Chapter Text
Soul Animals. The concept was something Lae'zel learned about during her early education in Crèche K'liir, after ilithids and humans but before parrying. Young enough for her cousins to chatter at rest time about what animal their souls would take the shape of. Before the days demanded more and more of their bodies and minds, to the point of rest time only containing sleep.
(A dragon, she remembers now. Lae'zel that night claimed hers would be a dragon.)
As much in this strange land, the basic education proved woefully inadequate when having to deal with the aliens themselves.
On the ship, it hadn't mattered. Hadn't mattered that those strange not-yet corpses had small animals resting on their chests in similar states of unconsciousness. Hadn't mattered that the strange cat around one of the pods pleaded to release his human.
Now that she was off the ship, it seemed to matter a great deal. Two humans by the water ran off upon seeing her, matching strange birds screaming something in the Fey-rune language. A third tried to charge her - she granted him a quick death and the creature by his side exploded, untouched.
Another human stood at a door, pounding for it to open. This one didn't have a Soul Animal with her. Curious. Before Lae'zel could ask, the human whipped around to face her-
《-trapped, watching a soulless gith walk straight past her, torn between her need to escape and her need to serve her Lady Shar by-》
Lae'zel is forced out of the connection. She bares her teeth against the pain. The Sharrite grips her own weapon. Lae'zel reaches behind her, a hand on her sword but not drawing it yet. First, she wants to know.
“You have no soul either.”
The human reacts as if struck, and Lae'zel readies for retaliation. Instead, the human forces herself to exhale and stare down Lae'zel. She stares right back, ignoring the beckoning and cajoling of their ilithid parasites.
“I do have a soul, thank you very much. I carry him in my pack.”
She isn't carrying a pack.
The two stare for a few more seconds, keeping hands on their weapons but not making the first move into combat. Trust her. She is like you. The parasite’s words remind Lae'zel: she needs to leave and find this area's creche. She needs to purify herself. This was an embarrassing failure of a first hunt, but she could- she will try again.
Lae'zel takes a step away from the human. She doesn't move. Is her parasite whispering the same lies into her brain? It's not something Lae'zel is going to risk an ambush on. She continues to back away, hand on her sword, until there's enough distance between the two that the human won't be able to jump her. Only then does she turn her back on the soulless human.
After a few seconds, she can hear footsteps. Quiet footsteps. She makes sure to keep an ear on them.
~
A pallid elf waves at her. Her, directly. Even calls out, “You who! Over here!”
It feels like a trap somehow, but Lae'zel does not fear this unpleasant smelling stranger and cannot detect anything but animals and the human shadowing her, so she approaches. A hand on her sword, naturally. The elf notices this and stutters. “I… I've cornered one of those. Brain things. In these bushes. But alas, I'm unarmed and don't fancy my chances against their claws. Surely it would be no match for the two of you?”
Her shadow breathes too sharply. Fool - of course Lae'zel noticed. She turns around to face her, looking into those wide olive eyes-
《Look out!》
A dagger is at her throat.
Lae'zel acts.
The pale elf had moved silently, but he's far easier to subdue than her brethren. He hisses as she pins him and she hisses back. The thrill of victory she feels is embarrassing in its power.
It's quickly spoiled by the stomach-churning fear spiking through her. A magic trick? She glances at the human, who hasn't moved. No, she is moving. Slightly. Erratically. She's trembling. The pale elf below her, meanwhile, is deathly still. Not even breathing.
《-trapped, pinned, forced-》
The two growl in tandem to banish the images away. Her parasite once again begins whispering to her that this is a friend, that he's like her.
“Drop the knife and she'll let you go,” the human tries to command. Both scoff, but the tension fades away.
“Well, this hardly went as expected,” the elf mutters into the dirt. “But you two were on the ship, yes? Given the-” he moves to gesture, but Lae'zel keeps up the hold. He calls her a curse word and gives up. “Given these little tadpole friends. Any further insights on this?”
Given the circumstances, and not because her own is insisting that these two are her allies, Lae'zel sees no reason to lie. “Ghaik parasites. Untreated, they will transform us.”
