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Everything gives you away;
It is impossible to walk this world unknown. A stranger to many, sure, and now even a stranger to yourself, you still find ways to make your presence known, unwittingly.
Everything gives you away; your stride, your lopsided smile, your forever tense stance, your razor sharp handwriting and your even sharper gaze, despite your ever so present uncertainty.
Your new companions do take notice of these traits, perhaps because your history poses such an irresistible mystery to them all, and even more yourself.
They don't flinch, they never would, they are accustomed to even more gruesome sights after all, but you notice the way their eyes linger on you perhaps a moment far too long when you slice through various throats on the battlefield, more ease in your body when dealing with bloodshed then when being offered a reassuring smile;
the way their eyebrows raise, ever so slightly, when you hesitate to let go of your blade, even when the job has long been over, and were there perhaps not something primal in you, something perhaps best left buried deep within, well, perhaps you wouldn't have noticed.
But you do, and you suspect that you lived a life where that ability to notice even the smallest of matters meant a difference between living to see another sunrise, and choking on your own blood, your last moments spent counting all the rats already nearing, somewhere in a forgotten street gutter.
And yet, it is all mere speculation; can something be seen as true, if you do not have the means to explain it, the means to remember, to relive?
Something gruesome, something you'd rather claim was foreign but know it comes to you as second nature, festers deep withing you, and as long as it does not rise to the surface, clawing at your innards and searing your heart until all that's left are charred remains and a desire to slash, maim, destroy, you can whisper to yourself that maybe, just maybe, it is not the true you.
As long as it remains hidden away, you can continue decieving yourself, can you not?
And if you perpetually succeed in decieving yourself, well then you can continue decieving others, until your facade becomes your truth, and what was once real is now chewed up and swallowed, a meaningless thing consumed by your desire for acceptance, your desire for new begginings, and ultimately, a desire all too mortal, all too strange and yet inescapable..?
A desire to be loved.
But if all they love is a mask and not its wearer, are you truly loved?
A question best left unanswered.
Your truth shall become what you make of yourself; at last, you have ultimate freedom, the only fact you know for certain being the way your name feels on your tongue, the only welcome feeling in this world amplified by your fantasies of the joyful way your mother may have exclaimed it when you were a child, but even that is wishful thinking.
Your name, your anchor, a double passage to a person you once were and a person you shall forge from that which remains; that is, at least it used to be so, until that fateful, dreadful, all too painful therefore all too intriguing night, when you heard his name uttered by someone else's lips and knew right away that it would only sound right when spoken by none other than yourself; A spark of light, in the darkness the past was to you.
To call it haunting would be an understatement.
To know nothing of oneself, nothing but two names, your own and someone else's.
Who is this man?
Who was he to you?
And perhaps even more important in the light of recent events, who could he become to you now?
With that single name, all your aspirations started crumbling; you could become someone else, indeed, but the fire of not knowing seared at your heart, its smoke suffocating your mind, and the salvation of finding out seemed more and more enticing with each passing moment.
Despite the desire to live a life free from the darkness which made its home inside you, the wish to let go of whatever pretenses of politeness and normalcy you were clinging on to felt more urgent than ever, and so did the need to find out whatever you could about him, to wreak havoc until you manage to find him, and in finding him find the one you used to be, solving the mystery which burdened you from the moment you awoke in that forsaken Nautiloid.
Enver Gortash.
Your salvation or damnation, one could hardly care when the intoxicating promise of clarity and truth was already steadily approaching and you have grown weary of hiding.
The way your companions spoke his name could be likened to the way one speaks of a pest that made its way into a once tidy and peaceful home; that does seem to be the case, you note; a man of humble origins who rose through the ranks with a dexterity and willpower that rendered him both an object of envy and admiration, unnerving nobility stiffled by the traditions of times long gone by, collapsing their meticulous hierarchy to the ground beneath his feet.
A man admired, hated, feared and envied.
Someone you ought to despise.
And yet, someone who you seem to have known as well as you know yourself, someone who you now know as well as yourself, that is to say, not at all, and yet completly; a lot can be denied but the connection you feel to him not even death could sever, it seems.
A man much like a person you suspect you used to be.
Even being familiar with him is enough to arise suspicion, and with good reason; to have been close with him would ensure you never see the smiling faces of the people you've come to call your companions, but rather that you meet their blades and become just one of many who have wronged them, someone deserving of their contempt.
It would be the best to hide it, even a child would be aware of that; but can you, when his existence seems so intertwined with your own?
Should you?
Will you?
When the chances of your meeting become more and more apparent, will you be able to restrain your heart, to listen to reason?
Or even more important, will he choose to play the same game, or is one simple sentance all it takes for your walls to come crashing down, alongside whatever trust your friends had in you?
You had changed.
You presumed so, indeed, but had no grounds to base your suspicions on.
Enver Gortash, on the other hand, held pride in the fact that no one could surprise him, and you were no exception to the rule.
It was nothing like that at first, of course; Bhaal's chosen, his scion, with a ruthless hand swift to strike, an agility inherent to that of a wild animal, and a face far too alluring given what a monster hid beneath it; those were his first thoughts upon your meeting, and quite obvious ones; a lowly nobody that had the misfortune, or as those bhaalist fanatics would deem it, an honour to die by your hand, would come to those same conclusions in just mere seconds that spanned from first noticing you to lifelessly hitting the ground on which you proudly stood.
Gortash never was one to be satisifed with so little; all his life has ever been was a wish, a need as strong as that for air, to know more, to have more, to be more.
And naturally, he was never going to settle for that which you first offered him; it was simply ingrained in him to ask that which very few dared to.
