Work Text:
Jana Eigersstor brought her whole family with her from Neverwinter to Baldur’s Gate—as sweet as her dessert wines, that woman. They have rented out an entire floor of the Brass Roost, so Orin is able to luxuriate in her kills. The Eigersstor children are young and their mother ceases struggling the moment their guts spill out. Just makes a low, groaning noise like an ox that Orin thinks could be a sob.
Disappointing, frankly. Orin always thought mothers were supposed to fight tooth and nail for their young.
The mother is not separated from them for long. And out of appreciation for the bounty she has been given, Orin lets the Eigersstors enjoy a feast as well.
There is a chandelier over the dining table in the rooms. Orin drapes Jana Eigersstor atop it. Then she seats Jana’s husband and children in chairs, their chests lolled over the place settings and their hands limp on wine glass stems. Dagger, dagger, dagger. Blood streams from three points on Jana’s body, and spills into the waiting cups below.
Orin stands back, marveling at her work. They’re a beautiful family. As Orin had stalked them, she’d seen the couple whisper sweet words to one another, watched the children beg their parents to buy them treats from vendors. Now here they are, still together. Their mother still providing for them. How lovely.
The blood is dripping on the lip of one of the glasses, leaving Jana’s eldest daughter with little to imbibe. Orin guides the child’s hand so her mother’s wine falls generously.
“The staff are going to come check on them soon.”
Orin stiffens, cracking some of the daughter’s finger bones in her grip. Truly, what a blessed day. Not only has she crafted a masterpiece, but now Bhaal’s pureblood scion has come to offer her sage and kindly constructive criticism. Orin pats the child’s mangled hand and turns to face her sister.
“I thought you cleaned the whole floor,” her sister says. Her eyes track through the apartment, searching for Orin’s flaws.
“I did.”
“There were only four of them on the whole floor?”
“Yes, and now you’re making me confirm things you well know. Can we truly spare the time, what with the staff you so fear?”
When her sister narrows her eyes at Orin’s tone, Orin steals the glass from the child. She raises it in a toast.
“So much effort spent for so few deaths,” her sister says, ignoring her. Ignoring all her hard work, only thinking how Orin can be more like her. Like she’s truly so faultless, like she’s more devoted than Orin, like she even understands what it really means to sacrifice for their family, the spoiled brat—
“But what pretty deaths they are,” Orin says sweetly.
“‘Pretty,’” her sister echoes, dubious. “Well. Just remember to be prolific and pretty.”
Orin seethes. Orin is the only person in their damn temple who even knows the meaning of the word, “pretty.” Her sister has that sickly patina of immortality all elves have. Timeful-timelessness. Bags billow under her eyes, gray tries to hide deep in her hair, her brow remembers its furrows. Ugly, unremarkable, so very selfish.
Orin knows how to be beautiful though. Orin makes herself a blank canvas of blood and bone, her skin smooth and unblemished. Orin can be whatever He needs her to be. She has mastered beauty with her own body, it is only right that she visit it upon others as well.
-
Orin’s Father has so many enemies, because He wishes for His children to never go hungry. Her sister lets her know when her Father has found them a particularly savory morsel—in this case, a Vigilant Eye of Helm. The paladin had been investigating murders along the Sword Coast, and has been inexorably drawn to the city where the blood pooled the deepest.
Orin would love to taste his death on her own, but she trusts her Father when He calls on her sister and mother to attend to him as well. He has made her quite miserable, but she trusts Him.
As reproving as her sister always is, it is Orin’s mother’s presence that truly feels suffocating. Another woman who insists on ugliness. Her sister, at least, has the excuse of being limited to one form. Orin’s mother only walks in the form of a child, preying on kind hearts and parental instincts. And that is all fine and good for the hunt, but she wears the form down below too. It makes Orin uncomfortable seeing her mother so much younger than her all the time. She does not understand why, and that makes her angry.
It makes Grandfather angry too. Orin can tell. She told her mother this once, but her mother had just thrown a knife at her and screamed at her to go. Like the woman really was the useless brat she dressed as.
And like a brat, her mother refuses to adapt her strategy when they hunt together. So there sits a huddled little girl, waiting for a brave knight to rescue her. There stand the shadows, cloaking their Father’s vilest hand as she lies in wait. And here sprawls Orin, disguised as a hapless drunkard. A poor, suspicious alias, but one made necessary by her mother’s selfishness.
Orin is further away from the other two—she is meant to cut off the possibility of escape if the paladin manages to survive her sister’s blows or her mother’s magic. It is not where Orin would station herself if she were staging this ambush, but her sister knows that Orin and her mother are far more prone to combativeness than cooperation. The distance is, Orin must begrudgingly admit, a good way to keep control of the situation.
Clearly they are enjoying an additional benefit. Her mother’s back is to her and one finger points to the shadows. If Orin follows its path and focuses as best she can, she can see the umbral form of her sister. Her mouth is moving. The two of them are talking to one another with the Message cantrip, but Orin can only read her sister’s lips.
