I am Hanna. Two years in, still lost in the Baldur's Gate brainrot.
If you are a follower/moot, please let me know if you want to be part of
✨the tag crew✨
I write about Gale, Halsin, my redeemed Dark Urge Celeste, love, acceptance and polyamory. And angst. Lots and lots of angst.
And the occasional smut, neatly collected in....
The Smut Collection
as the name suggests 🫦 🔞
Available on AO3 and tumblr
Hell is empty, and all the devils are here ⬩ A Bhaalspawn memoir ⬩ currently in progress
Celeste Masterpost
In the wake of your departure ⬩ sneaky god Gale x reader/you ⬩ finished
Gale leaves you at the docks of Baldur's Gate and you experience the five stages of grief.
All we have is each other (In another life) ⬩ Gale x f!reader ⬩ finished
You played BG3 and woke up on the beach in Faerûn. What now?
You could have done anything. Gone with anyone. Yet you chose me. ⬩ Halsin x gn!reader ⬩ finished
You are a soon-to-be redeemed Dark Urge who frees Halsin from Orin
Echoes of the thread ⬩ All x f!reader (mostly Gale though) ⬩ finished
You awaken on the beach near the wreckage of the nautiloid, fully conscious of everything that transpired during the last run—a run that, tragically, ended in failure.
Nature has been most kind to let me share in your heart ⬩ Halsin x you ⬩ finished
Spin off of Echoes of the Thread - What if Halsin does not fall in love with you?
Not tonight ⬩Halsin x you ⬩ finished ⬩ one-shot
Spin off of Echoes of the Thread - You and Halsin are the last ones awake at the Elfsong Tavern and your mind drifts back to another time, where Halsin loved and trusted you.
Cedar and Sandalwood ⬩ Gale x you ⬩ one-shot
You played a lot of BG3 and dreamed a lot about the wizard. A little too much. Right?
I have known you ⬩ Gale x you ⬩ one-shot
You wake up to the feeling of missing someone you have never known. Not a face, only a dream and a stubbornly lingering feeling.
On Gale’s Love for Mystra and his possible development into the acceptance of polyamory
On AI Detectors and the never ending accusations of people using AI in their ar
Honeyed Salmon by tillysketch for Celeste and Halsin
The Hour of Need for tillysketch, for her OC Clover and Gale
on tumblr and AO3
A study in devotion for WildMagicKatie's Willow and Gale
While you are occupied for rdekarios' Seraphina and Gale
on AO3 and Youtube
Cat!Phina for rdekarios' Seraphina
The things worth living for for WildMagicKatie
Last updated on 16th of July 2026
This blog is queued. While I try to be active during the week, I usually spend dedicated time during the weekend to work through all the tags and read all the WIPs. Please don't think I am ignoring you. I assure you, I am not.
Contributions to Artsywarden's Galetober
Contributions to Cozy December 2025
Contributions to Kinkmas 2025
Intimacy prompts
Non-sexual intimacy prompts
crammed in a very small space - Celeste and Gale
Interrupting with a kiss - Celeste and Gale
Listening to someones heartbeat - Celeste and Halsin
Falling into someone's arms - Celeste and Gale
shoulder rubs - Celeste and Halsin
Touching foreheads - Celeste and Gale
Running your fingers down their spine - Halsin and Celeste
Doing each other's hair - Celeste and Shadowheart
Back scratches - Celeste and Halsin
Patching up a wound - Celeste and Halsin
Cuddling in a blanket fort - Celeste and Gale
Finding your Tav wearing their clothes - Celeste and Halsin
Having their hair washed by your Tav - Celeste and Gale
Your Tav crying about something - Celeste and Halsin
Taking a bath together - Celeste and Gale
Falling asleep with their head in a lover’s lap - Celeste and Gale
Sharing a dessert - Celeste and Halsin
Kissing scars - Celeste and Halsin
Sharing Secrets - Celeste and Gale
Caring for them when they're ill - Celeste and Halsin
author's note: Accompanied by this extraordinary rendered gift my friend @rdekarios did for this chapter. Thank you so much, I don't deserve you 😭🫂
Also, I am aware this is not hot healing in D&D works — all three of the healers are high level at this point in time and can easily undo the damage done to Celeste. I have a friend who does not wish to be called beta reader but a very loud and opinionated friend who spouts nonsense, she offered a solution I knowingly decided against this solution for ✨the drama✨
Please note that I will out of order for the coming week. I am hoping to post the next chapter on Monday to stay on schedule but cannot promise anything.
Theme song: Sleep Token - Damocles
content warning: bodily harm, blood, serious injuries, mentioning of torture
word count: 7,6 k
Excerpt below
Start at the beginning
AO3 Link
Gale watched, frozen in a nightmare he could neither wake from nor control, as Jenevelle gently coaxed Celeste into sleep with a whispered incantation and a laying on of glowing hands. Halsin moved with the steady, terrible competence of someone who had seen too much triage in his long years, unfastening her robe—his old robe, worn soft at the cuffs—and pulling it back to reveal what was left of the woman Gale loved.
What was left—the words themselves threatened to choke him.
There was not an inch of skin spared. Bruises bloomed like dark flowers over every curve and angle. Cuts laid her open in jagged, angry lines that had tried to close and failed, and burns mottled her so thoroughly it was hard to know where one ended and the next began. Her wrists were worse: shredded, newly regrown skin split and oozing at the lightest movement, testament to how hard she must have struggled even at the end.
And yet that neck—that traitorous, fragile neck—he realized with a gut-churning twist had been carefully hidden by the collar of her favorite robe, as though even at her worst she’d tried to hold on to some last sliver of dignity.
He nearly gagged.
Tara was moving with grim efficiency, sweeping up the notes and maps and spilled ink that cluttered the table—clearing it for what, exactly, Gale refused to let himself imagine. Jaheira was already back, arms burdened with potions and salves and cloths and a steaming basin that smelled of bitter herbs. Celeste had tried to clean herself with magic—he could see the too-smooth shine of cantrip-scoured skin in places—but blood and pus and clear signs of infection still dripped freely from wounds that would not close.
They turned her gently, with a reverence that hurt more than anger ever could, and Gale heard the hiss of indrawn breath from Halsin, saw the set of Jenevelle’s mouth as they both tried to remain calm. They spoke in low, grave tones about what to do next. Jaheira quietly began moving chairs out of the way to make space, until she paused in front of Gale, meeting his unfocused, horror-struck gaze.
Her hand closed around his upper arm with quiet, implacable strength and guided him back into one of the chairs he hadn’t realized he’d abandoned. He felt himself lower into it like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
Something cold and heavy was pressed into his hand. A tumbler, half full of dark, potent-smelling liquor.
“I don’t assume you’ll be leaving willfully,” Jaheira said, voice flat but not unkind.
He didn’t even hesitate. “Never.”
“Then drink this,” she ordered, her tone brooking no argument, “and let us work.”
And so he drank. Gods help him, he drank deep and long, the whiskey burning all the way down until tears pricked his eyes and bile threatened to rise. He forced it down again, because he couldn’t let himself be sick here, now, in front of her.
Instead he watched—no, witnessed—while they began their grim miracle.
The three of them worked in a silent, instinctive dance that spoke of long experience with the brutalities the world could visit on even its strongest defenders. Halsin’s hands glowing with gold magic, knitting bone and sealing ruptured organs. Jenevelle’s voice low and sure as she laid calming spells on Celeste’s sleeping mind to keep the pain from dragging her back to awareness. Jaheira’s deft fingers smoothing spells and poultices over ruined flesh, applying salves that hissed and steamed against the open wounds.
Gale drank and watched and wanted to scream. He wanted to tear down the walls with the force of his fury, wanted to fling himself at whatever monstrous creatures had done this to her, wanted to demand that Mystra herself account for why such suffering was allowed in the weave of the world.
Instead he sat there, clutching the glass so hard he thought it might shatter, and shook.
Because despite everything that had come before tonight—the betrayal, the secrets, the devastation of his trust—there was nothing that could justify this. No choice she’d made, no crime she might have committed in Waterdeep’s shadowed underbelly, no mistake she’d refused to confess that should have earned her to bleed out on their dining table.
