Chapter Text
Lae'zel tends to remind Balalafy of her sister, Feyri'in.
Of all of her elder siblings, Ri'in is the one that she has spent the least amount of time with. She is ever away, off to some far flung corner of the Underdark to collect samples and catalogue findings, and she spends most of her time in her laboratory when she returns. It is bloody work that she does down there; the shelves are all full of jars of organs, neatly labeled and organized. But Balalafay was entranced by it all, as a little girl. Ri'in saw parts of the world that few ever did, and that her youngest sister almost certainly never would, and she was never stingy with stories. Balalafay would watch the gates eagerly for days after Ri'in sent word that they should expect her home soon, and then she would spend entire days down in the laboratory once she returned.
Perched on her wooden stool at the far corner of the great slab where Feyri'in performed her dissection, Balalafay heard tales of things she could barely imagine. Portals to wholly other realms, aboleths, pale and patient and terrible, attended to by legions of kuo-toa, mushrooms that grew arms and legs and began to walk. Many of these tales were gruesome, probably excessively gruesome for being told to a small child, Ri'in has never believed in sanitizing stories, but they were a bridge to a world beyond the estate.
There is the same intensity Ri'in wears as easily as her own skin in Lae'zel. The first time they lock eyes on the nautiloid, it's the first thing that Balalafay notices, and there are at least a dozen occasions in the days and weeks that follow where she thinks to herself that Lae'zel and Feyri'in should meet sometime. Whatever the universe was working with when it crafted Ri'in, when it decided that she would be made wild as a northern wind howling through a narrow tunnel and solid as bedrock, it used that material to make Lae'zel, too.
That's probably why Balalafay takes so readily to her, even when she's pretty sure Lae'zel would like to see her head on a pike. This is often, at first, by the way. The tension does not begin to ease until the night where Lae'zel nearly kills them all. She doesn't really know what shifted, but they wake unchanged in the morning, and suddenly Lae'zel is more...not patient. She cannot be patient; it seems to be contrary to her nature. Tolerant is likely the better word. She complains less about Balalafay's journals of flowers and collecting of random books. She shares more stories.
And then the tension goes slack all at once, and it goes like this:
Balalafay hacked her hair short with a pair of sewing scissors. It had fallen to her knees in loose, lazy spirals all her life, before that. A heavy mass of curls that took readily to braids, twists, name the style, if it could be thought of, she'd likely had it. Her mother took such pride in it that, when Balalafay was a young girl, she forbade anyone else from brushing it. She has so many memories of sitting before the great vanity in her mother's rooms, squirming in her seat with eagerness to go play while Shrianatar combed her hair, then brushed oil through it until it shone. Her mother is a hard woman. Hard to please, hard to understand. It was only ever when she was brushing Balalafay's hair that there was any softness in her. She should treasure those memories. For many years, she did.
But then she tested the bars of her cage for the first time. Nothing was the same after that.
She couldn't say when her hair began to just remind her of how helpless she was, then. It wasn't all at once. It happened over years, decades, watching her family crossing the threshold that she was forbidden from. The more aware of her situation she became, the heavier and heavier her hair felt on her shoulders. One day, the weight of it became unbearable. It started to feel like she'd suffocate underneath it, she needed it gone.
So she'd found a pair of sewing scissors, and she'd chopped it messily short at her jawline. It felt satisfying in the moment, but the moment passed. Then it started to grow again. And, now, it falls in her eyes constantly. Her sweat plasters it to her forehead during battle, and then it drips that sweat into her eyes after until they burn. It's become maddening yet again.
Minthara laughed when Balalafay flicked her hair out of her eyes, and seized the opening with efficient brutality. Her armor held against the edge of the blade, but her ribs burned and shifted against the blow itself.
"You should have stayed in ken'Arabat," Minthara hissed, "little zau'Shri-Bala."
"Unsell your honor and then call me a child," she spat. Minthara may have avoided Balalafay's upswing, but she heard her chest crack when she brought her pommel down. Grim satisfaction coursed through her. Suddenly, her ribs burned less.
So there she sits, beside the fire, sorting through the day's finds in hopes there are some shears. She's not any better at cutting hair, now, she just needs it to not be such a bother anymore.
And then there is Lae'zel.
"T'chaki. Turn around, and sit still." She has a comb in one hand, a bottle of oil and some short strips of cloth in the other. "Your hair is driving me to madness."
She's learned well enough by now that if you defy Lae'zel, she will manhandle you. Once, early on, they stumbled from combat badly wounded and far from where the others were establishing camp. Balalafay drew on everything she had and then a little more, begged some extra dregs of healing magic off that unnamed divine entity that marked her as theirs to begin with, and then she went down on one knee. Her companions were as healed as she could get them, but she'd left nothing for herself. A mistake that her mother would have venom about (and that Shadowheart did have venom about; she'd called her a variety of synonyms for "fool" later). And then there was Lae'zel.
"Get up," she'd demanded, "or lay flat on your back, but pick."
"I just need to catch my breath. I will be alright in a moment."
