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usherdownthesky · 14 days ago

Text

Rating: General Audiences

Category: F/M

Relationships: Gale & OC Tav

Words: A LOT (7261)

Tags/Warnings: OC Backstory No One Else Cares About, Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Flirting, Nudity, Skinny Dipping, Sensuality, Kisses, Minor Blood and Injury, Introspection, Gale Gets A Darcy Moment, NOT A BOT I JUST LOVE EM DASHES OKAY JESUS

Contains non-explicit physical intimacy and light references to past suicidal thoughts. A celebration of ripped Gale, silver fox Gale, heterochromatic Gale

And typos, probably. I always see them too late.

Summary:

As Tavania reckons with her past and the idea of moving on from her intense loss, a chance midnight encounter with Gale leads them to a place of honest discussion and unguarded closeness-of the physical and emotional variety. As they stand at the brink of becoming something far more, Tav finds herself falling--but Gale still harbours dark secrets that threaten to tear it all apart.

AKA non-Origin Gale gets to touch an Act 1 boob maybe?

I'm posting it here in its entirety for people who might prefer to read on Tumblr, BUT IT'S LONG Y'ALL. UNFURL THE POST AT YOUR PERIL.

and she never wrote anything ever again.

For the third night in a row, Tavania could not sleep.

Every rock beneath her flimsy bedroll might as well have been a boulder—every blade of grass a longsword, piercing her through. Even her skin felt irritated—not exactly feverish, but hot and tingly, like when she was little and her brother used to amuse himself by grabbing her arm and twisting her skin in both directions until she cried out. Given the circumstances, it was hard not to think back on Gale's graphic descriptions of ceremorphosis, all splitting skin and elongation, and wonder if this was finally it.

You're being ridiculous, she told herself. If she was changing, Lae'zel would already be upon her, knife at the ready, boot on her neck. No; this agitation was wholly her own.

She glanced at Gale's tent. The flap was open so she could see him inside, seemingly fast asleep, an occasional soft snore and unintelligible murmur rising from him. A pang of longing precipitated a mad urge to join him. She pictured herself pressed up against his back, arms around his middle as she buried her face into his hair to drown in the sweet, smoky musk of him… How swiftly rest would find her there, she thought. How happily.

Sighing, Tav rolled onto her back to stare up at the cloudless sky. By the hang of the bright, full moon, she guessed that dawn was still several hours away—too many to spend wallowing in her various frustrations. A walk, she decided, kicking out of the thin blanket tangled about her knees; a quick stroll would burn off some nervous energy and help clear her head.

If only it were that easy.

She slipped from camp, crossed the stream and followed its winding shore, skirting the denser parts of the forest. Ever since she was little, the very idea of the woods had terrified her. Too many storybooks full of bandits and goblins, ravenous wolves and child-eating hags, she supposed. Having faced down all those things and more in the last tenday alone, it seemed a silly thing to be afraid of now. Besides, if life had taught her anything, it was that the worst things that could happen to a person often occurred in places they thought themselves most safe: their homes, their beds—inside their own hearts and minds. What was a common hag next to those, most intimate of betrayals?

Still—one could never be too careful.

The stream eventually widened into a small lake that spilled in a misty froth over a crag into the wild river several dozen feet below. Not yet ready to return, Tav followed the cliff edge up out of the forest hollow to a desolate granite bluff high above the treeline. The climb turned out to be much steeper than it had looked from the ground, and the humid night air was as tepid as a cup of forgotten tea, so by the time she reached the ledge she was panting, dripping with sweat, and her legs had gone to jelly.

Tav stood at the edge of the bluff while she caught her breath and was surprised to see how far she had come. All she could make out of the camp from here was a few errant slivers of orange glow, flickering through the forest shroud. On the livid horizon several leagues beyond, the twisted hulk of the rotting nautiloid loomed, its cursed bowels still smouldering more than a tenday after the crash. As they headed up into the mountains in search of Lae'zel's fabled creche—a lead Tav had little reason to believe would bear fruit—she wondered grimly if they would ever escape the wretched thing's monstrous shadow.

She closed her eyes, putting it out of her mind.

Midnight stillness pressed in around her. The silence was uncanny—so thick, even the rush of the river could not penetrate it. A feeling of unease crept along her spine, of trespass, as if in her rush to escape her troubles she had accidentally slipped somewhere she should not be. A place between worlds, not meant for anyone.

Not the living, anyway.

It was not an altogether new sensation. Time and again over the years, at the lowest points of her life, she had found herself here: poised precariously on the edge of some great precipice or another, gazing deep into the face of grim oblivion. One foot in the warm, pulsing present. The other—

The breeze pushed against her back. Tav stretched out her arms and began to unconsciously lean forward. A dizzying sense of lightness swept over her. Calm; pleasant, almost. One good gust and she would be gone.

