#she and I both accepted that Karlach was going to die

[wavebiders]

The thing that really gets me about Wyll and Karlach is just how their bond is allowed to have the importance in their narratives that it has

I mean, in games like these the cast is always going to be centered around the pc. Sure, the relationships between other companions can be developed through party banter, commentary, or even cinematics, but at the end of the day everyone's most significant relationship is always going to be the player. That's the person who most affects them and where their story is going

With these two, it's not even that Tav isn't vitally important to them both, but it's meeting Karlach that changes Wyll's life one way or another. It's Wyll that's the first person to stick out his neck for Karlach, and sends her reeling. Their bond alone is enough to convince Karlach to go to Avernus and stay alive

It's a very bold choice to risk limiting the player's importance in order to drive home the connection between two characters, and I really appreciate Larian for going there

[allisondraste]

I’ve seen various different posts on the website formerly known as Twitter and this one right here, discussing Gale’s behavior in romance as obsessive, possessive, and possibly codependent. And while I support everyone having their own interpretations and opinions, I do disagree, so I want to talk about it!

First— it’s so important to acknowledge that Gale is strictly monogamous. He is not someone who is comfortable with a partner having other partners. This is fine, and not inherently indicative of any unhealthy attachment styles. Wyll, Karlach, and Lae’Zel are also monogamous in a relationship.

Gale does struggle with some insecurity that at times bleeds it’s way into his romantic relationship, but isn’t a product of the relationship itself. His biggest insecurity is feeling like he isn’t enough (in general, not just for a romantic partner). Mystra had a way of making him feel like nothing he did was ever enough, he always needed to do more, to be more, and when he tried, when he made mistakes, she abandoned him.

Those are wounds that do not heal quickly, and so he needs quite a bit of reassurance from both friend and lover PCs that he’s fine just the way he is and that he doesn’t have to try so hard or pretend to be fine when he’s not.

He’s lonely. Due to his condition, Gale, who is an incredibly social person, had to hermit himself away from his friends and colleagues for over a year. Mystra was no longer interacting with him, and he was afraid to be around his mother because he didn’t want her to worry. His only company was Tara, and as much as he loves her, shes not a replacement for human or humanoid connection. Usually with folks who struggle with codependency and insecure attachment, there are long patterns of each of those things in all of their other relationships, but Gale seems to have had pretty healthy relationships, the Mystra situation being the exception, not the rule.

It excites him when he gets to travel with a group, have friends. It’s even more exciting to him when he finds someone who makes him forget the hurt Mystra has caused. Yet he still has to withdraw from even that because he does not want to put their life in danger. It is not until act 2 after Elminster has cast the incantation to calm the orb that Gale feels comfortable enough to give in to his feelings. And yeah! He comes in strong because he’s been holding it in. He’s been pining away, sad that he can’t let himself so much as kiss Tav or else he quite literally explode.

When you talk to Gale after his romance scene in act 2, you’re able to confront him about his feelings for Mystra, and he is very direct, stating that he does still have complicated feelings for her. Which makes SENSE. The game and Gale himself try to minimize Mystra as just his ex, but she is more than that. She is his groomer and abuser. Gale is traumatized, and it will likely take him the rest of his life to get over that. It’s not something that more time alone is going to heal. He needs a support system to help him. He needs his mom, his friends, and maybe even his new partner.

You can also ask him if he meant it when he said he loved you, and his answer is “I am many things to many people, but I am never one to throw the l-word around lightly.” He didn’t just say it on a whim. He thought about it, probably extensively. Judging from the dialogue we get, he’s aware that he is rushing to say it, and admits that it’s because he’s scared that he’s going to literally die tomorrow. It’s not a love bomb. It’s an “I need you to know this, just in case something happens to me.”

Once he doesn’t die in act 2, he simmers down. He becomes more concerned with curing his condition, he faces Mystra, he accepts that he doesn’t need to have godly power to be worthy of love and respect.

At the end of the game, he asks you if you’ll come back to Waterdeep with him, which is his way of proposing more or less, but its more that he wants to be home and he wants the person who has become so important to him to come with him, to meet his mom, to see his hometown. He wants them to want that too.

He’s a grown man, mid to late 30s, not a naive young person. He knows what he wants. He’s thought about it, extensively.

In my opinion, there’s nothing possessive, obsessive, codependent, or unhealthy about any of that.

[alicelufenia]

A Guide To Keeping Wyll And Karlach After Siding With Minthara In Act 1

Or as I like to call it, how to permanently recruit Karlach and Wyll (because I have yet to complete a full playthrough with both of them)

Ever since Larian added a way to legitimately recruit Minthara by knocking her out, I've wanted to help the community be more successful in their efforts to give my favorite drow yet another concussion. Because like all things related to Minthara, the KO method was buggy as hell, non-intuitive, and metagamey as fuck. I wrote multiple guides on it, to the point where I made the master post my pinned for a while. You may have seen it at some point, but here it is again for reference [x]

As happy as I am with the success of those posts, it's time I revealed my true alignment. I'm actually one of those scary Minthara stans who has killed the grove more times than siding with the tieflings. I know, you'd never guess by looking at my blog (don't look at my blog) I did it my first playthrough and it's only gotten easier since. And while I stand by it as the single best way to experience Minthara's character and story arc, I'm not so cold-hearted as to deny that it's a shame we miss out on Wyll and Karlach in the process.

So rather than play the villain, what say we have them stick around by taking on the REAL villains of Act 1:

The Druids

To start off, you'll want both Wyll and Karlach in your party, and Withers in camp. I've had him show up upon crossing one of the bridges in Act 1, either to the blighted village or the goblin camp, I forget which, or you can bust him out of his Dank™ crypt. Proceed through Act 1 as normal. To be safe I got as much approval from them as I could in early game, but that may not be necessary. Offer to kill Kagha for Zevlor.

Now, both of them need to die, and preferably not by the hand of your party members. I had them suicide charge the gnolls and get wrecked, as on Tactician mode they'll attack downed party members until they're dead. I don't know if having them jump off a cliff works, but it might. We need to entrust them to Withers by asking him to look after their bodies instead of reviving them. Their bodies will then appear in camp by their tents.

Now go kill Kagha without revealing the shadow druid conspiracy. This should trigger the Druids to start fighting the Tieflings, which will happen off screen as you deal with Kagha and the few druids inside with her (killing Nettie earlier might make this easier in case she joins in. She tried to poison you, so serves her right.)

Steal that idol! I'm not 100% sure this is required, but it takes no effort at this point and you need to sit tight for a minute, so might as well.

Also if you thought you could return the idol to Mol, no luck, she won't accept it until the fighting ends. Unfortunately all the tieflings need to die for this to work, so rip Ring of Protection. But not exactly rip the tiefling kids, more on that in a minute.

OOF, rip Dammon (and most of Karlach's questline. Don't look at me like that, it's Larian's fault for tying her entire story onto one npc and giving nothing as an alternative)

I'll give the tieflings credit, they did not go down without one hells of a fight. This bear was found burnt to death, probably due to Zevlor.

Damn, they really killed all of them. I wanna point out this can happen even on a good playthrough with the best of intentions.

In the end, only four(!) druids survived. I don't know how they'd fare with Kagha fighting too, but overall I'd say the druids talk big for doing this badly against a bunch of unarmed civilians. We kill the last four of them, then get ready to move on.

With trepidation, I go to check on the kids. Not recommended if you raid the grove for real, but here:

It's just... empty. No bodies, no npcs hanging around, they completely cleared out.

I like to headcanon that Mol followed through on protecting her kids, and they escaped down this hole. I'm still very early in this run used for testing, so I have legit no idea if they show up later. But this is good enough for me to include them all in my fanfiction so :D Congrats, the only tieflings with rights (sorry Karlach!) are gonna be alright (because if we don't see a body it doesn't count)

Next step is to just... keep going. Sazza can get you into the goblin camp no problem, and if you play a Drow or have Shadowheart use disguise self, you can gain entry without any checks or dialogue. My half elf needed to talk her way in (or just use AUTHORITY)

best goblin btw

MOMMY

Lookit how happy she is after Sazza has brought her the grove's location! A lead on the weapon AND another True Soul AND she's concussion-free? Everything's coming up Minthy!

It's at this point things get a little weird (I did warn ya), as the game now has flagged the grove as "raided" even though we haven't done an actual grove battle, which is a different thing (as I'll demonstrate later), so Shadowheart has her "post-raid" dialogue when we wake up on the next long rest. The Raid The Grove quest is also marked as Completed, but still has a marker on the map. Have patience, return to the grove and walk through the (destroyed) gate, and suddenly:

The quest will update, and direct you to speak with Minthara in the secluded chamber where she normally is at when the raid is finished. There's also goblins milling about the grove now, same as the post-raid grove.

Get someone who looks at you the way Minthara looks at a cave full of dead druids and tieflings.

"No Minthara, I never meant for any of this to happen. This was all my fault, I shouldn't have gotten involved, they're all dead because of me-"

"Nevermind I am no longer morally conflicted about all this."

To the goblin party!

LIES. He never mentions it again lmao. C'mon patch 7 fix this! (you won't)

Why we're all really here 🥰

The next morning, speak to Withers and ask to collect your dead party members. He will have you confirm payment for their resurrection.

And it works! Karlach and Wyll are back, they can rejoin the party, and their approval is Unchanged!

Since I was on a roll, I went ahead and checked a few other scenarios: what happens if we don't start a fight with the druids and just raid the grove directly, with Karlach and Wyll dead? Well you can revive them afterwards, but...

Dang, Wyll still leaves (he's still so nice about it though! Even wishes you well!)

Meanwhile Karlach: Feck off, cunt.

Well, she's not leaving, but she's never been this blunt or cold towards me before. I wonder how much-

Damn, -49?! That's literally one away from leaving permanently! She started at 50, which means Karlach looses 100 approval from raiding the grove, and being dead doesn't change that. I think the only reason she's at -49 instead of -50 is due to that +1 from reviving a party member. So, she's grateful for being brought back to life, but not happy about anything else. You know what, that's fair.

One last thing I tested (and no pics for it cause this post has reached its limit! But those extra pics of Sharp-Eye Sluck are important, so I'll just write this next part out) I wanted to see if it was even necessary to finish off the remaining druids after they killed all the tieflings. So I left the grove (manually, you have to journey quite a distance before it lets you fast travel, almost all the way to the first bridge) and headed to the goblin camp to start the raid as normal.