And so he watched the woman he loved be remade piece by piece under the steady, relentless care of those she called family.
And he drowned himself in whiskey, in guilt, in grief, in a cold and hollow fury that no spell he knew could ever hope to contain.
Stable.
That was the word they’d finally settled on, once the night’s long, harrowing ordeal finally collapsed into silence. Stable, as though the word itself were some fragile magic keeping her tethered to this world, as though it somehow excused the truth that she was still so very broken beneath the bandages that wrapped her like the shroud of a corpse they had all refused to let her become.
They were exhausted, all of them, their powers spent, their voices hoarse from chanting incantations, their faces drawn with the strain of hours spent wrestling her battered body away from death. Larger swathes of her skin were hidden now beneath white linen stained pink and brown, and the air stank of poultices and blood and the acrid bite of old fear.
When Halsin had asked for his assent to give her something to ease the pain and help her sleep, Gale had just nodded. Not spoken. Not thought. Simply nodded. If it would heal her, if it would ease her pain even a fraction, then of course.
And when Halsin had offered to carry her to bed—those strong arms that had healed so much cradling her like something too precious to be borne by mere ground—Gale had nodded again. Dumb with whiskey and horror and a grief so heavy it had anchored his heart in his ribs.
He’d followed them, half-stumbling, half-floating, mind roaring with static.
Hours ago—gods, only hours ago—he had wanted nothing more than to drag her to bed, for entirely different reasons.
Now he just wanted to hold her. Nothing else. Just hold her.
When at last they left him alone with her, Gale found himself standing at the foot of the bed, feeling like a stranger in his own life, clothes hanging off him, sticky with sweat and tears. He undressed in clumsy, shaking motions, his shirt tearing at the seam when it caught on his elbow. He didn’t even care. He let it drop to the floor and crawled onto the bed beside her.
Celeste looked…peaceful.
It was an illusion, of course. Halsin had taken the time to heal her face, smoothing the split lip, the purpling bruises around her eye. The sheet was draped carefully to hide the bandages, the burns, the truth of what she had become at the hands of people who hadn’t even deserved to speak her name. Only the dark hollows beneath her eyes, the sunken exhaustion, hinted at what she had survived.
Gale swallowed hard. He wanted to speak. Needed to. But the words tangled in his throat like thorns.
Shame washed over him in a hot, suffocating wave.
They had warned him. Tara, with her furious hiss. Halsin, calm and steady, who had understood the cost of pushing too hard. Jenevelle, quietly collecting the detritus of their wreckage, had known too.
This is not the time, Gale.
But he hadn’t listened. He had let his hurt rule him. He had turned his mind—usually so clear, so disciplined, so precise—into a blunt weapon wielded by rage and betrayal. He had demanded answers from a woman who had barely been able to stand, forced a confession from her while she bled onto their floors. He had made a spectacle of their pain before friends and allies, people who had come to help.
He had humiliated her.
He wanted to be sick.
He deserved to be sick.
He turned to her, lying so still she might have been carved from marble, her hand limp on the coverlet. With a tenderness that felt like a cruel joke after everything he’d done, he gathered it up, the fingers frighteningly cold, and pressed them to his lips.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered against her skin.
He tried again, voice cracking under his desperation.
“Forgive me, my love. Gods, please forgive me, Celeste.”
He didn’t deserve her forgiveness. He didn’t even know if she could hear him, but he would say it anyway. Over and over, if he had to. Until morning came. Until she woke. Until she chose to send him away or let him stay.
He would say it forever if that was what it took to mend what they had both shattered tonight.
summary: Just cozy breakfast banter. As cozy as it gets with Celeste.
author's note: Still recovering, everything is a bit slow at the moment.
Once again featuring @rdekarios artwork, because it still makes me insanely giddy.
Theme song: Sleep Token - Damocles
content warning: just your usual amount of drama
word count: 6,5 k
Excerpt below
Start at the beginning
Read on AO3
“May… may I ask something?”
Gale looked up from the mixing bowl, dough-laden whisk paused mid-air. Her voice had caught him gently off guard—not in its content, but in its timbre: hesitant, almost tremulous. The familiar chord of reluctance struck something deep within him. Still, when their eyes met, he offered her a warm and unwavering smile, despite the sudden tightness in his chest.
“Of course, my love. You needn’t ask permission for honesty.”
She hesitated at that, fingers curling into the hem of her sleeve, her gaze flickering toward the fire as though the hearth might lend her courage.
“Do you remember the first month here? We—”
“The first first or the second first?” Gale interjected with a faint, knowing smirk, eyes still fixed on his task. He remembered both vividly.
They had debated those distinctions more than once: the first first month—their true beginning, private and secluded—and the second first month, their reemergence into society. That second month had been ceremonial in its own way: formal introductions to old friends and colleagues, all of whom met Celeste with far less suspicion than he had feared. He had watched her charm them with effortless grace, her wit bright and disarming, her laughter weaving its way through conversations with a warmth that drew others in like a hearth on a cold night. By then, the tale of the Heroes of Baldur’s Gate had already swept through Waterdeep, yet Gale had discovered to his own astonishment that it mattered little to him. Another title, another laurel upon a brow already burdened by too many. No, what lingered was not acclaim but her acceptance—her agreement to share this life with him, her hand placed in his with trust enough to call Waterdeep home.
But the first first month—that was something else entirely. Something he held close like a rare and private spell, meant only for the two of them. It had been marked by a simplicity so profound it felt sacred. They had hidden themselves away from the city, even from Tara, retreating into a world of their own making. Celeste had taken to rising early, padding through their quiet rooms barefoot, clad in whatever garment she had last pulled close in sleep—most often one of his robes, its hem brushing her calves, sleeves rolled haphazardly past her elbows. Celeste had never shared his appreciation for fine tailoring or the quiet indulgence of fresh robes. The elegance of fabric, the drama of a well-cut silhouette—these were Gale’s pleasures, not hers. She hadn’t cared for such things, nor had she judged him for loving them. But she had always enjoyed wearing his.
She would slip out into the misty morning air and return with baskets overflowing, far more than two people could reasonably consume. Gale had never once reproached her for it; instead, he found himself quietly delighted. There was something ineffably precious in those signs of her wonder, her still-new relationship with ordinary domestic joys.
Those days were spent in a haze of intimacy that stretched far beyond flesh. Yes, they had been intimate, frequently and joyously, but it was never only that. She had taught him the countless quieter forms of closeness she craved: the hours where he lay with his head in her lap, her fingers combing idly through his hair, so gentle and instinctive it made his throat tighten. Long baths that left their skin pruned and hearts unburdened. Afternoons in the library, seated hip to hip, hands entwined as they read aloud passages of books to one another, her sharp, unfiltered opinions as captivating as the literature itself.
He remembered her perched on the kitchen counter, just as she was now, utterly at ease, a glass of wine in one hand — carefully chosen to her taste by him — and a book in the other, reading aloud as he cooked for them both.
Celeste had been naked most days. Not that she had ever needed much reason to shed her clothes, but with her, nudity seemed less an act of seduction than a declaration of comfort. She was herself, utterly, and he adored her for it. His hands had been on her constantly—fingers laced, lips seeking hers, an unbroken thread of touch weaving through every moment they shared.
To Gale, those weeks had been nothing short of idyllic: a sanctuary spun from love, want, and the simplest joys. A time where the world narrowed to the span of her laughter, her songs, her warmth, her unguarded presence—and for the first time in years, he had felt wholly, exquisitely at peace.
It tugged at his chest, that aching wish to return to those simpler days—days when the tower was theirs alone, untouched by the constant hum of visitors, the parade of familiar faces and friendly interruptions, the endless stream of messages delivered at all hours. Friends though they were, each arrival seemed to chip away at something private, something sacred he found himself yearning for with quiet desperation.
Back then, it had been only them. Just Celeste and himself, cocooned in a world so small and so utterly theirs that nothing outside it had seemed to matter. No Academy obligations, no letters demanding their attention, no endless entanglements of politics and reputation.
