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Tav thought she had gotten used to mass amounts of insane information being dumped into her brain at once. From Astarion’s history with Cazador and centuries of torture, to Lae’zel’s depictions of red dragons soaring through the air and something called “the astral plane,” life had become more complicated than her human tadpole-infested brain could process. She thought she had accepted that. Or, at least, had come to a mutual understanding with it.
That was until her wizard’s eyes had darkened with a fear she had never seen before, and a minty arrow of panic shot down her vertebrae.
“Listen, I need to speak with you,” he said, seconds after absorbing what was once a perfectly good poisoner’s robe, “to all of you. It would be unconscionable of me to remain silent.”
Tav had finally felt like she was in a place to tease Gale for using such words – arduous, spelunking, unconscionable. She felt… comfortable with him. She recalled his makeshift magic lesson – how excited he was to see the purple sparks aglow in her hands. How praiseworthy he was. How… bashful he became, at the image she conjured. She pretended to not be so before his lesson, but seeing him react the same way to her as she had been feeling internally all those days before – from the very moment she pulled him from that portal, if she was being perfectly honest with herself – had settled something within her. They felt on equal playing field. Two dancers in a ballroom given the same steps.
But seeing his usually wide, curious eyes narrowed in… something else. It stirred something she thought had steadied. She was not ready for such a feeling. Not by a long shot.
He stepped closer, looking at her – only her – as he spoke.
“You have to know who I was. You have to know who I really am.”
Gale was slightly taller than her, and it was never more noticeable to her than in this moment. Both his truth and the magnitude of it hung over her, exemplified in his stature. She heard Astarion shift behind her, as well as Lae’zel. She could only assume their hands now hovered over their weapons of choice.
“I’m what one might call a wizard prodigy…”
Tav felt her focus move in and out as her wizard – Gods, she had to stop thinking of him as hers, if there was anything about this conversation that remained factual, it was that he was very much so still Mystra’s – spoke to his past. His grand design for an even grander show of love and chivalric romance, after a lifetime defined by the goddess he worshiped. She felt a bit of her soul light aflame as his voice deepened at the refence of her.
Teacher, muse, lover.
She wouldn’t dwell on it. Not now. She cared about the man in front of her too much to get lost in the idea of the wizard he became under her grasp.
Flying towers, an attempted usurpation, prime chaos, fractures of weave, and the return of both Mystra and all her shattered shards faded to the back of her mind as Gale became more and more animated.
“Until in the course of my studies I learned of a book. A Netherese tome in which a piece of the fractured Weave had been sealed beyond her reach. What if, I thought, what if, after all this time, I could return this lost part of herself to the goddess?”
Tav heard Astarion scoff behind her. “A piece of advice, Gale – never tell a woman she is missing a part of herself. It never goes over well.”
Lae’zel cursed something in githyanki. “How stereotypically masculine.”
Tav just kept staring at Gale, her eyes giving too much of herself away. Based on Gale’s steady, vulnerable gaze still locked in her own, she knew he could read her like the very tome he referenced.
He attempted a chuckle. “You know me. My gestures can never be grand enough.”
It didn’t land. Not with Tav, anyway. Gale continued – making sure to mention, one last time, how draped in romance such a deed would be, and how sure he was that it would lead to an even more intimate relationship with Mystra, and therefore, magic itself.
“I was mistaken,” he said, solemnly, looking down towards his feet. “I obtained the fabled book and took it into my study. As for what happened next…”
He paused, and his eyes glimmered with what Tav had come to recognize as registration.
“Here,” he said, going to his knees in front of her, “place your hand over my heart. Let me show you.”
Tav was… well, she was of two minds. While the foundations of what she had come to view as Gale of Waterdeep were cracking in her mind, there existed a pool of… care, for him. Illogical, stubborn, piercing care, that took the cracking foundations within it and guided her hand to his chest.
She hovered hand over his chest, the tips of her fingers feeling the heat emanating off the pulse point in his neck, and felt the weave pull her down, down, down into the dark.
Gale gripped onto her knuckles with both hands, and she was shown image after image – the book opening, consuming him, lodging itself deep into his chest. She could almost feel it herself – that arcane, foreign latching onto her very soul, and gods was it ever hungry.
