Chapter Text
It was, not what Tav intended when she began her adventure. Though, to be fair, this adventure was entirely not something that she had intended. But she had never imagined she would be someone that so frequently defeated enemies by convincing them to kill themselves and each other. Sure, it made fights easier and she appreciated not having so many bruises the coming morning, but at times it felt needlessly cruel. That was how she felt when she encountered the drider for the first time. Without that lantern, they would never make it to Moonrise towers, would never save the tieflings, would never… So much hung on their ability to get that piece of twisted glass and metal. Too much.
As the convoy approached, Tav made no move to hide. She stood confidently and drew attention to herself. Either she would convince the mutilated and distorted spider creature to offer the lantern willingly, or she would attack. The closer the beast got, the better she could see him. It made her stomach lurch at first as she saw the additional four, five eyes tearing through the flesh of the thing’s face – they looked at first as if they were holes or fetid eggs scoring his face. A truly cruel punishment from the first goddess he had served. Tav could not see an inch of his flesh that was untainted by the curse of Lolth. His pale skin, what humanoid flesh he had left that had not become a sharp arachnid carapace was slowly being taken over by a creeping grey discolouration. Scars mottled what would have been an incredibly handsome form before whatever tortures Lolth forced him through. The fangs… Tav would be a hypocrite if she even pretended that those frightened her.
But then there was the rest. The bulbous abdomen, the long and curling legs, the way his humanoid torso seemed to sit unsettlingly on top of his spider form placing it roughly where the face of a spider ought to be… Everything about how he looked was wrong.
“What’s this?” The drider’s voice rasped as Tav felt her tadpole squirming with excitement, wriggling in amongst her grey matter. Their minds connected, a sensation that would be more alarming if it were not such a common occurrence.
The drider was an abomination, an awful creature to behold. Tav could sense her allies’ unease as it spoke with a fanaticism towards the Absolute that made the maddened goblins they had decimated only days before seem calm in comparison. It truly should have been frightening to her, or at least… off putting. But one could only imagine the comfort that could come from being able to so fully trust in another that their fate seemed so sure – unlike enduring the tumultuous and unsure destiny that Tav and her party shared as each day they could only hope that their guardian would not lose their battle. Then, on the other hand, even a goddess might find it flattering to be so wholly adored as the Absolute was by this creature. Perhaps this was what Mystra had expected from Gale, to have the ground at her feet worshipped by the man she called lover.
“One of your True Souls, my Queen! How have they survived?” The suspicion was clear in his voice, and that lantern… So close Tav could almost snatch it from his clawed hands.
His fractured mind felt all too pliable in her hands, as if it was something made to be molded by one more powerful than him. A truly pitiable fate for an already pitiable creature. If somehow he survived this interaction, the Absolute would continue to use him up until there was nothing left. Or perhaps his next master would. Yet, in this world she was still getting to know she had learned only that careless pity was likely to get her killed. A lie spilled from her lips, it had become as easy as breathing to use the Absolute’s name to get an advantage.
“The Absolute protected me.” Arguably, it wasn’t entirely a lie. The powers she held that helped her get this far were from the Absolute. As much as it made her shudder to think how much of her survival was owed to the very thing she was fighting to destroy.
“You blessed them too, my Queen? Where is their lantern?” Through his broken mind there was still some threads of intelligence left, it seemed. Tav’s fingers flickered as she got ready to cast an offensive spell at a moment’s notice. These situations were always... tenuous at best.
“The Absolute guided me to you. She said I was to take yours.” Even as she said it, it felt… Wrong. Like stealing from a child or kicking an animal because it dared to step into her path. This creature, no, this person, had they met in any other situation they might have been one of the many oddities to join her ever growing menagerie of weirdos.
The drider blinked in fear. He did not want to believe that his own goddess was abandoning him. Tav’s words were hard to refute. So, he tried to convince himself that somehow his goddess would keep him safe from the dark. His fear, combined with his desperate cries for his goddess ate at Tav. It was easy to kill those that were malicious and cruel in their worship, those that enjoyed the power and pain they could wield against others. But the creature she witnessed, Kar’Niss, the Harper had called him. All she saw was a broken man desperate for anything to save him. To hold him. To keep the shadows away. Yes, he was clearly willing to do monstrous things for his goddess, but with the company Tav kept. With the things she herself had done… She could hardly hold that as her reason for letting him die.
