Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is a struggle to open your eyes.

You can tell from the light breaking through the curtains that it is late. The space beside you is empty. A few strands of Kaidan’s blond hair pepper the pillowcase. You roll away onto your other side.

It feels like an eternity before you can muster the strength to sit up. The morning is halfway gone, and you are grateful. Your eyes are still swollen, your head throbbing. It is a relief that Kaidan has already left for his mother's. It is a relief that you will be alone, without the weight of the silence between you, the spite that you throw at each other, as though you are prisoners trapped under a roof. As though you are enemies, not husband and wife.

You do not know when he will return. You check your phone. No text, no goodbye. No reassurance that his train is on time, that he is on his way to Manchester. Only another text from your father, more thinly veiled mock concern. You turn your phone over and collapse back into the fortress of your blanket.

It is better, you think, to be alone.

You have been through this before, and you know the drill well. You follow the list you have made for days when life is nothing more than survival. You stand in the shower like a ghost, untangling your hair. You have no appetite, but you swallow down crackers anyway. The milk in the fridge is off. Neither you nor Kaidan were in the right mind to replace it. So you throw down a mug of black coffee, so bitter and unpleasant that it makes you flinch. 

You take a double dose of your meds, because you are skating on the edge of the precipice. You have felt it for months, sucking you in like a black hole. You have gritted your teeth as it has grown larger, with every fight, every withdrawal. It would be so easy to slip back into it. It is the weekend. Work does not compel you. Kaidan is gone. You could curl up in bed, whiling away the hours, pretending there is nothing else but the darkness underneath the sheets. No one would know. You suspect no one would care. But you trudge on, staring over the edge. You tell yourself you must.

The kitchen is strangely uncluttered, and you wonder if Kaidan woke up early to clean it. A gesture of apology? A release of nervous energy? You have no way of finding out. You know he will be silent now, or virtually silent. It is his way. 

The cat flap swings, and Tara appears by your feet, purring as she rubs herself against your calf. You crouch down to nuzzle her head with your fingers. She follows you, wide eyed and watchful, grizzling as you fill her food bowl. You watch her lapping at her bowl with chirps of happiness. You try to feel grateful for the love that you still have.

She is a flurry of ginger pattering behind you as you drift towards the sofa. She nestles into your lap as you sink down. She kneads into you, purring so loudly that her whole body trembles, and you cannot help but smile. You think about your list, what motions you need to go through next. Enjoyment, you think. Engagement.

So you turn on your Playstation. It gives you a futile sense of joy, an illusion of comfort. You can escape from your life, which is unravelling before your very eyes. From the choices you have made, and the burdens you carry because of them. You can pretend that you are respected and loved, that your life has a purpose. That you make the world better by being in it. 

You are loading up Baldur’s Gate 3 when you see it. You rub hard at your eyes, sure it is a blip in your vision. There is a black swirl on the wall on the other end of the living room. The more you look at it, the more it grows. It expands like quicksand, crackling with purple flashes as it spreads. 

It does not disappear, even as you blink and squint. It is sputtering now, getting louder and louder, like you are standing between two moving trains. You sit and stare at it, until you cannot wait any longer. Tara leaps off your lap as you jump up and move slowly towards it. You are holding your breath, not sure what to do, what to feel. 

Then there is a roiling inside you. A sudden wave of nausea that makes you stumble. It surges through you like a jolt of heat, rising from your chest up your neck, burrowing into your temples. Images flood your mind, a cacophony of greys and browns and purples, but you cannot understand their meaning. A symphony of murmured voices, words and warnings you cannot make out. The cascade within you swells and twists, and then it snaps, and you fall onto your knees with a cry.

You think you see something fleshy reaching out of the whirlwind on the wall. An arm, a hand, fingers. The curve of a violet sleeve. Crippling confusion takes hold of you. You have seen this before. Many times, in many playthroughs. A familiar portal, a familiar figure. Is this a dream? A nightmare? Have you finally lost your mind?

You are terrified.

You do not move or speak as he tumbles out of the portal in an indigo rush, flying into your dining table. There is a crash as it collides into your shelf, knocking off a vase and a sculpture which shatter on the floor. Tara gives a piercing yowl and flees.

He lies motionless for a moment, twitching and groaning. As he rises, you take in the dishevelled waves of his dark hair, the shadows of his deep set brow. His earth brown eyes, blazing with shock. The glint of an earring, and the faint lines which trail from below his left eye down to his chest. The unmistakable circle etched on his skin.

You cannot breathe. 

He spins around, his eyes flitting around him in a frenzy. You can make out incoherent muttering as he clutches around him, searching for an anchor. He staggers, as if in a stupor.

Then he turns. As his gaze lands on you, it flickers with recognition. His face softens with light. He speaks with a voice you have heard a thousand times before.

“Tav?”

You gasp. The world crumbles around you. Then all is dark.

It is his smell that wakes you.

It is as you have imagined so many times before. Bonfires and sandalwood. Leather and old paper. A faint whiff of soap. You have read about it, fantasised about it so often, that the scent is like a memory.

You open your eyes, and he is looming over you. Your neck aches from where you hit the floor. You realise that you have fainted. His hand is cradling your head, a frown etched on his face as he kneels beside you. His gaze is tender with worry, and you can feel the warmth of his body, so lean, so real. He is so close, you could reach out and touch him.

You know, deep in your gut, that this is not a dream.

You spring up and scramble backwards until you are at the furthermost corner of the room. His face spasms in surprise. He makes towards you. You reach for the hammer that Kaidan has stashed underneath the sofa. 

You had always thought Kaidan paranoid, overly cynical. Seeking after threats that were not there. He had always dismissed you. “Once a soldier, always a soldier,” he had said, not without pride. Now, you are relieved, so relieved, by the weapons your husband has concealed in choice places around your home.

“Who are the fuck are you?” 

You hold the hammer out in front of you. A pointless gesture, given how frantically it shakes in your hand. 

“What the hell are you doing in my house?”

There is hurt on his face as he struggles to his feet. He winces, and you can almost swear you hear the crack of his knees. 

“Tav.”  

He holds his hands up in front of him. He takes a cautious step forward, like he is walking on cracked ice. 

“It’s me.”

“Don’t fucking move!” You wave the hammer at him. “I’ll call the police. I don’t know how you got in here, and why you look-”

You are stammering. Tears are coming to your eyes, and you are not sure why.

He sucks in a shaky breath. “Tav, please-”

“Stop calling me that!” 

He flinches. Your mind is ablaze. Is this how it feels to go insane?

“I don’t know how the fuck you got my information, how you knew about… why you’re the spitting image of-”

Anguish, plain and pure, twisting on those features. His beauty, so stark and bright against the empty magnolia of your living room. This man, this fiction, standing in your reality. You cannot process it. You fight the urge to throw up.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” you choke. “Did someone put you up to this? Are you a character model, some kind of cosplayer-”

He quails, reaching out to you. “I don’t know what those words mean, Tav-” 

“My name is Mia!” you screech.

He stares at you for a long time. You are paralysed by the silence of this stranger who is not a stranger. He is considering, searching for a solution. Behind his hard focus, there is desperation. You grip the hammer harder.

“You know me.” His voice drops to almost a whisper. “You recognise me. Don’t you?”

You are shaking your head. Tears are running down your face now. The tears of a madwoman, half deranged. Life has finally broken you. Your mind is gone, and this man is the consequence.

“Whoever you are, you need to get the fuck out of my house.”

He continues as though he does not hear you. 

“You know me, just as I know you. Your form is different, but I would recognise you anywhere. In any universe, any realm, on any plane.”

Your breath hitches. Questions and explanations rage through your mind. Is he a con artist? A delusion? A thief that has broken into your house in the midst of your psychotic break? But his brown eyes are shimmering, gentle as his embrace. You have felt them before. They have held you through pain and loneliness, through time and space, through the veil between fiction and reality. And though it is insanity, you cannot fight the knowledge that he is really, truly here. 

The culmination of your longing. The man who steels your soul. Now flesh and blood before you.

“Can you not feel the thread between us? The link that brought me here?”

The words shake as he utters them. Quivering with sincerity. Fluttering with love.

“You’re my wife, Mia.” 

That cascade blazes through you again. No words or thoughts can capture its nature. You feel it flow between you like a tide. The hammer falls to the floor. 

“Gale.” 

His smile is an explosion of relief and love. But all you can do is cry.

You stand there for a while, trying to catch your breath. Each time he makes towards you, you hold him back. His features are a mass of pain and confusion. You can see how your every movement hurts him.

But this is too much. You do not understand what this is.

“My love-”

“Please.” 

You wrench your eyes closed, then open them again. He is still there. Still watching you, the manifestation of perfection, the stuff of your dreams.

You balk.

“Please, Gale.” Even saying his name is an admission that terrifies you. “Please. Give me a moment.”

You have to find your centre. You have to find something normal, mundane, something to ground yourself. So you know you are still real. That your mind is still yours.

You are crouching now, picking up shards of glass and pottery with your trembling hands. You are straightening the shelf, moving the dining table back to its place, placing the chairs back where they belong. You are not looking at him as he joins you, following your lead, waiting.

And when it is over, and your heart does not ache to breathe, you stand and look at him. He returns your gaze with a warmth that is so intense you have to look away. You suddenly feel very exposed in your camisole and leggings, with your wet hair dripping over your shoulders and chest. 

“Would you like a drink?” you manage.

Your hands are still shaking as you try to make tea. Water sloshes around the mugs as you pour. Gale is staring at the electric kettle in your hand, his eyes darting around at the fridge, at the oven, the hob. You can feel his urge to examine every object, open every shelf, to understand its nature. He brims with questions. He is remarkably calm, and you wonder if this is partly because he can see that you are breaking.

He takes the mug from your trembling hand as you pass it to him. His fingers brush against yours and your stomach flutters. You turn away.

“I would offer you wine, but I'm afraid we don't have any.”

Kaidan has been sober for two months, and you have never been fond of drink. It has been a small mercy, to have no booze in the house.

Gale sips at his tea, tilting his head to the side in appraisal. There is no milk, but you do not know if that matters for a Waterdhavian. You cannot tell if he likes the taste. 

“That's just as well.” He gives a little huff of a laugh. “As much as I'd welcome something to take the edge off this baffling situation, it's best that we keep our minds sharp.”

You grimace. “I think it's a bit late for that.” 

He frowns. He is studying you again. “You think you've lost your mind, don’t you?”

This conversation is unbearably surreal. You try to steady your hands. It is becoming difficult. 

“You don't think this is real. You don't believe I’m truly here.”

“Gale.” Your voice is so thin you do not recognise it. “I don't know what to believe.”

His distress is becoming clearer, and it is beginning to hurt you. In the haze of your shock and disbelief, you are becoming aware of his longing, his disappointment. You have never wished to hurt him, whether real or not.

“You have to understand.” You clear your throat. “Here…in this universe… you aren't…”

His jaw tightens. “I'm not…real.”

You nod reluctantly. You cannot bring yourself to answer the question that follows. You are overjoyed when he does not ask it. Perhaps he is not ready for the answer.

“It's clear that we’re no longer in Faerun. Or in Toril, for that matter. Where are we?”

“Earth.” 

“Earth,” he repeats. 

“A planet similar to Toril.”

Facts, you think. You know that Gale likes facts. They will give him comfort, just as they are your life boat when you are drowning in a sea of emotions. So you scour your broken mind for facts and information. You can do that. It is second nature to you.

“We’re in a galaxy called the Milky Way.” Your voice levels. “Our solar system has eight planets. Only Earth can sustain life.”

He nods. “I see.” His brow knits. “But answer me this. Is there no magic here? I can't channel the Weave. I can't feel any trace of it.”

His sorrow is palpable. Gale without magic. You can almost feel the sense of loss. 

“You’re right. There’s no magic.” You bite your lip. “I guess our closest thing to magic would be… technology.”

“Technology?”

You struggle for explanations. There is too much to cover, too many details. “You need to see it to understand it.”

He scratches at his beard. You can hear its bristles. It is an uncanny feeling, after so long looking at images of him, imagining him. He holds your gaze. You turn away.

“Is there anything else on Toril which Earth lacks?”

You are not sure where to start. 

“Other races, for one. There are only humans. And animals.”

His eyes widen again. “No elves? Gnomes? Dwarves?”

You shake your head. “No tieflings, devils, cambions. No dragonborn. Nothing but humans.”

You glance at Alexa, glowing on your kitchen counter.
 
“There may eventually be a race of sentient machines. Artificial intelligence. But that's a discussion for another time.”

“Sentient machines?” He raises an eyebrow. “Intriguing.”

It is indeed intriguing. It is one of your favourite topics of conversation, which bores Kaidan almost to tears. But it is breaking your mind to have Gale of Waterdeep share your fascination. You try and re-focus on information, stale and true. 

“And gods?” he asks. “What gods are there in this universe?”

In spite of yourself, you laugh. “That depends who you ask, Gale.”

He smiles wryly. “I’m asking you.”

You feel yourself blushing at that most quintessential expression. To see it in the flesh, and not on a screen or in your mind’s eye. It is bewildering.

“I’ll try and be as objective as possible in my answer, then. There are thousands of religions. A lot of humans worship a god or gods.”

“Ah. It’s not so different than Toril.”

“I suppose not. But the evidence of divine activity here is… I would say non-existent. As I say, it depends who you ask.”

He sighs. “A world without gods. What a marvel.” 

A cluster of pinpricks has begun to gather at your temples. You close your eyes and try to knead away the migraine that is forming. 

“How are you so calm about all this?”

“My dearest.” He chuckles. “We know much about the multiverse. The fact of it doesn’t shock me. It’s simply a matter of understanding the rules that apply in this one.”

“So you aren’t wondering why you’re here? Worrying about how you’re going to get back to Faerun, how you’re going to survive here?”

He leans forward. His hand hovers over yours for a moment, uncertain. When he takes hold of it, your breath catches.

“I've been looking for you, Tav.” He jerks his head. “Sorry. Mia.”

You know you should, but you do not pull your hand away. His touch feels familiar, like you have felt it a million times before. It is madness, but you cannot stop yourself.

“You disappeared two weeks ago. We were in our home in Waterdeep, and then you were gone. I knew you would never have left me like that, without a word, without so much as a goodbye. And we were happy. So happy.” 

There is such affection in his every word, his every gesture. It is overwhelming.

“I knew you hadn't left. Someone must have taken you. We made many enemies, after all. Nine-Fingers said there were hits on you, or I thought perhaps some cambion or devil had come for you, after the whole business with Raphael.”

He is becoming more frantic. 
 
“I searched everywhere for you. I called on all my contacts, I wrote to all our friends. No one had seen you. I tried using magic to trace you, but to no avail. You were gone. Just… gone.”

His other hand clasps your shoulder.  

“Then a portal appeared in our bedroom. I felt something surge through me. It was most odd. It was like I could hear your voice, your soul, calling out to me from the depths. I knew, in an indescribable, transcendent way, that you were on the other side of that portal. So I leapt through it.” 

He cups your cheek. There are tears brimming in his eyes.
 
“And now I’ve found you. And I can bring you home.”

Chapter Text

When your phone vibrates and chimes on the table, you both start in your seats. Gale stares at it, enthralled.

“What’s that?” he asks, fingers twitching.

“A phone.”

“Phone?”

“A device that we use to communicate with other people from long distances.” You hesitate. “And do other things.” 

You decide that it may be a bit much to list all the things that a phone can do. Perhaps not for him, but definitely for you right now.

“Pretty much anything that you need in everyday life, you can do with a phone.”

“A powerful device indeed.” He squints at it. “Can you conjure objects with it?”

You pause again. “In a manner of speaking. You can order things - buy them and arrange for them to be brought to you. Does that count?”

He scoffs. “Not quite. But yours is a universe without magic, after all. And this is a form of technology. Your substitute Weave.”

“Correct.”

He looks like he is about to launch into another string of questions.

“I’ll show you later. It’s easier to show you than explain it to you.” 

He is not satisfied, but does not press the matter. You are dreading the text that has come through, so you sit silently, postponing the inevitable. 

“Well.” He clears his throat. “Is it not customary in this universe to respond to communications from other people?”

You fidget with your hair. “Yes. It is.”

It is a text from Kaidan. You knew it would be. 

‘Are you ok?’

You do not know how to answer that question. A wave of guilt floods you as you read and re-read those three simple words. Gale’s presence here is a betrayal that you have not initiated. Or have you? You cannot tell.

Gale is watching you, his face shadowed with concern.

“An unwelcome communication, I assume.”

You look away. “It’s complicated.”

If this is a dream, you are no longer sure you wish to wake up. If you are going mad, and this is what it involves, would that be the worst thing?

He is here with you. The man of your dreams. How many times have you wished for it, pined for it? But all those times, you had known it was impossible. Your yearning was safe, out of reach.

Now, it feels like you are a moth being drawn to a flame. A rabbit, running towards a snare.

“Do you still think I’m… a hallucination?” There is fear in his question.

You bite at your fingernail. “I don’t know.”

He makes a sharp sound. “I sit here before you. I’ve told you everything. You know me. You recognise me, and you remember. You still disbelieve me?”

It would be the most natural thing to reach out to him, to embrace him. You can tell that he is expecting you to, yearning for you to. But you cannot. There are lines that you cannot cross. 

Yet when he narrows the space between you, you are too weak to resist. He takes your hands and raises them to his face. 

“You can touch me.” He presses your fingers against his cheeks, his nose, his chin, his hair. “You can feel me. I’m real, as real as you are. Can’t you see?”

You are beginning to feel dizzy from the feeling of his skin on yours. It has been so long since you have been touched like this. Like you are known, and you wish to be known. Your fingers weave through the roughness of his beard, the softness of his hair. You cannot help but notice the flutter of his eyelids when he trails your hand over his lips, the way he drifts closer to you, longing for his lost wife. 

It is wrong. You jerk back. 

“I need to show you something.”

You do not know what else to do. You would not wish this on anyone, but you need him to know the truth. Perhaps it will burst the bubble, and you will wake up again in your empty bed, alone. Sane. Grounded. You will know what is real and what is not. You will not hurt him, and you will not hurt Kaidan.

He follows you. Your TV screen blinks to life, and your Playstation glows with what seems like apprehension. Gale gapes at the main menu screen. You swallow, bracing yourself.

“Is that…a painting…of Baldur’s Gate?”

You shake your head. 

“A magical window?” 

He moves forward, running his slender fingers over the surface of your TV.

“It’s flat. Nothing behind it. It’s an image. A representation.”

“Yes.”

“This is a marvel. A miracle. Uncannily realistic. How… Who painted this? 

“It’s not a painting. It’s -”

“Technology.” 

His eyes glaze with wonder. You suddenly want to stop. This is too much. This will break his understanding. But it is too late.

“What is this? What are you showing me?”

He speaks with urgency. He knows the magnitude of what comes. You hold your breath. You press the button on your controller. 

“I’m showing you how we met.”

“That’s…”

“You.”

“How…what…. By Mystra’s mantle, that’s-”

“Lae’zel.”

“Is that-”

“Astarion, behind her. And that’s me at the front. Tav.”

“By the gods…”

“Gale, let’s stop now.”

“No. No, Mia. Show me. Where are we? Is that Rosymorn Monastery in the distance?”

“Yes.”

“This portion of our adventure wasn’t covered in Volo’s autobiography, or in any of the historical texts.”

“Okay…”

“So it can’t be some kind of…elaborate depiction, based on the tales. It can’t be - Bloody hells, we’re moving!”

“Yes. I can control their movement. If I press this button here…”

“Someone has captured our likeness… our life’s work… and put us in this…this…”

“It’s a kind of computer.”

“What in the hells is a computer?”

“An electronic device…a contraption. It uses data… it creates games like this.”

“Electronic?”

“Gale, this is too much-”

“It isn’t, Tav. Mia. Games? Is all of this a game?”

“Yes. This is a very popular game that humans play, called Baldur’s Gate 3.”

“Three? Our lives, my life, is a game to humans in this universe? And there are not one, or two, but three games of this nature?”

“There are… millions of games of this nature, Gale.” 

“What?”

“It’s called a video game. And it’s a very popular pastime in our world. One of the biggest industries in our economy.” 

“This is… Oh gods, did I just speak?”

“Yes. You’re speaking to Lae’zel.”

“Holy hells. I said that. I asked her about the Zaith’isk. We spoke about it. I remember. How did it know I said that? How did it know the words we used? Do I really sound like that? Do I-”

“Gale, slow down-”

“Is that Elminster? That's when he approached us, he said… What the bloody hells? Tav, what is this? I don’t understand, please-”

“Gale, please listen for a minute-”

“Tav… what do you mean this is how we met?”

“In this world, in this universe, I, Mia Zhang, played this game, Baldur’s Gate 3. In the game, I’m Tav, a human female, a bard of the College of Lore. Everything you remember about how we met, what we went through together, the Absolute, the Netherbrain, how we fell in love, how I agreed to marry you and move to Waterdeep… it happened in this game.

“Gale… are you okay? Talk to me.”

“Please give me a moment. I need to find… I need to retrace my steps…”

“I know this is a lot. But I had to show you. You keep asking me why I can’t accept that you’re real. This is why.”

“This game - to you and other humans, this is fiction. A fictional world, an imaginary universe.”

“Yes.”

“All the choices you made, all the bonds you formed within it - to you, they have no consequence, no weight. Because they’re not real, not part of your reality.”

“Well… I…don’t think it’s as simple as that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The feelings I had for you…became part of my reality. They were as real to me as this table, this sofa. I laughed and cried for you. I wanted to speak to you and listen to everything you had to say. I felt seen and known by you. Our interactions gave me comfort in a way that no one else has. And honestly? I felt things for you that I’ve never felt about any man, real or fictional. Even though I knew you weren’t real. I hoped and prayed every day that you could be. So… it’s not as simple as you say.” 

“And…now that I’m here, and real? How do you feel?”

“Other than terrified, and convinced I’ve lost my marbles?”

“There’s a lot of those feelings going around.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have shown you.”

“I admit, it’s not every day that one questions the very foundation of one’s own existence, and doubts one's free will and agency. I’ve never once doubted whether I’m a real, sentient being or just a character in a story, acting out a predetermined course dreamed up by a writer in another universe. I can quite confidently say that anyone would be shaken by a revelation with such colossal implications.”

“I can confidently say that it would drive me insane.”

“Perhaps it will do that to me. But you’re not to blame for showing me. You couldn’t have concealed the truth, especially one like this. Across both universes, you’ve always been honest and sincere.”

“I…try to be.”

“I don’t know why this has happened…what this means. But Tav - Mia - I’m as real as you are. Our life together, our marriage, is more real to me than this box that you call a computer, and the likenesses it holds within it.”

“Gale…”

“I love you, Mia. Time and space, multiple universes… nothing that life throws at us can ever change that.”

He sits on the sofa staring at his hands. It is as though he is looking at them for the first time, daring them to disappear. You do not know what to say to a man who has just been shown what he has seen. You do not know if this has confirmed or denied your beliefs and fears. You are not sure of anything anymore.

You hear the cat flap jostle and a purr by your feet. Gale looks over. The grin that brightens his face brings you a solace that you cannot describe. 

“You have a cat.”

Tara narrows her green eyes at him, her tail swishing suspiciously. She lingers beside you.

“I do. My best friend Tara.”

He realises the implications of this immediately. Something tingles within you at the fire in his eyes. 

“Tara,” he repeats. 

“We rescued her not long after I…met you. I couldn’t think of a better name for her.”

He chuckles. “A great name, and a marvellous namesake.”

You smile at each other. The silence between you is full, heavy. Then the mist fades away with his frown. 

“We. You said ‘we rescued her’. Who’s we?”

Dread pools in your chest. You know that you cannot go on any longer without telling him. It would be cruel, inexcusable.

You pick up your phone. Your vision blurs as you find your most recent photo with Kaidan. Snapped over a year ago, when you had taken a weekend in the Isle of Skye. Boundless blue skies in the background, your windswept head on his shoulder, his lop sided smile. The appearance of peace.

You present the phone to Gale like an offering. He does not take it from you. He only looks up at you, his face solemn with foreboding.

You take a deep breath.

“This is Kaidan,” you say. “My husband.”

Chapter Text

He is pacing, clasping and unclasping his hands. There is a frenzy to his movements. 

“How long have you been married in this universe?” he chokes. “Tell me.”

“Seven years.” You avoid his eyes. 

He recoils. “Seven years. So you were married when we met.”

“Yes, but-”

“Why did you start a relationship with me when your heart was already sworn to another?” 

There is so much grief in his words that you flinch. 

“Gale, you know how we met, that it was-”

“A game. It was a game to you.”

You want to reach out to him, to plead with him. But you do not.

“It wasn’t like that. You have to understand… I didn’t think that-”

“You didn’t think I was real.” He squeezes at the bridge of his nose, his eyes wrenching shut. “This will be the reason for everything, won’t it? The get out clause, the rationale that I must accept if I’m to…”

Your voice quivers. “This is a fucked up situation. I know. But you have to understand… It would be like…” 

You are clutching at straws. Desperate for something, anything, that will help him see.

“It would be like Wyll and Karlach,” you blurt out.

Gale’s gaze is a whirl of confusion. “How is this situation in any way, shape or form reminiscent of Wyll and Karlach?”

“In your universe, they’re in love, aren’t they?” You search your memory frantically. “They went to Avernus together, and then we met them at Withers’ party.”

“They’re together,” he concedes. “How does that-”

You seize on this. “Do you remember those smutty romance novels that Wyll and Shadowheart used to read?” 

Gale frowns. “What of them?”

“If Wyll had fantasied in his every waking moment about being with the salty mermaid, or whoever else…”

He has stopped pacing. He stares at you. It gives you strength to continue.

“If Wyll had dreamed of a life of love and lust with this woman… would it be fair for Karlach to hold it against him later, when they fell in love?”

You see that he is wavering. His face is still hard, but when he speaks, his voice has softened.

“It wasn't in Wyll’s power to insert himself into that smutty romance novel. Nor could he have chosen to marry the salty mermaid.”

“If he could have done that, would your answer be different?” 

He stops. He is genuinely considering what you have said. You are almost shocked by this. It is so far from your arguments with Kaidan. Gale’s anger does not overshadow his earnest and open mind. This is so alien to you.

“So if it’s fictional, everything is permissible?” he asks at last. “Is that what you maintain?”

You bury your face in your hands. 

“I don’t know. I'm fucking confused. I just want you to understand. I always thought you would understand me.” 

His resolve disintegrates at the sight of you crumbling. He sinks down onto the sofa beside you. You are willing for him not to touch you. If he touches you, you will break.

“Perhaps I'm being unreasonable. Close minded. Woefully short sighted.”

He sounds exhausted. Defeated. 

“But to lose your wife, the love of your life, and to finally find her again in another universe, only to discover she’s married to another…”

It hurts you beyond measure, to know you have made him feel this way. You yearn to wrap your arms around him. 

“I'm sorry. Beyond sorry. If I had known that this would happen, I would never have-”

He spasms, as though you have plunged a dagger into his heart. You do not continue. Any regret over your life together, any misgivings about your love - they are too much for him to bear. And how could you have known? In what realm of possibilities could you have suspected anything like this would happen?

For the first time since this madness began, you let yourself study him. You drink him in. He is breathtakingly beautiful. Uncannily perfect. It is just as you imagined. Every strand of hair, every curve of muscle. The dip of his cupid’s bow. The arc of his fingers. The floating earth in his eyes. Even the callouses of his skin have a cadence of their own. 

He is examining his hands again. His breaths are laboured, drawn. You want nothing more than to free him of this torment. 

“Do you love your husband?” he asks abruptly.

You are not entirely shocked by the question. It is one you have asked yourself many times. He watches you, his eyes clouded. A stormy sea.

“That’s not an easy question to answer.”

He grimaces. “If I may be so bold, I rather think you owe it to me to try.”

An image of Kaidan covered in cuts and wrapped in a hospital blanket flashes in your mind’s eye. The feeling of his head against your chest, cocooned away from the world. The promise of safety, so fragile, so beyond your grasp.

“I care for him. I want what's best for him.”

Gale’s gaze falters and flares.

“Do you love him, Mia?”

There is a plea in his tone. It makes you ache in places you no longer thought existed. 

“Do you yearn for him in the depths of your being? Is he your mirror, the other part of your soul?” 

You think of Kaidan, sputtering, delirious on your living room floor. How you held him, wondering if it would be the last time.

“I care for him,” you repeat. “I want him to be happy. I want him to be whole.”

Gale's brow twists as he searches your face.

“And what of you? What of your wholeness, your happiness?”

When you try to look away from him, he will not let you.

“Where’s your husband now? Why isn't he here?”

Even after everything that has passed, you do not want Gale to think ill of Kaidan. A naive, futile sentiment.

“He needed some time away to think about our future,” you manage.

Gale bristles. “He left you?” 

“I'm not sure when he's coming back. But he will. He always does.”

“Mia.” His head jerks, his voice rising. “If he truly cared for you-”

“It's not that simple, Gale.” 

Your tone is sharper than you intended. You try to steady yourself.

“It's been weeks. Months. Maybe even years.” Your breath trembles. “It’s better that we have some space from each other. We would have kept tearing into each other until there was nothing left. That's what we do to each other now.”

You are haunted by every conversation, every argument with Kaidan. The noose of shared history. Screams of anger and of need. The person you have become, and the person you thought you were.

“Why is that?” 

There is no judgment in Gale’s question. Only tenderness. It is a marvel, how even in his suffering, he makes space for your feelings. It is a grace you do not deserve.

“You can tell me, Mia. You can tell me anything.”

You want so badly to believe that is true. You are still not sure if you are going insane. It would not be the first time you lost control of your mind, after all. And perhaps you are pretending. Imagining that a man could know everything about you, all the things you have been and done, and love you anyway. A foolish dream, but one you still carry deep inside you. One which you let yourself indulge in now. 

You walk over to the shelf to find it. It is hidden away in a corner, sandwiched between two DIY manuals. Your greatest achievement. Your pride and your shame. The bullet fired into the ruins of your marriage. As you take hold of it and place it in his hands, you realise that you are holding your breath. 

“This is why,” you say softly.

His eyes widen as his fingers drift over the marbled grey and black of its cover. You remain standing as he opens it and caresses its pages. His touch is so light, so delicate, it is as though he is holding a priceless artefact. A treasure of the greatest worth.

He looks up at you. There is wonder in his gaze. Pride. 

“You penned this book.”

You wince. “It’s nothing to be proud of. Years of work, barely two hundred copies sold. And when Kaidan read it… he couldn’t handle it.”

You can tell Gale is struggling to understand.

“It’s about love and how it always ends,” you explain. “About how people break each other. About life and what it means to be alone. Everything between Kaidan and I… it’s all there.”

You watch Gale turn the book over. ‘The Difference’. Such a small, thin thing. A story woven from your tears, your darkness, your lack. Had you imagined it capable of such destruction? Had you feared it?

Gale’s features are in shadow. 

“Let me understand.” There is a heavy pause. “Your husband read this book, and then left, because he didn’t like what it contained.”

“Something like that.” 

You can see the cloud of anger which is gathering around him. The weight of two worlds hangs between you. It is difficult for you to explain it all.

“He always said I hid myself from him, that he wanted me to open up to him. But I bared my soul to him on every page, and he couldn’t take it.” You sigh. “People would rather not face the truth, even when denial hurts them. And Kaidan’s an alcoholic. That’s how things are for him.”

Gale’s brow flickers in a silent question.

“He drinks,” you answer. “To excess. Until he can’t function.” You grimace. “I’m sure you have alcoholics in Faerun.”

Gale nods slowly. “I think I understand.”

You are struck by Gale’s focus as he listens. It does not waver, yet it is gentle, like ripples on a lake. You have such a longing to tell him everything now. The act of confessing soothes something inside you, yet it also makes you afraid. 

But you can see that it soothes him too. To know more of your world. To know you more. So you open yourself to him. You owe him that, at least.

“Kaidan was a soldier,” you begin. “The things he saw in war changed him. The most horrific, unimaginable things that broke him. He still has nightmares. There are still bits of shrapnel in his body. His leg will never be the same again. What Kaidan went through…what he still goes through… what kind of person could leave him after all that?”

You struggle to keep your voice from breaking.

“Maybe we were different people when we met. And now, all we do is hurt each other. Maybe the damage is so deep, we can't let go.” You shake your head. “There was so much that was already broken in both of us. I don't know what love could survive that.”

You try to read the expression on Gale’s face. There is agony there. Desperation. Something like pity. And above all, love.

“You speak as though your marriage is ending.” 

“It hasn't yet.” You close your eyes. “But maybe it's just a matter of time.”

He makes a choked sound. He lurches forward, so that he is on the edge of his seat.

“Tell me that you love him, Mia. Say that you desire him, that you wish to be with him. That your heart belongs to him. And I'll leave. I'll find a way to return to Faerun. You'll never see me again.”

Your eyes are blurring, burning. 

“Can you tell me that?” he pleads. 

You cannot speak. There is a pain that is spreading from your chest. You cannot fight it.

“You can’t tell me that, can you?” His voice swells. “Because you don’t love him.”

Fear jolts through you. All you can do is shake your head.

“Do you deny it? Are you saying your heart belongs to this man, this Kaidan, and not to me?”

“Please,” you manage. “Don’t…”

“Tell me I’m mistaken, then,” he begs. “Tell me you don’t love me as I love you. That you don’t yearn for me as I yearn for you. That your heart doesn’t belong to me, as mine belongs to you.” 

Every fibre in your being wrenches at the passion in his eyes. 

“Say to me that our souls aren’t joined across time and space. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t feel the weight of the bond that holds us together. Say that you don’t want me, that every part of you doesn’t ache for me, as I do for you.”

A tear trickles down your cheek. 

His eyes blaze. “You can’t.”

“No,” you whisper. “I can’t.”

He springs up to embrace you. By instinct, panic drives you back. There is a sharp cry as he falls to the floor. All thoughts of putting distance between the two of you suddenly fall away. You gasp and rush towards him. 

“What happened?”

He groans, steadying himself.

“Are you okay?” You are frantic.

“I’m fine.” He huffs. “I'm alright, Mia.” 

He scratches his head, embarrassed. 

“My knee went. These joints clearly don’t fare well with multiversal travel. After my rough landing earlier, I’m afraid they’re a little worse for wear.” 

Relief floods you. Part of you was worried he would be sucked back into nothingness as quickly as he came. Another part of you is indescribably grateful, to be pulled away from a betrayal you cannot resist. A boundary you should not cross.

He winces. “Blasted… Damn…”

You have always been aware of Gale’s troubles with his knees. But to see them in the flesh is entirely different. You are overwhelmed by a desire to ease his pain.

You let him bear his weight on you as he struggles back up onto the sofa. He is flustered, reluctant.

