Chapter Text
The nights are long and lonely for Araaphi. Despite the creature that has nestled its fat body behind her ocular region and is coddled between the wrinkles of her brain, she’s never felt more alone. To say that the past few days have been eventful, would truly be an understatement. Nautaloids, mind flayers, goblins, gnolls, “The Absolute” are all looming threats, but above all Araaphi is cracking under the weight of herself. Her mind swims with red fire that begs for blood and gore. She does not understand why. She does not understand what she did to deserve these compulsions, and all they make her want to do is crash her temple as hard as she can into a very sharp rock and be free of whatever it is that’s causing it.
Araaphi wonders if she was ever a lover. If she knew love in the hole in her heart and head where her life had once been. There is nothing but a hollow emptiness that only grows now.
Although she has chosen to be reserved from her companions, they have seemed to look to her as their leader. She speaks to them, but she often spends her nights in fear and solitude. It is hard to develop loved ones when you are haunted by the fear that you will gouge their eye out of its socket mid morning chat.
Her companions have retired to their bedrolls by now, and Araaphi sits with her legs crossed by the dying fire, her tail twitching nervously. Something feels wrong tonight. Her chest is tight with anxiety and her bones shiver beneath her skin despite the gentle heat of the fire that lays opposing her.
In an act of self soothing, she does a round of the camp to check the locations of her companions. Wyll’s chest rises and falls gently as he lies in his bedroll, a single wrinkle between his brow as though even in sleep, he continues to worry about things. Lae’zel had dubbed him a “benevolent do-gooder” and Araaphi had chuckled as she understood what she saw in this. She passed Lae’zels tent next. She was half sat up, but asleep. Her fingers rested gently on the hilt of her sword, as though ready to strike at any given moment upon waking. The next tent was Shadowheart’s. The half-elf woman was gently curled into her pillow with a loose embrace around it. Araaphi noted that she was most likely a very soft woman below her icy exterior she presented. Perhaps she will be able to unravel this once she figures out how to get a grasp on her incessant murderous urges. Then there is Gale. Gale is asleep in his bedroll but is completely stone straight in bed with his hands clasped above his lower stomach. It is honestly kind of ominous and does not fit the impression he gives off at all, and he resembles a person dying of pneumonia. However, he retains his warm complexion and smooth, gentle breaths. Astarions tent is empty, but this is not unusual. Araaphi has noticed him leave at nightfall many times, and she assumes he too has issues sleeping like her. Karlach is sprawled out on top of her bedroll, a fire proofed blanket lazily draped over one of her legs and she is snoring. Araaphi cannot help but feel a smile dawn on her face as she looks on Karlach’s gentle expression. Though she immediately schools herself.
Alfira, the sweet bard that had arrived at their camp earlier that evening and pledged her courage to Araaphi, sleeps soundly on her bedroll with a peaceful smile on her face. Araaphi’s heart lurches with a sick desire to drive her sword into her throat.
Araaphi moves to her own bedroll and lies down, cradling her throbbing head in her hands as she attempts to lull herself to sleep, despite the tremors and thudding in her body like a bird in a cage desperate to escape.
