#i'm way more satisfied with this wild-ass headcanon than is reasonable XD

[blackjackkent]

Z'rell is waiting for them when they push inside Moonrise Towers.

All of the massed forces of her god stand behind her and at her sides, this Disciple of the Absolute. Her face is twisted with rage. Her body shimmers with magic.

Rakha stands at the top of the steps and looks down at her. Flame sits in both of her hands, but she does not strike, not yet.

"You dare show yourself here, after all you've done?" Z'rell bellows. "You have betrayed me! You have betrayed General Thorm! You have betrayed our god!"

Her lips curl out, showing the full extent of her long, fierce tusks. "And for what? These Harpers? Moonrise will be their tomb - and in death, you will all serve the Absolute!"

Rakha's friends have taken up positions on either side of her - Wyll and Jaheira to her left, Lae'zel and Minthara to her right. "I will never serve the Absolute again, Z'rell," Minthara growls. "And I will take your prattling tongue as a reminder of this moment."

Still Rakha doesn't move, doesn't speak. Something is itching at the back of her mind, something inarticulate and familiar about this conversation, just as it did the last time she and Z'rell spoke. Every time they have faced each other, she has had the distant sense of re-enacting an old scene, reciting a script already written for her, as if she has clashed with this woman a hundred times instead of twice.

Perhaps it is simply that she has met so few other half-orcs like herself. Seeing Z'rell is something like looking into a mirror. It is like the dark reflection of herself that she saw in the Gauntlet trial - even down to the scar that marks their right eyes, the blankness of the eye below it, the dark hair and dull olive skin and general air of visceral and undirected rage.

Perhaps that is why she would be so glad to kill Z'rell at this moment, even more than the other Absolutists. And perhaps it is why, to her own surprise, she offers a single moment of mercy.

"Step aside, Z'rell," she says, a cold flat monotone.

Z'rell does not accept it, of course. Rakha did not really expect that she would. "Where's the fun in that?" the Disciple says with a sharp, feral smile. She draws the axe from her back and brandishes it forwards, lifting her voice in a war cry.

"Boys! Make this traitor bleed!"

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(A/N: This fight is just as annoying for Rakha as it was for Hector. Z'rell's Black Hole/Slow and the cultists' Hunger of Hadar are a massive pain to deal with and all the Absolutists apparently have the constitution of oxen. But we got there in the end, thanks in large part to several judiciously placed fireballs.

Interestingly - MIG WAS NOT IN THIS FIGHT! Ghourik - Z'rell's ogre buddy from upstairs - is here instead, because Z'rell never did the demonstration for Rakha about how she could magically cause all of Ghourik's veins to explode at once. I really hope this means that Mig got the hell out of dodge and is going to escape the cult and live happily somewhere eating lots of meat.

Overall the good guys came out pretty okay; we lost one Harper and one Flaming Fist, but Jaheira is alive which is mainly what I was concerned about. In actual fact, Z'rell fell about halfway through the fight, but I am gonna take some artistic license for a more dramatic resolution to this particular subplot, because it's my story and I do what I want. ^_^ )

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Z'rell screams in rage as the last of her minions fall around her. The room is soaked with blood. Rakha's head aches and the beast roars; it cannot feast on innocent death, but it will take this battlefield of corpses if it must.

She sprints forward, catches Z'rell by the collar, and slams her into the nearby wall. Her hand goes to the blade at her belt, rips the knife free of its bindings.

I offered you mercy. I do not even know why. But now you will not have it. Absolutist. I will bleed you for everything you have done. The words are hers and the beast's at once, mixed, melded.

Z'rell grunts with the impact against the stone. Her expression is manic with fury and she struggles against Rakha's implacable grip. "Let go of me!" she snarls. "You will pay for this, for all of it! You will die screaming and deserve only that it might have been slower! You are nothing! NOTHING!"

Something twinges deep in Rakha's head, yet again - something like memory, the echo of quarrels unremembered in a life lost to her. With a sudden, sharp jerk she spins the knife in her palm, angles it upward, and sends it up through the soft underside of Z'rell's jaw, up through her throat and into her brain.

She screams, and dimly Rakha is aware that she herself is screaming too, in rage and fear and loss. But as the blade slides home - in that brief eyeblink moment before death, something clears in Z'rell's eyes. Some blank film that has overlaid her gaze drops away and she looks at Rakha with a pure, lucid intensity that is just as saturated with rage.

"Sister--" she croaks out. "Why...?"

And then she dies, pinned like a tapestry against the wall of the fortress of her god.