i saw a mudcrab the other day. horrible creatures.

But it would be an invasion of privacy, and it would mean facing the full force of Wyll's grief. 

Aurel grieved himself enough.

'Then say what you mean.'

"You broke into Mephistopheles' library, Aurel!"

'Yes,' Aurel replied plainly, still not facing Wyll. 'We have spent months chasing inconclusive leads among Zariel's forces. Conversely, we knew with certainty that Mephistopheles' realm held tomes and scrolls of every arcane spell in existence.  And with Hope’s House holding a portal to Cania, it was more efficient to steal a scroll from him than to chase flimsy rumors to every end of Avernus.'

"Don't do that," the small part of Aurel's heart that was still a man twinged at how Wyll’s voice broke. "Don't try and speak to me like you're just a mind flayer."

'I am just a mind flayer.'

Aurel felt bile rise in his throat.  He snapped his head to the side to turn his cold, violet gaze onto Wyll.  HIs old lover paused in his work, his dark devil-eye staring back unflinchingly.

There was a time he could have read Wyll’s face with ease.  He would have known what the clench of his jaw meant, or if the way his fingers trembled were from anger or grief.

Or perhaps he had been fooling himself, lost in the throws of new love, and he didn’t know Wyll at all.

'You and Karlach have been putting on a pantomime. Whether for my sake or to ease your own grief, I do not know, but what I do know is that Mizora was right; Aurel died that day in the Astral Prism. His soul has left for the Fugue Plane, and I am only an echo of his memories. I am an abomination to illithid-kind, and a cruel reminder to you.'

Wyll’s jaw flexed, his lips pursed into a thin trembling line — grief then.  Of course.  The man he loved was dead. 

Once, Aurel would have pulled him close to chase those tears away. He would have cupped his face in his hands, kissed his cheeks, held him as he wept...

His mouth was no longer made for tenderness, but for cracking through skulls and gorging on the grey matter within. His hands were warped into cold, slimy claws that inspired more disgust than warmth. His closeness would only bring Wyll more discomfort.

That seemed to be all he brought Wyll nowadays.

'Well, you need no longer continue this farce,' Aurel went on. 'With the Scroll of True Polymorph, Karlach can inhabit a new body free of the Infernal Engine. The two of you may return to the Material Plane.'

"You're not coming with us?" Wyll's voice broke, his remaining eye large and wet and grief-stricken.

'I will not force you to endure my presence any longer,' Aurel turned away. And he cursed his ceremorphosis — not for transforming him into a monster, but for making him this incomplete thing that still wavered when faced with Wyll’s forlorn gaze.

'There is ample food for me here, and I will take pleasure in knowing I am thinning Zariel's forces as I feed.'

"Alone?"

He hated how quiet Wyll's voice was. Why didn't he hate him? Why were they both clinging to a ship they both knew was sinking?

'I cannot be what you want,' Aurel said stiffly. 'I have told you; I am an echo of who Aurel was. I am a living reminder of your dead love. You need not suffer me any longer.'

"I don't suffer you."

'I see how you look at me, Wyll!' Aurel snapped his head around to look at Wyll once more, tentacles flaring. 'You do not see me; you see a dead man you once loved. You saw how Mayrina dragged along the rotting corpse of her husband; I will not be your Connor!'

Wyll flinched, as did Aurel — surprised by the force of his own psychic lashing. Every time he spoke he tried to keep a tether on his telepathy, tried to keep himself from probing too far and sharing too much but in that moment...

"That's really what you think you are," Wyll breathed, his eyes wide. "A shambling zombie trailing after me?"

Aurel's tentacles twitched, and he turned so he could no longer look at Wyll's large, sad eyes.

'Mizora was right,' he said again. He could almost hear her shrill laughter, echoing on the winds of Avernus. 'I am a worm wriggling around in a dead man's brain. I recall his life, his feelings, as if they were my own...and when left to my own devices, I still trick myself into thinking I am him.'