"I did not ask. Chk. You have chosen to be on your back, then."
She had proceeded to shove Balalafay down, if you can describe "a softer version of kicking that involves your foot on someone's shoulder" as shoving. And then she had kept her foot there, pinning Lala down while she dug some balm out of her pack.
"Istik. Children are trained to tend to their own wounds first. Do so next time."
Lae'zel has this incredible ability to make doing things like patching you up feel like she's insulting you. She made no effort to be gentle when she pried Balalafay out of her armor and cleaned her injuries, nor when she smeared that balm over them and bandaged her. But...it was nice, honestly. Balalafay has been handled like spun glass all her life. Legions of caretakers treating her like she is delicate and breakable because to do otherwise means to court Shrianatar's fury. It becomes maddening, eventually, being constantly treated like some fragile bauble on a shelf. She'd thanked Lae'zel, afterward, and tried to stand, only to be shoved down again.
"Stay flat. I will return with food and water, and then you may sit up. I will not do this twice."
And now, again, here is Lae'zel. She stands behind Balalafay, untangling the knots in her hair with quick, deft fingers first before she begins to comb it. She also mutters a series of obscenities in her mother tongue under her breath while she does this, as if to prove that she's doing it out of practicality rather than care. Unlike the time she bandaged her injuries, she is careful. She doesn't make any particular effort to be gentle, but she doesn't make any attempt to pull harder than she needs to, either.
"Whoever did this to your hair should lose a hand for it," she hisses. "It is stupefying that you can be effective in combat with it in your eyes like this."
"Ah, I am the one who did this, actually. I had never cut it myself before." She gives a little, sheepish laugh that gets lost in Lae'zel's disapproving chk.
"Never cut your own hair again. You are evidently incompetent at it."
"I would not want to bother one of you with something so small."
"I would prefer being bothered with something small than being bothered with something large, like you being hamstrung in battle because you could not see your foe through your accursed hair." She flicks Balalafay's ear, hard. "A shield that does not know where it needs to be pointed is useless, paladin. "
Across the fire, she feels a set of eyes on her that she tries very hard (and mostly unsuccessfully) to avoid.
Astarion.
Things have been...awkward, to put it mildly, since the goblin camp. She doesn't really know what changed. She doesn't really know why it changed, at least not in any way that she's comfortable putting a name to. But he's not as good at pretending he's not constantly on-edge as he thinks he is. There's a nervous energy all about him, in everything he does. He thinks that she hasn't noticed him sticking particularly close when the two of them get paired up to scout out a new area, or the blatant suspicion in his eyes when she agrees to let him drink her blood, like she's going to fall down dead again. Well, she has. She's also noticed Shadowheart being extra critical of her claims that her wounds barely even bother her anymore, and Lae'zel being extra critical when she breathes too hard, and Wyll ending sparing sessions sooner than he ever has before, and Gale sorting through all of their scrolls and wands for healing spells to keep tucked into his belt. Of everyone in this camp, the only ones still trying to treat her like everything is normal are Halsin, who barely knows her, and the owlbear cub (she is doing her best to think of a name for him; as of right now, she leans toward Ulviir: treasure), since even Scratch seems to be concerned and even Karlach keep nervously laughing it off when Balalafay catches her hovering.
She does notice these things, though. It's driving her mad.
"If you die again," Lae'zel adds, apparently as fed up with dancing around the subject as Balalafay herself, "I will personally travel down to whatever level of the Hells they reserve for foolish, stupid drow and drag you back to the Prime Material so that I may have the satisfaction of breaking every bone in your body."
"I apologize. I...I lost my temper. I let her get under my skin, and it made me sloppy." She can hear Rhyllara in the back of her mind, chiding her for her sensitivity. Oh, the words her sister would have had were she present for that. She worked so hard to make Balalafay competent with a sword. Like most everything, it had not come to her naturally, and nearly a dozen tutors came and went before Rhyllara, valiant, mighty Rhyllara, everything Balalafay had ever wanted to be, stepped in.
How does she measure up to her sister, indeed.
"You did, she did, and it did. Whatever she said to make you lose your head, do not let it happen again." She lapses into silence for a while, focused on combing Balalafay's hair back from her face to gather the loose, shaggy bits from the front into little, intricate braids. "What was it that she said? I have seen you mocked in battle before. You have never lost your sense from it."
Astarion shifts closer to them, trying to pretend that he's just adjusting to be more comfortable while he reads his book. It may have even fooled her, but his eyes flick up to her face after a moment, all pretense abandoned. He's listening. He could have just asked, but he's listening.
Astarion's face, stricken, panicked, pained, was the first thing she saw when she returned from...she was not ready to think about that conversation. She had not been dead long, but she had much to think about, and no energy to do it with. Everything burned and ached. Was this what it was like to be resurrected? She still felt mostly dead.
He brushed her hair out of her face, fingers blessedly cool against the heat of her skin. She tried to lift a hand, to open her mouth to thank him. No use. She tumbled back into unconsciousness.
And there, the Masked Lord awaited.
"It is a lengthy thing to explain. And not very interesting. A quirk of drow culture."