Just her laughter and songs echoing off stone walls. Her fingers, light and absentminded, tracing patterns along his arm or neck or chest. Her scent clinging faintly to his robes because she refused to wash her own.
And now—now, standing in this moment, he wanted nothing more than that again. To steal her away from all of it, to close the door on the world and keep her to himself, if only for a little while. To reclaim that quiet intimacy where nothing and no one existed but them.
Gods, how he wanted her to himself.
“The second first,” Celeste said, her smile warm enough to draw him from his drifting thoughts and anchor him in the present. When their eyes met, Gale found himself smiling instinctively, the familiar warmth that always accompanied her gaze filling him like sunlight through a window.
“I do remember, my love."
“We went to the Yawning Portal a lot in those weeks—”
“—and everyone there loved you, just as I assured you they would—”
“You were, of course, right,” Celeste replied, smiling with a patience that felt both fond and faintly pointed. Her eyes urged him wordlessly to let her finish. Gale lowered his gaze dutifully, his attention returning to the bowl before him, whisking the dough with the kind of measured precision born of repetition.
“We drank a great deal, which—given what we had just endured—felt entirely reasonable,” she went on, her tone lighter now. “I sang far too often.” She laughed softly. “And you lost an absurd number of lanceboard matches—”
“—which I maintain were due to a tampered board,” Gale interjected with mock severity, his laughter joining hers before he could stop himself.
Celeste smiled at him then—an expression so luminous, so knowing, it felt like a hand pressed warmly against his heart.
“There was one night,” she continued, her tone playful but edged with nostalgia. “I was a little too drunk. We had just lost a match of Three Dragon Ante to Corlar and her wife. Do you remember? Too much wine and—somehow—several ales mixed in?”
“I remember,” Gale said softly, even as he lit the flame beneath the pan with an effortless flick of magic, the scent of oil following soon after. His hands moved almost unconsciously now, years of routine guiding them.
“I went to the outhouse,” Celeste continued, “and overheard two people arguing, loudly, about missing herbs and undelivered scrolls. Drunk and idiotic as I was, I asked if they needed help… or if they could kindly do their shouting elsewhere so I might relieve myself in peace.”
Gale chuckled under his breath. That was Celeste to her core: heedless, irrepressible, compelled to wade knee-deep into things best skirted. He let the batter fall into neat circles in the pan, their soft sizzle accompanying her words.
“They were startled, of course,” she said. “Told me it was none of my business. Fair assessment, I told them, but I also informed them I wasn’t about to stand there listening while my bladder suffered for it.”
Gale's lips quirked in a helpless smile.
“And that,” she went on, “was how I met Brathan Zilmer. He knew who we were—by then, it was hard to miss us at the Yawning Portal—and he asked if I wanted to help secure the deliveries he needed. It was an easy job, the pay more than generous. I accepted. He was…” Her voice trailed off.
Gale glanced up then, and noticed it: the faint hesitation that slipped into her expression, the cautious deliberation in her gaze.
“I cannot share everything,” she admitted after a pause, her voice careful now. “Not in detail. And I promise, this isn’t about a lack of trust. It’s that some knowledge is simply too dangerous in the wrong hands.”
Gale inhaled deeply, flipping the first pancake with steady grace. He had anticipated this moment, dreaded it even: the juncture where her secrets began to surface, inch by inch, and the limits of her candor tested his patience. He had hoped—naively, perhaps—that it would take longer to arrive.
“I understand,” he said. The words rang false even to his own ears, and Celeste, perceptive as ever, noticed instantly. Of course she did.
“His daughter is… impaired,” she offered gently. “I cannot say more. And I promise, Gale, there is nothing you could do to help. Her medication requires ingredients that cannot be sourced here in Waterdeep—not by alchemists, not by all the healers, not by scholars, not even by Vajra herself. I am not keeping you out. It is only… delicate.” She exhaled. “Brathan is the guildmaster of the Innkeepers’ Leadership, after all—”
Gale sighed softly through his nose. She was explaining herself again—over-explaining, as though rehearsing an apology she shouldn’t have needed. He had told her she didn’t owe him such defenses, that he trusted her implicitly. Even after everything that had happened. Yet here they were, and still she felt compelled.
He exhaled deeply, tamping down the unease curling in his chest, and nodded.
“I understand,” he said again, quieter this time. “I don’t need to know everything…”
Even as he said it, he wished it were true.
Celeste sighed softly, setting the letter aside before sliding down from the counter with a grace that belied her weariness. Gale didn’t need to guess her intent, he knew her rhythms far too well. Before she even reached him, he felt the inevitability of it, the way she crossed the kitchen as if closing a distance wider than mere steps.
She reached first for the pan, easing it from the flame with a slow, deliberate care, as though buying herself a heartbeat more before addressing him. Then her free hand slipped around his waist, coaxing him gently to face her. He didn’t resist. He couldn’t.
When their eyes met, he managed the ghost of a smile—thin, wavering, but earnest enough. It was automatic, that small surrender, as natural to him as breathing. Her fingers laced behind his back, and his own hands found their way to her in turn, guided by habit more than thought. Their foreheads touched, a gesture so simple, so achingly familiar, it eased something taut inside his chest. He let out a long, quiet breath, as though he’d been holding it for days.
“She is infected with Underdark rot,” Celeste whispered, her hand finding his neck, threading into his hair, as it always did.
“You don’t have to tell me,” Gale interjected gently, almost pleading. Gods, he didn’t want this to be born of obligation, didn’t want her to strip herself bare out of guilt rather than trust. But Celeste pressed on, undeterred, and his shoulders sank in resignation. He didn’t want to fight her, not again, not after that bitter night still fresh between them. And yes—yes, damn it, he wanted to know, but not like this.
“And she has been worsening… for two years,” Celeste continued, her voice low but steady. “As you’re aware, there’s no known cure. Only scarce, temporary treatments. Brathan asked me to secure the necessary herbs for her, a shipment his former contact has missed and introduced me to the right people.”
“Celeste…” Gale lifted his head then, his hand finding her cheek with unthinking ease. Her skin was warm beneath his palm, and when her gaze rose to meet his, she smiled—faintly, desperately, but beautifully all the same.
“I don’t need to know everything,” he told her quietly, though whether it was reassurance for her or a salve for himself, he could not say.
The Vanishing of Celeste Dekarios, Part 16 - Celeste
summary: Celeste introduces Gale to her world.
author's note: Still recovering, everything is a bit slow at the moment.
Once again featuring @rdekarios artwork, because it still makes me insanely giddy 🫠
content warning: None that I am aware off.
word count: 7,1k
Start at the beginning
Read on AO3
Celeste answered only the messages that mattered. The druids received another note of thanks, their claims now confirmed beyond doubt. It was a delicate dance, doing business with them and she wanted to ensure their good favors. Aris, too, earned a reply; her report on the Zhentarim’s movements was as precise as clockwork, charting which caravans they shadowed and which shipments they would not touch. Celeste struck through the orders and quiet requests she had set in motion before involuntarily leaving, finding that several had resolved themselves in her absence. Months had slipped away, yet the few she trusted had kept the threads taut, weaving her entanglements exactly as she had hoped for, though never truly dared to expect.
There was not one single message from Soren, though, which she found worrying.
Jaheira had taken Arakin to Baldur’s Gate and left a short, brisk note, explaining what Celeste owed her, though Celeste could hear the smirk in every sharp stroke of the quill, and told her to come visit. The extraction of the cleric from Lathander's temple had not gone to plan. No casualties, but some injured Harpers. Jaheira, in her unshakable practicality, had decided Arakin would be safer within the wall of Baldur's Gate.
The city's name stirred memories Orin had once buried so deep Celeste thought them gone forever. She was grateful her caretaker was safe, but the memories that rose with the sound of that city’s name were not only warm and good. Whatever the mage had done to her mind, it had undone everything Orin had twisted in her all those years ago. And with the remembering came the truth: she not only knew Baldur’s Gate again, she remembered living there.
