#i mean they're broken up but it's relationship drama still :P

[blackjackkent]

I can't find the link now, but there was a post going around at one point stating that Lae'zel has every right to have a category 5 meltdown after the creche. And I have been thinking a lot about that in the context of Rakha's playthrough specifically...

(EDIT for anyone reading this liveblog in order after the fact - I realized later that this drabble reads much more cleanly if placed chronologically after this post with Voss instead.)

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Rakha sleeps, as always, restlessly. Her body aches from the recent revivification, and her mind is in its usual turmoil. With the return to the material plane from the Astral, the sense of peace has vanished, leaving her once again with the everpresent images of blood and blood and blood and blood...

So she is awake and pacing the camp when she hears it - muffled sobs, quiet, almost too low to hear, coming from Lae'zel's tent.

Rakha hesitates. It is none of her concern, she thinks to herself bluntly. She can no longer trust or rely on Lae’zel, not when the creche proved to be nothing more than a trap. She does not care how Lae'zel feels about Vlaakith’s lies, or about the destruction of the monastery and those within.

She does not care.

She thinks this, and then she goes to the tent anyway and pushes open the flap. "Lae'zel," she says, her voice low.

Lae'zel is hunched in the corner of the tent. The pillow from her bedroll is stuffed in front of her face to muffle any sound, but her shoulders are shaking and she is trembling all over. She jerks, startled, at Rakha's voice; her head lifts involuntarily, revealing her gold cat-like eyes rimmed with red.

"Leave me, t'rac'shka," she snaps weakly. "I have no need of you."

Rakha doesn't move, just watches her silently.

"Go," Lae'zel repeats. Her fingers fist into the pillow and she tosses it aside with a sudden, spasmodic motion. "Go!" She leans forward, grabs Rakha by the collar. "Am I not shamed enough? Leave me!"

Rakha waits, expecting to be pushed backward out of the tent. But Lae'zel doesn't move, just kneels there with her hand on Rakha's collar, her shoulders hitching with strangled breaths. "You do not understand," she mutters hoarsely. "You cannot possibly. You know nothing, remember nothing. You cannot know what it is to lose the whole of one's meaning in an instant - you have never had any!"

Rakha's lips tighten. She can feel the beast urge wake in response to the tightness at her throat, and her anger resonates with it. "I understand enough," she snaps back. "I understand that you failed us."

"I have failed no one," Lae'zel snarls. "I followed the protocol as I was taught. I led you in safety to where I thought was best. I would have cleansed us all!"

"You told me you knew things for certain. I had no other light to follow!" Rakha is dimly surprised to feel her own voice lifting in volume and anger. Her own sense of betrayal and deep fear has been lurking under the surface all day and it rises now hearing its echo in Lae'zel. "I believed you!"

Lae'zel laughs, a harsh bitter sound without humor. "And I called you zhak vo'n'ash duj. We were both of us mistaken. But you will move on without a backward glance, and I must drown in my own shame alone. GO!"

She hurls Rakha suddenly backwards so she hits the ground on her rear outside the tent. "Go to Wyll. Go to Astarion. Go to Karlach and be cooked in your own juice for all I care. Go to who you please, and leave me be!"

The words are pouring out of her now, an avalanche of emotion long repressed. She climbs from the tent and stands over Rakha's prostrate body with an air of inarticulate fury. Her fists clench and unclench at her sides.

"You say I failed you. Do you not understand how you have failed me?" she cries. There is no discretion now; Rakha is sure the whole camp can hear her. "I am hshar'lak because of you!"

"You made your own choices," Rakha rasps out. "I demanded nothing."

"You could have killed her!" Lae'zel snaps. "A blade through the 'guardian's' belly and the matter settled, and my ascension... my ascension..." Her voice falters.

"You would have died," Rakha says flatly. She pushes herself to a sitting position, then onto her feet, looking down now at Lae'zel from her greater height. "There is no ascension. She would have killed you. You know this."

"Easier to die than to be lost as I am!" Lae'zel's eyes narrow, and she suddenly hurls herself forward, both fists lifting to lash out towards Rakha's face.

Instinct takes over. Rakha catches Lae'zel's hands at the wrists and twists; using the smaller woman's momentum, she spins Lae'zel completely around and pulls her to the floor. With one arm she locks Lae'zel's body in place; the other shifts to hold her hand at Lae'zel's jaw.

Kill... roars the beast urge in her head. A flick of the wrist, a snap of the neck...

With an effort that makes her teeth ache, Rakha holds the instinct at bay and goes completely still, holding Lae'zel in her arms. "Is this what you want?" she mutters against Lae'zel's ear. "Do you want me to kill you?"

Lae'zel doesn't answer. For a long moment there is only the sound of her breathing, harsh and tight between her teeth.

"Answer me." Rakha's hand flexes, tugging at Lae'zel's neck.

"No," Lae'zel whispers. "I want them to pay. I want all of them to pay."

Rakha's lips curl in a slight, savage smile, and she releases her grip, letting Lae'zel fall to the stone floor. "They will."

#bjk plays bg3 durge #rakha the dark urge #bg3 drabble #bg3 fic #durge x lae'zel #sort of #i mean they're broken up but it's relationship drama still :P #today in rakha and lae'zel fully making each other worse #lol #both of them are not handling their problems well #lae'zel #bg3 durge