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blackjackkent · 2 months ago

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Narrator: Tonight's troubled rest is, as ever, overwhelmed by your killing fate. You dangle above a dark precipice, one move away from falling.

Narrator: Another watches your body while it is possessed by the night. You do not dream alone.

The blinding pain and fear of the dream fades, and as Rakha slowly comes to consciousness, trembling with the revelation of who and what she is, she finds that she is not alone. This is not precisely a surprise; Wyll sometimes sits up with her as she sits tied up in her bedroll, shivering with restless nightmares. Lae'zel, too, often prowls at her bedside, watchful for any loss of control.

Tonight, though, it is Jaheira. The older woman sits calmly nearby. Both of her scimitars are out in her hands, rested across her lap, and she watches Rakha stir with calm attentiveness. Her pose is relaxed, but there is a tension in it like the coiled spring of the panther she can become, in the moment before it pounces.

"Dark dreams?" she asks neutrally as Rakha lifts her head.

(A/N: I'm so goddamn proud that I called out in this post that Jaheira had absolutely clocked Rakha's whole situation, because it set this up perfectly entirely by accident. XD )

Slowly and awkwardly, Rakha wrestles herself into a sitting position, watching the Harper guardedly. But Jaheira makes no move to attack, just continues to watch her intently.

"I think I can guess," she goes on, one eyebrow quirking up. "Visions of blood on your hands. The blood in your veins, perhaps."

Rakha goes utterly still. Her eyes widen, and for a moment, utter surprise replaces all the fear and agitation. You know what I am?

Jaheira's lips twitch in a slight, rueful smile. "For all the gifts Bhaal's children inherit," she murmurs, "a peaceful night's sleep is not among them."

(She remembers so many nights on the road. She remembers Caden's torment as he learned who he was, as it threatened to overwhelm him. She remembers many things Caden does not even know she saw.

The last days before their battle against Sarevok; Khalid's low murmur to her as they heard Caden weeping in his bunk. "S-s-should we go to him?" And her slight shake of the head, because what comfort could she possibly offer to that good, kind boy who had just learned there was murder in his soul?

The nights on the road to Dragonspear after Boarskyr Bridge, nights when Caden would wake with a low cry in fear of some monster that had found him in his dreams. She could sense shame in him in those moments, and never spoke to him of them until it was far too late to matter - but she and Khalid watched over him in the night, a comforting presence just out of view.

And the nights in Amn after Spellhold... the worst nights of all. Nights when her bed was cold with Khalid's absence and her thoughts in turmoil, and Caden's soul had been ripped out of him, leaving an empty shell behind in the form of her friend. Nights when he became a monster and had to be beaten into submission. Nights when her deep-set reserve at last failed her, overwhelmed by grief and exhaustion, and she would have welcomed her friend's comfort and to offer it in turn. But there was little left of him to hear her, almost swallowed up by the beast that haunted his mind, and Aerie haunted the bedside of his empty not-quite-corpse like a ghost.

She watches Rakha and sees traces of that same haunted darkness in her new companion's eyes. Caden eventually managed to slip the noose of his heritage and find peace in the forests of Faenya-Dail. She does not know if Rakha will have the strength to do the same - but she is older now, and she will not make the mistake this time of being silent.)

Rakha swallows. Her throat still feels dry and tight and resists speech, but she manages to croak out the question anyway. "How... could you possibly know?"

Her emotions are so tangled it is hard to put names to them. Relief, perhaps - for Jaheira is one of those she trusts most in the camp, and if Jaheira knows, perhaps she will know what to do. But there is also shame, guilt, terror; she feels exposed and frightened and lost. And angry, too.

How long have you known? Why didn't you tell me?

But Jaheira just shrugs. "I don't. Not yet."(*) She climbs slowly to her feet, her eyes never leaving Rakha's. The scimitars hang loosely in both her hands, their blades just skimming the hay-strewn ground. "The dreams alone do not concern me," she goes on after a slight pause. "It is what waking deeds they might inspire."

She peers at Rakha searchingly, her lips drawn into a tight line. "Are you truly your own master?" she asks - and her tone is a strange melding of gentle warmth and cold steel. "What is it you feel, when Father's dreams come calling?"

Rakha flinches. Father. She has never before had that word to put to the urges that drive her. She has not yet accustomed herself to it.

She wondered once - after learning of Shadowheart's past - if she herself had a father that she would drop everything to save. Now she knows the answer, and it makes her skin crawl. Her father is the source of everything that is wrong and broken about her. His influence sits in her head and drives her to kill.