A house in the Upper City, grapevines climbing up a sandstone building with dark red shutters. Large rooms flooded with light. A private bath and a view over the harbor that could take even her stand still and breathe. It was hers, likely still in her name. She remembered a loyal servant, a small woman, discreet and sharp-eyed, who had known the truth of her faith and served her anyway. It had been a different life. Celeste had been a different woman.
She gave a sharp shake of her head, as if she could scatter the thoughts to the wind. The past had teeth, but she had no intention of letting it bite. She forced herself back to the here and now. This city, this life, this name.
Deep breaths. Back to pressing matters.
Only the Eyes pressed for a meeting, demanding explanations for her absence. They could wait. Let their paranoia coil tighter. Nothing she could present right now would satisfy them anyway, until she had spoken to Silas and maybe even found the mage, there would be no convincing answers for them.
The beholder who ruled the Thieves’ Guild had always been suspicious to the point of madness. She sent back a message stripped bare of ornament—acknowledging the lapse, thanking them for their continued trust and promising answers she had yet to find. This particular reckoning could be faced in time. Not now. Not when every fibre of her being ached to bar the doors, shutter the windows, and vanish into Gale’s embrace.
Most things had unfolded as she intended. Her absence had been noted, yes, but her work stood untouched. No fracture. No collapse. Only trusted hands and minds who had ensured her promises were kept.
The most pressing issue was Silas in the Zhent's custody but Celeste decided to let him stew for a few more days.
While she worked, Jen and Gale spoke idly: meals, spices, when he might prepare this dish or that. Celeste let most of it wash past her, her attention anchored to the task before her. Still, she noted that Gale’s touch never truly left—fingers at her hip, palm brushing her back—an unspoken tether holding her to the present.
“I’m ready,” she announced at last, leaning in for a brief kiss that Gale met without hesitation before reaching for her cup and sipping. The kitchen was a battlefield of order and chaos, Jen’s neatly stacked ingredients sprawling across every surface, arranged for dishes that had yet to be cooked.
“Would you like to accompany me?”
Gale's brow arched, but his hand returned to her hip as though it belonged there. “An invitation to step across the threshold into your world? Now there’s an honor one doesn’t extend lightly.”
She shrugged. “You’ve heard enough to form a picture, but some truths are better seen than told. And there are matters I must attend to in person. You might as well come.”
He regarded her for a long moment, and she felt the weight of it: measured risks, questions of trust, the tug between his curiosity and his caution. Her stomach knotted, but she held his gaze, refusing to flinch.
“Then I should be delighted,” he said finally, a smile warming his features. "Though I imagine it requires me to be somewhat more presentable than this.” He kissed her cheek in passing and left the kitchen.
“You won’t need to dress up,” she called after him. “And how sharp is your Disguise Self?”
“Sharp enough, my love, that I can only take mortal offense at the implication it might be otherwise!” he called back, laughter threading through his voice.
“Are you certain this is wise?” Jen asked quietly, stacking vegetables with a practised hand.
Celeste’s chuckle was low. “You’ve known him as long as I have. Do you truly think I can keep him from finding out more?”
“You’ve done a fine job of it these last two years.”
“And that ended so well for me,” she replied, sharper than intended, before softening with a faint smile. “I told myself it was for his protection. It wasn’t. I liked my secrets, the ones I thought would never meet his standards. This ends now.”
“All it took was a little abduction?” Jen’s lips curved in a knowing smile. “I warned you more times than I can count.”
“And yet you were at his side the moment he asked,” Celeste countered, sifting through her letters until Aris’ report surfaced. “Aris speaks highly of you.”
“One might think we’ve had our share of dealings with Harpers and Zhentarim,” Jen replied. “They didn’t give much away, but they trusted me enough to carry out some of your orders. How did you manage that, Harpers and Zhents alike waiting on your word?”
Celeste laughed under her breath. “Not by design. I keep just close enough to Xanathar to matter. The Harpers and Zhents balance them and each other. None of them want the City Watch sniffing about—or worse, the Lords—so they all behave, in one way or another. Somehow, I helped keeping the peace.”
“The Harpers aren’t known for dabbling in your sort of business,” Jen noted. "Smuggling."
“In Waterdeep,” Celeste said, “everyone does. Even the Harpers.”
“Let me see to your bandages before you go,” Jen said, shifting the subject too quickly for it to be casual. Celeste only smiled. She loosened the tie of Gale’s robe and let it slide from her shoulders, the fabric pooling at her waist, baring her skin to the cool air.
Jen’s expression softened at the ease of the gesture, at the quiet trust implied, before her hands set to work unwrapping the linen.
“We were worried, Kell,” she murmured from behind. “It shouldn’t have taken three of us so long to heal you. You were standing at death’s door.”
“Not the first time in my life,” Celeste replied evenly, “and unlikely to be the last.”
The air brushed the heated skin beneath the bandages, drawing a small flinch—reflex, nothing more. No sharp tearing, no wet sting of blood. She marked it as progress. “I’m sorry you all got caught up in my mess. Again.”
“It’s quite all right,” Jen promised, peeling away the last strips. Her hand hovered over the raw lines on Celeste’s back. “After everything we’ve endured, I’d have thought you’d trust us with this, with helping you when it became too much.”
“It wasn’t too much,” Celeste said, voice clipped. “It was one ambitious fool who overstepped, and he will answer for it.”
“This was not the work of one man, Celeste.”
A sharp breath left her, half sigh, half growl. “I’m aware. Hired muscle, nothing more.”
“Silas?” Jen asked, careful with the name. Celeste’s jaw tightened, and she nodded once.
“There will be scars,” Jen announced at last. “We did all we could. You frightened Halsin near to death. Have you spoken to him?”
“He left before I woke.”
“Mhm…” Jen’s fingers traced a slow path down her spine, and Celeste shivered. “Your body mends as it should. No fresh bleeding, nothing that will tear. You’ll ache for a few days.”
“I’m aware. Thank you.”
She turned, pulling the cleric into a fierce embrace. Jen’s hands settled at her back at once, holding her close.
“I’m sorry,” Celeste said again.
“We will always come for you. You know that. Just… be careful out there, hm?”
“Despite recent events, I am extremely careful," Celeste grinned. "Have you heard from Jaheira?”
“Not since she took your Ilmateri to Baldur’s Gate. If you want to speak to him, thank him, you’ll have to go there. Extraction was… a mess. Fun, but a mess.”
“I read as much.”
“Jaheira left that same night.”
Celeste nodded, slipping the rest of the robe from her shoulders and setting it aside before heading for the kitchen doorway. “Will you stay for a few days? I need to sort some things out, but I think I can manage it within two or three days.”
“I will, but I have plans for tonight and perhaps tomorrow night as well.”
There was that gentle smirk in her tone. Celeste could hear it as clearly as if it had been painted on her face. She paused just long enough to pivot towards her. “That sounds lovely.”
Jen grinned, unabashed. “I hope it will be. You know how I feel about long-term commitment to lovers. They’ve been good company, especially when I’ve needed to get out of my own head since coming here.”
“Enjoy yourself,” Celeste smiled. “Do you need anything? I have contacts in most larger inn, if you need a room—”
“I shall be fine,” Jen interrupted quickly, though the smile softened the cut of her words. “Thank you.”
Jen promised to see to her purchases and cool the fish for Tara, then excused herself for the rest of the day. Celeste recognized that particular smile and didn’t press. She gathered the messages she’d read and a pouch of gold, earning a raised brow from Gale.
He looked impeccable in deep green robes and polished black boots—meanwhile, she’d made barely an effort: clean undergarments, a dark shirt, and simple trousers were all she needed for the errands ahead.
Celeste offered him a mock bow as he held the door, his laugh following her into the street. His arm curled around her waist, lips brushing her temple as they fell into step together.
“What’s on your crime lord itinerary today, my darling wife?” he teased, though she felt the thread of tension beneath the joke.
