Chapter Text
“How many times do you have to be killed, you damned, slinking little fox?”
Only a few weeks ago, if asked to pick a devil they wouldn’t mind meeting again, there would have been no doubt in Durge’s mind as to who to pick. It was, to be honest, a short list that started and ended with one name - Yurgir’s. Despite their particularly rocky beginnings, he’d been a fierce ally in the House of Hope and then again against the Netherbrain. Of course, with Raphael in their party, he’d quickly turned into one of the last devils they’d have wanted to meet again.
However, carnage did not immediately follow. Yurgir's respect was hard to earn but, Durge had come to realize, it wasn’t easily lost either. The fact he didn’t shoot a crossbow bolt through Astarion when he refused to move out of the way and leave Raphael to him was testament to that, at least. Still it was a chance meeting they could have done without, because he was really set on getting his hands on Raphael to rearrange his limbs.
And probably a few internal organs while he was at it.
“We need him alive, Yurgir.”
Yurgir scowled, crossbow still pointed in Raphael’s general direction. Around them, standing over the corpses of the demons they had finished off, his merregons stared silently from behind their masks. They didn’t seem to truly understand a thing of what they were saying; they simply stood there and waited for the next order to unleash carnage
“How is the bastard still alive? Daddy dearest made a servant out of his devil half and ate the human one. Everyone knows that.”
Right, Durge thought. That. “... We also rather need everyone to keep thinking that, come to think of it.”
A scoff. “My business is splitting skulls, little rabbit, not spreading gossip, and the merregons have no clue what we’re talking about. No one will know he lives. Partly because I’m going to fix that.”
“I mean, it’s not that it doesn’t sound great, Yurgir. It does,” Karlach spoke up, reaching over to pat his forearm. “But as Durge said, we need him alive. Unfortunately. If we didn’t, I’m sorry, but you’d still have to fight me for it.”
Dire as the situation was, Raphael took a moment to raise an eyebrow at Karlach.
“... Really?” he asked, sounding rather doubtful, and Karlach grinned.
“I’d want the privilege to split your skull myself.”
“... Should have figured.”
Yurgir gave a snort that was almost a laugh. “What do you need him for, anyway? He was always only half a devil, and now he’s not even that. Just a puny human - I can tell . ”
“Hey now, I have to protest on behalf of humans. We’re not all that puny,” Wyll muttered, causing Yurgir to blink, eyes shifting towards Wyll’s horns. Wyll cleared his head. “Ah, those-- that is-- it’s a long story.”
“He has information,” Astarion spoke, clearly trying to use all the charm he was capable of. He was holding his hands up, still standing in front of Raphael - who, on the other hand, didn’t seem all that certain that they’d really take on Yurgir to keep him alive. “We need to recover something, he knows where it is, and we made kind of a deal. It’s been wonderful to catch up, truly! But we really should make way towards Haruman’s Hill, so we can cross--”
“That’s not happening for a while,” Yurgir cut him off. “Haruman is patrolling there, and in a sh*t mood. Not that he has any other mood.”
Karlach sighed. “Ah, f*ck. I don’t suppose he could be conveniently distracted? Like, say, a horde of demons chased right at the base of the hill, so he can’t resist getting involved?”
With a booming laugh, Yurgir slung the crossbow over his shoulder. “Ah, that would work, I guess. All right, how about this - you leave Raphael to me for a bit. I won’t kill him, just make him regret being born.” He turned to grin at Raphael, all fangs. “After I’ve taught him a lesson in pain, I’ll give him back and distract Haruman for you.”
Durge almost groaned. “We cannot--” they began, only to trail off when someone else laughed. Raphael.
Yurgir snarled, turning to face him. “What’s so funny?”
Raphael smiled back. No longer pale as he’d been when Yurgir had appeared, he seemed perfectly at ease. He stepped forward, arms spread. “If it’s a duel you want, you should have said so right away. Although I am not certain that it would be polite of me.”
A snort. “Oh, too good for duels, is that your excuse?”
“Apologies, I should have explained myself with smaller words. What I meant is, it would be impolite of me to humiliate you in front of your own men. But if you insist, it can be arranged.”
Durge blinked. Behind them, Halsin let out a groan.
For a moment, Yurgir stared at Raphael as though not comprehending. Then he leaned forward and gave a noise that could have been a growl, could have been a laugh, was probably sort of both. “You,” he finally said, “are the most arrogant piece of sh*t I’ve ever met in my life.”
Raphael smiled, arms still spread. “So come teach me a lesson,” he said, like he wasn’t facing a powerful orthon as a human bard with a few sorcerer tricks, and probably half spent from the battle just ended. “Only the two of us. No intervention from the mortals or from the merregons. If they get involved, the mortals get involved - and vice versa, ça va sans dire.”
“That’s got to be Infernal,” Wyll whispered, only for Karlach to shake her head.
“Maybe Abyssal?” she whispered back, just as Astarion joined them and placed a hand on Durge’s wrist.
“He has something up his sleeve,” he murmured. “Let him do this.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“I’m just kind of trusting him not to be completely suicidal.”
Unaware of their whispers, Yurgir was scowling. “What’s your trick this time, Raphael?”
“No tricks. As you said I am human and, I am sure you can tell even from there, running on half a soul. And still entirely capable of defeating you.”
