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blackjackkent · 4 months ago

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Given that all the cultists keep talking to her in ways that make her head ache, Rakha is almost relieved to look down at the center of the Temple and see that, after so much toil and terror, she has finally found what she is looking for.

Orin stands atop a raised dais at the center of the temple platform. Stretched at her feet, unmoving, is a familiar form - Lae'zel. For a moment, Rakha thinks they are too late, that she is dead, and the beast in her head keens with triumphant glee at the thought...

But then her chest rises and falls, almost imperceptibly.

She lives.

Rakha releases a breath that it feels like she has been holding for days. She had not realized the full extent of the tension that has been holding her upright, driving her forward, until now; it feels as if the strings holding her in place have been cut, and she almost collapses to her knees with the sheer weight of relief.

But she can't. Not yet. It isn't over. And her head aches as Orin lifts her gaze and smiles that dagger's-edge smile at her.

"Shhhh... shhhhh..." the changeling croons softly to Lae'zel's unconscious body. "Your savior approaches... scuttling in without the tyrant's rock..."

Rakha comes to a halt a few feet away. Orin glares at her, snarling like a creature whose nest has been invaded. "You are a mangled blood-brain," she hisses. "Thinking Father could be refused!"

Then her head snaps back, her nostrils flaring, the mocking laughter replaced instantly with rage. "I know what you did!" she cries. "Spilled my grandfather's crimson... He was mine! He showed me the way, how to slice and slit. He guides my daggers still."

She flicks a wrist, and one of those knives is in her hand suddenly, a long and curving, wickedly sharp blade.

Slowly, tenderly, she lowers its edge to sit under Lae'zel's jaw, and her lips curl again with manic hunger. "Did it think it could protect?" she sneers. "Did it think it could save? Only the blades can offer salvation!"

Another moment, and the blade will cut and slice and bleed and it will all be over. Rakha's head aches and aches, stabbing, blinding, and she can barely breathe, so strong does the beast urge suddenly wake and roar inside her skull.

Yes. Bleed her dry, the final cut, and then we shall take your head as you took hers, sister, sister, sister, failed attempt to be what I once was, broken bleeding bleating BITCH--

Something in her so desperately wants to see that blade draw its line in Lae'zel's flesh, to see every throat in this place, friend and foe alike, bleed until there is nothing left and all eyes are empty and staring and beautiful. Something in her is a monster that wakes at the moment of crisis, and sometimes it is so strong that she feels broken and shattered beside it.

But she has learned. She has learned so much.

She has learned from Wyll's hand on her arm, his warmth and his unerring goodness that has drawn her to the light out of the great black pit where he found her. His love, offered to her when she has least felt she deserved it, and which she has tried in a halting, faltering way to give back out of every functioning bit of her heart.

She has learned from Jaheira's steady solidity, the pillar beneath a rotted and rickety platform - the woman who watched over her in the darkness and told her at the darkest moment that she was not lost.

She has learned from Minsc - roaring, raging, just as mad as she, showing her that the broken bits of her do not bar her from being something greater, that justice and violence can live in the same skull.

She has learned from Karlach's kindness. From Gale's knowledge. From Minthara's focused determination. From Astarion's inner battles and Shadowheart's final triumphs. From Halsin's wisdom. From Isobel's forgiveness and Aylin's vengeance.

And she has learned from Lae'zel, the first voice she has memory of hearing. Attack with purpose and savor your kills. She has learned that she has the strength to guide her own hand and to turn on the god that bore her when the need is just.

Her head lifts, her voice a solid, booming roar, knocking the beast backwards within her and echoing to the stone rafters above.

[INTIMIDATION] "Harm her, and I will unleash the agonies of Bhaal upon you!"

Orin's head snaps up and she giggles maniacally, the blade falling away from Lae'zel's neck as she focuses on Rakha directly. "Yes," she squeals. "Yes! Give me agony! Pluck me bone from socket. Stroke me with a jagged edge until my skin shreds wet and red."

(A/N: Big props to Maggie Robertson; this is SO creepy, lol. Eeeeeeek.)

