𝒆𝒙𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 @delicrieux - Tumblr Blog

Dec 14, 2025

. . . flesh to flower, your hand in mine

⋆˚ summary. before the tadpole dug through your meat-matter, there was a time at blackstaff tower

pairing. mystra x gale dekarios x durge!reader warnings. durge being durge, themes of death, murder, gore, and blood, all typical durge warnings apply, obsession, age gap (between gale & mystra), cannibalism as a metaphor for love genre. pre-canon, first love, blackstaff academy setting, mutual pinning, hurt no comfort, doomed wizard x doomed wizard trope wc. 5.6k ✧˖°.

author's note. gale x durge will always be the superior ship won't change my mind. my second superior ship is enver x durge. i love that slimy man

creds. hd., div. @solitary-serendipity !

mlist | buy me coffee ྀ

this fic was written with the prompt 1. a teacup left steaming by the windowsill from this prompt list. feel free to request any of the prompts for autumn and i'll see you in the next one.

it was a bleak autumn that year. waterdeep's lush splendor worn under the cold, despite the ever-present sunshine. it had an odd reflection against the clouds and gold-tiled rooftops, something not quite there; had an odd feeling about it, too. some artifice.

navigating the blackstaff corridors was easy by then. this labyrinth no longer confused you, and the armours guarding unknown doorways no longer swayed your interest. you could follow the path incised into the palm of your hand – all those roots and rivers, the physical atlas of this dominion. each hand was different, each map altered, but the nucleus remained the same. you had been born with it, much like you had been born with the sense of magic.

gale's dorm was further from yours, an unfortunate result of the draw in year one. the allocations were random and based on nothing, but you, already bonded much closer than the rest, felt as though fate had strayed your hand into destitution. it had been five years since then, and still, you always found yourself unlucky.

some affliction, or the other. some innate wrongness.

you liked gale's dorm better because he was there. all his things, the objects of his affection, allowed to admire him at leisure. you could, once there, admire them, too. touch and inspect, let gale delight stories of their inception or their curious histories. you could listen to him for hours and not grow bored. you could gaze upon him forever and be left unsatiated. your nearest and dearest – your only friend.

you found him already waiting, hair mussed from his restless hands as he agonized over a tome of magical theory. he must have heard your footsteps, quiet as they were, because he glanced up and smiled like he always did when his gaze met yours.

"there you are," he closed the book, set it on his lap. behind him, the window opened a quiet evening. "late, are we?"

"sorry," something terrible happened, but you can’t tell him, "i’ve been caught up."

"ah," he nodded. he used to question you, hold some strange and obscene fascination with all the instances that made up your day. this interest was, of course, shared. you enjoyed it when he spoke more, however. the tone, the rhythm. it was a magic more potent than you could ever hope to learn. "it’s no trouble," he turned, just a bit, and your gaze jumped after his to the lonely cup sat on the windowsill, "only your tea’s gone cold."

your smiled brightened. he was the only person who could provoke it out of you. there had been more in the distant past. their memories, sometimes, brought you shameful satisfaction.

"thank you," this was routine for you. you always came, late or not, but never early. you couldn’t bear to startle or distract him; you couldn’t bear his anger or his disappointment or his discontent with your presence; you couldn’t bear the subsequent absence if he was to leave you. you have dealt with absence, you were no stranger to it – but not his. never gale’s.

even when he was withdrawn, and it was happening more and more, you remained steady and didn’t pester him with queries. if he wanted to, he would tell you. he always had, and you must remain faithful to the friendship you have built. even if a part of you longed so deeply to destroy it, in a plethora of deplorable ways.

a snap of his fingers and the tea bubbled. the steam rose and swirled, melting into the air. magic came naturally to him and without resistance. you knew few sorcerers, but even they did not wield the weave with such grace at fifteen as your most charming wizard.

