Summary: Karlach tries to comfort Gale after Elminster shows up and tells them of Mystra's genius plan for the Absolute's destruction and Gale's redemption.
"I'll tell him I haven't read a book since secondary school. Watch his face melt off."
Rating: T
Wordcount: 1313
CW: Suicide mention
A/N: A warm thank you to a whole host of people on Discord who helped me out with wording. An especially warm thanks to Gally and Tatsunara for reading through the whole thing and giving me feedback before posting. That was really sweet of you!
đRead on AO3
Karlach didn't tend to think of herself as an angry sort of person. More like â passionate. But the flare that ignited in her chest after that grandfatherly wizard had waltzed into their camp, eaten their best cheese, and then told Gale that the goddess of fucking magic thought that the best solution to all their problems would be for Gale to suicide bomb into the Absolute â that was unmistakably anger. He deserved better than that, after his courage in the goblin camp, when that hobgoblin had used some tadpole trickery to almost blast him into the spider pit from the rafters; after all the care he put into playing head chef for them all every night; after he had so readily accepted her, despite their obvious differences in personality, when they had first met below the tollhouse. He deserved better than that after all the obvious love he had for the sheer concept of magic, of Mystra's domain. But Karlach didn't know how to help him.
The obvious choice would simply be to say no, absolutely not, and to Dis with Mystra's capricious idea of love - but clearly, it wasn't that obvious for Gale. She could see him just on the other side of camp in front of his tent, holding a book in his hands, but his eyes were on the black forest ahead, and the pages weren't turning.
"Hey, soldier," Karlach said quietly. Gale didn't look much like her idea of a soldier. But he fulfilled the most important requirement in her mind: Stuck in a larger game with only half the context to understand what was happening, and commanded to make immense, personal sacrifices for the greater good. She wracked her mind, trying to think of something, anything to take his mind off the horrific task he'd just been given. Something comforting.
Something that would really divert his attention.
"Y'know, I haven't read a book since secondary school."
Gale's dead gaze flickered to life. An unstable flame, still, but she would see that fire properly reignited soon. If there was anything Karlach was good at, it was setting people ablaze. She had an unnatural talent for it.
"Secondary school?" He mumbled. "That must be at least â well, by my estimate of your age, ten to fifteen years ago, yes? I'm sorry, I've never asked you â I've always thought it a rude question to pose to anyone, especially ladies."
Hearing it phrased in terms of years rather than a period of her life knocked the wind from Karlach. She sucked in air through her teeth, suddenly tasting the acridity of Avernus. Ten years ago.
"Lady, ha! Glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humor quite yet," she laughed, a little shriller than she normally did. Despite his abject misery, it wasn't lost on him.
"I do apologize," he said, putting the book aside and reaching for her hand instinctively. She withdrew, just as instinctively. What a pitiful instinct to have been forced to develop. Gale's hand hung in the air between them for the briefest of moments before he let it fall to his knee. "I shouldn't have..." He began uncertainly, but Karlach cut him off.
"You didn't do anything wrong. It wasn't - it wasn't exactly nice to hear it like that, but that doesn't make it any less true that I had my heart literally ripped out ten years ago." She felt her face grow hot with more than just the fires of Avernus. "Dammit. I came over here to cheer you up, and instead you're trying to comfort me."
He looked at her incredulously. "You expected that telling me you haven't touched a book in a decade or more would cheer me?"
"Well, when you put it like that. But I thought it might at least distract you from all the impending doom and all." His half-hearted chuckle brought a smile to her own face. Gallows humor had been her favorite for a long time now.
They were silent for a while, listening to the menacing nothingness around them.
"Would you do it?" He asked, though she thought he already knew her answer.
"Gods, no. You think I'd claw myself back from a living death just to walk right back into it because of someone who abandoned me?"
"Well. When you put it like that," he mumbled, so quietly that she almost didn't catch it. She wouldn't have, if there had been any other sound at all, but every crackling campfire was extinguished within minutes here; there was no gentle night breeze to rustle the dead leaves. Silent as the grave.
"What was the last thing you read, Karlach?"
She hummed thoughtfully. "I don't really remember. I wasn't much of a reader, ever, if you can believe that. Probably something with a swashbuckling hero, fighting for riches and the little guy. On the surface of it, just the riches, but really mostly the little guy. I like those stories. Make for great songs, too."
"Ah, yes. I've been known to indulge in those two-copper tales of derring-do from time to time myself. Don't tell any of the others."
"And just look at us now, smack dab in our own tale of derring-do. Imagine that."
"I feel like we're more like the little guys than the swashbuckling heroes. And seeing much less of the riches than I would prefer, were I in such a cheesy story."
"We can be both. True enough about the riches, though."
They fell silent again. The white gleam of the spell Gale had cast on a branch above them gave the scene a cold, clinical glare. The light was swallowed by the surrounding forest far closer to them than was normal. There was no smooth transition from white to gray to black; the light was there, or it wasn't, no in-between stage.
"Don't kill yourself for her, Gale," Karlach said quietly, but forcefully. He seemed a little taken aback by her tone, but she refused to argue with him on this point.
"It's not..."
"Yes, it actually is that simple! You want her forgiveness? She should be begging for yours! She's a goddess, and her best plan is to let you just die in the hopes that might solve everything. And we don't know where the Absolute even is! What if it's not at Moonrise at all, but in the middle of Baldur's Gate? What if they have captives, or brainwashed servants with it? Your own words: You will erupt. Sure, you might take down the Absolute, but who else'll you be taking with you? Why is Mystra asking you to make this choice? She's forsaking you, Gale. She doesn't give a shit about the consequences so long as this other god, or whatever it even is, doesn't come near her. And she's putting this responsibility on you, just because she knows you're the only one who would even consider this madness."