“You wouldn’t be demanding a duel if you didn’t have some trick ready. You’re too much of a coward to fight fair. Even in the Blood War--”
“A coward, am I? One of us here is hesitating, and it's not me.” Raphael wrinkled his nose, jutting his chin forward. “You need not be scared. I won’t humiliate you too badly.”
The goading was painfully obvious, but-- well, the target was an orthon, and as it turned out it was more than enough.
“I’ll cut out your tongue,” Yurgir snarled, only for Raphael to nod.
“Very well. If you win, I’ll surrender my tongue. If I do, you’ll lure Haruman off his hill long enough for us to cross the Styx. A fair deal, is it not? And I’m not even putting it in rhyme.”
“If you give me another song, I’ll cut off more than your tongue,” Yurgir growled, and grinned. He held out a hand, and one of the merregons immediately handed him something - a healing potion. He drank it in one gulp, and slung the crossbow across his back. “Very well. Let’s see how long you last, without your hellfire tricks. You, stay where you are,” he snapped at the merregons. Several heads were tilted, but none of them made a noise as their leader jumped off the small rocky outcrop, causing the ground to tremble, and approached Raphael, blade in hand. “I’ll nail your tongue to my belt, just to show everyone it’s not made of silver.”
Raphael looked at him and sighed. “My life, part twelve - the boring opponent,” he muttered, causing Yurgir to snarl and Durge to rather wish they had cut off his tongue themself to keep him from doing… exactly what he was doing now.
“This is a bad idea,” Wyll muttered.
“This is going to be fun,” Karlach grinned.
“We do intervene if he tries to kill him, right?” Halsin asked.
“I’m in a betting mood. Anyone else in a betting mood?” Astarion asked, entirely ignoring his concern. “Karlach? My money’s on Raphael.”
“Oh, yes! My gold’s on Yurgir.”
Durge groaned. “I have a headache.”
“Oh. Is it a normal headache, or a ‘deranged sister performing lobotomy in extremely unsanitary conditions’ headache, love?”
“... It’s liable to get worse or better. Depends how the fight go--”
“AAAAAGH!”
Yurgir’s guttural cry caused everyone to recoil and turn, just on time to see him slam his blade against the ground; the thunderous blast that followed was just as loud, and Raphael was immediately knocked back across the rocky ground like-- well, like a rag doll.
He fell hard several paces back with a grunt of pain, skidding a few more paces across the ground before he came to a stop. Durge made a face. “It just got worse.”
Karlach whistled. “Well, that was quick. Looks like you’re going to have to pay up.” She elbowed Astarion, who grinned in turn.
“Oh, no. It’s not over until the orthon’s got his tongue,” he informed her, just as the orthon in question laughed.
“Is that all you’ve got, mighty Raphael?” Yurgir asked, tilting his head in what came across as a crude, mocking courtly bow. “I’ll give you one chance to make it quick and prove yourself a coward. Yield, and I’ll make it a clean cut.”
There was no response at first. Raphael was lifting himself up on his knees, painfully, a hand pressing against his side.
“Broken ribs,” Halsin muttered, grim. Ever the healer, he was obviously struggling not to intervene. “This is madness. He has no chance.”
“Wait,” Astarion whispered, and Wyll turned to glance at him.
“... You know something,” he muttered, and Astarion just grinned.
From his part, Raphael scoffed, and gave Yurgir the most insufferable sneer Durge had ever seen on anybody’s face, save perhaps Wulbren Bongle’s. “You act a fighter,” he spat through clenched, bloodied teeth. “But a fool’s a fool.”
The snarl that left Yurgir next was almost a roar. “I won’t cut your damned tongue - I’ll rip it off along with your jaw,” he snapped, and turned invisible without waiting for an answer, clearly poised to strike with his poisoned blade before Raphael could even see him coming. From his part, Raphael cast a healing spell on himself, and slowly began to stand. Much too slowly. Any moment now, Yurgir would be--
A portion of the ground lit up, and Durge had only an instant to understand what they were looking at - a glyph of warding - before lighting struck and Yurgir screamed before he stumbled back, once again fully visible, covering his eyes with a cry. He was not too gravely hurt, it would take more than that, but there were marks on him.
“The f*cker!” Karlach exclaimed, something that was almost a hint of admiration in her voice. “When did he do that?”
Wyll chuckled. “I bet he cast it while we were all talking, didn’t he? Astarion?”
“I may have noticed him gesturing…”
“I’LL TEAR OUT YOUR INNARDS WITH MY BARE HANDS!” Yurgir bellowed, and reached for his belt to grab an orthotic handbomb. But he was still half-blinded by the lighting blast, and it landed off mark enough for Raphael to scramble out of the way before it blew up, if not very elegantly. Yurgir didn’t get the chance to throw another before Raphael lifted his hands.
“Obedi me!” he cried out - and, unlike the bomb, Raphael’s spell didn’t miss. For an instant Yurgir stood absolutely still, as though turned to stone, a stunned expression on his face. Then he moved again. He skipped, to be exact, and kept skipping in place, and twirling, and shuffling his feet. Under the stunned gaze of several merregons who had probably never seen an Otto’s Irresistible Dance spell at work, Yurgir began to-- well. Describing what he was doing as dancing was a bit more charitable than Durge felt they could be, but it came close enough.
“What the-- RAPHAEL! What! Have! You! Done!”