Like our first time, we arrive at an empty grove. Even the druids we left behind are gone, meaning you can safely headcanon this method as joining up with the goblins and Minthara to take revenge on the druids. The game still acts like you killed the tieflings though, down to Gale's threatening to leave.

But Karlach and Wyll still get brought back without a problem! You can even revive them DURING the goblin party and they'll act like nothing's happened!

Wyll And Karlach Recruited Alongside Raiding With Minthara: Success!

So Baldur's Gate 3 community! I now implore you to put down your Pommel Strikes, switch off that Non-Lethal toggle, and stop giving poor Minthara even more brain damage than the tadpole and the Absolute already gave her!

And when you reach Moonrise Towers to rescue her, for the love of Selûne, when the guards are torturing her in the prison, don't just swing on them. Agree to enter her mind first. You'll have a dicey roll to deal with, but trust me, it's SUPER worth it!

As for the whole process, well. Despite the clunky way quests update after you start the grove civil war, the resulting lack of direction and narrative inconsistencies in the dialogue post-goblin party, this still feels like a more immersive way to recruit Minthara on a run with both Karlach and Wyll still present, than the KO method, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Consider this: You've got a major twist in the Act 1 plot now, with the Druids turning on you and killing the tieflings you were trying to help, leaving your party dispirited and lacking direction, other than to continue their search for a cure, which leads them to meet the Absolutists, the goblins, and the drow commander leading them and looking for the druids' sanctuary. And in the midst of your grief and anger, you side with her, both to get close to the source of the infections (as the Dream Visitor suggests) but also to take your revenge out on the druids.

You can feel conflicted, regretful even, but the context has changed enough that I think even a good-aligned Tav with no qualms about methods can live with this result. It just takes a bit of filling in the gaps (do you simply point the goblin army at the druids and look away, or lead them yourself by Minthara's side? Either way works for the results)

The only real downside is, again, Karlach's story just sorta ends here, until the confrontation with Gortash. I personally think this is a problem with Larian's writing for her, and at this point fanfiction is about the only solution in sight. But if you don't mind her not getting the chance to touch others again, you really have nothing to lose here

Besides, were you really going to pay Dammon for that act 3 armor? Of course not, you steal it every run and don't pretend otherwise, "hero."

[hellspawn-enjoyer]

Another thing I need to rant about because I find it incredibly adorable is how these dorks have the nerve to have elements of a reincarnation romance in their romance together.  

What do I mean by this?

I mean having dialogue that lampshades that one feels like they’ve met before and the other feels like they’ll meet again. Karlach’s dialogue in her date night romance scene you get in Act 3. You and each companion get a different special response to asking her if being mysterious suits you.

This is her response for Astarion-

Karlach mentions feeling like there's something familiar about Astarion. The second picture is a common dialogue other characters can get, but it does add various meanings to her line specific to Astarion. Overall adding to their special connection and how they just sort of click when they first meet each other.

Feeling something familiar between them also plays nicely into them having similar woven parts in their unfortunate traumatic history. As well as them being a sort of mirror to each other. One that shows what they could've been, but also what they can still become since they can either improve or descend into becoming worse versions of themselves down the road.

This dialogue on its own is cute because of the fact it shows that she feels connected and understood by Astarion to the point that she feels they’ve been together for longer even though their time together at present is so short.

So the fact that Astarion has a similar feeling, but with her death makes it all the more gut-wrenching.

When Astarion tries to convince Karlach to go with him to Avernus to look for a way to fix her engine, if she declines Astarion will tearfully accept her decision but remain hopeful that somehow their paths will cross again. Basically, saying that maybe her death isn’t the end of their love, but instead the beginning.

So now we're getting into the whole Reincarnated/We’ll meet in another life romance trope. Obviously, you can roleplay this with any romance, but it just makes me particularly insane that it’s hinted a few times as a theme in their romance with special dialogue between the two of them. That they have a connection so deep to each other that they can feel it from another life.

Now, of course, I've got to talk about Ascended Astarion's dialogue if Karlach declines his offer to go with him to Avernus because it's interesting in it's own way as well. He essentially says the same thing to Karlach, but the way he says it comes across as being more confident that they'll meet again.

This, of course, can be read similarly with him planning to find her reincarnation and romancing her again or as Astarion willing to do some questionable things in order for them to be reunited with each other. You can see this as sweet, concerning, or both. All valid takeaways from this scene. Either way, he holds on to the feeling that their romance has only just begun and that they have something more awaiting them in the future.

Karlach's origin epilogue if she chooses to die on the docks also adds to this with Withers coming to her and saying that her death isn't the end of her story.

So even if you play their romance in a way that ends with her choosing to go out on her own terms their dialogue and this ending scene connects in a way that reinforces that they'll have a chance to meet again someday. Also implying that they're a fated pair, soulmates, romantic or platonic that have met before and will meet again, that just gets to me.

Overall another reason why I'll never be normal about these two and their relationship with each other! 😭

[lucrezianoin]

Dark Urge and Astarion romance (spoilers for both quests)

So I have a lot of feelings about the Astarion romance route while playing Dark Urge. A LOT. I feel like the two (and in general Shadowheart's personal quest too actually) feel very complementary.

TW for everything involving Astarion's past, and general violence.

Keep in mind that this is going to be a long post and it is going to have SPOILERS for the whole game, till the very end. In general this is a long happy rant about how happy I am about Dark Urge path and Astarion romance together. Also keep in mind that this is about my feelings of the two, not about "which one is objectively the best romance for Dark Urge". This is more of a "please if you liked astarion romance as tav romance him as dark urge too" than a "if you play as dark urge you need to romance astarion".

Also keep in mind this is ONLY about redeeming Dark Urge and their good path! In the post I will only talk a little bit about the bad ending.

General points

In general, I just wanted to talk about the theme of the urges/hunger, the theme of family and escaping from your family, a little bit about the evil choice and the whole theme of rebirth that both characters have quite explicitly. In this order!

Urges

The first point of connection between the two characters is the fact that they are (sometimes) both driven by a certain hunger for blood or violence. As Durge you will be able to see how your companions react to these black outs, and you will worry about it, and Astarion seems to be among the most accepting. Maybe it is just his need to keep on Durge's good side, or maybe it is just the fact that he has experience on it.

In later scenes, Astarion will draw parallels between Durge's experience and his own. If Durge is cursed to succumb to his own urges, then Astarion will directly connect that to the times Cazador's has driven him feral and mad with hunger.

During the extra Durge specific romance scene, Astarion makes another direct connection to the violence in Durge and what he previously did. He does not have a completely clean conscience (that is clear, and not just because of Cazador), and he is not as "good" at making the good nice choice as other companions.

He understands the hunger and losing control over his body more than others, so he can empathize with Durge and what they are going through. He jokes about it, sure, but he is genuinelly worried.

Another option in the dialogue has him saying "If anyone understands an internal voice forcing your hand, I do. But that's not who we are now. We make our own choices, and you made the right one last night." He is the only companion who uses the "we".

Other points of overlapping are, of course, the fact that both characters have gaps in their memories. Astarion because of trauma and Durge because of physical trauma (torture and well, violence). Their past is one of violence, for both of them, and while Durge operated it a little more voluntarily than Astarion, this NEW Durge, the blank state we get at the start of the game... well, in a good playthrough they try to resist their need for violence just like Astarion is resisting his hunger and his thirst for power.

Reciprocal saving

Astarion is literally introduced as a damsel in distress. He is the only companion whose quest NEEDS to be completed before the tadpole is removed or he will become a slave again (other companions might have other consequences, but nothing that cannot be solved after the tadpole removal, and in case of Karlach there is no limit, she is destined to die or return to Avernus). He does need help, he cannot face Cazador alone, so we all know his plan for protection.

The first scene he appears him is literally him asking for help to try and lure the player and get some answers out of them.

As a player with companions characters, we are all used to helping them in their quests. But as I said, Astarion's help is kinda on a ticking clock based on the end of the game... and well, he is the one who is clearly less involved with abilities and fighting. In story, he is the only one who is out of place. Gale is a great wizard and Mystra ordered him to take care of the brain, Wyll is a legendary hero, Karlach is a legendary warrior, Shadowheart is on a mission for Shar, Lae'zel is also a warrior and she will be on her mission for Orpheus soon, Halsin is a powerful druid who wants to break a curse directly connected to the brain etc. etc.

Astarion is... a guy. Who was a slave. By accident he has been chosen by the mindflayers and freed. His only connection with the group is the tadpole, he could not care less about, well, the "mission". His own mission is remaining free and getting rid of Cazador. And he needs the player character for that (we know he is recaptured if he leaves the group).

I could go on a rant about the angst of it all and the power imbalance this create and the fear that surely drives him through act 1, but for now I wanted to talk about this "be saved by the player character" and how with Durge it finally becomes reciprocal.

This is more than "let's help each other on a quest". This is two characters who are on a path of possible evilness and destruction, promising to save each other.

I think some of the imbalance in a Tav's playthrough, where Tav is good and helps Astarion out of their good heart, disappears in a Durge one.

Durge NEEDS Astarion as much as Astarion needs him. Astarion directly promises Durge to save them from becoming a slave to their urges. One of my favourite options as Durge is replying "I will be the person you want to see in me". Because for ALL the complaining, all the times Astarion says he wants power... the person he wants to see in Durge is still someone sweet and kind, a good heart.

You have two possible bad people who end up being each other moral compass and saviors, equally. And I think it makes the story so much richer. Of course, in the case of Astarion it is a direct persuasion check from the player (as long as you make him face the consequences), in the case of Durge is more metagaming, given it is the idea of wanting to be the person Astarion sees in you (and your friends and companions).

Both Astarion and Durge need to be seen for the good parts they have in them.

After the Durge questline, when they refuse Bhaal, Astarion will say "But somehow by your side I still only ever saw you", which echos what he says to Durge (in his romance scene) that he feels seen by them.

Family

For all the violence and the horror, the quests of Durge and Cazador are presented as family. Durge's family was what led them to violence, their father basically cursing them to a life of hate, then they were betrayed by their "sister" and made into a blank state.

Cazador constantly swings between considering his spawns as children or pets/dogs, putting himself in the role of the almost father. The spawns call each other siblings.

While the two families are quite different, they both end up with Astarion and Durge having to make a choice about choosing or refusing the "father"'s power, one to be stolen and the other offered.

You were also both made by them. Cazador often remarks on Astarion being his and being made/his creation. Bhaal directly considers Durge a puppet he made, and if Durge does not agree with his plan then he will make another.

