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It was quiet in the graveyard, the only sound were her quiet sobs, the only witness was the night sky. Dirt underneath her nails, the grave for her sister digged and closed before her. The only things that she had been able to put in a container was viscera and some bones. The rest had been returned to her Father. The Father who had killed her, who had sacrificed Orin without thinking about it. It didn't matter now, He didn't matter now. There would no marked grave for Orin, nobody else who would mourn her. Nobody else who would kneel down and remember Orin. It was only her. Nobody else had cared, her companions had all tried to tear her away from her sister. She had been furious. In another time, it would be her who laid there. They didn't understand, they would never understand. They wouldn't understand how it felt to finally have your memories restored to you but how it was a dream and a curse. How she remembered all the good and all the bad. And all the good that had been tainted now. She had another decision to make.
The power of the Netherstones was palpable in her hands. Two Netherstones won in blood, pried away from corpses. Her boots on the stone floor, another Netherstone waited. The idea of that one being pried away from his corpse, his cold, dead body. She almost became sick. But instead she smelled blood, the metallic scent rising up in the audience chamber. The place where she had seen him again. Littered with corpses, a present to the person she had been. Nobody interrupted her, the Netherstones clasped in her hands. She knew where she had to go, walking up the stairs. Everything was so pristine here, nothing like the state she was in. Tears who had weaved a path down her face that was dusted in dirt. Her hands covered in dirt. Would he recognize her now? Or would he be disgusted?
It was cold when she walked out to the balcony, the city in a slumber, unaware from what was happening. Not aware that she would have to tear another part away from herself to save it. Not like it would care, she was always made to give. Made to surrender to what was needed, by Father, by the greater good. Nobody that would care about what she had to give up, it was her role. It was her divine purpose.
Haven't I given enough?
Could there be nothing that she could choose for herself? One thing that she could keep? Just for herself? Was this not why she had rejected her Father? For freedom? It wasn't to get rid of the noose of Him to offer herself to another one. To give herself the choice to choose what she wanted instead of what was expected from her? The doors opened, no questions asked.
"Achlys?" There was still a possibility to choose for herself. Freedom, it had been a foreign concept to her, something that wasn't meant for people like her. Rigidity, discipline, servitude - those had been the words that she had lived her life with. Even without her memories, she had clung to a deity. Even without knowing who she was, she had shaped herself after the person she thought she had to be. The kind hero because Wyll and Karlach wanted it, the light in the dark because Lathander had required it.
"Enver?" He stood at his large table, surprised to see her. Or maybe it was the way how she looked. Maybe it was because she was at a crossroads, maybe she didn't know. But they moved closer together until they met in the middle and it felt like it was supposed to be this way. His dark eyes looking back at hers.
"I defied Father. I rejected Him." A look of disbelief in his eyes.
"How? How are you alive now?"
"Withers, he resurrected me. He gave my life back and my memories. I'm now a Child of None." She grasped the Netherstones so tight that she would feel every edge dig into the palm of her hands. If he only needed the Chosen of Bhaal, she would know it now. If she had been a fool to come, it would be now that he struck. But he didn't, he just looked at her.
"I killed her." Her voice so thin now, almost like something had possessed her. The sight of her sisters hand reaching out, the blood, the desperation of salvaging anything that she could. But his hands just reached out, pulling her closer. The scent of wood and amber that she knew so well enveloped her. And for the first time she could inhale deeply. For the first time she allowed herself to just be. Just Achlys, not the daughter of Bhaal or the perceived hero of the Gate. She could just be.
"I know I had to kill her, but she was my sister," she whispered as her tears had been used up already.
"Is that why you look like you rolled around in the dirt? Because you buried her?" There was no judgment there, he knew how she felt about Orin.
"Yes."
"Let's get you cleaned up, I'll get them to run you a bath."
She smelled like vanilla and lavender now, bath oils that he had kept for her. Had he moved them here in hopes of ever seeing her again? The clothes he had given were made for her, fitting her exactly. Not the black and gold that he wore, no, the robe was emerald green like the dioptase they had seen once. She had told him that she loved the color and he had remembered. Someone who had hoped that she returned back to him, he wouldn't have kept this if he didn't.
Two chairs were turned to face each other, two glasses of red wine on the table as he was already waiting for her. The two Netherstones in her hand, put down on the table as she sat down.
"I presume that you're not just here for a hug because you just buried your sister." Like he was opening a game of lanceboard, he couldn't measure her now. He didn't know how much of the woman he used to know was inside of her.
"Let's speak plainly, Enver. Let's not retreat back into the games we played before we trusted each other." If he was surprised, he didn't show it. The same smile still on his face, the confidence that he wore with ease.
"Let's speak plainly, Achlys. Why did you come here without your companions?"
"I wanted to bury Orin alone, without any judgments. Also got my memories back today, you can imagine that it's a lot." There was a small smile that seemed genuine before he sipped his wine.