"always a pleasure. so, what shall we do tonight, hm? some light reading, or – and dare i suggest – a friendly game of chess?"

neither interested you. the cup, once in your palms, felt hot and pulsing, like a beating heart. "i’d love to. though, i’m still not much of a challenge with the latter."

"and here i thought all of our lessons were finally yielding fruit. well, no matter. i don’t mind tutoring. one of these days we’ll have some true rivalry, i know it."

ii.

the hedge maze was a favourite of yours. tall and looming, there was something uncanny about it if looked on from a distance. it shifted and draped across the landscape, creating new arches and closing old entrances, living, breathing, always new. you could memorize the track and find it changed instantaneously by nothing but the lightness of your step. you could, sometimes, spot unfamiliar structures before the branches twined and the leaves curled, shutting the route off.

coiling, swirling. according to legend, students that wandered off too far were never seen again. when asked what laid at the centre, the teachers went smugly and suspiciously quiet. you once used detect thoughts in order to learn the truth but you were caught and punished. gale would never have been discovered, but he did not care about the maze enough to rip the sheen of mental privacy.

"please," you still coaxed, bordered on begging. if it would come to that, you did not mind. your insides would churn with something strange, but you would not let it bubble to the surface. you would endure. if being helpless endeared you to him, you had no scruples with playing the part.

gale, fresh-faced and a bit red from the cold, pointedly looked away from you. he gulped, fixed the sleeves of his robe, and suggested, "well, why don’t we try finding it ourselves? surely there’s more pleasure in discovery than detection."

your heart thrummed happily. he was, of course, correct, as was his nature to be. we, though, he said. we. you would not need to get lost alone. perhaps the maze would twist and swallow the two of you, burying you in a single grave. what a wonderful eternity that’d be.

"are you certain?" you inquired, drawing just a tad closer, not wanting to be too far. if you had a say, distance would not exist between you two at all. but gale was odd and flighty in that way, spooked by an uncaring approach. space, time – anything he wished, you would grant him. you had thought of trapping him in a glass bauble once before. "no one has succeeded so far."

"that we know or can confirm!"

"and it is likely to take a while."

"i’m in no rush," he smiled, warm and lovely. if you could somehow etch the image to your mind to never forget it, you would without delay. he seemed to regard you then, very carefully, and after a moment of deliberation, he took your hand. his body temperature had always been more impressive than yours, or perhaps it was his magic that ran hot. different from the detached, formless horror of cold that made up a large part of your arsenal. once, a classmate remarked that you ran on ice instead of blood. you think he was referring to the wrongness, but couldn’t find the words. "and i have no further obligations today. most i could do is read, but, getting a bit bored of that."

bored of reading, gale? you did not think the day would come.

"it has been a busy tenday," you remarked. you, surely, had been busy with your endless ventures to the springy maze. you spun in circles, tireless and invigorated, trying to locate the sculpture you left. first, out of guilt; then, out of sheer fascination, almost enthralled. "a break is due."

"more than necessary," he agreed. he looked like he wanted to say more but refrained. his hand was firmly affixed to yours, secure and calming. understanding settled between you, unvoiced but present and palpable, like the vague, warm dampness in the air before rain.

you stepped to the maze. you couldn’t look away from him: from his browbone, his nose, his lips. you wondered if the maze would expose you. you wondered if the ice had melted, if the body had decayed into the ground, half submerged in mud; if the hedges had eaten it, dismembered it, relocated it.

if gale saw it, what would he say? you imagined he would have thought it horrible. if you told him it was your work, would he forgive you? by the way he was stealing glances at you, you figured that he would forgive you a thousand transgressions if only it meant he could keep holding your hand.

iii.

new routines borne of mutual affection. the strangeness bled to an ache, a weird nausea whenever your thoughts strayed and doubled, tripled, like illusions. whenever his fingers threaded with yours, you felt an intense urge to pull away, but want would prevail and you would not move. you would calcify yourself to remain anchored to him. but you had no jurisdiction over his personal autonomy, his singleness, and thus, you could not act. even when it bothered you into sleeplessness.

you would drink tea you found no taste in and let the thoughts eat at you. surely some miracle would come about from so much rumination. between breaks in the library, you would stare at the waves crashing into the shoreline and think of the maze, how it swirled and tightened in your mind. at those moments, you felt on the precipice of some epiphany, but inevitably, it would amount to nothing.

it began to rain that afternoon, a slight drizzle against your cheekbone. the sea, with no visible sunshine, was dyed grey.

