Well, here we are. At the end of the line. I am so incredibly grateful for all the support I've gotten over the past months. This started as a google doc that I worked on while I was bored at work, and I had no intention of sharing it. But I'm immensely glad that I did. Cyril has given me so much inspiration and joy, and sharing him with you all has been an absolute pleasure.Â
I want to give a very very very special and loving thank you to my ever-encouraging editor, @thedarksilkpen (ao3 here) who has supported me the entire way, and is an incredible friend and an AMAZING writer!! I could not have done this without you :')
The Cyril-verse expands ever outward, and if you're in need of some spicy self-care after the violation-of-the-geneva-convention type ending, you are more than welcome to follow the tales of Cyril's little bird in As The Crow Dies, and hang tight for a sequel to Corpse that puts a few new twists on a redeemed Durge run (starring our favorite chaos tiefling ofc).Â
Thank you all so much again for reading, and for being my sacrificial offerings to Loviatar for the emotional damage I have caused.Â
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"I'm afraid I might have been unclear in my communication. I do apologize. You see, my corpse is, well I don't want to say 'manipulated,' but it is trained to refuse any questions about my belongings, in case they make their way into the wrong hands. Now I know your hands have only the best of intentions, but it is a safeguard nonetheless. Not to worry, however, as I have on my person, the means to give myself a true resurrection.
"Now do listen carefully, as failure to follow these instructions may lead to personal injury or death. Within my breast pocket, there lies a bag of holding, in which there are several cords wrapped around it. This is the first of 4 simple steps to complete my revival process. When you encounter these cords, and do remember this, as it's vitally important, unravel the purple one–"
Cyril cut the specter off. This was taking too long. "Enough, I'm not following your asinine instructions. Will Revivify work?"
"Well… yes. But it does mean that I–"
"Then cease your jabbering." The tiefling placed his hands on the artificial corpse's chest. "Te curo."
We are almost at the end, folks. Shit's about to get real...
Today I present to you the fated Alfira chapter. Nothing suspicious at all going on here.......
"You have to get that back, Alfie! It's Lihala's for Gods' sake, and you just gave it away to a stranger?"
"He's not a stranger! He's my new muse," she hummed.
"You just met him! At least let him buy you dinner before giving him your prized possessions." Perhaps Lakrissa was right, maybe she had been preemptive. Would it be too much if she found their camp to ask for it back? Or maybe…
"Then I'll just have to get to know him more!" A fantastic idea sprung into her head, "I could travel with him! With all of them! I'm sure I could make myself useful…"
"Are you listening to yourself? You're not an adventurer! You think you can battle those goblins and beasties if they attack you out there by yourself? Traveling with them is practically a death sentence!" Lakrissa frowned, concern scrawled on her face.
"But I won't be by myself. And– and I'll learn to defend myself. I know the Blade of Frontiers joined them, he could teach me!"
"I've always thought you to be a bit off your rocker but this is madness! Please just stay here with us. Your people need you… I need you. Those jesters can handle themselves." She spoke wisdom, but Alfira's mind had been made up.
The Corpse Regards You, Lifelessly - Chapter 25: Guardian Graveyard
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Crawling our way to the end! Hope you've buckled your seatbelts...
~~Our snip today comes from a camp scene in which the group, sans Gale, attempts to make dinner~~
"Honestly, how can you eat like this? If I was still mortal I would have died of malnutrition based on the quality of your cooking." Astarion hummed between sips of boar blood.
The task of preparing food was something none of them seemed particularly capable of. Wyll and Karlach had the most experience with survival skills, but the nobleman's son never had touched a wood-burning stove in his life and Karlach was happy to snack on just about anything. Shadowheart insisted on drizzling a Sharran blessing over every ingredient, so that by the time her meal was prepared, the group had already passed out from exhaustion. Lae'zel's dietary choices were undeniably disgusting; the first and last time she was allowed to decide the meal, she selected a questionably sourced fish and some spoiled beans that she insisted were fermented. So Cyril, the one whose memories and experiences were fractured beyond repair, somehow got stuck with the job. Though, being able to play with knives and rend meat-flesh alleviated that unquenchable thirst just a little.
They had made do with rations at first, but as they continued their travels, they had found them more and more difficult to obtain, and so they settled for living off the land. Whenever Cyril sat near the cooking pot, his mouth began to water with an unexplainable craving for dwarf meat, but even he knew that this would not be an acceptable choice of entree for the group, except perhaps for Astarion.
"If you would like to take over, be my guest. At least I can taste what I cook." The tiefling looked up from the vegetables he was dutifully dismembering and glared playfully at the elf, who smirked before sinking his fangs back into the boar.
"I think your cooking is just fine, Cyril." Shadowheart wandered closer to the fire, wine coloring her tone.
"Ch'k," Lae'zel breathed. "I care not what we eat. But there must be more protein! We have not caught nearly enough fresh meat for our purposes."
"I agree!" Astarion piped up, eyes and fangs gleaming. "I say we should hunt more!"
"Fresh meat is useless without its blood, vampire," Lae'zel brushed him off.
"And this party is useless without me!" Astarion feigned a pout. "You wouldn't leave one of your dearest comrades to die because he doesn't have the proper accommodations?"
"Your… condition poses a threat. If it were my choice we wouldn't bring you along at all." Lae'zel retorted.
"You wound me! I am the reason you pathetic louts have food in the first place! Who else is going to pick your locks for you? Your bungling hands break my tools whenever you try it!"
