#heart aching over lucien/molly's childhood again. over what his family and a hag tried to make him

[dent-de-leon]

Once again in agony over how Lucien's parents forced him to lure victims to a witch in the woods, sold him out for their bargain with a hag. How they either didn't know--or didn't care--that that same witch wanted to keep Lucien as another puppet, always planned to make him "hers."

How it made Lucien sick and just kept eating away at him, that he was forced to bring all these victims to Azrahari--Lucien's father supposedly insisting that it's okay, that they weren't good people. The implication that they left their child alone in the woods with murderers and worse. How Lucien still regretted their deaths all the same, even knowing all the awful things they'd done--

Just...what would have happened if Lucien never tried to break the cycle, never killed his parents and took his little sister and just run? Would he have ever even joined the Claret Orders in the first place, ever killed Azrahari as part of a contract? Or would he have been trapped in his parents' deal forever? Would the hag have finally "Hollowed" him out as one of her dolls or puppets, kept him Empty and isolated?

When Caleb finally escaped Vergesson, cold, hungry, and alone--would have stumbled out into the Pearlbowe Wilderness, or headed into the cursed Savalirwood? Would he come across a little college in a clearing, a place to finally rest. Would Lucien/Molly try to guide him there, or tell him to turn and run--