#oof with the length i've talked abt her despite her presence in books being so small and one-dimensional i basically made up a canon oc

[stheresya]

What do you think Elizaveta was like pre fold or during the time she was trapped in the fold?

it's difficult to say considering the only pre-fold content we have of her is The Lives of Saints, a book that does not go in-depth into its saint life and its narratives are known to be slightly fabricated for religious purposes. but assuming some of the elements in her tale had basis on actual events and leaving aside all the religious propaganda, here's what we roughly get: a peasant girl had a special ability with bees. one day her village was attacked by raiders. she saved them all. they repaid her heroism by tearing her apart in a field of roses. this little summary makes me assume there are two elizavetas: the elizaveta that always was and the elizaveta that she became after the attack.

elizaveta is one with the bees, thus she has always been deeply connected with plants, especially roses -- she's the patron saint of gardeners, after all. and this connection probably influenced how her senses are affected by the world around her. there's this line in aleksander's pov: "He remembered how Elizaveta had craved sensation—the taste of wine, the touch of skin, the feel of soft earth beneath her feet." (The Monk, Ch. 26, RoW) this tells me that elizaveta liked to indulge her senses, that she was often seeking things that were pleasing to the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the stomach, the mind and the skin. this may be the one thing that remained unchanged throughout her life because i think that craving to simply feel alive is probably a consequence of her power. it kinda reminds me of dyonisus who was a deity of vegetation and also greatly associated with pleasure. now imagine someone like that being trapped for 400 hundred years in a place that denied her of her senses? it's no wonder she went a little mad.

but of course we have to talk about what she became after she was "murdered". in true anti-grisha hate crime fashion her murder is quite horrific. she was killed in the village that she had saved, bound and torn apart while her own people (who were only alive thanks to her) did nothing to object. this definitely made her resent humanity as a whole. we know for a fact that she was very close to the darkling before the fold and they probably met shortly after this incident. i think he provided her a safe haven and a purpose to fight for, and he was also the only one who was as unique as herself back then. imagine an unique person with immense power rescues you from certain death, helps you get stronger and gives your life purpose? at the very least you'll spend the rest of your life in gratitude to that person. so it's no wonder that she grew to worship the darkling. their power and uniqueness made her think of themselves not only as superior to the otkazat'sya but also other grisha. i'm not sure when when her views on power became so twisted, if she began to think like that shortly after her "death" or while she was trapped in the fold. because it's curious that elizaveta is so unwaveringly loyal to aleksander despite their goals being different, and we can't even argue that that loyalty is due to his great power and his uniqueness because she spent centuries alongside two people who were as powerful and as unique as herself and she hated them. maybe she truly loved sasha even as he was.

of the 3 saints trapped in the fold, i'd say liza was affected the most. their place was in a constant state of un-life. they were isolated from the world, there was no food, no smell, no hunger, no wind, no temperature. everything was monochromatic. they were alive but not really alive. they couldn't even sleep to get some momentary relief. these circumstances would take a great toll on anyone, but specially on someone who's so deeply connected to nature and soil life such as liza. the one thing that kept her going was hope that she would be joining aleksander someday and they would rule ravka together, in the meantime she occasionally used her powers to toy with her worshipers a little bit and pretended to debate her "roommates" on the best course of action to get out of the fold while hiding her real intentions.

TL;DR: elizaveta was a nature girl who liked to enjoy herself, but having an unique power, being part of persecuted group, and being in prison for centuries in a constant state of un-life without the ability to shut out her conscious for one second probably messed her up.