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You're supposed to take the big hits. It's what you're built for. It's why you were born to a father too fond of the bottle and a mother too fond of your father. You learned how to take it, whatever was thrown at you; take it and hold it, harness it and dish it back out. You learned what it was to get the shit kicked out of you for something smaller and weaker and more pitiful than you—a stray dog down an alley, for example—and not receive a hint of gratitude for it. How to pick yourself up straightaway and do it again if you have to.
So when the monster strikes you as you hang onto a rope off the train like the exact wild child your parents always complained you were, it's…expected. Anticipated. Hurts like fuck, though. No amount of fulfilling your life's purpose dulls the pain of doing it. The monster slams its meaty fist into your ribs with a sickening crack, and you let out a noise that you regret as soon as you remember the Stone of Far Speech dangling on a string around your neck. Sure enough, Merle’s voice rings out from your chest. “Magnus? You okay?”
There's a sharp, persistent pain in your side that cuts in deeper with every breath, and you don't bother answering Merle; you grit your teeth and hold onto the rope and let your mind go blissfully blank. You're good at that. Think nothing, feel nothing, push through. Don't worry about the small cough that brings the taste of copper up with it. Good old Merle, he doesn't ask again. He's not the type to ask the same question twice, you know that much about him. He won't give anyone more than one chance to blow him off, and you like that. Simplifies things.
As it stands, you got bigger problems. You're whipping around on the end of the rope like a kid on a tire swing now, and you see the tunnel up ahead as the train barrels closer and closer toward it. And then you have one of your Patented Bad Ideas, the exact kind of idea that's too damn reckless to fail. So you don't think about failing. With the blessing of a bad idea, you don't think at all, you don't even feel your shattered rib anymore. You pop the bean Graham gave you into your mouth, and you drop down like an anchor, curling your body into a weapon that slams into the meat monster and blasts both of you through the caboose door.
Once inside, you have just enough time to register Jenkins and a second giant monster standing near a safe. But you don't have time to think, and your empty mind doesn't want to think anyway, so you spit the bean into your palm and launch yourself across the car with one goal: you need your axe, lying near the opposite wall, and you need to get in between the monsters and your friends. You can see Merle and Taako standing in the adjacent car—weaponless, of course; Merle, out of fucking spell slots before the fight even began and Taako, barely recovered from some major blood loss already—and your levitating boots bring you to them, just as planned. You stick your middle finger up at Jenkins as you pass. Fuck you, asshole. This is your M.O. Time to show him who he’s dealing with.
You haven't even come to a complete stop when the monster whose whole ass you just kicked lunges at you, bringing an enormous fist down on your shoulder. Your mind isn't blank enough to ignore the pain now. Your whole body screams with it. Your shoulder emits a loud pop that twists your stomach up in a sick knot, and you manage not to let any embarrassing sounds escape you this time as you take the blow. You've barely adjusted to the synapses shouting that your body's broken when the other monster jumps toward you and slams its fist into your side. The already fucked-up side.
And yeah, you definitely make a noise now, a loud one that, with any luck, sounds more startled than agonized. You careen against the back wall of the car, and the pain rips through you so acutely that you don't even feel embarrassed about any of this. Fuck it. Something in your side feels like it's sticking out of your back, and you cough up a lot of blood now, spitting it down your chin and onto the floor. Your only thought, crystal clear, is, It's the least I can do. You're not sure where that thought came from or what it means.
You're woozy and disoriented and black spots flood your vision like a swarm of locusts. But you see Merle step forward and blast the wounded monster with radiant light, disintegrating it into ash. Merle and Taako actually take a moment to celebrate and you think, okay, maybe you're all getting somewhere now. Maybe you can still pull this off. You even have the presence of mind to tell Jenkins what a shitty wizard he is. If you die on this train, you want to die running your mouth. If you die, you want to do it with your weapon in hand. So you insult Jenkins until the world stops spinning quite as much, and then you pop the bean back in your mouth, dropping down with a graceless thud to pick up Railsplitter, just hoping you stay conscious—
You raise the axe above your head, ignoring the way your fucked up shoulder erupts in fire, and you bring Railsplitter down onto the remaining monster's head. Hard enough to stun it, but it stays standing. Instinctively, you back up—you're knocking on death's door, you know that, and you always sort of thought death might be easy, but this…it troubles you how hard this is and how much it fucking hurts, and all you really know is you do not want to get hit again. The monster swings at you, misses, barely brushes against your armor, and you nearly collide with Taako in your haste to get away.
"You're revealing a deep lack of faith in my ability to kill that thing, you know," Taako tells you.
"Yeah, how about a little trust in your party?" Merle asks.
"That's great, coming from a cleric who expended all of his healing slots doing weird shit earlier," you try to snipe back, and your voice comes out breathy, puny. You grimace because, hell, you’re not supposed to sound like that, ever. Taako and Merle exchange a look, maybe finally noticing the blood on your face, the way your armor is dented in on the side and how your torso isn't exactly the shape a human torso should be—but again, there's no time. No time to even ask if you're okay, not that you'd tell them the truth.
