#upon the risen road // bg3 verse.

[celestialdetected]

Arawn cursed every god that led him to the Shadow Cursed Lands, including his own. Especially his own. And all Lathander gave him back was a rush of warmth and the vague sense the god was laughing at him.

Laugh it up, he thought viciously, doesn't change the fact that I'm going to die being ripped apart by a shadow beast. The aura of light that the Blood of Lathander gave him was doing a decent job at keeping them back, but he still was getting swarmed.

He backs up until he bumps into a warm, solid figure. Another living person, thank the gods.

"Lovely weather we're having, isn't it?" he calls, summoning a bolt of divine magic to dispel one of the shadows. "Bit heavy on the undead for my tastes, but you know."

@fortune-feather

[celestialdetected]

"Stuck with you?" Arawn laughs. "I think a better question is how you got stuck with me?" Between the two of them, only one was an ex-convict, only one had spiraled into such an absolute mess that he torpedoed his entire life over it. And yeah, he's worked on himself, he's done the work and he's gotten better, but he's still a wreck.

"I'm very lucky," he says. "And I'm so happy that I'm spending my life with you."

She didn't know when this feeling had started between them, but she was certain about one thing: it wasn't about to end. Circumstances brought them together, but the bond they had cemented between them was everlasting. Eve smiled as those thoughts settled in, and stole another kiss before a laugh escaped.

"Exactly how in this world did you get stuck with me?" she asked him genuinely, nuzzling his nose with her own and then pulling back enough to look him in the eye. While they'd had immense fun looting crypts together, she did wonder what it was that had made him want to keep her. "I'm very lucky, you know that, right?"

[celestialdetected]

Last Light Inn was a literal haven in an otherwise ...challenging landscape. Arawn hadn't had a choice but to come here, the only way to Baldur's Gate was through the shadow-cursed lands, and he had to get to Baldur's Gate. No matter what, his little girl was there and he would do anything he had to to get back to her.

Even if that meant leaving his humanity behind. Which...it was quickly starting to look like that would be the price.

It's alright.

(It isn't. But it will be. It has to be.)

Arawn spends his time at Last Light alternating between going out on missions for the Harpers, with which he's made a tentative alliance, and drinking far too much to forget the fact that he can feel divinity slipping in bit by bit. He was able to manifest wings yesterday, spectral things, they only lasted for a minute, but they were there.

He's drinking when the alert goes up and a man and his very motley crew is dragged in, Jaehira grills them for a bit, but then they apparently pass muster because they are given free run of the place.

Arawn finishes the rest of his drink, and then rises. Allies were difficult to come by in the shadow-cursed land, so he forced himself to be sociable when they came by. Also....this group's leader...there was something about him. Something that had the hair standing up on the back of his neck. He shook it off.

"Welcome to our little haven in hell," he says. "What brings you here, friend?"

@bloodtwin

[celestialdetected]

Arawn first met Morgana with muck on his face and swamp water in his boots having managed to trigger nearly every trap he'd come across in this godforsaken place.

Auntie Ethel, he was going to have to have a talk with her, whatever she was, if only to yell at her for trapping the place to high heaven.

The point was; he was bleeding and sore and spoiling for a fight when he stumbled upon another adventurer in the swamp. His hand strayed to his weapon, inherently suspicious of someone this far off the beaten path.

"Hello there, friend," he said. His voice was dangerously light, cheerful in a way that spelled trouble. "What brings you out here?"

@shemurder

[celestialdetected]

It was strange to watch arcane casters work. The movements were so similar, and yet so different than the casting of divine magic. It felt a little like looking at your reflection in a carnival mirror, you could recognize the shape but the proportions were all off.

Arawn thought it fascinating. He liked watching the wizard of their motley crew work. It was soothing, almost like prayer. He supposed, for a wizard, the two were comparable.

