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The night is quiet apart from the sounds of water on the dock and your own breathing. Behind you, the campfire burns, and by its distant light you can make out the faint outlines of your companions, resting on their bedrolls.
Though you are finally free of the Urge, and Bhaal’s “gifted” nightmares along with it, you still struggle to sleep at times. Tonight, you have given up the attempt, and are sitting down on the docks of your camp.
Footsteps nearby make you turn your head, and you see Karlach coming towards you. She sits next to you, legs dangling off the edge of the dock, and holds out an arm in a quiet offer of a hug. You lean into her gratefully. Though the engine has cooled enough that it will no longer harm you, she is still warmer than you, and her heat is welcome in the chill of the night. It is peaceful, despite the reason for you being here.
The two of you have sat like this many times along your travels. The first time was only a few days after meeting Karlach. You’d been laying on your bedroll, wide awake, trying to push the awful Urges out of your mind - and failing utterly. Sleep was far from you.
You noticed, after a while, that Karlach was twitching in her sleep. Her hands clenched and opened, and her face twisted slightly. She was shaking. She made no noise, but you could recognize the telltale symptoms of a particularly twisted nightmare.
You stayed where you were, watching her cautiously. Waking her seemed like a bad idea - if her dreams were anything like yours, she might lash out before fully waking up, and you weren’t keen to test just how badly she could burn you. Still, sympathy pooled in your chest. The things she must have seen - and done - in Avernus were likely haunting her still, as much as she would have liked to be free of them along with the place itself. Little wonder that her sleep would be disturbed.
When she did wake, she found you sitting a little further from the fire, your bedroll dragged closer to hers. You weren’t looking at her, just staring at the sparks flying from the flames. She said nothing for a long moment. In the short time you’d known her, you’d become accustomed to her frequent speaking, and the silence felt strange, and heavy.
Then she sat up, and leaned her head in her hands, looking into the fire. You stayed by her, sitting up through the night, not wanting to break the quiet. Somehow, it now felt comfortable, and some of the heaviness had faded from it. Karlach did not break it either, until the morning, when, as the others began to stir, she said quietly, “Thank you.”
It was a phrase that you'd echoed two nights later, when she’d stayed up by your side after you’d woken screaming from a half-dream, half-memory.
Eventually, it became a common practice for the two of you to sit side by side, on those nights when sleep seemed determined to destroy itself and your minds along with it. Even among the cold darkness of the shadow curse, when you were facing the worst of the Butler’s insistence and Bhaal’s tormented punishments, Karlach stayed up until dawn with you several times. Perhaps it was selfish of you, but you couldn’t bring yourself to ask her to rest herself, even when she was clearly exhausted. Knowing she was by your side was the one thing keeping you from tying yourself up every night, or doing something far more rash. When you were alone, staring into the dark, your mind spiraled in on itself, and the guilt you felt was only matched by your fear of what your unconscious self might do.
You made a vow to yourself, the morning that Alfira died. A vow that you would not be motivated by guilt alone, but by the desire to be better. You swore that you would strive to be the person Alfira had seen in you, the person that your companions seemed to see in you. Guilt alone would destroy you entirely, and you wanted to do what good you could with this second chance at life. It was a gift you hadn’t deserved, and that you never could deserve, but you’d spend every waking moment trying to be worthy of it. The guilt you felt was important: it pushed you to do better, and kept you from growing lazy or contented, but it wouldn’t rule you. You’d fight the Urge, you’d do all the good you possibly could, and when your own mind and body failed you, you’d look to your companions for their aid. It worked, for a while.
But your time in the Shadow Cursed Lands upturned a good deal of the new self you’d been building up. The things you found at Moonrise Towers, the people you met for the first time who had clearly known you well in your past life. It felt like everywhere you turned you met another instance of your guilt and shame, and your anger grew. The promise you made to resist your Urge at all costs seemed close to breaking then, when you looked at Ketheric and felt such hatred, such an intense longing for revenge - a fury of such intensity that it was only matched by the ever-growing guilt inside you.
Those shadows came close to taking you, and in the end, it was Karlach who saved you.
You were so desperate, that one night. Fighting every muscle in your body so you could shake her awake, instead of hurting her. The bile within you threatened to overwhelm, and all you could hear were that miserable Butler’s words. You could barely choke out enough words of explanation before you fell unconscious, and woke to her kneeling by you. You were not yourself. The binding ropes bit at your wrists and ankles and made the foul Urge all the more angry.
Karlach was calm, and there was no fear on her face, only concern. She spoke to you, telling you that she was there, and that you could fight this. Even through the pain and bloodlust, the words reached you, and you tried to show gratefulness. Whether you succeeded or not, you don’t know. Most of the memory of that night is lost to you. A small mercy, perhaps.
When the morning came, it came bloodlessly, but you felt little relief. You tried to figure out what to say, as Karlach untied you, but in the end, all you could think to tell her when she sat by you was the truth. The few memories you did have, and what you’d pieced together at Moonrise Towers. All the hateful and unfathomably awful things you knew you must have done, but couldn’t remember.
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t condemn you, didn’t even seem angry. She just said “We’ll get through this” and you wanted to sob at the words. The self-hatred that had been boiling up ever since the nautiloid suddenly seemed to break you.
“I’ve killed so many people. You should end me here and now,” you choked out.
And Karlach only looked at you with sympathy, with understanding. “I’ve killed people too,” she said. “Innocence is for the lucky. Life is dirty, and we’ve got the stain of it.”
You did cry, at that. She held you until you stopped, and then quietly told you again that the two of you would get through this. Together. She called you love, and it almost made you break down again. To know that she still loved you, that she was determined to stay by your side, even knowing the things you’d done.
The nightmares only got worse once you reached Baldur’s Gate, but you tried to take some solace in what Jaheira told you. That Bhaal’s children were given more hateful nightmares the more they resisted him. It was a mark of how well you were fighting, you insisted to yourself. The knowledge didn’t help much, but it was something.
By that time, everyone in the camp knew who you were. What you were. You didn’t try to hide it, or make excuses for your past deeds, and it seemed to make them more trustful of you, instead of making them hate you, as they probably should have. You were beyond grateful for that.
Jaheira was often by your side those nights as well as Karlach. Sometimes you’d wake and find them talking quietly, or just sitting in silence, Karlach watching the stars, Jaheira’s hands resting on her weapons. When Minsc joined the camp, he’d sit with them as well. You would fall asleep to his voice talking to Boo or telling terrible jokes to Karlach. It helped more than you could say.
Now, there is no need for Jaheira to keep her weapons in her hands and stay by your side all night. Neither she nor anyone else in the camp has anything to fear from you anymore, and you have nothing to fear from yourself. You still dream, but rarely wake up screaming. You’ve slept better in the past couple weeks than you ever have.
Tonight, though, you did wake with a choked cry in your throat. The dream was too vivid to allow you to fall back to sleep. Every time you closed your eyes, the images swam in front of them. Thus, you came to sit on the docks, and Karlach came to sit beside you.
You blink, and look around. You’ve been thinking for some time, it seems. On the horizon, the sunrise is beginning in its orange and yellow hues, and the air is slightly warmer. Karlach squeezes your shoulder gently, and kisses your forehead. “You alright, love?” she asks, and you nod, leaning a little closer to her, not wanting to stand just yet.
Behind you, Scratch and the owlbear cub have woken, and are chasing each other lazily around the camp. The rest of your companions will be awake soon too, judging by the noise the two animals are making with their running.
The night’s peaceful dark gives way to the noise and sound of morning, as is its way, and you rise along with the sun, smiling as you do so. It is a new day, and you have much still to do.