The evil choice

I found it pretty interesting that there is only one quest among companions that have a full on evil choice, and that is Astarion's. Shadowheart's two choices are both painful and very hard to decide upon, Gale's choice of giving back the crown is seen generally as a good choice but it also involves giving back to Mystra who abused her power on him. Karlach, Minsc and Jaheira don'r really have choices. Lae'zel's choice of queen vs Orpheus is a clear path to Orpheus (as in, I think she decides that on her own if she sees him) but the real choice happens at the end, where she has to choose between Orpheus and living for herself - what is the good choice there? Helping free her people or live her own life? Wyll's choice is also hard and almost equal in pain/gain, one is saving his father and being stuck in the pact, and the other is freeing him but knowing Mizora will come for his father again (even if you save him in game). I think it is telling that the choice is hard because Wyll never says he regrets making the pact in the first place, it was a hard choice he had to make.

Astarion and Durge are the only personal quests that have a clear and defined evil ending, and interestingly enough it is similar...

Both glowing in red light while accepting the cursed power given by their "fathers". Both will come out of it with glowing eyes and evil smiles. The bad choice makes them the worst version of each other, as they both failed to be anchor for their good selves.

I really dislike ascended Astarion, and he clearly has a bigger impact on his personality, given Durge is a player character, but I still found it a good parallel, just the fact that these are the two in the party who can be REALLY evil, who can truly go towards the worst possible path. And not a path of "evil together", but a path of domination and reciprocal destruction.

Astarion becomes everything Cazador's was and wants to take control of Durge, and Durge has to follow Bhaal's plan and take control of the brain... which ends up with Astarion just where he started, as a puppet controlled by that person who (as the Butler once said) he should have feared the most.

Rebirth (the good choice)

NOW TO TALK ABOUT MY FAVORITE POINT. Both stories, both quests, end in an explicit rebirth symbolism.

We have Durge literally dying, and being resurrected by another god of death, coming back to life to find out that he has been given a second chance. The urges have gone, they are free, they are a new person forged by the experience they went through during the path to Baldur's Gate.

In the same way, Astarion is also forged by his experiences with the group and Durge, by what they all went through. So much that if the player does not allow him to confront Sebastian and show him that he is driven by fear, that he, deep down, feels compassion for the spawns... then the player will lose the ability to persuade him to stop the ritual.

Astarion is also reborn, so much that we have a whole scene where he writes a new date on his tomb, it cannot be more explicit than this.

In both cases not only the theme of rebirth but of responsibility is stressed. Astarion talks about freedom as a place where he (and his siblings) are responsible for their choices, good or bad. And the same can be said about Durge.

So yes, I think playing as Durge puts so much more into Astarion's romance, because creates an almost parallel path of these two people who could easily become the worst version of themselves, and if Durge pushes to stop their urges, in a good playthrough, they do become each other's anchor and key to break the cycle.

[orkbutch]

OKAY SO I'm wired and can't sleep so to tucker myself out I am going to do that Karlach personal story post. And ofc this is just my interpretation, my read, of Karlach's story through the game. I am not saying this is Correct. Just to be clear.

Controversial opinion: I liked Karlach's end story even from base game, before they patched in joining her in Avernus. I thought it was super bold and kind of impressive. But I'm glad they added the patch. For me, thematically, whether Karlach goes back to the Hells or chooses to die in Faerun is her taking a different approach to the same extremely difficult, human problem. Both ends are bittersweet to me, both tragic.

Thematically, like all of the origin characters, Karlach's story is rooted in discussing community and agency. She is lonely. She wants freedom. She wants to live so much life, as much as she can. I see Karlach thematically as someone with a terminal illness. She is someone living as if her life will end, she is tying up loose ends, she's wrestling with mortality, she's thinking about her legacy and trying to ignore all the things she might not get to have. And when she does think about it, when it peeks through, you can see that she is in mourning; she is grieving all the things already lost, the future she cannot imagine.

Going off of that, what do each of these endings say thematically? They are both choices, both exercises of agency, but tinted a little differently.

Thematically, Karlach choosing to die is bittersweet; its very sad, but it also makes me think of euthanasia. An act of agency that grants comfort, dignity, relief. The ultimate gesture of self determination for someone who has had so much of their life and body taken from them entirely. On the other hand, it is self destruction. It is Karlach seeing how she has been changed, and going, "This isn't worth it. If this body can't be what I need it to be, it shouldn't exist at all." That is devastating.

So then there's the other side of things, the return to Avernus. What does this mean thematically? It is a declaration of worth; "Living and my existence is worth the struggle. It's worth the risk. I can make this body my home again". It also makes me think of another very real, human experience after near-terminal illness or disability; it reminds me of adjusting the goal posts, of grieving, adjusting and accepting the new reality of life in the body you have now. Of finding new definitions of living, expanding how you find fulfillment. The incredible resilience that takes. The work of rehabilitation and recovery, of finding and establishing new systems and habits, is all slow, difficult, often painful work.

But it is worth it for life, for getting to stay. To see how you change, what you're capable of being. And I think this is particularly important with Karlach because it would surely lead her to becoming someone more whole than she's gotten to be for many years. I don't like the idea that returning to Avernus kills the innocent girl within her or whatevs; the innocent girl is only a part of her, one that endured all through the Hells. In struggling and trying toward life, Karlach is reaching for a future where she won't need to be divided at all. Where she is loving and very kind and forever, undeniably changed by Hell, but that experience and the conquering of it becomes strength. It is her, and she is worth living and loving, so the part of her that is Hell touched is too. But it required her to want different things, to adjust what living fulfilled meant to her. And that is hard, and a little tragic. But also very human and lovely to me

i love ... karlach the end

[pengychan]

[Baldur’s Gate III] A Deal in Three Acts: Act II

Title: A Deal in Three Acts Summary: Weeks since Raphael took temporary residence at Sharess’ Caress, Haarlep is bored. Still waiting for Tav to take him up on his offer, Raphael is frustrated. Tav chooses an interesting evening to show up with a counter-offer. Characters: Raphael, Haarlep, Tav. Rating: Explicit Status: Complete

Act I here Also on AO3

*** Sometimes nice simple plans fall apart, but they can be salvaged with an incubus on your side. I think. ***

When Tav had left Elfsong Tavern to head for Sharess’ Caress, she had a plan. 

A nice, simple plan, as Astarion had called it after they’d spent hours going through every detail of their counter-offer to avoid every possible pitfall. Two centuries since he’d last donned a magistrate’s robes, he still had plenty of insight to give when it came to binding contracts.

“I think I would have hated dealing with magistrate Ancunín,” Tav had muttered. Sitting on the tavern’s terraced roof to bask in the rays of the dying sun, a leg dangling off into the air, Astarion had laughed. He laughed a lot more lately, and it was good to see. In the days after they’d cut down Cazador Szarr, he’d seemed to emptied out that everyone at camp had worried. Now, finally, it seemed to have truly hit him - that the monster who’d taken everything from him was gone, and could never hurt him again.

Tav hoped to feel like that, too, and soon.

“Oh, most people hated dealing with this menace,” Astarion had said, gesturing to himself. “And our friend Raphael will be none too pleased by our counter-offer, I bet, but you must not yield an inch. He’s desperate for that crown, and while we have a backup plan, he does not. Our little, shall we say, requests are just trivial matters to the bearer of the Crown of Karsus. He has nothing to lose and everything to gain by accepting.”

“I suppose the clause binding him to limit his rule to the Nine Hells of Baator may be the main stumbling block.”

“Ah, but he already said he’d do that, didn’t he? He cannot refuse to put it on paper without admitting he lied. Of course, we’ll need the entire contract in a language we understand . And a copy for ourselves. I really can’t believe so many people keep doing that. Signing contracts in some language they don’t know, without even their own copy. Wyll was incredibly lucky we found a way to break his contract and save his father.”

“Not everyone’s a magistrate, magistrate.”

“That’s bloody common sense, darling. Now, let’s go over this again, just to make sure you didn’t forget anything…”

They did, and she hadn’t. Tav left the tavern before the last rays of sun disappeared beyond buildings, taking care to speak with no one else. She knew all too well that most of her companions would disapprove, to say the least - Karlach and Gale most of all. But this was for their sake, too. 

If everything went as planned, if she could get Raphael to accept the counter-offer, they would both be free of the ticking time bombs in their chests. And of course, Tav would get a shot at seeing an Archdevil die. 

The Hells were the Hells; it did not matter to her what devil ruled supreme over it all. She’d gladly hand Raphael the crown and all her own magic on top of it, if it meant she could see Zariel dead and broken, a charred husk among ruins like… like…

“I’m not going to give you a lecture about revenge, because you deserve it as I deserved mine,” was the last thing Astarion had told her before she left. “But they’re dead and you’re alive. Take the blood you’re owed, but keep your life.”

“Is that a very long-winded way to tell me to be careful?”

“I say it a lot better than you do, my friend. If you’re not back by morning, I’ll come looking. You can be certain I will. But I’ll be cursing you the entire way there and back.”

Tav, who’d planned to be back long before morning, had nodded. A simple goal, a simple plan. Nothing was going to throw her off course; she told herself as much while going up the stairs, opening the door, and stepping in the room. 

Then-- well, for all her grim determination, the sight had sort of thrown her off. You can never be completely sure of what you’ll see when walking in on a devil, but Tav had no trouble admitting that ‘Raphael fucking himself in the most literal sense possible’ was not among the possible scenarios she’d thought up. She hadn’t meant to make noise, either, but she had and all things considered, it had been a blessing in disguise. 

Had the incubus not helpfully introduced themself to her, she might have assumed that the Bhaal cult’s shapeshifters were taking an entirely new approach since Orin’s demise, and she might have attacked. Needless to say, it would have made the situation quite awkward.

Well. More awkward.

“Why don’t you join us, little mouse? Get up close and discuss to your heart’s content. I won’t interrupt. I’ll just be doing my thing.”

“Haarlep--” Raphael tried to speak, his voice strained in a way Tav had never heard it, and even that attempt broke up into a groan when the incubus thrust upwards. It was, pun intended, one hell of a sight: Raphael’s naked body on the lap of an incubus who looked almost exactly like his cambion form, his thighs spread open and chest heaving with ragged breaths. 

And Tav she knew a chance when she saw it. She couldn’t have dreamed up an occasion like that, with Raphael that vulnerable, barely coherent . Plus, no matter what Astarion said - she was very much not made of wood. When she met his eyes, clouded with lust as they were, her next words came out in a husky murmur. “May I, Raphael?”

