Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

✦✦✦

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.

✦

Chapter Text

✦✦✦

Gale

Morning arrived as if the season had only just recalled its purpose, veiling the city in a hush of ocean mist. The air was brisk and damp, its chill seeping through cloak and cloth, threading into Gale's joints like a quiet admonition.

He found Arabella curled on the old velvet sofa, wrapped in a blanket like a fledgling reluctant to leave its nest. Pale dawn light spilt through the leaded windows, catching in her tangled hair, a dishevelled thicket still matted by sleep.

She stirred at the sound of his footsteps. Her eyes fluttered open as she looked up at him, blinking blearily, and rubbed at them with the heel of her hand.

"Sorry," she mumbled through a yawn, "didn't mean to fall asleep."

"You clearly needed the rest," Gale said, allowing his gaze to fall briefly to the misshapen cushions beneath her. "Though I would suggest a bed next time. That poor sofa hasn't offered true comfort since before the Spellplague."

Arabella gave a sleepy grin that tugged unevenly at the corner of her mouth. "Yeah? Well, it didn't try to eat me, so it's already better than half the places I've slept before."

Gale returned the smile, but a flicker of unease crept through him at her casual remark. Someone so young, travelling across half the Sword Coast alone... Gale didn't want to ponder the things she must have encountered.

He drew a slow breath, letting the unsettling thought pass. "In any case, I've given some thought to your situation. It seems prudent to begin some form of instruction." He gestured towards the door. "Shall we?"

Arabella blinked. "What, right now?" She scratched absently at her mess of hair.

Gale raised a brow. "Do you have a more pressing engagement?"

She opened her mouth, but her stomach answered first with a loud, plaintive growl. She froze, cheeks colouring as she pressed a hand to her middle as if she could muffle the sound. "Uh. Guess not."

A small exhale escaped Gale that turned into a reluctant chuckle. "Very well. Breakfast first. Magic tends to misbehave on an empty stomach."

He turned, beckoning her to follow.

A short time later, with a sweet roll in one hand and a steaming cup of tea fragrant with honey and thyme in the other, Arabella padded after him into the study.

"Whoa," she breathed, setting her drink down with a clink on Gale's desk. "Are you solving murders in here, or is this just a really elaborate shopping list?"

Gale glanced at the walls, lined with diagrams of mechanical hearts and scribbled notes, every surface covered with open tomes and curling parchment—a familiar disarray that, seen through her eyes, suddenly did feel somewhat excessive.

"That is... just research," he said, the phrase landing with less certainty than intended.

Arabella slowly turned a circle, taking in the full scope of the room. "Sure. And I'm the queen of Faerûn," she quipped, flashing him another disbelieving grin.

He resisted the urge to clarify the organisational logic behind the stacks and adjusted the cuff of his sleeve.

"Call it an ongoing investigation," Gale said, more quietly. "Regrettably, one with more questions than answers."

She dropped into a deep chair, plate perched precariously on one knee. "You've got 'ongoing investigation' written on every wall, wizard. Pretty sure the furniture's in on it too."

He hummed noncommittally, a trace of self-consciousness slithering into his thoughts, then turned away from the mess, not ashamed exactly, but conscious of how obsessive his pursuit must seem from the outside. Still, there were worse things to be consumed by than hope.

"I'll need to see how you wield your magic," he said at last, his tone returning to a measured calm.

Arabella stilled mid-chew, brow furrowing. "I… don't think that's a great idea."

"Nothing extravagant," Gale replied smoothly, as though she had not spoken at all. "Something simple. Preferably non-lethal."

She set her plate down beside her cup, movements slow and careful. Her fingers lingered at the rim of the saucer before she let out a quiet sigh. "Fine. Something simple."

She extended her hands, palms upward, and stared at them for a long moment as though uncertain they still belonged to her. She cupped her hand carefully, brow knit in concentration as she called on her magic. "Create Water should be easy. I used it a lot on the way here," she said, though it sounded more like she was trying to convince herself.

Gale nodded absently, her words landing a beat too late. 

Water. Unstable magic. Inside his study. 

His stomach lurched, as the consequences spilt through his mind. He opened his mouth, breath drawn for the warning, any word at all—

But the air shifted before sound could escape.

What ought to have been a gentle pulse surged outward instead, uncontained, like a tide breaking loose from its banks.

The unseen force mounted against his skin, slipping beneath the surface like cold fingers prying into the tender spaces between muscle and bone, crawling up along his ribs, coiling behind his sternum. It wormed its way into the hollow places that had never quite healed. The very atmosphere seemed to thicken, turning viscous, saturated with a power both unbalanced and disturbingly familiar, provoking something deep within him.

His tongue grew heavy with the taste of loam and minerals, his chest swelled with an anxiety that was not his own. His magic stirred in response, a restless hum strumming at his nerves, flaring through his veins with a heat both intimate and estranged, like the haunting melody of a song once beloved but now only half-remembered.

The pressure bloomed, exquisite in its terror.

And then the world began to fall away, not with the violence of rupture but the slow sinking of a body into deep, black water. The study blurred and dissolved. The desk, the tomes, the flickering candlelight, all were swallowed by a suffocating darkness.

When he blinked his eyes open, he found himself once more atop the glistening crown of the Netherbrain, the monstrous expanse beneath his feet pulsing with the rhythm of something ancient and terrible. Its grotesque anatomy was slick beneath the soles of his boots. Magic howled in his ears like wind tearing through shattered glass. And there, in his hand, the dagger hovered over his own breastbone, its tip steady and unflinching.

Strangely, there was serenity in it.

A bitter comfort spread through him, like the warmth of a hearth on a winter night. It whispered of silence, of release, of an end to the gnawing hunger, the mounting failures. The lure of nothingness wove through his thoughts like silk, soft and cool, inviting him to surrender, to let the blade slide into his flesh, and slip into oblivion, never to rise again.

The sensation was familiar. And, gods help him, almost welcome.

Then came the deluge.

Water crashed down from above, graceless and violent, dragging him back through the depths of his unconscious drift. It broke the illusion like a hand yanking him upward, forcing air into lungs that had forgotten how to breathe.

He stumbled back with a gasp, sputtering as icy water soaked through every layer, robes clinging to his limbs like seaweed. His hair was plastered wet across his brow. The draft in the chamber gnawed at his chilled skin, the mundane discomfort startlingly vivid in contrast to the numbness he had just escaped.

Arabella sat before him, frozen in the aftermath, her hand still cupped in perfect form, a small pool of water delicately suspended in her palm as though none of it had spilt from her at all. Strands of hair stuck in damp streaks along her face, too; her wide eyes were filled with mortification that barely concealed the tremor of fear beneath.

Her lips parted to speak, to apologise perhaps, but Gale lifted a shaking hand in a desperate bid to forestall her words. He needed a moment of quiet, as he wrestled with the fragments of thought still careening through him.

But the magic within her was not yet still. As if startled by her own embarrassment, it flared again, wild and capricious. A sudden gust of heat swept through the chamber with unnatural speed, evaporating water from skin and cloth alike in a heartbeat.

But there was a cost to such hasty overcorrection, and it revealed itself swiftly, as the study descended into chaos.

Loose parchment took flight like startled doves. Tomes slid from their perches, thudding to the ground with sullen finality. Scrolls, once stacked, now littered the floor.

For a long, suspended breath, Gale stood amidst the ruins. Every muscle locked, every thought wound tight. His gaze swept slowly over the upturned ruins of his once-mostly-ordered sanctuary. 

Ugly words rose, barbed and hot behind his teeth, but before they could break free, a familiar voice cut right through them.

"If only there were another powerful wizard present who could have mitigated the situation," came the dry observation.

The door had been thrown open by the errant wind, and Tara stood poised upon the threshold, tail flicking lazily behind her like punctuation. She looked every inch the picture of judgement incarnate.

Gale shot her a dark look, but she remained unruffled. She stepped inside, crossing the doorway with her customary feline grace.

"Do not fret, little one," Tara said, her tone light as she eyed Arabella, then tilted her head towards Gale. "This one was far worse in his youth. Far more fires, I assure you."

She glided forward with unhurried ease, weaving neatly through the havoc of strewn parchments and toppled scrolls until she came to rest just before Arabella. Her eyes, bright with a private amusement, darted once more to Gale, clearly unbothered by the disarray.

"Hundreds of singed eyebrows. Thousands of scorch marks. And not one but two particularly unfortunate incidents involving exploding chamberpots."

Gale released a long, shuddering breath, the tight coil of emotion within him beginning to loosen, just slightly, as he began the practised ritual of containment. 

The ghost of that dagger still hovered, closer now perhaps than it had been in weeks, as though the distance between terrible thought and action had thinned to the barest whisper of separation. But the surge of fury, terror, and helplessness, the remnants of that vision, began to recede behind the walls he had long since built for moments such as these. He knew well the price of sealing them away. They would not vanish. They would wait, patient and coiled, until they found a weaker moment in which to strike.

But now was not the time to fall apart.

He drew in another breath, slow and deliberate, as though dragging it through thick cloth. His chest resisted, bound by invisible cords. Still, he pressed against the weight. Focused. Counted. The thundering rhythm of his pulse became a chant, a tether, an incantation to keep him from slipping back.

Little by little, the pressure began to loosen. The tension in his limbs faded, not all at once, but in cautious increments, like heat ebbing from a burn. Tara's words, familiar and pointed in their levity, had reached something locked deep inside him and opened it just enough to let the worst of the emotions drain out.

Reluctant perspective crept in slowly, riding the coattails of clarity.

Mastery of the Weave had never come easily. Tara was right; Gale's own path had been littered with mishaps and unmitigated disasters.

Arabella's conjuration, clumsy though it was, had caused no real harm. A few scattered papers. Bruised pride at worst. Nothing broken that could not be mended.

She stood still, hair now beginning to curl at the ends from the wind, her eyes wide with guilt and uncertainty.

"I am sorry," she said quietly, barely above a whisper.

Gale regarded her for a moment longer, then turned. As he stepped around the worst of the wreckage, he ran a hand through his dishevelled hair and straightened his rumpled robe. Then he dragged forward the chalkboard he used for notes and diagrams and flipped it to its clean side.

"No need," he said at last, peering over his shoulder. A faint smile tugged at his mouth, not entirely free of effort. "Now then. Shall we begin with theory?"

She nodded quickly. The motion was small but eager, and reminded Gale of a bird gathering courage to take flight again after a nasty fall.

"As I have mentioned, you must find a way to focus your magic. At present, your casting relies entirely on feelings. Powerful, yes, but as you were kind enough to demonstrate, rather fickle. Emotions are volatile things. They make for a poor foundation if left unchecked. But with practice, even raw intuition can be tempered."

Arabella looked at her hand for a moment with a frown, then back at Gale. There was something new in her gaze now, a spark of resolve kindling behind the previous embarrassment.

"Sorcerers cast instinctively," he continued. He paused briefly and, swallowing around his distaste, reluctantly added, "And there is nothing wrong with that."

"But a mage's strength lies elsewhere: in knowledge, in study, in preparation. Wizards commit their spells to memory through rigorous discipline, calling upon them not through feeling, but through mastery."

Her voice was quiet. "So, I could just stay a sorcerer?"

"Yes," Gale said gently. "And no."

She tilted her head, confused. He met her eyes and softened his tone further, carefully choosing each word.

"Your attunement to the Weave is extraordinary. I found myself in a similar predicament once. To call to the Weave was effortless, but that ease comes with risk. Those gifted with such power must be all the more cautious. Wild magic often shadows sorcery, and its consequences can be catastrophic. Control, Arabella, is what you need."

She hesitated, then asked, "How did you get better?"

"Books," Gale answered with another small smile, but this time true warmth began to kindle behind the expression. "Study. Learning not just spells, but the nature of magic itself. I sought ways to channel it that suited me, methods that offered freedom without sacrificing control."

"I want that," she said, sounding a little steadier now.

Gale nodded. "Good. Think of the Weave like an instrument, its threads like strings stretched across all creation. Right now, you are plucking at them by instinct, and sometimes even by chance. A single touch might produce a note, but without control, the melody is untamed and unpredictable. What I want you to learn is how to play it deliberately, to shape the harmonies with precision. Intent over impulse. A steady hand creates music; a restless one only noise."

Arabella leaned forward slightly, drawn in. Her wide eyes shone with focus, lips parted in silent attention. Every word seemed to pull her deeper into the space between them, where curiosity blossomed into something more, a quiet reverence.

And as Gale continued, speaking now of resonance, of patterns within spellwork, adding careful notes to the chalkboard, he felt something inside himself begin to settle.

The rhythm of explanation, of theory shared and knowledge passed forward, wrapped around him like a familiar, well-worn cloak. Her attention, earnest and undivided, moved something in him he had not felt in what seemed like an age.

A quiet exhilaration, and beneath it, unspoken but not unnoticed, the faintest whisper of hope that perhaps, just perhaps, this was something he could still do right.

✦

At Blackstaff, his students were of a different ilk. Older, and most of them sprang from houses of means, their coffers full and their egos fuller still. They wore their privilege like a finely cut doublet, stitched with expectation and embroidered with the idle conceit of lineage.

Many, if not most, regarded Gale with thinly veiled disdain.

Some spoke, behind gloved hands in quiet alcoves, of his past—of how he had once borne the mantle of Mystra's Chosen. It was not his aid in saving Baldur's Gate, nor his pivotal role in thwarting a deranged cult and safeguarding the realm, nor even his quiet renunciation of Mystra and a second chance at becoming her Chosen that filled the gossip-mongers' cups. Those inconvenient truths had been carefully obscured, smothered beneath the far more enticing tale of his disgrace. The story of his fall from archmagehood, of a precipitous descent branded upon him like a mark of disgrace, proved far more palatable to those who feasted on scandal.

To many of his students, he was a cautionary tale. A relic with just enough lingering brilliance to justify a classroom, but not enough to command true respect.

Arabella was nothing like them.

She bore herself not with the air of one entitled by birthright, but with a quiet attentiveness. Her eyes gleamed not with an undeserved sense of superiority, but with earnest curiosity. Her questions were neither barbed nor meant to display cleverness. She listened not out of obligation, but because she wanted to understand.

And while Gale assured himself that it mattered not, that he was merely fulfilling the role of her tutor, he could not wholly suppress the quiet glimmers of satisfaction and pride when she pieced together a particularly intricate concept, or when her eyes lit with sudden understanding.

They started with theory alone. Gale was cautious, purposefully so, for he had seen what simmered within her. He knew all too well the risks when impulse outpaced restraint, and her magic was restless.

Only once he had tested her and ensured she understood each and every word of the principles of spellcasting fundamentals did he begin the slow introduction to calling on her magic. No incantations, merely pressing against the strands of the Weave, inviting power to her fingertips.

At first, her efforts were unsure and tentative. Even the smallest inward reach would summon too much; the energy always swelled too quickly, like a flame seeking fuel before it found shape. Control eluded her, and the results were often unpredictable.

Her early attempts left a trail of chaos. The occasional destruction of Gale's personal belongings became something of a running joke. Once, a teapot sang opera for three days. On another occasion, the firewood in the house sprouted legs and attempted to escape through the very firmly closed windows.

Yet, with time and repetition, her touch grew more certain. The raw force began to soften, and her grip became steadier. The Weave no longer bucked so violently beneath her will. She remained dangerous, yes, but no longer like a tempest unbound. Rather, like a storm slowly learning to chart its own course.

By the time Gale noticed, routine had already crept in.

Each morning, she was awake before he emerged from his chambers—or whichever room he had fallen into restless sleep that night. She would be curled in a chair with a book open on her lap, a blanket draped loosely around her shoulders.

They shared quiet breakfasts in the study, where she asked questions between bites of bread, and he answered if he deemed them worth his time. Then she would walk with him to the Academy, chattering relentlessly until they reached the gates, where she would fall silent and slip inside without a word.

At first, she attended only his lectures. She sat at the back, scribbling furiously, her gaze often fixed upon him. Then, gradually, she began to drift into other halls: Planar Theory with Ireena Stormscale, Transmutation under the ever-droning Master Torrance.

After some time, she began asking questions there as well. Little unpolished, yet thoughtful ones, if Vajra's and Tara's reports were anything to go by. And more than once, Gale had caught sight of her trailing after Shevarith Kendia, a fierce Rashemi and the Blackstaff's apprentice, pursuing her through the corridors with a steady stream of inquiries.

