Come in from the deep waters. Come to where the sun shines right through to the sand.
They are mutable. They are water. They can follow the tide away from this place or they can murmur can I kiss you? in some half hope no one can hear.
And thenâ
A pair of lipsâ
Too hot, like cider on snow chapped lips. Dry like thin air and just as dizzy. So bashful they can feel the brush of scars on their cheeks. Too practiced. Not practiced enough. Hesitant until the tide comes in and they are swept up together.
Kiss me. Questions and demands and desperations. Itâs in all of them now.
Read if you: are a tadypolycule truther or you think the scientists in Annihilation could have gotten a whole lot freakier.
Uneasy is the Head (E, 7.8k, Unrequited Shadowheart/Nocturne, Shadowheart/Gale)
Concerning: Scourge, Silhouette, Signet, Satin, Sunrise, and Solarflare â Select Correspondence from the Desk of Mother Superior Shadowheart.
Carve through the virgin parchment. Up, curve, flick, bleed. Every âSâ was a billowing black sail, blotted through the leatherbound dossier. Every name leveled a target on her back. Tonight, she pressed her quill in deep enough to scar.
Shadowheart was no fool.
She knew the hatchet was buried in a shallow grave.
Read if you like: post-canon, Mother Superior Shadowheart gaslight gatekeep girlbossing her way to insanity
Highwaywoman (E, 8.9k words, Gale/Jaheira)
In another life, Jaheira met Gale in the woods outside Waterdeep. She was silver haired, still, but he was the arrogant graduate of his youth. In the fantasy, she had far worse intentions. Her swords would prickle against his fresh-shaved face. Her vinesâ Gods, those vines, he remembered them stillâ would tie him tight and prickle through his fine silks. âScared of your own blood, Dekarios?â Sheâd tease, tucking the swordpoint under his chin. âOh, poor thing. Of course you are, youâre only a cub.â
Read if you like: dangerkink Dekarios x that scene where Jaheira ties you up in vines.
My Echo, My Shadow, and Me (4.2k words, M, Gen Shadowheart with a hint of Nocturne pining)
The terminal monitor swings, filling Shadowheart's vision with the gentle chyron of Mother Mainframe. Upon the screen she is two perfect lips and a gaze covered by a fluffy eyemask. Thereâs a fetching pair of eyes embroidered upon its silk: lined dark, full-lashed and painted deep purple. They stare out with a knowing gaze while Mother, ever-working through each vein of their Vault, slumbers softly beneath.
The face soon fades. For a moment, she is alone in the false moonlight of the medbay, before the ominous tick-tack of text spills out in stark green.
>Hello, citizen SHADOWHEART. Welcome to your Vault-Tech Certified Check-Up! Don't recall the last one? Congratulationsâ it worked!
Read if you like: Fallout AUs! The House of Grief as a weird Vault experiment.
Completed
Lie Fallow (E, 12.8k, Astarion/Gale)
It was the word that caught Galeâs journalistic curiosity first. Fallow. In the strictest sense of things, it was a farming technique. Mostly lost to the ever-spinning cogs of their modern world, it was biblical in its simplicity. Farmerâs fields lay barren as autumn turned to spring and then summer, so that beneath them the earth would churn with new life. It was the soilâs breath between seasons.
Astarion was the story of a lifetime.
Read if you like: Pacific northwest horror, 1970s cults, small town mysteries, mulletstarion and uh... figging.
-
On Poisoning a Cherry (E, 16.5k, Astarion/Gale)
It feels a little ritualistic as Astarion taps fresh grounds into the smooth wooden pipe for Gale. For heâs never lit a candle and prayed proper, you see, but he thinks the crackle and cherry glow of a pipe under Galeâs fluttering eyes is as good an altar as any. And as he breathes in, Astarion mirrors him. The smell would be overpowering were it not for the wafting sweet panic in Galeâs blood as he chokes himself out soâŚÂ willingly.
Or: Astarion canât get high, but that insufferable wizard can. And watching can be just as fun.
Read if you like: 16k words of getting that wizard STUPID.
