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TavxGale - After meeting Gale, Tav begins to start questioning their faith as a cleric of Mystra, detailing their thoughts through a series of journal entries. - Ao3 Link
My entry for the @galefanzine - and one you'll hopefully all enjoy. @laserlope did the beautiful artwork that went alongside it and I could not have asked for a better partner for it <3
23, Eleasis
Dearest Mystra,
You’ve protected me when I have needed you most, from the days of a childhood shunned and alone, to now, falling from heights I never knew possible, surviving each day because you will it.
And with it, you have brought me one of your own: Gale of Waterdeep. He seeks my guidance in these times, your wisdom and love. And I do hope that with your aid I can help him, that I can be the conduit he needs to find you again.
I see his pain when he does not believe I’m looking, on those chilly nights where the group sits apart, where each of us is lost within our own thoughts and prayers. He denies my healing spells, speaks not of what ails him, but I’ve seen the subtle grimace that passes over him with each spell cast. I’ve heard the whispered prayers from his faithful lips. Did he do something to wrong you? Why do you not answer his calls?
Sorry. It is wrong of me to ask such things. I’m sure there are good reasons, ones I must stay vigilant for as we travel. Maybe he is not all he appears to be. The party, after all, is a peculiar arrangement of fellows, all of us brought together by luck, or destiny. I cannot be sure which. We all look to survive this, but even if we do not, I know we will simply be welcomed into your embrace, become a fragment of your woven silk in the winds, a part of the cosmos at your beck and call.
---
25, Eleasis
Dearest Mystra,
Today the image of you was displayed before me, so much more beautiful than the statues in the temples. Gale held you within his palm as you have held us before, children of your creation. With your permission, we sought each other within the Weave. We shared in our hopes and dreams of the future. I apologise if my own urges regarding him were out of line, but there is something captivating about him, a warmth, a hope I fail to ignore. Maybe it is your touch that I feel through him, your magic that is binding us together.
I thank you for bringing him into my life.
---
3, Elient
Dearest Mystra,
Today Gale spoke of your shared past, of a love both in body and soul, one I could never have imagined until he showed me it for himself. The corridor, the book, the blackened Weave that haunts his soul, the deafening silence to his prayers. He loved you. I feel he still does. His heart is so full to bursting with his devotion, not just to the Weave, not just to magic, but to you.
I’m trying to understand why he must suffer as he does. You are the Goddess, after all. You must have your reasoning. And yet I cannot help but think maybe his punishment does not fit the crime. As a cleric, am I not meant to forgive people for their past actions? Should I follow a love for you, or a love…
Apologies, I am still shaken by the events. Right now, he sleeps, at peace after another artefact sacrificed. I will watch over him, for that I know is what you would want of me even if you do not voice it. I have my faith in you and always will.
---
20, Elient
Dear Mystra,
Do my prayers reach you? Did Lenore’s? We came across her tower today abandoned within the Underdark. The church’s teachings lay amongst the once loved ruins. Your words, our devotions. Letters stated she left for a meeting in the city, but it is spoken that she never reached it as intended. The wizards uttered of someone called Tarquin being involved, but I dare not ask further, especially to Gale, who seems most troubled by the environment here.
The other clerics spoke of Lenore at the temple long ago; it was almost a name I had forgotten. Word has it she was rather odd in nature and yet I’ve come to notice that the most interesting usually are. Gale, for example, is one most unusual with his mannerisms and ability to talk at length, but it is with those traits I see why you came to love him so.
The Sussur trees cause him much discomfort, but I fear it is a distant memory that haunts him more. An empty tower with no owner, frayed pages never to be read from again, poems lost to time. “The silence stretches on – I’m all alone.” Why this resonates with me so, I am not sure, but something stirs within me; questions I’m unsure I wish to know the answers to, unspoken doubts and fears that linger in those ruins.
But it is the silence that is most troubling within forgotten walls, during nights where the skies are clouded over grey. I feel you with me, as does Gale, and yet you are like that of a departed loved one to us, always watching from the shadows but unable to answer even when we need you most.
Please, my Goddess, come out from those shadows.
---
29, Elient
Mystra,
Another of your chosen graced our camp today. He came with your wisdom, your words, as both me and Gale have been dreaming of for so long to hear. But he must have been mistaken. You wish for Gale to die? No, not just die, but to sacrifice himself, to become nothing but stardust to save us all. Is there no better way? Is there no other way?