With a sudden smooth motion, she leaps over the altar to stand in front of Rakha, her other victim for the moment forgotten. "You still don't remember, do you, blood-kin?" she purrs gleefully.

Her body shifts, twists - settles into a new form, taller, broader in the shoulders. Rakha's own body, the one she's only bothered to see in a mirror a handful of times. Clear of the lines of the worm or the scars of the road, the face she must have had before her memories were lost.

"How you screamed as my knife split your skull," Orin hisses, now in Rakha's voice, deeper, harsher. Her lips curl in the smirk that Rakha's have only held in her darkest moments. "Your brain juices sticky and sweet."

(A/N: This is kinda fun. :D We don't ever get to hear the player character VA get any big speeches, they only ever get little ambient lines moving around the world. Tempted to do a Durge!Hector run now just to hear what his voice sounds like making a speech. :D )

She draws closer, lifting a hand almost to touch Rakha's cheek - and Rakha sees that she is holding a tadpole carefully in one palm.

"A little hole... big enough for the worm," she sneers. "Your body a blood sack to feed it." Her fist clenches around the tadpole, which erupts in a sudden burst of blood.

(A/N: It is so weird to see Rakha with her eyes intact and her skin un-wormed.)

She leans forward, draws her bloody fingertips against Rakha's jaw. "The favorite of Bhaal turned meat-puppet, strung up by the sinews and plucked by my hands..."

Rakha feels frozen into immobility. She doesn't know what the others are doing behind her - waiting for a sign to strike, perhaps. For a moment she can't think about them. She can only think about the flickering images that begin to rattle through her brain as Orin slowly shifts back into her own form.

Narrator: A straggling memory rises - the day your tyranny should have engulfed this world, it was you who were the first to be enslaved.

Narrator: Orin's smile was the last thing you saw, her bright blade glinting as she chiseled into your skull. Her reckless digging left your mind shattered. She robbed you of your bloody birthright, reduced you to nothing. Nothing but pure hate, and now it burns, yearning for vengeance.

Her head aches and the tadpole writhes and the beast screams and she clenches her fists at her sides, flame flaring around her fingertips. The fury is unsettling and there is no escaping the fact that the beast wants this violence too - but this is a killing with purpose. Jaheira has said it, Wyll has said it. Lae'zel would say it if she was conscious. Orin must die. It is the only way she can face down the taint in her blood and perhaps find the strength to walk away from it.

"Husk," Orin growls. "Maggot. A Bhaalspawn, slip-sliding in filth with these pigs." Her eyes flick to Wyll and Jaheira, to Minsc, to Minthara. Her lip curls disdainfully. "You don't deserve the murder-lord's blessing."

(A/N: We have the option here to tell Orin that she's the product of incest and that Sarevok has lied to her, and she gets BIG mad about it. However... I really don't think that's top of mind for Rakha? She's far more concerned about her own issues tbh. :P )

"Forget Bhaal." Rakha's voice rasps in her throat, tight and hoarse. Focused with every ounce of concentration she can manage. "It's your Netherstone I've come for."

Rage roars across Orin's face. "It opens its lips and spews filthy lies!" she screeches. "No no NO!"

Rakha flinches as the changeling closes with her, spittle spewing from her mouth.

"None can resist Father's blessing!" The Weave is starting to ripple and churn around Orin's body, a strange dark undulation that Rakha has never seen before. It curls around her body like smoke. "He tells me, whisper-quiet. The lies must be cut from your throat!"

She spreads her arms with a maniacal smile. "Come close, my Death's Heads! But keep your blades unblooded! Bhaal demands a duel! He wants to taste my domination. An altar flowing with his own unwilling flesh. Draining, dying, drip, drip, drip--"

There's a low, familiar buzzing hiss from behind her. Sceleritas appears on the stairs, and clicks his tongue in gentle disapproval. "You should have trained harder, Master," he murmurs.

Rakha isn't sure what he means - but it doesn't take her long to find out.

The Weave writing around Orin's body suddenly rises to a fever pitch and then explodes in a burst of orange-white light. When it fades... she has become a monster.