Chapter Text
Karlach isn’t scared of the Dark Urge.
Scared for him, just as she is for anyone with a tadpole in their head, but never of.
Grateful too. She can hardly believe a psychic link and a few laconic words from the storm sorcerer are all it took to dissuade Karlach’s keenest hunter from attempting — keyword: attempting — to take her head. Well, less so now that she knows how much of a stand-up guy the Blade of Frontiers really is. He’s quickly becoming her best friend, one whose subtle headshake kept Karlach from snickering when his party’s sorcerer introduced himself with the most over-dramatic name she’d heard since Flo adopted a flock of abyssal chickens. Apparently that name is all the tadpole spared of the Dark Urge’s past.
Turns out their party has two amnesiacs. Prior to being tadpoled, Shadowheart — whose name Karlach couldn’t subdue a small snort at — willingly surrendered some of her memories to protect her cloister. Or so she claims. Karlach doesn’t know enough about Sharrans to voice her doubts confidently. Or about githyanki. Or magistrates. Or even wizards besides stories about Elminster and his love of cheese. She does know enough to conclude what Astarion would later loudly declare: this party is a bunch of weirdos.
Perhaps that’s why all these big personalities let the opinions of their blankest slate sway their own. Name, squirrel-kicking and the compulsive mangling of their wizard’s arm aside, the Dark Urge seems the most… accommodating? Which, when applied to chromatic dragonborn, is also weird. Then again Karlach doesn’t have a ton of firsthand chromatic dragonborn experience. Dragonborn in general aren’t a common sight, and the big softies that shared the alleys she grew up in were metallic.
His imposing silhouette is jarring on a mage. Karlach is used to being the tallest in the room and the Dark Urge still manages to look imperiously down at her. By a lot. Sometimes all their party has to do to piss the pants of whichever poor fucker annoyed them that day is to nod in his and Karlach’s direction. Maybe it’s kinship over their combined intimidation power that has the Dark Urge staring at Karlach so much. Whenever she catches those violent red eyes fixed on her from across their crackling campfire, Karlach ignores how the hairs down the back of her neck stand on end to return a wave or a wink made in jest. Usually the Dark Urge looks away. Sometimes he doesn’t.
Karlach can’t blame him. She knows she’s damn cute.
Everyone in their party is. Or maybe Karlach’s easily endeared, and not just by their faces. The Dark Urge, for instance, earned “cute” status in Karlach’s book through action. Twice.
Upon introducing the party to Clive, the careworn teddy bear Karlach attributes her sanity over the past ten years to, more stuffed animals began appearing in front of Karlach’s tent. One every couple nights, no note. Everyone played dumb, though Astarion and Shadowheart clearly weren’t, so it was up to Karlach to catch her gifter in the act. Before long, she saw the Dark Urge depositing a clean white-felt pegasus at her tent. It was the same sad toy she saw in an abandoned house they just looted, covered in soot with its stuffing strewn across the floor. It must’ve taken hours to restore.
Karlach was too stunned to call him out so he doesn't know she saw. She’s still figuring out a proper ‘thank you’.
The Dark Urge’s second surprisingly cute trait is his skill for braiding hair. He rediscovered it when Shadowheart needed to stop and re-braid hers after being doused in grease. Mindful of the time-crunch they were under, their cleric announced her intent to do the bare minimum. That’s when the Dark Urge surprised them all, and himself, by offering his help — a moment before Wyll could, bless his chivalrous heart. Shadowheart was too curious to deny him. How great could the braid of a hairless person be? Turns out, pretty damn great. Shadowheart’s new braid was expertly quick, tidy, comfortable, and most baffling of all, done with a wistful little smile. Before that, Karlach assumed the Dark Urge was only capable of smiling while splattered in blood. Now Shadowheart seeks the Dark Urge out every morning for a redo. This elicited a few fond chuckles and eye-rolls from Karlach and the others.
Sometimes it shocks Karlach how easy it is to laugh among these near-strangers. How easy to turn her back to them. To sleep with both eyes closed. She knows she’ll never be safe so long as a tadpole lodges beside her optic nerve, but being out of Avernus and fighting alongside five Faerûnians and one Lae’zel is close enough to allay her tension.
By the seventh night after the nautiloid crash, five after Karlach’s recruitment, she’s seen everyone’s genuine smile except Lae’zel’s.
