Chapter Text
Gale had missed having regular audiences in the Astral.
It hadn’t been as long as it felt, certainly. Only a year and a half or so since Mystra had sealed it from him. But her invitation to meet, sour as it was, was also an invitation to feel this again.
Weightless, careless, free. The orb in his chest all but negated as it succumbed to the all-encompassing Weave around them. The cosmos swirled in a dizzying dance, lavenders and golds and blues. Gale wondered why he never dreamed of this place.
“Gale of Waterdeep. You look well.”
Ah. That would be why.
The Mother of All Magic watched him from a neutral distance. Her eyes were alight with arcane power, her form glowing, barely containing all that she was. Gale had never understood her insistence on maintaining humanoid shape when it so clearly did not suit her. He used to think it was to look as he did, to be a matched set, an equal pair.
He used to be a fool. Especially when it came to Mystra.
Now, with the Annals of Karsus fresh in his mind and an orb of forbidden magical power trapped between his lungs, Gale saw her with a new sort of clarity.
“And you look as you always have. Why have you invited me here?”
Mystra smiles. Not a whole smile, not something joyful and incandescent. There were no pointy teeth getting caught outside of mortal lips, or scars stretched tight by the action. It was small, secretive, and perfect.
Her voice came out of her mouth, of course it did. However, just like the rest of her, it could not be constrained by a mortal facade. The sound oozed from her skin, bled from the swirling galaxies around them. The Weave played between Gale’s fingers, curling and tightening around his shoulders like an old friend, pouring her smooth, rich voice onto him everywhere it touched. “You disobeyed my explicit instructions, Gale. I must know why.”
She brought him here to scold him. For not exploding.
“You had no right to ask that of me. Not anymore, not after everything.”
“Self-pity does not suit you,” Mystra hummed. She stayed perfectly placid where she stood, not advancing, not seeking him out. Laying in wait, as she ever did. “Have you found the truth of your folly? What you invited into your mortal body?”
“I would hope you would tell me such an important truth, if it was known to you.”
Her smile fell, and Gale tried not to take it as a victory. “The Weave you sought to return to me. It was not mine. Instead, it was a corrupted, dark, version of natural magic. Forged by Karsus himself. It was born hungry, Gale, and it will always be hungry.”
Well. Gale knows what that’s like.
“Not my best attempt at gift giving, I’ll admit,” He said, instead of any of the things he wanted to say.
You knew this the whole time?
Were you ever going to tell me?
Is that what you’re so afraid of, that I will master the Crown of Karsus with his own half-formed Weave and topple you out of sheer spite?
Have you missed me at all?
He was just so tired. He was so light and untethered in that place, and he was itching for something to keep him grounded, but he refused to fidget in front of Mystra. It was difficult, when he hadn’t been worried about it in front of anyone these days, tapping songs with his feet and drumming rhythms with his fingers and casting cantrips just for the sensation of the Weave in his palms. But he could resist it. He had spent decades carefully buttoned up and locked away, he could manage for another few minutes.
Gale wished more than anything he wasn’t here alone with her.
“You must use the Karsite Weave to defeat this Absolute,” Mystra said, unaware of his internal arguments, or just uncaring. “Each day that passes, the threat grows greater-”
“I will not be blowing myself up for you.” Gale interrupted.
Mystra froze. Her entire form paused as though time had stopped, and then she reset into a new position and kept on without addressing her. He really had her rattled. “Then you must defeat the Absolute another way, retrieve the Crown of Karsus.”
“I have no designs for godhood-”
“And surrender it to me.”
Silence stretched between them. There is no ambient sound in the Astral, and Mystra has no need for breath. Gale didn’t used to, either, would cast charms on himself to appear just as inhuman as she did, to revel in the absolute stillness and quiet. Now, his tight, quiet exhales might as well have been rolling thunder.
“I am not your errand boy.” Gale said.
“Aren’t you?” Her voice was the crack of a whip. The Weave tensed between them, belonging to Mystra but loving Gale, unsure of where to turn.
She was a human once. She has the temper to prove it. It would be unwise to push it.
“Apologies, my goddess,” Gale soothed. Familiar, rotting, saccharine. Remember the lines, reprise the role. “I forget myself. It has been so long since I have been in your presence. I have grown used to a different sort of relationship.”
“Ah, yes,” Mystra cooed, placated. “Your… partners. I must say I was surprised.”
“Surprised?” Gale asked. That was the moment to take his leave, to turn his back, anything but remain in the Astral and ask more questions. “Whatever for?”