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Warding Bond (E, 1.9k, Astarion/Gale + Shadowheart)
Shadowheart doesnât see it but she hears it: the sudden sip of breath that comes right before a kiss. A muffled gasp that melts into pleasure. Then, two lungs in tune with each other, sharing space, sharing breath. She presses her gauntlets to her lips and feels their steel warm to her skin.
Lady of Sorrows guide her... had she ever been kissed like that?
Shadowheart watches something she shouldn't.
Read if you like: Voyeur Shart, Failgirls, the shads disapproves glitch, or fujoing out in the gauntlet of Shar
Homophrosyne (M, 4.4k, Minthara/Jaheira)
When the Captain bowed it was by law alone. It was simply a to do, a reverence between Gods and men and Jaheira of Tethyr: the old druid in between. She could see the hard-cut cleverness in the sailor's eyes the moment she stood and shook the salt from her hair. She meant no deference. Tacit and cunning, this Minthara only knelt so she might slice at an enemyâs heel.
Jaheira and Minthara, on the island on Tethyr. A loose Odyssey-inspired tale with a sapphic twist.
Read if you like: Old lady yuri, Minthara's goblin army getting turned into pigs.
Doorway Effect (2.5k, E, Minthara/Shadowheart)
Shadowheartâs memories are bookmarked by thresholds. A tavern door, a shuddering cathedral, a ladder to a light unknown. Mintharaâs tent is no different. She knows, she knows, if she steps into this pixie ring she will awaken the parts of herself sheâs so carefully locked away.
And yet the drow's command echoes all the same: You will come to me, Shadowheart, when you find yourself in need of a key.
Shadowheart, Sharran chastity, and Minthara's "fuck the gods" mentality.
Read if: You think about Minthara's "debutante or deviant" to Shadowheart line more often than you probably should.
Come Home, Cub (3.6k, E, Geraldus/Jaheira)
Go home to your mother, boy.
The words rattle between Geraldusâ ears, colouring the tips of them a terrible pink. Gods, he would have begged her like a dog to stay if she had only let him. If she hadnât turned on her heel and left with that world-weary look on her face. He still would
Geraldus fantasizes about mommy Jaheira. That's it that's the fic.
Read if: you also saw that sopping wet cat of a Harper and needed to see him even more pathetic than he is in canon.
Last Glimpse of the Topsail (8.8k, E, Gale/Shadowheart)
She can feel itâ the ebb and flow. The thread that joins them is a braided harbour rope going taut and slack with the tide. Shadowheart breathes it in and can feel Gale take her exhale in turn.
Or: Inappropriate use of Zone of Truth, cast by one lovesick cleric upon one terribly lovesick wizard.
Read if you like: Friends to lovers, resolved sexual tension, matching each others freak, ASMR: goth gf hypnotizes you to confess all your slutty secrets (romantic)
Four of Swords (3.6k, E, Astarion/Gale + Gale/Shadowheart + Minthara/Gale)
Kept, a rational voice in Gale's mind would remind him when they pressed gifts into his hands. You are a kept man in a devil's tower, nothing more.
But itâs Shadowheart that helps him dredge the Chionthar. Itâs Minthara who pulls the crown from the deepwater muck. And itâs Astarion who places it upon his head.
Another gift. No. AÂ reward.
A corruption arc in 3k words, Gale finds himself less of an ally and more of a kept pet wizard to Ascended Astarion, Dark Justiciar Shadowheart, and...lbh just regular Minthara.
Read if you like: Corruption via praise, fancy robes, and unlimited spell scrolls, magic collars, calling dibs on the wizard.
---
Eclipse (3.2k, E, Gale/Shadowheart)
There will always be the dark of Shadowheart, lurking just beneath the waterfall of his wifeâs soft white curls. Gale sees her in the firm hand of the wolf tamer at the edge of the forest and in the quiet whispers of 'is this too much' when she sees him in pain.
But on occasionâ when the animals are fed, the roses tended, and some kinder deities than the echoes of their pasts smiles upon themâ there is an eclipse.
Gale and Shadowheart partaking in some simulacrum shenanigans (a threesome with both versions of his wife)
Read if you like: The world's most romantic painplay, bratting so your wife's alter ego steps on you, married life between two people with 9th level spells.