Having surmised they aren’t working on a normal tadpole timeline lest they all be spitting teeth by now, everyone but the githyanki is remembering how to relax. Granted, Lae’zel’s definition of relaxation probably misaligns with most Faerûnian’s. She seems willing enough to follow the herd to the shallow creek flanking their new camp, if only to keep watch.
Fireflies flit languidly through the creek’s reeds. Avernus boasts no such scenes so the sight makes Karlach misty-eyed. Poor timing for that. Blurs her view of this party of total smokeshows stripping down to their undergarments — sans Astarion, who snuck off earlier — to scrub away an especially bloody day’s worth of grime from their gear and skin. Or in Gale’s case, to prestidigitate it away. Hard to wash oneself with one arm in a sling. He folds his robes neatly with mage hand and plops onto a log beside Wyll and Karlach, who chatter about modifying headwear to suit horns.
Shadowheart’s concerned murmur of, “That looks recent,” turns everyone’s heads.
The amnesiac duo sits on the opposing shore, wringing their clothes in previously quiet companionship. Karlach nearly chuckles to herself about how small Shadowheart looks in the larger mage’s shadow, but then she spots it.
If collecting battle scars were a contest, the Dark Urge would take home the silver trophy, outdone only by Karlach herself. Without close inspection, Wyll and Lae'zel seem to have the Dark Urge beat. His scars are hidden among glossy scales that regrow ever so slightly duller where damaged. Some carve diagonally across his face, lips and crimson throat. Some on his arms, palms and across his clavicles appear to be ritualistic, eclipsed by others won in battle. These are all old news to the party. It’s the angry pink Y-incision spanning his torso they gawk at.
“…Maybe it is.” His voice is deep and mellow.
“Does it hurt?”
The contemplative knit of the Dark Urge’s brow-spikes sinks Karlach’s substituted heart. At once with Shadowheart’s, “I’ll take that as a yes,” he answers, “I haven’t noticed before now.”
Pitying, Wyll asks, “Is it numb?”
“No. Overshadowed.”
After a beat of silence, a suspicious Lae'zel probes, “By what?” Her tone leeches all comradery from the muggy air.
Karlach isn't sure she likes the peculiar gleam in the Dark Urge’s eyes as he meets Lae-zel’s. “My head. It throbs.”
The sword Lae'zel jerks from her pile of armor dulls in comparison to the sharp looks she receives from her half-naked party, except from the Dark Urge who looks sinisterly delighted to have a blade leveled at him. Lae’zel marches across the shallow water toward the amnesiacs and hisses, “Istik, you know headaches are a symptom. Any moment, your skull may split to make room for that of a ghaik’s.”
Karlach jumps up and blocks Lae’zel’s path to the dragonborn. “Hang on! You’re not killing anyone over a headache!”
“I am not so hasty,” contests Lae’zel, “While I may be no ghustil, I can still examine for tendrils wriggling below the skin.”
“You don’t need a sword for that.”
“Perhaps not, but when my examination makes clear ceremorphosis is upon the Dark Urge,” she peers past Karlach to meet the Dark Urge’s gaze, her own softening slightly, “he would be wise to ask for a quick death.”
“No thanks,” huffs the Dark Urge.
“You would rather the tadpole maim and replace you? Must it burst the marrow from your bones, skewer your organs until they are strips finer than the scales on your eyelids, and dissolve the tissue of your mouth and throat so your screams are but gurgles for you to accept this is no mere headache?”
“Yes, actually,” Shadowheart snips. “I see no physical proof this isn’t a normal headache. And if he hasn’t noticed a wound like that hurting because of this headache, that means he’s had it from the moment he woke up on the mind flayer ship.” The half-elf looks up at the dragonborn. “Correct?”
“Correct.”
“And the pain’s been consistent?”
“It has.”
A gith curse preceed’s Lae’zel’s, “Be vocal if this changes. We cannot allow any ghaik to catch us off guard. Anyone who turns is no longer our teammate.”
Well now, if Karlach were to experience a headache she sure as the hells won’t let Lae'zel know.
As if this conversation never happened, the Dark Urge wrings another clothing item dry. His fervor drizzles away with the soiled water.