“Not that you require so many after your experiences beyond mortal means, just those that you chose to attach to. They are not what I expected.”
They aren’t perfect, untouchable beings, she means. They aren’t so far above him, demanding he performs to their specifications to earn a kind word. They don’t make him feel so alone all the time.
Or she just means that all six of them together are necessary to fill the sucking void she left in his chest. Needy, hungry, Gale.
“They’re very mortal,” Gale said, putting as much reverence as he could muster into the word.
“As are you.” Factual. Clean. Dismissive. Like severing a gangrenous limb and cauterizing the wound. It was always his greatest sin, to her. Not the ambition, or the blind subservience. She liked those things, they were so useful. But being mortal? That was something he could never overcome.
Gods, if only they were with him there. He felt so lost, and he knew it showed.
“They’re good for me,” He edged out, as though he had any chance to convince her he’d made the right choice in all of this. “All of them, in their own ways.”
“You must follow your own wisdom, Gale of Waterdeep,” Mystra said, back to her detached and gentle tone. Like a mentor. A teacher. Like she had any right to guide him in this situation. “I must trust you will do the right thing for all the realms.”
How dare she put it all on his shoulders this way for a second time. How dare she do this. How dare she not even apologize as she does it.
“You have given me much to think about,” Gale said, instead of any of the things he wanted to say.
Do you actually trust me, or do you hate this too? You couldn’t trust me after everything, why pretend?
Is there anyone else you can shift this burden to? I’m not sure I can take it, not again, not now.
How can you stand to have me here and speak like you never loved me at all?
Did you ever love me at all?
She dismissed him. He left.
The Material Plane slammed back into him all at once, and he very bravely did not throw up or cry. He just took Shadowhearts’s hand and went back to saving the world.
They had a hag to find.
That was weeks ago. A lifetime ago.
Gale wakes up already surrounded.
There are two small hands holding one of his tightly, Shadowheart if he isn’t mistaken. The fluttering bird of her heartbeat is the dead giveaway, even if the uniformly short fingernails obliviously digging crescent moons into the meat of his hand weren’t there to assist. His head is resting on someone’s lap, trained cords of muscle relaxed beneath him, still firm and ready for action. The Blade of Frontiers, recognizable by thighs alone, although the soft, low tones of his voice so close don’t hurt the investigation.
Halsin is whistling a few feet away, the methodical sounds of metal scraping across wood again and again a soothing undercurrent.
Astarion is needling Lae’zel off to the side, coaxing sharp remarks and insults from her wicked tongue. They’re why Wyll was talking, asking them to keep their voices down.
“Come on, Wyll,” Karlach says easily. She must not be too far, either. Her voice is so near. “Let them play. You know how they get.”
“Warriors do not play,” Lae’zel hisses. “This is training. We are whetting our minds, preparing ourselves for future battle.”
Karlach snorts. Astarion giggles, and jumps in. “You’re certainly whetting my appetite, darling. You look positively delicious.”
He audibly lunges at her, growling playfully. Lae’zel has no response at all. Shadowheart dips her head and giggles under her breath, her long bangs brushing over Gale’s knuckles.
It’s nice, listening to them play these exaggerated versions of themselves for the joy of it. Hearing Wyll make half-hearted attempts to wrangle them, because he’s enjoying it just as much. The way Halsin’s whistling hasn’t ceased for even a moment, completely unbothered by a vampire and a githyanki beginning physical combat three feet away from him.
His life has gotten so strange. Beautiful and warm, but deeply strange.
Gale double checks his mental wards, focuses his attention to any errant sensations that might be intruding from an outside source. There is none. The only thing he can feel from his companions at all is the dulled presence of their tadpoles, muted and writhing. His own tadpole squirms for attention, reaches for any other mind with which to meld, but he keeps it locked down. No feelings bleeding out, no feelings bleeding in.
It is time, then. He has to face the music. This wonderful life had to come apart some time, it may as well be days from the end of all things. Not that Gale is planning on being ended along with it all, he cannot give Mystra the satisfaction, but it does feel thematic in its way.
In as smooth a motion as his creaking knees can muster, Gale stands. He pulls his hand from Shadowheart, lifts his head from Wyll, and rolls up to the balls of his feet.