"here you go," gale fastened his cloak to your shoulders, pulled the purple hood up to crown your head. you felt as though you’ve been given something of unimaginable importance, and that no other act in the course of your life will ever amount to the fraction of the splendor you felt in the seconds his fingers tied the strings. he did it gently and with great care. then, he stepped back. a flick of the wrist and some motion, and suddenly, the dreary cold disappeared to pleasant warm. "much better now, yes?"

was he looking for you to praise him? you could sing it, enchant others to do it, too. make the world bow and give him his laurels, decree his exaltations. disgusting, you thought. disgusting, disgusting, disgusting.

"yes," you agreed, happy in such a way words could not measure. "thank you, but won’t you get cold?"

"hardly!" he grinned, hands held behind his back. nothing for you to reach, and that dampened your joy a tad. "you’ll find me much protected from the elements by magic, i assure you."

how useless this whole display was. you could’ve warmed yourself. you could’ve strolled in your nightclothes and not felt the winds whistling in your ears. disgusting, how were you not ashamed to accept such charity?

wonderful, lovely charity from your most beloved friend. headache. no, migraine. lights danced in your peripheries, mesmerizing but strange. the pain made it hard to think, but you persevered. for him, you always would.

iv.

gale was sweet like rot ripe fruit. if you could squeeze the affection out of him, let it dribble down your arms, you would; if you could supper on it, taste the cloying flesh from his willing lips, you would; if you could savour every last morsel of his lovely obsession with you, then you would not think about the one he adored more.

it was a gradual process that almost left you blind. you learned to ignore the excitement in his voice when he spoke of her. the wrongness in you sneered at her name, at your bind to worship. like gale, you were born with the gift to sense the weave, but not innately wield it. sorcerers siphoned from the same well yet they needn’t bow to mystra, for they could bow only to themselves. you needn’t bow, either, but you did, in a way. with every incantation, every motion, every idea manifested – it is her name your body sung in adoration and debt. for that, you abhorred her.

you thought of resigning, splitting yourself in half. leaving behind the school and gale and magic, falling into the mould your bones ached for you to take. if you were stronger, perhaps you would’ve accepted the inevitability of your path, the premonition of which you saw in dreams. always clement with brine and blood, a sea of red still against an endless night. in it, you wandered alone under the all-seeing eye. it was not mystra’s, but who’s – you could not say.

"i, i can’t," gale’s breathless with happiness. the excitement you learned to ignore was too poignant for you to pretend further. it wounded you. "i can’t believe it," he paced back and forth in his chamber. the room you loved now made terrifying. "it’s. i…"

his eyes were wide, on you, but unseeing. the colour reminded you of precious stones. a deep inhale, a smile on his face. such profound joy was unfamiliar to you, and witnessing it possessing him left you unnerved and adrift, like he had, once and for all, slipped away from your frigid grasp.

suddenly, you felt very afraid. there was anger underneath the varnish, and deeper still, something else entirely, untamed and insatiable. you didn’t know what, didn't have words for it. nor did you want to. it would eventually slip to the surface. it would inevitably destroy everything.