Most gave Shevarith a wide berth; her cold, unyielding demeanour was not easily endured. Yet Arabella seemed unmoved by the absence of polite placation, undeterred by bluntness, and keen to learn from one whose talents she evidently admired. Having a young spellcaster to look up to could only serve her well.

There was an ease about her now that had not been there before. The clothes that once hid her horns and tail were gone, traded for simpler garb that reminded Gale of the tiefling child he had met all those years ago.

So as the new normal settled, a tenday became two, then three, and despite moments of apprehension and times when Gale's frustration bubbled at the smallest things—a too-loud intake of breath or an out-of-rhythm rustling of pages in a book—it worked. In its own quiet, peculiar way, it worked.

Which, of course, could only mean that something was bound to go wrong.

He felt it in the marrow of his bones, like the faint pressure that precedes a thunderstorm, long before the clouds gather.

It first happened roughly a month after Arabella's arrival.

Gale startled awake at his desk, his cheek faintly adhered to the parchment he had slumped over in sleep.

Then the scream tore through the stillness with startling force, high and unbridled, laden with raw terror.

A cold jolt lanced through him, dispersing the stubborn remnants of restless sleep that clung to his lashes. In an instant, magic welled, not called upon but awakened, blooming keen and immediate in a way it had not in months, as though it too had sensed something amiss.

He was already on his feet before conscious thought had time to take hold. The sound of his swift steps was lost beneath the rising thrum of blood in his ears.

Another scream rent the air, more desperate than the first.

Arabella.

He had heard her shout in frustration before, during failed attempts to call upon her magic or when theory tested the limits of her forbearance. But this was no vexation. This was a pall of despair, stark and unadulterated.

Dread conjured cruel visions in his mind's eye, images of her harmed, taken, lost to some unseen peril.

He was at the door when the third scream came, hoarse and desperate. Without pause, without thought of permission, he thrust her door open and crossed the threshold.

She was still asleep, or something close to it, caught in the throes of a nightmare so deep and consuming that her body seemed unable to distinguish dream from waking. Her small frame thrashed amongst the bedsheets, the covers tangled around her like restraints.

Her fingers clawed at empty air, and the tremor of barely suppressed power shimmered faintly around her entire form, flickering with dangerous volatility. Her tail lashed against the bedframe in a frenzy, her sweat-dampened face twisted in torment, as though locked in silent battle with invisible horrors.

Gale froze, not from fear of her, but from a deep and instinctive desire not to make it worse. Her panic radiated through the room like heat from a forge, her magic filling the space, and he knew better than to startle her further.

He moved slowly to the edge of the bed, speaking in a voice that was carefully composed and low, trying to keep his own fear from bleeding into his words.

"Arabella," he murmured gently, as one might soothe a wild creature caught in a trap. "It's me, Gale. You are safe."

She did not awaken at first, though her body tensed faintly at the sound of her name, some part of her straining to surface.

Then, all at once, she lurched upright with a choked cry, curling in on herself, breath catching in short, broken gasps. Her eyes remained tightly shut, as if opening them might reveal something even worse.

Gale made no move to touch her. He knew too well that a hand, even offered in comfort, could feel like a threat in the throes of terror. So he remained still, his hands resting in his lap, voice steady as he spoke again.

"Arabella."

After a moment that stretched painfully long, she wrenched her eyes open.

They were wide and glassy, the amber in the darkness wavered, brimming with tears that spilt freely down her cheeks. She blinked slowly, her breathing still ragged, her slight frame trembling as though it still bore the echoes of whatever horror had seized her. Her gaze darted about the room with the restless urgency of someone seeking escape, until it landed on Gale. And then, at last, something shifted in her expression—tentative recognition.

Relief washed through him, though it did nothing to ease the dull ache lodged in his chest. His hands, only then noticed, had been clenched into damp fists. With an effort, he willed his fingers to uncurl.

"Can you hear me?" Gale tried, but she did not respond.

He reached out, unconsciously, momentarily forgetting why it was a bad idea, and she recoiled as though the warmth of his hand had burned her.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, drawing back at once, rising to his feet to give her the distance she needed.

Without a word, she pushed aside the blankets and stepped down from the bed. Her movements were slow and unsteady, as though the ground itself felt foreign beneath her feet. Gale followed her lead in silence, allowing her to set the pace.

Together, they made their way down to the reading room, the hush of the early hours settling over them like a thin, silken veil. The Tower seemed suspended in stillness, broken only by the distant groan of ancient timbers and the soft sigh of the wind against the windowpanes. Neither of them spoke, but the quiet between them was not empty. It was simply too soon for words.

The fire in the hearth had dwindled to a faint glow, casting the room in a muted light. Shadows gathered between the tall shelves, curling around the outlines of overgrown stacks of books he had intended to tidy days ago, but the space felt comforting in its lived-in clutter.

Arabella sank into the armchair, her legs drawn up, her tail curling loosely around her, and Gale moved to the fireplace and leaned in, blowing gently until the faint orange embers deepened. 

He reached for a handful of dry kindling - thin twigs and curled shavings of bark - and arranged them loosely over the embers, careful not to smother it. He watched as the flames stirred to life once more. The small, familiar motions gave him something to hold onto, a rhythm by which to quiet his thoughts as they struggled to settle.

"Kagha should have killed me," Arabella said out of nowhere.

Gale froze mid-motion, a log half-lowered in his grasp, breath caught in his lungs. Slowly, he turned to face her, but found himself unable to speak. His mind reeled, grasping at words that would not come, for what answer could one offer to something so stark, so irrevocably final?

"Wyll should have never interfered," she added, not with bitterness, but with the exhausted certainty of one who had long since made peace with the prospect of her own ending. She sat as though carved from stone, her voice worn smooth by the relentless abrasion of grief.

He stared at her, and in that moment she seemed nothing like a child, but something far older, ancient almost, wrapped in a small, too-fragile frame.

"Arabella…do you want to…" 

He trailed off before the thought crystallised. She looked up, sharply—not with anger, but with a weary kind of detachment.

"What? Talk about it?" she asked, a faint trace of mockery in her voice, though exhaustion robbed it of any real sting. "What's there to talk about?"

Her hands curled into fists on her lap, fingers twitching restlessly. Pale scars traced along her knuckles—small testaments to battles no youth should have to fight.

Gale could not help but wonder: were all children touched by magic doomed to tread the same desolate path? Was it ever truly a gift, or merely a slow, quiet erosion of innocence? It felt cruel, the way the Weave chose its servants so young, granting them brilliance at the cost of their peace, their childhood sacrificed upon the altar of power.

"My family is dead," she said simply. "My friends are gone. I had to leave them behind. I have no one now. Nothing."

She spoke with the cadence of someone who had whispered these words to herself many times before. Gale could hear the echo of those lonely rehearsals in every syllable, and a thread of guilt began to coil within him. He had been so deeply entrenched in his own misery, so determined to guard his solitude, to keep others out, it had not even occurred to him that this was not something Arabella had truly chosen either. To be trapped in a dusty tower with a bitter old man, far from any remnants, any tattered semblance of family she might once have clung to.

"I didn't want this stupid magic," she continued. "I never asked for it. But it's mine now, and I'm supposed to learn how to use it like it's some kind of gift. Like it doesn't destroy everything it touches."

The fire hissed quietly in the hearth. Outside, the wind pressed against the windows stronger now, as if it longed to be let in.

"I can't sleep," she continued. "Every time I close my eyes, I see them die again. Over and over. Different every time. Sometimes I try to save them. Sometimes I just watch. And sometimes I…" She paused then, her voice catching at last, though only for a moment. "Sometimes I'm the one who kills them. And I wake up, and I can't breathe, and the magic is just there, humming inside me like it's waiting for me to lose control."

There was no child left in her voice, only the clear, cold tone of someone who had seen too much, too soon.

Gale remained still. He had faced gods and undone realities, had walked through the collapse of worlds and lived to tell the tale. But this was something else entirely. A small soul, wounded and raw, laying itself bare before him. And he had no idea how to hold it without breaking it further.

She curled deeper into the old armchair, the one she had silently claimed as hers since the day she arrived, folding herself inward as though she could shrink small enough to disappear.

Gale felt inadequate. This child needed something—needed him to say something, to offer her anything—but like so many times before, he had failed. He did not know how to give true comfort, and every word he might say seemed doomed to be the wrong one. So, instead of speaking, Gale turned back to the fireplace and began preparing tea. The kettle was old but functional, and the small ritual gave his shaking fingers purpose.

"Why don't you use magic?" she asked, with a disconcerting calm that felt at odds with the weight of her confession, just as he handed her a steaming mug.

He stared at her. "Pardon?"

She took a slow sip, her face mostly hidden behind the rim of the cup. "You haven't once used magic since I arrived."

"I... do use magic," he replied, too quickly, too defensively. He heard it even as the words left him, and immediately despised how false it sounded.

Arabella arched a brow at him, unimpressed. Her silence stung more than any rebuke.

"You just made tea. With firewood. And a kettle," she said flatly.

Gale coughed, a little embarrassed. "It's more relaxing this way. I needed a moment. You... frightened me, you know."

That part, at least, was true.

He stared into his own cup, watching the steam rise like ghosts from the surface.

"So…do these troubled dreams often find you?" he asked and winced inwardly.

It was a weak pivot, transparent at best, given that Arabella had already mentioned that sleep eluded her. She did not answer. Instead, she yawned—long and theatrical, as though bored by the very question. Her eyes, still clouded with exhaustion but sharp enough to cut through pretence, held his without blinking.

"Tell me a story, wizard," she said softly, her own deflection meeting his.

Gale hesitated, the tension in his shoulders loosening just slightly, giving way to something gentler.

"A story?" he echoed, settling into the sofa across from her.

She nodded, drawing the blanket tighter around herself.

"You're always full of them. Just... something nice. Nothing tragic, horrifying or cursed."

A breath of a smile ghosted across Gale's lips, dry and self-aware.

"You do realise that excludes most of the literary canon, yes? And about eighty per cent of my personal history."

She snorted into her cup.

"So improvise. You're a wizard. Make something up."

"A wizard, yes. Not a bard," Gale said, chuckling, low and reluctant. "Very well. Once upon a time, in a tower that definitely did not explode, lived a nice hag who was most certainly not tragic or horrifying or cursed..."

She giggled quietly, eyes slipping half shut. And the sound of her laughter lifted something in Gale. Only then did he realise how terrified he had been of her losing herself while under his watch.

"That's the spirit," she murmured.

He sat in silence for a long moment, the request lingering gently in the space between them. She had not pried, not into his past, not into his pain, but had still managed to find the part of him that remembered what it was to wake in the dark and wish for someone to fill its silence.

He was not her parent. The truth was, he did not know what he was meant to be, but he stayed, and that had to count for something.

At last, he reached beside him and picked up a worn book, its spine cracked, the cover etched with the image of knights astride dragons, suspended above the battlefield, sword arms raised in defiance.

He turned it over in his hands, hesitating once more. Then, in a voice low and steady, he began to read.

✦

Chapter Text

✦✦✦

Gale

It did not surprise Gale at all that Arabella and Tara became fast friends. Tara's fondness for magical children, paired with Arabella's habit of sneaking her beholder jerky, made for a match seemingly crafted by the gods themselves. More often than not, Gale found them huddled together on the sofa in his reading room, both asleep amidst precarious towers of books.

Some days were hard. Nightmares haunted Arabella with increasing frequency, wrenching her from sleep with bloodcurdling screams that sent Gale, often still awake, rushing into her room, lighting a candle with trembling fingers, heart pounding, terrified that something had gone awry with her magic.

But his worst fears never materialised. Her power remained contained, though he recognised the weight of her terror, the grip of those dreams that left her breathless and shaking. On such nights, he made tea, and together they found comfort in books in the reading room.

Arabella harboured a firm distaste for romance, and Gale suspected it had something to do with her parents. She had never mentioned them again after that first night, but he recalled, however faintly, how deeply Arabella's parents had loved each other, and how tenderly they had doted on their spirited child.

So instead, he spun tales of adventure and treasure hunters, of brave fools and improbable escapes. And when his stories ran out, they invented their own, weaving ridiculous endings that often left them both in fits of giggles, dissolving at last into sleepy laughter until exhaustion finally granted them a few precious hours of rest.

Now, he stepped into his study and set a plate of freshly baked buns on the table.

Arabella sat slouched in one of the oversized chairs, cheeks flushed with frustration. She shoved damp strands of hair from her face, scowling, breath quick and shallow. The air was bristling with the scent of ozone, the weight of latent magic pressing against the walls becoming stifling. She huffed again, glaring at the empty space where she imagined the Weave was meant to answer her call, but did not.

The struggle to cast through controlled channels, without relying on instinct or emotion, was wearing her thin.

"Just try to reach..." Gale began gently.

"I know!" she snapped. "Reach out, focus on the midpoint, let the energy flow slowly, keep my mind connected to the anchor point," she mimicked, her voice laced with sharp-edged mockery. "I know, but I don't know how to do any of that!" Her eyes rolled so hard, Gale half-expected them to fall out of her head.

"Can you not just show me or something?" she huffed, collapsing deeper into the chair like the sulking child she was. Except there was too much fire behind her eyes, too much power rippling beneath her fingertips to dismiss her as merely petulant.

Gale sighed. He often forgot she was only twelve. Not a scholar, and nothing like he had been at her age, buried in books and theory, eager for lectures that never seemed long enough. Despite their many similarities, Arabella was not Gale. She did not want clever metaphors and informative footnotes. 

The magic in the room was growing more volatile by the minute. She was upset, and he could feel how her power answered her moods, drawn to her like metal to a lodestone.

"I don't..." Gale had a half-formed excuse perched on the tip of his tongue, but she did not give him the chance.

"What kind of wizard doesn't use magic?" she bit out. "You teach it, for gods' sake."

And then she was gone, storming out before he could summon a reply, her footsteps retreating down the corridor with a finality that rendered him strangely hollow.

Gale stood where she had left him, caught in the hush that followed. He ought to have been angry. He wanted to be, wanted to summon the bitterness he had once carried for Arabella back when she had been nothing but a reminder of all his past failings. But the emotion refused to surface.

Instead, he lifted a hand, dragging quaking fingers through his hair.

She was right.

He had not truly used magic in longer than he cared to measure, let alone admit. He had returned to Waterdeep expecting familiarity, something to offer him footing, but instead found a city and a self both altered beyond recognition.

The nights were long and sleepless, filled with fractured dreams and memories that refused to fade. He moved through his days as if on a stage, all charm and practised smiles, each gesture a deflection. Told others he only taught theory and left it at that. He had noticed the glances, heard the whispers, the rumours, but he ignored them just like everything else.

But it wore on him, this performance, this civility honed to avoid unravelling. He clung to the quiet hope that time might mute some of the pain, that if he played the role long enough, it might become real.

But it had not.

In truth, whenever he reached for the Weave, it met him like a wave too vast to contain. And always, her name lingered just beyond the margins of thought, a presence he could not look at directly.

He could not bear to let her in again, not after everything. Not after the disintegration that followed his fall from her favour, after the long climb back, only to realise she could have pulled him free all along. That revelation alone had left something broken in him.

So he buried it, and avoidance had become second nature, carved into him like ancient sigils etched into stone.

And with every passing day, the Weave receded further, as though it too had learned to stop reaching for someone who no longer wished to be found.

He let out a long exhale, his thumb tracing the frayed edges of his robe once, twice, then a third time. Then he went after Arabella.

He found her, as expected, in the reading room, sprawled in the armchair with a book open in her lap. Gale lowered himself onto the sofa opposite, the old cushions giving a weary sigh beneath his weight. The silence that settled between them was not empty, but taut, stretched thin.

Her eyes clung to the page, but Gale could tell she wasn't reading. Her brow was furrowed, her mouth set in a tight line, and Gale thought he could almost hear the grinding of her thoughts, circling and circling, hunting for release.

At last, after a long moment, she muttered, "I'm sorry."

"That was pretty rude," Gale said matter-of-factly, nodding.

Arabella looked away, her cheeks colouring with embarrassment.

"But," Gale added with a sigh, "you're not wrong."

She blinked, surprised. Her eyes lifted to meet his.

He could see it there, what she needed. Guidance. Clarity. Something more than lectures and theory. Something real.

And if there was anything worthy enough to set aside his fears, it was this cause.

He stood slowly and extended his hand.

"Come on," he said.