He can see them all now. His incredible partners. Wyll and Shadowheart sitting on the ground, staring up at him, in confusion. Karlach, perched behind Wyll with her hands deep in a backpack, sifting through scrolls. Astarion, fingertips of one hand gently resting on Lae’zel’s shoulder as she stood in a comically solid defensive stance. Halsin, curled up in the windowsill, half-formed wooden bird in his hands.
Jaheira is with Minsc across the room. The Duke, the devil, and the poorly disguised former deity of death all watch on from their usual haunts. Yenna is nowhere to be found, hopefully elbow deep in a soup pot in the kitchens with Grub.
They watch him with wide eyes, frozen in place.
The silence stretches.
And stretches.
And breaks.
Gale clears his throat. Their eyes on him are a physical weight. Their emotions aren’t seeping into his head in technicolor waves anymore, but he doesn’t need them to know exactly what’s oozing into the air.
“Firstly,” Gale says. Their attention is rapt, and he feels a bit flustered. But he has important things to say before anyone else can begin. “I must apologize for the inconvenience, and say I am eternally grateful to you all for-”
He is interrupted when a thin, bone white hand yanks him forward by the shoulder. He didn’t even notice Astarion move away from Lae’zel, as fast and lithe as he is, the man was little more than a red and white blur.
Astarion pulls Gale towards himself, their mouths colliding. It’s a good first kiss back, confident and strong and a little bit desperate. It lasts only a moment before Astarion pulls back and rests their foreheads together.
“Shut up,” Astarion hisses, moving back in as though pulled by magnets to drop another peck to Gale’s slack lips.
“Truly,” Gale tries again. “You have my unending thanks for-”
“Shut up.” Astarion barely gets the words out before he is once again devouring Gale, consuming him in a way the Weave never could. Gale reluctantly forces himself away, there is so much to say before he gets distracted by cold hands and soft white curls and-
“Astarion, this is serious.”
“Shut up.” This time, Gale doesn’t put up any resistance. He melts into the vampire’s hold, letting his hands come up to cup Astarion’s cheeks as their lips move together, his thumbs feeling the shape of the man’s cheekbones beneath his smooth, delicate skin.
“You’re hogging our wizard,” Shadowheart teases. Gale breaks away from the kiss, but he doesn’t look away from Astarion. He’s only gotten more beautiful in the last few weeks. Freedom really suits him.
Astarion snorts, ungraceful and silly and real. “That’s rich coming from you, after the stunt you pulled with Halsin.”
“Ladies, please,” Karlach calls out, pulling Gale backwards and away from Astarion, down and down and down, until he is settled on the floor in her strong arms, his back pressed to her chest. “You’re both very pretty.”
Her heat is so familiar and calming, a crackling fireplace on a cold autumn evening. He remembers the first time she swept him into a bear hug, lifting him off his feet and spinning him in circles around their camp in the desolate shadow-cursed lands of Reithwin. He had relaxed into her hold so completely that she wouldn’t let go of him for hours. Weeks before they’d ever met for a kiss, he was curling up at her side every evening, each soaking in the contact.
They have no such boundaries now, and Karlach is dropping kisses into Gale’s hair like it’s paying her gold to do it. She’s drawing sweet lines over his scalp, curling her hands in his biceps, bracketing his entire body with her massive thighs. Wyll is only inches away, reaching over to tangle their fingers together. He could die happy here.
The ticking of Karlach’s engine is irregular, stuttering at times. He wonders how he never noticed it in his smaller form. She doesn’t have much time left.
“Your heart-” Gale starts to say. She moves one of her broad hands away from his arm to curl over the bottom half of his face, effectively silencing him.
“Not now,” Karlach pleads. “Later, I promise. We just got you back, hero.”
Gale sighs. He looks around the room, taking stock of everyone still carefully watching him as though he could disappear at any moment. Jaheira, at least, is polishing one of her twin swords in the corner, barely even paying attention. It’s a comfort.
He taps at the back of Karlach’s hand until she gets the hint and removes it.
“May I speak now?” He asks the room.
Lae’zel tips her head. “It is only fair.”
She is not who he was worried about. “Astarion?”
Astarion purses his lips indignantly. “If you must.”
Gale sighs. It’s the best he’s going to get.
“I want to thank you all,” He starts. He wants to make eye contact, this feels like a place where eye contact is important, but he can’t manage it. Instead, he looks very earnestly at their foreheads. “It was not a simple thing that was thrust upon you, and you took it all in stride. I knew, of course, that you were all the selfless and heroic sort that looks after the lost and the lonely, but all the same. You would have been perfectly within your rights to ship me off to Waterdeep the moment it happened. My mother would have gladly taken that burden until you were able to bring down the Absolute.”