The human and elf recoil. “Untreated,” the elf repeats. “So you know of a treatment?”
“Of course.” Only at the question does she realize she's never actually first-hand seen purification. But... Surely it could. It can treat anything, if the Queen wills it. And they've not been infected for long. And if one or both of these two transform along the way, then Lae'zel will kill them and have her prize. “We simply need to go to the nearest Crèche."
Two minds repeat, 《We?》, but with opposite intonations. She couldn't tell which was excited.
“Yes. If one of us begins to transform, the others can strike.” The two recoil again, as does her parasite, but Lae'zel is not cowed. This is the way it must be. Plan in mind, she releases the pale elf.
He flips over faster than the dagger had been at her throat, but doesn't stand. Red eyes stare into her as he grips the dagger tighter. Sloppy finger positioning; hard to use, harder to disarm.《Conditions?》flickers from his mind. Asking expectations up front. Far more honest than whatever the human was doing.
She can feel his amusement at the thought, which she hadn't meant to send.《You adapt quickly,》 Lae'zel begrudges.
《I'm good at that, darling.》 That word again. The connection tells her it's typically a word of endearment, yet he wields it as an insult.
《Do not try to stab me in the back again, and as long as you do not transform, I will speak for you at the creche to be healed.》
He doesn't believe her, but she doesn't care. She will get to the creche, no matter what. It would be faster with two locals, but she is not afraid to walk alone.
For some reason, this convinces him. Baffling. The mental connection cleanly splits as he stands and dusts his clothes off. “Well then, strength in numbers, as they say. Please excuse my dreadful manners earlier. My name is Astarion.”
“You may call me Shadowheart,” the human says, matching his artificial tone. “And if you try to hold a knife to me, you will not have as nice of a time as just now.”
“Lae'zel,” she informs them before walking away to investigate the remnants of the ship. She can feel their eyes follow her, but shortly afterwards footsteps join her own. The elf Astarion's are almost inaudible, and Shadowheart's were not loud.
Her voice, however, is. “And where is your Seeltier?”
Lae’zel had forgotten about the soul animals of this land. She glances behind to see Astarion touch a lump in his jacket. “Forgive her for not coming out; she's still a little shaken from the crash. And yours, my dear?”
“The same,” Shadowheart says confidently, touching something at her back.
Lae'zel knows somehow that neither of them are being truthful, but she doesn't care enough to ask, or to find out what deer have to do with anything.
~
A portal alongside a cliff. A hand, reaching through. A voice, asking for another hand. The oddity makes Lae'zel pause.
Astarion slaps the hand. It reacts with disappointment instead of violence. A quick glance among them-《Harmless. Rescue? Indebted?》-and Lae'zel finds herself pulling a human man out of the portal.
Introductions are faster, this time, with the parasites’ visions. Gale of Waterdeep also has no soul animal by his side, but when Shadowheart asks he simply waves his hand. “Oh, I'm sure she'll catch up with me eventually,” he says, genuinely casual. “She always does. You know how it is.”
The silence hangs awkwardly among them. Lae'zel begins to walk onward.
“...or not, I suppose.”
His footsteps are loud. Loud enough that she can't hear the elf's. Disturbing. She tries to hear harder, somehow.
《I'm still here, darling. Your back remains unstabbed.》
Lae'zel cuts the connection. Psionics were never her specialty, but both unintentionally reaching out and getting caught doing so? A mistake she should have been too old to make.
Like getting captured by ghaik in the first place, child?
The scent of blood in the air helps focus her mind on the present mission.
~
The fight is a welcome reprieve from her own thoughts. This is what she was hatched for, raised for. Lae'zel briefs her new squad.《Elf, take out those on the high ground. Wizard, stay behind cover. Once the rocks are cleared, move up. Woman, stay low and at the chokepoint. I will cleave forward.》
Shadowheart wants to argue, but the men go with the plan and Lae'zel doesn't need her to perform. She is strong enough without her. Lae'zel will prove it.
~
When the last goblin falls, and all minds seem to relax, Lae'zel takes stock. No broken bones. No organ damage. No dead humans or elves, not even these four (squad of three plus one) with their soul animals walking around. Victory. Finally, sweet victory.
