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Chapter Text

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Gale 

Gale glowered at the tabloid before folding it with a rough snap and tossing it onto the table. It landed among a scatter of empty cups and yesterday's abandoned mail. His coffee, tepid and bitter, went down in a few bracing gulps. The sour aftertaste clung to his tongue like a bad memory. He dragged a hand through his hair and made his way towards the door.

In the hallway, his satchel lay on the floor precisely where he had discarded it the previous day. He hoisted it over his shoulder, adjusting the strap; once, twice, thrice, then once more, compelled by some small tyrant of symmetry.

The hallway mirror caught his passing form, but he spared it no glance. A quick peek into the reading room revealed it was empty. Tara's usual perch by the window sat abandoned, the cushion still bearing the faint impression of her absence. She was likely already in Gale's office, gathering whispered fragments of early morning gossip from the unsuspecting campus staff.

Gale stepped over the threshold, and pain spiked behind his eyes, sudden and searing as his pupils contracted against the blinding light.

Outside, early spring wore the guise of high summer. The sun pressed down like an accusation, harsh and uninvited, drawing sweat from his brow and glueing his too-thick robes to his skin in all the most disagreeable places. Everything felt too bright, too loud; a season overreaching itself.

Dust swirled in lazy spirals above the cobbled path as his boots followed their usual route, legs moving on instinct while his mind trudged behind, tangled in the growing mess of menial tasks that refused to arrange themselves into any sensible order. Water the perpetually dying office plant, which clung to life out of spite rather than any mercy of nature. Sort through the top drawer, a veritable graveyard of broken, dust-choked trinkets. And respond, and by respond, he meant firmly decline the invitation to the upcoming Fey Day Masquerade. And, gods willing, see it all accomplished before the morning lecture, certainly before the accursed midday one.

Teaching theoretical magic to a room full of young adults brimming with energy and even more ego, who had long since stopped believing his threats of detonating the orb on sight if they annoyed him too much, was not a task suited to the faint of heart. It always ended the same way: Gale slumped in his chair, face buried in his palms, counting down the hours until he could drown the day in a long, well-earned glass of wine.

He was mid-step when a shadow crossed his path, and he barely halted in time to avoid a collision.

"My apologies, I didn't..." The words snagged in his throat. A surge of magic prickled across his skin; familiar, volatile, impossible to forget. He recognised it before he saw her. A shiver ran down his spine as he finally looked closer and truly took her in.

Her skin, a dusky violet beneath the morning sun; hair, a wild tangle of red, spilt from beneath the wide-brimmed hat tilted low over her brow, carefully angled to obscure her horns. Waterdeep was mostly kind to tieflings, but the emphasis was, as always, on mostly.

She looked up at him, eyes like fire in the dark, wide with recognition. "Wizard!"

"Arabella?"

She shifted her weight, one hand flying to scratch the back of her neck, accidentally knocking her hat forward. With a quick, clumsy motion, she caught it before it could tumble off.

"Jaheira said you would be here," she mumbled, her voice small, eyes darting up to meet him.

She had grown a great deal. When Gale had last seen her, she had been small and malnourished. Now she stood taller, though still awkward in the way of adolescents whose limbs outpace their frame. Her height felt like an awkward placeholder, waiting for the rest of her body to catch up. The smile that had briefly touched her face faltered. Her gaze dropped once more, and her shoulders drew inward. Suddenly, Gale had the sinking feeling she was about to cry.

He resisted the instinct to recoil. Not out of cruelty, but because, gods, what was he supposed to do? Comforting distraught children was not exactly a standard unit in wizard training. And this particular child... well, she came with history.

Their first meeting still haunted the quieter corners of his mind—the wild, untempered power she had wielded, and the bitter tangle of emotions it had stirred within him. She had been a force; young, brilliant, gifted in ways that struck perilously close to old wounds. At the time, he had had little to offer her beyond wary caution. Perhaps even resentment.

But time had passed. She had grown, and he had changed. Though his steps still faltered, they no longer failed him entirely.

"Would you like to, um..." Gale cleared his throat, gesturing vaguely towards the towering building beside them. "...come inside. You can tell me what has brought you here."

He tried to sound calm, casual, anything but wildly out of his depth. Teaching had prepared him for many things. However, it had not cured his unease with these delicate emotional intersections. He merely clung to the hope that this time he might manage better.

