Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Our time together has been short and yet you are the first to ever call me family.In a nonthreatening way. Slightly threatening but not in the way of murder. The way of hugs that squeeze out all the breath your lungs can hold and you rubbing your fist on my skull like dough being kneaded.

I apologize again for biting you.

Boo may know, but I do not know if he has told you yet what it means to resist Bhaal as one of his spawn. I don't know the full history of your friend, but I know how my history will end. I will die. I cannot be shielded from this death and it is one I choose, for to succumb to this dark urge within me is not an option. I refuse, and therefore I will be no more.

So I apologize now for leaving you. I know you likely have very little family. I am grateful to have been a part of it. Your the best Uncle I have ever had.

And to you, Boo, I have only met one miniature giant space hamster. It was an honor and a privilege that I do not take lightly. Thank you for reading this to Uncle Minsc.

There is still evil in the city. Evil that threatens to destroy the world. I will not ask you hold back on crying, but if tears flood your vision may they not blind you against your foes. If you must sob let it be heard as a battle cry. If there is numbness, let it not reach your hands lest your weapons slip from your grip.

I believe in you. You're the hero after all.

Goodbye.

- The Dark Urge

P.S. Maybe one day you all can think of a new name for me. Wyll probably has ideas. Don't ask him right now.

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I didn't tell you this at the time, but a few days ago when you pounced towards my fading form, fur turning skin and feline features turning elven once more I remembered something. You called out magic, I could feel my wounds stitch together distantly but a memory surfaced. A nightmare if I'm honest.

I think I was loved once. I was at least cared for. And I repaid them in blood and death and tears of a trembling child out of control. The butler had soothed me, told me I would someday meet my real family. And Sceleritas Fel was right.

I found my family in you. My family is a Harper still in her prime, a Ranger who only answers me when addressed as 'Uncle Minsc', and a hamster. It's in the rag tag group we've stitched together in this crisis.

The crisis I started.

I was already family with them, but you're the one to open my eyes to it. That night you watched over me was the first I could recall of being at peace. I was not alone that night, and as I march towards Bhaal's punishment I still am not alone. I hold you all in my heart, as twisted and small as it may be. When this heart no longer pumps blood, when I am but another corpse killed in Bhaal's name, remember that it's better this way. My family may lose me, but I refuse to lose my family. I refuse to be a quivering child with loved ones' blood staining my palms.

I won't be there to help against the Elder Brain. I've helped as much as I can. Living any longer is to risk world annihilation. I trust you'll push the group along, that you won't fail to save the world again. 

Please be proud of me. If you cannot be proud, please don't curse my name. I am doing this for you. For my family. For the person you all helped me become.

I don't know if any of you loved me, but I know I was cared for.

Goodbye High Harper. 

-The Dark Urge

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I'm fucked. Completely and royally fucked. I've told you I'm Bhaalspawn. Told you of my Urges. And your support of me, belief in me that I could fight against them and be better than what I once was, it mattered. A push in the right direction. But I'm fucked either way.

I can't be both the person you believe I can be and alive to celebrate that accomplishment. Bhaal is the God of Murder. His blood is in my veins. To break hold from him, to become a person rather than a puppet, the strings must be cut. And as strong as I might seem, my soul is as brittle as porcelain. It will shatter once I fall. Too many slivers and shards to be put back together.

I can't tell you how to feel. I can order you to keep going soldier. March on, fight on. Breathe and feel and LIVE. Live for as long as you can.

I'm sorry I won't be there for that dinner with your friend. Ask her to name her baby after me. 

That was a joke. They fall kind of flat on paper.

I only know of one sister of mine. I'd rather think of you as one. Partially to sooth my own ego, since responding to someone with a loud EWWW in inquiry of being together makes more sense from siblings than good mates. More importantly, because I love you. In the way that I would also respond EWWW if someone asked if we're together. If only there was time to learn what being a sibling really means. But time is always too fucking short.

Goodbye Soldier,

The Dark Urge

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This is not an excuse to blow yourself up. My redemption comes from death: a destruction of a tainted body with a broken mind. Your redemption comes from life: creation of that crown to be relinquished to a goddess. To have the weight lifted from your chest. The preservation of a brilliant mind of a kind man is a worthy pursuit. I pursued it too, for as long as I was able. I will be sorely cross with you if you throw that effort away now.

But I am but a cracked kettle and you are a polished pot. Calling out the bleakness of your potential death does little to scrub away the hypocrisy of my actions, but it's all my blackened soul can offer.

I thank you for your efforts to help me mend myself. To create someone from the rubbish left behind. But I cannot be something new. The blood in my veins, the blood on my hands, the blood so voluminous that all of Baldur's Gate could drown in it, it would only grow. 
So let my blood be the last drops spilt in this wretched thing's life. 

For the little time I had with everyone, despite the terrors, the trials, the neverending troubles, despite it all I found joy. I found friends. I found hope.

