Know thyself.

-Socrates


BALDUR'S GATE/OFF

Two youths, both alike in dignity,
In fair Candlekeep, where we lay our scene,
From ancient prophecy break to new mutiny,
Where divine blood makes mortal hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of unknown foe
A pair of star-cross'd warriors take their life;
Whose heroic or villainous overthrows
May unleash or bury their sire's strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd lives,
And the continuance of inborn rage,
Which, but the Children's end, nought could remove,
Is now the two year's traffic of their stage;
The which if one with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, their toil shall strive to mend.


















1. In Fair Candlekeep



Candlekeep.

Safe.

Secure.

Home.

The fair first day of merry Mirtul was bright and sunny in the small, walled library town of Candlekeep, and, as usual, the cloistered fortress of a settlement was quiet and peaceful.

Quiet and peaceful save for the two young humans engaged in furious sparring in the gardens around the library, at least.

These were the youths Onyx and Jade, their eyes darting over each other as they anticipated and attacked, their movements inexpert but athletic, their muscles rippling beneath their tunics as they dueled. Jade's tunic was simply a solid dark shade of gray, not quite black, Onyx's was light blue but upon the chest had the emblem of a rosy disc depicting a sunrise. He had upon a planed face intense sapphire eyes, lips held firm, and a short crop of light brunette hair; she had upon a stone-smooth and round face appraising emerald eyes, pursed full lips, and bright scarlet hair that fell to her neck.

When shadows descend upon the lands... wafted the chanting of monks across the gardens.

The blades of Onyx and Jade crossed.

"You seem distracted, sis," Onyx looked over the "X" made by their wooden swords.

"I am," Jade nodded as they pulled their blades apart and swung again, this time hitting each other's shields.

"What is it?" Onyx asked and stabbed for Jade's chest.

"It's...everything," Jade looked skyward, deflecting the thrust at her heart. "The whole world. It's out there, we're in here. There's nothing here for me. And no one."

Our divine lords will walk alongside us as equals...

"Our father? Immy? Each other?" Onyx inquired with eyes of compassion from under his sword as he raised it to block his twin sister's downward swing.

"You know what I mean...." Jade hopped back and Onyx's oaken weapon swung through empty air just in front of her.

"Father's right, and so's Jondalar," Onyx answered, swinging again and missing, "We're not ready yet."

...The Lord of Murder shall perish...

"But we are!" Jade swung her sword down fast and hard, "Summer after summer, all we do is hunt kobold raiders between her and the Way. Where's the fun, the freedom, the adventure?"

Onyx easily caught the incoming weapon on the hilt of his own. "Yeah... this is home, but...well, with this iron shortage we keep hearing about, I almost wish we could do something about it."

Jade looked into her opponent's eyes, trying to anticipate his next move. "Oh, there you go again bro, those blue eyes getting all dreamy. Want to be the little hero."

"It's not about that. I just want to do what's right," Onyx sighed, while lunging with a swing.

...But in his doom he shall spawn a score of mortal progeny...

"You don't sound very confident," Jade teased him, ducking the swing, scoffing, and swinging low.

"Well, I don't want to be overconfident either," the young paladin jumped over the low strike and swung from the side, "Believing in a cause is a balancing act. Otherwise confidence becomes arrogance, or flexibility becomes indecisiveness."

"Balancing?" Jade snickered, holding out her shield and swinging from the other side, "You sound like a treehugger now. Looking out for one woman is cause enough, in this dangerous world," her emerald eyes grew further away. "You always make it sound so simple. You've had it easy. You've never even had to look out for yourself, really."

"C'mon, sis, we've grown up the same," Onyx sighed as both swords glanced of both shields.

...Chaos will be sown from their passage...

Onyx and Jade circled each other, anticipating one another's next attacks.

"That's not the point," Jade frowned, "Candlekeep is a bubble. An ivory tower. Romantic ideals are so easy here. All talk. How much courage have you really had to show, brother? You can't just keep doing stupid chores like fetching swords for guards too dumb to remember them, or feeding medicine to sick old cows. "

"Good deeds are their own reward," Onyx shrugged as they engaged, "Besides, Miss Scrolls-and-Bolt Speedy Delivery and Great Slayer of Rats, you're one to talk."

"I got paid, idiot," Jade snarled. "The rest of the world is brutal, dangerous, and dark."

"It's good and bad, aye, and complicated. And it will be a test, whenever it comes," Onyx cautiously studied his opponent.

"And will you hold up, I wonder? Better yet, I should you? The test is survival. Keep trying to defend every last little cause, and you'll end up a corpse, not a hero."

"I'm not trying to be a hero. No one has to be. It just sometimes turns out that way."

...So sayeth the wise Alaundo!

Onyx and Jade lunged forward, swinging their swords hard. As the wooden weapons moved toward each other, they cracked together with such force that the blades splintered at the point of impact, and the ends went flying into the pools flanking the path.

"Would they shut up already!?" Jade turned her attention across the gardens, towards the monks.

"I'd have put it more delicately," Onyx chuckled, folding his hands over the emblem on his blue tunic, "But I'm inclined to agree. Cyric slew Bhaal. Whatever his schemes, they're history."

