"I'm breaking all this stuff." 

"Well, it's your stuff. I figure you probably have a good reason." 

"Why would you figure that?"

"Well, it's your stuff? So you probably don't want it broken? So you must want something else more than you want your stuff not to be broken." 

"I want my mother back." 

"...I...don't...think breaking your stuff is going to achieve that." 

"No. It's not." 

He hugs himself, hands coming down on her wrists. 

"So why're you doing it?" 

"Because my cousin is the worst." 

"That's...surprising?" 

"She was supposed to care about me! But she doesn't care about anything except her stupid crusades!" 

"My parents leave to go on crusade all the time. But they still care about me." 

"They come back, on purpose, they don't show up once after being nagged into it and immediately tell you that the worst thing that ever happened to you was a good thing." 

"Huh?" 

"She said--she said my mother was right not to call for help." 

"I don't understand, why didn't she call for help?" 

"The--the demons brought a disease. A magic disease. Mother said--that if she called for help, for a more powerful cleric, then--the disease might get out, and, and other people could get infected. So she wouldn't, even though she was dying--" 

Oh no he's crying too hard to talk. 

"And the Queen...said it was good, that your mother...chose protecting other people over her own life." 

Nod nod. 

...Well on the one hand Lucette can see why Queen Galfrey would feel that way. She's the queen of everyone in Mendev, not just Daeran and his family. 

On the other hand...

Lucette...if one of Lucette's mothers just never came home again, because they had fallen against the demons...

It wouldn't be totally out of nowhere. It's not like she's not aware that what they do is dangerous; it's not like she never tosses and turns at night because she's scared for them.

But if she did lose one of them, and someone told her how noble it was that she had laid down her life for the crusade...she would know it was true. 

But it would still hurt. 

(I don't want my mother to be a hero, I want her to be here was a thought that Lucette had had while crying herself to sleep more than once, and her mothers aren't dead.)

And Daeran's mother wasn't a crusader, hadn't made that choice when not pushed to extremis, and hadn't spent his whole life preparing himself for that blow that would hopefully never come. 

Lucette remembers something her Mama had said to her, once. Just because it's true doesn't mean you should say it. 

And, actually, it sort of isn't true? Like--yes, lots of people dying is worse than one person dying. But one person dying is still bad, especially when it's your mother; saying it like it's a good thing is--it isn't right; the words might technically be true but if you looked at a beautiful statue and said "it's very pretty" with your voice dripping with derision, it would be true that the statue was pretty but that didn't mean the thing you said was right, and this isn't right in the same way that wouldn't be right. 

"I'm sorry," she says. "You deserved better." 

"I don't deserve anything." 

...Whoops. Shouldn't have let that slip out. Like, it's not wrong, but it's not wrong because of thehorriblething, and he can't let on about that. 

"...What does that even mean?" Lucette asks, totally distracted from any deep dark secrets Daeran might be hiding by sheer confusion over what it would even mean for people not to deserve good things. 

"I don't know," Daeran lies, "just--it doesn't have anything to do with who I am, that she should have loved me. She just--should have." 

"What does who you are have to do with deserving anything?" 

...Well now they're even, they've both totally confused each other once this conversation. "What does deserving mean, if it doesn't have anything to do with who you are?"