Yurgir’s roar in the middle of a pirouette proved to be too much for Karlach. She slapped both hands on her mouth to try and stifle her laughter, only for it to come out of her nose in a painful-sounding honk that was, in turn, too much for Wyll. And Astarion. And-- hells, it was too much for everyone.
“Pfft--!”
“Hahaha!”
“Oh gods, oh gods I can’t--”
“Sil-- heh-- Silvanus lend me strength--"
“BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!” Karlach finally cracked, bending forward with both hands on her stomach. Through their own gales of laughter - Astarion clung to their robe to keep standing as though his knees could no longer support him while he snickered - Durge could swear there were tears streaming down her cheeks. “HAHAHAHA! Oh gods-- Yurgir, sorry mate, but that’s- HAHAH!”
“STOP LAUGHING IF YOU’RE SO SORRY!” Yurgir yelled, still skipping about with a liveliness that was quite at odds with the fury on his face.
“I’m- hahahahahahah! I’m tryin-- hahahahahahahahahah! Oh, he got you good! HAH!” She laughed again, slapping her knee. “Dammit Raphael, how dare you be funny?”
Still holding onto his side and looking a few steps away from the grave, but grinning at the scene before him nonetheless, Raphael bowed his head. “I live to entertain,” he muttered, voice smooth despite the shortness of breath. “Alas, I must deprive you of my presence for a short while. Some rest is warranted if I am to give my best in this duel. Until then, I do hope Yurgir the Dancing Orthon will serve well enough as entertainment. Fear not, Yurgir, I’ll get back to you shortly.”
“RAPHAEL, YOU BAST--”
“Invisibilis,” Raphael muttered, and vanished from sight. Unable to stop himself from dancing, Yurgir resulted to scream out a rather astounding array of insults that, Durge was rather sure, would make the most seasoned sailors in Grey Harbor gasp in outrage. The insults went on for a while. For… quite a while, with no attack from Raphael. Yurgir just kept dancing, the merregons kept staring, and they slowly managed to stop laughing. Somehow.
Most of them, anyway.
“Hey, Yurgir! Would it-- heh!-- would it make you feel any better if I came over to dance, too?”
“COME BACK, YOU COW-- don’t mock me, little rabbit!”
“Hey, it was an honest offer. It looks fun.”
With Yurgir now yelling out a few choice insults at Karlach, too, Wyll stifled another chuckle and turned to look at the others. “... All right, where has he gone?”
Astarion looked around. “Good question. He didn’t really run, did he? Durge, can you see--”
“Oh, no,” Halsin spoke, very quietly. “He didn’t run. He’s a few paces behind us. Turn, but don’t make it too obv--”
Three heads turned back as one. All things considered, they were rather lucky that Yurgir was too busy dancing and yelling at Karlach to really pay attention to them. Durge spotted it first, the small empty bottle on the ground next to a boulder, and recognized the shape of it immediately.
“... Potion of Angelic Slumber. Of course,” they murmured, and cast a quick spell to see the invisible. And there was Raphael, asleep against the boulder, chest rising and falling in slow, regular breaths - well on his way to a full recovery so he could actually fight at full health, and with all his spellcasting abilities. Clever, that. He was definitely going to need it but, for the first time, Durge began to think he could actually win that fight.
Astarion chuckled. “Ah, ironic, that. Does he actually look angelic?”
Durge cast another quick look. He looked peaceful, but angelic? That was a couple of bridges too far. “Not in the slightest,” they said, turning back. “The potion shouldn’t last much longer.”
“Ah well. We get to watch the dancing orthon until then,” Astarion snickered, and seemed quite happy to do just that, leaving Raphael to his much-needed sleep - which was entirely undisturbed by Yurgir’s screams as he detailed what limbs and appendages we was going to tear off him before he got to his tongue.
When Raphael came to, all was darkness and agony.
Every breath of air forced into charred lungs, every movement, every disjointed thought, every layer of skin he could feel peeling off was a lesson in pain. He was laying on something flat and he could hear, faintly, someone speaking above him.
“... May not be able to save him, even though Lord Mephistopheles’ stopped short of ending him. Hellfire is unforgiving, and the damage is so extensive--”
“It is Lord Mephistopheles’ order that he lives. See that you don’t fail him.”
“High Cantor, with all due respect--”
“I have no use for your respect. You’re here for Raphael. Either he lives, or you can find out if your respects will be enough to quell our lord’s fury. And I can promise you, they won’t be.”
A pause, a sigh. “Very well,” the voice murmured again. There were steps, a spell being murmured, and something washed over Raphael, the smallest measure of relief. When he drew a gasping breath, his throat sent shards of pain through his entire body, or what remained of it, but it was almost bearable. When he tried to speak, a voice did come out in a raspy whisper through regenerated tissue.
“... Where…?”
"Raphael." Lady Antilia sounded surprised, and let out a long breath of her own. “You’re in Mephistar. You’re recovering. You’ve been unconscious a tenday - healers are tending to you.”
Raphael felt the faintest touch on his face, a hand half-resting, half-hovering above his eyes. He tried to open them, but the darkness remained. Perhaps it was a good thing that he could not see what state he was in, but it terrified him still. “I can’t… I can’t see,” he rasped.
“Your eyes are regenerating. It’s just a matter of time.”