My hope does not die with me. If I return to the clutches of Bhaal in death, or wander the Fugue plane, directionless and alone, I know I will still hold hope. Hope that you all save the world. That you save each other. That you all have happy endings.

So I better not meet you in the Fugue plane with an orb sized hole in your soul.

You told me once that one honors death by fearing it. And that they honor life by living it. I don't want to honor death anymore. Please honor life for me. Do this favor for a friend.

Goodbye Gale Dekarios, 

-The Dark Urge

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Before you write me off as another fool too impotent to claim an inheritance deserved of them, to throw away the right to rule and the power to rule well, listen to my reasons. I don't intend to die purely over some moral high ground. The hill I die on is also a practical one.

Would you accept the power to be a killing machine, to slice and rip and slaughter any enemy in your way, if the weapon you would become was wielded by Lolth? Would you accept the crown of queendom over all of Faerun, if the Gods of Death played with your strings, puppeting you to their will? Would you once again submit to the Absolute if they promised you everything you ever could desire?

"The life of a mind-addled slave is a fate worse than death." Do you expect me to submit myself to that fate?

No power is worth it. I will die a weak child who could have been much more. And I will be happy. I will be as free as I could ever hope to be.

And I thank you. I thank you for bringing comfort in the promise of a merciful blade. On nights where my blood thrummed with the song of slaughter, your promise to put me down was all that could bring me to slumber.

An odd way to tell you that I trust you, but there it is all the same.

And I thank you for ending me, if I am but a fool writing hopes and dreams, doomed to a reality of being Bhaal's beast. May any injuries I leave you heal quickly.

My corpse can't tell you what to do. My living body and twisted soul could not manage such a thing in life. If you absolutely must rule, if you must conquer the Absolute for your own usage, do not let your heart turn steely. Enver Gortash will want to rule with an iron grip. But with enough pressure and heat, iron can bend. And if it refuses to bend, it will snap.

A letter of recommendation for Gortash is in the attached envelope. I won't be able to help in the fight anymore, so let me help in the after. It's the least I could do. 

May your house live and thrive. May you keep a soft heart, keep the strength to be vulnerable, keep yourself from becoming another one of Gortash's Steel Watchers.

I have said my piece. Write me off as a fool if you're still inclined. This fool was wiser to have listened to you. This fool was stronger from being at your side. This fool was better for having called you friend.

Goodbye Minthara,

-The Dark Urge 

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I resisted. I did not become his. 
It's strange writing this letter. With the others I feel I need to explain myself, my actions, and why they cannot let my death hold them back. But with you it is special easy harder different. It is different.

Because you know this feeling. Your experiences resonate with mine, though our former masters wear different faces. You know what must be done to escape. I hope you survive and thrive. I have no doubts that you will escape, that you will know freedom.

I know death is not always the end, but I hope it will be for me. I know you've been getting close to figuring out that necromancer's tome. Don't raise my body back. My corpse WILL kick your ass.

I will try to draw you but in case my skills are lacking: your hair does curl around your ears like I once said and no, you don't have a hideous mole. Shadowheart was fucking with you. You have pronounced frown lines and high cheekbones which hollow your cheeks but in that way pretty people have. Your eyes are the colour of rubies or over ripe strawberries, and you have two eyelids. Well four technically. Two sets of two eyelids. Your eyebrows are not messy and are a shade darker than your head hair. 

Your blood tastes like a freshly used utility knife that you eat apple slices from. Heavy metallic taste with the hint of sweet tartness, like those green apples in Rivington we found. 

When you don't wear your perfume, or soaps, or whatever scent items you like, you don't smell like a corpse. Your smell-nice stuff isn't corpse smelling either, just saying you don't need to hide behind it.

I'll say thank you again before I put both of my feet in my mouth. Thank you for understanding. For being my friend.

And you're welcome, for me being "that evil bastard". Perhaps it's also different, this letter, because your freedom is the arguably the one good thing I ever did was a part of. Accidentally yes, but I will count it. It's easier to think on the good I've been a part of. Facing death with only my sins sounds like a bad time.

I hope you will help face the Elder Brain. I understand if you don't. After all, we must resist. We cannot be anyone else's ever again. That being said, you are strong, stronger than you know. The others could use that strength, and we have collected a lot of treasure to reward yourself with after... I know you will do your best, whatever path you take. 

Goodbye Astarion,

-The Dark Urge 

*In the remaining space on the parchment is an attempted illustration of Astarion. The drawing is signed with the artist's initials 'TDU' "

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My death brings balance.

I am a creature carved from the dead flesh of a wicked god. A walking bout of leprosy, blighted in blood and cursed in mind matter. Nothing about my existence is natural.

Your Oak Father would not preserve me.

To live is to spread the rot deep inside me, a disease with no cure, only murder and blood and blood and blood and blood .To die is to be free of this wretched thing I am. Your freedom as well as mine.

That you saw good in me is a blessing I hold deep in my shrivelled heart. Your faith in me gave me hope. Hope that I could be a real person, rather than bloodlust incarnate. Hope that your observations and praise were true, that goodness in me was possible. Hope that I could help you find the balance that you seek.