There was a time, not so very long ago, she would have welcomed it. Not out of despair, exactly, but something more like fatigue—need of a decisive push from some power greater than herself, toward a freedom she did not have the strength to reach for on her own.

The difference was that now, she knew how it felt to fall. It was not what she had always imagined—a wild, liberating plunge into nothingness. No; it was horror, and helplessness. A grand unravelling, time stretched thin to reveal its insides, which contained only regret. Not a single, clean moment of it but a turbulent flood seething with life’s debris. Every chance not taken, every song unsung. No absolution waited at flight’s end—only a bloody exclamation point, rammed violently into the middle of a sentence not yet finished.

The impulse was no longer there. In its place, she found the blunt ache of something far more terrifying:

Hope.

Tav’s eyes snapped open. As she took a gasping leap back from the rocky edge, another realisation hit her, a bolt of the most exquisite agony exploding beneath her ribs: she had not thought of her sister in days. Not since the assault on the goblin camp, their first dashed hopes for a cure, the party, and—

Gale.

So consumed with the business of living, she had had no time for the dead.

All her life, no matter where she was, how much time or distance or twist of circumstance separated them, Tav had never gone a day without thinking of her twin. Long before she was a wound, Lavinia was a lifeline, the pair of them so deeply tangled up in one another, it was impossible to tease them apart. The end, when it came—sudden, brutal, final—left a gaping hole; a hollow space where Tav’s second heart used to beat.

She had tried to fill that space with her sister's memory, holding on to whatever she could like a cherished song, stitching the tatters of her own life around the rhythm of the loss.

But Tav should have known better. She should have known that a song could not be caged, any more than a memory could be made to endure, and both could eventually turn sour.

But what if she kept forgetting?

What if the days she did not think of Lavinia began to outweigh the ones she did?

What would be left of her?

What if she dared to let herself feel something other than her grief?

What if she already had?

You're allowed to have a life, some other, treacherous part of her mind interjected. Haven't you punished yourself enough?

Tav sucked in a wet, trembling breath. Guilt was a difficult lesson to unlearn; moving on was just a different kind of loss.

She remained a while longer, watching the spill of Selune's Tears turn overhead in a sleepy echo of her own. When she finally set off for home, sorrow and slumber dragged on her limbs, leaving her leaden and off-balance. Halfway down the craggy slope, her foot struck loose granite, shifting and giving way beneath her. Tav fell hard on her left side and slid, jerking to an eventual stop at the brink of the sheer drop into the roiling river below.

It took a moment to register that she had stopped sliding. That she was still alive. She lay a there, breathing in ragged gasps, until the pain caught up with her, dull crimson waves rushing up her left side.

Groaning, she pushed herself upright, held her arm toward the moonlight and peeled away her tattered sleeve with a trembling hand to reveal a raw graze that stretched all the way from wrist to elbow. Blood oozed to the surface in bright, wet jewels.

“Shit,” she whimpered.

As she struggled to her feet, the hazy throb sharpened into searing white blades that stabbed her in the hip and knee with every step. Involuntary sobs slipped from her throat as she limped on, wishing even one of her friends were here with her.

Shadowheart, with a timely healing spell.

Wyll, with a sturdy shoulder to lean on.

Karlach, with a rousing 'C'mon, soldier! Knees up!' for encouragement.

Gale, with a tender touch, that charming smile, a story spun in golden tones to help her forget her pain…

Oh, Gale…

You don't need them, she told herself, wiping her wet cheeks with a filthy hand.

No. She didn’t need them. She could make it on her own, as she always had.

But wouldn't it be nice? To not have to fight so hard for every inch? To have someone to laugh or commiserate with? Someone to catch her when she inevitably fell again? Just because she could manage on her own did not mean she needed to.

The contrarian within made no reply.

Back on level ground, Tavania hobbled to the lake’s edge and lowered herself with a grimace, her swelling knee protesting every inch of the way. She dipped her arm, hissing at the sting, but once the initial shock subsided, found the water was pleasantly warm and soothing. Inviting, even.

It was late.

She should get back, take a potion, get some rest.

Instead, she began tugging off her boots. Peeled off her bloodied blouse. Trousers next. With her hands poised at her hips, she hesitated, scanning the tree line, half-expecting a bugbear to come charging out of the shadows—her luck would run that way. But the woods remained still and so, with a laugh, she slipped her underwear down and left the whole lot in a heap upon the shore, wading out until she was hip-deep. There, she sank, stretching out her legs to let the water carry their weight, and leaned back on her elbows. She dipped below the glossy surface, washing the dirt and sweat from her hair in a single breath.