What happened, Raphael wanted to ask, but he already knew two things: he did not want to know, and it would come back to him either way. So for now he only remained still, listening as Antilia sang something, low and slow and haunting; she was no healer, but a song of healing was well within her capabilities. The relief was once again small, but it was there.
“If he can talk, his pharynx must have regenerated. He may be able to drink this,” someone was saying. There was the clinking of glass. “It would be extremely helpful.”
“... Give it here.”
Antilia’s hand shifted to support the back of Raphael’s head. The pressure caused yet more pain to wrack through him, and he cried out, but she didn’t relent. His head was lifted, something was pressed against his lips and poured into his mouth, down his throat. He could barely taste it - honey and herbs, was all he could think - but it was cold and soothing, and it left him numb. Within moments, he was slipping out of consciousness. He welcomed it.
Had it been poison, he’d have welcomed death.
Raphael had gone centuries upon centuries without ever thinking of death.
Well. Without thinking of his own death, to be specific, for the simple reason that he’d decided long ago that it wouldn’t happen. He would not die. The flow of time was never lethal to devils, of course, so it was simply a matter of never dying by anybody’s hand within the confines of Baator. Having survived events that could have - should have - spelled his end long before he even reached his first century of life, he was determined to hold tight onto the immortality his fiendish blood granted him.
He would not die as long as none could kill him, and he would never give anybody a chance to try. Until he had - against beings who, by all accounts, should have succumbed to his power like insects beneath a boot.
To say the outcome hadn’t been ideal would have been a polite euphemism.
Even so, it had not been his death when - again, by all accounts - it really should have been. He’d felt that last strike severing something while he choked on his own blood, forcing out the last words of a desperate plea for help; he’d seen all light fade into darkness, felt his own knees fold, the hard marble floor beneath his cheek. And then, at the edge of the precipice, there had been something - a pull, then darkness. When he’d come to, his broken body was in Mephistopheles’ unyielding grip.
This awakening was, at least, not quite as unpleasant. Yurgir’s voice screaming how he’d ‘make a coin pouch out of his ballsack’ was admittedly not the best welcome back to consciousness he’d ever experienced. Still, it remained a vast improvement on awakening in his father’s grasp, dangling above his maw. By several orders of magnitude.
And of course, another key difference was that he was not broken, physically at least. He was actually in the best shape that mortal body could be, and he supposed he had as good a chance he was ever going to get to win that fight.
So, time to start off on the right foot.
Raphael looked at his hands to ensure the invisibility spell still held - it did - and stood to walk up beside the rest of the party, taking a look at Yurgir. He had been unable to break out of the spell, for all his yelling, and Raphael allowed himself a few moments of admittedly puerile amusem*nt to look at the orthon’s frankly abysmal dancing before--
A hand grasped his wrist, causing him to blink. Durge could see him, clearly, but did not turn to look at him as they spoke, voice a murmur. “Use thunderwave when he throws the grenades,” he whispered. “It served us well in the Gauntlet. And keep calm, you make mistakes when you’re angry.”
“... I’ll keep it in mind.”
“He will try to turn invisible, most likely. You’ll want to prevent that.”
Ah, of course. It had made him quite a nuisance, when he’d turned on him in the House of Hope. Raphael nodded and stepped forward, lifting his hands.
“Ira et dolor!”
“AGH!”
Even in a cloud of spinning daggers, even as he cried out in surprise and pain, Yurgir failed yet again to break free of the spell. He looked around, nearly foaming at the mouth even as he twirled one more time. “Show yourself, bast--”
“Te video.”
“The f*ck--?”
Faerie fire did not cause harm, but it mattered not. The still swirling daggers saw to that while the spell took effect, so that Yurgir couldn’t turn invisible for a while. Long enough, hopefully, for Raphael to end the fight. Possibly in his favor. He fancied keeping his tongue, as well as other no less important bits of his anatomy.
“Ugh! What is-- agh! What’s the light show about!”
“Oh, but why reveal the surprise?” Raphael asked, and cast one last glyph of warding between himself and the orthon. He felt the invisibility spell waver and break just as he finished whispering the incantation; Yurgir’s eyes found him, and his features twisted in a scowl of pure rage that rather undermined the remarkable pirouette that followed. He strained against the dancing spell but again failed to free himself, cursing him and grunting at the dagger cuts in the same breath.
Acutely aware of the fact Yurgir may free himself any moment, Raphael had little time to consider his next move. The orthon’s attacks were devastating when they hit - so it would probably be best to try and diminish his chances of striking true. A sick opponent was preferable to a healthy one, surely.
“Diminuo te!”
“What no-- ugh! You bastard…” Yurgir groaned, sickness taking hold of him just as he managed to stop dancing. With a grunt, he stepped away from the cloud of daggers and dragged himself towards him. He grimaced, a hand going to his blade. “f*cking cambions and your tricks. I’ll make a necklace out of your--”
The ground lit up.
“Oh, f*ck off-- ”
CRACK.
The crack of lighting almost drowned out Astarion’s laugh, but not entirely. Yurgir staggered back right into the cloud of daggers, snarling yet more deeply uncreative insults and threats as to where he was going to shove his bombs. Raphael cast a glance to the side. The merregons were still standing in place, staring from behind the masks, but the rest of the party was sitting to watch and-- was that a bottle of wine going around?
He sighed. “... Really?”
“What? We’re enjoying the show!”
“You’re doing great.”