The squad enters the wooden gate, with the four humans and their soul animals. Only once inside the walls does she pause to wrap her bleeding cuts before continuing forward.
The Grove contains the most natives she's seen at once, all together, and unlike her current squad every single one of them seems to have an animal by their side. Lae'zel thought devils didn't have them, but these ones do. They also seem to be less malicious than most devils.
She tries to ask Astarion, but his mind is closed off with an unexpected amount of skill. She resigns to ask the wordy wizard, but he is trying to diffuse a situation with a lead human and a lead not-devil. This leaves Shadowheart. The worst option. But if Lae'zel is going to deal with devils, she must know. She sends a mental probe, a knock at a door, but the human woman's mind is closed off as well. She glances at her and scowls, which Lae'zel returns, but breaks eye contact before their parasites force the bond. Tch. Fine, she would do this the normal way.
“Why are these devils pretending to have soul animals?”
All of her squad flinch, but the three humans think she said something funny, and the lead devil is… disappointed. Her question goes unanswered, but the lead not-devil allows access through their version of a Crèche in their search for a healer.
“These people are tieflings,” the wizard hisses at her, once the leader has left. “Not devils. Do not call them devils.”
She scowls, but lets him lead the group around this grove. It stings her pride, but she's still too injured from the goblin fight to take on multiple offended teethlings. Even if they appear to have no martial training. Their children cannot even hold weapons correctly: pathetic. The fourth human from the goblin fight stands among them, gently running through basic drills. Off to the side is a deer with plain markings. Her black eyes stare down every one of her squad, taking particular notice of Shadowheart and Astarion. A dangerous sort of notice. The elf can detect it and carefully looks anywhere else.
Lae'zel is getting irritated about these soul animals. The only things she remembered from her education were that every sentient alien had one (proven untrue) and that they had to be close to the main body (also proven untrue).
《It is only a deer,》 she tries telling the elf. The other minds hear her, she can feel them, but she ignores this. 《They are large but fragile.》
The others are amused at her lack of knowledge. In a fit of temper, she shows them how easily she wrangled a different deer, but imagines this soul creature in the animal's place.
Pure horror and revulsion reverberates across four minds, crashing into her own.
She severs the connection, but it's too late: terror and dread, ten times stronger than she felt during the ghaik insertion, clamps her neck.
Her chest houses a black hole - impossibly heavy and drawing all her other senses in until there is nothing but the crushing fear left.
Lae'zel of K'liir is trapped, caged, helpless. Only certain doom remains.
Until the sensation of a winged insect against a steel door. Weak. Pathetic.
And yet, she can't help but draw attention to it.
As she does, the weight lessens, just a little. Enough to sense whispers from the insect.
She tries to listen. It flutters away, out of reach, but there's a small crack at the bottom of the door.
She reaches.
Suddenly, her senses return, but duller. The world is muted, but it is Faerûn once more. She is in the area for camp animals.
A young githyanki warrior slouches in the straw, with raspy breathing and unseeing eyes.
《Wait, young?》
Suddenly she is aware. Lae'zel is looking at herself through the eyes of another.
This awareness snaps her mind into her own body. Her breath rattles and her eyes are watery and there are many, many aches, but it is hers. She blinks and stares up.
It was Gale she had slipped into. Gale with whom she now holds a tenuous link, one she should break but can't quite bring herself to, afraid of slipping back into the crushing black hole.
“Back with us, darling?”
Oh. Astarion is here too.
She tries to inhale, in hopes of preparing to speak, but the phantom force still holds her neck. Air rattles in, air rattles out. She settles for a jerky nod.
Gale is not convinced. Lae'zel is not either. Astarion knows she isn't, but he wants to get out of the stables, and Lae'zel knows she must.
The wizard offers her a hand up.
She is as pliant as a disciplined child. A distant part of her, the one that dreams of dragons, hates her weakness. But that part feels so far away right now.
《- a hand, gripping his own as his body floundered. Otherworldly, but humanoid and solid. Strong.》
Gale watches her with eyes and mind. Oh. He's showing her that on purpose. Drawing a parallel to how they met.