“First of all, I am not a crime lord,” she said with mock offense. “Most of what I do isn’t even technically illegal.” That earned her a grin, though his grip on her hip tightened fractionally. “I sell information. I introduce the right people to each other. Yes, I sometimes deal with… shadier circles, but mostly because they can get the whiskey my husband loves.” She nudged his hip with hers, coaxing a chuckle. “We’ll stop at Yuth’s for a change of clothes and to make sure we’re not being followed, then a quick handover in Castle Ward, down to the City of the Dead, and into Trades Ward. Nothing major. Or at least, nothing I’m willing to face today.”
When she glanced up, his smile was still there, but something shifted in his eyes. Bits of her story, things he’d only guessed at, were finding their place in the truth she offered him.
“So I shouldn’t expect a dramatic negotiation at spell-point in a dark basement against an army of necromancers?” he asked, half in jest.
She could feel the weight behind it. Curiosity. Worry.
"No. Not today. Though I know more than one Necromancer, if the need arises…."
Gale laughed.
They walked in silence for a time, and she tried to savor it, even as fear gnawed at her. Fear of how he might see her once he knew it all. Once all veils were lifted, all secrets told, laid out before him, awaiting Gale's judgement. With a small gesture of defiance against the thought, she pressed a kiss to his shoulder and slipped her arm more firmly around his waist.
At Maerghoun’s Inn, his tension returned, poorly hidden behind polite composure. At least to her eyes.
Yuth greeted her with a broad grin and a bow from behind the counter.
“’Tis good to see you up and running,” he said and and offered Gale a nod. “Professor.”
“Thank you.” Celeste set her bag on the counter. “I will assume my room is as I left it? I’m not sure if you’ve been paid these past months—”
“Someone covered it in your name,” Yuth interrupted. “Not that it was necessary.”
She inclined her head. “I appreciate it, thank you. Any news?”
Yuth's eyes held on Gale for a moment, before he shook his head. "Nothing new, sadly. But we are listening."
Celeste nodded as Yuth slid a key and a small stack of messages across the counter. She gathered them up, then caught Gale’s hand and guided him down the corridor.
The lower level of Maerghoun’s Inn was designed with discretion in mind: less welcoming than a common tavern, but well suited to those who preferred their dealings unseen and unheard.
Yuth had arranged the space into a series of rooms divided by thick, dark-red curtains, many embroidered with wards of silence or other sound-muffling enchantments to guarantee privacy. The effect, however, was unsettling: an unnatural hush hung over the place, broken only by the flicker of candlelight. Outside, the sun blazed bright, but here within the inn, it was all shadows and whispered secrecy.
“You didn’t ask who paid for you? Is this… an expected accomodation?” Gale whispered, eyes roaming the dark-paneled hallway as their footsteps sank into thick carpet.
“Soren,” she stated. “I didn’t have to ask. He took over most of my businesses in my absence.”
"Another man?" There was amusement in his tone and Celeste smiled, firming the grip on his hand.
"A sorcerer, fiddling in druidic disciplines. We have been working together for some time."
“Isn’t he the one you helped with the children? I am not quite certain I understand how that works just yet.”
She grinned, tugging him up the stairs. “Yes, he is. It doesn't show but he has a big heart. As far as I am aware, Halsin took them to Haven?" She glanced at Gale who nodded. "They’ll be safer there. Safer than on Waterdeep’s streets, anyway. This is me.”
Gale's eyebrow rose.
“The first room I rented. I’ve kept it for the past two years.”
Her key turned smoothly in the lock, and the stale scent of air long trapped greeted them.
“Ugh. Sorry.” She stepped around the crates, threw open the curtains and opened the window. Sunlight spilled into a room frozen in time: closed crates neatly stacked against the wall, one left in the center; clothes abandoned in careless piles on a bed that hadn’t been slept in for two years.
Gale looked around while he closed the door behind him.
“What is all this?”
Celeste gave a faint smile, dropping her bag onto the bed. “Look around. These chests are mostly valuables to be sold. I don't know their contents, Soren handled this the past months, so I have — there you are!" She opened the mirror, sitting over the tiny washing basin and pulled out a notebook wrapped in leather.
“Are those… Moonlotus Petals?” Gale’s voice caught. He was holding the lid of one crate, staring down into the contents.
“If they haven’t been sold by now, which is strange… yes. Firestar Opal Powder, dried Myrkul’s Breath fungus…” She glanced up briefly, her tone edged with disbelief. “You do realize how rare those are? Why would they still be sitting here? They should have been gone months ago.”
Her fingers flicked through the ledger, eyes narrowing as they followed the neat lines of Soren’s hand. No mention of the sales. Odd. The deal had been struck half a year past; there was no reason the shipment should still be waiting. All his notes revealed was delay after delay, the pickup postponed again and again without explanation.
“Celeste, do you have any notion of the magnitude of this?" Gale’s head snapped up, his expression an intoxicating blend of delight and disbelief as her gaze rose. "Alchemists guard such things more jealously than their own spellbooks! Even the more… liberally minded practitioners would sooner part with their wands than with an ounce of this.” He leaned closer to the crate again, almost reverent. “How, in the name of Mystra’s own patience, did you acquire it?”
Celeste grinned, pride searing in her chest. “I met a trader from Callidyr, greased some palms for him, got his cargo cleared before it rotted in port. These crates were the payment but they should have been sold months ago, so strange….”
Gale’s eyes narrowed, not with suspicion, but the precise sort of curiosity one might reserve for an improbably solved riddle. “What palms, exactly?” His gaze caught on something else. “Is that… Darkmantle?”
“Dried Darkmantle,” she confirmed without looking up. “Palms at the port offices and some of the City Watch. And before you ask, the trader's mostly honest. Sells legal goods. Some harder-to-find ones too, as you can see.”
Gale let out a laugh—warm, incredulous, and tinged with admiration—while lowering a bottle carefully back into its nest of cloth. “You are… incredible. Positively, maddeningly incredible. How did you manage all of this without me noticing a single whisper of it? It is brilliant—frightening, ethically debatable, yes—but brilliant nonetheless!”
She accepted the embrace he offered, sinking into the familiar warmth of him. “You spent long hours at the Academy,” she reminded him. “I know your schedule. I made sure it never cost us time together—"
“Explain to me what happened.”
“Well, Soren—”
“Celeste,” Gale admonished.
She sighed, her shoulders bowing beneath an invisible weight as she stepped back into the room that somehow felt very big and empty right now.
“Explain to me,” he pressed, “how we arrived here. Two lives—parallel, divergent—colliding, more by chance or than, by choice, in a tower that has been my home for sixteen years.”
“You have every right to be angry, Gale—”
“I am not angry,” he interrupted again, voice low, steady. “Anger burns quickly. What I feel… does not. I am devastated.” His eyes searched hers, pleading despite the rigor of his words. “So I ask again: explain to me how we came from what we agreed upon—what we wanted—this shared life we vowed to build, to secret rooms in backwater inns and double lives I scarcely recognize. Help me understand.”
Her voice trembled, almost inaudible. “I lied, Gale.”
“No.” His reply came swiftly, decisively. “No, you didn’t. Believe me, I checked. I combed through your letters, I replayed our conversations until dawn. You left things unsaid, yes—”
“—technically, an omission is a lie—”
“—No.” He raised a hand, almost desperate. “Do not reduce this to semantics. You deflected. You evaded. You bent the truth until it was unrecognizable, but you did not lie outright. Because if I must accept that my wife has lied to me, deliberately and knowingly, then I must also accept a betrayal I could not, in good conscience, forgive.”
Continue on AO3
author's note: I apologies for the delay, I am falling in love 🫠
Theme song: Frederic Wiedmann - A Song of Love and Loss
content warning: mentioning of trauma, past abuse, torture, "torture magic" and blood
word count: 6,6 k
Excerpt below
Start at the beginning
AO3 Link
And then there was the boy. Gale would never forget him.
A child no older than eight, with a wild tangle of uncombed hair, clothes so tattered they barely deserved the name, barefoot on their steps in the morning chill. He’d been grinning — missing teeth and all — as though this were a game, as though he hadn’t the faintest notion of the weight he carried.
He’d simply thrust the parchment into Gale’s hand and bolted, cackling all the way down the street.