I am your servant. Perhaps I could take his place, face our enemies in his stead so that he may return home to Waterdeep. He speaks so fondly of it and to think that he might never return… To his mother, to his dearest Tara of which he has told me much about. Is it right that someone as pure as him should die for a mistake of which he has suffered with for over a year? A mistake which I feel you…
You stay in silence until we beg, until we plead, and then these are your words. Is it not enough to follow your teachings, to spread the word of your love, to keep the balance of the Weave as you command? Is love and devotion not enough for the gods? Are we not enough?
“Be a moon unto yourself. Even the waves of fate can break upon the shores of will.” Advice from your own chosen. But that is a thought for another night, one where emotions are not running so high.
---
4, Marpenoth
I do not feel it right to say your name in prayer as I have before. I fear my faith in you has dimmed like that of the conjured stars I lay beneath. Stars that I’m afraid I will never look upon again after hearing Gale’s words, after seeing his heart breaking as he showed me all he has lost. The musty smell of books untouched within his tower, the sunset over the harbour with its salted sea breeze.
When I followed him into the Weave those long nights ago, I felt but a trace of his despair. Last night, however, bonding in the way gods do, I experienced it all, each fragment, like grains of sand passing through an hourglass, instantaneous and yet gradually, before my very eyes. I witnessed all you did to him, the promises, the eternity, and then the silence. Feeling his body joined with mine was like that of a dream, a prayer answered, a moment of devotion like no other.
And as I think back to my devotion to you, I wonder if we are to blame for being so foolish, but then we are but mortals. Is it not because of our fragile existence that we strive for more, and that you, as gods, should protect us from ourselves? I struggle to understand your reasoning that you would offer us power, guidance, love, just to hurt us in the way you do. Are the gods just as we mortals are: fickle, playing games with those we feel are beneath us?
If that is so, then I wonder if my life has not been but one lie after another, a life dedicated to someone who is no more ‘good’ than the storm that destroys the home or the weed that smothers the flower.
For another night, we survive, not by your strength, but by our own and I question: Was I wrong to have followed you?
---
28, Marpenoth
Mystra,
The power of a god held in Gale’s hands. A god with a mortal conscience, a mortal heart. And yet somehow, I fear that will not happen. Your own teachings tell us of how the gods perceive things, each in their own domain with their own rules to follow. If Gale were to ascend, I fear it would be his humanity that would be his undoing, his hurt that bleeds through into his words, his need to be better, his ambition. So many gods were once mortals themselves, yourself included, as the stories go. Did you change? Would you have punished him, abandoned him, if you were still mortal?
Today he finally stood before you. I know not of what you both discussed, but he has seemed lighter since. There is a glow within his eyes I have seen only a few times before, the flicker of hope now a raging fire within. He went on to show me of what godhood could offer, of astral seas and a peace I have rarely ever known, and yet still the doubts I’ve held in recent weeks echo within my mind. I’d told him to seek your forgiveness. After all, you are the Goddess I’ve devoted my life to, but I do not know if this is what he did, if it is what he wanted to do, after he spoke of his intentions with the crown.
My faith may be shaken, but I will continue to stand by him. Not in your honour as you would wish, but because I believe in the words your chosen once told us. I will be those shores on which the waves will break. I will guide him in the right direction just as I strived to in the beginning. Call it naivety, call it the fickleness of mortal fragility. All I know is I love him, just as the man he is.
---
15, Uktar
Dearest Mystra,
I say this prayer as a thank you and I can only hope that you accept my words, even if I know you will continue not to answer me. You showed me how the gods could be: surprisingly selfish, ambitious, childish, resentful…human. By your punishing of Gale, I saw what would happen if he took the crown and became a god. How he’d lose all that which he is: all his warmth, his hope, his heart.
You reminded me of mortal failings, but also the strength we have when we support each other rather than relying on a higher power. You reminded me why I became a cleric in the first place, to help people, to see the good in them, to forgive them where no others can.
And so, again, I thank you. For letting him go, for finally forgiving him. I know you will always be with both of us, Weave touched moments binding us all together as one for eternity, but I also know we are no longer prisoners to your will, no longer striving for your approval or your love. I only hope that with your patience and wisdom, you come to understand my actions.
Consider this my final prayer to you, Mystra. Like the gods, we mortals are also free to be who we are meant to be, to love ourselves and each other, just as we are. Is that not what devotion truly is?
