Work Text:
How beautiful she was.
His hand elegantly folded against his cheekbones, the Emperor, his eyes closed, and a rare grin relaxing his eyes and jaw, finally allowed himself to breathe in, long, then breathe out. It was a strange sensation, such a relief, such warmth he felt… A strange sensation, due to how long it was since he felt such tenderness for the last time.
The cold and lonely light of the Astral Plane around him was not affecting him, for the sensation he could feel warming his head and spreading through his entire body as emotions and thoughts became one again, was overwhelming the rest of any physical sensations he could have experimented. It was summoning, or waking in a gentle and melancholic way, old memories he thought useless and banished most of the time out of his mind... while simultaneously being something he very much cherished, more than his freedom.
Once upon a time, he sometimes had an afterthought of, people would trust his word on everything. A long time ago, they would have done everything in their power to join him in his travels. They acclaimed his name!
Then he had… He had evolved , although he had a hard time making peace with it initially, since it had been a forceful evolution and the circumstances around it had been less than stellar. What at first horrified him ended up becoming a new version of himself that he made peace with, and ended up accepting, although it cost him everything. But it was a new version he now felt good in. All his thoughts came more easily, there was no more limitations. Fewer heartfelt impulses, although they historically were more helpful than anything to him in the past, and although they, in truth, were still there and barely less present due to him being calmer… no matter how much he’d claim otherwise. More calculations, more intellect, to someone who already was an adventurer with a very high intuition, charisma, and desire to help those he loved and cared about to come stronger.
In spite of all these new qualities, which should have made him a perfect helper, a perfect leader, no one ever wanted to follow him again, and it was a miracle if they didn’t try to kill him on sight. And… Ansur. Ansur had tried but in the end he couldn’t. In the end he made a decision that was not unexpected, and yet was very much so. His betrayal still hurt cruelly, and it did play a part in his wariness towards opening himself to feel things for new people.
Also there was Belyne – who had been so close to him too, less than Ansur but still. Belyne, who recognised his intellect, his will of helping his city to thrive… Belyne then the accident, or rather the whispers of this sect that affected her for a time after an argument, and who, immediately as she turned her heart, poisoned her. She would have died that night, without him. But even with the help he tried to bring, it let her incredibly weakened, and he hoped she would still be alive in his absence…
With such a history…
With such a history, to see this curious drow, this Tav , still choosing to trust him after she discovered the truth, and without a single second of hesitation… it had been heartwarming. They met under his true form a few hours ago perhaps, and she instantly chose to trust him, only asked him to confirm his claims, and it wasn’t even for her.
“Just as a precaution,” she started, while erecting a wall of ice between them and the githyankis during their first meeting without any artifice within the Astral Plane, and sending a quick motion of the head to her companions who looked like they were doubting this very much, thank you, “Could you please prove that you are indeed the one you claim to be? Our dream guardian?”
He had been ready to protest that it was not the time to ask such things… then he read her mind.
I trust you. I know it’s you, I can feel it, and I think I saw you before, but please help me convincing the others!
He would have smiled, if it was the time too. But right now he could still hear the murderous thoughts of the githyankis behind, trying to set their leader free. So – the stakes were high, he played the game.
“You saved a child from a viper, back in the druid’s grove. You saved the aasimar Nightsong from her soul cage. You let me live, last time you were here. Though it brought Vlaakith’s wrath upon you. And…”
There was something else, which he could not refrain but evoking as he saw Tav sending a begging glance to Halsin to check that the druid (which she was close to, for a reason only a few people knew and that he saw in her memories) and the others who did not look happy, worried, puzzled for sure, were following along… And he added:
“I told you about my room in the Elfsong Tavern, that night when you held me. I was vulnerable - you comforted me.”
Tav, Lellar , reddened from six shades immediately in front of everyone, and yelped:
“He’s telling the truth – we need to help him!”
And with that, without even waiting for the other’s comments, she pushed the ice wall straight towards the enemies and jumped with the so particular gravity of the Astral Prism to take a higher position and cast her spells from there… in what was very much a clear disdain for the bare minimum of strategy required for a spellcaster, which is to stand back to avoid eating everyone’s attacks, and which very much puzzled him.
While the rest of the party was taking their positions (some of them shooting him murderous glances, including Lae’zel ), he immediately felt Tav’s mind and heart, already beating a race from the moment she recognised him as her handsome Dream Guardian, now using her illithid powers with twice as much enthusiasm as usual. Which was hard because she absolutely loved using them, especially when it allowed her to knock down and manipulate people out of fighting. And yet now she was joining her illithid powers without any single hesitation to the magic she learned and the one inside her she learned to wield, even furthermore now as, he could feel it, now that she knew how he protected her and that as an illithid himself he was even more qualified to protect her… Her trust in him was stronger than ever.