"she…" your brave and charming wizard, rendered speechless. you had always known him to be a better orator than this. the room was full of ozone and static. if you knew no better, you would’ve thought mystra was there, clinging to the walls and the bedding and gale’s shoulders. "she…" he tried again, but the words skittered away from him. then, he laughed in disbelief – another wound on your waiting body. "i can’t believe it…!"

you hoped he would quiet. collapse into himself like a dying star and then, slowly and meticulously, you could nurse him back to health, erase all traces of her influence with magic you borrowed from her. she would not interfere, she can’t, you thought. this was a mortal issue, surely she wouldn’t meddle over some boy, would she?

unless he was what you fear she made him. you willed him not to speak further, but he did, calling your name, and now, the word had never sounded so unfitting. "me," he stabbed at his heart with his finger, and it should have been you doing that instead, "me. she chose me."

you shook your head, but your voice sounded so light: "you?"

he laughed again, nodding. "me. me!" threw his hands up in his excitement, "out of everyone, every possible variation – me! can, i, i don’t, i don’t even know what to say, really. it was, it is, i – me! can you believe it?"

"of course i can," why were you reassuring him, why did your body move? you found his hands and squeezed, "you deserve it, really. the most talented of all. a worthy chosen."

he became bashful at your words. the excitement fizzled, just a bit, and he squeezed back. you liked that. his fingers locked with yours. it felt very important. you promised yourself to keep his hands close to you. scrape away the skin. meat to meat, ligaments coiling, blood sticking, hardening to bone. you needed proof of the weight and heat and pulse.

not yet in vain; not yet knowing.

then, just as suddenly, the grip slackened.

you were born of no mother. this you learned on the eve of your sixteenth year, when the shadows melted along your walls and the sliver of moonlight severed the room in half. the darkness bubbled and bent, but your heart remained steady. in bed, you barely blinked in confusion. it was the air, you thought; something innately familiar, the smell of blood and decaying wood. an errant breeze? yet the window was closed. no.

the creature that appeared was grotesque. it disgusted you, all sharp and broken, with his stupid hat and lofty manners. he introduced as sceleritas and told that you were made by his most deplorable master. the master grew the tendons very slowly, agonizing over their vascularity – how cerebral they became, how viscous. he cut and cut and sometimes fused together, urged the skin to mend. he pinched the muscle to make it move and gnawed at the bones till they fractured, fashioned them anew. this was a very long process, sceleritas said and bowed, and proved how his master cared.

you sat in silence for a minute, letting the words digest.

"i had a family," you finally said. there were memories of warm meals and soft, loving gestures – a hug, a kiss on the forehead.

"they had found you and taken you in," sceleritas informed you. "you were so small then, unable to defend yourself against this abominable world. the woman that you sacrificed in his name was not your mother, nor that stranger your father. your true father has come to collect you and will forevermore accept your devotion and submission. you are his child, his only progeny, his sweetest nightmare, and shall partake in his designs. oh, how my heart ruptures at the sight of you with most irreverent joy!"

his explanation was fragmented; his enthusiasm – unnecessary. you frowned and regarded him with thinly veiled contempt. the man (or whatever he was) was terrible in form and existence.

"why now?" you questioned.

"the great most wicked master believes you are ready to begin."

"and how do you know i," you faltered, such an odd occurrence. in the dark, your hands appeared drenched in blood. a trick of the light, or one of sceleritas’ illusions. "how do you know what happened?"

"i have watched over my depraved master’s most terrible heir their whole life," he bowed again, crooked nose touching the ground. "i am your eternal guardian, blessed by my most dishonourable master, your beloved father, fated to serve until the end of time. there is no greater wish of mine than your everlasting happiness and malice, so please, i beg of you, test the blade of your anger upon my skin. cut me open, sever my limbs, set me aflame – i have waited long for this moment. let me bathe myself in your putrid light, fouler than the most rotten, befitting of the descendant of sin. let me, your most despicable worshiper–"

"enough."

at least he listened to instructions, though his soliloquy left you disquiet. you had no mother. a long time ago, when science was nascent and study a collection of undiscovered spellwork, there were children born with no mothers and of no mothers, because they were born of corpses. none survived, no right conditions, the history tomes in the blackstaff library warned. this practice, much like all necromancy, was nebulous and unregulated. eventually, it became banned, like the search for immortality.

you imagined it was the wrongness that killed them. you imagined that they didn’t know either – were they dead or alive?

