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It'd been a grave that ruined his day. Unremarkable and lonely.
Gortash had been staying the course. Walk the lower city and visit as many families as possible for a quick chat, carefully fabricate the appearance of 'being one of them' then reap the rewards of built rapport. Thus far it had gone well, save for that one house that claimed to 'see through' his benevolence. He took it on the chin while making mental note of its inhabitants for a more thorough discussion at a later date.
If he were to keep the whir of noise and thought in his head going, that would leave no room for recognition for the yarn-like tangled ball in his head. Trudge on even while drowning because every staggered step forward was still a step towards domination. Towards far-off dreams being carved into reality.
He should be satisfied. Proud, excited even. Day by day, he could see their plans being realized as they were meant to, milestones reached before their time— and he was forced to feel empty and numb so as to avoid his judgement from becoming overwhelmed and clouded, immerse himself even further into the obligations that tried to threaten to tear him apart. He'd burn brighter than ever, refuse to burn out. He can't afford to.
The most important piece of the picture was missing.
What was a king without his second in command? Ketheric proved to be too lost in his own wallowing to fulfill that role, obsessively ruminating on what befell him years and years ago instead of looking to what lied ahead of him. And Orin—
Driven, though easily-distracted. Cutthroat, to the point of her own detriment. Her ambitions were short-sighted and she was impulsive and she was all around unfit to rule and a wretch and stole away the only thing he bothered to hold dear to him. So the entire weight of the new world fell onto Gortash's shoulders.
Myrkul's Chosen could've easily been removed from the equation once his purpose was fulfilled. Before she shook it all up, the amputation of the third wouldn't have proved problematic. She was the wrench thrown into a perfectly oiled machine and he'd felt the resulting waves even where her grubby little murder-paws had yet to poke. At least to his knowledge. Now they had to stand as a united front against their plan's newest fatal flaw lest she eat the both of them the way a mother hen would her young.
The Bhaalspawn— not Orin— his fellow Chosen, he'd not suffered where she did. He'd swear it a cruel joke by the Gods if he didn't know how little they could actually care. His second half, not a so-called equal but what had been missing all this time, someone genuinely worthy of the title 'ally' torn away from him right below his nose? He could've done something. Anything.
It'd been a lesson, then.
It was a neglected grave that snapped him out of autopilot. Lonely, chipped, nestled in the corner by a mausoleum entrance. Gortash stopped in front of it not of his own will— he could've easily kept going, continue about his day, finish his campaign, but how the headstone had faded to leave no trace of a name not even a date, it stuck out to him. Why?
Death was a necessary action one must take in the pursuit of what must be done. The grave was one of the many marks left by it, a physical reminder to all who would care to look— a proud cry of "I have lived!" so as to still have a presence in this world. But this one, this one was neglected. Old, forgotten, nothing more than a representation of stilled bones.
But still, it meant something to someone. At one time, maybe. The headstone was still there and still waiting like a dog would for its master until eternity passed.
Gortash tapped it with his cane, a small chunk of granite crumbled down onto a small patch of little pale-blue flowers.
By Bhaalist standards he'd failed. He'd 'allowed' himself to be usurped, unworthy when compared to that blood-bonded sister of his because what, she caught him off guard? A cheap, ill-gotten victory— and as a result, no longer would he be revered, not as he was being dragged down to whatever hell waited for him. It was the act of murder they honored, not their dead.
Try as he might, Gortash couldn't carve out the mark he'd left on him. Someone so important to him, he who will inherit and command the world to come at his fingertips? It's unjust. Unfair. Unfair that he would have no grave, no physical representation of what once was or what could've been and wasn't or what he meant to— .. It didn't matter to think about such possibilities but that was just it, nothing about it mattered. No grave to even leave flowers on or talk aimlessly to like the desperate man would for his wife. Just another corpse for Bhaal.
He didn't even know where Orin had dumped his scraps, if anywhere.
What he felt (not that he'd ever willingly acknowledge it) was almost like a crack in his armor— and all he could do was tremble as it refused to be fixed or fade into the background as it spread and spread and spread. Gortash glared at the flowers, the only ones atop a grave that were not lifelessly limp, no, for this one harbored a life so helplessly gentle, standing defiantly tall despite the few petals that were crushed by what must've been a boulder to them. As if it would cause them to shrivel and make him feel any better, that they would accept the sorrow plaguing and free his mind. Free him to lose himself in the journey ahead.
Perhaps they had been planted there, though the dirt looks uninterrupted. They grew of their own volition then, rooting themselves there and only there willing to declare "this is my home!" A new beginning from the nest of an ending through the downpour of harsh rain, it could've been a part of a poet's soliloquy really.
Some believe you die only when you are forgotten. That is why kings concern themselves with sculptures and portraits, making a mark on the world instead of leaving one, something intangible maybe, though felt. Gortash knew he too would die one day. Before being the first Archduke of the Gate, before being the Chosen of Bane, before being Gortash, his destruction was assured the moment he began decaying from his first breath taken of such a rotten world. Once, he knew how that'd look like. Nowadays he wasn't so sure.
With all his prestige, he still couldn't escape the inevitable. Would anyone care to bring flowers to his grave? Probably many people, he'd not garnered influence far and wide for nothing.
Would anyone care to plant flowers on his grave?
Maybe at one time, someone did.
Gortash dug the tip of his boot near the base of the flowers, kicking and pulling and stomping and destroying just like he did that last little ray of Hope that she'd stuck in his side so long ago. Dirt and grass covered the remnants of leaves and broken stems and all he could do then, was move on.
To move forward. Gortash would rectify it, how he'd been wronged so. And it'd be sorely felt all across the realm and beyond.
Gortash would pay it out in spades.