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She wakes up and there is blood. There is blood *everywhere.*
Araaphi’s eyes lose the blur that coated them. She doesn’t know what has happened. Alfira is at her feet and she is in a complete and utter state of Gore. She drops to her knees as her stomach convulses and she retches. Alfira is completely mangled. Her eyes have been torn out from her sockets, her lids smeared with blood and bruising as though they were wrestled from her. Her jaw is slacked and mouth agape, and Araaphi can see that her tongue that made such beautiful melodies as been ripped clean out. Not cut. Ripped. Her chest is littered with various stab wounds and deep claw gashes that have her innards on display for the world and all of its Gods to see. There is blood and gore all over Araaphi too. But she feels no pain. It is not hers. The sorcerer doubles over and vomits onto her hand again, chunks of the meal gale had cooked the night before falling through her fingers and onto the dirt as her hand trembles in front of her face. She doesn’t remember anything, and her brain screams at her with a throbbing pain when she tries to remember. Her long pointed ears prick up at the sound of shuffling behind her and she whips around. Her heart drops into the dirt as she frets what her companions will think of this murderous and maniacal display before her. and worse, that she did it. She did do it, didn’t she? No one else could have. No one else is covered in blood and flesh and whatever else Alfira’s poor body produced as she massacred it. Tears thrum down her face, blurring her vision but it seems that none of her campmates have woken. Araaphi has to do something. “Alfira I‘m so sorry. By the Gods I’m so, so sorry.” is all she can whisper to her fellow tiefling. But Araaphi is not strong, nor is she sneaky or cunning. She tries to pull Alfira’s corpse away from the ritualistic circle it lies upon, but in her frazzled and panic state she cannot get it far before her knees buckle underneath her and she is sobbing on top of the body. Her shoulders shake and her breath comes out in distraught gasps as she grabs at her own throat to attempt to breathe. And then the worst thing that could have possibly happened, happens. “Soldier?” a warm, but concerned voice comes from behind her. Please. Anyone but her. Araaphi’s face, streaked with tears, blood, snot, saliva and just about every other liquid her body could produce, lifts up to look at Karlach’s eyes. Araaphi watched as Karlach’s face morphs from concern to pure fucking Horror as her eyes dart between a trembling, dishevelled Araaphi and the corpse that she is clinging to for all that she’s worth. “Oh fuck. Oh fuck! What the fuck is going on Araaphi? What the fuck did you do?!” Sure enough, everyone else rises from their bed as soon as they hear Karlach shouting. Araaphi has never felt more small and afraid in her entire life. All of her campmates stand before her as she shakes on the ground, planted in place with dread. She does not know what to do, or say. So she tries to tell the truth. “I- I dont.. remember,” She manages to choke out through her sobs and heaving breaths “I woke up and she was like this. I don’t know what happened.” Her companions consider this, and Araaphi knows that to them, it is highly likely that this is a bare faced lie. That Araaphi is on the ground putting on a performance of guilt and feigned innocence as she cowers before them. She sees Karlach’s face soften a degree. “It must just be the tadpole, yeah?” she suggests, or maybe she tries to convince herself as such. “Some weird tadpole shit.” She runs a large, calloused hand through her hair. Araaphi’s heart thunders in her chest as she whispers, “Maybe.” because she cannot manage to say anything else. Dear Gods she wishes that it was the tadpole, and not something she fears is fundamentally wrong with her.
Dawn comes and Alfira’s body has been taken by Wyll and Lae’zel to be buried, respectfully. It is as much as she deserves. Araaphi has not spoken in hours, and everybody else has talked in hushed whispers among each other, but never to her. Araaphi sits, knees to her chin, still as a stone in the water that they set their camp up next to with her tail curled defensively around herself. Her skin aches with the aggression that she has tried to clean her crimes off of herself with and it stings against the cold water that laps against her. There is no more blood caked under her claws, or in her hair. But she still feels dirty. She feels disgusting. Like she never should have been born at all. On a half formed thought, she plummets her head into the water and submerges it. Her spine is cold against the air and she shivers with it as she holds her face under the water, lungs tight and unbreathing. She waits for her lungs to begin to burn, and for her chest to begin to convulse after a while. She doesn’t deserve to be the one who’s alive. Alfira does. Alfira had never done anything wrong in her life. She never spoke against anyone, always brought joy with her beautiful music and threw herself into adventure passionately. And Araaphi killed her. With a full body shudder Araaphi cannot hold her breath any longer and she gasps as her lungs full with water. It burns. It burns and she knows she deserves it, but instinctually she pulls herself above the water level. Tears fall from her face as she hacks and coughs up the water that entered her lungs. She does not know how long she shivers in the water with her head in her hands sobbing, but it is enough time that her fingers wrinkle with the over saturation. No one looks at her as she walks with her shoulders up and back hunched in shame to her tent, and closes the flap behind her.