"A quirk of drow culture that you died for."
Lae'zel's words almost disappear into the violence with which Astarion snaps his book shut and tosses it aside. There's a brief baring of teeth when he leans forward, and then an attempt to recompose himself that gets abandoned as quickly as he considers it.
"You must be out of your fucking mind. A quirk of drow culture, this, standard for a drow of my standing, that. How dare you die and then pretend it was over some boring piece of trivia?" he demands.
"You've kind of been acting off since Halsin suggested traveling through the Underdark, too. Kinda chalked it up to the whole dying thing, but..." She hadn't even noticed Karlach approaching. What is this to be, then, some sort of intervention? They're all gathered 'round, now. Drifted closer while she was distracted by Lae'zel.
Gale drops to the ground beside Astarion and puts a hand on his elbow that gets swiftly shrugged off, but the vampire settles some. He's been spending more time talking to Gale, since the goblin camp. Apparently depending upon someone to warp you around so you don't catch a flask of alchemical fire to the face makes you fond of them, or so he's claimed. He thinks she hasn't noticed them bending their heads together over books of spells like gossiping swans. She has.
"Come on, then." Ah, and there is Shadowheart, sitting across from her, bottle of wine in hand, while Lae'zel continues to fix her hair. "Out with it. You know much about the rest of us; we knew little about you going into that camp, and you died. The time for secrecy has long passed."
She looks to Wyll for defense, and gets nothing. She looks, then, to Halsin, and gets a quirked eyebrow and a gesture to go on. Astarion, she avoids eye contact with entirely; she can feel his glare burning into her face without it. So, finally, she sighs.
"zau'Shri-Bala is my maternal signifier. It is...a sort of childhood name. The first character of my mother's name, the first character of mine, and a prefix that indicates "child of." All drow have them, when we are young. Once we reach adulthood, calling us by it is...the cultural implications are stronger than just calling someone "child." Wars have started over it. It is like...questioning why someone's mother has let them leave her side, but more. It does not translate cleanly across cultures."
"And that part about your mother?" Gale is a traitor. "Astarion likely heard it far better than me, but I could have sworn she asked how much your mother would pay for you to be brought back. Where? Home?"
"Ye-es..." She cannot emphasize how much she doesn't want to talk about this. "I am...not supposed to be on the surface. Or outside of ken'Arabat. Or outside of my home. I ran away. My mother is a High Matriarch. There are probably dozens of men at arms searching for me, not to mention my elder siblings."
They are waiting for more, but there is little more to say. Her mother prefers her imprisoned in the family estate where she cannot embarrass her too much, or get into too much trouble; Balalafay prefers to not be imprisoned, if she can make that choice. These are incompatible viewpoints. Still, they are waiting for more.
"I have lived nearly all my life imprisoned in my family estate," she continues reluctantly, "I am the youngest of seven children; all six of my elder siblings are extremely accomplished, credits to our line. My mother is a living legend. And then there is, well. Me. My disposition is not well-suited for drow high society. My mother prefers that I be contained, where I cannot embarrass her or our family, or get into overmuch trouble. I have run away, before, but this is the first time that I got this far. Likely, we will encounter my family's men at arms in the Underdark, searching for me to bring me back to ken'Arabat, as they always do. That is the whole of it."
"So all those random trivia bits you know," Astarion prompts her.
"There is no High Matriarch alive who will tolerate a poorly educated child. Mother keeps me busy with lessons. I think she hopes it will make me less likely to run away."
"Which is how you end up knowledgeable enough to make those charms without learning how to speak Common conversationally," Gale guesses. "Nothing more to do around the estate than learn, yes?"
"My mother is a necromancer of considerable renown, in the Underdark, and all of my siblings are somehow enmeshed in magic, or research, or both. I had much to learn from all of them, and a considerable list of embarrassments to redeem myself for."
"Well," ah, there's Karlach again, "there's no way in the hells that we're letting you get dragged back to ken'Arabat. Hey, Shadowheart, pass the wine. We beat those goblins into the dirt, and Lala's alive again. Time to celebrate."
"I'll drink to that!" Wyll agrees, finally pushing himself upright from where he had leaned against a stack of trunks.
There is something...she doesn't have words for this something. A feeling in her chest, fuzzy and unfamiliar, as Shadowheart passes the wine and Karlach drops down on to the ground beside her, already excitedly talking about fighting an Arabani man-at-arms and peppering Balalafay with questions about them. Lae'zel finishes braiding Lala's hair back out of her face and flicks her ear again.
"You died honorably in a duel against an older, more experienced foe, and you took her with you. Call yourself an embarrassment less. I will take the ear with me next time."
"Why, Lae'zel, if I didn't know better I'd think you were starting to care about us." Shadowheart grins at the hiss she gets in response.
"Yes, and I will treat your skin with great care when I wear it as shoes."
She lets herself relax a little. Enjoy the celebratory air around the campfire. But this is not done. She feels red eyes on her keenly, no matter how he tries to pretend he's not watching.
She still needs to talk to Astarion one-on-one.