Work Text:
The brain falls, and you know instinctively that there will be some cost for choosing not to seize it for Bhaal. Your Urge roars through you, furious and painful, rising like bile in your throat.
You don’t turn around to where your companions wait behind you. You want to delay the seconds before it picks a target, give yourself one moment where the three of them mean safety and not guilt.
Kill, your thoughts command, but then there’s a strange hesitation as the presence rushing into you notices something else tucked away in your ever-crowded head. A Detect Thoughts spell, quiet and insidious, that has been riding along in the shadow of your Urge for some time now. Your Urge lunges, furious, ripping at the psyche of whatever new thing has intruded into your mind.
Jaheira is too much of a professional to cry out as she staggers behind you, her presence withdrawing with a flash of rosemary.
“Now!” she barks, and a dagger digs into the exact weak point in your armor that Lae’zel is always chiding at you to watch. Numbness sweeps through your body, the locked muscles of paralysis following a second later. You topple, but gentle hands catch you before you hit the floor.
“Karabasan’s Gift,” Shadowheart remarks with careful lightness. “For once, it’s actually a gift.”
“Rest, cub,” Jaheira says, her face appearing over you. Her voice is ragged, but her expression is calm. “We will wake you when we have a way to fix things.” She has a potion of sleep in one hand.
They coordinated this, you realize. They have had this plan in motion for a long time.
“If- you can’t-“ you force out, and the three women watch you with solemnity but not surprise.
“We know what to do,” Lae’zel says bitterly. She is still holding the paralytic-dipped dagger. “You have done much for us, and for Faerûn. Allow us to try.”
You attempt to nod, and Jaheira leans forward with gentle hands on your face and jaw to help you drink the potion.
You drift in and out of consciousness as the city burns around you.
“Budge over,” Astarion says. “It’s my turn to take a nap.” His skin is red and peeling, like he’s been sunburned, and you would flinch if not for your frozen muscles and the shackles on your wrists and ankles. He rolls his eyes at whatever of your thoughts makes it to your face.
“Relax, it looks worse than it is,” he says, affecting boredom. “Luckily Shadowheart had quick reflexes in casting Darkness, or we’d be having a very different discussion. I was ready to flee back to the sewers. But no, it’s ’my turn on watch’ and ‘they let you drink their blood’ and all that.”
You look around, as much as you can. You’re underground, and it smells like fresh plants and still water. Jaheira’s study. The wards outside hum dangerously, a reassuring barrier between you and the world. Astarion’s gaze softens.
“Go to sleep,” he says. “They’ll find something.”
Gale is in your mind, though your Urge can tell it is a bloodless, magical duplicate.
“Lae’zel has broken us into the githyanki library in the Astral Sea,” he says quickly, once your eyes flicker open. “I only have a limited number of words- drat!” His face gets serious, more so than you’ve ever seen. “We will fix this,” he vows, and then his image fades.
For one terrifying second, you wake and think you are alone, still frozen. Sigils pulse and flare along the shackles, and beneath your rising panic you wonder if they are permanently casting Hold Person.
“Yes,” Jaheira says. She stands, and you flick your eyes to her. She looks tired, as ever, but there is a warmth to her expression. “I saw you looking. The shackles are enchanted. Karlach told us how much you hurt yourself the first time she restrained you during an episode.”
Violence surges in your blood, first directionless and then focusing in on the target in the room. You imagine sinking your dagger into the High Harper’s heart, digging it from her chest.
“Why?” you get out, broken and halting though your voice is. Jaheira’s eyes narrow slightly, and her hands dance as she intones an incantation. Seconds later, silence surrounds you both, preventing you from trying to cast with the small amount of speaking you’d discovered. Jaheira reaches behind her, lifts a familiar dimpled bottle to her lips. Her mind brushes against yours a few seconds later - less a true Detect Thoughts and more an invitation. She is a powerful caster, and can twist spells to her will.
But you can twist, too, and rip away at the Weave. You grab for her mind, suddenly wild with something to do in front of you. She stumbles back a step, falling awkwardly into a chair.