To such a point that at the end of the fight, after reclaiming control of Orpheus, and the Emperor was sweating because of how afraid he had been, he saw the party coming back to their senses and…
“Are you alright, everyone?!” asked Tav first to her friends once the last githyanki had fallen.
She quickly glanced at everybody, checking that no one had too important wounds, while the others were standing back on their feet and answering – some of them whining, like Astarion, others with characteristics “tchk”, or “No, no, we’re good! We are taking care of everyone’s wounds” from Halsin– something to that extent. She heard a comment from Gale that had her cheeks reddening hard, then she shot him a nod then ran straight to an amused Emperor.
Quite a bit amused, although out of breath, he saw the drow running haphazardly towards him and skidding to a halt so hard she almost rolled on the floor, to look up to him thereafter behind a waterfall of white blue streaked hair:
“Are you alright?!”
For someone who was herself dripping with her own blood, and whose left arm was hanging a bit too feebly for what is commonly possible… It was somehow ironic.
“I am. And thank you. That was too cl…”
His eyes wide-opened as he took notice of her… walking a circle around him and checking him for wounds the way she just did to her friends?
And – the concern – had him…
Smirk , internally. Now that was more than just “trusting” him. That was outright affection.
Which, in itself, wasn’t very surprising from Tav.
“I. Am. Fine,” he corrected her with patience, amused, as he used a little bit of telekinesis to pull her up and hover her in the air, and carry her with magic like a kitten, to place her in front of him back on the ground.
“This mind flayer better be intact,” grumbled Astarion with a dragging voice, “cause if it loses control, unless I hopefully misunderstood, we’re all becoming squids.”
The Emperor diverted his attention towards the whining vampire. Lae’zel, of course, groused too.
“Owning my life to a mindflayer… This is obscene! Who are you, and who is he. And this time I WANT answers!” she demanded.
“I wouldn’t say it like she did, but it’s true,” resumed Tav once she stood back in front of her friends and shot them a glance. “Who are you?”
The Durge, Shiinah, a finger in the air, clearly had questions to ask, but as she was starting to formulate them, the drow voice kept on, louder than them:
“And first of all – thank you for saving us?”
He smirked.
“If I had known you would be so open-minded, I wouldn’t have embarrassed myself with so many artifices…”
He looked up, towards the rest of the group, and the comfort he felt in her presence soon dissipated.
“Although, I am glad you are not here to judge.”
“Of course not,” Lellar smiled, “Especially since we owe you our life. But, why – no, how can you help us? Why are you not doing the bidding of the giant Brain?” she asked with a softer voice as he quickly sorted everything he knew about them to quieten her friend’s ill towards him. Tav kept on: “Are you, like Omeluum, an independent illithid? Or…”
He could feel before she even asked, before the thought even took coherence in her mind, what the problem was.
She could see again the moment he put a tadpole in her. Although his eyes had been different back then, she could remember the moment she saw him. The moment he chose her because she was calling for him .
She trusted him, and still did. But she wanted to know, and the others too.
Under some heavy racket from all the other companions whose sense of discipline was seriously lacking, nothing unsurprising from adventurers, though, the Emperor raised an elegant hand and projected an illusion onto everyone.
An illusion of the one he once was… Where he on purpose omitted to show his face. Also neglected specifying who he was back then. It had no importance, and they would think he was lying, and he was no longer this person anyway. What mattered was being accepted by them, or at least, by her and Shiinah, because they were basically the two leaders of the group. So he showed them an illusion, showing how he ended up the way he now was.
And to her only, why he put a tadpole in her. Because he was ordered to do so, because he needed adventurers, and because… because she called for him, and this was the only way he found to save everyone.
At the end of his story, there was a shiver crossing through all the adventurers. But pain on Lellar’s face. Why… After a question of Lae’zel, he also explained who Orpheus was. Yet, Tav’s stare did not leave him.
The pain of her face was not from betrayal, was not pain felt towards something he did.
It was…
“So, you did not chose to become an illithid,” she concluded, saddened. “And you hid your appearance to us because you were afraid we would judge you.”
