"What is this?" Lae'zel made the disgust and disappointment she was feeling as evident as possible, spitting the question at Karlach.
Karlach did not cower, despite the githyanki's tone. "That's Clive!" she said cheerfully, either ignoring Lae'zel's anger or challenging it with such joviality. She reached forward and retrieved the limp, pathetic cloth bear from Lae'zel's clawed grip. She turned it over as if examining it for injuries. "What are you doing with him?"
For a moment, Lae'zel could only stare in contempt. Clive? Him? Karlach was a fearsome warrior. Surely, she was above assigning personal value to such a fragile, soft inanimate object. That kind of sentimentality could get a soldier killed; it bred weakness, and Lae'zel told her so.
"Maybe," Karlach said, although she didn't sound as though she was really hearing the valuable advice Lae'zel was so generously offering. "But he's so cuddly!" As if to demonstrate, she pulled the beaten bear into a childish hug.
"Chk."
"Oh, come on. You say this kind of attachment makes a warrior weak, but it was comforts like this that kept me alive in Avernus."
"I don't see how a limp, ragged child's toy could do such a thing." Unless, of course, Karlach had somehow channeled the ferocious soul of an actual bear into the avatar. She was hesitant to ask.
"I mean," Karlach sat, gingerly laying "Clive" in her lap, and then motioned for Lae'zel to sit as well. Lae'zel knew that what followed would undoubtably be a colossal waste of her time, but she sat anyway. There was little else to do while waiting at camp. "There's nothing—nothing—more important in this life than caring for something. Than knowing that if you don't show up for it, every single day, it won't survive. Than seeing how your actions have an impact on those who can't help themselves."
Karlach was speaking as though this matter was deeply important to her, but Lae'zel failed to resist the urge to curse in her face. "Tsk'va! It is an inanimate object. If you were to die right now, it would continue not breathing, not feeling, and not fighting just as it would if you were here."
"Sometimes we're not fortunate enough to have real loved ones present to fight for." Melancholy spread across Karlach's face for a moment before brightening again. "And that's when we use our imaginations."
There were too many fallacies in Karlach's logic for Lae'zel to even begin pointing out. "I do not understand this."
Karlach sighed. She looked as though she was thinking perhaps Lae'zel was the lost cause. "It's comforting. Even if it's not real. The soft hug of the bear… It makes me feel like a child again. It makes me feel the safety of being held in my mother's arms." When Lae'zel said nothing, Karlach ventured, "Do you ever miss that? Being comforted and cared for?"
"Githyanki are hatched, not born. It is a superior process; when we come into this world, we are immediately physically capable. We do not need to learn to walk, nor do we take slow, miserable years to tear into flesh for a meal as other humanoids do. We need only to learn about the world, to learn order. We are not coddled by parents. We are disciplined by the varsh."
Karlach's face turned deeply sad, and Lae'zel scowled. If she had sprung an attack on Lae'zel, she would have been more comfortable. To be pitied was withering. "You should try it sometime," Karlach said finally. Then, cheerily, she offered, "We can go into the market and get you an owlbear cub stuffed animal."
"I'd sooner skin myself, strip by miserable strip, with my own blade until I was a bloodied mess, and then leave myself helpless in a grizzly's den."
"My. You paint quite the picture, don't you?" Karlach stood and said dismissively, "Suit yourself."
/
Lae'zel tried not to give the matter much more thought. She still scoffed in disgust, felt her blood grow hot when she saw Karlach caring for the stuffed bear in the middle of the night. Karlach was a warrior, a destroyer. She should not have indulged in such infantile pleasures. The very existence of "Clive" contradicted everything Lae'zel had been taught, and it should have made Karlach weak.
Except for one thing: Karlach was demonstrably not weak. Perhaps Lae'zel would have forgotten the entire affair, would have eventually written off "Clive" as one of many pathetic points of weakness in their camp, if Karlach was not consistently proving herself such a formidable fighter.
It was after a brutal battle that they dragged their bloodied and bruised bodies back to camp and collapsed in their sleeping-sacks for the night. Lae'zel was thoroughly impressed by Karlach, how she had cleaved through four drow at once and didn't stop before walloping three more.
Lae'zel herself had performed suboptimally. She was bruised to the bone, her limbs screaming with pain even in the dead of night. She replayed the fight in her mind, chiding herself for each misstep.
Despite promising herself that she had learned from her mistakes, Lae'zel couldn't stop ruminating on the battle. Above her, a vibrant sky full of violet and white stars stretched from mountain peak to mountain peak. Gale had called them beautiful, had commented on how blessed they were to sleep under such a brilliant array. Everyone, except perhaps Shadowheart, had emphatically agreed.
The stars must have been a sublime sight to such small creatures like them, creatures bound to this mortal plane. To a bound githyanki, however, the stars were mocking, cruel. Glittering so far away, reminding Lae'zel that she was stuck here, that she had not yet ascended, that she was inexperienced, lost, a child herself…
She could see the light from the stars, the moon, through her tent. Lae'zel squeezed her eyes shut, but imagined light still danced behind her eyelids. She wanted nothing more than to be enveloped in darkness completely, to not be looked down on by the stars, teased by the worlds just out of her reach.