---
Netherese Duality Series (9.2k, E, Gale/Gale's Netherese Orb)
Gale is used to catching the eyes of the otherworldly. Whatever follows him now offers no such comforts.
There are nights he feels eyes heavy on his back in the dark of his study, only to turn and find himself alone. And there are mornings, still, when shadows pass over the candle by his bed the moment he wakesâ as if some presence had been watching him from his bedside.
Isolated in his tower, Gale is less alone than he thinks.
Read if: You think Jekyll & Hyde takes could be a whole lot more horny, "that man got 1000 times hotter when his life fell apart", the idea of an interdimensional being talking Gale through it.
---
Game Theory (19.5k, Astarion/Gale/Enver Gortash)
To Gale, working with Gortash is a bitter pill he must swallow, but one he can chase with the sweetness of the Crown in his capable hands.
To Astarion, itâs pure hedonism and power. Itâs a section of the city in the palm of a pair of new gauntlets. Itâs blood from a populace who will never tell him no again, and it's Gale at his feet.
But the aloof housecat often thinks itself a ruler on high over the loyal pup, even when they both wear the master's collar and eat his of scraps. Enver has come to enjoy their meals together.
Read if you like: the evil throuple from hell, Gale 'rip to everyone who died of hubris but I'm better' Dekarios, kept pet wizards, psychosexual 4D chess
---
Perfect Bound (4.5k, E, Astarion/Gale)
âWhatever happened here?â Astarion teases, coming face to face with Gale. He makes a show of looking him up and down, one slender finger against his own lips in faux concern.
Gale makes a growl of annoyance around his gag. He gives one pointed tug to his bound wrists and flicks his eyes upwards as if to say is it not obvious?
âTrapped? Oh, but that canât be it. Astarion says, mouth dropping open as if heâs just noticed the binds. âI seem to recall you saying you had everything quite in hand.â
My first Bloodweave 1 shot! A classic dangerkink Dekarios take in which Gale gets a little tied up and Astarion is there to help.
Read if: You like your bloodweave with a thread of pred/prey or you like seeing wizard hubris punished (in a sexy way)
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Typecasting (19k, E, Gale/Shadowheart/Tav)
"You see, the problem about writing on drow society is one often does not make it up from the Underdark to hand pages to publisher. Of course there are manyâŚless researched volumes. Of hapless men and leather-clad matrons. But I told Shadowheart I would be a gentleman, so that is all I will say on the more sordid parts of my education. Youâve nothing to fear.â
Stuck in the underdark with a drow city before them and freedom, Shadowheart & Tav keep Gale as a fake prisoner to keep their cover.
Read if: You're a 'Gale has an erotica collection' truther, you like strong ladies and puppy-eyed men, the dynamic of 'dom teaching dom with one eager to please sub, slightly convoluted reasons to !!leash and collar that wizard!!
Ongoing
En Prise (93k, E, Astarion/Gale)
âTogether, then.â Gale says, eyes flicking down to the dagger. âAs a show of good faith. We sate our damned appetites together.â
âShall we toast to it too? Drink of each otherâs cups like smitten newlyweds?â Astarion finds his charms again as he licks a brazen stripe up his neck. Itâs a worthy distraction for those nimble hands to press the dagger against his chest. Not threatening, not yet at least. Noâ with the flat of the blade against his mark, Gale sees it as the offering itâs meant to be.
A semi canon-compliant fic in which a deal to keep each other fed leads Gale and Astarion to dark curiosity, codependence, and romantic evenings of scheming and murder.
Read if you like: Consensual but not safe or sane, a "this better not awaken anything in me" taglist, unabashed and gleeful toxic yaoi, making each other WAY WORSE.
---
ingi ferroque (20k, M, Astarion/Gale)
Two eyes, dark and shiny as sea glass, bulge and blink as Gale brings the knife to the offeringâs throat. The battle rages on and the babe bleeds upon Athenaâs boots. Let it take, he prays. Let her hear.