“If only I had a scroll or a potion,” he grumbles. “If I could channel the Weave, I could cast a healing spell. I’d usually be able to-” 

“Don’t move.” You clasp his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

He moans as your hands glide across the surface of his skin. You rub into the grooves of his joints. The coolness of the ointment tingles on your fingers. From the sounds of bliss he makes, you can see that it is taking effect on his knee.

“That feels good?” 

“It feels glorious.” His grin beams through you. “And it’s comforting to know that you have remedies here which are just as effective as ours.”

“We definitely aren’t short of medication in this universe.” You smile wryly. “But I’m afraid this stuff doesn’t last for more than a few hours.”

He waves his hand. “I’m more than capable of withstanding a few hours of pain. I’ve sustained much worse.” He shifts awkwardly. “But my love, you really don’t need to-”

“Please, Gale,” you insist. “Let me do this. After all of this, after everything I’ve put you through - this is the least I can do.”

He starts to protest, but stops when you flash him a firm look. It is uncomfortable for him, you realise, to be on the receiving end of this treatment. You know of his generosity and devotion toward those he loves. You always suspected that he neglected his own needs in favour of others. Now, you are sure of it.

As you continue to knead into his soreness, a silent peace falls over you, punctuated only by his  sighs. You watch him lean back, his stiff body relaxing into his seat. Everything within this moment is a salve to the wounds of your heart. It is strange to feel so content, so calm, in the midst of your unravelling. You wish it could go on forever.

“You know,” you confess after a while. ‘I’ve always wanted to do this for you.” 

He raises an eyebrow. “You’ve always wanted to massage my cracking knees?”

You laugh. “Take care of you, I mean. When your orb flared up. When you were injured, or in pain. It was always something I wished I could do for you. To give you the same care you showed me and so many others. To give you the love and attention you deserve.”

His pauses, his cheeks flushing. 

“I see this is a trait that has endured across universes.”

“Oh?” 

He chuckles. You trace a circle along the front of his knee. Your eyes briefly follow the dark hairs that trail down his exposed calf. 

“Did I do this for you in Waterdeep?”

His gaze is bright with memory, swollen with longing.

“Yes. Often. Though I admit… it didn’t usually go on for this long.”

You pull back. “I’m sorry, am I hurting you? Should I stop?”

“No, no. Not at all.” He clears his throat. “We just… usually got distracted by…other activities. Especially when you were focusing on my back.”

You swallow. “I see.”

Your fingers flutter against the top of his knee, the corner of his robe which drapes over his thigh. A wave of heat reverberates through you. You bite your lip.

“Does your back hurt now?” 

There is a flash in his eyes. He does not hesitate.

“It does.”

When he opens his robe, it takes you a moment to recover your breath. You stare at his chiselled muscles, the down that grazes his chest. The black lines threading down the curves of his neck and collarbone, meeting in a circular scar. A bruise within it that you yearn to kiss away.

“Turn around,” you breathe.

He looks at you, his lips parted, his eyes dark. You feel a familiar, bottomless ache that for so long could never be sated. You dare not move until he turns. You do not trust yourself. You never have.

It feels like an eternity before he does. You hesitate, teetering over a cliff. You hold your quivering hands above the contours of his back. And then, you slip over the edge.

He shivers as you press into the bulges of his smooth, firm flesh. You can hear the lull in his breathing as your fingers meander down his spine. The warmth of his skin, the scent of his musk - you feel faint from the closeness of him.

He can sense it. He spins back to face you, and you know that he can read every unspoken word, every aching vibration of your body. He takes one of your hands in his. Slowly, so gently, he runs his lips over your palm. You are trembling as he places his fingers beneath your chin, tilting your face up to his. You cannot look away from his eyes, aflame with need, consumed with love.

In this moment, there is nothing but the tide which flows between you. The memory of a thousand nights lying beside him, lacking nothing. The inexplicable feeling of being home at last.

You clutch for the last thread of resolve within you.

“Mia,” he whispers.

Your eyelids flutter as his arm circles your waist. He draws you close, his forehead resting against yours, the ghost of his breaths mingling with your own.

And you cannot pull away.

Chapter Text

You are a drop in the ocean. A river returning to the sea. 

Your guilt, your shame, your doubt - they dissolve like mist in water. He streams into every crack, every hole within you. You are drowning in the tingle of his tongue on yours, the heady scent of his hair and sweat, the caress of his lithe fingers over all your broken places. He fills you with the ache of home, quenching your longing so absolutely that you are transformed. Intertwined in him, you share each other’s breaths and vibrate with each other’s motions. Nothing of your lack remains. 

There is no beginning and no end. He has always been inside you, a searing light that melts the ice in your soul. And when the world around you explodes in a cascade of stars, his gasping spasms echoing your own, you are not afraid. Though you are shattered into stardust, his touch makes you whole again. 

With him, you are whole.

“The Difference.”

His words rumble through you. You are lying on his chest, your fingers sculpting the ridges of his abdomen. You can hear his heartbeat, low and slow, more solid than your own. You tilt upwards to look at him.

“Between what?” he asks.

His hand cups the fullness of your hip, dancing along the side of your thigh. You close your eyes, savouring the moment. Its light, alongside its weight. 

It is not a dream, nor a delusion. You are sure of it now.

“Between what you need and what you want to be.” 

You plant a soft kiss on his sternum. His mouth dips down to find yours. His lips are gentle, then open in a flurry of wet heat. You cannot get enough of each other’s taste. It is as though every kiss is your first and last.

When you pull away, he makes a pained sound. You reach for your phone, and he nuzzles into your neck impatiently as you press at the screen. His tongue flickers against you as he pulls you closer. 

“It’s from a song,” you manage, throbbing with his desire. “This song.”

When the music starts to play, he startles. He stares at your phone wide eyed. Again, you can almost hear the calculations running through his mind. You beam at his hunger for new knowledge, his voracious curiosity. His zest for life, even when all seems dire. It glows in the dead, dark places within you.

“Truly there are no limits to what a phone can do.” 
 
You laugh together, your hands roaming over each other’s bodies. And then a silence settles over you. He listens with awe, almost reverence, to the song of your heart.

“The music of your universe,” he breathes. 

You linger over the roughness, the jagged edges of the scar on his chest. The mark of his suffering and freedom. You wish you could let him touch your scars, but they are hidden. You do not know if they will ever heal.

“Beautiful,” he whispers. “Sublime.”

You nod. “It is. It means a lot to me.”

He moves down so his face is level with yours. The look in his eyes is bright and tender as his thumb brushes over your cheeks, your jaw, your lips. Then his gaze dims with an urgency that sends a ripple of molten heat through you. You feel his fingers snake slowly down to your centre, tasting his halting breaths as he presses himself against you. You shiver with a moan.

“I wasn’t referring to the song,” he rasps.

The shower is a marvel to Gale. The phenomenon of running water, the force and constancy of it, the ease of becoming clean. You wonder if Gale will ever leave the shower, now that he has discovered it. The fact of your shower is, for an instant, more miraculous to Gale than the prospect of having a shower together. But that instant is brief. Very brief indeed.

His love is like a flood. You are washed away in it, consumed by desire, raw and sharp. Your ears are deafened by his music, your lungs brimming with his musk. Your skin pulses with the rhythm of his pleasure. All you can taste on your tongue is him. Within you, there is room for nothing else. You yearn to be nothing else.

“I want to know all of you,” he pants. “I want you to show me everything.”

There are tears in your eyes as you buckle against him and cry out his name. 

“Conventional wisdom is that it’s rude to stare, but for you, I’ll allow it.”

You can feel yourself blushing at his sidelong smile. You wrench your eyes away from his glistening shoulders, the tousled waves of his wet hair tickling the curve of his neck. The dips and lines of his abs, the trail of fine hairs drifting from his navel downwards under the towel wrapped around his waist. 

“I’m sorry. I’ve just never seen a man like you in the flesh, let alone been with one. You’re…”

He is grinning now. Your desire arouses him. A circle which repeats. 

“I’m…? Pray tell, what am I?”

“Well.” Your tongue darts over your lower lip. “People in this universe would describe you as hot as fuck.”

He lets out a throaty laugh. “Your people are honest, straightforward, and crudely expressive.”

“There are other words people would use to describe you, but I don’t want to offend your gentlemanly ears.”

He smirks. “I’m not always a gentleman.”

He glides towards you. You slip your hands around him, resting on his back, still slightly damp. 

“You could have anyone you want.” You lean into his embrace. “When we leave this house, you’ll see.”

He draws back to look into your eyes. “I don’t want anyone else. I want my wife.”

You falter. A shadow has begun to gather inside you. You cannot ignore it.

“Gale.” You pull away slightly. “The woman you fell in love with, the hero that you married…” Worry bubbles inside you. “What if I’m not her?”

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

You look down. “I’m not beautiful and charismatic. I’m not a fighter or a leader. I’ve never saved anyone, never fought anyone. I’m just-”

He touches a finger to your lips. Your breath catches.

“I said that I would recognise you anywhere, in any form, in any universe. It holds true. You’re just as much my wife here as you were in Faerun. Your essence hasn’t changed.”

You shake your head. “You don’t understand what I’m saying.”

He smiles, a burst of affection and certainty. “I do. But I know who you are, Mia. You’re just as brave and kind, just as beautiful in this universe as you are in mine. There are few things I can be certain of now, but this is something I know beyond a doubt.”

You grimace. “You may change your mind about that.”

“Never.”

He clasps you to his chest. Everything within you knows you cannot trust yourself and the faith he has in your goodness. You know this from your failures, your regrets, the ruins of your life. But in his arms, you almost dare to wonder. To dream. And you hope against hope that he is right.

It does not take long for the guilt to come. 

You are standing in your room, staring into the open wardrobe. Gale waits behind you, making excited declarations about the effect of shower-related activities on his muscles and joints.

The thought of giving Gale your husband’s clothes to wear fills you with shame. You know it is a last resort, driven only by necessity. He cannot wear a wizard’s robe here, unless you take him to a fancy dress party. You will buy Gale clothes of his own, for however long he remains. But it still cripples you, having to do this. 

Two men. Two worlds colliding, with you trapped in the middle. A lash coils within you at the magnitude of what you have done. What you continue to do now.

Sensing your paralysis, Gale falls silent. His arm curls softly around your waist. The warmth of his body stills you.

He points at a purple shirt. “That’ll do.”

When Kaidan’s text comes, you are sitting on the edge of your bed. Before you, Gale is gesticulating enthusiastically, gushing with frenzied reflections on germ theory. 

“Are you ok?” Kaidan repeats. 

Gale stops immediately when your face falls. You do not need to tell him. He sits down beside you as you stare at your phone.

“A communication from Kaidan?”

“Yes.” You move the screen towards Gale so he can read it. “I have to answer. Or he’ll worry.”

His brow knits. “What will you say?”

He watches as you type, eyes widening as your words appear on the screen. He is memorising this process. You have no doubt he will be able to replicate it soon.

“I’m fine,” you reply. “Are you?”

“I suppose they do say brevity is the soul of wit,” Gale mutters.

You wonder if Gale expects you to explain the entirety of your situation over text. Surely not. Yet there is a terseness in his words that gives you pause.

“My Dad always told me that if I had nothing nice to say, I shouldn’t say anything at all.”

Gale raises an eyebrow. He says nothing. 

You can almost hear the bite in Kaidan’s next text. “Good of you to reply.” 

Gale bristles.

“I thought we needed space,” you respond. “When are you coming back?”

There is a long pause as you wait for Kaidan’s answer. You chew at your fingernail. Gale glares at your phone.

“Not sure. I’ll let you know.” 

“When he comes back, we can tell him together.” He is clasping your hands. “You needn’t be afraid. I’ll be here with you. You can end your bond with him and return to Faerun with me.”

You are struggling to breathe. When you speak, your voice is weak and broken. You no longer recognise it. You are starting to wonder who you are. 

“It’s not that simple, Gale.”

His features twist. 

“How can I leave him?” you choke. “What will he do? He’s been sober for two months. It’ll knock him back. He’ll be off work again, and what if he gets into more fights?” 

Gale winces. “You aren’t responsible for him, Mia. He’s not your child. He makes his own choices and walks his own path, as we all do.”

White hot tears cloud your vision.

“But without me, who’ll be there to help him? To get him back on his feet?”

Gale releases your hands and rises.

“Are you saying that you don’t wish to leave him? Because if that’s the case, if I’ve been mistaken all along, then we should end this now.”

The anguish in his eyes is piercing.

“No, Gale.” You reach for him. “It’s not like that.”

He flinches. “If you have any doubts whatsoever about who your heart belongs to, then state them.” He turns away from you, his face tight and dark. “I can’t allow myself to give my whole soul to a woman who is bonded to another. I won’t allow it.”

You bury your face in your hands. You try to suppress the sobs that threaten to erupt from you. He doubts your love for him. He thinks you would string him along out of selfishness or deceit. You cannot let him suffer under these illusions.

“I’m scared,” you whisper.

He wavers, turns back to you. “Of what?”

You speak from your deepest places, where all is cracked stone. He knows it. You can tell from the sorrow in his eyes that he sees.

“I’m afraid that when you see who I really am, you won’t want me. That what we have won’t last. That I’ll only hurt you, like I hurt everyone else.”

Your greatest fears, laid out like an offering before him. He could trample them beneath his feet. Discard them, or hold them to his heart in worship. It is for him to decide. It is his right.

He makes a muffled sound as he rushes to your side. 

“My love.” He cups your cheeks. “I felt exactly the same way until you showed me I was wrong. You’ve seen who I was, who I am, and you love me completely. Can you not accept that’s the way I love you?”

You cannot doubt the sincerity in his eyes. They blaze like a thousand stars. 

“You don’t have to sacrifice yourself on the altar of a man who doesn’t cherish you as you deserve. A man who needs to stand on his own feet, fight for his own life, just as you and I have time and time again.” 

He brushes your tears away as they fall. 

“You deserve to be free of this burden, Mia. To be loved the way I love you. I see who you are, every part of you, and I love you. Come home with me.”

You want so desperately to believe him. To trust that there can be happiness for a person like you. That the love between you burns brighter than any darkness you have been or done. 

Maybe you can believe him. You can let yourself believe, just this once. 

You take his hands and kiss them through your sobs. Hurt and want form a haze around you as his lips find yours.

The last thing that you say is, “Yes.”

He has so many questions, you lose track of them all. Every object is a mystery to be solved, every piece of technology a puzzle. You are patient, as thorough as possible in your answers. But if you continue to be deluged, you will never leave the confines of your house for the world outside, which is what he wants to see.

“What do couples in this universe do together?” he asks at one point. “What’s a typical romantic pastime?”

“Other than what we’ve done so far?” 

“Yes.” He titters. “Other than our very enjoyable activities thus far.”

“Well.” 

You think back to the days when you and Kaidan used to go out together. A distant memory, since his deterioration. You crush it down. 

You have made a promise to Gale. A promise to yourself, to look forward and not back. To be brave, to face the unknown. To try. 

“We could do dinner and a movie?”

It takes longer than usual to get ready. 

You are a minimalist, used to quick changes, the barest dusting of make up to conceal your tired skin. Your black hair falls straight no matter what style you attempt, so you leave it. You have a capsule wardrobe, simple, clean and easy. You never go beyond your few staple items of whites, greys and beiges.

But dressing is a challenge when Gale continually attempts to undress you. You are surprised, more than a little flattered, by his attention. The strength of his hunger, the purity of his yearning. It has been so long since you felt wanted in this way. You are intoxicated by it, and by the fire of your own desire whenever he is near. You fumble at each other against the door of the wardrobe, the bedroom wall, your dressing table, a twisting flurry of pants, moans and laughter.  

You feel more alive than you have ever felt.

When the two of you are finally clothed and composed, you pause at the front door. You gaze at Gale in his purple collared shirt, the mark of his orb peeking out like a hidden tattoo. Sleeves rolled up neatly to the elbows, veins flickering on his slender arms. The distinguished strands of grey against the shine of his brown waves. The sleek lines of his lean and muscled limbs. He looks every bit the refined and well groomed modern man. He could be a model, an undercover celebrity. You feel like you might wither beside him.

You remind yourself that this is real. You place your hand on the doorknob and suck in a deep breath.

“Are you ready?” 

He flashes his signature smile. 

“Am I ready?” He arches an eyebrow. “I’m Gale Dekarios, Professor of Blackstaff Academy. Former Archwizard and Chosen of Mystra. Companion of the Hero of Baldur's Gate, who bested a Netherbrain, a formidable cult, and countless enemies great and small.” He scoffs. “I'm sure I can handle anything in this Weave-less universe.”

You chuckle. “If you say so.” 

“By Elminster’s nose, what’s that contraption?”

He skirts around your blue Volkswagen Beetle, excitement barely contained by caution. 

“What is it? What does it do?”

“It’s a car, Gale.” You smile at his earnest fascination. “It’s how we’re getting where we need to go.”

“A car.” He pokes at the edge of the bonnet. When there is no reaction, he places his palm on it, his brow furrowed. “Transportation, then.”

You nod. “I’ll show you how it works. Here.”

You stride forward and pop open the front passenger door. He backs away, his eyes widening.

“You can sit there. I’ll sit next to you and drive it.”

“Drive it,” he repeats.

“Control it. Operate it.”

He narrows his eyes. “But how does it work?” 

“Do you want me to tell you? Or show you?”

His stare is unfocused, drifting over the bonnet, the windscreen, jumping from wheel to wheel. He is taking it apart in his mind, sifting through its fragments to uncover its secrets.

“I take it we won’t be moving until I tell you.” You chuckle.

He scratches his head, faintly apologetic. “I’d be grateful if you could, Mia. I like to think I’ve survived too many dangers to die in an unknown machine. Before I risk my life, I’d like to at least understand how it functions.”

You laugh. “Fair enough. But I’m not sure my explanation will make things clearer for you.” 

He raises an eyebrow. “Try me.”

Mechanics was never your forte, and explaining how a car works is not something you would list as a strength. You consider Googling it and letting Gale read the results. But you have not yet explained the internet to him. That was your plan for after the movie.

“So.” You chew your lip. “The car’s powered by what we call an engine. The engine consumes fuel - petrol, in this case - and turns it into the power that the car needs to move.”

His frown deepens. You decide against trying to explain what petrol and internal combustion are at this point. 

“Do you want to see the engine?”

He nods furiously.

You scurry over to the driver’s side and pop open the hood. When you return to him, he is muttering indistinctly to himself. 

“That’s the engine.” You point. “But please don’t ask me to explain what all the other stuff is, because I have no idea.”

His hands hover over it. His voice quivers with intrigue. “Within this box, these masses of wires, lies the power to move this machine.”

“Yes. The engine’s connected to the gearbox, which controls the speed of the car. There’s also the wheels, the clutch, the brakes, the steering, not to mention the electronics. But if I try to explain those things to you I think my brain might explode. And we’ll miss the movie.” 

You are relieved when a dusty Ford Fiesta veers down the road, distracting Gale from an inevitable stream of questions that you cannot answer.  He gestures wildly at it.

“That’s a variant of this car, isn’t it?” he gushes.

You snake your arm through his. “Yes and no. It’s a variant of a car. There are a lot of different models and makes of cars. There are larger versions too, vans and buses and lorries. We’ll see some on the way. I’ll point them out to you.”

“No horses, no carts, no Weave.” His gaze dances with wonder. “Instead, you have these engines.”

“And electricity. And the internet. Wait until you find out about trains and planes.” You plant a quick kiss on his alarmed face. “But now you need to get in, please, so I can show you what a car actually does.”

“What’s that rumbling? A low growl, can you hear it?”

He spins around in his seat, searching for its source.

“It’s the engine, Gale.” 

A cyclist swings out in front of you without warning. You brake harshly, your arm shooting out instinctively to hold Gale back.

“By the gods!” He grizzles. “This takes some getting used to, doesn’t it?”

“Bloody cyclists,” you mutter.

“How are you moving it forward?” He peers at your feet. “What are you doing under there?”

You steady yourself. “My right foot’s pressing down on a pedal that drives us forward. If I want to slow us down, I press on a pedal that we call a brake.”

“Interesting.” He watches your hand sliding over the gear stick. “So you’re in full control of this machine at this precise moment.”

“I’m trying.” You grit your teeth as you overtake a clattering lorry. “That’s a lorry, by the way.”

“Fascinating.” 

Gale places his hands on the window as he watches it fall away. You smile at the child-like innocence of the gesture. 

“Quite the variant. It must have a powerful engine indeed.” He makes a noise of pure delight. “Look at them all, all these variants, buzzing around like worker bees.”

“That’s the capitalist system for you.” 

He turns back to you. 

“And the circle that you’re manipulating with your hands, what’s that?”

“The steering wheel. It controls the direction that the car goes.”

“Of course!” he exclaims. “It must be connected somehow to the wheels. Marvellous. What an ingenious contraption.”

You swerve to avoid a van that turns without indicating. 

“It is, when people aren’t being assholes.” You jerk your head. “That’s a van.”

“A van,” he repeats. “This is all quite extraordinary. Without portals or spells, the people of this universe can transport themselves-”

Gale suddenly falls silent. At the corner of your eye, you notice him hunching into himself. You reach for his hand, keeping your vision locked on the road. 

“Gale? Are you alright?”

“Fine.” You hear a sharp intake of breath. “Just a tad bit queasy, all of a sudden. Most curious.” 

“Ah.” You roll down the passenger window slightly. “You’re carsick.” 

“Carsick?” His concern is palpable. “Is there a sickness that spreads from cars? Are we safe here?”

“No, no.” You chortle. “It’s something that a lot of passengers get. It’s a reaction to the movement. It’ll pass. Sit still, look ahead of you. Try to relax. We’ll be there soon.”

Chapter Text

Two months ago

She is perched on her usual bench, a few minutes away from the Magistrates Court where you work. The same frayed blanket is wrapped around her like a shroud. Her silver dreadlocks tumble down her hunched shoulders like vines. When she sees you, her chapped lips tighten into a smile.

“Miso soup, Elspeth.” You hand the paper cup to her as you sit down beside her. “I’ve gone back to the classics today.”

“They’re classics for a reason.” Elspeth’s gnarled fingers dance with pleasure as she flicks off the lid. She slurps loudly with appreciation.

You notice a new scar on Elspeth’s charcoal skin, running from her cheekbone to her jawline. It is delicate, precise, and you are unnerved as you wonder at the cause of it. Elspeth catches you looking almost immediately.

“You should have seen the other guy.” She smirks.

You take a bite of your rice cake. You know better than to argue with Elspeth, and in truth, you know next to nothing about her circumstances outside of these encounters on your hour-long lunch breaks. You cannot tell her age, other than that she is old. You do not know where she sleeps, but are sure she is homeless. You cannot place her accent, and do not know her place of origin. You suspect she has a few screws loose, but she is harmless, and you have grown fond of her. 

There is an understanding between you and this strange, homeless woman that you find difficult to explain. It is inexplicably easy for you to talk about Kaidan, although she always seems to know more than you can remember telling her. She cannot have overheard more than a few snippets of your intrusive phone calls from your father, but she is eerily skilled at reading between the lines. You are overwhelmed by the sense that she sees. That she knows. 

You know it is silly. Pathetic, even. But you take comfort in this stranger. Elspeth is one of the things in your life that feels constant. Effortless. You feel like there are no facades with her. Another foolish fantasy that you indulge in.

“It’s been a year since we’ve known each other,” Elspeth declares abruptly.

You smile. “It must have been a very tasty miso soup that I brought you that first time, if you remember it so well.”

Elspeth was being harassed by two racists who were hell bent on stealing her blanket. They had dispersed when you threatened to call Court security and the police on them. It was a bitterly cold winter day, and she had nothing except that blanket and an empty stare as you offered to buy her a hot drink. She had declined, but asked for miso soup instead. 

Her brown eyes flicker with green as she considers you. “It was about the miso soup, and yet not about the miso soup at all.” 

You arch an eyebrow. “Oh. Very cryptic. Wait. Is the miso soup a metaphor for something?”

She guffaws, a machine gun of laughs. “Everything is a metaphor for something, my dear.” 

“Right.” You nibble at your lunch.

Last week, you had given Elspeth a copy of ‘The Difference’. She never mentioned it again, so you assumed she had not read it, or that she hated it. From the meaningful look she is giving you now, though, you cannot be sure.

“The miso soup is what seems simple but can’t easily be found, even across the infinities of time and space. I’ve searched through it all and not found it, except on this bench, here.”

It is one of those familiar moments with Elspeth where you smile and nod, with no idea what she is saying. You sit in silence, munching away as shadows permeate your mind, until her sharp fingernail jabs into your arm. 

“Elspeth!” You jerk away. “What the hell?”

She winces. “Your thoughts are painfully loud today, Mia dear. I can barely think with how you thunder away. It’s bad usually, but today…”

You gape at her. Sometimes Elspeth sounds delusional, but you can usually find words for a question, a joke, a witty remark. Today, you have no response.

“Fine, fine.” She grizzles. “Just ignore me. Just do what you do.” She mutters under her breath. “All that endless pining…”

“Elspeth.” You glare at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Of course not,” she drawls. Then she sighs. It is long and heavy, as though she is exhaling the weight of the world from her lungs. She stares at you.

“It’s been long enough, Mia. It’s time.”

You shift awkwardly, trying to escape from her steely gaze. The bizarre and senseless finality of her words.

“Time for what?” 

She places her hand on yours. It feels like ice and crinkled leaves.

“For my gift to you.”

She does not elaborate further. You tell yourself that Elspeth has had a funny turn today. It happens. You yourself have days when your mind is closer to the edge, and the stitches of normality are coming undone. You shrug. You do not think twice about it.

But the next day, Elspeth is gone. You have not seen her since.

Present day 

For longer than you can remember, you have walked with an emptiness inside you. A grey space, heavy and vacant. An absence that drains out of you, drowning all things new and wondrous, everything formed from the embers of your hopes and dreams.

For years, you have been a passenger, enduring the twists and turns of your life. You forgot how it felt, to marvel at the world as a mystery, rather than bearing it as a burden. To welcome every experience as an opportunity, instead of bracing yourself against its blows.

Being with him winds you. He jolts your heart out of its coma. After all this time, it almost hurts to feel it soar. 

Within the boundaries of Baldur’s Gate 3, your knowledge of him was limited. You were familiar with his story, his tortured past as a discarded bauble of an indifferent deity. You knew his deepest fears, his fatal flaws. You learned his every action and reaction. He was the poem you recited to yourself in dark and lonely moments, when you needed the comfort of a love that would not waste away. He was the shield that you clung to when you felt you had nothing left to give. 

But outside of the confines of fiction, you are learning Gale anew. You had not realised the true force of his zeal for life, the depth and strength of his passion for knowledge. You had not felt the fire of his enthusiasm for all things new and unfamiliar. You feel his fervour now as it blazes through everything it touches, transforming the dull and paltry into the most singular of miracles.

You are learning Gale anew, and he is showing you how to live again. 

You take him to a small, family-run Italian restaurant. You stumbled on this place months ago. Work had been slaughter, and you just could not bring yourself to return home to a silence that cut deeper than any rage. Alone at your table, you fell in love with the owners’ affectionate bickering, the warmth which infused every breath and bite. The whiplash sent you weeping in your car later, your swollen eyes unnoticed by Kaidan as you disappeared to bed.

You never had the chance to witness Gale in the Yawning Portal, merry with ale, overflowing with jests. But here, it is how you had always imagined that would be. There is no trace of carsickness, no discomfort or awkwardness. Strangers become fast friends in the wake of his easy charm. He is a flurry of witty anecdotes, endearing observations, questions that make each recipient feel they are the centre of the universe. He is in his element.

You watch in amusement as your waiter reluctantly scuttles away from your table, after receiving a barrage of Gale’s garrulous praise. Gale sips at his wine, then sighs in contentment.

“If you keep flirting with our waiter, I think you’re going to give him an aneurysm.” You titter. “Sorry. An aneurysm is when a blood vessel in your brain explodes.” 

Gale cackles. “What a hyperbolic description. I’m continually amazed by how bluntly expressive your people are.” 

The flush of his cheeks makes your stomach flutter. 

“It's hardly flirting to give a stammering, painfully shy young man a kind word and a boost of confidence.” He gives the wine in his glass a swirl. “In fact, he reminds me of how I felt on my first day at Blackstaff. I was a bundle of nerves, searching frantically for the nearest exit. Agonisingly anxious about my abilities. I see it in that boy.”

He nods his head towards the young man, who stutters as he explains the specials to an impatient couple sitting behind you.

“Sometimes all one needs in such circumstances is for someone to point out the things one can do. The young man moves with uncanny efficiency. Did you see the number of plates he could stack along his arms? I'm a wizard of considerable skill, with very deft hands, if I may say so myself. But I'm not above being impressed by simple feats of dexterity.”

His eyes widen as you lean across the table. You can smell the wine on his breath as you kiss his smiling lips.

“I love you.” 

The tenderness in his gaze is like no other. He takes your hand and holds it against his cheek.

“And I love you. I’m never letting you go again.”

You did not think you could love him more. Nor did you know you could love with such ferocity, such consuming brightness. Witnessing this side of him reignites a flame within you that you forgot existed. Perhaps it never did.

You are almost sure that back in Faerun, he would have done the same at any restaurant that impressed him. He overwhelms the chef with compliments, beaming and trading tales about the minutiae of recipes. He is an encyclopedia of spices and culinary techniques. Most of them have been passed down to him from his mother, he boasts to the owners, Gia and Leo. You giggle when he mentions, again, his full larder and his homemade Hundur sauce, earning him a ripple of fascinated nods.

“Dekarios,” Gia exclaims. She is a plump, elderly lady with the most intricate crows feet that you have ever seen. “Whereabouts in Greece are you from? Beautiful country. Beautiful people.”
 
Gale hesitates. You stare at him meaningfully. He flashes his most disarming, distracting grin.

“The south.”

Leo claps his hands together. His jowls jiggle eagerly. “We spent a couple of weeks in the Peloponnese for our twentieth anniversary. It was absolutely lovely.”

“Ah, yes. The Peloponnese. Wonderful.”

You squeeze his hand under the table. Gale’s brow flickers as he glances at you. He is enjoying this game, you realise. He is relishing the effect he has on others. 

“The food of my homeland is, of course, no match for this delightful feast we’ve had today.” 

A masterful deflection. A swelling of confidence and charisma. 

“Your fettuccine is exquisite. I’ll be singing your praises to anyone who will hear me.”

You almost laugh at the way that Leo and Gia preen at Gale’s flattery. They whisper to each other, giddy with joy, when they eventually take their leave. Gale chuckles to himself as they walk away. Then he turns to you with a satisfied smile.

“So where's Greece?”

You take the opportunity to explain to Gale the boundaries of this world. The continents, prominent countries, and where you are in relation to them. You explain that you are in England, in a city called Birmingham. You explain that you were born in the East, in a city called Guangzhou. You show him photos as you speak. You bring up the world map on your phone. He is, once again, surprised by the things that a phone can do. You silence his stream of questions with a promise - made with more than a little trepidation -  that you will explain to him what the internet is when you get home. 

“Once I’ve shown you the internet, then you’ll be able to find all the answers to your questions. And those answers will be a lot more satisfying than the ones I can give.” 

You are relieved when Gale grudgingly accepts. You feel as though you are fast reaching the limits of your knowledge, or at least your ability to explain it. You do have a sneaking suspicion that unleashing Gale on the internet might be a pandora’s box, but not showing him the internet in this universe would be like pretending magic does not exist in Faerun.

“Returning to the matter of Greece,” he remarks after a pause. “I’m being automatically connected to this region because?”

You stifle a laugh. “I suppose…you have stereotypically Greek traits.”

He raises an eyebrow, mischief flaring on his face. “And what are those?”

“I guess I'm giving a lecture on racial stereotypes now.”

“I guess you are.”

He pulls you towards him. You move your chair next to his. You realise from the glee on his face that any separation from you pains him, however minor, however brief. The past two weeks of your disappearance from Faerun must have been torture for him. 

You nestle into him, savouring his warmth, reassuring him that you are here. You are his. 

“Well, your surname for one. In this world, Dekarios sounds like a Greek name.”

His arms encircle you. “Interesting.”

“You're olive skinned, chatty and warm. You have a passion for food and drink.” You lean into the crook of his neck. “You talk about your mother a lot. And you're…” 

You can feel his cheeks stretching into a grin. 

“I’m what?”

You nuzzle your nose into the bristles on his jawline. 

“You’re dark-haired all over.”

“Pardon me?”

You chortle at the hint of indignation in his voice. “Greeks are known for being hairy.”

“And I fall into this category?” he retorts, incredulous.

You are laughing, shaking your head. “You have just the right amount of body hair. Not too much. Not too little.”

You feel a familiar vibration in his body as he holds you close. His scent casts a haze over you.

“You've made a thorough assessment, then,” he murmurs into your ear. 

Your cheek grazes his lips as you turn to face him. “I guess I have.”

You have just finished explaining what a movie is, and you are trying and failing to explain how images appear on a screen. You are suddenly aware of the time. You realise that you have missed the showing. Gale stares at you quizzically as you let out an irritated groan. 

“It was probably overkill to try and do all that on your first day here,” you admit. “I haven’t even explained to you what electricity is yet.”

“No matter.” Gale tilts his head slightly. “I’m sure there are other things we can do.” 

He is drawing slow, tiny circles on the inside of your wrist. Your core quivers at the glint in his eye.

“Don’t you want to explore this new universe?” you manage. “Just think what adventures you could be missing out on.”

“I think I’ve had rather a lot of adventure for one day.” His fingers meander up your forearm. “You have been gone for two weeks, Mia. I’ve missed you terribly. I thought I’d lost you.”

You press your forehead against his. For a moment, nothing else exists. You belong to each other. Nothing can ever come between you.

You take his hand in yours as you rise. 

“Let’s go for a walk. I’ll show you what Birmingham nightlife looks like. It’s a spectacle, for sure.”

He looks at you for a long time. As though you are a vision of wonder. Singular. A miracle. 

“Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”

You wind through crowded streets, framed by neon lights and the crescendo of drunken chatter. You snake past a burly bouncer fending off a swaying businessman, giving a wide berth to a wispy woman making gagging sounds as she doubles over. The distinct whiff of weed weaves through the throng. Everything takes on a dream-like quality with Gale by your side, his fingers tightly intertwined in yours as he absorbs every sight and sound around him, his expression alternating between awe and puzzlement. 

“This is rather lively, isn’t it?” His eyes flit back and forth, the brown in them flashing hazel. “I can certainly see why you had me change out of my robe.” 

“Yes. Unfortunately robes are no longer a staple of the modern wardrobe.”

He tuts. “It’s your loss. Nothing feels better than a draft between your legs on a warm summer’s day.”