“Maybe you won’t lose that badly.”
Raphael scoffed. “Why, thank you,” he muttered, and turned his attention back on Yurgir. He still looked ill, but it didn’t keep him from giving a roar of fury and charging, blade in one hand, bombs in the other. He was much too strong for Raphael to match; he had to be faster.
Longstrider. Now.
“I’LL MAKE JELLY OUT OF YOUR EYEBALLS!”
Raphael cast one more spell on himself just as Yurgir lifted a massive dagger over him to strike, and the true duel began.
When he next opened his eyes, Raphael could see… something. Lights and shadows - the light of magical flickering flames, and the shadows they cast. The agony was still there, but it was more subdued, as long as he did not move… and indeed, he could not move. He recognized the effects of a holding spell at once, even through the daze.
He let out the faintest groan and blinked, trying to get his still half-formed eyes to see something, anything - and above him, a shadow shifted.
“Ah, you’re awake.”
Mephistopheles’ voice was calm, but he may as well have screamed in fury for the terror it unleashed someplace deep in Raphael’s core. It all came back suddenly, crashing down on him like a collapsing glacier - the punishment, hellfire, the agony, the nothingness that had followed. Unable to move, he could only whimper. “My lord--”
“Quiet. You have little enough strength as it is.”
“I-- please, I’m sorry--”
“I know. You’d be a fool not to be.” There was a pause, the shadow shifting as it looked across the room. “You seem to have no visitors to your bed. Unusual. But I suppose you don’t quite stoke their appetites like this. They’ll have to find someone else as generous with their body as you’ve always been with yours.”
Raphael swallowed, saying nothing in the face of the obvious disdain in his sire’s voice. As he got no response, Mephistopheles spoke again. “... Obviously, you’re not the first halfbreed to seek crumbs of affection in a bed . ” The word was spoken in the same tone one would refer to a sickness. “Those with human blood crave it more than most, I found. It is a flaw I can ignore. It would have elicited no punishment, if not for your arrogance.”
There were plenty of full-blooded devils who sought sex as much as he did, but Raphael knew that contradicting his sire now would be the epitome of idiocy, so he did not. He licked his lips. They were cracked and burned but, until not too long ago, he doubted he’d had any lips left. “I didn’t mean it,” he choked out. “I swear.”
“Hmm. Do you recall what transpired in my throne room?”
A shaky breath. “Hellfire,” he managed, then, “pain.”
“And it pains you to speak now, no doubt. I’ll seek the answers in your mind myself. Do not try to hide your thoughts from me, Raphael. I’ll know it if you do, and my patience is not to be tested.”
Raphael would not have been able to stop his father from digging through his thoughts even if he’d wanted to. He only remained still and limp, daring not to do anything that may anger him. After a few long moments of silence there was a hum.
“Ah. You do not recall all of it,” he said, thoughtful. There was a movement in the shadow - a hand reaching down - and Raphael whimpered.
No, no, no. Please. I hid nothing.
“Please, no more.”
A chuckle, and a hand lay against the cracked, burnt flesh that had once been his cheek. It did not hurt: rather it numbed the pain, his sire’s skin as cold as a glacier. The cold spread across his skin, everywhere, taking the edge off the lingering agony.
“No, no more,” his father said, not unkindly. “You survived what would have killed most. Perhaps you can make me proud yet.”
Some of the terror faded into relief and, for an instant, Raphael forgot he was even in pain. He shut his eyelids and dared lean against the touch on his cheek, letting himself speak without thought. “It’s all I wanted,” he whispered.
“Good.” An approving word, after so long. It was balm to wounds. “As soon as you’ve recovered, you will join our troops bound for Avernus, and report to Lord Bel.”
The Blood War.
The thought made any relief Raphael may have felt melt away like wax to a flame. It was the terror of every devil in the eight layers below Avernus, of every cambion most of all - to be found good for nothing but cannon fodder for the Blood War. Any and all devils with no other useful tasks or roles had to serve in it, and many would never return from it. With no true experience in combat, Raphael knew his odds of survival were slim.
“No-- no. My liege, I beg--”
“Do not. It’s unbecoming of a son of mine,” Mephistopheles cut him off, and the next plea died in Raphael’s throat. He opened his half-formed eyes again, struggling to see anything other than his shadow, to see his expression. Had he truly heard that word? Had his ears deceived him? A spurt of seed he willed to quicken a mortal’s womb, he’d called him as he burned him within an inch of his life - and now, as he sentenced him to death, he called him his son?
Raphael swallowed. “Father, I--”
“Don’t think of it as punishment. Think of it as a lesson. Nothing worthwhile is earned without suffering. So fight under my banner, earn your own victories in my name, and there will always be a place for you in my court, as my son.” There was a gesture and something was held before his face. He could just make out a faint, greenish glow. “Here. Take it.”
Raphael opened his mouth, breathed in, and absorbed the soul not unlike a mortal offered water in a desert. It had a similar effect, too - cool, soothing, and healing, taking away some of the lingering pain . When Raphael blinked his eyes open again, his vision was a little clearer; he could just make out his father’s features as he looked down at him.
His teeth were a flash of white above the blackness of his beard, against his crimson skin. His hand still cupped his cheek. “I’m certain you’ll do me proud,” he said. Had he been less dazed, had he been older, had he been any less desperate to hear that word again--
son
-- Raphael would have realized that the promise was being dangled before him the way a dog’s master does to make their mutt jump exactly as high as they want it to.