"was i born from a corpse?" you asked.

"you were born of divine essence."

"then, am i…?" you let the question linger along with your doubts. you looked at your body, at the warm limbs and springy flesh, heard your pulse in your ears, felt the prickle of pain when your nail drove underneath skin.

"you are alive, most unholy creature. primitive wizardkind could never come even close to achieving what my most vile master, bearer of discord, accomplished in his cruelty."

there were further questions, many, but they could not break free from your throat. not immediately, not in their infantile stages. was it cruel then, to remain alive like this, a construct born from a malevolent maker? you dwelled the injustice of it, how your father had abandoned you. a single doubt burrowed the well of your thoughts, deep under the rich earth of misconceptions and misgivings. then, a surge, something powerful and thick, not magic at all, forced its way through your lungs, into your throat, seeped into your tears.

"but fairest blight, are you not glad to now stand atop of the rest? are you not pleased to have your cruel father's regard? his recognition for your potential is well-earned, only needs to be nourished. and we will, do you not agree?"

you didn’t answer. it all felt very unfair, and his blabbering irritated you. you wanted to see gale, be held in his arms. to be comforted and quieted by the lull of his heartbeat. but he was… where was he? with mystra, taught all there was to magic in the realm of stars where time did not exist.

you spent the eve of your fifteenth year together, as had been tradition since the day you met. now, you were alone – born of no mother but with a father of dubious temper. alone, like in your restless dreams, under the all-seeing eye.

you now knew who it belonged to.

vi.

gale spoke of godliness like it was familiar.

it started inconspicuously. the subtle suggestion was there, but you could not locate the origin. magic came to gale easy. his ability was natural and unspoilt. he spent equal amounts of time in the meditation rooms, at campus, and at the nearest temples. mystra, or a part of her, claimed gale as her own. she offered him protection and power and knowledge, and fed her chosen in exchange for devotion.

the best worship, so the clerics assured, was when the worship was absolute and devoid of distortion. never had you met someone who would fulfil their promise with such ardent yearning, a quality few possessed in spite of many believing it was a requirement.

gale made too many concessions and, often, they were not necessary. you had always wondered if he knew, in his essence, that he had stepped off the proverbial beaten path. that the sacrifice needed had already been made; that he no longer existed as himself the moment mystra's leery gaze fell on him. his self was forfeit; his purpose was subjugation. an uncomfortable truth only you seemed to uncover, because you were the only one not celebrating his succession.

in his bedding, he remained haunted with thoughts of her. the allure proved difficult to resist. mystra spoke directly to him now, had found his mind – ripe and willing – and gorged on his grey-matter. you wished you could purge her somehow, pluck the synapses and rearrange them so he would return to who he was before this terrible indoctrination. his body in torpor, waiting for better instruction, this had once been your fantasy. a cruel part of you did not resist its emergence. it demanded retribution for the wrong done. yet the remainder, a greater and larger part, adored gale above all else; adored him so intensely that you did not think yourself capable.

gale spoke of godliness like his perception had adjusted so completely, it was difficult to look away. there had been a second when he said: "perhaps this was what mystra always meant for me. from my first breath, no. my conception, to be the best i could be, for her."

what would he have said if you told him: i am the child of god. a god-like being, born from no womb; a holy vessel, formed by a malevolent hand.

gale spoke of godliness like it was inevitable.

what would he have said if you told him: gods are fickle – my father left me, and your lover will leave you.

if you told him all, you would’ve assured him you were not god. you were only made of divine essence. your mortal whims would dictate your conduct, and if he abandoned his hapless yearning for mystra, you would not leave him. you would not leave him even if he didn’t.

perhaps it was a sad curse of your existence, to perish waiting.

vii.