"So you remember everything about us?" She just nodded, words couldn't even describe it. There had been some memories that had fought their way back to her, but it seemed like nothing compared to what they had shared. How he had made her feel like a person, like she had a right to shape her own future. Away from her Father, away from the obedience that was demanded from her. The promise wrapped in a man with a shadowed hand of his own God.
"We could become Absolute," he had whispered to her, it was as if he had given the world to her.
"I know that this must be unnerving for you. Like you're back to the woman that you met at the Jannath estate," she stated before she took a sip of wine herself. A deep red with an wooden undertone, rich and extravagant. Just how she liked her wine.
"The woman I met there would have cut my heart out already for her Father. She wouldn't have defied Him." A flicker of candlelight lit up his face, the small scars and his dark eyes. Those eyes that would have haunted her until the end of her days.
"There was a time where I would have killed you without question, you would have been the last one to be slaughtered on my Father's altar before I took my own life." He grinned at that, like she just hadn't told him she would have killed him. But he probably had known it, she had been a Bhaalspawn after all. It was what he had chosen when he first kissed her.
"That almost seems like a declaration of love for you. Would you still do it?"
"I don't need to, I am free from my Father's will. I can choose to live." He leaned towards her, his elbows on his thighs.
"And what do you choose to do with that life?"
There were two doors that she could open up, the one that she would have chosen a day ago. Take his life, take the Netherstone and defeat the Elder Brain. Return to Waterdeep with Gale, be his wife and settle down. A fairytale happy ending where everybody was happy at the end, she would be the Hero of the Gate, the Bhaalspawn who had chosen to embrace the good and chose kindness. But would it be what she had always wanted? More labels, more expectations. Be a good wife, never make a bad decision or falter or they would start to whisper that maybe the Bhaalspawn hadn't changed. People would watch, looking at her choices and see if she matched what they wanted from her.
She could also choose the other door, take a path that she had dreamed about before the betrayal. Be Absolute, carve her own path in the world. Be selfish, pick herself and him. Tear down her Father's faith, become divine on her own terms. The whole world would love her and they would fear her. Step from the dark into the dim light on her own terms. She would be labeled a disappointment, a tale of what could have happened if she embraced the light. But it would have been her own choice. Would it be freedom or only the illusion of freedom? Maybe total freedom was never something that was meant for her.
"Do you remember what we talked about after that first time that we gave in?" she asked. In his eyes she could see that he was thinking about it.
A moment that had been building up since the moment that they had met, she had been circling a bite mark that she had left on his chest. She had been enveloped by him, the scent of his perfume and the warmth of his body.
"What if we didn't have to serve any masters anymore? That we could be the divine?" she had whispered. Pure heresy, something that she should be punished for.
"It could be done with the Crown, we could be free of any masters. Mortal or divine," he had replied. His hand running over her back, the golden claws tracing down her spine. It had seemed like it had been impossible, a plan that was doomed to fail. A tale in history that would have talked about two fools who tried to become divine, to be unshackled and choose freedom. But they could always try, they were smarter than the ones before them or that's what they thought. Jump in without a plan to fall back upon, choose for themselves.
"We should try, they did it. We could do it," she had said while she rose up to face him. Her face so close to his that they could almost feel each other.
"I have no doubt that we could do it." He had tangled his hand in her hair and pushed her face down so he could kiss her. A kiss had never felt so much like promise and freedom.
"I do remember, I don't think I ever could forget that. There's still a chance." She knew, it was up to her now. Pick one path and leave the other behind. Break their hearts or break her own heart.
"You know that I can't kill you," she confessed. Enver leaned back in his chair. Something in his expression changed, maybe it was a bit softer or a bit less tense. Like he didn't know, like she could kill him after they had clawed their way to each other. How moans and whispers had been exchanged like confessions and prayers. Like he ever had a doubt about it.
"So you made your choice then? Or are you going to make someone else kill me?"
"I couldn't imagine a worse betrayal to you," she murmured. They just looked in each others eye for a moment. The moment of intimacy so clear to both of them, two locked up souls who never got to feel love but for that tiny sliver of time with each other. Love intertwined with danger and power. Two people who knew that nobody else would understand, even if they tried so hard.
She didn't know who acted first, if she reached out first to him or if it was him but she leaned forward and he caught her with his hands on her waist to pull her into his lap. Mouths crashing together in a hungry kiss that was meant to be exchanged so long ago. Still a small battle for power, teeth biting down on his bottom lip. His hands on her lower back and on the back of her neck, trying to keep her in place so she would never be taken away. Her hands in his hair, pulling him closer. Two pieces of the same puzzle, they found each other again. Her mind just going still, some peace being found. They could have been there for minutes or hours, she wouldn't have known. But it felt like home and like what she had been missing.
"Do you choose me?" she asked while she pushed his face away from hers. His lips were shiny and swollen from their kiss but he grinned and she felt her heart leap.
"I've chosen you ever since I first tasted you. Do you choose me?"
"In every life I would choose you."