#dark urge/halsin

[inaconstantstateofchange]

sweet, once.

A/N: This is a project I've worked on over the last few months, which is not reflected in the length so much as the content. Warning for canon-compliant Dark Urge backstory events, dark themes, and violence (referenced).

AO3 link

Was I sweet, once? 

Kelis turns the question over and over in their mind, comparing it to the bits and pieces they have gleaned of their previous self throughout the past weeks. Crouching down, back against the wooden panels of the pavilion on the roof of the Elfsong, they look up at the sky, searching for the few stars visible through the lights of the city around them. 

Flashes of the memory returned to them earlier in the day trickle back in past the attempts to shut them away, first in drips, and then a flood. 

A modestly outfitted room, furniture scuffed but well cared-for, charming signs of a loving family scattered around, visible from every angle. And covering it all — blood, and viscera, and other, less pleasant fluids. They don’t want to turn, to see what they know lies behind them, but it’s a memory, not a vision, so they are a helpless passenger — just as they felt on the day itself. 

The empty sockets of their foster mother’s eyes meet their searching gaze first, face a rictus of some emotion more complex than horror and closer to despair. One hand is clenched around a worn pendant, held as steadfastly in the grim strength of death as it so often was in life. They try to remember which of the gods she’d held to with such devotion. Would she speak to Kelis, were they to seek her out in that domain? 

The Kelis-of-now notes with despair to match the woman’s the way she has no weapon, no shreds of blood and scale under her nails. She would not raise her hand against them, even as they killed her for her weakness. For her love. 

The Kelis-of-then turns further, moving with robotic evenness through the nearest doorway. The pools of blood underfoot squelch unpleasantly beneath their bare feet, and yet simultaneously send a shiver of perverse delight through them. 

The sight before them stops them in their tracks — or it would, were they free to do so. Their childhood form steps unrelentingly closer to the bed, and they cannot turn away. For a moment, the small tiefling body in the bed is Mol’s, glaring furiously up at them with a single eye glazed over in death. 

A blink, a heartbeat, and it’s not, of course it could not be. They don’t even know so much as this one’s name, and the only real similarity is in the horns, stunted and small. 

Well… horn. 

One of them has been broken off, jaggedly, at the root. Slowly, through a fog, a tough, ridged texture that matches the striation of the single remaining horn on the child filters into their consciousness. They can’t look down – of course they can’t – but they know what is held in their fierce grasp all the same. 

The lack of blood around the broken horn stub is the only small mercy they can find. Of all the things that happened to this child – their sibling, in this house of peace turned blood offering – this at least did not take place while they were alive. In truth… They look with clearer eyes now, whilst their staring memory-self seems disinclined to move them. The tiefling child is covered with blood, their heart torn from their chest and placed tenderly within their own hands, but — despite all the wounds, all the blood, it is clear that only one was the cause of their death, and that one, a single clean gash to their throat, predates the others by at least an hour.

The Kelis-of-then stays for long moments more, watching the unmoving body of their one-time-sibling, as if observing some reality even shared memory cannot return to the Kelis-of-now. At last, at some unknown cue, their body turns, leaving the still form in the bed without a backward glance, trailing sticky blood behind them as they step into the open doorway of the room across the hall. This room is surprisingly unsullied by the carnage of the rest of the dwelling, but Kelis is not able to catch a glimpse of more than a neatly made bed and a green-covered book resting atop a pillow, before their body is moving forward with purpose, directing their attention neither to the right nor left. 

There is another door on the other side of the room, barely ajar and rocking back and forth slightly in the wind. Here the evidence of violence is visible: smears of blood in clumsy patterns at a strangely low height. 

The Kelis-of-then presses the door open further, mechanical and composed, emerging onto a terrace resplendent with greenery, a vibrant – albeit clashing – assortment of cushions piled invitingly across one entire corner. There are other houses visible through gaps in the greenery, but no lamps are lit in windows, no calls come from distant streets. Their crime is as-yet-undiscovered. 

Their childhood form moves to the cushions, and sits — more like a collapsing string-puppet than anything living. Their hand moves to the side, slow and scrupulous, until it meets a cool, furred form, previously disguised by the darkest of the cushions and the blanket of night. They look, then and now, out into the darkness, the claws at the tips of their scaled fingers passing delicately over unfeeling fur in a visceral mockery of loving sense-memory. 

Kelis-of-now comes back to themself, shaking off the lingering trappings of the memory. Their hand flexes, the ghost of fur beneath it still, and they restrain the urge to claw and bite at their own flesh to remove it. A bitter taste of bile floods the back of their throat, and their eyes prickle in a way they are unfamiliar with. A thought bubbles up ponderously from the depths: is this a cruel vengeance on the part of one of the many gods they’ve wronged, that they would regain no memories of anything but blood, and darkness, and more blood?

In the next moment, they hiss out a rasping laugh that dissipates sluggishly into the muggy night air. Just as likely to be a simple game of numbers. How to fish one gem out of a sea laden with corpses? More likely for the hook to emerge choked with maggots. They were a fool indeed to expect otherwise. 

Kelis settles themself for a doomed attempt at meditation. They consider, for a moment, seeking solace from their lovers, but… They’ve burdened both Astarion and Halsin enough already. They should be able to handle these, the consequences of their own actions, themself. Kelis knows better, now, than to think there is anything of value within them worth the excavation. 

Their first indrawn breath is ragged, breaking a fraction on the inhale, then forcefully smoothed out on the exhale. All will be well. They just need to hold to that.

All will be well. 

[eastgaysian]

[zookie-art]

Finally painted a tribute to BG3 ~

[gothicspork]

Three dads wishing their daughter good luck at her Catholic school final exams.

[ejoym]

This is my Act 3 experience in a nutshell.

[snarfflarf]

Asking BG3 characters to pick you up pads

[taygra5shaon]

how it should have happened...

Fuck cazaldor.💀

[kawareo]

Honk

[lanafofana]

*pre act 1, somewhere in the outerplanes or whatever* gods: what the hells are the dead 3 doing now?? what is that?? a netherbrain?? ugh right then, what are we gonna do about it shar: i have a plan SO EVIL AND PERFECT and a chosen locked and loaded she's already on her way to retrieve that stupid githyanki prince and then im going to fucking destroy that asshole ketheric

mystra: bitch please the only one around here with a shiny red fix it button is me. when i tell you my former chosen is obsessed with me. no way will he deny me, all i gotta do is ask and he'll detonate the problem in one go. ace in the hole.

Jergal [a big fan of the avengers]: i have a plan to bring together a group of of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we need them to, to fight the battles that we never could.

gods: ugh shut the hell up jergal this is basically your fault

Jergal: im stealing all your feral chosen and you can't stop me

silvanus: would you like a bear in this trying time?

[marshallmigraine]

Love how in BG3 you can play as a more or less redeemable Durge and still say the most deranged shit possible

[palaceoftheprophets]

After 200+ hours bumbling around Faerûn, I thought it was time for an update with *all* the companions.

EDIT: In case you’re interested in a print (or stickers!) they’re available in my Etsy shop!

[milton-chamberlain]

I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!

[nekrosmos]

My turn to make silly little memes

Part 2 / Part 3

[dragynkeep]

Naughty Durge gets the cone.

[mynqzo]

lamb getting kisses

[visenyaism]

an OUNCE of fucking decorum wyll?????