Sensing she will receive no agreement, Lae’zel retreats with a click of her tongue. Once the sword leaves the githyanki’s hand, Karlach glances over her shoulder at the Dark Urge and Shadowheart. The former stares back at her, unreadable as ever. Karlach can’t hold his gaze long. Not with those surgical scars pulling her eyes so forcefully down.
Who did that to him? Do they still draw breath?
Karlach shakily releases her own and returns to the log beside a troubled Wyll and Gale.
Nobody but Shadowheart speaks again, and only to ask if she can use her last spell of the day to ameliorate the Dark Urge’s headache. When asked if the spell helped any, Karlach can tell that the Dark Urge’s, “Yes,” is a lie.
Memories torment Karlach that night. An operating table’s leather restraints bite into her wrists and ankles. It doesn’t deter her from thrashing and screaming her throat raw, nor does that deter Zariel’s butcher. She feels every moment as her chest is sawed open and stolen from. Sees through bleary eyes as her heart is discarded to make room for—
The hiss she hears next isn’t burning flesh. Not at first. It starts as one of pain, air expelled through teeth.
She blinks away her sizzling tears to see the wrist of her scaled companion caught in Karlach’s fiery grip. Kneeling above her, the Dark Urge makes no effort to wrest himself free.
Karlach yanks her hand away as if zapped and croaks, “Durge!” because that single syllable is the best her drowsy mouth can muster. “Shit! Are you okay?”
The Dak Urge impassively examines his wrist before meeting Karlach’s worried gaze. “Are you?”
Far from it. Karlach lets out an incredulous laugh instead of saying so.
The Dark Urge raises a shushing finger to his mouth.
It’s night. Hearing the snores of all but the full-blood elf helps Karlach slow her breath. Past the Dark Urge’s shoulder, Karlach notes Astarion’s empty bedroll. For the best. Their rogue seems the sort to verbally lunge at any weakness for the thrill of it, and Karlach is feeling very weak. She reaches into her pouch for a healing potion and answers, “Not if I just burned a friend…”
Scarred white lips twitch but didn’t open to argue against their friendship, like several of the others might. Sure it’s only been a few days and nobody in their party would have teamed up under better circumstances, but Karlach deems anyone who has her back in fight after fight a friend.
“Wrist.”
The Dark Urge holds out his wrist for Karlach to pour the potion on. He doesn’t watch the wound close, examining Karlach’s face instead. His expressions are typically on the subdued side so Karlach can’t be sure, but she thinks she reads a fading hunger in his eerie eyes. “Is it nightmares of Avernus that beset you?”
“…That obvious?”
“You were clawing at your chest.”
Karlach looks down. Sure enough, bleeding scratches are hidden among her old burns. “Huh. Usually I’d say ‘leave me to my nightmares, it’s not like I’ll remember them come morning’ especially if burns are the reward people get for helping me, but it seems you did me a solid. Thanks pal.” She reaches into her bag for another potion.
“I wasn’t helping.”
Karlach pauses. “What’s that mean?”
“Being burned was… what I needed. The best outcome.”
“Mate, that’s rotheshit. You—” Then the Dark Urge’s words seep in. The explanation is there in his goofy name. In his mutterings. In his admissions about craving violence. “Wait, wait,” says Karlach, “please tell me those ‘urges’ you’re named after weren’t to sit there and slobber over how badly I could hurt myself.” Or worse.
To Karlach’s dismay, the Dark Urge checks the corners of his mouth for slobber. Finding none, he asks, “You want me to lie to you?”
“No, I want to trust you!”
The Dark Urge doesn’t say, ‘You shouldn’t.’ He doesn’t say, ‘I don’t trust myself.’ He just looks tired. Defeated. This gets the message across loud and clear.
“Look, I’m not mad,” Karlach amends. Concerned, but not mad. “It’s not like anyone got hurt. Well, not significantly. And not by you.” And she isn’t a wizard unable to defend her noodly arm because the rest of her body is trapped in a malfunctioning sigil circle. Karlach would have the Dark Urge in a chokehold before blinking the sleep from her eyes, just as she did many a fool under the misconception it would be easy to murder Zariel’s prized gladiator in her sleep. A chokehold the Dark Urge would have the rare privilege of being released from with his windpipe intact.
