#(the ONLY reason she does not kill Raphael is that it would Make Kitrye Very Sad)

[margridarnauds]

So, would you mind telling me about Kitrye's backstory? I'd love to learn about her!

A chance to talk about my girl? Yes? Thank you!

(Tw for implied sexual assault in the first paragraph, because Happy Drow Family Times)

Kitrye was born in Menzoberranzan; her father was a captured Wood Elf, her mother was a member of the Symryvvin family, known for producing priestesses for Lolth. When he attempted to escape, months before Kitrye was born, he was ultimately sacrificed -- Kitrye never got to meet him. One of her biggest what-ifs is what would have happened if he'd waited six or seven more months, or if he hadn't tried to escape, whether he would have tried to take her or whether she'd have just been an unpleasant reminder of the worst period of his life. (Not surprisingly, the Emperor took the form of how she imagined her father to be -- which is the reason why she could never forgive him.) (Also not surprisingly, her relationship with Halsin is...interesting. Decidedly not sexual despite some initial interest from him, but interesting.)

As is customary for Drow children, she spent her early childhood in a shared room with the children of the extended Symryvvin family, who took one look at the Half-Elf girl and saw an easy mark. Kitrye developed into a quiet, cautious girl who learned to make careful use of her words, observing her bullies and turning their own weaknesses against them, sometimes exploiting the inherently frayed family dynamics of Drow culture to make them fight one another instead of her. This dynamic changed when Kitrye was about five years old, when her mother suddenly announced that she was to have a sister, and introduced her to a grungy street urchin that she had christened Mallathalra. Mallathalra was a Szarkai, one of the albino Drow believed to be a sign of Lolth's favor for their use in acting as infiltrators, and so, when Kitrye's mother came across the child in the streets, she took it as a sign from Lolth and adopted and renamed her. Malla would claim, as an adult, that she had decided that, by teaming up with Kitrye, she was insuring her own survival by siding with the Symryvvin child who was least likely to be an impediment to her rise to the top of the family hierarchy -- In reality, while Malla is nothing if not pragmatic, there was likely more to it. Perhaps it was out of a sense of empathy towards another outcast child, perhaps it was that Kitrye was the only one to treat her as neither an intruder to the family OR as a living weapon, but, regardless, they became a team, with Malla earning the scar across her eye that she sports during the events of the main game because she stepped in when the other children came very close to killing Kitrye. (The bullies came out much, much worse from that encounter.)

Kitrye had a close relationship with the House Wizard, who she studied alchemy under, developing a talent for it and, as she and Malla both grew older, would sometimes develop healing salves and poisons for her sister to use, while Malla continued to protect Kitrye. Due to the traditional isolation of House Symryvvin from the rest of Drow society, as well as some residual shame around Kitrye's birth, the girls were kept sheltered, save for special occasions, even though they did sometimes sneak off to dances and excursions to Lake Donigarten (one of own biggest What-Ifs is ~30-35 year old Kitrye, chafing against her family, meeting a Slightly Younger Raphael -- it would absolutely have ended badly, but would have been a glorious trainwreck. Malla still would have hated him). It was around this time that she first encountered Eilistraee, having become separated from Malla in a cave and encountering a silver moth, who guided her back to the mouth of the cave. She quietly began to research the goddess, sneaking into her mother's own personal archives to find whatever references she could find, and began the process of entering her service.

When she was forty, as per custom, Kitrye was entered into the Arach-Tinilith university, under the exacting eye of headmistress Triel Baenre. It was around this time that she began to fully lead a double life as a Secret Moondancer of Eilistraee, using her knowledge of the school and the city as a whole to aid in Eilistraee's aims, freeing potential ritual sacrifices, aiding in other Drows' defections to the surface world through a series of secret waypoints and stops throughout the city. The irony is that while she was helping other Drow to escape, she was doing very poorly on a personal level, through a combination of Triel's own tyranny, the toxic environment fostered by the academy, and her isolation from Malla, who underwent secret martial training instead of Arach-Tinilith. Even though Eilistraee did her best to soothe her, and her loyalty to her goddess remained firm, these years were marked by an increasing feeling of claustrophobia and hopelessness. When it came to be too much, she ended up daring an escape of her own, and, as she made it to the surface world for the first time, she pledged herself fully to Eilistraee as her paladin, swearing an Oath of the Ancients. (She missed the Drow Graduation Demon Orgy 😔 )

By the time we meet her in-game, there are still gaps in her knowledge regarding the surface world, especially in arcane matters, and she is still very much coming to terms with her relationship with both the surface world and Drow culture. Still, she's had over a century to acclimate, operating loosely out of the Eilistraeen conclave in Waterdeep but, in general, going wherever there's a need, especially now that, post-Sundering, Eilistraee has come back from the dead. The natural reserve from her childhood has left her somewhat antisocial, rarely interacting with Eilistraeen communities longterm and communicating her true feelings to very few people, instead putting on a very good front of being unbothered by any disasters to come about. The only people she might be more honest with, in Malla's absence, are other defectors from the Menzoberranzan aristocracy, like Liriel Baenre and Jhelnae Horlbar, but even then, she often puts on a front in favor of focusing on the mission...which all comes tumbling down by Act 3 of the game. (Part of the reason why she IS drawn to Raphael is that he is very, very good at reading her, which can be frustrating but also means that he often understands her better than her companions do.) But things are changing -- Kitrye's grandmother, the famed Matron Mother Hesken P'aj Symryvvin, has died, and Kitrye's mother has now taken over as Matron Mother of the house, sending a now-fully grown and lethal Mallathalra to retrieve her sister from the surface by any means necessary. (Malla knows about Kitrye's worship of Eilistraee, discovering it and keeping it a secret from their mother, who is firmly in denial that she could raise an apostate, especially since Kitrye IS her only biological daughter. Malla claims she kept it secret for leverage over her sister in the future. Malla is lying.)

And then...the Nautiloid happens.