He’d have realized Mephistopheles had promised nothing until he’d looked into his mind and seen there was something he did not remember, and never explained what it was. He’d have remembered the very thing he’d been warned against almost as soon as he set foot in Mephistar - never trust a devil.
But he was dazed, and his vision was too blurry to realize Mephistopheles was looking at him the way he’d look at an experiment, any of his many projects he started and never finished, left to gather dust in the corner once they failed to hold his attention. He was still too blind to see that he would only ever be, at most, a well-trained dog in his sire’s eyes - willing to dance on two legs for scraps of food under the table, one snarl away from being deemed rabid and put down. So he nodded, and promised that yes, yes, he’d do him proud, he swore.
And that, love, was that.
Everyone working in the vault knew Mephistopheles was there the instant he stepped in. There was something that never failed to accompany his presence, a sense of dread that was difficult to describe but also impossible to mistake for anything else, after experiencing it only once.
It was as though the air itself became thicker, each movement just a little more difficult. Every debtor at work around her stilled, and so did the supervisor. Dalah found herself gripping a rag tightly enough to hurt her knuckles when Barbas’ bleating reached her ears, echoing between icy walls. She could not catch the words yet, but she recognized that particularly fawning voice the chamberlain only ever used before the Lord of Cania.
“What did you stop for? Back to work! Quick!” The supervisor’s voice nearly cracked for a moment, making it plain he wasn’t looking forward to being in his lord’s presence any more than they did. Still, an order was an order, and several pairs of hands went back to cleaning. Several empty stands filled the room they were in, and instructions were to get them ready to receive new artifacts which Mephistopheles had just now added to his collection.
And none of them wanted to find out what may happen if their master found their work unsatisfactory. If he did, the supervisor wouldn't be safe either.
“... Quite the successful expedition, it seems,” Barbas was saying, his voice approaching along with the steps of several people. “You must be pleased, my lord. Kintyre is yielding its secrets at last.”
“It is yielding artifacts. Whether those artifacts yield their secrets in turn is up to Quagrem and his researchers. But they have yet to disappoint too severely thus far.”
Mephistopheles’ voice was calm and even pleasant, as it often was. It had certainly been pleasant when Dalah had first made the mistake to summon him, to bargain for her husband’s life so many lifetimes ago. It had been pleasant as he set out his conditions, the wording clever enough to disguise what he’d truly meant to get out of it, out of her. It had been pleasant when he’d revealed it to her with a faint smile, calmly telling her that breaking the contract meant he’d take Rahirek’s life himself.
It had even been pleasant during the act, from which he seemed to get no more pleasure than she did. She’d remained still throughout, eyes shut, trying to think of nothing while he completed what he considered a business transaction as any other, inexorable as a glacier.
It did not hurt, she recalled. I hated that most of all, somehow. It would have been easier to bear, if it hurt.
She’d opened her eyes only at the end, when he’d laid a hand on her stomach with a touch that was somehow both burning hot and freezing cold. The smile had been too wide to be pleasant. Too many teeth. Too sharp.
This, too, I claim as mine.
“In here - careful, with the boxes,” Barbas’ voice snapped Dalah from her memories, and she realized she’d been standing still as a pillar of salt for several moments, staring at the rag in her hands without truly seeing it. “Is it here that you wish to expose the artifacts, my lord?”
“It will do,” Mephistopheles’ voice said. Close, much too close. Dalah could taste bile at the back of her throat. “It has enough space for any artifacts Quagrem finds no other use for.”
“Of course, of course. Out of the way, all of you!”
It was a scramble, every debtor moving quickly out of the way, to cower against a wall. Dalah got there on legs that didn’t feel like her own--
her body hadn’t felt like her own back then, either, in the months before her death
-- and kept her gaze fixed to the floor. She heard the grunts of devils opening crates and starting to place artifacts on the newly cleaned display stands, under the watchful eye of their master. It was not too bad, as long as she didn’t look, as long as she didn’t have to see--
“... I had placed a guardian in these vaults, as I’m sure you recall. Where is it?”
Something gripped Dalah’s throat, and she looked up sharply. She had not stood that close to Mephistopheles in the longest time; he’d passed her by a few times, but to her relief he’d always seemed to look right through her, with no hint of recognition or acknowledgment. He stood as tall as she recalled, the ram-like horns much the same, but he was wearing his Cold Lord visage that day - the deep blue skin, not the crimson it had been the day he’d sired a son on her. A son he’d sacrificed her life to create, and for whom he’d never cared.
The supervisor seemed to shrink, and he had to swallow before he spoke. Not so large and scary, now that he was the one under his betters’ watchful gaze. “Only a few rooms from here, my lord. We locked the doors in-between so it wouldn’t patrol this area. We wanted this room to be ready as quickly as possible, and it-- it makes the servants uncomfortable.”
Mephistopheles raised a coal black eyebrow. “Oh?” he asked, an amused note to his voice. “And since when is the security of my vaults second to the servants’ comfort?”
“It’s not, my lord. it’s-- they work best when not-- I figured it would be best--”
Mephistopheles did not deign him with a response. He simply looked past him, and called out. His voice was no longer as pleasant now: it was the crack of a whip, reverberating across the vaults.
“RAPHAEL!”