Arabella did not respond straight away. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, the knuckles pale with tension. For a moment, Gale thought she might bolt. However, after a breath held too long, she offered a brief, rigid nod.

He pulled open the alumni entrance—its heavy doors groaning softly—and stepped aside, allowing her to slip into the cool, dimly lit interior. Together, they moved through the long, vaulted gallery, where pale green light filtered through the stained glass of high arching windows and broke apart upon suspended crystal lenses, scattering fragments of colour across the polished stone. Their footsteps echoed softly, the sound intertwining with the quiet murmur of the staff and early rising students scarcely populating the corridors.

Gale risked a glance at her beside him. Arabella's wide eyes drank in the soaring columns, the intricate latticework of brass and iron spiralling high above, and the ever-turning orreries that spun with a faint mechanical hum. Her expression was somewhere between reverence and wonder, as though she expected the very walls to whisper their secrets.

The magic of Blackstaff Academy was not simply taught here; it lived and breathed, folded into every joint and seam of stone and timber. It hummed beneath the floor, whispered from the walls, and wove itself into the air like an invisible current. Those attuned to the Weave could hear its quiet song always, steady, low and unceasing.

She could not have been more than twelve summers, a tender age not far from the one Gale himself had been when he first crossed this threshold. He remembered that day with perfect clarity. He had worn a mask of bravado, tinged with arrogance, hoping it might pass for confidence. However, it had been no such thing. It was armour, thin, brittle and hastily donned. Beneath it, he had been nothing more than a frightened child. Elminster had dropped him into this place like a stone into deep water, and from the very beginning, he had been marked as different. Special, talented, but different.

He had never made friends beyond the Academy's walls, and certainly none within them. His peers had felt threatened, or worse, humiliated, simply by his presence. In time, through sheer stubbornness and success, he earned respect, but never camaraderie.

Returning later in life had not made it any easier.

It wasn't the same, of course. Time had dulled some of the sharper edges. The weight pressing at his ribs was no longer as painful, but it was still there, settled like old sediment. He had grown accustomed to the constant hum of magic embedded in the stones, to the dry, predictable rhythm of teaching, to the colourless banter of colleagues and the endless stream of overconfident essays, always submitted late. In his own quiet, resigned way, he had even come to love the work.

Still, he avoided certain wings of the Academy without conscious thought, corridors still heavy with the ghosts of old memories. One office in particular remained locked and undisturbed, its former occupant rarely seen now outside Candlekeep or his Tower in Shadowdale.

Much of Gale's youth had been spent in that office room, shadowing Elminster, learning to stand steady beneath the crushing weight of expectation. Even now, passing that door twisted something deep in his gut.

And so, he carried on because work kept him busy. And busy meant not thinking about—

He cut the thought off abruptly, grinding it down before it could form.

Reaching his study, he pushed open the door and gestured for Arabella to enter first.

As expected, Tara was already inside, sprawled in a patch of early sunlight that streamed through the tall window. Gale followed Arabella in, crossing to the tressym and giving her an absent-minded scritch beneath the chin. Tara purred in approval, eyes narrowing to thin, contented slits.

"Tara, this is Arabella. Arabella, Tara. My friend," he said, gesturing loosely between them.

Arabella studied the tressym for a moment. Gale half expected the usual assumptions, a pet, a familiar, but she said nothing of the sort. For that, he was quietly grateful.

"A little young to be your student, is she not?" Tara remarked, her tone dry, not quite a question, more an observation. Her gaze remained fixed on the tiefling, tracking her every movement with careful attention.

Arabella's eyes widened further. The room, enchanted with the same magic Gale had once woven into her talisman, allowed Tara to speak freely. Within these walls, she could voice every thought, every grievance, without need for translation.

Arabella took the seat across Gale's desk and seemed, all at once, much smaller than she had moments ago. Her hands were tucked into her lap. The awe she had worn on the way in had begun to curdle as her mouth pulled down into a tight frown.

Gale shifted slightly in his chair, fingers briefly drumming against his thigh before stilling. He felt the urge to speak, to offer some comforting platitude, but the words felt premature. He waited instead, watching as her chest rose and fell in an uneven rhythm. Only when her breathing steadied and the fierce glimmer of distress faded a little did he clear his throat gently.

"So," he said, offering a small, what he hoped was a friendly smile, "to what do I owe this visit?"

Arabella straightened in her seat and lifted her chin, a flicker of resolve surfacing behind her eyes.

