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I am a sweet child. Generous and kind, always willing to learn and try new things. I have no memory of a life or a family before the ones who found me in the street. Two older people who take me in and raise me as their own. They look after me as best they can, and give me all they have.
I am happy and healthy for years, by all accounts as innocent as any other child. There are visits to the traveling circus, songs sung as my adoptive parents teach me to cook, days spent in the temple. Times with the other kids my age, playing tag and hide and seek around the half-tumbled down buildings at the end of the road.
Then the creature comes. I can’t recall how he appears. All I know is he is here abruptly, and he whispers things in my ear as I lay in bed, half asleep. He has such horrible ideas, brutal and utterly new to my child’s mind.
“Hurt them,” he whispers. “Make them scream. Twist the knife and spill their guts. Touch the blade to their flesh and make them squirm.” He presses a sharp object into my hands, and the handle fits perfectly in my fingers. Like it was made for me.
I can’t remember what happens next. Sensations blur together, my vision black and my hands moving fast.
When I come back to myself, it is to crimson spilled on the floor, spreading slowly. It covers my hands, my clothes, and it feels warm and comforting. Like being tucked into bed on a winter night.
I run. Run from the only home I’ve ever known, terrified of pursuit. No one follows me, only assuming I have been killed as well, my body never found. For what child could commit a crime so terrible?
Years later, there is a woman. She comes to my cottage at the edge of a far-away town, and she knocks on the door.
Her name is Sophia, she tells me, and she is a paladin. She has heard rumors of a hermit living in this cottage. One who speaks little and only visits the town when necessary. One with a tired, hopeless look in their eye.
She tells me what I already know. Then she tells me more. She was like me, once. Someone with a past they hid and tried to forget. Someone who wanted to repent but could not do so. Someone broken.
I do not ask her what her past was. I believe her when she tells me it was bad, because I can see the same look in her eyes too. But she has another aspect to it, a determination behind the guilt. A strength and a purpose.
She found a new life, so she says to me. She found a home, with people like her. No god leads her, only justice. She found a path and a creed to follow. I can too, she tells me. I can join her, find comrades in arms. I can fight for the force of good, and leave behind the person I was. I can be redeemed.
I want to believe her. I want to hope again. I want to be redeemed, to atone for my past. And when she looks at me like that, I can’t help but desire it. I can’t help but hope.
So I say yes. She smiles, and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
“Have you courage?” she asks. I nod. “Have you strength?” I nod again. “Then join us, brother.”
More years pass. I am a paladin of vengeance, a force against evil. I fight for justice and spare no evil-doer. My brethren fight with me, and none ask of my past or my motives. They merely trust me to protect them as they do me, and I do.
I am happy. A sense of purpose fills me, and I am sure whatever darkness lays within me must be satisfied by the killing I do daily. I harm only those deserving of it, but I harm them gravely.
Then the creature comes to me once again. He whispers his dark words in my ears, and I try to fight. I refuse, I struggle, I bite back the pain and the longing. I will not spill innocent blood again. I will not.
I return to reality atop a pile of bodies, blood pooling on the floor.
It cannot be, I tell myself. Surely this many people would have killed me. I take stock of myself. My body is bruised and slashed, and my face is burnt. I feel my teeth through a patch of torn-off skin when I put my hand up to my cheek. Even my hair is ripped out in patches.
I have no idea how I am alive.
In the end, it does not matter. I black out again, and awake once more to the paladin hall on fire, flames licking high into the sky. Already I hear people coming from their homes to lend aid, so I run. Amidst the burned corpses, no one will miss my body.
I run to Baldur’s Gate. Surely, in a city, I will be stopped before I can do much harm. Perhaps I will never hurt another. Perhaps the beast that possesses me is finally appeased, and I need not worry.
I do not quite believe that, but I vow that I will die before harming another innocent. I will be stronger than I was before. I will fight and win.
I take a job, working as a guard for a family of patriars. It’s simple work, and I am good at it. More time passes, months where the beast inside me is quiet and still. I begin to hope once more.
Then the daughter returns to town, and I am nearly swept away by her. Cecilia. A lovely elven woman, tall and graceful, with eyes that show the sea and a voice to match. She has a smile very like Sophia’s, though it lacks a certain wry quality. Instead it is gentle, cloaked in innocence. A clear conscience.
When her birthday comes, she wishes to go to the Lower City, and visit the Elfsong Tavern. I am there beside her, watching for enemies, and I find one. An assassin hiding in the shadows on a rooftop. I push Cecilia out of the way, and take an arrow to the shoulder. The assassin is caught and hanged, and I am returned to the house to heal.