Arabella stared at it for a moment, then at him. Slowly, she set the book aside and, clasping his hand, rose to her feet.

"I will open the connection to the Weave. Your task is to practise taking control of this connection, keeping it open, maintaining it, and allowing magic to move through you. But for now, refrain from casting anything. Just as before, simply let the power flow," he instructed gently, though his voice carried an undertone of tension he could not entirely conceal.

Gale lifted his hand and drew a sigil in the air. The motion was as familiar as breath, yet now steeped in dread. How many times had he reached for the Weave? Countless. But each attempt now felt like stepping barefoot onto broken glass.

The air grew colder as his fingertips hovered, unsteady, as though even the world recoiled from what was to come.

The first touch sent a tremor up his arm. He braced for another episode, another fractured vision or dreamscape, but what struck him first was somehow worse: the scent of rosewater. Sweet, cloying, sharp as a blade. The ghost of her presence. It coiled around him, uninvited.

His breath caught. The pain was not physical, but it was vast, cavernous, merciless.

Their final meeting upon the Astral Plane intruded on his mind. Her gaze, distant and unknowable, her voice tender and terrible. A betrayal hidden within divine grace. The quiet severance of their bond. All of it surged forward as the Weave unfolded before him once more, heedless of his torment. It did not care that Gale feared it, nor that each thread felt like a strand of the noose his goddess had once drawn taut around his throat.

It responded as it always had: eagerly, greedily.

The pressure behind his eyes and in his throat rose swiftly, becoming near-unbearable. His heartbeat pounded, a war drum against his ribs. The old panic stirred, whispering that he would lose himself again, that he would surrender as he once had, falling helpless into her embrace.

But then his gaze found Arabella.

The tiefling stood before him, her eyes shining with unspoken dread, yet defiant in the face of the unknown. Her bare feet shuffled on the polished floor, searching for purchase, her tail swaying gently as she fought to focus.

She trusted him. She had no one else.

Gale clenched his jaw and drew a breath that burned like fire in his lungs. He could not fail her. Not as others had failed him. He would not be responsible for another young life robbed of a childhood, stolen and made into a plaything of the powerful.

The energy surged again, testing his resolve. This time, he did not shy away from it. He met it and commanded it. The invisible machinery within him groaned to life, ancient and weary but still obedient. It was pain, yes. It was terror. But it gave him direction. 

The agony shifted into something else: an offering, a sacrifice made willingly.

He whispered the incantation, the familiar words trembling like fragile glass on his tongue. It was an old spell, one he had devised in his youth, and as the syllables passed from his lips, the threads of the Weave revealed themselves. Luminous strands floated in the air, swaying to unseen currents.

Arabella stared, wide-eyed, mouth parted in awe. She reached forward, fingers splayed, though she did not need to touch.

Then, the connection flickered to life. She gasped, and at once Gale felt her anxiety, her hurt, her frustration—every tangled, conflicted emotion—through the tenuous link. Their heartbeats thundered frantically like a pair of trapped birds. He sensed the exact moment she reached for her own magic, and almost immediately it threatened to overwhelm her, to pull her under.

Gale's muscles tensed, ready to intervene. But then she steadied herself. Arabella drew a shuddering breath, her brows knitting as she battled the storm within. He watched her with a strange mingling of worry and pride as her small hands sought the threads of power, grasping them and bending them to stillness.

Her eyes were like dark caves lit with firelight. Then a smile bloomed across her face, wide and wild. Gale inhaled sharply as a wave of warmth spread through their bond, filled with gratitude, exhilaration, and that boundless, radiant energy that belonged only to her.

For the first time, he saw in her not only a reflection of what he had once been, but also of what he could have become, had anyone stood by him.

Gale swallowed the pain.

He wanted to shield her from the world's hunger, from the prying eyes and greedy hands eager to twist her brilliance into something useful. He knew it was a foolish thought, impossible even, but it clung to him all the same.

✦

Arabella burst into the study with a fistful of letters in hand.

"Mail!" she announced, dropping the small stack onto Gale's desk with a dramatic flourish.

Gale glanced up from his notes, expecting the usual—administrative notices from Blackstaff, publication updates, perhaps the odd politely worded request for a guest lecture. But as he sifted through the stack, one envelope caught his eye. It was off-white, unsealed, and bore no institutional crest.

Just his name, written in ink, and a handwriting he recognised. He had not heard from Karlach and Shadowheart in a while. 

He could feel Arabella's eyes on him as he opened it.

Gale's heart picked up an errant rhythm by the time he reached the end of the letter. Riding the tide of elation, he seized a quill and parchment before hesitation could steal the moment away.

Gale looked over his shoulder just in time to catch Arabella sneaking a peek at the still-glistening ink on the paper, her tongue sticking out in concentration. He huffed a laugh, shook the paper a little to help it dry, then shifted slightly to give her curious eyes better access to the correspondence.

"Karlach?" she asked, her face lighting up. "She's the tiefling, right? Dammon's friend? She travelled with you?"

"The one and only," Gale said fondly, a wistful smile tugging at his lips.

"So... why's she in Avernus? Isn't that, like, the worst place she could possibly be?"

His smile faltered. "A fair assessment. Though for Karlach, the situation is rather more complicated. When she was younger, she was deceived by a dangerous man—Gortash, if you remember—the one whose ambition poisoned much of Baldur's Gate. His trickery cost her dearly."

Arabella frowned. "How dearly?"

Gale hesitated, then answered plainly. "Her heart."

"Wait. Her actual heart?" Her eyes grew wide. 

He nodded solemnly. "Replaced with an infernal engine. A vile piece of craftsmanship, powered by the very fires of the Hells. On the Material Plane, it burns too hot. Eventually, fatally so. Avernus, for all its horrors, is the only place it will not kill her."

Arabella's brow pushed together even further as she digested the news, a flicker of concern crossing her face. "And the cleric and Wyll went with her?" she asked, her voice tinged with something between curiosity and quiet awe.

Gale nodded, folding his hands on the table, his gaze drifting momentarily out the window. "They did. They remain in Avernus, searching for a solution, or at least a reprieve. It is no small thing, what they have taken upon themselves."

Arabella tilted her head slightly, a calculating look entering her expression. "What about the vampire?"

The question landed with the weight of a miscast spell, a sudden, visceral awareness prickling at the base of Gale's spine. He steadied his expression before replying, carefully neutral, "What about him?"

"You haven't mentioned him once," she replied. "You've talked about everyone else."

He offered a thin smile, the kind that couldn't quite reach his eyes. "Haven't I?"

Arabella's gaze narrowed, her tone clipped, and edged with impatience "Wizard."

It was remarkable, really, the way children could cut directly to the heart of things.

Gale's fingers curled reflexively, and the pause that followed stretched a moment too long.

"Leave it be," he said, and the words came out harsher than intended, tinged with an irritation he had not meant to reveal.

Arabella stared at him, not hurt, but watchful now.

Gale closed his eyes for a moment, exhaling deeply as he fought for ever brittle composure. "That was unkind," he said softly. "I apologise. It is simply not a subject I enjoy revisiting. These people, they were not passing acquaintances, Arabella. They were companions in the truest sense. They held the line beside me, walked paths most would fear to tread. And they are gone now. Scattered. Lost to distance, to duty, to time. And I... miss them, I suppose."

She considered him in silence for a moment, her expression unreadable. Then, with the infuriating simplicity of youth, she asked, "So why don't you go and see them?"

Gale found himself without the usual cascade of words. He turned away slightly, running a hand along the edge of the table.

"It's... complicated," he said finally, the syllables weighed down with too much meaning. "There are matters here that require my attention. Research. Responsibilities. Promises I have made. And... other considerations."

Arabella's eyebrows climbed her forehead, the scepticism plain on her face. She did not say anything further, but the silence itself spoke volumes.

"I believe it is a fine time for breakfast," Gale said, eager to redirect the conversation. "You should go and wash up. I shall see what I can conjure up."

She rolled her eyes, clearly unimpressed by the deflection, but relented with a theatrical sigh, one she had clearly borrowed from much older, more exasperated souls. Without another word, she turned on her heel and strode off.

Once she was gone, Gale let the smile slip from his face. He looked down at Karlach's letter, at the playful loops and sharp angles of the handwriting that had briefly tethered him to a time he tried not to revisit. 

He seldom allowed himself the indulgence of memory, especially not of Astarion. To dwell on the elf was to pour salt into a wound that had never closed properly, only grown quiet with time.

Gale had done his best to let go of the past. He had tried to shed this skin of obsession he had labelled love, a feeling that had once filled him with heat and excitement, but now pressed the sharpened edge of misery against his throat with each suffocating swallow.

He had tried, in earnest, to move on. To start anew.

And for a fleeting moment, he almost believed he had. She had been beautiful, intelligent, liked the right things in the right way, and she was perfect in all the right ways, but her smile tilted just a little wrong, and her smell, the blend of fresh linen and marigold, was all wrong.

Still, Gale wanted it so badly. He wanted to tumble into love with her—he craved it like air.

He imagined a life where he would wake up to that clear, lovely scent lingering on his pillow. Wrong. He pictured their evenings filled with cooking and quiet laughter, the mouth-watering aroma of homemade food rising to fill all the empty spaces of the Tower. But he knew it for what it was: the sound of his loneliness rattling its cage, a rotting hunger gnawing at his belly, begging for scraps. And nobody deserved to be the empty sustenance for his ever-starving soul.

So Gale allowed the kiss to happen. Wrong. Perfectly polite and respectable. Then he stepped back, made vacant excuses to placate her heart, and took it upon himself to carry the embarrassment of rejection.

Later, he walked home alone, once again folding himself into the cold embrace of solitude, while that wretched organ beneath his ribcage beat on, stubborn, slow, refusing to die, reminding him with every pulse that everything else would always be wrong, wrong, wrong.

✦

Chapter Text

✦✦✦

Gale 

It was a few hours past highsun when the chime announcing visitors at the Tower rang out. Gale's throat tightened as his fingers curled around the brass door handle. It was absurd, really, how something as simple as seeing old friends again could feel so monumental.

He stood motionless, the quiet pressing in around him like a held breath. Then he opened the door.

"Well, hello there, handsome."

Karlach's voice rolled over him like a tide, rich and teasing, achingly familiar. Her grin was all teeth and fire, the same untamed blaze that lived undimmed in his memory.

Before he could summon a single coherent thought, she was already through the doorway, closing the distance with that irrepressible energy. Her arms wrapped around him in a fierce, unabashed embrace that knocked the breath from his lungs.

It had been over a year since anyone had touched him like that. Since anyone had touched him at all, really. The sudden contact disoriented him, like stepping into sunlight after too long underground.

His body locked up, caught between the instinct to return the gesture and the reflex to retreat behind old armour. His hands hovered uncertainly at her sides. He wanted to lean in, to let himself be engulfed, but the moment slipped through his fingers like smoke.

If Karlach noticed, she gave no sign. She stepped back wordlessly, and her grin faded into something gentler.

Gale drew a shallow breath and tried for a smile, but it wavered at the edges. His gaze slid away from hers, not yet ready to face whatever truth might live there—relief, pity, or worse, disappointment.

A faint scuff of boots pulled him back from the brink of dark thoughts. Shadowheart had been waiting just beyond Karlach, silent, as if allowing the moment its due. Now she stepped forward, her pace unhurried, her expression veiled, that habitual composure wrapped around her like a cloak as she slipped into the narrow hall, bringing with her the scent of embers and steel. She lifted a cool hand to his cheek.

Gale didn't flinch, but he couldn't quite meet her eyes either.

"It is good to see you, wizard," she said, her voice softer than he remembered.

He swallowed and took her hand between his own, giving her fingers the lightest, grateful squeeze.

"Please, come in," he said, a faint tremor in his words betraying emotion, as he turned and extended a hand in invitation. "Welcome to my home."

That was all Karlach needed. She swept past him in her usual hurricane fashion, boots thudding against the floorboards. But as she reached the kitchen doorway, she came to an abrupt halt, one arm flung out as if to ward off a charging beast.

"Gale?" she said, caught between bafflement and accusation. "Do you... do you have a child?"

"What?" Gale sputtered. "No!" The denial left him just as a younger voice rang out in perfect, scandalised harmony.

He stepped up beside Karlach and peered into the kitchen.

Arabella sat at the table, spoon frozen halfway to her mouth, eyes wide, as if they had just walked in on her mid-crime.

Karlach jabbed a finger at the scene, her brows drawn so tightly they looked ready to crack stone.

"Then what in the everloving Hells am I looking at?"

"Lunch?" Gale ventured, his attempt at innocence landing so poorly, even he winced. "The child appears to be conducting unauthorised taste tests on the ingredients I explicitly told her not to touch," he added in mock admonishment.

Arabella's mouth twitched as she fought back a grin.

Karlach turned that look on him, a look that could have boiled soup on sight.

He sighed, all hope of a smooth explanation abandoned.

"Karlach," he said, more gently now, "you have met before. This is Arabella."

Arabella was taller now. Her hair had grown long and untamed, loosely gathered into a messy braid that trailed down her back, and there was a fullness to her face that spoke of regular meals and steadier days.

Karlach blinked at Gale as though he had struck her with a blunt instrument, then turned back to the young tiefling. Recognition dawned across her face.

In a heartbeat, she crossed the room and dropped into a crouch, cupping Arabella's face in her large, calloused hands as though not entirely convinced she was real. She turned her gently, this way and that, her palms rough but her touch tender.

Arabella looked up at her, the spoon jutting from her mouth.

"Oh, by the gods," Karlach breathed. "I thought you were dead, you little menace. After the battle, Withers just hit me with one of his classic 'You must let her go' lines, as though that is not the most unhelpful undead nonsense I have ever heard. I didn't know if he meant'move on emotionally' or that you had been scattered to the winds."

"I am fine," Arabella said, finally removing the spoon. "The wizard has been helping with my magic."

Karlach's head turned sharply, her stare snapping to Gale once more like a pair of twin suns eclipsed by theatrical suspicion.

"Has he now?" she asked, slow and sugar-sweet, her grin stretched wide but never quite reaching her eyes. "Funny, I don't recall receiving any letters from our dear wizard about all this helpful wizarding he has been up to."

Her tone was warm, even playful, but there was an edge beneath it that twisted something deep in Gale's gut.

In truth, he had not told anyone outside of Blackstaff, not even his own mother, about Arabella. And the fact that Morena hadn't yet stormed his doorstep demanding answers suggested Tara, too, had held her tongue.

Not telling his mother had been simple enough; she would have turned the smallest ripple into a tempest. But why he had kept it from Karlach and Shadowheart—that was harder to explain, even to himself. It might have been the thought of people appearing at his door before he was ready, voices and eyes prying into places he had locked away.

He adjusted the cuff of his sleeve with needless precision, then fixed his attention, perhaps a little too intently, on a crack in the floorboards.

"Yes, well," he muttered, a rasp catching the words before he cleared his throat. "I will, ah, need a little more time to finish cooking. Please, sit. There is wine, or tea, whichever you prefer."

He gestured towards the table where Arabella sat, his fingers twitching slightly.

Karlach held his gaze a moment longer than necessary, gauging a thing best left unspoken. Then, with a shrug and a gusty huff, she dropped into the seat beside Arabella. The chair groaned beneath her weight as she slung an arm across its back with the easy nonchalance of someone who might have lived there for years. Shadowheart took the seat opposite, pale green eyes sweeping the room as if cataloguing each corner, each shelf, every detail of his kitchen.

Gale turned back to the counter, hands moving on instinct. He eyed the ingredients he had left half-prepared and picked up where he had been interrupted.

Slice. Grind. Stir.

He let the rhythm carry him. The scent of herbs, the sting of spice on his fingertips, the murmur of sauce simmering just shy of a boil—these were simple, grounding things. Comforting. And yet, his hands wouldn't stop trembling.

He was glad they were here. But their presence was like sunlight falling through stained glass: beautiful, warm, entirely too revealing. Every fault line, every fracture he had once thought buried was suddenly illuminated in sharp, unflinching colour. It felt as though two entirely separate versions of his life had collided in that kitchen: past and present, regret and renewal—and he stood in the middle, breathless in the wreckage, unsure which he was meant to salvage.

Still, he pressed on. The meal came together with a care that bordered on reverence: slow-roasted auroch, its skin lacquered with saffron and rosemary until golden and crisp, served beside a tumble of glazed root vegetables and a plum reduction as dark as winter wine. A proper Waterdhavian comfort, the sort one might expect at a high table in the North Ward.