Aurel was quiet for a moment. The balcony doors were open, the rust-red sky of Avernus plain to see. The faint smell of sulfur wafted in, but in Raphael's old boudoir the smell of incense still overpowered Avernus's acrid stench.

They had killed Haarlep here. The incubus had leered at him, tongue tracing their fangs as they looked to make Aurel their next meal, and Wyll had held on to his hand so tightly, as if he was afraid one lecherous look from the incubus would pull him away from his side.

Haarlep hadn't taken him, but only a few days later...the Netherbrain, the Emperor, Orpheus...

'I thought about it.'

Aurel glanced back at Wyll, cheeks wet from silent tears but eyes soft with confusion. "Thought about what?"

'When Orpheus said what needed to be done,' Aurel turned to look back at Avernus. He couldn't look at Wyll, not when admitting this. 'I thought of asking him to do it instead.'

Wyll went quiet. Aurel did not know whether it was grief, or disappointment, or shame that caused his silence, but he persisted all the same.

'The rightful Prince of the Githyanki; their best hope of liberation and ending Vlaakith's tyranny. I thought of asking him to become illithid instead. Worse, I thought it would have been better to let the Emperor feed on him, to let them kill him and take his power, because that would have meant it wouldn't have to be me.'

The carefully maintained dam of his telepathy cracked again. Just a little as his grief, as his anger bubbled over. But it seemed to be enough; Wyll's lips parted, his eyes widened as the torrent of Aurel's emotions seeped through.

'I thought to damn the Githyanki people — Lae'zel's people. I was weak, and I was terrified, and all I could think about was how I wanted to go to that dinner with Karlach and Fytz. I wanted to see Gale’s tower in Waterdeep.  Hells, I even wanted to help Astarion find a new home for him and the other spawn.'

Aurel's entire body had gone rigid. He shook, his claws digging into the sheets of the bed while his tentacles trembled as he stared intently at the wall.

'I wanted my father to recognize me when I went home,' he could not sob, not anymore, but the flood of thoughts and feelings felt nearer to hysteria than he'd been in a long, long time. 'I wanted us to have more than just that one night under the Wilden Oak. I wanted to go to sleep at night by your side and then kiss you awake each morning. And I wondered to myself, 'Could I?' Could I sacrifice the freedom of an entire people just so I could wake up each morning with you in my arms?'

His whole body trembled as those emotions ceremorphosis should have snuffed out spilled over into the air. A small, broken gasp escaped Wyll as he felt it, as all the rage and grief and shame that Aurel had been so desperately trying to hide all these months spilled over into the light.

'I was almost so weak. Weak and stupid and selfish. And I have spent these past months trying to convince myself that it was worth it. That becoming this was worth sacrificing our future.'

He didn't think he was capable of this anymore. This rage, this overwhelming grief, this pain. 

The baubles on the nightstand were rattling, even the bed seemed to be shaking as his telekinesis bubbled within him. 

He hadn't felt this raw and uncontrolled since he was an adolescent.

He forced himself out of the bed and he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to blot out the everything as if that would stop this.  Stop him.  

He couldn’t. 

It wasn’t just him shaking now; he could hear the bed rattling against the wall, the water in the bath splashing.  Something fell onto the floor and shattered.  He couldn’t stop.  He couldn’t.

And then there was a clawed hand on his arm.  Tentative; just a brush against his cold skin, but enough to share its warmth.

Aurel shuddered, and with that his telekinesis calmed.  The rattling stopped, the House of Hope stood still once more, and Aurel stood there with Wyll hovering inches away.

Aurel stepped away from him.  Out, further, onto the balcony.  He turned to stare blankly out at the barren landscape of Avernus, at the red mountains on the horizon and the smoke rising in the distance.

I will never see the mountains of my home again.

I will never see my father again.

