Work Text:
You open your eyes to endless darkness.
There’s an eerie, unique sort of beauty to the Astral Plane. For all that Faerûn has to offer, from the iridescent landscapes of the Underdark to the loftiest of the ancient elven cities, there’s nothing that can quite match the majesty of the stars, forever just out of reach.
After everything is said and done —after the tadpole fulfilled its mission, after the Netherbrain fell, after your companions found new callings for themselves— it’s easy to appreciate the stillness of this place. It’s so quiet it almost feels like it exists outside of time. It never demands anything; even the gravity tying you down lessens here, so that floating isn’t a struggle, but the true state of existence.
“You’re here again,” the Emperor says. You hadn’t noticed his arrival, the portal just as silent as the void in front of you. It seems that, though you’re arguably more powerful, his years of experience still tilt the balance in his favor.
You incline your head in a nod. Words seem superfluous lately, and especially so when they’re intruding in this safe place decked in soft greys and brilliant purples that you’ve carved for yourself.
A tendril of thought prods at the edges of your consciousness, gliding through the scars and the tar left behind by the illithid transformation and brushing gently the bright star that makes up who you are, still steadfast in its eternal battle against oblivion.
‘I’m still in control,’ you chide, waving your tentacles as if to brush off an invisible hand. For a moment, the Emperor’s expression tightens and he looks like the imperious stranger you first met instead, that unreachable, proud protector who your companions couldn’t bear to fully trust.
But those days are long over, and you were never wrong in trusting him. Eventually his posture relaxes again, just a little bit. His mental touch tentatively begins to retreat with obvious reluctance.
You roll your eyes, sending a little flicker of awareness to snap playfully against his. That show of personality seems to finally do the trick and he sighs, fondness replacing the wariness in his eyes.
‘Do not blame me for being worried,’ he sends back. There’s a hint of imperiousness in his mental voice that’s doing a terrible job of hiding the thread of real fear underneath. ‘You’re still so young. Our nature is not easy to suppress.’
It isn't indeed. Ever since you surrendered to it you’ve felt it, the nagging need to consume just at the very edge of your senses. Those first days, it had been hard to look at another being and not see them as mere sustenance.
Even Gale, who looked you in the eye and told you, I'd have made the same choice.
Even Lae’zel, who vowed on her blade to never cause you harm, even when her Prince rebuked her.
Even Jaheira, who promised to slay you if you ever strayed — but not a moment before.
And even now, some days are easier than others. Sometimes you can ignore the urge with nothing but a passing thought whenever your mind is free to wander. Sometimes it feels like your stomach is cramping and nothing at all can sate it. Sometimes the urge makes your head pound until you need to curl up in a small, silent, dark place until it passes.
No matter your form, you’ll stay true to yourself, Halsin had said when he first saw the illithid you became.
You’ll never get rid of the hunger, darling, Astarion had told you just before you parted ways, but you’ll learn to work around it.
I believe in you, always, Shadowheart threw her arms around you and holding you tight as if the thought of dying by your hand had never crossed her mind at all.
For them, for yourself, for Faerûn who remains beautiful even after its greatest tragedies, you’re determined to hold on. The illithid hive mind doesn’t stand a chance.
Still, sometimes pushing forward means finding a way to lay your burdens down for a moment. It’s not the first time you have retreated to this deserted plane. It likely won’t be the last. But what is certain is that you don’t regret one step of the journey that brought you here.
‘I’m okay,’ you insist. The hunger truly is manageable today, just a faint buzzing easy to set aside. It’s only that… ‘I just hadn’t expected Florrick to be at that meeting today.’
‘Ah,’ the Emperor says. ‘She reminded you of him.’
You close your eyes. the Emperor glides forward, putting a comforting arm around your shoulders. Despite what common knowledge would tell you, illithids run surprisingly warm, so you can’t help but lean into him like a sunflower searching for the sun.
You look up at the cold, dark, endless sky, getting lost on the beautiful ribbons of northern lights above you. In its own way, Avernus must have its own terrible beauty as well. You’ve glimpsed it sporadically whenever your dreams connect with his, those warm ochres and soft sands stretching as far as the eye can see.
“I asked Wyll to go, even though I couldn’t follow,” you say, finally breaking the silence. “It was the only way for Karlach to live. I just didn’t expect it would hurt so much.”
“Do you doubt he’ll return to us?” the Emperor challenges, keeping his tone neutral and his mental walls high. For a moment the spectre of Stelmane passes between you, but then it’s gone again. You turn your head, brushing your mouth against his exposed neck. His tentacles start to draw lazy circles over your shoulder.
“Never. He made a promise,” you say, resting your head against him. The Emperor remains tense; he’s had so many disappointments in his long life that he cannot bring himself to believe in your words. It’s hard to blame him; another heartbreak may be the thing that shatters him completely, when even the Absolute failed to do so.
But your conviction is made of sterner material. It’s born of nights by the campfire trading childhood tales, meager as they were. It’s in the memory that remains on your fingertips, of tracing new horns and scars with the moon as your only witness, it’s in the echoes of your shared promise: I’m here, we’re here, we’ll never be alone again.
Perhaps it’s just as well that you cannot claim love at first sight for this strange triad you’ve found yourself a part of. Neither Wyll nor you remain the people that you were when you met, back at that beautiful but damaged druid grove.
And the Emperor, well. He would say he stopped changing long ago, back when he shed his old human name. But the trip altered him as well, there in the bowels of the city where Balduran’s corpse will lay forever, even if he’ll never admit it.
“It’s not as if I mean to stay idle,” you say. You could push away to make your point, but instead decide to put your arms around his waist. The Emperor tenses for just a second too long, enough that you almost start to pull back, but then he relaxes into your embrace.
“Wyll will come back, when he and Karlach are finally free,” you say with absolute conviction. He’s the Blade of Avernus, the greatest hero of the Sword Coast. No matter the distance that separates you, even across the realms of gods and devils, he’ll never stop fighting to make his way back to you. “And when he does, he’ll find a city flourishing.”
Already, the miasma of despair has lifted from Baldur’s Gate. The debris has been cleared up, the gold is starting to flow again, the families that fled are coming back. And underneath it all, the Knights of the Shield have been reformed with you and the Emperor at the helm, carefully leading the strings.
When Wyll returns, his home will once again be a place he can be proud of; but there’s still so much to do until that day comes.
“If… you’ll still help me?” You ask, not quite able to stop the fear from showing in your voice.
The Emperor’s arms come to rest on your hips. The knot in your heart dissolves when you look at his bright eyes and see the resolve that has already proved to move mountains.
“Whatever your goals are, my dear,” he says. “Wherever your path leads, I’ll be by your side, for as long as you’ll have me.”
'Forever, then.' You send your vow out into the ether and pull him down for a kiss. Soon he reciprocates, picking you as if you weigh nothing, and laying down on the ground, looming above you. You lace your fingers behind his neck, pulling him towards you, and resolve to set all your worries aside for a while.
As you get lost in each other, here in this place at the edge of eternity, the stars above seem to shine a little brighter.
There they stay, bearing silent witness to the brilliant future that awaits you and the ones you love, soon to be reunited.