“Majesty? Is-is this true? Did I not serve you well?” The trembling in her voice made Tav wish to reach out, to tell him he needn’t obey a goddess telling him to die. “Very well.” His voice was pained, a sense of resignation to it now. “If it is your will, they can have it.”
The moon lantern was thrown at her feet and Tav was quick to scoop it up before any of the entourage could take it for themselves. Regardless of how uncomfortable this encounter made her, she was not about to waste her one shot at this in the name of showing some kind of respect.
“Good, you may go now.” Tav did not want to see what would become of the caravan after they entered the shadows alone. She half hoped any one of them would light a regular torch, find their way… somewhere else. Somewhere far from the Shadowlands and far from the Absolute.
As the entourage began to voice their anger, Tav saw Kar’Niss’ mind change again. Every word from anyone nearby seemed to sway him. She wondered what was even left of that crumbling mind that was his own.
“This is not her Majesty’s will!” He declared, anger underlying his words but behind that… the fear. The fear of being abandoned again.
“The Absolute has blessed you, you will be safe.” Surely, if the Absolute was really a god, she would choose to protect him. Even Tav wanted to believe that his desperate fanaticism would keep him safe, that his endless adoration was not so utterly one sided.
“If-if it is her Majesty’s will…” Silently, Tav sent her own prayer to the Absolute. That if she did one thing, one kind act, let it be sparing this one. “She will protect us… she will… she must…” With that, the caravan walked silently into the darkness, and Tav was left with her prize.
Inside, at last she could see what gave the Moonlanterns their power. A tortured pixie, sweet and beautiful and glimmering as she spoke in poetic prose. Either it was pixies that were kind, and fairies the pranksters, or the other way around... With the guilt gnawing at her over what she had just done to the drider, she did not hesitate to release the poor thing.
What emerged from the lantern was no pretty little puff of glitter and sunshine but stale farts and a crass little creature that though grateful did not look the sort of thing bards wrote stories about. Nevertheless, the little fey creature granted her gift, safety in the dark now without need of the lantern as a light seemed to faintly emanate from each member of the party. It would have been a bit more joyous were it not for the screams in the distance.
Already Shadowheart and Astarion were groaning as they saw the look in Tav’s eyes. That look that said they were about to needlessly endanger themselves. That look that said ‘If you don’t help me do this stupid thing, I’m going to get myself killed doing it without you’. So they dashed after the sounds to find almost the entire entourage of the drider already fallen to the shadows, with Kar’Niss still fighting as he called out for the mercy of his lady, of his Absolute.
Yet he was ever met with silence.
Again his devotion was not enough, his life was not enough. Giving up even his mind was not enough for his goddess to protect him. To even comfort him as the shadows rushed through him, chilling his innards and clawing at his very soul. Still, with what he thought would be his last breaths he cried out.
“Majesty! Please…” The silence hurt more than the violence ever could. The freezing cold pain of knowing that no matter what he did, no matter what he sacrificed, it was not enough. It would never be enough. At last, he stopped fighting, stopped screaming, and bowed his head.
“Augue!” The shout came very briefly before a blinding flash of light and heat that seemed to devour the shadows while leaving Kar’Niss untouched.
At first he blinked and searched with his eyes as well as his mind as he called out.
“Majesty?” It was tentative yet hopeful. Perhaps…
But then he saw that accursed woman. The one who told him to give over his lantern and walk into the dark. Only she did not hold his lantern. Nor any light save for that which came from her. Anger, confusion, desperation, and despair swirled about in his mind as he struggled to comprehend what was happening.
Tav, for her part, could not resist approaching this time. Half dead and without his entourage he was no threat even if he did attack now. So she stepped forward, and cautiously placed a hand on his spider arm? It was hooked and a little closer to where his human crotch would be, if he had one, than she would have liked but… She felt this was a moment where that physical comfort was necessary more than words alone. To provide some kind of anchor before he slipped too deep into his own mind.