âMy. What do we have here?" Gale hears a soldierâs voice in place of his Goddess. "Two little lambs left upon the altar?â
A Greco-Roman AU that follows famed Legate Astarion, Priest of Athena Gale, and a Nero-esque Emperor Cazador as Gale is hauled off from exile to Rome to for reasons unknown...
Read if you like: Enemies to lovers, the inherent sexual tension of historical banter, HBO's Rome, loving descriptions of man thighs under historically inaccurate toga hemlines.
---
Semperservus (17k, E, Minthara/Gale)
The Seduction of Dekarios. The maiden in the river, bathed in holy light across underdark waters. The God whispering promises in her ear. The forging of new love, in fires of the only mortal left on this plane with ambitions as great as his once were.
Post-Game, God!Gale fixated on making Minthara his new Chosen.
Read if you like: Dunking on delusional God!Gale, Minthara's 'aura of a third son' banter, not breaking the cycle, comeuppance for Gale leaving you on the docks for the goddamn crown
---
Spinneret Sour (26K, E, Astarion/Gale/Shadowheart/Jaheira)
The elfsong hookah is grossly underutilized in fic. Our attempt to fix that with a giggly, thank-god-we're-alive foursome.
Read if you like: Gale getting bullied by hot elves (plural!), fluff and smut, sexualizing that old man/woman, smoking is hot when it's fictional characters
Source One is Burchard of Worms' Decretum, Book XIX. The Decretum was a collection of canon laws compiled in the early half of the 11th Century. Book XIX, or The Corrector, was a penitential: basically a guidebook for confessors. Here's a sin, have u done it, here's your penance.
One of the questions for women was, essentially, "Did you make a dildo, strap it to yourself and fuck someone with it?". The original text is in Latin, and there's a few translations floating around of what it said. Here's one, which I spent the past three days looking for, because I wanted a direct source:
Have you done what women are wont to do: to make a certain device in the form of a male member to the measure of your will, and to tie it to your own or another woman's genitals with some ties, and commit fornication with other women, or others with the same instrument, or with another with you?
- Translated from Latin, taken from "Die Bussordnungen der abendländischen Kirche nebst einer rechtsgeschichtichen Einleitung", F. W. H Wasserschleben
Pretty cut and dry re: the use of strap-ons. And dildos, because the next question is "and did you use this device on yourself?"
The second source is from the trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer, specifically Female Sodomy: The Trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (1477) by Helmut Puff, which has an analysis of the trial as well as a translation of the trial texts.
Katherina is the first recorded woman to be executed for homosexuality. There's a lot to be said about her and the way she performed gender but what I'm interested in today is the strap. So, from the court text itself:
...She made an instrument with a red piece of leather, at the front filled with cotton, and a wooden stick stuck into it, and made a hole through the wooden stick, put a string through, and tied it round; and therewith she had her roguery with the two women...
And there we go! Two sources about people in medieval times using strap-ons, one from around 1020 and one from 1477.
Day 1 (September 21): I think I'd enjoy watching you struggle. And beg.
Day 2 (September 22): What's the point in power if you don't get to have a little fun every now and again?
Day 3 (September 23): I choose to serve, and I am glad to.
Day 4 (September 24): I'm going to have to teach you some obedience.
Day 5 (September 25): The pleasures of the mind can surpass those of the body.
Day 6 (September 26): I hope you're a better fighter than you are a lover.
Day 7 (September 27): I have seventeen husbands, scattered across the Coast's shores. They are mere meat.
Rules and FAQ below the cut
Dates:
21-27 September
Rules:
You can create any type of fan content: art, fic, VP, gifs, and anything else that comes to your mind. As long as it is created by you and the focus of your work is our beloved Disciple Z'rell. SFW, NSFW, from fluff to dead dove - everything is permitted. Just be sure to tag your work appropriately (NSFW content and possible triggers). The only hard rule is: don't use LLM.
How to participate:
Create a work based on one of the prompts and publish it on the date corresponding to the prompt. All prompts are open to interpretation! Bend and fold them the way Z'rell would her husbands. Use the tag #zrell2026 or add your work to the event collection on AO3. And feel free to tag this account in the post with your work or in the comment under it! This way I can find your work and reblog it on the event blog. Late submissions are allowed, but after the event is over, I will check the event tag and AO3 collection much less often.