The two of us are here, and it’s in open air, her sister is saying. She won’t be able to be dramatic, no matter how much she wants to. We’ll need to leave quickly.
Orin can’t see when or how her mother replies, but she sees her sister suppress a laugh. Of course they’re talking about her. How lovely for her mother, that her sister is there to model what a proper bhaalspawn should be. Gods know how long her mother has yearned for a daughter like that.
Her sister’s pure blood truly is the greatest blessing one could receive. Orin can scarcely imagine what it would be like, to only have her Father’s voice in her head.
Her sister’s lips are moving again. You didn’t do anything wrong, she is saying. Parenting can’t come naturally to the likes of us. Truly strange you were the one forced to care for her in the first place.
Orin forces her body to relax. Unconscious lushes do not grit their teeth.
A reply must come, and it makes her sister frown. I don’t know if that’s the case.
Orin cocks her head, trying to make sense of the string of responses that follow.
Anyone can improve with guidance. She’s been resistant so far, but she isn’t lacking for zeal. She’ll see my way of things eventually.
I don’t see what you’re referring to. Her—eccentricities—aside, she has a proper bloodlust and she’s very capable with her blades. With focus, she could—
Are you talking about our Father?
Her sister’s countenance has darkened. Orin struggles to keep her eyes on her.
She cannot tell if her mother waits to send a new message, or if her sister waits to respond, but there is a long beat before her sister says, I’m not interested in tending to the mistakes of those who failed before me. They’ve done nothing to earn us suffering for them.
Her mother curls her index finger back into her fist. She does not send her sister another message.
The knight walks by the alley on the way to the Temple of Helm. He hears a little girl crying out for help, and he swoops in to soothe her tears.
The shadows tear him to pieces. Her sister needs no weapons to kill—her fists cause the paladin to cough up blood as he reaches for his sword. He manages to unsheath it, but then the ki her sister has sunk in him shrieks. His chest splinters within his plate mail, which manages to contain most of his skin and guts.
Nothing left for Orin to do, no living meat for her blades. At least her mother gets to sit in the bloody rain.
She sheds her disguise and stomps over to them. She waits for her sister to tell her to keep hidden as they retreat, but for some reason she is silent. She picks up the dead man’s satchel and turns to Orin.
“Well done,” her sister says.
“How could I not do well, with the joyous work you entrust me with?”
Her sister ignores Orin, but not in her usual way—a nonreaction meant to infuriate Orin as she seeks to provoke any pain from her sister. Instead, her sister says nothing with a distracted look in her eyes, like she didn't even hear Orin speak. She slips back into the shadows.
When Orin turns around, her mother has gone as well. Orin carries the paladin back to the sewers alone.
-
Her sister’s footfall is silent, if she deigns to walk at all. Most times, she will simply constitute herself from the shadows to chastise whatever mistake Orin is making. Orin is not necessarily surprised by her sister’s voice piercing the silence of her quarters, as she tries to focus on crenulating the paladin’s intestine in a lace-like fashion.
“What are you doing?” her sister asks.
Orin bites back sullen, snarky replies. “Just a pastime, my sister,” she says. “I’ve already offered scores of death to our Father. Don’t fret.”
There is quiet for a moment, then her sister is speaking from right behind her. Orin jumps in her chair and dreams of hanging a bell around her neck.
“Is that for one of your, ah, installments?”
Why is she dragging this out? What does she seek to lecture Orin on now? “It is for a gown,” Orin says stiffly. It’s easier to tell the truth now and be done with it. Her sister has a nasty habit of knowing when she’s lying.
“For yourself?”
“Is that permitted, dearest kin?”
Annoyance flashes across her sister’s face but infuriatingly, the emotion does not match her words. “I’m just interested. I think a dress like that would be… cool.”
Her sister has said many hateful things in Orin’s life, but nothing has been as cruel as that. It makes no sense why her sister would suddenly be approving of her work and Orin hates, hates it when she can’t decipher her sister’s words.
She hates words in general, frankly. They’re useless, vexing things. Orin will give as many as she can in one breath, and people will simply stare at her, uncomprehending and uncaring. Her sister will utter nothing, and her will is attended to. Stupid little words, briars in her feet. Impossible not to pluck at.
“If you want to show me when you're done—,” her sister is not looking at her, denying Orin the facial cues that might help her make sense of all this, “—I’d like to see it. You have, you know. Pretty good taste.”
“Are you here to try to kill me?” Orin asks.
“What? No. I mean, not in the immediate future.”
“Then why are you talking to me,” Orin asks flatly.
Her sister sighs, the way she always does when Orin can’t meet her expectations. “I realized I don’t really know much about the things you actually make. And since you work on them so hard, I figured it was worth knowing. Understanding.”