《Correct,》she tells him before ending the connection. He seems pleased.
“Shadowheart was right: this is weird to watch.” At the mention of the prickly human, Lae'zel glances around. Astarion answers before her words come back. “She's talking with Wyll. Hopefully smoothing over the whole ‘someone threatening to snap his Seeltier's neck’ thing.” The elf is doing the thing with his voice where he means things beyond his spoken words, but she is too tired to decode them and wants her mind to herself for a little longer.
The parasite wiggles.
The wizard asks, “Do the gith even have Seeltiere?” It takes too long for her to translate that word, but eventually she shakes her head no. “Really? But you seem-”
“Hey now, why don't we save the-”
The world turns black again.
~
Lae'zel awakens to a human man watching her. They're on the edges of the Grove, outside of the cave, but within the natural walls and wooden gate. Her The other two humans are asleep nearby. The elf is awake and being secretive somewhere else, but allows her moment of contact before withdrawing.
Damn this parasite, attaching Lae'zel of K'liir to these strangers. She stares up at-
This human's eyes don't match.
《-roasting alive, tracking his target where no mortal is meant to be, and Ruth’s fur is getting singed but at least they're in the hells together-》
Oh. This man is also one of the infected.
An animal snorts behind him. It is the strange deer, the one that… That…
The memory is locked away. To review once she's meditating for the night, and not one to parse through when she's face to face with a threat without backup. For now, the strange deer meets her stare. It sizes up her… her mind? Her own soul? It's viscerally uncomfortable, but manageable.
“Nethruna didn't appreciate the threat,” this new human explains.
The lock in her mind is forced open: this same look, targeted at the elf. Lae’zel’s attempt at intimidation. The backfire.
The disciplined child would apologize. The dragon rider would snarl and stare down these weak strangers. This Lae'zel forces her gaze away from the piercing stares of the soul animal and the odd-eyed human.
After a few seconds of silence, the human breaks the silence. “Your friends mentioned that the gith don't-”
“Githyanki.”
He takes the correction in stride. “The githyanki don't have Seeltiere. Is this true?”
She nods.
“Would you like to learn about them?”
Part of her bristles for reasons she can't understand. “We did learn about them. That they're. Important to you people. That they look like animals. That when one race has them, all of the race will. That they remain with a person until death.”
She looks at the two sleeping humans, neither with their soul animal by their side. A strange type of soft irritation flutters in her chest. The new human chuckles softly, but it feels… with her, not at her.
“Those two are not good examples,” an unknown woman says. Lae'zel startles. How had she missed someone approaching? She scans the area, but… there's no new presence.
The human and deer stare at her. “Oh boy,” that woman says, except. The deer's mouth moves.
“Lesson one,” the human says. “Seeltiere can talk.”
~
Wyll is an excellent instructor. He answers her questions plainly and without rambling, and focuses on practicality. Lae'zel learns that Seeltiere (singular: Seeltier) can talk and act independently, and have their own names, but share thoughts, pains, and feelings with their person. Normally, the animal and the person are inseparable, to the point of extreme pain.
(The three of them glanced at the sleeping humans, without their Seeltiere, and Nethruna sadly repeated, “Normally.”)
Upon the person's death, the Seeltier will die. When asked about a Seeltier dying first, the pair seemed uncomfortable and instead brought up their most important lesson: Lae'zel must never, ever touch a Seeltier. At first she felt insulted for being singled out, but Wyll pointed over the crowd in the Grove; how even the larger Seeltiere were never even brushed against by the teethlings.
They watched for a little while. Lae'zel was sure it had to happen, but it never did. Even when one of the young ones pickpocketed an adult, and the adult's Seeltier was within biting distance of the thief's arm, it only snapped at the child's animal. Lae'zel watched as the child scampered away, its Seeltier changing into a bird and flying just overhead.
She, of course, asked about this. Wyll explained that while young children's Seeltiere could turn into other animals at will, at some point in their maturation process the Seeltier would settle into one form and no longer change.
He can sense she has more questions and cuts her off. “If you want to know more about that, you'll have to ask your resident wizard. It's very… metaphysical.”