Useful links:
General information about Z'rell + her lines (and as a bonus, a couple of lines about her from other characters) + references to her appearance in one place: Z'rell: A Guide for Artists and Writers
My personal favorite image hosting service Squidge, created specifically for storing fan art (for non-commercial purposes only!) - convenient if you want to upload your visual work to AO3.
'All of this... It must feel like a betrayal. Say the world, and we'll part ways.'
How could you resist those puppy eyes?đĽşđ¤đ
I really like Gale in this leather robe. I made him wear this all the time in Act 2. Initially, I wanted to draw this with the camp attire but from what I recalled, there's no camp attire that you could see the orb clearly without being too revealing. So this robe will do! And I'm quite digging Gale with a bit of messy hair đł
Lmao. That entire anon ask was about undertagging. Did you miss the whole:
"All you get by undertagging your work is a guarantee that people who want to see the edgy shit canât find it and all the cowards like me who prefer something softer end up at your front door!
And then no oneâs happy!!!! Please tag your fucking fics!!!!!!!"
Just so you could have something to be angry at? It kind of feels like going out of your way to attract people who wont like your work just so you can be angry at them is the point for you.
I'm a little baffled by this ask honestly. For those out of the loop: yesterday I was venting on a writer's server that a few people on an anon blog had been complaining about my fic En Prise by name in the bloodweave tag. I think it's a bit weird you're sending me another anon ask instead of talking to me where we share a server but alright!
If this ask is in good faith: there's nothing cowardly about preferring something softer. There's nothing wrong with curating your fic experience or being frustrated with popular tropes. But I'm not sure how you could show up at a door with tags like CCNTW (which means the fic could contain any major ao3 warning), dubcon, D/s (with the respective D and S roles tagged), face slapping, mind control, pet play, and a bunch of other tags I can't say on Tumblr, and then act like I'm misadvertising just to piss people off. Without getting even more explicit here, the "awful treatment" is enjoyed by both parties and ideally the reader. It's horny dark fantasy. My work is by the sickos, for the sickos.
To the other anon in my inbox who apologized: thank you <3 Listen I get it, it's a dark fic and you did what any reasonable person would do: use the back button when you realized it wasn't for you. For fandom etiquette reasons, just commiserate in DMs next time instead of where the author can see it. Lord knows I have lmao.
And if this is all in bad faith: ok ya, you got my ass lol. Turning off anon asks now and going back to my regular programming of general hornyposting, thank you for your time. <3
Come in from the deep waters. Come to where the sun shines right through to the sand.
They are mutable. They are water. They can follow the tide away from this place or they can murmur can I kiss you? in some half hope no one can hear.
And thenâ
A pair of lipsâ
Too hot, like cider on snow chapped lips. Dry like thin air and just as dizzy. So bashful they can feel the brush of scars on their cheeks. Too practiced. Not practiced enough. Hesitant until the tide comes in and they are swept up together.
Kiss me. Questions and demands and desperations. Itâs in all of them now.
Read if you: are a tadypolycule truther or you think the scientists in Annihilation could have gotten a whole lot freakier.
Uneasy is the Head (E, 7.8k, Unrequited Shadowheart/Nocturne, Shadowheart/Gale)
Concerning: Scourge, Silhouette, Signet, Satin, Sunrise, and Solarflare â Select Correspondence from the Desk of Mother Superior Shadowheart.
Carve through the virgin parchment. Up, curve, flick, bleed. Every âSâ was a billowing black sail, blotted through the leatherbound dossier. Every name leveled a target on her back. Tonight, she pressed her quill in deep enough to scar.
Shadowheart was no fool.
She knew the hatchet was buried in a shallow grave.