Relief was immediate and complete.

Moments of calm like this had become such a rarity. She was not made for all this…adventure, as the others so frivolously called it; horror was the word she would choose. The things she had seen this week; the things she had done. The things she feared she would need to do if she was to survive this…

It was little wonder she could not sleep.

Each night when she sat down to the evening meal, all she could taste was blood and brimstone. She would chew and swallow in silence, forcing it down without betraying her distaste to the others, all the while wondering: Why her?

What was she next to a fierce githyanki warrior; the Blade of Frontiers; a veteran of the Hells; or the archmage of Waterdeep?

Just a stray witch and musician long without a vital muse. A scrap of worthless by-catch tangled in a net full of far more valuable prizes. Every time she was forced to raise her hands and reach for that murky well of untamed power inside of her, it felt like reciting a prayer in a foreign tongue to a god whose name she did not know, hoping that her graceless fumbling would not be mistaken for blasphemy.

Admittedly, Gale's instruction had been helping. The somatic gestures he had her practice as they walked provided her with much-needed focus, and she could feel them beginning to settle into her bones. In some ways, it was like breaking in a new instrument: painful and stilted for the first while, but then one day, the hands simply knew what to do.

Tav winced, that uncomfortable tightness from earlier returning, twisting its way inside of her thoughts as they gathered predictably around him, and more specifically, their would-be kiss.

A ripe piece of stupidity on her part. Impulsive. Destructive. So like her. Tav wished she could take it back, forget the feel of his satiny lips and breathless need, the roughness of his beard and the hungry fumble of phantom hands… Gods. It had not even happened, yet it haunted her more vividly than some of her actual memories. Even now, as she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend it was his thumb tracing slow, yearning circles along her hip and not her own.

That night, he had left her without any real explanation—only half-mumbled apologies. Things had felt…different since, in a way that transcended simple embarrassment. Outwardly, they had carried on as if it never happened—which it technically hadn’t, no matter how lurid her daydreaming—but subtle cracks had sprung up between them. The way his eyes often avoided meeting hers, and the distance in them when they did, as if his mind were miles away. The careful stiffness of his speech, as if he had wound himself back to the day they met, that polished version of himself—polite, but not completely honest.

A guardedness she knew all too well.

“Cheer up, old girl,” she said, lifting a hand to watch the water rain down her arm. “Could be dead tomorrow, and all this fretting will be for nothing.”

A sound tore through the stillness: the snapping of a twig in the woods somewhere behind her.

Heart hammering, Tav surged to her feet. White-hot pain lanced up her leg, but she barely registered it, her body operating on instinct. With no blade and no armour, she turned instead to flame. Magic surged through her, fierce and primal, but she caught it on her fingertips, dancing through movements Gale had taught her, graceful and sure. The fire burst to life, bright, ready. As was she, drawing back her arm on a held her breath, poised to strike.

A flicker of silver at the treeline caught her eye. A figure, tall and slender, ducking behind the trunk of an ancient cedar.

“Astarion!” she called, instantly vexed by his intrusion. “I see you!”

A hand shot out from behind the oak, the long, elegant fingers gilded in familiar rings. A voice followed, yelling, “Easy! It’s only—” He paused. “Wait—Astarion?”

“Gale?”

Tav’s stomach dropped. What in the hells was he doing here? Had she…summoned him, somehow? In her mindless yearning, had she perhaps accidentally whispered his name too loudly into the Weave? Was that…could that even happen? Gods—what if she had projected something? Again.

“Yes, Gale! You were expecting Astarion?” he cried, his voice pitching high and then cracking apart like skim ice beneath the heel of the other man's name.

“I wasn't expecting anyone,” she snapped. The fireball flared, casting wild shadows across the trees as the heat licked down her arm. “But if anyone was going to be skulking about at this hour like a woodlands pervert—”

“Not skulking! Approaching! Very cautiously, I might add! Speaking of which, would you mind, terribly, putting that out? I would do it myself, but fear that would be awfully nude—rude! I meant rude!”

Tavania blinked.

“Oh, gods!” she yelped, dropping like a stone into the water with a splash, a sizzle and a grey curl of steam.

“Much obliged!” Gale waved again. “I’ll just—turn around and be on my way!”

“Wait—!” She arranged herself into a modest crouch, arms folded over her naked breasts and released a resigned sigh. “You might as well come over here.”

Crickets chirped. An owl hooted. Water burbled apathetically over the rocks.

