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Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time—
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God
The air in the Temple of Bhaal stank so thickly that it was the first thing Killian felt when he awoke. The acrid scent of urine and rot burned at the insides of his nostrils from the very first sudden intake of breath. Of course he had to be reborn in a sewer, had to rise stiffly from a pool of his kin’s blood with a layer of viscera and vital fluids clinging to his clothes, his skin, to whatever was left of his soul.
He wished for the comfort of his bedroll out in the wilderness near the grove, for the sting of icepick teeth at his neck. He had felt the same disappointment there once, at somehow waking again after Astarion had drained his veins dry. The sky had been so ignorantly blissfully bright, and that had stung him, too.
It was an absurdity, the fickle pettiness of the gods. How many people had he denied the chance to live, and now he received second, third, fourth chances? Or perhaps he had never been given a life at all. What kind of life was led by a tool, forged and reforged with the intent to be wielded only as long as he still had use?
His gaze slid over Shadowheart, then Jaheira, then Lae’zel, still tied to the altar. Astarion stood far enough away that Killian didn’t want to look too closely and see what expression he might wear– discomfort, disgust, disinterest. He thought of Astarion kneeling in a pool of Cazador’s blood, screaming and screaming until he could scream no more, until he fell face first into slack blankness. Of Aylin’s empty eyes as she snapped Lorroakan’s back over her knee like a twig. Of Shadowheart’s sobbing, her frustrated indifference over a statue to a god that had been forgotten long ago. Exhaustion, probably. It had to be.
He wished for it. The exhaustion. The blankness. The nothing.
There was a pile of gore at his own feet now, and in it swam Orin’s grotesque leathers and a Bhaalist blade bearing a netherstone. He took them both, his fingers feeling the materials all too smooth and slick with her blood, and tried again to look at someone, something else.
He couldn’t see their faces. Didn’t want to.
He didn’t see Jaheira take the key to the altar and release Lae’zel from her bonds. He didn’t see Shadowheart look nervously from him to Astarion– a silent plea for the vampire to step in, to do something to comfort his partner. He didn’t see Astarion step forward, stop, his pale skin ashen. He didn’t see whatever it was they saw in him that made them falter.
All he saw was red. Blood red fingers, blood red hands, water turning to blood as he scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed but never got clean.
What had he ever done to earn another life? Had he not killed thousands more than Orin had, and led countless more to take lives in worship? Had he not failed to fulfil his role as Bhaal’s chosen, too?
Withers had said he still had work to do.
He was on his knees then, wrist deep in the gore of his so-called slaughterkin, trying to scoop her bits into an empty pouch he had in his pack. She slid between his fingers like squirming cornered fish in a barrel. He was laughing; it was ridiculous. You couldn’t really scoop viscera and he knew that– it squished and slipped and slithered and the wet bits just soaked into fabric, and beyond the clothes she’d worn, there was really nothing left of Orin the Red.
“Killian. Killian. Kill!”
He looked up and saw red again. Red met his eyes, not angry red but the deep, chocolatey red of a vampire’s irises, and Astarion’s hands were on his. Orin was all over his clothes now, too. Killian laughed again. At least Astarion tended to like that sort of thing. He probably knew how to get dried blood out of linen. Silk. Cotton. Any number of fabrics. Even without his memories, Killian was sure that was something he’d never known.
“Help me, will you?” he said, and grasped at something that might have at some point been a bit of sinew. It was soft and slimy now, and Astarion tried to bat it out of his hand. Killian was too quick and clenched it in his fist and brought it to his chest jealously.
“I promise you I am trying, darling,” Astarion sighed, his voice the type of gentle one used on a drunk who was yelling in the street. “Let’s leave all the ligaments and other… lovely bits for that nice Bhaalist taxidermist, okay?”
“Are you insane?” Killian snarled, and he did see Astarion’s expression now, looking for all his life like he knew there was no proper way to respond to such a question asked by a man clutching gore to his chest like a cherished childhood toy. He looked somewhere past Killian, to Jaheira or to Shadowheart, perhaps a plea for assistance. It only stoked Killian’s anger. “If you won’t help me, then get the hells out of my way!”
Astarion faltered as he considered his options. Killian wondered what exactly it was that he settled on that caused something in him to shift. What exactly was it that had ever drawn Astarion to him? Whatever it was, those red eyes seemed to harden with resolve, and finally, Astarion reached out to squeeze Killian’s arm.
“All right. What, exactly, am I helping with?”
Killian eyed him uncertainly, then gestured down to the pile of Orin. “I’m taking her back to camp. As much as I can, at least.”