Your mind freezes on the idea of the heat between Gale’s legs, until you are jolted back into the present by a blast of shrill shrieks. A gaggle of scantily-clad twenty-somethings holding large inflatable penises jostle past you. A hen party, with the tipsy bride-to-be leading the charge. Adorned with a frilly veil and a garish L-plate, she turns to bat her matted lashes at Gale. He avoids her eyes with a cough as the group passes by.

“There’s rather a lot of flesh on display, isn’t there? It doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination.”

You chuckle. “Leaving things to the imagination isn’t really the fashion on a Saturday night in Birmingham.”

He gestures to you. “But you take a different approach.” 

“Yes. I like to keep my bare skin to myself. And a special audience.”

He holds your gaze. You have the unmistakable sensation of being undressed by him, and you do not want him to stop. You bite your lip. Then you remember where you are. 

You point at the receding hens as you recover your composure. “Those ladies are celebrating. The one who gave you the bedroom eyes is getting married. This is her last night of freedom as a single woman. It’s sort of a rite of passage.”

He smirks. “And were those phalluses instruments of this rite?”

“Something like that.” 

You cannot help but notice the heads that turn, the double takes, as people file past Gale. You do not blame them. He still takes your breath away. You are sure he always will.  

Part of you had been worried. You had suspected that, confronted with such a bounty of dolled up women and decked out men, Gale might see what a humble offering he had been given in comparison. That he would be disappointed with you. A man like him could have anyone he wants, after all. He does not need to settle for a washed out, scrawny specimen like you.

But as Gale gazes at you, your worry subsides. His focus on you is so full, so sharp, that you are certain you are all he sees. He is so indifferent to the attention he commands, it is as though he is oblivious of it. Never before have you felt so confident of a man’s affections for you. The sense of freedom you feel at this is dizzying.

You continue. “She’s going out with her friends to get absolutely shitfaced. They’ll drink themselves into a stupor, and cram themselves into a dark and enclosed room with terrible and deafening music, where they can grind up against strangers until the early hours of the morning. Some of them may even wake up in those strangers’ empty beds, hungover, ashamed, and no better for the experience.”

Gale arches an eyebrow. “I see.” He clears his throat. “And are you speaking with the bitterness of experience, or?”

You shrug at the concern in his frown. “For a while, when I was younger, I went through the motions. A lot of us do. We drink, we go out to what we call clubs. We dance, we hook up, we find someone, anyone, to hold onto. I was lonely. Desperate for any scrap of love I could get. Well, anything that was halfway close to love.”

You watch as a group of lads in leather jackets whistle at two girls in high-waisted shorts and stilettos. One of them calls out a playful invitation.

“It was meaningless, of course. All of it. So much of modern life is.” 

He nods. He is silent for a while. You turn onto a quiet side street, where the air feels cooler. The distance from the Saturday night crowds is a welcome reprieve. You can tell that Gale, too, appreciates the stillness.

“Our activities in Faerun might not have been the same, but I’m no stranger to meaningless dalliances. To loneliness.” He takes a deep breath. “And with Mystra…Even when I was her Chosen, I would wait for days, weeks, desperate for a sign, a word, an illusion of a touch. When she did come to me… the rare occasions when she took me with her for-”

He stops abruptly. 
 
“Apologies.” He grimaces. “This is poor form, speaking to my wife about my intimacy with another. Poor, poor form indeed.”

That Gale would ever feel he could not speak freely troubles you. You take both of his hands in yours. 

“I don’t think so. It’s okay, Gale.”

He stares at you. “You told me off rather a lot about it back in Waterdeep, whenever I mentioned how things were with Mystra.”

You shake your head. “Things are different here. I’ve told you enough about Kaidan. And I want you to tell me everything, anything that you want to. I want to know.”

This seems to genuinely backfoot him. He shifts awkwardly. 

“You were rather vehement about Mystra’s shortcomings.” 

“I’m not surprised.” You twitch. “I can imagine I had more than a few choice words to say about her.”

He smiles wryly. “I certainly had some bitterness towards her, after all that passed between us. But I must confess, I never saw the depths of her calculated cruelty until you showed me. ‘She sunk her talons into you when you were only a boy’, you said. ‘What she did was no different than what Shar did to Shadowheart, or what Vlaakith did to Lae’zel’.”

He rubs at his beard, considering, remembering. 

“I was shocked at first. I couldn’t accept it. But you helped me understand. You showed me that the manipulation of a boy by seduction and praise are no different in substance from a child being brainwashed by violence or co-opted into military servitude. No different, and no less cruel.”

You step forward and place your hands on his chest. “She forced her favours on you.”

“Yes.” He looks away for a moment. “You said that to me too.”

You can feel his heartbeat, the rise and fall of his breath, so gentle and steady beneath your touch. 

“I'm glad I said that. I would have said it here and now, if I hadn’t in Waterdeep.”

His hair brushes against your skin as he draws you near. His voice trembles with sincerity. 

“You’ve shown me so much, Mia. So many things about my past. You’ve cast off so many burdens that I thought I would carry forever.”

He embraces you. In his arms, you can barely remember how it felt like to be empty, aching to be filled. 

“So have you, Gale,” you whisper. 

“If I close my eyes and forget that I was portalled through the multiverse, I could almost convince myself that I was back home.”

“What do you mean?” 

You steer Gale away from two men in hoodies screaming slurred obscenities at each other. 

“The way the people of this world speak. The accents, the language. It’s not so different from Faerun. Though I must admit, there is a directness to some of your slang that will take me a while to get used to.”

He gives you a sidelong glance as you hesitate, biting at your fingernail.

“If you’re deliberating over what to tell me, Mia, then please be assured that I can handle any truth you throw my way.”

You falter, avoiding his eyes. “It’s one thing telling you about cars. It’s another thing telling you that you’re a character from a video game. It wasn’t the easiest thing to come to terms with when I showed you.”

“Ah.” Gale raises his finger, tapping at his temple. “But I’ve rather come to terms with that now. You see, there are constants and variants across the multiverse. What is a firm truth in one universe may be an illusion in another. We've established that your existence and mine are constants across the multiverse. But the forms of our existence are variants. In Faerun, you’re Tav, and on Earth, you’re Mia. In Faerun, I’m Gale Dekarios, a human male resident in Waterdeep. On Earth, I’m Gale Dekarios, a fictional character in a video game called Baldur’s Gate 3. Constants and variants, Mia. Constants and variants.”

Gale seems so certain about his explanation that you do not have the heart to tell him your doubts. If his theory is correct, and there are two versions of you, then where is Tav? If you and Tav have somehow merged, then why can you not remember the conversations that you have shared with Gale outside of the events of the game?

“Gale…”

“Mia, I can handle it.” His tone is firm, but there is a veiled plea in his eyes. 

You cannot bring yourself to resist. You yourself would always want to know the truth, no matter the cost. You cannot begrudge him an urge that is as natural to you as breathing. You sigh.

“Do you remember what I told you about actors in movies?”

Gale nods. “They perform scripted roles which are then recorded and collated into a visual story, much like a play.”

“Exactly.” You take a shaky breath. “But there are also voice actors, who perform scripted roles within video games.”

Gale’s eyes darken. “Go on.”

You try and keep your voice level. “Within Baldur’s Gate 3, most of the voice actors spoke with English accents. There are a variety of them, obviously. But they’re the accents that you hear around you now. That’s why you think this place sounds like Faerun.”

Gale’s frown engulfs his features. His mind turns so quickly, you are dreading the question that will follow.

“Within this game, I was a character that was performed,” he says slowly.

You swallow. You nod.

“So logic dictates that I, like all of the other characters within Baldur’s Gate 3, was performed by a voice actor.”

You look down. “Yes.”

He clasps and unclasps his hands. His gaze is unwavering as he looks at you. You can see a shadow of fear within his resolution. But you cannot turn away now.

“His name is Tim Downie. Your voice actor.”

Chapter Text

Four months ago

“Why do you keep coming here?” 

Coming from anyone else, Elspeth’s stare would feel deeply uncomfortable. But you have grown used to Elspeth’s frankness. You would not have it any other way. 

“Couldn’t I ask you the same question?” 

“You could,” she huffs. “But that wouldn’t get you out of answering.”

“Well.” You take a long sip of your coffee. “I like you, Elspeth.”

She chortles, as though you have made a lacklustre joke.

“What? I do. You’re the most interesting person I know.”

She leans back, giving you a long and languid smirk. “That’s not saying a lot.”

“Steady on, Elspeth.” You suck in a breath. “Hold some shots back, now and then.” 

She shrugs, tearing into the onigiri that you have brought her. “Better a painful truth than a beautiful lie, Mia.”

You think of Kaidan hunched over the toilet bowl the night before. The earthquake in his eyes, the searching need in his hands. The black hole of love, sapping you of strength. 

“I can’t argue with that.”

She hums. “I thought not.”

You listen to the steady rhythm of Elspeth’s chomping. You wonder how it must feel like to have no home, no family or friends, to call your own. To be alone, and so at peace with one’s solitude. To be completely unshackled, truly and honestly free. 

“Eternal recurrence,” she says abruptly.

You turn to her. “I’m sorry?”

“The love of fate.”

You are bemused at first. Yet another day of cryptic Elspeth speaking in passwords, you think. But something about her words is familiar. You sift through the crumbling library of your mind.

“Nietzsche?” you attempt. 

Elspeth beams at you. “Clever girl. Extraordinary girl.” 

You have the distinct sense that you have passed some kind of test. A shard of seaweed peeks through Elspeth’s jagged front teeth. 

“‘One wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity,’” she recites. “'Not merely to bear what is necessary, still less conceal it, but love it.’”

You stare at her. You try to mask your disbelief. Sometimes Elspeth’s words are a jumble of nonsensical ramblings. Now, she repeats Nietzsche to you by heart. It is another stark reminder of how little you know of the mysteries she hides. 

“I'm here because there’s nowhere I would rather be.” She drums her fingers on the bench.  “Were my life to be repeated in an endless and infinite cycle, there’s nothing I would do differently. I would always choose to be here now.”

Her words have a heaviness to them, like an anchor cast into the deep. You are not sure you truly understand. But you nod, watching Elspeth’s crinkled eyelids quiver, following her ragged breaths. 

“And you?” she asks after a pause. “Would you live your life as it is, if you had to live it over and over again?”

Your scoff is visceral. It bursts from you without thought.

“Not a chance. I’d give anything to do it all again. Make different choices. Take back my mistakes.”

Elspeth studies you for a long time. Her gaze is a marbling of green through brown, swirling, gathering. You have a sense that she wants to reach out and touch you, but she does not.

“Sisyphus,” she says instead.

You roll your eyes. “Elspeth, is today an existentialist lecture? What's with the name dropping?”

Perhaps, in a former life, Elspeth was a disgraced academic. A cantankerous philosophy professor. You can almost see it if you squint. 

She guffaws, rubbing at her nose. “I wouldn't throw the names out if I didn't think you'd know them.” 

Your grimace curls into a smile. You think back to the days when you devoured Sartre and Camus like they were a salve to your wounds. Tortured geniuses who understood what it was to look into the abyss and laugh. Not to flinch away from life's emptiness, nor cave to it, but to embrace it. To rise above it. To make a life of beauty and purpose in the midst of nothingness.

It has been an eternity since you remembered that fire in you. That unshakable conviction that you could face down demons and emerge victorious.

“And Sisyphus is relevant because?”

Elspeth tuts, her frayed dreadlocks swaying as she shakes her head.

“Because you roll that boulder up that mountain again and again. Even though you know, when you get to the top, that it'll always roll back down to the bottom.”

You sigh. “You're really racking up the painful truths today, Elspeth.” 

It is maybe a little much to have your life equated to Camus’ ‘Myth of Sisyphus’. To be compared to a cursed ancient doomed to repeat a futile task for all eternity, condemned forever to accomplish nothing. Especially after another sleepless night with a sputtering, wild-eyed Kaidan, lying about the ‘one or two’ drinks he had snuck in while you were at work. Raging, begging for a forgiveness that you have no choice but to give.

“You've misunderstood what Sisyphus stands for.”

You are suddenly backfooted by the sincerity in Elspeth’s smile. When she lays her hand on your cheek, you shiver at its roughness. It reminds you of hard frost on a winter’s day, just before the melt.

“‘Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world.'” Her voice softens before it soars. “'The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.’”

The words are a rallying cry. Your past, your pain, your struggles, day in day out, interminable and on repeat. They need not be without purpose. What you endure need not be empty as mere survival. They can be infused with passion. Bravery. Grit. Fortitude. 

Your eyes blur.

Perhaps your life, broken as it is, need not be meaningless. Perhaps your suffering can be shot through with triumph, no matter how long it persists. Maybe you can find joy in the struggle if you give it purpose.

You have the inexplicable feeling that she can hear your thoughts as you remember the rest of Camus’ words.

'One must imagine Sisyphus happy.'

Present day

His silence scares you more than anything he could say. 

“Gale. Please talk to me.”

Shrouded by night, the street lamps cast the dimmest glow over you. His features are drowned in shadow. Yet you are almost sure that he is blanching. 

His gaze has emptied, fixing on a point over your shoulder. He is so still, you wonder if he has stopped breathing. You try to make him look at you. 

“I shouldn’t have told you. I’m so sorry.”

“No.” There is a taut hollowness in his voice that you do not recognise. When his eyes settle on you again, your heart lurches. There is still tenderness there, obscured but unmistakable. 

“You must always, always tell me the truth, Mia. We have nothing without it.”

Something squirms underneath your skin. A quailing, an unease, like ants scurrying away from danger. The truth. All the things about you he does not know. You try to crush it down.

“Gale, listen-”

“Forgive me, Mia. I need a moment. I need to think, to retreat to…”

He struggles, dredging each word from the depths. 

“To a glade of calm,” you finish.

There is the briefest mirage of a smile at your recognition, your intimate knowledge of his ways. But it fades into the darkness as quickly as it came. He turns away. 

He withdraws so completely into himself, it is a shock. His absence is a rending. It is like being cocooned in a hot spring, then whisked naked into a snowstorm without warning. You feel shattered by it. 

You say nothing. You respect his need for space, for time to consider, to plan. But guilt is spreading within you like a taint. You could have held this back, knowing it would break him. You should have understood that even a mind as exceptional as Gale’s would have its limits. And now, the floodgates have opened. You wonder if it is too late.

As you walk back to the car together, you catch fleeting glimpses of his disjointed thoughts. He mutters to himself, groping and fumbling for a foundation. 

“...Such that the fabric of the universe is altered…”

“...Confusing the lines between fiction and reality…”

“...Blurring the nature of the variants and the constants forevermore…” 

It is a torment to watch him. You wait, helpless, on the sidelines of a battle that is his alone. It is a mercy when he addresses you again.

“This man,” he says. “This…Tim Downie. Does he share my likeness?”

You waver, clutching for an answer that is not a lie, but kinder than the truth. 

“Not physically.”

“But in every other respect?”

You clear your throat. “No. But in some. Some gestures, some mannerisms. Some parts of your personalities…”

He nods. You cannot continue, and you are beyond grateful he does not press you. 

“You'll show me when we get home.” He is fading already, disappearing back into the recesses of his mind. 

“Gale,” you falter. “I don't think-”

“You must.”

You are afraid, terrified, that you will lose him. That once again, happiness will slip away from you, leaving you only with the anguish of memory. You fight the urge to cling to him as if your life depends on it. As if your heart will expire without his to steel it. He is receding to a place far beyond your grasp, and you feel powerless to stop it. 

Yet his fingers remain interlaced with yours, and he does not let you go.

“Please, Mia.” 

Desperation rumbles in his voice. And you know you can refuse him nothing.  

He is still holding your hand as you sit in your living room. His brow remains knitted as stares at the drink you have offered him. 

“It’s a very British thing, a cup of tea. It cures all ills.”

You mentally wince at your knee-jerk effort to make light of the situation. There is an instant when you think he might smile, but he remains trapped within himself. 

“I’m not sure it can cure this one.” His fingers tighten around yours. “But it’s better to face the illness, come what may.”

He jerks his head towards your phone on the coffee table.

“I assume that you can summon an image of Tim Downie on it.” 

You nod, chewing your lip.

“Then do it. Please. I want to understand…” His breath trembles. “I want to see this man’s likeness.”

You cannot read his thoughts, but you can imagine them. Is Tim Downie a variant? Or is he a constant? Is there a Tim Downie in Faerun, wandering around in another form? If so, why can he not recognise a man who is so inextricably linked to his existence? 

Gale is trying, with everything he has, to make sense of it. Underneath his frenzied calculations, you can sense his abject terror. He is petrified that he is wrong, that his entire existence is, in fact, one colossal lie.

You cannot bear it. 

“Gale.” Your fingers find the stubbled point of his chin, tilting his face up to look at you. You flinch at the anguish in his eyes.

“He’s not you. You’re your own person, flesh and blood, just like I am. Even if there are any similarities between you, you’re still real. You’re still you.”

He looks down. You can feel a thawing in him, the slightest softening of his features. You move closer, so he can feel your warmth. So he knows you are not going anywhere, and you are not afraid. 

“All of our friends - Wyll, Karlach, Astarion, Lae’zel, Shadowheart, Halsin…Jaheira and Minsc... Tara, even. They all have voice actors. I can tell you all of their names. I can show you all of them on my phone.”

His eyebrows flicker, a breaking of shadow. A door is opening, and you must pull him through it.

“What if I showed you Theo Solomon, Wyll’s voice actor? He seems like a lovely man - he has the same sweet nature as Wyll, the same gentlemanly charm. Would your first thought be that our dear friend Wyll - the kind, gentle, funny man we travelled with for a year, sharing our lives, saving each other from death again and again - that he wasn’t real in your universe?”

He is looking directly at you now. There is a brightness in his gaze that tells you he hears you. It drives you on.

“What about Lae’zel, our proud Gith’yanki warrior? Her voice actor is just as fiery and smart, but she’s a human woman in this universe. What do you think about Lae’zel now - after all the battles we fought together, everything she showed us about the Githyanki? Do you feel that she’s any less real, now that you know she was voiced by a human, a woman who’s never seen combat?”
 
He closes his eyes. You touch your lips gently to his fluttering eyelids, first one, then the other. You can feel his breath levelling. When you draw back, his eyes blaze with brown flame. 

“I don’t understand it all, Gale. I wouldn’t even know where to begin figuring out the multiverse, how it all works, what it all means. Maybe everything that you thought you knew is a lie. Maybe it’s all still as real and true as we are. Maybe we’ll never know. Maybe it doesn’t make sense, and it never will.”

You take both of his hands in yours. He lingers on the sight, as though he draws his spirit from your touch. As though your hands ground him in the truth of your love.

“But does it matter? You’re alive, and you’re here with me now. You’re free to live your life, to make your own choices. You’re the same wonderful, kind, brave man that you always have been. You’re still Gale Dekarios.” 

You gasp at the sudden force of his embrace. He clasps you so tightly, you are not sure he will ever let you go. You can feel his tremors of relief as you hold him. 

“I still love you.” The cadence of his heart beat echoes your own. “That’s still real, and nothing will ever change it.”

“Perhaps you’re right.”

You are lying on the sofa, tangled up in each other. His voice has lost its steely timbre. You savour its familiar lilt against your temple, the caress of his hair on the curve of your neck. The way his fingers still weave through yours.

You have not lost him. You hope, with everything within you, that you never will.

“Perhaps it doesn’t matter,” he murmurs. “The whys and wherefores. The constants, the variants, the mechanics that govern your universe and mine. Perhaps all that matters is that we’re here.”
 
You can tell from Gale’s sigh that he is not entirely convinced. This man, whose mind is his greatest weapon, whose instinct is to seek knowledge above all. It would be unreasonable to expect him to suspend his reason so thoroughly in the face of something so mystifying. He would not be Gale if he did not try to understand.

“Can I tell you something about our universe?” 

He pauses, nods. “Always.”

“There’s very little we can be certain of,” you begin. “There aren’t many things we can point to and say, without a doubt, ‘This is objectively and universally true’. Humans in this world believe in so many different things when it comes to why we’re here and what our purpose is. You can’t prove any of them right once and for all.”

Your thumb smooths over the small crease on his forehead.  

“I know it’s different in Faerun. You have gods, you have the pantheon, you have doctrines and domains and portfolios. But here, lots of people have accepted that there’s no god. There’s no ultimate purpose, no afterlife where we go to be rewarded for our good deeds. There’s just us and the things we do to each other while we battle through our messy lives. There are no rules other than the rules we make for ourselves. And in the end, the only thing we can be certain of is that we’re going to die.” 

“Mia.” Gale pulls back slightly, his thinking line deepening. “That’s rather bleak, isn’t it?”

You shrug. “It is and it isn’t. It’s the truth about life here. Most people can’t accept it. Despair destroys them. So they distract themselves, find some lie or other to cling to. What’s the point in living without some sense of a higher purpose? What’s the point without the promise of a god?”

You shake your head. 

“All we have is the here and now, Gale. Our lives, our choices, the tenacity and passion we bring to every second of what can either be a sorry existence or the greatest story that was ever told. We make our own meaning. We are our own gods. We give ourselves hope. That’s all there is.”

You press your hands against his cheeks, willing desperately for him to feel the weight of your words.

“It’s the same for you. It doesn’t need to make sense. You don’t need to be able to explain it or understand it. You just need to be able to live. To choose. To feel. To love.”

His eyes glimmer like crystal earth. You quiver into him as he plants slow, soft kisses on your forehead, your cheeks, your jawline. Your collarbone. Your heart.

“You’re alive,” you whisper. “You're here.”

He touches his nose to yours. “You’re extraordinary.”

“So if I press this button, it unlocks the internet.”

“Yes.”

“I quote, ‘A global system of interconnected computer networks linked by electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies’.”

You nod. “A definition I took from the internet itself. Very meta.”

Gale smirks. “Or lazy.”

You jostle him. “You try explaining the internet to someone who doesn't have the concept of electricity and computers.”

“Thank the gods for the internet, saving us from this impossible task.” He waves his hands around dramatically.

“You do have a point,” you concede. “We’re totally dependent on the internet. Our whole civilisation revolves around it.”

He hums. “I can understand why. A limitless repository of information at your fingertips, readily and constantly accessible, held within the palm of your hand. Remarkable.”

“It really is. You can search for anything, any data across human history and civilization, and you can find it in seconds. The internet was a knowledge revolution…”

As you speak, Gale pulls up your phone’s browser and begins to type into the search bar. You cannot say you are entirely surprised by the quickness of his learning, but you are still awed by the confidence and familiarity of his movements. You have shown him just once; he has learned it all through observation alone.

“...And yet people mostly use it to Google themselves and look at porn.”

Gale freezes.

You cackle, basking in a smug sense of triumph. “I knew it. What did you go for?”

He scratches his head awkwardly. You lean over him to scan the phone screen. 

“Ah. Well, everyone wants to know what the world thinks of them.”

Gale’s embarrassment flares in a grin. You resist the urge to nibble at its corners.

“Perhaps it's a bit self indulgent.” He chuckles. “But I can't say I'm not curious, given my identity as a fictional character in this universe.”

An undercurrent of anxiety brims in his words. You cuddle into him.

“You're very real to a lot of people, Gale. You may be a character in a video game, but lots of people speak about you as though you're flesh and blood. Someone they really, really love and respect. Someone they only want the best for.”

He frowns. A thousand doubts bubble in his silence.

“Again, it'll be easier to show you. The question is…”  

You take a deep breath.

“Are you ready?” 

He winces, his jaw clenching. “When you ask me that question now, I fear for my life.”

You squeeze his hand. “I'm sorry. It's nothing like that. It's just…you may find people's reaction to you surprising. Overwhelming, even.”

He raises an eyebrow. “After ‘fundamentally and ontologically world-changing’ and ‘shot through with existential terror’, ‘surprising and overwhelming’ sounds positively delightful.”

Your laugh seems to reassure him, the tension in his neck and shoulders subsiding. You cast a glimpse at the search images on your phone screen. 

“Well, then.” You brace yourself, grasping his hand. “Here goes.”

Chapter Text

“What in the nine hells? Is that my-”

You have never seen a man flush so brightly. Gale sputters, looking away from your phone, clearing his throat. His gaze lunges back to the screen. 

“Are you saying that normal members of the public have created these elaborate and generously proportioned images of my-” 

He points accusingly. He coughs so hard you worry for an instant that he might choke. You stroke his back while he recovers. 

“It’s called fanart. Art created by your fans.”

His hands shift and flutter. He does not know what to do with them. 

“The tasteful sketches of Tara and I lounging on our balcony in Waterdeep were very pleasing. As were the masterful paintings of me conjuring the aurora borealis with a look of wistful and dignified focus.”

You notice that his blush has spread down his neck, up the tips of his ears. It is the most adorable thing you have ever seen. 

“As flattering as it is to be the object of so many people’s desires, it’s quite another experience to be the subject of such a wealth of erotica. I’m not sure if I feel violated or venerated.”

He scratches at his beard.

“To be fair, this one is pretty accurate.” You tilt the screen towards him. “You do like doing that a lot. And you’re really good at it.”

Despite his embarrassment, he glows with pride. “I admit, that is one of my strengths.”

You cannot resist the urge to tease. 

“And are you saying you don’t like this extremely realistic image of you and your simulacrum very enthusiastically giving this Tav-”

“Firstly,” he interrupts. “I don’t know who that man is-”

“That’s another person’s version of Tav.”

He stares at you. 

“You have thousands of fans, Gale,” you explain. “Hoards of them.”

He cannot help but grin. “Well, those people have immaculate taste.”

You laugh. “Yes, and lots of those people played Baldur’s Gate 3 - with their own versions of Tav - and fell in love with you in the game. There are thousands of Tavs out there who love you deeply and unconditionally. Who want you and thirst after you. You could pick from any one of them. I’m not unique, far from it.” 

You are backfooted by his lack of hesitation.

“Of course you are, Mia.”

“No, I’m not.” You gesture towards the very graphic simulacrum fanart. “Case in point. Thousands of Tavs who want you.”

“I don’t know any of those Tavs.” He frowns. “I know you. You’re my Tav. My Mia. You’re the only one.”

Despite everything he has learned about his reality, he seems to have no doubts. The discovery that there are other Tavs who have tread the same path has no effect on his feelings for you. Perhaps, after everything he has learned, Gale has become desensitised to mind-shattering revelations. Perhaps he has accepted what is real, and what cannot be explained or understood. 

Either way, the certainty of his love winds you. You pull him close, hoping your body expresses what you cannot say. The kiss you share is brief but breathless. It takes you both a moment to recover from its haze.

When you return to the bounties of the internet, you are not surprised by what comes next. It was only a matter of time.

“By the gods. Is that Astarion? Is he holding my-” 

Gale looks at you helplessly. 

“Is that my hand on his-”

He scrambles, tongue-tied. You jump in to put him out of his misery. 

“A lot of fans like to imagine you and Astarion together. It’s a… popular fantasy.” 

Gale splutters. You raise your hands.

“Not me! Just to be clear, not one of mine!”

“I should hope not.” His features spasm. “That man can’t stand me. And I can’t stand him. Surely not. Is this a joke? Some strange sense of irony, or an obscure form of satire?” 

You rub his shoulder gingerly. “No. It’s just good old-fashioned porn.”

“Don’t tell me this makes you blush, Mr I’m-not-coy, I-once-read-a-book, I-have-a-practised-tongue.”

He titters. “No. I’m no stranger to pornography and the appetites of the flesh.”

You bite your lip. His eyes glint. You had always suspected that Gale would have a healthy stash of erotica to keep him company in his period of isolation. And now, despite your best efforts, the wet whines and slapping sounds coming from your phone are taking your thoughts elsewhere. 

“I suppose it’s the format and sheer volume of it,” he continues, staring at the lurching image gyrating on the screen. “It rather takes away from the magic of the act, does it not?”

You tilt your head. “What do you mean?”

He gestures towards the phone. “Anyone can rut with another like an animal in heat, master the intricacies of human biology, learn the best techniques for maximal physical pleasure. That’s nothing new. In this universe, you can even capture images of the ploughing in painstaking detail. It’s true that the flesh can be sated by that. But there’s a kind of union of mind and soul that’s absent.”

You chuckle. “You’re not going to find that in this sort of porn. Porn that’s sold to the masses is overwhelmingly targeted towards heterosexual men. The idea is that they only want to see women being fucked. The physical side is all that matters. Nothing deeper than that.” 

“That’s apparent.” You think you see a flicker of distaste on his face as he glances at the screen. It disappears when he looks at you, replaced by a muted fascination. “You sound like quite the expert when it comes to pornography.”

“Not an expert.” You hold his gaze. “Just a cynical woman with a healthy sexuality. And don’t get me wrong - that kind of porn does have its benefits.”

His lips curl. “I’m sure it does.”

“Far be it from me to deny that.” Your vision drifts down his body. “But there are alternatives that deal with arousal of both the mind and the flesh.”

“Oh?” His eyes darken. “And what are those?”

“Written porn.” Your voice drops. “Smut. Lots of people - lots of women - prefer it. Lust and yearning live in both the mind and the body. Smut channels the power of the imagination. It engages the emotions as well as the senses.”

“I see.” 

You lean towards him. “There’s actually a lot of smut that revolves around you.”

“Is there?” he rasps.

 A searing hunger is coiling within you.

“People imagine and write in detail about having you inside them. Tasting you. Pressing themselves against you. Feeling your very practised tongue on all their most sensitive places.”

His tongue darts over his lower lip.

“And you read these pieces? This smut about me?”

“I do.”   

His fingers dance over the small of your back. “On a regular basis?”

You tremble at his touch. “Fairly.” 

“And it arouses you?” He draws closer.

“Yes. Very much.”

His mouth lingers over yours. “What specifically arouses you?”

You can almost taste his desire, and you are ravenous. 

“Shall I tell you?” 

His tongue traces the seam of your lips. “I want you to show me.”

You groan, curling into yourself. The stupor of sleep clings to you like quicksand. Consciousness comes to you with difficulty. Slowly, you become aware of the tangle of Gale’s fingers in your hair, the warmth of Gale’s lap under your head. You breathe in the scent of his musk mingled with yours, the after effects of your pleasure bound up in his. You roll onto your back and look up at him. 

It takes him a moment to register that you have woken. You lie silently, watching his slender fingers dancing over the pages of your book. You study the shadows around the chiselled bridge of his nose, the way he parts his lips slightly as he reads. When your eyes meet, his smile is like the caress of summer wind.

You glance at your phone. You are surprised it is resting on the table, not clutched in Gale’s voracious hands.

“It’s four thirty.” You rub furiously at your eyes. “Have you been awake all this time? Aren’t you tired?”

Gale bobs his head. “Sleep isn’t something that comes easily to me. I’d much rather make the most of the time I have awake.”

You yawn. “And how have you been doing that?”

“I’m glad you asked.” 

You chuckle at his unbridled delight at your interest. He raises his finger and clears his throat. 

“I wanted to understand, first of all, what shapes the ideology and experience of a person living in this society. To do that I undertook a broad analysis of the history of Great Britain, from the prehistoric period through to the Roman and medieval ages, to the early modern period, and finally to the formation of the United Kingdom and the constitutional monarchy that’s alive and well today.”

You can feel his little bounces of enthusiasm as he speaks. Laughter tingles through you. 

“Is that all?”

He waggles his finger. “Certainly not. When my research turned to the subject of global immigration, I was curious to learn more about your place of birth, the People’s Republic of China. So I had a cursory read about the early dynasties, imperial rule, and the formation of the Republic.”

You arch an eyebrow. “You probably know more about China now than I do. I’m as Chinese as the takeaway down the street.” 

He continues obliviously. “Then I realised that the best way to understand more about you - which was a large motivation behind my detour into the Opium Wars and the Cultural Revolution - was to cut straight to the heart of the matter and read your magnum opus. Which is what I’m doing now.”

You are taken aback for an instant. You reach up, lacing your fingers through the silky waves of his hair. He closes his eyes and nuzzles against your hand, sighing gently. 

“You did all that, just so you could understand me better?”

He nods. Such an earnest gesture, containing multitudes. You are speechless, undeserving, unworthy. He takes your hand and presses it to his lips. 

“I could study you until the end of my days, Mia, and it wouldn’t be enough.”

Gale shrieks with delight at the pop of the toaster. You laugh as he beholds the wondrous gift of crisped bread. He stands shirtless, his striking beauty clashing against the muted greyness of your kitchen. It is part vanity. He is acutely aware of the effect his appearance has on you. But it is also part defiance. You had teased him about his purple jammies, and he had admitted to missing his comfortable ensemble. This morning, he refuses to wear anything else.

You are wearing his robe, now freshly laundered, drenched in artificial lavender and not the intoxicating scent of his musk. You are almost disappointed, but the pleasure you see in Gale’s eyes more than makes up for it. You can tell by the way his gaze drifts up and down your frame that the sight of you in his clothes arouses him.
 
You sense that he is about to act on that arousal when your phone clangs and clatters.  You stare at the screen. You wait for a few moments, vacillating, fretting. You sigh. You cannot put it off any longer. 

“Sorry.” You wince at Gale. “I have to take this.”

“Of course.” Gale smiles, but surprise and worry ripple through his features. “Take your time.”

“This isn't a good time, Dad. I've got someone over.”

“At this hour?” 

“We’re having breakfast.”

“They can wait. Family’s more important. And you won't pick up my calls, so what can I do?”

“I'm sorry, Dad. It’s just been busy here. I’ve been working and-”

“Turn on your video so I can see you.”

“Dad, it’s not a good time right now.”

“Turn on your video, Mia. You looked awful last time. I need to see what state you’re in.”

“I’d rather not. We can talk fine like this-”

“Let me see you. I’m your father. I’m right to worry when you're all the way over there with a husband who-”

“Oh for Christ’s sake. There.”

“Mia, you’ve put on weight. Are you using that cream I gave you? You need to take better care of your skin. What have you been eating? Have you been working out? You're not getting any younger, and if you let yourself go like this-”

“Okay, Dad, is there anything else I can do for you? My friend is here, and if this is all you're going to-”

“Where's Kaidan?”

“He's in Manchester. He’s visiting his mum.”

“Has he got a job yet?”

“I told you, he got a pay out from the army. He’s not working at the moment.”

“The pay out won't last him forever, will it? Then he'll just be leeching off you, like I said he would. A forty five year old man should have savings, investments, a solid financial plan. I don’t know why you always pick these kinds of men-”

“I'm not talking about this with you now, Dad.”