A word she hasn't encountered, so she doesn't know a different way to ask. Lae'zel scowls and asks telepathically to explain himself. He startles at the direct, intentional contact, but she doesn't intrude: simply waits for him to offer her thoughts instead of words. After a few seconds, he acquiesces. Instead of an explanation, Wyll shows her a memory.
~
“Well well well, have you two made nice?”
Lae'zel had felt Astarion in her mind earlier, mimicking the search she did upon waking, but his sudden presence now startles Wyll out of their connection. Self-satisfaction bleeds from the elf, even without the parasitic link. “Brat,” she calls him aloud, thinking of the little thief from earlier.
Astarion gasps dramatically. “Such language! My goodness, what has the Blade of Frontiers been teaching you, young lady?!” She can tell that his words are unserious, but Wyll coughs awkwardly and turns his gaze away. Nethruna does not. She hadn’t startled at his arrival, and now eyes the elf suspiciously. The memory of earlier echoes in Lae’zel’s mind, and the strange urge to protect him returns.
“I have learned about your kind’s soul animals,” she announces. “The Seeltiere.” They turn their attention to her, although Nethruna still glances at the elf. “That your races are born with them, and die with them. To not touch them.”
The elf’s mind is carefully blank. It reminds her of one of her cousins, back on Crèche K'liir, when they started learning psionics. “Sounds like you covered all the basics.”
She doesn’t mention that Wyll thinks Seeltiere have to be close to their people. This is clearly false, even if during the goblin fight the humans’ soul animals hadn’t stayed a safe distance away. A clear tactical disadvantage: a goblin had even tried to slice one of the Seeltiere.
Wait. The goblins. “The goblins did not have them,” she states.
Astarion stares like she pointed out the grass here was green, but Wyll nods. “Goblins don’t have them. Neither do bugbears, the undead, ogres, devils, demons…”
“Ohoho, am I late to the ‘Seeltiere and Sentience’ debate?” Gale and Shadowheart arrive, although only Gale is talking. Lae’zel gets the unpleasant sense this will be a common occurrence. “A very well-tread topic amongst burgeoning scholars, although usually alongside plentiful amounts of wine…” She wonders if ceremorphosis would really be such a bad fate.
~
The druids are annoying, but the others needed to learn that their only cure was going to be a Crèche's Zaith'isk. This way they can fully commit to reaching it. And Lae'zel now knows where it is, thanks to a teethling coward.
(She had wanted to leave immediately, upon learning the location, but the newly joined Wyll convinced her to try this Nettie first. Looking back, Lae'zel is suspicious of how convincing he can be in the moment.)
Nettie tries to poison them upon learning of their issue, which Lae'zel respects. She has no problem meeting this short human's eyes to assure her at the slightest indication of transformation, she would kill them all and then herself. Nettie hands her some poison to assist in this.
Unfortunately, getting involved in the druid camp means that by the time her squad is ready to leave, the sun has set. As much as she hates it, Lae'zel knows it would be foolish to try and venture forward in the dark. The half hour of extra distance they could achieve is not worth sacrificing the safety of this settlement's walls.
“We will leave at first light tomorrow,” she commands. “But rest within the walls tonight.”
“Calling these ‘walls’ is a little generous, darling.”
Wyll seems relieved, but then thinks of a concern. “The tieflings don't have much in the way of provisions. You're not planning on…”
Lae'zel digs out her pack of provisions, the only magic item she'd been given for her mission. “I have enough for us.”
《Us,》echoes in her head, in their heads, with a confusing blend of emotions.
The wizard breaks the silence, as usual. “Well, if we're pooling food, I feel it only right to offer to the group my moderate skills as a cook.”
This takes Shadowheart and Wyll by surprise, but Lae'zel nods. The most skilled in the task should perform it, and she was not ashamed about her lack of skill in this area.
“I certainly won't stop you, dear.”
That word again. “Why do you call people deer? The only one with a deer Seeltier is Wyll.” They all blinked and looked at her. Shit. She said something wrong again.
The Seeltier is the first to speak. “I'm a pronghorn,” she awkwardly states.
