Chapter Text
you will never be clean from sin.
rotten children don’t deserve heaven.
there is no god who could
give you your purity back.
__
The blood in Nyx’s head thrums and pounds. He wakes from a staggering, blinding slumber, with blood covering the ice blue skin of his hands. Beneath him, the body of that poor, brave girl who earnestly swore herself to their cause. Alfira, bloody, ruined, dead. Ripped open by Nyx’s own hands, hands sworn to the protection of innocents, hands that have betrayed his holy oath of vengeance sworn to a god he doesn’t remember. Nyx is a paladin; the Urges in his head, it seems, are not.
Alfira’s body is twisted and maimed nearly beyond recognition. The silver bells of her bardic attire and her open, screaming mouth are her only remaining identifiers.
There is no hesitation in Nyx in accepting the weight of this sin. They are capable of enough violence, enough evil, to preform this act. The twisted voice in his head is more than enough to convince him— and if it wasn’t, the blood on his hands is damning.
His stomach churns as he looks upon the bloody mess. One of Alfira’s horns has been ripped from her skull with brutal strength and plunged into her gut. Of all the evidence of brutality before him, this is what causes the scene to become real, to transform from nightmare to truth, what initiates the sudden flood of feeling that washes over him. Revulsion, guilt, horror— and somewhere, somewhere deep in the splintered remains of his mind and memory, pride.
The nausea turns violent. Nyx turns and runs, stumbling across the camp and through the mud and rock of the riverbank. He vomits into the water. He wipes the back of his mouth with shaking hands, leaving a streak of blood across his lips. The taste is terrible; the taste is familiar. The pain in his head increases, growing tighter and tighter until they think their skull might snap under the pressure of it. They press the heels of their hands into their forehead. It does nothing to relieve the pain.
If Nyx is found like this, his guilt will be undeniable. So many of his companions are good, and they believe him to be good, too. Karlach will never forgive him for this. Gale certainly won’t approve of the murder of an innocent, and—
Wyll. Gods, what the hells will Wyll think of them after this? What will the Blade of Frontiers do, when faced with a monster of Nyx’s like?
As if their fears manifest at the thought, a sound makes itself known at the edges of Nyx’s hearing. A barely-there tap of a shoe against a rock, the softest shift of sand, but Nyx hears it. They crack their eyes open. At the corner of their sight— movement.
Nyx carries no weapon. His hands are deadly enough, if he chooses to make them so, but he has no fight in him now. If someone demands his life in return for this bloody sin, they can take it, and take it freely. He presses his palms to the sand, and raises haunted eyes to his left, towards the movement.
Astarion lingers in the shadow. His eyes glint red. There’s something hungry in his gaze.
For a long moment, they simply stare at one another. Nyx waits for judgement. It never comes.
“Well,” Astarion says. His voice is barely audible over the rushing of the water. “You’re much more interesting than I gave you credit for.”
“What will you do?” Nyx asks dully. “Who will you tell?”
“No one,” Astarion says. “At least, not yet.”
Astarion washes the blood from Nyx’s face. There’s nothing tender about the act— Astarion’s hands are brusque, bordering on harsh, as though nothing could be more mundane than to hide the evidence of brutal slaughter. Nyx remains silent throughout, lets Astarion turn their face this way and that, lets him dunk their hands in the river, watches blankly as the water tints red, then runs clear again.
If only the guilt were so easy to wash away.
In the morning, he helps them lie to the rest of their companions about the truth of Alfa’s fate. There is little comfort in the help. Astarion will want something in return for this. Astarion always wants something, even if it isn’t clear to Nyx what that something might be. A kindred spirit Astarion may be, but a kindred spirit with motives.
There is even less comfort in the fact that their oath remains intact following this act of slaughter.
What sort of paladin could do something like this?