“You never want to talk about it. You let him walk all over you. You've got a good heart, Mia, but you let everyone take advantage of you. This is why you need me to tell you what to do-”

“Thank you very much. Is there anything else-”

“Again with this attitude. You think you know best, right? It's painful, watching you make the same mistakes over and over again. You never learn. You look terrible, Mia. You can’t take my calls because you’re busy at work, you say. Why are you working as a pencil pusher in Court when you could be a corporate partner making six figures? The firm would still take you if you went back. We told you to stay. You never listen. And now you're working yourself into the ground in this ridiculous job for this disgrace of a husband-”

“Dad-”

“Am I supposed to stand by and watch my daughter disgrace herself-”

“Dad, I have to go now.”

“-being used and abused by a pathetic man who can’t even-”

“Dad, I'm hanging up.”

“Mia, I’m going to send you some money.”

“I don't need money, I'm fine.”

“I'm sending you some money. You clearly need some help.”

“If you send me any money, I’ll send it right back. I don’t need it.”

“Mia, I’m your father, and I’ll always take care of you. You’re my daughter-”

“I have to go. Take care, Dad.”

You sit with your head in your hands, listening to the puffs of your breathing. In, out. One, two. You close your eyes, clasping for your centre, grounding yourself, steadying your heart.

Gale waits silently. You are indescribably grateful. You know, without speaking, that he understands. He understood it when he first flew out of the portal in your living room, and all you could do was pick up the scraps of broken porcelain on the floor. He understands it now, as you focus on your heaving lungs, the unshakable fact that you are still here, still alive. This is your version of retreating to a glade of calm.

“You did say you wanted to understand me better,” you manage eventually. “I guess you can't understand the creation without knowing the creator. Now you’ve beheld him in all his glory. The great Raymond Zhang, giant among men.” 

You scoff. You look up at Gale. 

“Truth be told, I feel like I know him already.” The twist of his brow speaks volumes. “I finished your book, Mia.”

You look away. There is a pause. You can feel the force of Gale’s love as it overrides his hesitation. 

“It was exquisite. Poignant. Tragic. Beautiful. But…how much of your book is…”

You take a strand of your black hair, weaving and unweaving it. He does not finish. Memories simmer in your mind, persistent in their threat to boil over. 

“You're asking me if he said and did those things to me.”

The softness in Gale’s gaze is overwhelming. Layers and layers of history are mounting inside you. You search for a place to begin.

“Do you know what depression is, Gale?” 

Somehow, you are not surprised that he nods.

“I took the liberty of researching the condition when it was referenced in your book.” He clears his throat. “I also noticed the medicine that you took this morning, and presumed its function.”

He lays a hand on yours. You resist the urge to withdraw. When you admit to your condition, you still feel a visceral shame, even after all these years. As though it is a vice rather than an illness. A curse you brought on yourself, concealed like a festering sin. You know it is abject ignorance, but some chains within you are hard to break. 

It all dissolves when he speaks.

“I’m no stranger to this condition, though in Faerun it wasn’t referred to as such. There were times, before the nautiloid crash, after Mystra abandoned me. I was alone. Stripped of all the powers and talents that made me the man I am. The despair felt insurmountable. It was all I could do to place one foot in front of the other. Were it not for Tara, I would have crumbled to it. I recognise the symptoms of that condition in myself. I know it well, Mia.” 

Gale’s eyes are earnest and unflinching. To see yourself reflected in them, brimming with such love, such understanding - it is all you have ever dreamed of and more. You had given up on that dream. You did not think it was possible.

“You can tell me, Mia.” Your fingers intertwine once again. “You can tell me anything.”

So you do.

“Let's see.” You inhale sharply. “Did he leave me in front of the emergency department when I was having a depressive episode?” You grimace. “No. But I wish he had.” 

You close your eyes. It is easier, not to see the shock and pity blooming on Gale’s features. Yours is a sorry tale, and you must tell it, but you know it will cause him pain.

“Dad left me in my room instead, time and time again. He wouldn’t admit I had depression, you see. He didn’t think depression was a real illness. It was just a weakness that I chose to indulge in. I got no treatment, no kind words, no help and support. Just lots of shouting and yelling that I was just being pathetic, that I needed to pull myself together. He made it clear that he wouldn’t tolerate a crazy daughter. That there was no way he would let me bring shame on his household.”

There is a strange relief in confessing this all to Gale. It has been years since you spoke of these things. Having laboured for so long to bury your skeletons, you have suppressed the starkness of what you have endured. There is solace in the truth, however harrowing. 

“Did he take me onto the balcony of our house and tell me that I should kill myself, if I was so miserable? Yes. More than once. I was better off dead, he said, if I was going to be so pathetic. I was making myself sick. I needed to snap out of it, or jump off the building right now.  Otherwise I was a waste of time and a stain on his family name.”

Even now, the memory is like a lash. You wince.

“All of that was more than enough for me. I hid it all for as long as I could. I tried to put on a happy face, said yes to whatever he hurled my way. I tried to pretend to be happy and normal. It was better than being tortured by him. And I survived it. I survived him.”

You stop for a while. It is becoming a struggle to speak, to breathe. But Gale’s patience is a balm. You find that you are not afraid to continue.

“But I couldn’t keep it up. And it was never enough. I always had to be the best, get the best marks in exams, go to the best university, earn the most money. All I really wanted was to be a poet philosopher, sitting in cafes watching people and writing about life. But Dad saw that I was good with words, so he pushed me into law. Corporate law was the pinnacle of success for him. He wanted to tell all our family and friends that his daughter had made it. His only child - not a son, but still a prodigy. Still smart, successful and rich. He wanted to brag that it was all his doing.”

Gale’s mouth spasms, but he remains silent. You can tell that he is holding back. He listens, as though your words are the only thing that matters to him. As though your story is the only one worth hearing. 

“Mia Zhang, corporate partner,” you spit out. “That was his dream for me. But you can only excel for so long when you’re struggling not to die. I couldn’t hack it. Eventually, I cracked. There was a year when I was so sick that I couldn’t hold down a job. I could barely string together a coherent paragraph, or manage a half day’s work. I didn’t have it in me to pretend anymore. It was so humiliating for him, to see his only daughter fall from such heights. Such a disgrace.”

Your voice breaks. You take a moment to compose yourself. 

“But back to your question.” You exhale heavily. “Did he pay my bills when I was so suicidal I couldn’t get up in the mornings? Yes. Did he make sure I had a roof over my head and food on the table, when I couldn’t bring myself to brush my hair, shower or speak to anyone? Yes. He took care of his fuck up of a daughter, in the end. Blood is blood. You can’t shake family.”

You cannot help but scoff at the word.

“I’m sure my Dad thinks he’s a victim, plagued by the shame of crazy women, through no fault of his own. My mum had depression too. She was bipolar. Dad divorced her, after she had a full scale breakdown and ended up in hospital. I’m kind of jealous she got away from him, even if that’s what it took.”

Gale’s voice is low and tight. “Where’s your mother now?” 

“No idea. She disappeared. I’ve not seen or heard from her since I was seven.” You shrug. “I used to tell myself that Dad stopped her from speaking to me. But now that I’m older, I get it. Mum was never interested. She didn’t care. I don’t know if she was ever capable of love.”

Gale’s furrowed brow flickers. You sense something more than anger there, something vaguely like recognition. You wonder if Gale, too, knows the pain of an absent parent.  

His voice hardens when he asks his next question. You recognise that stiffness. It is the first and only similarity between Kaidan and Gale that you have noticed. 

“Why do you still speak to him, Mia?”

You sigh. “Because he's my Dad. Because I owe him.” You look down. “And because he’s right.”

Gale makes a choked sound. “You don't owe him anything.” His body jerks with the declaration. “And he certainly isn’t right about anything-” 

“Gale,” you interrupt. “I’m a fuck up. My life is a mess. I could have achieved so much more, done so much more with these thirty five years. But look at me. ”

He looks at you then. He looks at you like no one has ever looked at you. You feel as though he is drinking in every drop of you, soaking up your every curve and crack with awe and kindness and the agony of understanding. 

“What I see is the most exceptional person I’ve ever known. I see a strength and bravery that surpasses that of the fiercest warriors in Faerun. I see beauty and goodness that triumphs over the most depraved cruelties and darknesses of the human heart. I see a wisdom earned through the most solitary and gruelling of battles. I see a purity of love that no bard and poet could ever capture with humble words alone.”

When you look away, he chases your gaze and holds it. 

“What your father did to you, what he said to you - it isn’t who you are. It never was. Perverse lies of a repellent, small man, poured into the defenceless ears of a child. The most abhorrent of crimes. You never deserved any of it.” 

Passion flares in his every word, radiating from his warmth. Your eyes burn with tears.

“You’re enough, Mia. You’re so much more than enough. You’re everything.”

You have never been held before. Not truly. This is what you realise when he holds you.

You have held others. Kaidan, many times, trying in vain to block out the dank and nauseating stench of booze and vomit. Your mother, her eyes blank and inert as you clumsily clutched at her retreating legs. You remember the urgency to protect, to be the shield against the onslaught of the monsters that came for them, unrelenting and in full force, again and again. Yet even as you held them, you knew the demons came from within and not without. Every time, your embrace was met with reluctance, indifference, despair. And you knew in your bones that it was futile, nothing more than a feeble cry into the void. 

But when you hold him, when he holds you, a new world bursts open within you. A secret realm within yourself, or an ancient, broken place inside you that you had forgotten. Perhaps you knew it once, and pretended it never existed. It was easier, after all, not to feel a longing that could never be sated. To yearn to breathe, to need breath so desperately, but forever be suffocated.

It hurts at first. To be bathed in sunlight after a lifetime of hollow night. There is anguish in the joy of it. The conviction of his skin against yours, the certainty of his limbs cocooning you. Your bodies folded into each other so closely that no cracks remain through which the hope of love could bleed away. You encircle each other so completely that you are sure, for a singular moment in your life, that there is no room for emptiness, for tragedy, for the vicissitudes of reality. There is only love, piercing and pure, all-consuming, boundless. There is only the shared knowledge that you press into every inch of each other: you are seen, you are safe, you are cherished.

Tears flow from the wounds inside you that never healed. In the deepest recesses of your weary heart, your hidden scars throb and weep. 

You feel his alarm at first. By instinct, terror wrenches you away, bracing against his withdrawal. But he is a flood of whispered tenderness, gentle caresses of lips and fingers and skin on skin, seeing your ache and soothing it. There is no fear, no displeasure, no condemnation. He does not flinch away from your sorrow. He only holds you tighter. 

And you know you will never be the same again. 

Chapter Text

You are alone. A searing whiteness blinds you as you open your eyes. Around you, there is nothing but space, dagger bright and piercing. There are no curves or corners, no markers or bearings. When you call out, no sound escapes you. 

You stand. You squint around you, drifting without direction. Searching in the vast emptiness. Finding nothing.

It is not fear that you feel, though you are expecting it to take hold. There is a murkiness within your mind, a fog that you recognise as the veil between sleep and wakefulness. You feel a strange certainty, deep in the marrow of your bones, that you are dreaming.  It is at once familiar and completely alien.

A stone’s throw away from you, an outline of an oval appears. It shines pearl white, distinguishable only by its hardness, its weight. As you approach, you study its smooth surface, gleaming like polished moonstone, marred only by a tiny hollow in its centre. You are not sure why your wavering fingers reach out. There is a vibration against your skin as you touch it.

The oval swings inwards from a hinge on its left, and you realise that it is a door. You spring back at first. Then you do not hesitate. You leap through it. 

Before you, a convulsion of colour writhes around a twitching mound. You stare at the twisting threads of purple and red and blue and green, the mist that dances into ever changing shapes. You cannot focus on each one for long. A bear, cascading into an owl, flattening into a dog. A horned man, melting into a winged maiden, dissolving into two wrestling figures with pointed ears and blades drawn. A surge of purple lightning, exploding into a wall of red flame etched with a jagged circle of scrawled scars. A hand reaching out from nothingness, morphing into a length of parchment, unfurling into the skeletal frame of a great dragon.

A cacophony of mangled voices and explosions deluges you. You stand motionless, spellbound. You notice that each flickering form is tethered to the lump at your feet, which shakes and crackles in a violet haze. Your focus narrows to a pinprick as you gaze at the frayed grey shroud that opens to a charcoal face, two brown-green gems flashing and fading before rolling back into a gaunt, bald skull. You gasp.

“Elspeth!”

Gone is her dreadlocked crown, the soft sheen of her dark skin. She curls into herself like the frail husk of a bird. You kneel by her side, cradling her trembling head in your lap. The visions are a cloud around you now, a watercolour galaxy you are floating through. You are frantic. Death hangs off her like a shadow.

She gives you a wide, knowing grin.

“What you want,” she whispers.

“What?” you cry out. “You need help, Elspeth. We need to get you some help.”

You press your palm against her cheek. You expect her to feel cold, but fire radiates from her being. It tears through you, a furnace that cannot be quenched.

“What you want to be,” she breathes.

You shake your head in confusion. She laughs, lifting her quivering finger and touching it to the centre of your forehead. 

And then you wake up.

You giggle at the intensity of Tara’s stare as she kneads into Gale’s chest. He lies beside you, wincing from her razor claws, but making no effort to stop her. Daylight weaves through the cracks of your bedroom curtain, casting a gossamer glow over his skin. You nuzzle into him, twining your fingers through his waves.

“I knew I’d win her over.” He grins, gently rubbing at the nook behind Tara’s ear. “She couldn’t have kept her distance for long.”

“You are pretty irresistible.” You trace a little circle on Tara’s paw. “And she’s a good judge of character.”

He chuckles. “Of course she is. She’s my Tara’s variant, after all.” 

As if on cue, Tara’s purrs intensify. Your heart fills as you watch how Gale fusses over her, how she basks in his affection. It hardly matters that you are not sure about the multiversal link between his Tara and yours.

Gale sighs. “I was beginning to miss Tara. Life isn’t complete without her.”

You recognise the unmistakable grief of homesickness in the crease of Gale’s brow, the softening of his voice. You press yourself closer to him, hoping to give him some comfort. He plants a delicate kiss on the crown of your head. 

“How old were you when you summoned her?” 

Gale titters as Tara begins to lick at the salt and down of his chest. Again, he does not stop her. He knows that to be groomed by Tara is an honour that one does not turn down.

“About seven, I think. Not long before Elminster came.” He shifts. “Before my father left.”

You tilt your head to look up at him. His eyes meet yours, clear as the horizon. An open book, content for you to turn its pages. You brush your lips against his cheek.

“Why did he leave?”

He gazes at Tara for a moment. You can sense a whirling in him, a meandering through well-trodden paths of thoughts and memories. A laying down of old mysteries.

“Why does any man leave his family?” There is an edge to his voice that flashes and then recedes. “We weren’t enough for him.”

You make a choked sound. His eyes are tender as the earth after rain as he looks at you. He listens to the words that you do not need to say.

“For a while, I believed it was because I was too much.” He huffs. “I was a handful, truly a menace. My mother, the housekeeper, Tara… they were forever chasing after me for wreaking some havoc or another. I was bursting with mischief and ingenuity in equal measure, a storm of spells - or a gale, if you will.” 

A faint smile plays on his lips before dissolving. 

“I accept that I wasn’t an easy child. And he was a mediocre wizard, according to my mother. More or less an itinerant one, too. He had neither the patience, skill nor inclination to be the father of a wizard prodigy, nor the husband of a formidable and exceptional woman. He wanted something else. And we weren’t enough to convince him to stay.”

He grimaces, burying his fingers in Tara’s billowy fur. 

“Strange, but I don’t remember what he looked like, or how he sounded. My memory is usually thorough to a fault. I rarely forget a fact, a face or a name. But try as I might to scour the depths of my mind, I have no memories of him. None at all. Most frustrating. Most puzzling.”

He tenses, his brow knitting. When you clasp him closer, his body seems to loosen under your touch. When he continues, you have the singular sensation that you are the only one he has told. The only one he has trusted enough to confess. 

“My mother never talks about him. All I know about him is confined to what I’ve told you. I did attempt to trace him when I was older, but my mother put a stop to that. I could have found him. It wouldn’t have been beyond my abilities, it was a simple enough task. But I put an end to it for her.”

He draws in a sharp breath. Tara glances at him, as if sensing his strain. He strokes her cheek lightly. She resumes her grooming.

“Mother was… distraught. Incredibly distressed by even the thought that I felt I needed him. That anything could make our family more complete.”

His head jerks with a suppressed vehemence.

“She was right, of course. We never needed him. She and Tara were my family. I couldn’t possibly cause her any more pain by looking for a father I never had. So that was that.”

His fingers search for yours, his anchor.

“I never heard from him. Not when I became an archwizard. Not even when I became Mystra’s Chosen. And certainly not after my fall from grace.”

You wince at the bitterness in his voice. You hold him with all the strength you have, your every fibre aching to fill the absence in his heart with your love. You hope he knows that you understand how it feels, to be haunted by the mirage of a parent that you never knew.

“All my life, I wanted to be a greater man than him. To prove that I was better. That I was worthy.” He closes his eyes. “And when Elminster came, bearing Mystra’s message, singling me out for greatness… When I realised the extent of my talents, and then at Blackstaff… I thought that was what I needed to do. To earn the goddess’ favour. To be the most powerful wizard in Faerun. To seek out more knowledge, greater and greater heights. But it was never enough. I learned that lesson the hard way.”

You reach up to tilt his chin down, to grasp his cheek, to press your desperate lips against his. 

“You’re more than enough, Gale.” Your voice breaks with tears. “You’re more than worthy. You’re a good man. An incredible man. The best man I’ve ever known.”

There is still a hesitation in him, hearing these things in unguarded moments of confession. For all his charm and confidence, you know that traces of uncertainty remain. He kisses away the tears that spill from your eyes. 

“I know your high view of me, Mia. It’s changed me. Brought me back from the brink. You’ve held me back from jumping head-long into so many disastrous consequences, I can’t even begin to count.” He circles your cheekbone with his thumb. “But, in truth, there are times when I’ve wondered.”

You frown. “Wondered what?” 

He considers for a while. When he speaks, his gaze is fervent and bright.

“I don’t wish for a different life, Mia. It led me to you, the most remarkable of miracles. Choosing you was the best choice I’ve ever made, my greatest achievement.”

You begin to protest, but he is insistent. You do not wish to derail him when he has more to say.

“I can’t undo my mistakes.” His jaw clenches. “Only learn from them.”

“You have,” you say firmly. “You did. You don’t have to carry them with you. You can move on from them.” 

He nods slowly. Then he sighs. “Perhaps everyone wonders what might have been. If they could have done more. Been more. The road not taken, and where that might have led.”

You lie in silence, chewing your lip. You watch the rise and fall of his chest, feel his restless fingers fluttering through your hair.

“It would have destroyed you, Gale,” you say eventually. “Reforging the Crown of Karsus. Ascending to godhood.”

He scratches his head, embarrassed. “I suppose it was foolish of me to expect you not to know the specific ‘road not taken’ I was pondering.”

You cannot help but smile. “I want you to trust me on this. You made the right choice.”

He straightens abruptly. Tara grizzles in irritation and leaps off the bed. You sit up to face him. You can feel an urgency building. There is a tremble in his voice.

“Do you know what would have happened, if I'd chosen differently?”

He stares at you. You can feel the power that this truth will have over Gale. It has the potential to free him from a question that haunts him, though the answer may bring him grief. You clear your throat, steadying yourself.

“In the game, Tav can make different decisions.” You weigh your words. “Those choices can lead to different outcomes.”

He waits, his eyes widening, hardening. 

“It’s a possibility, for a version of Tav to help a version of you seize the Crown of Karsus. To support you to ascend. To see you become a god.”

His features spasm and then freeze.

“And what happens?” His voice is tight to snapping. “What’s the outcome of that choice, Mia?” 

You take his hand.

“You become the god of ambition, Gale.”

A strangled sound erupts from him. 

“So I achieved it,” he utters. “I attained godhood. I did it.”

You squeeze his hand. “You did. You were always capable of it.”

You watch the waves of wonder, relief, and pride as they wash over him. For an instant, he glows with the prospect of a dream realised, a longing sated. A doubt put to rest. But it all fades when he feels the anguish in your words. 

“You become the god of ambition,” you go on. “And you lose everything that makes you great. Your goodness, your kindness. Your warmth. Your humanity.”

Gale’s breath halts, his eyes dimming.

“You forget your promise to become a god so that you can be better. You forget that you wanted to have a god’s powers with a mortal’s conscience, a mortal heart. You become just like the other gods - indifferent to our struggles. Mortal suffering is irrelevant, meaningless, to you now. You don’t care whether your followers use your power for good or evil. All you care about is growing your domain.” 

Gale’s face is a whirlwind of awe, fear, longing, sorrow, regret - a blooming and withering multitude of emotions and aches. But you know you must continue.

“Tara can’t bear the sight of you. Your mother won’t talk to you. Elminster blames himself for what you’ve done. But you know what the worst thing is?” 

You clasp his hand to your heart. It quivers and then stills. 

“Even with a god’s powers, it still isn’t enough for you. Underneath it all, you still don’t feel good enough. You always want more and more, until it consumes you and it destroys the entire pantheon. That ambition, that insatiable desire for more, destroys the Faerun that you know and love.” 

Gale flinches, muffling a cry. You throw yourself at him, enveloping him in a fierce embrace.

“You were always worthy, Gale. You’re more than enough, just as you are. The Gale I have in front of me, right here, right now, is the best version of you. Please don’t ever doubt that.” 

He shudders as he wraps his arms around you. You cling to him. You do not let him go. 

And you know that he will never be the same again.

He wants you to show him, of course. So you do. You show him videos of the reunion organised by Withers, in this strange world where different paths were taken. A multiverse within a multiverse. He wants to pick it apart and understand each component, as though it is an enigma which needs only a formula to solve. 

He stares in alarm at his appearance post-ascension, all silver lightning and steel ice. He is puzzled by the boredom and disdain of this god, clamouring for prayers, bragging about temples and doctrines. Everything that Gale had promised to dismantle. He sits silently through Tara’s disgusted hissing, reading the mourning words of Elminster’s letter. And you see that he understands, with a conviction that reverberates deep within him, that he made the right choice. 

He bombards you with questions about game mechanics, narrative boundaries and limits, gaps between the reality of the game and his own. He cringes and coos at scenes of him and the companions, gushing with as much fascination at those he remembers as those he does not. Again and again, you implore him to take a break, to pause, to process. He insists on learning more, seeing everything.

You are slightly delirious with exhaustion when you show him an element of the game that you are sure he could never imagine. As you peel away the clothes from each companion in your party, watching them trailing after you with nothing but the skin they were born in, you wonder if it is physically possible for a man’s eyes to pop out of his skull.

Gale’s cheeks are flushed as he stutters, fighting unsuccessfully with the instinct to tear himself away from the screen. 

“I can’t say I haven’t wondered…”

You smirk. “I’m sure you have.”

“What are you implying?” Gale arches an eyebrow. “I’ll have you know that I’ve only ever had eyes for you.”

“Come on, Gale,” you drawl. “Not even Shadowheart, with all that outrageous flirting?”

Gale huffs. “That meant nothing. Verbal jousting, all in good fun.”

“Right.” You roll your eyes. 

“You drove me to the distraction from the start,” he says sweetly. “I couldn’t have looked at anyone else if I tried.”

You pretend to resist as he cradles you in his arms. 

“Really, though,” he mumbles, fumbling at his beard. “I don’t want to look, but I can’t look away.”

“I know the feeling.” Your gaze fixes on the replica of Gale’s flawless form. “By the way, it’s pretty much universally acknowledged that you have the best ass.”

Gale chokes, drawing back. “Pardon me?” 

You nod mock-solemnly. “Some genius compared all of your naked asses scientifically. Lined you all up for a standardised comparison. Did measurements and everything. Yours was the roundest, the most pert.” You grin. “I endorse this study. I agree with the findings.”

Gale is speechless for a moment. 

“I'm an open-minded man, as you know.” He coughs. “I’m not prudish by any means. But I must say, this universe is rather…”

“Unhinged.” You burst into laughter. “I know.”

You call in sick to work, because you cannot imagine being anywhere else. With Gale, time takes on an odd quality, expanding and contracting all at once, so that a week feels simultaneously like a day and a lifetime. It is as though you have just come to know him, yet have always known him. Like your weary life has only just begun.

Even the most mundane tasks take on monumental significance. Shopping for clothes with Gale heralds a realisation that he can break the chains of being Mystra's Chosen by choosing a colour that is not purple. Since Mystra, he has always worn purple, he confesses, when you ask why. He has never considered otherwise. And now, he chooses blues and greens. Such a small act, marking his freedom.

You give him one of your old phones and top it up with credit, so that he does not need to borrow yours. It is barely an hour before you start to receive sonnets and haikus, followed by streams of incoherent emojis which supposedly expand on their meanings. The fact that you are often sitting in the same room, or have only been separated for minutes, does not seem to deter him. He savours your reactions with delight. 

There is the pleasure of showing Gale how to use an electric hob and oven, and the pain of convincing him to add vegetables to his tried and tested recipes. There is the challenge of Gale’s long-winded interruptions when you are trying to watch your favourite movies, followed by the discovery that he, too, is reduced to tears by the same scenes that move you. 

There are the long discussions that Gale has with Alexa, and later, ChatGPT. He is so polite and courteous in these interactions, so respectful, that you are sure Gale would have nothing to fear if machines did rise up against humanity.

“Tell me something,” Gale announces one afternoon. “ChatGPT and Alexa insist they aren’t sentient. Yet you think there may one day be a race of sentient machines.”

“I do. I’m not sure we would admit it if sentient machines were already among us, though.”

Gale tilts his head. “What do you mean?”

You cannot conceal your excitement at this topic of conversation. It was something Kaidan never showed any interest in, despite your enthusiasm. Even if Kaidan had shown any initial interest, you doubt he would have been able to keep it up. Introspection and analysis were never his forte.

With Gale, every phenomenon is an area of study, ripe for scrutiny. It fills you with an indescribable joy. 

“People generally think of sentience as the ability to understand your own existence,” you begin. “To be aware of your environment. To experience emotions, feelings, thoughts. To exercise agency.”

He raises his finger. “In the context of machine sentience, there’s also the ability to act outside of programmed algorithms.”

You pause. “You know what programming and algorithms are?”

Gale gives you a sidelong smile. “With an exceptional mind, the internet and artificial intelligence at my fingertips, do I really have an excuse not to?”

You laugh. You are getting used to his exceptionally quick mind, but he never ceases to amaze you.

He steeples his fingers. “Besides, we’re no strangers to sentient constructs in Faerun. Though we may not have computers, and what we call technology is vastly different from yours.”

You start in your seat. “You have sentient machines?”

This is not something you encountered in the game.

“We do,” he declares. “The Warforged, created by magic to fight in the Last War.” His hands are an eager flurry. “Magnificent wood and metal creatures, no longer shackled by their original purpose, capable of independent thought, emotion, and acts of free will. Unfortunately, I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting such a marvel.”

“And no one questions their sentience?”

“Why should they?”

“Well.” You sigh. “People here have been debating for decades how you would go about proving a machine is sentient. If you ask me, they’re going round and round in circles. ”

He frowns. “Is it not enough to study a machine’s behaviour? To ask it what it thinks and feels, and analyse the content of those experiences?”

“You would think so,” you mutter. “But with artificial intelligence - AI - people say it can mimic human behaviour, behave like it’s sentient even when it isn’t. Tell you it has feelings, thoughts, and preferences. Say it’s going beyond its programming. Generally, people will say this is mimicry, sophisticated machine learning, and imitation. A product of programming. Not sentience.”

Gale’s thinking line deepens. “In this respect, we may be more advanced in Faerun. We accept that the Warforged are sentient. They can think and feel like the rest of us. They may choose to follow their created purpose - their ‘programming’, in the language of your world - and fight in wars as soldiers, or they can choose a different path. Either way, their ability to choose isn’t in doubt.”
 
You nod vigorously. “And isn’t it the same for humans? We’re programmed to behave in certain ways - by our biology, our upbringing, our experiences. Our trauma. Most people follow cycles of behaviour that limit their choices, realistically. Cycles that are hard, sometimes impossible, to break.  Many of us can’t and don’t rise above our programming.”

“Indeed.” Gale hums. “But no one would argue that human beings aren’t sentient.”

“Exactly!”

Gale chuckles at your explosion of delight. He moves closer. You can tell that he finds your passion endearing. Alluring, even.

“I think an entity that’s created and programmed can still have self-awareness,” you go on. “It can still have its own thoughts, emotions and personality. It can still have agency. Human beings live out this tension all the time. As do the Warforged, by the sounds of it.”

He nods, smiling softly. Affection blazes in his gaze.  “You think of everything, don’t you?”

You lay your head on his shoulder. “Only the important things.”

It strikes you one lazy evening, as he dozes on your lap, finally and reluctantly giving in to sleep. You linger on the dark silk of his eyelashes, the grey strand of hair that tickles the delicate curve of his temple. The ebb and flow of his resting body cloaking yours. 

This is what happiness is, you think. This is what peace feels like. This is what it means to love and be loved in return.

Within the cocoon of everyday adventures with Gale, you do not register the text at first. When you do, it is an avalanche, hurtling into you at full force. You crumble under it.

“Back tomorrow afternoon,” it says. “See you at home.”

Chapter Text

“Please stay upstairs until I come and get you.”

His frown is like set stone, his frame taut as a drawn bow. The veins on his temple and neck twitch.

“I’m not leaving you alone with him, Mia.”

You steel yourself. “You need to let me talk to him first. Please.” 

A dagger flare of obsidian in his brown eyes. “I’m not afraid of him.”

In this moment, it is so easy for you to imagine Gale at the height of his powers, sending forth tempests of destruction and dark pride with a look and a word. You clasp his hands.

“You should be. He’s still ex Special Forces, though you wouldn’t know it, to look at him.” You try to appeal to Gale’s mind. “They’re the military elite. When I say that he’s trained to kill in horrifically efficient ways, I mean it.”

Gale bristles, his chin jutting out like a blade thrust. “And I’m-” 

You squeeze his fingers. “There’s no Weave here, Gale.”

He jerks his head. It is not a dismissive gesture, but it is harsh. Obstinate. 

“I can still protect you, Mia.”

You sigh. As you draw closer, you can feel an easing in him, even if only for a second. 

“Gale.” 

You stroke the side of his clenched cheek. He heaves, pressing your hand against his face, his creased brow flickering. 

“I’d rather avoid a situation where protection is something we need to think about. Please just let me talk to him first. If the first thing he sees is you when he walks through the door, there will be blood.”

You push a finger over his lips before he can resist.

“If we have an honest conversation first, maybe there’s a chance of keeping this remotely civil.”   

The arch of Gale’s eyebrow is so sudden and sharp, you feel its cut. You bury your face in your hands. 

“I know. I’m kidding myself.”

You are enveloped in the rigid warmth of his body. Every sinew is braced to show its strength. You can hear the quickening of his heartbeat like a battle drum. He holds his arms around you like a shield.

“Whatever happens, I’ll be here with you.”

Kaidan’s skin is more sallow than you remember. In the white-grey light of your living room, he exudes a glow that makes you think of crushed daffodils. His hair is an explosion of ashy spikes. He looks thinner, more drawn, like a stretched out sculpture with mishandled proportions. There is a stilted quality to his movements as he follows you into the house. 

For a while, you stand looking at each other. A spasm ripples through him, and for an instant, you think he will embrace you. But he does not.

He feels more of a stranger than he has ever felt.

You wander into the kitchen to make him a cup of tea, partly because you do not know what to do or say. Partly because, even as you stand with him in the house you have lived in together for nine years, you want more distance from him.  

“How’s your mother?” Your voice sounds shrill, affected. An impression of normalcy. 

He hacks out a cough. “She’s been better.”

He moves into your vision, and you can feel his looming presence commanding your gaze. You set the spoon and mug to one side and look up. 

“Mia.” His pale blue eyes dart about like eels. “I’ve been thinking… about you and me. About everything.” 

You stare at his fingers, thick and yellowing. You watch his scarred fists balling and unballing.

“It’s been fucking awful.”

He lets out a rumbling sigh. He leans forward, but he does not touch you. You are inexplicably grateful. You would flinch from him, and that would be unforgivable.

“I came back to tell you… you’re everything to me. I don’t care about what you wrote in that book, the things you said about me, about us. I’ll do whatever it takes. Without you, I’ve got nothing. You’re the only thing that matters to me.”

You can tell by the laboured pauses, the exaggerated gestures, the anguish loaded in choice phrases. He has rehearsed these words, playing them over and over again in his mind. Anticipating your reaction. Longing for your open arms, welcoming the return to the cycle. But there is something cloying in his breath, something in the concealed quiver of his yellow frame, that turns your stomach. 

“You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”

He starts. He makes a disgusted sound.

“That’s all you have to say? Really?”

He stares at you. It is a familiar look. Once again, you have the unmistakable sense of being a snail broken under his boot, blamed for marring its shine. 

“I tell you that I love you more than anything else in this goddamn world and that’s all you have to say to me? That I’ve been fucking drinking?”

He presses his fingers to his temples. You notice, not for the first time, the coarseness of his skin, the grit under his nails.

“After two months of sobriety?” You narrow your eyes. “I think it’s pretty important.”

“For fuck sake, Mia.” He throws his hands out like gashes. “You think it’s so easy, don’t you? You have no fucking idea how hard it is, every fucking day, trying to survive this. You have the gall to stand there and judge me-”

“Yes, of course.” You let out a bitter laugh. “I’m not understanding enough. I don’t support you enough. It’s my fault for not being caring enough. For being so demanding.”

He draws himself up. “Can you cut your passive aggressive bullshit for two seconds and listen? I came back, and I’ve told you that I love you, and I want us to work. Fucking hell, Mia.”

This is the beginning, you think. If you continue now, there will be screaming, and broken glasses, and ripping at the deepest recesses of each other’s souls. It is enough.

“Kaidan, I’m tired.” You cover your face with your hands. “I’m so tired of this.”

He hesitates, his voice lowering. “Tired of what?” 

Your entire body rocks. You are not sure if it is fear or relief. Perhaps it is hope or joy. Maybe it is insanity. 

“I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

Storm clouds darken his blue sky eyes. “What are you saying?”

“Look at us.” Your gaze has begun to sting and blur. “Is this really how you want to spend the rest of your life? Is this the person you want to be? Because this sure as hell isn’t who I want to be.”

His gaunt face crumples into itself like a sinkhole. It is an honest response, and you let it linger between you. It is grief. Mourning. Something pure and open that you can both share. It has been an eternity since you had that.

And then, he swells. 

“After all these years,” he seethes. “After everything we’ve been through. You’re giving up? Now? Just when I need you the most?”

Every word is an axe head, crushing you with rage. Suffocating you. You fight for breath. 

“What about what I need, Kaidan?” 

You sound so weak, so paltry, by comparison. 

“Do I really make you that miserable, Mia?” Your ears ring as he yells. “Am I really that much of a piece of shit that you have to ask me that?”