A wordless groan, all his eloquence gone, but it was the only answer she needed. His chest shuddered under her touch and oh, he was feverishly warm, skin glossy with sweat. Beneath her palm, his heart thumped wildly. Tav leaned in, and pressed her lips against his throat. She felt him swallow, and smiled. Her own breathing came a little faster, too. “Tell me what you want.”

“The crown--” he tried, only for an especially clever twist of Haarlep’s hips and to turn the words in a whine. The incubus caught Tav’s eye over his shoulder, and grinned. If they knew what she was trying to do, one thing was clear: they had no intention to stop her.

Good.

Tav pulled back, and tilted Raphael’s chin up. She ran her thumb across his lips, her other hand trailing down his chest, down his stomach, coming to rest on a trembling thigh. “Yes,” she said. “It would look good on you. I want to give you that crown. So you can see all the devils of Baator bowing to you - that’s what you really want, isn’t it?”

“I--” he groaned, dropping his head back against Haarlep’s shoulder at a well-timed tilt of their hips. His hands clenched on sheets. “Yes,” he breathed. There was something else to his shaky voice, a need, a hunger that could never be sated. It sent a shiver down Tav’s spine, more heat pooling in her loins. It was getting really, really warm in that armor. 

“You want to see them kneel, don’t you?” she whispered, and finally took his cock in her hand, her touch light, to trace a vein with a nail. “You want to see everyone kneel.”

Raphael’s hips shuddered, and he couldn’t bite back a cry. “Yes,” he managed, and Haarlep laughed. 

“Oh, this one,” they said, grinding up into Raphael. “I like her.”

Somehow, Raphael managed a scoff. “You like-- everyone, you insatiable--”

“That’s patently untrue, my pet. I don’t like you, for one.”

The response made Raphael scowl, and wrinkle his nose. He wrinkled his nose a lot when annoyed and it made it somewhat difficult to take him seriously, power of the Hells and all. Tav smiled, and leaned in, almost close enough to kiss him. She did not have Yurgir’s keen sense of smell, but there it was, just like he’d said - the scent of cherries and musk beneath the lingering sulfur. Her voice had always been a little too rough to sound truly sweet, but she did her best to soften it. “Do you want me to kneel for you, Raphael?”

He didn’t answer, not with words: he tried to lean forward instead, to catch her lips with his, to grab her and pull her closer. Tav was fast enough to pull back, though, and the incubus’ hands grasped Raphael’s wrists, snake-quick. Haarlep laughed at the frustrated noise that got out of him, and thrust upwards into him sharply, biting into his shoulder in the same motion.

“Behave, little brat,” they purred against his ear. “She asked you a question, it’s only polite to answer. With words. Do you want her to kneel for you?”

If Tav could bottle the moan that left Raphael then, and sell it, she’d be able to buy the Gate and everyone in it ten times over. Maybe there was a way to do that, really, but working it out would have to wait. Right now, she had a more urgent matter to take care of.

Well, two urgent matters. There was the contract, too. She probably shouldn’t forget that.

“What did you say, pet? I couldn’t hear a yes or a no.” The incubus grinned, delighted, and bit into his shoulder again. Raphael cried out, wordless, but he managed a nod and Tav supposed she could go with that. She placed a kiss on his shoulder, just below the bite mark, and knelt between his trembling thighs. Up close, she noticed the ring at the base of his cock for the first time. She tilted her head, running a finger down the length. 

Well, look at that. He wasn’t getting to come anytime soon with that thing on. 

“Believe me, you’d have missed all the fun if I hadn’t put that on,” Haarlep almost sing-sang, and let go of one of Raphael’s wrists to grab his face, forcing him to look down. Tav lifted her gaze to see his eyes on her, his lips parted and face flushed, Haarlep’s claws pressing mercilessly into his cheeks. The incubus in question smiled over his shoulder. 

“Do you know what he sees when he looks at you? He’ll never tell you, but he told me. I can make him tell me everything,” they cooed, and silenced Raphael’s attempt at a protest with two fingers in his mouth, pressing down his tongue. Raphael made an indignant noise, but his body remained flush against Haarlep’s chest, his eyes still fixed on Tav, wide and dark and hungry. “Can you guess?”

Great, so this was a guessing game now. Tav raised an eyebrow. “A rodent of small size?” she ventured.  The incubus’ smile widened.

“His kingdom, that’s what he sees. He looks at you, and he sees his crowning glory.”

Well, fuck. That sure did something to the pit of her stomach and a little below that too. Gods was it hot in there. “Ah,” Tav said, and her voice cracked just a touch, but she managed to catch herself. She had to keep some measure of control if she was to negotiate, because Raphael’s helpless state would do her no good if her brain also turned to mush. So she steadied herself, and locked eyes with him. 

She was beginning to feel decidedly overdressed, and her own face was burning, but she held his gaze as she took hold of his cock and leaned in to press her lips on the side of the shaft in a soft kiss. Raphael keened around Haarlep’s fingers, hips shuddering and back arching. The incubus laughed, and thrust up again - hard - to tear another cry from his throat. 

“Ah, now we’re talking. You’re so much more fun than usual, my little brat,” they said, soft, almost affectionate. They snuck their free arm around Raphael to pull him back against their chest, pinching a nipple. “But oh, aren’t we terrible hosts. I should have told you to make yourself at home, little mouse. Feel free to slip out of that armor. It looks so uncomfortable.” A pause, a tilt of their head. “And unflattering, if I may.”

Tav allowed one more kiss on the inside of Raphael's thigh and stood, just a little unsteady. She began undoing the clasps with a huff. “The point of an armor isn’t to be flattering,” she muttered, letting the parts drop on the floor and trying not to look in Raphael’s direction just yet. “It’s to keep pointy things from skewering you.”

“Oh, then you should definitely take it off now.”

“... Guess I walked into that one.” 

The last of Tav’s underclothes were dropped on the floor, and only then did she look back at Haarlep and Raphael. The incubus had pulled their fingers out of Raphael’s mouth and was smiling, eyes running over her body. Not a lot there for them to see, to be entirely honest; she’d always been about as shapely as a wooden board. 

On one of the last nights they’d spent together, Misza had joked that she had curves enough for them both, and pretended to smother her against her breast. They had laughed like idiots, and that was when Tav had decided she should put a ring on it, before someone else snatched her up. And she’d been snatched all right, but down, down into the Hells along with the entire city and--

A lump threatened to form in her throat and Tav forced it away, pushing memories of better times in the back of her mind, where dead things lingered amidst the ruins of Elturel. Dead, charred things. Her mother and father and all her little siblings, and the woman she’d wanted to propose to once she returned from her time in the countryside, where she had gone to learn how to better control her wild magic. 

But she’d returned to find a crater where Elturel once was; while the city re-emerged from the Hells in the end, many of its inhabitants didn’t live to see the sky again. She had buried the only body she could recognize, her youngest brother with his owlbear plush toy still in his arms. Then the ring meant for Misza had been sold for passage to Baldur’s Gate and she’d left, long before the surviving citizens cast out all remaining tieflings among them.

“Are you well, little mouse?” Haarlep’s voice snapped her out of it, and they spoke slower, their gaze more focused, a hint of a frown across their features. 

Tav met their gaze, and smiled. She had plenty of reasons to smile. They were all gone, but she was still around and so was Zariel, who’d had the city dragged into Avernus. Zariel, who would never surrender her throne without a fight. Zariel, whose days as archdevil would be numbered if Raphael got his way - and he would, as long as she could secure a few clauses. She’d happily be the key to Raphael’s future kingdom, then. 

After all, he was her key to Zariel’s bloody demise. It was a fair exchange. He just didn’t need to know that. 

“Just admiring the sights,” she said, and looked back at the devil she was getting to know a damn lot better than before. Raphael had shut his eyes, brow furrowed and breathing fast, clearly trying to regain some semblance of control. And that, she knew, would not do. The less in control he was, the more chances she had to turn the negotiations her way. 

So she pushed aside hesitation, strode to the bed, and tilted up Raphael’s face. He blinked his eyes open, as though startled by the touch, and swallowed. “The crown,” he breathed, and Tav smiled. Her other hand went down to her folds, two fingers slipping in and coming out slick and glistening. She pressed them to Raphael’s mouth and he parted his lips to let them in, eyes falling shut with a shiver. His tongue felt too warm, too, and Tav licked her lips. 

“Yes,” she rasped, pushing him against Haarlep’s chest. The incubus leaned back, arms braced on the mattress behind them, and Raphael could only tilt back against them, groaning at the shift of the cock inside him. Tav straddled him, letting his erection barely brush against her labia, just enough to let him feel how warm she was, and how wet. His breath hitched, eyes fluttering open, and she smiled again. “Let’s talk about the crown I’m going to place on your head. I’d like to see you with that on. Just the crown.” 

A hand through his hair, the press of lips against his own, and Raphel’s hands gripped her sides hard enough to bruise, pulling her flush against him, chest to chest. She blinked, taken aback, but then she felt him part his lips to let her tongue in and ah, may as well. She kissed him, more roughly and a good deal more enthusiastically than she had originally planned. 

“I think he likes us,” she recalled Astarion saying, and she recalled her reply just as well.

"I like him too, but I'd never say it to his smarmy face."

Well. She was not saying anything of the sort, and he didn’t look all that smarmy anymore, so her point still stood. She heard, dimly, Haarlep’s throaty chuckle. 

“This one’s eager, pet. Didn’t even need my saliva to help along.”

There was something that sounded very much like a growl deep in Raphael’s chest, and he pulled away from Tav’s mouth to turn and snap at Haarlep to be quiet. Or try to, because it took the incubus only a jolt of their hips for his words to turn into a moan.

“You be quiet, little brat. You’re no one’s master tonight, remember?” they whispered against his ear, and smiled at Tav over his shoulder. “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance, by the way. I’m always telling Raphael he should introduce me to his friends more often. Alas, he expressly forbade me to play with you. Never seen him get this jealous.”

“That’s not--” Raphael gasped, and Haarlep silenced him with a few swift thrusts. Still straddling Raphael, Tav grasped his shoulders to avoid being thrown off; his cock rubbed against her folds, only for a moment, but it tore a gasp from her and a moan from Raphael. He dropped his forehead against Tav’s shoulder, gasping, and Tav cupped the back of his head without thinking, stroked down the back of his neck before she finally, finally , allowed herself to sink down on him. 

