Chapter Text
Shadowheart's earliest memories drip with pain, and nearly every memory since folds into that same mold. Too many moments have been siphoned from her, entire stretches of months, years , even, swallowed by a goddess of void who will never be full. Shar took from her all that was good, and hopeful, and kind, leaving only breaths of agony and whipcracks of anguish, sifting her mind like godsdamned flour.
A history of nothing but torment is something Shadowheart has learned to be ashamed of, in the year since the death of the Absolute.
She’d told the party, honest in a way that burned, that she was fine with not receiving all her memories back. If this is what she remembers, racks and maidens of iron, a desperate war between a need for approval and a knowledge that her desires as such were what made her unworthy, a lifetime of unfulfilled calamity - well. Perhaps it would be cowardice to admit, but it took only a moment's consideration to decide she could live without more of the same.
It is far more cowardly to admit that beneath that reasoning, she is more afraid to know how little convincing she'd needed to embrace the desire to cause pain. By the scrounged accounts and diaries she had pilfered below the House of Grief, she knows she had never been the perfect servant, and her brief stolen conversations with Nocturne reinforce this. But pain has different infinities inside and outside of Shar worship. What is unacceptable for a cleric of the Lady of Loss is still monstrous to most of the world, and Shadowheart knows she falls squarely into both categories, somehow.
Finding a new baseline had been a struggle - even when her party of ragamuffin adventurers had saved her time and time again from herself, shown her a better way, they'd hardly been a reliable resource on morality. A githyanki warrior who once believed month-long torture a suitable response to petty thievery. A skulking vampire spawn who, even as a self-proclaimed hero now, still prefers to drain his victims dry rather than send them to fair trial. A wizard who claims high ground on ethics but is still more than easily swayed into moral grayness with the slightest promise of knowledge or power. A barbarian who, as bursting with compassion as she is, had spent the last decade in the Hells surrounded by nothing but throat-biting peers and enemies alike. A pair of old druids who too easily miss the trees for the forest. A ranger who takes morality cues from the strangest hamster she's ever heard of. A drow paladin who more than speaks for herself on matters of value. A leader whose personality and principles shift to whatever most suits the conversation and location.
Only Wyll can be reliably called on to tell true right from wrong, and as Shadowheart started to shift, as willingly as could be expected, from the Lady of Loss, she had found herself wondering if he was maybe too kind, too forgiving.
It has been a year and she still yet finds her offhand comments send Selûnites reeling. She offers what she thinks are simple suggestions, and wandering priests gasp. She expresses an honest opinion, and clerics spit. They welcome her, of course, a perfect example of Selûne's mercy, an icon of healing, a victory of light over dark. Shadowheart was meant to be a savior, before Shar plucked her from the night, and in a way, she has been - atop an eldritch horror, a mile above the city, she had helped save the world. But it rankles something deep inside her when they whisper forgiveness, ask to lay hands on her. Something in her still wants to dirty their lovely robes with her stained hands, wants to bite at them, wants to shout - I tortured and I loved it, I killed and I reveled in it, I have dreams of causing pain and I wake up smiling.
She knows she herself is naive to see Selûnites as naive. Shadowheart fought aside Dame Aylin, camped with her, knows intimately the blade made only stronger by the moonlight. There is frozen steel beneath the gentle spines of these silverstar clerics, their kindness giving them more strength to defend, to rend enemies apart in defense of the innocent. Many of the old priestesses at the Selûnite temples have hands dripping with far more red than Shadowheart could ever manage. For all her inopportune moments of senseless anger, she finds she has a deep respect for these worshippers of Light.
But this only curdles the anger inside of her, not diminishes it. Shadowheart doesn't belong to either goddess now, not Selûne or Shar. She enjoys pain, pain for the sake of pain, far too much for these bright advocates of the moon. She still finds herself dreaming of the solace of a velvet void. But Shar… that Shadowheart is long since gone, and good riddance.
Shadowheart doesn't know who she is now, and while much of her time is spent indulging in the wonder of that freedom, she finds herself running from the specter of that which she can't leave behind. She is supposed to be good , now. For all that the moon cannot cast its beams without the night, for all that shadows and light must go hand in hand, she still finds herself disgusted with her own failed attempts at burying her desires.
Good people shouldn't want to see someone bleed beneath them just for fun.
-
Shadowheart is caught in honey-thick doldrums of slow and peaceful travel when Karlach finds her.