Astarion hummed, if not exactly in understanding, then at least in assent. He picked up something dripping and wet and round that might have been part of an organ and placed it into the bag. After a moment, and a pointed look or two, Shadowheart and Jaheira joined them, a grisly group picking through the muck and plucking out whatever they could that was still recognisable as having once been part of a person.
They worked in almost companionable silence, and when all that was left was an impossible spray of pulverized meat and blood – it felt like gallons and gallons and gallons of blood – Astarion took the bag, slung it over his shoulder, and stood.
His expression was soft, smeared as his face was with dirt and worse. He held out a pale hand, curled fingers stained red, but inviting. Killian spared a last look at the blood soaking his clothes, felt the same blood pulsing through his veins, and took it. Astarion pulled him to his feet and caught him when he swayed, his head finally buzzing empty – no headache, no thoughts, no dark urge.
He couldn’t smell the stink in the air any longer. Face buried in Astarion’s neck, he breathed in something citrus, something earthy, something sharp. He breathed and clung and let his empty head buzz with nothing and nothing and glorious nothing for he knew not how long. Eventually the sewers faded away and like waking from a dream, he was out on the street again, the day all too bright and loud and bustling merrily on, oblivious to what had happened below.
The bag full of Orin was still slung dutifully over Astarion’s shoulder. Killian looked to Shadowheart, the cleric, and then Jaheira, who could probably see the good in anyone, if she had found it in him.
“Come on,” he said. He was steady on his own two feet now. He was sure. “We’re going to give her a funeral.”
***
No one else wanted to give Orin the funeral she deserved. Or any funeral at all.
Even Astarion, perhaps obligated to be the most sympathetic, didn’t see the point. Killian was sure that none of them saw the point, though they all promised they would participate if only because it was important to him. Funerals, after all, were for the living.
He hated that. He didn’t deserve their help. But she did.
Karlach and Wyll helped him gather the wood and kindling. Halsin had scouted a suitable area just outside the Gate, not too far into the wilderness but distant enough as not to be disturbed. They needed a pyre, Killian insisted, to help release her spirit. He couldn’t remember what a Bhaalist funeral might be like, and he wasn’t sure it was what Orin needed, anyhow. Would their father welcome her into his domain even though she had failed him? Was that what she wanted?
It was likely what he had wanted when he had been in her place. But it wasn’t what he wanted now, for either of them. They had both always deserved more than a life and death knowing nothing other than murder— they had to have. He needed to believe that much.
Astarion watched over Shadowheart’s shoulder as she arranged wildflowers into a bouquet. He was clutching a fistful of pale blue belladonna. Killian smiled – toxic, blue and beautiful. It was obvious, but then Orin had not exactly been subtle. Shadowheart seemed to agree, because she took the flowers and found a place for them in her arrangement.
For some reason, Killian thought suddenly of Cazador: What is family, if not the monsters we are obligated to love? It had been a petty taunt, meant to hurt Astarion. But that didn’t make it any less true. They were all monsters of one stripe or another, and they all had families of their own who had wrought unique horrors upon each of them. And perhaps now they had become family to each other.
He supposed that made them Orin’s in-laws, in a way. For better or for worse. Anyway, he was a monster, and they all showered him with a love he thought must be obligatory for he saw no way in which he’d earned it.
Any good he’d done, he only had Orin to thank for.
***
The pyre roared high, spitting sparks into a starless night sky. Killian still knelt near the edge, eyes squeezed shut, knuckles white as he clutched the neck of a half-emptied bottle of Ithbank. The service, if it could be called that, had been held largely in silence. He knew it would be a fool’s errand to ask any of the others to say anything as a memorial. That they were all gathered around him, watching as all that was left of Orin went up in smoke, was already a kindness greater than he knew how to accept.
It was Halsin who eventually stepped forward, putting a hand on Killian’s shoulder. He stiffened at the contact at first, wrenched from the scattered chaos of his thoughts.
“Would you like any of us to say a few words?” Halsin’s voice was low and soothing. The gentleness felt as sharp as a slap across his face.
Something inside of him snapped at the deranged compassion of Halsin’s offer. Orin had led a cult that imprisoned and tortured Halsin, had infected the rest of them with mindflayer tadpoles, and had sought to unravel the very fabric of reality with a twisted Grand Design. No— she had usurped that cult, from him. And now, somehow, regardless of it all, of course they would still muster some kind of eulogy if they had to, even if all they knew of her was her capacity for evil. Because in him, they saw something more, and for him, they would honour her with the best platitudes they could find, if he asked them to.
Killian shook his head, giving a light squeeze to Halsin’s hand in thanks as he stood. No, he should be the one to speak. To make them understand why he needed this. He could do that much for Orin, at least.