“…Are you certain?”

“No,” Tav barked, her cheeks burning, “but you’re already here, and I’m already mortified, so—yes. Unless you'd rather summon the entire Sword Coast with our shouting?”

“No! No…” Gale poked his head out from behind the tree—only far enough to reappraise the situation. “Very well. I'm coming over—I shall avert my eyes!” he announced, then extended one long leg from his hiding place. “Here I come, ready or—well, just ready, I hope!”

She dipped her head, snorting a laugh into the crook of her elbow and muttered, with glowing affection, “Idiot.”

True to his word, Gale kept his eyes fixed with studious intent on the ground for the entirety of his theatrical passage, coming to an eventual halt beside her pile of clothing. Her underwear sat on top like a flag of surrender—practically waving at him. Tav bit the inside of her cheek to stifle a sound—half laugh, half whimper; altogether a nightmare.

Gale rocked stiffly on his heels, arms folded so tightly across his chest, he looked as though he might vanish into himself.

“What are you doing here, Gale?”

“Looking for you, of course,” he replied, brows twitching together as if he did not understand the question—why it needed asking.

He drew a short breath before elaborating.

“I woke and saw your bedroll was empty. At first, I presumed you'd gone to relieve yourself, or some such. When you didn't return in a timely fashion, I…well.” Gale hesitated. When he spoke again, his voice bore all the weight and frailty of a grave confession. “I was worried.”

Tav looked away.

Of course he was worried. From the moment they’d met, just a fortnight ago—though it felt like far longer—he had been watching out for her. Not always in loud or obnoxious ways, but with a simple and steady presence he wove around her like a magical armour. A healing potion, pushed into her hand before she could ask; a soft word to bind her together when her nerves or temper threatened to fray her all apart. Always hot on her heels whenever she hurled herself into danger, his concern for her safety often eclipsing any thought for his own. Always loitering at her side after a fight, helping her to her feet when she needed it, steadying her, making sure she was still whole.

Kindness like his had always made her wary; in her experience, it never came without cost. Gale’s did. Not once had he demanded anything from her. When he had asked for help, it was with open heart and open hands, without guile or expectation; she had been all too happy to give him what he needed.

She was willing to give him a great deal, as it turned out.

Now here he was, trembling nervously in the dark because she had gone missing, and he had noticed. And she had nearly set him on fire for his troubles.

“I couldn’t sleep. Decided to take a walk,” she said, guilt twisting keenly in her gut. “I didn’t mean to be gone so long, I’m sorry. For worrying you—and for almost fireballing you.”

“I'm merely relieved you're all right.” He glanced up, smiling so warmly it made her shiver.

“It was an impressive fireball, by the way,” he added as an aside. “A little…enthusiastic, toward the end, but you held onto it expertly and your form was—well. Exquisite.” He paused. “Not that I was admiring your…form, or…” He trailed off into a timid, almost silent whine.

A smirk tugged at her lip, more delight than embarrassment; she knew he would not offer such praise lightly. Whatever else he may or may not have noticed in the course, she opted not to address.

“You're an excellent teacher.”

“I know,” he murmured, absently prodding the sand with the toe of his boot. Then, almost to himself: “Though you’re the first to say so.”

An easy hush fell over them. Tav’s knee began to ache again, and she was about to say something when Gale lifted his head and glanced around.

“Lovely spot, this.”

“Yes.”

“How is the water? I must say, it looks…”

He turned back, his gaze locking onto hers—sharp, steady. In the moonlight, she caught the quick bob of his throat as he swallowed.

“…rather enticing.”

Heat flushed through her, from her scalp down to her toes. The way he looked at her now, clear and unflinching, was precisely how she had hoped he might after their magical kiss. The look of a man who knew exactly what he wanted: to be here. With her.

If only she would ask.

The words slipped from her lips, barely louder than a whisper. “Come see for yourself.”

A slow smile spread across his face as he raised a hand to his shoulder and the three toggles that secured the front of his robe. His eyes never left hers as he painstakingly worked the first two loose. At the third, he faltered. “Forgive me, but would you mind…?” With his free hand, he made a small circle.

“Hardly seems fair,” Tav said with a mock pout, “but fine—I'll even close my eyes.”

A chuckle followed her as she turned awkwardly in place—more of a waddle, really—though she was not sure why she was still concerned with her own modesty when it was clear he had seen…well, enough.

From behind her came the rustle of falling fabrics, the unsnapping of boot buckles. A muttered 'Bollocks!' and then the crunch of gravelly sand.

“Stuck, wizard?” she teased. ”Need a hand?”

“Hah! Never living that down, am I?” he replied. “I think I've quite enough, thank you…for now.”

