Tristania Writes

Cover art for my BG3 longfic, All That Could Have Been Dirge / Alfira | Slow burn | Dark themes, redemption

Read on AO3:

Sharing some progress pics and notes from my most recent drawing. I don't really like showing what I'm doing while I'm doing it, because I'm not always confident about the results. I've been experimenting with using colored pencil over alcohol marker, and it worked better than expected, although I found that I have to be really intentional about it. Paper can only handle so many layers, so I had to decide ahead of time which areas would be more marker-based and which would use more colored pencil. I think with my next portrait I'm going to use the marker mostly as a value-blocking tool on the face, and then do softer pencil layers over it.

I'm still not super happy with the way it photographed but I'm getting a new tripod to shoot overhead, so I'll probably be re-shooting a bunch of work soon. No one talks about this part of the process--that you can work really hard on something and be happy with the results but then trying to get it to the screen accurately is a whole other matter.

"The Chosen One" - alcohol marker, colored pencil and fine liners (Liquitex acrylic ink for the blood spatters); 20"x14"

A snippet from my latest update from All That Could Have Been

Summary: Gortash invites Dirge to spar with him at a gentleman’s club. Gortash cheats. Things escalate.

Gortash led Dirge out the doors at the other end of the room, up another staircase. “There’s a practice room,” he said. “Quieter. More private.”

Dirge felt a twist of unease in his gut, but he managed a faint, mocking smile. “You want to go again, with no referee? I can’t promise I’ll play by the rules.”

“I would be very disappointed if you did.”

They paused before the door of the practice salle. “You were trying to provoke me in there,” Dirge accused.

Gortash smiled. “I wanted you to show those insipid fools what you could do.” He pushed open the door and led Dirge inside a smaller room that contained nothing but bare polished floors and a rack of foils. “I knew that losing on a technicality would inflame your righteous wrath like nothing else.”

“You think I’m righteous?” Dirge asked.

“After a fashion. Don’t you recall all those nights we spent together, discussing theology?”

Dirge laughed. “No.”

“Good. Because that never happened.”

“Have you always been a bastard?”

Gortash chuckled as he strode over to the weapons rack. “I learned from the best.” He picked up one of the foils and held it across his palm, testing its balance. “Gods, but I had forgotten how fast you are. I wasn’t sure if you’d be ready for Orin. But now? I’d wager you’ll wipe the floor with her.”

Dirge was silent as he picked up another foil from the rack and examined it.

“I have to admit,” Gortash went on, “I’m surprised you haven’t gone after her already.” He stepped closer, his features softening. Dirge sensed the shift in Gortash’s demeanor, the invitation to speak on deeper matters.

“It’s not Orin I’m concerned about,” he said, holding the blade point up. He shifted his grip, bouncing it in his hand, then met Gortash’s searching expression. “It’s what happens afterward. Sometimes…I wonder if I’m truly the right one for this.”

Gortash frowned, waiting for him to continue.

“You understand Bhaal’s mandate, don’t you?”

“Ah,” Gortash said, as if they had had this conversation before. “Yes. I understand that all men must die…eventually.”

The blade felt light—too light—in Dirge’s hand. “I’ve never wanted to kill you, Enver,” he lied. “Does that make me a failure, in the eyes of my father?”

“How many men can truly say they aren’t a disappointment in the eyes of their fathers?” Gortash returned lightly. “Yet Bhaal favors you. Even I can see that.”

Dirge detected a trace of envy in the other man’s tone.

“We both know how much more we can accomplish, working together,” Gortash went on. “And as for Bhaal’s mandate, it is clearly a long-term plan, not something he expects you to finish within the year, or even five or ten.”

“Is it?”

“If it was,” Gortash said, “why would he be so insistent on you giving him grandchildren? Surely creating a bloodline of murderous spawn takes time. I could be dead of old age before the mandate is fulfilled.”

The logic was sound, but to hear Gortash speak so comfortably about Bhaal’s obsession with lineage…it hit Dirge like a fist to the gut. He didn’t want to think about that right now.

“Come, let us not trouble ourselves with the problems of long-distant tomorrows,” Gortash said, with an easy smile. He lazily flicked his foil toward Dirge’s shoulder, testing him. Teasing him. Dirge deflected the blade with ease, then lunged at Gortash, and steel clashed again.

There was no salute this time, no resetting after an exchange. It was almost playful, the way they circled the polished floor, light on their feet, giving in to the rhythm of the bout while disregarding all of its rules. Or so it may have looked to a casual observer.

Alone now but for the Archduke, Dirge’s mind circled back to the question he had come here to settle: what were his chances of killing Gortash, right here and now?

Gortash grinned as Dirge pressed him harder, getting in a few attacks of his own between well-executed parries. “You don’t have to hold back,” he said, and Dirge nodded. He struck out at hands and legs, driving Gortash back; this time he had the satisfaction of striking flesh.

“I’ve missed this,” Gortash said, pausing to catch his breath. “I’ve missed you.”

What if I dragged him through a dimension door? Dirge thought. Could I get all the way back to the Elfsong?

He calculated the distance in his head. Doubtful, he conceded.

Gortash came at him again, their guards colliding with a dull knock of metal. A last burst of energy, before his body gave in to fatigue. Dirge stepped in close for another strike, and Gortash parried. Their blades slid down until the hilts pressed together, but this time neither man disengaged.

“I need you by my side,” Gortash said roughly, his face close enough that Dirge could feel the heat of his breath. “I don’t think I can do this without you.”

Dirge didn’t move. Whatever this was, it had already gone far enough.

Gortash’s eyes were pleading. It was unnerving to see him like this, so raw and open and vulnerable. But even this felt like a trap, all the more dangerous for its apparent sincerity.

Dirge nodded. “After I kill Orin and reclaim my throne. We’ll be together again.”

Gortash let out a breath that might have been a laugh, though there was no humor in it. His blade slipped, tip pointing to the floor. “I could burn this whole city down, if I had to,” he said, his voice low and intimate. Dirge inhaled the tang of sweat and chicory and the amber bloom of Gortash’s cologne. “Level it to the harbor, and teleport us away together. It wasn’t what I’d planned. But I would do it—for you. As a gift.”

Dirge gripped his shoulder. “What are you talking about, Enver?”

Gortash’s foil clattered to the floor. Then his hands were on Dirge’s face, pushing him into the wall, their lips crushed against each other.

* * *