Gale had poured himself into every motion, each movement an act of devotion. He rarely cooked like this—never had cause to. For himself, it felt indulgent, and Arabella, well, Arabella lived mostly on bread rolls and stubborn opinions.

But he loved this. Loved the simple art of creating something meant to be shared, meant to be savoured. There was a kind of intimacy in it, unburdened by touch or tangled conversation.

Karlach's eyes lit up with pure, unguarded delight when he set the spread before her. She wasted no time, heaping her plate with abandon, utterly ignoring the disapproving and slightly incredulous frown Shadowheart gave her from across the table. Not that the cleric was immune to the temptation either; to Gale's satisfaction, she tucked in just as readily, albeit with a smidge more restraint.

Arabella jabbered away between mouthfuls of bread, cheeks puffed. Gale watched her with a trace of dry amusement as she carefully ate around every single vegetable on her plate.

She had a million questions, as always.

"So, if I may—how did you manage to improve the heart?" Gale asked once Arabella stopped for a moment to take some deep gulps of water from her cup.

"Me?" Karlach let out a laugh that rumbled through the table. "No, no, that was all Dammon. He and Rolan popped by Hope's place a few times, tinkering, refining, bickering like an old married couple. Eventually got it stable enough to give this baby a proper field test." She thumped her chest, metal ringing beneath her palm.

Arabella froze mid-bite, eyes widening with the thrill of new possibility. "Wait, Rolan and Dammon are in Avernus? Does that mean I could come and visit too?"

The abrupt change of subject offered some relief, but it came too late. Guilt had already lodged in Gale like a blade, rendering him voiceless, for he knew it should have been he who had helped Karlach.

"Whoa, slow down there, kiddo." Karlach leaned back, stretching comfortably, her grin splitting her face like a sunrise. "Avernus is not exactly where you go for a scenic holiday. Even with Hope's enhancements, it is still full of devils and fire and… well, more devils. But yes, they patched me up a bit. I can come topside for a few days at a time now. That is how I got here."

Arabella twisted in her seat to look at Gale, practically vibrating with energy. "You could take me, right? Just once? For research! I could take notes!"

Gale's lips quirked into a half-smile. "I am not certain teleporting you to the first layer of Hell would be wise. However, I must say, your scholarly enthusiasm is commendable. A proper researcher's mindset."

Karlach barked a laugh. "Scholar, my arse. She wants to see the flying fortresses and sample infernal cuisine."

"It is called culture," Arabella huffed, chin lifted, though her grin unravelled any real attempt at indignation.

Shadowheart, silent until now, smirked into her cup.

"Culture that will most likely try to eat you."

"I can take care of myself!" Arabella protested, earning a sceptical glance from the cleric as she coolly assessed her, though there was mirth in her eyes too.

Gale chuckled, shaking his head. It felt good. Gods, it truly felt good. Laughter, shared food, and people he cared for gathered around one table—it felt almost untouched by time. Almost.

He glanced over at Shadowheart. "Your parents?"

She gave a small nod and a smile, subdued but sincere. "They are well. My mother… she is holding on. They have settled just outside Reithwin, in a little village where some of Halsin's druids have made their home. Clean air, animals, proper healers. It is a quiet life, but they are safe and I can visit often enough."

"And the curse?" His eyes flicked to her hand that curled lightly around the handle of her knife. The wound looked unchanged, at least. No spreading. No fresh bloom of darkened veins.

"It is… manageable," she said after a pause, lifting one shoulder in a shrug.

A hush settled over the table. Not awkward, exactly, but weighted. Old familiarity wrapped around them like a half-mended quilt: warm, but fraying at the seams. 

It almost felt like before. 

But beneath the comfort, Gale could sense the fissures—hairline cracks running through something once whole, hidden just under the surface, waiting to split wide.

They taunted him, and as always, he couldn't help but press against them.

"I should have been there," he said suddenly, fixing his attention on his plate, fingers tightening around the fork. "I should have been the one to help with your heart. And—"

"Bloody fucking right you should have been," Karlach cut in.

The words struck like a hammer, shattering what they had been balancing into jagged shards, and in an instant, all levity drained from the room.

Arabella stared, wide-eyed, and Shadowheart looked between them, cautious, but said nothing.

Gale stiffened. "Karlach, I—"

"Don't." She stood abruptly, her chair scraping against the floorboards, loud and jarring. She towered over the table. "Don't give me a 'sorry'. Not a single letter in months. Where the fuck were you, Gale?"

His breath caught. "I was… busy. There were things I needed to—"

"You were not 'busy'," she snapped. "You were wallowing. And fine. We all were, in our own way. But you didn't just sit with it—you disappeared. You shut us out. Cut us off like we were some chapter you could close and be done with."

Gale's mouth was suddenly parched, and his throat grew tight.

"And her." She jerked her head towards Arabella. "You didn't say a damned word. We thought she was dead. Dead, Gale. And now she is here. Alive. And you didn't think that was worth telling us?"

"I did…" Gale began defensively, but Karlach silenced him with another scathing look.

"Unless she showed up the very day you got my letter, you are going to need a better excuse."

Gale looked down, jaw clenched. Guilt twisted like a blade under his ribs.

Another uncomfortable silence settled over the table.

Karlach folded her arms, her entire frame drawn tight, as though holding herself together through sheer force of will. But when she spoke again, her voice came softer, and somehow that hit harder than her anger ever could.

"Why have you not come to see us?" There was no accusation in the question now, only raw, earnest pain. "Do not sugar-coat it. I don't need a good reason—just an honest one."

He met her eyes briefly before looking away, shame swelling inside him, making it impossible to hold her gaze.

"I have been… caught up in things."

The stetement hung useless in the air.

Karlach gave him a long, unimpressed look. "Try again."

Then, as though a flame had been snuffed, the heat in her expression vanished. She exhaled sharply, her frustration collapsing into something closer to visible hurt, and dropped back into her chair.

"Look..." she said, pressing a hand to her chest, lightly, almost absent-mindedly, over the place where her infernal heart pulsed beneath burned skin and bone. "I don't care that it was not you who helped with this. I can live with the fact that you haven't been around. Life is... complicated. Messy as the Nine Hells. And now you have got a..." She gestured vaguely at Arabella. "A child."

"Not my child."

"Not his child," 

Gale and Arabella echoed in perfect, deadpan unison, despite the tension hanging in the air.

That earned a small huff of laughter from Karlach and her shoulders dropped, just slightly. "Point is, we have been worried, mate. About you. About the other idiot. Ever since Astarion left Hope's—"

"He what? " The word tore out of Gale before thought could catch it. His pulse spiked, his heart leaping and crashing in the same beat. The name slammed through him like a struck bell, all sound and shock, reverberating until the world was nothing but that single fracture of information.

Karlach stilled, her expression pinched. She clearly hadn't meant to say it.

It was Shadowheart who finally stepped in. "He stayed with us for a while, after everything. Then he left," she said evenly.

Gale looked between them. "Why didn't you tell me?"

A beat passed in stunned silence. And, all right, perhaps that question carried more than a trace of hypocrisy. A rational part of him knew it was none of his concern, and they owed him nothing.

Karlach's eyes narrowed. "Oh, piss off, Gale." Some of the fire came back all at once. "We wrote to you. For weeks. Sent word. Waited. And what did we get? Nothing. Not a scrap. Not even a godsdamned lie to hold on to. You built a fortress around yourself, and you are surprised we stopped yelling at the bloody walls?"

"That is not—" he began, but Karlach interjected once more, impatiently.

"Then explain it. Because from where I'm standing, that's exactly what it looks like."

Gale faltered. His gaze flicked towards Arabella. She was watching him intently, and he felt that old, deep-seated discomfort: vulnerability in front of someone who saw right through him.

"I should... go start my reading," she said quickly, clearly picking up on the mood. She was young, but not naïve. She always seemed to know when to give him space, and that knowledge, too, filled him with a fresh wave of guilt.

The door clicked shut behind her, and the silence that followed felt heavier for her absence. Gale let out a breath, slow and uneven, and dragged a hand through his hair, mussing strands that were already refusing order.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, the admissio worn at the edges, as though they had eroded on the way out. He paused, sifting through a litany of half-truths and well-crafted justifications that flickered through his mind like pages rifled by wind.

He could have chosen one, something measured and easy to swallow. But he had no appetite for lies. So he offered the bleak truth instead.

"Before we met... my life was quiet. Solitary, in more ways than simply being alone. Even before..." He faltered, wetting his lips, unwilling to say his goddess' name. "...before the orb, it was books and spells that filled the silence. I kept to myself, not out of pride or contempt, but because I never quite learned how to be around others. Not really." He kept his eyes averted, but he could feel their attention on him.

His fingers moved, almost unconsciously, adjusting his plate. Aligning it just so. Then the knife. Then the glass.

"Time got away from me," he continued. "Days turned into tendays, then a whole season passed. And still, I had not written. Not for lack of desire—I wanted to. But I simply had nothing of worth to say. I was not making progress. I hadn't discovered anything that might help either of you."

Karlach stared at him. "Gale?"

He glanced her way, tentative.

The tiefling waited until their eyes locked. "Are you an idiot?"

Gale frowned. "Pardon?"

"Fuck me," she muttered. "You still believe we kept you around because you could throw glittery magic at problems." It was not a question. "After everything, you still think we give a damn about some fancy little accomplishments list?"

She leaned in slightly, arms still folded, but her tone softened, the frustration giving way to something mellower and infinitely sadder.

"Gods, Gale. I told you before. I like you because you are you. We all do. You do not have to be clever, or useful, or brilliant every time you walk into a room. Just... fucking be there. Pop through the damned portal sometime and tell me about your rubbish day. Tell me how some student tried to polymorph a sandwich and you ended up a goose for three hours."

He choked on a reluctant laugh. "That never happened."

Her lips pressed into a line, though the slight lift of her mouth betrayed her mirth."Yet."

For the first time, he really looked at her. Karlach, solid and stubborn and waiting. His smile began to form, hesitant at first, then growing sheepish.

"No student would dare mar a face this magnificent," he said, his words deliberately lofty, a small attempt to lighten the mood further.

It worked. Karlach snorted, shaking her head. "There he is. Missed that pompous bastard."

"I am sorry," Gale said, a little steadier this time.

"I know you are." She held his gaze, unblinking. For a heartbeat, it was like Arabella all over again. Like she could see straight through him, past the learned charm and studied eloquence, down to the raw and uncertain shape of who he really was. "What are you going to do about it?"

Gale swallowed hard. Words scattered in his mind, too many and none of them useful. He grasped inwardly, reaching for something, anything, that might bridge the space between them, might begin to mend what he had broken through absence and silence. Karlach had only ever asked for small things: a note, a visit, a reminder that he cared. A little effort to show he was there.

And then, like a match flaring in a dark room, the idea struck.

"Come with me," he said, rising from the table with sudden purpose.

Karlach gave him a questioning look, but stood without a remark, and Shadowheart followed suit, falling into step behind. He led them through the hall and up the stairs in brisk strides, only recalling the state of his study as his hand closed on the knob and the door swung open.

Too late to shut it.

"What in the Nine..." Karlach whispered, stepping into the room slowly.

Her head turned as she took in the space—the walls crowded with notes, sketches, and diagrams of infernal hearts; the maps pinned and the blueprints etched on parchment; the arcane formulae scrawled on every margin. He knew how it looked. Like a sad shrine.

"Well. That is... quite something." Shadowheart murmured behind Karlach, more surprised than reproachful. "Especially for a man who never answers his correspondence." She gave him a sidelong glance, and Gale couldn't help but shift his weight slightly.

When he turned to Karlach, however, the tiefling's eyes were on him, staring. Her expression was unreadable. Face taut, lips parted slightly, as though a question was building behind her teeth. A shuddering breath escaped her, and the last traces of anger dissolved, a tremor passing through her as tears welled in their wake. Fat and unguarded, they streamed freely down her cheeks now that she was no longer overheating. She stepped forward and embraced him once more in a hug that felt strong enough to crush a fortress.

Gale's heart stuttered in his chest, a sharp, erratic lurch of adrenaline. For one breathless second, he thought he might recoil, might pull away.

But instead, his fingers found the fabric of her shirt and clenched there, helpless and instinctive. He pulled her closer, pressing into the contact as though proximity might erase the weight of the time lost. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, half hiding, half holding on, and let the scent of her anchor him. Smoke and scorched iron. Something wild and fierce and undeniably Karlach.

He could not think. Could barely breathe.

And yet, it was the most alive he had felt in months.

"What is all this?" Karlach asked, each syllable a rumble Gale could feel against his form.

"I told you I would try to find a way," he said softly into her shoulder. His voice was muffled and a little hoarse. "I am sorry, I haven't yet. The Sharran curse remains maddeningly elusive, but I have reached out to Gond's acolytes at the local temple. One of them spoke, rather cryptically, I might add, of a theoretical construct that might hold promise for your heart. Alas, they have yet to respond to my latest enquiry."

A jagged breath escaped her, splintering into a damp laugh that brushed low and warm against his temple.

"I thought you had forgotten about all that," she whispered.

Gale pulled back just enough to meet her gaze.

"I made a promise," he said simply.

She closed her eyes for a moment, another tear slipping down her cheek. "Then make me another one."

"Anything." Gale's answer came without hesitation, and he meant it.

"Fucking talk to us, you arsehole."

He let out a dry, rasping sound. Half laugh, half breath, wholly fragile. Then, needing a task to ground himself, he stepped away, crossed the room to a drawer tucked against the far wall, and rummaged through its contents. After a moment, he found what he was looking for.

It was a small, smooth stone, just large enough to sit comfortably in one's palm. Delicate sigils had been etched across its surface, faintly glowing. A crude depiction of a creature spread on its centre, somewhere between a winged serpent and a bird.

"A sending stone," he explained, holding it up between two fingers. "One of my earlier experiments, an attempt to bridge arcane function with mundane practicality. The idea was to let non-magic users communicate across distance without needing to use a spell."

He hesitated, then added with a faint grimace, "The enchantment is a little inconsistent. I shelved the project before completion. It is partially degraded. You might not get all twenty-five words, and it once called the man on the other end, and I quote, an 'old bag of phalluses' instead of relaying my actual message."

He scratched the back of his head. "Still, it should suffice for keeping in touch, or, if fortune feels generous, for arranging something a little more civilised than letters that take days to arrive… or unannounced entrances."

"Was he?" Karlach asked. When Gale looked at her, confused, she clarified, "An 'old bag of phalluses'?"

"It was Elminster," he said.

There was a beat, just enough time for the implication to land, before all three of them burst out laughing.

Karlach turned the stone gently over in her scarred hand. She studied the etchings, her thumb brushing across the sigils as though she could read the spellwork by touch alone.

"So what," a smirk playing on her lips, "I just yell into this thing and hope it does not explode or insult you?"

"No yelling," Gale replied, lifting a warning finger. "Just think of me. Speak clearly. And do try not to exceed the word limit. It is not unlike sending a letter, really, just with fewer ink stains and marginally more arcane interference."

Karlach rolled her eyes, but there was fondness in the gesture. She slipped the stone into her pocket with an air of solemn finality.

"Fine. But if I do not hear from you in a week, I am showing up and dragging your robe-wearing arse through the portal myself."

"Noted," he said, lips twitching, then he stepped back from the desk. 

As they turned to leave, Gale caught a quiet exchange—Shadowheart's hand brushing against Karlach's, a quick squeeze, wordless but weighted. Whatever passed between them was locked in that brief touch, and Karlach's answering smile hinted at reassurance.

They made their way back downstairs, Gale eager to leave his study and the chaos it contained. The reading room greeted them with warm light from the fire already lit and the faint scent of vellum and spiced wine.

Arabella looked up as they entered, her eyes flitting between them. She hesitated, but only for a breath, until Karlach offered her a wide, lopsided grin. Arabella returned it instantly, bright and a little too knowing.

Gale went to grab a tray of fresh cups from the kitchen and poured a round of wine. Then he waved them all towards the seats with a flourish. Nursing a generous glass himself, he folded into his usual corner with a sigh as Shadowheart claimed the empty cushion next to him without a word.

Arabella insisted Karlach take the armchair, then perched on its arm, legs swinging idly.