When I am recovered, the father of the house tells me that I am to be Cecilia’s own guard. I will watch over her and protect her with my life. It is an easy promise to make, to keep the woman I love safe.
One night, she comes up to me. Her nightdress slips down one shoulder, and she does not pull it up. She puts up a hand to my cheek, against the burn scars, and I cannot help but lean into it. Her touch is light and warm, and her lips feel the same as she presses her mouth to mine.
We lose ourselves in each other’s embrace. When the night is over, she asks me for more to come, and I cannot say no.
Later, a child is on the way. Cecilia asks me a question once again, and again I cannot refuse her. She smiles that wonderful smile, and slips a ring onto my finger. I am so happy that my heart feels ready to burst.
Cecilia is a vision in her wedding dress. White fabric draping over her, cascading in waves to her feet. Like seafoam cloaking her, matching the ocean in her eyes.
The whole day is a dream. When night falls, it falls on us both tired and contented. She comes to me when we are alone, and we meet with bodies and mouths. It is soft, a gentleness that still feels new to me.
I believe I have found my place in life, my own home. I believe I have many more nights to come, lying here with Cecilia in my arms. We will raise our child, and they will have a happy life, full of warmth and wonder.
I am wrong.
I awake sometime in the night, and I am not in my bed. I kneel before an altar, my arms outstretched, one hand clutching a cruel, twisted blade. On the altar lays a body, slashed and beaten beyond recognition, except for the white dress now stained deep red. Shredded though it is, I recognize Cecilia’s wedding gown.
I have a familiar headache, and the rising bile in my throat feels like coming home. The blood on my hands is almost the embrace of a close friend, and drips onto the floor in a steady, comforting rhythm.
This time, whatever kindness had taken my memory of the kill decides to return it to me.
I remember leading Cecilia down there, bidding her to put her dress back on and follow me. My waking mind would not have known the path to follow, but it seemed my unconscious self did. We traveled through the dark sewers and into a vast temple in the dark.
She was afraid, and still she trusted me, following blind.
I remember taking her hand, and guiding her onto the altar, watching as the fear in her eyes suddenly snapped to focus. Snapped to me, and whatever she saw on my face caused her to scream.
She pleaded with me. Insisted that this wasn’t me, that I could control this. That I could fight it, and she would help.
Then she begged.
I strapped her down as she began to scream again, and turned to select a sharp knife from a small pile nearby. I caressed her cheek with my hand, then her chest with the knife. Over and over I carved her in loving slashes; I beat and bruised her tenderly, with care.
There it was before me again, the crimson. Like an old friend returning.
Kneeling here before Cecilia’s body, I draw the knife to my chest, and prepare to drive it in.
A hand catches my arm, and draws the knife away, pulling it out of my grasp. It is the creature.
I cannot fight him. I have no strength left to pull my hand away. He sets it down gently, and all I can do is ask, “did you make me do this?” through the thickness in my chest.
He smiles and shakes his head, like he is speaking to a confused child. “You did this one yourself,” he says, “and oh! Is it not wonderful?” His rancid voice continues to rasp, hurting my ears and mind. “You are my Master,” he tells me. “And you have come home, at last! It is a joyous day.”
Then he speaks to me of birthrights, of power, of a holy god whose flesh had become me. Of my Urges, which led me home.
I do not want to listen, at first. I kneel, though my knees ache, and with my head in my hands I try to ignore him, to block him out.
The headache builds and I cry out in pain.
He stands over me, a look of sympathy on his face. He croons that I do not need to suffer. That I do not need to fight this, that I no longer have to run away. That here, I am freed from the world and need only look to my lord and loving father.
I argue weakly. I was already free, I say. I was happy. Life held great pleasure for me. But already a small voice in my head is growing louder, and I know the truth. I know it even as I fight and fail against it.
I cannot defeat the beast inside myself. Cecilia’s body only proves it. I have killed her. Killed our child. I did this, and no one else. It is my fault alone. I cannot even blame the Butler this time around.
This is my destiny, so he tells me. I was created for Bhaal’s holy purpose, and I cannot continue to fight it. Only unnecessary pain will follow. And why suffer, when the end result is the same? Why keep trying?
I can’t.
And with that final decision, the headache fades and the bile returns down to my stomach. The blood on my hands is hot and still dripping.
I look up at the altar once more, and I stand. I take my blade from my Butler, and I caress Cecilia’s skin with it, carving the mark of Bhaal into her flesh. The first of my most holy sacrifices. The first of many.