Tavania smiled and shook her head, a rosy fondness unfolding within her. This was what she had missed these past days of fracture—his lopsided charm, playfulness, his endearing fumbling. The way things were when it was just the two of them, without pretense or pressure to perform.

Her smile faltered—maybe that was the thing that most unsettled her, keeping her awake at night: how easy it was to miss him.

A splash at the shore broke her meditation, followed by a subtle pull in her blood, like the tugging of a loose thread, and a tingling at the nape of her neck. Magic; he was casting something. Curious, Tav cracked one eye open in time to see a handful of pale blue lights scatter like marbles across the bed of the lake, illuminating the depths in a fuzzy, dreamlike glow. Then Gale, diving into the water after them. The light clung to him, shimmering over his bare skin like a divine blessing as his body cut through the water with effortless grace, muscles rippling in a symphony of strength and radiance. For just a moment, she did not see a mortal man, but a godly being stitched together from ancient threads, older and more elemental than time itself. Every line, every muscle, every glorious inch of him woven out of raw, living magic—awe and power incarnate.

Tav forgot how to breathe.

She had never seen a more beautiful man in all her life.

He surfaced with a gasp in the inky heart of the lake, then rolled onto his back with a satisfied sigh, arms flung wide. There he drifted, his hair fanned out around him in a silver crown. As he stared serenely up at the starry sky, moonlight caressed his face with the delicate reverence of a lover’s hand, and Tav felt another pang, her longing this time envious, wishing she were the moon.

She smiled, unable to help herself; he looked so utterly content.

That was the puzzle of Gale of Waterdeep. He was all charm and warmth, quick with a quip to ease the tension or cast light on an otherwise dim moment—but his levity rarely tarried. Over his carefully curated exterior lay an untold sorrow, worn like a threadbare cloak. It suited him, in a way—the thoughtful furrow etched permanently between his brows lent him a sort of scholarly gravitas—but it made her heart ache. Tav did not know yet the exact shape of his burdens, only that it resonated deeply within her. On her coldest days, she selfishly wanted nothing more than to lift the corner of his grey shawl, crawl inside and hold him so that they might find some warmth together.

“You look quite in your element,” she called to him, grimacing as she finally relented, unfolding her limbs and easing back into a comfortable recline. “I didn't realise the ‘of Waterdeep’ was so literal.”

Gale laughed. “A mere stroke of serendipity. Though I do love to swim. It's the closest thing in this mortal plane to experiencing the freedom and lightness of true ethereal delight.”

He stilled as he said this, his tone shifting into wistful lament, as if floating in bleak pool of memory. The moment passed swiftly as the blinking away of a tear. With a splash, he rolled over onto his side and began to swim toward her.

“My tower in Waterdeep overlooks the sea, which is terribly convenient,” he continued, stopping to tread water at the edge of the shallows. “No better way to begin the day than with a cold plunge, in my estimation. Thoroughly invigorating—for body and mind.”

Tav tried to picture it. Gale, rising with the dawn, the salt breeze tugging through his hair as he dove from his tower steps—but her own memories of that city, blurred by time and shrouded in youthful regret, muddied the waters. She backed away.

“Sounds lovely,” she said, a bittersweet taste remaining on her tongue.

“Perhaps, someday, I can show you what I mean.”

Their eyes met briefly. There was something so fragile about it, hopeful and hurting all at once. Possibility cobbled together from wisps of nothing: vivid enough to almost be convincing, but ephemeral and formless. Another well-crafted illusion.

Gale shattered it with an abrupt clearing of his throat. “What about you? Do you swim?”

“I grew up a ways inland—more than day’s walk east of Baldur’s Gate,” she said, now watching her fingers make swirls across the surface of the water. “There was the river nearby, but we were forbidden from going near it; three children were swept away in a storm surge the summer Lavinia and I turned two.”

“Oh,” he said quietly. “My—how awful.”

Tavania nodded. “Two of them were our closest neighbours; the older boy was friends with my brother. He could easily have gone with them that day had my father not needed help fixing fences. I think that made it worse for my mother—that pervasive nag of might-have-been made her a little crazy, which I suppose in turn instilled a lasting fear in me. That’s the way of things in a village as small as ours was. Even a small incident resonates. A tragedy like that, it…alters the rhythm of everything irrevocably.” She stilled her fingers, watched the last of the ripples ebb. “Can feel almost like…like a curse…”

Gale said nothing, and she was grateful for his restraint. The churn of falling water filled the silence.

“I do love the sea, though—from a distance,” she continued, more brightly. “I could sit beside it for hours and just watch the colours shift, squall clouds gather...There’s a certain romance to it, don’t you agree?”