Taako casts a spell at the monster, which it seems to just brush off. In a different situation, you'd probably give him shit for that. But you're leaning against the wall of the car now, worried you're about to fall over. More worried still that you'll have to swing your goddamn axe again. You're not sure you'll be able to. So when Jenkins offers you some half-assed deal to get out of this fight, you're so pissed off that you actually consider it that you don't hesitate to ask Taako if he can save all your asses. And you accept his less-than-reassuring "Probably." And then, for good measure, you toss a few more swearwords Jenkins' way. "Fuck off, Wankins." Wankins isn't your best work, to be sure—it's juvenile, even for you—but isn't that something they say about pain? It turns you into a child again? Or is that something else? Your thoughts are rapidly losing all coherence.
Jenkins tries to cast a spell at the monster and whiffs it bad, completely missing. You laugh loudly and, okay, a little hysterically, and you immediately regret it when it feels like it tears open a new spot in your side. Then the monster chucks Jenkins out the back of the train—good riddance, fucker—and Merle steps forward to shoot more radiant light at it, and it disintegrates just like the first one. Hey, give the dude a few cantrips and he's almost competent in a fight.
And just like that, it's over, and your legs finally give out. You slump to the floor like a bag of bricks. Taako and Merle find the relic, no problem, and Taako scoops it into his bag and thank god that's done. That, at least, is handled. You vaguely hear Graham saying something urgent, but you can't really process his words, or care enough to even try. You're fading, literally—your vision keeps going black for a few seconds at a time. Suddenly, Taako is leaning over you, his hand on your head, pushing the hair off your sweaty forehead. He's looking at you in a way you really wish he wouldn't, and he murmurs, "Spit out the bean." You do, and your boots yank your useless body up toward the ceiling again. Taako and Merle each hold onto a piece of you, trying not to grab anything that’s broken or bleeding, and they guide you out of the cargo car.
The kid detective is waiting in the next car, and looks at you with wide, terrified eyes. "Uh, sirs? Is he going to be okay?" he asks, and you try to smile at the sincerity of it. Try to reassure the kid. But there's blood on your teeth, and Angus looks even more horrified.
"He'll be fine," Taako answers breezily, and man, you've never appreciated his cavalier egoism any more than in this moment as he downplays your life-threatening injuries to everyone in the train. You make a mental note to thank him later for not causing a scene. "Now give me a minute," Taako says. "Just give me a minute to think."
You sit on the nearest bench because surely no one will fault you for that, and every breath is hell, actual fire and brimstone. When you cough up more blood, you try to do it in the most discreet way possible, swallow it back down without a fuss. Endurance. That's what it boils down to. You must endure. Your whole damn life has been one long endurance test and this train ride is no different. You know, at a core level you can't even fully access, one single thing to be true: every hit you take is an attempt to make up for the ones you didn't take. Especially the one you didn't, couldn't take. Would give anything to go back and take. No. Nope. You can't afford to think about that now. You start thinking about Julia, you start thinking about death, and you'll die. Sure as the day you were born. And maybe that'll be okay another day, but not now, not on this train when people still need you.
When Taako finally says, "I have a really stupid idea," you immediately tell him you're in. You trust Taako. You trust Merle, too, but that's mostly because of his bulletproof nonchalance. Merle's easy to figure out, and that's easy to trust. You can't explain why you trust Taako, not really. There are far more reasons to be wary of this aloof, inscrutable wizard than you can find reasons to rely on him. Taako lies with the ease of someone wiping their nose, he feigns ignorance so well it's impossible to tell what he actually knows, and he's so damn hard to read. You never know what he's thinking or feeling, you've never met someone so closed off in that way. He steals and cheats and hoards and even now, you can't be sure he doesn't have a backpack full of stolen loot he plans to keep for himself. And yet, trust is inexplicably there, rooted inside you. You've come too far to doubt your gut instincts now.
So when Taako tells you to jump off the moving train, you jump. No hesitation. You don't time it right, of course. Your battered body can barely keep itself upright, much less do stunts, and as you twist in the air, you know you're about to hit the ground hard. Right before you do, you picture a city on stilts, nestled against a cliff face, halfway between earth and the heavens.
And then the world goes dark.
You wake momentarily, soft grass underneath your back and Merle's hand on your forehead. "You're gonna be alright, buddy," he tells you gruffly, right before you lose consciousness again. It's a deep, dreamless sleep, exactly the kind of thing you need. And when you wake up again, you're inside a clinic in Neverwinter. You take a deep, deep breath with no pain whatsoever, and Taako and Merle are staring at you, smiling.
"Weirdest thing," Taako says. "They diagnosed you with syphilis."
"Oh, yeah, tons of syphilis," Merle agrees. And they rag on you, falling into a rhythm that's already familiar even though you've only known each other about a month. You smile and threaten to never rappel down a moving train for their benefit ever again, and Taako rolls his eyes and says, "Oh, please, like you could even resist."
"Yeah, we couldn't stop you from jumping out a moving train if we tried," Merle points out. And it's true, it's something they've already figured out about you. You can't help but get hit. It's in your blood, it's what makes your heart beat. And maybe, just maybe, one day you'll teach them why.