#but I've been finagling lore for that for MONTHS

[abysskeeper]

Bronch day sucks. Too busy to actually write this week. But! I've been sitting on this for a while and after rereading it last night...yeah, I'm still pleased with this.

So, WIP time (apt for Wednesday). I love me some wizard angst fights. Who knows, one day I may even complete this.

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They were hurtling towards the final confrontation still somewhat in the dark, and he was hurtling towards his judgment. It was…a necessity—divinely tasked. He couldn’t see a way out of it now, and the way she continued to refuse the truth hurt. It hurt him to know there was someone like her still keeping faith in him, and it hurt him to watch her work herself into a frenzy trying to save him.

He wasn’t worth it. It was not what he wanted, but Gale Dekarios had made his mistakes and knew his path towards penance. It was a path he could take, so long as he had her at his side until the end.

“Is that so wrong?!” he demanded. “If we are correct in our theories based on what we read in Thorm’s room, this is an elder brain controlled by the Dead Three. That alone is already magnificently worse than when we believed this was simply an illithid invasion!”

“And I do not agree the sacrifice is worth it before we are even certain of what we are dealing with,” she refuted, throwing up a hand in exasperation. “I am not relying on your death to solve all our problems before we are even fully sure of what they are!”

“We have a very simple solution to it before this whole plot grows even more out of hand! One life for the Sword Coast, that hardly seems like a sacrifice.” It wasn’t a sacrifice at all. It was the only thing he was meant to do from the moment the Orb fused into his chest, he had to believe that. He had to. “One life to prevent a future you have already seen and know can come to pass—”

“A future that is one of several possible outcomes!” Nox corrected on a cry. She glared up at him, anger glinting in the few tears pricking her violet eyes. “You might be so cavalier with your life, Gale, but I am not,” she hissed at him. And despite his anger, despite his annoyance—at her, at the situation, at what he was charged to do—his heart stuttered with her admittance. “I don’t want you do die. None of us want you to die.”

“Alright…” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a step away from her. He needed a moment to disengage before he said something he didn’t mean—or, perhaps, said something he meant all too much. “Disregarding the several issues that exist with you making that decision for me, and there are several—” He glared at her to get his point across. She narrowed her eyes at him in return. “—Did you not think that I would want to be down there, regardless?”

Nox’s jaw clenched and her nostrils flared with the release of a breath. “And did you not think that the rest of us would take necessary measures to prevent you from killing yours—”

“This isn’t about that!” Gale shouted. It was an outburst of tangled emotions, rage and fear and an overwhelming sadness, but he felt it cooling in the few seconds her shocked expression stared back at him. “Do not cast me from your side, Nox’ani,” he said, the desperation pumping in his heart bleeding into his voice. “I have had more than my fill of that in my life already.”

She stilled in front of him, momentarily stunned at his admittance. He watched her composure fall, the same fear and desperation flowing in his veins mirrored in her eyes. Then it was gone, schooled behind a mask of cold, metallic resolve. She sincerely believed she was doing him a favor. He did not know how else to convey this was anything but.

“This is hardly the same,” Nox bit back, harsh. Her arms crossed over her chest once more.

“Isn’t it?” Gale demanded, mimicking her stance and rocking back on his feet. Was it better to show his anger or his despair? He didn’t know, but he was bordering on both. “Because it certainly feels the same.”

“No! No, it isn’t at all! Don’t you dare compare me to her,” she ground out. “One was over a grandiose mistake you should have known better than to make, and one is over whether or not you deserve the right to live because of that mistake!”

“And that is ultimately my decision to make in the end,” he pointed out, voice rough from holding back tears.

“It is,” she agreed dangerously low. Her hand clutched at her staff, still stuck in the ground. “But I find it difficult to believe you are acting of your own accord.”

Gale swallowed, struck nervous by the puzzle in her words. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“Do you truly want to die?” Nox asked quietly. “Do you truly want to sacrifice your life to save the world? Do you truly believe this is the only way? Or is it your own gods’ damned ego being stroked by a Goddess to court her own means in the end?”

He momentarily forgot how to breathe, indignation flaring in his veins to temporarily burn away everything else. “You…you think it is pride that is driving me to blow myself up to the Heavens?!” he asked, incredulous. “You believe my ego is so easily inflated I would consider killing myself over some pretty words and half-baked promises? This is Mystra! This is eternal salvation!”