Gale and Shadowheart sat together, an easy comfort settling between them as they watched the two tieflings playfully bicker. Arabella, with exaggerated stealth, made a playful grab for Karlach's wine, only for Karlach to hook a powerful arm around her neck and muss the strands of hair that had long since escaped their braid. Arabella yelped, her protest dissolving into laughter, and the sound poured a newfound warmth into the corners of the room.

Beside Gale, the cleric shifted closer, enough to erase the space between them. When she spoke, her voice was low. "I thought about coming to see you."

Gale turned, brows lifting in mild surprise. "You did?"

She hummed and gave a small nod. "More than once, if I am being honest."

His head tilted as he studied her. Her gaze had dropped to the cup in her hands, firelight catching the silver of her braid and turning it to molten gold. It lent her an almost unearthly quality, though the way she worried the rim of her glass with her thumb rooted her firmly in the moment.

"But I thought it best to give you space," she said after a pause. "We all had our burdens to sort through."

Gale swirled his wine in slow, thoughtful circles, watching the liquid shimmer in the light. "A fair assumption," he murmured. Then a faint, rueful smile curved his lips. "Though I might have welcomed the intrusion."

That drew her gaze back to him—a quick, assessing look, one brow arched in disbelief, as though she knew better. And perhaps she did. She didn't call him on it, though. Instead, her voice softened as she said:

"Astarion came to us. About a month after we left Baldur's Gate."

Gale froze, hand arrested with the cup poised at his lips. The wine sloshed gently in his cup, as though startled by the name. He hated the way the reaction betrayed him.

"You don't have to—"

But she was already shaking her head and continued.

"He came back from the Underdark looking like he had seen a ghost. Would not say much, only that he had found the other spawn. Whatever he saw down there… it rattled him, but he would not share the details."

She took a slow sip of her drink, and only then did Gale notice the silence that had crept over the room. Arabella and Karlach had stopped talking, their attention drawn to her words too.

"He stayed maybe a tenday, if that," Shadowheart went on. "Then one morning, he was gone. No note, nothing. Karlach was ready to tear up half the Sword Coast looking for him, but it was not an option at the time."

Karlach gave a low grunt, arms folded. "Still would, if I thought it would do any good."

"Any idea where he is now?" Gale asked, the question escaping before he could stop it.

Shadowheart let out a slow breath, her gaze lifting to meet his.

"None," she said simply. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Silence settled over the room again, heavier this time. Karlach shifted, then nudged Gale's boot with the toe of her own, getting his attention before he could fall into thought. He blinked and realised how tightly his brow had furrowed.

He exhaled and forced the tension from his shoulders. "Whatever he is doing now… it is not really my concern any longer."

Neither of them argued, though Karlach tilted her head and regarded him with a mixture of fondness and a generous dose of scepticism.

"You all right, wizard?"

Gale managed a faint smile. "Yes. Truly. I am just... glad you are both here."

"Me too," Karlach said, raising her glass in a lazy half-toast before dropping back into the armchair. A mischievous spark lit her expression.

"So… anyone been setting that wizard's heart ablaze lately?"

Arabella snorted into her drink, then gave a suspicious cough that definitely sounded like 'as if', setting off a round of laughter from the others.

Gale gave her a long, flat look. "Privacy, it seems, is a foreign concept in this house."

"Oh, come on, wizard," Arabella grinned. "Even a child could tell your love life is in shambles."

"Not that it is any of your business," he said, smoothing down his robe with unnecessary precision, "but I have been—"

"—busy," the others finished in perfect unison.

Karlach rolled her eyes skyward. "Yeah, yeah. We know. But you mean to tell me you have spent an entire year sitting on your arse, playing nanny and brooding? Not a single bit of fun?"

"He has also been alphabetising his wine cellar," Arabella added helpfully, earning a bark of laughter from Karlach.

Out of the corner of his eye, Gale caught the sharp look Shadowheart shot Karlach—a silent warning, no doubt meant to cut off her line of questioning. For that, he was grateful. He was not ready to divulge every sordid detail of the tragic state of his non-existent romantic life.

Karlach cleared her throat theatrically. "Hey, at least you didn't explode trying to go on a date."

Shadowheart groaned and buried her face in her free hand.

Gale blinked. "A colourful turn of phrase... I hope?"

"Nope," Karlach said, popping the 'p'. "Literal detonation. Big puff of brimstone and everything. Rolan and Dammon had cooked up this prototype, a pressure stabiliser for my engine. Meant to keep my heart from going up in smoke so I could hang around up here a bit longer."

"And it didn't work?" Gale asked.

Karlach grinned. "Oh, it worked. For about ten minutes. Then I got too excited and... boom. Not dead, obviously. But it scared the Hells out of everyone in the tavern."

Shadowheart, still half-hiding behind her hand, muttered, "We had to pay off three windows and a harpist."

"She was fine," Karlach said with a dismissive wave. "Mostly."

She leaned closer to Arabella. "Love is truly a battlefield," she said sagely, and they both collapsed into another round of unrestrained laughter. "Still, it was better than the early prototypes," she added, still wheezing.

"Do I want to know?" Gale looked at Shadowheart, who just shook her head.

"Well, the first version just made me hover about two inches off the ground and scream in Abyssal every time someone addressed me. Real conversation killer," Karlach said cheerfully. "Second one would not stop belching purple smoke, no matter what we tried," she continued, counting on her fingers. "And the third... well, we don't talk about the third."

Gale gaped at her. "What does that even mean?"

"Exactly," the tiefling grinned. "Eventually," she went on, "they slapped together this Planey Funkulator Whatsit. It is like a glorified magical box with runes all over it. Keeps me stable enough to crash on this plane for three days at a time. Any longer and I start sparking like a devil with a bellyful of hellfire, so back to Avernus I go to cool off. It has got some fancy juice in it, but it burns out fast. Cannot push it."

Gale's brows knit together as he tried, and failed, to untangle her explanation. Beside him, Shadowheart released a long-suffering sigh.

"They call it the Planar Flux Regulator," the cleric supplied dryly. "A containment chamber, inscribed with infernal and celestial glyphs, filled with a special coolant to keep her stable when outside of Avernus."

"Ah," Gale mused, the pieces finally sliding into place. He tilted his head, frown deepening. "Three days?"

"Yes." Karlach nodded, "Better than nothing, eh? Beats yelling at imps at the gates and getting roasted like a hog every week."

Gale looked thoughtful. "Still... that is not a lot of time."

Karlach shrugged. "Just makes every minute count more. That, or I go up in flames. Again."

Gale was surprised by how easily the conversation flowed. It was remarkable how naturally they had slipped back into the long-set grooves of their old friendship. He had been nervous, worried that his own ineptitude had caused too much harm, that his silence, his failure to maintain relationships, had destroyed everything they had built so long ago. For a while, he had waited for the other shoe to drop, for Karlach to announce that after all, he was not forgiven, that he would forever need to skirt around the subject of the months he had failed to reach out.

But he should have known better. That simply was not how Karlach moved through the world.

Instead, the evening unfolded with a gentle ease. Arabella, grinning over the rim of her mug of tea, told them about her studies at Blackstaff.

The two tieflings had struck up a bond with disarming ease. Gale could not tell whether it was that Karlach had glimpsed a kindred spirit in Arabella, or simply that their peculiar senses of questionable humour aligned. Regardless, it all ended in laughter.

Shadowheart remained nestled beside him on the sofa, sharing wine and a few bemused glances as the two tieflings held court. They made fun of Gale, cackled, teased Shadowheart, cackled some more, and then somehow slipped into gossiping about the nature of the relationship between Dammon and Rolan, eventually landing on the rumours about Wyll and his supposed imp paramour.

Somehow, through all of it, it felt like coming home.

It was well after midnight when Karlach patted Arabella's head like she was a pet who had done well, then rose to her feet.

"All right, Magic Man, I reckon it is time we headed home. That old prick Durnan will throw a fit if we wake him."

Gale arched a brow and cast a pointed glance sideways at Arabella. The young tiefling was already picking up many of his bad habits, having found herself in trouble at Blackstaff on more than one occasion for her ventures into magic of the more experimental variety. They did not need to add uncouth vocabulary to the list.

Karlach grimaced. "Er... sorry. That old gentleman." Her correction was half-hearted at best.

Arabella giggled at the effort, utterly unbothered.

Gale sighed, defeated and looked at Shadowheart, "Durnan? You mean the owner of the Yawning Portal?" 

"The very same," the cleric said. "The portal at Hope's certainly has a twisted sense of humour. Of all the places to anchor, it chose that cursed tavern as the Waterdhavian end."

The Yawning Portal was a notorious tavern not far from Gale's residence. It perched above the entrance to Undermountain, attracting all manner of adventurers, reprobates and thrill-seekers. Durnan, still inexplicably spry and commanding despite his age, ran the place with a fist firm enough to dent dwarven steel.

"You said you have three days. You could stay the night," Gale suggested, aiming for nonchalance, though even to his own ears it came out a touch desperate. He was not ready to part with them.

Karlach regarded him for a moment, her golden eyes softened. She shared a look with Shadowheart, and the cleric simply nodded.

"I suppose it doesn't matter if we go now or tomorrow," Karlach said.

Gale gestured towards the staircase. "Let me show you—"

"I'll do it!" Arabella hopped to her feet, still brimming with uncontained excitement.

He stilled, momentarily taken aback, then understood. It was a rare delight for her to have guests in the house. The thought softened something within him, and he offered her a small, approving smile.

Turning to Karlach, he amended, "Arabella will take you up to the third floor. Every room has its own bath, and the pipes should still be running. There is hot water as well, should you wish to wash away the road before bed."

Shadowheart's face lit up.

"I am never leaving!" she declared, earning a chuckle from Karlach.

"Apparently, the grand bath we inherited from Raphael always runs a little too tepid for our princess. What a joke. Tepid water in the Hells—one would expect better plumbing."

Their laughter lingered as they climbed the stairs, softening with each step. Arabella's eager voice floated back through the dim hall, bright and insistent: "Tell me more about your hell-home!"

Left in the wake of their chatter, Gale considered turning in as well. Yet his nerves still thrummed with the day's excitement. Instead, he reached for a book from the stack beside the sofa and let its pages pull him in.

Time passed in gentle silence until soft footsteps padded down the stairs. To his surprise, Arabella reappeared.

"Did you forget something?" he asked.

She shook her head and threw herself into her usual seat across from him.

Arabella watched him with those bright, perceptive eyes that so often made her seem far older than her years.

"It is really nice to have them here," she said.

Gale made a small sound of agreement. "With Tara spending more time at my mother's, I am pleased you have finally found someone else to partner with in mocking me for half the evening. I imagine that was rather enjoyable."

She grinned, entirely unapologetic. "People don't know you well enough at Blackstaff to make fun of you. Vajra's basically the only one who does, and she's hardly ever around."

"Tragedy," he deadpanned, but his lips yielded to an involuntary smile. It was good to see her like that—amused, more like a child than Gale had ever seen her. "How heartbreaking, to learn that Lady Blackstaff has nobler pursuits than to convene a tribunal over the pitiful state of my private affairs."

She settled deeper into her chair, her gaze never leaving Gale.

"Would you..." She faltered for only a moment, then tried again. "Would you tell me about Astarion?" she asked quietly.

The question caught Gale off guard. His heart did a foolish thing, stumbled, kicked once too hard. He looked at her. There was no mischief in her tone, no prying curiosity. Only earnest sincerity.

"There is not much to tell," he said at last.

"He was... is clearly important to you."

Gale let out a long, unsteady breath. "You have met him," he began, voice careful.

She nodded. "The vampire."

"He and I..." He inclined his head, searching for words that might tame their chaotic relationship into something neat and palatable, something fit for ears too young and unacquainted with the less diplomatic aspects of grown-up entanglements. "Things were complicated. It was the end of the world. I cared about him—deeply. He... not quite. Or not in the same way, at least. It became a bit of a mess. And then he left."

He glanced down at the book in his hand. The silence that followed was not awkward. It was patient. Kind.

Then Arabella moved. She stood and crossed the space between them, wordless, and before Gale could quite process it, she wrapped her arms around him.

It was awkward, unpractised—a touch too stiff to feel natural. She was not one for hugs, nor was he. And yet, she held on.

Gale's whole body went rigid, his mind shrieking at the contact, overwhelmed by the sudden warmth, the closeness, the pressure of small arms around him without warning. 

"He must be a total prick," she mumbled into his shoulder.

A startled laugh burst from him before he could stop it and it eased some of the discomfort.

"On that score, you are not wrong," he said, still chuckling.

Slowly, carefully, his hand lifted—hovering in the air a moment too long—before settling gently on her arm with a small, reassuring pat.

When she stepped back, they regarded each other briefly.

"So, wizard," she said, a cheeky smile tugging at her lips, "care to hear a story?"

It was his own favoured line when Arabella was feeling low, now turned deftly against him as she reached for a book. For a moment he considered simply playing along, letting her tease stand. But another thought stirred—soft as a ripple, bright as a spark.

"Here," he said at last, his voice pitched low with a familiar conspiratorial warmth. "Let me show you something."

Memories of his own childhood surfaced, recollections of how he had once delighted in weaving magic through the stories he read, making the words come alive in flickers of colour and light. It had been a comfort then, a quiet joy. And now, perhaps, it could be the same for her. A way to offer something of himself—something gentler than lectures and lessons, something that spoke of care.

He reached for his magic.

It was still a task that took its toll, and one he seldom attempted for anything but to help Arabella's learning. His hands trembled slightly as he drew on the Weave, his breath catching in his throat. But he pressed on, and light bloomed in the air between them, resolving into a small illusion: a dragon, its wings beating softly as it loosed a playful stream of fire.

Arabella's eyes widened, wonder spilling across her face. Gale fixed his focus on the image, stubbornly steering his thoughts away from the last time he had put on one of these shows.

"Go on, then," he said, his voice low with encouragement. "Let us hear it."

He sank into the sofa with a long, slow breath, the cushions sighing beneath him as though sharing his release. As Arabella began her tale, one they had read countless times before, he conjured images to match her words; flickering silhouettes and dancing figures that shimmered in the air between them.

The wine had warmed his cheeks and loosened his muscles. For the first time in what felt like seasons, he felt lighter. Not unburdened. Not healed. But as if a stone had been lifted from his chest. As though, at last, he had drawn a breath deep enough to reach the bottom of his lungs.

And beneath it all, the rarest of comforts: the knowledge that they were all safe. Whatever lay beyond these walls could wait. For now, nothing could touch them.

✦

Chapter Text

✦✦✦

Gale 

"Vajra wants me to study at Blackstaff," Arabella said one evening, her voice carefully even as they sat across from each other at the dinner table. "Properly," she added after a pause.

A freshly baked bun rested in her hand, its warm, yeasty scent curling into the air and mingling with the faint steam rising from their mugs.

Gale looked up from his dishevelled pile of lecture notes and offered her a small, knowing smile. "Not entirely unexpected. With your talent and the devotion you have shown, I am more surprised she waited this long to ask."

Arabella hesitated. She pinched a piece from the bun and rolled it absently between her fingers. "She… wants me to move into the dormitories," she added more cautiously.

Gale's hand halted, his mug of mulled tea hovering just shy of his lips. He blinked, then set it down with careful precision. "Ah." He cleared his throat.

Arabella's leaving had always been a matter of time. Even so, the thought of her absence struck him more keenly than he had expected.

He smoothed his expression into something approximating a smile.

"Well. That is excellent news. Truly. Exactly what we hoped for."

Arabella gave a small, uncertain nod, her gaze fixed on her plate as though the scattered crumbs might offer counsel.

"I want to..." she began, then faltered.

"But?" Gale prompted gently.

She looked up then, gaze steady and searching. "Are you going to be all right, wizard?"

Gale's breath caught. For a moment, his composure faltered, and clearly, he had not hidden his feelings as well as he had thought, because she added quickly,

"I do not have to move. As you said, I spend most of my days there already. It would not change much if I stayed here. The Tower is close enough, and—"

"Arabella," Gale interrupted, half-laughing in bemusement, "you do not have to worry about me." This time, the smile pulling at his lips was genuine.

He shrugged off the tension that had begun to settle on his shoulders and reached across the table, ruffling her hair in that affectionate way she only ever pretended to dislike.

"You must focus on yourself. Learn your calling. Become the best, if that is what you want. I shall be here, should you ever need me. And we shall still see each other daily at Blackstaff."

Even as he spoke, a fresh tide of feeling rose within him: sorrow, yes, but pride too, threaded through with reverent wonder. For so long, he had resented being needed, feeling valued only for what he could give.

