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She regarded the tiny aberration in its bottle with her usual stony silence.
Enver Gortash had sauntered into the mind flayer colony's abattoir, walking past the scuttling intellect devourers and lobotomized bugbear with the menacing joy of a cat coming home with its kill stuffed in its mouth.
Even as he placed the tadpole in her bloody hands, she couldn't quite understand his elation.
"There it is, the fruit of our most unholy alliance, ten years in the making," he proclaimed, his fingers curling around her hand as they urged her to clutch onto it. "Bottled apotheosis."
She turned the magnificently monstrous creature in her hand.
"…is that how you plan to peddle ceremorphosis?"
Gortash gestured to the sphincter door, a wicked smirk upon his shadowed face.
"Walk with me. Leave the butchering to your pets. This sort of menial labor is beneath you."
She stared at his outstretched claws for a beat, a cleaver still in her other hand. Thunk. One last chop to cleave open the cadaver's skull before having the bugbear wipe her hands clean.
"You may believe illithid psionics to be a far cry from godhood," continued Gortash as they walked, "but not all of us can be born with a divine purpose, my dear Bhaalspawn. We make our own — our own cosmic fate, our grand design."
Bodies were lined in cocoons, fervent Absolutists who would were chosen to be the first to undergo partial ceremorphosis and non-believers who were less eager but would receive the Absolute's blessing nonetheless.
"Volunteers, most of them," said Gortash, "yearning to be part of something bigger than what Ao the all-father gave them."
Finally, they reached the brine pools. Under the grey-green glow of that alien suspension, the years on Gortash's face became more evident.
Orin and the shallar could change their faces on a whim, whilst Sarevok and Bhaalspawn Echoes' visages were frozen in time. And yet, the Banite—no, Enver Gortash had transformed so gradually and suddenly all at once.
Ten years for her was a grain of sand. For him, it was a third of his life's hourglass. Ten years ago, he did not have so many lines on his carved face — each one like a script that recorded their history.
The sunken eyes from sleepless nights spent stuffing brain meat into metal husks. The crows feet that told of his many easy, wicked smiles. And the most prominent of all, the deep scar on his chin — a reminder of the one and only time her Father twisted her bones and remolded her flesh to become the Slayer.
It was one of the three times she remembered being afraid.
"Curious, isn't it?" said Gortash, snapping her out of her reverie. "During my stint in the Hells, I learned very quickly about the value of a mortal soul. It's the only power we have over devils — the only thing we have over gods."
"It stands to reason then that what most people consider a soul couldn't possibly be a soul. Their whole will, their concentrated being — so easily tainted and traded. A fragile thing of no power at all. Now, this…"
He cradled the tadpole bottled in her hand.
"This is a true soul. With this, we can shape a world where people's fates are no longer dictated by what some distant father did in some distant past."
She didn't seem at all moved or convinced, but she didn't step away or balk from his closeness.
"And I know your father in particular is a god, but…" he continued, sensing an opening. "You are already more than what he could ever be. I do not trust or believe in your Lord of Murder, but I do believe in you. We can achieve perfection, not destruction."
Gortash stepped close enough to whisper.
"We were always greater than those who made us," he said. "You've already outgrown being someone's cowed child. Imagine us standing in our own power. Together."
"Nobody's daughter," A unreadable look crossed Gortash's face if only for a fraction of a second as he added, "and nobody's son."
This wasn't the first time Gortash had attempted to sway her into considering ruling the world instead of destroying it, but this was the first time she said something in return.
Her voice was barely above a breath, as she lifted her gaze from their intertwined hands to his face that was inches from hers.
"Then who would I…"
It happened in an instant. Before Gortash has realized she had stopped mid-sentence, she had already twisted like a whip and thrown a stiletto in the direction of the doorway. It pierced the throbbing flesh walls with a sickening squelch.
Gortash had already cast a spell of truesight on himself. There was no one there, not even an intellect devourer doing its rounds.
And yet, he could see her shoulders heaving. Rare were the times that he's seen her like this but those scant instances were branded onto his memory.
She was afraid.
"I can assure you there's no one watching," he said. "Even the mind flayers floating about are completely subservient to the Nether Brain. You needn't fear judgment from the likes of them."
She clutched at her temples.
"The blood beneath my skin is my warden," she hissed. "It is what judges me. They're always watching. They whisper and scream all at once, pounding at my head. I've made a mistake."
Ah, the voices, of course. There was a method to Bhaalist madness, but it was madness nonetheless. Theirs was a reality warped by blood and carnage. She hid it better than most, and she had buried those Urges deep enough to make for a placid surface. But the deeper one goes, the more twisted the creature one tends to find.
Her blood-red eyes darted frantically to every corner of the room, until they finally settled on Gortash.
He was expecting her to lunge out and scratch him. It would not be the first time. He already had his arms open wide to absorb that first strike and readying himself to retaliate. One of the pitfalls of becoming a duke was that he rarely had the opportunity to hone his less-than-scrupulous style of pugilism. Any weapon needs a rough edge to keep itself sharp, and she always gave him a worthwhile bout of delightful pain.
But that sharp hand that he expected to pierce skin cupped his face ever so gently. After ten years, he had thought there was nothing else his mad accomplice could do that would surprise him. But then again, she did have a penchant for proving him wrong.
She smiled and let out a huff that could almost have been a laugh.
And just like that, all previous panic vanished. It was like none of the past minute ever happened. She yanked her stiletto from the wall.
"Enver." Not Banite. Not Enver Gortash. Not Gortash. Just Enver. "Don't look for me."
"Wait," he said just as she was about to leave.
He offered up the tadpole bottle.
"I know you Bhaalists don't believe in such a trifling concept as personal property, but this is supposed to be yours."
In his hands, the wriggling thing looked as if it were cradled by a golden crib. He had given her many gifts over the years, but apart from things useful to the Temple of Bhaal, she had rejected them all with the kind of cold disregard only someone who never needed to have any possessions of her own could. She used the Bhaal temple's weapons, wore the Bhaal temple's hides, and kept the Bhaal temple's scrolls. And the Bhaal temple had no need for jewelry, portraits, or other useless mementos.
"Not mine," pressed Gortash. "Not the Absolute's. Not the Bhaal's. Yours."
She stared at it for longer than she should have, and for a moment, he thought she reject it as she often did.
And so he could not help but smile when she took it before turning her back to him.
"Don't look for me," she repeated.
Thinking back on it, there was an inexplicable sorrow in her tone that Enver hadn't noticed until the months upon months of replaying them in his mind.
Those were her last words to him before her sister killed her.