“Majesty… Majesty sent you to save me…?” He knew the answer already, somewhere in his mind he knew. But he was holding on to that desperate hope, even now as he bled. Tav shook her head and murmured a spell of cure wounds to ease his physical suffering. The mental suffering… that would take time.
The drider looked to take a breath, ready to cry out in anguish, but he simply crumpled to the ground in defeat. His first goddess had broken his mind when he failed her test, his second had shattered the remains, and now this new woman was here as if to further rub salt in his wounds. Destroying what little he had left and then being so cruel as to steal his chance to make something out of his death.
“This creature’s mind is broken. It is of no use to you. It is better if you end its misery now.” The unhelpful voice of the Guardian rang out in her mind. Though, he had been with her long enough by now to know her answer to that statement as his sigh soon followed.
“Any goddess that demands you die for her favour does not deserve yours.” There was a slight snarl to Tav’s voice as she spoke, two of her companions quite pointedly tensed at her words. The Mistress of Magic demanded death, the Lady of Sorrows demanded loss after loss with no hope of even approval in return, and the Absolute… did all this and more and yet was silent the moments her faithful needed her most.
Had these words been said to Kar’Niss even moments before, he would have been enraged. Would have killed the heretic. But he simply sat, silent as the voices in his head continued to echo even under the Guardian’s protection. Crumpled as he was now, his head was almost at equal height to Tav’s as she reached and touched her hand to his cheek. This action, at last, caused him to react. He flinched and looked at her, eyes unclouded from the voice of the Absolute.
“What do you wish of me? To torment me? To make me into a heretic for your amusement?” There was more hurt than anger in his voice as he pulled his face away. Moments ago everything in his life was certain and decided. Now he was lost in a vast sea with nothing to hold onto.
“I want to help you. You are free of the Absolute now. You don’t have to follow her will.” Tav said softly, returning her hand to her side – noting how his spider eyes followed it. A silent wish that it would return to comfort him, yet he was not willing to say as such out loud.
“I wanted to follow her will!” He hissed, yet he seemed less threatening each minute they spoke. “I was her faithful. Her disciple. Hers.” His lip trembled and he further curled in on himself.
For such a large creature, he could not make himself truly small. Though not for lack of trying. He looked as if he wished to simply… disappear. A pain Tav and her companions could relate to more strongly than any might confess.
“I’m afraid you have no choice but to follow your own will now, Kar’Niss. The Absolute has abandoned you. It is only us here. You… could come with us, if you would like.” Tav offered him a hand, one he could take or refuse at his leisure. The first choice he had been able to make in years now. Ever since becoming… This. Perhaps even before that.
The woman glowed. An aura of moonshine that held back the darkness. She knew his name. Knew his crime. Knew his failure. Yet she offered him a hand. Offered him more. Offered him something.
“Am I not pathetic?” Kar’Niss was hesitant to believe in her words.
Tav quickly held up a hand behind her to silence her companions from responding to the question.
“No, you are not pathetic. Not broken. Just hurt... So are we.” Tav’s words were soft, kind, warm. Things Kar’Niss could not ever recall being offered in his direction before.
As he reached out, Astarion scoffed.
“You’re not really going to take in every stray you find are you?” The pale elf looked at the drider with a visceral disdain and disgust… so much so that Tav knew it was not the drider he was really seeing.
“Bold words from yet another stray. Especially one that bites me every other night.” Tav did not need to glance back to know Astarion was flustered by that.
“I- Why! You-!” He continued to bluster and fumble through his words before finally giving in.
Kar’Niss tilted his head slightly. The banter was unfamiliar to him. Even other followers of the Absolute did not indulge in these things, not with him anyway. They cursed at him openly and spoke behind his back. The drow were especially… cruel.
A cold, clammy, clawed hand placed itself delicately upon Tav’s. It was a hesitant gesture that was further encouraged as Tav enclosed his hand with both of her own, and smiled.
‘That is how a goddess ought to be.’ He thought, returning with his own sharp toothed smile. Even as he showed his disgusting teeth she did not grimace nor pull away. She even seemed to be trying to look him properly in the eyes in spite of how difficult a task it must have been with so many to choose from.
As he stood and began to walk with them, he found a light enveloping his own form just as it did the woman. His new lady and mistress.