So when Arabella entered his life, he braced for that familiar weight. But it never came. And to his quiet astonishment, it made him whole in a way he had not expected. He found steadiness in offering safety, in shaping something enduring and real.

She had come so far. And he had helped her.

Despite the doubts he had long harboured about his own worth, he had taught her. In his imperfect way, he had managed to offer guidance.

Her voice, her laughter, the constancy of her presence had filled the silence he once mistook for peace. Together, they had created something rare: a space where another could breathe freely, grow without fear.

And now, she was ready to step beyond it.

The thought lingered as dinner passed in familiar comfort. The conversation meandered. Her musings, trifles and half-formed thoughts wove through the space between them with easy flow.

Afterwards, they slipped into their usual routine as if nothing had happened. He retreated to his study to attend to his work, while Arabella, as always, moved to the reading room to curl up with a book, hoping to tire her mind enough for a night of undisturbed sleep.

Gale had kept thoughts of her departure at bay, willing them down beneath the tyranny of ink and parchment as he worked through the remainder of his syllabus edits. When the final sheet had been tucked into his satchel and the candlelight had guttered low with the hour, he rose and made his way back downstairs, just to be sure she had not done what she so often did: lost herself in some tale and let the night slip by unnoticed.

He paused on the threshold of the reading room.

Arabella lay nestled in her armchair, already deep in slumber, her limbs folded in upon themselves like a cat in repose, her tail drawn around her in a loose coil. A book rested half-open in her lap, forgotten.

The fire had burned low, its embers casting a faint, flickering glow that gilded her dark violet skin in warm shades of copper. The hush held steady, broken only by the gentle rise and fall of her breath.

Gale lingered motionless, as though the slightest stir might break the moment's fragile spell.

It carried him back to that first night Arabella had slept within the Tower, how tension had knotted her shoulders even in rest, how thin she had seemed, worn gaunt by ordeal and exhaustion. The brittle edge of her spirit frayed by a world that had shown her no mercy.

But now, in the soft rhythm of her breathing, in the peace that settled over her like a blessing, there was something sacred. Something unspoken and dearly earned.

In truth, Gale had known, even before Arabella spoke the words, that her leaving would bring more than mere loneliness. Solitude he could endure, but what truly frightened him was that it would also strip away the lifeline he had been clinging to. Without her, he would no longer have an excuse to reach for the Weave.

Because walking away from magic had never truly been an option. Now he understood that, not just in thought, but in soul. The arcane might not exist without Mystra, but it was no less bound to him. Threaded through him. Inwoven. As essential as breath and blood.

He felt it in the hollow ache beneath his ribs, in the yearning that curled like smoke along his spine. It had lodged itself in the liminal spaces: between joints and organs, in the seam between sinew and flesh. The Weave no longer whispered in his goddess's voice, no longer offered favour or purpose, yet it remained, persistent and inexorable, a part of him he could never unmake.

But untangling the two, his lost devotion and his command of the arcane, had required a careful kind of mental contortion. A self-deception, necessary to appease the colder logic of his mind.

For a time, Arabella's presence had quieted that war. Helping her had given him clarity. Her safety, her growth, those had mattered more than his doubts.

But now, with her departure looming ever closer, that purpose had begun to fray. The urgency that once shaped his days would vanish with her absence. And in its place, as certain as the tide, that old, unresolved unease would make its home once more.

A soft sound broke the stillness. Arabella sighed and shifted against the cushion beneath her head, drawing Gale back from the edge of his thoughts. He watched her for a long moment, letting the cadence of her breathing ground him.

He walked up to her and gently pried the book from her hand. He could not suppress a smile as he read the title: The Turnip Witch, the Pseudodragon, and the Three-Legged Owlbear.

She and Karlach had howled with laughter over it less than a tenday ago, reading aloud in alternating voices. Karlach had performed outrageous impressions for every minor character, while Arabella had conjured illusions that Gale had taught her to match the ridiculous tale.

The memory of Karlach and Shadowheart surfaced without effort. They had visited often enough lately to leave their imprint. The image was so vivid it felt as though they might still be here with him, Shadowheart cradling a glass of wine, a faint smirk playing on her lips as the tieflings launched into yet another cheerfully absurd story or debate. Those evenings had been noisy, chaotic, but brimming with life. 

That was what Gale wanted to hold on to. Not only the comfort of companionship—though it had meant more than he had ever admitted—but the sense of belonging. Of being part of something larger than himself.

He had wanted this place to be a haven. Not only for Arabella and himself, but for all of them. A sanctuary they could return to, no matter where the road took them, no matter how far they wandered.

Gale straightened abruptly.

A flicker of an idea stirred, quiet at first. Then a spark, swiftly catching, blazing into flame.

He lifted the blanket from the back of the armchair and draped it gently over Arabella's sleeping form. Then, without a word, he turned and walked back to his study.

He had work to do.

✦

He began, as he always did, with research.

There was comfort in familiar rituals: the opening of tomes, the feel of vellum beneath his fingers, the ink-stained corners of ancient pages turned by a practised hand, the low murmur of arcane syllables taking shape anew. Each line studied, and every resonance tested, brought a sense of order, a rhythm he could depend upon.

The first task, though the most straightforward, was by no means simple.

It involved adapting what had already been proven.

Some weeks earlier, Dammon and Rolan had sent letters and shared their findings on the planar regulator that allowed Karlach to survive beyond the borders of Avernus. Gale took their framework and began to unravel it, delicately teasing apart the threads of infernal geometry. He reworked the sigils and enchantments not merely to replicate their effect but to align them with the Tower's unique structure. A new purpose, shaped from an old design.

It would not grant her permanent refuge in this plane, but it would allow her to return more safely and linger a little longer before the infernal pressure within her engine surged again. A small mercy, perhaps, but a mercy nonetheless.

He had not abandoned the greater undertaking. Even as he wove infernal stability into stone and ward, his thoughts remained fixed on the promise he had made her: a lasting solution, one that would sever her bond to Avernus entirely.

Tanver, the acolyte from the House of Inspired Hands—the local temple of Gond—continued his correspondence in his usual fashion: belated, yet never without substance. His missives were seldom timely, but they were always filled with dense schematics of automatons, their margins brimming with musings on planar mechanics and fringe theories that teetered on the edge of heresy.

Gale knew that constructs with souls were no mere speculation. The existence of the Warforged was proof enough. And he strongly suspected the Inspired Hands possessed knowledge far beyond what they publicly professed. They harboured secrets: ancient, concealed, and jealously guarded. Somewhere within those hidden troves might lie the key Karlach needed.

It would not be given freely, that much was certain. But with Tanver's cooperation, perhaps in time, Gale could offer her more than fleeting reprieve. A true escape from Avernus. Until that solution could be rendered real, tangible, and sustainable, the Tower's wards and the adapted sigils would have to suffice.

Shadowheart's affliction posed an entirely different challenge. The curse that bound her was deeply woven, its design intricate and stubbornly resistant to dissolution. Yet through layers of abjuration and restorative enchantments, Gale had discovered a way to blunt its edge. The curse would remain, an indelible mark of Shar's will, but within these walls, its hold would weaken. Her pain would ease. Its claws would no longer twist her nerves into constant torment.

Once the sigils were stable and securely in place, his focus shifted to a broader pattern of protection, wards designed not for any one soul, but for the Tower itself and for all who might one day seek refuge within its walls.

He thought of Wyll, of Halsin, of Lae'zel, as he laid each spell. Every reinforced beam, every stone now resonant with enchantment, was placed in hope he would soon see them again.

The work progressed slowly, methodically. Days blurred into tendays, the pattern becoming almost meditative: inscribe the sigil, assess, recalibrate, repeat. 

He tested everything. Every glyph, every conduit of arcane flow.

It all held.

Only one task remained, the most improbable of them all.

And, in its own strange way, perhaps the most extraordinary.

It would demand more than architectural alterations or rare materials. It would require a reweaving of the Tower's very foundations, the intricate framework of spells that had held it together for centuries. Beyond that, it would call for magic untested, wrought from the edge of theory and audacity, and the kind of risk few would deem reasonable.

To allow sunlight to flood through the Tower's great windows while ensuring not a single trace could harm a vampire within was, by every sensible measure, impossible.

Some would call it madness.

But impossibility—or madness—had never stopped Gale. Not when he was younger, and certainly not now.

✦

"Why are you doing this?" Arabella asked one evening. "There's no proof he will ever come back."

She sat on the kitchen counter, legs swinging idly as she watched him work. Her gaze followed the ritual with quiet intensity as he carefully removed one of the windowpanes and set it aside on the table.

He did not respond. Instead, he lifted the new sheet of glass, fingertips brushing its flawless surface as he breathed a low incantation. The material responded with a faint shimmer, the beginnings of a subtle lattice forming within its structure, nothing active yet, only the groundwork.

He had commissioned the windows specially: exquisitely crafted glassteel, prized for its strength and its affinity for bearing complex enchantments. Each pane would serve as a conduit in the greater design, ready to hold the wards he intended to weave through the very bones of the building.

"Because he is a sentimental fool," Tara said, hopping up beside Arabella. She regarded Gale's meticulous work with characteristic detachment, her tone flat and unbothered, as if merely commenting on the weather.

"Instead of pestering your elders," Gale replied, looking at the tiefling and pointedly ignoring the tressym, "this would be an excellent time to make your way back to Blackstaff, if you want to avoid missing the dormitory curfew."

The words were gruff but not unkind, a habitual veil of formality concealing his emotions. He had no answers for the questions she was asking, not when the hope that kept him going edged so dangerously close to delusion.

The tiefling lingered a moment longer, her eyes searching his face. Then, with a soft huff, more resignation than protest, she slid from the counter. He heard the light sound of her steps on the stone floor, until suddenly her arms looped around his waist from behind. His hands froze mid-motion, startled, though not nearly as ill at ease as he might once have been, but before he could speak, she was gone, already disappearing into the hallway.

"See you tomorrow, wizard!" she called, just as the faint shimmer of the warding spells rippled through him and the door closed softly behind her.

Arabella spent most of her days at Blackstaff now, visiting the Tower only once every tenday or so. They still crossed paths almost daily at the Academy, as expected, but it was plain she did not share his old struggle with solitude. The apprentices who had once given her a wide berth had long since warmed to her, and whenever Gale glimpsed her in the corridors, she was seldom alone.

"Gale." Tara's voice broke into his thoughts, unexpectedly soft, tinged with something dangerously close to pity.

"Tara," he replied in a tone that left no room for further conversation. "Please go with her. It is getting late."

She gave him a sceptical look. They both knew Arabella was more than capable of looking after herself, but the tressym made no argument. With a single leap, she reached the window beside Gale and, using the still-open frame, took off into the evening sky without another word.

Gale watched her vanish into the dusk, then shut the window, checked the enchantments one last time, and turned towards the staircase.

He wanted no one else in the Tower for what he was about to do, just in case something went wrong.

He climbed the stairs to the attic and slipped through the narrow door. The air was different here, heavy with the day's lingering heat, trapped beneath the glass dome above.

The ceiling rose like a crystal vault, framing the vast night sky. Gale stepped to the centre of the chamber and lifted his gaze. Beyond the curved panes, the stars burned bright, scattered like a thousand watchful wards across the dark. Their cold light spilled through the glass in fractured shards of silver, pooling across the floor.

He drew a slow, steady breath. Then, he began.

Crossing to the far wall, he stopped before a battered tome resting on a lone wooden stand. Its spine was cracked with age, the pages swollen and mottled with ink-blotted notes, the record of countless nights spent in solitary study. He turned the parchment with care, eyes narrowing as focus overtook thought.

This was the safest place to start. Should anything go awry, the damage would be confined to the uppermost level. He would not risk endangering the structural integrity of the Tower for the sake of a single experiment.

Another measured breath. Then, with a hand that trembled only slightly, Gale reached for the Weave.

It surprised him to realise it no longer felt like stepping into grief. The ache lingered, sweet and spoiled, like blossoms past their prime, but it no longer hollowed him as it once had. Drawing on magic was still a challenge, but no longer a torment.

Once, he had braced for the onslaught of visions: gruesome battles, Mystra's cold, unyielding gaze, the vast and echoing silence of the Astral Plane. But now, as the threads curled and tightened beneath his fingertips, it was not loss that rose to greet him. It was them—the faces of those who had come to matter beyond measure.

And one in particular surfaced unbidden. All sharp angles and crimson eyes that seemed to see too much. Gale's throat constricted. His heart clenched with a sudden, almost violent ache.

Astarion.

For an errant moment, he let it in, the longing, the tender pain of something once radiant, now impossibly distant. He had repressed so much, buried it beneath discipline and ritual. But now it surged forth, raw and unrelenting, until he felt as though he were drowning in it. His breath shuddered.

And the magic came alive.

As when teaching Arabella, he summoned the woven strands, revealing the current that pulsed beneath the Tower's ancient foundations. The threads met him eagerly, as if they had been waiting.

He placed his palm against the cool stone and spoke the syllables that thrummed with purpose. Power gathered, and with it, memory. A smile unguarded, sunlight haloing pale skin, a face tilted towards warmth as though he belonged to the day. The image rose like a melody, a symphony meant for an audience of one.

The Tower answered.

Its dormant magic did not resist but twined with his, not by force but through recognition. No clash, no strain, only accord. The Tower had long known him: loyal, steady, attuned to the very beat of his heart.

Gale worked slowly, every gesture deliberate, for once there was no need to rush. The magic unfolded like a breath long held and finally released.

Stone by stone, chamber by chamber, he wove enchantments into every surface to shield against sunlight until each alcove and corridor bore layers of warding, reinforced with meticulous care. It was slow, exhausting labour. Three tendays passed in a cycle of sleepless nights, aching limbs, and relentless devotion. He worked until even lifting a book became an effort, until rest was little more than a rumour.

Yet with every incantation, something within him shifted. Magic spiralled from his fingers and into the world, anchoring more than just spellcraft. Something long dislocated clicked back into place.

When the final sigil flared and sank into the foundation like a subterranean pool, he allowed himself a rare moment of satisfaction. The wards thrummed in layered harmony.

A space shaped by care, meant for those he held dear.

And even if Astarion never returned, even if that parting letter had been nothing more than a gentle fiction, a farewell crafted to soften the pain, even if their paths were never meant to cross again, despite everything, however foolish it might seem, he hoped to offer that to the elf too.

✦

Chapter Text

✦✦✦

Gale 

Gale was hunched over a large stack of essays, seated in his study at his desk, quill in hand, attempting to decipher the tortured logic of second-year apprentices who believed that casting Mage Hand at varying hours constituted critical analysis. Tara sat across the room, recounting a scandal involving the senior alchemist and a junior member of the custodial staff, when a firm knock disrupted the atmosphere.

"Enter!" Gale called, straightening.

The door opened to reveal Vajra. Despite her short stature, she was poised and commanding, her presence as unmistakable as the magic that shimmered faintly around her. Her short black hair framed a face that seemed serene, but Gale knew better than to take it as comfort. Her obsidian eyes swept the room coolly, measuring and calculating, as she stepped inside with the effortless grace of a storm that knew exactly when to break.

Behind her, trying and failing to look contrite, was Arabella.

Gale sighed inwardly. Here we go.

"Lady Blackstaff," he said, rising smoothly to his feet. His smile was warm and practised; just enough charm to be disarming, just enough caution to avoid being presumptuous. "To what do I owe the honour?" he asked, conjuring the sort of lopsided grin that had, historically, made archmages reconsider expelling him from various institutions.

He had, at best, a tepid relationship with most of his colleagues. Their conversations rarely rose above the pedestrian. How a conclave of arcane scholars could be so astonishingly uninspired remained one of life's quieter tragedies. All theory, no spark. All caution, no curiosity.

All of them except Vajra.

Vajra Safahr, the seventh Blackstaff of Waterdeep, the city's highest magical authority at the tender age of thirty-nine. Just like him, she had arrived at the academy far too early, a prodigy saddled with more expectation than support. They had both been young spellcasters granted titles older men spent lifetimes chasing.

It forged a bond. Not enough for a friendship, perhaps, but one of recognition. Both burdened by potential. Both expected to fill shoes too large, in an institution impervious to change. The only difference was that where Gale had faltered, Vajra had endured.

Vajra's brow arched, unimpressed. But there was the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth, there and gone like the shadow of a passing bird.