“Oh…” A sigh, and she closed her eyes, taking a moment to savor the feeling, the stretch. She was wet and he slid in so easily, so deep. Was it supposed to feel that warm? Was it a devil thing? Did it matter? Probably not; it felt good either way. Against her skin, Raphael let out an incoherent noise and grasped her again, pulling her close.

Don’t worry, I’m going nowhere, she almost said, but what left her mouth was quite different.

“This is going to be quite a tale,” she groaned, her voice rough, and rocked her hips. “That I bedded the archdevil supreme. No one’s going to believe me.”

A shudder, and there was no telling what had caused it - the heat of her around him, her movements, or her words. Either way, he pulled back enough to look at her. There it was, in the midst of pleasure - that hungry look again. “You shall give me the crown,” he rasped, and Tav smiled.

“I want to give you the crown just as much as you want to put an end to the Grand Design. But like you, I have conditions.” A kiss, deep, a slow tilt of her hips. Haarlep moved again beneath them, inside Raphael, and somehow it was easy to match their movements, find the right rhythm. Raphael’s breaths came in shuddering gasps, but he did not call for either of them to stop. “So I have come with a counteroffer.”

A scoff. “There is no counteroffer to be-- made,” he groaned through clenched teeth. 

A smile, a kiss. “You forget,” Tav whispered against his lips, rocking slowly, “that I have a backup plan, and you do not.”

“Trusting-- ah-- an Illithid is no plan. It’s sheer-- ngh-- idiocy.”

“Ah, but I thrive on idiocy. Idiocy got me this far.” She stilled, clenched around him, and muffled the noise that got out of him with another kiss. “It might just carry me a little further. If the Emperor can help us destroy the Netherbrain, with or without Orpheus - and you know he can - then we’ll have no reason to give you the crown. Why risk it all without hearing me out?” A light bite on his lower lip. “You’ll find my requests more than reasonable.”

Raphael scowled, but he tilted back his head against Haarlep’s shoulder, and closed his eyes. When she leaned in to nip at his throat, she felt him swallow. “... What are your requests?” he finally groaned.

Well, this is it. Best to start small.

“There are two requests that you can satisfy with little more than a snap of your fingers, I’m sure. Two of my companions carry their doom in their chests. I know that with the Crown of Karsus, you can remove the orb from Gale quite readily - and without harming him. And someone capable of creating the Orphic Hammer surely knows how to fix an infernal engine so it can work on this plane without killing its bearer.”

A low, breathy chuckle. “Of course. These will be trivial matters to me.”

“So is that something you’d be willing to add to the contract?”

“Consider it done. Will that-- ah-- ” Raphael trailed off for a moment, trembling, before he caught his voice again. “Will that be all?”

“Not quite. I want to make it clear that no soul but mine will be involved.” She ground against him, hard, and grasped his chin to make sure he’d look at her. His eyes opened, wide and dark, to meet hers. “The crown for the hammer, and for your help for Gale and Karlach, with my soul - mine alone - as the collateral if I fail to deliver the crown. If I deliver it to you, as I intend to, my soul will remain my own.”

Tav watched Raphael’s brow furrow, watched him think it over with as much difficulty one can experience while being fucked by an incubus and a woman at the same time, and finally watched him jerk his head in a nod. “Yes, that is-- ah-- reasonable,” he panted. His hands ran down her back, down her sides, and stopped on her thighs. “Will that-- be all?”

“Not quite.” A kiss, rough. “Another collateral seems fair. You said you’ll limit your rule to the Nine Hells of Baator.”

“And I shall,” Raphael replied, trying to bite her lip, but she was too quick to pull back. She smiled, brushing a hand down his chest, down his stomach, almost to the point where their bodies joined. Her fingers brushed against his shaft, causing him to shudder.

“I want that in writing, binding you to relinquish the crown’s ownership to Mystra if you break the clause.” 

As she had very much expected, Raphael stilled beneath her. He glowered, anger crossing his features even through the daze of pleasure. “No,” he all but growled, and seemed about to add something - but Haarlep rocked into him harder than before, Tav clenched around him, and his voice broke into a groan. Haarlep winked at her; it cost Tav some effort not to openly smile back.

If she succeeded in her mission, she would probably owe the incubus a favor. Oh well. Something could be worked out, surely. 

“No?” she repeated, all fake innocence. She cupped Raphael’s cheek, looking at him in the eye. Her thumb brushed over his lips. “But you have already pledged to keep to the Hells. Putting that in writing should be no trouble at all. Why would it be?”

Because he’d had no intention whatsoever to be true to that pledge, was the obvious answer, but it wasn’t something he could admit without showing his hand. She knew it, he knew it, and he was livid about it. 

… Not livid enough to push her off him, however. She took note of that while waiting for a response. She watched him clench his jaw, then make an effort to smooth his expression. 

“It rather hurts,” he rasped, voice so low, “to see my word doesn’t carry enough weight for you.”

Tav couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “No one’s word does.” She leaned in to kiss the bridge of his nose. “ Verba volant, scripta manent. You of all people would know what that means. You’d be a poor devil indeed, not to take advantage of the lack of a written clause. I’d be disappointed if you didn’t at least try, and you have never disappointed so far.”

He still scowled, but when she pulled back he reached to grasp her head, to pull her mouth back on his. It was a rough, devouring kiss - the first such initiative from his part - and she yielded to it immediately. She sighed into his mouth, wrapped her arms around his neck and tilted her hips again, pressing him down on Haarlep with her meager weight. She swallowed his groan, and shuddered when he bit into her lower lip - not hard enough to draw blood but oh, almost. For a few moments all she could hear was his panting breath, her own thumping heart, and the slick noises they made as she rocked against him again. 

And then, finally, a groan. “... Very well,” he rasped. “It will be clearly stated in the contract--”

“Which will be written in common tongue,” she cut him off. “For me to ready before I sign. With a copy for me to keep.”

This time, she felt the frustrated growl in his chest more than she heard it. His hands, which had been going down her spine, stilled. “Infernal contracts,” he bit out, obviously short on breath, “are meant to be written in Infernal. It’s very much in the name, little mouse.”

Tav leaned her cheek on his shoulder, and bit at his earlobe. “A certified translation, then, with witnesses,” she panted. He felt hot to the touch and so did she, unbearably so, skin slick with sweat. Still she pressed her face into the crook of his neck, breathing him in. Cherries and musk, yes, and despite the lingering sulfur it was sweet, sweet, intoxicating. Pressure was building up, white-hot. She had to bite her lower lip not to moan. “A-- and a clause that makes the contract null and void-- if the translation differs in any way,” she managed. 

Another groan, part frustration and part arousal, as he shuddered beneath her. “This is-- not the norm, with any contract--”

“But this isn’t any contract, Raphael.” She pulled back, despite the tight grasp around her, to press a kiss against his lips. “This is the one that will make you the archdevil supreme of all Baator.”

“I’ve extended-- more than enough grace--”

“I only want guarantees for what you already promised.” Tav cut him off, and smiled against his lips before pulling away, arching her back. To her satisfaction, Raphael had to bite his lips to silence a moan. She placed both hands on his chest, and rocked her hips. She was close - Gods, was she close - and he was still hard within her, so warm, unable to finish. 

“Contracts can be changed, if both parties agree,” she managed through ragged breaths. “The ruler of all Hells may yet convince me to revise it.” Absolutely not, but you’re welcome to try. If I truly can take that crown from a Netherbrain I’ll be able to take it from you, if I must. “And you’ll have plenty of time to do so. I’ll come to the Hells and join your war.” Let me be the one to cut down Zariel, and I’ll follow you to the Ninth. “We can make-- a separate contract, if you like. I won’t leave until I see you sit on Asmodeus’ throne.”

For a moment, Raphael truly seemed at a loss for words. He stared, eyes wide, as though struggling to make sense of what he’d just heard. Even his grip on her hips slackened. “You-- I--”

“Oh, please let her come over. She’s fun. We could use some fun.”

Haarlep’s voice caused him to recoil, as though he’d somehow forgotten about their presence despite the cock buried inside him. Though come to think of it, Tav hadn’t felt Haarlep move for… several minutes, at least. 

“You-- this is none of your concern, incubus-- and why did you stop? ” Raphael bit out, turning to glare at the incubus in question. They were leaning back on their elbows, head tilted, and grinned widely before thrusting upwards in a smooth motion. Raphael shuddered, and pressed his mouth against Tav’s shoulder to muffle a groan. 

“Ah, my apologies. The two of you were such a fun spectacle to watch,” Haarlep muttered, and sat up, chest once again pressing against Raphael’s back. “You want to finish, don’t you, little brat?” Another upward thrust, another moan against Tav’s skin. “Then wrap up the conversation, pet. It’s impolite to keep a lady waiting for an answer.”

A growl, and Raphael lifted his head to look Tav in the eyes. Shortly after their first meeting, she recalled Gale claiming he’d seen a spark of Hellfire in his eyes. She’d thought he was just being dramatic at the time, but now, up close… oh, she could see it too, and more than a spark. It made her breath catch, pleasure coiling in her loins. Her grip on his shoulders tightened when he spoke, his voice low. 

“... Very well. But you will get me that crown, little mouse. If you refuse, I will have your soul. If you fail to get it for me and die, I’ll still have your soul. Am I clear?”

A nod, a shuddering breath. “Yes,” she managed. “That sounds-- ah-- fair.”

“We have-- a deal, then,” Raphael breathed, and Tav claimed his lips again. Negotiations concluded, she could finally let go of the last shreds of self control and ride him in earnest, grinding hard against him. Her ears were buzzing and all her limbs felt so heavy and so light all of a sudden, her body flushing hot and cold at the same time. 

Distantly, she heard Haarlep laugh, and Raphael cry out. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how that had to feel for him, with both her and Haarlep moving fast and hard, around him and inside him, keeping him trapped between them as they took their pleasure, unable to move and helplessly feeling it all. 

Later, Tav wouldn't know for how long it went on. Too long, probably. Not long enough, surely. She teetered on the edge of orgasm and she was sure she’d break, but she did not. Or at least, she was not the first to break.

“Haarlep--” Raphael cried out against Tav’s neck, and something suspiciously like a sob wracked his body; the face pressed against her skin felt too wet for it to be just sweat. The incubus let out a low, rumbling chuckle. Tav felt their hand slip between them, down Raphael’s stomach and then lower, the back of it barely brushing against her as the fingers toyed with the ring at the base of Raphael’s cock. 