two years passed in such a manner, a cloudy daydream of a wish unfulfilled. you retreated into yourself like gale had before mystra seized him. in this time, you thought of death often, but never in any philosophical sense. some wizards were prone to grand speeches and deep contemplations, eternally haunted by their own soliloquies; some were scientists, disillusioned with romantic sensibilities, not interested in the abject beauty of magic as they were in the form which it was made of. gale, at his core, was the former, though the latter he could play without difficulty, as he was a natural at both. you were no orator, and theory of thought never interested you. when thinking of death, you thought like an alchemist would dating their almanac, considering practice, practicality, and necessity.

some said being a wizard required certain artistic merit, thus remarks of your application weren’t a novelty: too dry, too pragmatic, not flashy enough. too simple. refinement to you looked different than to them. two years, and the gap between you and the world seemed to grow expeditiously. you hazarded to speculate whether this gap would ever be breached again. death could, perhaps. death could do anything. but murder was a slow ordeal, and if father wanted death, he wanted boons. you could not spend your time prancing around every subject in the grand slaughter. what could speed the process?

you thought of curses. if only there existed something that could, when touched or beheld, kill. if such objects did exist, they were erased from history. if you caught wind of legends, they led to dead ends. you yourself could not construct anything of the sort, as you didn’t possess the will nor the mind of an inventor. could you enchant a phantom? create a ritual, frame it as a rumour, let the curious be led to their own demise. if only your visage could appear in a mirror, and take the life of those that gazed into your eyes.

you found that thought appealing. the last they would see is the prophet of the blood ocean. they would be the first sacrifices that paved future mountains. was that not honourable? the return to his eternal embrace. a good leader’s reach extended beyond the body. if death by your hand yet without your presence could be achieved, you needed to know how.

“...hello?”

an impatient word and a hand waving in your face roused you. you looked up to find gale frowning. you were not listening to him. recently, he was consumed by the tale of karsus, thoroughly obsessed with magic outside the weave. futile tales and rambles.

your own affections were embers. burning forever, though subdued under his carelessness. you loved him so much you were exhausted with it. his callousness was starting to weigh you down and make you bitter. why would he not see reason, why would no one tell him to? they all reveled him and thus despised him in secret. perhaps you despised him, too.

“i am listening,” you lied. gale must have heard enough of them to know when you did, though you possessed no tell. you tried to smile, but it didn’t appease him. nothing but mystra’s praise did.

“to me? it doesn't seem like it. it's like i’m conversing with a wall, sometimes. like i'm invisible. aren't you supposed to understand?”

hurt. that was the emotion that had crept into his tone, a sudden, raw thing you did not know how to remedy. you had a thousand gentle evasions, but the exhaustion was a physical weight, and all that came out was a quiet, brittle truth.

"i am tired, gale."

"of what?" he asked, genuinely confused. "of the archives? lectures? it's just talk, it's what we do."

of you, came the thought. of you.

he looked at you, his brow furrowed, the lines around his eyes deepening with a concern that felt, for a moment, entirely his own. not the performative concern of a chosen, but the genuine, baffled hurt of a young man whose world had a single, solid pillar, and that pillar revealed a fracture where smooth surface had been.

"this isn't about me," he whispered, the words barely reaching you. "is it? about her? about... us?"

us did not fit. there was no us. there was only his devotion to her, and your devotion to the ghost of him that devotion had created. you could not form the words. you could not explain the ocean of blood that called to you, the paternal demand for sacrifice, the way his piety felt like a betrayal of everything you had silently offered him, everything you were waiting to give.

so you just shook your head. denial. of what? of everything: of his question, of his feelings, of your own.

his shoulders slumped. the hurt in his eyes hardened, crystallizing into something colder, distant.

"right," he said, voice flat. “you shan’t tell me. you don’t trust me, is that it? have i, offended you? have you switched sides? you no longer regard me as your friend but, in vapid jealousy, scorn me as your rival?”

you flinched. the accusation was so wildly off-target, so far from the chasm of your reality, that it was almost laughable. rival? you were a creature from a dimension of slaughter. you were the spawn of a being that would unmake this world and every other for its own inscrutable purpose. what was his goddess to that? what was his ambition?