"Arabella," she said, without preamble.

Gale's eyes flicked to the tiefling, who looked not so much guilty as unapologetically pleased with herself. A faint scorch mark marred one sleeve of her robe, and her fingertips shimmered with residual arcane energy.

"She was instructed to reinforce her shielding's structural integrity for high-level spell duelling," Vajra continued crisply. "Instead of using Wall of Force or layered Resilient Sphere techniques, as discussed, she used Glyph of Warding and inscribed it with Thunderwave."

Arabella tilted her head. "Technically, the instructions were to ensure the opposition couldn't get through my shielding. Which I did."

"Your Thunderwave launched Master Torrance into a statue of Oghma," Vajra said flatly.

She shrugged. "His Dispel Magic was rubbish. That's not on me."

Gale made a thoughtful sound. "Well, it is supposed to be a self-correcting lesson."

"The staff is still trying to excavate him from the rubble," Vajra said, her gaze cut to him.

He met her eyes and, instead of retreating, let his smile grow just a shade more rakish. "Surely a little unorthodox thinking is preferable to rote mediocrity? We don't want to punish innovation too harshly."

"She's all yours," was all the woman offered with an exasperated sigh. Then she turned to leave, but paused in the doorway.

"But Gale," she said without looking back, and Gale stilled. She reserved his given name only for unvarnished truths. "Innovation is only admirable when paired with control. You, of all people, should know what happens when power runs ahead of judgement."

Vajra's words hung in the room like a breath held.

"Leave it to me. No need for concern," Gale said. Then he added, "Always a pleasure, Lady Safahr," letting his voice dip into velvet. "Don't be a stranger."

She did not respond. But as the door shut with a soft click, Gale could swear the Weave itself pulsed in amused acknowledgement.

In another timeline, Gale could have imagined them together, building something beautiful, something lasting. A life not marked by duty or ruin, but by choice.

In that gentler world, they would not have been used for their brilliance or struggled beneath the heavy burden of expectation. They would not have been broken by the devastation of reverence turning into love. For him, Mystra. For her, Samark, the sixth Blackstaff of Waterdeep. Two mentors, both legends. Two tragedies. Mystra's abandonment had hollowed him; Samark's death had anointed her. They had been left behind, reshaped by the very bond that once made them feel chosen.

Her exit was followed by a long beat of silence.

Then Arabella blinked. "...Did that work?"

Gale sighed, collapsing back into his chair. "Not even the slightest. But I got her out of here without a public immolation, let's chalk that up as a modest success."

He turned slowly towards Arabella, folded his arms, and fixed her with his most theatrically disapproving stare. "Glyph of Warding inscribed with Thunderwave? Really?"

"It worked," she said. "Mostly harmless."

"Mostly?"

"Master Torrance is very... bounceable."

He tried to keep a stern look. Truly. But the laugh escaped regardless, sudden and bright, the kind that burst up from the ribs and left him breathless. Arabella cracked next, collapsing onto the nearby chair with a peal of laughter.

From across the room, Tara groaned. "This is not funny."

"It's hilarious," Arabella said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

"You cannot just—"

"I bet he was all red and shouting, 'This is improper use of arcana!'" Gale added, abandoning his supposed role as mentor entirely for a moment.

Master Torrance had also been Gale's instructor back in the day. He was already old then; now he was practically ancient, a perfect example of the saying, 'Those who can't do, teach.' An immensely knowledgeable man, but without the power or talent to back it up. His disdain for Gale and his tendency to rework spells had always been clear, and he had shown little warmth towards Arabella either. It was unlikely that this latest incident would improve matters.

"You're both children," Tara said, the disapproval clear in her tone.

"Yes, well," Gale replied between breaths, "what's the point of mastering the secrets of the arcane if one cannot occasionally repurpose them for a bit of poetic justice?"

Arabella grinned at him, something soft and proud in her expression. Tara scowled even harder, which only made them laugh more.

He was still chuckling to himself as he made his way back to the Tower some time later. They had agreed to pretend he had been harsh on Arabella. He had given her a sweetroll, told her to act as though she had just endured a thorough dressing-down, and insisted she apologise to Master Torrance. After a great deal of dramatic protesting and sulking, she had reluctantly complied.

When he reached the Tower, he noticed his postbox was full. He had been in a rush that morning and had not had time to check it.

He was hoping for a letter from Tanver, but all thoughts of research vanished the moment he held up one of the envelopes for inspection. His heart skipped a beat as his eyes traced the familiar, elegant curves of the handwriting. He tore it open at once and unfolded the parchment.

Gale re-read the letter once, then again for good measure. As his eyes tracked over the words for the third time, it became increasingly difficult to decipher them. It took him a moment to realise that his hands were shaking.

He stormed inside the Tower, dropped his satchel carelessly in the doorway, and nearly stumbled over it when the strap caught on his boot.

A restlessness settled upon him that he had not felt in a long time. He began pacing the foyer, trying to burn off some of his nervous energy. His mind felt ablaze, attempting to sift through a cavalcade of complex and undecipherable thoughts and emotions. He was getting lost in a labyrinth of forbidden notions, scrambling to access information he had diligently locked away and left untouched for so long.

Then, all at once, the memories came back. How Astarion worked, how he argued, and how he wove his words of deceit with carefully crafted vocabulary, layering it beneath an almost ostentatious degree of flattery. It all returned with startling clarity. It was as though his mind had been quietly dwelling on these details all along, concealed behind towering walls, waiting for the perfect moment to break free and perform.

"What are you not saying?" Gale muttered to himself. 

He might have been obtuse at times, missing certain signs, but reading—finding meaning hidden among words on paper, recognising patterns—was something he was very skilled at. 

Gale rushed up to his study and unrolled a map. It was a little outdated; some cities had changed names since, some borders had been reshaped by battles and over-eager politicians, but it still gave a general idea of Faerûn.

Astarion had travelled up the Sword Coast, but why? Gale resolutely ignored the tightness in his chest at the thought that Astarion would have had to pass Waterdeep at some point. Then he had headed to… he looked at the letter again… Meredelain? That was Elvish for the Mere of the Dead. He was now in Luskan, planning to go further north, to Icewind Dale. Gale doubted his story about Auril's Chosen had inspired a trip to the freezing temperatures of the north. Then, Astarion mentioned he was headed to the sacred grounds of the Grey Wolf. That would be Raven Rock. His finger tapped at the name, trying to jolt his brain into providing the missing link that prowled at the periphery of his consciousness. He could almost see it, taste it like a word perched at the tip of his tongue. His heart was beating like a drum, a deafening rush in his ears.

Raven Rock. It was in the Spine of the World.

What else was there?

Klauthen Vale.

Klauth?

And just like that, the pieces fell into place.

The Mere of the Dead. The Black Death. Evermelt. Icingdeath. The Spine of the World. Klauth.

Dragons.

Astarion was searching for dragons. But why?

Gale's mind raced, dredging up fragments of past conversations with the elf about aspirations. All the thoughts he had long suppressed, fearing they would spark an endless cycle of obsession, now surged forth unchecked. He was like a parched man suddenly immersed in a deluge, swimming through the repressed information.

Excitement, long dormant, pulsed through his veins. But Gale quickly reined it in with a stern reprimand. A mere letter, a solitary discovery, did not guarantee a reunion with Astarion.

He calmed himself, then collapsed into his chair. He stared at the elf's words for several long moments, then reached for fresh parchment and a quill.

Gale had not expected another letter—not after that last one. He had told himself he was fine with that, and had carried the lie like a shield. But when, barely a tenday later, another envelope appeared in his postbox, something inside him clenched. His chest tightened, his throat grew taut, and his heart stuttered into a gallop.

This time, he brought the letter inside unopened. As if, in some ridiculous attempt to prolong the moment, he could draw out the fleeting excitement.

He was a fool. He knew that. Pitiful, even. Two years had passed, and still he had not loosened himself from the grip of this ridiculous obsession.

Here he was. Standing in his kitchen, heart hammering in his throat, breaking the seal on a letter he knew would not speak of devotion. It would not promise anything. But it gave his damned heart something to cling to. A trace. A thread. A whisper of the person he had not been able to forget.

"I received word from Astarion," Gale said, without looking up from his wine one evening, when Karlach and Shadowheart were visiting. The tiefling was sprawled on the sofa, occupying Gale's usual spot, while he sat on the floor at her side. She pushed herself upright, and Shadowheart eyed him from the armchair.

The cleric raised a brow. "Is he all right?"

Gale nodded carefully. "Seems like it. Here," he said, handing the letter to Karlach, who was making grabby hand motions. He was quietly grateful that no one had remarked on the fact that he had carried the letters in the inner pocket of his robe.

Shadowheart stood, padded around the sofa, and peered over Karlach's shoulder to read through the words, a frown forming between her brows. "What is he after?"

Gale sighed. "I haven't a clue. He wouldn't say."

Karlach frowned at the parchment, as if sheer focus might draw out a hidden message. "Do you think he's still chasing the whole 'ascension' thing?"

It was a thought that had kept Gale awake on more sleepless nights than he cared to admit. But he merely shrugged, aiming for a nonchalance he knew would crumble under the faintest probing glance from either of them.

"Possibly. But if he were, I doubt I'd be the one he reached out to."

"Luskan, though," Karlach said, glancing up. "There's a portal at Hope's, but it's one of those that sealed when Raphael died. That's way up north, isn't it?"

"Farther than a three-day stroll, unfortunately," Gale said, offering a half-smile already well aware of what she was thinking.

"Oi! I can do at least four these days," Karlach shot back, grinning.

"Inside the Tower, yes," Gale said dryly. "The sigils, however, won't follow you in your manhunt for a vampire across the realm."

"I owe him some serious bollocking," she grumbled, but Gale knew that despite being thoroughly miffed with the elf, she was secretly just as relieved to hear he was alive.

Karlach then chuckled, elbowing his arm gently. "Just say the word, wizard. I'll have that bloodsucker tracked down in four days."

Gale managed another small smile. She was clearly trying to lift his mood. Even so, a small part of him wished it were that simple.

By the time Gale realised it, the weeks had passed in a blur of exchanged letters, until autumn began to buckle under the cold, misty winds of Uktar. Each time an envelope arrived in his postbox, a flutter stirred in his chest—a quiet thrill that meant Astarion was still alive. The knowledge that Gale had occupied the elf's thoughts, if only for a few fleeting moments, gave him a pitiful spark of hope, though for what, he could not quite say.

Astarion's letters were never overtly personal. But the increasing banter, the back and forth, had begun to take up more space in their correspondence than the questions and answers about regions, peoples, creatures, and the histories of dragons said to dwell there.

It was clear Astarion sought some magical item, though its nature and purpose remained a mystery. Still, Gale tried to read between every neatly penned line, searching for some sliver of closeness, some sign that the letters were more than mere transactions of knowledge.

He wished, with a quiet ache, that Astarion would confide in him. He wanted to help, certainly, but more than that, he wanted to see him. To speak face-to-face.

The realisation settled over him with a kind of still, undeniable weight: he missed Astarion. He missed his company. He missed their conversations, his wry sense of humour, the way their jests wound around each other with easy rhythm, the quiet familiarity with which they once occupied the same space. Now that he allowed his mind to think of the elf without the usual safeguards, the absence of him had begun to gnaw at him with renewed ferocity.

Before he could talk himself out of it, before doubt or dignity could reassert themselves, Gale reached for ink. His hand moved almost of its own accord.

When no answer came with the next turn of the post, Gale's initial excitement began to cool. As one tenday of silence stretched into two, it dwindled into nothing. 

He had been, truly, a damned fool.

✦

It was well past evenfeast, that hour suspended between two days—too late to belong to yesterday, too early to herald tomorrow. Sleep had eluded Gale, driving him from his bed to the solace of the hearth, where he wrapped himself in the familiar warmth of his dressing gown, layered over his nightclothes against the lingering chill. He sat with a book in hand, its pages a quiet refuge for a restless mind, when the soft chime of the magical alarm broke the stillness, announcing a visitor.

Gale frowned in the direction of the door. The alarm had been dormant for quite some time. Tara never needed it, and Arabella, Karlach, and Shadowheart all had access to the warding mechanisms. Whoever it was had no sense of propriety; calling at such an hour was nothing short of rude. Any sensible visitor would assume their host was asleep—or at least pretend to be, as Gale briefly considered doing.

With a low groan, he pushed himself to his feet and made his way into the hallway. Passing a mirror, he sighed at his crumpled appearance. The temptation to ignore the summons tugged at him, but the chime rang again, bright and insistent. Defeated, he gave his dishevelled half-updo a perfunctory adjustment, only worsening the mess, and resigned himself to the inevitable as he strode to the door.

He opened it, and at first, he could only make out a dark shape against the midnight canvas. Then the figure stepped closer into the lantern light and pushed back the hood that had covered his face. Suddenly, Gale could not breathe. The air lodged in his lungs as his eyes roamed over that handsome face he had not seen for so long; it had almost started to feel like he had dreamt it all.

"Evening, Sunshine," Astarion said, his tone as nonchalant as ever, as if he had only been gone for a day.

Chapter Text

✦✦✦

Gale 

"Evening, Sunshine."

Gale froze. The voice, smooth as silk and unmistakable, coiled around his spine like a phantom caress.

"Astarion," he breathed. The name caught somewhere between shock and longing. For a moment—or perhaps a hundred—he simply stared, drinking in the figure on his doorstep as if trying to convince himself this was not some cruel trick of imagination and wishful thinking. He gave a small, helpless shake of his head, as if to dislodge the cavalcade of emotion that swiftly began to rise and compete for attention. "I didn't realise you were coming."

Astarion's laugh was low and rich, utterly at ease. "I'm fairly certain you all but invited me in your last letter," he said, stepping a little closer. The sharp curve of his smile was one of quiet amusement, but his hands, Gale noticed in a flicker of thought, flexed briefly at his sides. "As delightful as this awkward little reunion is proving to be, might we continue it indoors? Unless, of course, you're hoping to become the subject of your neighbours' speculation. Imagine it. 'Mysterious Nocturnal Visitor at the Wizard's Doorstep'. Positively scandalous." He leaned in conspiratorially, his voice dropping like velvet, carrying with it a familiar scent of bergamot and something deeper, sweet and spiced, that twisted in Gale's gut like a spell gone awry.

"Ah... yes, of course," Gale stammered, stepping aside instinctively, heart thudding a treacherous rhythm against his ribs. Surely Astarion could hear it.

The elf remained precisely where he stood.

"I'm afraid," Astarion murmured with exaggerated patience, arching an elegant brow, "you'll need to invite me in. No tadpole, vampire spawn, all that nasty stuff," he added, clearly relishing Gale's discomfort.

"Right. Yes. Please, do come in," Gale said hastily, mortified, his voice a touch reedy. As Astarion moved past him, his scent hit Gale full force this time, plunging him into a well of memories of the more… adult genre, long consigned to the dusty backrooms of his mind. They had been kept at bay for years, sequestered like dangerous relics, but now the dam had broken, and it turned out they were all too alive, much to Gale's dismay.

The moment Astarion stepped across the threshold, Gale could have sworn he heard a faint gasp, but the sound vanished before his mind could quite seize upon it.

Astarion did not wait for guidance. He moved with that peculiar, feline grace, as though returning to a place once well known. He drifted down the corridor, casting a glance into the kitchen before turning into the reading room as if led by instinct. Gale trailed after him, silent and faintly breathless, watching as the elf's eyes wandered across cluttered shelves and loosely stacked tomes, over the scatter of parchment and ink-stained notes. His attention lingered on the hearth, then fell on the sofa. Gale's book lay open upon the armrest, its spine weary and cracked. Beside it, a wine glass, half-full and forgotten. All the hallmarks of a man who had been, only moments ago, very much alone.

Gale hovered at the entrance, still trying to reassemble the fractured pieces of his composure. He was acutely aware of the way his robe slouched inelegantly from one shoulder, the dishevelled state of his hair—mussed by absent-minded fingers—and the firelight's dim, golden glow, which now seemed altogether too intimate.

When he finally stepped into the room, Astarion turned to face him. Crimson eyes caught Gale's with unnerving intensity, the force of that gaze like a hook beneath the skin, searching, weighing, sifting through unspoken things. His head tilted slightly in that curious, predator's poise. Whatever he was searching for, Gale did not know, but the gravity of his stare made him shift uncomfortably.