Gale's eyes flared in concert with the flames from Karlach's shoulder vents. He rose abruptly from the stump he had been sitting on, fists clenched so hard his knuckles were turning white.
"Why do you insist on punishing yourself for her sake?" Karlach pleaded angrily. He turned from her, unwilling to look neither her nor himself in the eye.
"It's for my sake, too," he whispered, but she thought he sounded less and less convinced.
"You being dead helps no one. Look at yourself. You're brilliant and devoted and kind. You've got good friends who will do anything to help you get past this, and then home to your cat and your tower and your fancy books for smart people. Isn't that worth more than some - some ex-girlfriend suddenly sending a messenger to tell you to end it all?" Slowly, his fists relaxed. He let out a breath that sounded as if he'd held it for years.
Your action hero just got shot in the shoulder, stitched it up in a motel bathroom, and is now running through a forest. I need you to know that a shoulder wound severs muscle, nerves, and sometimes bone, and the human body's response to that is not "mild wincing followed by full range of motion." here is what injuries actually do to peoplee...
âč Adrenaline is REAL and it does allow people to do extraordinary things immediately after injury, BUT it is a loan, not a gift. you borrow the function and you pay it back later with interest. Your character might genuinely be able to run for twenty minutes after being stabbed. and then the adrenaline drops and everything the body was delaying arrives all at once. the collapse is NOT weakness. it's biology collecting its debt. write the debt collection. it's more interesting than the heroic sprint anyway.
âč Blood loss changes cognition before it drops you. you don't go from "fine" to "unconscious." you go through a whole middle stage of confusion, poor decision-making, emotional dysregulation, a strange calm, tunnel vision, difficulty forming sentences. Your injured character making a bad call, saying something they normally wouldn't, becoming suddenly and inexplicably gentle--that's blood loss. use the middle stage. it's dramatically rich and almost nobody writes it.
âč Recovery has a timeline and the timeline is long and boring and inconvenient to plot. a broken rib takes six weeks and during those six weeks sneezing is a genuine emergency. a concussion means no screens, no reading, no bright lights, and symptoms can persist for months. a stab wound to the abdomen means weeks of infection risk, limited mobility, and a specific kind of exhaustion that has nothing to do with sleep. Your character being sidelined and frustrated and useless for a long time is not a narrative problem. it's the story.
âč Pain also affects personality in ways writers skip. chronic pain makes people short-tempered and then guilty about being short-tempered. it makes concentration difficult. it makes intimacy complicated, both emotional and physical. a character who was patient and warm before their injury and is now snappy and withdrawn is not a character regression. they're in pain. pain is exhausting in ways that don't show on the outside. the people around them noticing and not knowing how to help is a whole story in itself.
"[AI] simulates the act of brainstorming or creative exploration, turning it into predatory pay-for-play process that, every single time, spits out deeply mediocre garbage. It charges you for the thrill of feeling like youâre building or making something and, just like a casino â or online dating, or pornography, or TikTok â cares more about that monetizable loop of engagement, of progress, than it does the finished product. What Iâm saying is generative AI is a deeply expensive edging machine, but for your life."
-Ryan Broderick, Generative AI is an expensive edging machine
A Long and Winding Trail (With Gale!): A Food Journey through the Chionthar Valley
In fact, so deep ran the rivalry betwixt wizards and lawyers that my mother â quite famously! â slammed the door on one Elminster Aumar, Chosen of Mystra and wizard of great infamy, who had arrived to investigate rumours of a handsome and charming young prodigy, of the tender age of six summers. Morena Dekarios, celebrated public barrister, saw Master Aumar upon her doorstep, and scarcely waited for him to finish his greeting before closing the door in his face.
For two whole years, my mother ran ferocious interference to prevent Master Aumar from laying eyes upon me, but eventually she was not quite fast enough to prevent a curious boy from sprinting to the front door, expecting to see a playmate. And thus, after a century and a half of bitter rivalry, the first wizard-lawyer friendship was tentatively formed.Â
Join Gale Dekarios on his new food blog, as he attempts to to feed his ravenous companions with limited produce, unreliable cookware, and a dollop of cheer, intermingled with his own memoirs from his earlier life. A weekly food blog for those who appreciate a little bit of magic on their plate!
hate when im reading and theres a word i dont know so i search it in the dictionary and its like: beuperer. noun. a person who beupers. i'll fucking kill you
i love when a character is very clearly going through their own shit badly and is able to be sympathised with yet they are also being awful to others and hurting people who don't deserve it, and the narrative is showing how they got here but not letting them off the hook for being cruel just because they are hurting.
i dont like â what happens when you introduce this type of character to a large fandom
laughing at a joke about the "refusal of the call" but shaking my head the entire time so the audience knows i don't approve of the monomyth as an effective structure for literary analysis
(smoking a cigarette) the average american is afraid of what is new and what is foreign, and especially of what is adult. they are trapped forever in daycares of their own design, reading books and watching shows made for children. And while there are interesting things made for children, by and large, they tend to stick to inoffensive, intensely juvenile things that won't challenge them much. And worst of all, if you suggest to your Average American that they should try to step outside of their narrow box, especially if they're trying to become artists, animators, film makers, novelists, etc, everyone acts as if you've just bombed the daycare. Wow.
Sometimes, I read @readingsometimes - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