There had been a hasty letter, delivered on the backs of at least three different kinds of birds and at least two harried messengers, trying to track down the vague descriptor of “a white haired woman - maybe still a cleric of Selûne? I think? Fuck, man, I dunno, she helped us kill the big brain over Baldur's Gate, can't you find her by that?” that Karlach had penned in great excitement, explaining that she and Wyll had successfully broken into Zariel's forge and fixed Karlach’s engine for good.
Shadowheart remembers she had been overjoyed, resolved to look Karlach up the next time she was near Baldur’s Gate, and moved on to the next town, offering up a brief prayer to Selûne that the town over would be less hostile to a large armored owlbear pet. Shadowheart had not expected a familiar voice to boom across the ravine she was trekking along, calling her name, about two months later.
“Holy shit - Shadowheart!”
She glances over and set like a ruby against the peridot spring bloom of the forest is Karlach, waving frantically and skipping with impatience.
“Wh- Karlach?” Shadowheart is not usually one to shout, preferring a more controlled dignity, but there is enough distance in the ravine cutting between them to justify cupping her hands around her mouth and calling. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you! Hang on - back up a bit, my aim isn't great!”
Not one to question Karlach's explosive need for space, no matter how strange the situation, Shadowheart instinctively stumbles back. The reason becomes clear in a moment as Karlach takes a running start and leaps across the twenty foot divide, leaving a meteor of impact in the ground she hit just feet from Shadowheart.
“You didn't even use magic there,” Shadowheart notes, impressed. “Feather fall or another similar spell wouldn't have left the crater. You definitely couldn't do that before, right?”
“Sort of,” Karlach says. “The engine overheating once I hit Faerûn kinda crippled me a lot. But Wyll and I got a few, ah, extra upgrades while we were digging around. It's good to see you, y'know.”
“You too, genuinely.” Shadowheart accepts Karlach's offering hug, pleased to note her temperature has indeed lowered from the burning fever it had rocketed to in their last few days together in the city, down now to the kind warmth of a mug of tea. “But what the hell are you doing here?”
“Looking for you, of course.” Karlach turns to the owlbear and gives him his own greeting, tackling him hard enough that even the great hulk of him falls into the dirt and wrassling him among giddy chirps for a minute. When she pops up, caught in a sort of draw with his claw on her chest and her arms around his neck, she's sporting a smug grin alongside an admittedly adorable dusty mess of hair. “D’you mind if I follow you around for a bit? Or do you want to be totally alone? You didn't reply to my letter, and I figured it'd be just as easy to track you down myself this time. I was gonna travel anyway. Getting itchy feet staying still.”
“I would be delighted,” Shadowheart says, unsurprised to mean it. She is glad she had time to wander herself, but the road gets long, and it has been enough time since Baldur's Gate she's found herself desperately missing campfire camaraderie and a reliable hand at her back in a fight. (The owlbear is wonderful company, but even when she gets her hands on an animal speaking potion, he doesn't have much to say.)
Karlach's answering smile would be worth it on its own regardless. She lights up like a sunrise, her infernal engine pulsing with joy visible even through the stiff leather hide of her armor, and when Karlach offers her hand, Shadowheart dismisses whatever is left of her dignity and takes it as they continue together down the road.
-
Calling Karlach blunt does her a disservice, Shadowheart knows. Karlach is honest, certainly, almost to a fault, and emphatic with it. But blunt implies accidental harm and blind carelessness. Over their time together, both fighting their way to the Absolute and in this more recent month of peace, Shadowheart has seen nothing but care from Karlach. She burns with grace - not grace as in elegance, though there is an adroit smoothness to her movements, the artful skill of one who knows her body so well it goes beyond thought. No, Karlach's grace is in her aching compassion, her bone-deep kindness. Her words are bright, lit with passionate cheer, but not childishly so. Sometimes, seeing Karlach’s wide grin, Shadowheart is reminded of nothing more than the jaded, gnarled dragonborn head priestess of the House of the Moon in Waterdeep. There had been no pity in the old womans's eyes when she'd grasped Shadowheart's shoulder, and none of the forgiveness that shadowed the faces of so many other priests. Just - just a wry humor, an understanding, and something almost grateful. It had frightened Shadowheart as much as it had soothed her.