“Someone may get hurt next time. Someone already has,” murmurs the Dark Urge with a long look at their sleeping wizard. Gale’s arm was so mangled those first three days, Shadowheart’s strongest healing spells acted as mere pain-management. It’s astounding he hasn’t held a grudge, at least as far as Karlach can tell. “If Shadowheart and Astarion hadn’t stopped me then…”
Karlach doesn’t like where this is going. She absently sips her potion and focuses on the feeling of her chest knitting back together.
Thankfully the Dark Urge thinks better of asking to be stopped preemptively. He stands and says, “I should let you sleep, Karlach.”
“Uh huh.” Too bad sleep doesn’t feel achievable anymore. “Have a nice night and… go easy on yourself, okay Soldier?”
With a stiff nod, the Dark Urge returns to his perch atop a boulder by the campfire. There, he and Astarion take turns keeping watch since one is always waking up from nightmares anyways unless dead tired, and the other needs less sleep than the rest. Being exempt from watch-duty sat great with Karlach before, but now she isn’t sure how she feels about leaving such a task in the Dark Urge’s hands.
Coincidentally, Karlach isn’t the only person awoken in the night by a teammate looming over them. Punctures on Wyll’s neck testify just how gracious he was to his would-be assailant. More proof Karlach misjudged the famed monster hunter nearly as badly as he did her.
A vampire who walks in the sun. They really are a strange lot.
During Astarion’s confession over breakfast, Wyll watches the group for the faintest flicker of murderous intent against their bloodthirsty friend.
Karlach doesn’t care if he catches her watching the Dark Urge. The sorcerer is clearly intrigued by the monster among them. This makes Karlach wonder. The tadpole’s suppression of Astarion’s vampiric weaknesses had deterred their suspicion of the red-eyed, fanged high elf for nearly a tenday. Were he to wake up alone and with such bad amnesia he only remembered his name, how long would it take him to realize what he was?
Karlach’s first excursion without the whole party present is nine days after the nautiloid crash.
Gale and the Dark Urge wake up hurting. One from a mysterious “arcane hunger” he refuses to elaborate on besides that he needs magical items to sate it, and the other from an especially crippling headache. Unlike the others who conjure icepacks or brew the Dark Urge herbal tea, Lae’zel urges the storm sorcerer to fall on her greatsword again. She agrees to walk away this time because Gale promises — with fingers crossed behind his back — to thunderwave the Dark Urge off the nearest cliff if he notices so much as a crooked tooth. Fat lot that’ll do to someone who can cast feather fall and fly. Maybe that’s why Gale chose such an execution method.
Karlach is more worried this fate may befall Lae'zel instead. Shadowheart’s glower is relentless. One of the first dynamics Karlach noticed in this party, following the strife between the cleric of Shar and githyanki warrior, was how protective Shadowheart is of her savior from a mind flayer pod despite the ice queen act she puts on. Lae’zel targeting the Dark Urge gives Shadowheart double the murder motive.
Karlach resigns to a tedious day of staying between the two.
It’s not all bad though.
Wyll rediscovers his confidence, less and less daunted by his fiendish new facade with each choice he makes. He holds his head high throughout thwarting Kagha’s ritual as if his horns weigh nothing. At one point Astarion complains that Wyll’s heroism is too predictable and at risk of becoming boring, prompting their warlock’s heartiest laugh. It’s music to Karlach’s ears. As far as she’s concerned, the Blade of Frontiers is back and better than ever.
Their bounty that day is also satisfying: a couple magical items for Gale, hope that Karlach’s engine may be fixed by Dammon as soon as they find some infernal iron, a headache potion from Auntie Ethel and a plan to visit her teahouse the next day. Karlach doubts a little old lady can cure them of their tadpoles, but a check-up can’t hurt. Frankly, she’s excited to go.
Not as excited as she is when Alfira greets them to camp.
When all is said and done about Alfira’s brutal end, Karlach slinks off to the riverbank and cries.
That bard had so much kindness in her heart and deserved only kindness in return. Not to be gutted and thoughtlessly spread across the dirt like babyfood on a bib. Her murderer, on the other hand…
No. Imagining the Dark Urge gutted doesn’t ease Karlach’s grief at all. She’s imagined that too many times already since seeing the Dark Urge’s surgical scars. It’s too easy to transition into how terrified he must have been when he discovered the scars for the first time after losing his memories, or worse, when they were given to him. And from there, too easy to remember Karlach’s own fear and pain during her operation in Avernus. Every moment of it.