-your mind is her mind is a nightmare is a mess of blood and hatred and hope that damn Hope you can’t keep her out of anywhere she’ll crawl into hell and find the deepest darkest prison pit and anyway you’re broken and evil and bhaal owns you and why would anyone try and save you-
“You were in my mind the whole time?” you ask, and Jaheira meets your eyes in the dreamscape. On the table between you, your Urge is still tearing her heart out, hands slick with her blood.
“Near enough,” she answers. Her eyes flick over the scene in front of her only briefly, categorising, before she turns her gaze to the dream world around you. It’s a prison cell, you think, but it’s hard to keep your eyes off the blood.
“Keeping an eye on my compulsions,” you say, and your Urge twists it into a sneer.
Either Jaheira can’t keep her emotions and thoughts from you like this, or she isn’t trying to. There’s barely a flicker of guilt, drowned in relief and… pride?
“In case I had to intervene,” she agreed. “You made it much farther than this old cynic would have guessed. You fought hard for every step. And when you missed a step, well, that is what the plan was for.”
“Do you really think they can fix me?” you ask, and you want it to be a snarl but the desperation in your voice is just as naked as your primal urge to destroy.
Jaheira’s emotions swirl dizzily, and your Urge takes her moment of distraction to lunge at the thought-figure instead of her imagined cooling corpse between you. She draws a scimitar from nowhere and presses it gently, almost carefully, to your throat as you loom over her.
“I hope so,” she says, aching and exhausted and honest, and then potion is trickling down your throat again and you fall back into dreamless sleep.
You realize just before you blink out of awareness that she could keep thoughts hidden, because the swell of pride she felt in you was carefully, surgically separated from any thought of her children upstairs.
“Karlach is having some luck with the new engine,” Shadowheart is saying as you blink back to awareness. “She says as soon as she can spend ten consecutive minutes out of the Hells she’ll come visit.” Her gaze goes half-distant, like she’s listening to something you can’t hear. “Wyll says the Gondians are working with Dammon, now, so that should speed things up.” She smiles to herself. “Learning Sending was such a bad decision. Now everyone wants to chat at random hours.” She glances over and seems startled to see you awake.
“They’re growing accustomed to the potions,” Jaheira says from somewhere behind you. “We will have to find a new solution soon.” Her cool fingers brush against your aching head and you feel the tingle of healing magic dancing along your neck and temples. It smells like petrichor, with a hint underneath of rust or blood.
“Stop that,” Shadowheart says sharply, and your heart skips a beat before you realize she’s talking to Jaheira. “I’m meant to be taking my turn, so you can rest. I’ll not have two patients under my watch.” She stands, murmuring an unfamiliar incantation.
“Sleep, cub,” Jaheira whispers, and you don’t need the potion linking your minds to hear the despair in her voice before Shadowheart’s magic drags you away.
Minsc paces the room, agitated and angry.
“This isn’t right,” he grumbles. For once, no one seems aware that you’re awake.
“It is what must be done,” Jaheira retorts. Her voice is flat and hollow. You can just see where she’s standing, near the wall, her arms folded and her head cocked to the side. She looks nearly the same as always. She looks tired. (She looks like she’s bleeding out beneath her armor.)
“You are lying!” Minsc says, turning to her with rage and betrayal dancing in his eyes. He meets her steady gaze and he is the one to shrink back. “Lying is wrong. They are fighting a most noble battle. Surely, they deserve the truth!”
“They deserve a chance,” Jaheira says, vaguely. She notices your open eyes and winces, crosses the room to your side.
Minsc looks at you like it hurts him to see you. It's a look you’re getting tired of.
“Sleep,” Jaheira murmurs. “Next time you awake, I will explain.”
When you awake, there is a rush of magic through you and you are fully aware for the first time in a long time. Jaheira is kneeling over you with a dagger.
“I am sorry,” she says. Her mind is a forest open to yours, and you rush in. It’s more controlled, more rigid in here than last time. You can feel her desperation, a deep grief, and a steel core of certainty. She is certain that what she is about to do is right.
Your Urge slams at her mental walls, rips at anything it can reach, and you feel the pain bloom within her. It’s an invigorating effect, feeling the pain with her even as you inflict it. The Urge revels in it, distracted.
She leans forward to you.
“Trust me?” she whispers. You nod.
In the real world, Jaheira kills you with her usual ruthless efficiency. (In her mind, you can feel her screaming.)