The response came as a roar first, and then a crash. Everyone except Mephistopheles and Barbas stepped back; the souls pressed themselves against the wall, trying to make themselves small. Dalah alone stood frozen in place, hands still clenched on the rag, when Raphael’s ascended form stepped into the room, flames crackling above misshapen skulls.
He cut a fearsome figure, but Dalah knew immediately something was wrong. It was in the way he hunched when he paused several paces away from Mephistopheles, the clicking noises it made without moving its jaws, the way he kept his wings folded as though he, too, was trying to make himself small.
Don’t hurt him, she thought, and to her horror she almost said as much aloud. She put a hand to her mouth, trembling, and kept silent as she watched Mephistopheles walk up to Israfel, and grasp his horns to look at him. Frozen on the spot, not even trying to pull away from his sire’s grasp, Israfel made a chirring noise, hunched even more.
And there was that smile again, too sharp, baring too many teeth.
“A halfbreed no longer, serving me well at last,” he said, and the smile changed to something that seemed almost fond. “Did you know, Barbas, that this creature dared turn on me once?”
It wasn’t often that anything about chamberlain Barbas looked or sounded honest, but as he glanced up at his lord, he did look and sound honestly flabbergasted. “He did?”
“Oh, yes. That’s how it lost the fourth eye.” Mephistopheles forced Israfel to turn to the chamberlain. On the right side of the central skull there was a patch of half-molten bone where, Dalah knew, it was still possible to see the opening of an empty socket if one looked closely enough. “I took it out the first time my useless son ascended, after a taste of hellfire that by all accounts should have ended him. The closest to perfection he’s ever been.”
“I… I believe I recall that incident. Is this how he survived? Ascension?”
“Yes.” There was a brief laugh. A pleasant one, of course. It made Dalah want to scream and cover her ears; still in his sire’s grasp, Israfel remained silent. “One of very few times he surprised me, I suppose. He got hold of a few souls, and suddenly this creature stood where a corpse should have been. Capable of withstanding hellfire, but half-mad with agony.”
“And he dared fight you?”
“He lashed out, and I retaliated. Calling it a fight would be giving him undue credit. At his best, he was still nothing to me. But the fact he could ascend piqued my curiosity enough to let him live and see what he may be capable of. Unfortunately, he failed to hold my attention for long and resorted to trying to pass himself off as the proper devil he never was, making his own little court in a corner of Avernus.” A chuckle. “A few modest victories in the Blood War, some talent for contracts, and he fancied himself an archdevil in the making. As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” Mephistopheles let go of Israfel’s horns, waving a dismissive hand. “Go back to your duties.”
It felt so deeply wrong, watching such a fearsome creature slink away like a chastised dog. It made something in Dalah’s chest ache, but at the same time she was relieved that he was stepping away from Mephistopheles, and that their gazes hadn’t met. If Israfel had looked to her for help, it would have broken her.
“... Oh, wait. I do have a task for you.” Mephistpheles called out suddenly, and Israfel stopped, turning back. The Lord of the Eighth looked at the supervisor. “You all have tasks. Yours is to supervise servants - not to figure where my vault guardian should patrol. It vexes me to see you forgot that. Raphael?”
“No!” The supervisor fell on his knees, terror etched on every feature. “My Lord, I humbly beg--”
Once again, the victim had barely enough time to cry out. Flesh was torn, bones cracked, blood splattered and burned; screams turned to gurgles and then ceased. It was all over in seconds; in the silence that followed, Dalah found she couldn't tear her gaze from Mephistopheles, who was smiling at the thing he’d turned her child into.
And finally, dread burned away into rage.
It wasn’t the first time she felt anger - she had been angry for a long time - but this was the first time the dread of Mephistopheles’ mere presence could not smother it. It was a relief; easier to handle than terror - the desire to see him suffer. And perhaps she would, soon. Something was moving behind the scenes, seeking to end his reign, and her son was part of the plan. For a moment she saw it in her mind clear as day - Israfel standing in blazing triumph above Mephistopheles’ bloodied, broken husk.
And for that one moment, beneath the hand over her mouth, she almost smiled, too.
Durge knew Raphael needed to end that fight, and fast, when they saw blood dripping on the ground through his fingers.
It had been going remarkably well, all things considered. Raphael’s decision to rely on speed and swift attacks from a distance paid off against a strong but slow opponent. Unable to rely on invisibility for any sort of sneak attack, Yurgir had resorted to using his crossbow, and bombs. The first cluster of which was swiftly thrown back to his face with a thunderwave, leaving him furious and seriously wounded. Another blow like that, Durge had thought, and the fight was all but won.
Of course, something had to go wrong.
Trouble for Raphael truly started when a crossbow bolt found its mark, burying itself in his thigh. He’d cried out, the leg buckling; he hadn’t fallen to the ground, but he’d clearly lost the tactical advantage of superior speed… and Yurgir hadn’t wasted the opportunity.
Raphael had been able to throw back yet another bomb, but a concussive blast had thrown him back, to hit the ground violently enough to snap at least a few ribs, again. Then another bolt had grazed the side of his head, leaving him dazed and bleeding profusely on the ground.
“Get up - get up, dammit,” Astarion had hissed by Durge’s side, tense as a bowstring.