Gale remembered standing there, frozen, the breeze tugging at his robe, fingers gone cold around the scrap of paper. He’d unfolded it with shaking hands.
“Can confirm blackstaff involcement. C. taken. Y.”
That was all. Nothing more.
He hadn’t even known who ‘Y’ was supposed to be — some half-literate informant who couldn’t be bothered with spelling or explanations. But it didn’t matter.
The message had been as clear as a lightning bolt to the chest.
C. taken.
Celeste. Taken.
The words had burned themselves into his memory with the cruel efficiency of a brand.
Even now, weeks later, they struck like a physical blow every time they surfaced.
He remembered trying — absurdly — to maintain composure when Halsin returned from the market. As though his shaking fingers and ragged breathing could be hidden behind scholarly dignity. As though the fear wouldn't seep through the cracks in his voice.
Their exchange had been shockingly brief. Halsin had taken one look at Gale, at the crumpled note in his trembling grasp, and understood instantly. The druid had said almost nothing, but there had been something in his eyes — a shadow, a profound and terrible fear that Halsin usually kept so carefully at bay.
Gale had noticed. Even in his unraveling, even as panic clawed at the edges of his mind, he had registered it.
Halsin had taken quiet command. Without asking, he had brewed tea — something earthy and calming, the scent of chamomile and mint filling the oppressive silence of the tower kitchen. Gale could recall the smell with painful clarity.
He could also recall the silence.
How they had sat across from one another, two men who loved her, fingers tapping on ceramic cups they barely managed to hold steady. Words seemed useless. Hollow. There were no grand speeches that could fix this, no spell that could reverse it, no plan that offered anything like certainty.
Instead, they had shared that silence like a vigil.
The memory of it haunted Gale.
The way Halsin's massive hands had trembled ever so slightly as he poured the tea. The way Gale had tried to sip, scalding his tongue without even tasting it.
They'd sat there for what felt like hours, listening to the muted chaos as the tower roared into action around them — Harper agents dispatched, favors called in, scryers and diviners summoned at ruinous cost.
And still, they had sat there. Two men who had promised her safety.
That had been four weeks ago. And tonight? They were no closer — not one measly step —to understanding who had taken Celeste, why she had been targeted, or what the damned mention of the Blackstaff was even supposed to mean. The word itself felt like a curse, whispered to torment him.
summary: Gale has some more to time to think and reflect and comes to a surprising conclusion.
author's note: This is the most important chapter and I cannot believe I put myself through this again. I hope it came out okay.
Theme song: Frederic Wiedmann - A Song of Love and Loss
content warning: Just our favorite wizard self loathing and thinking - but coming to a surprising realization
word count: 3,6k
Excerpt below
Start at the beginning
AO3 Link
The days dragged on, indistinct and excruciatingly long, each one bleeding into the next like ink spilled across a parchment Gale could no longer decipher.
And with every sunrise, Celeste’s absence carved deeper into him — not a wound, but a canyon, growing wider, darker, more impossible to traverse.
What began as grief had become something else. Something ravenous.
The most recent lead — yet another whisper, another half-truth wrapped in illusion — had proven worthless. The search had led him to an abandoned tenement, half-swallowed by ivy and rot. He had, once again, flung open the doors as though salvation waited on the other side.
Instead, there had been only dust. Silence. The echo of his own foolish hope collapsing in on itself.
Another dead end.
Another futile raid.
Another empty place where he had once imagined finding her.
Tara had found him afterward, soot-streaked and bitter, muttering to the walls of his study as if they could answer him. She’d scolded him, her tiny form brimming with righteous fury — berating him not only for his recklessness, but for the way he had shut her out, dismissed her concern, let the distortion creep into his thoughts like mold beneath the floorboards. And he had not defended himself.
How could he? She was right.
And yet she forgave him, as she always did. Climbed into his lap and curled up there, purring as he stroked her fur with trembling fingers, the motion meditative. For a time, the storm within him dulled to a low hum.
But the reprieve did not last.
Frustration rose again — boiled and seethed and coiled around his grief until the two were indistinguishable, a single hydra of emotion with too many heads to name.
During the following days, he began snapping, not just at himself but at others. Words he didn’t mean, edged with venom, spilled from his mouth unbidden. He startled even himself. And the others withdrew. Even those who once sought his counsel now gave him space, a kindness that felt like punishment.
Gale hated it, aware that he deserved it.
Halsin remained, ever stalwart, offering him a quiet presence and the occasional word of sense — gently spoken, never condescending.
The druid’s steady company should have brought solace. Instead, it deepened Gale’s guilt. Halsin had lost her too. Yet he bore the pain with grace, while Gale… unraveled.
Celeste was gone. Vanished into shadow, without word or trace.
And the mind, ever cruel, supplied every possibility — each one more horrifying than the last. Taken. Enslaved. Tortured. Gods, worse.
He could imagine it too easily: her voice hoarse from screaming, her magic bound or drained, her will chipped away by cruel hands. The images haunted him. They eroded him.
The Vanishing of Celeste Dekarios, Part 14 - Celeste
summary: Celeste wakes, walks around, has a kofe and talks to Jen. Then, Gale wakes.
author's note: I am aware it's Regency week, I am just trying to stick to my posting schedule :)
Once again featuring @rdekarios artwork, because it still makes me insanely giddy.
Theme song: Sleep Token - Damocles
content warning: just your usual amount of drama
word count: 4,3k
Excerpt below
Start at the beginning
AO3
Celeste woke and blinked in confusion, surprised to find herself in their bed.
Their marital bed. The one they’d chosen together, crafted from Shadowtop wood because Gale liked the swirling darkness of its grain. Above them hung the deep blue canopy, its fabric enchanted with permanent runes to display the true night sky—stars wheeling silently overhead in constellations that matched whatever season graced Faerûn.
Gale lay beside her, breathing slow and even in sleep. His hand rested on the cushion between them, waiting—just as it always did—for her fingers to find it in the dark. It had become their quiet ritual, one she’d developed after she stopped hiding a dagger under her pillow. She needed to hold something while she slept, something that made her feel safe. And nothing in this world made her feel safer than Gale’s hand.
In the morninglight spilling silver through the curtains, he looked otherworldly. Divine, even. His hair was tousled from sleep, the gentle waves catching the faint light, framing a face that seemed carved from marble and warmth all at once.
Celeste swallowed, breath hitching. Gods, he was beautiful. More than she remembered.
He would have made a gorgeous god, she thought, turning onto her side to watch him.
Tears welled instantly—hot, unbidden. They blurred her vision but she didn’t try to stop them. Just the sight of him lying there beside her, the knowledge that he had let her back into their bed after everything…
Her mind faltered, stumbled — and fell into darkness. She remembered coming home. Remembered the others, Gale’s hand in hers, the warm bowl of stew he’d pressed into her palms, the wine he’d chosen so carefully, with her in mind.
But she couldn’t remember which wine it was or recall the words they’d spoken… Or when her body had stopped dyin.
She had no idea how she’d ended up here, tucked into their bed with him.
But it meant that whatever had happened… he hadn’t cast her out. Not yet.
There was still hope.
Hope that she could fix this.
Hope that she could prove herself worthy of him.
Her chest tightened painfully, and she pressed trembling fingers to her lips, as though she could dam the sob threatening to break free. Relief surged through her — relief that, for the first time in months, wasn’t tangled in searing pain or terror. It was softer, quieter and aangerous in how much she wanted to sink into it and never surface again.
He was here.
Gale was here.
Her gaze roamed over him with reverence she could scarcely hide, drinking him in like she was starved for the sight of him—and in truth, she was. Gods, he was heartbreakingly handsome. The kind of beauty that didn’t dull with familiarity, only sharpened, honed by memory and absence. His hair was tousled from sleep, a stubborn wave falling across his brow that made her ache to brush it back. His lips—gods, those lips—soft, parted in the steady rhythm of his breathing. His beard, slightly uneven, exactly as it always was when he’d been too preoccupied to trim it.