“You want it off, don’t you, little duke?”

“Yes-- yes-- ”

“Beg.”

Another sob, and something dripped down Tav’s neck, down her shoulder. Raphael’s arms were gripping her tightly, as if he was desperately trying to ground himself to something. “Please,” he choked out, and somehow the desperation in his voice was what finally pushed Tav over the edge.

The orgasm was almost blinding, mind-numbing in its intensity, wave after wave of pleasure up her spine. She clenched around him and shuddered hard enough she almost thought, for a moment, that she might seize and die. What a way to go, she thought, barely coherent, holding onto the only Raphael for dear life. A hell of a way to go. If her heart stopped now, she wasn’t sure she’d have complaints.

She never had to find out, though, because her heart did not stop. It kept beating wildly in her chest when her shudders died down and she went limp against Raphael, panting, head spinning. Against her ear, Raphael keened. 

“Please!”

A chuckle, and now even the incubus sounded breathless. “Good boy,” they said, and reached down again. Tav did not see or feel what they did, but suddenly the ring was gone and Raphael muffled a cry against her, his entire body shuddering. And maybe it was her mind playing tricks on her, but Tav could have sworn even his come felt warmer than it had any right to be. She clenched around him reflexively, still mostly spent, and Raphael trembled before he, too, went limp.

“There, little brat. Take it,” Haarlep was murmuring, and thrust their hips upwards one last time before stilling and closing their eyes with a long, pleased sigh. “Oh, this was so much better than usual…”

They said something else, probably, but Tav was beyond hearing it. She must have blacked out, or something like it, because it felt as though she’d only blinked and then she opened her eyes to find herself leaning on her side on the bed, empty and panting, a sticky and cooling mess on the inside of her thighs. She was vaguely aware of the fact Haarlep was sitting at the foot of the bed, saying something about the pool in the next room; but she didn’t look up, couldn’t lift her head.

And neither, it seemed, could Raphael. He was still holding onto her, face wet and burrowed against her throat, breathing ragged. His frame trembled; she reached to brush his hair back without thinking, nails scraping gently against his scalp. She wasn’t sure how long she did that, mind empty of all thought, but eventually their breathing slowed, his trembling subsided. Her fingers tangled once more in Raphael’s hair and did not move again. He remained still, too, his breathing slow and steady against her skin. 

Tav closed her eyes, and let herself fall into nothingness. Somewhere in that darkness on the brink of sleep she saw the Crown of Karsus on Raphael’s head, saw Zariel’s broken body at his feet, saw her head in her hands.

And she smiled.

***

[Back to Act I]

[On to Act III]

[alpydk]

Angsty prompt - Gale gets a bit arrogant and carried away and gets Karlach's hopes up for a possible magical solution to her problem.

(no pressure, as always) ❤️

Sorry this has taken me so long, but I got to it. Thank you for the prompts. Yours are always so great to work on. This is just total heartbreak, by the way.

Word Count - 966 words - CW - Major Character Death

"The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long."

---

“I’m sorry, Karlach.”

It was all Gale could say during their last night together, as the campfire burnt as intensely as she had, as the logs on the fire crackled, slowly becoming ash, just as she would. The stars shone above them brightly, as if knowing that she would soon join them, burning with the intention that all would see their beauty. He’d promised her he’d save her, that she would live her long life under blue skies, that she would feel the touch of those around her, that loves embrace would hold her closely for years to come. Magic was everything to him. It could fix everything. But not her, as he’d come to find out.

She lifted her head, her voice a little quieter than the usual boisterous tones he’d got used to. “Don’t worry about it. You did all you could.”

“If only we had more time, then I could...” He refused to accept this was the end. If I could get you back to Waterdeep, if I could freeze you somehow, if we could remove your infernal engine entirely...

“Really, it’s good. You did more for me than anyone. Hells, how many people can say they’ve stood under an ice storm and lived to tell the tale?” She chuckled at the memory, her feet kicking a little dust towards the fire that spat embers at her. 

He remembered the night of experimentation, of Ice Storm and Hold Person spells. He’d even conjured the Weave with her in a hope that he could feel the infernal engine within her and devise a plan to repair it. All it had led to was their combined touch-starved thoughts joining and reminding them both of what they would never have. “Karlach, I refuse to accept this is it. After all we have been through, how you saved me at Moonrise; it can’t end this way.”

“Hey, none of that talk. None of this “this is the end and we’re all going to die” bollocks.” Karlach pouted as she spoke, her imitation of Gale one that she hoped would make him smile. When he didn’t, she gave his arm a soft punch. “What I mean is, we’ve had a good run, ain’t we?”

Her smile always gave him hope. She faced her end with such optimism, something he had tried and failed to do. He for a time, had wallowed in the thoughts of his demise. She, however, had embraced the knowledge that each day could be her last, finding pleasure in such small things as flowers and cheap ale, and it was her zest for life that had caused him to fall for her. He wanted to tell her he loved her, to worship her as she deserved, but now he had failed her. It was his fault that she was about to die, and who could love him knowing that?

He glanced over at her after she nudged him. “It has certainly been an adventure.”

“Exactly, so let’s do what we always do tonight; get blind drunk and do that Weave thing you do so well.”

The night was one to remember. The wine flowed as freely as the Chionthar nearby, laughter filled the silence, and neither spoke of what was to happen the next day. Only the celestial bodies above knew the fates of the doomed pair.

---

Karlach watched as Tav made the decision, as Gale gave the solemn nod of agreement before casting the teleportation spell. She shouted as he vanished from her view with the knowledge of what he was about to do, her heart aching, not with the incredible heat of her infernal engine but a buried grief she hadn’t felt was possible. As she appeared on the docks, the cool salted breeze on her body, she immediately spun on her heels to go back.

She barely heard the yells of Tav and her companions as she ran through the city streets, her tears singeing to steam as they hit her cheeks. Her axe swiped at the mindflayers that attacked, their long shadows emerging from the darkened alleys onto her path. They slowed her down and with each swing she became more desperate, her war cries now tinged with the knowledge of loss.

It was as she reached the courtyard of the High Hall that the ground shook beneath her, as a blinding light filled the sky for all to see. A new star born in the light of day. She felt the pounding agony within her body, the tadpole, her engine, his death, all combining and bringing her to her knees on the cold cobbles. Her tears could not be felt as her body burnt brighter, as the stone turned black under the heat of her blaze, as the city grew quiet aside from the crackling of soft flame.

As her heart shattered to pieces, she thought back over their adventures: the sun shining upon her face, the improvised sauna under a waterfall, the tender kiss of his lips in the palm of Mystra’s hand. Karlach had only one regret as she clutched her chest, as she knew she would now die alone; She wished she had told him how she felt, that she loved him.

As she whispered the unspoken words she had longed to say, she felt the cool breeze touch her face. She closed her eyes, saw him before her and, with it, she accepted what she had always known, that she would die before she had even lived.

The courtyard was left silent, the blazing sun setting over the world as peace fell. All that was left were blackened ashes taken to the skies with the passing of a gentle wind; skies that would soon hold two newborn stars burning brighter than they ever had in life.

[achilles-invulnerable-heel]

I am never going to recover from Karlachs reaction to killing Gortash

I am never going to be okay about this!! I'm sad!! :((

I will also never stop thinking about the parallels with astarion. Karlach and astarion both parallel each other in the backstory department in a few key ways but they directly parallel each other when they each kill the person that supposedly ruined their lives.

Astarion seems to see the death of cazador as a beginning for him. The beginning of an eternity as a spawn, but a beginning!! A beginning free of that shit ass vampire lord.

Karlach kills Gortash and she seems to see it as an end. This is what she's wanted to do for so long but now that it's done. She's still dying. She's still going to die. Soon. That was most of what she seemed to still really have any passion left for and now that he's dead she has to accept the end. And I'm sad!! I'm sad about that

[haemosexuality]

about my tav, phynn (who is kind of a self insert):

phynn is a drow that was born in the underdark and raised by a lolth sworn family. after trying several times, she successfully escaped her city when she was 76. since then, she has been moving around a lot- living in areas of the underdark that are very near the surface and dont have many drows (she doesnt mind the deep gnomes and duergar), but mainly in the outskirts of surface cities, including of course Baldur's Gate. it took her almost a decade to get used to the sun

she is a thief, and a very good one. shes had odd jobs here and there but she makes most of her outcome by straight up stealing whatever she can find and then selling it. when shes in big, rich cities like Baldur's Gate, she does a looot of burglary. breaking and entering is like her favorite hobby. she also had to get very good at fighting, both bc of the whole drow thing and bc of all the criminaling

by the start of the game, shes 183 years old, having been living in and around the surface for just over 100 years. in a human au she would be like 24

PERSONALITY AND OTHER FACTS:

her morals are contradicting and alll over the fucking place. that is because i am not good at role-playing and will just do whatever the fuck but in universe is because she was raised by very hardcore lolth worshippers and then spent the next century mostly by herself and getting by by stealing. not a lot of time for things like developing a well established and stable moral code. id say shes chaotic neutral, but with a good heart?

her journey throughout the game at first made her better, she tried to be a good person, and then made her worse because that is a lot of horrible things that happened to her and all her new friends and she is this close to snapping and having a breakdown. also shes killed more people in the last like 4 months than she has in a whole century and that will for sure change a person for the worst. shes become very apathetic and just so goddamn Tired. she didnt sign up for saving the whole world she just wanted this damn tadpole out of her head so she could continue to sell stolen jewelry!!! fucks sake!!

as part of her total off the rails mental breakdown she also became a chronic kleptomaniac. she was a thief before sure but that was just like, her job for her, now its a real compulsion. her raiding everything and everyone she sees and its starting to worry the other companions. this is inspired by me going to GREAT lengths and doing everything i can to steal literally everything i see until i realized i really didnt need to be doing that i have so many shit in my inventory and like 30 thousand gold. then i started feeling bad for these fictional npcs that are not real people and are not important to the story whatsoever because everyone here is so poor i dont need to be stealing but i truly cannot stop. normal behavior

she actually misses some aspects of the underdark. she liked how pretty (and less sunny) it was, and the food. shes not lolth sword but shes not seldarine either, she just kind of doesn't care. obviously shes not a fan of drow culture, but she still gets pretty pissed when surface ppl start talking shit

she is a rogue! she also has some levels of fighter but i just got that for gameplay reasons.

