The Drow Queen of Glaley [Very NSFW]

[Zevran]

"That is..." Zevran hesitates a moment. "If that is truly how you feel about it for yourself, all the way through, then I am glad for you," he finally says, each word spoken with obvious care. "However, that does not mean that others feel the same way. Rape is... considered by many, most even, to be among the most vile, damaging things that can be done to a person, keeping company with the likes of enslavement and child abuse."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"That seems very... surfacer. I don't know what Estelle thinks she's playing at, but we Drow don't see things that way. Perhaps she's upset for Claudia, who must?"

[Zevran]

"Ahhhh..." Zevran coughs softly. "That is... not in line with the culture I've encountered here. I think perhaps this is a case of-- of your ex not be as knowledge about drow as she wanted to appear." Or about how she's a cruel, uncaring bitch. 

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Or surface Drow being softer than proper Drow."

[Zevran]

"Proper drow?" Zevran asks mildly.

[Coquette Blacquin]

"You know. Drow in the homeland."

[Zevran]

"The ones that kill or enslave everyone that can't violently stop them," Zevran clarifies. "Those ones?"

[Coquette Blacquin]

"Propaganda. They're people, same as everyone else."

[Zevran]

"And how many of the Bitch's drow have you, personally, met?" Zevran asks, not able to prevent a hint of acid from etching his words sharper. "How much of their literature-- that they wrote, not others about them-- have you read? How many other slaves have you spoken to, tried to nurse back to health, tried to patch together their shattered minds, reteach that kindness exists, had to--" He breaks off, a ragged sob half catching in his throat. How many broken, twisted souls have you snuffed out because they could not or would not stop inflicting the same cruelties they had suffered on others?

[Coquette Blacquin]

"How many have you bothered to know? how long did you live in their halls?" she retorts. "It's irrelevant, anyway. The point is, I refuse to go to a mind healer."

[Zevran]

"Twelve," Zevran answers quietly. "There were twelve of them; four nobles, sisters, and their guards and servants. They owned me for two months the first time. The second, four months. The third, three days."

[Coquette Blacquin]

"You're hardly an unbiased observer," she points out. 

[Zevran]

"Unbiased?" Zevran scoffs softly. "That's true now, I suppose, though..." He stops, takes a breath. "I wasn't, not at first. I had met another merikos drow before them, and... had thought her a fine enough person. Poor taste in company perhaps, but good aside from that flaw. I was... swiftly broken of that assumption, as were my bones. My skin. My teeth. Have you ever had someone reach into your mouth and crush a tooth? Then another, and another and another? You'd think, perhaps, that the pain would start to blur into one hurt but no. I could feel each individual fracture, lines of fire and agony. That was just the first hour, mind you. Punishment for daring to offer a greeting unbidden." He doesn't look at her as he talks, his eyes locked on the far wall as the words are poured out from him like poison.

[Coquette Blacquin]

Coquette pinches her lips together. "That's all besides the point -- my point was, I doubt they think of rape as some special evil, worse than what they did to you."

[Zevran]

"It's the part that..." He has to pause, more to rebalance than to find the right word. "Affects me the most still. The pain was horrific but being made to-- being forced in that way, it-- it wounds something deeper."