"The Boneman said the Weave will guide me on my path," she began, her voice trembling like a plucked string. Gale inclined his head, offering her his full attention. "But I am not sure I know how to listen."

"It takes time," Gale said softly, inviting her to continue.

"I don't think I have the time," she replied quietly. "Lately, it has been getting harder to control than before."

Gale's brow furrowed. He knew too well the treacherous undertow of power untamed. "Patience is key," he offered, although even as he spoke, he heard the shallowness of the reassurance. 

Arabella turned towards him sharply, her eyes shining with unshed tears. Without speaking, she reached into her bag and pulled out a small object swaddled in black silk, embroidered with delicate white and red flowers.

She laid it on the desk between them, her hand lingering for a moment before pulling away. Then, with a tiny nod, she gave him leave.

Gale, noting the tension in her shoulders and the way her lips trembled, reached forward and carefully unwrapped the bundle.

In his palm lay the delicate, unmoving body of a canary. Its feathers were golden and soft, its stillness unsettling. His breath caught, shallow in his throat—a flicker of an image: torn butterfly wings, tears swallowed by dirt. His jaw tightened once before he forced the memory away.

"I killed it," Arabella said suddenly. She spat the words as though they burned her mouth.

"You have killed people before," Gale reminded her gently, recalling the time Wyll had mentioned stumbling upon her in Baldur's Gate in the presence of corpses.

"Yes, but this was different. This time... I did not mean to. It just... happened."

Her voice softened at the end, the syllables cracking like thin ice beneath uncertain steps. Gale stared at the little bird resting in his hand, his heart growing tight.

"Can you tell me what happened, exactly?" he asked, aiming for gentle without sounding patronising.

"A cat caught her," Arabella said quickly, words tumbling over each other. "Her wing was already broken when I found her, but she was breathing, and I thought... I thought I could help."

She twisted her fingers in the hem of the too-long tunic she wore to hide her tail better, glancing down before looking up again, her eyes bright with emotion.

"I reached out to the Weave, exactly like Boneman told me to. At first, it worked, the bones aligned, they started healing, but then..." Her face twisted. "I don't know what happened. It all slipped away, and instead of giving, it was taking. I could not stop it."

Tears broke free now, carving silent trails down her cheeks. "I tried to. I tried to reverse it, but it was not working. Nothing was working." She sniffled and angrily wiped her tears away with her sleeve. "I had a scroll of resurrection. I did everything right, just like Halsin taught me. I counted. I kept track. Around fifty heartbeats when you are calm, fewer if you are scared." Her breath hitched. "I knew I had to be quick. I was quick. But even that was not working. There was no..." her words petered out.

"There was no soul left tethered to the creature," Gale finished for her, unable to keep the shock from colouring his voice.

She had destroyed the soul.

Gods.

"That is tremendous power, Arabella. To be able to sever life like that..." He hesitated, carefully choosing his next words. "And likely not one you should advertise, either."

The words felt feeble against the enormity of what she had done. His mind raced, unease creeping in like a cold draught through unseen cracks.

"Perhaps it would be wise to seek guidance from Withers."

"I don't know how to find him," she said quietly.

"He has not been in contact with you at all?"

"No."

A rush of anger twisted in Gale's gut, acrid and biting, as though bile had soured his blood. Withers. It was Withers who had sent her away, who had urged her to step out into the world, to find her own path. As if the world were ever kind to the lost. And now, when that path had darkened, when the child stood trembling at its edge, he was nowhere to be found.

Gale's jaw locked briefly before he exhaled through his nose, slow and steady. The feeling settled beneath his ribs like a shard of old glass. He knew how loudly absence could echo. The silence left by those meant to guide had a way of stretching long and cold, especially when one needed them most.

However, he kept the bitterness to himself. Instead, his voice was even as he asked, "Where have you been staying until now?”

"With Jaheira and her family for a bit," Arabella replied, "Then I kind of... went everywhere. I left Baldur's Gate to try and find you. I stuck with a group of travellers for a while; it felt safer. Mostly, I just kept moving, staying wherever someone would let me. Helped out when I could. Just little things, nothing special."

She glanced down, scuffing the toe of her boot against the floor. "But now I am scared to use magic. And without it... I don't have anything. No way to earn coin or make myself useful."

Her voice wavered again, but she forced a crooked, sour little smile, the attempt at humour fragile at best. "And yes. I definitely learned my lesson about stealing."