Karlach shakes her head behind him. “Ignoring the fact that you would have never done that to any of us, we like having you around.”
“Which I greatly appreciate, make no mistake! I simply wanted to make my gratitude known.”
Shadowheart starts undoing her braid, slim fingers deftly moving through the gleaming white strands. Gale’s hands itch to reach out, and Wyll smiles knowingly next to him, but thankfully says nothing.
“I hope it wasn’t too much of a distraction on the whole world-saving quest of it all,” Gale continues, bravely tearing his eyes away from Shadowheart’s hair where it now hangs in loose, crimped, tempting waves around her face.
Wyll sighs heavily. “You were and are no burden to us, Gale.”
“Don’t be silly,” Karlach confirms. “You even helped, technically.”
“Do not encourage him getting kidnapped,” Shadowheart says.
“Maybe not the time,” Halsin adds.
“But she’s not wrong,” Astarion says, just to be difficult. It makes Karlach giggle quietly.
“All the same,” Gale says with a sigh. “I’m glad to be back with you all at full capacity.”
It’s so interesting the things he missed before, even before Ethel knocked him down several pegs. Lae’zel raises her eyebrows just so, and Shadowheart makes eye contact with her and shakes her head. It isn’t some magical, romantic connection they’ve fostered over the past few months. They’re communicating through the tadpoles, and Gale just never realized it through all his barriers.
It would be so easy to lower them just an inch, to join in.
He doesn’t.
“I just don’t understand how this even happened,” Karlach complains. “Don’t you have to make a deal with a hag for them to f*ck you over?”
Gale hums. He was rather hoping this wouldn’t come up, silly as that might be. “I think she was granting a ‘gift’, in her way, that she heard me asking for internally. We know that she can read our minds and souls, you all recall how she spoke during our first battle in that swamp. She knew us far beyond any conversation we had with her.”
Wyll leans in. “You think you wanted something like this?”
“No,” Gale laughs. “I did not want to be turned into a child. Especially at such an inopportune time. It’s just that- well. My meeting with Mystra-”
The whole group tensed in the span of a single breath. Right. He’d never had the chance to tell them how it went. It was only the following day they faced down Ethel, and he’d still been processing being before his goddess again.
And then he’d prayed to her. She had insulted his partners, his life, in that pitying and detached way of her, sent him off like a disgruntled employee to go fetch the Crown, and he’d prayed to her begging for help finding a lost man.
“Well. It didn’t leave me on the most solid of foundations.”
“So you were wishing for what?” Shadowheart asks. She is frozen halfway through a lower, more casual braid. “A fresh start? Innocence?”
“To be a version of myself that never had such things put upon him. Or perhaps, a version of myself who had never done what it took to have such things put upon him. A version of myself I could trust to do the right thing.”
Halsin looks troubled. “And that was a child only nine years of age?”
They’re not going to like hearing this. Gale chuckles uncomfortably. “I started talking with Mystra regularly a few months after I summoned Tara for the first time. She likely regressed me to the day before I saw her face. Before I started on the path of being one of her Chosen, the thing that eventually got me to where we stand today.”
It is instinct to keep talking, to explain the complexities of his evolving relationship with the Mother of All Magic, to justify how everything developed between them and the ways he had begged for her attention in any and all forms. He wants to describe how it felt to be so close to divinity you could taste it, the power of proximity, the intoxication inherent to servitude. The sadness in their expressions can not be ignored, it must be waved away.
But they don’t want to hear it. How many times has he heard one of them say Mystra could go f*ck herself, that she doesn’t deserve him and never did, that he can be so much more than what she wanted for him. They don’t want his explanations and ambition, his wonderful, mortal lovers, they want his humanity.
He might cry if he has to see that expression hold on Shadowheart’s face any longer, though.
“But! There is no need to dwell on the distant past. I believe there are many congratulations in order, in fact!”
Gale attempts to get back to his feet, but Karlach holds him fast. Wyll tightens his hold on his left hand, his thumb gently stroking the base of his ring finger.
He continues. “You all did such excellent work, accomplished so many incredible things! Bringing down Orin, destroying the Steel Watch! Saving Wyll’s father from the Iron Throne, and all those gnomes to boot!”
Wyll curls closer to his side, pressing the lines of their arms together. Karlach tips her head towards him, their horns making gentle clacking sounds.