He turned to face the gathering of his fellows — they had been strangers at first, then friends, and now, he was sure, family. So he spoke to them as such, letting the words flow as freely as he could.
“Orin the Red wanted to kill me. She wanted to kill all of us, and eventually, she wanted to kill the entire world. She simply… wanted to kill. To kill, and kill, and kill. I don’t know that it was a choice, that desire. She was born with it, like I was. And it was all she had been raised to know.” He swallowed thickly, trying to shake the embarrassment of the reedy timbre of his voice. “She wasn’t so different from any of us. She had no choices– no, she had no way to know that she had choices. I may have been Bhaal’s chosen, but she had a birthright I didn’t. She was born into the temple. She had an experience I can’t– that I don’t– it must have been something– something I can actually imagine all too well. What’s the line between a curse and a blessing to someone raised not to know the difference? She was created to be what she became; moulded, like I was moulded. Perhaps moreso. Her fate was written as indelibly as my own. What hope did she– no. What is hope, in a life like that? How did I come to find it?”
He looked out to the faces of his companions, each one staring somewhere just so slightly away from his– gazes sliding uneasily over the flames licking at the horizon, beyond him, beyond each other. Family, they might be. Falling prey to godlike power– false or true– was something they all shared. Something they each knew all too well.
“I woke on the nautiloid with a screaming, pulsing, parched need to brutalise. A god whispered to me at night and sent me gifts and sought to guide me back onto a path of blood. Of death. Of vengeance. But what has vengeance ever gotten me? How rotted is freedom that tastes like dried blood? What has my father actually given me? He promised me power but gave me a leash, and when I tried to pull on its slack he cut me loose. I suppose that was his right as my creator. What choice did I have? I’ve only done what I know. What you all have taught me since I awoke, reborn and brain utterly blank. I’ve made the choices I’ve been given. I don’t know about right or wrong. After a lifetime of one thing, I just… got lucky.”
His face twitched. He wasn’t sure what expression he was trying to make — anguish? Amusement? He brought the bottle of Ithbank to his lips and wet them, the sharp taste of wine tannins on his tongue an easier sensation to process. “Right. Wrong. Vengeance. It all tastes like ash. It all burns like funeral sparks spitting into the sky. I have no hatred for Orin. My– my cousin? My niece? My sister. My kin. She only did what she thought she had to do to find the acceptance she thought I had, that perhaps I did have. And she only wanted the same thing I want now. She wanted– she only wanted to be loved. To be valued. To be whole. I will not hold onto any anger for what she did to me, what she made of me. She did what she had been taught to do… and then she set me free from it. Without Orin, we all know what I would be. I would still be the same beast who killed Alfira, who would have joyously killed each and every one of you. The beast who even– who even tried–”
His eyes flicked to Astarion, then away, up, away, anywhere else. He clenched his fist even tighter around the bottle in his hands.
“How could I celebrate vengeance over my liberator? She wanted to please our father by ending my life, but instead she gave me a new one. She led me to all of you. Orin wanted to kill me, and even as I stand here living and breathing, I suppose she did. And for that, I– I am thankful. We should all be thankful to her, that I died.”
He turned back to the pyre, blinking at the heat in his eyes. He took a final swig from his bottle then threw it into the flames. It shattered, releasing the alcohol within, and the fire surged and soared high into the blacked-out sky above.
“To Orin.”
He was surrounded. Astarion was at his side, appearing as regal and unbothered as he always did, but his hand slid discreetly into Killian’s and gripped it firmly. A grounding touch. Karlach wrapped an arm around his shoulders and tugged him close, her warmth somehow seeping into him and bolstering him from the inside out. There was Halsin and Shadowheart and Gale and Wyll and Lae'zel and Jaheira and Minsc… They were all here for him. And through him, maybe, they were here for her, too.
It didn’t make it any better that when he was all Orin had, he’d lead her in a death cult and covered her in blood. It wasn’t his fault; she would have been there with or without him. But he still felt sorry for it.
It was strange, feeling that feeling, without the press of his father’s Urge trying to choke it out. He really was free now, his mind and his feelings and his actions solely his own responsibility. Thanks to her or thanks to Withers or thanks to fate or his own will. It was over.
He was sure everyone could see the shine of tears sliding down his cheeks now. It didn’t matter. They understood, and they loved him anyway. It felt warmer than the flames, safer than any cloak his father had given him. It was a love he had earned. Love that was now freely given. Not out of obligation, but because they each had played a hand in his rebirth.
He might be a monster still, but he was theirs now, and he was the one that they had chosen to love.
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always
knew
it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.