She shifted her weight, and a fresh wave of tears welled in her eyes.

Gale knew that feeling far too well: the burden of being too much. The weight of feeling dangerous simply for existing without control. For him, Blackstaff had been the only place that ever resembled a sanctuary. It was not kindness that had made it bearable, but structure. Purpose.

"You need to learn control," he said finally, his gaze settling on her over his clasped hands. He leaned forward slightly. "You will not find safety in running. Not from this."

"I don't want to use magic any more," she whispered, her voice so small it barely reached him.

"Your power is not something you can simply bury," Gale replied, his words firm but not unkind. "It will keep growing, Arabella. It will draw attention whether you like it or not. If you do not learn to harness it, to tether it, eventually it will slip through your fingers. And the consequences..." He trailed off, letting the weight of the words hang between them.

Arabella opened her mouth, but whatever argument she was searching for dissolved before it could form.

"I can make a case for you here at Blackstaff," Gale said quietly.

"I don't want to," she replied with stubborn vehemence, "There are too many people. Can't you teach me?"

"No," Gale said, more firmly than he intended. There was no way.

"Gale," Tara interjected, her tone stern. He nearly forgot she was there.

"I..." he faltered. A dozen reasons to say no flickered through his mind: the risk, the scrutiny, the memories clawing at the edge of his thoughts. His life was too carefully balanced. He did not have time or inclination to take on another burden, another complication.

And yet.

"I can teach you some basics," he said at last, reluctantly. "But I only specialise in theoretical magic."

It was not a lie. Not really. But it was not the full truth either.

"Please," Arabella said, her voice cracking. "There are so many people here. I do not want to hurt anyone."

"She could stay in the Tower," Tara suggested, sounding deceptively casual, but there was an edge beneath it. He wanted to throttle her. Always meddling.

"I do not think that would be appro—"

Arabella's face lit up with fragile hope. "I could?" 

"It is not like he lives with anyone," Tara continued smoothly, her tail flicking with infuriating satisfaction. "And there are plenty of empty rooms."

Gale shot her a look that could have set her fur on fire.

"I do not think Arabella would want to stay with a boring old man and a tressym who sticks her nose where it doesn't belong."

"I have some coin," Arabella offered quickly. "I could pay?"

"What? No!" Gale blurted, appalled.

Tara turned to Arabella, "Do you have anywhere to stay in Waterdeep, little one?" she asked in a tone that was entirely too sweet for her character. Gale already knew she was scheming.

Arabella shook her head. "I have a little coin left, but I have been hesitant to stay with non-magical folk."

Gale rubbed at his temple. The girl had power. Raw, untamed, and dangerous. And the city was full of eyes that would see that as an opportunity. He did not need more responsibility. He did not want to care. But leaving her to fend for herself would be worse.

He let out a long sigh, resignation settling over him like a cloak.

"All right. How about this? I shall guide you through some foundational training. In the meantime, I will speak with Vajra. She is the Blackstaff."

Arabella opened her mouth to interject, but Gale stopped her with a raised hand.

"I would like you to attend a few classes with me," he continued, "get familiar with the place and the people. Once you feel more at ease, you can decide whether you're comfortable working with the rest of the staff, and perhaps even moving into the dormitories."

Gale had no doubt that, despite Arabella's young age, Vajra would take her in. A young spellcaster with such powerful abilities was a rarity. However, Gale also knew she needed to learn first. Most importantly, she needed to gain confidence in herself so she would not be swayed easily, for the politics of spellcasters were far more treacherous than her magic itself.

Another sigh, deeper and heavier.

"And you can stay in the Tower for now."

A wide smile bloomed on her face. "Thank you!"

"I shall show her the way," Tara announced brightly as she leapt off the table.

Traitor.

"Here," Gale muttered, reaching into his robes and pulling out a small charmed token. He placed it gently in front of Arabella. "This will grant you access to the Tower. As long as you hold on to it, you should also be able to understand her," he nodded towards Tara and shot a sharp look at the tressym. "Do not make me regret it."

✦

By the time Gale returned to the Tower that evening, he had, shamefully, almost forgotten about Arabella's presence. His mind was still entangled in the aftermath of an afternoon gone spectacularly awry. A particularly overconfident student had turned what was meant to be a simple theoretical illusion lesson into chaos, when he inadvertently summoned a very real and exceedingly territorial sentient cloud of bees with strong opinions regarding the academy's hallway décor.