"Gods," Jade spat into the pool, "People should spend more time looking to themselves, less to the irrelevant doings of deities."

Onyx and Jade turned their attention to two scruffy looking men who were approaching down the cobblestone path. The two young warriors couldn't help noticing the men each were making lame attempts to hold weapons 'concealed' by their sides. The duelers both dropped their broken wooden swords, their hands reflexively went to the steel swords' hilts at their belts.

"Hey there!" one of the scruffy men, a slightly overweight blonde fellow, called to them, showing a mouth full of rotten teeth, "You boys be Gorion's wards?"

"What the hell are you talking about, hick?" Jade snarled at him. The man looked a tad surprised, then turned to the other.

"Yeah," the second guy, a weasel-faced type with a cowl, smiled with a look as if he had just figured out something he thought was really clever, "That's them."

"Your lives shall be mine," Jade snickered, she and Onyx immediately poised for combat as years of Jondalar's training kicked in.

The physical fight was over before it began. Onyx unsheathed his sword and swung it so hard at the neck of the blonde man who lunged with a shortsword, that he cleaved through his swordarm wrist, disarming him of his weapon and three fingers, and without losing speed beheaded him. Jade swung her shield at the rodent-man's lunging blade so hard that the armament went flying from the fool's hand, his wrist probably broken as well, and then Jade thrust her longsword into the man's innards and twisted it before kicking his body off.

As the decapitated body of the man he'd killed hit the cobblestones, the sickening crunch triggered something in Onyx's mind. He had seen it the moment he engaged his foe, but his mind, on the physical battle then, just now contemplated it. He had seen through the man. He had seen his sins. Which were not mortal or many. I killed a man. I killed another person.

"Pathetic," Jade spat upon the limp bodies of the men as they fell to the ground and bled. She looked at the lifeblood coating her sword and grinned. Onyx watched in disgust as Jade seemed to close hers eyes and breathe deeply of the iron-copper smell of the blood, visibly relishing it. But then, his disgust gave way to more of a curiosity, the smell filled his senses, and he felt a rush.

"Oh," Jade smirked when she finally opened her eyes, "Don't tell me you're not enjoying it. I can see it. That same tingle in your eyes get on the kobold hunts."

"Adrenaline rush," Onyx shrugged. It felt well enough like one. "Maybe relatively intense. I feel a little odd, but it's my first time killing a man. To be expected, I guess."

"Yeah," Jade chuckled while the well-taught warriors cleaned their blades, "I know what ya mean." She appraised her brother carefully, and her face lost its excitement to compassion. "I know what you're thinking, bro. It was the right thing to do. We had to. It's not your fault."

The paladin covered his face, wiping away the sweat as if it were the guilt. But only the perspiration came away. "Yeah...I don't like having to." He frowned at his sister, and it asked does that mean I chose the wrong path?

And er smile answered, No, it means you made the right one...

...for now.

"Children!" came a very familiar shout from the top of the steps, and Onyx and Jade looked up to see Gorion.

Gorion. Their foster father. Onyx and Jade immediately perked their rounded ears to catch his words. This was the man that, to them, was their father, the only father they knew or remembered. For they remembered nothing of their own parents, or their lives before Gorion himself had brought them to Candlekeep as babes; and even through him they knew little. Their mother, his friend, had apparently had been from Silverymoon, and died in their twin childbirth. For a favor to her, or out of pure compassion, he had taken Onyx and Jade under his wing and thus to Candlekeep. Of their father, they knew nothing. But Gorion had been a father to them these twenty years. The only father they'd ever need.

Gorion came down the front steps of the library. "You are in danger!"

"So I hear," Jade laughed sarcastically, gesturing down to the two bodies at her feet.

"Oh no!" Gorion shouted. "Then...then it is true. Assassins."

"Dumb ones," Jade chuckled.

"Yeah, you'd think they would have tried to get us two-on-one," Onyx shrugged. "And not virtually announced their intentions to our faces in broad daylight."

"...Not that it would have changed the outcome," Jade laughed.

"You are both okay then?" Gorion sighed with visible relief as he reached them, and pulled out two bags that Jade noticed eagerly were filled with gold. "Now, what I must tell you to is brief but of grave importance. We must leave Candlekeep immediately - take this gold to Winthrop's store and buy yourself what you need. And I do not mean food and such, that I have for you, but weapons of fighting beyond those you possess. Trust me. It is fortunate that you two have trained to be warriors, for it seems that already today you have seen bloodshed."

"Caused," Jade grinned, and a very worried look came over the old man's face.

"Seem not so fond if it, my child," Gorion looked up at his foster daughter, who stood taller than he, "I fear that you may soon see much more than you like."

"Leave Candlekeep?" Onyx's face creased with sorrow. "For how long, father?"

"I do not know, child," Gorion shook his head sadly. "I am sorry. Now, go! Meet me back here soon!"

The youths' stomachs wrenched as they turned and walked away. Onyx merely looked groundwards and sighed, while Jade ruefully murmured, "Be careful what you wish for..."

Gorion had left the library doors wide open, and from within, the statue of Alaundo the Wise stared out into the gardens. It seems to gaze at the youths with the bloody swords, its stone face set as ever in a solemn look, ever expectant, ever knowing.