Raphael had managed to lift himself up on his knees, and tried to cast a healing spell on himself, but it was too late. Yurgir’s poisoned blade had come down in a swift arc, and slashed open his left side. It sent him sprawling on the ground with a cry, a hand trying uselessly to stem the flow of blood - or keep his innards where they should be. It was hard to tell, from where they were sitting.
Somewhere on Durge’s left, Karlach sucked in a breath. “Well, f*ck,” she muttered. “That’s got to sting.”
“It’s not to the death, Yurgir!” Halsin called out, muscles tense and ready to stand and fight if need be. “You’re not supposed to kill him!”
Yurgir laughed. He was bleeding as well, clearly hurt far more seriously than he’d thought he could be in that fight; Raphael had almost brought him low, but he was still strong enough to deliver the final blow. “Oh, don’t worry. I won’t.” He reached down, and a massive hand closed around Raphael’s throat, lifting him up. He cried out, coughing up blood as he did. It made Yurgir’s grin widen. “You’re lucky I promised not to kill you, Raphael.”
Raphael coughed up more blood, and met his gaze with a grimace, hands still pressed against his side. “I made-- no such promises. I can end you.”
There was a moment of silence, a stunned look, and then - again - laughter. “Hah! You can be funny, I’ll give you that. Go on, yield. Admit defeat and I’ll make it a clean cut after-- AGH!”
With a scream, Yurgir dropped Raphael on the ground and staggered back before he fell on his knees, bringing a hand to his own throat, which suddenly gushed blood. Something protruded from it - the handle of a rapier. The tip of it stuck out at the base of his skull.
“Hah!” Wyll threw up his arms as though in triumph. “I told him it always pays to have a blade at hand! Didn’t I tell you?”
If Raphael heard, he was clearly too busy to reply. While Yurgir pulled the rapier out of his throat, causing yet more steaming blood to spill forth, he cast a healing spell on himself; it closed the gaping wound on his side, but did little for the poison it had left in him, surely. Under Durge’s gaze, he stood and staggered towards Yurgir. He picked up the rapier, causing Yurgir to look up, hands still on his throat to stem the flow of blood, eyes wide, unable to stand up.
There was more surprise than anger, and a hint of fear, for he knew what dying in Baator would mean… and it was true, after all, that Raphael had made no promises not to kill him. While he knelt, his eyes and Raphael’s were almost level. They locked, and held. Even from a distance, Durge could see Raphael’s grip on the rapier’s handle tightening.
“Raphael!” he called out, suddenly, and stood, striding towards them. The others followed quickly. “Raphael, enough. You’ve won.”
He didn’t seem to hear him. He just looked back at Yurgir, holding the rapier to his chest, his free hand lifted as if to cast. His teeth were bared in a bloodied snarl, his eyes ablaze. But instead of striking, he ground out a single word.
“Yield.”
A moment of silence, and then there was a guttural noise that was almost a laugh, or as close to one could get with a hole in one’s throat. Yurgir’s words were almost a gurgle, but intelligible nonetheless. “I never yield,” he said, and bared his teeth. “In a true fight to the death, I’ll die before I yield.”
Raphael narrowed his eyes. His limbs trembled; the poison was still at work. “... And suppose it isn’t?”
That guttural noise again, and yet more teeth were bared. It was a grimace and, somehow, it was also a grin. “Then you’d have the fight,” he conceded.
The rapier fell on the ground with a clatter, and Raphael staggered back. He only managed a couple of steps before his knees folded, and he fell. Or would have, had Durge not been quick enough to catch him and kneel, lowering him to the ground and letting him rest his head against their chest. They heard, faintly, Wyll and Karlach approaching Yurgir to hand over a couple of healing potions, and help him stand.
“Halsin,” Durge called, but of course he was already there, kneeling, murmuring a spell of restoration to rid Raphael of the effects of the poison before he cast a healing spell. Raphael sucked in a shuddering breath, a hand clenching on Durge’s robe.
He remained weak, but he wasn’t actively dying at least. He managed a few words when their gazes met. “Enjoyed-- the performance?”
“Oh, I for one loved it,” Astarion spoke up. He crouched next to Durge, grinning. “Perfectly bloody, and it won me some coin.”
Durge chuckled. “It was really damn good. But I think it’s best if you don’t go accepting duels for a while. That was a close call.”
A soft scoff. “A warning, no less. Don't tell me you're worried about me.”
Ah, of course. Throwing their own words back at them, wasn’t he? Durge almost laughed, and clicked their tongue. “Merely protecting my assets,” they replied, in a terrible imitation of the devil’s own voice. Raphael chuckled.
“It pays to be-- useful, doesn’t it?”
“Or perhaps we’ve grown fond of you, in our way.”
The chuckle died on Raphael’s lips and, for a moment, he said nothing. His gaze shifted from them to Astarion, to Halsin, back to them.
“... Mortals,” he said in the end. “Your naïveté is almost charming.”
Astarion raised an eyebrow. “Did you just call us charming?”
“I said almost.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment,” Halsin muttered.
“Then I explained myself poorly,” Raphael grumbled, and wrinkled his nose in annoyance at Durge’s laugh. That, however, was smoothed out when Durge reached to cup the side of his head with a hand.
“You can make your disdain for us clear later. Now you should rest.”
He seemed about to say something, but in the end he kept quiet and closed his eyes, turning to press his cheek against Durge’s palm.
They didn’t pull it away.