'It is bad enough that I must spend the rest of my days feeling sorry for myself, but I cannot, will not bring you down with me, Wyll. I will not have you standing by my side out of duty and staring at me while you mourn the man you love. That is no life, not for either of us. So leave; go with Karlach back to Baldur's Gate, grieve me, move on, and let me die here knowing I took as many of Zariel's soldiers with me as I could.'

A shuddering exhale escaped Wyll. He was right there, right behind Aurel. He could feel his breath on his neck, could feel the prickling of his warmth on his back.

"Is that what you want?" Wyll asked, his voice ragged and raw.

Aurel closed his eyes.

'What I want does not matter.'

"It does."

'I cannot have it,' Aurel snapped. 'Don't you see, Wyll? I want you to look at me without shame. I want to be able to walk with you in the sunlight. I want to see my father again, with you by my side. I want...I want to be me again.'

A shaky, rattling exhale escaped through Aurel's teeth as he looked up.

'But I am not. Even polymorphing back into my original body could not change that. I am...I am not him. But I don't know who I am when I'm not him. And I do not think I can ever know.'

This was why mind flayers forgot who they were. This was why partialism was such a taboo to them. No mind flayer would be able to survive this agony.

Aurel almost felt sorry for the Emperor. Deluding himself into believing he was still Balduran, that he was better as a mind flayer, had to be the only way he could survive such a thing.

Ansur really would have done him a mercy if he'd killed him.

A pair of warm arms wrapped around Aurel's middle. He tensed, his breath hitched as Wyll rested his forehead against Aurel's back and squeezed with his arms.

"Why did you go to Mephistopheles' library alone," Wyll murmured.

Aurel trembled.

'Because it was dangerous,' he said. 'Because if I failed, then you and Karlach would still be safe.'

Wyll's breath hitched as he squeezed Aurel.

"That's what I meant," he sighed. "Oh Aurel, I’m not leaving you here.”

‘You must.’

“No.”

Aurel tried to pull away, but Wyll only loosened his grip enough to spin Aurel around - to force them eye to eye while Wyll grabbed his shoulders.  His claws dug into Aurel’s skin, and his eye blazed.

“You haven’t changed,” he insisted. “You’re still the same as you were before.  I should have known from the moment you agreed to jump with Karlach into Avernus without a thought; you’re still the same man who bargained with Mizora for my soul, who risked a sinking prison for my father…who became a mind flayer to save the world.”

Wyll was crying again.  The tears were running freely down his cheeks, spilling onto his tunic.  Aurel stared at the dark spots dumbly as his head spun.

“And then you went and stole from Mephistopheles, and you could have just helped yourself but you didn’t.  You thought…you thought I didn’t love you as you were and you still thought to save Karlach first.”

Wyll’s claws dug in further as he stared up at Aurel, and he gave his shoulders a firm shake.

“I’m not leaving you to sacrifice yourself to Zariel’s forces,” he said. “You’re the same.  You’re the same.”

Aurel wished again to reach out his telepathy, to feel the edges of Wyll’s mind so he might know.

But instead he just nodded his head, and he relished the relieved sob that escaped Wyll.

He wanted to believe this. 

Aurel set the bowl down as he turned to face Wyll fully. He glanced briefly over at their companions, but he and Wyll had taken their dinner on the outskirts of Last Light's shores, away from the others. They wouldn't be disturbed; unless the others got nosy (which was always a possibility.)

"What in the Nine Hells brought this on?" Aurel asked, turning his gaze back to Wyll.

"The Hells are part of the problem, I fear," Wyll's lips twitched into a small, sardonic smile. "Or Mizora, rather. Her, these blasted tadpoles, Ketheric Thorm and his Cult of the Absolute...were we in Baldur's Gate, I could have done this properly. I'd have invited you to dine with me at the finest restaurants on the shores of the Chionthar, taken you to see the best concerts performed by the Gate's most accomplished orchestra. We could have attended one of Duke Stelmane's balls on each other's arms, and I'd have pulled you to the side to whisper sonnets in your ear."