Karlach has the same wry tilt to her mouth in her rare silent moments. It is a conundrum Shadowheart has never quite been able to solve, but that has fascinated her from the start. By all rights, Karlach should be as bitter as Shadowheart, as Astarion, as any of the first companions, really. All of them manipulated and abused by those with power over them. But while Shadowheart had been front and center audience for Karlach's rage and loss after Gortash's death, witness to her torment and fear after the Netherbrain before Wyll managed to convince her to return to Avernus… there is something bright that burns so much bigger than that agony, eclipsing it. Karlach allows herself her loss, her fear, acknowledges them, holds them carefully and listens, and then gently sets them back in their place and once more picks up her exultation in life. And what stuns Shadowheart even more is her willingness, her eagerness , to share it, the lengths she goes to to bring that exhilaration to those she loves. She spares no expense in doing so.
No. Blunt is the wrong word. Honest, genuine, earnest, yes. But not blunt.
Shadowheart reminds herself of this, attempts to batter the fact of it back into her skull, as she stares at Karlach openmouthed across the campfire.
“You want me to what?” she manages.
“Hurt me,” Karlach says. Her eyes are stunning, especially so in the night, the autumn brilliance of them flickering with a fire all on their own. “Like I said, feel free to say no. I don't wanna make you uncomfortable, and more than anything I respect our friendship, y'know? And I know this might not be an easy topic for you after everything, so please tell me if I'm overstepping and I'll shut up about it forever.” She rolls her great shoulders, stretching languidly, appearing all the world like a big cat. “But I - well, okay, I saw how you looked when Abdirak did his thing way back at the goblin camp, remember? And like, you were pretty honest about it vocally too.”
Shadowheart stares. “You remember that?”
Karlach laughs. “Hard to forget. You know you're pretty hot, right?”
“Dear gods,” Shadowheart says, putting her face in her hands.
A twinge of genuine concern enters Karlach's voice, though Shadowheart can't see her expression now. “I mean it, just tell me to fuck off if you want. Your comfort matters, darling.”
“No, I-” Shadowheart takes a deep breath, gathering the courage to look Karlach in her face again. “Why are you asking? And why are you asking me?”
Karlach taps her chin thoughtfully. “Well. My life has been pretty fucked up the last, well, eleven, twelve years? I mean, you know that. But touch, and sex, it's all been kind of-” She teeters her hand, grimacing a bit. “Difficult. I spent ten years with the only physical contact being hurting someone or getting hurt. It sucked. I mean, it was really, really awful. And then as soon as I got barely used to being able to touch people again, it was right back to the Hells for another endless battle.
“Don't get me wrong-” Karlach adds hastily. “I couldn't have asked for anyone better to come with me than Wyll. He's the best friend I've ever had, truly and genuinely. I will never stop being grateful he saved my life, more times than I can count. But he and I are looking for different things, sex-wise. And it wasn't like we had a lot of free time there, anyway.”
“So,” Shadowheart interrupts, as Karlach takes a second to pause for breath, “you want to just… jump in the deep end? After all that?”
“No, not exactly. It's…” Karlach hums. “It's funny. I’ve been rehearsing this conversation in my head for ages, and I've forgotten everything I wanted to say. Shadowheart, I'm used to being hurt. I think you understand that. I've spent a pretty large portion of my life in a hell of a lot of pain. And this is - it's like, okay, yeah, I do really like masochism during sex, it feels good and it's fun, but it's also about taking control. It's like making it mine, you know? About feeling safe. And you make me feel safe.” She shrugs. “You know Astarion and I slept together a bit after my first engine upgrade. He understood it too. But he's realizing he doesn't really want to deal with pain like that, I think. We talked about it when I got back from Avernus. He's trying out some new things.” She grins. “I sent Wyll his way without warning him.”
Shadowheart would normally have laughed at that, but something that feels like a scrabbling bird is caught in her throat. “Astarion doesn't like causing pain, but I do?”
“Well, yeah, don't you?” Karlach asks, and then freezes when she notices something in Shadowheart's expression - which is annoying, because Shadowheart is trying so hard to keep it still. “Hey, hey, love - that's a compliment, I - unless you don't, and you just felt like you had to - aw hell, I've mucked it all up, haven't I? I'm so sorry.”
The bird is making its way up Shadowheart's throat, pecking at her tongue. It's like all those times Selûne’s clerics gasped at her honesty, it's- “Right, no, don't apologize, Karlach. I understand. Astarion is on his way to being a good person, but I'll always-” The bird is too big to speak around.
Karlach is suddenly kneeling in front of her, her large hands hovering over Shadowheart's clenched ones, as if waiting for permission. When Shadowheart doesn't flinch away, Karlach carefully takes them, and she realizes she had been almost frozen only when Karlach's warmth shoots through her like lancers.