"Helpless..." she mutters. The sense of shame deepens. Her head ducks, but she can feel Jaheira's eyes on her. "Like I can deny him nothing."

She can see the flicker out of the corner of her eye as Jaheira's blades twitch - but do not lift. "Then would you call it mercy," Jaheira says softly, "if the next night I never let you wake?"

Rakha says nothing - but they both know the answer. Yes.

Jaheira sighs, studying her for a long time - and then the blades move again. With a sharp movement, she steps to Rakha's side, flicks out one wrist... and severs the bindings on Rakha's hands.(**) "This is your father's true legacy," she says bitterly. "Not his children, but the fear they plant in us. The savagery it blossoms into."

Rakha draws her hands in front of her, rubs at the sore place on her wrists where the ropes chafed. Then she stands slowly and looks down at Jaheira; for a moment the two of them stare at each other, a long moment of unspoken understanding.

The half-elf is so much smaller than she is, but in this moment Rakha feels much the smaller, for she is acutely aware of the trust Jaheira is giving her... and the fact that Jaheira would end her in an instant if that trust proved misplaced.

"In another time," Jaheira says slowly, "with another of your kind, we found a better way. I would dearly like to find it again."

(Rakha is not Caden, no. She never will be. She did not have the benefit of Gorion's training; there is more of the animal darkness in her than Caden ever had, even in his worst moments. But Jaheira has seen her fight it, has seen the moments of softness in her with Wyll, has seen the strange sincerity with which she asks questions and searches for the right path. In spite of all her caution, Jaheira likes her. If there is a way that does not lead to her death, Jaheira will find it.)

"Tell me what I must do," Rakha whispers. Her voice sounds small in her own ears.

Perhaps Jaheira can hear how lost Rakha feels, because her expression softens a little with a slight, reassuring smile. "You would not be the first to turn the taint in your blood to your advantage," she says quietly. "But there are barriers a Bhaalspawn must overcome, first."

She hisses out a heavy breath between her teeth, her gaze going distant, looking past Rakha and through the wall behind her. "Those of your kind. Orin... I am sure you already know that so long as she lives, she will never stop hunting you."

(She remembers the Five. The Bhaalspawn under Amelyssan's direction who sought to obliterate all those who shared their tainted blood. They nearly succeeded; indeed, she thought they had. How do any remain? How does Rakha live, and Orin? How did Bhaal, dead god that he is, create yet more spawn to do his bloody work?)

She shakes her head sharply with a tight frown. "It might be that you have to turn and face her. You cannot change that. All you can choose is how you meet her - as another bloodied child of Bhaal, or as yourself."

She lifts her head and again meets Rakha's eyes, and the steady certainty in her expression meets Rakha's agitation and calms it like water over fire. "All *I* can offer is the promise that, should you choose to do so, you will not meet her alone."

She waits until Rakha nods. Then, in a single smooth motion, she sheathes both scimitars and sits down on a nearby haybale. "For now, take what rest you can," she says - and now there's an unmistakable gentleness in her tone that Rakha has never heard before. "I will watch over you this night."

Rakha tilts her head to one side, and something like black humor flickers through her eyes for a moment. "To watch over me?" she asks. "Or to protect against me?"

Jaheira's lips twitch with muted amusement. "I suppose you'll have your answer when you wake in the morning."

It's not much reassurance. But it's something. The dreams of blood still wait for her... but it's a comfort different even from Wyll's support to know that Jaheira's eyes are on her, that the Harper knows what she is and hasn't turned away.

She curls back into her bedroll, her hands free, her eyes twitching restlessly under their lids. And Jaheira, true to her word, waits and watches in the darkness, like a wolf on guard before its den.

----

(*) I looked at the dialogue files for this scene. This line appears to be bugged, bc in-game it got skipped, but I like it so I'm including it. XD

(**) Artistic license, obviously. All the references to Rakha being bound up at night are my particular headcanon.

#bjk plays bg3 durge #rakha the dark urge #eeeeee #EEEEEEEEE #i love Jaheira so much you guys #and i self-indulged shamelessly in writing this #jaheira #jaheira bg3 #tossing this in the tags bc lbr this is just a jaheira ficlet with little bits of rakha in it :P #i love this so much though #i also discovered looking through the dialogue files that MINSC can show up in this scene too???#so i'm gonna spend the rest of the night making a post about that XD #eeeeeeeee <3

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