Gale had spent hours negotiating with magical insects, redirecting foot traffic, and theorising containment strategies, all to no avail. The bees remained, brooding, humming, and profoundly affronted. A problem, Gale decided, best postponed till morning.

He toed off his dusty boots at the threshold, fatigue weighing down his limbs, and shuffled wearily down the hallway, making for the kitchen. But his eyes caught sight of a small figure curled within the reading room.

Arabella lay wrapped in a thick woollen blanket, her slight frame nestled like a dormouse on the sofa beside the hearth. The fire cast a gentle amber glow upon her face, its flickering light throwing long, soft shadows against the rows and rows of books lining the walls.

"How do you know her?" came Tara's voice behind him.

Turning, he saw the tressym padding towards him, her steps silent, tail swaying lazily like a pendulum. Yet there was nothing idle in her gaze, only the unspoken weight of questions he had little desire to confront.

His eyes drifted once more to the sleeping tiefling. "I first met her at the Emerald Grove," he said at last, keeping his voice low. "She was among the tiefling refugees fleeing Elturel. At the time, I sensed no magic in her. It must have lain dormant."

He hesitated. The next part was harder.

"But our paths crossed again later, in the Shadow-Cursed Lands. The horrors of that place, of war, must have kindled her spark. Her magic was perilous even then, like standing in the very eye of a storm."

Tara tilted her head, feathers ruffling. "And you thought leaving this storm to rage unchecked was the prudent choice?"

Gale bristled, feeling the edge of defensiveness rise.

"And what exactly would you have had me do?" he hissed, his whisper growing a little louder than intended. "Sling her over my shoulder as we battled the Netherbrain? We were fighting to save the realm, teetering on the edge of annihilation. It was hardly the time for private tutelage."

The fire popped, breaking the tension but not easing it.

"Back then, we were at war," he added, more subdued, the heat draining from him in slow increments. "There were greater threats demanding our attention. This," his gaze flicked toward the girl, his tone softening, "her... it was complicated."

Tara offered no immediate reply. The silence stretched between them, dense with the weight of words unspoken and judgements unvoiced.

At last, she spoke again, "You are a professor now. A teacher. Whatever you could not offer then, you can now. She does not need a saviour, Gale. She needs guidance, a mentor. And you, of all people, should understand that."

Gale's lips thinned. He stared at the light dancing across Arabella's sleeping face. A tiny crease marred her brow, even in sleep, a haunted kind of rest that struck him with unsettling familiarity.

He did not want this.

He did not want someone else in his home. His peace was earned, a fortress of books and silence, structured days and predictable nights. Every corner was calibrated, with organised chaos and no chance for past ghosts to trespass.

Yet here she was. A stranger. A harbinger.

She brought back too much. The memory of the long march through forsaken lands. The helplessness he had entombed beneath layer upon layer of ritual, study, and carefully measured detachment. And worst of all, the fire in her eyes. That wild, untamed gleam he knew all too well. It was the very same blaze that had once burned within him, before ambition had led him astray, before hunger had hollowed him out and left him bleeding at a goddess' altar.

He had no desire to see that fire again. Certainly not here. Not within these walls.

"Sooo," Tara said, drawing out the vowel a little long, "what are you planning to do?"

"I don't know," he admitted, "But I agree, she needs help. And I cannot let her wander off. Should another find her, some power-hungry cabal, or gods forbid, the Zhentarim..."

"Or Elminster," she added darkly.

Gale's jaw tightened. He offered a curt nod. "Or Elminster." The name tasted bitter on his tongue. With power so vast and unmoored, the girl would be irresistible to Mystra's faithful, ripe to be plucked and moulded into yet another Chosen, bound to the fickle caprice of deities who bore none of the burdens their machinations wrought.

Gale might not have welcomed this intrusion into his life, but one truth was inescapable—he would not stand by and watch another child slip through the cracks and be guided to their downfall, to be led into the pyre of divine ambition.

"I scarcely know where to begin," he admitted, "She is adrift. You sense it too, do you not? Even without her casting?" Gale's gaze flicked towards Tara, catching the slight incline of her head. "Every flicker of her magic is braided with her emotions. I must find a way to help her anchor it." His voice softened. "She is far too powerful, too temperamental to trust in instinct alone." 