“Hey, love, no, stop that,” Karlach murmurs. “Firstly, I wasn't trying to bring up anything awful for you. If I'm offbase, and you really aren't into this, if were just forced into it because of Shar’s whole, ah, thing, then I'm so sorry. But secondly,” and here something odd crosses her face, something Shadowheart can't quite understand. “You know there's nothing wrong with wanting this, right?”
“I'm - supposed to be better, now,” Shadowheart manages.
“You are. Gods, darling, you are, you've come so far it takes my breath away. You're so strong, it's incredible.” Karlach cocks her head. “But how does consensual sadism during sex stop you from being better?”
“I shouldn't… I shouldn't want to hurt someone like this. I shouldn't want it as badly as I do.” Admitting it feels like washing her mouth with acid, but Karlach deserves honesty.
Karlach hums, and, mercifully, takes a seat next to Shadowheart instead of staring into her face. Karlach keeps one of her hands around Shadowheart's, still, and the press of her shoulder is comforting to an almost embarrassing extreme.
“Do you think less of me for wanting someone to whip me during sex? To punish me, deny me, draw blood, that kind of thing?” Karlach's tone is casual, and somehow the ease in which she talks so frankly is helpful.
“No, of course not! There's nothing wrong with wanting to be hurt, or any kind of consensual kink.”
“Should no one ever give me those things?”
“Don't be ridiculous, of course not-”
“So I should only be sleeping with evil, horrible people.”
“What? No!”
“Shadowheart, either it's wrong for me to want someone to hurt me during sex, or it's okay for me to want to be hurt but no one should want to actually hurt me so I have to sleep with the terrible people who do want that, or it's okay for me to want to be hurt but I have to stay celibate forever because no good people should want to hurt me.”
Shadowheart takes a moment to try and parse that sentence, then, “I don't think it's wrong for people to be sadists during sex, if all parties want it. That's - it's a good thing. But - I shouldn't-”
“Oh,” Karlach says, suddenly. “You think it's different for you than it is for everyone else.”
Shadowheart coughs, and Karlach turns her head to offer a blinding grin. Bizarrely, she finds herself wanting to laugh. “It is , though. I'm trying so hard to leave Shar behind, but I can't stop just… wanting to - I was so unashamed of everything I was, everything I did, by the time I ended up on the mindflayer ship. It took all of you, and everything we went through, to make me realize how bad I was.”
“Not you,” Karlach corrects gently. “The people around you. What they, and Shar, made you do.”
“I still did horrible, unforgivable things,” she says. “I'm not - I'm not saying I wasn't forced to do them. I know better now. The mind wipes, the cult, the grooming - I know, Karlach. But I still did them. And if I can't leave everything I learned behind, I'm scared I'll fall back in again.”
“That's reasonable,” says Karlach.
Shadowheart sniffs. “ Thank you.”
“I'm a barbarian, you know.”
“...I've, ah, noticed, yes.”
“My job is to hit things, very hard. Kill people. Roll into battle and just destroy.”
“Where are you going with this?”
Karlach draws her knees to her chest, looking thoughtfully up at the night sky through the smoke of their campfire. Her tail, Shadowheart notices, is curled around Shadowheart without touching her. “When Zariel bought me, experimented on me, threw me into the Blood War, that's what she used me for. Gods, I've been fighting for a long time. I've done some really shit things. Seen some even worse stuff. I'm never gonna get these nightmares outta my head. It actually helped, being back there with Wyll. He was grounding, helped me remember right and wrong, and it was good to be back there with a friend instead of alone. But that decade, it's always gonna fuck me up bad.
“And the second I got back to Faerûn, after ten fucking years of endless murder and evisceration, I jumped at the chance to kill shit for you all.”
“Karlach,” Shadowheart murmurs, surprised.
“I don't regret it at all. It wasn't just about saving my life, getting that worm outta my head. I mean, that was definitely part of it. And that we were fighting for a good cause. Save everybody else too, that was good.” Her tail shifts. “But I like it too. Fighting. Shadowheart, I love fighting. It's a thrill. I'm good at it, and I love doing it, and I don't want to stop. It isn't just fighting for a good cause, making the world better. I just like fighting. Even though Zariel forced me to fight in a war that wasn't mine, and to do a lotta shit stuff. It's not wrong of me to love fighting, and I'm not suddenly going to turn into a murderous serial killer of innocents because Zariel used me.”
“It's different,” Shadowheart insists, but something inside of her twists as she says that.
“Why? You don't get to judge yourself by different metrics than everyone else.” Karlach's grin is back, as effusive as ever. “Darling, I have some awful news for you, so take a deep breath and prepare yourself. You're not special, sweetheart.”