Read if you like: post-canon, Mother Superior Shadowheart gaslight gatekeep girlbossing her way to insanity
Highwaywoman (E, 8.9k words, Gale/Jaheira)
In another life, Jaheira met Gale in the woods outside Waterdeep. She was silver haired, still, but he was the arrogant graduate of his youth. In the fantasy, she had far worse intentions. Her swords would prickle against his fresh-shaved face. Her vinesâ Gods, those vines, he remembered them stillâ would tie him tight and prickle through his fine silks. âScared of your own blood, Dekarios?â Sheâd tease, tucking the swordpoint under his chin. âOh, poor thing. Of course you are, youâre only a cub.â
Read if you like: dangerkink Dekarios x that scene where Jaheira ties you up in vines.
My Echo, My Shadow, and Me (4.2k words, M, Gen Shadowheart with a hint of Nocturne pining)
The terminal monitor swings, filling Shadowheart's vision with the gentle chyron of Mother Mainframe. Upon the screen she is two perfect lips and a gaze covered by a fluffy eyemask. Thereâs a fetching pair of eyes embroidered upon its silk: lined dark, full-lashed and painted deep purple. They stare out with a knowing gaze while Mother, ever-working through each vein of their Vault, slumbers softly beneath.
The face soon fades. For a moment, she is alone in the false moonlight of the medbay, before the ominous tick-tack of text spills out in stark green.
>Hello, citizen SHADOWHEART. Welcome to your Vault-Tech Certified Check-Up! Don't recall the last one? Congratulationsâ it worked!
Read if you like: Fallout AUs! The House of Grief as a weird Vault experiment.
Completed
Lie Fallow (E, 12.8k, Astarion/Gale)
It was the word that caught Galeâs journalistic curiosity first. Fallow. In the strictest sense of things, it was a farming technique. Mostly lost to the ever-spinning cogs of their modern world, it was biblical in its simplicity. Farmerâs fields lay barren as autumn turned to spring and then summer, so that beneath them the earth would churn with new life. It was the soilâs breath between seasons.
Astarion was the story of a lifetime.
Read if you like: Pacific northwest horror, 1970s cults, small town mysteries, mulletstarion and uh... figging.
-
On Poisoning a Cherry (E, 16.5k, Astarion/Gale)
It feels a little ritualistic as Astarion taps fresh grounds into the smooth wooden pipe for Gale. For heâs never lit a candle and prayed proper, you see, but he thinks the crackle and cherry glow of a pipe under Galeâs fluttering eyes is as good an altar as any. And as he breathes in, Astarion mirrors him. The smell would be overpowering were it not for the wafting sweet panic in Galeâs blood as he chokes himself out soâŚÂ willingly.
Or: Astarion canât get high, but that insufferable wizard can. And watching can be just as fun.
Read if you like: 16k words of getting that wizard STUPID.
-
Warding Bond (E, 1.9k, Astarion/Gale + Shadowheart)
Shadowheart doesnât see it but she hears it: the sudden sip of breath that comes right before a kiss. A muffled gasp that melts into pleasure. Then, two lungs in tune with each other, sharing space, sharing breath. She presses her gauntlets to her lips and feels their steel warm to her skin.
Lady of Sorrows guide her... had she ever been kissed like that?
Shadowheart watches something she shouldn't.
Read if you like: Voyeur Shart, Failgirls, the shads disapproves glitch, or fujoing out in the gauntlet of Shar
Homophrosyne (M, 4.4k, Minthara/Jaheira)
When the Captain bowed it was by law alone. It was simply a to do, a reverence between Gods and men and Jaheira of Tethyr: the old druid in between. She could see the hard-cut cleverness in the sailor's eyes the moment she stood and shook the salt from her hair. She meant no deference. Tacit and cunning, this Minthara only knelt so she might slice at an enemyâs heel.
Jaheira and Minthara, on the island on Tethyr. A loose Odyssey-inspired tale with a sapphic twist.
Read if you like: Old lady yuri, Minthara's goblin army getting turned into pigs.
Doorway Effect (2.5k, E, Minthara/Shadowheart)
Shadowheartâs memories are bookmarked by thresholds. A tavern door, a shuddering cathedral, a ladder to a light unknown. Mintharaâs tent is no different. She knows, she knows, if she steps into this pixie ring she will awaken the parts of herself sheâs so carefully locked away.
