Makings of a Monster

Sarevok and Tamoko ate their breakfast quietly. Sarevok was still shaken with the dream of his mother, and vaguely angry about crying. Surely crying for a dead mother, and his own guilt and helplessness for not being able to save her, wasn't something worthy of the divine blood in his veins. Vengeance, rage, hate... all those were acceptable, and avenged mother would be. But the sorrow. The helplessness. Even guilt. They were emotions of lesser beings. He would have to start thinking like a god, and eventually he would transform into one, for thinking formed actions, and actions formed perceptions and essences.

Tamoko was still hurt about that Sarevok was ashamed of being vulnerable in her company. They were committed to each other, and would fight to death to defend each other. They were lovers, comrades in arms, and friends. If Sarevok didn't want to cry in the privacy of their bed, cradled in her arms, where then? But as Sarevok left for the library, Tamoko kissed him and gave him a sad smile, which he returned in an absent-minded way.

Sarevok pondered Gorion. Luckily he was almost finished with his studies. It all began to make sense now. The details could be worked out with Winski, and he had a possibility seizing his father's divine power and portfolio... but Gorion was after him. On his way to the library, through its beautiful walled garden, he suddenly froze in his tracks as he saw the very person he was thinking about. Gorion was sitting on a bench, just a corner away on the sunny side of the building. And he wasn't alone. Peri, the girl with greyish-green eyes laid with darkness, his ward, sat with him. Sarevok quietly retreated in the shadow of an ornamental bush. The two seemed to be having an intimate conversation.

- "Oh Gorion. I had the same kind of dream again," said the girl. Now she wasn't laughing. Her face was grave, and the eyes were filled with darkness and pain. "It was a whole army, masses and masses of murdered, tortured souls, and all the sounds they made roaring in my ears. But in the dream it felt good. It gave me strength. I rode with a skeletal steed, and I was larger than all the little people at the fields, and I beheaded them, just like that, as I rode by. And I was laughing. Laughing! And all the killed ones joined the chorus of the previous dead..." she sobbed a bit. "What's wrong with me?"
Gorion looked at her like a man who feels great gentleness and pain at the same time.
- "Dear Peri. Dreaming of murder doesn't make you a murderer. Always remember this." He seemed to want to stress this to the girl, as he looked into her eyes, very lovingly, and embraced her. And then the puzzle pieces just clicked into their places. Sarevok started to shake again. How come he didn't realize it at once? Because you have been for so long trying to forget how it feels to be scared, small and powerless, answered a voice from somewhere in his soul.

Gorion's gentle eyes and the way he looked at the girl... it was akin to the look he had had in the temple, when he fought the priestesses and saved... Peri. Sarevok tried to stop shaking, but he couldn't help remembering how it was, the despair, the certainty that they would get him too and cut his head off, his life ending in a hot flow of blood into the sacrificial chalice before it had even begun. And Gorion, Gorion retreating with Peri in his arms, while Sarevok tried to clutch his robes to no avail. Sarevok's throat ached, and the tears started to well again.
Peri's dream was not unlike his, but what about her life? Gorion had kept her safe here, behind the walls of a fortress, at the lush playing grounds and near tomes of dusty books. Gorion loved her, and never fearing or worrying she'd fool around and play with the pink-haired girl. Gorion had chosen Peri over him and granted her this easy existence.

Sarevok thought back, trying to remember time when there was no perpetual knot of dread in his throat. In the streets there was the danger of death, or a bully whom he could not stop, who'd spill his blood on the cobblestones like he had once spilled Urjen's. And then there was Reiltar. When he was still so small, trying to sleep with all his muscles tense, listening to his footsteps. Hoping, hoping so much that he would go to his own room. And if he didn't, if the footsteps approached, that there would be the humiliating ritual and intolerable pain of a beating, then finally breaking up and crying, listening to Reiltar's scornful comments, the anger boiling inside of him, for that would still be better than listening to him beating mother, or breaking her spirit, her crying. Fearing that he would one day kill her, or him, or them both. Always fearing. Gorion had decided that he deserved this, while his sibling deserved the happy life in the library fortress. The bitterness burned him like acid.

Sarevok felt a burning pain in his eyes, the tears distorting his vision. He felt a need to crush them both, their smug, happy family. He retreated quietly, doing everything in his power not to break down and cry in front of the folks in the inn, and went into their room, opening his diary.

I feel angry and abandoned. I want to kill everybody. I fear, more than anything else, that I'm a worthless person because I was abandoned, because another was chosen over me. I got misery and fear, Reiltar and his cruelty, she got joy and safety, Gorion and his love. Even mother, the person who gave me love and joy - even though I was also hurt through her because I was forced to watch her suffering - was taken from me. Doesn't this mean that I should just have let the priestesses murder m

The tearstains started to make the page illegible. Sarevok read it and ripped it in rage. What worthless drivel! He bit his fists, trying to calm down. It wouldn't do to smash furniture or bang walls. It would attract unwanted attention. Finally his shakes and sobs died down. He leaned back and breathed calmly, and the cold, patient essence flowed into him. He'd have to think now. According to more contemporary scribes the Harpers had thwarted an attempt to resurrect Bhaal by a mass ritual murder. So that was what the battle was about, and that meant Gorion was a Harper. Potentially dangerous, and able to equip the Bhaalsibling all too well in for the coming conflict. It made perfect sense to eliminate them both, but for now they should get away from Candlekeep as soon as possible. Sarevok ripped the offending diary page in as small pieces as he could, and wrote a new one. It matched his earlier style. Rational, to-the-point, in control. Much better.