But how much worse was Alfira’s?
Wyll intercepts Karlach on her way back to camp. “The others are on their way to the teahouse. Still got that in you today, Karlach?”
Fuck yes Karlach still wants to visit Auntie Ethel. Sharing air with the Dark Urge on the other hand…
Wyll doesn’t need a tadpole or spell to read Karlach’s mind. “We’re already down a party member. The Dark Urge is, uh… on timeout.”
Karlach scoffs.
“...Until our party agrees on a more suitable sentence.”
Better. Or, yeah, better right?
When it comes to retribution, Karlach rarely dithers. Anyone who tries to kill her or hers gets the axe. Simple. Unless it’s a friend — term used lightly — Karlach is being forced to battle to the death for the sick amusement of Zariel’s inner circle, but even then her combatants are always raring for her blood. Nobody is forcing her here, and certainly not to kill the Dark Urge. Yet. Karlach won’t agree to it, even if it’s all she’s known. Avenging Alfira won’t bring her back.
That, and if the Dark Urge dies, Karlach can’t thank him for the stuffed animals…
Karlach gestures for Wyll to lead on. She doesn’t want him to hear how hoarse her voice is, as if her puffy eyes haven’t already given away the reason.
They reconvene with the party on the edge of an idyllic swamp. Butterflies flit obliviously around a dire conversation.
“Were the murder within his control,” says Gale while swatting a butterfly as if it’s a pest, “I can’t imagine the Dark Urge waking us all without at least attempting to wash the blood off his hands.”
“Unless,” their fanged agent of chaos chips in eagerly, “he thought it would be more fun that way.”
Shadowheart says, “He didn’t look like he was having fun.”
“It’s called acting, darling.”
“For a monster, you sure are keen to raise your pitchfork Astarion. Perhaps the real killer thought it would be ‘fun’ to pin his crime on another. It would explain why the Dark Urge doesn’t remember committing it.”
Alarm widens Astarion’s eyes and shoots a hand to the hilt of his dagger.
“May I remind you all,” sighs Gale with a gesture to his sling, “that our dragonborn friend is the only person in our party with a recent and certified history of blacking out and attacking people. I’d say that’s proof enough that Alfira's murder was his doing.”
“Now,” Wyll says as he and Karlach stride up to the others, “we just need to figure out how to handle it.”
“By seeking purification at a Zai’thisk instead of chasing these so-called cures,” Lae’zel declares, “If not, we will all experience these violent blackouts.”
Shadowheart, Gale and Astarion hum doubtfully.
Wyll says, “And if the Dark Urge succumbs to his urges again before then? We have no clues to go off in pursuit of your Zai’thisk, Lae’zel.”
Astarion cuts her off before she can open her mouth. “Let me guess: Kill him.”
Sour-faced, Lae’zel spits, “I take no joy in this measure, istik. The Dark Urge has been a useful ally and fearsome foe to our enemies. It is because he has earned my respect and thus my mercy that I would raise my blade to his throat before the tadpole can bury it with tentacles I would otherwise mount on my wall.”
Wyll says, “Ignore his headache.”
“I cannot.”
“Then we’ll simply ignore you,” says Shadowheart flippantly. “Any other suggestions?”
None Karlach likes.
She doesn’t speak up except to protest chaining the Dark Urge to a boulder come sundown. Doesn’t need to. Nobody but Lae’zel wants the Dark Urge dead. Ousted from their party, maybe, but what would become of the Dark Urge from there? Would he greet them as another refugee under Zevlor’s care, or as an enemy when they infiltrate the goblin camp. The Absolute must seem more and more alluring to the Dark Urge. The drow woman who oversees its forces would certainly praise the violent murder of a tiefling bard. Not put the murderer on time-out. No adventures for amnesiacs who wake up covered in the guts of an ally.
As the debate goes on, Shadowheart points out that the Dark Urge hadn’t protested any punishment when confronted about Alfira that mornining. Karlach sort of wishes he had. Maybe that might spark some real anger against him, preferable over the all-consuming sadness Karlach feels for both Alfira and the Dark Urge, dodgy as that sounds.
This damn tin-can’s as fallible as her flesh heart was.