shes dating karlach in denial she doesnt know if she wants to try to convince her to go to hell so she can live, or just accept her wish to let her die. this is inspired by me crying real life tears over this fucking character. also astarion is her bestie they gossip together

not much else to say about her personality shes literally just me if i was given free will to be chaotic insane and kill people

uhm when she met astarion she didnt realize he was a vampire at ALL she assumed he was an albino drow. he ran with it until she woke up to him almost biting her while she slept (canon game event). this is inspired by a comic i saw

APPEARANCE:

eyes: because she was born to a lolth sworn mother her eyes are naturally red. i also gave her cat pupils because that looks cool to me it makes sense that drows would have pupils that can better adjust to lack of/light like that i mean they live underground!! because she is me tho she cant see shit. she used to have glasses but they got lost early in the game in a battle to which she was just blind as fuck and had to be babysat by the other companions. that lasted less than a tenday (dnd week) tho because:

her right eye got Volo'd, and the glass eye volo gives us to replace the one he plucked out is Magic, and not nearsighted! she started covering her left eye with an eyepatch since, because having one eye that can see perfectly and one that cant is awful and confusing. when she doesnt wear the eyepatch, her left eye is always squinting

the glass eye has round pupils, so her pupils are different now too!

she dyes her hair different colors. with the power of Magic and Fantasy Hair Dye. tho her natural hair color is ofc white

has vampire bite scars from astarion. they have an agreement going on where he can feed off of her every few days. people are baffled that its not sexual (astarions traumatized ass included)

she bandages her chest because i cant imagine a worst curse than having to run around and fight and climb mountains with a large chest

[mirabai0821]

Blood and Honey WIP CH 358/2

Pairings: Tav x Halsin / Tav x Astarion Warnings: Oh hey, more angst Words: 631 Summary: Halsin rescues Thaniel, but Tav breaks a rule. And though Halsin and Astarion are bitter rivals, unlike one another in every way, the only thing they can agree on is kicking off in Tav's ass when she does something incredibly dangerous. But it does not go the way they expect.

Tav barely had a moment to collect her breath before Astarion collapsed on her like a dying star.

“How very gods damn dare you!” He seized her by the shoulders, grip so hard it bruised, but his eyes held none of the fury of his voice, only fear.

“Astarion,” Tav sighed. “Can we give it a rest, it’s over. Everything’s fine.”

“No, everything is not fucking fine! Do you have any idea what you just put m—us through with your little stunt?” “C’mon Asty,” Karlach intervened, unsteady on her feet as her last healing potion worked its way through her veins. “No harm, no foul.”

“No! Don’t let a happy outcome overshadow what just happened!”

“You’re overreacting, Astarion,” Shadowheart said.

“I am not.”

“He is not.”

Two voices echoed. 

Astarion and Halsin.

The malignant shadows had dispersed as though banished by sunrise even though the land remained wreathed in darkness. But with its spirit returned, something in the air shifted, lightened. The first whispers of hope scented the breeze.

A miracle, Halsin thought, cradling Thaniel in his arms. But ice cold dread lingered where hope should have bloomed. Seeing Tav on the far side of the portal dredged up a fear that could not be calmed by Thaniel’s peaceful, sleeping face.

Fear that quickly morphed into anger. For the first time ever, he felt kinship with Astarion. He knew exactly what the younger elf felt, knew the exact shape and form and taste of his fury. It bubbled up the back of his throat, tasting of metal and bile.

“Halsin?” Tav reached for him but he shrugged away. 

“I told you to remain here,” he growled through clenched jaw and gritted teeth. 

“I only wanted to…”

“How much help could you have done dead!” Astarion screamed, uncaring of the fey child’s slumber.

“That’s not fair!” Karlach said. 

“No, no,” Astarion countered. “The tadpole in my head, you head, her head, Tav’s head, all our fucking heads – ursine company excluded of course – That’s!! Not fair.”

Tav rose to her full height, tail twitching angrily. “What would you have had me do? Let him die.”

“Yes!” Halsin and Astarion’s voices echoed again and this time they could not ignore it. They exchanged a look, both bewildered yet comforted to find themselves on the same side.

“N-no,” she said, voice wavering from steel to straw in a single syllable. “You don’t…” She looked between the two, lips quivering, eyes watering. The words were there on her tongue but she couldn't say them, she was afraid to say them like this. Tav took a shuddering breath, grateful that Shadowheart and Karlach were there to collect the shattered pieces of herself she knew she was about to leave behind.

“You don’t…You don’t get to pretend to care about me then ignore me. That’s what’s not fair.”

Astarion’s mouth flew open, a retort ready but nothing came, and his mouth shut again with an audible click. Halsin’s face merely burned with embarrassment, his fury melting away to leave behind shame. 

“You both have made it pretty clear that…” Tav stopped again, courage faltering, before it abandoned her wholly. 

But she didn’t care. 

“You’ve both made it pretty clear that I’m not who you want and that’s fine. I’ve accepted that. Made my peace with it. But I don’t understand why…why that also meant that I had to lose you both as friends too.”

“Despite that,” she continued. “I can’t…won’t …stop caring.”

“So there,” she finished.

“Well damn,” Shadowheart whistled. 

“Hell yeah!” Karlach agreed. “C’mon soldier, let’s get you something warm and boozy, you look like you took a bath with a cheese grater.”

Tav smiled, slinging one arm over the barbarian’s shoulder while Shadowheart took up her other. 

The women left the men behind in stunned silence.

[invinciblerodent]

just a biiiiiit more Ionaposting for tonight and I'll shut up

i honestly loved just how different the ways she- and my boy Arvid handled Karlach's whole situation. because they were both rather close with her (she had a lot in common with Arvid, and she's pretty much Iona's best friend, they've been very consistently warm, friendly, and trustworthy presences for each other), but this willingness to die rather than to be stifled is... something that I think Iona just does not understand.

Or, well, she does, but right now, she also doesn't.

I think one of the things about Iona that I enjoy a lot is kind of her moral flexibility. She's done a lot of shitty things for survival, lied, cheated, the works- she's scrappy, she isn't afraid of getting her hands dirty (she is a slippery weasel-woman after all), and she's used to lying in wait and enduring low-grade crappiness for the sake of survival.

Karlach though, seems a bit more stiff in this regard. More idealistic, with some moral wiggle room, but not too much of it. She's firmly good, while Iona is more of a neutral-skewing-good aligned kind of a character.

And I think in this specific thing, due to the emotional component, Iona (though she knows that faced with the same choice of going back to her earlier situation versus death, she would fight until her last drop of blood too) kind of reverts back to thinking the way she did before the game's plot.

Where Arvid solemnly accepted Karlach's choice, prayed with her, and just promised to stay with her when the time comes (like a soldier and healer would accept a fatal injury or an incurable illness), Iona is kind of... almost pressuring her to return to Avernus. She's less a resigned healer and more a fox who'd chew off her leg to escape a fatal trap, and she doesn't seem to be able to accept that her friend made a choice (the choice deep down she knows she would have made herself)- she just keeps asking Karlach to reconsider.

Every time the prompt comes up, I feel like that's the dialogue that feels most natural. The why, why, why won't you just go back, just for a while, just until we figure this out, just a little longer. And she's frustrated too, because Avernus seems like such an obvious solution to the problem (if a temporary one), and it's not like there isn't a place for Karlach to go!!!

I really kind of like how they sort of clash on this, and something tells me that if Wyll wasn't the Blade of Avernus on this run too, I think (regardless of whether Astarion needs her or not) Iona might have offered to actually go with Karlach to the Hells. Offered herself up as a final bargaining chip.

It'd feel appropriate, to kind of almost exploit the very nice and heartfelt "I can face anything as long as you're there, even death" line Karlach gave her earlier- though, yeah, it would be manipulative as hell (true to form I guess), and yeah, it would yet again be Iona choosing to endure low-grade crappiness, at least this time it'd be for the sake of sparing herself the greater heartache of losing her friend for good.

fffffffffff their friendship was so good to explore, and man, every time I see this final Gortash confrontation, I'm just amazed at how Samantha Béart just went NUTS on that monologue. Such an incredible performance.

[spacemonkeysalsa]

The more I play D&D and learn about D&D lore, the more I'm finding fewer and fewer reasons to hate the BG3 characters that I hate.

Like, Mizora is awful, completely unacceptable the way she treats Wyll and Karlach, but if I'm understanding cambion lore properly then the way Karlach characterises her presence in Zariel's inner circle becomes admittedly a bit unfair to Mizora. Specifically the part where Karlach says she's there "by choice."

As I understand it, hell's caste system allows for a not insignificant amount of climbing and falling.

Not for cambions though, cambions are fixed. They can't advance and they can't be demoted either. They can be useful, or they can be dead. Like, it's significant that Raphael is trying to break the system and defy this, by obtaining the crown of Karsus, but to me that plot-line actually reinforces that Larian isn't discounting this bit of cambion lore in BG3; they are using it for character motivation in our two main cambion characters.

Raphael has been collecting souls and warlocks, because that's basically the extent of what he's allowed to do on his own without directly serving the agenda of some bigger monster.

Mizora, as far as we know, has at least one warlock, but is mainly characterised as serving Zariel. If you want to survive you have to serve, or scheme, or do some combination of both, with some degree of success, otherwise you die. They don't have a stage of advanced age and imminent death, like most species, and could probably just live forever, but they don't tend to live real long due to the way they are doomed to be used up.

Karlach describing Zariel's favor of her and Mizora's apparent jealousy then becomes interesting to me, because on some level Karlach might've had more potential for longevity within the hierarchy than Mizora did.

And Karlach wouldn't have any interest in it, which I imagine would really bother Mizora.

From Karlch's standpoint, Mizora could leave at any time. She could go hang out on Toril, either in disguise or as a cambion outcast and she could just stop serving and Zariel might let her get away with it. (Press X to doubt)

And from Mizora's standpoint, Karlach could just embrace her gifts and Zariel's favor of her and become powerful enough in hell's caste that she's secure and doesn't have to do the things she hates any longer because of that favor. (Press X to doubt)

And like, obviously Karlach is a prisoner, and Mizora can see that. But being stuck serving hell is such a baseline for Mizora. It might be something she just accepted a long time ago, which is why it would seem to Karlach that Mizora is there by her own choice.

