in his response, but she did not interrupt him again. She remembered from her history lessons that there were four castes of slaves among the ghaik: The soldier, who fought their battles, the breeder, who expanded their forces, the laborer, who supplied their war efforts, and what the ghaik cruelly deemed ‘Skull cattle’ - those bred to be consumed.
Some githyanki historians claimed there should only be three castes, as all slaves became skull cattle the moment they could no longer perform their function.
“When I first collapsed on that field, I thought I was to fall to cruel irony.” Voss continued his story. “That my attempt to escape death would end by rotting in those fields regardless. As I bled in the ash and decay, the smell of death in my nose, Orpheus had found me.” His voice softened at the mention of the prince’s name.
“I felt I had died and found bliss in his presence. He wrapped my wound in his rags and shared his meager rations for reasons I couldn’t comprehend. When Zarqrodeos inevitably appeared to apprehend me, he hid me among the dead and lied to its face. His fearlessness astonished me, attempting to deceive a telepath to protect me, even more so that he succeeded. After two turns, he had brought me to the under-underdark of Glyth, where our people had found hiding from our masters. It was here I met his mother, the great liberator herself, and here where she had plotted our path to our freedom.”
The story brought Lae’zel back to when she had met the source of her bruises. Infected by ghaik, thousands of miles from K’liir, ensnared in an alien device, ridiculed by istiki - she feared she was to die terrified and alone, though she’d never show it, until she appeared. She thought this large, bumbling half-orc should be nothing more than a lay until she found her creche, but they became so much more. She saved her. Showed her kindness. Treated her as a person when others saw her a rude, brutish, stupid githyanki.
“I see.” She murmured. “It was a brave thing for him to do, to protect you despite the risk to him and his family.”
“Yes. When the rising of the people came, I stood beside him and his mother. All my life, I fought empty battles for a master who cared not whether I lived or died. As I fought alongside Orpheus, I finally knew what it was to have something, and even more, someone, worth fighting for.”
“Chk.” Lae’zel looked down at the crashing waves. “You choose your words oddly, it sounds almost like…”
“Like I love him?” Voss finished.
Lae’zel looked up. To project her own petty emotions would be nothing but disrespectful to both of them. “Of course not, that would be a ridiculous assumption, I-”
“You excel in many things, Lae’zel. Lying is not one of them.” He seemed almost amused at her indignity.
“Tsk’va.” Her face grew warm in embarrassment. “You see right through me, as you always have. It was a foolish thing to think, and I apologize. Sincerely.”
“Apologize for nothing. I do love him.”
“Oh.”
He faced her, even as she’d rather he turn away. “I did not tell you all of this to make myself feel better. I know how you felt about the daughter of Bhaal, and I know how you feel now.”
“Voss, you don’t - how -” she didn’t know what to say. How she could say it.
“Alone.” Voss said, “You feel you’re the only githyanki to have felt such a way. That it was unnatural for you to have allowed yourself such attachment to another, and now you pay the price for such weakness. Your grief isolates you further, as you cannot talk openly with our kin. You’d face confusion at best, and outright scorn at worst.”
“Silence! I- I do not need your pity, Voss.” she hissed with a shaking voice as a last line of defense. A defense that was buckling with every word. Her head pounded from holding back the welding tears.
“Then take my understanding. I’ve stood where you stand now when I lost Orpheus all those centuries ago. We pretend love is but a worthless sensation indulged in by our lessers, but we can’t change our nature. It has only made us miserable. We laugh, we cry, love and lose like any other creature, and you’d be a fool to act otherwise.”
Her jaw clenched as she tried to hold back her tears. Despite her efforts to keep her breath slow and steady, her lip trembled. His words tore into her like daggers, spilling her insides out for all to see. For the first time she could remember, she sobbed.
A sense of release washed over her as her tears fell. Voss rested his hand on her shoulder. It comforted her, grounded her before she became too overwhelmed. She took a sharp breath to calm herself.
“I’ve seen every generation of githyanki only push one another further away.” He spoke uncharacteristically soft, rich with understanding. “Any form of devotion once shared with each other became a weakness, blotted out and replaced with further fanaticism for the lich queen. Your love for that woman was rebellion in its own way, and though she’s no longer with us, it is no less real.”
She sniffed, and wiped her tears away. “Thank you, Voss. Sincerely. Your words lift me, more than you know.”
Her head heavy with the weight of grief, she rested it gently on Voss’ shoulder. In response, he jolted in surprise, but allowed her to stay that way.
“It's odd. Our language does not even have a phrase for ‘I love you’.” She gazed at the full moon, and the tears of Selune. One of the things she would miss in this plane, come morning.
“That is false.”
“Is it?” She looked up at him.
“Sha va zai.” Voss said faintly, gazing out toward the sea. “That was our phrase to express love. Most githyanki have never heard it. It became archaic as we began to reject old forms of family.”
“Hm. A pleasing phrase.” She murmured, curling up closer to Voss. Lae’zel never would see her love again, in this life or the next. That was a weight she would simply have to bear. But to know she was not alone, that was something she could hold onto.