“Completely.”

“And seafaring tales are some of my favourites,” Tav went on. “Gandorra Burr’s Fifty Years at Sea—have you read it?”

“The second volume only,” Gale replied, almost apologetic. “Ironically, I found it a little dry.”

She snorted. “Fair. Though the sparseness of the text added to the experience for me, compounding the dread and desolation. Her description of the Whalebones, for instance: there’s something innately chilling about a natural graveyard, and the matter-of-fact way she described those monstrous bleached ribs jutting up out of the black sand was just so…doleful. Haunting. I think that’s the true appeal for me. Romance, yes, but there is an inherent sense of tragedy about the sea. The loneliness and enormity of it feels quite…otherworldly.”

This time when he did not speak, she risked a sidelong glance and found him simply watching her, smiling dreamily, his eyes shining with a doting interest that was completely disarming.

Dangerous, indeed.

“Perhaps I need to revisit it,” he ventured, scratching his beard. “Or better yet—hear it read aloud by a talented bard with a gift for finding the poetry in bones.”

Tavania laughed. “If we stumble on a copy, I’ll happily read you to sleep, wizard.”

“I’ll begin the search at once.”

She bit down on her lip, blushing. “To answer your actual question…” Tav lifted one leg out of the water and wiggled her dripping toes. “This is as deep as I go.”

Gale’s expression shifted—a certain tilt of his head, a new glint in his eye that fell just shy of mischief. The spark of an idea. He planted his feet and rose in the chest-deep water, holding out a hand.

“Come here.”

Tav blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

“Come here,” he repeated, beckoning her this time with his spellbinding fingers, his many rings of gold and silver playing in the moonlight. Then, as if remembering himself, he lifted his other hand to shield his eyes. “Ah—apologies!”

“I think we’re a little beyond that, don’t you?”

He hummed, his smile turning luminous and sly. “True. One can’t always be a gentleman.”

Gale let his hand fall away and he watched her, keenly, as she stood and made her measured way to him. If he noticed the faint limp in her stride, he gave no sign. Merely waited, mute, his hand outstretched and lips slightly parted as he drank her in with something close to wonder, studying her as if she were some rare beauty he could not grasp the meaning of—but would gladly spend the rest of his life in the rigorous pursuit.

By the time she reached him, every inch of her was aflame, and when she slid her hand into his, she felt the same spark she had the very first time they touched, the day she pulled him from that rock. Then, she had dismissed it as magical interference; now, there was nothing else between them but a few scant inches of cold lake, and something far deeper as well. Undefinable. Inevitable.

“Exquisite,” he murmured—so absently, she was not sure he was aware he said anything.

The heat in his gaze was suddenly too much to bear. With a nervous laugh, Tavania looked away—down, to his chest, its vital rise and fall, and the ominous circle of flame branded into the flesh over his heart. The black tendrils that curled up his throat had long intrigued her; she suspected them connected to his mysterious affliction, but the rest he had always kept carefully concealed. Seeing it now, a thing of uncommon elegance laid bare by moonlight, a storm gathered inside her. Sympathy, curiosity, desire…

A bloom of quiet dread.

“Is this”—a breath quivered from him—“all right?”

Tav glanced up, catching his eyes. One, a rich and velvety brown a person could get lost in forever; the other, silver as a frost-laden sky. Dusky tear stains tattooed the cheek below as if he once had wept all the colour out of it.

She was not sure if his question was meant for her, or for himself.

Summoning her most charming smile, flush with rosy light, she asked, “Are you going to teach me to swim, professor?”

With a snort, he said, “In good time,” as if time was a luxury they had in abundance. “For now, I offer merely a taste.”

“Of drowning?”

Gale frowned. “You wound me, my dear.” He sought her other hand beneath the water; his fingers were warm despite the chill. “I hope you know I’d never allow that to happen.”

That quiet ‘my dear’… A slip that sounded so natural, she suspected it was not the first time the words had occurred to him, even if he had never spoken them aloud. Her chest constricted. All she could say was, “I do.”

He smiled. “Are you ready?”

Without knowing precisely what he intended, she nodded; a stark realisation of trust. “Yes.”

“Any time you want to stop, you need only say the word,” he assured her as he began to walk slowly backward, the pull of their joined hands coaxing her deeper with him. “Be aware, there is a sudden drop.”