Shadowheart shakes her head, feeling the heavy rope of her hair tremble. “You make it sound like I think I'm better than you.”
“Nah. You're not better or worse, and I think you know it. You're just scared to admit it, and I get it. They really fucked you up, and you're working insanely hard to make yourself better and make up for everything you did. It's genuinely amazing, and I couldn't be prouder of you.” Karlach's hand tightens around Shadowheart's. “But you don't have to leave everything behind. Not everything you were is bad. Not everything you loved is tainted. You're still friends with Nocturne, yeah? Even though you were Shar worshippers together, and she still is. And you kept your name.”
“It… this desire… just feels like… so connected to who I was. And I feel guilty for keeping it.”
“I know, Shadowheart. And if it really is something you want to leave behind, bury in a coffin and walk away from, I'm with you all the way. It's your choice. Not mine, not Shar's, not even Selûne’s. You get to pick how you heal, and what makes you happy.” Karlach wraps her other hand around their already conjoined ones. “But make sure it's you picking, yeah? Not what you think anyone else wants.”
Shadowheart breathes deeply, studying the way Karlach’s ruby skin sets off the peach in her own pale tone, the way their calluses fit together. Finally, she says, “You really don't think it's, well, dangerous? Or bad? To still want things that are so… Shar?”
Karlach's answering smile is kind in a way that would have once set Shadowhearts's teeth on edge, but now makes her ache in a way she finds strangely soothing. “If kinky sex is Shar's domain, Shadowheart, I'm going to have to learn to work purple into my wardrobe.” Shadowheart's laughter surprises her, echoing like a firework through the clearing. “But really - no, sweetheart, I don't think it's dangerous at all. I think it's actually pretty healthy and safe to work through this with sex with someone who cares about you deeply. Not just work through it - enjoy it.”
Shadowheart sighs. “I'm sorry. You came all this way to ask for something, and then instead I made you talk about me for ages. Do… do you still want-”
“Stop right there,” Karlach says, and for a moment Shadowheart flinches, afraid she's ruined it all, until she sees the warmth effusing through Karlach's expression. “One: I came for you, Shadowheart, not just sex. I was hoping for the sex, sure, but that's just a bonus, y'know? Everyone else is settling down, rebuilding cities, heroing in the sewers, whatever. I got out of Avernus and realized I've spent the last eleven years just trying to survive, to fix myself, to save the world. I have no idea what I want beyond some pretty immediate needs.” She pushes Shadowheart with her shoulder, lightly. “I figured you'd get that more than anyone else. Traveling with you has been a pleasure. So just - jot that down, ‘kay?
“And two, I do still want, but more than that I want you to be sure you want.” Karlach kisses the side of Shadowheart's head, just above her ear, quick and light and lovely. “Take some time. This is all kinda heavy. Think about it. I'd love for you to hurt me during sex. I'd also love it if you whipped me without actually fucking me, or if we just had plain vanilla sex, or even if you said no thanks to all of it and we move on entirely. But if you do say yes, I need you to remember that if we do this, it's about the two of us, yeah? You and me. Both of us matter. If you say yes and you don't wanna, if you're just lying because I want it and you push aside your own needs, that will actually hurt me. And not in the fun sexy way, but the shitty way. If you think you want it and we have sex and you realize you didn't afterwards, or don't going forward, well, that's okay, but then you have to tell me. And we figure out what to do then. Capiche?”
“I wouldn't do that to you, Karlach,” Shadowheart says, feeling something settle in her ribcage. Like the bird calmed down. “I wouldn't.”
“I know.” Karlach shakes with laughter. “You like to pretend you're all hard and badass, but I know you're a big softy under all that hair and eye makeup.”
Shadowheart gasps in faux-outrage. “Don't you dare tell anyone! I have a reputation to keep.”
“Sure. I'm sure the trail of grateful villages and hamlets and travelers all singing praises of your healing and heroics that I followed to find you absolutely have no idea you're actually a good person.”
“Of course not. I inspire terror and worship.”
“Of course you do. …Is the deep emotional talk over? Because I'm actually still hungry, but it felt really rude to devour an entire loaf of bread while talking about all this.”
“Lady Selûne save me,” Shadowheart whispers, but the laughter slips out between her prayer. “Yes, but only if you give me half.”
“It's a deal!” Karlach chirps, and the night turns to lighter things, while Shadowheart keeps turning over Karlach's request in the back of her head.