It began as a mixture of curiosity and a pure and simple want for knowledge of you that he could exploit if needed; it then grew into familiarity that shifted into fondness with such an ease before becoming something neither of you spoke aloud but never needed to either; it was obvious enough, and if it was never spoken aloud perhaps you could keep on telling yourselves that it wasn't so.
He could keep on reassuring himself that it was all simply for maintaining your alliance, that it was all a deft political move, a relationship formed for mutual benefit, nothing else, and you could keep on comforting yourself with continuous reminders of what it is that your Lord Father wishes; complete oblivion, that neither you nor Enver can escape.
And yet, you made frequent visits to him, sprawled in his armchair as if it were your own, flashed him toothy grins which would have unnerved anyone else, but made him smile like you've rarely seen him do.
You made plans together, finding the thought of having eachother as the only confidante, Ketheric forgotten in your schemes, strangely welcoming.
It was easy to lose sense of how it all ought to be in such moments, but you were both meticulous in what you did, therefore keeping a sound mind proved doable, bussiness being your first priority; it was, however, those moments of lingering after such meetings that made your heart beat with a vigor previously unfelt;
the way his brows furrowed when deep in thought, the way his hair danced around his temples, the satisfied gleam in his eyes when observing the fruits of his labour, even the way he never seemed to lace his shirts properly despite his dedication to upkeeping his reputation; it all burned itself in your mind.
You've only truly felt alive when covered in gore, blade warm in your hands, and when sitting on the windowsill of his office, talking of your plans or even things that don't really hold much importance, because you were both aware of the dangers of straying too far.
Enver held pride in the fact that he knew you like no one else did and the fact that he could hardly ever be surprised.
However, that sureness disappeared when the news of your miraculous survival arrived; not much later, so did you.
You have indeed changed, he noticed.
You used to walk about as if the whole world existed merely to fulfill whatever whims you cared for in that moment, head forever high enough to reach the heavens, despite him knowing you suprisingly often felt far from it, your brilliant mind continuously at odds with your trecherous, blood-seeking nature.
Now, it was as if all that uncertainty which you used to hide and suppress with surgical precision followed at your heels, perhaps taking the likeness of your dear sister Orin, or even your beloved Father, with your walk steady, but guarded, and at a significantly slower pace than it was before.
A long, now mostly faded scar slithered from the roots of your hair, slicing your eyebrow and settling just above your eyelid, before curving towards your ear; a sloppy work, made in a hurry by a hand overcome with sick fascination, all to common for the one responsible.
Your gaze still as sharp as ever, he notes, but filled with caution similar to that of a young viper, unaware just how potent its poison is.
Despite the obvious changes he could not help but smile at that which even death and memory loss couldn't steal from you; your hands just as steady as they always were, your voice still even and dignified, with just a tinge of melancholy that was present for as long as he had known you, your hair held up in the same manner it always was, for practicality of course ( and were this your old days, he might have even made a crude joke in regards to it), and perhaps the oddest, laughable detail, that only made the sight of you more endearing; a single flower, tucked behind your ear.
He used to tease you, back in the day, all thanks to that exact habit:
'A scion of Bhaal, his coldhearted assassin, weaving marigolds into their hair, as a child might do?' Enver remarked with a grin, a trace of disbelief in his voice, one unusually warm spring evening, when you came to meet him in his office.
' Is it truly such an odd sight?' a melodic voice rang, followed by a laugh that could be compared to the sound of blades clashing against one another.
'I always found marigolds quite beautiful, and dare I say, they could not suit me better than they do, so why spare the world such a wonderful sight?' You said in that honeyed, singsong tone that made it so easy to forget the world and all its problems, followed by a theatrical twirl before taking your place in the armchair next to the fireplace..
If anything, marigolds made you look softer, kinder, a clear advantage in your line of work...And yet they also suited you the way morning dew suited grassy meadows, or the way sunlight suited dragonfly wings; as if they were created simply to make your visage all the lovelier. What an irony, no?
Soon enough, whenever you visited, a vase filled with fresh marigolds sat on Enver's desk, filled to the brim when you entered, and always a single marigold short when you left.
You do not remember this, but he does, and it is enough for now.
He even holds a somewhat twisted pleasure in the fact that none of your companions posses the knowledge of you that he possesses; indeed, they've come to know the new you, you that poses a mystery to him, but when all is said and done, it is he who who has the answers to the questions he can already see swarming behind your eyes, the knowledge that none other but him can offer you the comfort, the truth, the salvation, same as it had been before Orin took it upon herself to make a ruination of your mind.
You could change your name, you could alter your appearance, take on a whole new identity, yet he would always be able to tell you apart from others,
if not by the way you hold yourself,
then by the way you extend your palm upon first meetings,
and if not by that, then by a single flicker of that same palm with which you fix a stray strand of hair,
and if not even then,
then by your lopsided grin,
by that perverse gentleness present whenever you handle a weapon,
by your heavy eyelids, burdened by sleepless nights common for all bhaalspawn,
by the inescapable smell of marigolds that always lingered in your hair,
your deft handwriting,
your uneven nails,
the twitch of your brow,
the sharpness of your teeth,
swiftness of your arms,
your legs,
the tension in your neck,
your quiet, yet gurgling cough,
your laugh akin to clashing blades,
your everything,
indeed,
everything,
and finally the way you always said his name like no one else ever could, like it was more than a name of a man who came from nothing, rose from nothing, rather as if it was something sacred, undeniable, with a familiarity that made both your hearts ache.
He would know you even if he did not know himself, just like you knew him despite knowing nothing else.
And for now, that was enough; the comfort in knowing that everything you did gave you away; the comfort in you simply being alive, and the comfort in hoping that perhaps, in the end, you were still the one he knew.
Hope, a word all too sour and all too familiar; a word he was sure was going to be beaten out of him, till he grew to detest its mere mention, and yet, here he was, once more.
Hoping.