She wanted to trace him. Every line, every freckle, every scar she knew by touch alone. She wanted to press her mouth to the hollow of his throat, to the corner of his jaw, to the sharp angle of his cheekbone where the light fell just so.
Celeste swallowed hard and curled in closer, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest. She’d lain beside him countless times, woken in this bed beside him more mornings than she could count, and yet this—this felt different. More like a fragile reprieve granted to her on borrowed time.
He stirred faintly, shifting just enough for his arm to settle across her waist in his sleep, a quiet, instinctive claim. Her breath hitched, a sob barely muffled behind her hand. Even unconscious, he reached for her.
She didn’t deserve him. She knew it down to her bones.
But for this one stolen moment, she let herself believe otherwise.
She let herself pretend she belonged here—pressing her face into the pillow that smelled of him, letting her fingers ghost lightly over the back of his hand where it rested against her hip. His warmth seeped into her like sunlight into cold stone, thawing something deep and brittle inside her.
This was home. Not the house, not the city—him. Always him.
She stayed as long as she could. Until she was physically unable to just lie there and watch him. The need to touch him burned in her chest, too urgent, desperate and raw.
But she wasn’t sure she was allowed to.
They had shared this bed even after fights. Not touching, just occupying the same uneasy space of quiet longing and lingering hurt. They would lie there for hours, silent but present. Two people who refused to leave, even when speaking felt impossible. And it had always been enough. Enough that they stayed. Enough that eventually, one of them would break the silence first—wrangling anger or fear back down, offering a quiet apology or simply a hand. Sometimes it was only a fingers’ brush, sometimes a fierce, shaking embrace. Always, they reached for each other in the end.
But now? After this?
Celeste didn’t know if she was allowed.
She exhaled carefully, moved his hand ever so gently and forced her battered body upright. Bandages wrapped half her torso; she felt like a mummy in the gloom. The pain wasn’t gone, just… changed. Less the shrieking agony it had been, more a chorus of aching reminders. Torn muscles, broken bones knit clumsily back together, protesting her every move.
But it was bearable. Running her hand over her neck, it cracked as she moved her head but she instantly noticed her necklace was gone.
Her heart broke but she decided not to think about this now, before panic could rise. They might have taken it off her before healing her. It might not be lost at all. It might be safe and mended and taken care off. As they had taken care of her.
Lowering your arm, she realized, she was able to do so without pain.
She filed it away as progress and slid from the bed with deliberate care, heart pounding at the thought of waking Gale from desperately needed sleep.
His robe lay draped across the chair by his wardrobe and Celeste took it without thinking.
The moment it settled around her shoulders, his scent enveloped her. Warm, clean, undeniably Gale. She pressed herself into the thick, worn cotton, breathing deep, shuddering with relief she hadn’t earned. She let herself imagine, just for a moment, what it would be like to lean down and kiss him awake, to feel him smiling against her mouth.
Then she shook her head and turned towards the door, willing her legs to carry her.
The house was silent in the morninglight, the hush of true night still pressing close. Celeste padded to the kitchen, the robe carefully wrapped around her.
She smiled faintly when she reached for the alchemy jug, whispering the command for kofe. Steam curled into the cold air as she poured it carefully into a cup.
For a long time, she cradled the cup and simply stood there.
The dawn of day fell through the stained-glass window, a mosaic of vibrant colors shaped like an open book. It threw quiet jewels of light across the floor, catching in the steam rising from her cup.
She sipped slowly.
The warmth seeped into her chilled hands, into her aching chest.
This was home.
Even after everything, especially after everything, this was home.
The thought struck deep and true, and she felt the tension begin to drain from her at last. She closed her eyes and exhaled shakily, the knot in her back slowly unspooling.
Home. Hope.
There was still hope.
“Oh good, you’re awake!”
The voice rang out like dawn breaking over snow—bright, sudden, too full of life for the stillness Celeste had been clinging to. Her heart jolted. On instinct, she twisted halfway on her feet, one hand igniting with fire, the other nearly sloshing kofe across the counter.
The spell flared in her palm, hot and humming, before her eyes caught the shape in the doorway.
“Jen— I…” The magic winked out with a snap of her fingers and she felt herself flush. “I didn’t mean—I am sorry—”
Jenevelle had already stepped inside, placing a basket of laundry on the ground with both hands raised in mock surrender.
“Stop apologizing,” she said with an easy grin that crinkled the corners of her eyes.
Celeste let herself be folded into the embrace that followed. It was grounding, warm and she melted into it like someone who had been lost in the cold for far too long. Jenevelle’s palm settled on her back with the kind of touch that said she didn’t need to explain a thing.
“Being startled is a natural response to what happened to you,” Jenevelle murmured as they parted.
“I know,” Celeste said, though the words felt heavy. She pulled back just enough to meet her friend’s gaze. “I am still sorry…”
Jenevelle’s face softened, unbearably kind in that maddening, effortless way of hers.
Celeste opened her mouth again, heat rising to her cheeks. “Sorry—”
“Kell,” Jenevelle groaned, exasperated now, though she was laughing. Her eyes flicked down, scanning Celeste with the sharpness of a healer and the intimacy of a sister. Celeste knew that look, knew it from countless wounds and too many sleepless nights.
Their gazes met and both chuckled, tension easing as something old and well-worn stirred between them. Celeste gave a sheepish nod and refilled her cup.
“How are you?” she asked lightly, tilting her head. “Didn’t expect to find you elbow-deep in my husband’s laundry again, and yet…”
Jenevelle leaned her hip against the counter, pouring herself a cup of tea. “Some things never change.”
She took a sip and then burst into laughter. “Do you remember the laundry situation after the very first fight at Moonrise Tower?”
Celeste blinked—and then the memory bloomed, vivid and absurd. She laughed too. “The robe! That dark green one! Oh, he looked so good in it! The one Dammon salvaged—it was drenched after Karlach sliced that goblin in half!”
Jenevelle’s eyes grew distant with fondness. “He was so proud. Despite the blood. Or maybe because of it.”
Celeste smiled, soft and warm now. “One might never know, with the Wizard of Waterdeep.”
They drifted into a hush, laughter settling into a quiet more intimate than words. Both held their cups close, letting the memory steep between them.
Celeste's gaze dropped to the kofe swirling in her cup. She was thinking about how Jenevelle had come to be here in her kitchen, tending to Gale's laundry, but the answer was simple. Gale had asked. He had reached out to all of them, the moment she disappeared. Since the night she'd been taken. She remembered much of it now—the dungeon, the long weeks after, months, really—but not the night before.
Setting the cup down gently, she asked, “Can you tell me what happened? I remember coming home. Gale was furious. We fought. Aris was there. Marlor too, I think. I remember the dread, the fear—but not why. Not exactly.”
Jenevelle's brow arched, her stance shifting. Her voice, when it came, was cautious.
“Because,” she said slowly, “you told your husband you joined the Waterdhavian underworld so you could spoil him with books and candlelit dinners.”
Celeste went pale as her stomach flipped. “Gods!”
“You don’t remember saying that?” Jenevelle leaned in slightly, studying her face. “You truly don’t?”
Celeste shook her head, her voice cracking at the edges. “Only the fear. That he’d stop seeing me as…” She trailed off.
Jenevelle let out a soft breath. “To be fair, that’s always been your fear.”
A flicker of a smile played on Celeste’s lips, sheepish and small. “True.”
Jenevelle moved closer. Her voice lost its teasing edge, settling into something low and honest. “I won’t tell you it was unwarranted, Kell. You were both cruel that night. You hurt each other in a way only people truely in love can. And it wasn’t just the two of you who felt it.”
Celeste winced, fingertips curling around her cup. “I’m sorry I dragged everyone into it.”
Jenevelle laid a hand over hers, firm and warm.
“It will be alright,” she said simply. “It always is, with you two.”
Celeste nodded, but her voice trembled when she spoke.
“I hope so.”
Jen let out a soft sigh. “I’ll see to your husband’s laundry,” she grinned, “and then I’ll make my way to the market. There’s a fruit seller I’ve taken a liking to. The City of Splendors does live up to its name, it seems. Shall I bring you something? Gale gave me a list—”
Celeste huffed a quiet laugh, despite the tightness in her throat. “He gave you a list? Because you’ve taken such a shining to shopping?”