And yet the drow's command echoes all the same: You will come to me, Shadowheart, when you find yourself in need of a key.
Shadowheart, Sharran chastity, and Minthara's "fuck the gods" mentality.
Read if: You think about Minthara's "debutante or deviant" to Shadowheart line more often than you probably should.
Come Home, Cub (3.6k, E, Geraldus/Jaheira)
Go home to your mother, boy.
The words rattle between Geraldusâ ears, colouring the tips of them a terrible pink. Gods, he would have begged her like a dog to stay if she had only let him. If she hadnât turned on her heel and left with that world-weary look on her face. He still would
Geraldus fantasizes about mommy Jaheira. That's it that's the fic.
Read if: you also saw that sopping wet cat of a Harper and needed to see him even more pathetic than he is in canon.
Last Glimpse of the Topsail (8.8k, E, Gale/Shadowheart)
She can feel itâ the ebb and flow. The thread that joins them is a braided harbour rope going taut and slack with the tide. Shadowheart breathes it in and can feel Gale take her exhale in turn.
Or: Inappropriate use of Zone of Truth, cast by one lovesick cleric upon one terribly lovesick wizard.
Read if you like: Friends to lovers, resolved sexual tension, matching each others freak, ASMR: goth gf hypnotizes you to confess all your slutty secrets (romantic)
Four of Swords (3.6k, E, Astarion/Gale + Gale/Shadowheart + Minthara/Gale)
Kept, a rational voice in Gale's mind would remind him when they pressed gifts into his hands. You are a kept man in a devil's tower, nothing more.
But itâs Shadowheart that helps him dredge the Chionthar. Itâs Minthara who pulls the crown from the deepwater muck. And itâs Astarion who places it upon his head.
Another gift. No. AÂ reward.
A corruption arc in 3k words, Gale finds himself less of an ally and more of a kept pet wizard to Ascended Astarion, Dark Justiciar Shadowheart, and...lbh just regular Minthara.
Read if you like: Corruption via praise, fancy robes, and unlimited spell scrolls, magic collars, calling dibs on the wizard.
---
Eclipse (3.2k, E, Gale/Shadowheart)
There will always be the dark of Shadowheart, lurking just beneath the waterfall of his wifeâs soft white curls. Gale sees her in the firm hand of the wolf tamer at the edge of the forest and in the quiet whispers of 'is this too much' when she sees him in pain.
But on occasionâ when the animals are fed, the roses tended, and some kinder deities than the echoes of their pasts smiles upon themâ there is an eclipse.
Gale and Shadowheart partaking in some simulacrum shenanigans (a threesome with both versions of his wife)
Read if you like: The world's most romantic painplay, bratting so your wife's alter ego steps on you, married life between two people with 9th level spells.
---
Netherese Duality Series (9.2k, E, Gale/Gale's Netherese Orb)
Gale is used to catching the eyes of the otherworldly. Whatever follows him now offers no such comforts.
There are nights he feels eyes heavy on his back in the dark of his study, only to turn and find himself alone. And there are mornings, still, when shadows pass over the candle by his bed the moment he wakesâ as if some presence had been watching him from his bedside.
Isolated in his tower, Gale is less alone than he thinks.
Read if: You think Jekyll & Hyde takes could be a whole lot more horny, "that man got 1000 times hotter when his life fell apart", the idea of an interdimensional being talking Gale through it.
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Game Theory (19.5k, Astarion/Gale/Enver Gortash)
To Gale, working with Gortash is a bitter pill he must swallow, but one he can chase with the sweetness of the Crown in his capable hands.
To Astarion, itâs pure hedonism and power. Itâs a section of the city in the palm of a pair of new gauntlets. Itâs blood from a populace who will never tell him no again, and it's Gale at his feet.
But the aloof housecat often thinks itself a ruler on high over the loyal pup, even when they both wear the master's collar and eat his of scraps. Enver has come to enjoy their meals together.