It is a tremendous surprise to awaken once more. You are lying on the table, but as you stir you feel your limbs stretch and move. You freeze.
“It’s alright,” Shadowheart says warmly. “The shackles are off.”
You sit up, and it seems to take all of your concentration to move limbs accustomed to however long you’ve been frozen in place. Your gaze sweeps the room, finds your companions before you.
Gale is beaming, bouncing on the balls of his feet, and Lae’zel elbows him with a poisonous glare. Wyll is leaned against the back wall, shoots you a smile when he spots you looking.
“Karlach’s outside,” he says. “She still has to be cooled down occasionally, but it’s manageable.”
An instant later, the door bursts open and Karlach dashes in. She reaches for you with a hug as soon as she sees you, and you flinch as sense-memories of thousands of painful touches dance at the edges of your shattered mind. She stops, slowly moves her hands into view.
“It’s just me, soldier,” she says softly, and you let her wrap you in a warm embrace.
“Chk,” Lae’zel scoffs. “After we flew through the whole of the Githyanki Empire for word of a cure, Karlach cuts to the front of the line.” There’s no real anger to her words, only a sort of wistfulness.
“You cured me?” you ask. Gale shrugs.
“Near enough,” he says. “You will likely still feel the compulsions, but they’ll be greatly lessened. Controllable.”
You hold out your arms to Lae’zel and Gale, and Lae’zel beats him to it, tucking herself against your body and breathing in sharply.
“A mighty battle,” she says quietly. “Thank you for fighting it, so you could come back to us.”
“That almost sounded sentimental,” Shadowheart teases, and Lae’zel flushes and whirls on her. Gale eyes your tense stance and pats your shoulder.
“I imagine this is all a little overstimulating,” he says. “Don’t worry. You have time, now.”
You scan the room. Astarion is watching you carefully from near the door, which you think means it’s his job to watch for any new symptoms. Minsc is next to him, openly crying as he watches you. Wyll is with Karlach, who’s smiling bigger than you’ve seen in a long time, and Shadowheart and Lae’zel are bickering good-naturedly.
“Peace,” Halsin murmurs from just beside you, and casts a healing spell. The last of your headache fades, and you speak as if the words are torn from your throat.
“N-Nothing… hurts, any- anymore,” you say. His smile is bright under sad eyes.
“When it thought you truly dead, the aspect of Bhaal within you fled,” he said solemnly. “The patterns of thought are still there, but going forward the choice of your actions will be yours.” You are so giddy with relief that your head spins.
”But move slowly,” Halsin cautions as you attempt to stand. “The time you spent sedated and restrained was hard on your body. You will need to relearn even simple actions.”
Someone is missing. You force yourself to take a step forward and stumble, nearly falling. The others exclaim and start forward, but unexpectedly it’s Astarion who peers closely enough to read the concern on your face.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“J-J-“ you attempt. You have to clear your throat and start over. “J-Jaheira?”
Halsin frowns.
“She was not sure you would want to see her when you awoke,” he says softly. “How much do you… remember?”
Jaheira, unflinchingly hiding in your darkest thoughts to keep an eye on you. Jaheira, falling back as your Urge splintered the part of herself she’d tucked inside your mind. Jaheira, merging her mind with yours again and again despite the obvious risks.
Her blood on your hands, your dagger in her heart. Her growing exhaustion. Her fight with Minsc. Her fierce, rigid control. Her dagger in your heart. Her heart, breaking catastrophically around you as you died.
“Every- hm, everything,” you manage, without having any way to know if that’s true. “P-please. I want-“ Your tongue is just as uncooperative as your limbs, and you groan in frustration.
“I am here, cub,” Jaheira calls softly, stepping through the doorway between Astarion and Minsc. “I did not want to frighten you.” She grimaces and adds, heavy with self-deprecation, “Frighten you more.” You tap at the side of your head with uncooperative fingers, and she is reaching for the potion at her belt before the others even react.
“Jaheira,” Shadowheart warns sharply. There’s something to her tone that’s reminiscent of when she’d told off the druid for healing you, a brittle sort of concern.
“It is fine,” Jaheira says, and downs the potion.