Lellar’s thoughts immediately returned to Omeluum… And especially to the Absolute, and these illithids they fought inside the colony. To the one who had tried to kill them on the ship once they got rid of the demon. To the one on the beach who kissed and devoured her brain before the others resurrected her. And…
“I do not know if it will be of any comfort…,” she said, lowering her head, “But to me, the more I speak to you, the less you sound like a mind flayer.”
“I appreciate the thought, but this it is what I am,” he said, feeling the caring thought behind, although it was clumsy and obsolete. “My original body was destroyed when I became an illithid. When I first escaped from the elder brain, I searched for a new vessel. But the longer I inhabited this one, the more it grew on me.”
A shiver of horror crossed many others. Not Minthara, though.
“I realised that returning to my former self would only impose limitations. Any advantage I could gain by restoring my original appearance, I already had to hand in the form of magic, and that humanoid shape you've come to know.”
He thought to all the times Tav had trusted him and accepted to consummate the knowledge and memories of a tadpole of another fallen member of the cult. To the then ceremonious way she did that, at first out of curiosity and disgust and trust in his advice, then to honour the deads once she realized she felt their knowledge, their memories, and the despair of the true soul behind, slowly falling into numbness and being replaced by the illithid. She did not hesitate to consume more of them, when they had been unable to save one of them – it had not been happy, but it was the only way she found to honor the dead who may not have chosen it.
And he thought too about how much he appreciated she trusted him for that.
He also thought about the pleasure she had to use her powers, always for the sake of the most people and peace according to her, which could easily be a double-edged sword because one may very easily be led to errors when they start to mistake their own feelings as a reflection of what is good and evil, when one, like a few paladins he knew, got convinced they’re always right… He also thought how well she handed them too.
And the excess of power…
He dared. “As an illithid, I have far surpassed who I ever was before. You, too, should embrace this change.” He said, quietly.
He paused, noticing that in Lellar, a start of a thought of an answer was forming. She wanted to say something. It is always more polite to let others speak first. Even though, right there, the one most trying to silence her wasn’t him.
“We are doing all of this not to transform into squids!” protested a voice, but Tav would not listen.
“It would be madness!” shot another. “Please Lellar, don’t listen to the damn squid. Don’t…”
“I know you crave power. But the quest for power may sometimes have a price. Let’s think about it f…”
Protestations kept on, but she would not listen. To, he had to admit, both his relief and concern, for you couldn’t risk a mutiny. And then Shiinah sighed:
“This creature has saved our life since the beginning. If he was truly unworthy of trust, he would have let us transform from the moment we started going against his plans, like in the Creche. But the situation is disturbing. Come, let’s discuss it a bit.”
Shiinah pulled the rest of the group further, Lellar not included for she was lost in her thoughts. The Emperor noticed all the glances stolen her way, but, ultimately, and this is what led towards the party discussion – the one who gathered the party first and offered to ally, the one who stopped their quarrels and made sure to help each of them when they needed it… It was her.
Shiinah breathed, tired: “I do not want to become an illithid. But I trust her.”
She gazed at her hand…
Thinking.
He heard her thoughts. Thousand thoughts spinning around.
To accept or not the power?
Then Tav looked up to him and asked:
“Would becoming an illithid allow me to travel through the planes with the same ease you did on the ship?”
“You could, if you somehow found a similar ship.”
With a mighty nod upon hearing these words, she raised her chin, with determination, opened her mouth, and…
“Wait before you make any decision,” he advised her before they even thought about it.
Why was he saying such a thing? He knew perfectly well. Because in his heart he could still see Ansur and Stelmane. And the stinging pain of their betrayal. Because he was thinking about everything he lost. Because he knew why she wanted to transform, to go and cross the planes to find what may have occurred of her former mentor and adoptive father… Her mentor who would probably reject her if she became what most people considered a monster. Of course, the Emperor was attracted to the idea of going back to adventure, in a part of him. Even though these times were behind him, there were parts of him still itching a bit for adventure.
But he did not want her to follow the same path. Not for that reason. Something was bothering him there. Perhaps that she was ready to commit too soon without even thinking about it. But she had to know, she had to know that people you love reject you and to change your entire being only to stay with someone… would likely twist back against you. To be rejected by someone you love because you have been transformed against your will was one thing – but to be so when you transformed specifically to meet them? Somehow, his mind envisioned the possibility, and although she was old and wise and everything enough to make her decisions, right now, she was not thinking , and he felt this. He felt the chaos still inside her mind, the complete absence of rationality, and the overwhelming grip of a deep based fear, twisting your thoughts and reason beyond imagination.