Then, as though time itself had slowed to accommodate him, Astarion leisurely crossed the space between them. He stopped just within Gale's space. Just far enough not to touch, but close enough to make it impossible to ignore him.

"You look like shit," he said, as if it were a compliment.

Gale's mouth opened, then shut again. He scowled, feeling the telltale heat of embarrassment creep traitorously up the back of his neck. "I wasn't expecting... company," he grumbled.

"Mm. Yes, your robe tells the whole tragic tale," Astarion said, voice lilting with amusement. Then, more softly, almost gently, he added, "That's not what I meant."

Before Gale could summon the presence of mind to ask what he did mean, Astarion reached up. Gale flinched—barely, just a breath of movement, a taut pull at the shoulders—but it was enough. Astarion paused mid-gesture, eyes sharpened, and for a heartbeat, the air between them grew still and dense. Yet when Gale didn't withdraw, Astarion's fingers resumed their course, light as mist, brushing Gale's cheek before his thumb rested beneath his eye. The touch barely registered in weight, but its presence was undeniable.

"You haven't been sleeping." A simple, unadorned statement.

Gale gave a faint, humourless laugh, and he was grateful it did not come out entirely hysterical. "I'm sure you can imagine why."

Astarion did not answer, only hummed in agreement, his expression inscrutable in the flickering light. Then he stepped back.

The distance should have helped. It did not. The sudden absence carved something hollow in Gale's chest, in a shape he was stubbornly pretending not to recognise.

He needed to say something, anything, to re-establish the boundaries. He had to remind his judgement, now overtaken by some primitive instinct that had nothing to do with reason and everything to do with want, that now was not then, and they were no longer who they once had been.

Even so, he murmured, "Please," his voice barely above a breath, and gestured towards the sofa.

The corner of Astarion's lips twitched as if faintly amused by the tremor of hesitation wrapped around the syllable. 

Then, without another word, he began to shrug out of his armour, the very same Gale had gifted him, with the kind of fluid efficiency that only made Gale feel more like a bundle of frayed nerves. The hidden clasps slipped free beneath deft, practised fingers. Under the scaled metal, he wore only a threadbare white shirt and worn leather breeches, neither of which did Gale's splintering calm any favours.

The act of disarming felt absurdly intimate. Not sensual, exactly, but familiar in a way that made it all the harder to look away. Astarion draped the armour over the back of a nearby chair, heedless of the precarious stack of books it jostled. Then, with the irreverent confidence only he could manage, he dropped himself onto the sofa. Gale's spot—where the cushion must have still held the ghost of his warmth, where his book lay open, spine bowed, and the half-finished glass of wine kept its quiet vigil.

Astarion picked up the book and began idly flipping through its pages, eyes skimming the text with a vague sort of curiosity, as though expecting to be entertained by whatever had last held Gale's attention.

Gale stood rooted near the doorway a few moments longer than necessary, suspended somewhere between disbelief and dismay. His feet itched to move, to pace, to flee. His fingers twitched at his sides, unsure whether they ought to clench or reach. The sight of Astarion sprawled across his private, carefully constructed sanctuary, effortless and languid, was both infuriating and... something else. Something perilous. Something yearned for.

He really should have said something. He ought to have asked him to move, to stop rifling through his things, to act with the decorum owed to years of silence and all they had withheld.

Instead, he crossed the room like a man walking a wire strung high above a ravine—cautious, deliberate, each step chosen with care. Sitting beside Astarion on the sofa was out of the question. So he claimed the armchair. It stood at a comfortable angle to the hearth, close enough to feel the fire's warmth, distant enough from the elf to offer the illusion of safety.

He lowered himself carefully, hands resting neatly on his lap, gaze fixed somewhere just above the flames. Looking at Astarion directly felt like daring the wind to tip the candle.

He tried to focus on his breathing.

And still, some traitorous part of him ached to speak, to bridge the silence, to ask: Why are you really here?

What came out, though, was, "How was your journey?"

With a quick incantation, he summoned a Mage Hand, which floated gracefully to the sideboard, procured a fresh cup for Astarion, and handed Gale his own with the well-mannered efficiency of an invisible attendant. Another murmured spell filled both their glasses with wine drawn straight from Gale's cellar; one of the finer vintages. Gale risked a glance just in time to see the elf accept his with a nod and take a long, unhesitating sip. Surprisingly, there was no grimace.

"Not bad, wizard," Astarion said, giving the wine a discerning sniff. Gale could not help but preen, just a little.

"Still a touch of stale bread and vinegar to the vampire senses, but definitely an upgrade from the rotgut in that cursed vineyard outside Nesmé. Gods." He pulled a face of exaggerated offence, as if the memory itself had inflicted some grievous harm.

"The journey..." he went on, as though only now recalling the original question. "Boring would be an understatement. Let's just say the Sword Coast loses much of its charm without the ever-looming threat of the end of the world or a chorus of witty travelling companions."

"Surely you passed through somewhere worthy of a revisit?"

"If you enjoy being chased through fields by ogres or fending off sea hags trying to suck on your toes, then yes, absolutely delightful," Astarion replied dryly, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth.

Gale choked on his wine. The surprised laugh that escaped him was rough—but real. It startled something tight loose in his chest, and he sank further into the armchair with a relieved exhale.

Astarion, as if catching the shift in atmosphere, mirrored the posture and let himself settle deeper into the sofa's velvet embrace as well. His limbs stretched out with a boneless languor, and he released a long breath, as though he too had been holding it without knowing.

Gale watched. And that same peculiar sense settled in his chest: warm, tight, a little painful.

"So then, what have you been doing with yourself lately?" Astarion asked, glancing at Gale, then, eyes darting away again.

"Mostly teaching. And research. Lots of research," Gale said, his voice softening. "I've... been helping Karlach with her engine. Or trying to. Dammon and Rolan made real progress. She can actually leave Avernus now, for a few days at a time. She and Shadowheart drop in when they can."

Astarion's brow arched. "Teaching?"

"Yes. I am... a professor at Blackstaff Academy."

That earned him both brows this time and a low whistle. "How terribly respectable."

Gale snorted. "Hardly. I spend most of my time putting out fires—literal and metaphorical—and trying to keep a group of overconfident young adults from blowing themselves up. Or each other."

"Sounds like a man who's seen it all."

"Just a mere tenday ago," Gale began, rubbing at his temple with a self-deprecating sigh, "one of the students cast a misfired transmutation spell that gave everyone in the room sentient eyebrows. Fully articulate. Argued with their hosts. Some tried to flee. Took me hours to subdue the lot. The real trick was keeping everyone from gouging their own eyes out in a panic, and then preventing bloodshed."

Astarion threw his head back and laughed, shoulders shaking, the line of his pale throat bared to the firelight, gleaming like marble caught in flame.

Gale stared, transfixed.

The sound of his unguarded laughter felt like a balm against a wound. He should have been angry with him. He should have nursed his resentment, let it barrel-age with time, let the memory of abandonment curdle into something acrid and sharp. He should have felt the sting of betrayal, that too-familiar ache of being remembered only when needed. He should have been furious, disappointed, and heartbroken.

Perhaps those feelings would return in time, creeping in when the quiet left room for thought. But now? He only wanted more of this—wanted to fold himself into that laugh, to close the distance between them, to bury his face in the hollow of Astarion's neck and simply stay.

He tightened his grip on the glass as if sheer force of will might anchor him to sense and keep him from doing something foolish.

"It's good to see you," he said at last. The words dragged themselves past a knot in his throat, but he needed Astarion to hear them, to understand that, despite his stilted posture and the evident strain, he was not an intruder.

Astarion's eyes widened minutely. Gale might have missed it, had he not been watching so closely. It struck him then, with a peculiar sort of clarity, how long it had been since he had needed to read Astarion's tells. He had almost forgotten the art of observation when it came to the elf, had grown unaccustomed to searching for truth beneath layers upon layers of falsified ease.

But now, with distance cleared, he looked more carefully and started seeing the cracks. The way Astarion's easy smile tilted just a little off, the way his finger circled the rim of his cup in a slow, mindless rhythm, mechanical and unthinking. The tension drawn like cord through his shoulders belied the lazy sprawl of his limbs.

Gale was not the only one unsettled.

But gods, Astarion wore his unease with far greater grace.

Something brave, or foolish, stirred in him, emboldened by his discovery. He tested it gently, like pressing on a bruise to see if it still hurt.

"I didn't think I would see you again."

The words fell gently into the hush between them, quiet but irrevocable.

Astarion stilled, his body settling into that uncanny, statuesque poise. Then another wave of strain crept into the lines of his frame before smoothing out again. He set the glass down with meticulous care, his expression unchanged—the same alluring curl to his mouth, the same apparent calm—but the smile was too controlled to be anything but false.

"You wound me," he said lightly, his voice laced with that familiar drawl, playful and bright. "I expected at least a modicum of faith in my dramatic flair for a comeback. Though you might have been right, I may have squandered the perfect moment. Act Three would have been far more fitting. A reappearance in borrowed finery, mystery thick in the air…" 

Gale allowed a soft chuckle. Letters had made communication with Astarion easier; safer, perhaps, when thoughts could be rehearsed, when silences did not stretch so heavy between them.

He glanced towards the tall, arched window. Dawn had begun to creep in, weaving slender threads of gold across the wooden floor. It kissed the spines of old books and skimmed along the delicate edges of glass and metal, gilding the room in powdered fire. It spilt into the tower's quiet, indifferent to tension and showing no regard for discomfort or tangled emotions.

Astarion's eyes tracked the light, following its slow advance. He rose to his feet.

"I suppose it's time I make use of the lodging you so generously offered, and retire," Astarion said. His tone was carefully light as he reached for his armour. His gaze flicked to Gale, too brief to be entirely casual. "Unless, of course, you've had a change of heart about me staying here."

"Oh—no, not at all," Gale replied a little too quickly as he also scrambled to his feet. "It's just... there's no need to 'retire', unless you... truly wish to."

Astarion let out an amused breath, the sound edged with dryness. "Hate to break it to you, Sunshine, but without the armour, I can't exactly bask in the morning light. Unless, of course, you're secretly hoping to wake up to the scent of roast vampire."

Gale rolled his eyes, "You can," he said after a pause. "Here. In the Tower."

Astarion half-turned, a frown knitting his brow. "I don't follow."

"I've—ah—made some alterations. To the structure," Gale offered, gesturing vaguely towards the stone walls, and immediately regretted how hopelessly awkward it sounded.

Astarion stared at him with a blank expression. "You've made alterations," he repeated slowly and flatly, as though waiting for the punchline.

"Yes." Gale cleared his throat. "I've developed... specific enchantments. Wards woven into the very foundation, into the mortar and brick. The sunlight that enters here is filtered and diffused. It mimics heavy shadow cover. Safe exposure. The discomfort should be negligible, if it arises at all. The windows are crafted from glassteel, highly durable, layered with shielding spells calibrated to withstand both force and magical degradation. There's some maintenance required, of course, but according to my calculations, it should last a century or so before anything needs—"

He heard himself rambling and wanted, quite sincerely, to bite his own tongue.

Astarion blinked slowly. "Why?" he asked, his tone quiet but no less sharp. "Unless you've got a rotating schedule of vampire houseguests, why—why go through all that trouble?"

"It was hardly trouble."

It had been an enormous amount of trouble.

Astarion squinted at him—that same narrow-eyed look he always wore when Gale lied and he knew it, but could not yet decipher what was being concealed. There was something restless in his gaze, something poised on the edge of cruelty or curiosity, as though he might reach out, slide his fingers beneath Gale's skin and peel it back until the truth spilled out.

"We both know that's a lie. This sounds like an awful lot of work when, as you said, you didn't even expect to see little ol' me again," Astarion pushed.

Gale shrugged.

He was not ready to bare himself, not like this. He was not ready to admit that he had wanted Astarion here every moment since they had last parted. The longing was too keen, too delicate a thing, and he could not risk having it held up to the light and inspected. He could not bear rejection, not after all this time, and he did not want this to feel too big, like some expectation waiting to be dished out.

He was holding on to the moment with a vicious grip, wordlessly willing Astarion not to press further.

The elf watched him. Long enough that Gale began to feel physically warm beneath the weight of crimson scrutiny.

"How long are you planning to stay?" Gale asked. The question emerged quickly, in the hope of derailing the moment and steering attention away from his own transparent awkwardness.

To his surprise, it was Astarion's turn to shift uncomfortably—a rare thing, and somehow far more disarming than any teasing remark or pointed look.

Gale's stomach sank. Of course. He was only passing through.

"If you allow me, I'd stay for some time," Astarion said after a beat. "At least until I find enough information about this dragon of yours."

Gale had braced himself for Astarion's imminent announcement that he would be gone within a day or two, rehearsing a dozen clever responses to keep things light—when the reply came, it caught him so off guard he was fairly certain he forgot to blink for a solid minute.

"I'd like to remain near the city." Astarion continued, "Apparently, landlords are less than eager to house vampires—even dashing, reformed ones like myself. Discrimination these days is rampant, I must say."

"What is with this adamant search for dragons?" Gale tried. 

Astarion's lips pulled into a smirk. "Tut tut. You have your secrets, Sunshine, and I have mine," he added, sly and frustratingly unreadable.

Gale let out a muted but exasperated breath. He could have probed—the opportunity was there, hanging loosely in the air between them—but he chose not to. Astarion had not pried into his reasons for the Tower's enchantments, had let the moment pass without digging further. Gale decided to return the courtesy. At least for now.

"Astarion," he said cautiously, measuring the words. "This is my home. You're welcome to stay for as long as you like. I have five bedrooms, mostly unused. The Ardeep Forest is only a few miles east. You should be able to hunt there when needed."

Astarion's smile shifted into something warmer, though it remained dressed in its usual finery.

"Careful, Sunshine. With such hospitality, I might never want to leave."

His voice smooth and languid, winding through Gale's senses like a whispered incantation. Delicate and dangerous in equal measure.

Gale's traitorous heart gave a lurch, unsteady and loud in the silence that followed. He schooled his expression, but the elf's mouth had already curved into that signature, insufferably flirtatious smile; his eyes held a burning intensity as they remained fixed on Gale.

Astarion had to know what he was doing. How could he not? And yet, once again, Gale found, pitifully, that he could not summon the will to resent him for that deliberate provocation. Not with the firelight threading gold through silver hair, dancing on his face and softening every hard edge. Not with all the unspoken words hanging heavy in the air, pressing close like a second atmosphere.

"Come," Gale said, clearing his voice. "Let me show you to your room. In case you want... privacy."

He turned and made his way up the staircase, each step mechanical, as if he could trick himself into believing this was just another gesture of polite routine.

He could have, and indeed should have, taken Astarion to the upper floor. To the more neutral guest room tucked across from Arabella's, and the one Karlach and Shadowheart had in use. Somewhere more impersonal. It would have been the sensible choice.

But Gale, as always, was a fool.

They passed the study, then his bedchamber. Astarion followed without comment, his footsteps soundless and patient, like a predator indulging its prey.

At last, they reached the end of the corridor, where Gale gestured to a wooden door just across the hall from his own.

"Here. Please, make yourself at home," he said. The words came out too clean, too formal. His voice felt wrong in his throat, as though it belonged to someone else entirely.

Astarion stepped past him. The brush of his shoulder sent a shiver up Gale's back. He halted at the threshold, half-turning. His gaze found Gale's again and held it.

"Thank you, Sunshine."

Neither of them moved. There was a strange, charged anticipation in the air that hung between them, heavy and suffocating. Gale's heart beat an unbearable, heavy rhythm, and he flushed with the knowledge that Astarion could hear it—could probably taste it in the stillness.

"Rest well, darling," Astarion said softly, though beneath the words trembled a note that Gale was certain betrayed far more of his nerves than he intended.

"Yes... and you as well," he managed. Still, neither of them moved. They stood there in the corridor as time became a strange, distorted thing, each heartbeat stretched impossibly thin.

His mouth was dry and he wetted his lips without thinking, a nervous, thoughtless reflex, and cursed himself instantly when Astarion's gaze flicked downward, tracking the motion like a flame to kindling. The heat that rose in Gale's chest was sudden and unrelenting, and he could feel it spread along his neck and begin its ascent onto his cheeks.

Then the elf straightened, shook his head minutely, fingers curling around the brass handle of the door with delicate finality. It was a signal.

Gale received it like a man pulling himself out of a dream, and turned without another word, retreating down the corridor.

He did not dare look back.

✦