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For months, Gortash has thought about nothing more than having Teddy back.
About having him alive, whatever the cost.
And now Teddy is sleeping next to him, and frankly, he’s not sure how to feel.
Teddy is not the same man he once was. Not at all. Whatever happened—whatever Orin did to him, whatever those tadpoles have done to his brain—he’s changed. Not better or worse. Just different. Gortash had, naturally, noticed it right away. Teddy had explained that the black veins across his face were the result of a half Illithid transformation. That they needed all they help they could get.
But beyond just the physical, Teddy is different than he was before. More thoughtful. Calmer. Less prone to violence—if only just.
Really though it doesn’t matter. He can work with this new Teddy. When Teddy and some of his new companions had marched into the throne room for his coronation, Gortash had felt that perhaps this was a dream. He knew Teddy was in the city. He knew that it would be only a matter of time before they saw each other. But then Teddy had called him Lord Gotrtash and there had been no spark of recognition in his eyes. Teddy had come home, but he didn’t remember that it was home in the first place.
But there was time. There were plenty of apothecaries in the city. Plenty of wizards. Someone might still be able to get his memories back. To fill in the gaps between the last time Gortash saw Teddy and Moonrise and Orin’s deceleration that she’d be acting as Bhaal’s chosen now.
“You’re staring at me,” Teddy mutters, half into the pillow.
“You were asleep. How could you possibly know that?”
Teddy laughs, rolls over onto his side. The room is dark and cool. Gortash thinks it’s raining out.
“You’re being creepy. Don’t stare at me while I sleep.”
Gortash rolls his eyes, “Creepy? I think it takes one to know one.”
Teddy—his Teddy, after all this time. This must be a dream. It must be—laughs again, and tugs Gortash’s collar until he lays down too, “What are you thinking about?”
“You, funnily enough. You’re supposed to be dead.”
“You’re telling me,” Teddy sighs, “I’ll probably have to kill Orin.”
“Can you remember what she did? To trick you? Do you have any idea at all?”
It has to have been a trick. Teddy was—and perhaps still is—stronger and cleverer than his sister. So what did she do? He never trusted her, certainly he wouldn’t have blindly followed her somewhere she could have overpowered him.
“No,” Teddy says, “But I have a feeling she’ll tell me if I ask. She does enjoy bragging. Regardless I’m going to pull her spine out through her mouth.”
“Ah, that's the Teddy I know and love.”
Hearing of Teddy’s adventures, Gortash had been surprised at some of his choices.
Assisting Tiefling refugees felt like something Teddy wouldn’t have cared about—slaughtering the Goblins was more fun, was how he’d explained it.
Teddy is falling away from his father, whether he knows it or not. He’s already directly disobeyed him and it’s not as if he was on the best of terms with Bhaal before all of this started.
Teddy has spoken about it before—about if it would even be possible to disavow Bhaal. But that was only in hushed whispers.
Now it feels almost inevitable. It’s coming. Gortash is almost certain it’s coming. Teddy wants Orin dead. And he’s certain that once this happens, he’ll be faced with a choice. To take up his old place as his father’s chosen.
Could he do that? Leave Bhaal behind? What happens after that? Gortash can’t really see Teddy donning the black robes of a Banite. What happens to the two of them if Teddy leave Bhaal?
Gortash wants Teddy alive. Bhaalspawn or not. He loves Teddy. Not just because of his father. Perhaps he loves Teddy in spite of that. He would leave his god for Teddy, he thinks, if it came down to it. He wonders if Bane knows that.
But this new Teddy—the one who still licks blood off his fingers but also saves Tiefling children, the one who still seems to enjoy ripping out throats, but also wants to help his new cleric friend save her parents from Shar—-this new Teddy might not care if Bhaal kills him. He still seems to be prone to bouts of violence, but neither of them have ever claimed to be a good and wonderful person at heart.
Gortash feels that before, he had known Teddy better than himself. Now he isn’t so sure.
Once, months and months ago—Gortash can’t remember the context of it now. Funny, the things you remember. The things you forget—he had been helping Teddy clean up his latest murder scene. Sometimes Teddy wouldn’t realize what he’d done until after he’d done it. He’d sort of snap back into himself, all at once, examine the situation, and sigh.
“This was supposed to be you,” Teddy had said, as if this was an irritant.
Gortash glanced around at the slaughter, “All five of them?”
“You know what I mean. It’s getting harder to resist killing you while you sleep. My father wants me to kill you.”
“So you’ve said. Quit flirting with me.”
“Sometimes I think it would be nice to murder of my own free will,” Teddy had sighed. It was the very first time he’d said something vaguely heretical. But it wasn’t the last. Gortash hadn’t been aware you were allowed to speak about Bhaal like this and now be struck down on the spot.
“If you kill Orin,” Gortash says, shaking off the half formed memory, “You can replace her as your father’s chosen. We can go back to the way things were.”
“Presumably so. Assuming he doesn’t kill me on the spot for returning to Baldur’s Gate and taking back up with you.”
“Would you want that?”
“Goodnight Enver. I have a headache.”
“Those tadpoles, my dearest.”
“Soon enough it’ll all be over. One way or the other,” Teddy says, “Just promise you’ll still love me.”
“Of course. I won’t go anywhere.”
There’s truthfully very little that Teddy could ever do that would make Gortash no longer love him.
In fact, there might be nothing at all.
“You’ll make the right choice, when it comes down to it,” Hortash says though he doesn’t know what the right choice is. Or if there’s simply the lesser of two evils.
“And then?” Teddy asks.
“I don’t know,” Gortash admits. The brain is going to break free. Theoretically they should be able to control it. To get the situation back under control. But everything feels like it’s slipping out of his hands. Thorm is dead. Orin has lost her mind. If he fails, Bane will probably torture him for eternity. Teddy might do the one thing he never though possibly and deny Bhaal. Things are slipping away too fast. It makes his heart race, makes him feel like a lost and helpless boy again, “What do you think?”
“I’ve never been the brains. That’s your job. Goodnight.”