Right now, she was like him when, because of his hold on Orpheus slipping a bit sometimes, when he could feel the grasp of the Absolute trying to reach the back of his mind, like the grasp of insanity. She needed to breathe. Think .
How could he ever convey all of this to her without overwhelming her brain? He did it to Gale a bit earlier when the wizard tried to read his mind while they were under attack, and the wizard immediately decided to attack the githyankis after, understanding the Emperor was with them.
It was a discussion of a long time, and now wasn’t the moment. Perhaps in a future dream.
“It is an important decision”, he finally resumed, “than to become an illithid. Anyway, this is not what I am offering. Although your determination is a delight to see, what I suggest is not a complete transformation.”
He glanced to the others. Then back to her.
“… I have been studying you for a while, and I believe I can trigger safely the next step of your evolution. Thanks to this…”
He showed the astral tadpole, and while the rest of the party had a reflex of disgust, and one part of her too, her fascination made her approach pretty soon from the white tadpole, and gaze, admire it.
As he witnessed her interest, and something in her more akin to marvel in front of the sheer power in it, some pride came inside of him. Now this was a better reason to decide to change.
“Physical modifications would only be partial, but your power multiply tenfold. And, it wouldn’t be turning illithid immediately, without having the time first to taste, to try, and think about it with a quiet mind. It would also enhance our chances of triumphing from the cult and freeing you from your tadpole or minimise the risk of long-terms consequences, if you decide you do not want to stay like this. Do you wish to try?”
“Yes,” she said, raising to him her eyes which were previously gazing upon the tadpole, with such gravity it seemed like…
It seemed like this “Yes” was a “Yes” to a very different situation. It was exactly the same intensity, and the thought was in part because it was precisely the same mental image that suddenly sprang into her mind.
Although in her mind it was “ yes” to follow him to the end of the world, as if he was a commander. The discussions they had in her dreams, their closeness... She trusted him, she chose to believe him, she'd follow him everywhere, provided he brought her at least once where she wanted to go.
As long as she could travel the planes on his ship, and resume her journey of discovering worlds and magics and cultures and people everywhere.
He smirked internally. She was intense , as always. Her gaze within his, she nodded a second time.
“Yes, I do. I want to enhance our chances of winning. I want to use these powers to their full extent. And even more if it can help us eliminate this Absolute and the cult which enslave innocent people.”
“What exactly is that thing?” said a suspicious Shiinah. While the Emperor answered her, and a bit with pride explained he had been taking special care of this tadpole for them…
Lellar agreed. Then she took the tadpole and communed with it.
The ceremorphosis was painful, but it was partial there, and probably reversible, if Omeluum words during their quick conversation had been true. With a scream, the drow slammed her hands on her face as she felt her power becoming physical, and trying to ease the discomfort of all the fire bursting within her veins and jutting on her skin, so energy could flow freely between them.
In her, however, she could feel each part of her skin becoming but pure thoughts, answering her brain, instead of just being there . It was painful, and a bit sickening for she wanted to throw up, but at least it was quicker than the long agony he lived back then where he turned into illithid.
Squeaks of terror and of disgust resounded, others of admiration, or the three at the same time, thank you Astarion.
The Emperor, however, held back his breath.
Because, yes, she was suffering… But when it was done, the one who stood back on her feet and stretched her backbone was beautiful. More beautiful than ever, now transformed. The one whose eyes now gazed upon the world, her long blue and white mane of hair parting to reveal between these two curtains eyes still blue-green and violet, now so strongly charged with red and black veins inside the white… Colours a mere betrayal of her mind now inhabiting her entire being from the top of her long and so mobile ears to her toes. This one was beautiful, more than ever to him, and even more understanding of him.
For when she slowly stared at him and studied him as if seeing an illithid for the first time, with her eyes whose black was slowly fading back into a faint red and greyish hue, he felt her intellect way more potent than before… And something else within her, as if it unlocked a new part of her personality…
He found her…
“You are… Exquisite.”
Her entire body now pure thoughts. Her thoughts, already a bit calmer than usual. Her thoughts, less tortured than usual. More confident .
Yes, she wanted to try being an illithid. Become one, perhaps, although she also felt his want for her to take her time with that. She craved for knowledge, she craved for power. For discoveries of the world. But it was also true, not only that she needed time to think, but that it wouldn’t help hem right now.
She needed her physical form, and a form impossible to detect by other artifices.
As an answer, she breathed in deeply. Then gave him a proud grin. Her voice, still a bit trembling, not from fear but excitation, resounded.