A lot of cambions are depicted as smart or cautious enough to recognise that if they were given more responsibility within hell's hierarchy it would be a prologue to their ruin. They get set up to take the fall for bigger monsters all the time, that's kinda their deal. But you just get crushed under that system if you don't do something to make yourself valuable within it. Mizora doesn't really have the option to not engage. Doesn't justify Mizora's feelings or actions at all, and I don't know if any of this could relate to her fixation on Wyll. It might be a bit of a boon her to her that she has this human nobleman's son as her warlock, and she probably doesn't want to lose that, but we don't really know enough about her to do more than speculate. I just can't stop speculating today.

[ranger-crisis]

Do you guys think that Karlach would reject as n option cremation for when she inevitably dies. I know this is a weird post to make, I am well aware, but it’s interesting to think about. Maybe more for me than others. You can even counter argument it if you want, or I geuss propose your thoughts? I don’t know dude I’m laughing my ass off for even thinking of this post in the first place. This is why I try to avoid this severe interest of mine from bleeding out really anywhere. Okay anyways back to the topic at hand…

Karlach spent a lot of time in pain because she was literally burning up. She spent a lot of her life surrounded by fire, but not in a pleasant way. Sure at some points she seems determined to go out in a blaze if she must go out, but it’s never in a really positive way more of an acceptance of “if I must go to not die then I will die.” Even then it’s more of a “if I most go alone to not die, then I will die.” It never seems like she actually would like a fiery death. So how would that interact with a later Karlach’s views?

On the one hand Karlach might not even think to set up or have a specific request for what happens to her body, in act 3 she’s far more determined to not die alone (reasonable, most people think about the act of dying rather than what happens after death to your body). Many people don’t tend to think about that until they get older.

She could also possibly embrace it? Maybe at a later age, when death is far closer than before and its inevitability strikingly undeniable, she does think about what happens to the body and decides it should come full circle. Of course age doesn’t have to play a factor here, I was just thinking about the fact as you get older you think more of death. After all she’s grown and experienced more. Maybe cremation would be a way of signaling that growth. The ashes could be used to symbolize a sort of freedom (though ashes can also come from aquamation rather than cremation). I think this fits more for symbolism rather than something she would realistically do, but who knows there’s definitely people way more Karlach obsessed, and knowledgeable, of her than me who can say otherwise.

Though regardless of her age she could reject it. Which I think is possibly more likely than embracing it. Those years sucked for her and are both painful and traumatic. Of course you wouldn’t want your corpse, though no longer carrying your soul, to endure that again. It’s still your body and it still deserves care even after you’ve gone.

There’s definitely other death options she could go for, being buried with or near her parents (which is where you get into all the many different kinds of burial), aquamation, human composting, and many many others. But this is about the cremation so that’s what I was focusing on. Does any of this make sense? My vote is no she wouldn’t want cremation. I love symbolism and look for it everywhere, but it’s important to remember that just because it’s symbolic and cool that doesn’t mean it’s actually realistic for the character.

Okay thanks for well. Reading this. Uh. Okay. 👍 this is a weird post to make and I am laughing, though to be clear I was thinking about this seriously. It’s all just really weird to type out. Also this only happened because I thought about ranking what baldur’s gate characters would want to happen to their corpses. Which uh. I have no clue if I’m actually going to do that, partially because: weird also possibly no notes and because: uh what the fuck would they want? It’s easier to assign them designs or objects or things like that because it’s vibes and not fucking winding cloths.

[autistichalsin]

I had an idea for an angsty Karlach/Halsin fic.

So, imagine the path where the player slaughters the Grove, and then Halsin comes for revenge. In the game, if you do this, Karlach has a devastated reaction after, and leaves the party. Or, if she wasn't already there and the player meets her, she kills them in revenge (unless the player can talk her into leaving instead.)

So what if instead of going along with it and only having regrets after Halsin dies… Karlach has a moment while they all fight Halsin. She sees evil!Tav hurting this cave bear who roars in pain, she thinks of the pain and anger in his eyes when he came for them, and… she can't do it. Maybe it's too late to redeem herself for allowing the Grove to be wiped out, but at least this is one more face that won't haunt her nightmares.

So she turns on the party and steps next to Halsin. At first, Halsin thinks it's a diversion and rushes from her, but then he sees her protecting him from her former allies, and something unspoken and shaky forms between him and Karlach.

They end up in a draw, all parties far too injured to continue. And Halsin would rather die than let them go free, but he physically can't continue. Karlach manages to coax him into changing to human form so she can help him walk somewhere safe and hidden, and Halsin heals her as best he can. His own injuries are going to take a while longer.

After a while, when Halsin is well enough, he finally asks her what happened. His eyes are still filled with anger, but not the raw hatred he showed at the party.

Karlach explains herself, that it happened too fast for her to fully realize what was happening, not that that's an excuse. She hangs her head, whispers that she doesn't deserve to live after what she helped do, and Halsin goes quiet. He tells her that what she did might be hard, if possible at all, to redeem herself from, but that he appreciates her actions just the same. He can see that isn't who she is, that she's so much better than that.

Karlach bursts into tears, because she can't accept such words of confidence from the man whose Grove she helped slaughter, but Halsin doesn't take the words back either.

They gradually grow closer from here, an unsteady and untrusting- on Halsin's part- and guilty- on Karlach's part- alliance growing into a deeper friendship, and then, eventually something more. Halsin helps her fix her infernal engine, and Karlach helps Halsin break the shadow curse. Just these two, up against the world, both dark!Tav's party and against the Absolute.

[deathswcrn]

( About time I strike back ) After everything they witnessed in this temple of blood and gore. After watching her life drain away. After Withers finally proved his worth. Astarion felt it only appropriate to pull her into his arms. Hold her through what must be a tumultuous time. "There, there. You're free now. Free to do as you like. Free to drink away and not account of those morbid, little urges of yours."

She had known all day she was going to die. They had woken, broke fast, and agreed on a plan to chase down Orin and free the final Netherstone from her, and it meant Breina accepting the challenge her for her birthright to get inside the temple.

She remembered enough, now, thanks to Gortash, thanks to the million sights and sounds in Baldur's Gate that kept triggering things to come back - she remembered the taste of fish, hot and fresh and covered in Waterdhavian hundur sauce, consumed whilst sitting on the roofs of warehouses lining the dock and picking from the workers below the next victim to take home for Bhaal. She remembered her sister's vicious, spitting jealousy, their constant back-and-forth bickering and the few times they'd spilled each other's blood. And she remembered she was simply a piece of Bhaal, cut from the Dead God's own flesh, and formed into the shape of a human girl. Given she was just an autonomous piece of the God, and she had no intention to return to his side, she knew there was no path back out of the Temple of Bhaal for her.

She had made peace with that. Before they left, she had slipped notes under the pillows of her friends at the Elfsong. Gale; you have friends that love you for you, not the man you could be, but because we just like you. Lae'zel; make Vlaakith regret fucking with you for me. Karlach; please for the love of the Gods, take Wyll already and fight for your freedom together with him - you both deserve the chance to live free of Zariel.

Astarion; I'm glad we freed you from Cazador. If I'm proud of anything since I woke up on the nautiloid, it's that I got to help you free yourself. I'm proud of the person you're becoming. I'm sorry I won't see the rest. I really want to. There's another drawing of you in my journal, by the way - not just your face this time.

Then she turned to go to her death, steely, and cold, and determined - to free Yenna from Orin, and get all of them just shy of bringing the Hells to the Absolute. She closed herself off to the horror finding out more about herself - that the plan they were working to undo was hers. She closed herself off to the grief of turning Orin into a mangled pile on the floor, an adversary, yes, but also her family. And as she raised two middle fingers to the reflection of her father in Sceleritas Fel's blood pooled on the floor, rejecting his offer of becoming even more entangled in his endless bullshit, she closed herself off to the fear she was going to wander the Fugue Plane as one of the False, those who turned their backs on the Gods, eternally forgotten. "Fuck you."

The pain of her death was unique. As Bhaal reclaimed his blood from her veins, drawing it from capillaries and out of her skin through her sweat glands, she felt like he was performing that tablecloth trick where it was removed without disturbing anything on the table, but with the innermost layer of her skin. She was being flayed alive, from the inside out. Her scream of agony rang in her ears.

The human body was not built to have every minor blood vessel inside it burst all at once. As her heart gave out from the pain and bloodloss, an overwhelming sense of peace washed over her. The smell of blood no longer turned her stomach. Her fingers no longer itched for her war-axe. She couldn't hear the thump of Bhaal's wardrums. She was free.

She was, as predicted that morning, dead.

She would sort out everything that occured on the Fugue Plane later. As her breath came back to her body, she let out an agonised groan and rolled onto her side, first taking stock of where she was. Still lay in the pool of blood she'd fallen into - still in the Temple. Everyone was still staring at her, in disbelief at her act of defiance. Time moved differently in the Fugue Plane - it had been hours, to her.

She sat up, slowly, her body feeling like a massive bruise - and poking at her flesh, she could tell that was indeed the case. Where Bhaal had ripped her blood from her body, massive welts had sprung up, burst capillaries springing leaks into the soft tissue under her skin where the little blood she had left that was hers was pooling. Normally, for a bruise, Breina wouldn't ask for healing. Alas, she was going to have beg Shadowheart or Halsin to at least give her a side to sleep on that didn't hurt, or she might die again from blood loss.

Astarion approached her first - away from the puddle of blood, he pulled her into a hug. She didn't fight it. She let herself fall in against his chest, her cheek pressed over where his undead heart would have beat, his arms around her shoulders in a mirror of when she held him after Cazador's death. "There, there," he said softly in her ear, unusally earnest. "You're free now. Free to do as you like. Free to drink away, and not on account of those morbid little urges of yours."

"We did it," she said, the enormity of what they'd both achieved washing over her. Slaves no more to their murderous masters, they had done the impossible and slipped their chains. Once they were free of their tadpoles, there was nothing in Faerûn that could make them do anything they didn't want to again. "Would it surprise you to hear I want to stop drinking?"

And then the shock hit her. And for the first time since she awoke on the Nautiloid, she let the fear and the helplessness and relief and grief overwhelm her. She buried her face into Astarion's neck, wrapped her arms around his waist and bawled, feeling small and helpless like a child. She let herself stand there as long as she liked, wrapped in Astarion's arms, knowing that the others would give her the time she needed to be held as gutteral sobs wracked her body. Tomorrow, they'd get back up, claim the Netherstones, and put an end to the Cult of the Absolute. For tonight, she was going to allow herself to feel, and cry, and drink, and hold her people tightly to her chest, and deny herself what she needed no longer.

Companionship.