Pairing: Gale x Tav (Aislyn)
Plot: Just a cute lil scene where Gale gifts his wife with a little snow cloud to cool off on a hot Waterdeep day 💜❄️🌨️
A/N: I wrote this as a gift for @charlee-monstah for her birthday after having a fun little chat about her polar bear druid Tav, Aislyn. Art is by @weaveandwood and if you want to reblog her art (and you SHOULD) the original link is here!!
It was days like this that Gale wished he were a better artist, one who could render a memory onto a canvas with perfect, minute detail, down to the tiniest freckle and glimmer of light. But the lion’s share of his wizardly talent was dedicated to illusion magic, not painting, and so, instead, he leaned against the doorframe of his home in Waterdeep, a smile on his lips, to watch his beloved enjoy an afternoon out on their balcony.
A charming little cloud, as lightly gray as a freshwater pearl and as fluffy as a puff of cotton, hovered a few feet above Aislyn’s head as she reclined on the balcony bench, her legs stretched out along the seat. The cloud was his little gift on this particularly hot day in Waterdeep, as it brought a bit of refreshing snow to try and bring down the temperature around their modest balcony. Aislyn was gazing out to the horizon, lost in thought, completely unfazed by the slow drift of snowflakes fluttering down around her. Gale was drawn in by the sight, enchanted by each tiny flake of white in her midnight-blue hair and the way the snow melted against her tanned skin the instant they made contact. He suspected her mind was already on their next adventure, the next place they could explore, the next little mishap they could tangle themselves up in, but his mind was on her. Always and always on her.
How could he focus on anything else? When something as simple as a flurry of snowflakes was enough to elevate her natural beauty beyond that of any other, god or mortal? He leaned his head against the doorframe, watching as she sat up and cupped her hands together, letting snow collect there. One long, elven ear flicked as a snowflake landed on the tip and he was struck all over again, for probably the hundredth time, just how cute and beautiful and mesmerizing she was all at once. It was hard to believe, even after all this time, that she was his wife.
His gaze drifted back up to her face, crossing the scar over her nose, seeking the mesmerizing blue of her beautiful eyes. She’d look up at him eventually, he knew, and when she did he would be ready with some charming compliment or other. Something about how he’d love to get lost creating constellations among her freckles, or how her raven-haired beauty was—
A puff of white powder exploded against his shoulder and he jolted, suddenly alert. Aislyn laughed, reclining back against the bench, another snowball ready in her hand.
“You were staring again,” she said, a glimmer of mischief in her eyes. “Do you see something you like?”
He laughed, brushing the snow off his shoulder. “Oh, there is plenty here that I like, as I’m sure you well know. My charming, beautiful, talented wife foremost among them all.”
“Is that so,” she murmured, turning her eyes to the snowball in her hands. She pursed her lips slightly, as if considering his words, only to turn as quick as lightning and fling the second snowball at him. He blocked it with a quick shield spell and then, with a grin and a quick spellcasting gesture, expanded the cloud over their heads.
Snow came down in a thick curtain inside the balcony now, creating small drifts on the bench, the table, and the railings in mere seconds. Aislyn laughed, scooping up more snow to toss his way, but he ducked and dashed toward the little table, gathering up an armful of snow. He attempted to dump it clumsily on her, but she rolled away with ease, her reflexes sharp, and within seconds pelted him with yet another snowball.
“You know better than to get in a snowball fight with a polar bear,” she said, flashing him a grin. She opened her mouth to tease him further, only to yelp when a mage hand Gale had conjured behind her pulled back the fabric of her shirt and dumped snow down her back.
“Surely that wasn’t too cold for a polar bear,” he said, crossing his arms with a smirk.
“Oh I’ll show you too cold.”
She feinted to the right and he attempted to out-step her, moving toward the bench, but she was faster than him. She took a handful of snow and grabbed him by the shirt, stuffing the snow down his collar. He gasped at the sudden cold, but she gave him no room to shake out the snow beneath his shirt. She pressed into him, forcing him to retreat until the backs of his legs hit the bench and he sat down in the snow there with a soft oof.
She straddled him easily, looping her arms around his neck, and couldn’t resist a triumphant smirk of her own. “Cold, are you? Do you need me to maybe…warm things up for you?”
He breathed a laugh that clouded in the air between them. The cloud he had conjured snowed now in gentle, lazy flurries rather than heavy curtains of snow, and once more he was captivated by the way individual flakes stood out in her hair. Each perfect tiny ice crystal stark white and glimmering against strands of ink-blue, like a sky full of stars. He adored the way her blue eyes sparkled with victory and affection and, despite the time she’d spent relaxing beneath a snow cloud, she was still quite warm. The heat of her body against his was more than a little distracting.