Again, her mind wandered to Karlach and her "Clive". Karlach had asked if Lae'zel missed the feeling of being cared for as a child, and Lae'zel had been honest when she stated that she had never been subject to such pathetic needs. Still, when she sank into the darkness, she imagined the warmth of being encased in an egg, in true darkness.
Divine darkness. From whence all things come and vanish back into. Complete darkness, silence, peace which she would know only before hatching and as she died. That… that, she longed for. That, she missed, despite never really having known it.
Perhaps that had been what Karlach had been referring to, the simplicity of the world before it was truly known.
Lae'zel's muscles were growing stiff, and she wasn't getting any closer to sleep. She rose, walked along the edge of the camp and watched Karlach, asleep with "Clive".
For a few moments, Lae'zel allowed herself to imagine the appeal. In much the same way she would understand the appeal of the greedy or the selfish, she understood the appeal of the soft. She allowed herself to imagine the creature's fur, soft and warm like a foxpelt blanket on a cold night on this wretched plane, and then Lae'zel would remember her discipline. Unlike the pelt, a stuffed bear would offer no protection against the elements.
Still, she told herself, Karlach had proven her mettle in battle time and time again. Wouldn't it be insolent, ignorant, to so readily write off the advice of such a great destroyer?
Then again, although she'd seen now that githyanki culture was not infallible, had never had her best interests at heart, she had no desire of abandoning her core values completely, of giving herself over to the temptations of the weak.
Lae'zel stalked further from the camp, where a soft stream had smoothed the edges of large stones underfoot. She washed her face, hoping the nightcold water would cool her blood that was still raging from battle and confusion.
When she rose, a singular stone caught her eye. Dark gray, as big as her face, and perfectly rounded by years in the water.
Exactly the size and shape of a githyanki egg, she couldn't help but notice.
Another glance at the star-spangled sky.
Lae'zel glanced back at the camp. When she saw nothing and heard no one stirring, she reached across the stream and grabbed the rock.
She tried to recall how Karlach had held Clive to her chest, had cradled it in both her arms, but when she attempted it on the egg—the rock—her arms felt stiff and unnecessarily tangled.
It was stupid anyway, Lae'zel told herself, lowering the rock almost as soon as she'd picked it up. Githyanki eggs are not cradled, not ever. Too much force, and they'd break, expose the helpless child to the world before it is physically ready.
No, githyanki eggs were simply watched dutifully until their time.
Lae'zel sat back on her haunches and stared at the egg (the rock). She imagined the creature that might stir inside of it, how it must have felt to know no goals, no battles, to have no gods to please or paradigms to be violently uprooted.
Had someone kept such a careful vigil over her, once?
Another glance uphill, to make sure the rest of the party was still asleep. Again, silence and stillness. Lae'zel carried the egg back to her tent. What future greatness, she wondered, might sleep in this quiet spawn?
(Theoretically, of course, Lae'zel made a point to remind herself that it was just a rock, that nothing stirred inside, that she was exploring only within the confines of Karlach's amusing thought experiment.)
/
"I have taken your advice," Lae'zel informed Karlach as she passed by the next morning.
Karlach stared at the githyanki. She was kneeling in her tent, waiting patiently for the others to wake, for another day to start. "Right. What advice again?"
"About forming an imaginary connection with an inanimate object. I initially thought it foolish—and make no mistake, I still doubt its practicality—but you were right in some ways. I see now why your Clive is so… comforting."
"Well, that's great! And definitely unexpected." Karlach looked around. She could not see the rock nestled in the furthest corner of the tent. "Um… where is it?" She fidgeted once, then asked, concerned, "You didn't like… eat it, did you?"
Lae'zel produced the egg.
"Lae'zel. That's a rock."
"Indeed. But in the same way your Clive is a symbol of a real companion, this stone has become a symbol of a githyanki egg. I have kept it warm and watched dutifully over it all night, just as you comfort your Clive with physical affection."
Karlach's face split into a grin, and then she let out a fit of explosive laughter.
Lae'zel's countenance instantly soured. She suddenly felt as though she had been lured into a mean-spirited trap. "What? What?"
"Sorry, it's just… funny."
Lae'zel growled. She cursed herself for forsaking her values so easily. "What is your game, tiefling? You feed me bad advice, only to look down on me when I actually consider it? Chk!"
"No one's looking down on you," Karlach tried to assure her between snickers. "It's just funny! Look, I do it! And I admit it's funny! It is childish! But… it is nice, isn't it?"
Lae'zel stared at the stone in her hands, humiliation rushing through her face. She'd spent the night watching over a rock.
She hurled it hard at Karlach's head. "Begone!"
"Hey, that's no way to treat your wittle baby!" Karlach scolded with a laugh as she deftly dodged the projectile. The rock landed forcefully, unceremoniously on its side near their firepit.
"Lower your voice! And if you breathe one word of this, I shall take your precious 'Clive' hostage while you sleep, and I shall remove his eyes from his head and tear his limbs and head from his soft body with my teeth."
"Maker's balls! You're one sick fuck, you know that?"
Lae'zel scowled as she stalked back into her tent. She would be wary of accepting advice from Karlach in the future.
Although she did make a mental note to prop the rock upright before they left camp.