#Spoilers for Act 2 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

keldae · 10 months ago

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Blossoming romance prompt: surprising them with their favourite treat

The last two days had been the longest of Deviali’s life. Being abducted by mindflayers was already bad enough, and it honestly should have been her death sentence by now – maybe it was the gods slowly punishing her for all the times she’d stolen from priests and clerics who left their coin purses unattended in Wyrm’s Crossing.

But then fighting alongside a Githyanki warrior (who had only reluctantly identified herself as Lae’zel) and another half-Elf stranger (Shadowheart, she had introduced herself as) to crash the ship, and yanking a stray wizard out of his portal, and nearly being shanked by a pale Elf, and spending one night huddled in the ruins of an ancient temple before fighting off a swarm of goblins and being granted temporary sanctuary in a druid grove, along with a pack of tiefling refugees? “No one at home will ever believe this,” Devi muttered, shaking her head. “They’ll think I’m trying a new line to get out from the Fists’ idea of justice.”

“Are you accustomed to trying to talk your way out from law enforcement?” the wizard, who’d introduced himself as Gale of Waterdeep, asked with a small chuckle.

“More used than I am to breaking myself back out of being arrested,” Devi muttered. She poked at her bowl of potato porridge, wrinkling her nose slightly. While she supposed she wasn’t in a position to be picky with food, and she also supposed she should be grateful to the tieflings for sharing their supplies with the pack of tadpole-infected wanderers, she’d grown up on all things potato in the Lower City of Baldur’s Gate, and the porridge wasn’t her favourite food.

“A common thug. How uncouth.” Astarion – the pale knife-happy Elf – looked down his nose at Devi, having already finished his serving of the porridge, with much grimacing on his part. Apparently whatever upper level of society he hailed from didn’t eat peasant food often.

“Brave words from the person who pulled a dagger on me less than a minute after meeting me,” Devi retorted. “Besides, I ain’t a thug. Just a damn good thief.”

“Clearly not that good, if you have to talk your way out of trouble regularly…” Astarion commented.

Devi’s eyes narrowed threateningly, but she felt Shadowheart set a hand on her shoulder before she could get up. “If we have to work together to find a cure, then try to get along,” the cleric said, giving both Devi and Astarion a look – with a look tossed at Gale as well for good measure. “Bickering isn’t going to accomplish anything.”

With a sigh, Devi settled back into her seat, leaning against a rock and trying to get comfortable. “Anything about home we’re missing in particular?” she asked after a moment of uncomfortable, awkward silence among the group.

“My library,” Gale immediately said. Somehow, that answer didn’t surprise Devi in the slightest.

“A comfortable bed,” Astarion commented. “And not a bedroll.”

Shadowheart hummed in thought. “Besides having my head to myself? Decent wine.”

Astarion seemed to perk up. “Oh, I’d like to change my answer now…”

Devi snorted in amusement, then set her bowl down. “For me? Honestly, pumpkin soup from this one particular tavern in the Lower City. It tastes almost how my mother used to make it.”

Gale tilted his head slightly. “Of all the things you miss about home, you miss pumpkin soup the most?”

“Not just any pumpkin soup,” Devi clarified. “Just that particular one. I’d actually been on my way to get some when…” She shrugged and gestured to her head. “And I’ve been wanting it the last tenday. Don’t suppose you and your wizardly powers could conjure something up…?”

Chuckling, Gale shook his head. “I’m very good at what I do, but I’m not that good. Conjuring items is one thing, but food is nigh impossible if you want it to be in any way satisfying. You’ll have to take that up with Mystra, I fear.”

Devi groaned and slouched against her rock. “Then I hope we make it back home soon, without our parasites.”

—

Almost a month later, and no decent pumpkin soup had come across Devi’s path. She sighed as she slouched on a chair in the Last Light Inn, nursing a mug of beer and listening to the Harpers and tieflings marching around on different tasks. Moonlight Towers was going to be a huge challenge to undertake, even with the Harpers backing her crew up. And Devi was no tactician, nor strategist – she was just an ordinary thief from Baldur’s Gate, who had somehow been regarded as a symbol of hope that the tadpoles and the Absolute could be resisted.

How in all the hells had her life wound up like this?

She almost didn’t register the sounds of bootsteps on the wooden floor until she saw a flash of purple out of the corner of her eye. When she looked up, she saw Gale standing beside her, holding a tray in his hands. “You looked uncharacteristically melancholy,” he said with a tentative little smile. “May I join you?”

As if Devi could say no to the handsome wizard, even if he didn’t know how fully her heart belonged to him already. She nudged another chair at the table out for him to take a seat beside her. “You’re welcome to interrupt my brooding anytime,” she said with a grin. Curiously, she looked at the tray as he set it down on the table; a second later, her eyes widened at the two bowls filled with bright orange contents. “Is that…?”

“Pumpkin soup,” Gale confirmed with a wink. “One of the Harpers knew the tavern you were speaking of when you mentioned missing their soup, and claims to make the best replica of said soup.”

“I mentioned that once, Gale – I didn’t expect you to remember!” Devi picked up one of the bowls and took an appreciative sniff of its contents. “Oh, it smells right…” She closed her eyes, for a moment imaging herself back in her favourite slightly-sketchy tavern back home, with a bowl of her favourite soup before her, the normal denizens of the Lower City mingling around her, with someone playing a barely-tuned instrument a few booths over and a brawl close to breaking out over a dice game. She could almost forget where she was, in the heart of shadow-cursed lands, trying to figure out how to permanently kill an undead general in service to the Absolute without going insane from the shadows… although she couldn’t quite forget the handsome wizard beside her – not that she wanted to ever forget him.