She nodded again, only half-listening, focused instead the water rising up her arms, her chest, floating her nerves with it. It was far colder here than it had been by the shore; Tav shivered as it lapped up to her collar bones. She her felt herself becoming more buoyant as it breached her shoulders, her footfalls feeling far less grounded in reality. Around them, Gale’s magical lights had dimmed into soft, pulsing pinpricks, drifting constellations that mirrored the stars. Suddenly, they were nothing more than two small, fragile bodies adrift in an ethereal sea of cosmic dark.

And then, on her next dizzying step, the ground vanished entirely.

Water surged up her neck, into her ears, her nose. She gasped in alarm and swallowed a mouthful. Coughed. Choked. Somehow in her flailing panic, she slipped free of Gale’s grip, losing him in a thrash of bubbles as she tried to claw her way back to the surface, but there was nothing to grab on to. Nothing above, nothing below. Only cold, uncaring darkness.

Instead of floating, she was falling.

Her thoughts splintered, half of her back aboard the burning nautiloid, its sinewy walls quivering in the hot rush of wind as it tore apart around her. The tadpole squirmed in her skull. She could not breathe. She was going to die. She was—

And then he was there. His arms wrapping tightly around her waist, lifting her up, his voice cutting through the roil of terror.

“I have you.”

Coughing, she threw her arms around his neck, clinging to him, shaking.

“I have you,” he said again, lips closer against her ear. “I have you.” Again. And again. Until she believed him.

“Don’t let go,” she rasped.

“I wouldn't dream of it.”

She believed him.

Safe in his arms, Tav let her body slacken. Shivering, sputtering, she breathed, matching the steady rise and fall of his chest, finding his rhythm to anchor herself. The cold and the dark remained, but soon she hardly noticed. All she felt was Gale: the warm glide of his bare skin against hers, the subtle shifting of his muscles and the push-pull of the water around her feet as he kicked gently to keep them both afloat.

“Forgive me,” he whispered, squeezing his arms around her. “This was a terrible idea. I’ll take us in.”

“Wait—” she said in a rush, clinging harder, desperate to hold on to this, to him, this precious moment.

He stilled beneath her.

“It wasn’t terrible. I don't know what happened, I just—” Tav exhaled. “Can we just…stay?”

Gale skated a hand up her back to cradle her neck, a warm and solid comfort. “Whatever you wish.”

The river current split and flowed on around them, and they drifted a little in its gentle course, Gale ever kicking to keep them steady. They began to turn in aimless circles, as if caught in the stream of a silent waltz. As the last vestiges of fear receded, Tav began to see the music in her mind: pretty waves of indigo tangled up in midnight blue, threaded through with silver strands against a canvas of star-soaked black. The song made its needful way to her throat, and without meaning to, she began to faintly hum.

“What is that?” he asked after a time. “I don’t recognise it.”

“No, it's…” Not know how else to describe it, she said simply, “Us.”

Gale let out a blissful sigh, resting her head against her temple.

Tav shifted her weight, a sudden sting breaking the spell; the music slipped away from her, leaving only a sharp yellow hiss of pain in its wake.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Tavania Starling,” Gale said sternly.

Rolling her eyes, she lifted her wounded arm from his shoulder for him to see.

“Hells, Tav!” he exclaimed at a glance. “That’s hardly nothing—it’s your whole bloody arm!”

“It’s nothing,” she insisted, an edge of irritation cutting in. “A graze, that’s all. Skin-deep.”

“Skin-deep! You’ve hardly any skin left at all! What happened?”

“I slipped like a clumsy fool coming down the bluff, that's all. Honestly—this”—Tav shook her arm at him—”hurts far less than you calling me by my full name in your grumpy wizard voice.”

“I don't have a—” He huffed, a splinter amusement in it, the rest pure exasperation. At least a little of it with himself for taking her bait.

“I may have also sprained my knee.”

“Mystra give me strength…” he grumbled, taking hold of her wrist for a closer look. He was careful, methodical. She suppressed a cringe as his thumb barely brushed the bitter edges of her wound.

“What’s the prognosis?”

“Quite dire, I’m afraid,” he said, solemn in tone if not in spirit. “And we once again find ourselves confronted with the glaring void in my otherwise formidable repertoire of expertise: the restorative arts.“

“Well, I had a good run,” she said with a shrug.

Gale tutted. “Not so fast, madam. I do happen to know of one very old technique, proven to help ease pain and hasten recovery, popular to this very day among certain wise practitioners of the gentler arts. If you would permit me to try it.”

She raised one eyebrow. “By all means, if you think it might help.”

Gale gently lifted her arm above the waterline, droplets trailing from her elbow as he leaned in, squinting in an exaggerated show of scrutiny. “Yes, I think—”

A soft kiss, just above her elbow.

“Any better?” he whispered, barely lifting his lips from her skin.