“Thank you… For this. I feel… different.”
“It is normal,” he said quietly, unable to refrain from showing his appreciation for her new form, and her trust in him, and appreciation for this new endeavour. “You will in times get more comfortable with it. Go try your new po…”
He silenced because he saw her closing her eyes, putting a hand on her heart and wince.
Did he miscalculate ?
“Are you alright?” he asked at the same time as Shiinah.
“Yes, I…”
Tav frowned further and all of a sudden let out all the air from her lungs, as if it could evacuate frustration from her.
That… had an unexpected effect. Her entire body covered inside a dark shadow much like if she was covered in ink, as if she turned ink herself, with a magical whistling, whirring of the world itself spinning around her.
He thought he knew what was happening. The very power she had called upon and that sketched the trace of her illithid potential self inside her shadows before, was now showing even more obviously, covering her like armour, like a promise of how wonderful she’d be in the future…
If she decided to.
If they won. But they would win, together.
Her friends shouted her name. Halsin ran forward to her as the same time as Shiinah, while Karlach roared an insult to the Emperor. This one, however, was a bit perplexed. He could still read her mind. And…
What just happened to Lellar was a similar sensation to the one of your thirst finally being quenched with a long and large glass of water. To let out her tentacles of power, her need , was no more, no less than a natural need to fulfil, the one to see the extent to which your power can reach, and he knew this, for he felt this too, a long while back ago. But it wasn’t just that feeling of needing to stretch her consciousness.
From the moment she let out her power and turned pure thought, four long tentacles materialised due to her desire of, funnily, caring for her friends, and expanded wide, in all four directions. Her eyes reopened – pure magic, pure white magic, a white fire burning with both the wisdom and deep reflection potential of an illithid, but also with the impossible to sate thirst for power and knowledge.
What was she doing?
Soon he knew: with a whim of her mind, these four tentacles grew tenfold and wrapped around the group of her friend, and above, like a protective shield above them all. Some terrified and some just surprised shouted, but the tentacles half-dissipated into thin air, as did
the armour above her. She let out the biggest sigh of her creation and turned her head to her friends, embarrassment in her, half-ink still.
“Sorry!” she shouted. “I just… I thought I wanted these powers to protect you, and from the moment I started transforming I…”
“You needed to stretch”, he expressed for her, amused. “You wear it well, you know. Experiment it for yourself. And see if this is the kind of power you want for the sake of power itself.”
“I will,” she promised to him with now a slight embarrassment, perhaps because that urge that had pulled her to him had slowed down a bit, and she was recovering her mind.
For a moment she just listened to her friends… and then turned back to him, as if she was seeing him indeed from a new angle. The moment between them was gone, but they were also more connected than before. She knew him now.
And she…
Oh. So this is why.
“I… I am ready,” she said, white flames still burning in front of her eyes, she still in a half-illithid armor. “Ready to learn how to use these new powers. Against the Cult. And.” Her shoulders somehow tensed a bit, and embarrassed, she added: “… For myself.”
Two of these tentacles sprout out from her as she tilted her head, and he felt in her mind, how her thoughts were now racing and trying to conceive new uses of them. Could she…
She wanted him as a teacher. And she also wanted to know if the thought tickling her mind was correct.
“You can fly,” he said, with a smile in his eyes, as, in wonder, she breathed in deeply and used her newfound telekinesis to hover around the ground, the two tentacles coming back full force, and holding on the ground as a leverage. “Yes. And I will teach you, if you wish me to. But for the moment…”
“Can I?” she asked, and with a nod of his head, she just quickly turned to Shiinah, and excited, squealed: “I’m sorry for scaring the lot of you – but – but look at this!”
Yes, her body turned black ink again, and yes it was a bit frightening for the rest of the world… But when wordlessly the Emperor held out a hand to them with the astral tadpole in it, while he was admiring in the distance Lellar using her tentacles and power to fly with the most utter abandon, a joyful butterfly flying all over the Astral Plane and, very soon, their campsite… a few of them seriously reconsidered their position. The sight was silly, but very pleasant for him - he understood this sensation. Intoxicating feeling, really. And to see her living it with such joy, on the other hand, was a novelty he never thought he'd see anyone feel. Not an unpleasant novelty, not at all.
Shiinah coughed and took the tadpole.
This power was scary. But he was worthy of trust, already proved it – and this power was fun, according to the shouts of joy of Lellar flying and roaring like the most joyful shadow dragon ever.
Far from a frightening squid.
Why not have a try?