"no," you managed to say, the word scraping its way out of your throat. "it's not that."

"then what?" he pressed, his voice rising, frustration cracking his composure. "because i am trying to understand. i pour my mind out to you, i share every breakthrough, every fear, and i am met with a silence that screams of contempt. i have a duty. to her. to the weave. you think it's simple? you think it's just… easy?"

he gestured around the study, at the stacks of books, the half-finished equations glowing faintly on a chalkboard. "this is everything! this is the structure of reality, and she has let me glimpse its architect's draft. how can you not see the wonder? how can you be so… unimpressed?"

he was waiting. he wanted you to be awed. he wanted you to share in the grandeur of his divine apprenticeship. he could not comprehend that you were looking at something else entirely. you were seeing the collar around his neck, the leash in her hand. you were seeing the sacrifice of the only wizard you might have ever truly respected upon the altar of a fickle, lonely god whose will was absolute.

and in that moment, the exhaustion, the bitterness, the two years of quiet suffering, coalesced. the embers of your affection didn't just burn; they flared, white-hot and destructive. a terrible clarity washed over you.

you were not his friend. you were a symptom of what he was leaving behind.

you stood up. the chair scraped against the stone floor, a sound too loud in the tense quiet. you didn't look at him, your gaze fixed on the door. for a fleeting, insane second, you considered telling him everything. my father is coming. you will die a painful death. i love you, and that is the only reason i have not let him have you.

but to tell him would be to contaminate him with your nature. to make him see you as you saw yourself: not a wizard, not a peer, not a lover, but a monstrous thing, the herald of a blood-red tide. his horror would be worse than his scorn.

though that's not entirely true, either. he would try to stop you. you do not want to be stopped.

"i don't see it," you said quietly, turning to look at him. he had sat back down, his expression unreadable. maybe he had read your intention. maybe not. maybe, finally, mystra was protecting him from you. "i don't think i'll ever see the world that way."

his eyes narrowed slightly. "no. i don't suppose you will."

an undercurrent of anger lingered, a spark that should have rekindled the hope that he would turn from her and come back to you, even as you knew it would never.

"goodnight, gale."

viii.

you quit college the same night, nine days before graduation. you left your things, your robes, your pretty staffs and ornaments, the pouches of alchemic goods, your favourite walking shoes. you left it all to rot.

the wrongness squirmed. something like anger, something like pleasure, something like the catharsis after violence. the stars shone so brightly.

ix.

of course, all of this information is unavailable to you. the years have lost their meaning, minced to bits by the tadpole squirming in your brain. you are no wiser of your nature and history. you are nothing but a shadow of a former self, the liminal shell syphoned of what had made you unique and delectable. that is what the voice whispers, deep in the dregs of your mind. it laughs and it purrs and it hurts you, but you think you deserve it.

you feel it before it becomes apparent, the slow onset of autumn; in the rigid seams of your clothes, in the gooseflesh of your skin, in the longing ache of your bones. the body yearns, you learn, hungers. for warmth, for nourishment. astarion could, perhaps, understand you best, but you lack the words to express yourself. you might never find them.

there is another wizard in your quiet camp. when tensions ease, you can smell lavender instead of blood and simmering resentment. he keeps his distance, but his gaze always points to you, like a compass would north. when you catch him, he doesn’t have the decency to pretend. simply watches on, so heartbroken it makes you dizzy with discomfort.

who are you? you have thought about cornering him, but something keeps pushing you away. some barrier, or some phantom pain that has no origin. do you know me? though that doesn’t sound right. do you love me? it is rude to ask about something so obvious.

thank you for reading & have a great day!

#bg3 #bg3 gale #baldurs gate 3 #gale dekarios #gale of waterdeep #gale x reader #gale x durge #bg3 durge #angst #imagine #imagines #reader #reader insert #xreader #dark urge my beloved

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