He paused, running a hand down his face. "Should she lose control here, in the heart of the city… It would not be some trifling misstep, a stray charm or a whimsical transmutation. The force within her is far less forgiving." He shook his head, unwilling to acknowledge the darker visions pressing at the edge of thought. "She must master it."

But in the recesses of his mind, a quieter voice whispered: And then what? Will you keep her as a pet? Watch her day after day, a living echo of the path you once walked, down roads you swore never again to tread?

He turned away from the hearth. Behind him, he felt Tara's gaze tracking his retreat towards the stairs.

Gale did not want this. Any of it. But inaction was a luxury he could not afford.

He needed a plan.

"It has been a long day," he said, his words thinning into weariness. "I think I shall turn in for the night."

"Rest well, Gale," Tara answered softly, her voice a balm laid gently upon frayed nerves, though it offered little true comfort.

To his quiet surprise, she let him go. No argument, no inquiry, no gentle prodding.

Upstairs, he entered his chambers and eased into the well-worn motions of undressing, each gesture guided by the dull rhythm of long-established habit. Robes slid from his shoulders and fell in silent heaps upon the floor, the silken whisper of fabric briefly disturbing the hush of the room. Still, the weight of the day clung to him like cloying smoke, thick, persistent, acrid beneath the skin, as though it sought to seep into bone and marrow.

In the adjoining bathing chamber, he scrubbed himself clean with methodical resolve, as though the touch of hot water and coarse cloth might scour away more than just the clinging dirt and the errant pollen from the day's misadventures. Steam coiled upwards in slow, serpentine tendrils, veiling the mirror in a shroud of mist until his reflection melted into a formless interplay of light and shadow.

When at last he wiped it clean, the man staring back at him was both intimately familiar and disconcertingly estranged.

His hair had grown far longer than propriety or good sense would advise, unless one aspired to the visage of a mad wizard, which Gale still considered himself a touch too young to fully embrace. Silver threads wove ever more audaciously through his dark strands, creeping into his beard as well. He might have cut it, should have long since, but had not. There was reason enough for that, shaped like pale, slender fingers and the memory of a touch threading tenderly through his hair, a memory he scarcely dared to revisit.

The shadows beneath his eyes were entrenched now—obstinate and bruised, souvenirs of too many restless nights. Sleep, when it graced him at all, was thin and brittle, delicate as spun glass and no more enduring.

His gaze drifted to his earring, a shard of dark metal catching what little light the chamber offered. From there, his eyes travelled lower, to the small scar on his neck courtesy of the Bhaalists, and at last to a fainter mark, subtle, almost spectral.

For a time, he had believed it gone, or had convinced himself it was. Yet beneath the cold honesty of candlelight and his own merciless scrutiny, the delicate tracery where the orb had once embedded itself still whispered across his skin, a memory of a wound long sealed but never truly healed.

He lifted a hand, hesitant, and let his fingertips ghost across it. The contact summoned that inescapable tightness in his chest, a constriction that neither breath nor thought could fully loosen.

He dropped his hand and padded back to his dark room and collapsed onto his bed. Eyes on the ceiling, swathed in the faint silver of moonlight.

A year.

Over a year had passed since he had departed Baldur's Gate.

Over a year had passed since the world had come unstitched at the seams, leaving him to gather what broken remnants he could from the ruin.

And still, he was no better than he had been on that first wretched morning after. If anything, the passing days had only sharpened the pain, refining it from a raw wound into something colder, keener. No longer a gash, but a blade lodged between his ribs, humming with each breath, each heartbeat.

He had learned to smile again, yes, of course. To perform. To walk beyond the Tower's threshold, clad in the illusion of equilibrium. To nod, to greet, to jest, to endure. A man of intellect, of purpose. 

Onlookers saw confidence, certainty. But within, it was worse now than it had been on that first horrible day after defeating the Netherbrain. For now, he understood the permanence of it.

All he had feared had come to pass, just as he had long known it would. And he, ever the creature of habit, had slipped back into his old ways like a man returning to well-worn chains, shackling himself once more to routine, to research, to the cold solace of isolation.

It had taken no more than three tendays for his heart to splinter upon returning to Waterdeep. Not in some grand collapse, no dramatic unspooling of grief, but slowly, insidiously. Gale was a man of precision, even in his unravelling.