"What spell are you working on?" He asked, peering over Alexius's shoulder to get a look at his spellbook. He'd never been good at reading the language of the weave and he felt his eyes cross trying to follow the intricate lines of patterns that made up the spellcraft.

"Looks complicated."

@starlyht liked for a starter (for lex)

[celestialdetected]

To Arawn, vampires had been the stuff of nightmares. He'd grown up in a town that had struggled off and on with an undead problem for years. The mountains surrounding his village had been very old and filled with crypts that kept getting disturbed by would-be adventurers. There would be plenty of cautionary tales about little boys who stayed out too late, or strayed too far from home and got eaten by a vampire.

But now, traveling with one, Arawn was struck by just how normal Astarion seemed. He was a person, a tetchy, traumatized person, but a person nonetheless. And gods help him, Arawn was fond of him in a way only two people who'd shared a life-altering trauma could be fond of each other.

Who knew illithid parasites were a good way to form friendships? Or at least, whatever strange, tense parody of friendship this group had with each other.

Parody or not, Arawn was not good at friendships anymore, they required a certain level of maintenance and small talk that always left him feeling wrong-footed and ill at ease. But, he tried.

"Lae'zel just told me she tried to sleep with Wyll last night," Gossip was a safe way to start off a conversation right? There was a time when he'd been okay at this, a time before prison where he'd even liked conversation. "Apparently he just talked at her for a couple hours." He offered Astarion a wineskin. "I'm trying to think up a good way to tease him about it."

@vampiheir liked for a starter.

[celestialdetected]

Kahga...unsettled Arawn. There was something about her that rang false. This was not a woman trying to protect her home, this was someone enacting a scheme. It had Arawn turning over his interaction with her in his mind, trying to solve it like a puzzle.

He was so focused on his tangled, half-formed theories that he didn't notice the woman until he'd nearly ran her over. He caught himself half a pace from bumping into her.

"Sorry I-" he blinked, taking in the woman's dress, the holy symbol around her neck, and scoffed. "Well, that's certainly a coincidence." He pulled the symbol of Lathander out from under his shirt collar, holding it up for her to see.

"I'm Arawn, nice to see a friendly face."

@sunweaves

[celestialdetected]

Arawn's hair is slowly turning white. Which wouldn't be a problem except it's not turning white in the natural, human, way. It's a slow leech of color turning his hair paler and paler with every dawn. And it's another physical reminder that he is turning into something other. Inhuman. Maybe not mortal.

His shoulder blades ache and he's been too afraid to look in case he sees something growing there. Just get to Baldur's Gate, that had been his plan, like the city would somehow help him, would somehow fix this.

And now they're here, and nothing has been fixed. There's an elder brain beneath the city, there's an army marching this way and it's all spiraling out of control, and Arawn doesn't know what to do, how can he be expected to fix all of this and still maintain even a sliver of humanity?

So he's not fixing it. He's wandering the streets with Gale trying to find somewhere that has information about the Crown of Karsus. And alcohol. He's also trying to find alcohol, preferably large quantities of it.

Here's the thing; Arawn's not stupid. He knows what Gale wants the crown for. And he's tempted to let him have it. After all, if he has to lose his humanity, it'd be nice not to do it alone.

"So, I'll be honest, I understand that this crown grants a massive amount of power to anyone who wields it, but I'm not sure I understand how. How can one artifact contain that much magic?"

@ofweave

[celestialdetected]

Why don't you wear it? What a long, complicated answer for such a simple question. Arawn's silent for a long moment, trying to parse through a ridiculous tangle of feelings.

"I did when I was younger," he starts. The words feel heavy and slow on his tongue. "But after my parents were killed, I don't know, felt like I had lost the right somehow."

An entire village had placed their hopes and their dreams on his shoulders, and he had left them. And then they had died, they had died slow, and in pain, and he had not been there to save them. By the time he'd returned there had been nothing to give last rites to. A whole village wiped out, and Arawn had abandoned them.