“I don’t know what else it could be!” she shot back. Nox growled out a string of curses in Elvish under her breath and ran a shaky hand through her hair. “Of course you are the only one who could solve this problem, right?” she demanded, glare snapping up to meet his eyes. “Only you can fix it and bring an end to the Absolute? Only you have the capabilities, never mind everyone else and what we can do. Never mind none of us want to watch you die for a threat we could handle!”

“Nox…”

Some of his anger chilled the longer she shouted at him, ironically enough. He could practically see the desperation rising in her throat, her arms flailing like a signal for him to understand what she was saying. For him to understand what she was truly saying beneath the surface. And he wanted to—he so dearly desired to—but it still didn’t change the truth sitting before them. “My Goddess asked this of me—”

“Your Goddess forsook you!” Nox reminded him with an exasperated shout. “And now she demands penance in the form of your life for a mistake she refused—still refuses—to explain! How is that right? How is that demand worthy of consideration?!”

Gale remained silent, taking a moment to truly examine her. Heavy bags rested under tired, pleading eyes while she panted with exertion and frantic appeal for him to see her version of sense. For all he probably should have, he couldn’t prevent the fondness welling in his heart at watching her argue with him for his life. It was charming, heartwarming…and very reminiscent of a life he once knew. The words were out of his mouth before he consciously thought on them, “…for someone who so often speaks of hubris, you have little self-reflection.”

She recoiled like she had been zapped. “And what, exactly, do you mean by that?”

He shouldn’t have spoken a word. “This is Mystra,” he answered softly, honestly. That was all he could do. “You are asking me to consider you and your words above the command of the Goddess of Magic.”

He intended it as a compliment. It was a compliment, in his eyes. It took some gall—it took some care and some heart for someone to demand something of that nature. It was still the wrong thing to say. Gale watched the deep wound cleave through her eyes, her jaw falling open in shock and unfettered pain. Just as quickly, she snapped her mouth shut and turned away from him. He still noticed how she tugged at the collar of her robe and how her hand remained, clenching the fabric and trembling slightly.

A grave error, indeed. “…Nox—”

“You’re right,” she said, voice chillingly quiet, “I do speak on hubris often. But do not misconstrue what I am asking here. I am no better than Mystra. I am far, far below the Goddess…on all counts, I see now, but I am still asking you to consider what I am saying. As a friend and…as one who knows hubris.”

Nox breathed deep and the mask slipped over her with her exhale, a glossy veneer as cool as the ice she wielded. Elegant, beautiful, fragile. “I speak on pride because I know what it is, Gale. I speak not on mine because I have already had it trampled.” Her hand slipped from her staff, defeated, and she rocked between her heels and the balls of her feet. “My pride was believing I could ever step into my mother’s shoes and fulfill her role after we lost her. Elturians did not believe me. My own sister did not believe me and Elturel fell. Again.”

She turned away from him, her feet dragging her into a slow, circular pace around her staff as she contemplated it. Gale wanted her to stop then. He knew where this was going, she had already recounted her history to him. She hadn’t said it, but he knew there was a lot to regret in it.

“My pride was believing I would ever be able to recreate the lost art of chronomancy where my mother failed. Now I am chained to a past I cannot escape and haunted by a future I do not know how to prevent,” Nox continued, words rising in volume and speed. “My pride was believing I could ever act like my sister and step into a leadership role with respect. It is something I have here only because of her, I know this—”

That was blatantly untrue.

“And my pride was in hoping I could still use that regardless. My pride was in hoping I could talk to a talented, stubborn, good wizard as a peer and a friend and have him consider my words!” she said, motioning towards him in exasperation. Or as an example. A few tears started spilling from her eyes. “And my hubris was falling for that stubborn man—who tasted power and divinity beyond what I could ever comprehend or compare to—and believing I ever stood a chance!”

They both froze. Gale stared at her, Nox stared back, eyes wide enough that she appeared as though she were just caught in the midst of a crime. It was the appearance of someone who instantly regretted saying way too much in a fit of madness. Her tears fell faster, slipping from glittering eyes that she squeezed shut before violently turning on her heel from him.

His mind screamed at him to step forward. To respond. To pull her back before she inevitably left. He didn’t—couldn’t—move.

“Oh…fuck it,” she growled. She uprooted Mourning Frost from the ground with a quick yank. “Just…do whatever you will,” she muttered roughly and began walking further into the darkness of the cursed lands. “I have tried all I can.”