“No,” Jen replied, with a flash of good-humored exasperation. “Because he refused to leave your side. And, to my own surprise, I’ve grown fond of Waterdhavian markets.”
Celeste smiled faintly. “I’ll… stay here a while. Just for a moment, by myself. I assume there are messages?”
“Oh, a fair number,” Jen said, lifting the basket with a practiced hand. “But none marked urgent. We made sure of that. You’ve built quite the network for yourself. Even if Gale frowns upon it, I must say—it’s rather impressive.”
“Thank you, Jen. Where’s Tara?”
Jen’s smirk was slow, almost indulgent. “At your mother-in-law’s. But she announced her return for tonight.”
Celeste arched a brow. “Did she scold Gale properly?”
Jen’s laughter echoed down the hall as she took her leave. Celeste remained where she was, her gaze lingering on her cup. After a long pause, she flicked her wrist in a lazy, practiced arc, and the porcelain cleaned itself. Not out of necessity, but because she could. Because her magic was her own again. Because the simple act brought her joy.
She turned, eyes sweeping across the quiet kitchen—the warm familiarity of a space forged by four hands and one shared life. She loved this room. She loved the memories made in it. Long nights spent perched atop the counter, a glass of wine in hand—chosen by Gale, of course—while he cooked and they talked. Giggled. Laughed. Kissed. Sometimes, she played the lute. Later, once they had brought the piano down from the study, she played that too. Just for him.
Gale had always held a particular reverence for her music, especially the way her voice softened when she sang only for him.
The memory kindled something deep and quiet in her. She refilled her cup, fetched a saucer and carried both into the next room. Setting the porcelain down gently atop the polished surface, she let her gaze drift outward, towards the garden. The cherry tree had already bloomed in her absence and now edged into the first blush of autumn. Still it stood in quiet glory, and she smiled, unable to help herself.
With reverent fingers, she lifted the piano lid and settled onto the bench, its cushion molded perfectly to her shape. The weight of home—of safety—pressed around her like a warm cloak.
She struck the first note.
A shiver ran through her as the soft tone unfurled into the still air. And then—at last—Celeste laughed. Not bitterly. Not because she was overwhelmed. But freely, joyfully, as if the sound had been buried and only now remembered its way to the surface.
She adjusted her posture, placed her feet with practiced precision, and let her hands find the keys.
A soft breeze crept in through the open door, stirring the edge of the curtains and carrying the scent of late-summer rain, soil, and crushed blossoms. Celeste let it pass over her as her fingers traced the keys, coaxing forth the quiet beginning of an old melody—one Gale loved, one she had once sung for him, before either of them had trusted themselves to hope.
She played slowly at first, each note a careful offering, as if afraid the piano would remember her absence and refuse her touch. But it didn’t. It welcomed her. The warm, resonant tones filled the room, drifted down the hall, and nestled into the corners of the house like an old friend returned.
She did not sing, not yet. Her throat still ached from the silence of those months locked away—too many words swallowed, too many cries buried in stone walls. But the music said what she could not. The melody told of fear and survival, of aching joy and the pain of returning whole in body but frayed at the edges. Of the quiet terror that she might not be enough anymore. That she might have changed too much. That he might not know her now.
But Gale did. He had known her the moment she stepped through the doorway, barefoot and gaunt and so incredibly desperately. She had seen it in his eyes—pain, yes, and fear—but also recognition. She didn't remember what happened afterwards but she had been allowed to wake in their bed.
A soft creak on the stairs alerted her. Not enough to still her fingers, but enough for her to tense ever so slightly.
The Vanishing of Celeste Dekarios, Part 8 - Celeste
summary: A very sarcastic Tara is able to shed some literal light.
author's note: One of my beta-readers called this "angst gold". You are free to do with this information as you see it.
Theme song: Frederic Wiedmann - A Song of Love and Loss
content warning: mentioning of trauma, past abuse, torture, "torture magic" and blood
word count: 4,9 k
Excerpt below
Start at the beginning
AO3 Link
Somewhere between fevered delirium and the brittle edge of consciousness, Celeste dimly registered the return to her cell.
The pain in her legs whispered through her body like an echo from a distant shore —present, but dulled, no longer urgent. Her heels scraped over rough stone as her captors dragged her along the corridor, the sound oddly rhythmic, almost ritualistic. When they released her at last, her body hit the floor with a graceless thud, the cold stone jarring her ribs and spine. Her stomach twisted in protest, nausea rising sharp and sour, but she forced it down, lips pressed together in a trembling line. She did not make a sound.
The chains came next. Iron closed around her wrists with merciless familiarity, tighter than necessary — as usual.
She didn’t flinch.
Pain had long since ceased to be an event. It was a state of being now, ever-present and steady as a heartbeat. It sang in her bones, a low hum beneath every breath she took.
Celeste had not overcome it. She had merely accepted its presence, like one accepts the dark or the passing of seasons. Pain no longer shocked her, it simply was.
Whatever spell the mage had used on her, whatever profane unlocking he had conducted with his delicate words and brutal precision, it had left doors open in her mind that she could no longer close. The silence of the cell only gave the memories room to rush — merciless, vivid, and uninvited.
She had tried to ignore them. Even during the so-called interrogation, she had felt them, rising from the depths of her mind. And she had turned away, clinging to logic, to the present, to the sheer instinct to survive.
But now, there was nothing but time and darkness.
No voices to distract her. No battles to fight. No plans to make, no songs to sing, no arms to fall into when the weight of the world became too much. There was only the silence of stone, the cold breath of the earth, and the endless, yawning ache within her chest.
And so the memories came. Unbidden. Unrelenting.
Visions, not blurred by dream or dulled by distance, but sharp as daggers and drenched in crimson. Rituals steeped in blood, each one more elaborate than the last. Stone altars carved with runes of death, slick with the lifeblood of the innocent. She could feel it still — the warm spray against her chest, the copper tang on her tongue, the scent of it thick in her lungs like incense.
The perfume of murder. The perfume of devotion.
The center of her being.
And her voice rose above it all, clear and golden, melodic and devout. Chanting in perfect harmony, each note flawless, even as it drowned the desperate, dying screams beneath. There had been reverence in her tone. Awe. Worship. Power.
She saw it all.
Not as a nightmare. Not as delusion. But as truth.
Her truth.
The truth of a High Priestess of Bhaal. His daughter. Anointed in blood, crowned in death.
And she remembered every step that had led her to that unholy altar.
The long, slow descent into darkness — paved with purpose twisted into fanaticism, with sacrifice mistaken for sanctity. The fire that burned not in rebellion, but in devotion. Every lesson carved into her flesh. Every betrayal dressed as blessing. Every punishment meted out with a father’s “love” and a god’s cruel indifference.
Celeste was aware, now more than ever, that she had not simply become a monster.
She had been made one.
Shaped and shattered, forced into a mold never meant for her, one too jagged, too hollow, too cruel to hold any child. She had been broken down, piece by piece, and rebuilt in the image of a god who had never known love — only sacrifice, only silence, only death.
Those who should have protected her — priests, mentors, her blood kin — had instead offered her up to him. Had whispered dogma into her ears and left her starving for affection. Had praised her for every wound inflicted, every life taken, every plea for mercy unanswered.
And she had obeyed.
She had excelled.
Because what other choice did she have?
Even now, the memories came dressed in ceremony and praise. They shimmered like holy things. And that, more than anything, was what made them monstrous.
She had been holy. She had been worthy.
And she had bathed in blood to earn it.
Celeste curled in on herself on the cold floor, her chains clinking softly in the dark. Her body ached, but it was nothing compared to the hollow scream inside her — the scream that had no voice, only sorrow.
Gale could never know. No one could.
No one could ever know that the veil had lifted. That the fragments her mind had mercifully buried — the screams, the chants, the blood-drenched altars and hollowed prayers — had returned. That she remembered everything.
That the silence had been broken, and now the truth throbbed behind her eyes like an open wound.