"Only sonnets?" Aurel quirked an eyebrow, and the impish grin on his lips only grew at how Wyll flushed.

"Had we met at some posh soiree, I'm not entirely sure it would have been the fairy-tale you're envisioning, my dear," Aurel went on, reaching out to gently fix the ties of Wyll's tunic. And if he allowed his fingertips to brush against the exposed collarbone of Wyll's chest, the way Wyll's throat bobbed was certainly worth the liberty.

"I used to be quite the rake, you know. I thought I could drown all my sorrows in wine and dancing and meaningless trysts in the dead of night. Of course I gave all that up long ago, but seeing the strapping Blade of Frontiers in top form on the dance floor may have tempted me towards acting the scoundrel again."

The flush had spread from Wyll's ears down to his neck, but he seemed determined to push past whatever ungentlemanly thoughts Aurel had inspired as he took Aurel's hands in his own.

"That's part of what I mean," he insisted. "After everything you have weathered, after everything you have given...you deserve better. You deserve sonnets, songs, and a man who can bare his soul to you freely."

"Your soul will be free soon enough, if I have anything to say about it," Aurel sniffed and raised his chin an inch. Wyll smiled, and he squeezed Aurel's hands between his own.

"You prove my point yet again. I was already smitten, but seeing you haggle with Mizora for my soul stole my heart again thricefold."

"Flirt. But don't think you can charm your way out of this one, Wyll Ravengard."

Aurel freed his hands, but only so he could cup Wyll's face in them.

"I don't know where that little voice in your head is coming from, but I will not have it sowing such nonsense. In case you didn't notice, I am completely and utterly smitten with you, too. And nothing, not Mizora, not these tadpoles, nor the Absolute itself — whatever it may be — will change that."

Aurel allowed his thumb to gently trace the scar on Wyll's cheek, and as his eyes roamed his handsome face, the stubborn glint to Aurel's eyes softened into affection.

"I would trade every single ball for that dance we shared under the stars. I would turn my ear from the finest orchestras just for the sound of your laugh. And I would discard the finest wines just to sit by your side, eating Gale's mediocre soup."

Finally, a huff of a laugh from Wyll. The corners of his eyes crinkled, his cheeks dimpled as he smiled, and both proved far too tempting for Aurel. HE kissed him — at the corners where his eye crinkled, teasingly at the side of his mouth where his cheeks dimpled, and then finally coming to rest at his lips. He held him there for a moment, one hand moving to caress the back of Wyll's neck. And when they parted, it was only for a breath as Aurel rested his forehead against Wyll's.

"You don't need to earn my affection," he murmured. "Not now, not ever. You are more than enough to me; not Ravengard's son, no the Blade of Frontiers, you."

Wyll gave a shaky exhale, but Aurel knew him well enough by now to recognize the gleaming of his eyes meant joy, not grief. Wyll moved, arms wrapping around Aurel and pulling him closer into a tight, warm hug. One that Aurel happily returned, stroking his fingers along Wyll's shoulder blades as he rested their heads together.

"Does this mean you don't want me to continue to court you?" Wyll asked after a moment. Aurel snorted.

"Now, I never said that," he protested as they parted. Wyll's eyes glimmered with amusement. "I only meant that you needn't feel obligated, dear one. You can rest assured that there is no pursuit required; you have quite masterfully caught me already."

"With quarry like you? Only because you allowed me to."

"Oh, let's not get caught up in the details of how you caught me, what matters is that you did. And you do. Have me that is."

Aurel's gaze had softened again, though his lips were still upturned into a playful smile. But he gently stroked his thumb along Wyll's jawline as he searched his gaze.

"Are we better?" he asked quietly. "Or do I need to scold that pesky inner voice some more before it goes away?"

Wyll laughed. "Oh, the doubts will always be there. But never about you. And I think you've done a splendid job of pushing them back, for the moment at least."

"Well, you just let me know if they come crawling back," Aurel sighed. "I'll drive them off again. Or at the very least find a very clever way to distract you."