#the interpersonal dynamics around cyrus' resurrection are SO different for mid/late act 1 pallybarb cyrus vs vvv early act 1 durge!cyrus

[thedragonagelesbian]

The dead hold no secrets from Jergal's Scriveners

"What are you doing?" Gale wished he sounded less inquisitive and more outraged as Shadowheart pawed through the pockets of their cadaverous companion. "Shouldn't we be bringing him back?"

"I will," she replied coolly, "but it isn't like he's getting any more dead, is he? And in the meantime..." She found what she was looking for and pulled out the trinket they had found in the Shrine of Jergal, the skull and its scroll. "I can't be the only one who's curious about what secrets our angel might be hiding."

Astarion huffed. "Is this really the best use of our time and resources? The three of us are, in case you've forgotten, going to join him if we don't find a healer soon."

"The bigger waste would be losing a perfectly good shield between us and our enemies."

"And, I must confess, I am rather curious to see how resurrection magic interacts with our cranial acquisition." Gale could still feel the parasite twinging in their dead companion's skull, but would it survive the flood of divine magic? "Unpleasant though dying is, revivification could prove to be the cure we've been looking for."

"Well, the two of you are free to roll over and die if you'd like, but count me out," Astarion snapped back.

"No one else is dying yet," Shadowheart interrupted sharply. She had tied the amulet around her neck and brought a hand to clasp its token. "Let's just start with a couple of questions."

She closed her eyes and raised her other hand. Green light danced in her palm before flowing down and enveloping his body. His corpse lifted, pale and limp, head lolling, auburn hair spilling across the ground. Gale grimaced. He hadn't known the fellow well, but he had been decent enough to save Gale from the portal, and friendly enough in camp. He had had so few friends since developing his affliction...

Shadowheart's eyes glowed sickly veridian as she opened them again and asked, "Who are you, really?"

"Cyrus..." came the faint, deep voice. It paused, as if there was still enough of a soul attached to it to consider something, and added, "...harbinger..."

"Harbinger of what?" Shadowheart pressed.

Cyrus' mouth and one of his eyes gleamed emerald, but the other eye burned with the same scarlet cut into his skin, the same runes that etched themselves into him whenever he bled too much on the battlefield. Gale had been trying to study the markings surreptitiously but hadn't been able to get a good look at them in the heat of combat. Still, if he had to hazard a guess, he'd say whatever Cyrus was a harbinger of, it wasn't anything good.

Regrettably, the corpse didn't answer the question, prompting another irritated sound from Astarion. "You should've expected as much; dying typically isn't known for fixing what's already been broken."

"If his memory loss was due to some sort of enchantment, dying could've ended it, allowing him to access his memories again," Gale reasoned. "It was certainly worth the experiment, for his sake as much as our own. What else do you think he might want to know about himself?"

The question hadn't been addressed to the corpse, but this one it did respond to, rasping, "Why... does it hurt...?"

Shadowheart blinked a couple of times, her outstretched hand suddenly trembling. "I-I don't know. Why does it hurt?"

"Gave... Astarion asked, I gave..."

The answer hung heavy in the air until Shadowheart knelt down beside Cyrus' levitating body. Her irradiated fingers brushed aside the hair that had fallen across his throat, revealing a pair of puncture wounds set into his neck.

"So that's it, then." She glowered over her shoulder at Astarion, who had begun to take indiscreet, shuffling steps away from the group. "We've been traveling with a lying vampire who decided to take our blood in the middle of the night?"

"Gave!" The gossamer spirit almost sounded angry this time, the word buckling with the intensity of a whole life behind it. "I gave, I gave, I gave."

His body slumped back to the ground.