She knew what they all thought of her.
Of course she did- she wasn't blind nor stupid. As far as they were concerned, she was simply the alien physics teachers, who didn't fit in and didn't care to try. A soldier and a terrorist- freedom fighter!- enslaved to a prince. Cruel and heartless.
How could they ever be expected to understand that she wasn't? That she was the complete opposite? That actually, their heartless teacher grieved so deeply for all that she had lost that her heart physically ached. That it felt like a hole inside her, twisting and tightening and causing that unsettling burning feeling in her eyes and throat and all the while her blood sang with the need to revenge what had been done to her people.
The Quill were not like the Rhodia. The Rhodia lived separate lives united under a royal family that dictated their laws and the punishments for breaking them. The Quill, on the other hand, were a race that acted as one; the elders made the rules and decisions, and each Quill fought and lived for the good of their people.
Warriors were the elite fighters, the soldiers who had fought and lived and proven that they were worthy of protecting and standing for their people. But there was no loss of honour if a Quill were to choose another path- a warrior was nothing if he did not have food or clothes or weapons and what good was a baker if they had no one to bake for? The Quill believed in equality and honour- that was what she had been fighting for, after all. Every Quill had been proud of who they were, proud of where they belonged and had had that pride instilled in them from the nest. Courage and bravery were valued more than anything, and even amongst the youngest hatchlings these were prized and encouraged.
And Andra'ath of the Quill was one of the bravest warriors alive. Brave enough to lead the fight against the Rhodia, to protest against something that nobody else dared to. The soldiers under her command would have followed anywhere she led and the people heralded her as a hero.
Not that she had ever cared- she had been proud of her accomplishments, yes, but had been prouder of the results produced. The children who laughed once again in the streets, the families who had previously been starving turned plump and cheerful. The injured healed, the dying alive.
These had spurned her forwards, caused her to fight in every battle that had come her way. And it was the loss of all of these that she grieved for.
But of course, the prince and his human pets wouldn't understand that. Wouldn't understand her. How could she expect them to know what it was like to go weeks without a meaningful conversation? To wake up expecting to see one thing, but instead to be faced with the harsh reality of another? She ached for someone to talk to, someone who would understand, someone she could spar with and best in a fight the way that didn't involve life or death situations. She ached deeper for her people- her mentor who taught her how to win, rather than just how to fight or the nest-mother who had lived not far from her and always had a smile to give. Or even her sister, who even on a good day she would just as soon shoot than anything else, but who was still her sister.
She wanted to annihilate the shadow-kin for what they had done but it wasn't out of bloodlust as Charles seemed to think. It was… there wasn't a word for it, not in this clumsy language. It was like revenge- that was the closest translation- but more about honour, about restoring the Quill to what they had been before. It was about causing the pain that the shadow-kin had caused and about justice and punishment and restitution and if she were completely honest with herself, it was about trying to rid herself of the raw guilt that gnawed at her because she was alive and living and there were thousands of people far more deserving than her who were not.
And she couldn't do a damn thing about it.
So instead she would live on this frustratingly docile planet amongst these oblivious humans while teaching foolish children outdated physics and protecting an entitled prince from things that any Quill child would have simply shot. And she would wait, anticipating the day when she could have revenge against those that took everything from her, when she could honour the fallen and finally see the eradication of the shadow-kin completely. And maybe, just maybe, when she did so this unbearable ache inside of her would lessen even just a little.
But for now, she would wait.