Gale’s body thrashed and fought her touch, but she remained firm, pushing her hand closer to him without realizing it. His firm grip on her kept her there, but did not pain her. It was desperate, yes, but not at the loss of restraint. It was so very Gale.
She couldn’t enjoy it, and she would come to hate the fact that that would always be the story of their first time she chose to touch him.
Tav opened her eyes, meeting the darkness in his. “How… how are you still alive?”
Her voice was smaller than she wished it had been.
Gale kept his hands on hers as he said with a surprisingly steady voice. “Thankfully, the moment I absorbed the fragment wasn’t enough to kill me outright.” Tav’s hand had moved its way up to his jawline, the tips of her fingers brushing against his beard and the heat of his skin. A flush began to rise at the bottom of her neck. Out of anger, shock, surprise, diffidence at the touch of his skin – she didn’t know. “It was only the beginning.”
Gale looked to the position of her hand – now practically cupping his cheek. He looked up at her – so raw and real. She couldn’t help the brush of her thumb against his cheekbone, nor how it glided back towards his lips. He stood slowly, and Tav let her hand drop. Gale removed one hand from hers – slowly – but let the other keep a hold. It covered over her knuckles, soft and calloused all at once. Tav did not pull away.
“This…” Gale said, his voice a touch deeper. Deeper, maybe, than when he spoke the name Mystra. “This… Netherese blight. This orb, for lack of better word, is balled up inside my chest. And it needs to be fed.” He swallowed, and Tav watched his adam’s apple bobble. She hadn’t realized how much the scarring from this… orb, stretched up his neck.
Gale’s eyes had returned to their wide curiosity, but with an undercurrent of fragility. Tav knew, then – as he spoke about what would occur if he did not receive potent enough sources – that he truly thought this was it. This was the moment he was exiled, isolated, once more.
“All of this…” he said, a sad smile etching his face. “It must feel like a betrayal. Say the word, and we’ll part ways.”
Tav didn’t hesitate. Not when he looked at her like that. “I care too much about you to abandon you now, Gale.”
Tav squeezed his hand in hers, feeling the heightened thumping of Gale’s pulse within.
“We travel on together.”
Gale’s face was unburdened with abandonment, and alight with the most handsome mix of gaiety and disbelief. “That is…quite a relief. Quite a relief indeed!”
His voice deepened, returning to what it was as he looked into her eyes, readying himself for her to leave. “You truly are a soul that steels my own. From all my new-rallied heart, I thank you.”
As if suddenly remembering that they weren’t alone, Gale’s gaze broke from hers, and bounced between their companions. “I thank you all. I understand if you stand against me… I’m humbled, if you stand with me. Either way I will do my best not to let you down. I’ll fight, I’ll resist, as long as I can.”
Tav didn’t look behind her to decode her companion’s reactions. She barely registered Astarion’s comment about how he could possibly live without a walking thesaurus, or Lae’zel’s cursing of his trickery. Tav eyed her hand in his, and allowed her mind to focus on that.
Gale was here. Now. She was feeling him – had felt him. He wasn’t going anywhere. Not yet. Not if she could help it.
As if pulled from a fog, Tav returned to herself as that hand was brought to a warm pair of lips, bristled by stubble, and Gale’s orb permeated purple around his head.
“Thank you, darling,” he mumbled, before remembering himself. He cleared his throat and let her hand drop from his. “Now, even I tire of the sound of my own voice. Let us, as you say Tav, travel on together.”
Gale gathered his quarterstaff and pressed on through the rancid stench of goblins, while Tav brought her hand to her chest, feeling slightly faint.
“Shall we all stand and wait for your heart to steady, darling,” Astarion gloated. “We don’t want a spreading of lovesickness in our pretty leader, do we?”
Lae’zel poked her with the hilt of her sword. “Get a move on, istik, before I make you.”
Tav huffed a breath. “I should have brought Wyll and Karlach. They can at least tease quietly.”
Tav moved along, falling behind her wizard. Most of her quivered in fear at the thought of losing him to that Netherese blight, he had called it – watching him implode, powerless to stop it.
A small part of her, however – an aperture of light within her heart – quivered at something else entirely. It was enough to keep her putting one foot in front of the other.