Tav swallowed a lump. “Still hurts…”

“I see.”

Another kiss, a touch higher than the last, lingering this time.

“Now?”

She did not answer. Couldn’t.

Gale continued, tracing a deliberate path up her arm with unbearable restraint. Each tender kiss sent a jolt through her—hot, electric, winding her up from the inside out. The fingers of her other hand flexed, digging into the taut muscle of his shoulder, eliciting from him a soft, aching sound; she was not sure if it was pain or pleasure—or both.

At last, he arrived at her wrist. There, he paused, just long enough for anticipation to coil itself around her throat, leaving her breathless. Gale turned her hand, pressing one final kiss into the centre of her palm. Longer. Deeper. His lips warm, his beard soft, his tongue a sweet whisper of heat falling into her heart line. As he moaned again, this one distinctly rapturous, she blearily wondered if he could still taste the scorch of magic on her skin.

He sighed her name, and she cupped his cheek to draw him closer; Gale obeyed, coming back to rest his forehead against hers.

“About the other night…”

Tav winced. “You don’t have to—”

“I have thought of little else for days,” he blurted, undeterred. “Only you. But I acquitted myself poorly—then and since. For that, I must apologise. I was…startled. It’s been a very long time since I was…close…to anyone…in that way,” he said, struggling even to say it, and she could feel his brows pulling into a frown. “In any way, really. Or for that matter, wanted to be.”

“Same,” she confessed in a small voice.

Gale pulled back to look at her, offered a smile that seemed to comfort them both. “To be perfectly clear—I do want to be close to you, Tavania. Very much so.”

A giddy laugh teased the back of her tongue. “We could scarcely be any closer.”

“Oh, I can think of a way or two.” His eyes narrowed, turning his smile wryly suggestive, and Tav felt herself flush again.

A familiar shadow fell over him, his shoulders drooping beneath its weight.

“But, I am…afraid…well, of many things,” he admitted. “A great many things, indeed. Chief among them: the sudden contraction of time.”

Gale barked out a humourless laugh.

“If someone had told me two weeks ago that I would find myself here—dumped unceremoniously in the wilds of southern Faerun, with a deadly parasite squirming in my skull, harried by deranged cultists hailing the coming of a new god”—he paused, his harsh tone softening into molten gold—”with the most magnificent, extraordinary woman I have ever met wrapped my arms…”

Tav nudged his shoulder lightly. “Charmer.”

He flashed a quick grin. “Suffice it to say, I would have declared it the ramblings of a madman—or the stuff of an overwrought, implausible bodice-ripper, replete with gross misrepresentations of my character.”

“True,” she agreed. “To my knowledge, you’re yet to rip a single bodice.”

“Yet…” Gale emphasised. “When it happens, you shall be the first to know.” He sighed then. “The timing of all of this, however, is—”

“I know.”

“—inopportune. To say the very least.”

What neither of them said loomed loud in the ensuing silence: This might be all the time we have.

Tav’s gaze was drawn again to the grim brand above his heart. Her hand slipped from his cheek, fingertips tracing the searing circle’s edge with a feather-light touch. Gale held perfectly still, failing even to breathe, and she thought she felt something stir beneath his skin—a faint pulse that did not belong to him. Something other. Something wrong. In her own blood, her magic thrummed like a struck chord and then…recoiled. As if even her wild and untamed power feared what lay within him.

Gale caught her fingers in a sudden vice grip and wrenched her hand away—too rough to be intentional. Guilt followed instantly; he brought her hand to his lips, kissing the backs of her fingers in trembling apology.

Tav gaped at him, a chill creeping through her that had nothing to do with the icy water.

The terror in his eyes just now…

“We should head back,” he said hoarsely.

She nodded.

With one arm still around her waist, Gale turned and swam them back toward the shallows from which they had drifted. Tav clung to him, numb, barely kicking her trailing feet. At last he slowed to a stop in the shallower water and set her down, making sure she had her feet fully beneath her before letting go.

They looked at one another. Tav saw the distance gathering, tendrils of creeping fog come to pull him away. She was losing him again.

Without thinking, she brought her hands to his face, pulled him closer as she leaned in, and kissed him. Softly. Briefly. Nothing at all like desperate, hungry the thing she had imagined nights ago.

But it was real.

And it was perfect.

Left as waypoint for him to find her by when he was ready. If he ever was.

Then she let him go, limping the rest of the way to the shore on her own.

#words & musings #bg3 fanfic #oc: tavania starling #starlingale #gale x tav #gale romance #galemance #ao3 link #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #bg3 gale #bg3 tav #fanfic #fanfiction #archive of our own #ao3 writer

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