Tired: Tav that’s good for Astarion cause they play therapist and give him support and space to heal
Wired: Tav that’s good for Astarion cause they’re such a disaster he has to get his shit together cause gods above one of them needs to be a functional adult
I keep thinking about Durge, who, even after defying Bhaal, is never truly free from their father's legacy.
Because yes, the Urge is gone, the cursed blood of Bhaal doesn't call to them anymore. But body remembers, even if mind doesn't. Body knows what it did, it knows what it was created for. It's instinctual, bone-deep reflexes of a person raised to be the perfect murderer. It's little twitches and how easily opponents fall: foes and former allies alike.
It's small glimpses of the past, because mind doesn't remember, but the body DOES. It's the eerie familiarity of darkest corners of Baldur's Gate, it's people recognizing Durge on the streets, people they don't remember but who remember THEM.
It's the feeling of being haunted by your own self.
It's the body of Ketheric, the bloody mess left of Orin, Gortash's lifeless frame. It's the knowledge you're the last one, what this tragic story of conquer started with you and ends with you.
It's the feeling of emptiness where bubbling joy once was, the blood on the blade what brings no feelings. It's being charming, or kind, or honest, or gentle, or honorable, but at the end of the day still being the best in the art of murder - and who are they if not Bhaal's unholy blade?
Godless and fatherless, struggling to reimagine themselves.
Especially when memories come; they never return fully, never in the whole picture. But glimpses, the shards of existence what was once theirs cut deeper than any ritual blade would.
I keep thinking about Durge weighted down by the grief of the world, guilt of the world.
Alone: without a god, a father, a sister, a partner (Gortash, bc these two were absolutely insane for each other).
Alone and with whole life ahead; lost and confused and with hands bloodied.
Hero, people call them. They don't feel like a hero.
ao whatdo you do when you have the urge to post on ao3 when yiu havent even written fanfiction for 2 years and jsut randomly got back into it because i have a sudden urge to share my shitty little writings for funsies
lmao I've got such a handle on what branwen and gortash's partnership was like pre-tadpole, and how easily they fall back into it once branwen returns to the city; she's still fundamentally the same naive & easily manipulated child pulling the wings off butterflies that she was when they first met
but damn i have no idea what the dynamic looked like for elektra in her worldstate??
I'll have to see if I can pull funny out of this and successfully circumvent the Uncomfortable but situation: Leonys, recently engaged, traveling across Gondor with her fiance in the service of the King, starts randomly asking around about Eomer, king of Rohan (since Lothiriel is insistent that you don't tell anyone it's her asking). This isn't surprising at first, given her Whole Deal, until the questions become a little bit too obviously besotted. This is also not surprising, given her Whole Deal, but it is a bit scandalous. After all, her fiance is right there.