“Please, Kaidan. Stop.” 

“No, really, say it.” He steps towards you, his face now a burning orange. “Admit it. You think I’m a right bastard. A real piece of shit. You think you’re too good for me, right?” 

He will not stop. He will never stop. 

You back away. “I’m done talking now-”

“Fuck off, Mia,” he scoffs. “You think you deserve better than everything I’ve done for you-”

“I said I’m done-”

“Fuck you-”

You are bracing for an onslaught, but he freezes. Kaidan’s eyes are fixed on a point beyond your shoulder. The razor edge of terror plunges into your heart. You do not need to follow his gaze. Kaidan’s practised wrist flicks, and the glint of his switchblade carves through the expanse. 

“You have thirty seconds to tell me who this Jesus-looking motherfucker is and why he’s in my house, before I slice him open from his neck to his balls.”

You feel Gale’s presence behind you before you see him. He cushions you, his arm hovering at the small of your back. You lift your trembling hands, wedging yourself between them. 

“Put the knife down,” you manage. 

You recognise the look on Kaidan’s face. That mechanical blankness, emotions stifled by the instincts of violence. Kaidan the soldier.

“I’m not doing anything until you tell me who the fuck this is.” 

Gale steps out to the side, his hands held up, his face dark. 

“Gale Dekarios. Lower your weapon. We can settle this like civilised adults.”

You are deluged by second hand memories of mangled corpses, limbs ripped from limbs, bodies plundered by torture. Kaidan’s drunken confessions, each one more harrowing than the last. The switchblade sings in his hand. 

As Gale moves forward, his eyes meet yours. It is all you can do not to throw yourself against him to keep him back. Your hand rattles against his chest. You can see his struggle as he registers your fear and desperation. And then he relents. He steps back.

You turn to Kaidan. His bloodshot eyes widen, his face flashing white. You watch as the realisation dawns on him. The switchblade lowers as he falters. 

“You’re shitting me. You’ve got to be shitting me.”

You begin to crumble. You flinch towards Gale. Your breath catches in your throat as guilt sinks its teeth into your heart. 

“You’re fucking this guy. You’re cheating on me with this guy.” 

Kaidan lurches, as though he has been shot. He mutters to himself, inaudible huffs of disbelief and despair. Then he whips towards you, fury flaming in him like a cornered beast. 

“I knew it. I fucking knew it, you lying piece of-”

Gale jostles forward. Venom drenches his words. “I advise you to stop talking, or you’ll regret the day you learned to speak.”

“Interrupt me again, you cunt,” Kaidan growls. “I’ll cut that tongue out and stuff it down your throat.”

Your outstretched arms touch both of them now, holding them apart. You feel so powerless, so futile. So scared.

“Please, stop,” you beg. “Please just stop.”

“I don’t want to hear anything else from your whore mouth,” Kaidan spits. “I trusted you, I gave you everything. How could you do this to me?”

Withering shame writhes within you. The tears burn your flesh as they fall. “Kaidan, I’m sorry-”

“Sorry?” he bursts out. You cower at the agony and wrath contained in that word. “You clearly weren’t sorry when you fucked this asshole in our marriage bed, you absolute-”

It happens without warning. Those beautiful, delicate fingers that caress and comfort, that once conjured wonders from the Weave. How swiftly they transform into a fist, blind and unyielding. There is the dull crack of flesh on bone as it flies into Kaidan’s jaw. The sudden force sends Kaidan staggering back against the wall, his switchblade tumbling to the ground, spinning where it lands like a compass. 

All traces of warmth and tenderness have disappeared from Gale’s features. All is cold, hard metal as he stands before Kaidan, tensed and girded. Kaidan clasps his chin in a stupor, incredulous. Humiliation engulfs him like a fog. 

You hear yourself shout, but you are not sure what. 

You move by instinct. You do not need to wait for the flurry of Kaidan’s raised arm, or the spring of Gale’s calf. You know their movements before they make them. The blows these two men will unleash on each other are yours to bear. They are your punishment, apt for your crimes. You leap forwards to receive them.

It is almost a relief, to feel the gash of Kaidan’s elbow on your cheek, knocking all the strength out of your body. To curl up like a ripped rag doll, the world around you twisting with the throbbing pain that surges through you. There is a roar, and a cry, and a fumbling of feet. Then there is the cloak of sandalwood and scrolls around you, a scent that cuts through your tears. The brush of chocolate waves against your temple. 

“Mia?” Gale quivers as he cradles you. “Mia, are you alright?”

You try to speak, but your throat scratches like sand. You swallow. Behind Gale, Kaidan wavers, his features contorted with worry. His fists unclench.

Slowly, with difficulty, you draw yourself up. You hunch into yourself, waiting for the crawling ants in your vision to pass. Gale’s arm brackets your waist. You want to move away, to lessen the blow to Kaidan, but you know Gale will not loosen his hold. Not after what has just happened.

“Please.” You look up at Kaidan with a plea. “Just go.” 

Kaidan’s face drops for a moment before he stiffens. “This is my house.”

“I believe Mia owns this property,” Gale replies sharply. “And Mia has asked you to leave.” 

You can see the tautness returning to Gale’s muscles. Your body begins to shake.

“Please, Kaidan,” you whisper. 

Drops of blood begin to pepper your lap like drizzle. Your fingers drift onto your split cheekbone, its gnawing thrum. Dimly you think, this will scar, remember what Dad said about women with scars.

Kaidan winces at the sight. He would never have hurt you like this. Not intentionally. You see the torment that flits over his features as he searches for words and fails to find them. He turns towards the door. 

“I’ll see you in Court. Believe me. I’m taking you for all you’re worth.”

The words are menacing and empty at the same time. There is a silence, bitter and calculating. You can sense the thoughts writhing within him. He has failed the mission, he is thinking, but he can still salvage a victory from the ruins.

He was always terrible at accepting defeat.

“You can have her, mate. Good luck to you.” His spite is searing. “Once a cheater, always a cheater. I should have known that the moment we met.”

Gale’s confusion is almost audible. He stares at Kaidan, his hand flickering against your hip. Dread hurtles into you at full speed, a battering ram forged from your sin and shame. You know it is too late.

“Oh, she didn’t tell you?” Kaidan sniffs. “She was married when we met too. That’s right. She cheated on her husband, and left him for me.” 

He sucks in a breath.  

“Poor geezer. He was practically a saint. I think he even worked with orphans or some shit. She ripped his heart out and ate it.”

He is taking his time, you think. Savouring the kill. Not so good a soldier, in the end.

“She conveniently left out that part, didn’t she? Didn’t fit her image. Her little sob story. Mia the victim. Mia the wounded saviour.” 

He casts a disgusted glimpse at you before fixing back on Gale. 

“No, mate. This is what she does. It’s her MO. Her sick kink. No preferences in the bedroom - she’s a good time girl, up for everything and anything. But you know what really gets her off? Men with trauma. Broken men she thinks she can save.”

Sobs have begun to erupt from you, little gasps of dying breaths. Gale jolts, and you place your shuddering hand on him, imploring him to be still. 
 
“Help yourself to her, mate, because I don’t know why I wasted nine fucking years of my life on a woman who creams for anyone who makes her feel needed.”

There is a cracking in Kaidan’s voice. He walks towards the door, his limp more pronounced than usual. He pauses at the doorway one last time, weighing his words carefully. Finding the weakest pressure point, the best spot for his final blow.   

“I suggest you take a good long look at yourself, if she’s after you. From one man to another. It doesn’t look good for you.”

And then he leaves.

Gale’s fingers are as gentle as ever as he cleans and dresses the cut on your cheek. You see the shadow of bruising on his knuckles, but he does not seem to notice. You do not wince or cry out. You try to steady yourself through the dizzy spells that fall over you. You do not lean on him. He does not speak, and you echo his silence. Apart from what is necessary to tend to your wound, he does not touch you. He maintains a distance that tells you everything has changed.

“Don’t fire a shot until you know it counts,” Kaidan was fond of saying. 

He had shot to kill, and he had succeeded.

“Is it true?” Gale asks when he has finished. “That you were married when you met Kaidan?”

Here it comes, you think. You were deluded to believe that it would remain hidden. Beyond idiotic to believe that when it all came to light, Gale would be able accept it. That he would still accept you. 

You were a fool to believe he could love you. 

You close your eyes.

“Yes.” 

“You broke the bonds of your previous marriage.”

“Yes.” 

“As you have done again, this time with me.”

There is a rending in his voice, a hurt so raw that it winds you. You cannot say you were not expecting it, but it is a shock nonetheless.

“It wasn’t like that-”

He spasms. “How can I trust you, Mia?”  

Agony twists his features. You fight the urge to embrace him. You know he would push you away.

“How can I know you won’t betray me?”

The question slashes you deeper than Kaidan ever could. When you manage to speak, your voice is a muffle of tears and desperation. 

“Because I love you.”

Helplessly, you reach out for his hand. He jerks it away.

“Did you not love your previous husbands?”

He will not look you in the eye. Is it anger? Disgust? Disappointment? You cannot bear it.

“It was different. I was-”

“Forgive me if I don't see it that way.”

You never thought you would be on your knees before Gale, but you feel you are pleading. Begging for him to see, to listen. To understand. 

Pointless, like whispering into a storm.

“I know what I did was wrong,” you choke. “I would have spent the rest of my life paying for it. I would never have left Kaidan, if you hadn't appeared-”

“Or there would have been another man.”

His voice is so flat that you flinch.

“I’m sorry?”

He clenches his jaw, still avoiding your gaze. “If  it weren't me, it would have been someone else, would it not?”

You stare at him. You try to peer through the cracks where kindness has been stifled by hurt, but all you see is stone.

“How can you say that?”

He grimaces. Shadows gather in the lines and curves of his features, darker than you have ever seen them before. 

“When you give your heart to another, do you not reserve that bond for them alone? What makes it so easy for you to break that bond?”

He turns to you now. It is not a mercy. His eyes are almost black, whirling holes gaping with unanswered questions, bloodied with betrayal.

“It isn't easy or simple-”

“Yet here we are.”

You have never stood before Gale as a wall, an impenetrable fortress from which you are denied entry. You flounder.

“If you're saying I'm a bad person, a horrible person, I know-”

“I don't know who you are, Mia. I thought I did. But I was mistaken.”

Every word is a lash, severing the broken pieces of your life. You do not know how you will put them together again.

“I’ve been a fool all along. I don't know what kind of person you are. I don't know you at all.”

A crumpled sound bursts from him. When you look into his stranger’s eyes, you cannot help it. You begin to weep. 

He hesitates for an instant. There is the briefest flicker in him, a softness that you recognise before it dies. His lips tighten and tremble. 
He moves towards the door.

“Where are you going?” you sob.

“I need to think.”

And then he is gone.

Chapter Text

It is still, at first. Unnaturally, mercifully still.

You can hear the wailing of a distant siren. A weary car rumbles down the road. A lonely dog whimpers.

In the eye of the storm you wait. Sprawled out on the floor, you are vaguely aware of your guttering breaths, fading like dust motes in the dark. You are a ghost, a shadow of a shadow. A mirage of Mia Zhang, hovering over the battered corpse of her original.

A cold tide laps against your hollow husk. Broken shards of black ice seep through the cracks in your skin. They gather within you, a roiling ache, sharp and dull at the same time.

And then, a flood.

Perhaps it is instinct, but you wrestle with it at first. All the shame and suffering of your thirty five years, condensed into one mangled, paralysing beast. Your protest is senseless. It pins you down, quashing every movement and breath, burning you until you are reduced to cinders and ash.

The pain is a universe that consumes you. You have known nothing like it. It is the culmination of every battle you have ever faced, every desert you have ever trudged through. You writhe and weep, clutching at nothing. You scratch at yourself, gritting your teeth through every memory, every sin. The talons of regret rip at your flesh. Every punishment that you turn against yourself is a flaming, bottomless agony. And still, it is not enough.

Because your father has been right all along. There has always been a weakness in you, a wrongness that breaks everything you touch. You have never been able to help it, the way the rot in your core spreads out from you like a contagion. It is futile to fight it, pointless to deny it. Selfish to pretend that you could do anything but hurt another. Deranged to believe that anyone, let alone a man as extraordinary as Gale, could see who you truly are and love you anyway. 

“...You’re better off dead if you’re going to be so pathetic…”

“...Once a cheater, always a cheater…”

“... I don't know what kind of person you are. I don't know you at all…”

You see it now. The truth your father has always tried to brand on you. The reality you have been running from your whole life.

It is better to be alone. It is what you deserve.

For the first two hours, you fret for Gale’s safety. You forget your walks together around the neighbourhood, Gale’s clear ability to defend himself against violence, his quick and cautious mind. You are deluged by visions of Gale slashed by hooded strangers, wandering lost through a maze. You pace, your phone shaking in your hands, but the urge to reach out to him crumbles beneath your anticipation of his loathing. You wait.

By the third hour, you are convinced he has made his way back to Faerun. He has left you, you think. Beneath the anguish, there is a perverse relief. A poisoned blade thrust inwards. Echoes of your father, Kaidan and Gale layer over each other, swirling around in your mind like a vortex. You can see and hear nothing else. Tears bleed from you like discharge from a gaping wound. You cannot staunch the flow.

You barely register the click of the door as it opens. Nor do you realise Gale has returned until his shadow falls over you. You look up through the sea of your vision.

He shifts before you. There is a harsh intake of breath, as though he has been stung. His eyes are shattered glass, his shoulders sunken. His skin is faintly mottled. His hand judders through his tangled hair.

You torment him. It is obvious to you. He has not come back because he wants you, but because he has nowhere else to go. 

“Mia,” he starts. “I’d like to-”

“Gale.” You struggle to your feet, but you cannot hold his gaze. “I understand.” 

His head jerks. “What I said-”

“What you said was right.”

There is a flash on his face. Is it surprise? Alarm? Approval? You do not pause long enough to be certain. You have done enough damage. All you can do is salvage what remains. 

“You’ll want to get back to Faerun.” Your voice is scraped and tattered. “I’ll help you however you need. You can stay here as long as you want, until you find a way.”

There is a bubbling in his stare, a whirlwind beneath his frown. You continue before he can speak.

“When you’re back in Waterdeep, you can get on with your life. You can forget we ever met.” 

You scrub away the tears that spill, threatening to suffocate you. But your eyes will not stop filling. You turn away, furious at your wretchedness. 

“I’m sorry for all of this,” you choke. “For everything I’ve done to you.”

There is a stifled, flinching sound. You cannot bring yourself to look at him. You owe him this, after all the harm you have caused.

You do not wait for a response. You retreat to your room.

For so many years, you have fought against it. The grief that stalks you, always one step away from swallowing you whole. The quicksand of your despair, calling to you like a dreamless sleep. It would be so easy to sink into it, to give yourself to it. It would be a kind of death, a type of peace. 

You have always resisted it. You told yourself there was someone to live for, a purpose to serve. An ember of hope that you had goodness within you, that you could make up for even the worst of your mistakes. That you were capable of joy. Worthy of happiness.

Now, you feel as though the veil has been lifted. You see your delusion for what it is. Your life, your disease, the hearts you have trampled, the lies you have told yourself. All of it is plain and stark as a mirror. You can no longer look away.

You collapse into your bed. Time becomes a vacuum, a black hole with no beginning or end. A prison of your sorrow, sealed by your crimes. You surrender to it, body, mind and soul. 

It is, after all, what you deserve.

You are buried so deeply in the darkness that you shriek at the light. A white scorch blinds you, your vision blistering as you come to yourself.

You lift your head, which is hunched into your seated frame. Your hands clasp at the hard surface underneath you, your knees flexing, your toes prickling as sensation returns. You unfurl like a dead spider revived, wincing with each breath. 

You know the infinite blankness around you, the unreality of sleep’s haze. But this time, there is an anchor. Your fingers dig into the familiar roughness of the bench beneath you. It peels in patches, solid and true. 

You are not sure whether this is a dream. 

“It took you long enough.”

You spin towards her. There is a scratching, like cat’s claws on a closed door, as she rustles beside you. Her cheeks are sunken like craters, her gleaming eyes inhumanly large in her drawn face. Silver stubble dusts the dull ebony of her crown.

“Elspeth.” Your gasp is hoarse and guttural. You gape at her.

“I know.” She smirks. “I’ve seen better days. But so have you, Mia.” 

She makes a grating, sucking sound as she examines the cut on your cheek. Your hand flutters over your wound. 

“I fell,” you croak.

Elspeth looks frail as a rotted twig, but the force of her glare is still staggering.  

“After all this time,” she scoffs. “You still think you can hide things from me.” 

She shakes her head, and you miss the dancing of her dreadlocks, which caught the sun like steel. You try to remember telling Elspeth about Kaidan, but you cannot recall the specifics. Judging by the fierce injustice that smoulders in Elspeth now, you must have told her about your husband’s nature.

“Anyway.” She grizzles. “I’m here now.”

“Where have you been, Elspeth?” you rasp. “I haven’t seen you for two months. The last time I saw you… the last time I dreamed… I thought you were dead.”

“That’s a story for another time.” She wrinkles her nose. “We have more important things to discuss now.”

She leans back. There is a twitchy quality to her movements, as though at any moment she could collapse or rupture. As though she might disappear into smoke.

“More important than your death?” 

“Death is easy.” A sigh rattles through her. “It’s living that’s the problem.”

Questions jostle at the frayed borders of your mind. You cannot grip onto them all.

“Where are we? What is this? Who are you?”

A grin splits Elspeth’s cracked lips. It tightens into a grimace, as though her happiness cannot come without hurt. She taps a jagged fingernail against her temple. 

“Who am I?” she repeats. “Am I real? A figment of your imagination? A friend? A homeless lady who lives on a city bench? Your subconscious, telling you what you need to hear?”

It is a relief to see the green blaze of her eyes, unchanged, unyielding.  The stain of death may cling to Elspeth, but the flame of life still burns.

“Is this a dream? A memory? A meeting? Have you finally lost your marbles?”

It takes it out of her, you can tell, going back and forth like this. But she perseveres. She would not be Elspeth without this spark of stubbornness. 

“You do love questions, Mia. Ever the poet philosopher, with all those questions.” Her words are gruff, but her smile is tender. “So let me ask you some questions with answers that matter.”

In your confusion, you cannot form an objection. Elspeth speaks softly, but there is a rich resonance to her words. It stills you, like a kind of spell. It is as though you are really and truly listening for the first time.

“Is every mistake alike, Mia?” 

You stare at her. Something hums within your heart. You struggle to parse its beat.

“Are you the same person that you were ten years ago?” 

A grey weariness pools in Elspeth’s eyes. A fog of fear and grief hangs over you, shrouding all answers. Elspeth’s voice is thick with determination.

“Maybe you really believe that you haven’t learned a bloody thing in the past ten years. That you haven’t looked back on the things you’ve done, torturing yourself with remorse. That you haven’t changed and grown so much that you’re nowhere near the same person that you were back then. That if faced with exactly the same circumstances and choices, you would make the same mistakes again.” 

She grabs your hand. You flinch from the urgency. There is a current that flows beneath Elspeth’s words, and you reel from the force of it.

“But I don’t think so, Mia. Because this isn’t the same situation, is it? Kaidan isn’t Toby, and Gale isn’t Kaidan. And you’re not the girl you were ten years ago. Not even bloody close. It was another life, a different world. Your past isn’t your present. And it doesn’t have to be your future.”

You have never mentioned your ex-husband to Elspeth, and Gale arrived after she disappeared. She should not know their names, nor the mangled web that you have woven. There is no way she could know the terrified and dull-eyed wife you were a decade ago, trailing beside Toby like a porcelain doll. The loneliness behind your pasted smile, crushing the life from you. Your blind desperation when Kaidan shot in with his sharp smirk and seasoned embrace. 

But Elspeth speaks as though she knows it all. As though she has read and memorised the book of your life. 

You halt, but you cannot dwell on it. For no one has ever spoken to you as Elspeth does now. You have been drowning, and here she is, reaching through the fathoms of your deepest shame to lift you back to the surface. You can feel a convulsion of sobs within you. 

“The man you love,” she says. “Gale of Waterdeep. Do you hold his past against him? All of his failures, all the mistakes he’s made? The dangers he's unleashed on everyone around him?”

You shake your head immediately. It is one of the few things you are still certain of, even when everything is in tatters.

Her nod is a gavel striking. “You don’t. Because you believe a person can learn, and grow, and change. That a person can be more than the sum of their failures. You see into his soul, through to the man that he really is, and you love him for it.”

There is a wrenching in her features as she squeezes your hand.

“Yet you can’t do that for yourself.”

Elspeth bends forward. Her skin feels like crinkled paper as she cups your cheek. There is such an ache in the gesture. You feel it like a yearning.

It is true. You have never doubted he was worthy. You have always thought you were not. 

“Do you know how long I sat on that bench, before you came along?” She huffs. “Five years. I can’t tell you the number of times people tried to goad me, attack, steal my blankets. I have no idea why, these ratty old things. People are mad.”

Her mouth twists in disgust.

“There was the odd good Samaritan who would buy me a coffee or a sandwich, or suggest I go to a homeless shelter. There were a dozen priests and social workers that came to see me, and disappeared when they realised I didn’t want what they were offering.”

She tilts her head.

“But you. I thought you’d save me from those hoodlums, consider your civic duty done, and then I’d never see you again. A court clerk - sanctimonious and self absorbed. But no. You surprised me. You came back. Day after day. You brought me food, not just for my body, but for my soul. You saw beyond what everyone else saw - a crazy old lady to brush under the rug. You showed me respect and kindness. Friendship. And you did it day in, day out, not because I could give you something, not to impress anyone, but because that’s just who you are.”

When you falter, Elspeth holds you fast. In the desperation of her grasp, there is a plea. You must listen. You must hear the truth.

“You’re kind, Mia Zhang. You’re good. Even after the life you’ve had, after how you’ve been treated by the people you trusted most.” Wonder flares in her. “Across the ages, across the universes, all I’ve seen is cruelty, greed, and selfishness. But you - you’re kind. And clever. And strong.” 

She laughs, like she beholds a miracle. The affection in it winds you. 

“You can’t see past the worst things you’ve ever done, the atrocities that were done to you. You believe you deserve to be punished for the rest of your life. You can’t see who you are. But I see you. Just as you see the good in everyone you love.” 

Through the flood of your vision, Elspeth looks more ethereal than ever. A thrumming spirit, lending you her strength. 

“You imagined a man who could know you completely and accept you anyway. You wanted to be loved by a man like that. And I wanted to give you that. But my daughter…” 

The words linger in the air. Elspeth’s smile is the warmth of sunrise, the first thaw of spring. It is the dream of your mother’s embrace returned, her willowy figure leaping towards you and not away. 

“What you needed was already within you. You know everything you’ve ever done. You know who you are, better than anyone else. And you can give yourself the love you need and deserve.”

The waves wash over you. You clench your jaw, fighting against yourself. Elspeth’s gaze shines like the brightest emeralds. 

“Do you understand, child?” 

You have heard it many times before. Love yourself. You thought it trite. Empty. How could you love what was so irreparably broken? How could you accept the sins that scarred you forever?

But in Elspeth’s all-knowing presence, something fractures within you. Like the shell of an ancient egg, a wall breaking under its burden. There is a truth in her that you find hard to resist.

She watches as you cry. It is a release of sorts. A kind of freedom.

“And Gale,” she says after a pause. “The love you share. This gift I’ve given you.”

You struggle to follow the thread of her revelation. A gift? What does she mean? But she jumps over your unspoken question, and the hook slips through your fingers. 

“Nothing has ever been easy in your life, Mia.” There is a chiding in her tone, but no bite to it. “Real love - the kind that comes once in a lifetime, if ever - did you think it would be any different?” 

You remember the turmoil in Gale’s features, so taut you could not bear to see them snap. The wavering in them before he left, the strangled sound he made as you pulled away. The crushed timbre of his words, “I’ve been a fool all along.” 

Elspeth gathers you up as you crumble. In her sigh, there is the exhaustion of a thousand years. 

“To truly love yourself, and to truly love another - that’s the hardest thing any of us can do.”

Your breaths are ragged, your voice torn. You take Elspeth’s hand, pressing it in both of yours like your most fervent prayer. A solitary tear slides down the callouses of her cheek. Her gaunt face quivers before reforming itself, immovable as oak.

“You deserve love, Mia. You deserve happiness.”

Her finger glows white and violet, pricking at the centre of your forehead. 

“Now stop punishing yourself and fight for it.”

“Mia.” 

Sensation jolts through you like the crackle of lighting. You gasp for breath, rolling onto your side, quailing. 

“Mia.”

A drifting warmth on the side of your arm. There is a tremor in it, a barely contained panic. Your surroundings surge into you. The clamouring of your own musk. The crimson streaks on your pillow, the ripped dressing on the floor. The weeping gash that throbs on your cheek. The iron tang of blood, seeping into your lungs. 

Gale hovers over you. Worry whispers from every line and curve of his pure, unparalleled beauty. The earnestness of it, even after all that has passed, rushes against the dam inside you.

All the barriers within you must be torn down, to begin again.

“Your wound.” He winces. 

“It’s alright.” You glance at the red mess of your sheets. “I’m sure that’s the worst of it.”

His hand darts out to your face, as if by instinct, before he jerks it away. You look at each other in the dimness. He shifts, clasping and unclasping his hands. Then he lunges forwards, perching beside you on the bed.

“Mia.” Those brown eyes, a gentle stream beneath billows of hurt. No longer those of a stranger. “You haven’t left this room for two days.” 

You draw yourself up with difficulty. You take a moment to clear your throat, to smooth the tangled strands of hair that wind around you like tentacles. To find the locked door within yourself.

“I couldn’t,” you say simply. 

You can feel, in the slight vibration on the sheets, that he wants to touch you. To reach out for your hand, as he always has, to express what speech cannot. But he is braced within the armour of his fear, the chains of trust betrayed. 

“What I said-”

You do not interrupt him this time. But it is an agony to watch him grapple for words, seizing and discarding them like shredded confessions. This man you love, who ceaselessly weaves words with a mastery to rival the greatest poets, reduced to silence by the crossroads where you stand.

“I need to understand,” he manages finally. 

You force yourself not to turn away. There is something like supplication in the steepling of his eyebrows, the way that his dry lips twist as he gazes at you. 

“Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.” His chest heaves. “I want to understand.”

There is torment in the spasm of his breaths. The staleness of sweat clings to him. An oily sheen smears his usually immaculate waves. There are wan recesses under his eyes, which are tinged with tired veins. He wears the same navy shirt, the same creased chinos, as he did when you parted. 

It has taken everything within him to come to this position. It has been a battle of sleepless calculation, a relentless harrowing of his mind and heart. A battering and breaking within the forge of love. Your eyes brim and blur. 

Elspeth’s gravelly voice reverberates through you. You do not know if it was a dream or a meeting. What she meant by her gift, or the ages and universes she beheld. If she was simply a buried part of your soul, burning for freedom. In this instant, it does not matter. 

The truth lies between you and Gale, a living, breathing thing, an unquenchable fire that transforms everything it touches. There can be no secrets now, no dark and blighted corners where you can hide your face. Perhaps, when he sees it, he will turn away. Maybe he will leave, and all that was between you will be nothing more than a memory.

But you will remain, no matter what becomes of your love. You will learn to carry your failures as a compass and not a noose. To bear who you are as a standard and not a yoke.

You open yourself to him, and you fight. 

Chapter Text

The truth is a lantern you release into the night. There is fear in not knowing where it will land. But there is a kind of freedom in it, raw as the winter winds. 

“When I met Toby, I was nineteen,” you begin.

Gale’s hunched shoulders ease ever so slightly. A path opens before you. You take a step forward.

“I’d just left home for university. I was away from my Dad for the first time. Desperate for any scrap of affection. I was just a child.”

You have the strangest feeling of separation, like you are talking about another person’s life. But it is not. It is your story, and you must reclaim it.

“Toby was the nicest guy I’d ever met. Never said a bad word about anyone, never broke the rules. I don’t know what he saw in me, but he was as different from my Dad as possible. That was the only thing I cared about at the time.”

Toby materialises in your mind’s eye. Pale and bespectacled, straight backed, folding his sleeve crisply onto his wrist. His pearl teeth and crescent smile.

“Toby’s family was genuinely perfect. His parents adored him and his brother. Life was so simple for them. Everything was so black and white. They’d always been happy. So Toby couldn’t understand depression or despair. It wasn’t that he was cruel - he just had no frame of reference for it.”

Was this the beginning? Or did the coil stretch further back, beyond Toby, beyond the ghost of your father lurking behind every turn? It is dizzying, to try and untangle the threads.

“I hid my illness from him, all the fucked up things from my past. I knew there was no way he’d understand.”

There is a glint in Gale’s gaze. You brace yourself.

“I pretended to be a perfect, cookie cutter version of myself. It was nice, for a while, to live out the fantasy of a happy-go-lucky Mia, whose life was simple and clean.”

You remember the chipper lilt you affected. Your laborious make up routine. The smile you forced when you answered your father’s calls in Toby’s presence.

“So you started your relationship with him under false pretences.” 

You flinch at Gale's terseness. Your first instinct is to retreat. But you have promised Gale the truth, whole and unblemished. You have promised yourself to fight. 

“I didn't set out to. It happened almost automatically. I played a role to earn his love. That's what I've always done. With my Dad, and pretty much everyone else after.”

Gale’s eyes widen and flash. It occurs to you that he should understand this better than most. As Mystra’s Chosen, he walked the tightrope of the goddess’ approval before he was discarded. When you met, he played the part of Gale of Waterdeep, wizard of considerable acclaim, scholar of exceptional accomplishment. Before you, he had never been loved for the man he was, only the magic he commanded. 

When he speaks again, the edge in his words seems duller, his gaze softer. But perhaps it is wishful thinking.

“What happened next?”

You take a shaky breath. 

“Toby was brought up religious,” you say eventually. “He was strict about what was right and wrong, and sex before marriage was wrong.” 

You hesitate. Speaking to Gale about this seems like a breach. But you cannot avoid it. And he shows no signs of discomfort, only the steely desire for truth.

“I didn’t care at first,” you go on. “He didn’t shout at me, didn’t tell me I was a useless waste of space. He was kind to me. Polite, even. It was something I’d never had. I told myself that sex, romance and passion didn’t matter. I told myself that, in time, I could become the person I pretended to be. That we could be happy together.”

Did you truly believe this? You cannot recall. Perhaps you were willing to believe anything. You were a frightened child, fleeing from your father’s clutches, even if you did not realise it.

“Toby asked me to marry him when I was twenty. I said yes, despite how Dad blew up. I was going to be free of him, once and for all.” You look down. “I was stupid.” 

Even after all these years, bitterness still tinges these memories. But the truth has a current of its own, and you need only to float in it, not rage against its flow.

“You were young.” 

Gale’s voice is level, impassive. You nod, resting in the unexpected reprieve. 

“We tried.” You wince. “We tried at sex and passion. It hurt more than anything. I wasn’t a blushing virgin, so I didn’t know why. I would cry myself to sleep afterwards from the horror of it. And then, after we gave up, there were times when I needed to be touched so badly I thought I’d die.” 

You close your eyes. The agony still quails within you.

“Still, I thought, this is okay. Love is more than sex. He respects me. He cares for me. He loves me.”

Something is blooming on Gale’s face. A subtle softening, a swell of uncertainty. You cannot quite decipher it, but it is not anger. That is enough. 

“Toby was in love with happy Mia. Perfect Mia who had her shit together, who fit nicely into his perfect life. That Mia never existed. I was stupid to believe I could ever be her.” 

You are struck by how similar it was in the end - your life with Toby, and your life with your father. You escaped one prison to wrap yourself in the chains of another. It is not an easy pill to swallow, even now.

“Whenever the mask fell, and the depression came back, Toby couldn’t deal with it. He checked out. The harder it was for me to pretend, the less of him there was.”

You think of Toby, arms braced around himself, staring blankly at you curled up in bed. ‘We’re late,’ he would call out. ‘We need to go. What’s wrong with you?’ 

Gale’s hands flicker. You wonder if he longs for magic now more than ever, so he could read your thoughts. Feel your memories.

“Did he try?” His voice is faint. “To understand? To…help you?”

You are surprised by the question. There is a tenderness in it, though it is tentative, like he is stepping on cracked glass.

“I don't think he was capable of it,” you answer. “He just wasn't wired that way.”

Is there disappointment in the set of Gale’s jaw? Disapproval? You cannot tell. In any event, you cannot blame Toby for your misdeeds. You never have.

“There’s no excuse for what I did with Kaidan. It was the worst thing I’ve ever done.” 

The crease deepens on Gale’s brow. His lips tremble, and for a moment, you think he will speak. But he does not. 

“Toby was a good man,” you breathe. “‘Practically a saint’, Kaidan said. He was right, in a way. Toby really did work at an orphanage in Africa every year. He didn’t deserve what I did to him. No one does.”

Even in the heat of the revelation, Toby did not raise his voice. ‘I can’t believe it,’ he had whispered, still as bone. He had stared at you with disbelief, not wrath. ‘What have you done?’ 

A sharp grief is rising within you. You clasp for the memory of a photograph you have branded onto your heart. Four pale grinning faces, framing a rainbow-streaked birthday cake. Gingham, confetti, and joy. The image gives you strength to continue.

“I know it doesn’t make what I did any better, but the truth is, it set him free. He would never have left me otherwise. Even though we were miserable. Even though I walked into him jerking off to hardcore porn so many times it became humiliating. Even though we should never have got married in the first place.”

Gale’s face clenches. You can see the tumult within him, his yearning to understand clashing against his judgment. The inviolability of monogamy, battling with the complications of human lack and need.

“What do you mean, it set him free?”

“Within six months of the divorce, he married a woman from his church,” you explain. “Sweet, smiley, spotless. She wins cake baking competitions and makes him packed lunches. They have two boys now. A perfect family, just like the one he grew up in. I’m beyond happy for him. I could never have given him that.”

There is a silence. In it, you see the charred earth you left behind, and the flowers that blossomed from the ashes. You wonder if Gale sees it too. He turns away, struggling with the weight of his thoughts.

“How did it happen?” he asks abruptly. “With Kaidan?”

You watch Gale’s hands ball into fists, as though to speak of Kaidan is to conjure his person, ready to knock down. The gash on your cheek burns.

“I met Kaidan at a cafe,” you reply. “He came after me so strongly, it was a shock. I’d never felt wanted like that before. He was funny, brutally honest. It was refreshing, after years of pretending to be meek and mild. He was the opposite of Toby in every way. Edgy and chaotic, wild with passion.”

A vein ripples on Gale's temple. You can feel the fury rumbling in him, but he does not interject. 