Your mind is reaching for hers even before it flickers into view. You throw yourself hastily at her mercy.
thank you thank you thank you
Your mind is rust and blood. It is full of the dead and the decisions you have made. Her mind is a forest, cool streams and sweet air. But you can feel the bodies here, too, the effort to grow something of beauty from the memories pressed into the soil. You can feel the twisting broken section where she’d given the Urge free rein to destroy, and you can feel the cracks around it that are from her own actions alone.
You can see what it cost her to kill you, to not warn you what she was doing, to cause you such fear even as she could feel it in your mind.
“It could not doubt,” she murmurs. “If there was an instant of hesitation, a stray thought of resurrection, it might have stayed.” She heaves a sigh. “I am sorry.”
The forest pitches and shakes, and then the trees have names again and the saplings clustered thick around you are the many children from the street who have grown up in her home.
“Yours is an aspen,” she says quietly. Above you, yellow leaves tremble in the wind. “Their roots run deep. They are interconnected. Beautiful. Beloved.”
“Invasive?” you ask, and she laughs.
“What isn’t, in the right context?” she asks. “Come. Your friends are waiting for you. Tell me what you wish to say, and I will speak for you.”
The forest fades, and you are back in the room. Jaheira is being held upright by a worried looking Minsc, and you are cradled in Halsin’s arms like a child.
“They want to know why,” Jaheira relays.
“Why?” Gale asks.
“Why you helped,” Jaheira clarifies. The others trade incredulous looks.
“During the actual end of the world, you stopped to kill Cazador,” Astarion says.
“I would still be a child, lost in the dark,” Shadowheart says at nearly the same instant.
“My affliction could have killed us just as easily as yours,” Gale says next. “More so, even. You kept me by your side. How could I do anything but the same?”
“I am no coward, to turn from battle because there is much to do,” Lae’zel scoffs. “I will yet fight to glorious githyanki freedom on the wings of dragons. But I shall do it knowing you have a chance to make your own way.”
Karlach just smiles.
“You really didn’t expect anything back, huh?” she says. “Spent all that time helping us fight our demons, and expected to fight yours alone.”
“You said something, to that gnomish lady in the underdark,” Wyll says. “The poisoned one. Do you remember? She asked why you helped her, and you said-“
“You were in pain,” Jaheira echoes as you unexpectedly dredge up the memory. “How could I pass by?”
Wyll smiles.
“Exactly,” he says.
“I was not certain of this plan,” Minsc admits. “But luckily Jaheira is wiser than I.”
You sit there in stunned silence, long enough that the others turn to Jaheira. She just smiles, shakes her head.
“It is time for rest,” Halsin says firmly. “You all can come pester my patient tomorrow.”
“Your patient?” Jaheira scoffs, but you can feel the relief-desperation-hope under the sarcasm.
“I was consulting on your condition with Thaniel,” Halsin explains to you in a stage whisper. “It is possible Jaheira took my long absence a little personally.” Humor sparks in his eyes, and Jaheira laughs so hard she has to sit down.
“You are terrible,” she says, breathing hard. “I am going to have them remove you as Archdruid.”
Shadowheart taps her on the shoulder as she walks by, subtly casting a restoration spell, and mutters something pointed about sleep.
Everyone else files out, promising to visit soon. Eventually, it is just you and Shadowheart and the two druids.
“Good job not staying dead,” Shadowheart says.
“J-Jaheira would n-never let me live that down,” you say aloud, and the bolt of grief through Jaheira’s chest catches you off guard. You both gasp, and you send a quick flash of apology.
In explanation, she throws you a memory of her husband, long since passed. His faint stammer, his weary humor, as he heaves himself back to his feet.
“If at first we don’t succeed, the wife will n-never let me forget it,” he says to someone unfamiliar, and the memory passes.
“I will sit on you if I have to,” Shadowheart is threatening as you return to yourself. “Or, better plan, Halsin will turn into a bear and sit on both of you. Relax!”
You are coaxed into a cot, fussed over and fed a healing potion. Already you are tired, the siren call of non-medicated sleep swirling around you.
“You’ll watch?” you send mentally, blearily. “In case it didn’t work?”
Jaheira’s mind settles gently into its usual place in yours, a tether, a hand on your shoulder.
“I will watch,” she promises.