"Well maybe next time these bungling hands won't find those wounds of yours when they need healing!" Shadowheart lilted.
The Corpse Regards You, Lifelessly - Chapter 24: Ravaged Ravager
The saga continues this week as we creep closer to the end of the fic.
Gortash had opted to clasp his hands behind his back and grind his knuckles to near bleeding on the wall behind him in order to feel something. Occasionally, while the priest worked the broken and burnt flesh, he would peer back at him and smile at his torment.
"Oh, Cyril. My dear one," Abdirak hummed, "your pain is so vast it could fill oceans. Cyril, the haunted one, the ravaged ravager. Must your spirit also die with the world?" The human's movements became more sensual as the healing continued, and he had begun to plant kisses over the spots where his implements had once struck, cooing the tiefling's name with each touch of his lips. This did nothing but amplify the tyrant's frustration.
The pained, arrhythmic breaths slowed to a more natural pace. There was no trace of murderous aura, or of rabid panic, he seemed perfectly at ease, normal. What sort of magic was this? And why hadn't it worked on the tyrant? As he writhed against the wall, he considered the meaning of what the Pain had said. Upon examination, he found himself just as guilty of the frantic, distractable behavior that plagued Cyril's nervous bouts. He had just become better at hiding it. Unlike Bhaal's golden child, Gortash did not often find himself in situations where he could express himself freely, so he adapted, avoided, hardened. Until nothing could invade the shell of plaster he had covered himself in—until there was nothing left to feel.
Then there was him. And feelings didn't seem so hard anymore. They were perhaps too easy now, he considered, as more and more of them prodded his brain upon seeing his pet smile at the Loviatan, who had now begun combing through the knots in his long, inky hair with his roughened fingers.
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Thanks @desperatejoys for the tag. I do indeed have some things brewing *raccoon scheming fingers* I will tagggg @nw39 and @archduchessgortash
This is from the end of a draft for durgetash week I finished yesterday. I've been taking this opportunity to write antics and chicanery to emotionally recover from finishing corpse. So here it is hehe:
"The next words that come out of your mouth better be 'I'm sorry,' or your life is forfeit." Cyril growled in his ear.
Gortash smiled. He knew bluffing when he saw it, and was aching to get some aggression out after the events of the day. So against his better judgment, he responded to the threat with: "Not a chance."
Great questions!! Cyril has a lot of big feelings that he hides behind even bigger displays of emotion. So diving deeper with him is a fun thing to do that I only rarely get to explore in my fic.
What is your Dark Urge’s greatest fear?
Cyril knows what it's like to forget, to have whole decades of his life be lost to Orin's blades. Corpse explores the idea that memories remain accessible after death, and so his greatest fear would be that he is forgotten. He wants to be the last thing people see before they die. He wants to be known and feared wherever he goes. He wants to be *remembered* and so he's terrified of being forgotten.
What is your Dark Urge's greatest desire?
The desire to be remembered stems from a suppressed craving to be known. Understood. There is a specific persona that he adopts around people, as I described in a previous post, but most of that is simply a cover for the deranged basketcase within. Whether he realizes it or not, he wants to be accepted as that scared little man; not worshipped or feared. He'll even settle for being hated, as long as that hatred comes from an understanding of his nature. The only people in his life who know him on such a level are Gortash and Orin. They act on this knowledge very differently of course, but they are the closest thing to being understood and accepted.
What is your Dark Urge's greatest regret?
This one was tougher, especially because it involves a multitude of spoilers. Sooo lemme try to explain it as best I can. Cyril regrets not taking the opportunity to learn to make his own decisions. As an embrace Durge, he never even considered taking his "new lease on life" as an opportunity to change his fate, and instead went full steam ahead to getting back to wherever he was. Then when he *did* get back to where he was, he found himself stuck in the same trap as before, desperately not wanting to be someone's puppet, but realizing it too late after he had already given Bhaal the strings.
22) What first impression does your Dark Urge give off to strangers?
18) How does your Dark Urge feel about love?
I'm so glad you asked this question! I actually have the answer *in my fic* at the ready. So instead of me telling you, I will let Cyril tell you:
According to Father, love was just another way to play with his toys. Was that true? Did other mortals feel the same? What about Enver? Were matters of love and control just games to him as well? He rushed to his quarters before a blasphemous thought could fully surface. What if he didn’t agree with Father? He had spent his lifetime perfecting the art of betrayal, and it had served him well time and again. But for the first time, he was confronted with a situation in which betrayal and manipulation would only sour the ‘sanctity of his sacrifice.’
What even was ‘love’ anyway? He considered the sacrifices he made to Father acts of love, an outpouring, even. However, most people that claim to love each other do not make blood offerings to show their affection. Gortash seemed to respond to acts of submission as proof of devotion and fealty. Was this love, though, since he demanded it from everybody?Â
22) What first impression does your Dark Urge give off to strangers?
Cyril is... a lot. He is a dramatic diva with no off button. It really depends on the context, but I would say for the most part that he comes of as fairly likable to strangers. In a pied piper sort of way. His favorite game is to gain people's trust, only to break it when it suits him best (usually by killing them). Cyril is a social chameleon who will shift personas and mannerisms to blend in with his situation, much in the same way that Orin shapeshifts. So he presents himself to strangers in a way that will disarm them, thus making them an easier target.