At first, the bustling activity of those early weeks had offered a welcome distraction. His mind had buzzed with tasks, his hands were always in motion. The Tower had been in a state of complete disarray, at least from Gale's fastidious perspective. Tara had done her best to maintain order, but even a tressym has her limits without the benefit of opposable thumbs, and Morena Dekarios, of course, would not be caught dead dusting shelves or cataloguing neglected tomes.

She had suggested more than once that Gale hire assistance. Each time, he declined. There was no way in the Seven Hells he would allow strangers to rifle through the bones of his life.

Now, Gale lay in bed, the rumpled sheets clinging to his skin uncomfortably, and the memories he had tried so hard to suppress began to circle like wolves pacing the uncertain glow of a dying fire.

Most nights, he drove himself to the brink of collapse, poring over infernal schematics, tracing obscure branches of arcane theory until his vision blurred and the ink on his pages swam like oil upon water. It was easier to keep moving, easier to outrun the things that waited in the stillness. But tonight, he had forced himself to rest. He needed clarity for the coming day. He needed his mind sharp. 

So now, he lay awake, tangled in sweat-damp linens, drowning beneath the weight of unfinished thoughts. The darkness pressed close, thick as velvet, and his breath came slow, measured, an old ritual of control, as if he might yet outwit memory through discipline alone.

But memory was a patient creature. And it always found him.

More than a year.

More than a whole godsdamned year.

Damn it.

And still, he missed them.

He should have gone to visit Karlach and Shadowheart. He should have. But aside from a few letters, sporadic and far between, they had barely kept in touch.

The thought itself rang false as soon as it crossed his mind. The truth was, they had tried—both of them, together and separately. At first, Gale had written back dutifully, letters filled with carefully chosen words—the state of the Tower, his new work, polite small triumphs that sounded brighter on paper than they ever felt in truth. But then one letter went unanswered. Then another. And soon, the gap between replies grew like a chasm.

What was he supposed to say?

Still alive. Still sad. Still alone.

He had convinced himself he was waiting; for better news, for something worth writing. A breakthrough. A purpose. Some glimmer he could hold aloft like a beacon. But nothing came. The silence between letters grew longer, heavier, until it felt insurmountable.

He wanted to reach out. He truly did. But now, after all this time, it had to matter. It had to mean something more than regret.

And so he did not.

When at last his eyes closed, the shadows behind his lids came alive.

First came the scent, phantom, yet piercingly vivid. Smoke. Damp earth. The faint sweetness of charred pine.

The campfire in front of him crackled softly. Arabella sat beside him in silence, her grief tucked in tightly, saying nothing as she watched Gale stir a pot of half-spoiled ingredients. He remembered the way she had looked at him, her eyes swollen and luminous with unshed tears, her loss still raw.

Then the memory veered. A sound behind him. The shift of boots in grass. He turned, and there, framed by the flickering firelight, were those familiar crimson eyes.

Gale's breath caught. His heart stuttered, then kicked sharply against his ribs.

He had not seen Astarion in so long. Had rarely, if ever, dared even to conjure his image. 

But here he was, unbidden, summoned by nothing more than a moment's lapse in vigilance.

The memory shifted again, seamless as a dream. The campfire vanished. Arabella faded. And now they were within that private chamber once more, treacherously clear in every cruel detail. The curve of his smile. The cadence of his laughter. The cool, slender line of him pressed against Gale as they lay curled together in the hush of the night. The scent of bergamot and rosemary still clung to the memory like perfume on forgotten silk.

It should not have ached like this.

It had been a brief, wild, and perilous thing. All spark, pain and teeth. They had danced at the mouth of ruin together, both of them wounded, both reaching for something neither could truly name aloud. And yet, for all its danger, there had been beauty too, a tenderness that now cut deeper for its scarcity.

Every recollection pulled at him like sinew stretched too far.

He exhaled, shuddering, and pressed his face into the pillow, as if he could drown it out.

It was foolish. Undignified. He was a wizard, a scholar, a survivor of cataclysmic fate. He had walked the Astral Plane and touched the Weave itself. And yet here he lay, reduced to this: undone by memory, by the ghost of a mouth brushing his skin in the dark, by words never spoken, by letters left unwritten, by the immense and echoing quiet that greeted him in every room he entered alone.

Tomorrow, he would rise. He would work. He would research. He would smile.

But tonight, he was nothing more than a man unmade. His heart was a broken thing, aching in the quiet, and all his wisdom could not teach him how to mend it.

✦