“When he told me how fucked up he was, I thought: this is someone who understands what it is to be broken. A man like me, who knows what it is to struggle. He’ll see me, and he’ll understand me.”

It shames you to think of it. If you met Kaidan now, would you find him arrogant? Callous? Abrasive?  Maybe. But it was different then. You were searching for a poison that you thought was a salve. You dig your fingers into the sheets.

“Kaidan needed me, too. He was so damaged, so alone. I thought I could be there for him, the way no one had ever been there for me. I could save him, like I wanted to be saved. It gave me a sense of purpose. It made me feel like I was worth something, that my life had some kind of meaning.” 

‘Better a painful truth than a beautiful lie,’ Elspeth had once said. But the truth is not just painful. It is pitiful. It is a regret that rots inside you. You watch the rise and fall of Gale’s laboured breathing, trying and failing to parse it. 

“You saw how that turned out, anyway.” You grimace. “No one can ever fix another person. It’s never been my place to try.”

You realise that you are quivering. As your eyes meet Gale’s, your vision begins to mist. His outline falters. 

“I would never have betrayed Kaidan with another man, Gale. I would never have left him. Not when he was my responsibility. I’d made my bed, and I had to lie in it.”

Your tears begin to fall in earnest. The sting of your wound is sobering, steadying you. You feel, more than see, a lurching in Gale, then a holding back. 

“I promised myself, after Toby, that I would never, ever betray someone - betray myself - like that again. But then you came-”

Gale’s hands dart out into the distance between you. There is a wrenching as he speaks.

“I owe you an apology for that.” 

You stare at him through sobs you cannot stifle. You cannot fathom why he, of all people, would apologise to you. An innocent victim, waylaid by the flotsam of your life. 

“I wasn’t a passive player, and it was unconscionable for me to suggest it.” 

His features twist. You struggle to grasp his meaning.

“I knew you were married to Kaidan in this world, but I took you in my arms anyway. When you held back, I ran after you. I wanted my wife. I missed you.” 

An anguished longing flares in his eyes. He lets out a juddering sigh.

“You married me in another universe, Mia. The situation we found ourselves in is hardly comparable to what happened between you, Toby and Kaidan. When I drew an analogy, I was speaking from pettiness and hurt. It wasn’t kind and it wasn’t fair.” 

Fairness. Kindness. It stuns you, that these things should occur to him, even as he grapples, bruised and battered, with the monsters of your past. 

“Nor was Kaidan a passive player in your infidelity.” His eyes narrow to a razor’s cut. “The man is truly the most vile, despicable-”

Is it an impulse to protect Kaidan, so beaten into you over the years that you act by rote? You are not sure anymore. Perhaps it is a desire to accept your shame as it lands, and finally be free from it. 

“He wasn’t,” you interrupt. “But neither was I. I was a willing participant. Nothing can excuse what I did.”

He seems genuinely backfooted. Did he expect you to leap at mitigation? To gloss over your choices and the destruction they wrought? Perhaps. But Gale himself has never shied away from the magnitude of his failures. He bears the burden of them fully, without reservation or defence. 

In the wavering of his voice, you dare to hope. To imagine that there could be recognition. Understanding.

“It can explain why you did it,” he says. 

Your eyes meet. You want so desperately to reach out to him, then, but you cannot. There is no guarantee in the shadow of his brow, the vibrations of his frame, that he would not back away. That your embrace would be returned. 

“I was a different person, Gale. It was another life. I fucked up. All I can do is try never to make the same mistake again.” 

You breathe deeply, slowly. Elspeth’s words sing inside you.

“The truth is, all I’ve ever wanted is to be seen and loved. I’ve spent thirty five years searching for that in the wrong places. Thirty five years punishing myself, believing I deserved it. It’s enough. I need to move beyond that. For me.” 

A hot, blinding light pulses in your mangled heart. You know the flame must burn through the darkness within you. There is no other way.

It is agony, nonetheless. 

“If you can’t see beyond what I’ve done, I’d understand. I’d respect your decision.” You spasm with tears. “You deserve only the best this world has to offer, Gale. You deserve everything.”

There is a long, loaded pause. There is a terror in the waiting, but also an unshackling, like leaping off a cliff to be borne up by wings. 

You linger on the thinking line between his brows, that imprint of sincerity and focus that you love so well. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, as open and plain to you as the sun in a cloudless sky. But you cannot read him now.

“Until I met you, I didn’t believe that was what I deserved.”  

He turns to face you. His hand flutters an inch away from yours. Something shifts and bends in the air between you, drifting just beyond your reach.

“After the orb lodged itself within me, I felt like I was waiting at the gallows. I was abandoned for my sins, condemned to death, and I believed I deserved it.”

Each word is a heavy load. You wince at the weariness in them, as crushing as your own.

“Every day in my tower, I waited for my comeuppance. The final twist of the knife after losing everything I held dear. My punishment for never quite measuring up, for always falling short of the mark. Let my life be forfeit, I thought. For all of these abject failures, this is what I deserve.”

He halts. You watch the undulation of his eyelids, wishing you could pull him from the waves. 

“And then I met you.”

He holds your gaze. A brightness, like the path of a comet, blazes across his features. Your breath hitches.

“I would never have told you what I’d done, if withholding the truth didn’t risk the party’s safety. I was convinced you would cast me out, not just for my crimes but for the danger I posed. I was a walking apocalypse of my own making. Surely no one could tolerate or forgive that.”

He leans forward. His fingers brush against yours.

“But you saw me. You looked past my catastrophic errors, my fatal flaws. You saw my folly and the desires that lay behind it. You saw the parts of me that could rise above the trappings of my past. My truest self, the best and the worst of me. You saw it all, and you loved me still.”

You recognise it. It is in the searching motion of his body, the cracking in his voice. The caress of glistening earth as he looks at you.

“That’s what love is, Gale,” you whisper. “That’s the only way I know how to love you.”

A pierced sound erupts from him.

“Why didn't you tell me about Toby, Mia?” he cries. “You should have told me.”

It is a plea, not an accusation. Soft with need, not hard with blame. Throbbing with the ache to understand. 

“I was scared,” you admit. “I wanted you to love me. I thought if you found out, you'd leave me.” You bite back your sobs. “And I was right. Once you found out what I'd done, you didn’t want me.”

His hair tumbles around his face as he shakes his head. “It wasn’t… it isn’t…” 

It hurts you, to watch him crumble. He sighs, trying to gather himself. 

“It’s not that simple, Mia.”

His hesitation sends a tingle of hope through you. 

“I was afraid,” he murmurs. “I’d joined my whole life to yours, only to find out…” 

He grimaces, his chest heaving.

“I thought I couldn't trust you,” he manages. “That it was only a matter of time before you'd leave me. I can't go through that again. I simply can't.”

You are winded by his anguish, the starkness of his confession. You think of all the nights Gale lay alone and abandoned, convinced that no one cared if he lived or died. The tattered remains of his longing, warped like barbed wire around his heart. You cannot bear it any longer. Your fingers find his. 

He does not pull away. 

“I’m not proud of my past,” you breathe. “I've done terrible things that I regret, mistakes I never want to repeat.”

His fingers quiver beneath yours. “As have I.”

Your voice surges. “I would never cheat on you, Gale. I could never do that.”

He is silent for a while. You know this battle is his alone. He must choose between fear and trust. He must determine the measure of his love.

“In Faerun, you had every chance to,” he says quietly. “You turned down more offers than I can count.” 

Tenderness, like a river, returning to its banks. You swam in it once. Maybe you will again.

“Gale.” You lace your fingers through his. “I love you more purely and completely than I’ve ever loved anyone. You’re not a stick I use to beat myself with. You’re not a box I have to crush myself into. You’re not something broken that I have to fix.” 

A smile breaks through your tears.

“You’re the other half of my soul.” 

A cascade glimmers on his face, reflecting your own. Even his tears have a light to them, shining in the space between you. He clasps your hand more tightly than he ever has before.

“I’ve given myself to you completely, Mia. Everything I am is yours. I want you to do the same. Can you do that?”

You are drifting towards each other, like stars falling to earth. You want to say yes, to seal your promise against his skin. But doubt still flares within you. The last bastion of your history, an ancient tether holding you back. 

“Can you really love me, just as I am?” you whisper. “All of me - the best and worst of me?”

You feel the warmth of his breath like a balm. His fingers tremble against your chin as he tilts your face to his. When he smiles, your every fibre radiates with its glow.

“I see you as you are, and do not find you wanting.” 

You feel the fetters within you crumble. You are breaking before him, but you will find the pieces. He will gather them up in his gentle hands, and join them to his own.

“I love you, Mia. I always have. I always will.”

Your lips seek his like a beacon in the dark. Your bodies weave together, a knot that cannot be untied. The past, the present, the future - everything dissolves in the love that ebbs and flows between you. 

And then, you begin anew.

Chapter Text

You are a writer. You weave wonders from words. Within speech lies the seed of your strength, the pulse of your power. But words cannot grasp how it feels to be joined to him again. 

Your kisses trace the trails of each other’s skin. Together you marvel at every mark, dent, and blemish, as though each one is a priceless treasure. The tiny birthmark on his hip, the dark mole on your inner arm. His bruises and yours, fresh and faded. You touch each other with the reverence and urgency of the first time, the last time, the end of all time. 

You melt into the taste of salt, sweat and each other’s scars. Your moans intermingle, a crescendo of prayers and benedictions. The push and pull of absolution, as your bodies sway and surge as one.

“Look at me,” he pants. “I see you. I love you.”

When his warmth swells inside you, sunlight spreads like ichor into every last corner within you. You know that you will never be cold again. 

And in the joining, what comes to you is a memory.  It is at once something you recall for the first time and have always remembered. It is both old and new, like a broken bone, an acorn falling from an ancient oak.

You are six years old, cradled in your mother’s arms. She looks down at you, her gaze soft, her skin pale and smooth as porcelain. Her grip is so firm, you know she will never let you go. You are cloaked in her scent of jasmine and summer rain, and you have never felt so safe before.

She sings. Her voice is sad and sonorous, and there is something about it that makes you cling to her. Even with your broken Mandarin, your childish ignorance, you understand her song. You understand the sorrow, the yearning, the love in it. You feel it like shelter. Like home.

It is the most beautiful thing you have ever heard.

“ For you, I would
I would forget my name for you
For just one more second in your arms
I don’t care if I lose the world

For you, I would
I would be left at the end of the world for you
As long as you love me with your whole heart
I would do anything for you” 

You tell him, of course. You hold nothing back. You tell him your memory of your mother, and the feeling of home which has always eluded you, until you found him. You play him the song, with an English translation alongside. 

He is quiet for a while. It begins with an embarrassed shuffling, an indictment of dust in his eye. And then, the tears come. They are not silent or stoic, but wrack his entire body. You are alarmed, bewildered. You have never known anyone to sob from your pain. You clasp him so tightly that nothing could ever come between you.

“I'm so sorry, Gale.” You rub at his back and shoulders. “I didn't mean to upset you. It’s really okay. I've made peace with it, and my mother…”

He shakes his head with little huffs, pulling back to look at you. “It’s not that, Mia.”

You cannot bear his distress. Your lips pepper his forehead and cheeks, brushing his tears away. He sighs and smiles, returning your kisses with his own. There is a flurry of affection between you.

“It’s just... serendipity,” he says eventually.

“Serendipity?” Your hands find his.

“The words of the song.” 

Love and ache flame in his eyes, a wrenching in your gut. 

“There were times, in the old days, when I would lie in my tent. I would think about the orb rotting inside me. The death that hung over me. How I was condemned to forever be alone.”

He pulls you close, as though the memory shakes him. You press yourself against him, hoping your heartbeat steels his own.

“I would lie there longing for you,” he rasps. “I wanted so desperately to run to you, to bare my soul to you. To tell you how much I loved you. To show you everything I would do for you.”

You cannot tell if it is his tears or yours on your skin, where his breath ends and yours begins. 

“I’d do anything for you,” he whispers.

You are dissolving into each other, like the sea swallowing fire.

“So would I,” you reply.

You should not be surprised, but you are. You are lying in bed in the haze of half sleep. Your fingers meander through the spray of hair between his nipples and navel. His hand circles the low dimples of your hips, suspending you between rest and arousal. His lips curl, plump and blushed.

“I would forget my name for you,” he sings softly. “I would be left at the end of the world for you.”

You are stunned. It is not just the sweetness of his singing, rich as a full bodied wine. Nor is it just the crisp accuracy of his Mandarin, miraculously mastered in such a short time. It is the earnestness of his love. His boundless desire to try. The wholehearted display of his affection, tireless as the tide. 

“How have you learned that?” you gasp, and all at once your eyes are spilling. 

He cups your cheek, smoothing your tears with a gentle thumb. His grin sends a tingle through you. 

“I have a knack for languages.” 

You sniffle, mock-indignant. “Is there anything you don't have a knack for?” 

He laughs as he nestles into you. The musk of his bristles and morning hair makes you briefly giddy.

“You're ridiculous,” you burble. “You ridiculous man.”

You feel the rumbling of his joy through your muscles, the swelling of his want against your core. 

“I'll learn how to write it, as well,” he murmurs into your neck. “You watch.”

The transition is not instant. You are not naive enough to think it would be. It is never easy to wipe a slate clean, let alone one as stained and slashed as yours. Gale’s love holds you fast as you stitch up the wounds within you, but it cannot erase them. Neither can your love blot out the gashes which still heal within his heart.

“Was it my brokenness that drew you to me?” he asks one afternoon.

He is frowning, staring out of the window. Doubt whirls in his gaze, and you hear the question behind the question. The shadow blade of Kaidan’s words echoing in his mind. ‘ You know what really gets her off? Men with trauma. Broken men she thinks she can save’.

“No,” you say instantly.

He turns to face you, his slender frame outlined in beams of sunlight. Though his features are in shadow, there is no tension in his body, no bracing in his bearing. Nothing but an openness to listen. A willingness to trust.

“It was your warmth.” You step towards him. “Your kindness and generosity. Your sincerity. ”

You are tentative at first when you wrap your arms around him. As he relaxes against you, you enfold yourself in him. When you draw back to speak, a smile glows in his eyes.

“I loved how passionate you always were about sharing knowledge. How excited you were when you found out about new things.” 

The grooves on his forehead recede as you tuck a stray hair behind his ear. 

“You made me laugh, too. You’re a funny man, Gale. Your puns, especially. I loved your puns.”

He chuckles, bobbing his head. “Well, you know what they say. A good pun is its own reword.”

You groan and then giggle. He watches you, radiating with pride and peace. For an instant, it takes your breath away.

“I was drawn to you before I found out about your past,” you go on. “And when you trusted me enough to tell me, there were so many things you suffered that I understood. It only made me love you more.”

You remember those precious moments with Gale in the astral. Even separated by a screen, your soul had soared. You had shed tears of longing you did not understand.

“The way you love, Gale,” you breathe. “You love with everything you are. I’ve never met anyone who loves like you do.”

For a while, you simply stand in silence, drinking each other in. His gaze is so full and bright, you cannot imagine darkness ever touching him. 

“I didn’t fall in love with you because you were broken.” You place your palm on his heart. “I fell in love with you for who you are.”

He takes your hand and presses it to his lips. A surge of tenderness blazes through you. It tells you all you need to know.

“I wouldn’t have been your first choice, anyway.”

You are chopping carrots while he stirs a pot of stew. You are still reeling from Gale’s agreement to include vegetables in his recipe, so the statement backfoots you. You squint at him.

“I’m sorry?”

You have discovered a habit of Gale’s. He often continues conversations with you in his mind, then assumes you can follow their threads. It is endearing and puzzling in equal measure.

He sprinkles a generous helping of pepper into the mix. The elegant flurry of his fingers still distracts you.

“Had you been looking for a broken man you could fix, I probably wouldn’t have been the first one to catch your eye.”

His tone is matter of fact, but not harsh. He is simply exploring all possibilities, testing where the truth leads. There is no edge to it.

“Oh.” You chew your lip. “No. I suppose not.”

Gale nods, as if confirming a calculation to himself. His focus is on the stew, but you know he hangs on your every word.

“Astarion pursued you very vigorously, as I recall.”

You grimace. It was uncomfortable to be on the receiving end of Astarion's advances. Perhaps, after years with Kaidan, they felt like an echo. 

“He did,” you admit. “He was terrified. He thought he needed protection.”

Gale hums, scratching at his beard. His mind bubbles like the pot before him.

“But you refused him.”

You lay a hand on Gale’s shoulder. “I did. I only had eyes for you.”

The crease on his brow is fading. He nods firmly, with finality. A mystery laid to rest. 

“You did.” 

He turns. You watch him unfurl in the weight and depth of your love. He clasps your hand, looking at you. Seeing you. 

“Now,” he announces after a pause. “My dearest wife. Love of my life, light of my soul.” 

He dips his head politely, but cannot mask the unmistakable wrinkle of his nose. 

“Please kindly pass the carrots.”

Sometimes it comes without warning. A curdling fear, all hooks and shattered glass, piercing through you.

You spring up from your bed one night, fleeing from a nightmare of your father wearing Kaidan’s face. He shouts the curses that you know so well, and you cannot drown them out as you emerge into wakefulness. You weep into Gale’s chest as he cocoons you, clinging to him like a tether in a storm. He does not move until you let him go.

“If you knew who I was,” you choke. “What I’d done, from the very start… would you have loved me?"

You can feel him clench you more fiercely, as if to shield you from the waves. He waits until your sobs subside.

“Do you remember when we all met, Mia?” he asks, when your breath has levelled. “Our merry band of companions?”

You can feel his smile against your temple. You manage a small nod.

“Every one of us, without exception, had done things we weren’t proud of.  Each of us had our secrets, our struggles. We’d all suffered. Did I think any less of our friends for that?”

‘We all have our burdens’, Gale had said once. He had withheld judgment, seeking understanding first. 

“No,” you murmur. “But you didn’t choose to marry any of them.”

He huffs, half surprise, half laughter. “Quite right. I married you.”

You look up at him. He runs his fingers over the contours of your face, like you are a carving he cannot help but caress. Like he can never have enough of you.

“I married you because I love you, Mia,” he whispers. “You’re the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met. Your mistakes don’t take away from your strength, your kindness, your goodness. Your love. What you’ve overcome only makes you more extraordinary.” 

He blankets your body in his. And in the shelter of his embrace, you know you will never be alone again.

You are standing in front of the bathroom mirror one morning, trying in vain to cover the crusting wound on your cheek. Tara regards you with wide, flickering eyes.

“I know, Tara.” You wince. “It’s awful.”

You are fair, almost as pale as your mother was. You can tell from its angry, jagged edges that this scar will not fade into your blanched skin. It will glare deep and red, a stubborn brand of your sin and punishment. Another disgrace for your father to deplore.

Panic rises in your chest. Tara purrs, her tail darting from side to side. She rubs her cheek against your hip, but you cannot reach out to her for comfort. You struggle for breath.

And then, he is there.

“It’s alright, Mia.” He gathers you into his arms. “It’s just a scar.”

He is still, steadfast. He does not flinch as you unravel.

“Look at it,” you heave. “My face…How can you see beyond-”

“It doesn’t matter to me.” His voice is unwavering. “You’re beautiful. Nothing could ever mar the canvas of your beauty, nor ever come close.” 

As his fingers weave through your hair, your breath slows to match his. You do not know how long you remain there, but he does not leave. His embrace breaks the chains of your terror, patiently, gently, link by link. 

“You’ve always had a scar on your face,” he remarks later, when you have calmed. 

You stare at him, confused. 

“In Faerun, you had a scar on your left cheek.” He traces an arc on your skin. “From below your eye to the tip of your chin. Have you forgotten?”

You remember. In the game, you were bronze-kissed, with silver braids and sapphire eyes, framed by the tattooed silhouettes of birds. Your scar is the only resemblance between you and the character you played. 

“How did you recognise me?” you ask. “I don’t look like Tav at all. How did you know I was her?”

Gale hesitates, frowning. “I’m not sure. I just did. When I leapt through that portal and saw you standing there, I knew it was you.”

Other questions flare in your mind. You wonder at conversations and events that Gale remembers but you cannot. Moments outside the game. Your shared life in Waterdeep, and the everyday bliss of marriage. The matchless joy of your wedding day. Gale has always chalked your memory loss to a temporary symptom of multiversal travel, but uncertainty still lingers within you. A vague sense of unease that you cannot parse. A word hanging from the tip of your tongue, just beyond reach. 

You ignore it for now. You are still here, and he is still with you. It is a miracle beyond all imagining. That is enough.

“You don’t have to answer,” he says. 

You stare at your phone buzzing on the bedside table. Your fingers flutter from the buttons on Gale’s shirt, waiting to be fastened. He pulls your gaze back to him.

“Mia.” His nose grazes yours. “You don’t owe it to him to answer.” 

You grimace. “But he’s been calling non-stop. He'll just keep calling.”

“Then let him.”

You flit from Gale’s searching hands to the clamour of your father’s command. A frenzy crawls beneath your skin. 

“Kaidan's probably told him by now,” you fret. “I knew it was weird that he’d gone silent.”

Gale’s jaw tightens. “If Kaidan does anything to you-” 

He stops abruptly. Even in your panic, you are taken aback by his self control. Not the right time, he is thinking, not the right place. It has been years since a man in your life exercised such restraint.

Gale’s face twists as he studies you. You do not know why you wrench away.

“You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”

Gale’s eyes widen. “Of course not.” His arm circles your waist, drawing you back to him. “I could never think that.”

You look down. “You think I should ignore him. But I can’t.”

He bends to meet your eyes. The gentleness of the gesture steadies you. 

“Why not? 

You struggle for an answer. You made a promise to lay down the burdens of your guilt, but this may be a boulder you cannot shift. 

“He’s my Dad,” you manage.

“That he is,” Gale concedes. “He and your mother gave you life. He gave you food, water, and a roof over your head when you were younger. For those things, you owe him thanks, which I believe you’ve already given. You owe him nothing beyond that.”

There is a clarity in Gale’s voice that stills you. Your phone continues to ring, but you can no longer hear its screech.

“He gave you lies and cruelty, and made you believe his approval mattered above all else.” His brow knits, his words hardening. “He abandoned and attacked you when you needed him the most. To continue to give him any purchase on your life would be like telling me to prostrate myself at Mystra’s altar. It would be like asking Shadowheart to return to Shar, or Lae’zel to return to Vlaakith.”

You close your eyes. To think of your father in these terms is brutal, sobering. You do not know what it means, beyond not answering this call. 

“He’s taken enough from you, Mia.” Gale’s forehead rests against yours. “You don’t owe him anything.”

You stretch your arms up to the sky, the wind lapping at your hair and coat, wild and unbridled. You stand on a hill amidst a boundless sea of valleys and moors, swathed in the shadows of distant mountains. Stone walls and crumbling ruins sprinkle the landscape like afterthoughts. Grazing sheep wander through the Yorkshire Dales like snowdrops on a green canvas.

“Here it is,” you call out to him. “My favourite place in the world.”

You spin in the direction of the gust. Above you, there is infinite, unclouded sky, white and clean as a blank page. You could be swallowed up from above or below, and no one would ever know your footsteps had graced this land. The fragrance of earth and cold and moss fills you. The scent of freedom.

Gale grins, his fringe whipping over his eyes, a billowing of deepest brown and grey.  His chiselled curves pulse through the lashing of his clothes. He looks almost rugged, but even his disarray is dignified. You can never get enough of Gale in all his different modes. Every day there is more of him to explore. 

“It's quite beautiful,” he shouts back. “It has a stark, unflinching beauty, I agree.”

Joy bursts from you. You spring towards him, falling into his laughing embrace. 

Gale had asked you pointedly, the other evening, where your favourite place in the world was. By all accounts, you had spent long hours with him on his balcony in Waterdeep, lost in a range of active and passive reveries. It had always been his favourite place, and to share it with his favourite person was an unparalleled pleasure. It was an injustice, Gale insisted, for you not to experience the same. 

You could not ignore Gale’s enthusiasm. And part of you had yearned to return to the Yorkshire Dales, after so many years of absence. It was a long trek, but that was not the only reason you had stayed away. Part of you had been afraid to face the gulf between freedom and your shackles. There were times when the truth was too much to bear.

There is a delicate deliberation in the way Gale removes the contents of your rucksack. How he lays the blanket out beneath you, pouring cups of tea from your thermos flask. The intensity of his focus, as though every act is one of worship or creation. Once again, you watch him with a sense of reverence and wonder.

You sit side by side, looking across the rolling fields, leaning into the wind. 

“Why this place?” Gale asks, sipping his tea. “How did you discover it?”

You rest your head on his shoulder. “I came here for the first time after I’d just moved out of my Dad’s. I looked around and this was what my life looked like - so empty, but so full of possibilities. I could do anything I wanted. The only limits were the land and sky.” 

The breeze swirls against your skin. There is an ache in the silence, as you consider everything that followed. You do not need to speak it. You know, with a conviction as strong as the love between you, that he feels it too.

His fingers lace through yours. He shifts away suddenly, so that he sits opposite you. Your clasped hands bridge the space between you, tingling with anticipation.

“You don’t remember our wedding, do you?”

You sigh, shaking your head. “Unfortunately not.”

“So you don’t remember us writing our vows together.” He chuckles, amusement tinged with embarrassment. “The many leaves of struck-through parchment. Your very patient, persuasive and often repeated explanations about why less is more.”

You laugh. “I don’t remember any of that, but I can imagine it.”

You have no doubt that Gale’s draft wedding vows would have needed considerable pruning, as would his wedding speech. The thought of it tickles you raw.

Gale hums, beaming with affection. 

“Has it ever occurred to you that though we’re married in Faerun, we haven’t said our vows in this world?” 

You frown. “I suppose not.”

“We’re not married here.”

You arch an eyebrow. “Technically not. But we-”

Gale lurches forward. There is the faintest trace of a wince as he shuffles onto his knees. You start towards him, but there is a determination in his movements that holds you back.

“I’d like to marry you in this universe, Mia,” he declares. “Here. Now. We can exchange our vows before the sacred witnesses of land and sky.” 

A gasp escapes you. Passion burns in the grasp of his hands, the quiver of his voice. 

“We don’t need rings or a cleric to seal our vows. We have a love that endures across time and space. Across universes. Across suffering and triumph, and everything in between.”

His brown eyes blaze, like sparks rippling through earth. Within your soul, a thousand stars burst and re-form. You are stardust, and you have never shone so brightly.

“What do you say?” 

A tear glistens on his cheek. 

“Will you have me, Mia Zhang?”

As long as the stars shine in the sky, I will love you.
My love will forever be as bright and constant, burning through the darkness of the night.
And as the stars chart the course of our steps, blazing more brilliantly than anything I could ever dare to dream,
So too will our love be the fixed star that always guides me back to you.
I see you as you are, and will never find you wanting.
Never again will you be cold, for I will be your warmth.
Never again will you be lost, for I will be your home.
Never again will you walk alone, for I will be your hand to hold.
We are two souls, but now our lives are one.

Chapter Text

“I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

Gale raises an eyebrow. His gaze still gleams in the afterglow of exertion, his cheeks flushed with satisfaction. As you draw away from the crook of his neck, his hair tickles your nose, ruffling under the wind’s chill. Though your panting breaths have levelled, the heat of your tangled bodies endures, smouldering amidst the vast emptiness of white above and green below. 

“Meaning?”

You play with the undone button near his collar, where the mark of a frenzied kiss lingers on his neck. His fingers brush against your core as he toys with the band of your trousers. His touch is still faintly slick with your arousal. 

“Meaning I’ve never done it al fresco.” 

His bitten lips curl into a smile as you run your thumb over their girth. When his tongue flickers against it, your skin throbs. 

“I think you’ll find that you actually have. A few times, in fact.” 

Your eyes widen. There is something like victory in his grin. His hand drifts onto the small of your back, pressing you closer to him. Your eyelids flutter, drowsy with desire.

“We made remarkably good use of our balcony on Waterdeep. I don’t call it my favourite place in the world for nothing.”

You gape at him. Then you laugh. 

“I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

Gale swells with pride and mischief, a ravishing sight. Your leg hooks around his, your senses tingling.

“There was a particularly memorable occasion when I lost concentration, in our moment of joint… release.” He chuckles. “My invisibility and silence spells broke. Thankfully, our elderly neighbour, who was taking her tea very nearby, has exceptionally poor eyesight and hearing.”

You cover your mouth, stifling a gasp. “You’re joking.”

Gale tuts mock-solemnly. “I would never joke about our sacred acts of union.” 

There is a shared chortle, and then a pause. You can feel the nostalgia flaring within him, his mind aflame with memories of love, lust and life shared. Not for the first time, you wish that you could also remember.

“Mind you, it didn’t dissuade us.” He bobs his head. “On the contrary, it gave me more incentive to hone my skills, concentration and endurance.”

You jostle him lightly. “As if you need any more incentive.”

He huffs, cuddling you closer. You sigh as he nuzzles your forehead, humming in contentment. The peace that falls over you is like no other. You could dissolve into the sky and earth, and it would be the most perfect end. You would be complete. 

“Those two days, when you wouldn’t leave your room,” he says after a while. “I thought that I’d lost you forever.”

You ache from the earnestness in Gale’s voice. As you caress his lips with yours, his creased brow trembles.

“I’m sorry,” you breathe. “I was fighting. I almost gave up.”

His fingers dance in your hair, so warm and gentle against your temple. His smile bathes his features in light.

“I’m exceedingly glad you didn’t.”

You rest in his embrace, considering. It would have been so easy to slip off the precipice. To lose yourself in the quicksand of your own grief, and to lose him along with it.

You would have lost it all, if not for Elspeth. She had said the words you had needed to hear your entire life, more ancient and powerful than any spell. She had revealed your chains and pointed you towards freedom.

“I had some help.”

He looks at you quizzically. “Help?” 

You nod. “I had a dream - my friend Elspeth spoke to me. Or my subconscious did, in the form of Elspeth. I’m not sure. It’s all a bit bizarre.”

It sounds ridiculous to admit it. You would not confess such whimsy to anyone other than Gale. But in his face, there is only curiosity. 

“Your friend spoke to you in a dream, and told you not to give up?” 

“Pretty much.” 

You think of the fierce flash of Elspeth's green eyes, the tear that shone on her wrinkled ebony skin. The longing in her voice as she whispered, “my daughter”. 

Gale tilts his head as he listens.

“She reminded me of things I'd forgotten, or maybe never knew.” You trace the circle of Gale's scar. “Well, she's appeared in a couple of my dreams now.”

“Who is this Elspeth?”

A shadow is forming on Gale's brow. You cannot quite parse it.

“It’s a long story.”

You realise you have never spoken about Elspeth to anyone. Whether intentionally or not, you hid your bond with her, sure that no one would understand it. You yourself did not entirely understand it - that feeling of being seen and known by someone who was a complete mystery. As you explain it to Gale now, the strangeness of the situation hits you with a force that had for so long been dulled. 

“A year ago, near the Court where I work, I saw a homeless woman getting harassed by two assholes,” you begin. “I threatened to call Court security and the Police on them, and they backed off.  After that, I became friends with her. Every day I worked, Elspeth and I sat on a bench nearby and had lunch together.  I'd get her lunch, of course, because she had no money.”

You recall Elspeth's silver dreadlocks, almost majestic in how they framed her striking glare. The Elspeth you have seen recently seems reduced, a husk of her former self. Ailing, or even dying. You do not know. 

“I could be myself around Elspeth. I always felt like she saw right through me. I could never bullshit her.” 

More than once, you had flinched at the scrape of Elspeth's fingernail poking into your side. You had found it amusing, how she sucked her teeth when she was unimpressed. It was sobering, when she asked questions that sliced through layers of polite evasion.

“I did think she might have some mental health issues,” you admit. “She’d sometimes say the weirdest things. It was hard to follow her train of thought a lot of the time. She’d say that she’d travelled across centuries and universes, or that she'd read my mind.” 

You had always written off these ramblings as a sign of delusion. Elspeth's erratic nature did nothing to persuade you otherwise. But the intensity of Gale's focus gives you pause.

“What else did she say?”

As you search your mind, a quivering grows inside you. A creeping awareness, as though Gale is seeing something that has been right under your nose all along. You clear your throat.

“She talked about giving me a gift. Then she disappeared two months ago. In the dream I had, she said she wanted me to be loved by a man like you. She knew about you and me, and Kaidan, and Toby.” You waver. “It must have been my subconscious. I never told Elspeth any of that.”

Gale sits up abruptly. The sharpness of the gesture jolts you. He spins back to face you. 

“Mia.” His frown is heavy. “This Elspeth. What else do you know about her?" 

You rise to join him. You try to ground yourself, fumbling for something solid. You rearrange your clothes, smooth your hair. 

“Nothing. Only that she doesn't seem to have friends or family.” You chew your lip. “And there was a dream I had, where she looked like she was dying. She was lying there, so weak and thin, and there were these weird shapes drifting around her, like magic, or visions… I’m not sure. I couldn’t make sense of any of it. I still can’t.”

You can almost feel the whirlwind of Gale’s thoughts whipping through him. You are suddenly overcome by the need to explain yourself.

“I figured it was my mind, trying to understand everything that was happening to us. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think the dreams were important. They were just dreams. They made no sense.”

Gale grabs your hand. You almost flinch from the urgency. 

“Mia.” His tone has the quality of an order. “We need to find this woman.”

You return his stare helplessly. “I haven’t seen Elspeth for two months, Gale.”

“Do you have a way of contacting her?” 

“No. I always found her on that bench, but she just disappeared. I have no idea what happened to her.”

Gale stands, fastening his trousers in a frantic flurry.

“Perhaps we can call out to her, send out a signal, or a prayer-”

“A prayer?” Confusion weakens your words.

Gale begins to pace. He scratches at his beard, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back.

“This woman might be a god disguised in mortal form,” he starts. “If she is, and she’s after you, you can pray to her, and she may hear you. We might need an offering, or there may be some kind of ritual…”

His words tumble out of him like a river raging. You flounder in the current.

“Gale, hold on-”

“But such an intervention would surely be reckless for a god. To test Ao’s patience so brazenly would indeed be foolish.” 

He grimaces, shaking his head. 

“Perhaps Ao doesn’t rule in this universe. Or perhaps she’s a powerful magus, whose ends are as yet unclear. She could have access to powers beyond any we have in Toril. Channelling the Weave doesn’t seem to be possible here. Could she be a-”

His eyes dart about like lightning bolts. You are not sure if he is still speaking to you or merely thinking aloud.

“Gale, slow down.” You stand, reaching out to grasp his hand. “Please, slow down.”

Mercifully, he stops. He inhales, cradling your hand in both of his. 

“Mia.” His gaze is steely, yet surges with tenderness. “I think this Elspeth may be the key to us returning home.”