He utterly forgot to be charming or witty or suave in response to her teasing. Instead he could only smile, wrapping his arms around her waist.
“I love you,” he said, gazing warmly up at her.
She gave a quiet laugh, brushing her hand through his hair and dislodging a few snowflakes that drifted down between them. “Admitting defeat then?” she asked, but before he could respond, her smirk softened and she leaned in with a quiet, murmured, “Love you too,” just before she met his lips with hers.
Gale wrapped his arms tighter around her as she deepened the kiss, her tongue seeking his, and all concentration on keeping up the conjured snow melted away as he shifted them, turning to lay her back along the seat of the bench. Neither noticed the snow still left over around them as his cold hands slipped beneath the fabric of her shirt, seeking warmth. She shivered just slightly before pulling back to gaze at him, her eyebrows raised but a challenge in her eyes.
“You wanna do this out here?” she asked.
“My love, I would do ‘this’ with you anywhere,” was his sole reply.
He took her mouth again with his and soon trailed kisses down her jaw and throat, smiling against her skin as she melted beneath him like conjured snow.
Aislyn (The City We Became) vs. Marvin (In Trousers)
Aislyn
Marvin
Voting ended onJun 22, 2023
Aislyn Propaganda:
i don't know how to put this lightly but. she's very. well. bigoted and it reflects in her narration, and while every other narrator in the book considers her the villian, she narrates herself to be the hero
Marvin propaganda:
this bitch is crazy you can't trust a thing she says!!!! but um seriously he is neurotic and while recounting his childhood everything is wack and doesn't make sense and ummm. Idk the man lies he withholds information (such as names of main characters he deems unworthy or important details) he makes he presents his fantasies like actual canon events (how marvin eats his breakfast, rape of ms goldberg) he tries to convince himself and therefore us that he's straight ummm he's just a little freak and an attention whore and a liar and a fugly slut and i love him. Heart
- Kassie, her (wizard) mentor and childhood best friend, is assumed dead until further notice. This is from a couple sessions ago.
- Today’s session starts: Abaddon (not a good person) appears in a dream portraying herself as Aislyn’s mom. Abaddon (in mom disguise) tells Aislyn that she’s proud of her which made Aislyn tear up; she’s never gotten to hear that from her biological mother.
- Aislyn wakes in a cold sweat and bolts out of the castle. Vannin gets up to go check on her. Aislyn tells Vannin about the dream. It wrecks her when Vannin tells her that it wasn’t her mom in the dream. (It also wrecked me.)
- Before the session ended, the party ends up locked in a room that has the same symbol as Aislyn’s brand on the floor.
Sweat poured down Sahar’s brow as she nearly tripped. Five days, she had been travelling five days non-stop to find this magical, mysterious healer she had heard of from the elves.
After the battle at the Storm Spire, Sahar had taken at least a few hours of recovery, not that she had allowed even that much. Kasef was still missing, and she refused to rest until she had at least found his body. The first miracle was finding his body hidden beneath rocks of cliff that he had fallen from, the second miracle came when she realized he was still breathing. Despite the fact the spell had worn off on all of the soldiers, he was still in his lava monster form, the yellow cracks still singed into his rocky skin. The healers determined it was probably the only thing that kept him alive all this time, and though they had managed to remove the arrows, his monstrous form remained, and with the Sun’s primal stone in Lux Aurea still infected, it was impossible to find a way to revert the condition.
But she couldn’t accept that. She was not waiting for months, maybe even years, for them to find the answer that would fix their primal stone, and she would not return to Neolandia without Kasef by her side and human again. She had asked around for a different solution to this problem, which is when she came across the rumor. There was a Startouch healer that lived deep within the forest about three miles north of the Storm Spire. It was said she could heal any wound, and perform any magic, if one dared to enter her forest, and her domain could only be reached by crossing over three stepping stones along a river.
The soldier had been searching through the thick forest for days, having not even heard the sounds of rushing water. Thus, it came as a surprise when she nearly tripped herself into it. But there it was, the wide, rushing river, and after walking alongside it, she had managed to find three stepping stones to cross it. Relief and anxiety roiled in her gut all at once as she jumped onto the first stone. This was either about to pay off extremely well, or she had wasted precious time just to cross a river.
Once her feet had landed onto the other side of the river, she paused. The ambience of the forest had changed from before, everything outside of it felt distant and far away. Sahar took that as a good sign and stumbled forward still, panting heavily from her exhaustion. But this atmosphere was so relaxing, and she had traveled for so long, the only thing keeping her on her feet was her will to help Kasef. But she could no longer move when she had come across a garden, collapsing just before it, and she let out a quiet curse. “Healer,” she called out in a final act of desperation, voice cracked and hoarse from dehydration. “Is there a healer here?”