Read if you like: the evil throuple from hell, Gale 'rip to everyone who died of hubris but I'm better' Dekarios, kept pet wizards, psychosexual 4D chess
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Perfect Bound (4.5k, E, Astarion/Gale)
âWhatever happened here?â Astarion teases, coming face to face with Gale. He makes a show of looking him up and down, one slender finger against his own lips in faux concern.
Gale makes a growl of annoyance around his gag. He gives one pointed tug to his bound wrists and flicks his eyes upwards as if to say is it not obvious?
âTrapped? Oh, but that canât be it. Astarion says, mouth dropping open as if heâs just noticed the binds. âI seem to recall you saying you had everything quite in hand.â
My first Bloodweave 1 shot! A classic dangerkink Dekarios take in which Gale gets a little tied up and Astarion is there to help.
Read if: You like your bloodweave with a thread of pred/prey or you like seeing wizard hubris punished (in a sexy way)
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Typecasting (19k, E, Gale/Shadowheart/Tav)
"You see, the problem about writing on drow society is one often does not make it up from the Underdark to hand pages to publisher. Of course there are manyâŚless researched volumes. Of hapless men and leather-clad matrons. But I told Shadowheart I would be a gentleman, so that is all I will say on the more sordid parts of my education. Youâve nothing to fear.â
Stuck in the underdark with a drow city before them and freedom, Shadowheart & Tav keep Gale as a fake prisoner to keep their cover.
Read if: You're a 'Gale has an erotica collection' truther, you like strong ladies and puppy-eyed men, the dynamic of 'dom teaching dom with one eager to please sub, slightly convoluted reasons to !!leash and collar that wizard!!
Ongoing
En Prise (93k, E, Astarion/Gale)
âTogether, then.â Gale says, eyes flicking down to the dagger. âAs a show of good faith. We sate our damned appetites together.â
âShall we toast to it too? Drink of each otherâs cups like smitten newlyweds?â Astarion finds his charms again as he licks a brazen stripe up his neck. Itâs a worthy distraction for those nimble hands to press the dagger against his chest. Not threatening, not yet at least. Noâ with the flat of the blade against his mark, Gale sees it as the offering itâs meant to be.
A semi canon-compliant fic in which a deal to keep each other fed leads Gale and Astarion to dark curiosity, codependence, and romantic evenings of scheming and murder.
Read if you like: Consensual but not safe or sane, a "this better not awaken anything in me" taglist, unabashed and gleeful toxic yaoi, making each other WAY WORSE.
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ingi ferroque (20k, M, Astarion/Gale)
Two eyes, dark and shiny as sea glass, bulge and blink as Gale brings the knife to the offeringâs throat. The battle rages on and the babe bleeds upon Athenaâs boots. Let it take, he prays. Let her hear.
âMy. What do we have here?" Gale hears a soldierâs voice in place of his Goddess. "Two little lambs left upon the altar?â
A Greco-Roman AU that follows famed Legate Astarion, Priest of Athena Gale, and a Nero-esque Emperor Cazador as Gale is hauled off from exile to Rome to for reasons unknown...
Read if you like: Enemies to lovers, the inherent sexual tension of historical banter, HBO's Rome, loving descriptions of man thighs under historically inaccurate toga hemlines.
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Semperservus (17k, E, Minthara/Gale)
The Seduction of Dekarios. The maiden in the river, bathed in holy light across underdark waters. The God whispering promises in her ear. The forging of new love, in fires of the only mortal left on this plane with ambitions as great as his once were.
Post-Game, God!Gale fixated on making Minthara his new Chosen.
Read if you like: Dunking on delusional God!Gale, Minthara's 'aura of a third son' banter, not breaking the cycle, comeuppance for Gale leaving you on the docks for the goddamn crown
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Spinneret Sour (26K, E, Astarion/Gale/Shadowheart/Jaheira)
The elfsong hookah is grossly underutilized in fic. Our attempt to fix that with a giggly, thank-god-we're-alive foursome.
Read if you like: Gale getting bullied by hot elves (plural!), fluff and smut, sexualizing that old man/woman, smoking is hot when it's fictional characters
the hottest thing a guy can be is barely conscious on the floor while someone lifts his head up by the hair so that you can see his glazed out eyes and the blood running down his face