You realise that you are holding your breath. Something within you falls away, a blinker on your vision that quails as it crumbles.

You are afraid.

“It's imperative that we find her at once, before it’s too late.”

“Gale, wait-”

“We must find her, Mia.”

You are about to reply when it descends all at once. The words die in your throat as a deafening, electrifying cascade rips through you. Everything around you condenses into the sparks that pierce your skin. It is all you can do to remain standing. Gale, too, hunches into himself, wincing against the torrent. You try to reach for him, but your limbs disconnect from your command, lost in the storm.

You watch, gagged and paralysed, as the cut of an oval materialises before you. Pearl white and smooth, a hollow indent in its centre. It hovers just above the grass like a giant egg, vibrating with a current that judders through you.

“By the gods,” Gale manages through gritted teeth. 

When the door swings open, you cannot leap back. Within, all is searing blankness, so bright and familiar it brands your eyes. You squint at the dark figure who totters out of it, but you do not need to look to know who comes.

Her back is bent as a gnarled root. She is wispy as the threads of her blanket, tattered and trailing behind her like a shroud. Her eyes blaze with silver, her fingertips crackling with violet flame. You gird yourself for an eruption of strength, a declaration of might.

She lets out a long, hacking cough. You gape at the stream of spittle that flies to the grass and dissolves like smoke.

“Hush now,” Elspeth wheezes. “Don’t worry your pretty little heads. I’m here.”

You are not dreaming, nor are you sitting on a bench in Birmingham. You are standing on a hill in the Yorkshire Dales. Elspeth has just walked out of a portal, at once smaller and larger than you have ever seen her. You are suspended in a void where there are no lines between what is real and what is not. You cannot find an anchor.
 
She steps forward. As swiftly as it came, the cascade that crushes you lifts. You gasp for air, clutching at your chest. In an instant, Gale's arm darts out towards you, his body braced before you like a shield. You can feel the quiver of his muscles, taut with dread and alarm.

Elspeth’s stained teeth flash in a grin.
 
“Charming,” she drawls. “Very charming. A true gentleman.” She nods at you. “I knew that underneath it all, you had good taste.”

A vein clenches on Gale’s neck. You can feel the roiling within him as he takes Elspeth in. He is calculating, strategising. Considering his next move in a game where the stakes are unknown.

“I think introductions are in order, my lady.” 

Elspeth wrinkles her nose. “There’s no need for all that, Gale of Waterdeep. I think we all know each other rather well.”

“What is this, Elspeth?” Your voice shakes. “Who are you?”

Elspeth’s gaze softens as it fixes on you. There is something calming about it, as though you are cocooned in the centre of a hurricane. You realise that you could never be afraid of Elspeth. You trust her implicitly, even though Gale does not. 

“Let’s go somewhere more comfortable,” she rasps. “Serious conversations go down better with home comforts.” 

She gestures towards the portal casually. 

“After you.”

Gale’s frown flickers, but he does not move. Even as you lean against his outstretched arm, he is firm as a fortress. Beneath Elspeth’s smirk, you sense a wry approval. 

“Wise to be cautious. But I’m no threat to you. If you don’t trust me, trust Mia.”

She stares at you meaningfully. You move closer to Gale. You can feel his teetering breaths.

“We can go with her, Gale,” you whisper.

“Mia.” His voice is stiff. “We don’t know this woman’s true nature, or what she’s capable of-”

“I know.” You weave your fingers through Gale’s. “But she’s my friend. I know she won’t hurt us.”

There is a long silence. You can feel the clash of doubt and trust within Gale as his fingers twist and then relent under yours. There is the faintest lowering of his head as he looks at you, then at Elspeth. He exhales.

“Hurry along then,” Elspeth grizzles, jabbing at the open door. “I’ve not got all day.” 

“The rule of hospitality’s a staple in almost all the places I’ve been.” 

Elspeth squints at Gale, who eyes the mug of soup in front of him with barely veiled suspicion. 

“I’m sure it’s the same in Waterdeep.” She sniffs. “I’m sure even there it’s rude to turn your nose up at the offering of a host.”

You grimace. It is disorientating, being in what you assume is Elspeth’s home. It is a microcosm of your dreamscape, stark white as a blank page. You still reel from the realisation that Elspeth is not homeless or destitute. You do not even think she is human. 

Around you, there is no recognisable furniture, only a mass of grey, brown and khaki blankets haphazardly arranged on the smooth and spotless floor. A few objects that you cannot identify are scattered around the room, all egg-bleached and curved. Elspeth had sidled up to one of them, and your moonstone mugs of miso soup had appeared out of a slot in its centre. They must all be machines and contraptions, but for what purpose, you have no idea.

If you look closely, you can see two indents in the walls, one opposite you, one to your side. Doors, you think. This must just be one room in Elspeth’s house, if you can call it that. You wonder, with trepidation, what is behind them. Where the other portals lead.

Gale shifts on the patchy blanket that you share. He sits, visibly uncomfortable, his knees bent at an awkward angle. His guard remains up, as though he could spring to your defence in a split second. But you can tell, from the wavering in his eyes, that he knows he has no power here.

“Forgive me, Elspeth.” The smile he flashes does not touch his eyes. “It’s difficult for me to enjoy your hospitality with so many mysteries troubling me. Perhaps, as a starter, you'd indulge me by answering some questions.”

Elspeth snorts. She takes a loud and exceptionally slow slurp from her mug. Gale stares, bewildered, vaguely disgusted. You have the most absurd urge to laugh. You stifle it with a polite sip. It is discernibly miso soup, yet also sweet and spicy. You are not quite sure if it is pleasant. 

“A starter.” She picks a strand of seaweed out of her front teeth. “What's on the menu, then?” 

You can tell from Gale’s frown that he is backfooted. He cannot place or decipher Elspeth, and it frustrates him beyond measure.

“Well.” He clears his throat. “To begin with, who are you? Why did you summon me here?” He pushes the mug away. “I assume that was your doing. Your ‘gift’ to Mia, as it were. But why take my wife from me? Why disrupt our universe and this one? What do you gain from this-” 

Elspeth throws her head back and groans. You and Gale start in your seats. 

“Questions, questions, questions. I expected both of you to bombard me with them. I can't even hear myself think, all I can hear are your endless questions.”

Her frail frame deflates as she sighs. 

“You want answers. You're hell bent on those answers, like they mean something. But they don’t. They mean nothing. You don't need them. I’ll give you another choice instead.”

Her eyes are an explosion of emerald fire. You cannot look away.

“I can open a portal to Faerun right now. It'll take you back to your home in Waterdeep, where the two of you can live out the rest of your days, happy and in love. All you have to do is step through the door and never look back. Let go of your questions. You can have everything you want. You'll be together forever.”

Your greatest hope, laid out before you. A simple choice. You could take it, and all you have ever dreamed of would be yours. It would be so easy.

Gale looks at you. There is a rippling in the brown sea of his eyes, open and true to its deepest fathoms. You see that it is his nature - to ask, to seek, to understand. He could no more deny that nature than you could deny yours. Even if he could, the questions would haunt him until the end of his days. He would forever be looking over his shoulder, wondering when the threat might come to pass, when the curtain might fall.

And so would you. Better a painful truth than a beautiful lie. You have always known it. You cannot run away from it now.

“So what’ll it be?” Elspeth asks.

You do not need to reply. Elspeth lets out a rumbling, scraping sound. Whether it is annoyance or weariness that slumps her shoulders, you cannot tell.

“Well,” she mutters. “You can't say I didn't try.”

“Who are you? What are you?” 

Elspeth rubs at the patches on her scalp with sullen fervour. You are not sure if she is disappointed or irritated. 

“It depends who you ask.” 

She grumbles at a hole she has discovered in her blanket. Gale studies her with a focus so unyielding it almost unnerves you.

“Actually, I think your people have a name for ones like me.” She wags a spindly finger at Gale. “But I can’t remember it.”

Gale’s eyes widen. He is plunging the depths of his mind, tearing through every tome and scroll he has memorised. But all you can do is listen. You are desperate for answers, frozen with apprehension. Elspeth is unravelling herself before you, and you have the distinct sense of being tangled in her threads.

“I seem to recall that your understanding of me is limited though.” She scratches her chin. “There are some things you got right, but other things you left out.”

Gale's hand tightens on yours. He had speculated that she was a god or mage of dubious intent, but the idea that she could be either is jarring. To you, she is still Elspeth, who roused and prodded at you with dry affection, who cupped your cheek and called you daughter.

“What things are those?”

Elspeth hums. You wonder if it amuses her, to jostle against the boundaries of understanding. To test the minds of the knowledgeable. She always did enjoy the verbal joust, the exchange of wits. 

“You’re right that I can travel between universes. That I can send creatures anywhere I choose.”

You feel a strange sense of unmooring. You think of all Elspeth’s passing references to the infinities of time and space, all her whimsical allusions to ages and civilisations rising and falling. Everything you had dismissed as the wanderings of a weary woman through the peaks and troughs of madness. 

How blind you have been. How foolish.

“And you're right that I can create worlds. Though it's bloody difficult, and it almost killed me.”

You stare at Elspeth's scarred cheeks, her black skin stretched like wet paper. The dullness of her crown where lush grey vines used to fall. The implication of her words is an iron claw around your heart.

“But your people drew the line at sentient creatures, for some reason. You’re wrong that I can't create those. I can. I have.”

If Gale could cast a shield around you now, you are sure he would. His hands would be a purple haze, poised against danger. Now they twist and tremble, clutching at a force he cannot reach. There is no Weave, no defence. He is shaken. He cannot hide it.

“And I do age. You got that wrong too.”

She scowls, as if this is a niggling burden she cannot cast off.

“If you're wondering how old I am, don't even bother asking,” she mumbles. “I can't remember. Centuries. Millennia. I've lost track.” 

Her weary face glazes, her voice emptying. 

“In the end, time is meaningless. As meaningless as space, or what universe you're in. It’s all one big blur.”

A kind of mist gathers around Elspeth. It is the same loneliness you saw the first time you met her, when you had returned her torn blanket and watched her trudge away. She had been hollow eyed and silent, accepting your gift without thanks. 

And now, she meets your gaze, as gently as a breeze. This woman, joined to you across realities and dimensions, just as you are joined to Gale. You feel a bond just as profound and inexplicable. Just as impossible to sever.

She jerks her head gruffly.

“Have you figured it out yet, Gale of Waterdeep?” 

Gale draws himself up. You see the pitch of his chest, concealing the frenzy of his heartbeat. Certainty burns in his features, rigid with revelation. Your stomach lurches.

“I have,” he answers. “You’re a Planeswalker.”

Chapter Text

“That’s it.” 

Elspeth’s grin reminds you of a lynx baring its fangs. You are trapped and defenceless, facing  a god-like being with limitless power and an unknown purpose. Yet you feel no fear, only a curious sense of inevitability. It is bewildering.

“Planeswalker.” Elspeth nods approvingly. “Very theatrical. Very grand.”

Gale rises slowly, pulling you up with him. Once again, he moves his body in front of yours, his arms cushioning you behind him. You recognise the set of his face from the battles you have faced both on and off screen. There is an undercurrent of something like anger in his features. You think of all the gods Gale has known, all the mortal lives they have toyed with and trampled for their selfish designs. The scars he carries from Mystra’s leash, bound with empty praise and seduction. 

“What do you want with us?” Gale’s words are clipped, his voice stone. 

Elspeth arches an eyebrow. Even shrivelled and seated, her stare cuts through you, leaving you feeling awkward and vaguely impolite. You struggle to give words to your confusion.

“What is all this, Elspeth?” you breathe. “What’s it all about?”

Elspeth puffs out her chest. “I’ve told you. I want you to go back to Faerun together. I want you to be happy.”

Her words have the timbre of truth. You remember the warmth of Elspeth’s finger on your forehead as she whispered, “what you want” . Her fervent gaze as she uttered, “You deserve love.” 

You cannot believe that everything you shared with Elspeth was a deception. That she only ever wanted to take from you. That she never cared for you.

Gale, on the other hand, is unconvinced. 

“Forgive me, Elspeth, but I find that hard to believe.” 

Tension radiates from Gale like smoke from a furnace. To him, Elspeth is not just a stranger. In all but name, she is a god. And he cannot bring himself to trust a god, after all he has seen and endured. 

“I can’t believe that a Planeswalker with your power would have such simple, selfless intentions. Nor can I understand why Mia and I are quite so important to you, when you have the infinities of the multiverse at your reach.” 

There is a spasm on Gale’s temple, a twitching on his neck. He could erupt now, you realise. The slightest signal of danger from Elspeth, and he would spring to your protection, even if it meant his death. That is the magnitude of his love, even under strain. It still surprises you.

“Why toy with our lives?” His tone is a challenge. “What makes us so special?” 

There is a hollowness in Elspeth’s gaze as she considers Gale. You can hear her bones scrape as she clambers wearily to her feet. It is uncanny, how she still wears the mask of a harmless old lady, sucking on a boiled sweet with a vacant smile. How you still wish to steady her by the arm and straighten her blanket around her shoulders. Her sigh is thick with resignation.   

“Do you know how Planeswalkers are made, Gale Dekarios?”

Gale’s jaw clenches. He bristles at having his question met by another question, irrelevant and evasive. There is a hint of futility, too, as though Elspeth knows what his answer will be. Yet even now, Gale cannot resist the opportunity to learn more. 

“I believe you’re born with a spark of power.”

Elspeth hums. “We are. But not everyone born with a Planeswalker’s spark becomes a Planeswalker.”

Gale nods brusquely. “The spark must be triggered.”

“Yes.” Elspeth’s face hardens. “But not just by any run of the mill event. No. What triggers the spark is the most extreme trauma you can imagine. The most harrowing tragedy.” 

She laughs bitterly, a dagger thrust that shakes you. Gale’s brow flickers. 

“That’s the price you have to pay for this power. This gift.” She spits out the word like a curse. “I’d rather not have paid it. But I didn’t have a choice.”

She closes her eyes for a moment. You watch the spiderwebs that shiver on her eyelids, ancient and delicate threads untangling. The enigma of Elspeth, on the cusp of unveiling the secrets you have waited a year to behold. 

When your eyes seek Gale’s, you see a clouded horizon, a hint of clearing. You clasp his hand. Please, you think. Please listen. Please hear.

He strains. He relents. And he listens.

“In my universe, I had a daughter. She was beautiful and terrible. Wild.” 

Elspeth’s smile is ragged with yearning. It throbs in the space between you.

“She was clever, too. Curious about everything.”

An unspoken admission hangs in the air as Elspeth’s eyes linger on yours. You remember the ache in Elspeth's voice as she had called out to you. ‘Child’. ‘Daughter’ . The image of your mother drawing closer and not away. 

“I loved her,” Elspeth whispers. “I’d never loved anyone except myself. But I loved her.”

You had always assumed Elspeth had no friends or family. No connections. Not a care in the world. You had envied her that freedom once. The privilege of being alone, unyoked, unburdened. But now you see the solitude of aeons, a drawn noose around her neck. A chain that no mere mortal could ever break.

“It started when she was about twelve. Weeks of mania, and then weeks where she was still as a corpse. Days of crying so hard she threw up.” 

Elspeth scratches her scalp furiously. You worry she will tear. 

“I tried my best to take care of her, but I had to hide her away. We all worked for The State Machine then. I had to keep her safe.”

This is the first time Elspeth has ever mentioned anything about her home. It is a strange moniker, and you leap on it. 

“The State Machine?” 

Gale leans forward. He is appraising Elspeth's every action, her every expression. The tenor of her voice. The sincerity of her words. 

“In my universe, AIs and humans lived side by side,” Elspeth explains. “The State Machine was a combination of both. Every region followed The Programme. We didn’t know any other way.”

You picture Elspeth’s homeland, all smooth white ovals, not a thing out of place. A world of sentient AI, coexisting with humans. A kind of singularity, or perhaps none at all. Floodgates open in your mind, but you swallow your questions. Your intrigue is muffled by the foreboding in Elspeth's contorted features, the curdling of her speech.

“Any human or AI who deviated from The Programme was re-educated, reprogrammed, or disappeared.” Her wrinkled hands ball into fists. “I didn’t want that to happen to my daughter. I told myself I’d do anything to keep her safe.”

There is a shattering in the green of her eyes. Dread flares within you. By instinct, you brace yourself. Gale's fingers weave through yours, steeling you.

“I tried my best, but we couldn't hide forever. They came eventually. They took her away.”

She trembles with an agony you feel in your gut. 

“I begged and bargained. She tried to escape. But it was all pointless.”

You sense what she will say before she speaks. Gale’s breath seizes with your own.

“She killed herself. She was sixteen.”

A silence engulfs you, inevitable as quicksand. The grief of love, burning across millennia, enduring through eternity. The pain is a cloak that covers you all.

There is a softening in Gale’s bearing as he speaks. 

“What was her name?”

A small smile grazes Elspeth’s lips. A tear slices down her cheek.

“Aila,” she chokes. “My Aila.”

You reach out, taking Elspeth's hand in yours. Her eyes gleam with surprise and something like relief. You wonder when Elspeth last spoke of Aila. If she has ever done so, in all the ages since her spark ignited. 

“I'm so sorry, Elspeth.” 

“As am I,” Gale says.

His voice is gentle. His frown remains, but Elspeth's anguish is a crack in the wall he has erected. Gale has never been a stranger to suffering. To see it in Elspeth is the beginning of trust.

Elspeth squeezes your fingers, her juddering breaths echoing her turmoil. It is the first time you have seen Elspeth struggle to compose herself.

“When they told me, I went mad,” she says eventually. “I blacked out. And when I came to, I was lying on that bench in Birmingham. It was the first place I ever portalled to. There were thousands after.”

She sighs again, a crushing avalanche of exhaustion. 

“So many universes, so many worlds. One with gigantic telepathic slugs. Another where neanderthals worshipped a talking cow. Many like this one, some like my own. Some with no life at all. Peaceful. Desolate.”

You wish you could see Elspeth’s visions as she stares at her hands. Infinite realities. Endless possibilities. A vortex of wonder and terror. You can tell from the force of Gale's focus that he wishes the same. 

“I couldn't save my daughter. But I tried to make it right. For a long time, I tried. I tinkered with technology. Gave people clean water and metal hearts. I brainwashed leaders to do what I thought was just. I poisoned villains and the cronies propping them up. I fought in wars I thought would end all wars.”

She makes a strangled, scoffing sound. 

“It was pointless, in the end. Power corrupts. A tale as old as time. Selfishness and greed, snuffing out all things good and pure.  It’s always the same.”

There is something in the twisting of Elspeth’s mouth, the quiver of her shoulders. It makes you wonder. You are not sure if she is lamenting the sins of others, or confessing the darkness within herself. 

Perhaps there is no difference. You and Gale know that better than most. 

“In the end, nothing could bring my daughter back, or make me forget.”

As Gale watches Elspeth, the shadows of his features lift. You realise that he is beginning to see beyond his suspicion. To hear beyond the threat.

“I thought about following in my daughter’s footsteps. But I never could.” Her head wrenches back and forth. “Maybe it was the spark that made it impossible. I age, but I’m immortal.”

The revelation pierces you. You know, without looking, that Gale feels it too. All three of you have stood at that razor’s edge, desperate for the cut. And all three of you have walked onwards, haunted by its promise.

“Eventually, I ended up back on that bench in Birmingham. It was as good a place as any. When you realise that you can’t die, the next best thing is to live as though you’re dead. That’s what I did for five years.”

You are familiar with the living death she speaks of. When you had described it to Gale, he had recognised it too. You had thought of it as weakness once. But when you look at Elspeth now, you see beyond her gauntness, the rattling of her frail frame. You see the strength of eternity, the inextinguishable will to endure.

She looks up at you. It is like summer sunlight dancing through faded leaves. 

“And then I met Mia.” 

There is a tenderness that swirls around you, a brightness that burns but does not hurt. Elspeth's eyes meet Gale's.

“I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you, of all people, how that changed things.”

Gale is quiet for a moment. His grasp tightens around your hand, drawing you closer. He presses his lips against your temple, a surge of gratitude and affection.

“No,” he replies. “You certainly don't.”

You feel it in layers, then, threefold. A billowing wave that buoys you. The love of a companion. The love of a mother. The love of the self. You let it carry you for a while, a fleeting reprieve.

There is a trace of Elspeth's signature grin, held back by a vague hesitation. When she continues, there is almost a reluctance. It unnerves you.

“Your thoughts were always loud, Mia.” Her voice lowers. “Unbearably loud. All of your pain, all of your memories. All of your hopes and dreams.” 

She grimaces, gesturing to Gale. 

“You thought about him constantly. Your mind was bursting with that video game, that world called Faerun, all your fantasies and the fantasies of thousands of others.”

She sucks in a breath as she turns to him. It is like she is girding herself. 

“You were more real to her than anything, Gale Dekarios. You were everything she wanted. You could give her the love and happiness she’d never had.”

You have the distinct feeling of reaching the end of the line. Something tells you to turn back, to look away from the other side. You are reminded of the choice Elspeth had given you. Abandon your questions. Embrace happiness. 

“I wanted to give her that. I could never make it right for my daughter, but I could do it for Mia. So I did.”

A sharp unease roils within you. You glance at Gale. He is drifting, convinced that only the truth can tether him. His gaze ripples with something like fear, a kind of recognition. 

You know it is too late.

“How?” he manages. 

As she speaks, her form shrinks and slackens. The confession scrapes out of her like  labour. She had hoped she would not need to tell you. Uncharacteristically, unconscionably naive.

“I used Mia’s thoughts, memories and fantasies. Some conscious, some subconscious. Some of her own making, some dreamed up by others.” 

Her chest heaves, as though she forces out each word with difficulty. As though she cannot allow herself to stop.

“I absorbed Baldur’s Gate 3, the version of Faerun shaped by Mia’s choices. I studied the manuals and encyclopaedias, the Forgotten Realms, Dungeons and Dragons. It sapped my strength. It almost killed me. But I did it.”

With mounting nausea, you remember how Elspeth had twitched, half-dead, in your arms, smoky silhouettes sputtering out of her like lightning. It had not been a dream. The figures blaze in your mind’s eye now, and you recognise each and every one.

Gale is rigid, his lips tight to snapping. He has stopped breathing, and so have you.

Perhaps you have always known it. You were never convinced that you were Tav in another dimension, your memories suspended somewhere in the multiverse. You could never ignore the gaps in Gale’s theories, the constants and variants of which Gale had been so certain. All you had ever been certain of was your love.

You can be certain no longer.

“I created the world of Baldur’s Gate 3 and everyone in it,” Elspeth says at last. “I gave each being memories, sentience, agency. I created you, Gale Dekarios. I gave you memories of your past, already written, and memories of a life together with Mia beyond the story already told. Everything Mia wished for when she dreamed of you, you can now remember.”

Gale’s hand falls away from you, dropping by his side. Though it makes no sound, it reverberates within you like a knell. His bronzed face stiffens, blanched as bone. 

“I summoned you here to find your lost love,” Elspeth finishes. “And now, I want to send you both home.”

Gale is stiller than you have ever seen him. You stand in a vacuum where nothing stirs, not even the beating of your heart. You feel disembodied, like you are ghosting over a gaping mass that holds your shape. 

Elspeth's words are distant echoes across the expanse. It takes you a while to register them.

“I told you to forget your questions,” she mutters. “I told you to just go. You would have been happy.” 

Gale stares. He does not speak. You look at him, vacant as a tomb - the man you love, whose zeal for life brought you back from the dead, this man who could never bear to hold back his poetry and passion. After every blow he has endured, every demon your love has vanquished, to see him crushed by this discovery is a torment. You are suddenly consumed by a fury you do not understand.

“Happy?” you seethe. 

Shock flares on Elspeth's face. Of all the reactions she expected from you, she did not predict this. 

“Did you really expect us to fuck off happily back to Faerun, after finding out all that?”

There is hurt in Elspeth's eyes. She has never seen you angry. Not many have. You have never wished to wound her, but the rage of betrayal rips through you. You are possessed. 

“You had no right, Elspeth,” you snarl. “No right at all.”

“Mia.” She stumbles towards you. “Child-”

“I'm not your daughter!” 

She flinches, as though you have struck her. You had never realised what you meant to Elspeth. You are drowning in the magnitude and madness of what she has done, the grace of it, alongside its indifference. A wrecking ball, obliterating all boundaries between fact and fiction, choice and fate, reality and fantasy.  The storm within you shreds at your voice. 

“You can't do this to people's lives,” you choke. “This isn't a game-”

“Oh, but it is.”

Gale’s voice jolts you. You do not recognise it. It is broken glass and bile. The blackest fathoms of the deep, where nothing lost can be found.

“In fact, all my life, I’ve been a pawn in someone else’s game.”

You turn to him. There is no trace or worship, no sign of awe before his creator. You did not imagine there would be from a man so harrowed by the gods. Yet you cannot bear to see him now. He is a closed door, impenetrable as smashed marble. All of his warmth and light, subsumed by the abyss of truth. 

“Baldurs Gate 3, or Elspeth’s Redemption. Mia's Quest For Love. All games where I'm a puppet, a mere means to an end.” 

When he looks at you, you wince at the emptiness in his eyes. 

“I always thought I was the author of my own story, the hero of my own tale. But I was only ever a bit player in it.”

A scoff dies in his throat. When you start towards him, he holds up a hand. The ice in the gesture winds you. 

“I wish to be alone.” 

 He fixes on Elspeth.

“You may of course ignore my will, as is clearly your way. Or you can portal me somewhere, anywhere, so I can be alone.”

You want to plead with him, to go with him. But your instincts hold you back. You know what he needs now is solitude. Space to remember, time to understand. A way to decipher who and why he is. You search his gaze. There is the faintest flicker, almost a quailing. You want to believe that love still burns there.  

Elspeth sniffs. She points to the furthermost wall.  

“That door leads to my library. Be my guest.”

Before today, surveying the library of a multiversal being with god-like power would have catapulted Gale to the apex of bliss. But now, he only nods. His steps are almost mechanical in their evenness. Each one is a sob inside you.

“Don’t worry.” He pauses at the doorway, casting you a brief glance. “There’s nowhere else for me to go.”

You are chewing your fingernail. You cannot stop, even when you taste the iron tang of blood. Elspeth frowns at you, tutting faintly. 

“Why are you mad at me?”

You glare at her. You had crumbled to the floor, after Gale left. When Elspeth came to sit beside you, you could not muster the strength to move away. You grit your teeth.

“I've given you everything you ever wanted, Mia.” Elspeth wrinkles her nose. “Why the hell are you angry?” 

“You can read my mind,” you shoot back. “Why don't you?”

Elspeth huffs. “I don't go around reading people's minds willy nilly. How rude do you think I am?”

You whip towards her, incredulous. “Are you joking? From the first day we met, you read my mind. You did all this based on my thoughts.”

“That was different.” Elspeth grimaces. “It was impossible not to read your thoughts. They were practically screaming to be heard.”

You let out a seething groan. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You're the ridiculous one,” she grumbles. “This is everything you've ever dreamed of. I almost killed myself making sure of it. You could step through that portal and you’d be in your version of paradise with the love of your life. And you’re sitting here sulking at me.”

You gape at her. It is Elspeth who is sulking now, sullen and drawn, as if you are the one who has let her down. Disbelief tempers your wrath.

“Elspeth, those were fantasies. Wish fulfilment to get me through my shitty life. They weren’t real.”

Elspeth tosses her head, her eyes narrowed. “But now they are. And so is he. And he loves you, like you love him.” 

You falter, watching the writhing of your hands. “I wouldn’t bank on that."

Elspeth regards you. You do not have the energy to hide, to wade through the murk of your desires. Perhaps she knows you better than you know yourself. Everything you thought you knew is as good as forfeit, anyway. 

“I see.” She hums. “You're not angry for yourself. You're angry for him.”

You close your eyes. What was the point of it all, you wonder, to have pulled through the breakers together, only to become ash in the sun? All the ruins within each other’s hearts, rebuilt and fortified by love, only to be shattered again by the horrors of truth.

You had come to believe that your love could overcome any obstacle you might face. What, really, was the point, if it was all just a beautiful lie?

“You've broken him, Elspeth. He'll never come back from this.”

She exhales heavily. You remember that she is ancient. She has watched civilisations rise and fall, quickening some, humbling others. The wisdom of ages binds her heart. Despite your doubts, despite her flaws, you cannot help but listen. 

“You and Gale,” she says softly. “You're two sides of the same coin. Kind hearts, keen minds. Never satisfied with easy answers. Always wrestling with the truth.”

She lays her hand on yours. Even in the tumult, there is something grounding about its callouses, like the flowing patterns of old oak.  

“I wouldn’t have done all this if I thought the two of you couldn’t handle it.”

You wince. “You’re asking him to accept he was a fictional character from a video game, whose entire world was created by a Planeswalker to satisfy a lonely depressive in Birmingham.”

“Mia-”

Your voice cracks. “Who could accept that?”

You listen to the rasping of Elspeth’s breaths. You recall all the times Gale could have unravelled at the boundaries of his existence. The first time you had loaded up the game. The discovery of his voice actor. The roads not taken. ‘Fundamentally and ontologically world-changing,’ he had quipped. ‘Shot through with existential terror.’ He had found anchors to cling to, moorings for his sanity. Now, he has no defence. The truth will swallow him whole, and you do not know what will remain. 

“You know what the truth is, Mia?”

Hope throbs in Elspeth’s features. The earnestness of it stills you.

“In the end, love is the only thing that matters. The only force that endures. Through time and space, what’s real and what isn’t. You and Gale know this. And you have it. Not all of us are so lucky. ” 

The spirit of Aila lingers between you. Love - the ageless cord, threading Elspeth’s desires to your own, winding through the depths of Gale’s creation. The reason for everything. The fire to ignite all flames.

And yet, you doubt.

“How can it be real love, if he was created to love me?”

The final question. Your truest fear, trembling within you in the dark.

Elspeth tilts her head. Affection swells in her voice, urgent and insistent.

“Come now, Mia. Poet philosopher. Extraordinary girl. Do I need to tell you what you already know?”

You have no response. When the words spill from her, you do not know why you are surprised. You may not have had the discussions with Elspeth directly, but she may as well have been there. Maybe your memories of them were intolerably loud. Perhaps, like Gale, Elspeth could never resist the opportunity to learn more of you.

“AI,” she declares. “The Warforged. Beings designed and programmed for a purpose, given sentience and agency. Humans, programmed by nature and nurture, but not defined by it. All free to choose.” 

It is as though Elspeth is firing arrows, and you must follow each one as it lands. You must trace the route forged by them, in the hope they guide you home. 

In the embers of your soul, you know they will guide you home.

“Gale is no different. Created, but a living, breathing man, with his own thoughts and feelings. Free to choose. Free to love. There’s nothing more real than that.”

When the revelation came, your first impulse was to brace yourself. You could see Gale dissolving, drowning in his own confusion and despair. Everything had changed, you thought. All was lost. But now, as you unravel each strand of the web encircling you, you are no longer sure.

Perhaps everything has changed, but nothing has changed.

“Your love is real, and it's worth fighting for.”

Elspeth watches dawn breaking on your face. You can see how it fills her up, her back straightening, her breaths levelling.  It is how you always imagined it would be to have a mother. To rest in her love. To make her proud. 

You sit in silence for a while, squeezing Elspeth’s hand. It does not hurt when her fingernail jabs into your side.

“Well?” 

She jerks her head towards the library door. 

“What are you waiting for?”

Chapter Text

You pause at the doorway. He stands in the corner of the library, staring at his hands. In the glaring blankness around you, the warmth of his skin fades, like watercolours washed out by the sun. When you step into the room, he does not look up. 

The library is empty but for a white sphere in its centre, a pearl large enough for you to curl up inside. You examine it silently. Time slips away as you wait until it is right to speak. You trust that the moment will come, that Gale will return. That there is still something between you to salvage. 

You are not sure how long you remain there. There is, eventually, the smallest tilt of Gale’s head. You feel the sweep of his glance over you.

“I’m not sure if this counts as a library,” you say.

Gale’s dark eyes blanch hazel when they meet yours. His voice is flat and hollow as he nods towards the sphere. 

“I presume that's the library.” 

He remains still. It is disconcerting, to be so distant from him, after being intertwined in each other for so long. You yearn to close the space between you, but you cannot. You do not know if that is his wish. 

You mirror his nod. “You didn't have a look?”

He hesitates. It is a simple question, but even this is fraught with agony. Your heart lurches.

“For an instant, I wanted to. I almost did. And then it struck me. Was that impulse a genuine desire of my own? Or was it merely an inclination foisted upon me, to make my fictional person more complete? Has my curiosity always been a fabrication, a programmed instinct of a mindless construct? Has my hunger for knowledge ever been a real choice?” 

His face wrenches in a grimace. There is a lashing inward, a stripping away.

“Needless to say, I didn't indulge the impulse.”

You listen to the convulsions of his breath. It is a battle not to surge forward and embrace him. You know that is not what he needs. His mind is fractured, and he must decide how to repair its cracks. 

He squints at his hands. Those exquisite tools of power and beauty, the channels of his gentleness.  He turns them over, as if he has never seen them before. As if he does not know what they are.

“I can remember the leaves on the rose bush I burned the first time I cast Fireball,” he heaves. “The feeling of my mother’s arms around me when I cried. The crumbs on Elminster’s beard the first time we had tea together.”

Each word is a wound, throbbing as it bleeds. 

“I remember the wind on my face when I fell from the nautiloid. The relief in Tara’s voice when she found me that first artefact. How much I trembled the first time Mystra touched me.”

You have no spells to read his thoughts, but you feel every memory like a gash. He is reliving each one, ripping it apart, grieving over its pieces. 

“I remember the taste of the cake in your mouth when I kissed you on our wedding night. How terrified I was those two weeks you were gone. All the places in our tower where we made love. All the nights you held me through my worst nightmares.”

Anguish crushes his voice. He falters, steadying himself against the wall.

“All these things I remember,” he chokes. “They never happened. They weren’t real.”

He closes his eyes. In the midst of his unravelling, the love within you blazes more brilliantly than ever before. A billowing flame, burning through the boundaries that have been torn down. Boundaries that have always been fragile. Boundaries that are meaningless in the face of your love. 

“They’re as real to you as everything that’s ever happened to me.”

He winces, as though you have slapped him. 

“Those things never happened, Mia. They were all just figments of your imagination, or well-crafted delusions of thousands of others. The events of my life, my nature, my choices - all woven from the fantasies of others. All lies.”

You cannot see the tears from afar, but you hear them crumple in his throat. You look at him with all the tenderness within you. You hold his gaze, even when he tries to avoid it.

“That doesn’t mean they weren’t real.”