It does exist Halsin. I can't help you find it anymore, beyond dying that is. Hells, maybe I was the obstacle in front of the answer, my very being tipping the scales far into the darkness. Obscuring the light. But that is something the living should ponder. The almost-dead can ponder on final wishes, though.

Owlbears aren't really bears I know, but you're not fully a bear either. Raise the cub well. He was the first beast I ever offered mercy. One of the few actions I am proud of. 

Goodbye Halsin. May your Oak Father preserve you. 

-The Dark Urge 

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You once asked me what I would do to save my home. What would I sacrifice for those I care for?

At the time nobody mattered to me. Not even myself, really. But I understood survival, and the idea of sacrificing my life, my soul, my everything was, frankly, ridiculous.

I march into the belly of the beast, prepared to give up my life, my soul, my everything and it's still ridiculous. 

It is also the only way.

You were a listening ear when I barely knew how to speak intelligibly. You were a compass of wisdom pointing me towards 'good'. You were selfless before I even knew that was a thing someone could be.

Thank you, for being the Blade of Frontiers, when the only blade I had ever known before was forged for murder and lobotomies. 

I can never atone for what I have done. What I can do is stop myself from becoming even worse. Stop the monstrosity I will be if I do not resist Bhaal.

I don't do this for Baldur's Gate, not specifically anyway. I do this for the world in general, though for a more specific reason. 

This world is where our group sets up camp. This world is where we danced and drank and felt joy. This world is where I felt anything at all. This world is where we have fought side by side over and over and over again. 

This world is important to most of the people who are important to me. And it needs to survive if everyone I care for are to survive this horror I started. I resist because I must, because I refuse the alternative.And I am afraid.  I am so very afraid. Such a pathetic wretch.

And I hope you fight, and fight well. I hope my actions do more good than harm. I hope you can forgive me some day. My sins cannot be cleansed, not by a lobotomy or a few weeks of clumsy attempts to mimic your kind soul. All I can do is destroy Bhaal's two deadliest weapons: Orin The Red and The Dark Urge.

Goodbye Wyll.

-The Dark Urge 

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When I spoke of my bloodlust, you pointed me towards a suitable target. When I spoke of my lack of control, you demanded better of me. When I spoke of violence, of carnage, of my darkest Urges, you did not flinch. You did not look away. You treated me as a warrior, not a monster. You offered no pity and I thank you for that.

I now die in the defiance of a god. It is a good death, as good a death I could ask for. My mind has never allowed me to mourn. Death, every death, is to be celebrated.

To wish a long life upon another feels wrong, even if I know it should be right. Of everyone I have ever known you may live the longest.

You are a warrior. I know you will die a good death; silver sword in hand, sweat and blood dripping from you as your adrenaline drives you even further, just one more kill, just one more foe slain.
You will even fight death, when it comes for you.

So I will not wish you a long life. I will wish you a good death. To be felled by a worthy foe. A death that can be celebrated, remembered and echoed for eons to come . You will not be forgotten. Lae'zel of Creche K'liir will be etched into stone.

Lae'zel, it was an honor. That you saw enough worth in this broken thing that I am to have me at your side, to fight as allies, to keep me alive at all, well it's an honor few deserve, let alone a wretch like me. I won't argue with your judgement. I am grateful for it. And I have had enough of words. I have had enough of waiting.

I crave blood. Goodbye, Lae'zel.

-The Dark Urge

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If you were to ask Lady Loss for one more boon, to relieve you of the memory of me, I would not fault you for it. Regardless I will be petty enough to add more work for Shar by adding this letter to that list of memories.

You know what it means to navigate the world with so little of yourself, grasping at the shreds of your identity to guide you. You know what it is to be faced with the past, to recall enough scraps to paint a picture that is, frankly for us both, pretty fucked up. And you shared with me the feeling of a god's ire. 

Pain so intense you thought you would claw your own face off was it? Something tells me Bhaal will be no gentler.

But I will shred my face apart if it means I won't kill you. My limbs could catch aflame if it means I won't devour our friends. I can be brave. I need to be brave. I will be brave.

You showed me how to say no to the divine. Thank you for that. Action is easier when there is someone to copy. An example to follow. As much as any of you say that I'm the leader of our bunch, really I'm just mimicking all of you. A questionable decision maybe, but you should be are all alive so not the worst one.

I never disuaded you from your faith, in your embrace of Shar and your path turning away from her. Please do not fault me from how I chose to handle my own religious departure. Or if you must, may Shar make you forget that tid bit too.

Do not forget Scratch though. As much as I adore him I must admit you give the best ear scritches. I expect you to keep that up while I'm gone. His ball should be on your bed. He likes to play fetch three times a day, but you'll avoid his sad puppy eyes if you throw it at least twice. Shar better not fucking scrub that away from your brain.

I didn't have to run back to open your pod. I am so very glad I did.

Goodbye Shadowheart,

-The Dark Urge