“Karlach, you brought your tormenter to justice! Gortash is defeated, gone and dead! Astarion, Cazador is much the same! Two less terrible men are running the streets of Baldur’s Gate and all of Faerun is better for it, I say.”
Astarion stalks over slowly, and lowers himself in front of Gale. His hands settle onto Gale’s thighs, and he leans far into the wizard’s personal space.
Astarion is all Gale can see, his scarlet eyes glittering in the low light of the room, his sorrowful smile prickling at Gale’s brain. The smell of blood and bergamot wafts towards him, muddling his senses.
Gale wonders who he’s been feeding from lately, if it’s still a Wyll-Halsin-Shadowheart rotation, or if Lae’zel has been convinced to donate too. He’s always known she would give in eventually.
He’s so beautiful it hurts. Gale looks away, fidgeting with the one hand that remains to him.
“Of course, there is still much to do. Shadowheart, we have that cloister to investigate in the city. I look forward to being an active part of these quests again! And Wyll, there’s a dragon to recruit, is there not? We’re still adding allies to our ranks every day. One needs all the help they can get when felling an Elder Brain.”
Lae’zel is the one calmly approaching now, though she does not lower to the floor. She just stands, solid, firm, unmoveable, before the growing pile of humanity on the floor and watches. Shadowheart reaches out to place a hand over one of her feet, connecting her to them anyway.
“There is still plenty I can do to lend a hand, is what I’m getting at,” Gale admits. “I will not have you all taking the world onto your shoulders without me.”
He takes a deep breath. “And, if you’d still have me after everything, my offer remains. My home in Waterdeep will make an ideal refuge for anyone taking a break from their various missions post-thwarted apocalypse. I understand if any of you do not see me the same way you did weeks ago, but I would never revoke such a thing. Not for any reason. You all mean far too much to me for that.”
Astarion scoffs. “I would certainly hope so. I was already making plans for new decor.”
“After seeing the palace you lived in for centuries,” Shadowheart says. “I don’t know if I can trust your taste level. I’ll have to request a room that the vampire doesn’t touch.”
Astarion gasps, all faux scandal and drama.
Halsin joins them, settling in easily. “Nothing has changed, Gale. You are as dear to us as you ever were.”
“Honestly, I feel that I know you even better now,” Wyll adds. “Having a Gale with a few less walls up was very illuminating.”
Gale feels his face flush hot and bright. He remembers how much of his time as a child was spent enchanted by his companions, in the innocent and dazzled way he was at the time. Those feelings are nothing compared to the ones he harbors now.
Halsin yawns, and asks, “May I?”
“Go for it,” Shadowheart responds, already lost to a yawn herself.
Thick brown fur ripples over Halsin’s skin, and he expands slowly and calmly into a familiar large bear. The bear lays down, a perfect cushion for Karlach and Wyll and Shadowheart to lean into while Astarion leans further into Gale. Gale accepts Astarion into his arms instinctually, finding the perfect place for Astarion to nestle his head under Gale’s chin that they discovered so many weeks ago.
“The rest of you ought to make yourself scarce,” Lae’zel says, not unkindly, just sharp and factual. Jaheira snorts.
“Heard,” She calls back. “Minsc, Saer Ravenguard, I believe we have an appointment to keep with the bar downstairs?”
Gale doesn’t see her guide the two men out of the room. He doesn’t see the pointed glare she levels at Mizora, or the way the devil dutifully vanishes afterwards. He doesn’t notice Lae’zel fall to a kneeling position and find a crevice of their pile to slot into the way she always does, small and resourceful and allergic to physical affection in front of an audience as she is.
Gale is busy. He is carefully going into those boxes he keeps carefully stacked in his brain. They’re towering things, these days, leaning into each other and threatening to topple at any moment. He is taking them down, laying them out plainly.
And he’s opening them, easing the locked and prying up the lids, letting their contents hit open air. He isn’t panicking and shutting them back inside, he isn’t tossing them off to the side to be ignored. He’s letting them go.
The walls are down, ever so slightly. It’s terrifying.
He feels a bubble of someone else’s surprise pop in the back of his skull, and then a fountain of champagne fizz from every direction.
He tries to hold up the content of his boxes, unpracticed and clumsy, but trying. His eyes are closed, all he can focus on is the warmth of the people he cares for and how much he needs them to know he cares for them.
Astarion curls into him tighter. Lae’zel hums softly.
“Yeah, soldier,” Karlach whispers, reverent. “We love you, too.”