Gale, of course, is next. Instead of words, however, he brushes her mind, asking permission. Lae'zel allows it. 《D-e-e-r is the animal. D-e-a-r is what Astarion has been calling us. It's… a term of endearment, which is probably the word comes from, actually-》
《Darling, don't bore her.》 Astarion says that to the both of them, although it feels directed to Gale. The next thought is directed to her. 《’Dear’ means the same as ‘darling’.》
《If it means the same, why use both?》
Astarion ponders this.《Mmm, sometimes one suits the moment more than the other. Don't you agree, dear?》
Gale is a little off-balance, rusty, and not used to bantering directly from the mind. 《Well, I-》
“Huh,” her ears hear. Wyll is watching them, the way Gale watched a hawk tear apart its meal earlier.
“Told you,” Shadowheart says before stepping away to set up her tent. Despite the human woman's attitude and reluctance to connect, she doesn't settle far away.
Someone repeats,《Human woman?》
The question doesn't make sense. 《Is she not?》
Gale and Astarion stare at her, then look at Wyll, who is just confused and doesn't connect. After a few moments, Astarion speaks.
“Darling, you did such a good job explaining the Seeltiere to our resident alien.” The words are true, but Lae'zel can hear some sort of trap getting set within them. Gale subtly tries to sneak away. “But of course, there are many more oddities in lovely little Faerûn.” The wizard is far too loud to sneak, outside of whatever game is happening now, and Nethruna shoots him amused glances.
“Like how half-elves exist.”
She can't see Wyll blush, but she can feel it. His Seeltier seems torn between laughing at him and her own embarrassment, hooves scuffing the dirt as she fidgets. At some point, Gale has slipped away from their camp.
“Have fun,” Astarion gloats before disappearing into shadows.
~~~
The human made a bigger deal of the whole thing than it needed to be, although watching him stumble with words proved… endearing. A weak, unpleasant sensation.
When Gale and Shadowheart rejoin for evening meal, their new human carefully avoids the half-elf's gaze.
Astarion is late to come back. Lae'zel finishes off the bowl of soup intended for him - apparently humans, despite their thicker and fleshier torsos, had smaller stomachs than the gith. The wizard took offense at this observation for some reason. As she drinks the last drop the elf returns, and is unbothered by her eating his meal. Strange. On Crèche K'liir, meal times were a savage affair - growing muscle and psionics required much energy. The others do not react, but Astarion thinks he can use her to eat food he doesn't want. And yet, when she informs him if he doesn't eat it she will, his mind closes off.
These Faerûn races were impossible.
Sleep does not come easily. No one even attempted it until all assembled, yet even with the parasite satisfied, Lae'zel finds herself awake. Had it been just days ago she climbed aboard a ghaik nautiloid, confident she would bring her queen one of their severed heads? And now here she was, without her kin and isolated on a strange land.
You are not alone, something unpleasantly soft whispered in her mind.
Infected, yet alive and herself. For now. And with others, in similarly precarious condition. Lae'zel finds herself gently brushing against their minds.
Wyll alerts, as any lone warrior should. Mismatched eyes dart around before settling on her own, and she nods. 《Just me. Go back to sleep.》 He nods and lays back down.
Gale sleeps on, his unconscious mind unguarded and wide open. Something hungry beckons, calls out. It takes effort to pull away. The man huffs but sleeps on.
Shadowheart's mind is distant. She could be awake meditating or dozing off, but the Shar worshipper is still here. Lae'zel hates that this brings her comfort.
Astarion is awake, and catches her probe faster than Wyll. 《Elves don't need to sleep, dear.》
She doesn't quite believe him.《So you will be ready for the march tomorrow.》
《Cross my heart,》he vows. There's more to the vow, but he doesn't speak it. No matter. While the phrase is illogical, the intent comes through. The two withdraw their minds.
You are safe, the parasite whispers. Or is it the parasite? Rest now.
She does.
~
A strange reptile, not quite lizard but not quite wymling, snaps its long muzzle at a living ball of spikes. A tiny rodent with dragonlike wings tuts in his ear.