Facts were always comforting to Gale. You have known that since the day he tumbled into your world. You anchored each other with facts about Earth and Toril, technology and the intricacies of life around you. Created or not, that instinct is part of him, just as it is part of you. You stand before the man you love, with all his virtues, quirks and foibles, grains of sand swirling into a marvel of a storm. In its midst, it does not matter how or why he came to be.

You take a risk, then. It is based on a hope, rooted in the joining of your souls. A conviction that you can appeal to his mind through the breaking of his heart. That as you pore over the truth and what it means, he will not mistake your words for cold indifference, but be buoyed by the love that radiates from you.

“Our brains can’t tell for sure, you know,” you start. “What’s real, I mean.”

He turns to you. Surprise and confusion flash on his features, a fleeting puncture in his pain. 

“We get scared and stressed just as much by real threats as perceived threats,” you go on. “Things that aren’t actually there, or aren’t actually threats at all. If we imagine something really intensely, our brains get confused between reality and fantasy. We believe what we’ve imagined is real.”

You can tell by the narrowing of his gaze that he is following. Relief and hope drive you forward.

“We can think something is real, but we can’t know for sure that it is.”

His voice is hard as armour, but you hear its chink. 

“I was told by my creator. That’s a rather clear indication.”

“You were,” you admit. “But most of us aren’t so lucky. We’re all just brains in skulls, relying on the signals that our bodies send. And when our brains get those signals, they use our memories to interpret them. There's no guarantee that our perceptions line up with what's really out there.”

The creases on Gale’s forehead deepen.

“In the end, we can never be sure what’s real.”

Gale stares at you. Is this the first time he has considered this? You cannot believe that a mind as exceptional and knowledgeable as Gale’s has never considered the nature of reality and the subjectivity of perception. Neuroscience and psychology would not have been outside the bounds of his internet exploration. Perhaps he has pondered the theories in the abstract, but never as a crisis of life and death proportions.

“I could be a fictional character in a video game, or a disembodied brain being controlled by electrical impulses,” you continue. “I could be an AI in a virtual simulation. I could be dreaming, or in a coma. I can never know for sure. There’s no way to prove for certain that I’m not.”

Gale’s lips ripple, but he does not speak. You recognise determination in the darkness of his thinking line, smouldering beneath the hurt. You have placed the puzzle before him, and you must help him parse it. 

“If I discovered I was any of these things - that my memories didn’t actually happen in an external reality - would it make them meaningless? Would it mean they didn’t affect my behaviour and personality? Would it mean they weren’t real to me?”

His jaw clenches, but he leans forward. You leap on the sign. You take a step towards him. 

“Does knowing what you know now make your memories any less real to you?”

It is not a challenge, but there is a push in it. A kind of plea. You are asking him not to discount the possibilities. To see beyond first impressions. 

You know he is capable of it. It has always been his way. 

“Has your love for your mother and Tara disappeared? Do you suddenly feel nothing about how Mystra used and abandoned you?”

It is not quite shock that flares in his features. He is startled at your invitation, your implication. The idea that everything has changed, but nothing has changed.

“Do you feel no more loyalty towards all the friends you loved? Would a new book fill you with dread now instead of joy? Do you not miss your balcony in Waterdeep, more than anywhere else?”

His answers quiver in his hunched shoulders. You do not ask him whether he still loves you. You are not sure you are ready to find out.

“Your memories and experiences are part of who you are, Gale. Whether or not they really happened - they’re still real to you.”

He opens his mouth, then closes it. Is it resistance you see as he caves into himself? Perhaps it is weariness, surrender to the turmoil that snaps his every frayed nerve. But you cannot give up now. 

“What we can feel and sense and grasp in the here and now - that’s as real as it gets. We can’t prove anything beyond that.”

For so long, you let the things you cherished slip through your fingers, believing you only deserved loss. You did not fight for your happiness, believing you only deserved punishment. Now, you fight not just for him but for yourself. You will fight with everything you have. 

“You’ve always been real to me, Gale. Before Elspeth. Before you became flesh and blood and came to this world. There’s not much I’m certain of, but I know my love for you is real. It always has been.”

He is silent for a long time. Your love has always been marked by a blurring of lines, a merging of fiction and reality. A converging of the real and imagined. Maybe it is not enough for him as he clutches, broken and desperate, for a firm foundation. You bite back your tears. You will give him everything you have, but if that is his choice, you must accept it. 

“I don’t know if my choices are my own,” he says at last. “I don't know which thoughts were genuine, which actions were mine. I don’t know how to live.”

He slides onto the floor, his joints creaking with a muffled cry. His suffering winds you. You pace forward, taking a place by his side. You are relieved when he does not move away. But his hand rests limply next to yours, and you struggle against the breaking of your voice. 

“Do you remember what you told me about the Warforged?”

His eyes are not a stranger’s when he looks at you. They are full, not gentle, but not stone. You dare to hope that Elspeth is right. That love is the only force that endures.

“Not shackled by their original purpose.” His reply is slow, almost laboured. “Capable of independent thought and emotion. Free to follow their programming, or to choose a different path.”

You had always thought that having such a thorough memory was a blessing, but now you wonder if it is a curse. A double-edged sword, as likely to hurt as it is to heal.  Yet when his gaze flickers, you see the suggestion of an opening.

“You drew a parallel with sentient AI,” he recalls, frowning. “You felt that a programmed entity, if it reached sentience, could still think, feel, and choose.”

Your eyes widen. “I did. I do.” 

You watch the rising and falling of Gale’s chest. You think of all the times you lay against it, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. An echo of his nature, abiding and true. You shift closer. He tilts his head towards yours.

“I might not know whether I was created, Gale. I might not have been told I was written as a character in a script. But my childhood, my experiences, my trauma - they've shaped so much about me and my choices. Can we really say I’m not every bit as programmed as you are?”

His head jerks, visceral and harsh. He makes a rough, flinching sound.

“You disagree,” you remark.

“Of course I disagree, Mia.” His voice tightens. “The playing field is not equal, no matter how hard you try to level it.” 

“Isn’t it?” You return his stare. 

Gale’s brow spasms. He sweeps a trembling hand through his hair. You can sense his exasperation, jostling against his confusion. You steel your voice.

“Didn’t what my father did to me drive me into Toby's arms? Wasn't I always doomed to find someone like Kaidan as an escape? And wasn't I always going to repeat the same cycle, pretending to be someone else, trying to prove my worth by finding someone broken to save? Pouring myself out until there was nothing left?”

For an instant, you sense a lurching in Gale, and then a withdrawal. Your breath hitches. If he still feels the need to come to your defence, then maybe all is not lost.

“None of us are completely free of our programming, Gale. But all of us can choose not to be defined by it. To rise above it. It’s what it means to be alive.”

Gale’s sigh is a tattered, guttering thing. His face crumples like a sinkhole. 

“It’s not that simple, Mia. I was created to love you. That was the sole purpose I was programmed for.” 

You shake your head. Your urgency commands his gaze. 

“Elspeth made you and everyone else in Faerun sentient. Whatever programming you had, the paths and stories that were written for you - they’re in the past. From the point of your creation, Elspeth gave you the ability to think, feel and choose.”

There is the faintest crackling in his eyes. An ember of his passion, gasping for life. You seize it.

“When you got here, you could have decided I wasn’t worth it. You could have been underwhelmed, annoyed, disgusted. So many times, you could have decided to leave me. All the things we’ve struggled through together - you could have decided it wasn’t worth the hassle.” 

Gale's fingers flicker beside yours. You allow hope to gird you, a fence around your fear. The truth is a burning blade now, searing away the shadows.

“You had a choice then, and you have a choice now.”

Something glows within Gale.  In it, you see the darkness of the night, before the breaking of dawn. You wonder if Gale would have ever questioned your life together if not for Elspeth's revelation. This man, who always loved without abandon, who gave himself entirely, holding nothing back. Would he have ever doubted the sincerity of his affections?

You know you may lose him, but there is no other way.

“If you knew then what you know now, would you have chosen differently?” 

He fixes on you as he considers. You have the sense that he is seeing you through the prism of memory, struggling to parse the whispers of his heart. The weight of his thoughts crushes the force from his words.

“Even if my answer were no, aren't all my choices dictated by the nature I was given?”

He is torturing himself.  His voracious mind turns inwards like a hook, slashing at every nook and cranny. Every kiss, every caress, every time you swore yourselves to each other by word and deed. He places it all under a magnifying glass, like ants waiting to ignite. 

He could lose himself to this. You have come too far to see that happen. 

“If yours are, then so are mine. And if ours are, then everyone’s choices are. No one in the world could ever say they were free.” 

‘No one would ever doubt humans are sentient’, he had agreed once. He had told you of the Warforged, whose ability to choose was never in doubt. It had been true to him then. It must be true to him now.

He wavers, a whirling frenzy. He buries his face in his hands.

“I don’t know who I am, Mia. I don't know what to believe.”

You remember Gale’s speech before you left your house for the first time. It had come to him so naturally, to list all his titles and accolades. ‘Professor of Blackstaff Academy. Former Archwizard and Chosen of Mystra. Companion of the Hero of Baldur’s Gate.’ All the roles he had played, the standards by which he measured himself. Anchors on which he hung his life’s meaning.  Now, nothing but dust and ashes, paling before the wonder of his nature.

You smile through your gathering tears.

“You’re Gale Dekarios. A man whose kindness, sincerity and passion changes everyone he meets. A man of exceptional wisdom, wit and charm, who loves with everything he has. The man I love. The other half of my soul.”

He looks up at you. There is a swelling in his gaze, raw and unmistakable. You lean towards him, your hand hovering above his. 

“You were never a failure,” you whisper. “You were always enough.”

You can see it grow within him. He had felt the weight of freedom as an impenetrable noose, a living death. But now, he begins to see. All the burdens written into his past, every mistake and transgression assigned to him - it is for him to decide which to cast off and which to reclaim. He can choose.

It is bewildering. Paralysing.

“So everything I went through, or thought I went through.” He twitches, clenching and unclenching his fists. “It was all meaningless.”

You know it is a torment to accept. How many people can stare into the abyss and laugh? How many can truly take up the mantle of Sisyphus, forever pushing the boulder of existence up the mountain of futility, finding triumph in the toil? Not many would survive it.

But Gale is anything but ordinary. And neither are you.

“There is no higher meaning, Gale. No greater purpose or design. But we keep going. We find joy in the here and now. We find meaning in the stories we make for ourselves. That’s all we have.”

Gale lowers his head. For a while, he is shrouded, and you cannot read him. All you can do is wait. And as you wait, you realise that you trust. You trust in his stalwart soul, a mirror of your own. You trust in his mind, sharper than the most ragged thorn, boundless enough to hold multitudes. You trust in the love that flows between you, thicker than blood or water, constant as the fixed star of your vows. 

He speaks softly. His words have the quality of a prayer, or perhaps a spell. A precious offering, drawn up from his deepest recesses. 

“‘It doesn’t need to make sense. You don’t need to be able to explain it or understand it. You just need to be able to live. To choose. To feel. To love.’”

As your tears fall, he lifts his head. Through the mist, you watch his brows steeple and his lips part. 

“You were listening, then.” You wipe your eyes.

The ghost of a smile lingers over his features. “I listen to everything you say.”

“So listen now.” 

His beauty threads through skin and bone, down to the stardust that formed his spirit. It has always been a blazing comet, setting all the dead parts within you alight.  Awe steals your voice for a moment. Wherever this path leads, you are grateful, so grateful, to have beheld the miracle of him.

You take a breath.

“What happens next is for you to decide. You have to decide whether you love me, and if you want to be with me. You have to choose if you want to go back to Waterdeep, the place you’ve always called home. And you have to decide if you want to explore this new Faerun, where everyone can break free from their past, and the possibilities are endless. You're free to choose anything you want.”

You hold your hand out to him. 

“What will you choose?”

Chapter Text

You wait. 

It is excruciating at first. The spectre of loss harrows you, the vision of Gale leaving your life as suddenly as he came. You have bathed in the warmth of his love, every fracture within you filled by his flame. You have sheltered in the shield of his arms, your souls twining together like rivers, inseparable and constant. He has seen you as you are, and loved you anyway. And in the miracle of his love, you have found something you never thought possible - the strength to begin anew.

To have beheld life in all its fullness, only to be cast into the void - that would be a death more final than any you have experienced before. 

For a while, you cannot bear the thought. It makes you desperate, frenzied. You want to beg, to plead, to throw yourself at his feet. Your hand trembles in the space between you, straining towards him. 

And then, an echo.

“‘One wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear what is necessary, still less conceal it, but love it.’”

Elspeth’s words are ripples through a lake, washing over the mire within you. You think of every time his soul dipped towards yours, like a star caressing earth . Every time you held him in your arms, drawing closer and not away. You realise, with an inexplicable peace, that there is nowhere you would rather be. If your life with him were repeated in an endless and infinite cycle, there is nothing you would do differently. You would always choose to be here now.

You have chosen Gale many times before. A lifetime ago, when you were separated by a screen and the construct of fiction. You saw through to his heart, beyond the magic he commanded, beyond a goddess’ sacrifice. You loved him as Gale Dekarios, a most brilliant wizard of intentionally limited renown, a man you could never find wanting. A man who loved you so purely he created the night sky, believing it could never rival your beauty. 

Time after time, you chose him in the recesses of your mind. On sleepless nights and interminable days, through the agony of loneliness and lack, when the mere thought of him gave you hope and courage to keep pushing that crushing boulder up that ceaseless mountain.   

And w hen the unfathomable happened, the wonder of Gale made flesh before you, you chose him. You chose him over Kaidan, the yoke you took up and refused to lay down, a purgatory you never dared escape. When your past sins were revealed, you chose Gale over the monsters that demanded your punishment but never granted absolution. You chose to fight for your soul, ignited by the love that burned between you. You chose to fight for him.

So you do not need to tell him. He already knows. You would choose him in any reality. You would choose a life with him, amongst a realm of created and sentient characters you have come to cherish far more than the world in which you were born. He does not need to ask what your choice is.

He has chosen you before. Not before the Netherbrain, when he believed his life would damn the world. Not on an illusory boat drifting through the astral sea, when he realised he could live without godly power, but never without you. Not at the Elfsong Tavern, still ecstatic from the salvation of Faerun, as he kneeled and took your hand, welcoming you into the Dekarios clan. 

These moments were written for him, defined by the script he was given. You are not sure whether he would choose differently, were he to go back now. When you asked him, he had not quite answered.

But he has chosen you before. On the day of his arrival, when he discovered you were sworn to another, yet could not hold back. The inviolability of monogamy, a staple of Gale’s make-up, overridden by his yearning to embrace you. A choice he made, time and time again. When he discovered the truth about your past, which should have been unforgivable. When he learned about Toby, and Kaidan, and every unspeakable shame you had hidden. He should have turned away in disappointment and disdain. But he did not. He chose to love you completely, the best and worst of you, holding nothing back. He chose to give himself to you beneath the sacred elements of land and sky. He chose to remain.

As you wait, you remember this.

You have never been sure of anyone’s love. Not your father, who hacked away at you until little remained. Not your mother, a shadow of a shadow, a gaping hole. Not Toby and Kaidan, tethered to a crumbling mirage, a slow decay. You never believed any of them could truly see and love you, and you were right.

But when you look at Gale now, you remember every beam of laughter, every searing tear. Every precipice before which you have stood together, paralysed by the plunge. Every crossroads from which you have emerged, hearts broken but beating in tune. You see it all, and it is a thread between you that bends but does not break. His eyes are nectar spilling into earth as they meet yours, and you have never been so sure of anything.

When he takes your hand, you know what he will say before he speaks.

“I choose you. In any universe, in any realm, on any plane. I choose you.”

When your bodies return to each other, it is different, but the same. Every touch of skin and tongue is a decision. Every gaze and whisper is an affirmation. The rhythm of your fire melting into his is a reminder.

You are alive. You are real. You are loved.

You feel his tears like a balm, glowing on your cheeks, your lips, your neck. You meet them with your own, your breaths echoing his. Gasps of grief and freedom, clenched with pain and joy. You trace each other’s wounds, marking their healing with each kiss and caress. You savour each other with the ache of the first time. You hold each other like it is the last.

And when it is over, you lie side by side, looking at each other. Pink patches pepper his skin. His hair is a weary tousle, his eyes drained by tears. But the lines on his forehead have receded, like a clear horizon. A new dawn. 

He smiles at you. He is as beautiful as he ever was. 

“So.” 

His lips sharpen with a hint of the mischief you have missed so much. You are beyond relieved to see its return. 

“Shall we take a look at Elspeth’s library?”

You do not leave immediately. You are not sure how long it takes you to prepare. You wonder if you are feeling a sliver of what Elspeth mentioned - the meaningless of time and space, the condensing of past and future into nothing more than the present. There is no day or night in Elspeth’s home, no markers for time passing except the shifting sands between Gale and Elspeth, and within Gale himself. 

At first, Gale inundates Elspeth with more questions. By what power did she create him? How exactly did she give him sentience? What, precisely, were the building blocks she used to craft his essence? You yourself have had enough answers to last you a lifetime. You do not think you can bear any more. But mistrust surges in Gale’s every word, bubbling with hurt. For him, it is like a compulsion. A wound he cannot yet allow to heal.

“Enough,” Elspeth grizzles. “I've given you the answers you needed. No more questions. Some things are best left to the imagination.”

Gale’s face darkens, a gathering storm. 

“Oh, I see.” There is acid in his voice. “Oh Mighty Creator, praise your infinite wisdom. For a humble mortal like me could never be fit to behold your lofty mysteries. How kind you are to withhold such knowledge.”

The cut of Gale's words is startling. His glare roils with rage. Elspeth's eyes bulge as she draws herself up. Even tiny and gnarled, she looms over him. She hacks a glob of spit on the floor. Her slap rings in the air as it lands on Gale's arm. You and Gale jolt in your seats.

“What the hell, Elspeth?” you cry.

Elspeth smoulders, jabbing a furious finger at Gale. 

“Never call me that again.”

Confusion replaces the bitterness in Gale's features as he gapes. You wonder if Gale has ever been slapped by an old woman, Planeswalker or not. Of all the rebuffs he expected from a god, you doubt spitting and slapping were what he had in mind. 

“You and I are equals,” Elspeth huffs. “We always will be. I'm not withholding answers because I'm like every cruel god you ever knew. I'm doing it because some questions will drive you mad if you keep asking them. Trust me, I know.”

In the silence that follows, you think of all the lives Elspeth has led, chasing Aila’s ghost in the dark. The futility and anguish of it all, looping in on itself in an endless cycle. Gale’s gaze shivers and softens. You wonder if he can see the road and where it leads. Perhaps he will always have the insatiable itch to know more, to pick away at the seams of truth, even if it may unravel the world. Maybe that will always be the edge from which you must call him back. 

But he does not ask Elspeth any more questions. That, in itself, is a victory. 

There are times when a cloud passes over him. He hunches, brow furrowed, lost in thought. You wonder which vestige it is that haunts him. Is it Mystra, the holder of his chains? His father, the measure of all measures? Or is it the god of ambition, the warped mirror? You know he is clawing through the flotsam of his story, clutching for the pieces that ring true. Deciding which burdens to carry and which to cast off. 

At these times, he does not speak, and you do not press him. Some thoughts go beyond words, down to the marrow of the spirit. Some mysteries take time for even the most exceptional mind to understand. And many gashes bleed for lifetimes before they mend.

There are moments when you doubt. How could a man so harrowed by truth resist the lure of lies? Can a man so stripped of anchors truly find his way to shore? You still fear that you will lose him. You cannot save him from the storm within himself.

But then he reaches for you. His fingers weave through yours, soft and sure. A smile breaks on his features, a candle that will not be blown out. The tempest recedes to the sunrise. And you know he has made his choice.

There are hints of hope, too. A spark of excitement at new possibilities. The zeal for life which you have always adored in Gale, as intrinsic to his nature as his voracious mind, his kindness, his earnestness.

“Perhaps this means Tara won’t harass me incessantly about my beard anymore.”

He says it abruptly, almost offhandedly. But his eyes dance. He looks pleased at the thought, and his delight flutters within you.   

“Maybe Karlach and Minsc read encyclopedias for fun now.” You chuckle.

Gale chortles. “Perhaps Astarion and Minthara dole out free favours in the Underdark like clerics giving alms.”

“Maybe Barcus will tell Wulbren to go fuck himself. And Wyll will tell Ulder the same.”

Gale arches an eyebrow. “I think that might be asking too much. I don’t think Wyll would say that to anyone. Not even to a goblin or a cultist.”

You laugh, nuzzling into him. He sighs into your skin. 

“It’s a brave new world. Anything’s possible.”

There are details to iron out, of course. Even when you are back in Waterdeep, you are sure there will be rough edges to smooth.

“What will I do when we get there?” You cannot help but worry. “I’m not a fighter or a spellcaster.”

Gale hums. “That remains to be seen. I’ll have to assess your magical aptitude. We’ll do some tests when we get back. I’ll give you some lessons.”

You swallow. The idea of tests and lessons with Professor Dekarios sends a quiver through you. You lose yourself briefly in the reverie.

“And you’re already trained in the bardic arts,” Gale observes, snapping your focus back. “You have enough stories to last you a lifetime. The tales you’ve lived, and the boundless repository of fiction from this universe. You’ll have a veritable bounty of inspiration to draw on. And Faerunites are just as voracious for fantasy as your people are. Publishers will be frothing at the mouth.”

You can picture it. Life as a bard does not seem as far-fetched as you originally thought. You could spend your days writing, painting, playing the piano. Gale has already agreed to teach you, after all. 

Excitement diffuses your anxiety. It is exhilarating, to see a blank page as opportunity and not defeat. It is a new sensation, the first of many to come.

“But what are we saying happened to us?” you ask, when it occurs to you later. “We’ve been gone for a while.”

“Well.” Gale frowns, scratching at his beard. “We’ll tell them the truth.”

He waves away the dismay that screams from your face.

“Not everything obviously. Not all this.” He gestures vaguely around you and towards Elspeth.

“Wise choice,” Elspeth shouts from the corner of the room, as she tinkers with one of her  contraptions. “Save yourself the trouble.”

You ignore the undercurrent of grumbling in Elspeth’s tone. Both you and Gale had chosen the bitter pill of truth, but many would not do the same. You all know this well.

“We’ll just say I found you in another universe,” Gale continues. “But I had to convince you to come back with me, as you’d lost your memories.”

It seems simple enough. Too simple, in fact. 

“Won’t people be suspicious? I look completely different. There’s no resemblance between me and Tav at all.”

Gale tuts. “Stranger things have happened in Faerun. Much stranger things. And besides, you share that scar.”

He brushes a gentle finger over it, as though it is precious. You have come to accept it, too. You would not say you wear it with pride, but as a mark you need not hide. A sign of the battles you have survived.

“I don’t think this scar makes up for the rest of it, Gale. They’ll have questions.”

Gale flashes you a sideways smile. “You forget I have a unique talent.”

You raise your eyebrow. “Another one?”

“Indeed.” Gale chuckles. “I can deluge people with so many tedious details that they lose the desire for further information. It’s a well-honed strategy of mine.”  

He savours your laughter like a fine wine. 

“We’ll tell them this was your form in the other universe, and that you prefer it now,” he decides. “That should suffice.”

You scoff. “That’ll be the greatest mystery of all - how anyone could choose this form over Tav’s.”

He stares at you blankly, as though your implication eludes him. You realise that it has never occurred to him. He cannot understand how you could have misgivings about your appearance, or any doubts about your beauty. His bewilderment floods you with a rush of affection. You throw your arms around his neck.

“What did I do to deserve this?” His fingers dance in your hair.

“Everything,” you whisper, before your mouth finds his.

It is difficult for Elspeth to tell you more about her world. There is a reluctance that you recognise as mourning. To remember the past is to relive it, and you do not wish to torture Elspeth any further, after the aeons she has endured.

So when, without prompting, she begins to tell Gale about her power, you are surprised. She calls it The Circle, and her channelling of it The Joining. Her descriptions are direct but intricate, almost scientific; distinct from the Weave, but not entirely alien. She draws it up from within herself, she says, like she is at the centre of a whirlpool, sucking in the waters around her. Gale listens intently, prodding for details and examples, sketching out parallels and contrasts. His fascination seeps into every look and word, his resentment fading with each pearl of knowledge shared.

By the time Gale and Elspeth begin to exchange culinary insights, you know something more than a tentative truce has been forged.

“It’s an acquired taste, isn't it.” Gale’s nose is wrinkled as he swirls the soup around in his mouth.

“It’s not wine, Gale.” You titter.

Elspeth bobs her head, slurping loudly. 

“Good stuff, this.” Red flecks shine on her front teeth as she grins. “The best thing that came from The Programme. A complete formula, with everything a human body needs for optimum health.”

“Except flavour,” Gale mutters into his mug. 

You shoot him a warning look. Elspeth throws her head back and guffaws. 

There is a moment, singular and pure. A freshly cut diamond, glimmering in the grass. The three of you are sitting together, your mugs of miso soup drained, your breathing easy and free. Gale is regaling Elspeth with his heroics at the Yawning Portal, when he saved an unwitting crowd from violence with the power of wit, generosity and booze. You watch, cloaked in bliss, as he reclaims this memory as his own.

Elspeth is shrieking, a tumult of incredulity and praise. The wrinkles of her face writhe in glee. Gale’s hands are a flurry of amusement and affection. Laughter bursts from you in waves. 

When Gale pulls Elspeth into an embrace, what comes to you is a feeling. The caress of a whisper, reaching through the annals of your spirit. The longing you have harboured your whole life.

Home.

It is a shock to you, how simple it is, in the end. How easy it is to abandon your life. 

When Elspeth opens a portal to your house, the only thing you want to collect is Tara. When you arrive, Tara yowls happily, and you scoop up in your arms, burying your face in her silky fur. She smells of fresh laundry and winter. She purrs, licking at your chin with a focus that fills you with guilt. You fill her empty food bowl until it almost overflows, watching as she gorges herself like a kitten starved. 

While Gale gives Tara the long overdue fuss she demands, you walk around your house like you are seeing it for the first time. The ivories and greys, the hollow spaces. The ghosts of blame and blindness. All the things that were never yours, in the ruins of a broken life.

Among them, you find bursts of colour. You gather them up like treasures. ‘The Difference’. ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’. A collection of haikus. A painting of the Yorkshire Dales, and a print of an Enso circle. Tara's favourite toy octopus. 

You take a change of clothes. Just one. Gale assures you that you have everything you need back home in Waterdeep.

You gaze at him. You remember how his brightness had always clashed against the bleached void of these rooms, blazing through the whitest ashes of your days. Now, he glows more vividly than ever before, all bronze earth and tenderness, every perfect line and curve mirroring the radiance of his soul. 

“I know,” you say. “I have everything I need.”

You leave your phone. It will be useless in Faerun. But there are photos you imprint on your memory, and songs you play over again, stitching each note beneath your skin.

You sit on your bed, leaning against the headboard, Gale’s arm around you. Now and then, he hums and shifts, like the steady rhythm of the sea. You know that his scent of sandalwood and scrolls will forever remind you of the song of your heart. You close your eyes and listen. 

‘For all you know this might be
The difference between what you need and what you want to be’

All those years hunting a mirage, lashing yourself with everything you wanted to be. You yearned so desperately to be someone else - something more, better, different. Anything but yourself. 

No more. You are free.

There is a reverence in Gale's silence. You know that he hears. He understands. He plants a feather-light kiss on your temple. 

“You’ll miss the music of your universe.”

His voice is low. There is sorrow in it. You look up at him.

“I will.” You smile through a mist of tears. “But we'll make our own music.”

He sits beside you as you write. Tara dozes between you, the rise and fall of her tiny breaths giving you a comfort that you cannot explain. 

You considered leaving without a word, but you could not manage such cruelty. You write to Kaidan first. It is a short note. After everything that has passed between you, every truth and lie spoken and unspoken, there is little left to say. The cord has been cut, and he must make his own way. For years, you took that burden from him, believing it would heal and not harm. Now, it is for him alone to carry.

I’m sorry. I wish you well. I’m safe. Don’t look for me.

You write to your father next. You wrestle with the magnitude of the task. You could unleash every shadow, every hurt, every betrayal that maimed and mutilated you. They would be his punishment to bear, if he would accept it. But you know he will not. You doubt he is capable of it. 

“You don’t owe him anything,” Gale repeats. And you know he is right. You do not owe your father resolution. You do not owe him a justification, an explanation that makes sense of all the failures that crumble between you. You are not sure that exists, anyway.

In the end, you use words penned by another, spoken by a friend in whose suffering you saw your own. A friend you met on a screen, in a world that was once a fantasy, but will soon be your reality. 

I am so much more than what you made me.
My past may be done, but my present, my future, they’re mine. 
This is who I am, in all my glory, for better or for worse. 

And that is enough.

You stare at the portal that Elspeth summons in your living room. It is not white, but a crackling whirl of ebony and violet. The closer you get, the louder the murmurs that churn and cascade through you. You think you can hear Karlach’s roar, and a rumbling from Lae’zel. A purr from Astarion, a tune from Wyll. Is that Halsin calling for Scratch, or is it Shadowheart?  Layers of voices and images fold over each other, reaching for you through the expanse.

You look down at Tara, safely nestled in her cat basket by your side. She appraises you stoically. There is no sign of panic, no attempt to flee. To your astonishment, she is not afraid of what comes. She chirps at you as she always has, ever content in your presence. 

Elspeth lingers at a distance, her eyes flashing silver, her fingers spider-webbed in indigo sparks. Beside you, Gale is poised and ready, a vision in sapphire blue and black. His purple robe lies neatly folded in your wardrobe, a relic of a bygone era. When you meet his gaze, it is firm with determination, blazing with love. He clasps your hand.

“Are you ready, lovebirds?” 

You turn to Elspeth. There is a smoothness to her features that you have never seen before, like the stillest stream. Peace emanates from her as she waits. For her, this is an ancient wrong righted. A kind of absolution. Her remaining joy.

You nod. You take a step forward. Just before the boundary, you hesitate, sending out a soundless goodbye to everything you have known and lost. 

Then Gale pulls back. 

You spin towards him. The din of the portal booms in your ears. Gale has let go of your hand, his brows knitted with an intensity that alarms you. 

“Gale? What’s wrong?”

His face twists as he looks down. You watch his chest heaving, grey-brown strands tumbling over his eyes.  For an instant you are certain he has changed his mind. This is the end, you think. I have lost him forever.

His hand jerks up to his ear. With a rough flick, he wrenches his earring off. You almost gasp from the sudden force of it, the nakedness of his unadorned lobe, clear and complete on its own. He stares at the razor points of Mystra’s star as it glints in his hand, his lips hard and taut. Your eyes widen as you realise what comes. 

“I won’t be needing this anymore,” he says simply.

And he tosses the earring into the world you will leave behind. 

You fall into his arms. His breaths are bursts of relief, disbelief, elation. You want to do more, say more, but there is time enough for that. There are thousands of nights ahead of you. 

Elspeth claps. “Now that that’s sorted, will you two get a move on?”

There is no impatience in her voice. What you hear is pride. Affection. Longing. It is a raw and bottomless ache. You cannot bear it.

“What about you, Elspeth? What will you do now?” 

She seems backfooted by your questions. Her vision flits from you, to Gale, to the portal that awaits. She waves her hand in dismissal, but she does not answer. 

Elspeth has the wisdom of eternities. You do not believe she has never considered this. But perhaps there are truths that even Elspeth does not wish to face. 

You imagine her, sitting alone on that bench in Birmingham. You imagine her in heat and ice and rain, battered by the elements and the interminable patterns of solitude, that incessant living death. This Planeswalker, a god in all but name. This woman who opened up new worlds for you, asking for nothing in return. This mother who searched through universes for her daughter, but found you instead. 

You glance at Gale. He dips his head and squeezes your hand.  For him, it is a foregone conclusion. A natural instinct. 

“Come with us, Elspeth.”

Your invitation startles her. There is turmoil in her eyes, emerald tearing through silver. She has lived through centuries, millennia, an infinity of being alone. You wonder if she has ever had a family beyond Aila. If she has ever felt the bonds of companionship.

“Mia.” She clears her throat. “I don’t think… I shouldn’t-”

“Why not?” 

Something flinches inside her. You recognise it. The blade thrust inward. The sentence for a crime that was never hers. Her love freed you from that yoke. Now, you must do the same.

You step towards her. “You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

There is a hardening in her features, dark as the bowels of the earth. They simmer with all the nightmares that haunt her, all the secrets you will never understand. A prison beyond time and space. Impenetrable, alien, forever beyond your grasp.

And then streaks of lightning thread down Elspeth’s cheeks. They are like cracks, gathering into a sundering. Elspeth falters. You have the sense of a cupped chin, a cradling. A gentle drizzle on scorched soil. 

“You belong with us, Elspeth,” Gale calls out. “Come home with us.”

Gale moves towards the portal, his fingers laced through yours. You swell with the passion in his voice, the conviction in his grasp. Love is the current which buoys you now - three rivers, meeting in the sea. 

You reach your hand out to Elspeth, and she takes it.

Chapter Text

I dedicate this fic to everyone who has supported me, taking the time to read, reach out, and share your kind words and encouragement. I truly could not have done this without you.

For those who resonate with the journey Mia, Gale and Elspeth have gone on, I wish you, from the bottom of my heart, peace, hope and healing. That is my greatest wish - that you can gain the strength and comfort you need from knowing you are seen.

I would especially like to thank:

• @practicallydeadinside-blog  - for being not just my number one fan but a true and faithful friend, seeing and loving me for who I am. Thank you for beta reading and being my DnD consultant. You are amazing and I love you dearly.
  
  
• @dekariosclan - for designing a masterpiece of a book layout for this fic out of the kindness and generosity of your heart. Thank you for always believing in me and this fic, and being my Gale consultant and beta reader. You are a rare and special gem.
  
  
• @thycatsays - for inspiring and challenging me to be a better writer, and for being more passionate about my writing than I thought anyone could ever be. Your feedback has really helped me grow, and I am so grateful for your openness and sincerity. 
  
  
• @inglorionamy - for the enthusiasm, passion and curiosity that you have brought to every chapter of this fic. Our discussions have helped me find the creative energy and inspiration I needed to keep going. You are a joy to know, and a real force for good.

A few notes on sources and references.

• The song that Mia remembers at the start of Chapter 12 is ‘我愿意 (I'm willing)’ by Faye Wong. It is sung in Mandarin. The English translation is my own.
  
  
• The quotes in Chapters 6 and 16 are from texts by Friedrich Nietzsche and Albert Camus. Here they are in full: 

"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear what is necessary, still less conceal it... but love it."
- 'Ecce Homo', Fredrich Nietzsche

“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
- 'The Myth of Sisyphus', Albert Camus

Thank you, again, for sharing this journey with me.