"Why do you wear your beads?"

the grip on his wrist surprises him and he folds his hands out, the symbol hanging from his fingers as he leans back from pickpocketing.

ah, caught red-handed.

" okay, okay. i was just wondering about it. the beads look similar t' mine. "

he shakes his head so his hair falls into his face, showing the painted wood and clay beads woven between braids.

" why don't you wear this one? the gold's nice and all, but this one seems more your style. "

[celestialdetected]

"Every time I see you I think I fall just a little more in love with you."

@wildskissed liked for a small starter.

[celestialdetected]

@charlatann says: ‘ i won’t bury another friend ’

"Is that what we are?" Arawn grins. It's a sharp, brittle thing. He means to tease and to deflect from the discomfort of an honest conversation. He doesn't like to think about dying, not when he's trying so desperately to live.

"Don't worry," he says, clapping Ren on the shoulder. "Who knows, maybe I'll be the one burying you."

[celestialdetected]

He went in through Ren's bedroom window this time. Just to see if he could sneak past the man without waking him up. The window had warped just slightly from the heat of the summer and stuck in the frame, so he had to leverage his shoulder against it to get it to budge.

There'd been a creak, a protest from the old wood, and Arawn froze, perched awkwardly on the sill. A sleep-heavy chuckle from inside let him know that he'd been made.

"In my defense, if we hadn't gotten that heat wave last week I would've made that." He dropped heavily to the floor, all thoughts of stealth forgotten.

"Tea?"

@charlatann because i kept thinking about consensual B&Es

[celestialdetected]

"You know, I've always liked the temple in the morning." Arawn tipped his head back, watching the dawn filter through the stained glass windows. Temples held a sort of magic in the morning, a hushed stillness that Arawn loved.

Maybe it was the Dawnfather's presence, Lathander rising to greet a new day. "It's peaceful. Things are so rarely peaceful anymore, you know?"

@a-zif liked for a starter.

[celestialdetected]

BG3 Arawn post game definitely invites all his companions to big dinners . He uses it as an excuse to see them because he is much to proud to admit he misses them.

[celestialdetected]

@mindhallow says: "learn something new every day, don't you? what's it like then? answer quick, if you'd please," wish tapped his temple, "my patron's demanding i change the subject or he'll have a fit."

"Following Lathander? Being a champion of a god?" Arawn thought about it. There had been times, in the quiet of the temple, in the blissful moment right after he healed a child, or solved a case, where everything felt right, where he felt settled and knew, in the depths of his soul, that his god was happy with him.

But then there was the squalor of his prison cell, the pain of knowing his actions kept him apart from his daughter, and he felt such anger at his god and resentment that he was chosen.

"Most of the time it's fucking terrible. But the times when it's not terrible? It's...nice, like sitting in a room with someone you know adores you."

[celestialdetected]

Arawn raised an eyebrow, pleased both by this woman's pessimism and her willingness to help him. She says she knows a thing or two about sneaking around. "Luckily for both of us, so do I."

Though he'd felt distinctly less sneaky since the Nautiloid. Like his shoes had been weighted with lead. There was a time where he could've slipped silently between shadows, and not left any trace of his presence. He was mildly concerned that he wouldn't get that ability back.

"Right then, we better get moving we're losing daylight." Though this swamp did seem....rather too well lit. Things were almost candy-colored bright. It set Arawn's teeth on edge. "I'm Arawn by the way, I don't think I caught your name."

it's not like she's had anything since the nautiloid planned out, but being able to thwart kagha would be difficult without one. she already had the druids wrapped around her finger, and the tieflings were halfway out of the grove. and while she didn't like her, morgana could tell that she was a smart woman, ready to twist it on them.

❛ there's always a fight. ❜ she says with a sigh, pressing the pads of her fingers against the side of her nose. ❛ but i know a thing or two about sneaking around, so we might as well use that for our advantage. and maybe run. ❜