She took a tentative sip from the spoon Gale had helpfully brought along with him, and softly moaned in pleasure. “Oh, I could kiss you right now,” she said, before her brain quite caught up to her mouth. Her eyes flew back open as she looked sidelong at Gale. “Er, I mean…” she started, trying to figure out how to explain that she’d been entertaining thoughts of kissing the wizard for at least the last two tendays, wondering what his lips tasted like, imagining running her hands through his long, dark hair…

Gale’s ears were red, but he appeared pleased, to go by his smile. “If I had known that I could win your affections with pumpkin soup, dear lady, I would have made a greater effort far earlier,” he chuckled.

“I’m no ‘lady’ and you know it, Gale,” Devi retorted, although she was smirking. “There’s not much that can buy me so easily, but this soup? Definitely on that list.”

“Forgive my curiosity, but what else is on that list?” Gale settled into his seat beside her, taking his own cautious first sip of the soup. “Oh, that is quite good.”

Devi tilted her head in thought for a moment. “Gold, obviously, or a good heist to plan out. And flowers – I love roses, like you might have guessed from my neck tattoo. And…” She hesitated. “I’ve heard that in the northern reaches, you can sometimes see lights dancing in the sky at night, brighter than even the moon. I saw a painting of them once, and it was gorgeous, and the artist said the painting didn’t do the actual sight justice. That’s something I’d sell my soul to see.”

“Lights dancing in the night sky, and roses, and unlawful schemes?” Gale chuckled. “You are a complex woman, Deviali. I’m sure that you’ll get to see those lights without needing to sell your soul, though.”

“You really think so? I’d never even left the Baldur’s Gate area before this whole adventure,” Devi said, for the moment ignoring Gale’s use of her despised full name. It didn’t sound nearly as bad when it came from his lips. “My plan was to steal a lot of gold and then buy a trip anywhere else, to see the world beyond the Lower City and Wyrm’s Crossing.”

Gale smiled fondly. “Fate has a curious way of making things work out. Waterdeep is north of Baldur’s Gate, far enough that in the winter on a clear night, I have sometimes seen those lights dancing in the sky myself. In another time, I would have taken you home with me and let you see the lights for yourself.”

Seeing dancing lights in the night sky wasn’t usually the reason Devi heard people expressing a wish to take her home with them, and she secretly hoped it wasn’t the only reason Gale wanted her in his home city. “We’ll get back to civilization alive,” she firmly said, “and we’ll deal with our tadpoles and the Absolute, and then you can take me home to see the lights. And if Mystra doesn’t like it, she can kiss my backside about it.”

That got a small smile from Gale. “One of us has to be the eternal optimist, I suppose,” he commented. “And you have a force of will that could make the gods hesitate in their steps… even Mystra.”

“Good,” Devi said with a firm nod. “The Absolute is on the top of my list of gods to throat-punch when I get the chance, but Mystra’s not far behind for what she’s done to you. The rest of the gods can form a line.”

“I’ve never had anyone offer to punch a deity before in defense of me,” Gale chuckled, looking more relaxed and at-ease than he’d been since the crew had met Elminster on the mountain pass road and gotten his grim message about the Orb. “It’s rather flattering.”

“And nothing less than what you deserve, especially for finding my favourite soup in the middle of nowhere,” Devi responded, grinning. “You’re my favourite wizard – I ever mention that?”

“I’ve risen that much in your esteem, just for bringing you soup?” Gale smirked. “How many other wizards am I up against?”

“I mean, most of the other wizards I’ve met were real pricks,” Devi admitted. “But you’re kind, an’ sweet, an’ smart, an’ don’t walk around with your staff up your ass.” And handsome, and talented, and compassionate, and too damn good-hearted to be stuck with an ilithid tadpole in your head… not that she could say all of that out loud.

“Tragically, I do know more than a few other wizards who meet your description,” Gale chuckled. “And few enough would track down a specific pumpkin soup in a cursed region for the behalf of a charming half-Elf thief with a heart of gold. Their loss, I must say.”

“Damn straight. Maybe I wouldn’t be so inclined to rob ‘em all blind if they weren’t entitled, arrogant jerks. Ain’t a bit like you, aside from the whole ‘magic’ thing.” Devi cheerfully nudged Gale in the side, little more than a light tap with her elbow. “Keep pullin’ miracles like finding soup like this, and you’ll be safe from any thievery from me.”

“Oh, I do have a magic touch with miracles,” Gale said, winking at her. “Ask nicely, and perhaps I’ll show you another one later.”

A sentence like that shouldn’t have made Devi’s heart skip the way it did. She was used to receiving flirtatious statements like that – she’d grown up in the Lower City, for hells’ sake! People had been flirting with her since before she was of legal age. Yet the relatively tame statement from Gale, only a little bit suggestive, made her want to squeal in excitement like a girl. Instead, she let a casual grin show itself on her face before she widened her eyes innocently. “Oh Mister Archmage Gale of Waterdeep, would you be so kind as to show your favourite Baldurian thief another miracle?”

That made Gale burst out laughing, half at Devi’s words, and half at the way she made a show of fluttering her eyelashes at him. “How can I say no to such a sincere plea as that? Give me some time, and I’ll work my magic for you.” He chuckled and gently returned Devi’s nudge with his own elbow. “But enjoy the soup for now – I’m told it’s not as good when it’s cold. Your miracle will come along later.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Devi assured him with a grin. Any excuse to watch Gale at work with the Weave was a good excuse, and if he was doing something with her in mind? She was excited to see what he could conjure up.

#kel writes #kel answers prompts -- in a timely fashion this time!#greyias #BG3 #baldur's gate 3 #spoilers for Act 2 #Gale/Tav #Gale/Devi #Gale of Waterdeep #Deviali #slow burn #affection through food #food is a love language #blossoming romance

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