“‘They’re a waste of time,’” Orin says, shifting her voice to replicate her sister’s. Her sister scowls.
“Look, I just thought I’d ask. If you don’t want me here, I’ll go.”
Why would Orin ever want her sister here? Why does Orin shake her head, and move to the side to let her sister see her work?
Her sister does not say anything else, just watches. Orin continues to cut, waiting for her sister to mock her, but the laughter never comes. In fact, when Orin is struggling to find the right texture of muscle in the torso, her sister produces a small light cantrip in her hand and holds it out to help her.
Orin glares at her. “It really seems like you’re going to kill me.”
“You think this is how I’d do it?”
“Ah, apologies. I should know not to ever question your expertise.”
Her sister opens and closes her mouth. Then she asks, “Did you know I’ve killed my sister before?”
When Orin frowns, confused, she elaborates. “I had a family—a false family—before He found me again. I had a sister there.”
“What was it like?” Orin asks.
Her sister shrugs. “She was young and weak and wasn’t expecting it. I had a knife. I put them all in a heap afterward to see just how much I’d done, then Scleritas came and got me. Nothing special.”
Words, words, more words that just aren’t right, don’t line up with the words Orin said, words that are trying to confuse her. Her sister’s greasy Baneite friend had said once that words could kill as easily as a poison. Orin would like to kill the very concept of words themselves instead. Then kill that smug little man. Then kill words a second time for good measure and live the rest of her life in nonverbal bliss.
“Is that all that you would do with my flesh?” Orin asks.
Her sister grins. “You know what, maybe. I think there’d be some poetry to giving you a boring death. Orin the Artist with just a single cut on her throat, just some adder venom in her kidneys. Maybe I’d even put you in a pinewood coffin and bury you with a prayer to Kelemvor.”
Orin should be angry, insulted. But despite herself, she’s amused. Her sister, Bhaal’s masterpiece, donning a mourner’s veil and dusting her grave with flowers!
“If you’re nice to me, though,” her sister offers, “I’ll core your heart in a spiral and suspend it in my study. I’ll bloat your intestines like a balloon. I’ll whittle scalpels from your ribs, so you can still attend the rites.”
“Is that really, really as deep as your imagination delves, my sister?”
Her sister bursts out laughing. Orin bares her teeth, desperately tries to think of how she could have embarrassed herself this time—only to realize with a jolt that her sister is laughing at herself, not Orin.
“Gods, fine,” her sister says. “I could never do you justice. So you’ll just have to keep not being nice to me, I guess.”
Orin grins. “I can promise you that.”
-
The familiar smell of Karabasan’s Gift cuts through Orin’s slumber. She wakes in time to slam a hand over her mouth, keeping her mother from shoving a soaked rag in it. Some of the paralytic still trickles in through her fingers and into her nose, though. As Orin stands to kill her mother, she sways on her feet.
But it’s so much easier than Orin thought it would be. Easy to pry the dagger from her mother’s hand, easy to punch her in the liver and send her doubling over. Her mind dulled by sleep and poison, Orin doesn’t realize why it’s so easy until her mother tries to strangle her. Her mother is still a child. A fight to the death, for Bhaal’s love, and her mother still won’t wear hands big enough to wrap around Orin’s throat.
Orin laughs. She kicks her mother off of her and to the ground, relishing how she cries out when she lands. Orin slams the hilt of the dagger onto her mother’s scalp, half-expecting to cleave into a fontanelle. She severs her mother’s windpipe and echoes its dying sigh of relief. Orin will never have to hear her voice ever again.
As her mother falls silent, she grows, shifting out of shape. For the first time Orin’s mother is not a child to her. She’s a grown woman with short hair, pale skin, laugh lines, crow’s feet. For the first time, a woman who could be her mother meets Orin’s gaze.
Orin digs in her for so long, but her blood and innards are never any warmer than anyone else’s.
Eventually, Orin goes back to bed. She sleeps soundly and dreamlessly. Once she wakes, she leaves her quarters to hunt properly. Her blood-hunger was not sated by that pitiful skirmish.
When she returns to her quarters, her mother’s body is gone. Orin does not think about it.
At least not until a few days later when her sister arrives at her door, carrying her flayed mother. Her sister has carved the pieces of flesh into a messy approximation of armor. The parts are joined by fine silver chains and links. It smells of preserving chemicals, and that must be why it remains an apple-red so long after death.
“It’s not nearly as good as what you make,” her sister says.
“You haven’t seen any of the clothes I’ve made,” Orin reminds her.
“Still. I’m sure it isn’t.” Her sister hesitates, then holds it out to her. “But if you want it.”
Orin takes back her mother. She does not need to contort to fit in the armor—the chains mean she can adjust it as needed. It is rough and unhemmed, but it feels comfortable. Soft, even. When the last piece is in place, she turns to face her sister.
Her sister smiles. “Beautiful,” she says. And for once, a word feels right.